Author: Mark

The Music of Trees (Live – 16/05/24)
A review of The Music of Trees album and live performance by Geoff Robb at The Actors Theatre as part of the 2024 Brighton Fringe Festival.

Introduction

“… an evening of magical storytelling and virtuoso guitar that promises to transport you out into the woods. If you love nature and enjoy beautiful acoustic guitar music then this is the show for you! Inspired by the wonder of the natural world, ‘The Music of Trees’ weaves together storytelling, woodland folklore and mythology with a suite of original compositions featuring Geoff’s signature blend of classical, jazz, Celtic and Spanish influences.” (Brighton Fringe Festival website)

I stumbled across this concert surfing the comprehensive Brighton Fringe Festival programme of events. Woodland folklore, mythology, musical tree worship, all the ingredients were there for this listener. I initially share my deep-rooted connection with nature by way of context, followed by reflections about the album and the live concert.

We all eventually return to nature

Apparently, as a six-year-old when asked what I wanted to do when I grew up, I simply replied to adults asking this question: “I want to look at nature.” Thankfully today I have achieved the goal of my six-year-old self, frequently engaging with the natural world through rambling and gardening. As woodlanddecay.com evolves, I sometimes share my reflections, though more often than not I am out in nature.

Black and white television made a huge impression on my six-year-old self. Three programmes on repeat in the summer holidays nurtured my evolving self. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was not quite as cheery as it sounds and fed my existentialist tendencies. The Pogles and their woodland adventures were real to my six-year-old self (see this post for further discussion).

The third and final programme was the black-and-white Tales of the Riverbank produced in the early sixties. These short tales began and ended with some highly evocative classical guitar music. Real-life animals such as guinea pigs and hamsters acted out stories in nature with Johnny Morris cleverly imagining their dialogues. As the title suggests these tales were riverbank-themed, but rooted in the natural world.

As a child, it appeared as if the natural world was all there was and perhaps such a naïve insight today isn’t so naïve. The Music of Trees serenades me back to innocent early years and that visceral childhood connection with the natural world. Certainly, an album imagining and celebrating the life of trees is a worthwhile endeavour, an endeavour which I am now going to explore further.

The Music of Trees – The Album

The title The Music of Trees immediately caught my imagination in the Brighton Fringe Festival programme. I was unfamiliar with the work of Geoff Robb but decided to engage with what appeared to be a beautiful project. After buying a ticket to see the live performance, I decided it would be good to have listened to the album a few times in advance of the concert. Pre-listening wasn’t a pre-requisite, but I have the luxury of time and for myself, it would enhance my concert experience.

On first listening to the album, I tried to play Spot the Tree. I had hoped that without looking at the track titles, I would be able to guess that it was the ash, the willow etc, but this proved futile. What I did learn was that I had listened to a very relaxing and beautifully performed collection of instrumental guitar music.

The album fittingly opens with birdsong and there is a parallel with how the whole album sounds. Varied melodies and moments, yet unified in being located in a natural setting. The byline for the album is “nature-inspired guitar music” which neatly captures the listener experience. These are the riffs and rhythms a yew tree evokes for Geoff Robb. Similar to listening to a bird song in a wood, our interpretations might differ from what the birds had in mind, but we are unified in sharing the joy of the musical woodland experience.

As a non-musician, I am unable to evaluate the skills of the guitar playing, but as a listener it sounds very good and my old ears have listened to a lot of music over the years. We perceive trees in different ways related to personal preferences and histories, as well as, our ever-changing moods and emotions. Similarly, album tracks speak to us in different ways evoking varied feelings and emotions.

There is a cohesive unity to the ten album tracks which works well. However, I want to convey what these ten tracks separately invoked for myself. In initially listening, what came through was a strong notion of motion and flow. We are in the realms of processes and verbs.
- The Willow – This track invokes a small babbling woodland brook, following its path through ancient woodlands.
- The Linden – This track invokes a joyful child skipping through woodland without a care in the world.
- The Elm – This track invokes an older person indulging in some laid-back reflection beneath an old tree, with a hint of melancholy in those reflections.
- The Hornbeam – This track invokes a ramble with purpose through a large wood on a sunny day, with all the variations in pace and direction a ramble entails.
- The Ash – This track invokes wild swimming in a quiet woodland lake. It starts tentatively entering the water but then builds momentum as the swimmer is seduced by the liberating feel of the water.
- The Yew – This track invokes a feeling of being deep within a dark wood reading revelations in a long-lost magical grimoire.
- The Silver Birch – This track invokes leisurely, even lazy rowing along a small river passing through a forest.
- The Scots Pine – This track invokes carefully and respectfully climbing a small summit in a large forest.
- The Cherry – This track is about walking hand in hand with somebody lovely, with little surges of joy every so often.
- The Holm Oak – This track metaphorically invokes a long and affectionate goodbye, fitting as it is the final track.
This active and purposeful listening enhanced my enjoyment. There was also an unanticipated benefit when I discovered the album sleeve notes tucked inside the CD cover. I was now able to compare and contrast Geoff Robb’s inspirations, as shared on the album sleeve notes. There didn’t have to be overlaps, but there were overlaps in how the trees through music independently spoke to us.

Yes, the willow often thrives close to water, and he intended to capture this gentle flow and the track certainly achieved this. The elm track was a lament for the loss of elm through Dutch elm disease and his guitar conveyed the sadness of loss. I have always had a bit of yew crush, intrigued by these trees being located at pagan places of worship, subsequently adopted for Christian churches. The magical qualities of the yew surface throughout the track. I learned from the sleeve notes that the leaves of the holm oak in ancient Greece were used to tell the future. I hope my hearing a long and affectionate goodbye isn’t prophetic. Then again, my core belief that we all eventually return to nature has always been both metaphorical and literal.

Intermission

One of my joys is watching the leaves of the Linden tree unfurl symbolising moving out of the cold winter months and into the warm summer months. The Linden also more commonly known as the Lime has another name, the love tree. If you look at the third image you see the heart shaped leaves. They are very delicate and thin at this temporary stage and with the winds and sun they inevitably change.

The Music of Trees – The Concert

After listening to the album and getting to know the tracks on The Music of Trees, I was curious to hear them performed live with an audience. I had been to a couple of events at the Actor’s Theatre when it was called The Marlborough Pub and Theatre, although troublingly I have no memory of who I saw/heard.

There was a logistical challenge today as the theatre was being used for multiple events with minimal time between performances. As it transpired, I was in front of the queue and first originally to purchase a ticket. I must be careful, or I will get a reputation as a tree fetishist.

On entry, there was a black backdrop with a simple raised stage and two guitars on the stage. It has always been a joy to watch musicians perform in intimate venues, you feel a bit more part of the performance. The pre-concert music was bird song, very calming and orientating. Outside Brighton on a festival evening was buzzing and inside we all needed to channel our sylvan state of mind.

This was particularly the case for Geoff Robb, after what must have been a manic set-up experience. He started with a short tale of the acorn as a metaphor for being grounded and connected with nature. This proved to be an effective portal out of busy Brighton and into the world of trees. The set started with The Linden, one of my favourite tracks. This was followed by The Willow. Intriguingly, for this track he drummed on his guitar, recorded this as a loop and then played it back as the percussion. I was reminded that there is always an added dimension to watching music performed live.

We learnt about going into the woods for inspiration and the emotions that are stirred up in the woods at night time. Also, he talked about the problematic nature of expectations. I had expected The Music of Trees concert to mirror the album. This wasn’t the case and this wasn’t problematic. There were different samples and different tracks, one seemed to be called the quest, intriguing in itself. I hear a new track The Banyan Tree for the first time with its dreamy flute accompaniment. Tonight suggests that work on Volume Two is going well.

I had hoped to hear a favourite track played live. It wasn’t the sort of concert, you shouted out requests and we were asked to keep applause until the end. However, as if by magic my favourite track The Cherry provided a fitting finale. Geoff Robb also provided a little more inspirational context beyond his sleeve notes. He suggested that his inspiration had been the sweetness of the cherry and the fragrance of the blossom. This morning as I type that sweet fragrance still lingers.

Final Reflections

There are occasions when I ramble through forests/woodland without either a map or a fixed destination in mind. It becomes more organic/emergent, rather than mechanistic/purposeful. In a similar spirit, The Music of Trees by Geoff Robb encourages indulging in an idle moment to interpret nature through music.

More purposefully, the sleeve notes suggest that the English Oak is already making overtures to be on Volume Two. I’d make a pitch for the Copper Beech which I planted on the day of my Dad’s funeral. Also, the hazels which thrive in my garden on the dry/chalky Sussex soil have magic about them.

The Music of Trees sleeve notes refer to the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic as the backdrop for some of the compositions. In terms of Volume Two, I’d make a pitch for the music of tree collectives as well as individual (isolated) trees. Tree collectives such as coppices, small woods, large pine forests and the rain forest which I recently walked through on the edge of Dartmoor.

I was fortunate enough to attend shamanic conscious courses facilitated locally by Susan Greenwood and Brian Bates. Subsequently, I read their books and was particularly captivated by a section in The Nature of Magic in which Susan Greenwood explains why we feel so secure amongst trees. Paraphrasing, we lived for millions of years in the green womb of rainforests, only very recently have humans largely left the forests. Forests and trees offer us a reconnection with our biological origins and an antidote to the human history of alienation.

I am still in agreement with the mission of my six-year-old self, but today I would add I want to look at and listen to nature.

Links

Geoff Robb

Informative website with details of forthcoming concerts, gallery, news and shop.

Tales of the Riverbank

This site gives you a flavour of what the original black-and-white Tales of the Riverbank were all about. I was interested to learn that these early programmes for children received many awards.

Reference

Greenwood, S. (2005) The Nature of Magic: An Anthropology of Consciousness. Berg, Oxford..
The Music of Trees Live 16 05 2024
May 17, 2024
Manos and Attacco Decente: Brighton’s Musical Legacy
Reminiscing about a couple of wonderful 1980s/1990s Brighton bands who merited a far larger audience.
Introduction

Arriving in Brighton in October 1987, I already had a passion for watching live bands. I fondly remember watching Manos and Attacco Decente performing live. Over the decades I have enjoyed watching many bands at Brighton venues, and still have a few tickets as mementoes.

If I could time travel, I would go back to the 1980s/1990s to watch Attacco Decente and Manos performing live at the Southover Community Centre and Komedia Brighton respectively. In the absence of an effective time machine, I am going to reminisce.

By way of introduction, political/social context is crucial to understanding the 1980s. Magaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister in 1979 and continued to rule over us throughout the 1980s. During what was a challenging decade the Falklands war was initiated and the coal miner’s strike had been provoked. Some might remember it as a decade of transformation/renewal, but for me, it appeared to be a decade of suffering and inequality. The ideological rallying slogan of the politicians of the day was that there is no such thing as society. And sadly, the government went about this agenda with ruthless zeal. Party political over, it is back to the music of Attacco Decente and their big themes of love, life and politics.

Introducing Attacco Decente

How did I discover this unusual band? There was neither internet nor social media, so I guess it was the local nature of the band. If I had still been living in Sheffield, I wouldn’t have come across this band, everything wasn’t as digitally connected as it is today.

It wasn’t the name which attracted me, even my computer spell checker wanted to change the name of this band. That said, I love everything else about them – the musicianship, the recordings, the lyrics and the live shows. Listening to them as I type, their sound stands up well to the passage of time. One of their CDs carries the slogan Play it Loud! However, there is also subtlety here, blending very percussive music with more reflective music.

The Will of One CD sleeve provides an introduction to the early membership of band and their unique collection of unusual instruments:

Mark Allen – Vocals, Flamenco Guitar, Attacco Zitherharp, Tiple, Appalachian Dulcimer, 12 String Guitar, Penny Whistle.

Gray Barlow – Vocals, Flamenco Guitar, Acoustic Bass, 12 String Guitar, Appalachian Dulcimer.

Geoff Smith – Lead Vocals, Hammer Dulcimer and Tongue Drums.

In 1979, the quintessential rock music photograph was Joy Division, looking cold, lost and moody on Epping Walk Bridge in a very black-and-white Manchester. I concede my main reason for choosing to study in Sheffield was the grey industrial music landscape of that era. Whereas, on the south coast on the back sleeve of The Baby Within Us Marches On album, the band are seen cheerfully smiling against a sunny Brighton backdrop.

So unpretentious for a 1980s rock band, NME journalists would have strongly disapproved of these overt signs of cheerfulness. At the time I thought they were being ironic. Today, I think they were just being themselves; such authenticity was unusual and out of sync with the angst of the 1980s. On my desk today, I have the company of most of their CDs:

Album – The Baby Within Us Marches On (1988),

Album – Crystal Night (1994) (Smith and Allen)

Single – I don’t care how long it takes (1988),

Single – The will of one (1988)

I did own a vinyl version of the mini album – U.K.A. United Kingdom Of America (1986), but lost it long ago in a home move. Discogs helpfully provides details of the recorded output for this band (see link).

The Discogs profile taken from the Wikipedia page is a succinct, yet illuminating “group from Brighton, England. They were notable for using unusual acoustic instruments.” This is my attempt to go beyond the limited “notable for using unusual acoustic instruments” epitaph.

The Rose Grower is the penultimate track on The Baby Within Us Marches On. On the surface, an innocuous title, with a pleasant melody, which builds and builds. Yet, the lyrics sound closer to a Guardian editorial with references to Special Branch, MI5, the Sizewell Nuclear Reactor and the Belgrano. The band offer an explanation for why Hilda Murrell a rose grower as well as an environmentalist was murdered, which certainly challenges the official version of events.

Attacco Decente reviews on the internet are few and far between. However, the Revival Records review (see link) of The Baby Within Us Marches On, is informative. As the reviewer writes, “I would be hard pushed to pigeonhole Attacco Decente in any one genre, but maybe that’s a good thing.” The reviewer offers many comparisons including; the Proclaimers, XTC, Abba, Gene, Simon and Garfunkel and The Waterboys, but the frustration of the reviewer is tangible. I agree with the comparisons and I agree with the challenge of classifying this band. However, there was a distinct/unique dulcimer sound unifying the whole album. I believe to this day I would know an Attacco Decente track if I heard it for the first time. In an age when everything is standardized, similar to an offering in an American-inspired burger bar, their uniqueness is to be applauded.

The Crystal Night album was mellower and less political, perhaps reflecting the shift in the political landscape. Now, political emotions make space for the expression of more personal emotions. Beneath beautiful melodies and wonderful musicianship dark themes still lurk, such as within the title track Crystal Night. Themes of romance are apparent on this album though a different kind of romance to the tv reality show romance of today. For example, a track called Chastity explores the theme of being locked in chastity. Whatever, the musical merits this isn’t a chart bound sound as the radio DJs used to say. More hopeful than being in chastity, When I’m in You (and You’re in Me) is a celebration of union both metaphorical and literal.

I was fortunate to watch this band live six or seven times. On one occasion we were in the room above the Prince Albert. It was a live rehearsal with a small audience to test out a forthcoming album. At the beginning of the set, they asked if there was anyone who did not know anyone. I knew no one, yet I was too shy to speak up. This was my problem, but their question spoke volumes about their human-centred values. I also think I saw them at the Brighthelm Centre. However, the concerts I remember the best took place at the Hanover Community Centre.

Hanover, a very liberal part of liberal Brighton was the right location for this band. The centre had an intimacy which worked well with the dulcimer-driven percussion. Acoustics were good and you felt physically connected to their percussive rhythms. Also, it was close enough, that I was able to walk home after the concert, humming merrily to myself. The venue was set up cabaret style and for a couple of hours, you were transported to another more humane world.

Geoff Smith and Mark Allen performed the Crystal Night album together, but after that, they appeared to go their separate ways. Geoff Smith focussed on his passion for the dulcimer which is celebrated on his site (see link). Post Attacco Decente, I only saw him perform once. He provided a live dulcimer film score for a screening of the black and white film Haxan: Witchcraft through the ages. It took place at the Duke of York cinema in Brighton. I found it to be simultaneously unusual and enjoyable, offering a very Brighton evening. Though, I am not so sure what the friends I took along made of it.

Manos – La luz del sol

Post Attacco Decente, subsequently I only saw Mark Allen perform once as part of a four-piece band called Manos. They were playing at the Komedia Brighton, the ceiling was low with tables and chairs set out once again cabaret style. My memories are distant, but I seem to remember a wonderfully mellow evening. I was struck by the shift from the very male percussive sound of Attacco Decente, towards a softer more ethereal sound. Guitars and percussion conjured up the light and warmth of the sun, a happy relief from the political and economic turmoil of the UK in the 1980s, politics had moved on (or so I thought at the time).

Martin Denny refined his craft by performing live in Hawaiian tiki bars and hotel lounges. I could imagine Manos doing a hotel lounge bar residency. There are parallels with Martin Denny, but Manos music was gentler, more rounded and less quirky. Labelling their music background music sounds critical, but it is a strength. Whereas Attacco Decente appeared to want to lead your thinking, Manos appeared to want to accompany your thinking.

Over the decades I have often revisited their only album when in need of a mellow state of mind. The album title Warm was well chosen, this music evokes warmth, very different to the hot energy of Attacco Decente. The album was released in 1999 on the Music of the Continents Records (MOTCCD001). Once again, the CD sleeve introduces the musicians and their instruments giving you a flavour of the sound of Manos.

Mark Allen – Nylon and Steel Guitars, Vocals, Zither, Percussion

Per Villez – Nylon and Electric Guitars, Guitar Synthesizer, Melodica, Sampler, Percussion

Kate Smith – Surdo, Claves, Shakers, Caxixi

Pat Power – Pandeiro, Snare, Timbau, Bongos, Ago Go, Afuche Cabasa, Luna, Gourds

Another eclectic mix of “unusual” instruments, although please note that the dulcimers have left the building. Tracks on Warm fit together extremely well, transporting you to a warmer more relaxed climate, sometimes Spain at other times a South American beach.

Thought-provoking agit-pop lyrics of Attacco Decente, are now replaced with the voice as an instrument. This works particularly well on one of my favourite tracks, the opening track What I Want to Say. There are no lyrics on this track or the other tracks. So conceptually we will never know what they wanted to say or perhaps more likely if they wanted to say anything. In a similar spirit, Always There again effectively features the voice as an instrument. I cannot help tripping on the sunshine these floaty and ethereal melodies evoke.

Sampling as a still fairly new technology in 1999 was put to good use on The Hands of Xamora. You hear vocal sounds, similar to the voices of ancestors you might hear if you were fully participating in a shamanic ritual. The art of this album though is that this track doesn’t sound out of place. It seems to fit into the dreamscape they creatively yet fleetingly conjured up.

Talking of dreams there is a track called Boat Dreams. I love the River Man by Nick Drake partially because his playing captures the rhythm of the river. Boat Dreams, flows but what comes through even stronger is that this mythical boat has oars as represented by the rhythm of the melody. Finally, on Suntan 60 Kate and Pat are credited with playing “toys”. I think they made a humorous thing of playing these toys as instruments when they played live at the Komedia Brighton. What I take from this is that these were serious musicians, but they didn’t take themselves too seriously.

The album and the concert convinced me that Manos would be embraced by others and for a vague yet foreseeable future. I eagerly looked out for the next instalment, but it wasn’t easy to search in a pre-digital era. Today, in a digital era where everything and I mean everything is digitally captured, I find no trace that Manos ever existed, not even on the comprehensive Discogs platform. So, this post leaves at least a digital trace, so that big American IT company web bots can samba, on their next late-night crawl all over this site.

The unifying belief at Woodlanddecay is that we all return to nature, with memories and folklore existing beyond physical demise. Perhaps vague and dreamy half-memories of yesterday are more meaningful than the sometimes soulless digitally enabled smartphone snaps and recordings of today. The joy of the la luz del sol was the warmth of the music and the melodies within that particular moment.

NB – I have attempted here to retrieve, archive and publish my fading memories from decades ago. I am willing to update this post, please use the Contact page.

I have attempted to include the Manos – Warm album on the Discogs site, though this was learning by doing and I wasn’t certain what I was doing.

Links

I found these links informative writing this post and they may be informative if you want to learn more.

Discogs

As always Discogs is a useful resource for information about Attacco Decente recordings. Unfortunately, there is no entry for Manos, which will have to be rectified.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/784678-Attacco-Decente

Revival Records

Accessing the internet in search of a fellow traveller I found this fascinating album review (April 30, 2022) on the Revival Records site. The site and The Baby Within us Marches on review is well worth a look. They used to sing I don’t care how long it takes, perhaps their time has come.

Attacco Decente – The Baby Within Us Marches On

Geoff Smith

The Dulcimer site is comprehensive and informative, majoring on Geoff Smith work post Attacco Decente. However, for anyone who wants to listen to Attacco Decente for themselves this special offer may be of interest.

https://www.dulcimer.co.uk/store/product/attacco-decente-recordings-special-offer-3-cd-package

Vienesewaltz.net

Richard Rees-Jones was present at those memorable Attacco Decente concerts and effectively captures the political context informing this band in his fascinating review of The Baby within us Marches on.

https://viennesewaltz.net/2007/09/03/attacco/
Manos and Attacco Decente: Brighton’s Musical Legacy
May 6, 2024
Bill Drummond as The Life Model
The strange but true account of imagining and writing up the 33rd year (1986/1987) of Bill Drummond’s life, for his The Life Model memoir.
Update 27/02/26

The Life Model project has creatively evolved with the passage of time. In parallel, the penkilnburn.com site has evolved. At the time of writing the site is themed as a Foot Note. Under the Cata Logg heading you should find The Life Model section. This section offers an interesting overview of the chronological evolution of thinking around the project.

The seventy years contained within The Life Model will be aired within Foot Note over seventy consecutive days between the 19th of February and the 28th of April. The heading Index should take you to a listing of these days. But there is a helpful cautionary note that nothing is fixed in the Penkiln Burn Universe, let alone stable.

Introduction

I was fortunate enough to be one of 168 separate contributors to The Life Model, which purports to be a Bill Drummond memoir at 70. In subversively imagining The Life Model we wrote independently, yet with a common intent. Contributions cover, both what might have been consciously going on (over), and unconsciously going on (under). In some chapters, “a troubled dream” is included, because we all have the occasional troubled dream.

The concept of transience is embraced through The Life Model project. In the spirit of transience, The Life Model is accessible annually on a continuous 71-day cycle. Intriguingly, each day you can either read the written word or listen to the spoken word or both, but only for that day (no bingeing).

It was reassuring to find my contribution acknowledged because at times it felt closer to a dream or a postmodern prank, rather than something tangible. More seriously, it is heart warming to witness how this project caught the imaginations of people from very different places and probably very different backgrounds.

Also, I am struck by the huge amount of time and energy that must have gone into conceptualizing, curating and realizing The Life Model.

It’s 2022 – The year everything was creatively cut up

These are my reflections on the process of contributing to The Life Model. The big caveat is that my reflections today are subject to the same transience characterising the bigger project (words in this post may have to change at some point).

“I guess for me it has always been about the process and not the produce.”

(Bill Drummond, 28th of December 2022)

Twitter was still fairly functional in the autumn of 2022. By happy accident rather than clever design on October 12^th, 2022, I saw a tweet inviting contributions, it simply read:

With a life as eventful and extraordinary as Bill Drummond’s, what could be more interesting than reading the memoirs of The Man himself? Well, writing them yourself of course!

The penkilnburn.com post to which I responded, no longer exists, but began with a gentle tirade against the music industry for exploring and exploiting its past, rather than investing in its future. There was an acknowledgement of the futility of the memoirs of musicians and artists. How, they see their history from their perspective. A plea to explore transitions such as turning 70, rather than wallowing in nostalgia and then came the offer.

And I would sell each of those Seventy Years of my past to 70 separate individuals who wanted to buy them. And the price for one year of my past would be One Thousand Words.

Authors could be as adventurous as they wanted in writing the memoir for their particular year, focusing on one event real or imagined, or just the day-to-day drudgery. One thousand words would be written by seventy different and separate individuals. We were no longer in the realms of ‘his story’, more ‘our stories’ of his story. As Thunderbirds puppets might have said – anything can happen in the next 1000 words!

There was a twist, you couldn’t pick one year from seventy. Authors would be randomly selected and years randomly allocated. This creative twist should not be underestimated, I would struggle to write 1000 words about my life at the age of five and certainly would have struggled writing up the fifth year of Bill Drummond. Then again there was an emphasis on creativity, so I suspect it would have been fun.

I still have the coat rack label from my primary school (see below). When I was five this was an essential part of my identity, as well as, more importantly where I would find my coat. My label suggested a little person on the verge of steaming through life.

We knew that this would be Bill Drummond’s memoir, but that each of the contributors would be acknowledged. He acknowledged the unknown element of how this project might be perceived and what might happen post-publication, but this just added to the mischief. All we had to do was email Bill Drummond, a week later, names would be drawn out of a hat.

I spent my working life writing for academic publications. Good writing distinguished from bad writing through peer review with objective selection apparently deciding the work which merited publication. However, my lived experience was an academic publication lottery informed by thinly disguised subjective choices. So, I warmed to the transparency of the Bill Drummond random hat selection methodology and mixing metaphors I was happy to throw my hat into his ring. There were over two hundred emails and mine was one of the randomly chosen “over” emails.

What was beautiful though was that nobody was rejected as there were related creative writing opportunities for everybody (under, over and dreams). If I contrast this with academic writing for publication, typically nine out of ten journal paper submissions are rejected (sorry that will be the last reference to academia, but yes, I am still bitter).

The following is a verbatim extract from an email I received from Bill Drummond on the 21^st of October 2022.

Your name has now been drawn from the hat. You were one of the first 70 names to be drawn from the hat. Your year is from the 29th of April 1986 to the 28th of April 1987 when I was 33 years old. I look forward to receiving your one thousand words of my memoir, by the 1st of January 2023. Your one thousand words of my memoir must be written in the first person as if you were me writing it. And when I have received your 1,000 words, I will return a “certificate” stating that you are now the rightful owner of that year in my life.

I was very pleased with my random allocation for the year 1986/1987. As it transpired, it was a threshold year for Bill Drummond. It was also a threshold year for the music industry and even for myself. As it happens 1987 was the year that I landed and began working and living in Brighton, but before I met Moai.

It’s 1986 – Imagine there’s no internet, it’s easy if you try …

Corporate social communications we take for granted today did not exist in 1986, no social media, no email, and no internet. When we wanted information about bands, we read music newspapers (such as NME, Sounds and Melody Maker), rather than effortlessly searching the internet.

Social media was non-existent, not even a little sperm swimming about in the warm sleazy vagina of Silicon Valley.

Record sleeves were an important source of information as well as fanzines and flyers distributed at concerts.   If you were particularly into a band you embarked upon a kind of decoupage assembling and reassembling the information you could acquire.

In my teens and twenties, I remember writing to bands and invariably they would reply. It was about information, but also about connection, in many ways, it was a precursor to the commodified information and connection of social media today. In the 1980s, I wrote to the KLF and was delighted to receive an early draft of The White Room and further information (see image below).

Another of the bands I wrote to was Throbbing Gristle (TG) and I received letters back from Cosi and from G.P.O, it was exhilarating (HERE). TG had name-checked The Velvet Underground. As a good fan, I went out and bought Live in 1969. At the time I couldn’t understand the TG connection, although I learnt that they were a favoured band of musicians. For myself, I simply loved the way the Velvet Underground played their electric guitars sitting down.

It’s 2022 – What can we see through the 1986/1987 portal?

I corresponded with the KLF/Bill Drummond almost forty years earlier. Now, I had been randomly selected and randomly allocated to go back to that very era. William Burroughs believed that through cut-ups the truth leaks out. I certainly felt like a Space Cadet travelling through time to write up Bill Drummond’s 33^rd year. I wanted to embrace and perhaps relive the context of that time and that space. My background reading suggested that Bill Drummond definitely wasn’t a Velvet Underground fan and certainly, he had some ‘issues’ with Andy Warhol. So potential for some creative discord there.

G.P.O on United by Throbbing Gristle sang ‘You become me, and I become you’. I had to go back to my 1986/1987 self. Back to the music that was enthusing and informing me. I would have to catch a wave and surf the creative emotions of that era, if I was to become Bill Drummond. Whereas for Bill Drummond and Lou Reed, Elvis had provided a background soundtrack for their evolving musical passions. For myself, the Velvet Underground was the mood music playing in my 1986/1987 head.

Velvet Underground songs enabled a creative portal between today and yesterday to open up. I wrote up the 33^rd– year chapter of Bill Drummond’s life using lyrics and their associated stories from Velvet Underground songs. The opening paragraph of the chapter hopefully illustrates my emotions.

Every time that Jennie put on a radio nothing was going down at all. But, then on one fine morning, Jennie tunes into a New York radio station. She didn’t believe what she heard at all. She is shaking to that fine, fine music, her life saved by rock ‘n’ roll.   Jennie was a five-year-old Lou Reed hearing Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ on his radio.

I am not a musician, but Lou Reed’s wonderful observations on life helped me to channel a musician’s muse. I love the notion of hypnagogic pop triggering cultural memories of the past. I hoped that Velvet Underground lyrics, as well as, guiding me might trigger memories in a reader. I was mindful of copyright and although the opening lines should be recognisable to a knowing reader, they were slightly altered because of my lack of courage. Although, perversely given this is going to be Bill Drummond’s memoir and he took a stance against copyright, I think we are going to be alright.

It’s 2022 – Zenarchy in the UK (or at least in the Brighton suburb of Saltdean)!

I chose to take my time writing and rewriting the chapter. I enjoyed the creative playfulness of the chapter writing process. I found it therapeutic to reminisce and reflect. Surprisingly, writing the biography of somebody else helped me to make some sense of my evolving biography and my transience.

I had no fear when I emailed my 1000 words to Bill Drummond, after all, they became his 1000 words. In replying, he rightly sidestepped any evaluation of what I had written. I did welcome the warmth and engagement of his reply. Partially, it was enjoyable to go back to the 1980s remembering when I used to write to musicians.   It was also about connection and I shared a photograph of my Saltdean Seaside Moai (HERE).

An Easter Island Moai figure has resided in my garden for many years. Early one Saturday, on a magical May morning Moai and I went down to the seafront to look at the sea view over the English Channel. Moai, always playful, posed in various places along the seafront and I shared this imagery with Bill Drummond. He was reminded (see information sheet above) about writing (or not writing) ‘Zenarchy: A Case History’ and hopefully he enjoyed the Zenarchy notion of Easter Island by the South Coast. I was never going to blow anything or anyone up, but perhaps my life had been about dabbling in a little Zenarchy, certainly that is something to meditate on.

It’s 2023 – What time is love?

I am at an age/stage in my life with the luxury of doing activities for their intrinsic satisfaction, rather than for the extrinsic rewards which dictated my earlier life. The Conservative Party like to call people like me, ‘economically inactive’ and I am happy with such disparagement.

It was still a joy to receive a very extrinsic reward through the post in the form of a beautifully crafted Deed of Ownership for the 33^rd year of Bill Drummond’s life. I was always uneasy with that cliché in organizations ‘Can I borrow Mark’ and there is a similar unease with any notion of owning any aspect even conceptual of somebody else.

That said, it is a wonderful unique artefact which I have framed and hung on the wall in my hall. It has given me and those that I have shared it with much joy.

It’s 15th May 2024

I have just listened to Bill Drummond reading my “above” account of the thirty third year of his life, wow! What a wonderful postmodern moment, I haven’t a clue about the reality of this year of his life and I am very happy with that.

The 33rd year audio file is best listened to on penkilnburn.com, but as Bill Drummond acknowledges the website is “fading fast…Crumbling…Falling through the cracks in this World Wide Web.” Woodlanddecay.com is on a similar trajectory, the clue is in the site title, but in the meantime…

For posterity, I made a crude copy of the 33rd year audio file by placing my phone/recorder next to a speaker. This act reminded me of placing a cassette recorder next to a radio to record music in the early 1970s. So, so wrong, though accessible below, now with an inevitable ghostly echo added.

As well as my “over” account of this year, Tracey Moberly offers her “under” account of this year. This account is read by Tam Dean Burn and offers a fascinating account of what might have been going on beneath the surface during this year. In places, it seems far closer to reality than my creative imaginings. Though I do not remember the attempted murders of Ian McCullough and Julian Cope, then again I wasn’t there.

Postcript

At the time of writing there is an overview on penkilnburn.com of how thinking evolved on The Life Model. Originally a physical book was envisaged, but The Life Model was finally realised as spoken novel. There is an honest acknowledgement on the site that:

“In reality, some of those that had taken those risks in writing those words felt cheated that there was no physical book to put on their shelf and smell the pages of or even sign their copy of and give copies to friends and family as gifts.”

That has not been my experience as a contributor. A physical book would have been nice, but I have enjoyed the way this creative project has evolved. I am grateful to have been involved in this project. I enjoyed time travelling back to when I used to write to bands such as the KLF and TG. They would write back to me, rather than somebody in their social media department liking one of my posts, everything commodified. I enjoyed reflecting on a year of somebody else’s life. I never imagined that they would read my reflections back to me. The whole postmodernist subversion of the biography creation process has been fun.

And finally, in the Deed of Ownership for the thirty third year I have a unique piece of art. It hangs alongside Gee Vaucher’s Liberty, a Paul Cannell signed lithograph of the Screamadelica cover and a Jimmy Cauty signed lithograph America Shut Up! My foot note would be something along the lines of despite the up and downs it has been an enjoyable trip.

Link

This is the place where all roads meet:

http://www.penkilnburn.com/home/
May 1, 2024
The Rock Walk – Wakehurst Place

Walk on the edge of a rocky outcrop with ancient yew tree roots for company letting the Rock Walk take you to another time and place.

Updated June 22, 2025

At the end of this post, I have included coverage of the Loder Valley Nature Reserve, nested within Wakehurst Place, once again open to the public.

Introduction

I regularly find myself drawn to the Rock Walk at Wakehurst Place. In this post, I want to convey its magic through words and images. I have a suspicion that most paying visitors do not reach the Rock Walk. It is far away from the main attractions and amenities which adds to the otherworldly charm. The Rock Walk stretches for about half a mile with the walk to the Rock Walk longer than the walk itself. I tend to approach it via Westwood Lake which makes for a breathtaking route. The Rock Walk is signposted on maps and with signage. However, there is a path above the outcrop at times which could mean you walk parallel to the outcrop photographs featured here, which would be a pity.

Yew tree roots appear to flow over the landscape

The Kew.org website succinctly captures the special essence of this walk.

The Rock Walk is a magnificent hiking experience, full of looming rock outcrops, gnarled yew tree roots and shafts of light and deep shade. Tracing the side of Bloomers Valley, this breath-taking part of the High Weald dates back 140 million years.

This quotation neatly captures the time-travelling element of the walk. Also, the ‘shafts of light and deep shade’ is very appropriate. The light changes with the different seasons and the colouring of the rock and the vegetation changes dramatically with the seasons. My last visit when I took the photographs featured here was Friday 8^th December 2023. My expectations were not high given what a damp winter that we have had. However, the greens were particularly vivid and the dampness seemed to enhance the spectacle, though I am biased. My one deviation from the official descriptor would be ‘hiking experience’. It is a relatively short walk, though it packs a lot of charm into a short distance.

Weathered Sandstone (art in nature)

Another Perspective

My camera tends to be my companion on walks, but I felt it would be good to compare my impressions with somebody else. After a short search, I found the most popular and informative post was on the Wild About Here site. The are many excellent photographs of the Rock Walk and information about the geography and origins of the Rock Walk. Kriss MacDonald (the photographer/author) includes Luce and Theo in many of her photographs, reminding me that part of the magic of this walk is indulging my inner child. There are parts of the walk which conjure up notions of being on the edge of a mythical world. Think of the Peter Jackson film sets for his Tolkien adaptations.

The Yew is a magical tree frequently celebrated in folklore. We are fortunate to have one of the finest yew forests in Europe not too far away at Kingley Vale, a wonderfully evocative forest. However, the Rock Walk offers a window into the old and twisty roots of the yew, which I do not get elsewhere. It was evident that Luce and Theo were transported to other worlds as they explored the Rock Walk. However, even for this older walker the Rock Walk takes me to imagined places other walks never reach.

Yew tree roots evoke a sleeping coiled python

Loder Valley Nature Reserve

A nature reserve hidden away in a corner of Wakehurst Place recently caught my eye. The entrance is close to Westwood Lake (pictured below). You need a four-digit code from the Visitor Centre to gain access, which only adds to the charm and mystery of this nature reserve.

The nature reserve closed in 2022, enabling ash dieback to be addressed. Only recently reopened, I visited for the first time on June 20^th, 2025. A locked garden featured in one of my favourite childhood books, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

My four-digit code unlocks the gate. I am enthusiastic yet uncertain about what to expect. The map shows that the main pathway runs parallel to the lake (probably a continuation of Westwood Lake). There was a bridge over the lake leading to a shorter pathway on the other side. I didn’t have time to explore this pathway, but I did follow the main pathway from start to finish and back again (pictured below).

The pathway took the form of a rough track which small conservation vehicles could use for access. The nature reserve had inevitably benefited from being closed to visitors, and I felt privileged to share this space. Plenty of joyful bird song, as well as the sound of unseen animal life at ground level moving around.

I did see a young deer, red in colour, a couple of times. Understandably, it didn’t want to pose for a photograph. I sensed the return of visitors was a learning curve for wildlife inhabitants. I only saw two people in the hour and a half I spent roaming the nature reserve. I am not sure if they registered me as they sat in the Kingfisher Hide looking out over the lake. I decided to leave them in peace, but I did check out the Hobby Hide and the Tern Hide. The photograph below shows the view looking out from the Tern Hide. Sat inside this hide, eating lunch, the deer walked by on the shoreline.

My visit was exhilarating, and I hope to return. Inevitably, this reserve will change with the seasons and with old growth dying away, feeding new growth. A transitional exemplar of what woodlanddecay.com is all about. My only regret was not having time to check out the Rock Walk, but the bus back to Brighton only goes every two hours.
The Rock Walk – Wakehurst Place

December 15, 2023