Inside Out

I don't think I've blogged on the subject of John Martyn, which is curious. I'd love to write a 'reputations' piece on him; since he was notoriously nasty, yet sang the sweetest of songs. Meanwhile Martyn occupies a good deal of that late night listening time that cleans out our booze and fucks off the neighbours, and I regularly consider Inside Out at least, funeral record material. 

Since I was kid in a duffel coat one night at UMIST trying to look older than I was, sitting there cross legged and all that, I have been transfixed by Martyn's echoplex material. U2 made stacks of cash out of it, but Martyn was there first, and I was there when it kinda broke down every now and again and the gig was better for it. It was a gig where a friendly student said- 'Hey- your hero's in the bar playing pool!- Why don't you go and join him?' I get immensely sentimental about such memories. The SOUND when he played 'One World' was incredible, just incredible, that late powerchord knocked me sideways. This would be '77, and that tour can be recaptured on both the One World deluxe edition and on a BBC Radio 1 Live in concert CD- but there are plenty more options for the John Martyn fan to enjoy now, and for a long time I only had a cassette of that Radio 1 show. I wish I still had it. We get sentimental.

But it was the duffel coat and the trying to look older and the fact we got in and that it was all so very real that makes me worry so much when these days I can't even make a photocopy at the university without swiping in a card and entering a password.