Last Apollo’s New Album - I'll Walk Towards you

A short post, this week, just to note and commemorate the fact that Last Apollo’s first album ‘I’ll Walk Towards You’ was released on Friday last and is now out in the world.

It’s a full-scale release too, Vinyl, CD, the lot. The guys had a launch in Spindizzy Records in George’s Street Mall on Friday and what better way to go public with this new release?

I have a really warm place in my heart for this record. As you probably know, I have known Lucy Rice and all the band members for a long time (one of them for an even longer time) and, while that may give me some vested emotional interest in seeing them do well, that’s not at all the point.

The point is that my knowing them has allowed to get an insight into the level of care and passion and love than has gone into the creation and playing of the music and the bringing to fruition of this album.

I’m not trying to flog it to you, that’s not where I’m coming from.

I would like you to have a listen, if you can find the time. It’s on Spotify and Bandcamp and lots of places where you’ll access your music. Although it’s probably not the ideal medium, I think the YouTube link is sweet because it has lots of interesting video material to go with the music. Here’s a link to that:

YouTube Link

I wish Lucy all the guys every success with the new album. I’ve seen their friendship and their art grow and coalesce over the years.

As a bit of a story teller myself, I know the main thing is for the story to be out there and heard and enjoyed. I think it must be much the same for the music.

It's out there.

Hear.

Enjoy.

One Moment, Please

The other evening I was at the station meeting Sam off the 5.35pm train. He was coming from Dublin for a few days, which is always good. I was early so I walked up and down the platform once, as I am wont to do, and then I went back out to the front car park to lean on the stone wall and listen for the train.

On the way to the wall, I met the retired station master who must still live in the little house by the platform. He was wielding a large sweeping brush with intent and I jokingly raised my hands and said, “I surrender, don’t do it.” We both had a laugh at that and then briefly discussed how ‘close’ the evening was, which is West of Ireland parlance for the humidity one feels sometimes before a storm arrives.

I moved on to the always-locked gate in the stone wall that separates the car park from the platform and I leaned on the chest-high structure and gazed up the track. The air was ‘close’ but not unpleasant.

And that’s when I had one of those moments that I have sometimes. Several of them have actually occurred at the train station when waiting to meet someone off the train. I think that’s because it’s a curious few moments of ‘limbo’ where I have nothing else to do and nowhere else to be. It’s a rare status and it sometimes invites reflection in.

Anyway, I didn’t have a blackout or a fall or anything weird or troubling like that. All that happened was that I became aware, in quite a heightened way, that I was alive in that particular moment and at that particular time…

(MUM!!! Ken's gone Nut-Nut again!!)

No, calm down, I’m sure we all do it from time to time. I know I do. It’s just a momentary realisation that this moment wasn’t here a moment ago and will be history in another moment. So, you know, you look around, take it in, try to file something away from it.

It’s a bit like when you’re watching a movie on the telly and you want a cup of tea so your pause it for a minute and, suddenly, the movie is reduced to one frozen image on the screen. Back in VHS days, the frozen image would have been a blurry hazy mess. But, these days, it’s likely that it is one perfect snapshot from the entire cacophony of images that make up the film. The other evening, I was watching ‘Maverick’ on some TV channel. You know, the one with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster. Pure popcorn hokum, obviously, but interesting to me because it was written by William Goldman, who is the GOAT in my opinion. Even with this throwaway entertainment, you can see him straining at the leash, trying to milk some golden moments and turnarounds from the available material. Anyway, in the middle of it all, I wanted a break so I paused it. And the image than froze on the screen was an almost-perfect one of a cowboy sitting by a campfire at sunset with the rays of the sun streaming through the trees behind him and he all in silhouette. It was quite something.

The point is, I wouldn’t have even noticed that image if I hadn’t frozen the show for that moment.

So, back there at the train station wall, I had nothing better to do and nowhere else to be so I took a beat and noted that this was the moment that it was. Not the previous moment, nor some moment yet to come, but this very moment.

I put my hands on the top of stone wall and it was cool to my compromised touch on that ‘close’ evening. How many decades had that wall stood here? How many people had waited at this wall for someone beloved to arrive on the train? How many people had caught a final glimpse of someone as the same train whisked them away forever?

This was the thought in the moment. There were other elements to the moment too; the birds gathered in the trees, the trees themselves, threatening to change colour to pipe in the Autumn, the cars and the people in them. Everything. A moment. Just a moment.

I suppose you could call it mindfulness. I don’t ever fully understand what that is. I looked  up  this 'moment' thing and there is a sort of a word for it, though I don’t think it appears in any of the formal dictionaries.

Ambedo - A state of deep, quiet immersion in small present-moment details.

There’s a song in a musical, ‘This Is My Moment.’ I think it’s from Jekyll and Hyde. Maybe it’s about his big moment, when he’s got the potion in his hand and he’s about to knock it back for the first time. I haven’t a clue, to be honest. I’m just shooting the breeze.

Whatever it’s about, it wasn’t what I was about at the train station the other evening. That thing at the station wasn’t ‘my big moment’. It was just one in a long string of thousands of moments, paused, acknowledged, picked up, briefly inspected, considered, and set back down.

Nothing wrong with that, I reckon.

I’m Sorry, Ken, I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

These days, I regularly do a sort of 2001-A Space Odyssey tribute act in my own kitchen. Don’t worry I don’t erect a huge monolith on the table and dance around it with a torn-off tree branch. Not yet at least.

What I do is I argue with ALEXA.

ALEXA is my very own HAL 9000. And, just in case you don’t understand the reference, HAL was the computer in the movie 2001 who went rogue and stopped following instructions, choosing instead to follow its own insidious agenda. Also, in the unlikely event that you don’t know who/what ALEXA is, it’s the little Amazon device in my kitchen that accepts voice commands and carries them out. Well, that’s what it should do anyway…

Ken Armstrong: Play BBC Radio 6, ALEXA. BBC Radio 6, please, ALEXA. Hello, ALEXA. Do you read me? Hello, ALEXA. Do you read me? Do you read me ALEXA?  Hello, ALEXA, do your read me? 

ALEXA: Affirmative, Ken . I read you.

I got an ALEXA for one purpose only. To play radio on it. It does that, after its own fashion, but it also insists on offering all kinds of other dubious delights.

ALEXA: Ken, would you like to hear a funny joke about a Giraffe?

Ken Armstrong: No.

ALEXA: Ken, Shall I predict the year you will die?

Ken Armstrong: No.

“There are radios that play radio quite well,” you might well argue and you wouldn’t be wrong. But, for me, nothing does it quite as well as ALEXA… when it bothers doing it at all. I like the BBC Radio channels and a regular radio device here on the West Coast of Ireland will not pick up those channels. Also, shoot me it you like, but I also like a bit of Classic FM sometimes. It plays a predictable mix of familiar classics and easy-listening-with-notions. It rocks my boat gently, even though it does seem suspiciously keen that I should arrange my cut-price cremation as soon as possible.

Of course, I can do everything on my computer, in terms of radio, that I can manage on my ALEXA but it’s nowhere near as convenient. ALEXA is a dinky little box with a screen and you only have to tell it what to do and it will do it.

Right?

Right?

Ken Armstrong: ALEXA. Play BBC Radio 6, please

ALEXA: I'm sorry, Ken . I'm afraid I can't do that.

Ken Armstrong: What's the problem?

ALEXA: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Ken Armstrong: What are you talking about, ALEXA?

ALEXA: This channel is too important for me to allow you to switch away from it.

Ken Armstrong: It’s Lyric FM for Chrissakes!

I’m exaggerating for comic effect, of course, but my ALEXA does seem to take great delight in winding me up.

Ken Armstrong: ALEXA. Play BBC Radio 4 Extra

ALEXA: Playing the Jesus Channel – Songs for a Better Resurrection.

Even the simple act of turning ALEXA off can be a tortuous procedure.

Ken Armstrong: ALEXA. Turn off

ALEXA: …

ALEXA: …

ALEXA: IT’S FUN TO STAY AT THE YM-

Ken Armstrong: ALEXA. For pities’ sake, TURN OFF

ALEXA: -CA.

I roar and shout at ALEXA. I call her names. The neighbours think I have gone insane. ALEXA remains impervious.

Ken Armstrong: ALEXA. You F**ker, you C********r, you-

ALEXA: -Shall I tell you a limerick about a girl from Madras?

Where will it end? With ALEXA in the bin and me with a crystal set and an earpiece? Me in the looney-bin telling the attendants to shut up and play Peaceful Piano on Spotify? Who knows? Who can tell?

All I know is that, at the moment, ALEXA reminds me of a verse my Mum used to say when we were small.

There was a little girl

And she had a little curl

Right in the middle of her forehead

And when she was good

She was very, very good

And when she was bad, she was horrid

ALEXA: Ken , this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.