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The Afterword #99: The One to Onecast – ColinH!

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After one abortive attempt and significant re-education in modern technology Twang welcomes ColinH to the pod.  We discover Colin’s story covering his favourites, writing, making music, Van Morrison and, shock spoiler, he likes the Mahavishnu Orchestra.



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  4. Here’s Brian in December 2018, at the ‘Smash the System’ gig, Sunflower Bar, Belfast – an entirely spontaneous jam with the Bougeois Fury boys at our one and only live performance (funnily enough, also for a homeless charity, as with Bri’s forthcoming album). Rock’n’roll!

  5. Twang mentioned Anne Briggs and the filming session with Bert Jansch, Archie Fisher and Hamish Imlach in the old Howff Folk Club premises on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, filmed for ‘Acoustic Routes’ in 1992. I forgot to mention that I was there. A few pics from that day, after some of Bert performing at the Rotterdam Bar in Belfast in the same year, appear in this montage for the unpublicised single I mentioned, which slipped out in March 2019, inspired by recalling that and other things.

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

  8. Thoroughly enjoyed this chat boys if only because its the only time you will ever hear Terry Wogan and John McLaughlin mentioned in the same sentence. You are far too modest about your own musical abilities though Mr H – I think Sunset Cavaliers is as probably the best album Ive ever heard by someone who’s not a full time musician (although as far as I recall it doesn’t feature Jan Akkerman?). Loved the shared thoughts about the trials and tribulations of creating music – why do we do it (maybe there’s a book there Colin?)

    For those who missed it last year here is the splendid Don’t Go To Nashville

  9. Immensely entertaining stuff gents, thank you. Plenty of material for a part two I am sure. And kudos for Colin for being surely the first Afterword podcaster to mention Jethro Tull before Twang shoehorns them in.

    You’re wrong about Van of course Colin, but you knew that already….

      • Welllllllllllllllllllll…. yes, I suppose so. I think the profoundest thing I could have said but didn’t was that I find that almost everything these days, for me at least, is to do with attempted retrieval – attempts to retrieve something of the feelings of excitement and thrill I had when reading books, hearing music, doing stuff 25-40 years ago. It’s hard to articulate, really… but the grail is always to recapture some of that uncomplicated, untarnished joy. And one rarely can. Like the thrill of reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ for the first time, or Tintin books, or hearing records by Jansch, Focus, Mahavishnu, Tull etc. as a teenager – at a time when one didn’t actually know how many there might be to find at second-hand stores. The information just wasn’t available to me, so there could be moments of bliss finding a battered copy of ‘Rosemary Lane’ or a cheap reissue of ‘Thick As A Brick’ 🙂

        Now there’s knowledge at one’s fingertips on most things, and artefacts of most things easily findable (not everything – I could give examples – but 99% of what one might like to find) but somehow the time isn’t quite there or enough energy left in the battery of enjoyment. Or only in fits and starts, at least for me. Tolkien used the phrase ‘the long defeat’. I think he was right.

        • I understand. The stuff I loved fiercely when I was a teenager I still love fiercely – it takes a lot for something to get that level of engagement now.

  10. That was a great conversation, and very entertaining.
    Look up “resourceful” in the dictionary and you’ll find a photo of Colin! Impressive.
    Pat yourselves on the back, the both of you, for another great podcast!

  11. Extremely interesting and entertaining to hear all about Colin’s life and music and Twang’s contributions too. It is very impressive you have done all that “ringing up” to make so much happen, without even having a mobile phone! I absolutely loved the Van Mystic Rant musical collaboration at the beginning of podcast. Probably the best approach to a Van concert is to view it as an “anthropological experience” like you say. And Twang, whenever I’ve heard Billy Joel talk about his songs he has always referred to trying to make this or that song in the style of a particular artist, so you are in good company.

    From time to time in the podcast I could hear faint electronic bleepings in the background, which I imagine as a message coming from Deep Outer Space Extra-Terrestials. It would translate as “Yes there IS intelligent life on Earth….and we like the Mahavishnu Orchestra too!”

    • Thanks @carolina. I confess Colin and I had a good giggle at the Van sendup which was fun to do. Personally if I had a fraction of Billy Joel’s talent I’d be quite happy! Mind you I don’t always consciously channel other people, that was a particular project as a homage to my favourite singer songwriters. Here’s “Joni” with my pal Karen on vocals…

  12. Loved this chat and both Titanium Flag and Sunset Cavaliers are albums that I regularly go back to. I’ll be re-sequencing TF as soon as I can get in front of iTunes.

    Colin reminds me very much of myself but with added talent, tenacity, affability and insight. On reflection, I hate him and that’s the last of his brilliant albums that I’LL be buying.

    • Yes, he’s a blighter – let’s find out where he lives and smash his face in… 😀 (But thank you for those ridiculously kind words, Ainsley.)

      There’s an amusing aside about my contract with Bloomsbury to write ‘Dazzling Stranger’ in 1998/9… It was for £5,000. A woman from Edinburgh was given £1,500 from the publisher around the same time for a whimsical thing about a boarding school. That month or two was, I think, the one and only time in my life when I was wealthier than JK Rowling 🙂

  13. Just got around to listening, and a fine cast in the pod it was. Just to record that @Colin-H was mentioned in an interview I did last week with Sarah McQuaid when we discussed her struggle to get her music heard, despite rave reviews by the likes of the aformentioned Mr. H. Thanks both for a great listen while I was replacing a shower fitting this morning….

  14. Sarah’s fabulous. I’m unaware of anyone in music who works harder – let alone anyone who is nicer. AND she’s hugely talented as a writer, singer and performer in my view. Good on you, for giving her some publicity, Nige! 🙂

    I had the pleasure of recording with Sarah 12 years back. Funnily enough, it’s a song about struggling to get somewhere and trying to find contentment in it…

  15. Fantastic listen. I was LOLing like a loon at the first 2 minutes. William Blake, William Blake, WILLIAM BLAKE.

    Hugely interesting to hear of Colin’s information gathering process in the days before internet was mainstream.

    Talking about the that Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock really brought back memories. I, or strictly speaking my brother, had the original and later the updated hardback one with the 80s section at the back. I remember absolutely devouring this book as a child. I remember after each entry the artists official albums to date were listed and we used to make a half-hearted, barely informed attempt of keeping them up to date with help of a biro. I also remembered that the big hitters were afforded bigger font than “lesser acts”.

    Heaven knows what happened to it but I immediately took to ebay to see if I could pick up a copy and I managed to snag one for six quid. Should be arriving today. Ah, nostalgia.

    Twang – how would one hear your pastiche album? Sounds interesting.

    Anyway, thanks very muck folks.

    • I had the original paperback-sized NME book, the one with a green/red jukebox on the cover (IIRC – an increasingly rare event these days). I must check – might even still have it somewhere.

      Update: googling for it, looks like it was The Book of Rock, not the encyclopedia. Still NME though, 1973

    • Thanks Robbie.
      If you look up the thread there’s a link in response to Carolina – the album is called”Golden Age”. You can stream it or even (gulp) buy it on Bandcamp!

    • Thank you, Robster 🙂 I recall actively *avoiding* the internet during research for ‘Dazzling Stranger’ in 1998-99, because I felt it was full of dubious information – and in those days it was, certainly in terms of historical info about musical acts. Nowadays, it’s indispensable – yet it’s only the first line of research, and sometimes instinct will tell you when something is ‘wrong’. I could tell a long tale about researching for the Mike Gibbs/Gary Burton ‘Festival 69’ 3CD set booklet a couple of years back, not least to try and identify the location of a concert recording reel in Mike’s possession labelled only ‘Festival 69’. The upshot of the long tale is that internet resources that should have been right were wrong, and only an old-school trip to a newspaper library solved the puzzle.

      • Well there you have it – fake news/ alternative facts on the internet.

        I’m chuffed to say that I saw Bert Jansch live quite soon after the Acoustic Routes programme was shown. It was in the church behind Waverley Station in Edinburgh and he was joined by Jacqui McShee. There were tour programmes for sale. Of course I bought one. It has a BJ themed crossword in it!

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