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Today I wanted to continue work on my tool caddy. But I slept in late. This is a bit of a problem at present; often unable to sleep at night, I’m then exhausted and in need of sleep during the day!

Once I was up and about, I went to Wright’s Tools, for the missing bits for the HSS metal-drilling set I have, with a view to incorporating that into the caddy. Once I’d got those (and a set of tapered countersink bits), I had a long overdue haircut.

On finally getting home and getting started on the caddy, it was time to begin work on tier two. I needed to find a bit of wood that was suitable. Fortunately I have plenty of scavenged timber lying around, and very soon had what I wanted.

One other thing I ought to perhaps note, is that the lumber I’m using for the big blocks, or tiers, is very rough. It has required planing flat. For which I have had to set up and sharpen my main plane. That has been going better than in the past.

The primary plan for today was to incorporate the multi-part HSS drill bit set into this part of the caddy. This involved working out how to accommodate the three mini-caddies. Here I diverged from the way Patrick Sullivan did his ‘instant access tool centre’.

I also committed the cardinal sin of not planning so much as busking it! But so far that’s not proved disastrous. Still… time will tell!

I finally knocked off working on this at about 9.45 pm. And now I’m typing this. I could easily have carried on all night, or until this phase was complete.

As relayed above, I decided to buy the missing and/or broken drill bits from the HSS set of metal drilling bits I already have, rather than buy an entirely new set. And then disassemble that unit, retaining the individual drill holders.

To make the recesses into which these drill bit holders would go I cut a load of passes on the table saw, snapped off any residual ‘fins’, and chiselled, rasped and sanded the resulting recesses relatively flat. This went ok-ish. But I could’ve been a lot neater and more accurate.

I then glued blocks of varied sizes into the bottoms of the recesses, on top of which each of the three drill holders would sit, with enough of each little red caddy showing to allow easy reading of the bit sizes, that are handily printed there.

Here’s another near identical photo to the one up top, showing the stuff I’ve made homes for in tier two: the HSS drill set (1-13 mm, in 0.5 mm increments); five tapered drills with countersink attachments; an allen key for the former; a countersink bit, and drill-chuck key; two awls (round and square); four (new!) engineers squares, two glue-sticks, etc.

I didn’t cut the slot for the dovetail ‘square’, visible in these pics, as Teresa was on the warpath about me stopping for the night! But I did add a rasp/file, to one of the rear ‘tall-boy’ slots. I also added a small round hole to the top tier, at far right, for the scissors I recently got off Amazon Vine.

They’re actually hairdressing scissors, but they’re great for the workshop as well (oh, and as previously mentioned, I had a haircut, at one of our several local Turkish barbers*).

Earlier in the day I collected Teresa from town, after she got off work. And we dropped in on Dan and Amy, for a cuppa and a catch up. Dan has his fourth chemo’ session tomorrow. Apparently, at his most recent meeting with his specialist, they reported that treatment so far has been going exceedingly well. With a better than expected response. That’s great news!

* Daniel, my barber, was (and doubtless still is) Bulgarian. The post haircut massage – scalp, neck, shoulders, arms, etc. – was the best I’ve ever had!

I followed up phase one of my tool caddy build, with the second step: adding a back panel/spacer strips, for taller and thinner stuff.

Much to my surprise and delight, since my most recent major tidy up and reshuffle, whilst things are far from complete or ideal, I can at least work in the shed workshop space now.

This ‘instant access’ tool caddy should help increase efficiency.

I used marine ply for the spacers, busking the dimensions completely. It would later transpire, rather miraculously, that these spacers turned out to be near enough the exact same thickness as a piece of random ply I bought from West End DIY. How unlikely must that be!?

Cutting stuff on the Kity is going well at present. Although I think the blade – the same one that was in the machine when I bought it – needs either sharpening or replacing. And the very basic cross cut sled I made/adapted is doing sterling service.

The strip that runs along the bottom at rear is there to stop certain things, such as rulers, dropping straight through. I chiselled a few little bits away here and there; not all the way through. Just sufficiently to add more depth for some of the tallest ‘tall boys’.

After gluing the back panel in place I also screwed it in position. After which I planed some of the faces a little, to smooth and square things up a bit. Like Patrick Sullivan’s version of this idea, which is my inspiration for this project, mine will have two more sections, or tiers.

The single most satisfying part of todays work on this project arose out of a real pain in the ass: when I went to glue my spacer strips to the rear of the tall segment, I discovered there was a hump down the central axis of the chopped/glued board.

I have a planer-thicknesser for exactly this job, but I’ve still not got it hooked up to a motor, and running. I must attend to this ASAP! So I had to go old school, and simply plane the mother flat. That entailed sharpening my smoothing plane.

Time was, not that long ago, when I hated doing this, as I’d spend ages getting nowhere. But I now have the right tools – a plane-iron guide, a whole range of abrasives, etc. – and a few planes in basically good shape, that just need fine-tuning type maintenance. So it was pretty quick and easy restoring a keen edge. And once done, planing the rear face of this block proved easy as pie!

I’m quite keen to continue covering swathes of work from my favourite musical artists. With Genesis this basically means from when Phil Collins joins up to the 1980s, or put another way, the decade of the 1970s. So mostly the Peter Gabriel era, but also the earlier Phil Collins period, when they were still more prog rock, rather than clever pop.

Discography:
From Genesis to Revelation, 1969,
Trespass, ‘70,
Nursery Cryme, ‘71,
Foxtrot, ‘72,
Selling England by the Pound, ‘73,
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, ‘74,
Trick of the Tail, ‘76,
Wind & Wuthering, ‘76,
Then There Were Three, ‘78,
Duke, ‘80.

Not sure if I’ll do any of the albums after Duke? Indeed, I may stop at W&W. It’s really their ‘70s prog-rock era that interests me most, and within that the earlier era, with Peter Gabriel is, at present my favourite.

ALBUM REVIEWS:

Trespass, 1970

After a debut recorded whilst still at school, by a band aged 15-17, and comprising efforts aimed squarely at pop, Genesis came back, after exams, and …

Nursery Cryme, 1971

Foxtrot, 1972

Selling, 1973

Lamb, 1974

Peter Gabriel goes out in style.

I’m not totally sold on the whole ‘concept album’ aspect of prog. It’s a bit too much like musical theatre for me. Something I’ve never really dug. And the whole theatrical side of prog can be the least appealing aspect of it, partic’ in hindsight. At least for me

So the whole story schtick, with the associated imagery, and Gabriel’s surrealism gone long-form, none of this is what attracts me to or is what I really enjoy about Genesis. What I enjoy, pure and simple (in a manner of speaking!) is the music. The sonic worlds they create leave more room for my own personal response to the synaesthetic and poetic aspects of what music, as the most inherently abstract of the arts, can potentially be.

Having said that, undoubtedly the very attempt to tell a story across a double-album does of course have its consequences, such as the bookending (-ish) with the two ‘on Broadway’ variants. And this aspect of the ‘grand project’ I find less irksome. Indeed, it can give this more ‘pop’ type sound world something more akin to the scale and scope of what’s commonly called ‘classical music’. And that can be, in the right hands, as here, a good thing.

And as Peter Gabriel’s final work with the band, it’s a pretty magnificent way to bow out. I’ve often wondered, esp’ when watching film or video footage of the group, what the internal band chemistry around Gabriel was like.

The rest of Genesis are very focussed on their jobs as musicians. Gabriel, with his bizarre hair cut, exaggerated mannerisms, costumes, and flirtations with instrumental involvement – the flute and tambourine aren’t too unusual, but his own personal kick drum? that’s a bit odd – cuts a lone and very pronounced theatrical figure. Part vaudeville, part po’-mo’ neo-Dadaist performance art, I can’t help but feel it might’ve been both blessing and curse.

The blessing is that it draws attention, the curse that it draws attention. And as an interview included in the fabulous concert footage from Paris, ‘73, below, testifies, Gabriel’s pop star antics can become a distraction from the ‘pure music’ side of Genesis.

A Trick of the Tail, 1976

The first post-Gabriel album is, perhaps a little surprisingly, a relatively smooth transition. Musically and lyrically things appear, at first glance, to be little changed. And Phil Collins sounds remarkably Gabriel-esque.

But, truth be told, something has changed. Well, obviously… Gabriel is gorn!!! But that does have a knock-on effect. Even though the material seems very similar. It’s hard to quantify precisely how and why this might be so. But it indubitably is!

It’s interesting that the first two numbers are heavily vocal, and have no drums or percussion. Almost as if they’re settling Collins into his new lead vocalist role by temporarily switching off the drumming! Dance On A Volcano and Entangled are very much standard ‘70s Genesis lyrically, melodically and harmonically.

Once the drums are back in, on track three, Squonk, and the remainder of the album, it all sounds even more Genesis-ish. Although, having said this, there is something imperceptibly changing.

For me this album reaches its greatest heights on Ripples and the title track. Ripples could easily have been happy at home on a Gabriel-era album. But the title track, A Trick Of The Tail, sounds like a band feeling it’s way tentatively into new territory. And doing so very effectively.

Los Endos is, for the most part, pretty frantic, and one can’t help feeling there’s more than a little Brand X jazz-fusion vibes entering the picture here.* Tony Bank’s synth sounds help anchor things in Genesis territory, but the frantic hyperactive drum and bass combo may sound, to some, a touch like ‘trying too hard’, perhaps?

I like Trick of the Tail. A lot. It’s still very much classic ‘70s Genesis. But you can hear, with Gabriel gone and Phil on the mic’, that things are starting to shift.

* Brand X were (indeed, still are!) are jazz-fusion group formed in 1975, for whom Phil Collins was the drummer for a number of years. And Trick of the Tail came out in ‘76, the same year as Brand X’s debut disc, Unorthodox Behaviour.

Wind & Wuthering, 1976

Goodness, Phil Collins was productive in ‘76! Two albums with Genesis , as well as the debut for Brand X. Perhaps a little strangely, coming after Trick of the Tail, Wind & Wuthering actually sounds more like the pre-Collins Gabriel Genesis. At least on the first two tracks, Eleventh Earl of Mar and One For the Vine.

Having just listened to several mid-70s Genesis albums in succession, it’s quite amazing, especially given how distinct both Peter Gabriel’s and Phil Collins’ voices are individually, how alike they are in the context of Genesis! Remarkable!!

There are, as with Trick, signs of the musical evolution of Genesis from prog behemoth to pop leviathan, even just within the many parts of the epic second track, most notably during a brief slightly disco-beat inflected segment. One For The Vine is properly prog-tastically enormous, clocking in at about ten minutes, and maintaining interest the entire time. Amazing to think music like this one cracked the upper reaches of the album charts!

What a cracking album! Your Own Special Way is an absolutely beautiful number. And whilst sounding totally ‘70s Genesis, does subtly hint at a gentle move towards pop melodicism, especially in the marvellously pretty choruses. Could this be my favourite Collins-era Genesis album. I certainly think so!

After the beautifully melodic mellowness of Your Own Special Way (a definite contender for my all time favourite Genesis track), we’re somewhat rudely awakened from our reverie with Wot Gorilla? A reminder that ‘76 was a Brand X year as well as a Genesis one! The music is very Genesis, but the drum rhythms are high-octane jazz-rock fusion.

After the brief blast that is Gorilla, we return to the more epic and lengthy soundscapes of All In A Mouse’s Night, whose cute lyrics are simultaneously very Gabriel-esque, if a little lighter. Again the keys-heavy sound is pure ‘70s Genesis, and gorgeous. But the drum sound is morphing into something more muscular, intense, and modern. A heavier direction other progsters – King Crimson spring to mind – would take to great extremes in years to come.

Blood On The Rooftops starts with some utterly gorgeous classical guitar from Steve Hackett, on what was to be his final album with Genesis. And then Collins comes in on vocals, and Banks on mellotron, and finally the whole band. And, lo, it was good! It’s worth noting that this was originally a love song, but new lyrics of a more cynical cast, about TV news were chosen instead. The juxtaposition is odd and unusual, but both music and lyrics are terrific, so that the odd marriage works extremely well.

Like Wot Gorilla, Unquiet Slumbers is uncharacteristically short, for Genesis. But otherwise it’s very unlike Gorilla. Both are instrumentals but where Gorilla is intense thanks to Collins’ Weather Report-ish drumming, Slumbers is spacious, mellow, and drum free.

As if to make up for this, it then segues into the rhythmically intense and bombastic In That Quiet Earth. Surely rather misleadingly titled, the power and energy here again bring Collins’ Brand X jazz-fusion chops to the party. But Banks’ synths keep things sufficiently Genesis to balance the fusion flavour.

The album winds up with Afterglow, which also returns us to the album’s more dominant mellow feel. Gorilla and Unquiet Slumbers were relatively aberrant, as overall this a gently intense slow-paced disc.

OTHER ALBUMS: Abacab, ‘81, Genesis, ‘83, Invisible Touch, ‘86, We Can’t Dance, ‘91, Calling All Stations, ‘97…

This is a weird mish-mash of a movie. Certain aspects, such as the core idea of AI-enabled military robots, used for nefarious ends, are quite good (if not exactly unique nowadays). Others, well…

Six holidaying US do-gooder doctors get lost in the forests of the Golden Triangle, where they run the gauntlet of drug gangs and their jungle booby-traps. Unfortunately for them they wind up in a village where a rogue US/CIA military-tech op’ is just getting underway. They rapidly become accidental eyewitnesses the dirty ops guys are keen to eradicate.

The CIA and Cyborg ‘baddies’ air-drop four ultra ‘hi-grade’ military kill-bots into the forest, as a real world test of the hardware/software capabilities. One of the bots is damaged during deployment, losing a key part of its ‘brain’ or control unit. The other three butcher almost the entire village, where the docs have wound up. Fortunately for the latter, ex Navy SEAL ‘Mason’ is also there.

Mason gets them out. But they start haemorrhaging lives. The three fully functional kill-bots hunt down the survivors of the massacre, whilst the fourth goes on a bizarre journey of cyber self discovery. All through this a trio of tech-nerds, flown in to ‘mastermind’ what rapidly becomes an appalling debacle, is having a crisis of conscience, as they realise they’re not simply ‘training’, but doing a fully lethal ‘black op’, with (mostly) innocent civilians as the guinea pigs and collateral damage.

This is a very, very, very uneven affair. Certain aspects are quite good, even emotively powerful, or reasonably clever. Others, such as the typical and arbitrary ‘some get away some don’t’, and non-stop action vs long hiatus, are weaker. A lot of the issues may be consequences of the fact that the whole film is probably about 20-30 mins too long.

There are some brilliant and/or beautiful locations (Cambodia, I think?), quite a bit of no holds barred brutality, and an interesting if convoluted plot. Very patchy and uneven, but quite an enjoyable watch.

Amazing music.

Many years ago I was in a short lived group with some friends at sixth-form who were into Sonic Youth, The Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Einsturzende Neubauten, and all sorts of other stuff similar to or connected with such bands. What’s often (or is that just sometimes?) called the post-punk/no wave scene. I must admit that, whilst I liked some of these bands and their music enough to stick with the group for the brief period in which it existed, it wasn’t really my scene, man.

Some of the recordings that really reached me in the truly primal unmediated way I like best – and ordinarily at that time that might have been anything from a sweet bossa nova, like let’s say ‘Quite Nights Of Quiet Stars’, by Jobim, to ‘Pachuco Cadaver’ by Beefheart, Joni Mitchell’s ‘Little Green’ or ‘Criminally Insane’ by Slayer – were the early records by Swans. I think that was for several reasons, some of which I’ll go into in a mo’, but possibly chiefly because, as numerous critics and fans have pointed out, this is simply music like no other.

The sheer raw power of the music, and the brutal darkness of Gira’s lyrics, are frequently alluded to in descriptions of this music. But there are a few other things that I particularly like that I don’t feel are usually mentioned. One of these is that – and ok, granted, the lyrics are pretty horrifying – quite a lot of the music has a bizarrely beautiful quality, at least for me, deriving from two factors: its sheer intensity, and the fact it is so unique. Another element is that, for all that it is unrelenting, dark, and brutally minimal, yet there’s a note of looseness and improvisation. Jazz seems hardly the right word, but those are qualities that jazz prides itself on having at its heart.

The loose improv element is most apparent in the incredible drumming of Roli Mosimann, probably the best drummer The Swans ever had, in my view. Also the production has an incredible clarity that stops it dating. Comparing the brutally raw and unprocessed sound here to the compressed and reverb drenched drums of ’80’s Sonic Youth, for example, makes the latter sounds far more dated. Easy-listening this ain’t, and I can generally only take it in little doses these days.

Opening track Half-Life and closing track Thug (opening and closing the original Cop LP*) are, I think, the moments I dig the most. Slow grinding repetitive riffs, bass and guitar locking into huge but minimal slabs of raw distorted sound, and the drums crunching away, but just occasionally showing an inventively syncopated edge, and all moving in an intense slow-motion. Most so-called heavy music sounds like the froth on a weak lager compared with these numbers. And lyrically heavy metal and associated dark/intense genres tend to be utter garbage, kind of prurient teen horror movie type stuff. The darkness of the lyrics here is of an entirely different order.

But Holy $**t, Cop is an amazing and intense ride for the ears, the mind, and the emotions! There really is nothing quite like it. Turn it up loud, and prepare to be terrified, mesmerised, but perhaps also moved, and maybe even awestruck. Definitely not music for all occasions. Cop isn’t uniformly brilliant. But the best is, thanks to its uniqueness, astonishing.

* These days Cop is usually most easily found as part of a variety of ‘early Swans’ type compilations.

Set on board the ISS crewed with an international team, some time in the unspecified near future, a Martian soil sample, brought back by the Pilgrim 7 probe, yields a dormant life-form. The ISS boffins bring it back to life, only to wish they hadn’t.

Life is very clearly and obviously heavily indebted to the Aliens series. But it doesn’t have the same high drama of the ‘original’. Nor do the characters have the charisma of the older films’ cast.

But that said, there’s enough that’s original here, and it’s all somewhat more ‘realistic’ – the super-evil-kelp-demon-alien aside – in terms of the basics of life aboard the ISS (as opposed to the whole Alien Nostromo trip), and how things might go wrong, making it fairly watchable.

My wife is the one that usually suggests we try a sci-fi movie, and so it was on this occasion. I’m the sci-fi sceptic, who finds the whole genre big on promise but small on delivery. With a few exceptions. Life is okay, neither great, nor awful.

As with all the Aliens movies, and many a horror film (or classic western, for that matter), this is essentially a siege, with malevolent evil vs plucky humanity. Perhaps the best and the worst thing about this film is the final twist.

Rather amazingly, this is the same year as the previous Police gig, also recorded for the German Rockpalast TV show, as covered in my last post. But The Police are evolving, rapidly ascending the heights of Pop Olympus. They come onstage to a backing of Voices Inside My Head*, from their follow up to Regatta de Blanc, Zenyatta Mondatta.

Sting wears a Regatta de Blanc T-shirt, and plays an upright stick bass. Summers looks smarter, in a snazzy striped ‘sports jacket’ and white T-shirt. Stewart Copeland is striped and very sporty, and now has a more plush drum throne, with back support! The venue is waaay bigger. Hamburg was a medium sized theatre, Essen looks like a stadium.

After Don’t Stand So Close To Me, from their new album, Zenyatta Mondatta, and Walking On The Moon, from Regatta de Blanc, Sting swaps back to his normal electric bass, and they kind of go punk Bo-Diddley, on Deathwish. They’re definitely looking and sounding that much more like pop stars. And it’s the same year as the previous neo-punk-jazz onslaught!

Copeland still drives the band with the same ferocious energy. They still jam out a lot, but it feels slightly more restrained. At least at first. They’re still playing one or two non-album oddities, like Fall Out, and Sting is adding synth touches via what might be a Moog, and what look like Taurus pedals.

Man In A Suitcase is the next live workout for a number from Zenyatta, their latest release that they were touring to promote at this time. Whilst this still has some of the upbeat energy of their earlier era, it’s also more brightly melodic.

When they get to Bring On The Night the change from the previous performance seems more pronounced. This time it’s not quite as manic nor intense. I think this is partly due to the scale of the venue; the sound is more diffuse in a bigger space. But the performance also differs, being more restrained, less wild. It’s interesting to see how they work at building the tension under Andy’s guitar solo, in a way that differs massively from the album version.

They go into the double-time frenzy, as they did previously, on the Hamburg gig, but it works a little less well. This is partly due to the muddy wash of delay on Copeland’s kit, and partly, again, because it’s made more woolly and diffuse by the sheer scale of the venue. I’ve always preferred theatres and smaller venues to stadiums, for gigs. Stadium concerts are more about money than music, as far as I’m concerned.

Things come into a sharper focus again for De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da (memorably desscribed by Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge as their ‘nonsense anthem’!). The newer, slicker, more pop Police sound and style are coming to the fore now. It’s still intense, but smoother and decidedly less spiky. Any punky rough edges are gradually being worn away.

Sting’s bass once again is noticeable at times for the very approximate tuning. It being live things are a bit more forgiving. In the studio they’d never have let such sloppiness pass.

The Truth Hits Everybody is a track from debut, Outlandos d’Amour, and a brief and energised nod to their roots. After which the upright bass comes out for another Zenyatta track, the spooky and much more mellow and moody Shadows In The Rain (which is apparently about hard drug use!). This song would be totally reworked for Sting’s solo debut, Dream of the Blue Turtles. But here it presages the type of soundscapes that would eventually come to dominate The Police’s final album, Synchronicity (Tea In The Sahara, Walking In Your Footsteps, King of Pain, etc).

When The World Is Running Down was and still is a favourite of mine from Zenyatta. The weird juxtaposition of rather joyful music with the maudlin post-apocalyptic ruminations of the lyrics are, well… unusual! Sting gets a bit funky at one point in the jam section/guitar solo, playing a high register lick on the bass, and supplying the low-register via his pedals.

The Bed’s Too Big, rather like Bring On The Night, suffers a little, to my ears, from the translation into a much bigger venue. I think the band’s performance is very similar to earlier in the year, in the main. But the larger space soaks up and dissipates the intensity. I think if you were at the gigs, these numbers may well have retained their magic, or even intensified it, with the extended jam or improv sections. These are two of my definite favourites in their album versions.

Driven To Tears is a monster track on Zenyatta, partly cause it’s a great song, but also because Copeland’s drumming gives it an added edge. Here the most striking thing about it might be the sudden appearance of overtly socially-conscious lyrics from Sting. It’s not the first instance of this, just the most overt and strident. The trio give it a real powerhouse workout on stage.

The Police then neatly segue into, and play their way out, on a string of what, by then, were the hits that had turned them, and were continuing to turn them, into mega-stars: Message In a Bottle, Roxanne, Can’t Stand Losing You (with a bit of Regatta de Blanc by way of intro), before closing with a spirited medley of Next To You/So Lonely.

The contrast in the two concerts of the same year is quite striking. In Hamburg they’re a slightly punky band, excited at their ascent, and blasting their music through the more intimate venue with astonishing power. By the time they arrive in Essen they’re fully fledged pop stars, and the big ‘production’ in a huge venue, whilst superb, and undoubtedly more ‘mature’, also loses a whisker in the intensity stakes. This is partly due to the evolution of their songs and overall sound, and partly the scale of the gig.

Both concerts are excellent, and they are (or were?) available together on a combined DVD package (see accompanying pics). Hearing these concerts sends me back to the original albums. What a band! These two terrific films capture The Police scaling the heights.

PS – Thanks to a pal, who gave us tickets to see The Police when he couldn’t go – thanks buddy! – Teresa and I saw them during their 2007 reunion tour. It was a good gig. But the old intensity wasn’t quite there. Andy Summers in particular was showing his age (and of course he has passed away now). And it was in a bigger venue than I like. We were actually behind the main stage, and quite high up.

* The background intro version sounds like a synth n drum machine demo? It’s certainly not the studio/band version, which benefits from a terrific drum performance from Copeland.

For stuff like this YouTube is great. I wonder how long it’ll stay this way?

This gig finds the Police in their high-octane early incarnation, quite neo-punk, in terms of energy. It’s more confusing than appearances might suggest though, as they are, essentially, a power-trio. Quite a rock-mongous beast! But whereas most power trios would have an axe-wielding guitar-hero, Any Summers is more art-rock weirdo, and the instrumental star is really Copeland.

Sting is, well… Sting, bankably good looking and charismatic (as Andy Summers wryly observed from the get go), with a brilliant voice, song writing skills to die for, and seemingly born to the role of frontman. Not in an Elvis or Ozzy way, but just by being himself. Fantastic!

Personally I love their mellower side, the first real sign of which is the mesmeric Bring On The Night. It’s still way more pumped than the Regatta de Blanc album version. But the ethereality and the melancholy of the Sting aspect of the group is allowed to simmer and come to the boil wonderfully.

Also very notable is the jazz-prog side of the group, not in overt ‘genre’ terms, but in the fact that songs are frequently allowed to breath in extended passages of improvisation. For example, in Bring On The Night they go into a totally intense double time blast variant that I’ve not heard on any other performances.

Also very intriguing are tracks like Fall Out and Visions of the Night, which are not part of The Police’s album canon. But when they return to the more familiar material, with Bed’s Too Big Without You, they go into a blinding cosmic über-jam that finally resolves back into the song. And the go waaay out! Astonishing!

One of them, Sting, I think, is triggering some synth effects, and Copeland’s drums often get treated to washes of dubby delay. so they generate a massive sound. And this despite not having a conventional lead spanner of a guitarist. Summers can cut loose with the blues rock style thing, as he briefly does on a Bullet train from Japan version of Peanuts.

This is a young band, riding the crest of their burgeoning stardom; btheir energy is super intense. I think Stewart Copeland is a very large part of this. And what a monstrous driving drummer he is! His kit, like his his playing is unique. His use of hi-hat and tide so much more expressive than the average rock/pop drummer. And his fills and use of odd accents, literal splashes of sound, and the octobans and roto-toms, all add up to a unique voice in driving seat.

Roxanne is also put through the extended-improv wringer. The German crowd are wigging out. And who could blame them. What a performance. Even the rather approximate tuning of Sting’s bass can’t put a dampener on proceedings.

Aha! As the Partridge used to say. Back of the net! Etc. Actually this is trash. Total trash. But it’s the kind of trash I’ve been rooting around for.

The trouble with a lot of modern American films is that they’re populated with the most disgusting abominations of sub humanity imaginable. Rather like Trumpist America itself. A cesspool of self-interested armed aggressors.

It’s therefore kind of appropriate that ‘they’ – the gang that starts the movie by butchering a family who return to find said gang robbing their home – kidnap a monster even more depraved than themselves, who then serves ‘justice’, American style, i.e. sadistic ultra-violence, upon them.

The film starts, you might say ‘cleverly’, but I think that’d be misplaced, with the ‘final girl’ scene, as Emma (Adelaide Clemens) – the human McGuffin of the movie – runs through the woods. Flynn (Derek Magyar) the most repellent of the gang, becomes a kind of macho substitute ‘final girl’. Or is that role actually reserved for Denny (Beau Knapp)?

Luke Evans is The Driver, a sociopathic and psychopathic mass-murderer and kidnapper, with a trailer full of kill-kit and a babe in both passenger seat and boot. The former may be the latest in his Stockholm Syndrome experiments, the latter is Emma.

America is unwell, this sort of product is a symptom of the disease. And yet, decadent and hypocritical as this may be, it is kind of entertaining. Oh, humanity… I would weep for us all… but I’ve been all cried out for some time now.