Wish me luck

Some songs take you back to a particular moment in time,  a key event in your life,  a certain special memory.  Other sings bring back recollections of a particular era or a period of time,  it’s the latter that this post is all about.

Many long years down the lane of memory I thought I wanted to be a big something in the business they call show.  Although which sphere of that multi disciplined industry was my direction going in I knew not.  So what better way to find an avenue in which to follow than getting an all round grounding in the world they call entertainment.   One of the key starting points for many aspirational youngsters is the world of holiday centres.  Think of anyone from the golden age of all round variety performers and the chances are they learned and polished their craft working long hours at a centre of holiday makers pleasure.   Des O’Connor, Dave Allen, Ted Rodgers, Roy Hudd, Charlie Drake,  Jimmy Tarbuck,  Johnny Ball, Michael Barrymore all started out as ‘redcoats’ at Butlins. Shane Richie and Brian Conley are just two famous former Pontin’s Bluecoats, whilst Joe Pascquale started out at a Warner’s holiday centre.  Illustrious company,  I first chose Butlin’s  this was tough and savage and there was three of us in a two bedroom apartment, I being the newest member of staff had the lounge.   They provided hot meals,  which were in fact the left overs from the holiday makers previous meals,   so at lunch time we often got congealed rubberised fried eggs and crispy hash browns that could also double as a shot-put. There were some nice meals I’m sure,  but I can’t remember what they were.  The accommodation block where new season redcoats were put had been condemned for human habitation two years previously, they were originally guest accommodation for when the site opened back in the 1960’s.    There were so many redcoats at work, new fresh faced ones, mature long serving veterans of three or four summer seasons.  They were lets just say harsh, the distinct hierarchy among the team made it obvious that any of the good stuff,  the proper entertaining would be done by those of seniority,  talent wasn’t taken into the equations.   I knew it wasn’t the place for me when I woke up to the horror of seeing three massive cockroaches on my bed clothes.

Luckily with in the space of a fortnight I was out of that place and on my way to Dorset to a different holiday centre to entertain the kids during the day and the adults during the evening.  I liked this place more,  nice caravan to call home, nice colleges to build friendships with, plus the chance to see the sea easily every day.   Those days started early,  well earlyish, up for 8 for a thing called fun fitness with the adults.  Then from 10 till 12  it was the morning session in the kids club,  the ages ranged from 5 to 15.  A two hour break was incredibly welcome and enjoyed usually by snoozing or hanging out with the girls -  my work colleagues before another two hour session with the kids in the afternoon.  I was lucky,  I then had a couple of hours off before having to get ready for the evening’s entertainment.  Once things were organised,  I sent an hour or so in the kids club,  then me and the girls had a 45 minute party dance set for the kids.  It was fun, sometimes,  but just imigen having to do YMCA, The Birdy Song, Superman and loads of other silly dance songs almost every single day.

A short break, either getting changed or having a crafty ciggie in our fifteen minutes between kids party dances and normal entertainment.   The rest of the evening was always a blur, sometimes our resident duo played,  then there was a bit from us,  then the star act which was a visiting caberet artist, commediens or singers or magicians or some other act of entertainment,  unless it was our turn to make the guests happy.  We danced,  we sang, we did things for fun, games and giggles, competitions and other such malarkey.  Most nights were a blur really,  we were incredibly lucky that sometimes the holiday makers would buy us a drink, which was jolly nice and jolly welcome.  We’d not be off duty until the last guest left the main clubroom, therefore late nights were the norm.

I guess on average we worked a 90+ hour week for a take home pay of just over £80, no such thing as minimum wage, but it’s not the kind of job you do for the money. I have many memories from those days,  various competitions, fancy dress nights, interesting kids, changing personalities, laughter and longing to have a wallow in  a bath tub. 

Another key memory for me was the last dance on a Friday night, every single Friday night.  You see our week started and ended on a Saturday,  that was our change over day, the day for departures and for arrivals, so Friday night was the last night with hundreds of holiday makers and me and the girls always said goodbye with this number.  We’d march on stage singing this,  I’d march back as the girls went forward,  I’d try to catch up and go forward as they would be marching backwards.  This went on for a little bit until I would miss my footing and fall off the four foot high stage. Yep,  every week and always the fool making ‘em laugh right to the end.

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye.

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Here, as I watch the ships go by.......

Just last week it was my friend Jo’s birthday,  she is now 42.  I was going to say best friend, friends, good friends even, but best friends, we don’t tend to say that, although we may very well mean it. I’ve known Jo for around 38 of her 42 years, we first met when I pissed in her sandpit at nursery.  We’ve been friends ever since, sometimes together and sometimes parted, swathes of life entwined and trundling long gaps from each other.   I’m sure that’s mostly my fault, I’m not you see the greatest friend to have in the world.  I’m not good at remembering special dates, like anniversaries, birthdays and other such time marking moments. 
Well, in my defence that’s not strickly true,  I do remember them, it’s just a remember after the event or last thing at night when my mind of way more active and less dreamy.  But at that time of night it’s just too late to do much,  although I did send Jo a text full of birthday greetings.  It was something I guess,  although a little swathe of guilt did tingle through my fingers as I typed it out, I mean it’s not a meaningful card or other such birthday greeting, still I suppose, the thought was there and they do say it’s the thought that counts.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I saw Jo and her wife and partner Carolyn,  little under a month ago.  They were having a shindig at the lovely house they live in a stones throw from Gatwick Airport.   I had rather a lot to drink that night,  so much so that I’d stayed the night and have vague recollections of having to crawl up the stairs to the guest quarters on my hands and knees as the world was spinning way too fast.  I’m not a good drunk it seems,  I giggle a bit,  I break glasses,  I wobble a whole load and it doesn’t take a lot to get me three sheets to the wind.  I just added that last bit in case just in case you were planning on taking me out and getting me drunk to have your wicked way with me.  Cherish the thought,  or perhaps to heave out of my drunken state the deep dark secrets you think I had behind my green jaded eyes.

The morning after we relaxed in the garden,  all three of us sorry states of humans, although I have to say in all honestly Jo and Carolyn looks a thousand times better than I myself did.   We chilled and chatted,  we cogitated and reminisced the way old buddies tend to do.    The sun was high in a clear fresh sky, occasionally broken by a departing aircraft from the world’s busiest single runway international airport. Although,  unless you knew the airport was just up the road,  you’d have no clue from the peace, tranquillity and stillness of the area.  Our   chat turned to the day I had my bike accident, you see after I’d been scooped up from the tarmac by the paramedics and deposited at a hospital just down the road from where Jo lived at the time.  And, it s Jo’s number I asked the lovely accident and emergency department nurse to call when they pretty much demanded they needed to contact someone. I didn’t want them calling my mother and worrying her, besides she’d fuss and fluster,  not something I really wanted.  I also remember thinking that Jo would know what to do and would be quite calm, but tell them I wanted to go home.  I guess the seriousness of the situation wasn’t really apparent just then.

I’d been taken from A&E to have a scan and then put in isolation in what was called a ‘major treatment room’  at least that’s what it said on the door,  which was left open.  For all this time I was flat and motionless and taped up to a spinal back board and one of those massive collar things that stop you moving your head at all.  Very bloody uncomfortable I must say,  but I didn’t think to much about it and I didn’t know how scary it must have looked to Jo when she walked in the door. 

In her garden a month or so ago, with the remnants of a hangover starting to clear my fuzzy head I heard her explain her concerns to me of that time in hospital.  Her looking at me,  me saying that I hope they’d hurry up with the bloody scan or x-ray results, because I wanted to be home in time for tea.  Jo’s face a picture mix of concerned puzzlement and just a hint of humour as she told me.  “It’s a bit more serious than that”   going on to say that she didn’t think I’ll be having tea at home for quite some time.  Even then the seriousness hadn’t hit me,  maybe I was in denial,  maybe shock, maybe drug induced oblivion,  for I’m sure by that stage I had a cannula in my arm pumping morphine into my veins.

Me, Jo and Keith - gosh were we really ever that young?

I hadn’t thought about what Jo would have felt,  what she went through as she sat beside my bed, me still firmly strapped to a spinal board when the chief doctor bloke came in with assorted members of lesser ranked medics.  At the time I never gave a moments thought to how scared she would have been when they told us that I’d broken my back and that I may never walk again.  In her garden she told Carolyn and myself just how worried she’d been as she heard those words from the doctor,  I  instantly felt sorry for her and guilty for putting her in that position.  As I said earlier,  I’m not a great friend to have,  for really getting her in that hospital with me that day many years ago really wasn’t a friendly thing to do, I mean looking back it was pretty cruel I have to say.

I’m not exactly sure what was going through my mind when the head honcho explained my situation, sure I heard those words, I knew what they meant. Firstly that Jo was right,  I wouldn’t be home in time for tea, that I’d have to get used to hospital food, that I wished it wasn’t so cold in that room and that I doubted they’d let me take a bag of morphine home with me so I could go clubbing,  cuz that was some seriously good shit.   Sure I heard them say that I’d squashed one  vertebra  flat, that I’d chipped another,  that I’d slipped six or seven discs and at that stage they didn’t know how damaged my spinal chord was.  Sure I knew it was pretty serious,  the fact that I couldn’t feel anything lower than just above my waist,  yes including that!  I don’t think I worried much, I don’t remember worrying at all,  Jo as she said was doing all of that for me.  At the time, I was just ‘getting through it’  taking everything as it came, one thing at a time,  one by one.

I’m sorry that I put you in that situation Jo, that you had to go through all that worry and concern for me, plus the associated stress.  I never realised what it was like for you, until you told me the other month in your garden.  I know without your support during my elongated hospital stay, that first day especially, my recovery would have taken a great deal longer.  So truly I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This one is for you!

Gosh,  how we loved the Kids From Fame as kids, it was great TV at the time, a true classic moment of growing up, of dreams of the battle involved in making dreams come true.

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Talk about it in the morning......

I’ve said it before and no doubt, I’ll say it again, I like story songs, you know musical numbers that offer a story, a tale of love, or an account of woe and sadness and everything in between.  I like a song that takes us on a journey, with a beginning, a middle and an end.  I’m not sure why, so do not ask me, although I’m sure if you scratch a little under the surface you would come up with various explanations, ideas and reasons.  I’ll not bother going down the analytical route,  nope,  I’ll just let the whys and the wherefores wash over me and bathe in the contentment of a good tune with a tale.

Today’s offering is no exception, for what follows is a rather tragically all too common story,  a tale of life,  real life,  sung by a ever so slightly nasally  chap called Martyn Joseph.   

Good advice,  for a song,  I don’t want to start a fight in the middle of the night, I’ve taken all that I can take,  so let’s talk about it in the morning.  Although, I’m more of the ‘never go to sleep on an argument’ sort of person, or at least I tried to be.   An ex may well have a different side to spin, which is of course their right I suppose.

I love this tale of domestic bliss, of lives that once blossomed in love, now a feast of contempt and a slow degradation of respect, commitment and communication.  Another interesting point to mention is the whole reversal of traditional roles, here we have a man bemoaning his wife’s lack of interest and commitment to the relationship.  “I hardly see your face above the paper”  “You don’t recall a single thing I say”   Oh how often have we heard this uttered from a tear stained face of a middle aged woman.   “You disappear each morning after breakfast and when you’re late you never even phone” and then the powerful image “You crawling in after drinking time is over and when I try and talk you start to moan”   It slices into the very fabric of married life and turns it upside down,  lives totally disengaged.  There is such a sweet line in among the sadness and battle of non communication that says “We never seem to laugh and you never clean the bath!”   Oh the simple power that a wipe round with a j-cloth has,  how many relationships I wonder have floundered when bathroom etiquette and cleanliness is not matched equally.

There will be another track of two from Martyn in this year of song,  as he creates some wonderful ‘meaningful’  story songs, which have the ability to move,  entertain and seep into ones soul.  There always have a catchy and clever lyric,  a turn of phrase that you’d be surprised to hear in a song which still manages to keep the beat and the rhyme.   Slow soft numbers like Cardiff Bay and Dolphins Make Me Cry that tingle the senses,  jaunty and jangly Working Mother and This Being Woman dance into the soul with meaning, sadness and authenticity.  I do recommend his music to you, especially if you like deep lyrics and strumming guitars and a slightly gruff, pure yet nasally voice.

There is a saying that you should never meet your idols,  for you’ll always be disappointed.  I think this is only true some of the time, for I’ve met some, Joanna Lumley for example who are everything and more of what you wish and think they’ll be like.   Martyn on the other hand, couldn’t be bothered to speak to me at a gig.  Nor could he avail himself to do an interview and took great delight straight after publically slating anyone who blogs.  Shame really,  took a good long while before I could listen to his music again.  Even now,   my enjoyment of Deep Blue or Thunder & Rainbows is always slightly tinged with a shred of disappointment.   So,  if you are ever given the chance to meet an idol or someone you greatly admire,  think very carefully about doing so. 

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

First Day Of My Life..........

Love long distance can it survive the divide?  Don’t ask me if you want an answer on the affirmative side of the game court.  I’d have to honestly say nope,  not a single frigging fancy chance.  I’d proffer up that a snowball has more chance of surviving in hell than a long distance relationship surviving until relationship old age.  Although,  I suppose I am just a wee bit biased,  just a smidgen after all you know my track record with LDR’s?

I met Matt online,  skirting around my blog,  he was a 19 year old student from a small town in the Southern regions of Illinois,  I was an English guy approaching the end of my thirties from the south coast.  My distance from the sea’s edge was seven minutes walking, whilst he was seven hours driving. There were so many differences between us that one could say any relationship was doomed to failure right from the very start.  We used technology to it’s fullest  to share our lives, dreams, desires and futures. For hours we would chat face to face thanks to videocalling together yet on different continents.     I’ve blogged many times about the whole relationship,  from start to finish,  from conception to cremation,  so  I’ll not go down that road now.  However, what I do want to share with you is just one of the gifts he sent to me,  or part thereof.   At the time we couldn’t get enough of each other, he sent me an iPod with loads of his favourite songs on,  I suppose you could say it was a taste of his tastes.   I remember listing to the iPod,  to each song, as I sat in that elongated aluminium tube over the Atlantic on my way to meet him in the flesh for the first time.  This is one of those tunes,  a sour sweet tale of love,  sort of.

I adore the video, so sweet and the song,  well  I believed the feeling it proclaimed,  at least at the time,  but you know,  really,  does happy ever after happen in the real world?


© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Irrepressible

No big long story for today’s little musical offering, no memories wrapped up in music, no songs of yesteryear.  Nope today’s arty offering is all thanks to Alec,  for he opened my eyes to it some while back.  

The Irrepressibles have a strange and I’d say a unique distinctive sound,  this song is both beautiful and complex,  The rather vibrant and arty video is both  thoughtful and disturbing.  Sometimes I get exactly it’s meaning,  but yet further down the line of time, it’s meaning is as obscured as the thoughts it evokes in my warped mind.   I’m not going to expand on that for you,   as with anything creative, you’ll decide for yourself.  So say thank you to Alec and sit back for five minutes and  enjoy.

My first pet and my only constant friend

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

I was out pottering in the garden yesterday, or perhaps it was the day before, I’m not too sure as  days sometimes have a habit of blurring themselves into a disguise of another.  Thus all sense of individuality and identifying features is lost, laying as crumpled and as useful as last Christmas’ Radio Times.  Maybe that’s just me, that find the days blurring into one, or does that happen to everyone?

Anyway,   I was pottering in the garden as I said,  oh those pesky bloody weeds just keep on insisting in  popping up.  I’m almost regretting my decision to be a sort of  all natural, organic sort of gardener.    I’d so like to zap those blasted weeds with a burst of something highly powerful and chemically nasty from a spray gun bottle, marked ‘most frightfully poisonous’     But maybe I’m being harsh,  and weeds have feelings too!   I’m sorry, I feel  I’m dancing away from the point,  dangerously close to pirouetting on the ballet bar of plant feelings and the plant liberation front.  Who’ll come out to attack me for my desire to rid the world of weeds.  Yes I know, weeds have feelings too,  and so on and on …..

I saw this lovely big Red Admiral butterfly,   first it landed on my leg and then fluttered it’s little wings of many colours to my chest, before it tinkered off and chose a succulent to rest on for a while.   The beauty of it all made me sigh with the pleasure of nature that one associated with old buffers in an old folks home in Somerset.  Or maybe some northern sounding presenter on Country File, Countrylife or other such TV offerings of the ‘outside’.   I thought I’d become OAP(ish) before my time, but then natures wonder and beauty is just that regardless of age,  we can all marvel at it’s wonderment.    It has little to do with age, more to do with time,  the more time you have the more you notice and the thing that’s wrong with this thing we call society is that the older you are the more free time you have and the less years left to enjoy it all.   I guess that’s going a little deep,  I’ll stop and pull myself back,  like a woo to a horse and reach of the reins.

I’m back,  I do like butterflies,  my grandfather used to have loads and loads of butterflies in a frames,  all dead of course,  well I don’t suppose live butterflies would like a pin stuck through their middle and placed in a case behind glass.  I spent hours just looking at them as a child,  they were very exotic I seem to remember,  with very vibrant colours and sizes.  I was a little alarmed at one very big brown one that seemed to have eyes on its wings,  if I close my eyes and really screw my brain up hard,  I can just about see it again,  and yes,  yet again it still gives me the willies!

Remembering that has sort of highlighted to me my love/hate relationship with flutterbyes as I used to call them as a child of tender years,  okay,  I’ll admit that in my mind I still call them that and only say butterflies in company of others!  I love the pretty ones, the bright ones, the ones that look magical, mysterious and regal.  I hate those buggery bastard cabbage whites, for they have butchered my broccoli and slaughtered my sprouts,  I wish them nothing by ill.  Moths are the same,  I detest those bloody things,  indeed I would further mention that moths are the things I’m most dare I say scared of.     I’ll flap my arms like a windmill on steroids and run like a wild water buffalo if a moth so much as enters the same room as I,  that’s how much afraid of those horrid creatures I am.

I know it was explained to me at school and so on,  but I still just don’t get it,  the actual mechanics of it,  I mean,  butterfly, sticky eggy thing, caterpillar, coccoony thingy, butterfly, eggy mess, caterpillar, cocoon pupae type malarkey funny goings on and pliff paff butterfly again.   Odd, most odd.   I didn’t understand it as a child,  I’m still not sure I understand it now as an adult,  I mean,  why,  how and why and doesn’t it seem rather a lot of work for a creature to have to put up,  rather a lot of crazy steps to undergo in order to just, well,  exist really.    Other animals don’t have nearly as much work to do,  they get born,  they grow, they mate,  they get old,  they die,  simple,  easy to understand huh,  none of that metamorphosis  malarkey!

What’s this got to do with music and memories,  well bugger all really,  but hey it’s my funeral and I’ll dance if I want to,  or something along those lines.   But,  it’s a lovely song,  especially if you’re old,  it’s all about being a wayward teen,  living in the fast lane for a long time,  or a small boat on the ocean,  often going in to harbour but never staying too long.  Not until you finally find ‘the’ ‘one’ and it’s time to row this ship into the shire and throw away the oars forever!    Oh how I love a dollop of romance every now and then. (Obviously for others, as I have given up on love,  a thing of the past in my time line, been there and done that,  worn the pizza and ate the book or something like that!

Get some loving........

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Streets Of London

                I sometimes think I’m lonely,  but then I think of the first song I learnt and I rather think again.  Many many years ago when I was just a young small boy, well maybe not that young, but definitely small, I wanted to be a singer and a musician.  Oh come on, didn’t every one, surly every kid has a dream, albeit fleeting, to be a pop or rock star.  Anyway,  I remember in a music lesson at school I told the teacher of this dream, she was kind – well she didn’t burst out in fits of laughter anyway.  

Next week after the music class she game me some sheets of music and some lyrics on a sheet of crumpled paper. Apparently, this was the first song she had learned on the guitar and was a great place to start, just to see if I could get to grips with reading, learning and singing music.  I’m told this is a favourite song for novices to learn, it’s folky and friendly without being too difficult to master. Every time I hear it my finger tips tingle and search for invisible strings, the lyrics cascade into my mind, sadly usually in the wrong order and perhaps in a key that is unusually high, or a very suspect baritone.

My dream of wanting to be a singer and musician was, thanks to this song, very short lived, it proved that I was always destined to be a listener and not a player!  Although,  my music teacher who gave me extra singing lessons, once told me that I had a perfect singing voice,  just a shame I couldn’t hold a tune!  

   

Ralph McTell – Streets Of London

Have you seen the old man

In the closed-down market

Kicking up the papers,

with his worn out shoes?

In his eyes you see no pride

Hands held loosely at his side

Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news

So how can you tell me you're lonely,

And say for you that the sun don't shine?

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London

I'll show you something to make you change your mind

Have you seen the old girl

Who walks the streets of London

Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?

She's no time for talking,

She just keeps right on walking

Carrying her home in two carrier bags.

In the all night cafe

At a quarter past eleven,

Same old man is sitting there on his own

Looking at the world

Over the rim of his tea-cup,

Each tea last an hour

Then he wanders home alone

And have you seen the old man

Outside the seaman's mission

Memory fading with

The medal ribbons that he wears.

In our winter city,

The rain cries a little pity

For one more forgotten hero

And a world that doesn't care

Many other people have done cover versions of Ralph's classic,  Sinead O'Connor for example really gives it some female feeling.



Anti-Nowhere League.  Give it a different kind of energy.

It's a popular song for London buskers to play,  like Wayne Jacobs.

Granny's fave,  Roger Whittaker! 

Joshua Kadison.........

I make no apology for featuring another track from the incredibly talented Joshua Kadison, for I simply adore his voice,  his vocal style,  the innocent and simply melodies that accompany his sung stories of love, desire and heartbreak.

I first heard about Joshua when I was working at the radio station in Crawley,  back around  1993, it was a forthcoming release from EMI.   I can still clearly see in my minds eye the plain purple colour CD sleeve,  I know I was feeling grumpy about something although I am not sure what.  My boss slotted it in the CD machine and suddenly I was grumpy no more with plinky plonky happy piano filling my ears.   The song jumped right into the ‘Coor  this is great stuff’ compartment of my mind and thus was started a love affair with Kadison’s beautiful lyrics and heavenly voice.  

I might have mentioned this before,  but I rather like what I call story songs,  songs that detail a whole story,  a start, middle, an end all within the boundaries of a song.  Jessie is no exception  to that rule.   It is a delightful tale of the power of dreaming, of love, of a future of glorious possibilities.  Every time I hear this song I smile,  I love its feel,  I love its sound,  I love its whimsical nature and the melancholic atmosphere.

It comes from his Painted Desert Serenade album, which has nine tracks of pure undiluted musical pleasure.  Joshua’s mother died when he was 15 years old,  as soon as he got his driving licence,  he took off and toured the country playing in piano bars in odd towns all over America.  One of the songs on this album ‘Mama’s Arms’ was written about his mothers passing and the anger he felt at the time,  it’s a song packed with emotion that reaches into your heart and gives it a powerful wrench.   A decade or so later he started to get some attention from record labels, was signed up, and out came the album.

(Listen with Spotify - Joshua Kadison – Jessie)

There are many rumours that Jessie was penned for Sarah Jessica Parker,  with whom he dated for a while in 1990/91 but I’m not convinced,  although it would fit date wise.  Joshua has released a number of other albums Delilah Blue and Venice Beach session to name but two, which, to my mind are all pretty darn good and regularly played in Shaw Towers.

I was dating a guy during this time that had an eating disorder, which at first did not present too many problems,  but did as the relationship progressed.  He used to find eating boring, where as I,  well I guess my waistline is testament, that I’m rather fond of eating.  I suppose every mealtime could have been a battle if I would have let it, but my rather pathetic attempt to make meal times more fun often saw me making pictures with food before serving.  Faces, boats, animals all made an appearance in specially arranged peas, carrots, broccoli and other foodstuffs. I would say it almost because art,  but that is going a bit too far,  even in my cracked and addled memory,  but it was a challenge.


There were underlying causes of his finicky food intake behaviours, some of which I got to the bottom of and some that were, well let’s be honest here, were way beyond my scope.  He was an adorable young man whom I was so incredibly fond of and I dearly wish I’d been able to help him more.    I think in truth I was rather bad for him,  I made his eating disorder a fun thing, overcoming it by humour and laughter and a helping of silliness, rather then seeking effective treatment for it. I cannot remember how long we lived together in my Crawley apartment, but it was quite some time, whilst there was a lot of love and fun there, it was also taking him away from his family, friends and former life.  All of which had negative aspects on his eating behaviours and mental state, which I did not realise at first, however it slowly tracked itself  down to my consciousness.       When it finally did, a lot of soul searching was called for, a deep meaningful and honest conversation revealed the cracks, the sadness,  the tears and before long he was back at home with his parents.   I was a bit raw with emotion at the time, tears fell for what seemed like days and weeks, especially when his mother called me and asked me to take him back.   I would have done as well, easily if it had been the right thing to do,  but his health was more important than my happiness and I knew, well as much as anyone can know, that living with me would not be a healthy choice.   His happiness and well being was paramount,  mine secondary and way down on the list of priorities!

Ah well,   the sacrifices we make for the sake of love,  sometimes doing the right thing isn’t as painless as one would hope, in the short term it may cause sorrow, yet in the end it remains ‘the right thing’ to have done. 

I wish Joshua was releasing some more new stuff,  but at the moment he's taking a break from doing anything like that, as well as taking a break from the piano.  At the moment, as far as I am aware he is fairly close to San Diego learning to master the bamboo flute!  




© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

In the air tonight

                           Life turns on a sixpence, it moves in mysterious ways, life is a game of chance, like a bet on the race between the lights, fate is the master of all, choices maketh the man.  Oh I could go on and on and then some with, I am sure you will know a dozen or so more than I regarding what this thing called life is.   Everyone has a take on it, adds their own spin and spiffs it up or chews it down.   I am no clearer now than I was as a fresh-eyed youth leaving childhood and embarking on the trail we call adulthood.  Is life about chance?  Is it already worked out which path we will follow for us?   Can fate make or change a life or is that a ridiculous concept held by those that take religion with the proverbial pinch of salt?     Oh and what of religion,   can someone’s life be saved or demolished by the question of whether he is godly or not.   The next question should surly be why do so many people of sane mind believe in the word of god according to man that tells of talking animals, parting seas, making a feast out of nothing, cures without medicine and the death penalty for Sunday workers and legalised slavery for the first born daughter?    Oh it’s all a mucking fuddle for me,  a deep meaning conversation in the middle of the night, a walk along the shore as the moon shimmers on the gentle flapping of those waves that creep their way to shore.    Being out on the beach in the middle of the night, with just the shimmering lights in the distant background and the only sound filling your ears being the wind and the waves is a tremendous place to be.   I recommend it most fully.  Of course, it works best if you have someone to be with, or else you just seem like a madman having a conversation with himself in the stillness of the night, but really, does that matter?   Who is there to see,  or care?  Alone in the night everything makes sense, I put the world to rights before the morning light delicately dances on the horizon.   Yes at night I understand everything, it is just the day times I have difficulty with!

Listen on with Spotify Phil Collins
Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Busy, so very busy........

Just before I sat down to work this post from thought to word, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to write, what I wanted to say. You know, the place where it was leading and the message I wanted to give.  Now however, I sat down, turned on and looked at the blank expanse of white with the little sticky cursor blinking away and everything has vanished -  whoosh and gone!

The screen is as blank as my mind, which isn’t very good,  well  be honest,  did you come here for a blank page?  Nope,  you came here for a song and a memory,  perhaps a giggle or a realisation that life isn’t always a bowl of cherries,  at least mine isn’t.  You might have come to laugh at me, laugh with me or laugh about me, but one thing you didn’t come here for is a blank page!  However, if I don’t think of something pretty darn fast, that’s exactly what you will be looking at. 

Thinking cap well and truly on!

(5 minutes later)   Nope  nothing yet……..

(15 minutes later)     Still nothing…………….

(40 minutes later)     Still absolutely nothing, but now my bum is rather numb!

(59 minutes later)     Still completely nothing and now all feeling in my bum has gone and my legs have needles and pins!

(75 minutes later)      Still nothing to write except that I now think my legs have been cut off!

(85 minutes later)     Still nothing to write except that I’ve come to the realisation that my pants are too tight and I’ve noticed that my left thumb is just a fraction bigger than my left thumb!

(95 minutes later)   Still nothing to write,  just a question to ask -  is it usual for toes to be a dark blue purpleish colour?

(100 minutes later)   Gosh I’ve never been so busy doing nothing.  

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

What is this thing called love?

What is this thing called love?  Do you know what love is?  Have you experienced love?  Is it just a feeling?  More,  less?   Could you answer and be confident that your answer fully explained that emotion?  Can love be explained in such simple terms, or is it a rather excessive multitude of small individual items that come together to form a immense corpus of sentiment and emotion? 

If I could really answer that first question with the certainty and honesty that my mind demands, then I’d be a much finer writer than is ever exhibited here.  If my pen could tell you the complete all encompassing explanation of what love is,  I’d be a poet of classic origin, in whose life clouds really do float on high, where dazzling daffodils dance with glee and  sixty seconds worth of distance is could be run and that expanse greater than the entire sum of a life.   If I were that creative,  then maybe I would let my fingers dance and fly free to create a song of love, of expression that would answer those questions with melody, rhythm, rhyme and a unnoticed ability to reach right into your very soul.

If I was that talented,  then maybe I’d be Joshua Kadison and I’d have penned this delicate introduction to what love is, what love means in this crazy world.   You’d then know that you’ll grow ever more beautiful in  my eyes.

Joshua kadison    Beautiful in my eyes.
Joshua Kadison – Beautiful In My Eyes (Album Version)

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

The pilot of the airwaves leads to great music.

The other day, travelling down the lane called memory I sifted through piles and piles of old photos, including a few from one of the most fun jobs I think I've ever been lucky enough to have.       It was no ordinary job either!   A fun job with nice people,  more than just workmates,  more like a family.   Now when I say fun,  I really do mean fun,   a job that never felt like work, although,  that may not be completely true!  I'm sure some early mornings or late nights did feel like a hard slog, but I value the memories.    

I started as a weekend runner,  working on a request show,  then I did some TO work - or technical operating to give it the non abbreviated title.  Sounds grand,  but really wasn't,   it basically  involved running and working  or 'operating' the broadcast desk for recorded programmes or presenters to lazy or to big to do it themselves.  It was fun,  I learnt a lot, picked up things, expanded my musical tastes.  I worked full time during the week with an airline which had its head office in the same town and of a weekend I'd be at the radio station,  my life was well filled,  in the evening there were pubs and parties to attend.

Broadfield House

I did the voice between taped programmes on a Sunday, there was something magical about working at an independent local radio station during those times. I went off doing a summer season as an entertainer,  then a winter season doing magic,  which isn't as fun as it sounds.  So a year and a bit later I found myself back at the station.   I performed various functions on a freelance basis, mainly behind the scenes, with the odd on air show, swinging into action when one of the presenters called in sick or doing a weekend spot.  I then started to present the seven till midnight evening music show on the AM or golden oldies service. Strange, fun, interesting, enriching.  Oh gosh,  so many memories from those days flood over the banks of the river of memory.  There were studio visitors, off air sexual trysts with other staff members in the studio and out. There were comedic moments with guests - some big names,  some minor celebs.  There were the roads shows,   the OB's, the charity pub crawls.  There was a 24 hour breakfast show which I remember fondly,  although I think I slept for a week after it - and I was only answering the phones!    Oh yes there lovely moments,  a kiss from Judy Nunn,  a stroke from Boy George,  a head pat from Joanna Lumley,  a night in a Brighton hotel with a singer,  oh yes, all kinds of  malarkey took place during those heavenly days of Broadcast pleasure.   Life was,  colourful, exuberant and rather well paid,  which including having a taxi account paid for and a regular driver called Barry.   We got on so well that I was the DJ at his wedding reception.

When I stopped freelancing and became a full time employee, the perks were a whole ton less but at least it was regular work and I didn't have to worry about invoices and that sort of thing.  I was  first hired as record librarian of the music library,  which was pretty pointless as we didn't play records any more!  Then I was sort of drifted in to being  assistant to the music manager.  I still presented the evening show on the AM service,  although due to a change of finance and programme style, I recorded these mainly music shows a reasonably large number of times, which were then rebroadcast on rotation between midnight and six the following morning. Obviously I would at times update those recordings,  to refresh the sound and quality.   I also did the sports reports on a Saturday afternoon as well as sports bulletins during the week on the AM service.   In addition to these duties came presenting odd shifts during the weekends on the other services,  so occasionally in the evening,  I was broadcasting different shows on both the AM and FM services.   Oh gosh  those repeat fees!

I loved my days there,  it was fun,  exciting and rewarding,   I've got two songs today which have  particular prevalence to this time of my life.  The first  is the very first song broadcast on the very first show of the station as well as the very first song I played on my very first show.  Gosh,  that makes me sound so geeky or in radio terms so anorak like, but hey,  I'm not bothered.   In true DJ style,  here on your super sexy Seafront Diary FM,  here's Charlie Dore and Pilot if the airwaves!



Now  there are times when you're presenting a radio show that you need a long record,  for example when you're needing a pee, or a smoke or the last tune of your show.   Often,  if I was involved in scheduling my own show, it would include this long track,   music, John Miles.

I put this little video together to highlight a few of the photos from the collection from my years away, some of the presenters and some of friends behind the scenes.  Classic days when independent local radio meant just that,  independent and local,  those days are sadly way behind us.






Radio memories.

Many thanks to  THIS IS ILR for the memories.

Beach baby

The rain is pitter pattering outside my window as I type this,   what a difference a day makes, for yesterday there were clear blues skies and the August sun shone down so brightly.   Today it is almost a shade of battleship grey, which looks good on battleships but not so on skies.  Go away rain, I want the last rays of summer again!

Yesterday it looked so lovely that as soon as I looked out of my bedroom and instantly wanted to be outside and enjoying it.  Cycling was first on my mind, so before you could count to a thousand, was dressed in rather sporty attire and on my bike peddling down the road with the wind in my face and the sun on my hair!  

I had gone all the way along the prom from finish to start, it is not far, about six maybe seven of those mile things, all flat and all cycle lane.  It was glorious, fresh and delightful summery, way more than the day before which was dank and damp.  However, I still had a ride the day before; you know there is something amazingly powerful about riding in damp sea mist, especially when you don’t have to be out, it makes one feel alive.   You may not choose to believe that, if you don’t want, I mind not a jot.

I stopped off yesterday ay Asda,  for some fresh fish, Hershey chocolate (it helps banish those birds of depression that have been circulation around my head recently) and some vanilla flavoured candles.  Oh hold on cotton picking second,   I do not mean that at all do I?  Nope, worry not that I’ve travelled so far down the road of madness that I’m eating candles. No, I rather mean vanilla scented candles of course, but you know in my head ‘flavoured’ sounds more aureate and fitting, which I suppose is another good reason why you all shouldn’t be wandering inside my head.

Right, back to the point, which is as always running away down the track of this railroad of a post.  After a cycling home and a long shower with shea butter and coco flavoured shower gel I decided to relax in the garden.   The sun was beaming down with a huge smile; the sky was an unblemished blue that made me wish I was a painter and that justice I could do it on a canvas with brush, knife and fingers.   Tea I made some fresh redbush, with honey in place of sugar and nothing in place of milk, jolly nice it was too.  That is the thing with resbush, it works well made either the British way with sugar and cow juice added or the traditional way without additives.

I was delighting myself in the garden, no, I don’t mean I have a random frap, but I had some soft music playing and pulled out a book to read whilst relaxing in the late summer sun.    Lisa Jewell’s The truth about Melody Browne was my choice or reading material.   Now I would say I enjoyed it,  but just as I was started to get into it,  major catastrophe struck -  well in terms of book reading at least.    I  got to the end of page twenty and tried to read on,  but sense there was none of,  story changed to something completely different – Jason’s little mind was perplexed beyond all reasonable comprehension.  I cursed aloud as I tried to make head or tail of such a random and rapid change, then my eyes noticed the problem,  I wasn’t going potty,  the jump was from twenty to sixty-nine!      It does the same at a whole load later,  hmmm not a happy bunny was I.

Oh well,  I stayed and enjoyed the weather having retrieved another book from the pile I have that yet to be read.  I do promise myself that I will join the electronic revelation and get an eReader machine eventually. But for now, I am still a traditionalist with actual real life books of the paper kind.

As I luxuriated in the glorious weather my mind wandered over all the summer hits of years gone by,  I was transfixed with the glorious surfer image in my head and somewhere down the strand that leads to memory, living on the beach for a whole summer season.  Oh, the pleasure, the passion and the sun tan.  Dreams, memories and fantasy collide in a Technicolor collage of pleasure. 

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Games without frontiers.

One of the first songs I can ever remember learning the words to was ‘games without frontiers’ from Peter Gabriel.  I was ten or eleven when it was a hit in the charts and both my older brothers played it over and over again,  so much so that it became synonymous with us all being together.  I did not really get on with my brothers,   one five years older and the other ten years my senior, so we had little in common.  One was usually away at school and the other at work, so mostly I was alone, so it was very rare the times we spent together, save for the nightmare and hell on earth that were family holidays!

I am sure I didn’t fully understand or appreciate the lyrics and the meaning of the song back then, I was only a small bespectacled kid with a patch over my eye.  I seem to remember we all had a childish giggle over the line that proclaims  “Jane plays with Willy,   Willy is happy again”    I don’t suppose I could have understood back then it was all about the futility of war.   Nor did I drawer a correlation between Adolf building a bonfire with Hitler starting World War II  or Enrico who played with Adolf’s bonfire to mean Enrico Fermi and his fascination with all things nuclear.   Nor would I have picked up that Brit was short for GB and Sacha meant Russia -  I’m still not sure on that either.  I just knew back that it was a corker of a tune with lots of lovely words to twiddle around the mouth and make the tongue dance. (Yes,  one could say my childhood was a bit dull and boring)

I remember that I loved the name Leo and the song always made me want to hide in dunes at the seaside.  Oh and yes I wanted a flag,  not for myself,  but to give to Lin Tai Yu  who didn’t have a flag,  although back then I thought the name was Little Ty U.    Plus it made me want to climb trees so I could hide out,  but I was never that much good at climbing trees,  I kept falling out and if I didn’t fall out,  I’d get stuck and couldn’t work out how to get down.      Although, I did do the shouting out rude names bit - I am sure I even said, “You bugger” a few times too!

It still takes me back there,  back to 1980.

perhaps I'd fallen out a tree!

Wouldn't you pull a face if you were made to wear that shirt and hat!

Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane

Jane plays with Willi, Willi is happy again

Suki plays with Leo, Sacha plays with Britt

Adolf builts a bonfire, Enrico plays with it

-Whistling tunes we hid in the dunes by the seaside

-Whistling tunes we're kissing baboons in the jungle

It's a knockout

If looks could kill, they probably will

In games without frontiers-war without tears

Games without frontiers-war without tears

Jeux sans frontieres

Andre has a red flag, Chiang Ching's is blue

They all have hills to fly them on except for Lin Tai Yu

Dressing up in costumes, playing silly games

Hiding out in tree-tops shouting out rude names

-Whistling tunes we hide in the dunes by the seaside

-Whistling tunes we piss on the goons in the jungle

It's a knockout

If looks could kill they probably will

In games without frontiers-wars without tears

If looks could kill they probably will

In games without frontiers-war without tears

Games without frontiers-war without tears

Jeux sans 





© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

Ben Taylor - Boyfriend

here we are,  another day and another song on my challenge of making it a year in song,  I'm not sure I'll make it to the end,  but you know,  I'll give it a go.    Today's offering comes without any baggage!  Gosh,  I bet that's a surprise,  no long convoluted boring rambling uttering from me about memories, feelings or other such craperty botty dirt.  Nope,  today,  it's just a cute song from a lovely guy,  Ben Taylor.

It is perhaps no surprise that Ben has a golden voice, well suited to melodic folk, given that his mother is Carly Simon and his pop is James Taylor.  Ben took his own route into music and has that natural ability and sound that seems to come from one who is doing what he loves.  This is a live recording from one of his gigs with a friend - David Saw.  Ben is a bit of a ladies man and this is a rather fun and sweet track called 'boyfriend'




Yea,  I put that little video together!

Listen here with Spotify Ben Taylor – Boyfriend

 © 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

The Freshmen - The Verve Pipe

The Verve Pipe,  not to be muddled with The Verve, are an American band from the early 90's,  still going today,  although in a much different line up.  They've never had huge recognition or some would say mass success, despite scoring a top five hit with a dark depressing tale of woe called The Freshmen.  


If you were to ask me why I like this song,  I'd tell you rapidly and simply 'It's a story song'  and I have a fascination and penchant for songs that tell a story.  However that may be just a bit of a simplistic answer,  I love the solo guitar sound that starts the number and the hidden depth of the Brian's vocals,  the feel of American college rock/pop groups and of course those delving lyrics.


I've put two up here for the entertainment of you,  The Verve Pipe original and a deeply moving and haunting cover from Jay Brannan.        





An acoustic version by Brian Vander Ark  click here.




Apparently,  in America college kids put on so much weight during their first year,  as much as 15 pounds,  that it's an actual health phenomenon called The Freshmen 15, the following version highlights that issue.

Click here for another version, which may or may not float your boat!









When I was young I knew everything
And she a punk who rarely ever took advice
Now I'm guilt stricken, sobbin' with my head on the floor
Stomp on Baby's Breath and a shoe full of rice, no...

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen

My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her
His girl took a week's worth of valium and slept
And now he's guilt stricken sobbin' with his head on the floor
Thinks about her now and how he never really wept he says

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen

We've tried to wash our hands of all of this
We never talk of our lack in relationships
And how we're guilt stricken sobbin' with our heads on the floor
We fell through the ice when we tried not to slip, we'd say

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
And I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen

For the life of me I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins
We were merely freshmen

We were merely freshmen
We were merely freshmen
We were only freshmen




© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet

South Jordan

I'm sure you all know by now my liking for the group South Jordan,  who  when I first heard of them were trying hard to get noticed by the eyes of the record labels and the music industry.   I did a little interview with them and then they got signed to Def jam/Island records.   Well,  currently they are writing, recording and making their début album,  mainly down in Nashville  but also up in LA.    Here's a little message from the boys!

"Greetings from Nashville, where we are busy writing songs for our upcoming record. We're not going to lie, this whole 'album recording' process is taking way longer than we expected, but the songs keep getting better, and while there are some things we can't control, we just couldn't wait any longer to share new music with you!

Check out this video of a new song 'Hush Hush' we recently filmed while we were in Los Angeles working on some recordings. We have some friends who were gracious enough to invite us to Swing House studios in Hollywood to shoot a stripped down, live, and very raw version of this new tune. The history and vibe of the studio were incredible, and we had a blast working with director Daniel Karp on this one. Special thanks to Joshua Sieh for engineering the audio and making the whole thing happen. Just click the link below to watch. Enjoy!

- Michael, Bobby, Jesse, & Benton

© 2011 Copyright Jason Shaw Tweet