Just when I think I’ve listed all the links, planetary alignments, coincidences and general weirdness in these stories, I discover another one.
I was going through old emails to locate exactly when it was that Syd’s nephew Ian Barrett first gave me author and radio presenter John Cavanagh’s email address.
Fortunately I was in bare feet at the time or I would have had to search for yet another pair of socks.
The day Ian sent me John’s email address was on James Silkweaver’s birthday!
You may think, “Big deal!” And fair enough too. Although my thought is, out of ALL the 365 days in the year, it’s incredible that it happened to be on the birthday of a man who has become woven more and more into the stories as time has gone on. (See what I did there?)
In fact, it was quite early on in my correspondence with John Cavanagh (pictured left*) when I first mentioned to John my contact with James Silkweaver.
John was impressed with James’s appreciation of my quirky sense of humour. I guess you could say John Cavanagh saw James as a good sport. 🙂
But both my and John’s mutual appreciation of James was soon to move from private email conversations and onto the radio.
John Cavanagh hosts a weekly program on Radio Six International called The Soundwave.
It’s an hour long show featuring an eclectic mix of music from around the globe, particularly Scotland.
(As john is a Scot, he has at least one Scottish track each week.) There is also a weekly step way back into the archives as he plays a crackly old 78. And he often has a guest artist on the line, or has prepared earlier in a recorded interview.
It’s always interesting and entertaining. I have heard some of the most unusual, strange and downright
kooky music on The Soundwave, along with some absolute gems which have had me searching the ‘net
for more info.
It is as far from your standard Top Forty commercial radio junk as you can get. And John has that
typically mellifluous radio presenter’s voice which is so easy to listen to.
It wouldn’t be surprising to anyone reading this that I ended up telling John about my fascinatingly intertwining contact with James Silkweaver and Stavros Butcher, and especially me picking up on the new lyrics of What Are You Doing Out There? And just to cap it all off there was the freaky coincidence around the Michael Gudinski anagram and Rhapsody Silkweaver’s job situation.
John referred to the story as “a corker!”
He enjoyed it all so much that on one of his Soundwave episodes he played a track from Stavros Butcher’s Damn Stinkin’ Lockdown album
He then went into a little bit of detail about my three-way conversations with Daphne Flowers and Stavros Butcher, which he described as “very interesting indeed.” He noted that I’d alerted him to the new version of What Are You Doing Out There? Which he then played, saying, “…it’s pretty special. Let’s have a listen to it.
I repaid John’s kindness with a gift of my own, although some may call it a punishment. I sent him a copy of Mad About The House, along with the other fun bits I’d also sent to Stavros Butcher.
This also received a mention on a subsequent episode of The Soundwave.
John said, “Calling in Albert Mooglie who has sent me a wonderful little box set of artwork produced during the lockdown era. It’s a booklet called Mad About The House, A self isolation story, with lots of other inserts and funnies. And if you enjoy puns you would love this. And if you don’t like puns…hahahaha, stand well back! It’s very funny indeed anyway.”
More recently John emailed me the YouTube link to a guitar-only version of James Silkweaver’s classic Watch Out For The Wires (not its real title) performed by renowned American guitarist Chuck Herringbone (not his real name).
Needless to say I emailed this link to Daphne Flowers. (Remember, she did ask me to send her any stuff like this I came across.) Daphne said she could listen to guitar like that all day long.
And lastly (at the time of writing this) John played another, more obscure James Silkweaver song Love Gears Humming (not its real title), saying it was “for Albert Mooglie, who would have enjoyed that.”
Daphne was blown away that John had even heard of it.
I suspect John’s own socks would have been blown off knowing that the wife of “the great man James Silkweaver” (John’s words) was so impressed at his musical knowledge.
Who knows, maybe someday John may be able to coax an interview out of James Silkweaver for a future Soundwave episode?
I’d certainly be happy to help arrange the communication!
* Not really John Cavanagh