Showing posts with label Eagles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eagles. Show all posts

Thursday 10 August 2017

A Sight For Sore Eyes


When the opening notes on the solo piano start playing "Auld Lang Syne" you can be pretty certain that a Tom Waits song is on the way, and this came on the player today (I put it there so it's not magic like some people seem to attribute to iTunes, Dezzer and Spotify) and I have either forgotten it or not heard it before ... or maybe I have

... that melody playing I have heard before and then I realised it's the same as "In The Neighborhood", the song that hooked me on Tom Waits from the amazing "Swordfishtrombones". "A Sight For Sore Eyes" from "Foreign Affairs" predates "In The Neighborhood" by six years, but let's face it you're allowed to plagiarise or borrow from your own material.

I have been sharing quite a lot of Tom Waits recently and if you don't know his work you should really make the effort, you will be rewarded by one of the richest veins of songs by any writer, mined by Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles.

As he ages he does get further from the mainstream , but he was never really that mainstream, it's just that people with discerning taste appreciate the guy.

Anyway that's another gem I've shared with you and another post towards my #August50, and the sun is still shining very brightly.

Thursday 17 November 2016

Tom Waits For Now Man - #ALifeinNumbers #55



Well we're on the home straight now, after this four more posts. It's already been a great week with various excellent things happening. Last night got a huge compliment from management at work which is a sort of cherry on the cake for this week so far.

Tuesday night I say the Bonzo Dog Band at the Sage, which has now become a very fluid lineup but it was an absolutely brilliant night, and on Tuesday my friend Jessica and her friend Asher opened Wildflower Cafe on Westgate Road. I work near St James' Park so was hoping to walk there, I needed some cash so got some from the St James' cash machine (it only had twenties), then set off. I then realised there was a large derelict area / building site which would mean a long right or left detour, however when I got there I notices a tarmaced path that seemed to skirt the new Science building a head straight to where I was going,

Wildflower Toastie
I got there and then saw across the road a big "Wildflower" sign in the window. I got in and was greeted by Jessica and Asher and there were two girls having coffee and chatting. The place has been furnished via Freecycle,and is bright and airy and welcoming with some of Jessica's designs on the walls, art displayed and books and things to catch the eye. I was trying to find a menu to display , but the fare is mostly if not all vegan, with felafel , hummus and tiffin!  There is lots of choice and I decided on a cheese and tomato toastie and a coffee which I can show you (See Right).

It was delicious, and just right for my dinner (I'm from Preston , it's dinner), too many times toasties are served in doorsteps or huge slabs of pretentious bread. This was perfect, and complimented by green stuff with dressing, which I also enjoyed.

I am looking forward to making this a regular eaterie and general good place to go, though I can see it's going to be popular, it aleady is with me.

Anyway #ALifeinNumbers is "Ol' 55" a song I first heard by the Eagles, so they're getting their second run out in this sequence, but it was written by Tom Waits, and it is one of many songs that you probably don't know have been written by him. So I'm going to include the Eagles version AND the Tom Waits version, because I can, assuming Tom Waits has let it out on Youtube. He's very protective of his music and sued Levis and got them to take out big billboard apologies when they used Screamin' Jay Hawkins'  version of "Heart Attack and Vine".

So enjoy the music and enjoy your Thursday my friends.

Monday 31 October 2016

Author Author and No Coldplay - #ALifeInNumbers #42



Number 42. This is a really difficult one for me. I can think of a song called “42”, but it’s by Coldplay and I listened to it and it's Coldplay in limp chinned student mode. Having said that there are probably not all that many Coldplay songs I would countenance so really I don’t want to include it.

Because it’s 42 I want to include something related to The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, because Douglas Adams told us that the answer to the Ultimate Question was 42 , that answer was of course 42, provide by the mega computer Deep Thought. The quest for the ultimate question… well read the books and you’ll find the answer.

A similar scenario occurs in another of my favourite books “Venus On The Half Shell” by Kilgore Trout.

Kilgore Trout is an author who is a figment of the imagination of the wonderful but sadly missed Kurt Vonnegut.

However this pseudonym was taken up by Philip Jose Farmer to write the book. All three authors are incredibly intelligent, have a healthy attitude to life and humanity, as well as a wicked sense of humour.

The premise is the search by the hero to find the answer to the ultimate question, “Why are we born to suffer and die?”. At the end of the book the hero gets to meet God and asks God the question. God’s reply: “Why Not?” One of my favourite las lines in a book.

Anyway I have decided, for number 42, to go with The Eagles “Journey of the Sorcerer”, because it is awesome and the theme to “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” which has as the answer to the ultimate question the number 42. And that is good enough for me.

Enjoy Halloween my Pagan and Wiccan friends.

Thursday 20 October 2016

Tom Waits at the Halfway Point - #ALifeInNumbers #30



Well this is just past the halfway point of #ALifeinNumbers and this is on of the prebooked slots with one of my favourite artists Tom Waits with "Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six" or "16 Shells from a 30.6" from the wonderfully named "SwordfishTrombones". If ever you think that the USA is down the drain Tom Waits is one of those people who restore your faith in the artistic brilliance that has come out of the States.

I found this great live take from The Tube in 1985 , absolute genius.

The first thing I heard by him was "In The Neighborhood" , still one of my favourite songs, his songs have been covered by lot's of popular artists such as The Eagles ("Ol' 55" which is penned in for number 55) and Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train" and "Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda]") and no doubt lots of other more mainstream artists.

Today is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. Tomorrow is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. I have two friends called Helen Morgan , one lives in Africa or New Zealand or somewhere, and one lives in Newcastle, their birthday's are one day apart.

Anyway I'll leave this as a short post, although Preston North End hammered Huddersfield last night so that's two of the top 4 dealt with , only Newcastle United (twice) and Norwich to deal with now and on paper we should be steamrollered. Dwight Gayle cost more than the whole Preston squad but we will see what the situation is in a fortnight.

Have a wonderful Thursday my friends, I am going to see GOAT tonight so going to have my mind blown. See you tomorrow.

Friday 14 October 2016

Going Schizoid - #ALifeInNumbers #21


One of the problems with the early numbers in this sequence is realizing the good stuff I've missed. For 20 I could have had "20th Century Boy" by T. Rex, but "20 Flight Rock" by Eddie Cochran is still a great so that's fine. I have the songs mapped out to 41 at the moment with a few scattered between there and 59, and the original premise for 21 was "21" by The Eagles from the album "Desperado".

Coming home however the perfect, for me, 21 song came to mind, six and a half minutes of monstrous jazz rock that the Rolling Stones had to follow in Hyde Park in 1969, not other than "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson featuring the psychotic and psychedelic lyrics of Pete Sinfield, Greg Lake on vocals and Bob Fripp on guitar. This is still an incredible piece and it always amazes me. I bought the album "Court Of The Crimson King" on DVD to listen in full surround sound , and though it's close on fifty years old it sounds stunning. I managed to find the Hyde Park broadcast but the album should be in your collection.

Time for bed now, though this is not music to fall asleep to.

Tuesday 29 May 2012

In A Hotel

Never really done hotels with work , but new responsibilities mean I may be spending time in London so I need to get used to it.The words to the song "Hotel California" by The Eagles:

"You can check out any time you want,
 but you can never leave" 

must ring so true for some people. Good thing is I have a lot of friends who live down here or are in a similar boat so lots of things to do , like tonight going to see the new Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom.