Author Archives: Dick Jones

We entered 1968 with just Pete Currie, drummer Phil Burroughs and myself as original Nervous System members. From the many sides of quarto paper onto which we all wrote our choices of names, we selected ‘Tintagel’. Redolent of the Celtic … Continue reading →

L. to R. Martin Fry, Dave French, Martin Fieldhouse, DJ, Pete Currie. 2. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM By the end of 1966 the mothball smell of the demob suits began to pall, the starched collars chafed and the music now sounded … Continue reading →

EXCUSES… One of the most engaging aspects of running a personal blog is the way in which it provides for a mixture of private meditation and public grandstanding. At whim, the blogger can share sober reflection or indulge in immoderate … Continue reading →

DICK JONES – THE BASEMENT TAPES 40 YEARS BELOW STAIRS IN ROCK & ROLL Forty-plus years separate these two photographs. The first was taken within the bombed remains of a church off Tooley Street in London Bridge as part of … Continue reading →

                                                           INSOMNIA Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care. The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath. Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course. Chief nourisher in life’s feast. MACBETH Night falls. It bellies up to … Continue reading →

I wish I could do that – seize the time and place no trust in tomorrow. Difficult, though, when that stubborn illusion of personal immortality that gets one through childhood and youth finally yields to a sense of timespan and … Continue reading →

Sleep won’t let me in. From 23.15 to 02.20, a great weight of tiredness, moments of consciousness drift & then there’s the moonlight again. Weirdly, the brightness in the corners of the room is a small comfort. Something atavistic, maybe, … Continue reading →

The time right now is 03.53. Apart from about 30 minutes of deep sleep between 23.45 and 00.15, to all intents and purposes, I haven’t slept since. When I awoke suddenly at 00.15, it wasn’t to the convulsive leg movements … Continue reading →

A persistent tugging in the right leg has me awake after an hour. A circuit or two of the house fails to release the spring and I lie in bed again with the coil of muscle tightening and then twanging … Continue reading →

If I have ever adhered to any kind of faith it’s been to a belief based on hope against rational expectation that the capacity for redemption and salvation is a product of human desire and will alone. And once that … Continue reading →