Listening notes: dial up Susumu Yokata’s 2005 album Symbol. Listen to the first track, Long Long Silk Bridge. Think about things you have always wanted to do, and make plans to do them.
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS010 -
ARCHIVE REF: LGAS009 The Masters Student, AKA Fiona Finks notes the following: My Mum usually uses a propelling pencil. But for this post she appears to have used an ordinary HB. There are none of the marks from snapped leads.
Using “diplomatic”, as it’s called in archiving, tells me that it’s her work. Familiar themes. The right handwriting. Her preferred type of tea slip.
Listening notes on the back that refer to Train Track Noises, a track from Keith Holzman’s Authentic Sound Effects, Volume 2. There are some familiar sounds elsewhere on the LP that my Mum would know.
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS008 Listening notes: listen to Can’s LP Future Days (1973). Imagine yourself on a wet day in Inverness in a debate with a room of music students. Though you were born in 1970, you have not heard this album before. You can hear rhythms that sound like a train journey, or perhaps placental pulsings. Your first experience of ambient music was through The Orb or The KLF, circa 1990. The students, though a third your age, think you should have started with Can. They have not heard of The Orb or The KLF. You think about words and tenses: can/ could have, shall/ should have. You tell the students you have never had a joint and never plan to. They will you on. You make to leave. You have marking to do.
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS007 Listening notes: put on the LP Great Day (1972) by Simon Haseley and Peter Reno. When you get to the track Hammerhead, read the above post, while stroking a white cat, or tabby if you can’t find one. Imagine that the easy listening track is a cover of The Offspring’s 2008 track of the same name. Tap your feet to the guitars, trombones, trumpets, drums, harp, violins, cellos, xylophone and flutes of messers H and R. Think awhile about James Bond themes that never were. Afterwards, eat a segment of tinned grapefruit, in juice rather than syrup. Sit for the rest of the album, thinking of sunny days by the sea, watching porpoises and fulmar. If you have sticky hands, don’t wipe them on the cat.
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS006 Listening notes: to be experienced on a rainy night, at a bus stop on the A9, opposite the exit to Dalwhinnie, listening to Gust by The Worm, after the last bus to Edinburgh has departed. Walk along the cycle path, heading south, in the hope that there is a spare room at the B&B, knowing that all this is self-inflicted.
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS005 Listening notes: enjoy with a meal of chicken or tofu in sage and orange sauce, listening to Sinking by The Cure
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ARCHIVE REF: LGAS004 Listening notes: rock the boat to Munch, by The Aladdins (1962).
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Fiona Finks explores her mother’s papers, discovering her answers to some of the big questions:
– what does Little Grapefruit eat?
– how much kibble to give the cats
ARCHIVE REF: LGAS003 Listening notes: sketch a picture inspired by this post while listening to Nora Belle’s LP Crunch. Stop and reflect during the song Orange. Then start to colour in your sketch using pencils or paints.
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We continue to unearth previously unknown material through the work of Fiona Finks, AKA The Masters Student.
Think of it as GANTOB Anthology (volume 1). Like The Beatles, but with a snail and grapefruit.
These posts are from the book originally planned as Little Grapefruit At Sea, not previously published. So perhaps rollmops rather than moptops.
A newly added feature: listening notes, taking us to tracks old and new
ARCHIVE REF: LGAS002 Listening notes: best enjoyed with The Turnip, by This is the Kit
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Fiona Finks has provided some insights into her mother’s method during the GANTOB period. She would typically work a week or two ahead, dating her pieces in advance if she had a clear plan, but more often waiting until the narrative had unfolded and ordering and dating the posts from there. Sometimes there would be alternative versions.
The book that she worked on for a few weeks, late 2024, was called Little Grapefruit at Sea. Other similar titles were also used in her notes. Gillian Finks followed her more organic approach for this book, waiting for the story to reveal itself.
If you would like to send us a picture or photo inspired by this piece please email 100percentvinyl2@gmail.com
Pictures from inside Cushionpaw Tower, looking out over the bay, frequently including the boat and our two heroes, are featured in posts from a year ago. They also appear in full colour in the fourth book, GANTOB’s 25 Paintings, which has been printed, but is currently missing, along with The Benefaktor.
ARCHIVE REF: LGAS001 Listening notes: best enjoyed with The Doldrums, by Georgia Ruth
GANTOB blog 