The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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The complete adventures of Ivan The Engine

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(With all the heated and violent discussions about Eric, Van and Bob it’s maybe time for some light entertainment. DISCLAIMER: parts of this have appeared previously in CD Swap reviews)

Van sits on a salmon-coloured leather sofa. His feet don’t touch the ground. It’s early in the afternoon, and he’s bored. He picks up his phone. »Hey Georgie, it’s Van.« A long pause. He can hear a distant TV at the other end. »Listen, let me tell you a joke…« He knows he doesn’t sound very enthusiastic so he immediately hangs up. He stares at the framed photo of John Lee Hooker on the wall. Van hops off the leather sofa and goes to the CD player. He switches the player on and the Yo La Tengo disc from last night slides out. He puts the new Tedeschi Trucks Band in, presses a button on the controller and paces up and down as the music starts.

Someone’s ringing at the gate. Van peeks out the window. »Fucking hell!« It’s the intern from Sony in his silly electric car, probably with more records to sign. We’ll take care of that, Van, no worries… they had promised, and then it all backfired. » Continue Reading.

Fingers crossed for Blue Boy…

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No, he’s not unwell, but tonight the legendary Afterworder takes one of the greatest risks known to gig-going veterans and attends a big-ticket Van Morrison show at a small theatre, the Lyric, in Belfast. It’s a fundraiser for the Linen Hall Library, a venerable subscription institution in Belfast, and the Lyric is only a 300-400-seater, so Van really must be doing it for expenses for it to raise anything. Good on him, I say.

It has the potential to be a magic night… or it could just be precisely 90 minutes (or whatever he does these days) of phoned-in lounge-jazz tedium. So… let us all cross our fingers that The Man embraces the occasion and Blue Boy has a winning evening!

Here’s Van a while back at, I think, the Hollywood Bowl. If he delivers 50% of this energy tonight, the Bluemeister will surely be satisified 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkGPcz_gou0

Saturday night and I just got paid

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So it’s Saturday night, Spurs are in the FA Cup semis, Ireland have won the triple crown, there’s a paella cooking up nicelly on the stove, bottle of French red opened and all is well with the world. The soundtrack tonight – Vans really very good last album of new songs Keep Me Singing.

You?

New Van!

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Hurrah! There’s a new Van album coming out. A promotional single featuring snatches from all the songs has been circulated, grafted on to the formula slow blues attached. Pretty much all the songs on the album, of course, can be sung to this track. Sing-a-long-a-Van…

Let It Rhyme, Every Time – Let It Rhyme, Every Time – I See A River, see a river, see a river – Going Down To Bangor, down to Bangor, down Memory Lane, Out In The Cold Again – Gonna Look Behind The Hill In Tiburon In Tiburon – next door ta Avalon – Share Your Love With Me, Holy Guardian Angel, high in the art a’ suffering one, hand me down my greatcoat and my big boots, Keep Me Singing, Keep Me Singing, keep me churnin’ out lists a’ things, lists a’ things, smokin’ dope in Kendal, with Wordsworth an’ Coleridge, Lambert an’ Butler, Flanagan an’ Allen, Bill an’ Ben, Flowerpot Men, remember when remember when – we did the twist, we did the mashed potato, the potted herring, the pasty supper, the Caledonia Swing, Caledonia Swing – it ain’t Too Late, it ain’t Too Late, ‘cos The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword, » Continue Reading.

“Did I just hear you mention Jimmy Clitheroe…?”

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A funny thing happened to me a couple of days ago at a cafe in east Belfast. Myself and Kyle ‘The Kylemeister’ Leitch, whom some regard as ‘the godfather of punk’ in Belfast (even Terri Hoooley, who’s made a career out of that very epithet!), were quaffing Americanos at an outside table and putting the world to rights when a gentle soul in glasses at the next table said, “Did I just hear you mention Jimmy Clitheroe…?”

He did. It transpired the fellow had seen Clitheroe at an end of the pier show in Blackpool many years ago. Obviously, I had to then find a way to explain why his name had just come up in our conversation. It was like this…

The Kylemeister, in between anecdotes about old punks, had said, ‘Van’s not been back here since he was turned away…’ (The cafe in question is one of The Man’s haunts but one day a few weeks back he turned up and all the tables were full. Sometimes being The Man is no good when The Seats are unavailable.)

At this point, I may have mumbled a brief bit of Van impersonation involving pasty suppers, Mahalia Jackson, creme anglais » Continue Reading.