You Seen The Set, Part Four: Marshall's House....

Edward Hopper - Marshall's House, 1932

In the last of our 'exhaustiving' You Seen the Set posts we're playing 'fast and loose' with the format, Agent Rob (seriously) indulging (and outing) himself in his (genuine) affection for (ex?!) Stone Roses guitarist John Squire's 2004 retro-pop solo elpee Marshall's House as well as staggering at the works of some of the finest American modern painters....

John Squire - Swimming Through The Holes In Dead American Painters, 2003

Best to let aul' Johnny boy take it away, “Hopper painted American scenes and American people – usually quite solitary and depressed-looking individuals. The reason I wanted to write about them was that I find them all quite haunting – superficially light, and awkward and ordinary, but there was something disturbing about some of the characters. So each of the songs is an extrapolated story around those images....”

It all started innocently enough with a visit to the Highland Lighthouse in Cape Cod where, on the downward journey from the lantern room Agent Rob spied a framed print of Edward Hopper's Highland Light painting. Of course, Squire's very own Cape Cod Morning song had never been too far from the mind throughout the entire sunny sojourn and a seed was secretly sown (and a postcard hunted down and duly purchased)....

Highland Light, North Truro, 2017....

Edward Hopper - Highland Light, North Truro, 1930

Edward Hopper - Cape Cod Morning, 1950

So far so what? But the "what" that happened next was during a visit to the Boston MFA, a trip as highly recommended by ex-Hope Street Studionaut Jason Mathis....

Baby Big Head! Er, wasn't that the Mondays...?

There on the 3rd floor, in the Art Of The Americas - the most manageable of the vast range of collections the museum proudly houses - Agent Rob finally came face to canvas with some of those inSquiring classics, including several pieces by the king of splatter himself, Jackson Pollock....

Hopper's Room In Brooklyn in the back room 2017...!

Edward Hopper - Drugstore, 1927

Hmm, just try identifying a Jackson Pollock online....

There's a pretty comprehensive and rewarding, if a little clunky, gallery of all Squire's paintings here. It's definitely worth persevering to have a punt about the lesser known leaner years between 2005 and 2011 before things suddenly went all Roses shaped glasses....

"I'd rather live my life than attempt to rehash it."

"Let it be! Let it be! Let it be! Let it be!"

Coming fool circle we can even divert this (s)tale via Agent Johnny's city of Edinburgh, when Agent Rob made the effort to visit Squire's Nefertiti exhibition at the Henderson Gallery in, wait for it, 2010! Old school Edchester in the area....

But to take this all one step beyond the pale, earlier in 2010 John Squire illustrated a series of covers for the Penguin Decades (the 80's), including this rather spiffing effort for one of Agent Rob's favourite authors, William Boyd. In fact, on Boyd's recent visit to Glasgog as part of an Aye Write! special there was nothing for it but 'fer to queue' up and have this prized edition of An Ice-Cream War signed by the master wordsmith himself....

John Squire - Summertime

John Squire - Marshall's House

BUY>> 16. 02. 04

Sketch Sunday

Mystic River

You Seen The Set, Part Three: Cheers....

"Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got...." (Especially the world of goddamn, bleed 'em dry comics!) Which is why, of course, a trip to Boston  - or should that be "Bahhston"? - just wouldn't be complete without sinking some swill in the one place "Where everybody knows your name!". (Just to clarify, that's the Cheers bar and not SCCAM....)

Hmm, I wonder. Y'reckon this is Cheers...?

Guess so. Looks like it....

Cheers, The Wilderness Years....

"First you look so strong...." What a Friday night flashback this proved fer Agent Rob, taking him all the way back to his early teens, the family gathered round the One-eyed-god 'fer to watch' Sam Malone and his regulars provide their, er, regular dose of 22 minutes of wholesome chuckles. Who'd've thunk that one day Rob'd be lucky enough to descend those iconic stairs - it's the sound of the authentic underground actually going underground via the seriously overground, innit...? "And then you fade away...."

"One small step for man...."

"Norm!"

"Indian rope man sees the times...."

"Kiss him quick, he has to part...."

"You seem to come and go...." This is the interior of the Bull & Finch pub on Beacon Hill, the original 1982 inspiration for Cheers (presumably after the producers had heartily swilled their way around Boston and the US on a big, fat TV corporation meal-ticket). No such form of the divine clattered Agent Rob, sadly, and he and Miss Moneypenny downed their respective half litres in exhausted silence, watching the perpetual throng of enthusiastic tourists. There's even a replica of the TV bar upstairs for those who fancy warming Norm's seat in his absence. One-liners not included. "I never seem to know...."

The Bull & Finch's actual bar.... 

"You are a vapour trail...." Close enough, as this is in fact The Cheers Trail, which takes you past eleven historical landmarks as you walk from (er, the other official) Replica where the bar - if not the decidedly airy surroundings complete with, um, street conservatory - is again modelled loosely on the show's television set. This, and a sizeable souvenir shop, which at the very least is underground, is located at Fanueil Hall in downtown - or should that be "dahhntahhn"? - Boston. "In a deep blue sky...."

"Pass through different times, leave them all behind...."

The (other) replica bar's, er, replica bar....

The Cheers bar actual, um, TV bar....

"There's a moose loose aboot this hoose...."

Branded swill glass....*only $8!*

Branded napkin....

Brande- Alright already! We get the idea!

Tourist trapped! "I'm with stupid...."

"If seeing is believing...." As if all this schlepping around and swilling wasn't hard enough on the soul and soles, somebody thought to bang a Newbury Comics in Faneuil Hall Sq. - approx. 3,033 miles by drone from Agent Rob's present location, just so ya know - where there was nothing for it but to stump up and shell out $11.88 for RIDE's (rather fine) new album, Weather Diaries - in a "limited edition embossed mini-gatefold sleeve", just so ya know. "Believing is not seeing...."

Braw Books not available at time of writing....

"Sun is up and the day goes right for me...."

Hmm, not quite my recollection of Cheers, but still....

RIDE - Cali

Harry Harrison - Bill, The Galactic Hero

Bill....