Brian Lavelle

I’ve always enjoyed what I consider—no doubt pretentiously—to be rather unusual musics. There, I’ve said it.

At school, I came across a group of strange individuals performing under the name Ring. There’s very little about them on the great interweb, perhaps reflecting how individual and obscure their music was at the time. They had an early demo tape (untitled) which was released in 1984 on the anarcho-punk label BBP Records and Tapes (a sticker on the cassette proudly proclaims their motto “DIY not EMI is our game”). Ring’s first “real” (ahem) album, again on tape, was O De Dun Dun, self-released in 1989. Both were wonderful. There is, apparently, a Levitation connection in their guitarist Bic (Christian Hayes) who went on to form that group with others. I’ve never heard them.

And then there was this tape—Nervous Recreation—their third and last outing, which was just extraordinary in so many ways I find hard to express now.

I dug it out tonight, from amidst a huge unlit pyre of magnetic media, just to see if it was as magical as I’d remembered, despite nearly two decades of unreliable nostalgic mist. Its cover is still as odd to me now as it was then. The music is complex, playful and accomplished, and as the site above notes, in thrall to the genius of Tim Smith and Cardiacs. That, in my book, is A Good Thing. It’s incredible to think, in fact, that this material was recorded on a four track cassette recorder.

And, remarkably, listening to it for the first time in probably 15 years or more took me back again to happy (if frustrating) times in 1989, sitting in the refectory at school, trying to explain the last track on the album, “Some Fish Have Teeth”, to anyone within earshot, even those who thought Iron Maiden were the pinnacle of invention in music and hairdressing.

But especially I tried to explain this music to Judith, to whom I was in thrall. I failed to explain it, probably, but at least I tried. Not that she ever knew I was in thrall. I think. It just seemed to me, at that point in time, that there was never more of a beautiful truism than “some fish have teeth” to the point where it became something of a mantra. That all seems a bit silly now.

And Judith, if by some quirk of fate you’re out there and reading this, do get in touch. I think I know what the song means now.

I’ve just received a beautiful new (well, really quite old) FED-2 rangefinder camera made in the former Soviet Union some time in the 1950s. The FED-2 was the first and very successful attempt by Soviet camera makers to improve upon the original and vastly more expensive Leica II and IIIg designs.

The camera above is unusual because it’s finished in black enamel, so this is an opportunity to see how the FED-2 would have looked if that finish had ever been available on a camera out of the FED factory. It never was, and this finish is in fact the detailed modern enamelling work of a skilled restorer from Odessa in Ukraine.

The story of the FED factory is an interesting if unpalatable one. The factory (???) in Kharkov was an orphanage-turned-work-commune named for Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the original Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka (later the NKVD).

And the origin of the title of this post? It’s from an old Soviet song about war journalism:

With Leica and with notepad
And sometimes with machine gun
We passed through fire and frost.

Stephen Rothery has a controversial conspiracy theory that the early Leica I and II models were clones of the first FED rangefinder (the FED-1 or Fedka). He posits that the Leica in the song was simply a genericised trademark and that, for some time in the 1920s to the early 1940s, Leica in Russian was a synonym for a 35mm camera. I’m not sure about this, but it’s a good story…

Anyway, these are rugged, inexpensive machines that take great photographs, on good old fashioned film. I plan to use this pretty much exclusively for black and white photography; perhaps I’ll post some shots here after I’ve used it for a bit.

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[Edit: 23 June 2008: I worked out the camera is from 1955 and is the type 'a' version of the FED-2. I've added a wonderful little wrist strap from Gordy's Camera Straps. Elegant, simple and rugged. And very reasonably priced too! The camera, which is heavy enough, feels safe hanging on it. Highly recommended.]

Well, I’m not, as a matter of fact, a cat but I have recently been reading a book with that title by the Japanese author, Natsume S?seki, written at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Originally published in ten instalments in the literary magazine Hototogisu between 1905 and 1906, I Am a Cat is a satire on upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era, portrayed through the eyes of an “unloved, unwanted, wandering kitten”. And it’s very amusing in a wry, philosophical sort of way; easy to dip into and with a storyline that’s more a string of anecdotes and observations than a rigid narrative structure.

I’m enjoying it; the observations on the superiority of cats over humans are really quite droll, especially if you know even a little of how cats behave; and with it tonight I’m also enjoying some 2000 Long Yuan Hao Yi Wu Mountain raw puerh that I got as a sample from Yunnan Sourcing. Very nice indeed, and my first ever puerh: the smokiness, dried fruit aromas and lasting flavour are quite intense, and not what I was expecting at all.

Okay, so that’s Chinese tea, with a Japanese novel, itself translated into English: but it’s Thursday night and it’s been one of those weeks…

The text in the subject of this post is by Italo Calvino, one of my favourite writers.

Why that as the subject? Well, as some of you will know, we have two cats, Bob & Hamish, who’ve lived here since last Summer. These two brothers are by turns acrobatic, majestic, proud, frustrating, adorable, confusing, confused, unreasonably clever, unfeasibly stupid and constantly surprising. And I’ve grown very, very fond of them and their quite different little personalities.

This is Bob…

He is the black one.

…and this is Hamish…

He is the black and white one.

I don’t have too many photographs of them as they tend not to pose well for the camera! But I’ll keep trying.

It now seems strange to me to think I’ll be 36 this year and yet I’ve never had cats before nor any other pets. The last eight months have seen me climb a hugely entertaining if rather steep learning curve, but with Jill’s help I’ve been getting there and now I can’t really imagine Bob & Hamish not being around.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Calvino was right. I can see the gates of that other city; I just don’t think I’ll ever see inside.

It’s mid evening and I’m currently listening to a subtle and subdued little split-tape by Evan Miller & Gown. It’s the first I’ve heard by either of these artists. The Evan Miller side is beautiful acoustic guitar meanderings against a grainy, lo-fi thunderstorm backdrop (astraphobics, fear not…) which works remarkably well. The piece is called Specter: a truly fitting, if Americanised, title.

And as I type this and listen to the tape-storm, I’m drinking a cup of rather lovely gyokuro in a new Mokage style teacup from Hokujo.

Mogake is a traditional Japanese technique which consists of applying seaweed onto unglazed pots before the firing process is carried out. The salt from the seaweed oxidizes with the clay during the firing and unique and often surprising marks are made on the pot surfaces. This is the work of Shimizu Genji-san, a true master of this art. Of course, I couldn’t resist obtaining a kyusu in the same understated style…

And now the reverse, Gown side of the tape is playing (it’s a very short release…). This piece, entitled Pigeon Church, for reasons I can’t quite fathom, is more electric and out there yet it’s still possessed of a fine, wandering spirit. Is Evan Miller part of, or all of, Gown? I don’t know but I suspect not; it really doesn’t matter anyway. I think I’ll have some more gyokuro as I watch this miniature electrical storm settle.

Well, I’ve decided it was about time I posted some pointless verbiage on the internet — or, at least more pointless verbiage than on my music site (www.brianlavelle.org).  That’s not to say there won’t be any musical discussion on this blog, but it will be confined more to what I might currently be listening to, what I’m enjoying and so on.  I’ve no doubt that some thoughts about my own work will creep in, somewhere, and that my usual nihilistic view on what I’ve recorded will surface.  So, if that hasn’t put you off, please read on!

Jill and I are still looking for somewhere to get married.  Today, we saw a beautiful venue in the heart of Edinburgh, the Mansfield Traquair, which was rather impressive.

It styles itself as Edinburgh’s Sistine Chapel and your eyes are certainly drawn upwards on entering the place.  We’ve still a few places to see; let’s see what happens.