SOUL SURMISE

THE HEAD AND THE HEART - EVERY SHADE OF BLUE

People have likened The Head and the Heart to Avett Brothers meets Fleet Foxes and I just don't like those two bands quite enough but the blend spot bang jang in the middle of them is my sound and that is where The Head and the Heart live. 

Regular readers will be aware of my Damascus Road conversion to the band, the night that I heard them in concert at Calvin College, Michigan in 2014. Let's Be Still had just come out and I was smitten. The indie folk songwriting, the harmonies, the instrumentation, the down-home wisdom. 

Their last record, a kind of modern west coast update on Fleetwood Mac was even called Living Mirage. Though I liked it, Every Shade Of Blue delightfully mixes a little of that last two records sheen with that more organic sound of Let's Be Still and their eponymous debut.

They have just released two acoustic versions, one of the title track and the other of the album's highlight Virginia (Wind In the Night) perhaps the most intoxicating song of the year.

Hurts But It Goes Away is a song sung from heartache seeking hope. I would pair it with REM's Everybody Hurts on a radio show. Love Me Still is a simple slice of ear candy but with character. 

Don't think the album is a step backwards. Songs like Tiebreaker and Paradigm bring rhythms and basslines that show an eye on the future as well as the past. 

Every Shade Of Blue might be The Head and The Heart's best balanced record to date with a suite of songs that best reflect the varied personalities across the band members. That day at Calvin College I asked about a gig in Belfast. They said yes. What I would do!

COLIN MACLEOD - HOLD FAST

I remember the Mondays back in the 90s. We called ourselves the Bargain Bin Fellowship. We hooked up and set off around the 9 or 10 or 11 record shops in Belfast City Centre.

There were the majors, the independents including the legendary Good Vibrations, of course. We were all eager for the new release CD singles and those extra tracks and that bargain in whatever format. The fingers of love turning CD and vinyl, hoking in the bargain bins.

About 20 years ago I lost record shops. Internet shopping. And good fellowship too, it has to be said.

So, the other week threw up a unique experience. We were in Reading, Berkshire visiting our daughter Jasmine. There's an HMV. In I walked, intrigued again by vinyl. And... there was a bargain bin. Nothing for £1 like the old days but cheaper than £24.99! 

Flicking through and an album caught my eye. Maybe the price first - £10.99!

Colin MacLeod. Never heard of him. Sound Scottish. So I picked it up thinking I'd maybe stumbled across the make Karine Polwart. It didn't seem so... but it looked fascinating. Sheryl Crow guested on two songs. Who is this guy? 

Back in the hotel room, I checked it out on iTunes.

Oh my, this was good. Great songs. Warm voice. Introspective lyrics. Driving rock like The Long Road to yearning soul of Old Soul. I was straight over the next morning to purchase.

Seems that the album is the story of a life seeking the point in that life. There's a lot of journeying. There is a lot of the heart and soul. There is a lot of conclusions about brokenness and need of something, maybe particularly others "like love and like hope and like home" as This Old Place puts it.

God gets a mention too. Maybe my favourite. Looking for God has insights that might not be Macleod's intention. I love the lines, "Let me hold your hand/Have you ever tried to pray?/It's really not that hard/You just have to know you're broken". So pastorally on it and then"Why you looking for God?/I didn't know that he was missing/I didn't know I should be looking/Is it really him that's lost?" God's the one who needs to find us. Isn't that the truth.

I haven't even told you yet! The most fascinating thing about Colin Macleod is that he is a Crofter on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. A sheep farmer who can't tour in April because of lambing is writing songs and singing with Sheryl Crow. The album title is the clan motto! It is not only unique and utterly intriguing but there is a sense of that juxtaposition throughout his musical work.

A bargain bin find beyond most!

 

 

You Reached Beyond… (for David Trimble)

The hands went up

Either side of the rock star

Like he yanked their arms from their sockets

Like celebrating a goal

Like Armstrong against Spain

Like Houghton against England

Everyone cheered

Both our teams won

Peace from the jaws of the killing years

I wept with joy at the evening news.

 

You

On his right

You

You reached beyond

You reimagined

You risked

And therefore 

You reframed

Our ruptured past

Just once

But… once… was enough

To redeem

Rebirth

To reconcile the most of us

On the rest of our way…

Thank you.

BESIDE QUIET WATERS - DO NOT AGITATE

Let me lead you

Beside quiet waters

A walk by the sea

Or through the hills

A boat on a lake

By the beauty of rivers and mountains

Put the smart phone down

Put your tired feet up

Breathe in

Slowly

Slower

Rest

Beside quiet waters

 

Beside quiet waters

Do not ripple the calm

By reading your messages

Opening emails

Or checking your diary

Do not agitate the peace

By reading books about vocation

Facebooking every photograph

Or writing blogs like these

Let me lead you

Beside quiet waters.

DAVE THOMPSON - YELLOW

Dave Thompson is a mate and when I started reading Yellow he invited me to take my gloves off in the review. So, turn your face here mate…  

Yellow is an interesting debut novel. Set in the world of Big Events stewarding it had me grinning at a recent Deacon Blue concert because I sensed I knew pretty much what was involved in all of the stewarding jobs and had me wondering whether stewards around me were happy with their particular station and who might fancy who!

In some ways Big Events management is to Dave’s book what newspaper delivery and bread vans were to Tony Macauley’s first couple of books, Breadboy and Paperboy. However though Thompson has experienced the life of a rock concert steward, line dancing in Ballyclare and food festivals in Hillsborough, he has chosen not to go the memoir route. 

We are immediately introduced to the fictional Robbie McKittrick and in his acknowledgements Dave thanks his fellow stewards saying that none of them actually appear in the fiction but a wee piece of all of them does! 

I have to say that early on my gloves were coming off. I found the beginning a little bit slow… I was maybe learning too much about event stewarding and not enough about the plot… but then…

I got drawn in and set the gloves down. Thompson seems to have coined his style. His voice is about giving voice to the voices around him. He is so strong on conversations. He makes them every day believable and gives them a Northern Irish lilt. Throw in warmth and a huge dollops of humour and is hard not to like

In real life Dave fancies himself as a funny guy and this is comedy and it is funny. I have a bizarre disability when it comes to laughing at humour in print. It appears I need to see and hear. Yet, this had me laughing out loud.

The comedy might be enough but there is a lot of tenderness and serious insight in this story too. When McKittrick gets involved in very personal chats, particularly the one with his alienated daughter, then there is a sensitive depth. 

There are divorces and break ups and grief and all sorts of life stuff going on around McKittrick and his stewarding colleagues and family. Through the humour Thompson drops in some pragmatic sense.

Beyond this there is a soundtrack running through. I tried to work out distances by how far through Springsteen’s Born In The USA CD, perpetually on Robbie’s car stereo, was. I was even more delighted that Elton John’s early albums were given the respect they too often are robbed of. Mona Lisas and Madhatters as the main song - tasteful!

If I needed a gloves off punch I’d suggest  that this isn’t the best book by a Northern Irish writer that I will read this summer though, even with Rev Richard Coles’ first murder mystery following it, it might just be the funniest. 

Slipping the gloves back on again I don’t think that this is Dave Thompson’s best book either. I would love to see what a publishing house could do with the raw independent talent that has surely done more than enough here to seek their attention. 

DEACON BLUE GO DIGGING FOR US - ULSTER HALL 7.7.2022

(photo: Janice Gordon-Stockman)

 

There was a moment during Deacon Blue’s set at the Ulster Hall when I realised something else about this amazing band. It is during the spoken word On Love from the recent City Of Love record and Ricky Ross is doubled over like a demented man repeating “What you trying to make sense for?/What you trying to make sense for?”

Right there I realised that everything Ricky Ross and his band mates have tried to do since the mid eighties has been to go digging for us. With poetry and melody they hurl themselves right into the deep mental, emotional, spiritual and social state of the world and our lives. Trying to make sense of it all, they end up pontificating about love and its potential for freedom, justice, peace and healing.

From Loaded where Ricky wants no one left out and the political upheaval in Your Town, so appropriate tonight, to the personal need for Cover From The Sky through to a spiritual conclusion - The Believers, a brand new song for the times we are Peace Will Come, and the social, spiritual and personal ocean of dreams that is Dignity. Everything is about eking out “new” “hope” “faith” “love”.

Gigs by the best artists are multi layered. You can have a drink and enjoy the hits, though those beside us were having so much drink and toilet stops that they might actually have missed all the hits.

A two era band like Deacon Blue can split the evening. Those who loved the early 90s glory days bounce around to Fergus, Real Gone Kid, Wages Day etc (it was lovely to have I’ll Never Fall In Love from the summer I fell in love with Janice).

Then there is the second wave - the past decade of equally thoughtful, equally literary songs. Walk In the Woods, A New House, That’s What We Can Do, In Our Room all deserve the same respect as Chocolate Girl or Raintown but the crowd’s response differentiates. 

I stand disappointed surmising that City of Love and Believers are maybe the most paradigm Deacon Blue songs. Not that I don’t belt out “I saved my money” on Dignity! 

I had a wee smile as I remember a Twitter thread where Ricky waxed lyrical about Paul McCartney’s recent set list choices at Glastonbury. Deacon Blue know how to raise the roof, sit for a few campfire songs and raise the roof again. Whatever the layers the surface is the most vital and that’s well covered tonight. 

But me… I am off home with Believers, Peace Will Come and Dignity as a trilogy of spiritual belief and action. Deacon Blue had dug deep and lifted my humanity out of the pit, set it up with its full potential that I might find that same humanity in everyone I meet scattered across my City Of Love. 

OUR LACK OF INNER FREEDOM

 

Pope Francis suggested in his book Let Us Dream four things that we should change during “stoppages” in our lives like Coronavirus has been. The one that has tugged like a dog at my wheels is Pope Francis calling out our “lack of internal freedom”. 

 

What would those inner freedoms be? How would they be held captive?

 

The Bible uses two words to describe the inner workings of a human being. The heart and the soul. In Proverbs we are told to “guard our hearts”. In Romans we are encouraged to “transform our minds”.

 

What might take them captive? 

 

I glanced across the panorama of the Gospels and thought of three different people with three different ball and chains.

 

Zacchaeus. What might be preventing his inner freedoms? Greed… wealth… power. Zacchaeus is tied to the powers that be. A tax collector in cahoots with Rome taking more than was needed. He had created a wealthy space but had lost all his relationships. Jesus appears and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house for dinner. Jesus seems to set Zacchaeus’s inner life free. He repents and gives back what he had stolen. He gives away his wealth. Zacchaeus is set free.

 

What about Mary caught in adultery. Dragged before Jesus to be stoned. The adulterer is nowhere to be sun and heart is this woman captive to her sin and guilt and shame. Jesus sends her judges away and forgives the woman. She has been set free.

 

Nicodemus on the other hand came with his spiritual mind made up. He was sure of how things had been that he struggled with the fresh things Jesus was saying. He knew better than God. His theology was hindering his inner freedom.

 

Me. I have no doubt so many things hindering mine but let me share one that Jesus set me free from. 

 

As a 17 year old, I discovered Jesus after being a Beatles fan. Jesus answered the questions The Beatles were asking about peace and social change. I read the Gospels and when Jesus said that we were to love our enemies that was an easy application for a boy living through The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

 

I was up for loving my Catholic neighbours but soon became captive to theologians who told me I couldn’t worship with Catholics, to community that told me I couldn’t trust Catholics. 

 

For thirty years I was merely a passive peace maker as my inner freedoms were under the ball and chain of society, family and even church. I needed God to set me free. I thank God that he did no matter what grief it might cause me.

 

Oh there are other things I need rid of to keep my heart, mind and soul free. May the Holy Spirit search deep. May Jesus set me free.

 

INTER-DEPENDENCE NOT INDEPENDENCE

(this is the script of my Pause for Thought on Vanessa, BBC Radio 2 on July 6th 2022... The theme was My Independence Day)

 

I used to use this crazy illustration of independence when I was I trying to catch the attention of teenagers… way back in the day. 

I would get them to imagine that they had a beautiful Lamborghini. I’d get them to drive it up their nearest mountain and find a straight road back down. Turn the Lamborghini. Open a window. Get out. Reach in… and put the gear into neutral… and let off the hand break.

Now, watch that independent Lamborghini set out alone. Free to do what it likes. Watch as it picks up speed. Wow. Then watch as it makes for the first corner… oops… straight over the hedge into a field and… watch it roll… 

Independence it appears doesn’t work for a Lamborghini. It needs a driver. To reach its full potential as a very expensive sports car… inter-dependence is the better way.

I am not a great fan of independence. I think it is over rated. Maybe misunderstood. I think it is confused with freedom. 

Many think our human freedoms are reached by independence. I think we’re more like Lamborghinis.

I am a fan of inter dependence. In every important aspect of my life… “home, faith and work”, to quote my favourite Deacon Blue song, I am a better human for my inter-dependence.

I reckon the South African Xhosa tribe have got this one right, in their most famous word Ubuntu. Ubuntu means that to be fully me I need everybody else.

I think this is what Jesus was on about when he said that we should love God and our neighbour. He even went as far as saying that we should love our enemies. Jesus reckoned that we need to be inter-dependent to find the full potential of our own humanity. We cannot be who we were made to be without healthy relationships with others.

So in family. The right inter-dependence with Janice helps me become the human I should be. In faith my dependence on God is crucial to fulfilment. Vocationally my inter-dependence with a staff team, church leaders and even congregation is vital for me to do what I was born to do. 

Without inter-depedence to all of them I cannot be fully me!

STOCKI'S AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY PLAYLIST 2022

(a soundtrack for American Independence Day...)

 

LAND OF THE FREE - THE KILLERS

(single)

 

AMERICAN SOUL - U2

(from Songs Of Experience)

 

AMERICAN TUNE - INDIGO GIRLS

(from Closer To Fine single)

 

LONE STAR - ROMANTICA

(from Shadowlands)

 

TUPELO - JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT

(from The Nashville Sound)

 

WESTERN SKIES - DARDEN SMITH

(from Western Skies)

 

TUSCON TRAIN - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

(from Western Stars)

 

CALIFORNIA - DREW HOLCOMB & THE NEIGHBOURS

(from Souvenir)

 

TIME SPENT IN LA - DAWES

(from Nothing Is Wrong)

 

LOS ANGELES - LUKE SITAL-SINGH

(from A Golden State)

 

OOH LAS VEGAS - COWBOY JUNKIES

(from Songs For The Recollection)

 

LOS LUNAS - OVER THE RHINE

(from Love and Revelation)

 

ON A BUS TO ST. CLOUD - GRETCHEN PETERS

(from Trio Live)

 

SOUTHERN ACCENT - LUCINDA WILLIAMS

(from Running Down A Dream: Tribute To Tom Petty)

 

GRACELAND - CHRIS MARTIN

(from BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge 2017

 

NEW YORK MORNING - ELBOW

(from The Take Off And Landing Of Everything)

 

BROOKLYN BRIDGE - ANAIS MITCHELL

(from Anais Mitchell)

 

NEW YORK CITY - JOHN LENNON

(from Sometime In New York City)

 

MONA LISAS AND MAD HATTERS - THE KILLERS

(from Revamp; The Songs Of Elton John and Bernie Taupin)

 

SUMMER NIGHT IN NEW YORK - JANI IAN

(from The Light At The End Of The Line)

 

INDIANA - CHRIS WILSON & THE HERESY

(from Downfall EP)

 

THE GHOST OF CINCINNATI - BIG RED MACHINE

(from How Do You Think It's Gonna Last)

 

AMERiCAN LANDFILL - SAM PHILLIPS

(from World Of Sticks)

 

THIS IS A MY COUNTRY - MAVIS STAPLES & LEVON HELMS

(from Carry Me Home)

 

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY - RHIANNON GIDDENS

(from Freedom Highway)

 

GLORY (from The Motion Picture ‘Selma”) COMMON & JOHN LEGEND

(from the single) 

 

(a soundtrack for American Independence Day...)

 

LAND OF THE FREE - THE KILLERS

(single)

 

AMERICAN SOUL - U2

(from Songs Of Experience)

 

AMERICAN TUNE - INDIGO GIRLS

(from Closer To Fine single)

 

LONE STAR - ROMANTICA

(from Shadowlands)

 

TUPELO - JASON ISBELL & THE 400 UNIT

(from The Nashville Sound)

 

WESTERN SKIES - DARDEN SMITH

(from Western Skies)

 

TUSCON TRAIN - BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

(from Western Stars)

 

CALIFORNIA - DREW HOLCOMB & THE NEIGHBOURS

(from Souvenir)

 

TIME SPENT IN LA - DAWES

(from Nothing Is Wrong)

 

LOS ANGELES - LUKE SITAL-SINGH

(from A Golden State)

 

OOH LAS VEGAS - COWBOY JUNKIES

(from Songs For The Recollection)

 

LOS LUNAS - OVER THE RHINE

(from Love and Revelation)

 

ON A BUS TO ST. CLOUD - GRETCHEN PETERS

(from Trio Live)

 

SOUTHERN ACCENT - LUCINDA WILLIAMS

(from Running Down A Dream: Tribute To Tom Petty)

 

GRACELAND - CHRIS MARTIN

(from BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge 2017

 

NEW YORK MORNING - ELBOW

(from The Take Off And Landing Of Everything)

 

BROOKLYN BRIDGE - ANAIS MITCHELL

(from Anais Mitchell)

 

NEW YORK CITY - JOHN LENNON

(from Sometime In New York City)

 

MONA LISAS AND MAD HATTERS - THE KILLERS

(from Revamp; The Songs Of Elton John and Bernie Taupin)

 

SUMMER NIGHT IN NEW YORK - JANI IAN

(from The Light At The End Of The Line)

 

INDIANA - CHRIS WILSON & THE HERESY

(from Downfall EP)

 

THE GHOST OF CINCINNATI - BIG RED MACHINE

(from How Do You Think It's Gonna Last)

 

AMERiCAN LANDFILL - SAM PHILLIPS

(from World Of Sticks)

 

THIS IS A MY COUNTRY - MAVIS STAPLES & LEVON HELMS

(from Carry Me Home)

 

BIRMINGHAM SUNDAY - RHIANNON GIDDENS

(from Freedom Highway)

 

GLORY (from The Motion Picture ‘Selma”) COMMON & JOHN LEGEND

(from the single) 

STOCKI'S SUMMER READING PILE 2022

I always head off on summer vacation with a big pile of books, seeking which will grab my attention over weeks of rest. I'll not get to read them all but this is my pile!

 

LUCY CALDWELL - THESE DAYS

Recognised as one of Northern Ireland’s finest new writers, and there are many, I am excited to read how she recreates my home city during the Blitz.

 

BRIAN MCGILLOWAY - THE EMPTY ROOM

Stumbled by chance on Blood Ties earlier in the year. Loved it. A Strabane crime novelist who can really write. 

 

AMOR FOWLES - THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY

I read A Gentleman In Moscow last summer and look forward to a car trip across America with him this summer… as I sit in Ballycastle!

 

RICKY ROSS - WALKING BACK HOME

Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross has his memoir due for August. Cannot wait. 

 

DAVE THOMPSON - YELLOW

My mate’s romantic comedy about love between a fan and a steward in a hi vis jacket.

 

MICHELLE GALLEN - FACTORY GIRLS

A novel about our small towns in Northern Ireland and yes the sectarianism. Roddy Doyle calls it, “Vital, bang on and seriously funny”. 

 

DECLAN O’ROURKE - THE PAWN BROKERS REWARD

I am a little fascinated by The Irish Famine and Declan O’Rourke, one of my favourite songwriters, has written an astonishing album about it. This is his novel.

 

HENRIETTA MCKERVEY - VIOLET HILL

So we found out that one of the knitters at the Fitzroy knitting group has a novel writing daughter. Let’s give her work a lash in this. Joseph O’Connor is a big fan.

 

NEEMA SHAH - KOLOLO HILL 

We haven’t been to Uganda for a few years because of Covid. So I might read this one set on a street where I once spent a happy hour in a Kampala traffic jam.  

 

ANTHONY DOER - FOUR SEASONS IN ROME

Wanted to read this while I was in Rome but I had to come home too soon. Maybe I'll get back to it.