No More Heroes
Well, for this post with the recent D-Day Commemorations I thought I would highlight and salute those who served during the war and also to think about those 'closer to home' heroes who, like the servicemen and women also gave up their lives in order to save others.
London Wall & Lots Of Heroes ๐
I got a bit bored the other Saturday and tried to think of some places to head to in London, once again engineering work on meant that the trains would stop at Liverpool Street and it would be bus or tube to get much further. As I have mentioned a few times on this site I have spent an awful lot of my working life around the City, from Liverpool Street, Moorgate, City Road heading to Islington, Kings Cross and St Pauls to name a few. I used to work for a company around St Paul's and Blackfriars and I used to go past a park most days either going to or coming from work. I never actually visited it properly though, so I thought I would check it out and was pleased I did so. I trotted from Liverpool Street along London Wall passing by parts of the old Roman Wall that was originally around London, again I used to go by them every day but never really stopped and took a closer look.
Park Life
Postman's Park is nestled near to Barbican Station, not far from the Barbican Centre and where the old Museum Of London was located, it is a kind of tucked away little gem. The park was originally a burial ground and churchyard for St. Botolph's Aldersgate but by around 1880 the General Post Office, by 1900 it became the location of Frederic Watts's Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice remembering those ordinary people who died whilst trying to save others. You can read more about it's history and see some better shots of the Plaques that are installed in the park covered in a shelter to protect them from the elements on Wikipedia at the link to Postman's Park. Many of the plaques date back to 1800's and contain the names and locations of the deceased and the act of brave and heroic deed they performed which cost them their lives, it is a really quite moving and sobering place, some so young and others even more recent with one plaque to a guy who tried to save someone drowning in 2007 but lost his life in the attempt. Some of the photos are below:
Another Camden Afternoon ๐ถ
I finished the day by taking a 'heroic' walk heading further up Goswell Road towards Angel dropping off along Amwell Street just off Pentonville Road to a little pub I saw online called The George & Monkey which was quite lovely. I sat outside in the at last pleasant sunshine with a pint and watched the world go about it's business and had a think about the music section for this post enjoying sunny Camden, whilst this track wound around my head by The Stranglers with this laid back, but equally rocky 'Another Camden Afternoon' taken from the 2012 album 'Giants' which has also a kind of 'Peter Gunn' bass line, deep throbbing bass by JJ Burnell aided and abetted by some cool bluesy guitar riffs, neat keyboards and steady drums all gives the track a cool almost blues/garage rock feel vibe to it, catch it at the link, a non-vocal piece of instrumental magic!
Now, here's a thing it would be daft not to post The Stranglers with 'No More Heroes' one of my favourite tracks by them, so yeah it is at the link above. Although it is not on an 'Indie Record Label', so rather than just be plain lazy I did a bit of digging about and hit on another band which also features the words 'Hero' in the title.
The Specimens
And cue the main 'indie' music section of this post. The band featured in this post hailed from Worcester (see, another band from that area!), you can check out other bands from the same area at the links to other posts on this site Worcester Punk Sounds and And Also The Trees๐ฒ. The track itself 'Dead Hero' was released on the independent 'No Futures' record label in 1982 a week before the Falklands War and several music papers of the day refused to print promotions for the single until it was explained to them that the song was actually written about World War I, catch it in full at the above link. You can catch more about them and interviews with the band at the link popsike.com.
The Track Listing & Band
- Dead Hero
- Fire Another Round
- Suspicion
The band started out in 1978 and were:
- Pascal Smith - Bass
- Tony Allen - Drums
- Dave Sanders - Guitar
- Sean 'Badger' Taylor - Vocals
There were a few line up changes over the years, they called it quits in 1986, but reformed again in 2019 sadly losing vocalist Taylor in 2021. The band are still about and released the EP 'Winter Of Discontent' on their own 'Samples' record label in 2022.
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Video Thanks
Picture Thanks
Photo by Gabriel Bassino on Unsplash
Photos By: ๐ ๐โ ฐ๐ฌ๐ รีผแซโ ฐ๐ฎ ๐๐๊โฑฟ
Photo: Discogs.com