For nearly thirty years these were my songs. Just mine. They were the soundtrack to a private adolescent intellectual awakening, burned into memory and carried into adult life like a secret tattoo on the inside of the back of my brain. Even Clive James, who I saw all the time on the TV, seemed to be happy to keep our secret. May be I had got it wrong, may be he wasn’t the same guy. But yes, printed both ways thank you on the backs of two albums, there he was: the man and his reflection. As for Pete Atkin he was the stuff of mythtory and fabrication, back in some place where memory dissolves into imagination, a fading photo on a torn album cover. He was in that one groove that the needle always skips, so you never know whether it’s the same music in there that used to be there when it played straight or if may be there is new and secret melody in there now: magical stuff in the places we are too big to crawl into. Pete Atkin was there, alive only with all those other guys from the bedroom shelves. Did it ever really matter to me if Randolph Scott and John Wayne were still alive? They were, and are, alive and well and riding the purple sage in that projector that plays out onto the inside of my mind’s eye. 

Then, after all these years, it says there’s a one hour show on the radio about Pete Atkin and Clive James. Well how about that. Tape it, listen to it the next day, and whaddya know – a web-site, Check it out.

Floodgates. Information. People. Like when you reach the top of the climb and clamber over the top of the cliff onto the summit, and boomph a crowd of tourists have come up by car on the other side of the hill and are pic-nicing at the top of your 3-day epic feat. Who are all these people, and how did they get here? What are they doing with my songs? And Pete Atkin is alive and well and played a gig 20 miles from where I live just a few months ago. And there are more songs than I knew about. It takes a millisecond to adjust the consciousness of 30 years to an unexpected new scene. Alexander hears that whoosh whoosh whoosh of ‘copters coming up the valley. Hey look, there’s a message list. Check that out:

And there you all are, three years of you, displayed in amber like a pageant across the pages, across the (vdu) screens of memory. The artists and the acolytes, the poets and the pedants, the students of music and the students of the human condition. The brilliant and the bigoted, the masters and their apprentices all thrown together into a mighty cavalcade no bigger than a tea-cup. I look away for a moment, stepping back from the brink. Drawing the soggy, bending bourbon of my sanity out from the tea of your madness just in time. I look around me: my room is unchanged – I have been away only moments in my time – the world is as it was and you are shrunk again to a figment of cyberspace. I take a deep breath and plunge my head back into the magical trough. Characters lurch across the screens: generals and footsoldiers, professors and proletarians, Pontius Pilate with an Uzi, and the fearsome Boagogre. What teeming life is here. 

Download. Unzip. Search. Browse. And then the Treasure. Pete Atkin. Clive James. Still there, but this time the real ones, not the ones I built up over the years in my mind. 

I have spent many hours reading the whole back catalogue of MV postings, and would like to say, to all of you: Hello!

Songs by Pete Atkin and Clive James: Personal Reflections.
(These were the "Programme Notes" I was invited to contribute for the Pete Atkin "School of Dreams" concert in Milton Keynes in 2000). (yeah, some bits are lifted from the text above).

Everyone who has enjoyed the music and songs of Pete Atkin and Clive James has their own story to tell about how the music entered and accompanied their lives.

For a few of us, the stories stretch back to the 1960’s, and the days of the Cambridge Footlights reviews where Pete and Clive first made public exhibitions of themselves in the company of other luminaries such as Julie Covington. For a larger number, the stories start in the early 1970s, with memories of Pete’s gigs in folk clubs, bars and student unions around the country, or of listening to Pete’s records with partners, friends or family who had already discovered them.  More heard the records played by Kenny Everett, John Peel and others, and by the mid 1970s, with 6 albums behind them, Pete and Clive had earned a powerful reputation with glowing reviews in the music press – “one of the most formidable songwriting combinations in Britain today” according to Sounds in 1971. Then, in the later 1970s, fashions changed in the music world, Pete and Clive found that their songs were not what the music industry wanted to promote, and they produced no more new albums together. Professionally, they packed up, did a fade and went their separate ways.

In the years that followed, Pete and Clive’s admirers were left clutching old vinyl that shone more, but weighed less, as the needle steadily wore down the grooves: cult followers who didn’t know that there was anyone else in the cult.   “Pete who?” would be the reply when you listed for someone your favourite singers. “What, the Clive James? He never wrote songs did he?” when you told someone about Pete and Clive’s work. But the power of these songs was such that the people who had heard them didn’t forget them: they kept them in that short stack of the few good songs that really count. Love songs that capture how things flow; songs that stun with candour and grace. And for each of us, they took on a unique personal significance. A thousand different kinds of heartbreak, instruction and delight. The scent of Frangipani. A pocket full of silver coins.

For nearly thirty years they were my songs. Just mine. They were the soundtrack to a private adolescent intellectual awakening, burned into memory and carried into adult life like a secret tattoo on the inside of the back of my brain. Even Clive James, who I saw all the time on the TV, seemed to be happy to keep our secret. As for Pete Atkin he became the stuff of legend and fabrication, back in some place where memory dissolves into imagination. A fading photo on a torn album cover. The one scratched groove that the needle always skips and makes you wonder whether it’s the same music in there that used to be there when it played straight or if may be there is new and secret melody in there now: magical stuff in the places we are too big to crawl into. For me, Pete Atkin was there, alive only with all those other guys from the bedroom shelves. Like Randolph Scott and John Wayne, who were alive and well and riding the purple sage in that projector that plays out onto the inside of my mind’s eye, Pete played on as if eternity really were still a good address.

Then, in summer 2000 in my own case, but a little earlier for many others, everything changed again. News in the paper that there’s a one hour show on the radio about Pete Atkin and Clive James. Well how about that. Tape it, listen to it the next day, and whaddya know – a web-site, Check it out…. Floodgates. Information. People. Like when you reach the top of a climb and clamber over the top of the cliff onto the summit, or rise over that last step and – boomph, a crowd of tourists have come up by car on the other side of the hill and are picnicking at the top of your 3-day epic feat. Who are all these people, and how did they get here? What are they doing with my songs? And suddenly you find out that Pete Atkin is still out there and just played a gig not 20 miles from where I live. And there are more songs and more albums than I ever knew about. It takes a millisecond to adjust the solitary consciousness of 30 years to an unexpected new scene. Hector hears that whoosh whoosh whoosh of Achaean helicopters coming up the valley towards Troy. Hey look, there’s an internet discussion group: the Midnight Voices. Check that out too…

And there they all are: hundreds of others, just like me, arrayed like a pageant across the pages, across the (vdu) screens of memory. The artists and the acolytes, the poets and the pedants, the students of music and the students of the human condition. The masters and their apprentices are all thrown together into a mighty cavalcade. Characters lurch across the screens: generals and footsoldiers, professors and proletarians, and even, yes, there they are, Pete Atkin and Clive James. Still there, but this time the real ones, not the ones I created over the years in my mind. Here they really are, day by day, talking to their fans about all those songs. 

And tonight here we all are. We got what we wanted and more. They must have set up a booster not far from Milton Keynes, and it’s sending the Midnight Voices wild with joy. 

Reviews of Pete and Clive's "Together at last again" tour of 2002

Buxton - 14th March

"First thoughts" (written on the night of the Buxton gig)

First impressions, after a drive home through the snow
from Buxton. (A more clear-headed review may follow in
due course!) 

Buxton - and there they all were. All the beautiful
strangers and angel faces and fair women who prove
that love is what really leaves a mark. Love, and the
loss of love. All those memories. Thanks, Clive.
Thanks, Pete. Especially thanks in the first place,
Clive, for sharing. I sat there tonight in the front
stalls, about shin height to the two of you, watching
as Pete played and you listened to the soundtrack of
all those memories. So exposed there on the stage,
sitting quietly as we all listened with you. If you
had been Tommy Cooper, and I had been you, I would
have spilled tea all over my shoes.

The Opera House was a superb setting, a miniature
gilded gateau of tiered circles. Blacked stage set.
Back lit spot lit Pete and Clive. A piano, a couple of
mikes, a side table and chair. And a nifty little
cradle to cuddle Pete's guitar when it wasn't in use. 

A routine broadly familiar from previous tour dates.
Early nerves, easy rapport. A song then a story, a
story then a song. A poem, some memories, a song or
two and another poem. All flowing smoothly together,
each part shedding light on the next.  Some lighter
moments, some darker. Some older material, some newer.
And when Pete and Clive sang duet on a favorite and
poignant number near the end: sublime. I didn't want
it to end. Thank goodness I've got tickets for
Telford.

Part 2 (written on the day after)

"We drove out from Stoke to Buxton
After dark and in the car,
We quickly checked the venue
Then settled in the bar,
Anticipation wealthy in the brain...  "

Buxton must be a near perfect venue. Arriving about 6.30 we were able to park
easily on the roadside right at the front of the Opera House, 10 yards from the
front door. Immediately opposite was a very convenient hostelry with an open
fire and windows looking out at the Opera House so we could monitor the early
arrivals.  The auditorium was compact yet spectacular, and accoustically good
unless, like me, you sat a little close to one of the speakers! It was freezing
bl**dy cold but the usherettes appeared undaunted during the interval, selling
cornettos and tubbed ice-cream in uniquely English sort of way.  We bought our
cornettos and to eat them stood with our backsides pressed against the antique
radiators.

A few hundred souls braved the forecast of  "snow on high ground" and the place
was comfortably populated, although by no means anywhere near full. Just before
the show began some chap with a beard and a guitar came on from the back of the
stage. The audience hushed. He put the guitar in its cradle centre-stage, and
walked off again. It wasn't Pete, but the audience reaction suggested that most
of them didn't realise that. A few moments later the real Pete Atkin entered
from the wings to indifferent silence. Presumably just another technical guy
come to check the set up. Awkward moments have a subtle irony all of their own.
Pete tuned up and kicked off with the now standard "I'm not Clive James..."
gaglet, and with a brief introduction about this song being one of their oldest,
launched into the first number. At the end of the number the applause kicks in,
and as if on cue Clive walks on stage.  The audience seems to have warmed up,
figuratively as well as literally. We are treated to a first half of 8 songs and
several readings from Clive's poems and autobiographical writings, then the same
amount again after the interval.

During the interval, as I stood with the cornetto eaters at the antique
radiator, one of them said to his girlfriend "It's different, anyway, isn't
it?". She nodded, mouth full of tubbed ice-cream. He turned to me and asked
"This Aitken... is it Aitken?" I said: "Atkin." "Atkins?" "Atkin." Right. So is
that the same one as Stock Aitken Waterman?" "No. Different chap." They returned
to their seats, and we to ours. I watched them across the auditorium as the show
progressed. They seemed content.

As were we. And so, too, seemed Pete and Clive. As Pete sang, Clive sat and
listened. As Clive spoke, Pete sat and listened, and both seemed to enjoy
eachother's contributions. Clive tapped his feet and nodded his head in time to
the music. Pete laughed at Clive's jokes, at some of them even as if they were
new to him and may be had been improvised on the spot. I was impressed by their
apparent vulnerability, but also by the way they transcended it. Someone said in
reviewing an earlier gig that they had felt privileged to be there. I felt the
same. And as I said in my first installment, when Pete and Clive sung the
penultimate number from the setlist below, it was sublime. I don't know whether
the 90+% of the audience who didn't share the 30-odd year emotional baggage of
the whole PA/CJ phenonenon would see it the same way, but even the first-timer
who came with me, and who really isn't into this kind of thing at all, gave the
evening 8/10.  Me? Need you ask? I only regret that I have to wait all the way
to next week before I can go again!

Thank God for Pete Atkin and Clive James.

Telford. 21st March 2002. Oakengates Theatre. The 15th show of 30 in Pete and
Clive's "Together at last again" tour. An evening of triumph and tragedy.

I arrived 2 hours early (as usual) clutching a brace of ancient album sleeves in
search of biro marks. I'd been to Buxton and had a book signed there, so I
thought I'd up the stakes. After Buxton and the reviews from other gigs I knew
pretty much what to expect, but right away the boys threw me with a surprise new
entry at number one in the set list. Another great old favorite, and more in
keeping with the opening theme of Pete and Clive's journey through the music
industry. And here at Telford, unlike Buxton, the audience actually realised
that the show was starting when Pete came on stage, and they delivered applause
accordingly. At the end of the first number Clive appeared amid more applause,
and the show was away on course. So far so good.

At Buxton I thought Pete started a bit nervously and Clive was the more
confident. At Telford it started the other way around. It was Clive who seemed
to be rushing and clutching at the first few gags while Pete was more the old
relaxed Pete I remembered from SoD. The Telford audience were excellent,
however, and seemed to pull the boys along, so that after a few minutes both
Pete and Clive were not only on Buxton form but were going well beyond it. They
were on a roll. They were enjoying themselves. And so were we. At one point I
thought there was about to be a spontaneous standing ovation.

The chat and the improv seemed both more relaxed and more informative that at
Buxton. Pete introduced a few more stand-ups of his own (including the "I know
I'm a cult because..." gag that I remembered from SoD) and Clive, especially,
seemed to be throwing in more little points as he thought of them. He told us
for example, how he lifted the line "I am all the sisters of my father's
house..."   from Shakespeare (12th night) "I didn't think he'd miss it", and
gave yet more little clues to the origin of TFATW. He also interrupted
procedings at one point to ask the lights man to raise the house lights a little
more "This isn't a theatrical event, this is just people together". His stand-up
technique was developing to new heights: little sidelong glances, perfectly
timed pauses: classic Clive James. The impromtu exchanges between Pete and Clive
when Clive was away from the mike stand (but wired to a radio mike) seemed to
take the sound man by surprise, and Clive's first word or two were regularly
lost to all but those of us in the front few rows. But that was not the tragedy.

The piano sounded like a real cracker, and Pete made the most of it. i thought
even Clive looked surprised and pleased at some twiddly bits that I didn't
remember from Buxton. These performances were a league beyond the CD versions,
with new interpretation, deeper richness in the voice... Just fantastic. Classic
Pete Atkin, only even better. But what do I know. I'm an idiot. I'm so much of
an idiot that idiots look at me in pity and feel smart. Remember the two ancient
album sleeves? Remember I had them all ready to get signed. So how did that
work? Here's the tragedy.

We came out of the auditorium after the show, and as usual there was the
mechandising table. No sign of Pete and Clive. I hung around, as you do, but
most everybody was just buying their books and albums and heading straight out
into the night. My wife, was looking at her watch. What to do? Think back: well
actually, in fact, as I recall, they never said they would come out and sign
autographs did they? At Buxton I remembered they made a great play of it during
the act, and then they duly turned up after the show. But no, dear, your right,
they didn't say it here. And so, disappointed, clutching unsigned sleeves, we
left.

3.30 a.m. Bolt upright in bed. Realisation. OF COURSE they said they would sign
autographs after the show. It was an improvised gag that they fluffed and recovered with
some style (The rare ones are the unsigned ones, Pete missed his cue). How could
I have forgotten. How could I not have waited right until the manager threw me
out. How could I have not got my album covers signed. That was the tragedy. I
bet the boys turned up into a nicely part-emptied foyer to sign and chat with the
dedicated die-hard fans. I should have been there. It should have been me.
At 3.30 a.m. it felt like midnight!

First impressions:

Last night at Milton Keynes I saw Pete Atkin and Clive James from a whole new point of view. Sideways on. Seating at The Stables Theatre is arranged in three sides of  a rectangle around the stage. My hideout deep at the open end of the rectangle was more or less in the wings. This was no bad thing. For me, with this tour, going to see Pete and Clive has not been like going to a show. It’s been like visiting friends or relatives. It doesn’t matter where you sit as long as you’re close. You can talk to your uncle as well side by side in the car as face to face across a formal space. Pete and Clive specifically invite the informal kind of communion, and I sensed, from Clive in particular, an appreciation of the proximity and wrap-around distribution of companions for his evening. I was so close I could almost read his notes over his shoulder when he turned to face the other wing. The notes, incidentally, are becoming increasingly dog-eared and scribbled upon as the tour progresses. Now THERE would be a souvenir worth having! Clive’s stage notes! Knocks my rare unsigned album sleeves into a cocked hat! In fact he left them unguarded on his side table no further than seven-foot-six from my fabulous seat during the interval. I wonder how cross he would have been if I’d nicked them.

Speaking of dog-eared things…  I took my dogs to see Pete Atkin and Clive James at Milton Keynes. It was a long day out from Stoke, and they didn’t want to stay behind. I couldn’t take them right inside to see the show, of course: they are not guide dogs, and I am not blind. Having missed out with my album sleeves at Telford I thought I’d get the doggies signed, but in the end good sense prevailed, and I left the autographing queue to grey-beards clutching memorabilia of a differently dog-eared kind. 

As the tour draws on, I get the impression that Pete and Clive are increasingly enjoying their evenings together with the audience. Relaxing into them more as the routine becomes familiar, and interjecting  more spontaneous, conversational moments. Having more confidence to shift the programme just a little one way or the other. Putting in something new for a change (a encore song from Clive at Milton Keynes that hadn’t featured in any of the previous shows or set-lists that I’d seen). Pete trying out some different twiddles with the twiddly bits of some of the songs. I’ve been three times now, and it’s still fresh. I would go again if I could. It’s not like going to a show, it’s like going to see friends. Friends who don’t know you from Adam, true, but that’s OK.

Clive James smiled at me in Milton Keynes (and I was pleased). In fact he did it twice. When we arrived early at The Stables, Clive was sitting at a table just outside the entrance. It was a great spot looking out into the sunset across the fields (and, of course, you can’t smoke inside the building). He glanced up as we passed, and smiled back when we smiled at him. I fought the urge to go up and disturb him! The few “famous” people that I meet probably all think I’m dead rude. I see Nick Hancock most days, and we nod at each other or raise a hand as our cars pass on the lane, but I wouldn’t dream of saying, when the winter weather returns for a burst of springtime snow, “I thought it was all over! Will you sign my Stoke shirt and can I stare at your house?” May be he’d like it. May be Clive would have liked it if I’d gone up and said hello. But then, he doesn’t keep coming up and bugging me, does he? The second time he smiled at me was right at the end of the show. He bowed, and said something that I couldn’t make out above the applause. Of course, he bowed and smiled and spoke to the 150 people on my wing of the auditorium, but I just happened to be the one right in front of his nose as he did it. I should have brought the dogs in: he was close enough, and seemed friendly enough, to have signed them right there on the stage.

Thanks again, Pete and Clive, for sharing an evening with us. And Clive, when you come to chuck those notes in the bin at the end of the tour…
 

I tried hard to be useful, but I can't see my way
clear to promising the permanence of our new manifesto
very far beyond the early evening of tomorrow. So
slight a thing in no one's mind should ever reign
supreme. Between us there is nothing. We're variations
on each other's theme. 

Tonight the high times finish. Tomorrow sends me back
to square one. Thirty years in the racket. Half a
lifetime bending with the breeze. I grew blasé; I
asked "What else is new?" I stuck out my hand for
shaking but it's only right that everything went
wrong. I kind of wish I could have settled down into a
longer run.

You waited too long for this, and I have come to
nothing in a way that leaves me with nothing left to
say. You can tell the minister grieves for how he
sinned. Reminded of my hard heart by the Mail, and of
my folly by the BBC. I know I made pretence of love
too often. My deadly carelessness went on for years.
My promises go trailing spray. They spin, they grip,
they whip away between the breaking of your morning
bread and the final pretty speeches of the night. The
golden handshake and the lightning kisses. They're
lovely, but it doesn't mean a thing. 

The chairman's calling Time and he is right. My time
has come to find a better way. I need new words to
fight with that win me far more than a smile. I feel
compelled to cogitate on what is most appropriate in
circumstances previously unknown. Next time don't vote
for the practical man. He's covered for a mile front
and back by Party cars, but when he cuts the pack he
sees…...

Mornings now I breakfast in the tower
Then take the taxi to the studio
My Penthouse suite's a safe-deposit box
With secretaries shielding me from fans
Hard to reach like gold that’s in Fort Knox
And all day long when people try to call
I’m covered like a gambler’s safest bet
By PR staff, but when I check the net I hear the Voices
I check the net and hear the Voices

Who are these guys and why do they want me?
These songs were history since Christ knows when
Some small performances in bars and clubs, 
Legitimate on vinyl and CD
The second hand shops are pleased to buy and sell
The royalties are all but shot to hell
There's no more left to tape, the record deals
Are dead and gone, or just some “best of” set
For die-hard fans, but when I check the net I hear the Voices
I check the net and hear the Voices

The agent’s checking each incoming flight
For midnight voices with a book to sign
No-one gets in here by day or night
Who knows the words to “Flowers and the wine”
I'm in the clear, at barely fifty-five
One of the most respected men alive
Some blubber here and there, but nothing wet
I'm right on top, but when I check the net I hear the Voices
I check the net and hear the Voices

We do the routine different every day
Today we hit the new book signing first
Then double back and tape the TV show
And as we drive I don't know which is worst
To know they'll come but not to know the way
To know they'll make me play but not know how
Are they somewhere out there setting concerts up?
Is this headache from their crosswires on my brow?
There's no way, not a chance they’ll make me sweat
They’ll never reach me, but when I check the net I hear the Voices
I check the net and hear the Voices

Winter Spring.

Songs from a heart that's been lived in.

This is a mature property, with established trees and shrubs, but still with
fresh surprises in each room and in each corner of the garden.

When you see in the grandson's expression something of the great great uncle who
died 20 years before grandson was born, it doesn't reduce the uniqueness or
value of the youngster, it adds depth and resonance and continuity to the human
story. The lift of an eyebrow, the turn of an expression, bring history flooding
back and provide an anchor in the moving current.

Appropriately (or ironically, depending on whether you're mourning winter or
welcoming spring) my copy arrived on the morning that Bobby Roberts Circus
packed up and left the field near my house, leaving, yes really, a circle on the
grass.

Winter Spring adds more soundtrack now that we've had more life.