NYC Till Dawn Meet-up 1998

New York City, USA. 31-May-1998.

Way back in the late 1990's I joined a Marc Bolan mailing list called "Till Dawn". This was in the early days of the world wide web when mailing lists were a way to communicate with like minded people. 

I used to travel to the US several times a year on business and happened to mention that I was visiting New York in May 1998. It was suggested that some of us "tillers" could meet up and so it came to pass. Some lived in New York, some flew in from elsewhere in the States and Canada and kudos to Jorgen who flew in all the way from Sweden! This is the story of that gathering.

Breakfast with Jorgen: I cannot remember which hotel I was staying in for work. The company obviously paid the flights and the weekday nights but I would have had to pay the extra couple of nights myself. Jorgen was on a budget and staying in The Malibu Studios Hotel on Broadway. We met for breakfast at nearby Nookies restaurant and re-established our acquaintance from when we first met in real life. That had been at a T.Rextasy gig in Cambridge the previous September.

Breakfast - MarkMcL, Jorgen.

We met in a place called The Lounge: I don’t know who suggested it or even whether it still exists but that was where we gathered, somewhere in the East Village. Some of us wearing our matching Marc Bolan T-shirts. We had a chat and drinks, and someone brought along copies of a fanzine to share out.

Lounge - Ivan, zoom, CliffBro, CliffSky.

Lounge - zoom and soda.

Lounge - Jorgen and Ivan.

Lounge - DaveR and Jorgen.

Lounge - ?, zoom, Jorgen, Elaine, Ivan, DJ.

Lounge - the gang.

Lounge - Jorgen (photo credit Jorgen).

Lounge - The gang (photo credit Jorgen).

Lounge - MarkMcL, DaveR, Jorgen, Ivan, zoom (photo credit Jorgen).

Jewel 2 fanzine.

We dined at Restaurant 7A: again I don’t know how we picked this place but food and more beer was definitely required.

Restaurant 7A - DaveR, Jorgen, zoom, MarkMcL.

Street - Jorgen, MarkMcL, DaveR.

Street - DaveR, Jorgen, MarkMcL (photo credit Jorgen).

Street - DaveR, MarkMcL, zoom (photo credit Jorgen).

We went to CBGB : the legendary New York music venue where a number of famous people launched their careers including The Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie featuring the lovely Debbie Harry. We saw some aspiring band whose name I did not note so who knows if they went on to become famous!

CBGB Club - zoom, MarkMcL, Jorgen, DaveR.

We went for a late (early?) breakfast: apparently it is a New York thing to do after a night out. Not that I was ever one for going to the nightclub into the wee small hours. Anyhow we ended up having a full breakfast at 4 am and then back to the hotel for sleep.

Late Café - Jorgen, zoom, DaveR, MarkMcL.

We had lunch at Katz's deli: I think it must’ve been the following day that we went to the legendary Katz's deli where the famous "When Harry Met Sally" fake orgasm scene was filmed. 

Katz - zoom, DaveR, Elaine, Ivan, Jorgen.

We took the Staten Island ferry: Jorgen and I hung around as the two long haul tourists. We time to spare so we did a return trip on the Staten Island ferry. It was, and still is, free to foot passengers so it was a fun thing to go out and back and get a free view of Manhattan from the water. 

Staten Island Ferry - Jorgen, MarkMcL.

I dipped my toe in the Hudson:  wherever I go, particularly to a foreign shore I like to dip my toe in the sea, or in this case the mighty Hudson River.

MarkMcL dips his toe in the Hudson River.

I met up with a colleague of my brother: My brother worked in New York for 18 months. His office address was One Park Avenue, so that was easy to remember. By the time of this visit he was back in the UK but I did meet up with one of his ex-colleagues for a cocktail.

Bar - MarkMcL and Sheila.

I drink champagne on the roof of the metropolitan museum: I decided to fit in some culture while I was there so went to the Metropolitan Museum. Whilst there I thought I would celebrate my visit with a glass of champagne looking out over Central Park.

Champagne on the Metropolitan Museum roof

My word that was a long time ago!

Note: This post was prompted by Jorgen posting on facebook some photos from this event that I had never seen before! That inspired me to rework the clunky gallery on my website using some more up-to-date technology than Notepad and an FTP client. 

Back then it was chemical film, you posted off the roll and got physical photos back a week later. No digital cameras or smart phones then. Luckily I had access to a scanner at work although it was the size of a fridge. I then shrunk the pictures down to a size tiny by today's standard. That was because many people accessed the internet via dial up telephone connections that were really low bandwidth - tell that to the youth of today! 

Someday I will dig out the archive CD's and post some higher res photos.

Elles Bailey at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut

Glasgow, Scotland. Thursday 09-December-2021. 

This is the third time we have seen Elles Bailey. The two previous occasions were at the Great British Rock and Blues Festival at Skegness. The first time was 2017 on the introducing stage where up-and-coming artists perform in the central atrium and the act with the most votes get to appear on one of the main stages the following year. We voted for Elles and sure enough in 2018 she appeared on the Jaks stage

We booked these tickets forgetting that it clashed with the excellent Martin Harley who was appearing in Penrith that same night. No matter, we were happy to make the trip to Glasgow. It gave us an opportunity to stay with Mary‘s sister, meet up with our friends Geraldine and Alasdair for a curry and fit in some shopping.

As it turned out Geraldine and Alasdair were not able to make it and we ended up going for a Cuban meal instead. We got to King Tut's before the doors opened as there is a bar where you can wait to go in. It must be one of the smaller venues we have been to with limited seating but because we were there early we were able to get one of the benches at the back of the room. 

There were two support acts. Given that Elles Bailey has a strong country music tinge to her repertoire it was no surprise that the two support acts were very much at that end of the spectrum. We are always amazed at the number of talented musicians and singers out there trying to make a living.

Up first was Katie Whittaker who is very much country style and did an excellent half hour set, apparently under strict guillotine to give time for the second act to prepare so it was less chat and more song.

The second support was Demi Marriner. She was there as the guest of Elles and again a very enjoyable half hour. 

Elles Bailey had a full backing band: drums, guitar and keyboard. She also clearly has some devoted followers have been to all the previous gigs on this tour. She played a number of songs from her upcoming next album and few from her back catalogue.

It's a personal preference but I am not a fan of the "everyone does a solo" thing. It it common across the whole music spectrum from jazz ensembles to rock bands and I find it a little too self indulgent no matter how fine the virtuosity. 

The guy on the mixing desk decided that we needed a grand finale and cranked up the volume for the last two songs to a level that I was starting to find uncomfortable. I should know to always take my earplugs with me just in case of excessive volume. 

Elles did a couple of lockdown sessions with just her on keyboards which meant we got much more a feel for the person behind the musician. During lockdown we also bought the vinyl of her last album "Road I Call Home" and the download version, which is excellent and much listened to. We await the next album which is out next year.

Given the confined nature of the venue we decided to keep our masks on which meant no beer so we were, unusually, stone cold sober by the end of the gig. Staying with Mary sister made the logistics of getting home a lot easier than a 2 hour drive back to Penrith. We got the last train back to Bishopton where the brother-in-law was a hero and picked us up.

We are doing our bit to keep music live.

Carlisle Victorian and Turkish Baths

Carlisle, Cumbria, UK. Monday 22-November-2021

We booked ourselves on a tour of these baths given by Friends of Carlisle Victorian and Turkish Baths. I have to say the baths are an architectural gem: beautiful tile-work and stained glass windows. Some of the original features are intact and in lovely condition.    

It has a central plunge pool surrounded by benches. Out the back are steam rooms and saunas of various degrees of heat and humidity, not as pretty. Apparently the original tiles are still there but hidden under wood panelling. 

What I learnt was that these, and other baths up and down the country, were not for relaxation but were essential bath and wash houses for the urban poor who had no ready access to cleaning facilities. 

The first such public baths were opened in Liverpool in 1842 thanks to the inspiration of Kitty Wilkinson following a cholera outbreak caused by poor public health. These baths are a later example but still provided essential facilities for the local factory workers living in poor housing and unsanitary conditions.

They are Grade II listed: "This set of Edwardian Turkish Baths constructed in 1909 have been designated for the following principal reasons:

• Decorative Scheme; the original internal decorative tiling and glazed faience work by the respected company Minton and Hollins of Stoke, notably in the cool room, is of good quality and complete
• Intactness: alterations are few and the original plan of the baths remains intact which renders the Turkish Bathing process highly readable.
• Rarity: this building is an increasingly rare example of a once common building form, of which only around 20 remain in England; it compares very favourably with the eight existing listed Turkish Baths."

[Listing 1393755]

More stained glass in the clerestory windows.

Upstairs they had just cleared out a room full of junk and clutter to provide public access for the first time ever to a lovely Art Deco skylight. 

The purpose of the Friends is "Campaigning to preserve and develop the Baths as health and wellbeing centre with the Turkish Baths as the centrepiece".  Their enthusiasm and dedication to promoting these is admirable, I wish them luck.

Seasick Steve at The O2 City Hall

Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK. Thursday 17-November-2021.

Now we have moved from London to Penrith our local venues are no longer the O2 Arena, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club or the Royal Albert Hall. We have to go further afield to see well known artists, in this case to Newcastle to see Seasick Steve for the fourth time.

Billed as "Just Steve, a guitar and you" that is exactly what we got. An excellent stripped back show with a number of old favourites plus some new songs and plenty of chat in between. 

Support from Kitty Macfarlane who was charming. She sang a song about eels, specifically the European Eel. I have a slight soft spot for eels from my time volunteering with the Wandle Trust. As part of their monthly community clean ups we would keep an eel tally as they wriggled out of old tyres, tins and scaffolding poles. The count of eels was an indication of the quality of the water.

Our friends drove back that night but we treated ourselves to a stay in the Maldron Hotel close by. We spent the next morning doing a tour of the town. Being a great fan of Wallace and Gromit we enjoyed the Fenwick's Christmas window display.

The castle was impressive and would have been more so had not the Victorians decided to drive a railway viaduct slap bang through the middle of it!

We learned about Grey's Monument built to honour the man responsible for the Reform Act of 1832, the first of many acts gradually extending the voting franchise and removing "rotten boroughs".

Then home via the iconic Angel of the North.

It is 20m high by 54m wide! That's me in the picture to give an idea of scale.

Road Trip, November 2021

All over the place. November-2021

Straight after Winter Droving we set off on a road trip. It was only supposed to be a simple triangular trip: down to Axminster for a cookery course, up to London for an Elton John concert and home. Then Elton John went and broke his hip, our friend Alan announced his 70th birthday party and we realised that our friends John and Andrea were a minor detour off our route. So this is what we did.

Sunday 31-October-2021. Cranham, Gloucester. We called in for a meal with our old friends John and Andrea who we have not seen for ages along with their son, my godson, Julian. We ate, we drank, we chatted. So that was nice.

Monday 01-October-2021. Gardener's cottage, near Axminster. We booked ourselves two nights self catering accommodation in the gardener's cottage at River cottage HQ. It had two double bedrooms and as we had paid for the whole place we invited our friends Tim and Sarah to join us as our guests. They arrived from the Isle of Wight and we went to the local pub for supper.

Tuesday 02-November-2021. River cottage HQ. Much More Veg cookery course. The day was spent most enjoyably with a hands-on cookery course learning about new recipes, techniques, vegetables. It turned out to be vegan not just vegetarian, which suited Mary (being intolerant to lactose) and the vegan attendee very well - possibly why they did it. Apparently they do not advertise it as vegan because they fear that may put put some people off. We started off with the basics: a vegetable stock into which you chuck just about everything including onions skin and all. 

We picked a number of herbs and vegetables for the stock and other recipes:

• Split pea hummus
• River Cottage Green Herb Sauce (Salsa Verde)
• Flat breads
• Vegetable curry
• Spiced Emmer
• Roasted Apple, Daikon, Celeriac and Sage
• Garden Bhajis
• Oaty Nutty Chocolate ‘Tiffin’

Tim and Sarah had brought along ingredients for a self catering meal that evening but as it turned out there was so much left from the day's course that all four of us dined on that alone and there was still some left over for a doggy bag the next day.

Wednesday 03-November-2021. Denbies vineyard, Dorking. We had a couple of days to while away until Alan‘s birthday do on the Saturday. Mary found a mid week deal from Denbies hotel so we signed up for that: two nights dinner, bed and breakfast plus a cream tea and a tasting of their own sparkling wines.

We drove from Axminster to Ringwood and had lunch at one of our old locals, The Alice Lisle, Then on to Dorking arriving in time for the cream tea.

The cream tea was delicious but the wines were all a little tart for my palette.

Thursday 04-November-2021. Polesden Lacey. We have not had enough opportunity to use our NT membership of late but here we were able to fit in a good long walk round the grounds of Polesden Lacey.

Lots of woodland and mushrooms everywhere. 

We needed somewhere to stay on Friday so we made another booking in Denbies for that night. Part of the reason is that there is a parkrun round the vineyard on Saturday morning. 

Friday 05-November-2021. Speaker audition. Our current speakers are a little large for our new living room so we went up to Graham's Hi-Fi in north London to listen to some smaller speakers. We tried listening to the same speakers as we have in Italy but they were disappointing in a smaller room so we went upmarket. We have now opted for some niche Australian speakers (Serhan Swift Mu2. Mark II). On the way back we stopped for a lovely lunch at Unwined at Waterloo.

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 1. Parkrun tourism. After breakfast we just had to walk out the front door to get to the start line. For me it was my 29th different venue and my 103rd Parkrun. It sounds lovely running round the vineyards but vineyards like slopes and the first part of the course is a long, steady uphill; I was reduced to something very close to walking. The second half is downhill, I picked up a bit of speed and came in under 30 minutes.

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 2. Scattering my parents ashes. After my father died my mother never could bring herself to answer the question of disposal of my father’s ashes. Nor would she ever express a preference regarding her own arrangements. So his ashes have been sitting at the undertakers for several years until Mum died. They had no special places we could go for. In the end we decided the Thames was an appropriate location. My father was a Londoner, my parents met and married in London, their first home together was in London and us three children were all born there. 

We chose a spot between the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern as my father particularly was fond of Shakespeare and the arts. Appropriately with St Paul's behind us which contains the Chapel of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Dad was awarded the MBE for services to architecture which allowed Mary and I to get married there.

We went in order of seniority, me first, then Ian.

And finally Jane who also read a short poem.

The flowers went downstream as the tide turned.

The tide was high so we were unable to get right down to the strand. On the other hand it meant the tide turned and their ashes were swept down the river to the sea. We all three agreed that it was a job well done and a lovely send off.

PS. The Port of London authority website said that it’s okay to scatter ashes in the Thames with certain provisos like ‘not off a bridge’ and ‘don’t chuck the urn in afterwards'!

Saturday 06-November-2021, part 3. Alan‘s 70th birthday party. We switched from Denbies to a local B&B so that we would have a very short stagger home after the party. A wise choice. It turned out that our hostess at the B&B was one of the volunteers at that morning's parkrun so I was glad that I had given her a cheery "Thank you marshal" as I passed.

The party itself was a great success and it was lovely to meet up with many old friends who I haven’t seen in real life for a while. Let's hope it won't be too long till we meet again.

Brunswick Road 07 - Loft, fireplace, kitchen clearing

Penrith, Cumbria. October/November-2021

A mixture of construction and destruction tackling the loft, fireplace and kitchen. We gained space in the loft and lost some in the kitchen. 

Boarding the Loft. 

I’m getting the hang of this loft boarding malarkey. Much easier when you don’t have to wrestle existing insulation. Note the sarking boards supporting the tiles - typically Scottish but also found elsewhere.

The other end shows the light well above the stairs (currently used for access) and the space where we will have a hatch and ladder installed when we can get hold of a joiner.

I wasn’t even half done when the suitcases, hifi boxes and Christmas tree were up there. It’s even fuller now.

Restoring the fireplace. 

The next big piece of work is restoring the fireplace, Opening the hearth and installing new uprights. We used the same stonemason as for Benson Row. The stonemason discovered unsupported brickwork inside the chimney (!) so there is a now a second concrete lintel supported on brick pillars hidden behind the stone one. We now have our own mini Stonehenge. 

Still to do: cleaning and superficial distressing to get a better colour match.

Acro props to hold up the lintel (and probably the rest of the chimney!)

The middle section that used to be a back boiler now gone.

Cutting the new uprights in the back alley.

New hearth stone in place ready for the uprights.

New uprights in place.

The stone dries lighter as the cement dries out. The lintel has been given a light chiselling to remove the old cement and plaster.

Now we have to decide what we do with the fireplace. We could line the flue and have a real fire grate or log burning stove. For now we will put in a decorative fake stove.

Clearing the Kitchen.

Next up is redoing the kitchen floor. The door opening into the utility room will be moved and expanded ready for the floor works. The concrete floor will be dug down so that a multi-layer sandwich can be laid: waterproof membrane, insulation, electric underfloor heating mat, self-levelling screed and finally lino. Hopefully the latter will be down just as we leave for two weeks over Christmas and New Year.

The kitchen has to be cleared for this. All the old units are gone as are all our temporary work surfaces. We want to keep the sink as long as possible so are doing a cutaway unit to make the floor accessible. Nothing like a power jigsaw for cabinet destruction.

A flying sink so the workmen can dig up the concrete floor beneath.

All kitchen units have now been ripped out. The bridge table will go shortly.

Dining room now with the kitchen corner. With the delayed timetable from our kitchen fitter we have treated ourselves to an Ikea induction hob and a combination oven and microwave.

The next couple of months are going to be challenging in terms of eating and dishwashing. 

The mantra is “It'll be lovely when it’s finished”.