Colours Are Fading Fast by Loren Auerbach & Bert Jansch

Another rainy day, but I am quite content to remain indoors. Luckily for me the post lady delivered a new triple CD today which has created a nice atmosphere in my wee house. I am now on my second listen. It is called Colours Are Fading Fast by Loren Auerbach with Bert Jansch. Because I haven’t been going out for the last three months I have saved so much money I thought I would treat myself to some new music. I wanted to get something that was completely new to me. I first heard of Loren Auerbach last year when I read a biography of Bert Jansch called Dazzling Stranger by Colin Harper. Loren became the last woman in Bert’s life when she married him in 1999. However, their friendship went back to the mid 1980's. This triptych of albums consists of two albums that Loren recorded in 1985 plus a third CD of various tracks recorded in 1988 but never previously released until this set came out in 2016.

The first album Loren recorded is called After The Long Night. It is a short album of only five tracks and only 29 minutes. Loren made it in collaboration with a singer-songwriter and guitarist called Richard Newman and Bert was called in to provide acoustic guitar. There is also violin and bass. I love the opening four tracks. When I heard the first track The Rainbow Man I immediately thought of Nick Drake. I know it is a cliche to say Nick Drake. Almost every folk musician you hear of these days seems to be compared to Nick Drake, but that is what I thought. I also loved the second song Frozen Beauty. That song instantly reminded me of Shelagh McDonald who I have written about before. I will put that song on this blog page so you can judge for yourself. I also liked Cristabel and So Lonely. I wasn’t so keen on the last track Journey Of The Moon Through Sorrow because it isn’t Loren on vocals. I assume it is Richard Newman.

One reason I ordered this set of Cd's was because the publicity blurb said this music will appeal to fans of Virginia Astley, Bridget St John & Vashti Bunyan. I have albums by Vashti and Bridget, and I have ordered an album by Virginia Astley which I will tell you about in a few days hopefully. Loren’s voice is very intimate, you almost feel she is in the same room. I had the same feeling when I first heard Sibylle Baier. The second album in this set is called Playing The Game which came out in October 1985. It has a richer, more produced sound than the first one and has ten songs. The opening track Carousel has some great electric guitar by Newman. Weeping Willow Blues contains parts of Corrina Corrina and slightly reminds me of Norma Waterson. I think Bert might have written some of the songs but I’m not sure which ones. Is It Real after two listens is the best song with Loren’s delicate vocals perfectly accompanied by wonderful guitar playing.

Loren was planning a third album in 1988 which never came to fruition. There were recording sessions in October & November of that year which make up the third CD in this set called In Moonlights Grace.  Only Loren. Bert and Richard Newman feature on these songs. They are interesting, but not great. What they do show is Bert’s exquisite guitar playing. There is a version of Tam Lin which Fairport Convention made a sublime version of on Liege & Lief and a version of Fleetwood Mac’s Man Of The World. Bert’s guitar on this is wonderful but sadly Loren’s vocals don’t rise to the occasion. It did not really matter that the album didn’t see the light of day at the time because Loren had other strings to her bow. She went off to college and got a degree. I think she became an expert on Norse Mythology and published books on the subject. Loren did not see Bert again for quite a few years, but they met again in 1994 and became more than friends and married in 1999. Sadly, they both succumbed to cancer. Bert died in October 2011 aged 67 and Loren passed away only a few weeks later aged only 48. I am pleased I bought this CD set. It is not one of the greatest recordings I have ever bought by any means but it created a nice atmosphere in my kitchen today and anything that lifts your spirits during these depressing times has to be a good thing.

Loren Auerbach and Bert Jansch - Frozen Beauty

The Eyeballs In The Sky.

It is a dull windy Sunday afternoon and threatening to rain. I will not be venturing out today. I peer out of the kitchen window at my little garden which is getting quite overgrown. I will have to do some serious tidying up next week. My sunflowers are starting to bloom and look nice against the blue of the wall. When the weather is sunny at this time of year I enjoy the ritual of the evening watering the plants, and feeding the fish. Recently I have noticed a couple of frogs lurking in the undergrowth down near the pond. I made the pond about seven years ago with my mate Smithy. We made it out of an old bath which we sank in the ground and put in a sheet of rubber pond-liner. Smithy found some rocks to put around the edge to make it look natural. My shubunkins seem quite at home in it.

I call the pond the Pooliverse. I got that name from a comic strip I used to read as a kid. It was called The Perishers and was in the comic strip page of the Daily Mirror. When my dad got home from work he would be pushing his bicycle up the yard and I would run up and pull his folded up Daily Mirror out of his jacket pocket eager to read the comic strips. There was Andy Capp, Buck Ryan, Garth, The Larks, Romeo Brown, Jane, The Flutters and my favourite which was The Perishers.

They were a gang of children who lived in a concrete pipe on a building site. Later on, after Dr Beeching had closed down most of Britain’s railways, they moved into a disused railway station. They were Marlon who wasn’t very bright, Maisie who was a little tyrant and had a crush on Marlon, Wellington who was the philosopher and got his name from his footwear and Boot who was an old English sheepdog and owned by Wellington. There was also Baby Grumpling who was Maisie’s brother. There was a whole host of minor characters as well, such as a bloodhound called B.A. Calcutta (Failed) and two insects called Fred Beetle and the Caterpillar. The caterpillar couldn’t turn into a butterfly because he had stunted his growth through smoking. It didn’t matter though because he was scared of heights. Another bunch of characters that reoccurred every year were The Crabs and it is them that I want to talk about.

Every summer The Perishers would go on holiday to the seaside. While the others were happily swimming in the sea Boot would wander off for a walk. He always visited the same rock pool every year which was inhabited by a colony of crabs. He would stick his head in there to see what was going on. This would cause great consternation to the crabs who called this visitation The eyeballs in the sky. One crab was the self-appointed religious leader who tried to exploit the situation by standing on a rock to give sermons and taking collections to appease the gods. There was another crab though who thought there must be a simple scientific explanation to the mystery of the pooliverse. He would start making telescopes out of old tin cans in order to study the phenomenon. The great debate about the eyeballs in the sky would go on for about two weeks until Boot would just wander off until the following year. That is why I call the little pond in my garden The Pooliverse. I’m sure my fishes view me in the same way as the crabs saw Boot. I am their god, It is me who feeds them. I just noticed the sun has come out. That is enough nonsense for one day. See you later.

My Pooliverse.