Showing posts with label Bruce Springsteen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruce Springsteen. Show all posts

Saturday 7 November 2020

Here Comes The Sun

Waiting for the Election Results in the USA is like watching a very slow sunrise , we have had four years of darkness in the USA (and ten in the UK) but it looks like things will start to take a turn for the better in the next week or so. I keep checking the news feeds and nothing seems to have changed with lots of childish "not fair" whinings from the the "we won you lost , suck it up crowd".

Today's early morning fog has burned off and it is now a very bright day.

This week, thanks to working from home , I have worked my way through the first seven Bruce Springsteen albums , his five disc live 75-85 release and more surprisingly the Blue Oyster Cult Columbia boxed set , which is an excellent listen. I think it is one of th ebiggest boxes I have and certainly the largest one I have listened to end to end.

There are lots of high points but the jewel in the crown is the final album "Imaginos"with a Lovecraftian libretto ,  an (unused) intro (to "Astronomy" by Stephen King  which reads thus:

The Soft Doctrines of Imaginos: A Bedtime Story for the Children of the Damned


From a dream world paralleling our Earth in time and space, The Invisible Ones
have sent an agent who will dream the dream of history. With limitless power,
he becomes the greatest actor of the 19th century. Taking on many disguises,
he places himself at pivotal junctures in history, continually altering its
course and testing our ability to respond to the challenge of evil.

His name is Imaginos.


It's worth following the links if this is tempting to you.

So I'm not going to share any version of The Beatles "Here Comes The Sun" but the "Imaginos" version of "Astronomy" , listen and appreciate. I found a "Wild King" mix which grafts the Stephen King intro the "Imaginos" version. Apparently there was some issue with Albert Bouchard around the release of the album , and he has released "Re-Imaginos"  which is on my to buy list, and songs like this have decided me to track more of his solo work.

Monday 2 November 2020

Into The Devil's Country

Finally , nearly halfway through "Coldheart Canyon" we get to properly find out what "The Devil's Country" is about. It's been a great read getting there , covering lots of stuff I had forgotten about ,but now I am there. I probably won't tell you what happens but I do recommend the book.

This incidentally coincides with my first time in the office (just to clear my locker so they can rearrange floors) since lockdown began. I just emptied my locker and was in and out in less than ten minutes, ironically coming back home to actually start work.

I did walk into work and saw some amazing skies , and the moon was also very clear, the days are getting shorted and it is dark by five pm so my walking my be curtailed although today and yesterday have been fine. The problem is when I work in the office I always go out for a lunchtime walk , but at home I just tend to work through.

Today's listening has been the first official live Bruce Springsteen plus his first two studio albums , which has been another rather good listening day , with some great songs, and this time no repeats.

So music wise we'll go for "Devil's Sidewalk" by Graham Parker , although Neil Young also has a song with the sleep well and the dark nights draw in people.

Saturday 31 October 2020

Back Into The Canyon

 My reading , as it often does, has taken me back to Clive Barker and "Coldheart Canyon" . Title wise I think it's pretty awful sounding like some sixties doomed romance soap , and maybe that was the intention. While I remember the basic premise of the book , finding "The Devil's Country" I don't think I am giving anything away by mentioning that.

There are adverts for "The Secret Garden"  on Sky at the moment and that has vague reminders of what is happening in "Coldheart Canyon" , as well as Halloween references which given that it's Halloween tonight , is another coincidental link. Thanks to the lockdown I doubt there will be any trick or treaters out tonight although today has been rather miserable weather wise.

My listening this week has included "The Business" by Madness which is early singles and rarities, but is enhanced by lots of interviews about the history of the band, that was followed by the eight disc "Smiths Complete" box although three of the discs are compilations so there are a lot of repeated songs , but all rather excellent. This was after finishing the Bruce Springsteen "SoundStage" box which was five concerts over fifteen discs and again a lot of repeated takes on songs but all worth listening to.

Next week I have my first Bruce Springsteen box which is all the studio albums up to "Born In The USA" and that will probably be followed by the live 1975-85 box , so next week will be another Springsteen binge.

As I've mentioned "The Secret Garden" and Bruce Springsteen that's the obvious song that I need to go with , even though it's not on the albums I'll be playing next week. I'm using the video from the film Jerry Maguire.

Have a great Halloween

Sunday 27 September 2020

The Grey - #FruitfulSeptember #10

They last few days the weather has been very grey. It's not been the most uplifting. Added to that I thhink I have torn a shoulder muscle or trapped a nerve in my right arm , when you get arm pain's at my age you start thinking heart attack so it's hit the medical box for aspirin. Mt right arm is improving and I haven't lost the use of my hand at all , or been in so much pain that I had to go to casualty. Part of it is that I don't feel like writing or walking, and my monthly target is in danger , but after I post this , I so intend to go out for a walk, maybe up Cow Hill to take some pictures.

Looking out of the window the sky is a uniform grey although it is not as cold as yesterday.

I am thoroughly enjoying "Spear Of Destiny" by Daniel Easterman , which , location wise, has a lot in common with "The Lost" that he wrote as Jonathan Aycliffe. I know that I've read "Spear of Destiny" but I only remember the start of the book, but my rubbish memory means that I can reread books and rewatch films and thoroughly re enjoy them.

While working I am listening to a lot of CDs one of which is the 15 disc Bruce Springsteen Soundstage box. It's only radio broadcast quality but is still a great listen, but just doing one gig at a time , there are five gigs with three discs for each one.

This morning's vinyl was "Who Will Save The World" by The Groundhogs and "Bandstand" by Family both of which I bought for the cover art, but are great albums to listen to in their own right.

So for #FruitfulSeptember I was wondering whether a coconut was a fruit and came upon this vague definition:


"Botanically speaking, a coconut is a fibrous one-seeded drupe, also known as a dry drupe. However, when using loose definitions, the coconut can be all three: a fruit, a nut, and a seed."

So I think I can go with a coconut as a fruit , which means I can go for PM Dawn's excellent "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto: 1999/Once In A Lifetime/Coconut" which has a finale of Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" which has appeared in so many films and a truly great song, and PM Dawn manage to marry it up with Prince and the Talking Heads. The song is on the "Jesus Wept" album which does not seem to be digitally available on Amazon.

After posting this , the sun came out.

Tuesday 25 August 2020

Uniform - #AnimalAugust #16


The sky is a uniform grey and it's raining and drizzling a perfect situation for the word "dreich" , not exactly great walking weather or inspirational and certainly not summery.

With the weather being so awful I was wondering if I could hit my 11K steps without actually leaving the house. I know people have done it, but basically the house is about ten steps from side to side, so going from one side to the other and back 550 times would actually do it but I could see that tedium would  hit me very quickly. Of course there is up and down stairs and the rest of the house to use but it's a lot of repetition, which I am not really up for.

Yesterday during a work meeting the sound went off, and I assumed that there was a problem with the person speaking then realised my TV , that provides the sound, and switched it self off which it does after four hours. After several months I found the setting to stop it from switching itself off, but this means I now have to remember to switch it off when I've finished with it.

On my #MusicWhileYouWork Instagram sequence which I started when working from home I am now listening to the Bruce Springsteen "Soundstage" 15CD box , which is still available for around £20 , and while it's a radio broadcast quality , it is still excellent. I'm on CD2 so a long way to go and after this I have a 4CD David Bowie set (The Collaborator) to enjoy.

Still on "Venus on the Halfshell" and though it's dated tongue in cheek , I am still enjoying it, and it is packed full of ideas and observations that are very relevant today.

Over the last week I have binge watched (for me) lots of TV coming to the finale of "Veep" , one and a half series of "Bosch" , which is very good and his apartment and view is worth watching the program for.

"Shortly After Take Off" by BC Camplight has just been played by Chris Hawkins on 6Music, followed by "96 Tears" by ? & The Mysterians which put me in mind of Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs who had a hit with "Wooly Bully" which will do for today's #AnimalAugust .

I'm just wondering whether to have a September sequence based on fruit , but will have to think of a hashtag for that.

Wednesday 8 July 2020

Progress


Just thinking about what we can do now as opposed to what we could do ten , twenty or thirty years back. We used to buy from the local shop, market or high street although big business was giving us supermarkets and hypermarkets and shopping malls.

Our phones are communication devices , we can do video calling , share video as well as text and speech. Thanks to Arpanet and Tim Berners-Lee we have 24/7 to an unbelievable knowledge resource.

Also we used to only have radio , then TV , but although we still have these they also come through digital channels and where there were just a couple of options now thanks to digital , we seem to be unlimited , though the Bruce Springsteen song "57 Channels And Nothing On" sometimes comes to mind , but now that programs are on demand , you can never say there is nothing on.

I remeber having to order anything slightly out of the ordinary from record shops , "No Woman, No Cry" and "Jah Live" by Bob Marley come to mind, but remember being told "We don't sell singles and we only stock the top 20" when asking for a copy of "Ummagumma" by Pink Floyd at a furniture shop that also sold records. These days you can have your music or video immediately as long as you have the ability to pay for it.

Phone advertisements are always promoting the camera abilities of the device, the sound and connectivity is seldom mentioned, though the thing is that they are generally hand held computers, thought we can't use them for transportation ... yet. That's something that always confuses me, when, in Star Trek someone is transported where the atoms are disassembled at point of departure and reassembled at the point of arrival is that just a clone at the point of arrival or the original person , and if the clone has all the memories of the original person , how would it know that it is a clone. The other side of that is that our bodies shed and recreate layers and we are not the same person we were last year. I'm sure that could be the basis of a short story , it is about time I actually wrote one.

I could go one about driverless cars and other vehiles and Smart everything but think it's time to share some music.

Maybe we will go with the Springsteen one , while we have hundreds of channels and streams , a lot of it is filled with rubbish , but a lot of it is the highest quality. You can never say there is nothing on.

Sunday 17 November 2019

In The Middle Of The Night ...


Sometimes you just wake up and feel you want to do something. I can't concentrate enough to read read, and I can't really pick up an instrument an play because it makes noise and disturbs others, I can't put a record on ar watch TV because when I feel like this it's not a headphones moment, so I find that writing I blog post can satisfy the need to do something vaguely creative and run my mind down a bit so I can then slip back to bed and get some sleep.

It is now five am on Sunday morning, but middle of the night can be any time between going to bed and getting up. It's black outside the window, but not particularly cold so I didn't have to get dressed to write this (but I'm sure you didn't really need to know that) but it is also very peaceful.

This week I will hit my annual record for blog posts which will be 317 (this is post 315 and last year I posted 316 times) . That's like 17 posts every 20 days or 26 posts a month which is fairly close to being daily, although some days I have done multiple posts (like yesterday).. I should actually try to see if I can do a lot of posts in a day, although I don't think it would be possible because all these posts are on the fly  about things that interest me, rather than to hit a target, although if a target is achievable I am often tempted towards it.

So I am starting to feel a little tired so I think we simply go for "In The Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett and I found this great performance by him and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform "In the Midnight Hour" at the 1999 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, when Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Wednesday 4 September 2019

Reading Appendices #2 and Discovering Sam Fender


Well I am reading the appendices of "The Illuminatus! Trilogy" and it's like nothing has changed. Same mad whirlwind mix or mysticism and conspiracies as well as explanations of I-Ching symbols that I was unaware of, well I assume they are correct despite the fact this is a work of mad fiction. It's not often fictional novels  have a large section of appendices.

This is just a short post to let you know a little more about this book that I thought I was finished with and had finished writing about, but like a box of fireworks you dropped a match in , they've not all gone off yet.

Chris Hawkins played "The Borders" by Sam Fender on 6Music this morning and I've had a natural aversion to Sam Fender because everyone seems to be pushing him. He's also a local lad (North Shields I think, well that's where his studio is). Chris described him as the English Springsteen. After hearing "The Borders" he might not be wrong , and amazing song and the album is on my list to buy, and given my generally paucity of new music buying these days that is no mean thing. Well impressed.

Enjoy your Wednesday.

Monday 13 May 2019

A Muse Ment


This is my thirteenth post on the thirteenth day of this month and is post number 1913 since I started this blog. That is quite a lot of 13s coming together and it was not contrived at all, I promise.

Still enjoying Stephen Fry's "Mythos" and one of the things that I love about it is that it reminds me of things I'd forgotten and expands my knowledge of something I know. Stephen Fry does make a very good teacher.

Again, going through the origins of Greek Mythology he points out the origins of the words and  you think "oh is that where THAT came from" or I didn't know that" or "I'd forgotten that".

He's  listing The Muses, and the first one on the list is Calliope. I know Calliope from the line in Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light":

".. the Calliope crashed to the ground"

I'd always imagined a Calliope being a circular ride and the image was of one coming off its axis and crashing down, but no, it's the steam driven fairground organ that we've all heard, so the image still works, and I now know that Calliope is the Muse of Epic Poetry.

Then there is Terpsichore and both Stephen Fry and I were introduced to this Muse via the Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch:

O: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the bouzouki player!

C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!

O: Sorry?

C: 'Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tune, 'yer forced to!

O: So he can go on playing, can he?

C: Most certainly! Now then, some cheese please, my good man.

So it is a beautiful sunny morning, even though it's Monday, and I am looking forward to this week. The song has to be "Blinded By The Light" which features the line at the end of the first verse.


Friday 19 April 2019

This Land Is YOUR Land


Tonight I caught a bit of a program I was recording about the great Woody Guthrie , Three Chords and The Truth which will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next month. While it is a great song and applies to any country, but is geographically situated in the USA stating that the land belongs to the people , not to governments and not to corporations.

I didn't know it had been used at Barack Obama's Inauguration as while it was sung in schools as an almost national anthem, only the first three verses were sung because the next three were deemed offensive.

At the Inauguration all six verses were sung, and it was very uplifting and moving and I am glad to be able to share it with you on this post thanks to Youtube. The documentary is very revealing but I just had to share this with you. Here are those words:

This Land Is Your Land
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said : 'No trespassing'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple, I saw my people
By the relief office, I'd seen my people
As they stood hungry, I stood there askin'
If this land made for you and me ?
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking that freedom highway
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said: 'No trespassing'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Songwriters: Woody Guthrie
This Land Is Your Land lyrics © S.I.A.E. Direzione Generale, Ludlow Music Inc., Woody Guthrie Publications Inc, LUDLOW MUSIC OBO WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATION INC, LUDLOW MUSIC INC OBO WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATIONS
Enjoy , digest and remember This Land is YOUR Land
I suggest you watch and enjoy

The documentary features Billy Bragg now a UK music elder statesman (though he's younger than me), but I was surprised that I couldn't track  down a Springsteen recording of the song on Amazon as I am sure he has recorded the song, but maybe not.

Wednesday 30 January 2019

A Big Freeze


I don't know if it's me getting older or what, but the frosted white cars and rooves and the biting burning cold this morning just made me want to get into the warm again. As a kid I'd be wanting snow and would go out in a T-Shirt and make snow angels. That would definitely not happen today. Is colder or is it just because I am older and more susceptible to the cold. I really don't know.

Another unrelated thing is that we have a new security entry system where I work amd it makes a two beep or three note noise when you go through whatever door or barrier, and those three notes trigger a musical sequence from Jethro Tull's "Passion Play" every time I come in or leave. While I think "Passion Play" is rather good I could do without it playing in my head every time I walk through a security door or barrier. It's an almost Pavlovian reaction to the three notes and it just happens every time.

Last night Newcastle United beat Manchester City 2-1 and my local branch of William Hills were offering 50/1 for that result, but I thought it would just be money down the drain. It turned out that my actual bets were the ones that actually lost . C'est la vie.

The lack of cloud is what's driving the temperature down, though we have had no snow .... yet. So I think maybe I need to share a bit of "Passion Play" with you although "Frozen"by Madonna was a possibility as well as "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" by Bruce Springsteen, but we shall have a bit of "Passion Play" that is not "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" which I featured in this post here.

Thursday 11 October 2018

Quantum


I was going to initial just write about dipping into the Bruce Springsteen "Complete 1978 Radio Broadcasts" 15 CD box set but this morning I read a bit more of "The Code Book" by Simon Singh and it has wandered into quantum theory.

Someone said about quantum theory, if you your mind is not bent and you are not confused by it then you don't get it. Well my mind is still bent and confused by it and I still feel that I don't get it. Taking into account possible simultaneous states of quasi matter and the concepts of multiverses and things be the same and the opposite of themselves my mind is a little twisted to say the least.

It's come up because of the concept of quantum computers, which if implemented will wipe the floor with current computers and effectively destroy the sort of digital privacy we currently have, which is based on  DES and  RSA encoding (I won't explain as it doesn't matter). To combat this cryptographers are working on quantum codes and cyphers but as yet do not have quantum computers to actually implement these concepts.

Anyway back to Bruce Springsteen and I listened to the first album and it's just a feed from a radio broadcast so it's like a bootleg and the crowd are fairly prominent but it is a wonderful experience. The opener of Buddy Holly's "Rave On" for me doesn't really work, but by the time you hit the closer of "Thunder Road" you are totally immersed. Absolutely wonderful. I now am looking at another fourteen discs which I am sure will be just as excellent.

Have a great Thursday everybody.

Sunday 30 September 2018

The Value Of Music (Again)


A few weeks ago I noticed a Bruce Springsteen box set. It was good quality bootlegs from 1978, comprising five complete concerts backed by the E Street Band, and the tracks are obviously the same for each concert, but this clocks in at fifteen discs, which is more sixteen hours of music and the cost of this set? Thirteen Pounds. Even if you class it as a single three disc concert that's still a lot of music for your money. That's less that a pound per disc.

In 1975 albums were around £2.75, at that time Job Seekers Allowance or the equivalent was £2.75 a week, so if albums had kept pace with inflation we would be paying £80 for an album, but even I think a tenner is the norm for a CD these days. A vinyl album is around £20 and I did pay £25 for Hawkwind's "Space Ritual" on vinyl with the original fold out artwork.

I also bought a box of Phil Collins' first eight albums in a presentation box for £7.99, again less than a pound an album, and a Graham Parker set for the same price for his first five albums.

Rhino have a series of Original Albums consisting of five albums in replica card sleeves for around a tenner, less than two quid an album. Although this is already recorded material so there may not be any production costs apart from the printing and pressing it's still a remarkably cheap way of getting your hands on music and I do wonder whether the artists are getting their just rewards for this music.

So this is the last post for September and tomorrow my number of years on this planet increases  by one. Luckily I don't have to go to work but think I may be off to Ambleside,weather permitting.

Friday 21 September 2018

Endless Night


It's four AM and tonight has been punctuated by waking up with serious coughing fits. Not painful or coughing up blood bad but enough to make sure I haven't had a decent nights sleep, also ensuring that I will not be in a fit state for work tomorrow morning. Sitting up and typing seems to give a little respite from this so I'm hoping the antibiotics actually do their job and sort me out.

I don't have a headache but have a runny nose which streams back into my throat causing the tickle and therefor the cough. In the dry air conditioned office environment this also gets exacerbated, so. again another reason not to go into work.

The fact that I'm writing this is a result of being under the weather, but it shows that I am not completely laid low by this, just unable to do anything useful. Maybe a day of rest today, followed by the weekend and Monday my help that. Total rest can help you recuperate, although most of the time you feel you should be doing something.

I chose the title because that is what it feels like, but it's the title of one of my favourite Graham Parker songs from my favourite album of his, and it was co-written with Bruce Springsteen so as good as it gets really, featuring The Boss on backing vocals. I thought found a version by Bruce as well but a different song same title, so waking up and sharing this with you is a positive point of this cough waking me up.



Friday 7 September 2018

Even Burt Reynolds in that Black Trans-Am ......



We lost Burt Reynolds yesterday to a heart attack. Very sad as most of his films were great fun and he had a wonderful sense of humour as well as great comin timing, and on obvious model for actors such as Tom Selleck (also excellent and fun, brilliant in "Runaway" which featured Gene Simmons of Kiss and an excellent villain).

Anyway when Bruce Springsteen released "The River" it contained a plethora of amazing songs, one of which was "Cadillac Ranch" which is a public art installation in Amarillo Texas, created by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels,members of the band Ant Farm, full details here.

Cadillac, Cadillac, Long and dark, shiny and black
 Anyway one of the verses in the song ran like this:

"James Dean in that mercury '49
Junior Johnson runnin' through the woods of Carolina
Even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans Am
All gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch"


Reference to one of the many cars that Burt trashed in his movies, I'll let you find out which one and you can let me know. I also found a great Cadillac slideshow soundtracked by the song sto share with you and remember a wonderful actor by.

Wednesday 11 April 2018

Kerb Crawler


I've been listening to a couple of albums, one of which is Hawkwind's "Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music". "Kerb Crawler" was the lead single if I remember rightly and it's a great song song taking on creeps with their state of the art "extensions" cruising to pick up "ladies". It has some great sax playing but dates badly  as it lists ultra modern accessories such as FM Radio and 8-Track Stereo. Also the "stylish" white walled tyres sort of singled out the occupation of the vehicle's owner, not the sort of person you would want to spend time with.

It's strage that while Hawkwind's song emphasises the seedy side of cars , Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch" from "The River"is a full blown nostalgia trip and the images brought up by the lines

"El Dorado Fins, Baby
White Walls and Skirts
Rides Just Like A
Little Bit of Heaven
Here On Earth"

are just fine by me. There's no doubt the Springsteen song is a nailed on classic, while the Hawkwind one is just a fun work out.

Going back to 8-Tracks, while they were sort of state of of the art I was unaware of actual recorders. It was great that they played on a continuous loop and if I remember there were sort of four "sides" on the wide tape, the playing head jumping to the next section at the appropriate juncture , each "side" having two channels hence the 8-Track.

OK it's time for bed now , sleep well.


Tuesday 30 January 2018

Sleep


After spending half an hour waiting for Excel to save my workbook, I was not happy when it crashed, said it had recovered my  workbook (and the hours work I'd done on it) and restored it to it;s state as it was when I started. Still I just closed down my laptop and will do it all again tomorrow morning except then I am sure it will work. They say a bad workman always blames his tools, well 95% of the time Excel is really useful, but every so often it can really let you down. Really when you thing these programs just move round binary digits and such a clever way you can do some incredibly useful calculations and analysis.

I suppose that it still puts a strain on my tiny mind. Tonight I managed to lose a contact lens. The worry is that's it's still somehwere in my eye. That happened to me once before, so we shall see if it resurfaces at some point.

Anyway I said my next three posts would feature artists's who'd covered the Rolling Stones' "Happy" and the first of those are The Pointer Sisters with their excellent cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Fire".

Right it's time for bed, there will be more tomorrow.