Showing posts with label Philip Glass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philip Glass. Show all posts

Saturday 12 January 2019

I Won't Watch Black and White Films, Films With Subtitles or Read Books


Obviously not me, but over the years I continually hear this from people, and variations on the same. Anything out of the blinkered area that they see means you (that's me) are a total weirdo. You don't like "Top Gear"? You're weird. You like classical music? You must be retarded. You don't watch X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent? You have no taste in music. You watch Asian language film? You're strange. You listen to German and French bands who sing in German and French? You are mad.

I've had all these reactions from people, and maybe it's why people seldom speak with me, but that's their loss. The fact they are cutting out of their life the films:


  • Downfall
  • Amelie
  • The Seven Samurai
  • Casablanca
  • It's A Wonderful Life
  • Young Frankenstein
....and more

and then the music of:


  • Beethoven
  • Mozart
  • Philip Glass
  • Can
  • Amon Duul II
  • Jacques Brel
  • Alan Stivell
  • Gong

..... and more

And the fact that people refuse to read for the flimsiest of reasons, missing out on the joy of hooking up your own imagination as someone's words take you on a journey that no film could ever do, I list the music I listen to and the books I read on here. I have finished "There Is No Map In Hell" which I bought just for the title and I discovered what it is like to run 214 Wainwright Peaks in seven days. which you can read about on Steve Birkinshaw's blog here, You might not be able to judge a book by the cover but it was the title that hooked me and though I have zero interest in Fell Running it did hook me.

So I should include a song that is not sung in English, so I'll go with Los Lobos take on Richie Valens' "La Bamba" from the soundtrack of the eponymous film

Sunday 12 November 2017

Because I Have A Pixel....


.. that's a Google Pixel phone, I have now got to rationalise what I download and put on the phone. No 50Gb of music like I could have on my Sony or Samsung because they have an SD card, no lot's of photos and videos, I need to utilise the space mor judiciously. I could pug a stick in but that would be sooo asking for trouble.

Every app uses up space, every picture , every instagram video, and all the music.

But say I limit the music to 10Gb, that's like fifteen to twenty albums, so isn't that enough, really?

I can only listen to one album at a time and twenty albums should see me through a week. I remember a friend telling how they had looked after a vicars house for four days , there was him , two girls, one record player and four albums including the first Velvet Underground album. If four albums was enough for three people for four days, then fifteen albums should be ok for me for five days.

So today's album was not the Velevt Underground , but David Bowie's "Low" , the first of the Berlin trilogy. When it came out I remember thinking that the melody of the opening song "Speed of Life" was very similar to Deep Purple's "Woman From Tokyo" and I still think that today. For some reason I thought that side one only had five tracks ( along with side two's four , the psychedelic Krautrock influence coming to the fore there), and tehre actually five songs bookended by two instrumentals. Whether it's me or my age , Bowie's music is timeless and sounds as fresh now as when it first came out.

Some of side two was appropriated for Philip Glass for his "Low Symphony", very atmospheric feating vocals in a non existent languaguage though "Weeping Wall" borrows the melody from "Scarborough Fair". Incidentally Philip Glass scored the film "Candyman" based on a Clive Barker short story and the music enhances an excellent nighties horror film.

I'll leave you with a live take on the opener from "Low" in 1978 , enjoy your Sunday night.