Round-The-World Barstool Blues

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Useful words

A few weeks back, I did a post on here about the enigmatic Russian word razbliuto (in fact, it is non-existent, a pop culture delusion). That had been prompted by a post a little before on my other blog, Froogville, about various unusual words in other languages, and the intriguing concepts associated with them, that I'd discovered in recent online noodlings.

One of the most interesting of my sources for these posts was this item (on the TED website) in which a conference of translators nominated their 21 favourite 'hard to translate' words.

On this list there were, for me, a couple of absolute standouts, words which I'd like to adopt into regular English usage:

sobremesa - the Spanish for the time after a meal spent enjoying conversation with the people you've just eaten with

merak - the Serbian for the enjoyment of simple pleasures like feasting and merrymaking

I am, of course, also fond of the Irish term craic, a somewhat nebulous concept of 'good times' that can be applied simply to entertaining conversation or more broadly to a pleasant evening out... or to improbable drunken adventures. The Irish being the Irish, the pub is most often the context and alcohol and/or music are almost invariably key accompanying elements; but its essence is simply good companionship. However, I learn from Wikipedia that the expression was originally English (or Scots English, anyway?), and only fairly recently adopted into Irish usage (mid-20th century). Moreover, the now common spelling is very new, and an affected Gaelicization; the word was originally just 'crack'. And this spelling is perhaps now even more entrenched in English usage than in Irish, as we have readily convinced ourselves that it is a uniquely Irish word and concept, and thus surely ought to have a Gaelic spelling. Oh well. Print the legend, I say. I think the word has acquired new and distinctively Irish connotations, and the transformation of the spelling is an appropriate reflection of that.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Shame about the name

Another interesting new bar has appeared in my neighbourhood, which is, strangely, still flying well below the radar, despite having opened its doors a month or so ago now.

It is pretty much the nearest bar to my home: a bit further than Cangku and Zui Yuefang, roughly the same distance as Modernista and Mai, but rather easier for me to get to than any of these, since it is adjacent to the Andingmen Qiao roundabout, where it is fairly straightforward to cross the 2nd Ringroad (there's even a tianqiao [footbridge] nearby, but that's hardly necessary).

It's a bit swish for my taste: a renovated siheyuan, with a loungey feel to it. But the standard of decor is most impressive, and the small open courtyard sandwiched between the two lounge areas will be a very mellow hangout in the warmer months.

The prices - at least, in this initial trying-to-woo-a-clientele phase - are extremely reasonable: most cocktails and mixed drinks are 25-40rmb, and even the formidably strong Long Island Iced Tea is only 45rmb - surely one of the cheapest in town these days.

There's a broad range of imported beers too, including one from North Korea (the Belgian proprietor has a six-weeks-on-six-weeks-off kind of job in Pyongyang, and gets friends to bring in the odd bottle or two of the stuff for him in suitcases). Because of its extreme rarity, this one is priced at an offputting 50rmb (and you're unlikely to want to try it more than once; it's OK, but nothing very remarkable); but most of the other brews are again quite a bit less than you'd expect in a joint this swank. I suspect these good times can't last - so get in there to take advantage while you can.

On the demerit side: there's no draught beer, only bottled (a major drawback for me), and the selection tends towards the poncey end of things (what can we expect from such beer-fetishists as the Belgians?!); the staff are still finding their feet; and there are currently only one or two menus, which are mounted in picture frames (an annoying affectation), and in such small print that they are quite hard to read.

Oh yes, and then there's the name... Chill. Words fail me. I can scarcely imagine a crappier name for a bar. I actually find it seriously off-putting. And I don't think I'm alone. Two or three people I've introduced the place to have cringed at the mention of the name as well.

A pity, because it's really a very promising bar indeed. I think a name-change is in order.

Bon mot for the week

"I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am."

Bernard Baruch (1870-1965)

Saturday, October 13, 2012

A Top Five Guitar Riffs

I've been thinking of attempting this for a while - as a variation on my 'Great Basslines' series of the past six months - and last week's 'Blues Week' brought it to the forefront of my mind again. I discovered quite a few rundowns on Youtube (mostly 'Top 20s') that provided food for thought, but they were mostly fairly similar: And I found that I was somewhat out of sympathy with several of the most obvious choices. Layla is indeed devastatingly hooky, but I find it rather wears out its welcome (after 6 minutes of almost nothing but the riff!); Smoke On The Water is certainly iconic, but a bit too plodding for my taste (high recognition value, but zero adrenalin rush); the key riff in Sultans of Swing is buried in the middle of the song (after the "We are the Sultans of Swing" refrain) rather than taking centre stage from the outset, and it doesn't stand out so much in a song full of memorable guitar bits (the insane run of 1/32-notes in the extended instrumental break at the end is what makes the most lingering impression for me).

Just a few minutes of reflection on this threw up getting on for 30 candidates, so, as with the 'Great Basslines', I may return to this in a series of further posts (although I'm running out of time to do all the music posts I'd like to, because - as we all know - the world is going to end on 21st December). For this first selection, I thought I'd try to focus on the most conspicuous omissions from the various other lists I've consulted - the really great rock riffs that most compilers somehow seem to overlook.

So, here we go....

A Top Five Great Rock Guitar Riffs

5) Whole Lotta Rosie - AC/DC

Of course, we could have a whole 'Top Five' (Top 10, Top 20!) just on these boys: AC/DC are all about the riffs - Highway To Hell, You Shook Me All Night Long, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Back in Black, Thunderstruck... But it's Bon Scott's unlikely celebration of an oversized groupie that's long had a special place in my heart. (At the end of my university days I was for a while dating a very beautiful art student called Rosie - very slender, and not at all a rock chick; but nevertheless, this song, and its monster riff, became a happy reminder of her.) Here's a great live version from 1977. [The album version can be heard here.]

4) Rebel, Rebel - David Bowie

Bowie would also have more than one contender here, especially amongst his early '70s stuff (Mick Ronson's influence?). Jean Genie would be a close runner-up, but this is surely one of the greatest rock riffs of all time.

3) Unbelievable - EMF

This Gloucestershire band (from the Forest of Dean, in fact; just a few miles up the road from where I grew up) faded from view in the mid-90s, and are probably perceived as a one-hit wonder. But damn, what a hit! (Curiously, America was the only country where it reached No. 1.) And what a riff!!!! Here they are playing on a comeback/greatest hits tour in 2001, at The Astoria at the top of London's Charing Cross Road (one of my favourite music venues; I was sad to discover that it had recently been demolished). [Plus, of course, Tom Jones chose to cover it. What higher accolade can there be?]

2) Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

Surely the greatest new entry into the pantheon of awesome riffage in the last decade, and much covered. No disrespect to Jack and Meg, but this is such a monster song that it really benefits from having a full band belt it out, and the best live version I've found is this one by Audioslave. [The original White Stripes video is here, and a good live version here.]

But in the top spot??

1) 20th Century Boy - T. Rex

I think the late '60s and early '70s was the Golden Age of Riffage, and, for a brief shining moment, Marc Bolan was the golden boy of that era.

Friday, October 12, 2012

The colours of autumn

Last week, I went to a cooking class at The Hutong, to get an introduction to the East Asian approach to pickle making.

This is the result of my labours: jars of Szechuan-style pickled vegetables (three kinds of radish and a smattering of other veggies - string beans, carrots, celery, cabbage, spring onions - flavoured with a generous handful of fresh Szechuan peppercorns and some wickedly hot pre-pickled baby chilli peppers) and batons of daikon radish in a brine suffused with ginger and turmeric and another wickedly hot pepper (a sweet'n'spicy combination, apparently a southern Chinese speciality). And we also made LOTS of Korean-style spicy cabbage - which will probably take me two or three months to eat, and is stinking my fridge out in the meantime. No matter: I love my kimchi.

These two pickle jars are unexpectedly pretty. I'm almost reluctant to empty them. I'm supposed to leave the radishes etc. to steep in their pickling brine for a bit, but they'll be ready for eating soon; and I imagine - pickle nut that I am (something else I can probably attribute to my German grandmother's influence) - that they will disappear very quickly.

[Well, except that I am perturbed by all the air bubbles collecting on top of the Szechuan vegetables. I suspect this is evidence of some unwanted fermentation going on, which might well have spoiled them. Bother!]

HBH 306

Sea breeze, moorland walks;

Whisky's taste plays a slideshow

Of childhood memories.

I realised the other day - perhaps for the first time - that whisky's (good Scotch single malt's) powerful hold over me may have much to do with the nostalgic resonances conjured by its rich flavours, and even more especially by its complex aromas. Islay whiskies, in particular, with their savour of peat and brine, can take me back to holidays of 35 or 40 years ago.

[Yes, I was allowing myself one of my exceptions.]

Thursday, October 11, 2012

"The Carp"

Gosh, I thought I'd written about this place long ago, but... it seems not. I think I must have alluded to it here and there, in comments if not in posts, but I haven't yet given it a post of its own.

"The Carp" was the nickname my buddy Big Frank gave to the restaurant on Jiugulou Dajie where he and I and Tony The Chairman ('The Three Amigos') would most often eat during our first year in Beijing.

It was larger than most restaurants on the street (in fact, one of the only two-storey buildings, although the upper floor was given over to something else, not connected to the restaurant space at all as far as we could tell) and, being towards the north end of the street, just off the Second Ringroad, it was a popular haunt for resting cab drivers (it could be quite terrifying to watch the way some of them would quaff beer and baijiu in the early hours of the morning, before going back on duty). It was slightly up itself, in that it was about the only restaurant on the street then charging 3rmb rather than 2 for the standard big bottle of Yanjing beer; but we soon managed to haggle them down on that, as we were becoming such regular customers. (We'd always get complimentary pickled peanuts as well.)

The main thing that won us over in our early days was that it was the only place on the street with an "English menu". I was the only one of our trio who could speak any Chinese at all (and not very much), and none of us could read much more than 面 and 肉 (mian and rou: noodles and meat). Picture menus, almost ubiquitous since the Olympics here, were at this time a real rarity. So, the "English menu" was potentially a godsend, something that might save us from having to make do with the same handful of dishes night after night.

In practice, though, the "English menu" at this place was very little help at all. It was just a scrap of paper, crudely handwritten in biro, which included only a dozen or so of their most popular dishes. And some of these, it seemed, were not in fact within the chef's repertoire. It became a ritual for us to always try ordering the 'Chicken in garlic and ginger' first; it invariably provoked a mumbled meiyou ("We don't have that."). It seemed inconceivable that a restaurant would not have the three commonest ingredients in China, or that any Chinese chef would be unable to knock up such a simple dish, but.... well, this is China. The "English menu" was evidently not quite the same as the Chinese menu; and if it wasn't on the Chinese menu, no-one was going to put themselves out even slightly to try to make it for us.

The waitresses invariably countered with the opening gambit of trying to interest us in the most expensive dish on the menu (an almost ubiquitous tactic in Chinese restaurants at that time; but it seems to me to be becoming much less common now). The most expensive dish on a Chinese menu (unless you're in one of those stupid-expensive Hong Kong places that features abalone and shark's fin) is almost always some basic kind of fish. In this case, the biro scrawl said bluntly 'Carp'. It was at least 5 or 6 times as expensive as any other dish, and none of us were particularly big fans of fish anyway, so we always declined. But repeated failure did not discourage the staff from trying, again and again, to persuade us to give it a try.

We were frequently introduced to the carp in person, as were other Chinese diners. Many Chinese restaurants that offer fish dishes keep the fish in an aquarium by the entrance, so that diners can select the particular fish they'd like to eat. This rather grimy, low-rent establishment had only one fish dish, and, I suspect, only the one fish - which was kept out the back in the kitchen, in a plastic bucket. To try to interest diners in eating it, it was periodically brought out into the dining room and carried up to a table, writhing in the waitress' arms. Well, I say 'brought'; in fact, it was usually thrown. One of the young chefs would remove it from its bucket and lob it lustily through the tiny serving hatch into the arms of a waitress. On the return journey, the chefs seemed to like to make a game of catching it directly into its bucket - as we judged by the sploosh usually emanating from the kitchen just after it disappeared from our sight through the hatch; occasionally, of course, we would hear instead the wet thud of a fish missing the bucket and landing on the floor.

This was great sport for the staff, but not a lot of fun for the fish - and hence a source of considerable moral discomfort for the Amigos. We often debated buying the carp dish, just so that we could liberate the poor creature from its long captivity (since NO-ONE was ever seen to order the carp dish, we assumed that the same fish might have survived for months, despite the cramped confines of its bucket home and the nightly trauma of being flung through the serving hatch three or four times in each direction) and return it to 'the wild' in nearby Houhai lake. I'm sorry to say we never got around to doing so.

Anyway, that was how "The Carp" got its name from us. We were, inadvertently, following something of a Chinese tradition: many small restaurants - in Beijing, at least - are too unimaginative to give themselves a unique monicker, and simply name themselves after a 'signature dish'. "The Carp", we eventually discovered from a Chinese punter some months later, was in fact called The Small Lobster Place (I suppose it must have been this: 小龙虾, xiao longxia, a type of crayfish or langoustine; this appeared to be a seasonal speciality, something we never witnessed in our first six months of almost nightly attendance).

"Don't go looking for it. It's not there any more."

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

If they'd asked me...

I see The Beijinger magazine has started a new feature this month called 'A Drink With...', quizzing some notable on their personal drinking history. (Well, OK, I just noticed it for the first time this month. But I've been away for a while. And I don't read The Beijinger very often any more. Maybe it's been going a while.) This month's subject was Matthew Niederhauser, a young photographer noted for his portraits of Beijing's rock musicians.

I don't suppose they're ever likely to ask me (since I've spent the last ten years assiduously protecting my anonymity!), so I thought I'd borrow the format for a quick post of my own here.

A Drink With... Froog

Who would you most like to get drunk with?

Well, my friends, naturally. The Choirboy, foremost amongst those available to me in Beijing; and my old teaching buddy The Arts Entrepreneur, the most dearly missed of my drinking companions back in the UK.

However, the question is angling for a celebrity nomination (living or dead), so..... I did once have a drink with seminal 'Unsuitable Role Model' Jeffrey Bernard - so I don't think I can cite him for this. If I had a time machine, I think the drinker who has most fascinated me, and was most likely to be erudite and witty company, would be the Irish writer Brian O'Nolan. Amongst folks still with us, I'd like to say Tom Waits, but he renounced booze a couple of decades ago. I believe the Irish musician Jem Finer still tipples, though, and I bet he'd be excellent company on a wee bar crawl. I'd be interested to meet Paul Auster too, one of the few contemporary writers I really admire (not sure if or how much he drinks, but it seems likely he's not averse to the occasional snifter).

If you could only imbibe one drink for the rest of your life, what would it be?

I am reminded of a very wise joke I heard in early childhood: A group of newly deceased souls are given a choice on admission into the afterlife to nominate the food they'd most like to be able to eat for all eternity. Thinking they are about to enter Heaven, they all eagerly pick their favourite things... only to discover that having to eat the same thing all the time soon becomes HELL.

It would be a big mistake here to choose the drink you like most (probably, for me, single malt Scotch). Things you enjoy most powerfully tend also to pall the soonest, if you have no change from them. And spirits and cocktails are too scouring to the throat (and the liver!), too dehydrating to drink all the time. You have to pick something you're not going to tire of. That, for me, would be a beer of some kind - probably Guinness.

How old were you when you started drinking?

Well, I didn't start going into bars on my own that often until my last year of high school, when I was 17; but I had been doing so intermittently for a year or two prior to that. My parents had allowed me to drink with them in pubs (in a very modest way: shandy, rum'n'coke), and at home during the Christmas fortnight, from about the age of 11 or 12. The first time I was sick from drink, I think I was in fact only about 10 (accompanying my Dad on his Skittles Night, and being allowed a couple of bottles of Stella - far too much for my untrained tolerance!). However, the first time I was drunk - though happily so, and without being too seriously ill - was a little earlier even than that. My eccentric German grandmother got in the habit of giving me a flagon (2.5 litres, I think) of cider as a birthday present every year from the time I was about 8. Usually it was consumed as very weak cider shandy over the course of a few weeks. But in the second or third year she made this gift, my parents left me in the care of my elder brother for an evening, he was delinquent in his supervisory duties, and I quaffed most of the jug - well, whatever was left in it - in just a few hours. I was high as a kite, but, as far as I remember, I was not actually sick. That might have been a dangerously positive early experience of booze for me!!

Tell us about the first time you got drunk.

See answer above.

Tell us about the last time you were drunk.

The last time I was really drunk - in a doing embarrassing things and then forgetting them kind of way - was on my birthday last year. When I was a student, I used to get that drunk 3 or 4 times a week. In my mature years, it has lapsed to a few times a year, at most.

What's the dumbest thing you've done while drunk?

During my student years, I was walking home alone one night, very drunk (after a free tasting of port, sherry and madeira; I was on the Wines & Spirits Committee of the Oxford Union, and we'd just introduced a new range of fortified wines to be sold under the Union's own label, so this had been a small private party to commemorate the event - with unlimited supply), and I paused to collect an abandoned shopping trolley. I protest that I was motivated by public-spiritedness, since the Sainsbury's it came from was only a few hundred yards up the road and I was intending to return it. However, I started racing with it (against myself, just for the thrill of speed!), ran it against a kerb when I was running flat out, and was launched over the top of it - flying for a good 10ft or 15ft before landing face-first on a cement paving stone. It was only the softening effect of so much drink that prevented me from suffering a serious injury, although I suspect I gave myself quite a bad concussion.

What's your golden rule of drinking?

Know your limits. It's supposed to be fun, not self-harming.

Where's the dumbest place you've gone drinking?

Probably a rather dingy back alley in a small town in Fiji. I was drinking kava, the local 'herbal tea' (very mildly narcotic), rather than booze. I'd developed a taste for it, but was frustrated that there were few opportunities to indulge (it's an almost nightly ritual out in the villages, but it doesn't happen so much in the towns; or, if it does, it's rather hidden). I'd got chatting with this gaggle of local ne'er-do-wells in a bar about this, and they had invited me to join them for an impromptu kava session out on the street. Three of them were harmless old soaks, but there was a younger hanger-on who had a disturbing psychotic intensity about him. When I noticed that he was carrying a monkey-wrench wrapped up in a plastic carrier bag, I decided to bug out of there before I got myself mugged.

Could you organise a piss-up in a brewery?

Ah, that's a rather unfair idiom. In fact, organising a piss-up in a brewery is HARD, because it's a place of work; and although there's beer all around you, very often there's nary a drop of it available to drink. The Yanjing Brewery in Beijing has a very comfortably appointed bar (a bit too comfy for my taste: rather like the UK's dreaded 'saloon bars' - all beige carpet and upholstered seats) at the end of its visitors' tour. I have often thought of dragging the lads out there for a session.... Hmm, now there's an idea.

What's your favourite place to go drinking?

In Beijing, of course, it is well documented that I spend most of my leisure hours in the most excellent 12 Square Metres bar... and/or at (my older, and rather deeper love) The Pool Bar. However, my absolute favourite place to drink in Beijing is any grotty streetside restaurant where you can keep ordering chuanr and 3-kuai beers until 3am or 4am.

Monday, October 08, 2012

Oh, Fate, you tease!

Just when I am not drinking (beer, for a month) and not really eating very much either (possibly a long-term regime, since I find my weight is not falling nearly as quickly as I'd hoped), there's a new opening in my 'hood that appears to be exactly what I have been wishing for all these many years (when I was eating and drinking without restraint!): somewhere in the Gulou area that does decent Western snack food to take away, and at very reasonable prices.

It appears to be run by a couple of Chinese guys who speak very little English, and probably found their menu online somewhere; but from what I've seen so far, they are making the food quite well. Their burgers are all either 38 or 42rmb, which makes them cheaper than just about anywhere else in town these days, barely half the price of places like Let's Burger and Blue Frog, with which they compare not too badly (the toppings aren't as generous, and the side of fries is positively niggardly; but the meat and the bun are pretty darned good). They have a limited but enticing selection of soups, salads and sandwiches as well; and a bowl of chilli, which I think I'll be trying next time.

Ah, but the real draw is the drinks: fresh fruit smoothies or homemade lemonade by the pitcher for only about 15 or 18rmb (my memory lets me down on matters of detail, now that I am not reinforcing it regularly with alcohol); canned soft drinks are only 8rmb; stubbies of Tsingtao are only 10 or 12rmb. Ah, but who would drink crappy old Tsingtao anyway? They have an interesting range of imported beers at the cheapest prices to be found anywhere in town: only a few items on their beer list are as much as 25 or 30 rmb; bottles of Sam Adams or Saranac Ale are only 20rmb, and they're practically giving Stella away at 16rmb.

Honestly, IF I were drinking beer now, I would be hitting this place up almost every night.

The trouble is, they've got very little room for people to eat in, much less to hang around drinking. They've adapted a narrow little shop space, probably barely 25 sq m in total, and nearly two-thirds of that taken up by the galley and serving counter.

Also, I imagine they'll realise before too long that they've made a mistake with their pricing (Gulou hipsters will pay 15 or 20% more for the food, and probably at least 50% more for the drinks) and put everything up.

Until then, I think I'm going to try to keep this place MY SECRET for a while.

Bon mot for the week

"There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said."

Joni Mitchell (1943- )

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Farewell to the Blues

To round off the impromptu 'Blues Week' festival with which I have sustained myself through the horror of the Chinese National Holiday, I return to my ultimate guitar hero Peter Green (celebrated on here at length on Wednesday). It seems that he recorded an album, or most of one, with the blues pianist Otis Spann. I'm not sure if this was made at the same time as the studio jam sessions which became the fabulous Fleetwood Mac in Chicago album I mentioned the other day, but Otis did play on one or two tracks on that as well, and I imagine this collaboration must also date to then (January 1969), or thereabouts.

There are two of these tracks on Youtube at the moment, Ain't Nobody's Business and She's Out Of Sight. I hope visitors have enjoyed this week's selections as much as I have.

And, for a very LAST treat (gosh, I've spent A LOT of time on Youtube this week!!), here's a fantastic clip of Otis with Muddy Waters, playing Nobody Knows My Trouble at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 1968. Heaven!

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Jimmy also got the blues

Drawing to the end of my 'Blues Week' here on The Barstool (one more extra special treat planned for tomorrow!), here's one of my favourite bits of Led Zeppelin, Since I've Been Loving You. This performance is supposedly from around 1970 (probably the height of their powers, before Robert blew out the higher range of his voice, and before they all got completely stupid on the drugs and booze), although I can't discover any more details. I prefer this to the much more commonly posted 1973 Madison Square Gardens show which was filmed for The Song Remains The Same. [Robert & Jimmy also produced an excellent version in their 1994 reunion for the 'UnLedded' MTV special. And you can hear the superb album version here.]

And for even more sustained awesomeness, here's an amazing black&white film of them doing Communication Breakdown and Dazed & Confused (and an unfortunately truncated Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You; the complete version of that is here) in an appearance on Danish TV from March 1969, the very early days of the band.

Friday, October 05, 2012

An obscure gem

Turley Richards, I have recently discovered, is an awesome vocal talent. Now in his 70s, he's still performing and teaching voice, but mainstream commercial success has always just eluded him - although it seems that he enjoys something of a cult following, including a number of celebrity admirers in the music world (Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood produced and played on his 1980 album Therfu; I was led to check out some of his music on Youtube by this interview with Mick I was reading last weekend, in which he mentions one of the Therfu tracks as amongst the 11 favourite things he's recorded in his long career). You can check out Turley's own website to find out what he's been up to lately.

This might have been the moment when he came closest to breaking out into major fame: an appearance on the Johnny Carson Show in the late '60s, when he was 28 years old.

He's singing Gershwin's Summertime*, which some might object doesn't quite fit into the concept of my ongoing 'Blues Week' on here; but I've always felt it was pretty bluesy (though it was written in the early '30s, somewhat before the classic blues had emerged, at least as a recorded music). And I find some support from the musicologist K. J. McElrath, who writes on the Jazz Standards website: "Gershwin was remarkably successful in his intent to have this sound like a folk song. This is reinforced by his extensive use of the pentatonic scale (C-D-E-G-A) in the context of the A minor tonality and a slow-moving harmonic progression that suggests a 'blues'."

* Trivia note: I hadn't previously known that the lyrics are credited to DuBose Hayward, the author of the novel Porgy on which Gershwin's well-loved opera was based.

HBH 305

An old hunger rises:

Desire for oblivion,

Escape from endless thought.

I think I have now almost completely - no, completely - suppressed the urge to drink, the habituation to think of drinking as a natural or necessary accompaniment to certain activities (like being awake [no, I jest!]). But this does not preclude the occasional resurgence of the urge to be drunk. There's only a circumstantial connection between the two. There are times when I think that if there were a pill I could (safely) take to get off my face, I'd gratefully swallow one. And I had that feeling very strongly last night, when a sudden and deep depression flooded over me.

I have long recognised that my one potential 'problem' with drinking (not an actual problem, I don't think, because I'm well aware of it, and very much on top of it) is its relationship to my depressions.

I have been ragingly bi-polar since my early teens (if not before: we're less aware of, and so remember less keenly, mood-swings and tantrums when we're very young). And since my late teens or early twenties, I have developed the habit of using alcohol to manage the experience.

The thing is, I realised quite early on that I don't entirely dislike my depressions. They are a central part of my experience of the world, they feel comfortable and familiar to me; I actually miss them when I haven't had one for a while. Not only does the rest of life seem rosier by comparison (a great consolation to try to focus on if negative feelings at the bottom of the depressive trough start to seem too overwhelming), but sensations and emotions are somehow more vivid, more intense during a depressive episode, and that is something I find stimulating, even pleasurable (although one's thoughts and feelings tend to be directed into very dark corners of the soul when depressed, so it's an unconventional - perhaps perverse - sort of pleasure, inextricably mingled with a profound distress).

For me, what's bad about depression is not the simple fact of it happening at all, but its occasional propensity to stick around for an extended period: I hate the sense of being trapped at the bottom of the trough, unsure of when or how I'm going to get out. I once took a course of SSRIs (not for depression, for a physical ailment; but I knew they were supposed to have a psychotropic impact as well, so I was curious to see how they would affect my depression, which I had been suffering from particularly badly of late), and I absolutely hated what they did to me: they almost completely flattened out my variations in mood, so that I felt stuck in exactly the same state all the time. I suppose people who 'suffer' from depression, without any of the ameliorating thrill of enhanced awareness that I experience, will be grateful to escape from its pit like this, and will interpret their new stable mood state as 'happy', or at least as an acceptable average level of contentment. And perhaps it works better for people who don't run to the bi-polar extremes, who don't balance out their depressions with corresponding spells of exhilaration and euphoria - people who are only gauging the new 'steady state' against the worst sensations they have known, not the best. For me, it was horrendous: I experienced the 'steady state' as being slightly, but significantly, below a reasonable median level; I felt mildly depressed - permanently. But without the heightened sensitivity that usually made depression tolerable for me; and, crucially, without any sense of when I might ever escape from this feeling, without any sense of control over whether I might be able to escape. I missed the emotional rollercoaster. And I missed the sense I usually have that the rollercoaster is not entirely outside of my control, that I can influence how fast I progress through its various stages.

That's where the booze comes in. I use it to ride the rollercoaster. There are other stimuli I can use as well to speed up the ride: cannabis (very occasionally), music (almost invariably - Pink Floyd and The Pogues have probably accompanied me on the ride even more often than whisky has), poetry, certain films, or just reflecting on particularly unhappy experiences in my life. But mostly I've relied on getting myself blind drunk. If I just leave a depression to run its course, it can linger for two or three days, sometimes even a week or more. If I blitz myself with alcohol, it accelerates the whole process; I can be fairly confident that it's going to shoot me out the other side very quickly, and that I'll at least be on the up-slope, if not approaching another euphoric peak, within 24 hours or so. Unfortunately.... the depth of the pit, and the speed of plummeting into it, may also be exaggerated. It seems a price worth paying in order to not be stuck at the bottom too long.

I know many people might see that as a rationalisation of addiction. But I sincerely believe I am not an addictive personality - rather the reverse, if such a thing is possible! If I do have an addiction, it is to depression itself; or to the - I know, possibly unduly romanticized - conception I have of it as a beneficial workout for the psyche, emotionally cathartic and liberating to the imagination. But I'm absolutely confident I don't have any kind of addiction to alcohol.

I have tried both ways of dealing with my depressions, making use of drink and abstaining from it. I prefer using drink, and haven't encountered any negative side-effects from so doing (such as tendency to relapse into depression more quickly, or irritability or loss of concentration... or anything). But, just to be on the safe side, I don't allow it to become my invariable policy; I make a point of enduring some of my depressions without alcohol.

Last night, though? Well, I think I'll keep that to myself, thank you.

At least I'm feeling rather better today.

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Angus!!!

I discovered AC/DC comparatively late in life. I got almost all of my early exposure to rock music through my elder brother; and although he later professed to be a huge fan of the band (we went to see them together once, at the NEC in Birmingham), he never had any of their records when were growing up. I didn't receive my introduction until the beginning of my second year at university, when I found my "studies" disturbed by one of the new kids down at the end of my landing blasting out some music indecently loud. I wandered down the hall to register mild complaint, but as I approached his door, I found that I was rather enjoying what he was playing. That Fresher and I became fast friends immediately. And my relationship with the exuberant Aussie rockers similarly got off to a flying start. (Embarrassing confession: that NEC concert I went to with my brother a few years later - I was en route between interviews for a couple of teaching jobs, so I went to the show wearing a pinstriped suit. I thought I might get torn limb from limb, but AC/DC fans are a surprisingly tolerant and inclusive bunch.)

I thought I'd already posted their Downpayment Blues on here as one of my 'Great Drinking Songs' - my theme song! But, in fact, I find so far I've only put Highway To Hell up on here. So, for this entry in my 'Blues Week', I've got to kick off with this - "I know I ain't doin' much, but doin' nothing means a lot to me."

I also can't resist including Ride On, a marvellous slow blues tune by Bon Scott (I've already posted that over on Froogville, but what the hey?!). I couldn't find a concert video of this, but here's a nice montage of clips of Bon and the lads in the early days.

Then I remembered What's Next To The Moon?, another of their bluesier numbers, and always a great favourite of mine. I just discovered an excellent set of live concert videos from the early Noughties, filmed at the Circus Krone in Munich, which includes a particularly good performance of this. (Album version can be heard here.)

And to sign off today, here's one of Angus' trademark live solos, from that same concert in Munich.

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Peter Green Is GOD

I've written on here once before of Peter Green, the exquisite guitarist who originally founded Fleetwood Mac back in 1967 as a blues band. He is, I think, my favourite blues player (well, mine and B.B. King's!). As well as an utterly gorgeous guitar tone, he's got an engagingly mellow and laidback stage persona, and a very pleasant voice. (There are a lot of online spats about whether he's a better blues player than Clapton. I would say YES, not even close; but if it were in danger of being a tie on their playing, Peter should prevail for his vastly superior voice.) In that previous post, I enrolled his rendition of Need Your Love So Bad into my 'Great Love Songs' series.

To continue my 'Blues Week' here on The Barstool, here are a few more choice cuts from his brief '60s heyday (although, after a long hiatus with mental health issues, he's been playing in public more frequently again over the past couple of decades).

First up, here's Oh Well, musically one of their 'heavier' numbers, but lyrically quite lighthearted - and it's distinguished by a monster riff.

Here's the more brooding and experimental Green Manalishi (which seems to have become better known through a cover by Judas Priest, although I, of course, think that Peter's original is much better).

And how could I omit the classic Black Magic Woman (which seems to have become better known through Santana's cover of it, though I think Peter's original is vastly better)?

And finally, here's one of my very favourite of those early Fleetwood Mac numbers, a cover of the Elmore James song Homework, in which their other guitarist, Jeremy Spencer, a wizard with the slide, takes over lead and vocal duties. I first heard them do this on their strangely obscure (it's not mentioned in the Wikipedia discography!) double album, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago. They were in America in the winter of '68/'69, and took some time out at the start of January to drop in at the celebrated studio of the soon-to-fold Chess Records. The visit became a week-long residency where they jammed with the aristocracy of the local blues scene. Some of the resulting - wonderfully raw sounding - recordings were later put together to create the best blues album I own.
[This is a rather freaky video, from a French TV show. Mick Fleetwood is shirtless throughout, though the cameraman coyly avoids him. The audience of groovy French teenagers all look as if they've come from a model agency. And, oh my god, '60s fashions! And '60s dancing!!!]

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Billy got the blues too!

The relentlessness of China's pointless and interminable National Holiday through the whole first week of October so crushes my soul that I think I'm going to need a daily musical pick-me-up to see me through. I was so buoyed up by yesterday's little blast of Cream that I've decided to have a 'Blues Week' here on The Barstool. (Moreover, since I'm not going out at all this week, I don't have the substance for any regular posts on here!)

I was lucky enough to discover ZZ Top through a friend at school in the early '80s, when they were still fairly obscure in the UK - a couple of years before they re-tooled their sound to be so eminently radio-friendly for the Eliminator album and became universally popular as a result. I don't think I really realised it at the time, but their 1970s material was almost all pure blues; I didn't know what it was, but I knew I loved this music. Nor did I learn until years later that Jimi Hendrix had acclaimed a teenaged Billy Gibbons as one of the finest guitarists he'd ever heard - largely, I suspect, because of his exemplary blues feel.

I particularly adore Billy's SLOW playing on Blue Jean Blues (just about everything else of theirs is so much more up-tempo). And there are lots of good concert videos of this (notably this one, from just a few years ago), but he always tends to goof around a little on this song live, and, alas, it lacks the spine-shivery impact of the album recording.

So, I thought instead I'd give you this video of one of their classic Texas boogies, La Grange, from a concert in the early '80s, just pre-Eliminator (there are quite a few excerpts from this posted on Youtube now, and it looks like it was a stupendous show).

And here they are doing the blues standard Dust My Broom (written by the great Robert Johnson, but better known from the cover version later recorded by slide guitar maestro Elmore James), from that same awesome gig, with bass player Dusty Hill taking over on vocals.

Aha, inspiration! I just found a great version of another of their slower tunes, Fool For Your Stockings, this one from a 1980 gig filmed for the German TV show Rockpalast (quite a bit of this on Youtube too: hours of joy!). This was, in fact, the very first of ZZ's songs to really get under my skin - although once again I prefer the straight-up album version.

If you enjoyed this little retrospective on the blues playing of Billy Gibbons, go back and listen (again... and again) to this original recording of Blue Jean Blues from ZZ Top's 1975 album Fandango! Listen, and swoon.

New Picks of the Month

Looking back at October 2009 (gosh, is it really three years ago already?), I find that it was a particularly busy month - at least on Froogville. This was mainly because I was kept indoors for much of the month by the protracted 'celebrations' of the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (something about which I curmudged quite extensively, here and here and here... and here).

I think my top pick for this month will be this post, Up yer bum! - one of those in which I revisit my Classical education, pondering on one of the great mysteries of 5th century BC Greek literature: why is threatening somebody with a radish such a terrifying prospect? (Although, in an uncommonly rich month, I find myself compelled to remind you also of this quip about the tortured English of many TV presenters here, this anecdote about my latest acting job, this post on my philosophy of teaching, and these Halloween ghost stories.)

From The Barstool, I'll pick A new idiom, a simple but painfully memorable little text message joke.

Traffic Report - the blog stats for September

Despite having a lot of time on my hands last month, I didn't succumb too badly to the temptation to over-blog; it ended up being a fairly 'typical' month.

There were 35 posts and around 17,500 words on Froogville.

There were 30 posts and nearly 7,000 words on Round-The-World Barstool Blues.

I've just added sidebar links for my recent series On Writing on Froogville, and for the Potted History of the Beijing Bar Scene that I wrote in June for The Barstool.

However, unfortunately, I have had to remove the 'Recent Post List' links from the sidebars, because Blogger appears to have terminated that useful feature.

Not that much of interest happening with the stats, except that there was a bit of a surge in visits to The Barstool in the middle of last week (WHY???), almost all of them from the States.

Oh, and we've seen our first visitors from Greece and Moldova. My 'model United Nations' is almost complete!

Monday, October 01, 2012

That feeling once again

The dismal prospect of the week-long bore-a-thon that is China's National Holiday tends to bring on a heavy dose of the blues.

What better way to dispel that stifling funk than with a heavy dose of the blues? Here are Cream performing the T-Bone Walker classic Stormy Monday, at one of the awesome series of reunion shows they played at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2005. So sorry I missed this - they look to have been some of the greatest concerts ever (for those of us who like blues-rock). Luckily, it seems as though the whole of the high-quality concert film has now been posted to Youtube, so you can browse for any of your favourite songs.

Bon mot for the week

"It's not the drink you miss, but the curious adventures it used to take you on, and all the people you'd meet along the way."

Froog

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Monday, October 15, 2012

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Friday, October 12, 2012

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Monday, October 08, 2012

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Saturday, October 06, 2012

Friday, October 05, 2012

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Monday, October 01, 2012

The Centre of the Universe

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Carve it on the mountain

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What is your unusual super-power?

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