The Sunday Reflection #93 - Waking up with a feeling of deep trepidation and doom

 What is going on? I woke up with a sense of deep trepidation. A feeling that everything is about to go terribly wrong and that there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop any of it. I was in a state of total panic. There was no rational reason, but I am a deeply superstitious person and I believe that we do get inclings of bad things in the pipeline. 

I got to thinking about my Dad. In our last proper conversation he told me about the night his bomber was shot down. In the morning, his reaar gunner and best mate Spud Murphy told him he'd had a terrible nightmare that they'd been shot down bombing the oilfields in Ploesti, Romania. He told Dad that he was in the turrets dying in flames with machine gun bullets in his chest. The crew were on their last mission and Dad wanted to get home. Spud begged Dad to skip the op if Ploesti was announced as the target. Dad told him that he couldn't, just because someone had a nightmare. When the target was announced, Spud turned white and was terrified. Dad told him that it would be fine and they'd all be going home tomorrow. 

As they approached the target, a bizarre thing happened. In the co-pilot, another pilot from his squadron, Jack Scheider, who had been shot down the previous week appeared. He said to Dad "Laurie, it's a killer the way these Wimpeys go down". Before he could react or process the information, a German night fighter attacked, shooting out an engine and the rear turret. Dad did the standard evasion manouvre, but the fighter attacked again. The crew bailed out. apart from Spud. Dad just got out in time. He told me that as he was bailing out, he said a prayer to the Virgin Mary, asking to be spared and to be given his three score and ten. When Dad was recounting this, he said he was now worried. He was 69, in his three score and tenth year. The deal was about to expire. Rather like Dad told Spud, I told him not to be silly. 

I then said to Dad "That must've been the worst day of your life". He looked at me and welled up slightly. He said "Oh no, when your Mum was diagnosed with cancer and the Doctor told me she would be dead within three years and we had to make arrangements, that was worse". I was surprised. Dad explained "When you are a bomber pilot in a war, you are prepared and trained for such things. You become hardened as you see mates in other crews die, when you are shot down, you are too busy trying to survive to worry too much. When Mum was ill, I was totally unprepared and had no control. There was nothing I could do". I was shocked to silence. Dad then said "I was lucky though, I spoke to Fr Traynor (and elderly catholic priest and Dad's best friend). He told me that when there is no hope, you always have prayer. Pray for Gods mercy and the strength to do the right thing whatever". 

Dad then said "Never forget that, when all seems lost. Prayer will always get you through". At the time I was an atheist. I didn't want to insult Dad and tell him it was all mumbo jumbo. What struck me and made me re-examine my views on such things, was the extraordinary resilience and strength my Dad had. He never really seemed to be phased by anything. I always had the feeling that whatever happened, he'd find us a way through. Whatever I may think of his faith and sometimes strange religious ways, it worked for him in a way that was undeniable. What was odd was that he combined aspects of Roman Catholicism with superstitions of the local aboriginal population where he was born in the outback of Australia. He believed he could make weather. He would turn off the radio if "The Sun aint gonna shine anymore" came on. He believed that you could kill people just by wishing them dead, but if you did, your soul would be bound to them and you'd likely end up in hell. He believed that any deal made with God was unbreakable, but you had to be careful, as he found out with his 'three score and ten' deal. He didn't return to Australia after the war until 1976, as a gypsy had read his fortune before he left and told him that if he left, he'd never returned. My mother told me that on the flight to Australia in 1976, he told her that the plane would crash and it was her fault for not trusting the Gypsy curse. Mum dismissed it.

Which brings me back to this morning. I was lying there in an abject sense of panic. I thought of Dad and that conversation and took his advice. I said a prayer. The panic eased and I felt more able to face the day. Bad things may happen. Bad things always happen. We face them and we do what we can to get through them. One of the things my Dad cautioned me with was "Whatever happens, stay calm and composed and make rational decisions. You can't stop bad times, but you can get through them and good times will come again". 

I feel a lot better now. Have a wonderful Sunday. I hope nothing bad happens to you, me or anyone we love today. Here is a little piece of punk rock, written in my bedroom, with my then bandmate Pete Conway, as we drove my poor old Dad mad learning guitar. This was pretty much a diatribe against his views on everything, as I was a disaffected teenager. I have come to the conclusion that it was me who was probably WRONG!

Wrong!

 You make plans. Life gets in the way. I am a great believer that the big bloke up in the sky with the white beard has a plan and you have to listen. Sometimes, things come together, but you have to throw your plans out of the window and start again! We've been previewing the new album by The False Dots all week. Today is the one day to go mark. The song we were reviewing is called Wrong. But there is something I had to say that is more important than our album, but is dead on theme with the song today.

Let me start by introducing you to Woofus. This is Woofus in the studio reception this morning. He is a rather large 6 year old Staffie. His owners dumped him. He has a microchip. The owners were contacted by the police, who said they were not interested.  The police were going to put him down, but despite his size and breed, he is a softy. They couldn't. They contacted my studio manager Darren's friend Suzie who works at an animal rescue centre, to see if they could help. Suzie fell in love. You may know Suzie if you watch animal documentaries. She is an expert snake handler and had her own series. She took one look at the dog, who was calle Rufus, renamed him Woofus, and took him on. 

He is lovely. I got slobbered and kissed on arrival, by Woofus I hasten to add. Suzie was just dropping off a birthday present for Darren, but meeting Woofus was a real treat for me. I love dogs. I have two that are rescue dogs. I have strong views on the subject. 

I personally would send people to prison who mistreat or dump dogs. I think dog welfare is something that should be taken seriously. I must add that it is not only dogs, this extends to rabbits, cats, pets and farm animals. In a civilised soceity none should be treated badly. I would like to see licences re-ntroduced for pet ownership. Anyone who genuinely loves animals would not object. I'd also have  DNA registry, paid for by the licence, that means dumping animals is not an option. 

What happen to Woofus, my dogs and countless other animals in the UK is wrong. I had a canvas for the track sorted, but I've regenerated it featuring Woofus, to make the point. Thank you big guy up in the sky for bring this all together so nicely. In the unlikely event that I ever make any money from the song, I'll donate a goodly chunk of my share to our local dog rescue centres. Here is Woofus joining The False Dots on guitar at The Horn music venue in St Albans. Some people are sniffy about AI generated videos, but for me, it means we can do this. And as for the song Wrong, it was the first song ever played by the False Dots at our first rehearsal in 1979. A real blast of Punk Anger. It never occurred to me before but in many ways, it sums up bad dog owners. 

Wrong

Do you consider yourself a thinking person?
Or an object for others to manipulate
Nobody's immortal
Nobody's irreplaceable
You're Wrong
You're Wrong
You're Wrong
You're Wrong!

To sum up

If you have a brain, take responsibility for your actions. Don't blame everyone else. Respect your responsibilities. Don't go to your grave being a prick. Rant over.

We have made Woofus an honoury member of the band!

Courtesy 2000AD

Rock and Roll Stories #25 - A manifesto for Rock and Roll? You're Wrong!

In the past couple of weeks, I've been to a couple of gigs that made me cast my mind back to the earliest days of The False Dots. The first of these gigs was the bands 46th Birthday party bash at the Dublin Castle and the second was the Band Up 1st birthday bash, at the Mean Fiddler. At the Dots Birthday bash, we played a song called Wrong! which was one of the first songs we wrote, before we even had a band. It was the first song we ever played at our first ever rehearsal. We had never played it live before. It was one of many songs we junked as we improved to the point that we felt we were ready to gig. I co wrote it with Pete Conway. With most songs, one of us would write the man body of lyrics and the other would tear it apart and then we'd go through line by line until we were happy. Wrong was different. We decided that before we started the band, we should write a band manifesto. The idea was rather pompous. We'd have a manifesto and anyone who joined the band or followed us would have to sign up to it. It was inspired by the political stance of the early Clash music and later by Anarcho pop band Crass.

And what what about the other event? Band Up is an alliance of Independent bands. Members of around 100 bands attended. I went with our drummer Graham Ramsey and our combined age seemed greater than everyone else put together. We are in our 60's, they were all young and upcoming musicians full of hope. We chatted to quite a few of the bands. I was really struck by the way bands have changed since Pete and I first got the Dots together. For us, it was more about being a band thabn music. It seems almost inexplicable to todays younger musicians. We wrote our manifesto, chose a band name and designed a logo before we learned to play or had any songs. We were absolute rubbish musicians, but brimming with an absolute conviction that, with our punk rock ethos, we were right about everything and all of the 'boring old fart' bands who had shaped the music industry were going to be blown away in a tidal wave of punk energy. We were sixteen years old and we were deeply suspicious of anyone over 26 and dismissive of any bands from the hippy and rock and roll era. The only bands we listened to, who preceded 1976 were The Velvet Underground, MC5, T Rex, Bowie and anything Reggae or Ska (who we gave a free pass to). Had Band Up been formed in 1978 rather than 2024, I doubt Graham and I would have been welcome. I jumped up and jammed with a few other younger musicians. I doubt any of us would have been seen dead on stage with such old farts as we are now,  when we started. Of course, within a couple of years, as we learned to play, widened our tastes and realised what it took to be in a band, such foolish adolescent snobbery had passed. When Hank Marvin's son Paul joined the band, I was thrilled Hank jammed with us in the studio and offered tips on guitar playing, even gifting me the opening riff of Not all She Seems. He seemed incredibly ancient in 1978 when Paul was in the band. Hank was 37 at the time! Pete was more hardline than me about punk ideals. He was less than thrilled that Hank jammed with us and was actually quite rude to him. As we were in Hanks private studio, I was upset with his boorish attitude. I believe that if you are being given hospitality, then you should be gracious. Pete thought Hank was part of a corrupt music establishment, that needed to be torn down. 

I would imagine that if Hank Marvin turned up for a jam at Band Up, there would be universal delight. Todays generation of musicians are far more open and receptive than us '77 punks. It got me thinking about the punk era. Pete Conway was totally committed at the time to hardcore punk values. To him, music and the band was just a vehicle for social change. It was all about giving us a platform to challenge the establishment. I've not met a musician for decades who has said such a thing. But for the False Dots, it was absolutely central to what we were doing in 1979. For Pete, sorting the manifesto out was far more important than anything else. We started planning the band in late 1977 and probably spent the best part of a year arguing about the manifesto, the name, the image, the trousers we'd wear, how low we'd wear our guitar straps and what our logo would look like. We had no instruments and no songs, but we had a clear idea of what trousers we'd wear!

And the manifesto. Sadly, I don't have a copy of it. But I did have a 'brilliant' idea back then. We'd set it to music. It would be the first song we played at every gig we did. We'd tell the audience that if they didn't agree they could F**k off! We naively imagined that thousands of people we didn't know would turn up for our first gig and we could pick and chose who stayed and who we asked to leave! I've learned that gigs don't work like that. We, rather pretentiously, decided that our first gig would be our 'Manifesto launch' before we even had instruments! Like so many ideas kids have, before they discover the harsh realities of life, it soon fell away. The clunky, worthy words of the manifesto sounded ridiculous set to music. 

But it was so important to us that we we persisted, long after any sensible band would have given up. We decided that we'd change the manifesto into something that resembled a song. I believe, and I may be wrong about this, that Pete excitedly told Steve Ignorant of Crass ( a band that Pete avidly followed for a few months) about his idea and Steve Ignorant shot him down, saying "If you have a manifesto, you are just like all the other politicians. (This is my recollection of what Pete said over a bottle of cider in my shed as we were writing songs. He was prone to embellishing stories, but I have no reason to not believe this happened) "What do you want to be? Prime Minister? Anarchists believe everyone should make their own minds up". Pete turned up for our next songwriting session a bit deflated. This was our big idea and Pete's hero had blown it out of the water. Pete was very deflated. We had a chat about it. The "Falsedots manifesto" morphed into a musical anarchist rant called "Wrong". 

The Dots original line up

The opening lyrics "Do you consider yourself a thinking person, or an object for others to manipulate, nobody's immortal, nobody's irreplacable" were the opening lines of the manifesto. We set them over a repeating C/// A/// F/// D/// pattern. It may no longer be a manifesto, but it was our statement of what we were. It was the first song we played at our first rehearsal. By the time we actually had a properly functional band together properly, we'd moved on. Pete and I had largely stopped going to gigs together, as our tastes had diverged. The band pictured right was our line up from February to September, which was the only line up to play Wrong! My sister took this on a Kodak Instamatic camera in our back garden. The black guitar slung around my neck was actually her Kimbara Les Paul copy, that played like a cheese grater and wouldn't stay in tune!

By 1980, Pete had replaced Crass with The Birthday Party as his favourite band. We weren't spending five nights a week writing songs and working out ideas in my shed. I was getting more and more into other genres and influences. In January 1980, following a three month break, we slung all of the old songs out, including Wrong. 

The songs we wrote between January and June 1980 were some of the best Dots songs of any incarnation. We realised that it was better to have a set way of writing. One of us would write it, the other would critique it, we'd then present it to the band. If it didn't sound good immediately we'd not persevere. It had probably taken us six months to develop the idea for Wrong, only for us to abandon it as soon as we could play a bit better. We learned that you have to be ruthless in how you approach songs. You can't be wedded to songs that don't work. There is a certain irony that a song that was so wrong headed was called Wrong! You'll see from the 1979 setlist (left) that we'd developed by the middle of the year, that the band wasn't a barrel of laughs at that stage. 

When we were recently planning our 46th anniversary, I couldn't get out of my head the memory of those early days. I came up with the idea of giving Wrong a debut play, 47 years after we first wrote it. I asked our trumpeter Tom Hammond to sing it, in whatever way he wanted. This was a nod to Steve Ignorants advice, "everyone should think for themselves". When we rehearsed it, I was shocked. I thought it sounded great. It sort of sounded like Blur on amphetamine sulphate. Tom is a generation or two younger than Graham and I. He brings a fresh feel to a lot of the songs. It has emboldened us as a band musically, which is a great thing, but also it has given me a lot of pause for thought on many things, not least how you can transform a piece of music by being open minded. Our early Dots line up was hamstrung by a rigid orthodox musicality, that was totally at odds with the Anarchist ideals that we were supposedly singing about. 

The other thing I got thinking about was the idea of a Manifesto for The False Dots. Sadly I've learned that you are lucky to have an audience, so telling people to F@@k Off if they don't like your manifesto is the height of stupidity. In fact, the opposite should be true. You should make everyone feel welcome.  So 47 years after we spent six months writing a manifesto, here is the resurrected False Dots manifesto! It is rather different to the 1978/9 version which seemed to be a hundred pages long at it's peak.

1. Our primary goal as a band is to make the people who listen to our music happy. 

2. The band will commit to work as hard as humanly possible to give you a good night out if you come to one of our gigs.

3. The band will always be there for a chat before/after we play and we will try and make time to have a chat if you want. Of course when we are breaking down gear etc after we play, give us ten minutes, if we are clearing up.

4.  Everyone is welcome at a False Dots gig, on condition they want to have fun and not bother other people.

5. We will do everything in our power, as a band, to support other musicians, bands, artists and creative people. If you follow us on social media, we will endeavour to follow you, if you come and see us, we will try and get down to see you, if you plug us, we will plug you as best we can.

6. The world can seem a harsh and scary place. We believe that music is a force for universal good and whilst we can still breath, still play and people still want to see us, we will do our best to make it just a bit better. We can't change lives, make anyone rich, solve housiong problems etc, but maybe, just maybe, we can put a smile on your face and that is a start.

And finally. here's a little video I spliced together with the desk mix and some pics/clips from mates of the debut performance of Wrong. I wonder, has there ever been a song that has waited 47 years for it's debut live before?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The False Dots (@thefalsedots)

Wrong! How everything and nothing has changed since the 1979 election

I was clearing out some old papers yesterday. I am the worlds worst horder, and I found a box of very old lyrics from the earliest days of the band, back in very early 1979. Back then, like today,  there was politlcal chaos, the country seemed as if it was literally falling apart. I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School and I'd just formed the False Dots with Pete Conway. We were obsessed with Punk and bands like Crass, anarchists who believed that the whole system was rotten. They were a brilliant live band, one of the best I've seen and many of their political messages resonated with me (many still do "Fight war not wars" being the best example). When we started the band, we wrote "The False Dots manifeso" which was directly influenced by Crass.  The songs we wrote were like very bad Crass songs. I think our hearts were in the right place, but our musical abilities were very limited and in truth trying to sound like Crass was very much a dead end for us. By the end of 1979, our tastes and talents had moved on. We binned all of the overtly political songs and started again.

I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School when the band started. My knowledge of the world, politics and life was shaped by punk rock attitudes, Rock Against Racism and The Anti Nazi League. Incidents like when we reacted badly to Eric Claptons racist comments, that launched Rock Against Racism shaped our mindset. Clapton had been known as "God" by Hippies in the 1960s, but to quote Monty Python, he wasn't the messiah, he was a very naughty boy. We decided that we'd never want to be like him (I still don't). The Callaghan government of the day was useless, we had the winter of discontent. Thatcher seemed like a malignant demon, set to rip apart society and put us paupers in our place. She talked of smashing union power. To us, Unions represented the people. Do you really want to smash your own people? was the obvious question for me. She talked of privatisation. That was taking things owned by the people and giving it to profiteers which just seemed plain wrong headed and still does. Her manifesto said "We need more compulsory attendance centres for hooligans at junior and senior levels. In certain detention centres we will experiment with a tougher regime as a short, sharp shock for young criminals.". As Punks, this seemed aimed at us. The term hooligan was one that had all manner of connotations at the time. We took it to mean people that Thatcher didn't like the look of.

Having written the False Dots manifesto, we wrote a song that encapsulated it. The song was simply called "Wrong". It was one of the songs we abandoned at the end of the year. It has sat in a box ever since. Unused and unloved. Until yesterday. I read it, with the benefit of fourty five years distance. I was transported back to 1979 and the death of the Callaghan government and the rise of Thatcherism. And reading it, I had to ask myself  "Who was wrong"? In many ways, 2024 mirrors, but reverses the scene in 1979. An encumbant government that has all but collapsed and run out of energy, up against an alternative that offers little hope for young people. The big difference between Starmer and Thatcher is that Thatcher was shouting from the rafters what she wanted to do. Starmer has nothing to say at all. Does he plan a Thatcher style dismantling of the Tory legacy of the last fourteen years? To be honest, the more I look at it, the less legacy there is to dismantle. We just need things to start working properly. Maybe what we need is an unabitious, competent manager? Maybe a Thatcher style bonfire of the last 20 years will finish us off. 

One big difference between now and then is the access to information. There was no internet and only three TV channels. People got news from the papers. You read the papers that reflected your views. In my house, my Tory Dad read The Daily Express and my Socialist Mum read The Guardian. I read both. I was always struck by how two different, supposed honest papers could present news about things in such different ways. In truth, I preferred the populist, less wordy approach of the Daily Express, with it's comic strips such as James Bond and Jeff Hawke and snappy football coverage. I tended to agree more with the Guardian, but being dyslexic, found the wordy style a bit offputting. I perservered and still get both. One day, I sat down with Pete Conway to write new songs. We started comparing stories in the Express and The Guardian and noticed the difference. The Express was demonising 'lefty unions'. The Guardian was sympathetic to downtrodden workers. But it was clear that neither side was telling the whole story. We speculated as to what the ordinary man could possibly make of it all. The first verse of Wrong summed up our view of this truth deficit.

Do you consider yourself a thinking person

Or an object for others to manipulate

Nobody's immortal

No one is unreplacable

Consider yourself in the middle of the sea

You can scream all you like

But no one cares

Bear in mind, Pete and I were sixteen. The song is about the attitude of authority and power to ordinary people. They hide the truth from us, spin stories and tug on our heart strings. The Tories rely on our personal greediness to win votes, Labour rely on exploiting our good nature, Reform scare us with tales of the tiny percentage of immigrants who are not nice, The Lib Dems leap into lakes full of shit to catch our attention. But no one is saying "As a nation, we are fucked unless we spend a lot more money on health, social care, roads, railways, education and the environment. All of this lying has lead us to a situation where we rely on other countries for electricity and food. There has been more debate about whether women can have penis's in this campaign than how we can ensure the elderly members of society are safe and secure. Who decided that we'd ignore the fundamental problems facing the UK?  In 1979, we had really limited channels of information. Now we are deluged. In some ways, we get less now, because it is so much easier to live in an echo chamber. 

It is imperative that we all vote. I will be crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I may sound very despondent about the choice. The truth is that I do have hope, but I am prepared for it to be shattered. Whatever comes next must be better than the last few years, mustn't it?

-----------------------------------

We don't ask for any cash from anyone to support my work writing this blog. It would however be appreciated if you gave my band a bit of love. You can follow us on Spotify by clicking here. 

The False Dots are playing at 5pm at Fortune Green Park in West Hampstead this Saturday for the 50th Annual Jestefest. 

If you need a pick me up, come down for a party!