It’s a point I consider often.  Art and, more specifically, how your appreciation of it can be enhanced by having some knowledge of the person who creates it.

I tend to think it breaks down in one of two ways and which way it goes largely depends on the Art.

If it’s not Good Art, then the knowledge of the person adds a specific burden to it.  A requirement to be kind, perhaps dishonest, perhaps kindly dishonest.  I know you, you’ve made Art, I don’t think all that much of it.  So what do I say to you?  I want to encourage you, to be your friend but, hey, it ain’t all that great.

That’s the downside.
 

The upside?  Well the upside far-outweighs the downside.

When you see Art done by someone you have some knowledge of, and it’s Great, and it’s Bloody Great, then the Art is enhanced a number of times over.  It’s wonderful.

I’ve never met anyone from the bandSweet Billy Pilgrim, not in person, but I’ve been talking to some of them for some years now.  Yes, of course I’m talking about Social Media, the wild animal that is as valued by its users as it is reviled by its non-users.  I’ve talked with some members of Sweet Billy Pilgrim quite a bit, enough to know them to be smart, funny, moral, deeply-human, talented, dedicated, grounded and, well… sweet.

In among a number of nice things people have recently tweeted about me, someone called me ‘unassuming’.  I think that’s a word that actually describes me quite well.  I don’t tend to ever assume much, especially in terms of friendships-and-such.  So I can only say I feel I am friends’ with some members of Sweet Billy Pilgrim and, without assumption, I hope they are ‘friends’ with me too.  So this, then, is a prime example of what I’ve been saying for some time.  That Good Art is that bit better when you know the Artist. 

Sweet Billy Pilgrim have a new album out called ‘Crown and Treaty’.  I like it very very much indeed and this liking is deepened by what little I know of the good folk behind the sounds.

Would I have found this album if we hadn’t ever exchanged words? It’s tricky to say.  Possibly not.  I tend to move in very restricted musical grooves - pretty eclectic, yes – but also pretty limited in its own way.  I like what I like and I am lazy about moving out into new musical realms.  This tendency is worsened by the fact that I don’t often like new things at first-hearing. It takes me time to adapt and fall in love with something new.  This also means that, when I find something I really like, I tend to cling to it and never let it go.  So, no, it’s fair to say I might not have found this album, not this early in its lifespan, at any rate.

And, supposing I had found it, and had not known any of the people involved?  Would I have liked it still?  That is much much easier to answer.  Yes.  I would have loved it.  As I do.  I would have loved it.  Because it’s Great, you see.  It’s brave and moving and engaging and inventive and I feel considerably better whenever I listen to it.

Bad Art by Friends can make you a slightly lesser person than you are.  It can make you practice avoidance and deceit in the name of friendship, it can bring you down.  Thankfully the converse is also true.  Good Art by Friends raises you up.

I suppose I should say something about the music rather than speak in fancy generalisations all the time.  That’s what the music-press do, isn’t it?  They draw comparisons and pick out moments to illustrate their points.  Sometimes reviews feel like an exam answer, “I think this and here’s the bit that made me think it.”  I’m not sure I am equipped to do that.  My response to music is not really set on a verbal level.  It’s the same with visual art.  I am sure there are words which would reflect my reactions.  I am even sure that I know those words.  I’m just not sure which ones they are or what order they go in.

There’s certainly a fun game you can play with this album.  A sort of ‘Spot the Influences’ thing.  I can’t help do it myself.  The music is so utterly original and yet it seems to nod, now and again, to things which have gone before.  I could sense Thom Yorke, in places, Tom Waits, Mark Isham (in early Wyndham Hill days), Pink Floyd, Blue Nile, on-and-on.  I bet you could find your own, if you listened.  Come and play.

Lyrically, too, it is beautiful.  Off-beat, informed and never-ever obvious.  I know more about words than music, perhaps, and this stuff gets me in that regard too.

So may I recommend this album to you?  Can I give it five stars like most of the real music reviewers have already done? Not because I’m trying to get a sale-or-two for people I know a little about or neither because I’m trying to ingratiate myself with them.  None of the above. Just because I like this album a lot and I think you might like it too. Seek out a bit of it, on YouTube, at the bottom of this post, or streaming somewhere and see what you think.

I have quite a number of online friends who I owe reviews to. Friends who, by continually making Good Art, and by my knowing them a little bit, make my life more full and more fun.  People like Jim and Andrea and William and Rachel.  I jumped to Sweet Billy Pilgrim because they are in my head now with their wonderful new music and it helps to write about what’s in my head. 

It always helps.

There are quite a few photographs and they are good.

But words often spark more memories in me than photos do, so it’s important that I write down a few words, really just for myself, about Dad’s 80th Birthday Party which, as most of you know, we had about six weeks ago. 

I could do it privately and put the words in a drawer somewhere but this blog incites me to do my writing and to do it a little better. Besides, I like sharing my words with whoever cares to read them so this seems best, to me.

****

I’m not usually the one who wants to celebrate anything. I’ll go along and I’ll generally love it but I won’t be the one pressing to organise it, to get it started. This time, though, I was right at the front of queue. This one, I felt, was worth celebrating. Very few people, you see, had expected Dad to reach 80 years old. There had been so much heart-trouble, so many operations, it just didn’t ever seem terribly likely. Yet here he was, smart and strong, independent and enjoying life more thoroughly than he had in many years. It was something to celebrate for sure.

So, on the eve of his 80th birthday, we all gathered to eat. “Let’s go to that usual place,” I said, “we all enjoy it and it will be perfectly fine.” Some of the others wanted a bigger deal. “That lovely place which overlooks the lake. It’s a bit of a drive but who cares? It’s an occasion.” So we went there. I’m so glad we did. We had a private room, overlooking the lake. The early evening was beautiful. The fishermen in the group, Dad included, must have looked wistfully down upon the lake and the island and pictured themselves out there in their boats. Even I did a bit of that and I was not one of the fisherman in the group.

The food was spectacularly good. If it was longer ago, you could be forgiven in thinking that I am viewing this evening now with rose-tinted spectacles but I’m not. It was only a few weeks ago and I remember it clearly. That’s why I’m setting it down like this. So, yes, the food was very good. We had two tables in the room and there was much chatter and even photographing of each other’s dinners. That was new to me. In between courses, we went out onto the balcony to sniff the lake air and Auntie Della’s cigarette smoke, then we came back in for more.

At the end, Dad made a little speech. Can you believe the perfection of it? He got to make a little speech. Nothing grandiose, he just thanked us all for being there and said how it meant a lot to him. Then we got pictures taken. He looks good in the pictures, happy that we’re all together and having such a nice time. That’s what I think anyway.

We had started dinner early so, by eight thirty, we were on the road again, convoying back into town. The pub had set aside the entire rear section for Dad and his family for a few drinks and an open invitation, for anyone who cared to, to come and have a drink and say ‘Happy Birthday.’

They came in droves. People we see every day, people we hadn’t seen in years. Dad and Berney and Della set themselves up in a corner and sort-of ‘held court’ while wave upon wave of well-wishers landed, greeted, laughed and joked, remembered, then mingled among themselves and chatted and drank.

The pub laid on sausages and chips. If Jesus had them when that multitude showed up for his gig, he wouldn’t have needed any miracle. There was plenty to go around. Soon the place was buzzing with friends and family, old work colleagues, neighbours, fellow-Rovers-fans and God knows who else.

Late in the evening, there was a big cake. It was a lovely cake. It showed Dad on his boat on his lake, wrapped up warm in his Rovers scarf, having hooked a friendly shark-like fish who was popping out of the blue water to wish him a Happy Birthday. The cake was much-admired then cut and enthusiastically demolished. The noise levels got louder and then, eventually, quieter as the congenial evening slipped away from us. Dad enjoyed it all, his friends, the fun. I could always tell when he wasn't enjoying something, I always knew. He enjoyed this evening. He enjoyed it.

Sometime after Midnight, I had to go. I had to get back to my boys. Dad was still holding court in the corner, so I went over to see him.

“I have to go. How are you doing?”

“Oh fine. I’m thinking of going home myself fairly soon.”

“You should, you’ve done all you have to do now. I’ll see you in the morning.”

It wasn’t the worst conversation to have had.

That’s all I know, first hand, until the morning.

I know he stayed a while longer. He needed to get a big black plastic bag to put all his presents in. A bar man obliged. He brought them home and he and his daughters opened the presents and exclaimed over the thoughtfulness and kindness of people.

Then he got ready and went to bed, in fine form. He curled up and went to sleep.

And that’s how we found him in the morning. Curled up and asleep. Sometime towards morning, he had slipped away. He hadn’t been expected to ever hit 80, but, at midnight, he had. He'd done it so well we hadn't been expecting him to go.

I was glad I was there, that morning. Otherwise I never could have believed that somebody could die so peacefully. I would have thought there must inevitably have been some moment of pain or discomfort before you’d go. But I was there and there was nothing but deep sleep. Deep sleep.

Even in the first moments of shock, I couldn’t help but think what a wonderful way it was to go. To see everybody, share a last meal untroubled by any foresight, get to tell everyone what they meant to you. Celebrate, socialise, make plans for a little trip in the days to come and then go home and go to sleep.

I’ll have it that way too, please, when my time comes.