"1st of December 1973 was a remarkable day for a 17 years young man. On that day, exactly 50 years ago, the mailman gave me a ticket to pick a box of records from the local post office. I can’t remember the content of the box as wholly, or if there even was more than one LP, but that very one is still in my shelf, from the band I got into in previous summer.
Easy to guess the name of the band. The LP I bought first was the one known as Elements. It really changed my musical world. At that time, I was also interested in esoteric things, theosophy etc. so the music fitted to my taste like glove in the hand. How did I find this world? First step was taken on a Fool’s day the previous year. I was able to visit our capital Helsinki and a large record shop there. I had saved lots of money to buy three records, one of them was Pink Floyd’s "Meddle" (I still have the copy).
The record itself was extremely important to my music taste which was turning to progressive rock, but also the inner bag, ”the Harvest shopping list”. Following summer I bought Roy Harper’s "Flat Baroque and Berserk," starting my long lasting fandom to him and a week later my first Third Ear Band record, "Elements" - just by the name of the band, the cover of the LP and the typography on it. So it’s 51 years and 4 months now when I gave Glen & C. my other ear lobe, after which they took the whole ear, then the second on the other side of my head and finally they gave me a third one to start hearing.
Back to the date mentioned in the beginning. The album was "Alchemy". More of the magical music, thank you very much.
One thing where vinyl beats cd is the cover size. Of course, vinyls need space if you have a lot of them, but the information and the emotional aspect of handling the cover, it’s almost like shaking hands with the artist. You get closer to them.
So, I was 17, and I was living in Western Finland in the middle of an agrarian flat, known earlier as the bottom of the sea which now, after the ice age, is rising 5 mm in a year. Pop music was extremely rare on the radio. There were two channels, one for serious music and things like that, the other was for common people, almost funny ones. But please remember that people between 12-20 didn’t really exist for radio management, it was still in the ice age. And then there were minorities with their occult hobbies.
Again, I was handling the cover you know now. Turning it front and back, open and close, reading the text as much as my English did bend to it, more or less hypnotized from the music. Then there was the photo, with a monument where the players were hiding or just stepping out. Oh how far they are! Wish could visit that place! For a 17 years old person such a thing was like a flight to the moon. England is so far, three times around the world and only rich people here could afford to fly - and then they go to Mallorca... And if I ever get to England I surely will get lost. And where is that monument, if it is a grave there must be a graveyard, or thousands of them! Not for me! A desperate case.
But the years will roll. Inevitably. We are in 2019 in this story, now. Thanks to the internet and Wikipedia, sources and sites I found the name of the graveyard and got the name of the monument. I had found England earlier and the City of London in it, too.
London is an interesting town with all the layers the history had left there. I was travelling with my now ex-lady and had spent a couple of days in the town enjoying its arts and taps. After leaving the town, the metro rattled in a narrow gap through sleepy suburbs like in some Ghibli movies. Old dirty cables were hanging on the sides like lianas in the jungle. The car was almost empty. Now I was sure it will happen.
Kensal Green cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London (I've seen two of them now). And what a relief, the grave was quite easy to find, thanks to the officer of the cemetery and the map she gave. The very moon of this story is the grave of Charles Spencer Ricketts (1788–1867).
We landed at the cemetery on the 16th of September, at last. I felt excited when starting to walk the paths of the place. And finally, there it was!
The grave was smaller than I expected but it stood out of the area in its pale colour and strong decorations. Looked like it was ready to take a walk. Unfortunately I forgot to say something immortal like... “this is one small step for mankind but one giant leap for man”, but just something like “siälä se on!” (there it is! in Finnish) directed to my partner.
However, it was unbelievable that it had been waiting for me all this time!"
Mauri Kankaanpää
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