Monday's Long Song

Back in 2009, a year that is much longer ago now that seems possible until thought about clearly and while counting- fourteen years!- Joe Gideon And The Shark released an album called Harum Scarum. As was de rigeur in the 00s Joe Gideon And The Shark were a two person, no bass player, band. Joe Gideon did guitar, piano and singing while The Shark played drums. Harum Scarum was a good album, only nine songs long but containing some great moments, not least the beat poetry/ spoken word my life story of Civilisation, posted here previously on more than one occasion. 

This song- Anything You Love That Much, You Will See Again- is seven minutes and thirty nine seconds of love, written (it seems to me) for a friend who is in the midst of loss and the whirl of grief, a reflection on bereavement, a prayer for a friend and hymn to survival. 

Anything You Love That Much, You Will See Again

Isolation Mix Three

It's over halfway through April already. The weeks seem to be flying by even though some of the days seem very long. This is Isolation Mix Three. I thought I'd do something different from the ambient, blissed out, opiated sounds of the first two mixes and this mix is something that I first wrote about doing in a post here about three years ago. This is an hour and three minutes of spoken word and poetry and music. Andrew Weatherall features in various guises and with various poets, the Beat Generation and The Clash are represented, there's some reggae and the unmistakable voice of John Cooper Clarke.

Jack Kerouac/Joe Strummer: MacDougal Street Blues

John Cooper Clarke: Twat

Misty In Roots: Introduction to Live At The Counter Eurovision

Linton Kwesi Johnson: Inglan Is A Bitch

The Clash (and Allen Ginsberg): Ghetto Defendant (Extended Version)

Allen Ginsberg/ Tom Waits: Closing Time/America

Andrew Weatherall and Michael Smith: The Deep Hum (At The Heart Of It All)

Joe Gideon and The Shark: Civilisation

Woodleigh Research Facility and Joe Duggan: Downhill

Fireflies and Joe Duggan: Leonard Cohen Knows

BP Fallon and David Holmes: Henry McCullough (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Mike Garry and Joe Duddell: St Anthony: An Ode To Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix)

Allen Ginsberg: I Am A Victim Of Telephone

The Shark

In 2010 I posted Civilisation by Joe Gideon and The Shark, a boy-girl two piece. Civilisation's narrator leaves home to 'learn the ways of man'- works the 9 to 5 at Debenhams, rents a flat, wastes a morning selling another man's shoes, stays in a monastery til the monks ask him to go, the circumference of a circle, the meaning of 'Mum's the word'- that kind of thing. It was a favourite then and it is now. A friend saw them at Latitude and rated them highly.



They've just released a follow up album Freakish. On first listen I don't think it's as good as Harem Scarem, but it's early days, maybe it'll grow on me. Closing song Friday 13, sung by drummer Viva, is rather good though.

Friday 13

Joe Gideon and The Shark 'Civilisation'

This is one of the best things I heard last year, London duo Joe Gideon and The Shark. Bloke on guitar and vocals (Joe Gideon) and girl on drums (The Shark I suppose). Think they might be brother and sister- yeah, I know, we've all heard that one before. The album is worth a listen, this being the best track, an epic song about leaving home to find out who you are, away from Mum and Dad watching over you, leaving home to 'learn the ways of man', taking in monasteries, Rome, Greece, the 9 to 5 at Debenhams, a Queen who showed him his crown jewels, Lars from Trio and the payoff piece of wisdom- 'the circumference of a circle is twice the diameter within'. Great stuff.

Civilisation.mp3