Cary Grace

Dear Jimi,

It’s now the middle of the magnificent month of July, in the year two-thousand and twenty-five, or 54 years, 9 months, and 27 days since you left us, and I am here in Seattle, which I know was your birthplace and your home for a time.  

You and I were actually born under almost the same stars, astrologically speaking (for whatever woo-woo bollocks that’s worth), but we are separated by a vast and unnavigable swath of space-time, and what I imagine to be an even more vast and unbridgeable cultural divide. I think, had that not been the case, we just might have been friends. I certainly would have loved to have the chance to know you, or even just to meet you—even if the encounter only lasted exactly long enough for you to tell me to fuck off.

That would’ve been OK.

Because you’re one of those rare and singular beings who I believe leaves traces of some kind of elemental magic in your wake wherever you pass, and makes everyone and everything you contact somehow ‘more’ than before. Perhaps a few molecules of your innate enchantment would have floated free and landed on me, and then helped to light the way in my eternal darkness. That truly would have been enough for any mere mortal, and certainly would have been more than enough for me. 

(Wow, that sounded awfully metaphysical and airy-fairy for someone who is at my most central core a dedicated rationalist. Or at least that is what I aspire to be. I don’t want you to get the wrong first impression of me, so I did want to make that much clear. You, though—I mean, forgive me, but I find it nigh impossible to write about you without at least a little bit of mystical nonsense creeping into my prose. You’re just like that. I can’t help it.)

Enough of the rambling introductions though. I do have an actual reason for writing to you now, so I should try to get to the point before I lose track of it entirely. (If there even was one…hmmm.)

You see, I think I’m a bit lost, and for some reason I imagined that you might be able to help. Or maybe I just supposed that getting my thoughts down in words could help, and that addressing them to someone who has such an influential gravitational field within my mind-orrery would help me focus*. Either way, here we are. So I’ll continue.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…no, hang on, wrong movie. 

A long time ago, I discovered words, and then I discovered music. Songs became my only true friends and confidants, at least for what is at this point in time approximately the first half of my mortal existence (and if I’m honest, they remain my most constant friends and my most trusted confidants). 

Forgive me if this seems harsh, but songs are just better than (most) people in a lot of ways. Songs are always there when you need them. They are steadfastly loyal, they never play mind games, they never have ulterior motives, and though your relationships with them can and do change over time, the ones you truly connect with will never really leave you. Songs don’t ever die either. They just exist in an infinite moment of time—one frozen point that stretches from the instant of their creation out across the event horizon. (I’m sure if I had a better grasp of quantum physics I could explain this concept better, but I’m guessing you will understand even if my words are a bit clumsy.)

Songs can be simple and straightforward, things of pure joy, or pure sadness, or pure love, or pure rage, or anything else one might imagine. Perfect little gift-wrapped packages, containing curated capsule collections of the basic things that make us human, to keep us honest and remind us of the things that truly matter, and best of all, which can be called up on demand whenever we may need them, and will never complain or begrudge.

And of course songs can also be deeply complex, like intricate tapestries of music and words, with a million different threads to follow that can take you to all sorts of vastly different places, when and if you are ready and willing to submit to their multifarious lessons.

Songs are, quite frankly, absolute wonders—wonders that I couldn’t even begin to define even in a general way using only words without doing some pretty ridiculous interpretive architectural choreography that I don’t feel remotely up to at the moment, so I’m just going to proceed on the basis that it’s not something I really need to explain.

Not to you, of all people, anyway. That’s for damn sure.

So, yeah, songs.

I think all I ever wanted to do from the moment I experienced their power to heal, to enlighten, to understand, to lift, to support, to invigorate, to soothe—was to create them myself. To pay forward to someone else out there in the world at least a small measure of the things the songs I have known and loved have given and continue to give me.

Anyway, that’s pretty much the crux of what I’ve been attempting to do for all this time. I want you to understand that about me, even if you don’t understand anything else about me, because it’s definitely the most important thing, and the one thing that feels most integral to my soul, if such things exist at all.

I was born into this world like everyone else is, and I’ll leave it the same way, but between those two signposts, I still really want to do something that means something to at least someone besides myself.

Our lives are so tragically short (yours was of course even more so than most), so I guess the best any of us can really hope for is that the people who live on and live after us will remember something of us when we are gone. By that measure, you’ve certainly achieved immortality. And the most admirable thing of all (to me, anyway) is that you got there by being true to yourself, and by uncompromisingly doing the thing that you loved most in the world.

If only I could find some way to do the same.

If I can trust the honesty and accuracy of your biographers, I do know that you struggled inside your mind, in the places where no one else can follow. I feel like I can understand that aspect of you, at least to some extent, because I have struggled in that way too. I’m sure that our struggles have been very different, but maybe—just maybe—they were similar too, in some ways. There’s no way to know for sure, and there wouldn’t have been any way to know even if I could ask you in person, because the sad fact is that only you can truly know your own mind, and only I can truly know mine, and we can never truly share the most intrinsic parts of ourselves, but what I do know is that I am overflowing with empathy when I think of you, especially knowing how primitive the whole field of mental health was in your time, and how incomplete and ineffective the treatments that were available to you probably were. 

Now, fortunately I think, we have a much better (certainly by no means perfect, but better) understanding of mental health conditions and neurodiversity, and much better and safer treatments and medications with fewer side effects, but that still doesn’t make it easy for those of us who struggle. Far from it. It’s still so hard. And it’s still so hard to know which parts of what feel like reality to each of us are actually real, and which ones are false phantoms—distortions wrought by our (immensely creative, granted, but) sometimes impossibly devious brains when we weren’t paying close enough attention; poltergeists of our own making, that seem for some reason to be dead set on sabotaging all of our best efforts to succeed in this weird and wonderful endeavour that we call life.

When I was younger, I didn’t really think I’d still be around now. I figured I’d blast off like a rocket and set the world on fire, and then probably go out in a spectacular blaze of glory (kind of like you did, you know?), but that I’d leave behind a body of work that was known, respected, and valued, by other humans, and that I was immensely proud of having created, and that I felt confident would be remembered long after I (as a person) had been forgotten.

That’s…not quite how it happened. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I am sure that I am not sure where to go from here.

I mean, I’m not suicidal. That’s something.

I have some official diagnoses now, and I understand myself so much better than I did years ago. I’ve got modern medications that help me to survive, and even to have some kind of quality of life in a world that still often feels strange and cruel and alien to me. Remarkably, there have even been times when I was truly happy—something I’d never have thought possible when I was 20.

But I still feel empty and incomplete in some ways. I still feel like something fundamental is missing. And I’m finding it really hard to muster the energy and courage to start yet again and put together a whole new band after half of my old band decided they no longer wanted to walk this path by my side. It just feels kind of futile and Sisyphean, you know?

A lot of the time I feel like very few people would even notice if I just blinked out of existence tomorrow, and that my entire body of work so far is really pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, even though it is the sum total product of an entire life up to this point and I am personally immensely proud of what I have achieved.

And that was not the plan. Not even close.

I know that some of the way I feel is because I was born into a society that indoctrinates its children with a mythology of meritocracy that is really utterly false, and sets every one of them up for certain failure (unless they’re fortunate enough to have privilege on their side and/or a generous measure of luck). 

Some people do realise they’ve been duped at some point, and then find a way to re-frame things and carry on (I like to think I’m one of those people—still hanging in there, against all odds). Others figure it out, but then are so utterly broken by the truth (or perhaps by the realisation of the lie) that they are simply unable to continue. I think there are also quite a lot of people who never really figure it out, and leave this world still thinking they simply didn’t work hard enough, weren’t strong-willed enough, or weren’t good enough at their chosen craft to hack it.

That’s tragic. I wish that as a society we could stop poisoning children’s minds this way, but I feel powerless to effect change on that kind of scale (or much of any scale that extends beyond my own arm’s reach, really). 

The only thing I’m completely certain I can change is my own mind. The way I feel. The way I see things. And, if I’m honest, even that can be extremely difficult sometimes, but I know with certainty that I can do it, if I only want it enough and work hard enough at it.

I still find it very disappointing and discouraging that the above doesn’t really apply to anything else in life (as we were falsely told when we were children), but I’m trying to make my own peace with it. Not quite there yet, but I’m trying. And like I said, I know I can change my own mind if I work at it hard enough. It’s a process though. It takes time. There will be setbacks along the way. But I’ll get there eventually.

So, here’s the thing: I couldn’t possibly stop being who I am, and who I am is an artist. I create. My purpose in life, and my reason for being, is to create art. But nothing has really gone the way that I planned, and it feels so hollow and so pointless a lot of the time now. Don’t worry, I’m not depressed (like I said, I’ve got medication for that, and it does work), but it’s kind of like I’m still as driven as ever, and I still feel this anxious lightning force cracking all around me, propelling me forward, but I no longer see a clear direction or destination before me, so I’m kind of hanging on to this wild runaway train that’s trying to barrel off into the unknown somewhere, and I have absolutely no idea where it’s going, or indeed why, or to what end.

Not that there’s necessarily anything inherently wrong with that, but it is well outside of my comfort zone.

I’ve always had a plan. I’m a born strategist and problem solver, and that’s how I’ve always approached my life.

Basically my method for tackling almost anything is something like this:

Observe the situation and identify and state the problem.

Take stock of resources.

Brainstorm some ideas about how I could solve the problem using the resources I currently have, or if that’s impossible, what else I would need to do the thing, and how I could acquire whatever resources I require to solve the problem.

Get the fuck on with it.

Lately, I’m stuck at step 3 some days, and other days I’m stuck all the way back on step 1.

It’s pretty frustrating.

I mean, I still get inspired often enough, and I even write some words down, and some days I even pick up a guitar or turn on a synthesizer, but it just feels sort of hollow without any other creative people to share the process with—to collaborate with, and more often than not I have been finding that I let something else distract me or divert my interest.

Goodness knows I’ve got plenty of other stuff I can do, some of it even rather well, but none of it comes with the same feeling of triumphant accomplishment that finishing a new song, or recording my band, or finally nailing a mix that’s been driving me up a wall, can bring me. And I know deep down that I must, for my own sanity, get back to doing the thing that I am most devoted to—my music—or slowly perish.

So I suppose I’m just trying to find a way back to the road I know I should be travelling, but have somehow wandered off of. I’ve just lost my way somehow, and I feel as if I need a guide, or a signpost, or some breadcrumbs, or, hell, I don’t know, a  mystical vision would probably do the trick

Any oracles or shamans or Voodoo priestesses you could recommend to maybe point me in the right direction?

Help me find my mojo again?

Cthulhu knows you have got more mojo in your left pinky toenail than anyone who has ever lived, before or since, so you kind of seem like the right guy to ask. 

I’m sitting here writing this letter in a little monument pavilion in a cemetery that takes about an hour on a bus to get to from the city, which allegedly is sited above where your bones are buried. It’s a peaceful enough place I guess, surrounded by some fine old trees, and there are a lot of vibrant purple petunias, but I’m really not sure you would’ve liked it much. It’s all a bit too slick and generic and contrived to be truly appropriate for you. You were the realest of the real, the most human human, the most artistic artist, the most creative creator, and the most electrifying performer that I can think of. You deserve so much better than this bland paint-by-numbers construction protruding from a preternaturally manicured green lawn. Please accept my humble apologies on behalf of whoever was responsible. At least they have reproduced some of your handwritten lyrics here, so there’s something of you that comes through, even though the rest feels all wrong.

But, hey, this is what you’re stuck with I guess, so in this place I have left you a heart-felt offering of one of my glow-in-the dark guitar picks, and an entire carrier bag of leftover (slightly wilted, I’m afraid) flowers from my sister’s wedding. It ain’t much, I realise that, but it is what I have, and I hope you understand that my humble gifts to you represent a very deep feeling of homage, and the utmost respect and gratitude and love for you and your art, despite the shoddiness and utter insufficiency of the material itself.

If you happen to feel like it, or if you just get really bored one night and at a loss for something to do, it would mean the world to me if you’d haunt one of my dreams sometime, and maybe slip me a little clue to help me work out where I’ve gone wrong and how to get back on track. 

Or you could, of course, just tell me to fuck off.

I’m sure I deserve the latter, and that’s still OK.

All my love,

Cary

[*Clearly it did not…]

Back in my day, one could buy a perpetual license for software, and there was no remotely controlled off switch. I mean, sure we had to walk ten miles through a blizzard to school, with only rotten banana peels for snowshoes, up-hill BOTH WAYS, and we had to set up our own ISDN modems without any instructions using a terminal emulator, but those things are a very small price to pay for actual ownership of the tools vital to one’s life’s work.

The subscription model is an evil scourge on the self-employed and those with otherwise irregular incomes, and that’s not even getting into all the issues it can cause with using software in remote locations where there is no internet connection available.

I’m immensely grateful for every single software developer that still allows one to purchase perpetual software licences outright. You are the last bastion of what was incontrovertibly a more sustainable and artist-friendly way of life.

So, this is it! I think it’s finally done at last.

I’ve been working on it, but not posting about it, so let me bring this series up to date!

There were a couple of ever so slightly loose joints in the frame, so I whacked them apart with a mallet just enough to get a little bit of hide glue into them. Probably needn’t have bothered, but IME a loose joint just gets looser, and then loosens other things, so may as well nip it in the bud, right? Yeah. Isn’t this a gorgeous bit of joinery? I doubt these tight-fitting joints even needed glue to begin with, but after 150 years (at least…I’m not sure of age, but I’m going with Victorian for my best guess), wood can be expected to shrink a little.

I gave it a few coats of shellac, followed by some paste wax polish, because the original finish was badly worn to nonexistent in places and I wanted to protect the wood. Obviously I left the lovely patina alone though! I did have to glue a few splintery bits back down, and fill a few woodworm and knot holes, but not much work was needed on the frame (apart from the tacking rail, that is).

The upholstery was straightforward. I would have liked to use tacks throughout to stay in keeping with the era in which the chair was made, but the tacking rail was in pretty bad shape, and is less than an inch thick (much of that being riddled with holes from previous tacks). I filled all the damage, but decided to do the webbing with tacks and the rest with staples to be kinder and gentler to the frame (much smaller holes and fewer and less violent impacts).

Webbing. (I used copper tacks to attach it, just because removing the incredibly rusty steel ones was such a royal pain in the arse, and I wouldn’t knowingly inflict that on any future person!) Obviously the quality control department had to be involved for this.

This is overkill, I know, but I do not want this seat to sag and cause the leather to split again! That would really piss me off. So, overkill it is! It’s not going anywhere. Here’s the hessian foundation. This seat is really shallow, and I’m constrained to the original proportions by the leather cover, so I’m just going to do one layer of hessian with an integral edge roll (stuffed with horsehair), and then stitch around that to create a very firm and defined square edge profile.

I forgot to take a photo when I was sewing in the bridle loops to hold the hair, but I did take one after putting in the horsehair:

Edge stitching:

I think I ended up stitching around it three times.

Then some cotton and wool wadding:

Then calico stretched over tightly:

And finally the leather cover:

I fastened it down first with a few tacks, and then started to put in the brass nails. Unfortunately more of them broke in the process (only the heads are brass, and the steel parts were badly rusted and quite fragile). So I found some in my stash that were close to the same size (there were actually two different kinds on it, so who knows what is original anyway), and set about faux-patinating them with vinegar and salt so they didn’t look silly next to the old ones. They’re not as dark as I’d like, but I’m in a hurry to finish this up and don’t want to have to order any specialist patina solution for brass (the ones I have are for silver, and are not very effective on brass). It’ll be fine. They’ll continue to darken with time.

I did a bit more faux painting to perfect the look of the seat:

I couldn’t resist trying it out at this point. The seat is very comfortable and very firm! No sagging is remotely likely for the foreseeable future.

I wrote up an account of what I did, and tucked it into the webbing underneath with one of my cards, in case a future person takes the seat apart again someday.

Finally the bottoming cloth went on.

I did a bit more painting on the seat once it was in place, to emphasise areas of “wear” and “fading” and make it look more authentic.

Next I gave the leather a few coats of Renaissance Wax to polish it and protect it.

A few of the cracks have become visible again now that the leather seat cover has been under tension for a couple days, but it is light surface cracking only, and I’m confident my repairs are structurally sound, strong, and will be fine. I will let it all settle for a few months and then re-fill the surface cracks with some flexible filler to make them invisible again, but there’s no point in doing that until the newly stretched leather has settled in for a while and been used (sat on).

The finished paint job is looking good! I may do some more shading after I’ve assembled everything, but I think it will look quite close to the chair back with a coat of wax polish on it (the only real difference now is the level of sheen, because the leather paint has a satin finish).

Getting there…the filler has to be built up in thin layers. It’s kind of like sculpting with whipped cream! Needs a very light touch, and lots of fine dexterity!

Now to let it set overnight, and carefully sand it into shape…

It’s not perfect, but hopefully it will be convincing enough once I’ve applied the finish. If not, I guess I can always mess with it some more!

OK, finish time at last! I’m using a modern pigment/paint type finish out of necessity (a penetrating dye would never work with all these repairs and patches, and since the leather is essentially missing its skin surface for the most part, it really needs a surface coating for protection). Actually, it had a pigmented varnish coating originally, so this is in keeping with how it was originally done, albeit with a very different formulation of finish.

I don’t want the end result to look like it has been newly applied, though. It needs to be sympathetic with the age and patina of the rest of the chair, including the leather panel on the back (which is in much better condition than the seat was, and which I’ve decided to try to preserve just as it is, including the original varnish).

The plan for finishing the seat panel is to use three different colours, and various mixtures of them, to apply many very thin blended coats with a damp sponge to achieve something resembling the patina of the old finish. Here’s what it looks like after one coat (looking much better already):

And after a few more layers:

Meanwhile, in between coats, I’m going to start tackling the seat rails of the chair frame, where there are somewhere around ten million more staples and tacks that need removing (I’ve already started, but can only take so much of that in one sitting), and some splits that need repairing before it can withstand a new upholstering job.

I forgot to include this in my last post, so this is slightly out of sequence, but after I attached the lining, it became apparent pretty fast that my leather backing wasn’t working entirely to stabilise the cracks. The new leather is really supple, and the embossed leather is really firm. The difference in properties was great enough that it was insistent on creasing along the cracks, and no amount of glue and filler was going to withstand that, especially when sat upon!

My solution was to dilute some contractor grade PVA glue about 50/50 with water to aid penetration, and brush it over the back of the lining in the whole embossed area, to hopefully make the lining stiff enough to resist creasing. I let it sink in, and then weighted the whole thing down to hold it flat overnight.

Result! It worked brilliantly.

That problem solved, I proceeded with removing the old finish, which takes us back to the end of the last post.

Next is a whole lot of fiddly sanding, repairs and filling gaps and holes, more sanding and scraping, more filling, etc., which is taking a while due to drying time. My heat gun decided this was a perfect time to burn out it’s fan motor, so there’s no way to speed it up.

This particular filler only comes in black or white, but I’m planning to use a pigmented paint type finish on it anyway, so it won’t matter.

For some of the small raised details I needed to repair/rebuild, I didn’t think the flexible leather filler compound was going to hold up, so I got the PVA out again and used that.

The larger holes and missing bits got leather patches, and then I blended in the edges with filler.

Almost finished now:

Just have to finish reconstructing this element that had a crack running along its top edge, and it will be ready for finish:

The next step in restoring the leather seat covering panel to a usable condition was to rub small amounts of mink oil into it gradually over several days, until it was no longer so stiff it was likely to crack further. I also had to pull everything into position and weight it down almost continuously for a few days, since the torn areas had become distorted through being left like that for a long time, and didn’t want to go back together properly.

Then I lined the whole thing with a new piece of leather, to hold the torn and cracked areas back together to make a strong repair, and also to add enough strength to the piece generally for it to hopefully be safe to sit on without worrying about further damage.

I went ahead and patched the missing area at the back of the seat with new leather to stop it getting any worse. The edges will get blended in by filling and sanding.

That complete, I determined that the thick top finish (probably multiple coats of a linseed oil based varnish mixed with pigments, based on what I could find out from Google) was beyond salvage. It had come off the plain border area almost entirely already, and even though the finish on the embossed part looked fairly intact, it was also very hardened and deteriorated, and wasn’t actually adhered very well to the leather. I tried filling around my little patch on top of it, but the filler didn’t really want to bond to the finish very well (even after cleaning it with solvent), and a fingernail could easily remove the whole lot from the leather. So, that wasn’t going to work. Damn. Finish would have to go.

I carefully and gradually scraped it all off over the next few days with little clay sculpting tools.

The surface underneath actually feels quite sound, especially after applying a couple coats of the fibre binder to the now bare leather and sanding smooth with 600 grit.

As I mentioned in my last post, the impression I had when removing the seat was that the leather was extensively affected by rot and too far gone to save. Not so!

Actually, the areas of rot are fairly limited to the parts of the seat which were in direct contact with rusty metal (the blackened areas), and since it seems to have been caused by a local chemical reaction with the tacks and nails, it isn’t really “red rot” as such, at all. That’s a good thing!

Now, the leather is still old and weak and stiff and needs lots of attention, but I think now that I can save the vast majority of it.

The first thing I did was to apply Cellugel (this is a conservation grade leather consolidation treatment that was developed for antique leather book bindings) on both sides to consolidate any rot and stop any further disintegrating and shedding as I am working on it. Anyone who has experienced this type of leather rot knows how messy and horrible the stuff can be! It sheds a fine dust on everything it touches, as well as dispersing the stuff into the air. Not nice! Hence the Cellugel. :-)

I let that dry overnight, and then used a very fine Scotchbrite pad to remove all of the old crusty adhesive from the old patch (the old patch came off fairly easily, thank goodness), and as much of the rotten surface as possible from the areas that were in contact with metal. I suppose that, ideally, it would be a good idea to neutralise whatever it is that’s causing the reaction, but I’m not sure of the chemistry involved, or what would be safe to use, so I just opted for mechanically removing as much as I could. I’ll almost definitely cut away more of the black parts when it comes time to patch the missing areas, but I’m leaving it as-is for the moment.

Then I gave the whole underside a wipe with 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean off the powdery residues.

I next applied a couple of coats of leather binder to the back of the piece to bond the fibres back together and strengthen the whole thing as much as possible.

Next, I’ll apply some mink oil on the top surface, to try to restore a bit of flexibility, and then probably apply the binder to the top surface as well.

This is what it looks like now, from the underside. There are some areas from around the nails and tacks that have completely rotted away, as well as the large cracks in the middle of the seat, and the torn area at the back. My plan is to fully line the whole piece with new leather for strength (including creating a backing for patching the missing areas at the edges), and then use patches and fillers to repair the missing and damaged parts.

The first step in addressing the seat was to take it apart, which proved to be more challenging than expected due to the extensive corrosion of the decorative brass nails (they were solidly embedded in the frame, especially in the back, where I think they must not have been removed at all in the recent attempt at repair, which I’ll show later).

Usually these sorts of brass nails come out pretty easily, but in this case each one needed carefully and tediously working free. Speaking of nails, this is one thing that makes me think Victorian: they aren’t solid brass cast nails. Rather they have a steel nail pressed into the brass head. Again, I’m no expert, but I don’t think they were made like this before the industrial revolution…(?) Does anyone know? I can’t seem to find any information about, or pictures of, historic upholstery nails online.

there were a couple missing, and despite my best efforts the rusty pins popped out of two of them, so I’ll need to find a few replacements.

It was soon apparent that the leather was more thoroughly deteriorated than I initially thought. I knew it had a bit of red rot, but it’s actually quite bad. It’s entirely crumbling to powder in some places. Just carefully working a tool under some of the nail heads caused the leather I touched to break down, and much of it was already broken down under the nails (I guess the metal corrosion and rust must have accelerated the progression of the rot).

My original plan was to consolidate the whole piece, condition it, and then line it fully with new leather for strength, before repairing the tears and surface damage with fillers.

I’ve now decided the best way to go is to make a whole new seat piece from new leather, using the original seat to make a template/pattern, carefully cut out the embossed section (the only part that’s really worth preserving), and then bevel the edges and splice it in to the new seat leather, and I have a preliminary plan for how to do this. Wish me luck!

Also, I fear I’m really going to have to take the back apart as well to do this job right, even though it appears reasonably sound, because I want to treat that piece of leather as well (from both sides) to consolidate it, and hopefully slow the deterioration, before I restore the surface. But, probably best not to even think about that until I’ve done the seat.

When I finally got all the nails out and lifted the leather, I found this:

Somebody has tried to repair the leather cover before, and also has sort of re-upholstered it using modern materials and staples…I say “sort of” because there’s hardly anything in there! There’s the bottom fabric, some very slack webbing, then a layer of wadding/felt just laid on top that has been pieced together from scraps, and then the leather. No stuffing at all. No linings. So that will all be ripped out and done properly in due course!

I bought this amazing chair (I won’t even tell you how little I paid for it, because you’ll hate me—but let’s just say I couldn’t pass it up, even though I need another project like I need a hole in the head) recently from a man who said he found it in the cellar of his parents’ old pub, and had had it for years, intending to restore it, but never actually getting around to it.

It clearly has some age on it, but I’m no expert on dating furniture. If I had to guess, I’d guess Victorian, but have also had suggestions from a an antique dealer who is a friend of a friend that it could actually be considerably older (just based on my photos, but would need an in-person inspection to be sure). If anyone reading this has any expertise in this area, please get in touch!

Anyway, regardless of age, I absolutely adore it! The frame is very solid. The little carved lion finials have actual little fangs! The upholstery though (seat especially), is going to need some pretty extensive attention. Will attempt to document my progress and post about it as I work.

I recently acquired something I have been seeking for a while: a Singer 201K2 sewing machine (direct drive), in lovely condition!

After 82 years, it definitely needs a service before I start using it (cleaning out all the old hardened grease, re-lubricating, and also replacing the wiring, which has that lovely antique rubber insulation that, in this case, looked brand new, until I touched it and it shattered).

So, I set about taking it apart.

The first obstacle I ran into was these huge slotted screws.

While I have what I thought was a fairly comprehensive collection of screwdriver bits, I don’t actually have a slotted screwdriver bit this big. OK, I thought, I’ll order one online.

Not that easy, as it turns out.

I finally found a cheap one at B&Q (too thick, but I could re-grind it, and surely it would last long enough to remove and reinstall two screws). Great. Ordered for pickup the next day.

Except, they didn’t really have stock.

So in my annoyance, I dug a pair of broken Xuron cutters out of the scrap bin.

Cut off the rivet…

Cut off the end.

Forged the handle a bit to straighten out the curve and thin the part that was going to be the tip.

Did some initial grinding, put it in a handle, then hardened and tempered the working part…

Did a bit more grinding and finishing…and, voila! Looks a lot like a screwdriver to me. The screws thought so too. ;-)

UPDATE, 19 February 2023:

I have finally had word directly from the promoter that HRH Psych 2023 has been cancelled.

I spent this past weekend on Nik Turner’s farm for his big sendoff into the next realm. 

The last time I was there, it was to celebrate Nik’s 80th birthday, but I felt his presence just as much over the last few days. That place, and his family, were clearly his anchor to the physical universe.

(Now, I’m very much a creature of science, but science certainly doesn’t deny the existence of the unknown. On the contrary. The scientific method is an endless process of discovery, transforming the unknown into the better-known. We don’t understand the exact nature of subjective experiences like feeling presences and energies, but that doesn’t make them any less real and powerful experiences to the experiencer.)

One couldn’t possibly imagine a more lovely setting, overlooking a majestic misty valley in the Welsh countryside, surrounded by the raw and somewhat bleak and cruel-edged beauty of nature, gently rolling beneath the expansive winter sky. 

This is going to be a bit of a stream of consciousness, I’m afraid, so please just try to flow with it. I’m writing because I needed to express all this in words. It’s the way I process intense emotions, and thus keep my head above the raging torrents. (In fact, I see that my last blog post was also made at a time of loss and grief. I didn’t plan it that way, but, here we are.)

First, we must go back in time a bit to set the stage.

A few years ago, I was at a little festival in Devon where I am a regular performer. At some point, Mark Robson (of Kangaroo Moon) came up to me with the news that Nik was en-route to play a surprise set, and asked if I would like to join in (the band was assembled on the spot). The dancer, Stacia, from the early days of Hawkwind, had come over from Ireland, and was there as well.

Of course I grabbed my synthesizer at once and headed over to the stage!

After the set (which was the first time Stacia had been on stage with Nik in many decades), I remember speaking to Nik, and to Chris May, who had driven Nik there, but I have no recollection of what we talked about. What did stick with me was this sense of having connected with old friends, but ones I hadn’t actually met yet.

Some time shortly after that, Gary Smart got in touch with me, and asked me on Nik’s behalf to join Nik’s band, Space Ritual, for some gigs that were coming up, which I did! Sadly, I only got to play with them twice before Nik had an accident, the upshot of which was a hip replacement operation and a long recovery period that made it necessary to clear his performance schedule for some time. Concurrent with all that was the emergence of the COVID pandemic, which essentially shut down live music for a couple of years anyway.

I’m not really a Hawkwind fan (sorry), though I do genuinely enjoy a few of the tracks they did. I am a Nik Turner fan, though, especially after spending some time with him. He was truly indescribable, so I won’t even try, but anyone who has met him will understand completely.

What I discovered on the long drives with Nik and Gary to and from the gigs we did was that Nik loved Miles Davis. He and I certainly shared common spaces musically, somewhere in the orbits of that vast but singular pivotal point that lies somewhere between Bitches Brew and an acid-fuelled early 1970s psychedelic freak-out.

I never saw him in person again after his operation, but we spoke on the phone several times. There were big plans to do some recording when he was able again, and when the dangers of COVID had dissipated enough.

Sadly, it was not to be. 

But, I have so much gratitude for the few moments of his amazing life that I was able to share, and his passing has actually hit me very hard. Much harder than I could have predicted.

And that brings me back to recent events.

I wouldn’t have missed being there this past weekend for anything, but it is December, and would have been an utterly miserable and potentially perilous motorbike journey. Fortunately, a kind and generous soul gave me a lift there in his van.

I re-connected with old friends and newer friends I met through Nik, and made some brand new friends too. 

The service was absolutely perfect. Nik’s body was laid lovingly in a wickerwork vessel that resembled a large Moses basket, surrounded by bunches of lavender and flowers, with his saxophone placed at his breast in the manner of an Egyptian Pharaoh, laid to rest with the symbols of his kingship.

I totally lost it with tears of appreciation, grief, joy, admiration, and an indecipherable tumble of disparate emotions when I looked upon his body, and the deluge didn’t really let up all day.

There were beautiful eulogies from his family and close friends. More precious moments than I have time to relate here, but the one that struck me most was when Chris May (a long-time resident on the farm and close friend of Nik’s) was talking about some of the last times they spent together. He was talking about listening to an interpretation of the Hermetica with Nik, and that one of the things that stood out for him was that we humans actually have one up on gods, because we get to experience both mortality and immortality. At that moment, half way through the word “immortality”, the grey clouds parted, and a tsunami of sunlight crested and broke over the gathering, turning the very air to gold.

Then a procession led by Craig McFarlane, piping his fucking lungs out with all his heart and soul in the frosty December air, and a truly beautiful and fitting burial for the earthly remains of a truly beautiful man.

Following that was a remembrance in musical form by members of some of his musical groups, in which I was greatly honoured to take part.

When all that was done, I was thinking of how many musicians and artists had come together there from all corners of the world, and I helped Chris and Glenda and several others to set up an impromptu jam space in the barn. Unfortunately some of the people I had most hoped would be involved had already left, but we still had an intimate little jam that I found very cathartic indeed, and a perfect way to close the day.

The two nights I spent there were the best I have slept in months, and I feel at once rejuvenated and drained, exhausted and refreshed. It’s a bit of a weird state to be in, but I’m sure I’ll recalibrate quickly enough. 

As for Nik, he’s not gone.

A cat-lifetime ago, I stopped at a convenience store in Nashville to buy some beer, and happened to glimpse a tiny black and white kitten face, with intelligent green eyes, and the most unusual little parallel black lines on its tiny forehead, emaciated and streaked with motor oil, peeking out from under an abandoned, rusting car. Then another one, an even smaller tortoiseshell with amber eyes peeked out. I noticed as they saw me, turned, and hid again, that neither one of them had a tail.

First, I went inside the shop, and asked if they had any cat food. They didn’t. The man behind the counter clearly hated cats, and said he had been trying to chase the two kittens away.

Being the ridiculous person I am, I forgot all about the beer, rushed home, grabbed a chunk of mouldy cheese from the fridge and two cat carriers from the basement, and returned as fast as I could. 

I set up my cheese traps, and sat quietly and perfectly still behind the cat carriers for a long time. After what seemed an eternity, the little black and white face looked out again, nose twitching, picking up the scent of past-its-prime cheddar (don’t judge - it was honestly the only thing I had in the fridge that I thought might tempt a feral cat enough to draw them out and trap them). 

He didn’t wait very long then, and made a dive for it, and I shut the door quickly behind him. The little tortoiseshell took several eternities to get up the nerve to come out for the cheese, but eventually starvation was a more powerful impulse than fear, and she did.

I loaded them both into my car, and took them home. They were so tiny, and absolutely skeletal, their eyes so huge and deep-set from malnutrition that they seemed to be all big eyes and ears and dirt and fleas and not much else. They were completely feral, but small and weak enough that I was able to bathe them to get the car fluids and filth off them, as well as the hundreds and hundreds of fleas that had taken up residence.

I named the black and white one Orc, because he was a complete and utter monster, and I named the tortoiseshell one Gollum, to continue the theme.

I set up a safe place for them in my upstairs bathroom closet, with a litter box and a warm bed and food and water, and over the next few weeks I slowly won them over. It was hard work. For several weeks, they wouldn’t let me anywhere near them. I started sticking a glove on a broom handle through a crack in the door and gently stroking them with it, and eventually they allowed my hand (first in the glove, then later, without it), and eventually they allowed me to come in with them without hiding, if I was very quiet and brought treats.

As soon as they were somewhat recovered and I could handle them a little bit without being gruesomely savaged, I took them to the vet for a check, and was told, to my surprise, that (judging by their teeth), they were actually about six months old! So malnourished were they that their growth had just stopped, and they appeared to still be kittens.

Eventually, with a steady diet of nutritious food, veterinary care, and lots of love, they did grow up. Orc grew into a remarkably large and muscular cat, despite his stunted beginnings. Gollum never got much bigger than a kitten. She is to this day the smallest adult cat I’ve ever seen.

[Orc and Gollum, when they were close to the same size, which didn’t last long]

Neither of them liked riding in cars (most cats don’t). But, when I got a motorbike, Orc started sleeping on the seat of my bike in the garage. Clearly he had a preference for motorbikes.

Not long after that, I moved to England. It’s incredibly expensive to move countries with a cat, and, sadly, I could only afford to take one of them with me. Orc was the most attached to me, and I knew it would absolutely break his heart if I left him. I had no choice but to find a new home for Gollum. Orc really missed his sister when she was gone, and I regret not somehow finding the money to take them both with me, but I still don’t know how I would have done it, all things considered. It was actually amazing I even managed to bring one of them. 

After his sister was gone, Orc never tolerated the presence of another cat in his life.

The trip to an “approved” airport for exporting an animal, the long flight, and the journey home from London (another “approved” airport - they really make it difficult) was quite an ordeal for Orc, and I actually don’t think Gollum (with her far more neurotic and still half-wild personality) would have made it through that without some severe psychological damage, so the way it worked out was probably for the best, but I’m still sad that they had to be separated from each other like that.

On the drive home from the airport, Orc was intently watching the sheep in the fields, with a look on his face like, “You know, I could eat that.” I don’t think he realised how big they were.

That was 2005. 

In the years since, Orc became a proud biker cat, happily riding pillion with me in his wicker cat basket. 

He hunted many mice and even a few rabbits, and got into numerous bloody fights with cats that dared to walk through “his” garden.

He met, and was perplexed by, various hedgehogs (who came in the house and ate his food).

He lounged on many a vintage synthesizer (they’re warm, you know), making for some great photo opportunities. 

He hung out in my studio, and delighted in walking across my monitor mixer, stepping on all the mute and solo and routing buttons, turning pan pots and trim pots and pushing down faders, to leave things in such an incomprehensible mess that I’d have to spend half an hour sorting out what the fuck he had done.

He left neat little piles of mouse intestines on the kitchen rugs, in the perfect places for bare feet to find them (I think I’ve got some pictures of them somewhere, but that would probably be oversharing). 

He worked as my weird little fuzzy assistant, and loved nothing more than to get into things that could possibly electrocute him.

He listened intently to Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix, but turned up his little nose at most music. He absolutely hated harmonicas. 

He liked guitars, though. 

And drums.

I remember a time during a band rehearsal (this must have been the first or second year I was living in England - pretty early on), he was hiding out in the bedroom as was his wont whenever strangers invaded his house, and I guess he got frightened, and jumped out the top of a sash window on the first floor! We found the window open, and the cat just...gone. He had up to that point been strictly an indoor cat, which is more the expected way to keep cats in the States. He’d never explored outside his new home, except when I tried to take him outside a few times on a leash (he really hated that). 

He was gone for two days, and I feared I’d never see him again. I didn’t know if he was injured from the fall, or where he had gone, and I was distraught.

I think he must have made a perfect landing, and then ran away in a panic and lost his bearings, because when the drummer returned two days later to lay down some overdubs, amazingly, Orc heard the drums from wherever he was and came home! (After the drummer left of course - he must have been sitting outside the door, waiting for the moment his house was his again, even though he was cold and hungry.)

After that incident, I decided he needed to learn more about his surroundings, and I started taking him outside (at first, on a leash...but he hated that). Soon, he made it pretty clear that he loved the outdoors, and was going to come and go as he pleased, and there was basically nothing I could say about that which would make any difference. 

Fortunately, he was quite street-wise, due to his very shitty kittenhood, and never got into trouble with cars. He did get into lots of trouble with other cats, however.

At some point in the ensuing years he broke the end off one of his canine teeth (probably in a fight), and earned the nickname “fang and a half”. He was always so aggressive with other cats. Absolutely vicious, and fearless. He would go after any cat on “his” property with little regard for their relative sizes, or later, for the fact that he wasn’t as young and fast as he used to be. Usually the sheer balls of his attacks caught the other cats off guard and terrified them thoroughly, even if they were actually bigger and younger and stronger than him. He never had great technique as a fighter, but the element of surprise usually was in his favour, because “normal” cats simply don’t behave like that.

He was so very attached to his humans, though. He never liked people much (though he had a curious and mysterious thing for UPS drivers), but he loved his people deeply, and hated to be left alone. I’ve rarely been separated from him in the last 18 years.

As he got older, he slowed down a lot, but he was still that bright little kitten inside. Always so incredibly loving and gracious for the home I gave him.

Now as I sit here looking at his little body, I can almost imagine he is just asleep in front of the fire, as he has been so many nights before, but I know this is the last time I will ever look down and see him there.

[Orc in better times, enjoying the log fire.]

He will be lovingly laid to rest in a few minutes in his front garden, in the shade of a beautiful flowering cherry tree, with his favourite cat-sized wool blanket that I crocheted for him, a massive quantity of catnip, and all of his favourite toys. 

Maybe I’ll burn some incense tomorrow and play some Miles Davis really loud through the front windows, in hopes that a trumpet solo or two will reach his spirit, wherever his spirit may be.

Goodbye, my little Orc. I miss you so much.

A few albums into her recording career Cary, a lover of all things synth, cats and the furry freak brothers, has marshalled a crack troupe of regular musicians to call upon when it comes time to join her live and in recording in the studio. For this record it’s John Garden, Graham Clark, Andy Budge, David Payne, Steffe Sharpstrings, Victoria Reyes, Ian East, Steve Everitt and Andy Bole with Cary herself playing: synth, acoustic and eclectic guitar, vocals, organ plus a multitude of other keyboard devices. We have reviewed most of her releases to date and I’ve been looking forward to hearing this one and again it doesn’t disappoint. 

 Things kick off with “Khepera At Dawn”, a drifting, languid, opening instrumental song, full of great synth sounds and Steffe’s probing electric guitar. “Letterbox”, ups the pace a little bit; being more of a traditional rock song, plenty of wah wah guitar from John filling in all the spaces. “Without A Trace”, has a strong melody and a nice string arrangement, it features some beautiful piano from Victoria and some tasteful fluid lead guitar passages. Next up “Into Dust”, this song sees treated vocals, it’s a psychedelically tune with martial drums, dubby bass and churchy organ, ostensibly about life/death, ashes to ashes. 

Then we have a brief synth interlude before we enter the realm of the spoken word “Afterglow”, an excellent synth rock epic and continuing the sequence of each song getting slightly longer and more progressive in nature, this one being just over six minutes, favourite line “Having drinks with Baphomet at the end of the world”. “Film Noir”, is indeed a noir with saxophone, dripping with an icy cool. The first disc ends with the sublime twelve minutes of “Costume Jewellery”, an arabesque melody played by Graham on electric violin maps out the melody, slightly reminiscent of Kaleidoscope but with a ton more electric guitar and synth, excellent stuff. 

The second discs opens with “Moonflowers (fade to black)”, a slow burner of a song that showcases John’s atmospheric electric guitar, reminding me of David Gilmour’s style of playing mixed with a little Hillage. Then comes “Sacrifice”, a wonderful sly sardonic rock tune taken at a steady pace, featuring some terrific barely controlled electric guitar, great drifting organ and synth and a cooking rhythm section. “Memory”, slows things right down with a dreamy ballad it has a memorable melody before changing gear halfway through, before again winding down. “Castle Of Dreams”, brings a change of pace, a funky fuzzy wah wah piece of progressive psychedelia, eleven minutes of drifting, dreamy bliss. “The Land Of Two Fields” takes us out into the garden with a short instrumental piece on which the synth is highlighted to nice effect. This brings us to “Lady Of Turquoise” the final song and title track of this excellent double album, it has some amazing synth playing throughout, with plenty of bleeps and squiggles being both expansive yet contained and it motors along very nicely indeed, concluding with a couple of minutes of pure synth. Great album, highly recommended.