Plain Or Pan

Just to follow on from the previous post (directly below this one) about existential crises and impending doom…

We had a gig last Friday night and we were setting up when someone remembered that the planets were to align in the skies above us at 6pm. Out we scarpered, not sure where to look exactly other than upwards. Not that it mattered. Our lovely west of Scotland skies, backdrop to much recent Aurora activity and crisp ‘n clear displays of constellations, comets and the ISS every now and then, were dull and cloudy and definitely not presenting us with the ideal circumstances in which to view Mercury, Venus, Mars et al as they lined up in a rare parade of perfect order.

“Never mind,” said one of the amateur astronomers in our midst. “They’ll be back again in 2040 – that’s only 15 years away.”

“We’ll be pushing 70,” said one of my pals quietly.

Fuck.

We all fell silent. Contemplating. Possibly shivering. I know I was in a cold sweat and panicking.

Yeah. Existential crises and impending doom.

At roughly the same time as we were fruitlessly skygazing, two of the leaders of the free world were bullying and verbally battering one of our world’s oppressed leaders, live on TV, in the White House, with the whole world (minus skygazers) gape-mouthed and watching dumbfounded. There’s been plenty written since; that Trump turned the whole thing into a baseless and degrading reality TV spectacle, that he and Vance approached the whole thing like an Asda-priced Tony Soprano and Pauli Gaultieri, only with far more power and reach than those two mobsters could ever have had, that the whole thing was a live-on-TV mugging, all soundbite ‘n snarl, Zylenskyy the unwitting fall guy in a power play so stinking you could, if you squinted, just about see the actual hammer and sickle-branded puppet strings working the two Americans from above. When I watched it back later, I hadn’t felt real anger boil up in me like that since…well, forever, really. Someone ought to take the big orange traitor out, and properly this time – none of that faked-up, vote-winning stunt of yore. But you knew that already.

In times like this, thank fuck for music.

It’s fairly ironic that our show last Friday featured Wojtek The Bear, a band named after a wartime bear adopted by Polish soldiers who were evacuated from the Soviet Union during WWII. The Soviet leader Stalin had taken sides with Hitler, leaving the Polish soldiers no option but to run for safety. Unhinged leader sides with Russia? Sounds kinda familiar. History repeating, as Shirley Bassey once sang.

Wojtek The Bear are terrific. They come in some quarters with that unnecessary addendum ‘Scottish band‘, a tag so derivative that it instantly conjures up images of the Reid brothers (Craig and Charlie, not Jim and William), the gallus and Glaswegian Sharleen Spiteri, the stadium conquering Jim Kerr, the bagpipe skirl of Stuart Adamson’s guitar, Marti Pellow’s rictus grin, Rod Stewart in a tartan suit… all that sort of cliched nonsense. Wojtek The Bear are a band that happen to come from Scotland, nothing more, nothing less. They’ve far more in common with fellow countrymen and women Admiral Fallow and Belle & Sebastian, groups for whom a flute solo is far more appealing than a baws oot burst of shredding, groups for whom a carefully arranged brass-augmented bridge is infinitely more preferable to a staged call and response with a debased audience. Considered. You could call Wojtek the Bear considered. Every element of their output is just-so.

They’ve three albums in circulation, released through the ubiquitous Last Night From Glasgow and much of Friday’s set is drawn from these records. One verse into the first song – Second Place On Purpose – and it’s clear that the planets have aligned after all! Bunched up across the tiny stage (the Harbour Arts Centre in Irvine – the best small venue in the country) the on-stage 6-piece meld and weave together; a chiming electric here, an open-tuned acoustic there, a trumpet refrain that cedes to a meandering violin solo, a wandering bassline in that part, a technically-awkward but perfectly executed drum pattern in this part. If you’re new to the band, that opening track is as good an intro as you could wish for.

Wojtek The Bear – Second Place On Purpose

https://plainorpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/wojtek-the-bear-second-place-on-purpose.mp3

This is pretty much the Wojtek sound – produced by yr actual Stephen Street, dontyeknow. And in the ideal confines of the HAC, you have everything you need. Here comes a melodica. There goes a Drop D. On goes a capo. On goes a Strat. Off counts the drummer – “one and two and three and four and five and six and baba-daba-dum…” A Sunday Without The Fear, Ferme La Bouche, Slowly Then All At Once, Shaking Hands With The NME. They’re intricate songs with fancy time signatures and vocal arrangements, expertly played, sounding in the here and now exactly as they do at home; approaching the midnight hour, a glass of whatever your fancy nestled in your hand, stereo turned low enough that the house won’t wake up. The best time to listen to Wojtek The Bear.

They play three or four new tracks mid-set and these songs – these great songs – hint at a band only now hitting their stride, a rich seam of gold ripe for discovery. Speed Equals Distance is a standout. Kylie even more so, a song about writing too many letters to the titular Minogue, its chorus giving a huge nod and a wink to Kylie’s Got A Crush On Us by another ‘Scottish’ band BMX Bandits. Last time they were in the HAC they encored with it too, a nice bit of serendipity that isn’t lost on the Wojtek gang afterwards.

Wojtek The Bear. You should check them out before album number four takes them overground.

Latest album, Shaking Hands With The NME is available via LNFG here.

I have terrible existential dread. It probably comes from the rapid advancement of years and the musical milestones by which I mark them; that the time from Bo Diddley to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless (35 years) is less time than the time between Loveless and now. That Johnny Marr had started and finished The Smiths and all the sparkling magic that he created in between before he’d had his 25th birthday. This place is littered with such examples that might question your own worthiness and contributions to society.

A friend recently shared a video clip of the opening of an art exhibition of his. It wasn’t dated, but it was dated; the grainy transfer of VHS to digital, with intermittent wobbly white lines descending the screen. The fluffy sound. The hair. The clothes. The people in it who are no longer with us. As the camera panned around the assembled art-praising masses of Irvine, two folk stuck out. There was my mum, an employee of the library at the time and invited probably because of that. Next to her, my dad. Sensible suit, grey hair neatly side-combed, ubiquitous moustache Souness/Selleck-full and eye catching. As I started to do the rough maths it dawned on me – my dad in this clip is younger than I am right now. Jeez. My mum is still very much with us, pushing 80 and only just about beginning to slow up. My dad is gone though. And the image of the man who looked the same to me my whole life is a stark reminder that I am entering – or have already wandered into – my autumnal years. It’s (hopefully) still early autumn, but it’s undeniable.

You’d think I’d want to do something about it. Travel, maybe. Join a walking football team. Plan retirement.

Or eat rubbish.

This time last year I had this thing going, a bad habit you might call it, of budgeting £40 for the petrol station every time I needed to fill up, but spending exactly (and with well-practised deft precision) exactly £38 on the fuel. The other couple of quid I’d lavish on Haribo Jelly Babies and Cadbury’s chocolate – one of those big bars that not that long ago cost a round pound instead of the £1.35 and more they’re currently asking for them. I’d leave the goodies in the semi-secret glove compartment down by the steering wheel and spoil myself rotten whenever in the car alone.

The spiralling fall-out of this dim-witted pampering was two-fold. Firstly, my car used to run on £40 a week of fuel, but by filling it up with only £38 worth, it would mean that every now and again I’d need to refuel before a Sunday night; so more frequent trips to the petrol station and even more stashing/guzzling of sweets and chocolate while commuting – never on the way to work though (I’m not a total disappointment), only ever on the way home as a reward for a hard day on the chalk face.

Secondly, my waistline expanded in direct proportion to my weekly skimming of the fuel budget. Funny that. I’d eventually run a chunk of it off in the summer holidays, with a daily target of running 5K my self-administered punishment for being addicted to sugar-filled car journeys. But not all of it was shifted. Much of the unwanted flab is still there as I type right now, a wee wobbly reminder of my Alan Partridge years. It is reducing though…and there’s good reason for this.

More recently, the old car has gone the way of all cars of a certain vintage and I’ve come to be the owner of an electric car (and none of your Tesla nonsense either – who wants to be seen in one of them?) I can charge the car at home. I can charge the car at work (if I’m the lucky electric car owner that day). There are now no more trips to the petrol station and, believe it or not, the result is twofold: not only does my belt go an extra notch again, there’s nary a whiff of sugar within five metres of the car. All those crumbs on new upholstery? Sticky fingers on the handles? Empty wrappers on the passenger seat? Of my new car?!? I wouldn’t want that.

I’m leaner, I’m greener. Everyone’s a winner, baby.

Everything’s Gone Green, baby.

New Order at their experimental, boundary-pushing best. Psychedelic dance music for the post-punk generation. I see my future before me. And it’s no longer Cadbury and Haribo.

New Order – Everything’s Gone Green

https://plainorpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/1-01-everythings-gone-green.mp3