Music Arcades: Anthony Moore: Flying Doesn’t Help

Virus or no virus, I 'm reluctant to skimp on this entry.

I first heard of Anthony Moore and this album in 1980 when he was interviewed, probably by Tommy Vance, on Saturday afternoon's Rock On programme. I remember taking to the track War and to the interviewee. But either his album wasn't easy to find in the shops, or I didn't have the spare cash at the time.

Twenty three years later I took over the management of the 2003 Cybersonica Symposium a couple of months before it was due to take place. Anthony, in his role as principal of The Academy of Arts and the Media Cologne, had already been lined up as a keynote speaker. At first we struck up a cordial relationship by email, but it was when we met in person that we really hit it off. I had a great time in mindsummer London with him and a couple of his students, and he remained very polite throughout some unfortunate glitches at the Symposium which were not my fault (as did all all the keynote speakers, with one exception, Adopt Void). Lovely man.

Somewhere between those two years, I came across this record, marked down from £6.99 to £2.99, in Sheffield's Record Collector, and I bought it for old time's sake, following up that 1980 hunch. Apart from anything else, it was a handy thing to be able to drop into conversation at the drink reception on the evening before the symposium. (I think I made less favourable impact with Terry Edwards, who was also there, telling him I loved his work on Barry Adamson's Man with the Golden Arm, which was 15 years old — not as old as Flying…, but Terry's done more work recently.)

It's a curio of an album very much of its time (late '70s/early '80s, but more of that in a moment). It's in the mould of those art-proggers who were able to move on fairly seamlessly when punk arrived — I'm thinking of Fripp's Exposure, Peter Hamill. I can tell why the teenage me liked War: it's got a very proggy keyboard intro (Wikipedia tells me the song was not original to Flying Doesn't Help, but had previously featured on a Henry Cow/Slapp Happy album).

The metadata for the album is weirdly inconsistent. Wikipedia says it was released in 1978. MusicBrainz thinks 1979. My copy, on the Quango label, says very clearly ©1980 on the label itself. Both of the other sources list the last track as Twilight, Uxbridge Rd; my copy says Twilight (Alexander St) (eMusic rather comically has it as Oxbridge Road). And my copy didn't come with an inner sleeve or insert, so there are no credits other than the writing credits on the label, but Wikipedia credits only Anthony himself with lead vocals. Well, if that's true, he's guilty of extreme bowdlerisation of his own accent, which is distinctively "well educated". Finally, there's the cover itself. All the images I can find online have "A. More" on the cover; mine has "Anthony Moore" &mdash though label says "A. More"!

When I joined eMusic three years ago, Anthony Moore's albums were among the first I browsed upon, and I downloaded tracks from albums before and after this. Quite different they are: the early seventies track is almost minimalist and classical, the mid-eighties one has it's power pop jacket sleeves rolled up.

Indulge me with one more second-hand anecdote, if you have a minute. I don't recommend you buy John Peel's Olivetti Chronicles — unless you need something for the smallest room in your house — but, if you're fortunate enough to spot it on the shelf in a B&B in Broadstairs, as I was a couple of months ago, it's worth a quick skim. There's a story in there about Peel attending Robert Wyatt's party, on Eel Pie Island, and overhearing some musicians discussing their recent session for his programme. "John Peel was a bit odd," says one, before being hushed by his mates who had spotted Peel a few feet away. The one in question being Anthony Moore (then a member of Slapp Happy). Peel went on to concede that Moore might have had a point and to admonish himself for a being too flippant with the acts he supported.

I kept in touch with Anthony for a few years after our meeting. As a member of the editorial board for Interacting with Computers, I asked him if he would mind reviewing a paper called "An overview of auditory display to assist comprehension of molecular information" (I am breaking the traditional anonymity of reviewers here, but I hope no one will mind). Most academics response time for reviews can be measured in weeks or months. Anthony's review came back in hours. Last I heard, he had moved to Arles. We visited Arles on holiday in 2007, but sadly I did not have the foresight to look up his contact details before we left.