John - ProfilesArchive

About Me

I live in Glasgow, Scotland, where I make music under the name Phosphene, on my own and sometimes with friends. There've been 3 albums so far and two new releases coming soon: a single which has guest appearances from Bridget St. John, Isobel Campbell & Bill Wells on one side and a collaboration with Nalle on the other, from Pickled Egg Records and a new e.p. on the estimable Rusted Rail label of Galway. Previous collaborators have included John McKeown (1990s/Yummy Fur) and saxophonists Lol Coxhill & Raymond MacDonald. There is now a myspace music page for Phosphene and another for Electroscope, a duo formed in 1996 by my friend Gayle and I... see links below. I've made all sorts of music radio programmes for the BBC and, on a station called Radio Six International, I have a weekly show called the Soundwave. This goes out from Glasgow at www.radiosix.com, on Sky/Astra channel 0195 and on FM stations in Slovakia and New Zealand. Apart from this, I've written a book about the early days of Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd and their wonderful Piper at the Gates of Dawn album. You can find out more on all of this at: http://www.phosphene.debrett.net The Phosphene shows with Nalle & Colleen at the Britannia Panopticon music Hall in Glasgow on 20th June were a lot of fun and a great success. There are a couple of photos here and more at the Phosphene website. This is the lovely poster Iker Spozio designed for the event. In late 2006 I released a long overlooked album by the amazing Delia Derbyshire. Two vinyl editions have come and gone, but the last handful of copies are available from the Melodybar distro: www.apexonline.com/melodybar and a cd issue will follow later in the year, along with another gem from the KPM library catalogue by Ron Geesin. Please read the blog notes on the project for more details. There's also an interview which has recently gone up at: http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/feature_detail.php?id=194 if you fancy a look!I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4

My Interests

Music, books, film, art & visual stuff, food & drink, travel, architecture, favourite spots in Glasgow include the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, the Sharmanka Kinetic Gallery, Mono, CCA & Cafe Mao.

I'd like to meet:

Kindred spirits with open minds.

adopt your own virtual pet!

Music:

Syd Barrett/early Pink Floyd, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart, Colleen, Nalle, Bridget St. John, Delia Derbyshire, Pefkin, Sharron Kraus, Larkin Grimm, Fursaxa, Led Zeppelin/Robert Plant, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edgard Varese, The Byrds/Gene Clarke/Roger McGuinn/David Crosby, Incredible String Band, United States of America, Espers, James Blackshaw, Oddfellows Casino, Judee Sill, One Ensemble of Daniel Padden, Ivor Cutler, Olivier Messiaen, Ladytron, Pam Berry, Kuupuu, Islaja, Del Shannon, Buddy Holly, Lali Puna, Lol Coxhill, George Burt & Raymond MacDonald, Mount Vernon Arts Lab/Astral Temple, Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, Niagara Falls, Scatter, Pastels, Melody Dog, Anne Briggs, Jackson C. Frank, Bill Wells, Isobel Campbell, Vashti Bunyan, Kama Aina, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Bert Jansch, Roy Harper, My Bloody Valentine, John & Alice Coltrane, Ken Hyder's K-Space, Kemialliset Ystavat, Robert Wyatt, Jacqueline DuPre, Sir John Barbirolli, The Beatstalkers, The Poets, Be Bop Deluxe/Bill Nelson, Jean Sibelius, Carl Nielsen, 1990s, Lungleg, Yummy Fur, Brigitte Fontaine, Jimi Hendrix, The Misunderstood, Marc Almond, Scott Walker, Pia Fraus, Arthur Lee & Love, Kitchen Cynics, Moondog, The Zombies, Phantom Buffalo, Caroline Lufkin, Cahier, This Heat,Park Attack, Dragon or Emperor, The North Sea, Rameses III, Electroluvs, Petra Haden, Vivian Stanshall, Markus Makki, The Black Keys... and so on....

Movies:

Roman Polanski films, from Repulsion to The pianist, Doctor Terror's House Of Horrors, Wicker Man, The Red Balloon, Hard Days Night, Pandora's Box, Amelie, The Collector, Eight and a Half, The Ladykillers, I Walk The Line, The Black Sheep Of Whitehall, Lost Highway, The Fall, Psych Out, The Trip, The Committee, Withnail & I, Harold and Maude, Ed Wood, The Sorcerers, Scandal, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Old Boy, Dead Clean, Modesty Blaise, Theatre of Blood and anything else with Vincent Price in it...

Television:

Classic ITC: Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), The Prisoner, The Champions, Danger Man (esp. Not So Jolly Roger) etc. Doctor Who, Bagpuss, Clangers & anything Oliver Postgate, Budgie (series now 1 on dvd... highly recommended!), Roberta Leigh's Space Patrol. Can't think of much more... too much going on to watch a lot of tv!

Books:

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera, Kenneth Grahame: Wind in the Willows, Jenny Fabian: Groupie, William Burroughs (too many to mention), Barry Miles' biographies, Brothers Grimm, Edward Laing's anthologies of tales, Oscar Wilde (anything!), Ian Rankin, Iain Banks, Robert Anton Wilson, David Crosby's Long Time Gone, Stoned and 2 Stoned by Andrew Loog Oldham, How Bluesgrass Music Destroyed My Life by John Fahey, Ivor Cutler (all of it!), Algernon Blackwood's John Silence stories, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Hunter S. Thompson... currently reading: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Heroes:

Delia Derbyshire, Ursula & Ralph Vaughan Williams, Sir John Barbirolli, Alan Freeman, John Peel, Ken Hyder, Ivor Cutler, John "Hoppy" Hopkins, Peter Whitehead, Robert Wyatt, Robert Plant, Vincent Price, Salvador Dali, Terence Stamp, Sir Frank Whittle, Fred Gaisberg, Jacob Bronowski.

My Blog

New Phosphene & Friends 7"... Bridget St. John, Nalle, Isobel Campbell & Bill Wells...

There's a new Phosphene release available now... this is exciting news, as the single on Pickled Egg records has arrived which goes by the name of Phosphene and Friends - and what friends! Here's my s...
Posted by John on Sat, 18 Aug 2007 06:33:00 PST

New PHosphene cd on Rusted Rail Records of Galway!

Phoenix Trees is now available! This 3" cd comes in handmade packaging from the wonderful Rusted Rail Records of Galway. Read all about it! You can buy it from the label or get it from the Melodybar d...
Posted by John on Thu, 24 May 2007 03:06:00 PST

Colleen, Nalle & Phosphene live in a wonderful Victorian music hall

Colleen is visiting Glasgow next month. It's nearly two years since she played live here and this is a very special show to welcome her back to a city that has taken her music to its heart. The l...
Posted by John on Tue, 15 May 2007 03:40:00 PST

Joe Meek film.... a new preview

There's a new teaser for the forthcoming Joe Meek documentary movie which shows, amongst many of Mr Meek's artists and fans, the general clutter of the room I'm sitting in now... it's a bit tidier the...
Posted by John on Sun, 13 May 2007 02:48:00 PST

Joe Boyd on Syd Barrett

I recently posted an article by legendary record producer Joe Boyd, musing on the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream. This week, Mr Boyd appears in print again on the closely related topic of Syd Barrett and ...
Posted by John on Sat, 05 May 2007 06:29:00 PST

Underground record & poster art in Stirling

There's a multi-venue event running in Scotland right now called the Six Cities festival and I've just seen part of it: the DIY - Design It Yourself show at Stirling's Changing Room. This gathers...
Posted by John on Fri, 04 May 2007 08:07:00 PST

1967, 14 Hour Dreams and all that: Joe Boyd's view...

As another 40th anniversary is marked, in this year ending with a 7, I thought I'd re-post this piece written by Joe Boyd, one of the pivotal figures in London during a most interesting era. Boyd's bo...
Posted by John on Thu, 19 Apr 2007 08:45:00 PST

New issue of Dream Magazine

A new issue of george Parsons' Dream Magazine is on the way. If you're not familiar with it, this is an excellent, glossy covered A4 and comes with a cd. Anyway, I've transcribed a radio interview wit...
Posted by John on Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:58:00 PST

Robert Anton Wilson

I posted this as a bulletin earlier today, but they don't tend to stick around for long and I think RAW deserves more time in our minds. He died on 11th January and this fact doesn't seem to br grabbi...
Posted by John on Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:10:00 PST

Soundwave 100...

Last night's show was quite an adventure! Radio Six's Tony Currie was set up in a corner of my upstairs front room and, although there was excellent food and plenty of it (thanks to Gayle and Carrick)...
Posted by John on Tue, 12 Dec 2006 02:18:00 PST