Driving to Bristol: a bit of a travel blog

[rhythmaning]

A couple of weeks ago, I went to stay with friends in Bristol; people I hadn’t seen for more than two years. I took a couple of days off (I wanted to make it longer, but a meeting was arranged at work that I needed to go to, so it was only the Friday and Monday that I could take), and I decided to drive down. It was a while since I had had a long drive, and it meant I could stop off and see a friend from university on the way back.

It also meant that I could pack a load of CDs I hadn’t heard in a while, turn up the volume, and sing out loud. (Well, it could be called singing; but only by me, when I am in the car by myself.)

Through Edinburgh, I had Radio 4 on: Shirley Williams was on Desert Island Disks. I was interesting to be reminded of the formation of the SDP in the early eighties, and quite how self-destructive the Labour Party had been. Somehow, I think I preferred the old Labour party to New Labour: at least they didn’t disappoint you so much. And then of course, we had Margaret Thatcher to hate.

Heading past the ring road, I hit the first CD: The The and “Mind Bomb”. A kind of controversial choice, but great driving music. Most of the album features songs which feature religious conflicts – kind of prescient, since this was the week that the fuss about the cartoons of Muhammad broke; the chorus of Armageddon Time Is Here Again even features the four prophets singing in unison. The The had rather bad (for them) timing: an earlier single, Sweet Bird of Truth, about a plane flying to bomb a middle eastern city, was released a week or so before Reagan bombed Libya in 1985. Mind Bomb was released just before the first Gulf War, and because of the subject of most of the songs, didn’t get much airplay. It is a great record (a really superb drum sound), and it features Johnny Marr (he plays guitar) and Sinead O’Connor (in a beautifully sad duet with Matt Johnson).

I took the A701 south, avoiding Penicuik and heading past the burnt out remains of the Leadmills Inn – someone didn’t stop at the crossing and drove straight into the pub; it burnt down.

At Lamancha, as always, I wonder how a part of Spain got stranded in the Midlothian, and pictured Don Quixote tilting at windmills in the Pentlands.

The weather was overcast; dull, perhaps a little foggy in places. I got stuck behind a stream of Ford Fiestas driving sedately; I passed them shouting “Good morning beautiful… goodbye world.”

The road was quite; it runs through the hills towards Moffat, passed the source of the Tweed. At the Devil’s Beeftub, the landscape opens out, and the view of the hills is wonderful. This co-incided with the cloud clearing and for a few minutes the sun came out, wisps of fog hanging on the hills. I sped past the only place to pull in and cursed the lost photographs.

On to the M74; if you’re coming up from the south, you might not even notice it isn’t the M6 any more. When the road was upgraded to motorway, they were actually going to call it the M6, but there was an outcry; so the M6 stops at Carlisle, becomes the A74 and then the M74, all the way up to Glasgow.

By now the mood has changed, and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions’ Mainstream are pouring out of the speakers. Another sing-a-long-a-CD, a brilliant album. (It has to be said, I packed the CD player with my favourite albums for driving. So perhaps it goes without saying that they were all brilliant albums.) I have only had this on CD for a few months – Polydor re-released all of the Commotions LPs on CD to mark twenty years of Rattlesnakes. (Twenty years? Jeez.)

I have a coffee and a sandwich at Tebay Services, buy the paper, and sit and do a couple of soduku. Tebay is reputed to be the best motorway service area in the UK; I must have read that somewhere. At least it isn’t a chain – no MegaBurger outlets. And they have a pond, so you can sit in the window, looking over the water across to the hills of the borders. It is almost pleasant.

Back on the road and the New Order compilation Substance (part one only) is pumping out their hits. What a great sound. I saw them live once, early on; they played the Assembly Rooms on George St, where the electronica didn’t really meld with the Georgian surroundings. It wasn’t a great gig – disappointing even; when the drums kept going despite the drummer leaving the stage, it made me wonder why they had musicians at all – they could just have got they computers and sequencers to play together. Still, their music was great.

The M6 got busier past Preston, and by Manchester it was packed. Somehow the accidents and delays that I keep being warned about whenever I listen the 5Live didn’t materialise (I was expecting delays on the decaying infrastructure). The CD switches over to Miles Davis playing Jack Johnson, his angry jazz-rock record in memory of the great black hope, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. This lead into the Mingus Big Band’s Blues and Politics, big noise, big feelings, and wonderful. “Freedom”, “Haitian Fight Song” – wonderful tunes played by the big band. Wow. So now I was shouting out the riffs, riffing with the band.

I switched over to the radio as I passed Worcester (Birmingham? Fuck it), catching Julian Joseph’s weekly jazz programme on Radio 3. He was highlighting the Miles Davis band featuring George Coleman on sax, Tony Williams on drums and Herbie Hancock on piano: my second dose of Miles for the day; but he was such a chimeric character, and he played – even invented – so many different styles that it is almost as if he had different careers.

Driving into Bristol, I managed to turn into exactly the road I intended to. Since I had never driven there before, and I hadn’t seen the name of the road before I turned – I just thought it was about time I got off the main road – I was amazed. So I got to my friends’ house exactly when I said I’d get there, Miles finishing playing the trumpet as I drew up.

Comments

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Nice :)

We don't own a car, so it's a special treat when we hire one and drive somewhere with music playing.

[frankie-ecap.livejournal.com]

Did I mention that I totally adore you?

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but why?