Carnaval (Santana) (LP 4802 - 4805)

Argent  Circus (CD, CBS Records, 1975) ***  

John Lennon  Johnny Moondog (Vinyl, Bootleg recording) *

Van Morrison  Remembering Now (Vinyl, Virgin Records, 2025) ****  

Santana  Festival (Vinyl, Columbia Records, 1977) *** 

Genre: Prog rock, pop, celtic soul, rock 

Places I remember: Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Down to Joy (Van)

Gear costume: Let the Children Play (Santana)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: These four albums are from a recent purchase from Real Groovy. I saw they had a copy of Johnny Moondog so I got that and padded that out to get free shipping with three other albums on my list. I lost the Lennon bootleg in that infamous house move, so it's good to find a replacement. The quality is pretty dire at times and the songs have all appeared elsewhere but it repairs a hole in my psyche, so it's invaluable.

I think the only two missing bootlegs I'm still looking for are a Lennon 10 inch called A Guitar's All Right, John, and The Beatles Hahst az Son - made up of Let It Be sessions on a double album.

The Argent album is their sixth album, their last for CBS and their first without Russ Ballad. John Verity is the new vocalist/ replacement for Ballad. 

My reviews of other Argent albums can be found here, here and here. Why so many, and why Circus? I like Argent's unpretentious brand of prog rock. Yes, this is a concept album but it's built around a circus experience as a metaphor for life. As Obi Wan might say - nothing pretentious going on here, move along, move along. It's a solid mid seventies light prog album which does no harm.

I've written about my Van Morrison collection three times so far (here, here and here). He's an artist that refuses to be ignored as the years go by and his releases stack up.

The reviews for Van's 47th studio album, 2025's Remembering Now, were uniform in their opinion that this one of his best ever albums. It's staggering that his first album was released almost 60 years ago. Obviously, given the amount of music he releases (22 albums in the last 26 years), the quality will vary. Plus, being in his eighties - he's no spring chicken. When the inspiration hits, though, as it does on this album, he's in a class of his own.

There's something extremely gratifying when each song starts and then Van the man begins his vocals - that familiar reassurance that comes with his familiar delivery. May he make many more albums like Remembering Now. 

I was alerted to the fact that I failed to own Santana's Festival album when I did the late seventies section of my Santana posts. I haven't been missing much it seems. Only Carnaval/Let the Children Play and Let the Music Set You Free stand out. The rest is slow paced and sludgy. Not Santana's best moment.

Where do they all belong? Back to the countdown next - we're up to Rick Wakeman.

Enlightenment (Van Morrison) (LP 3276 - 3284)

Van Morrison  Enlightenment  (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1990) ****  

Van Morrison  A Night In San Francisco  (2CD, Polydor Records, 1994) ****

Van Morrison  The Philosopher's Stone  (2CD, Polydor Records, 1998) ***    

Van Morrison & Linda Gail Lewis  You Win Again  (CD, Virgin Records, 2000) *** 

Van Morrison  Down The Road  (CD, Exile Records, 2002) ****   

Van Morrison  Magic Time  (CD, Exile Records, 2005) ****  

Van Morrison  Keep It Simple  (CD, Exile Records, 2008) ****  

Van Morrison  Keep Me Singing  (CD, Exile Records, 2016) ****  

Van Morrison and Joey DeFrancesco  You're Driving Me Crazy (Vinyl, Exile Records, 2018) ****  

Genre: Celtic soul, folk rock, jazz 

Places I remember: Music club, The Warehouse, Fives, Hope collection, HMV.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Enlightenment, Celtic New Year (Magic Time)

Gear costume: Real Real Gone (Enlightenment); Help Me (A Night in SF)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: The nineties started with a continuation of the Celtic soul that Van had been releasing in the eighties to great effect. But Enlightenment is also infused with his R&B past. There's a greater grit and toughness to many of the songs that is noticeable if you play the albums in sequence as I'm doing for these posts.

It kicks off with the upbeat/ up-tempo Real Real Gone. I'm putty in his hands from here on in, especially as his next song is the title song. The rest of the album, while not quite ever matching those first two songs, glides by beautifully on majestic wings. This is one of my favourite studio albums of the nineties.

The third live album I have is from shows in San Francisco and Petaluma in December 1993. Van is in showband mode for this date. The plethora of guests joining in the fun were Candy Dulfer, John Lee Hooker, Junior Wells and Jimmy Witherspoon as well as Morrison's daughter, Shana Morrison. James Hunter and Brian Kennedy helped out with the vocals and Georgie Fame was also present.

It's a lively rocking set that includes a number of cover songs, often in medleys. For instance, Help Me is joined with Green Onions and is devastating! 

The Philosopher's Stone is a compilation of unreleased material from 1969 to 1988. It's a nifty collection that traces an alternative Van universe. Highlights: an alternative take of Bright Side Of The Road and High Spirits (with The Chieftains). Awkward moments are the falsetto singing on some songs and the alternative version of Real Real Gone - give me the original any day.

I missed quite a few late nineties albums before the next featured one on this blog, and I only have You Win Again thanks to a donation from Lindsey Hope.

You Win Again is a bit of a weird one. A duet album with Jerry Lee Lewis' sister. They kick up their heels in a fittingly rumbustious fashion given they are basically celebrating Jerry Lee on the album. 

Gail's piano playing is like her brother's style and her singing is appropriately down-home country. It's enjoyable enough for what it is, the band is loose as a long-necked goose and on the money throughout, but this is not an essential Van Morrison album.

Down The Road was one I picked up cheaply from the sale bins at The Warehouse in the days when they stocked CDs and even vinyl. It was a lucky purchase because it's a great sounding album - warm and nostalgic in tone, and musically it successfully mixes R&B with jazz and bits of country.  

Highlights aplenty on this album, with the fifties style swing of Hey Mr DJ, the lovely pace of Steal Your Heart Away and his version of Georgia On My Mind being standouts.

Magic Time is another fine album. I became aware of it because of a spot on Later...With Jools Holland. He performed Celtic New Year and I needed to buy the album. Boy, I'm glad I did. It's 2005 and he's been at it a while by this time, but he sounds vibrant and in the pocket throughout. 

All his various styles and strengths are on display. Evening Train needs a special mention. I enjoy his Sonny Terry like whoops and hollers around the harmonica solos. Always makes me smile. This is followed by the big Sinatra style of This Love Of Mine. Very cool!

Keep It Simple is as eclectic in style as his other post 1990's studio albums. There are elements of jazz, folk, blues, Celtic, country, soul and gospel on display.

Having said that, it sounds pretty cohesive and was a popular album for him in America. Although, there was no one brilliant song like Celtic New Year.

Keep Me Singing was another very successful album. It's the album you want to put on late in the evening and let it soak into your skin. By no means is it easy listening - just laid back, jazzy, warm and cool and easy to listen to. Again, there as no one killer track, just Van doing Van.

My final album (so far) is a collaboration with jazz organist/trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco, called You're Driving Me Crazy.

It's a great collaboration with Joey's jazz combo. The album was recorded in two days apparently, and that freshness is in the grooves of eight tracks from Morrison's catalog and seven standards. According to the AllMusic critic - 'Of the three successive recordings done in this way, this one stands head and shoulders above for its inspired performances and choices of material'.

Where do they all belong? And that's it for now. I'd certainly pick up the albums I'm missing if I happen upon then in Real Groovy's sale bins, but I'm pretty sure I have the cream in my collection. 

The two volume best of compilations give you one type of look but really Van is an old school album guy, so you are best to check my ratings for the essential ones to start with, if you haven't yet caught up with one of music's absolute legends. Van is the man!

Haunts of ancient peace (Van Morrison) (LP 3269 - 3275)

Van Morrison  Common One (Vinyl and CD, Mercury Records, 1980) *****  

Van Morrison  Beautiful Vision (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1982) ****

Van Morrison  Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1983) *****

Van Morrison  Live at The Grand Opera House Belfast (CD, Mercury Records, 1984) ***

Van Morrison  Poetic Champions Compose (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1987) ****

Van Morrison & The Chieftains  Irish Heartbeat (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1988) ***

Van Morrison  Avalon Sunset (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1989) ****

Genre: Folk rock, Celtic soul

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, JB Hi Fi, The Warehouse, Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Haunts Of Ancient Peace (Common One)

Gear costume: Someone Like You (Poetic Champions Compose)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Van started the eighties on an artistic/ creative high with Common One. Haunts Of Ancient Peace is a superb song. He's deeply into his creative muse on this song and I for one love listening to it. The rest of the album is very jazzy in its approach - some distance away from his late seventies albums, and all the better for it. 

Common One is like Veedon Fleece and Saint Dominic's Preview for me - an inspired set of songs performed brilliantly. 

Beautiful Vision builds on the peace achieved by Common One (no coming, no going) and Van produces an excellent set of songs.

He concentrates on the Celtic folk and song/poem stylings that poked through from time to time prior to Common One, but really thrust forward on Haunts Of Ancient Peace. The leisurely pace is very welcome. There is no strident hectoring present throughout these early eighties' albums.

Try side two of Beautiful Vision for instance. He extols the virtues of a simple activity (cleaning windows), then he presents four beautiful songs - Vanlose Stairway, Aryan Mist, Across The Bridge Where Angels Dwell, finishing off with the soothing calm instrumental Scandinavia.

Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart (a title that harks back to Listen To The Lion) carries on the feel of Beautiful Vision to great effect. I can even live with the synths. 

I especially love the continued use of instrumentals: Connswater, Celtic Swing come on side 1 to provide texture, and the title track on side 2 has a beautiful melody. Van's sax playing is really distinctive - very breathy/earthy. All that plus Rave On John Donne. What a great album - the culmination of the early eighties 'spiritual Celtic soul' period from the soul in wonder.

Like It's Too Late To Stop Now before it, the live album recorded in Belfast is a good punctuation mark to a stage of his career. I used to have the vinyl version but I sold it because it had too many of the mid paced ruminations on it and the version of Rave On John Donne sounds perfunctory compared to the inspired studio version. For me, the set needed some more pep - like Full Force Gale which really stands out.

I missed a few albums around this time, but picked up the scent again with Poetic Champions Compose, mainly for Someone Like You. What a song that is! Only Van can do this kind of heartfelt thing with sincerity and aplomb.

Critics have described the album's mood as calm and optimistic, and I think that's accurate. Van believes he writes his best stuff when he's in those moods. There is a lovely warmth to this album and the mid-tempo songs glide by effortlessly.

Irish Heartbeat was a collaboration with The Chieftains. It's pretty earthy and raw, which is as it should be for this material (basically it sounds eminently suited to beer drinking activities so grab a six pack of stout won't you). Highlights: Star Of The County Down; I'll Tell Me Ma.

Avalon Sunset was next after the Irish reset. It ends the decade on a high. There are many career highlights on this album: Whenever God Shines His Light (with a terrific co-vocal from Cliff Richard); Have I Told You Lately?; and Coney Island.

Where do they all belong? The nineties to just lately is next. He's been tough to follow in the last few years - so many albums, and so many different styles.

Sun slow slider (Van Morrison) (LP 3258 - 3268)

Van Morrison  Astral Weeks  (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1968) ****  

Van Morrison  Moondance  (CD, Warner Bros. Records, 1970) *****  

Van Morrison  His Band And The Street Choir  (CD, Warner Bros. Records, 1970) ****

Van Morrison  Tupelo Honey  (Vinyl and CD, Warner Bros. Records, 1971) *****

Van Morrison  Saint Dominic's Preview  (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1972) *****

Van Morrison  Hard Nose The Highway  (CD, Warner Bros. Records, 1973) ***

Van Morrison  It's Too Late To Stop Now  (2CD, Warner Bros. Records, 1974) ****

Van Morrison  Veedon Fleece  (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1974) *****

Van Morrison  A Period Of Transition  (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1977) **

Van Morrison  Wavelength  (Vinyl, Warner Bros. Records, 1978) ***

Van Morrison  Into The Music  (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1979) ***

Genre: Folk rock, rock, pop, Celtic soul 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, Fives, Spellbound Wax Company.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Redwood Tree (Saint Dominic's Preview)

Gear costume: Warm Love (Hard Nose The Highway), Saint Dominic's Preview

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: Van the man! For some a genius, a firebrand, a grumpy old guy, a visionary even. I don't really know too much about his personal life, aside from what he's shared in his songs over the years, and even his musical life is a bit of a mystery to me. But I keep coming back to him and I keep interested in his back catalogue.

I have a lot of Van Morrison's albums (well over 20), but I am way off being a completist. He is extremely prolific - more so in recent times and he left me behind some time ago, in terms of my keeping pace with his releases. 

For the sake of sanity, I'll split the posts into three editions - this one is sixties/seventies albums, and the next will cover the eighties. Finally, the third will concentrate on the nineties onwards.

He remains a big name, and one who has released a lot of important albums. Starting (for me) with Astral Weeks - widely hailed as a seminal work of art. I struggle with it. Mainly I struggle with gaining an emotional foothold in it. It's pretty and beautiful and wafts along, but I just don't get what the fuss is all about.

The AllMusic review says that, 'It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle musical structures.' Okay. Fair enough, but I much prefer Moondance!

That one is a five-star classic all the way. Every song is a gem and it never ever wears out its welcome. Basically, he abandoned the jazzy moves of Astral Weeks and adopted a livelier approach that incorporated a variety of styles - soul, jazz, pop, Irish folk and rock music.  

I could have put each song on the highlights section above. A fab/gear album.

The follow up, His Band And The Street Choir, was his second album in 1970 and maybe he stretched things a bit thin. It's a relaxed set, but I prefer the burning intensity of Moondance if push comes to shove. Domino is a great song and leads off the album superbly.

Tupelo Honey is one of my favourites. Van is in love and wants to celebrate that fact on the album. That gives it a warm glow that I really like. It's also pretty earthy - I Wanna Roo You leaves nothing to the imagination. Tupelo Honey, Wild Night, Old Old Woodstock (where he and then wife Janet 'Planet' Rigsbee lived) and Moonshine Whiskey are all solid gold Van classics.

Saint Dominic's Preview is a great, great album. Like Moondance, another five-star classic, every song a masterpiece. Diverse styles again make up the album, but for me, it's his first fully realised inspirational/spiritual album because the diversity includes the majestic Listen To The Lion.

The title track and Redwood Tree are also inspired/perfect pieces of music. He was touched by the divine on Saint Dominic's Preview. A feeling he would return to again and again in the following years.

Hard Nose The Highway is an album I took ages to buy. I'm not sure why. The cover is brilliant, and I knew of the album for sure but maybe I read a slightly negative review and it put me off. 

It feels like lesser Van Morrison to me in 2025, so I'm not upset that I 've been missing out on enjoying a classic all these years. 

That said, the title track is a good one and Warm Love is one of his best, but elsewhere he's straining for good material, proved by the inclusion of two cover songs that don't really add too much.

Live though, wowsers! It's Too Late To Stop Now is a double live album from 1974 and Van is on fire as he runs through his back catalogue. 

It's not all brilliant (I could do without this version of Cypress Avenue), but it's near as dammit. 

Veedon Fleece was his eighth studio album and a real return to top form. The stream of consciousness approach is an echo of Astral Weeks, but I much prefer this soulful Celtic-centric approach. It rings true and has depth. 

Although he'd broken up with Janet Planet (indeed - divorced her), I don't get the sense of this being a bitter break up album (Blood On The Tracks/Here My Dear it ain't). Instead, it's quiet, thoughtful and a kind of forgotten gem in his catalogue. 

Favourite song: Bulbs. but it seems wrong to single out one song because the whole album hangs together as a coherent whole.

Van is extremely prolific, so a gap of nearly three years is a big deal in his world. He did appear with The Band at The Last Waltz doing Caravan in the movie, but that was it before the next album.

That was A Period Of Transition, which was (and is still) an underwhelming piece of work. The title (with lower case writing) and his various bored poses on the cover seem to sum things up well. What to do, what to do?

He livens up on side two with Joyous Sound and that points to what could have been, but, on the whole, this is meat and potatoes Van - a tentative, laid-back period of transition after years of being at the cutting edge with help from Dr John (who he'd performed with at The Last Waltz). For me, it's his weakest album of the seventies.

As revealed by lead off song, Kingdom Hall, Wavelength revealed that a poppier approach was the way forward after his period of transition. Like his previous album, it's a pretty relaxed affair with  mid-tempo songs and ballads carrying the day.

It's not a major album in his catalogue but at least it's fun and swinging. He's allowed right?

Into The Music is his last seventies album. He ends the decade with a strong set of songs: Bright Side Of The Road and Full Force Gale set the scene. The choice of instruments and personnel is interesting - tabla, violin etc; Ry Cooder on one song - all add to the experience.

Where do they all belong? The eighties and beyond is next up.

The rocky road to Dublin (The Chieftains) (LP 8)

The Chieftains  The Long Black Veil (CD - BMG Music, 1995) ***

Genre: Folk 

Places I remember: Real Groovy sale bin, Auckland.  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? with Van Morrison on vocals is a real highlight...

Gear costume: ...but there are other fine moments, like The Lily Of The West with Mark Knopfler and Coast Of Malabar with Ry Cooder.

Active compensatory factors: Each track features a different famous vocalist: Mick Jagger, Sting, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithfull and Sinead O'Connor also contribute their talents.  

I do applaud the intention and idea although having a different vocalist for each song can result in a wide quality gap (hence the three star rating). For instance, I love Marianne Faithfull generally but here it feels like a mismatch of styles. And I'm not a Sinaed O'Connor fan at all so I fast forward through her two tracks. 

Where do they all belong? I'm not a huge fan of Irish folk music so there aren't  many other records in my collection like this apart from Clannad. 

From the dark end of the street to the bright side of the road (Van Morrison) #291

Van Morrison  Bright Side Of The Road/ Rolling Hills (Mercury, 6001 121, 1979)

Van is in upbeat mode here. Perky even and that's not an adjective anybody uses often where Van the man is concerned.

The song comes from his Into The Music album, but a different version is also on The Philosopher's Stone, an album of outtakes and rarities.

As I said, it's not a song I immediately think of when I'm thinking of Van but it's been featured in movies over the years, including one of my all time favourite films Fever Pitch.

It's an odd one in that it's an answer to the great soul song from 1967 (although it sounds older) The Dark End Of The Street (check the post title). I've included Ry's version as it's amazing!!




Hidden gem: Positivity continues to rule on the B side - a jaunty ditty about going across them rolling hills. Another song from Into The Music so no rarity value there.

Thought I'd provide a couple of different versions as the video this time out. Van's versions are stunning but Shakira and Jerry Garcia do different things with it that I also like.

So hard to find my way now that I'm all on my own (Van Morrison) #247

Ian Matthews  Brown Eyed Girl/ Rhythm Of The West (CBS, BA 461677, 1976)

You may know him as Iain Matthews or Ian McDonald or as part of Matthews Southern Comfort (yes without a pesky apostrophe, although his first solo album was called Matthews' Southern Comfort). 

During the mid seventies he was Ian Matthews (if you're keeping up you may want to know his real name - Iain Matthew McDonald).

Clearly he had a restless spirit, a crisis of identity AND was challenged by grammar. 

One thing IS without doubt: his version of the great Van Morrison song is awesome. The rough edges of Van's vocal are replaced by a warm tone and a smooth as molasses vocal by Ian.

It was actually Ian's version that I heard first and, shock horror... I prefer it - yes even though I love Van the man.



Hidden gem: The B side is another song off the parent album (Go For Broke) and is a nice pleasant song in his laid back country rock style.

Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-wo-wo still shines (The Carpenters)

Greg's blog talked about the radio the other day and this got me thinking about great songs that are about the radio.

I love songs about the radio. Here are my top five:

1Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters)

(keep watching for an oldies medley)


2 Overnight Sensation (The Raspberries)

(beware the long title intro)


3 Caravan (Van Morrison)



4 Crusin' Music (The Raspberries)

5 On The Radio (Donna Summer) (it was a toss up for 5th place between this and Joni's You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio which is also great from the title on down but Donna's hystrionics won the day)
Surprised that my favourite is Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters)? I was a little bit too, because, really - the Carpenters?

Never cool, always the other side of twee thanks to Richard Carpenter's hair and shocking dress sense (and vocals!), and something of a guilty pleasure.

But they had a secret weapon. Karen Carpenter's voice. A thing of beauty it was to be sure.

The Raspberries were just a great Badfinger style Beatles influenced group (with a Who obsession as well). These two songs acknowledge how much they loved the radio and specifically how much they loved hearing themselves on the radio. I like this idea that they are also music fans (same with the Carpenter's song).

Same goes with Van the man. I love this ode to the radio - turn it up indeed!

You gotta go slow below the surface and gaze into the well (Dan Fogelberg)

Been reading Mojo magazine's latest edition. It contains a rhapsodic piece on Van the man's Astral Weeks album by Greil Marcus.

Will write about that in a sec. But first - time for another guilty pleasure. Dan Fogelberg. Yes I know he was sometimes a bit of an egotistical plonker but he made one album that I regard as a stone cold classic - Captured Angel.

No one really rates this album, except me. You can find it an any remainder bin you care to look in. Or you could. Silly me - I forget - no one actually goes to a CD shop anymore do they. No one cares about Dan anymore either (apart from Keegan who asked me for a place to start).

I suggested Captured Angel. It starts with glorious strings (Aspen - clear as a frosty morning)and then glorious acoustic guitars (These Days) and then gorgeous harmonies. All by Dan! He plays and sings most of it. The songs make me smile, strum my air guitar, sing along, feel good, and each song ends when it needs to. The rest of the album slides along effortlessly. Clearly a huge amount of creative effort goes into music but this album is so damned easy to love because it sounds so free and easy. Emancipator's music has the same effect on me.

Of course the associations of happy family travels as the album played over and over in the car certainly help elevate its place in my affections. I'd turn it up as loud as Jacky could bare and sing along on trips to Taupo with Keegan, Adam, Samantha, and Jade, at various times, on board. I'm sure it traumatised them all.

I've just played the album again and I've had a relaxed grin on my face the whole time.

I thought about Dan and my love for Captured Angel as I read the Marcus piece on Astral Weeks. In the piece he makes a lovely point about the synchronicity of all the elements coming together at one point to create a work of genius. He uses Bob Beamon's huge 1968 Olympic leap to illustrate his point (it was an act for which there are no parallels and no metaphors). Unfortunately for Greil, you can make the same point about anything can't you? The bowl of cereal I ate for breakfast this morning frinstance.

Astral Weeks is an album I've never been able to love. I dig it out once and a while and try hard(like right now as I type this) and, every time, it fails to move me the way Moondance and especially St Dominic's Preview move me. I find his voice too harsh on Astral (still in Them mode) and not the softer meditative soul voice he would gain later; the songs are too long and, for me, the music doesn't always suit the song. For me, there is no emotional core as there is on his other major albums like St Dominic's.

Hey it's all subjective. As Paul Simon says - one man's ceiling is another man's floor. At the end of the Marcus article he says as much himself - Astral Weeks became part of his life years ago and 'remains inseparable from it'. Astral Weeks was an album I came to while going back through Van's back catalogue. It's not an album I'm fond of in the way I'm fond of Captured Angel. I remain separate from Astral but Angel is in my soul.

And it stoned me to my soul

34 Van Morrison, 'Haunts Of Ancient Peace'

I think it takes some distance to appreciate what you've got, and it takes being a stranger in a strange land to truly appreciate your surroundings and your life. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning while I'm knee deep in the river, sometimes I need to get out and watch the river flow.

I was born in Auckland, New Zealand and moved to England in 2004. When I lived, worked and travelled in England I felt far more distinctive than when I lived in New Zealand. I felt my kiwiness, heard my accent, took greater pride in being a kiwi - far far more than when I lived in NZ. I also loved England, Scotland and Wales (never made it to Ireland unfortunately). At the time, I made a list of things I loved about the place. Here's some - The Guardian, the BBC, Radio 2, the Tate Modern, football culture, Edinburgh Castle, the B&Bs, the semi-detached in Victoria Road, Wimpy bars, Fopp, the tube, the Thames estuary around Leigh-on-sea, Tintern Abbey and other haunts of ancient peace.

Van Morrison was another alien invader who fell in love with Avalon. It stoned him to his soul, as it did me, as it does so many others.

Van and I go way back to my teenage years. My great friend Greg Knowles introduced us. Greg and I were about 15 and the Moondance album was the initial hook and the clincher to our lifelong friendship. I have always gravitated to people who love music and have an off kilter sense of humour. My friends' recommendations of music have been crucial throughout the years, especially when I was young. Without Greg, Noel, Roger and others I would probably still be listening exclusively to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Uriah Heap and Deep Purple - my steady diet from 1971 to 1974.

When I met Greg in 1974, he was much more advanced and eclectic in his listening than me. Van was one example - Greg had 100% more knowledge of Van Morrison and even had a copy of Hard Nose The Highway which was brand new at the time. This amazed me. Music was much more inaccessible for me in those days. Not having a part time job, I had to save for ages by doing odd jobs. I'd pore over music papers endlessly - read reviews, look at artwork, and agonise about each potential selection. It's no idle boast that I can remember where I bought every single piece of vinyl. Nothing I got was ever bought at the time of its release though - it needed to have stood the test of time to some greater or lesser extent for me to shell out my hard earned pennies.

So I was over the moon when Greg made me a cassette tape (I actually still have it) with his selection of Moondance, St Dominic's Preview and Hard Nose tracks. There's nothing like the first time you discover these things. Your ears and mind open, new vistas present themselves, a skin sheds itself, the world changes. I miss those times when a new tape from my cousin Christine, or Greg, or Roger would introduce me to new sounds (in the late 1970s Christine sent me a brilliant tape from Rochdale, that I still have, of the new punk bands - it was like music from a distant planet). These days I earn enough to take a punt on The Doves new album. Some special things have been lost about that lead up to a purchase.

Haunts Of Ancient Peace leads off the Common One album. A theme through the album is Van's love of Avalon, Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, T S Eliott, the English countryside - hillside, mountains, valleys of Kendall and elsewhere. Van's lyric suggests that we go back to those haunts of ancient peace whenever we need some relief. This echoes Wordsworth's lines in the Tintern Abbey poem - when he thinks "in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din of towns and cities"of scenes such as the Abbey to gain 'tranquil restoration'. My spirit has also often turned to thee.

Let Van have (nearly) the last word - 'You know I want to go there one more time again. Be still in haunts of ancient peace. (Be still).'

Amen to that.