3 posts tagged “audio”

THE HERMIT

Mountain Ash Band

Research and original concept, music for songs  – Colin Cripps

Lyrics – Ray King       Narration -  Sean Mansley

Featuring Lynda Hardcastle / Alan Rose / Martin Carter / Geoff Bowen / Graham Jones / Kevin slingsby

Job Senior was a hermit. There are many ways of being a hermit. It was only for a short time towards his later years that Job lived on Ilkley Moor away from other people. For most of his life Job was a hermit in a crowd. The facts of his life, as far as they are known, are narrated on this album. The songs are not an attempt at story telling; more a series of glimpses of his world as we imagine it would have been seen by Job at the crisis points of his life.  Yorkshire Tales - The Hermit

For the introduction by Colin Cripps click HERE

Recorded on 13^th / by Look Records, September Sound Studios, Golcar, ,

The tracks need to be listened to in order as there is a narration followed by a song.. For more background on the group click HERE

BIRTH  (Narration)

Narrator – Sean Mansley

Guitar – Colin Cripps

BIRTH (Song)

Vocals – Lynda Hardcastle, Alan Rose, Martin Carter. / Guitar – Colin Cripps

Fiddle – Geoff Bowen / Bass Guitar – Graham Jones / Drums – Kevin Slingsby

On crimson wings the sun comes up

Across the eastern sky

Who sees the early dawning hour

When some may live and some may die.

Bent on the earth beneath the sky

A new born cry is heard.

The silent sky is split in two

The first eruption of a word.

Your life is started

Your life’s begun.

Be quick, the years wait for no one.

A million things are left undone.

Before the winking of an eye,

Before the setting of the sun

A chance is barely waiting,

A chance is barely anything.

Please know your hour will come, ( too soon, too soon, too soon)

Your time will come.

Mother’s in the kitchen and father’s on the land.

They’ll tell life is only what you’re holding in your hand.

They know the price of hardship, yes they know the coins of sweat.

They know the price that pain affords. They know, they know they know it all and yet

Your baby hands are open

And clutching for a star

But still they stop and warn you

You will never reach that far.

Be quick time’s waiting,

Be quick it slips away.

A lifetime will not leisure

In the measure of today.

JOURNEYS (Narration)

Tune – Goddesses

Narrator – Sean Mansley

Descant Recorder – Lynda Hardcastle

Fiddle – Geoff Bowen

JOURNEYS (Song)

Vocals -  Alan Rose, Lynda Hardcastle, Martin Carter, Graham Jones.

Guitars – Colin Cripps, Martin Carter. / Fiddle – Geoff Bowen

Bass Guitar – Graham Jones / Drums - Kevin Slingsby

The long and rolling road

That carries all the way to

Is calling me…Is calling me…

Where the road kisses the skyline

On that rolling green horizon

Is where I’ll be.. Is where I’ll be.

I don’t care if they say I’m ugly

‘Cause I’ll shed my tears alone.

My thoughts they do not haunt me,

I willfind another home.

For I have youth to face tomorrow.                                                                       The Hermit Inn and Restaurant

I am stronger than today.

I am stronger than the strangers

Who are sending me this way.

I am bigger that he whispers

That they send to torment me.

I will reach the furthest star.                                             Hermit Inn (site 2)

I will reach, I will be free.

The long and rolling road

That carries all the way to

It carries me ..It carries me.

The man is young, the sun is old,

It paves the streets of with gold.

Oh let it be that way…

…………..

Tunes;  Rosebud – Pigeon on the gate – Dust in the Lane.

The grey and ugly streets

That slowly stretch away from

Are made of dust…made of dust.

I am hungry, I am thirsty.

Have my soul but give a crust.

My clothes are dirty.

My shoes are full of water

And my mind is full of hate.

I knocked the door of providence

They said I’d come too late.

I thought to stay forever

With the corpses at the gate.

Now the streets of are empty

As the faces stop and stare, and stop and stare.

I’ve no money for the alehouse

So I’ll find no comfort there, no comfort there.

Give me anything for pain.

I am truly so alone, Yes I’m alone.

I will face all the slander.

I am going home again, I’m going home again, I’m going home.

…………….

STONE ON STONE (Narration)

Tune – Leapfrog

Narrator – Sean Mansley

Tenor Recorder – Lynda Hardcastle

Fiddle  - Geoff Bowen

STONE ON STONE ( Song)

Vocals _ Martin Carter / Guitar _ Colin Cripps  /Fiddle – Geoff Bowen

Bass Guitar – Graham Jones

I’ve ostled and I’ve bustled,

I’ve trod the straight and narrow.

I’ve seen the road in yesterday

That stretches through tomorrow.

I’ve reaped and sowed,

I’ve bent and bowed.

I’ve scraped me way alone

But nothing pleases me as much as placing stone on stone.

Begone the song that others sing

In many voices loud.

I’ll sing me song and build along

Where no one else has ploughed.

Their voices strangle

In their throats

As years outstrip the bone

But my song is spelled in solid words, spelled out in

Stone on stone, stone on stone.

Stone on stone the walls go up

Beneath the massive hand

But sickles sweep the years away

While still the old stone stands

So here beneath the harvest moon

I build the big stones strong

And I think the things I’m building will outlive the sickle’s song.

Stone on Stone, stone on stone.

……………………….

A LONG WINTER (Narration)

Tune – Cliffs of Duneen

Narrator – Sean Mansley

Whistle – Alan Rose

A LONG WINTER (Song)

Vocals – Alan Rose, Lynda Hardcastle, Martin Carter /Guitar – Colin Cripps

Fiddle – Geoff Bowen / Bass Guitar – Graham Jones /Drums – Kevin Slingsby

Mary old dear draw closer

The night wind is blowing and shaking our stack.

I know that you’re older; I know your age

But none that I know can turn the hands back.

We had our share of hardship Mary.

Soon you’ll leave me too.

Though you’re old your heart is warmer by the fire.

We’ll see this long, long winter through.

Together mary, inside our house

We two are living close as one.

The years have robbed us, stripped our eyes

And to the night have taken and gone.

Count years away my Mary

For the wind is growing colder.

We may see a better time

Before we get much older.

Mary, Mary you can’t answer.

Are you gone away forever?

Are you gone?....

Are you gone?....

Are you gone?....

…………………..

WHO KNOWS (Narration)

Tune – Greenland Man’s Tune

Narrator - Sean Mansley

Fiddle – Geoff Bowen

WHO KNOWS (Song)

Vocals – Alan Rose, Lynda Hardcastle, Martin Carter, Graham Jones.

Guitar – Colin Cripps / Fiddle -  Geoff Bowen / Bass Guitar -  Graham Jones

Drums – Kevin Slingsby

Who knows, who knows

What time has done to me?

Who shows, who shows

The things that I can’t see>

I wander home,

My house is broken down,

My money is lost

My life is scattered to the ground.

Who comes today

To rob me of my time?

I’d go insane

But still I hope the sun will shine.

Again. Who knows…

There’s little left to trust.

The tables never turned.

Who knows, who knows

Why all I touch just turns to dust?

I tried, I tried

But life’s an enemy.

I’ve trod the road.

They all lead back to me.

………………

I’LL SING FOR ME SUPPER (Narration)

Tune -  Drive the Cold Winter Away

Narrator – Sean Mansley

Whistle – Alan Rose

Descant Recorder – Geoff Bowen

Treble recorder - Graham Jones

Tenor recorder – Lynda Hardcastle.

I’LL SING FOR ME SUPPER (Song)

Vocals _ Lynda Hardcastle, Alan Rose, Martin Carter, Graham Jones /

Guitar  - Colin Cripps / Fiddle – Geoff Bowen / Bass Guitar – Graham Jones

Drums – Kevin Slingsby

I’ll sing for me supper

I’ll sing for me beer.

I’ll sing for you who heartily cheer.

You never will admit me

Not one into your door

But I’ll carry on singing

And then I’ll sing some more.

Now take my advice all you young men and true

Though you frown and you scwl for the want of a sou

Don’t wed and old widow with money galore

Nor love a young and a pretty maid who’ll always keep you poor.

Instrumental tune: Shooting

…………………….

THE OUTCAST (Narration)

Tune – Scollay’s Reel

Narrator - Sean Mansley

Treble recorder – Lynda Hardcastle

THE OUTCAST (Song)

Vocals -  Alan Rose, Lynda Hardcastle, Martin Carter, Graham Jones

Guitars – Coin Cripps, Martin Carter / Fiddle – Geoff Bowen / Drums -  Kevin Slingsby

If time has done me bad, then in this moment I’m not bitter

Or full with songs of hatred to the brim

Please think nothing of my anger in the days when I was younger still

I’m lonely now and breath my last.

Love me now – Oh love the Outcast.

The world was mine in bigger ways: my stones stand on the skyline.

The wind avoids the shadow of my walls.

I did my share of working and had my fill of learning.

I know that I am dying but I hear a baby crying

Far away across the moorland

Of my dreaming and my slowly closing eyes…

REBIRTH

Vocals – Martin Carter, Alan Rose, Lynda Hardcastle / Guitar – Colin Cripps,

Fiddle _ Geoff Bowen / Drums – Kevin Slingsby

On silver wings the sun goes down

Beneath the western sky

And sees this softly closing hour

When some may live and some may die.

Bent on the earth beneath the sky

A new born cry is heard.

The silent star is split in two

The first eruption of a word.

Your life is started.

Your life’s begun.

END................................

English Birds is an instrumental tht never made it to the final album, kindly sent to us by Colin Cripps.

Colin also provided a couple of other tracks that were played live after the Hermit project as part of another project. The other two tracks here are a couple of nos from their next project 'wind over the borderland'.

The Patient's Song and Leading Lady Thanks to Colin Cripps for these and his Mountain Ash Band introduction which is on another post here

16 The Patient's Song

Mountain Ash Band

I must have seen Machine / Hot Snacks as they became, c 1980, a million times at the Ryton Hotel, Dog and Trumpet and elsewhere. One of my favourite tracks (so long as the lead singer didn't gob on you punk style from the stage!) - a kind of ska/punk You ain't nothin' butta Hound Dawg called You need a Character Change. This is for Jim Pryal - who was the band's drummer (but not on this track - drummer was Silverton who was with the Specials before they made it. From the Album Sent From Coventry - produced by the brilliant Coventry magazine of that era - Alternative Sounds.

Second track is another fave from the 1980 period - my mate Mojo (Tony) Morgan (it's alos on his blog) - I used to be their resident dancer at gigs in Tile Hill somewhere -saw them lots to at the Dog and Trumpet. Their single and on the Battle of the Bands album 1981 - Anti-Bellum - Ska - blues all the way.

The name Al Docker resounds quite often on this site in the lyrics section and the 1971 diaries, the forthcoming band directories and other places. Not surprising as I set out on the Coventry Music Scene with Al from the tail end of 1969, after leaving school and Al was an important part of the scene and a respected musician and organiser.

The last time I saw Al was in 1974 - he joined Divine Light and was leaving Coventry - I hadn't heard of him since. Yesterday I got an e mail from his younger sister Jan and younger brother John - Al had died of cancer in Truro, Cornwall aged 44 in 1996, leaving behind 5 children and and two grandchildren. Some of us had been wondering what had become of him and so it was a bit of a shock.

In the early 90's Al had been playing in a great band down in Truro called

The Is (View their My Space). The Is had supported bands like Hawkwind.

Al played keyboards, wrote some of the lyrics and music, organised the gigs and drove the van according to his brother John Docker. He'd also been a prominant promoter down in Cornwall. (Have a listen to one of their tracks - Sleeping - here with Al on Keyboards). Interestingly The Broadgate Gnomes have strong connections in Truro who know former members of The Is and also know Al, although the connection wasn't made until we got the e mail from Jan and John Docker. As a result some further information might be forthcoming on Al. Such is the team work that is now happening around this site.

Al's younger brother John told me that the  tradition runs on in the family. John himself was "a former member of the Coventry music scene, come

artist, promoter and sound engineer (my era was the 90's)".  John organised bands at the Golden Cross - which still has a thriving band and unplugged scene. The Hobo Workshop was held there too in the mid 70's after leaving the Holyhead youth centre. John had also played in a band with the father of the drummer of Coventry's newest top band The Enemy who have just been assigned to Stiff Records.

I met Al when I was about 18. We both worked as apprentices at DFGibbs - an electrical shop on the Foleshill Rd. Coventry, next to the General Wolf (scene of many a gig in the later Two Tone period). Al was in the electronics

dept learning to fix TV's (alongside Mark Brown (one of Coventry's top DJ's next to Pete Waterman) (Mark used to DJ at the time at the Red House on Stony Stanton Rd) and I was in the Electrical dept. Al was somehow related to the Gibbs family although neither of us were model apprentices, our hearts and minds were more on music and songwriting and organising. This wasn't lost on the management who eventually made the choice for us!

In 69 we both did our 'Day Release' at the Butts (Coventry Technical College) as part of our apprenticeship. Most of the apprentices were into the Coventry Soul scene that the young Pete Waterman was part of as Coventry's Top DJ.  Ray King's Soul band were enormously popular (and Ray King later comes into the Two Tone story) and there was a thriving Ska scene in Coventry ten years before Two Tone put the Coventry Music Scene on the world map. Although I loved soul and ska (Max Romeo, Desmond Dekkar and Johnny Nash were in the charts at the time and the clubs through Waterman played imports) Al and I were into more progressive music. Sometimes we'd skip college and Al would play The Nice, Pink Floyd, Stones, Ten Years After, Beatles, Blodwyn Pig, Taj Mahal's Statesbro Blues, Tommy by the Who, early Genesis, King Crimson  - these were some of the albums Al would play. Gibbs had a record department so that was handy to browse the latest releases. Keith Emerson was a particlular favourite of Al's and I loved his style of organ playing too. (a year or two later we saw the Nice and ELP at the Lanch Poly. Emerson's stage act involved throwing knives in the keys to sustain the notes while he rocked and generally destroyed the organ at the end of the show. Rumour had it that he'd get the roadies to find a local musician with a Hammond - use their's on stage and then buy them a brand new (more expensive) model as relacement. I think Coventry musician Bob Jackson donated his to the Nice on this basis according to legend).

I'd started writing songs at 15 and after leaving school took it more seriously. I'd been at Boarding school (same one as Mojo Morgan) and wanted to get involved with the local music scene, meet others with similar interest. Al had been at school in Cov (Caludon Castle) and already had gotten involved with the music scene. One day at the Butts tech in 1969, I saw a poster for the Coventry Arts Umbrella - a special underground music and film festival over a weekend in October. There were local underground bands on and much more (see the Umbrella posts). Of course Al was already involved and was putting on bands there. Al took me along to the Umbrella and introduced me. Back then it seemed to be like finding Altantis in your own back yard, where you could meet creative people of all types and get involved.  Much of the creative work I've done since stemmed from that early experience at the Umbrella. This was the kind of apprenticship I was really after. Nowadays if you tell your careers officer that you want to be a musician, actor, songwriter etc they might direct you to a Performance Arts Course. Back then they would suspect that you also had tea with aliens and then ask what your dad did! My Dad was an electrician and so I was directed to Gibbs to sign up for an electrical apprenticship. I wanted to make creative electrons run and so did Al.

I hung around with Al and began getting involved with his Friday night band nights at the Umbrella, doing the door duty

(and building my own contacts up), going with him to the CBR music agency (pictured here) to book bands, then down to the Coventry Evening Telegraph to put in a small ad, going the rounds of the Dive bar, Golden Cross, Lanch Poly, Village and other places where muso types hung out, making contacts and getting interest in the Umbrella band nights. It seemed that Al knew everyone one in Cov. I soon had my own contacts, meeting old school friends who had become musicians like John Alderson, Mojo Morgan, Steve Harrison. This wasn't paying the rent but my heart was in this type of work. Some of the bands Al put on included Birmingham's Tea and Symphony, Ghost, Children, and many more.

Very soon Al was keen to move on from the Umbrella and persue his own musical path and I was primed to take over the Umbrella band nights in 1970. I was well trained, I'd shadowed Al for a good few months and now people knew me as well.

Al also wrote songs and poetry. Before me he had ventured to join the

Umbrella poets although it wasn't his scene so much. Sometimes we would discuss our songwriting. Walking home along the Foleshill Rd. he sang acapella his latest - a blues based song called Blue Train. Later on, in Shilton where we shared a cottage in 72, he wrote the words to Castle Stones (already posted on this site) in my Communications Book (A written form of communal blog). It was environmental and angry song he'd written on piano at the cottage after attending a pop festival. It was interesting to note that Al played keyboards in The Is in the 90's, as in Coventry he played drums. Al was a  self-taught pianist in a pop sense. I think he'd maybe had some lessons in his younger days, but the man had a great musical ear. I'd watch him at the Umbrella working out the melody and rhythm to Beatles songs such as Martha My Dear, Obla di Obla Da and Floyd numbers such as Careful with that Axe Eugene. He would work at it until he got it right and could co-ordinate the bass and melody - it was all in his head, no song books in sight and the result was really good, worthy of McCartney. Al got me started on piano, showing be bass lines and chord structures and got me experimenting. I took more to guitar as it was handier to take around but began to write some songs on piano and later in the 80's played keyboard parts on some of my later songs.

Al joined a London band first called Rocking Chair, playing drums. I think he'd had brief excursions as drummer with

the Chris Jones Aggression (a blues band that practiced at the Umbrella) before settling into quite an orginal sounding band called Tsar which became a popular local and regional band mentioned in the Broadgate Gnome. The band included a sax player from  Warwick and a female violinist. (more on the band in the forthcoming band profiles). After Tsar came Love Zeus with Tony Cross on keyboards a violinist (I think from Tsar,) Al on Drums and Loz netto on guitar (Loz later played with Sniff and the Tears). A short lived but great band who played the Belgrade Theatre and Lanch Poly. By 1974 he was playing with Kevin Harrison's Zoastra, an early experimental electronic band that was the forerunner of the excellent Urge. Zoastra  never got to the gigging stage but led to what became The Urge. This may not be the sum total of all the bands Al played in, just the ones I remember, but by 1974, Al had become involved with Divine Light and left Coventry.

However before that, in 1970, I'd shared a house with him for the summer with others from the Umbrella over the road from the Butts Tech  in Brunswick Rd. Periodically Al would come in about midnight and say 'fancy hitchin' to London' - after an hour I'd been persuaded. On one occasion we hitched over night to see a Hyde Park concert with Pink Floyd - performing Atom Heart Mother. As we strode into the park, a lone voice and guitar was filling the sky like no one else could fill it. It was Roy Harper singing I Hate the White Man. Roy didn't need a band to make a presence - he did it all on his own. That song and it's lyric is still one of my favourites. Whether it was working out a song, organising a concert or persuading someone to hitch with him, he had tremendous drive.

Late in the autumn of 71 he moved into a cottage in Shilton (a small village outside Cov, with a piano!). It had been

occupied by April bass player and his wife Ron Lawrence (who  was also later in Sniff and the Tears). I moved in and we spent time writing  songs, playing piano and records (Yes, Caravan, Loundon Wainwright 3rd, Joni Mitchell and many more). Musicians a plenty would visit us, Ade Taylor and John Alderson, Steve Brimstone (Derek Brimstone's son) who was also a talented guitarist as you'd expect and many more. I got down to learning guitar here and bagan putting music to my own lyrics. Al started a Coventry supergroup there with Roy Butterfield and Al Hatton (both Ex Indian Summer), Ron Lawrence on bass, Al on drums and some songs. They called themselves Runestaff after the Michael Moorcock trilogy that Al was reading. The band never came to fruition and I was privledged to be the only one not in the band to hear their music. The music was great and of course Roy Butterfield is a noted Coventry guitarist. Lyndie began living there and other friends from Birmingham, everyone of them creative in some way, drama, poetry, musical, songwriters and even candlestick makers - yes true - Al and one or two others started Bludor Candles for a while. It took over the kitchen and the guys were trying to make it into a business but in the end disputes arose and the kitchen became unusable for food with the smell of wax and so the idea was dropped. However the candles they did produced were artistic and tasteful. Sometimes they would go down the Lanch shouting Candletross - Get yours on a Wick, as a parody of Monty Python's Albatross sketch!

Monty Python was a fave of Al's - he knew all the sketches inside out and could perform them. One night in 1970, we walked home from the Umbrella along the Foleshill Rd with Neol Davies (later of Selecter, but then with Mead), Al stopped by the Cortina Club, it was about 2am with no one around, knotted handkerchief on his head and rolled up trousers doing the "I'd like to see Two Bricks thrown together" sketch.

Al was a popular and energetic figure on the Coventry Music Scene with drive and talent and the ability to make things happen and it's good to learn his brother John has followed in the tradition in his own way. Al Docker remains one of the alumini that should be celebrated in any history of the Coventry Music Scene.

Thanks to Jan Docker for sending Additional photos of Al and his family.

Thanks to Broadgate Gnomes for all the addtional research they are doing on Al's musical work in Cornwall.