Woodhouse In Vienna: John Woodhouse & His Magic Accordion - Fontana 1969

Despite what that cover tells you, John Woodhouse is actually a chap called Johnny Holshuysen. He's not Viennese either, he's Dutch. I know this because the write up on the back cover tells me so; "John Woodhouse, a Dutch accordionist by the name of Johnny Holshuysen, took his first accordion lessons when he was five years old but, after only ten years, he became world champion and since 1948 his work in broadcasting has been particularly successful". 

Hideously stilted prose aside, why anyone would go to the bother of taking a 'stage name' and then give away your real one anyway is beyond me - Elton John albums don't say 'Elton John, a Pinner pianist by the name of Reg Dwight...' because that would be a bit silly wouldn't it? And pointless. How you get to be world champion on an accordion and by what criteria is something of a mystery to me too, but there we are.

That same text gives us a bit of useful background about this album too - "Recently John Woodhouse, a great admirer of Viennese music, paid a  long visit to the Austrian capital in order to pick up inspiration for this record". How true that is I don't know (and I suspect not very), but what certainly is true is that the songs on this album all have, to a greater or lesser extent, the unifying thread of Vienna. 'Vienna Blood', 'Tales From The Vienna Woods', 'My Mother Was A Viennese', 'Life In The Vienna Prater', 'Vienna, City Of My Dreams' - you can't argue it's not true to its title. No doubt had it been recorded in time then Woodhouse/Holshuysen would have had a bash at the Ultravox tune too. Not many of these titles are familiar to me, but some of the actual tunes are and all are delivered with machine gun precision of a fairground calliope and the jaunty oompah sound of the magic accordion.

Ah yes - that 'magic accordion'. After the 'world champion' accolade, the titular instrument would seem to be one of Woodhouse/Holshuysen's main calling cards, and it's a big selling point of this album. It's described on the back as "an electronic accordion with a host of different instrumental sounds which seems truly "magical" under the fingers of the master himself, John Woodhouse". With that build up then you'd not unreasonably be expecting something of David Blaine proportions, but I think your attitude to what you do get is going to be dependant on where you set the bar on you own definition of 'magical'. If it's along the lines of an accordion treated to sound alternately like a Hammond organ, a Stylophone and an angry cat trapped in a drawer then pull up a chair. Because that's exactly what you get. 'Different' maybe, but 'magical'? Not so much.

Maybe this had more of a novelty value back in 1969 and the sound of Woodhouse/Holshuysen sawing away was a novelty and a wonder on a par with the Lumière brothers film "L'Arrivée d'un Train en Gare de La Ciotat" ("Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station") that had audience members fleeing their seats in terror lest the train leave the screen and run them down. But I doubt it; there was plenty enough going on in contemporary popular music in the late sixties to make have made this sound staid and old fashioned in comparison and the further passage of time has done it no favours at all. On two of the tracks he accompanied by a whistler known only as 'Gerry'. 'Gerry' does not improve things. In truth, I can't imagine a single context that would be improved by putting this on, but I can picture plenty that would by not playing it in the first place. Like a very bad sitcom, 'Woodhouse In Vienna' tries to be light and entertaining but ends up being a genuine chore to sit through.

Non Stop Hammond Organ: Danny Hodgson - Contour 1973

Another day, another Hammond organ album to plough through. This one though hails from Britain rather than the Continent. Not that it makes much difference to the format - this another set of random songs ('It's A Sin To Tell A Lie', 'On Mother Kelly's Doorstep', 'For All We Know', 'The Breeze And I' etc.) played as instrumentals medleys on a Hammond organ. Plus ca change then. What's slightly different is that the music on this is played by what's apparently a jazz trio of sorts with Hodgson's organ joined by bass and drums. It could have been interesting, but what this amounts to in practice is a bassist playing scales in whatever key the organ is in and a drummer liable to break ranks from keeping straight time to pull off some outrageous Buddy Rich type drum fills and rolls before reverting back to keeping the beat again, presumably after Hodgson shoots him an evil look to remind him who's the star here.

 If all this makes it sounds like an interesting listen, then I'm afraid I'm here to tell you that it isn't. Regardless of what the rhythm section are up to, it's the organ that dominates the landscape the way a spider dominates a fly - i.e. by sucking all the life out of it. Hodgson punches out the tunes by functional rote with nothing in the way of any flourish, flash or originality and it levels the music until it simply sounds like three mates jamming in the front room on a wet Sunday afternoon. I've no doubt that the three of them were thoroughly enjoying themselves in playing this stuff, but to then record it, press it onto vinyl and expect others to enjoy it enough themselves to buy it is perhaps a step too far, making it more akin to your boring neighbours calling round with a big box of holiday snaps when all you want is a quiet night in front of the telly. The back cover tells us that Hodgson 'is now much in demand as the demonstrator of Hammond organs par excellence at Chappell's famed Music Centre in London's Bond Street'. On the strength of this, he's probably still there.

Haunting Melodies: Electric Wind Ensemble - Nouveau Music 1983

There's a school of thought that suggests that the 'ambient music' genre began in 1978 with Brian Eno's 'Music For Airports'. I'm not sure I'd agree with them though - Eno's album certainly popularised the term, but if 'ambient' is taken as music to generate a background tone or atmosphere rather than something to be listened to with intent then I think the genre has a longer and more refined pedigree than that. For example, no less a figure than Bach reportedly wrote his 'Goldberg Variations' to order for a man of nobility who wanted something to listen to on the nights he couldn't sleep, and there are many other examples in both the classical and popular fields of music designed to do nothing much that pre-dates anything Eno did.

 

But whatever, one thing I do know is that the eighties popularised a bastard offspring of ambient, world and new age music that was basically akin to Athena posters set to music. Usually found in CD format on sale at garage forecourts or mail order magazines, on one level they could be something as simple as recordings of whale songs, but then at the other were sounds more definitely man made, however much they tried to pretend otherwise. Pan pipes and harps were always popular, but anything vaguely 'world', vaguely linked to 'ancient cultures far wiser than ours' and the cod-spiritual promise of a reality banishing, new world of sound to lose yourself in was all that was needed. In fact, the whole rasion d'etre of these things is conveniently summed up on the back cover of this album: "After a difficult and tiring day, or just in need for quiet relaxation, listen to Haunting Melodies, put your feet up and put the worries and stresses of the day to one side for a while."

 

Well, ok, everybody likes a nice sit down and a cup of tea with something relaxing playing in the background at times, but what we get here are twenty popular songs arranged as minor key synthesiser washes that play behind a single wind instrument (flute, saxophone and - yes, pan pipes) rasping out the basic tune of each. The result is quite an abrasive, overly forceful sort of sound that's hardly conducive to relaxation or contemplation; this would in no way fade into the background of anything. And because there's twenty of them to get through, they don't hang around in doing it either. In fact, some of these versions ('Daniel', 'Albatross', 'Do That To Me One More Time', 'Stone In Love With You') are actually harsher, quicker and more in your face than the originals were. 

 

They're certainly far more grating anyway, to the point that these melodies 'haunt' in much the same way the demon pig haunted that house in Amityville. Put this on and the bullish, domineering playing of tunes that are probably as familiar as your own name actually forces you to listen and even sing along, at least mentally - they're that inescapable. While that's no crime in itself, for a record that bills itself as providing an aural prescription for stress and worry that takes you away from the here and now then it falls short enough so as to amount to false advertising. And if it's not going to do the one job it's meant to do then you may as well listen to the originals and take this to your local boot sale, along with the 'man and baby' poster and 'Wings of Love' print. It's for the best.

Music For Pleasure Present Their Minstrel Show - Music For Pleasure 1969

Now here's something to tread warily around; minstrel shows (in the form of white people applying blackface makeup to play black people) have been 'entertaining' the public since the early nineteenth century. That's the basic fact. This isn't really the place to go into that in any detail, and I'm not going to mount any particular defence or damnation of it either*, but what I will say is that the modern incarnation of the phenomena is probably best typified (for me anyway) by the BBC's 'The Black And White Minstrel Show' which, under the guide of Scottish musician George Mitchell, had a baffling popularity in the UK during the sixties and seventies. It's something that's now frequently held up as a good example of the kind of bad casual racism that pervaded the seventies, but though I remember the show being on television when I was growing up, any racist overtones or undertones passed straight over my head - my 'problem' was that I simply could not see the point of it all. 

Which I suppose brings me neatly to this record, a 1969 release that's obviously designed to cash in on the popularity of that show. The people behind this though are not the George Mitchell minstrels; this is the 'Music For Pleasure Minstrel Show' as backed by Alyn Ainsworth's orchestra and singers who, over two sides of vinyl offer up eight medleys of songs loosely connected with either the Minstrel tradition, the American south or with British music hall/vaudeville. It's a heady mix, not helped by the fact that each song within the medley is presented as little more than a taster of the whole. A full verse is about the most you ever get before it's on to the next one, and with such a variety of genres and backgrounds on display it's difficult to keep up with the rush. 

And maybe that's deliberate - the big drawback with all this is that, in the absence of the visuals (i.e. white men in blackface mugging around), the whole focal point of the enterprise disappears into the ether; a minstrel show on record is like ventriloquism on the radio - there's a vital dimension to the proposition that's missing. In other words - and despite the title - there's no 'show'. I don't know if the players here blacked up before they started recording (and I'm guessing they did not), but it doesn't really matter either way - if I'd been handed this record on a white label in a plain cover then I would have struggled to make any connection at all with minstrels. In fact, this could have been packaged in a suitable olde tyme cover as a British music hall revivalist album and no one (i.e. me) would have been much the wiser or in any way offended.

As it is, the lead male vocalists do lapse into a kind of patois on occasion that kind of sounds like a loose - albeit stereotypical - approximation of how a stereotypical black man might sing, but mostly they don't. When this is combined with the massed female backing vocals of Ainsowrth's very English troupe then it all couldn't sound more white if it were bled dry then bleached. And yes, I know this makes it sound like I'm disappointed it's not full of lip flapping 'where am dat watty mellin' mannerisms, but I'm not. Most definitely not. 

Because if it was then I'd be having a go at it for different reasons, but the fact remains that its shortcomings create the dichotomy of my finding it very hard to be offended by it when modern mores suggest that I should be (though if I were George Mitchell or the BBC then I'd probably have been very offended by this brazen attempt to muscle in on my action), and then finding that it singularly fails to set out what it's meant to do. For which it can only garner criticism. 

If we're meant to close our eyes and imagine a stage full of mugging performers in blackface, then I'd personally find that more offensive than actually seeing them do it, but I don't think that's the case. Because in truth all Music For Pleasure were doing was exploiting the popularity of an existing medium; they didn't popularise the underlying exploitation. For that we have to 'blame' the great British public who provided the cultural climate that allowed them to do it.

All of which is taking me down the road of defence and/or damnation that I said upfront I wasn't going to travel down. So let me conclude by saying the record on it's own is a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair that in no way makes me want to 'singalong' and would require any listener who would to to have an impressive recall of the lyrics of some forty two songs. As a complete package, it's a rather bland and insipid 'singalong' affair with dated racist overtones. 

* Though the back cover note does it best to do the former but ends up doing the latter in a rather giving with one hand and taking with the other manner:

"There are some who regard minstrel shows as an unfortunate parody of the Negro and there is little doubt that the early minstrel shows did help impart the mistaken idea that coloured people were merely rather simple, happy-go-lucky folk. But, surely, the Negro has now proved beyond doubt that he is capable and willing to play an important role in modern society? The minstrel show of today is no more a parody of the Negro than a clown is a parody of the European. No, the blacking up of faces and the "coon" costume has no racialist undertones and those who read offence into it are perhaps a little guilty of intolerance themselves"

Well, that's sorted that out. Good luck in court.

Family Favourites: Hush - Samantha Records 1972

Apparently trying to tap into the same well of public goodwill that Pickwick were drinking from with their 'Top Of The Pops' compilations, the appropriation of the 'Family Favourites' title on this is a clear nod to BBC Radio 2's request show that dominated Sunday afternoons in the sixties and seventies. Made up of children's songs and easy listening heavyweights, none of the songs on this album would have been out of place on any of its playlists, and as for this playlist then I'll say one thing for it - it's got no fear in going straight to the top drawer for its material.

George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers - these are not exactly songs for beginners and each comes with it's own pre-existing albatross of what could be regarded as an already cut definitive version - Frank Sinatra's 'My Funny Valentine,  Ella Fitzgerald's 'Evry Time We Say Goodbye', Tony Bennett's 'It Had To Be You', Otis Redding's 'Try A Little Tenderness'; only a fool would try to better any of these and, to their credit/our relief, Hush (billed on the back cover as 'eight of the best young voices of today') don't break out the carbon paper and try to deliver a faithful replica of any of them and instead go at everything with a fresh pair of lungs. A wise move perhaps, but it's where the problems start to pile up too.

On the face of it, 'Hush' seem to be an act cut from the same cloth as other seventies ensembles like 'Guys N Dolls' or 'The Young Generation' - i.e. purpose built ensembles who would rock up as the guests turn on chat and comedy shows in the seventies to do their thing before disappearing again. These eight 'best young voices of today' don't exactly gel as one though, and instead of interacting, harmonising or playing off each, they're the sound of eight lead vocalists in waiting and each strives to hog the spotlight and elbow the others into the shadows. 

Thus, songs that were written to be delivered solo are split into multi-lead affairs or duets where each vocalist in turn is all too apt to forsake all melody and harmony in order to milk their lines for all their worth. Vowels are rolled, individual words are elongated or randomly emphasised and a rubber band vibrato puts in a regular appearance to the extent that the craftsmanship inherent in the songs beneath are reduced to a shapeless mess of unset jelly that the backing musicians gamely try to keep in at least some kind of order.

Rather than an easy listen, the discord born from eight squabbling strangers means there's an undercurrent of tension that's off-putting. Dropping 'White Christmas' in the middle of side one doesn't help smooth the journey either and the overall impression is of an end of term show at a low rent stage school where all are out to impress the judges and try every precocious trick they know to get themselves noticed.

And perhaps that's to be expected - 'Hush' don't appear to have any independent existence outside this one album an so maybe each member knew a shot at the title when they saw it. But for all their mugging, there's nothing here that's going to replace any of the established versions of these songs in your affections. To be honest, I never expected them to, but the distance they actually fall short is eye watering and leads me to wonder why anyone bothered. The 'family favourites' tag may have reeled in the unwary, but you'd need to set your personal bar of quality pretty low to want to sit through any of this a second time, and things would have been better all round if everyone involved regarded 'Hush' as a verb rather than a noun. Cheap, but not at all cheerful this one.

The Starlight Sound Of Summer: Ray Summer - Sounds Ultimate 1985

There's not a lot to go on here is there? That cover is as blank and unforgiving as a Peter Saville Factory sleeve, and what is there is a riddle that's wrapped in a puzzle and then buried with an enigma. 'The Starlight Sound Of Summer' - well what's that then? What does 'Starlight' sound like I wonder? Is it the sound of summer a reference to the season, or is it something exclusive to the artist behind this, like Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound'?  Turn it over and on the back it says - 'Dancing and easy listening at it's best with The Sound Of Summer'; in my world the two are mutually exclusive and you can no more relax to dance music than you can run slowly. Very odd. But enough speculation, time to give it a listen.

 

What we have is another disparate collection of random songs ('I Just Called To Say I Love You', jockeys for position with 'If I Were A Rich Man', 'Misty', 'I'm just Wild About Harry' et al) arranged and played as instrumentals. The fact that none of them would normally share the same airspace matters not one bit - any context they once had is rendered irrelevant; in Ray's hands they're simply there for him to laboriously plonk out on electric piano very much in the manner of somebody who once read a brief article about Thelonious Monk and then tried to copy his style without actually going to the trouble of listening to any of the music.

 

Where this boasts 'strict tempo dance music in sequence', I had in mind a combination of the raw sexuality of the Argentinean tango, the smooth flow of the foxtrot, the cultured elegance of the waltz or the rhythms and meters of the Brazilian samba cleverly woven into the fabric of some well known tunes. But more more fool me I guess; even though the songs are presented in clutches of two or three and grouped together under the umbrella of a particular dance style, all are laid to waste beneath a woozy backing wash of blips and bloops straight from the pre-settings of a home organ that reduces all those world dance genres to just so much indistinguishable gloop, the sort of muzak that dribbles it's way out of hotel lifts and supermarket tannoys the whole world over. This 'Starlight Sound' is about as undemanding as music comes - even Cage's 4'33" demanding more from the listener in that it at least required you to think about what you weren't listening to. There's nothing to think about here, except maybe 'when is this tedium going to end'? Not impressed I'm afraid.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down And Other Songs Made Famous By Joan Baez Sung By Judy Nash: Judy Nash - Music For Pleasure 1972

I think the back cover blurb sums up what's going on here as well as anything - "As a tribute to the great singing talent of Joan Baez, Judy Nash has assembled twelve songs closely associated with that most prominent of folk singers and performs them here with an authenticity and sincerity which could only be equalled by the subject of this tribute - Joan Baez". Before I get my knives out though, I'm going to own up to the fact I have no great love for Joan Baez. For all the plaudits and all the acclaim there's always been something overly worthy in the shrill vibrato of her vocal that gets under my skin. And not in a good way; I've simply never been able to take to her. In saying that though, I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge that the problem is mine, not Joan's - after all, I adore Joanna Newsome, but I know full well she can divide a room just by opening her mouth and then clear it after a few minutes singing. Horses for courses I guess.

 

As more of an interpreter of other people's work than renowned as a songwriter in her own right, Baez has a back catalogue littered with a broad spectrum of cover versions that can provide rich pickings for a tribute album like this. But although no one is arguing that the tracklist on here represents a 'Best Of Baez', I have to take issue with that title; to these ears 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down', 'Let It Be', 'Joe Hill', 'What Have They Done To The Rain' and 'It's All Over Now Baby Blue' et al had already been made famous by other people - usually their own authors - and using 'Joan Baez' songs as a unifier makes for a tenuous link that's only really going to work if some effort is put to trying to recreate them as Baez herself recorded them.

 

And to an extent, this is what they do, though as far as the vocals go it's to the extent that Nash sounds like she's been told to emulate Baez, but when it comes down to it she's found that she doesn't actually want to. Baez's vocal styling that so grate my nerves are attempted in part and Nash does a decent enough job when she does, but then she also alternates between a more sedate, straight West coast vocal that's more to my liking but which makes for rather an uneven, schizophrenic listen; it's telling that three of the Dylan songs on here subsequently appeared on MFP's 1974 'Tribute To Bob Dylan' album with no reference to Baez whatsoever and I think I'd have enjoyed them more if her name as a point of reference has been taken out of the equation completely.  

 

It's the bunch that are backing her (of whom no information is provided at all on the cover so I'm guessing they're session players being paid by the hour) that present the bigger problem in that, on some of the songs at least, they sound all at sea and play like they only have a passing familiarity with the source material. Songs get over egged and coathanger stiff with the title track being a particularly horrible example of overloading as it waddles along under the weight of an arrangement of drum fills, guitar fills, keyboard fills and a Greek chorus of harpies wailing away in a different key on backing vocals - it's Joan's version with everything turned up to 10 and, just like that American civil war themed cover, it's horrid. 

 

They're better on the quieter numbers where they've got less to do but in truth I get the distinct impression throughout that Nash and the band recorded their parts separately with neither having much idea what the other was doing and they were then brought together at the mix where they gel as well as seabirds and oilspills; for every ounce of feeling or emotion that Nash injects, the band siphon off two to leave her floundering in the slick. Ultimately, this is the sound of rushed competence that does neither Joan justice nor Judy any favours; at least I can say that Baez irritates me, this one leaves me feeling not very much at all really and it's another one of 'those' releases that I can't understand why anyone would want to buy. Except maybe Judy Nash's* mum.

 

 

* A word too on Ms Nash; the name raised my suspicions as soon as I read it, being as it is a very pat and era derived amalgamation of Judy Collins and Graham Nash. A bit of research online reveals that these songs are the only thing she ever recorded/released, mainly because 'Judy' is in fact Clare Torry who in in 1972, was still a jobbing session singer yet to achieve fame and (delayed) fortune by improvising a stunning wail of agony and ecstasy on Pink Floyd's 'The Great Gig In The Sky' a year later. Well I never.

Lennon & McCartmey Tijuana Style: The Torero Band - Music For Pleasure 1969

Lennon and McCartney played Tijuana Style? Well why not? We've already had a stranger proposition with their oeuvre being channelled through a military band so a bit of a brassy makeover shouldn't be beyond the pale. I daresay there'd be versions of this stuff played on the spoons if someone thought there might be a market for it. And so, as the cover so ably demonstrates, what we have here is a broad selection of Beatles songs drawn from all points of their career 'excitingly recreated to the sound of brass'. 

 

And from that description, you can probably second guess how it's going to sound without actually listening to it - that is, all blaring horns and busy percussion picking out the familiar Beatles melodies on trumpets and trombones. But as I have actually listened to it, I can report that, if these songs were carefully selected on the basis that they'd lend themselves well to this kind of approach, then 100% success has not been achieved and that some work better than others. A lot better in fact.

 

Perhaps predictably, it's the more upbeat numbers that work best; 'She Loves You', 'Ob La Di Ob La Da', 'Can't Buy Me Love' - all of these were already pumped full of air before The Torero Band got started on them, and whilst giving them a sunny Latin bounce doesn't improve them overly, it doesn't cause them any harm either. Fair enough then, but then any joy that's to be had from them is drowned in a sack elsewhere by jaunty, knees-up versions of 'Yesterday', 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Hey Jude', arrangements which are hardly in keeping with the rather more sombre originals. Just as well these are all instrumental versions then.

 

But despite the swings and roundabouts of taste on offer here, at heart I can't regard this stuff as anything but a gimmick. Like thrash metal versions of John Denver songs or hip hop takes on Elizabethan madrigals, marrying two genres that wouldn't ordinarily meet can raise a smile at first listen, but unless their pony has got more than one trick it gets boring quickly and I'm forced to question the point of it all. Playing Lennon and McCartney songs Tijuana style doesn't expose any secrets and the songs themselves do nothing to progress the Tijuana style. In truth I'd rather listen to a Tijuana bands playing proper Mexican music, and if I want to listen to The Beatles then I'm spoiled for choice; this sort of cheap, cultural tourism only leaves me cold.

John Grant Sings Of Great Things: John Grant - Emblem 1968

When I picked this one up from the crate I was sure from the cover that John Grant must be a fiery American evangelist from one of the southern states. In fact, that's why I picked this up - I'm partial to a bit of hellfire and damnation and Mr Grant looked exactly like the type of religious zealot who was going to deliver it but - mea culpa - it was a surprise and disappointment to find on getting it home that this is actually a British release and Mr Grant is a Scot from Glasgow. That will teach me to judge a preacher by his looks I guess. 

So where does that leave us then? Well, with twelve songs of non nonsense Christianity delivered with the earnestness of a man in fear and awe of his maker, that's where. In other words, the sort of thing that would normally have me running to the hills; he means it, man. Saying that, Grant's baritone is not unpleasant on the ear, but it is a one key flat drone of a voice that drips emotion the same easy going way a stone drips blood. Not only that, he also has the unfortunate tendency to seek out the vowel in the last word of every last line of every verse and hang on to it for dear life, lolling it around his tongue like a club singer chewing on a toffee.

And yet despite those histrionics, there's no underlying fire or passion in his delivery; Grant's agenda is simple worship - he's not reaching out to convert anybody, you have to come to him pre-loaded with faith because he's not going to help you to see the light.  It doesn't help that I'm not familiar with any of the songs on this album, but they suit Grant's style in that, to a note, they're all dirges on Prozac. 'Christ Died', 'God Understands', 'Grace Greater Than Our Sins', 'No Name Has Meant So Much To Me' -  none of these were written with an eye on a sing song around the campfire and, because of that, listening to all twelve in a row is an ordeal akin to eating nothing but brown rice every day for a month - some might argue it's 'good' for you, but it's also bland and boring and very soon you're longing for some variation in the palette. 

Not that it doesn't try - orchestra leader Ian Gourley gets almost equal billing on the cover, and fair play his arrangements do have a certain Nelson Riddle on a budget zing that try to lighten the mood. Grant's voice though is having none of it and he steamrollers over any dissent from his agenda until they're crushed flat beneath the weight of his handwringing sincerity as a butterfly under a jackboot.  I can be honest enough in admitting that Grant opens a door to a world that's largely unfamiliar to me, but he then does nothing to try and get me to cross the threshold to find out more. On one hand I admire its honesty and complete lack of 'trendy vicar' mannerisms, but on the other it makes religion sound like a chore to be endured and I'm happy to just leave him to it.