Showing posts with label Pulp Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pulp Fiction. Show all posts

Sunday 19 July 2020

Walk A Mile In My Shoes


This morning I mowed my lawn, it's a small lawn. I checked how many steps I'd done and it was over a mile. That surprised me quite a lot that I could walk so far in such a small area. I know people have smaller gardens but sometimes a mile is not very far and other times it seems a long, long way. I am not a very active person but don't mind walking a few steps each day (actually about 11K which is around five miles). It is amazing how some people are aghast at that while I have friends who often cycle ten or fifteen miles a day , 50 to 100 miles a day at weekends plus serious gym time. So no I am anything but a fitness fanatic.

Today I have decided to retire the  www.spoongig,co.uk URL but the blog well remain possibly in a subdomain of this one. I don't get to that many gigs these days and was just using one email so it's not really worth keeping. I am going with the subdomain which I hope will start working soon on www.spoongig.sevendaysin.co.uk 

The weather is rather good for a Sunday so that means I should be able to his my steps target.

I'm two thirds of the way through "Everville" and I would have remembered reading this excellent books , so it's only taken me ten years but I'm on it now , and soon will be deciding what to read next. Though a lot of reminds me of certain parts of "Preacher".

I've completed "Vikings" and "Lucifer" so far , but enjoying "The Umbrella Academy" though there seem to be a lot of ideas lifted for other iconic films and series such as "Preacher" and "Pulp Fiction" and enjoying the mind bending complexity of "Altered Carbon".

Music wise I've gone for "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" by Big Daddy Wilson , although there are numerous more well known renditions available.

Wednesday 21 June 2017

Summer Solstice Discoveries, Rembetika and Surf Music


Today is the Summer Solstice and looking out the window it's raining and we have heavy thunder. I haven't seen any lightning yet, but that's just a matter of time, although the weather is saying it's going to be a hot and sunny day (in the south).

The radio and Facebook are full of the corpfest that is Glastonbury. I think that the Eavis family have done a great job and deserve their success, but so so many people go to Glastonbury because it's Glastonbury and the music seems irrelevant. They then start complaining if this year's Robbie Williams isn't headlining. It's almost like X-Factor, you know what to expect, and sometimes it may not be to your taste. This Friday Radiohead play the Pyramid Stage, a relic from the very first Glastonbury (in concept), and the BBC are broadcasting lots of acts. I've never been to Glastonbury and doubt I will ever go, but these days there are so many alternatives that I don't feel I am missing out.

Just seen my first lightning  followed by crashing thunder.

The main reason I am writing this post is because I was reading Electric Eden this morning and discovered something about "Misirlou". I'd always assumed it was a Greek folk song picked up by Dick Dale and "surfed up". Most peoples first contact to this piece was on the opening to Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction", Tarantino has a way of unearthing great records for his films, think of "Little Green Bag" by the George Baker Selection, Tarantino's inclusion in "Reservoir Dogs" moved it from Sunday afternoon Radio 2 to cool.


But the western gestation of "Misirlou" predates Dick Dale by some years. A guy called Steve Benbow was stationed in Egypt and taught himself guitar to fill his boring days. One of his favourite tunes was a Greek Rembetika song called "Misirlou" (which apparently means "Egyptian Girl". Rembetika is a particularly harsh Greek folk music form so was suited to Benbow's steel stringed acoustic.  I think Benbow recorded it and it was also recorded by Davy Graham as "Miserlou"(sic).

I couldn't find Benbow's recording but found a celebration concert by Peter Oliver.

Whether Dick Dale picked it up as a Greek folk piece or from Benbow's or Graham's recordings I don't know, but if you've read this you now know about it.

SP if you are going out north of Watford take your umbrella and waterproof gear or you may get quite wet. I'm not sure if I will hit my 11K steps today but I did make 15.5K yesterday and am 30K ahead of target.

Have a great day everyone.