Today I woke up with a bloodshot sore left eye. If I wear my twenty year old glasses all day get a bad headache , they are fine for a couple of hours, but I was going out to Northallerton for the day. So decided I would have to go with glasses as there was no way a contact lens was going in that left eye.
On the bus going round a corner I heard a noise, as though something had dropped and hit the floor but couldn't see a thing , but noticed the name of a local chip shop as we drove past, looked ahead and thought it looked a bit blurry. I then realised that my glasses had dropped off , and that was the noise I had heard. I looked again and found them under the seat but thought, I wonder if I can get through the dau =y with no glasses or contact lenses.
It turned out I could , and my sore eye feels great , fully recovered. The only slight issues were having to get closer to signs to read them and being more careful crossing the road, but I know what I can do if this happens again.
We'll go with Eric Clapton's take on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight To The Blind" from Ken Russell's film of the Who's "Tommy". Clapton didn't want to finish the take so shaved his beard off. Ken Russell's make up crew restored it in no time.
I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:
I do write quite a lot and when I post something on my blog it does really give me great pleasure when someone reads it and comments on it. People for some reason seldom leave comments on the actual posts, probably because they do require identification.
It would also be nice to be able to monetise my writing but people have to read it and then click and buy through the advertising around it, such as the Amazon music links you can see below in the actual blog post, but I’m not sure whether Google and Facebook steal the click throughs as they would have the technology to do that and would justify it because my blog is sitting on their platform.
Also over the years Amazon have put more and more caveats on sales, such as you get nothing for your own or purchase from people who have a connection to you, so if I buy a present for someone then they buy something through one of my links, I receive nothing. Also, it’s only the first purchase that I actually get anything, so I’ve probably made Jeff Bezos a fortune over the years.
Ten years back I was bringing in a hundred pounds a month from Amazon, HMV and many others, but with the rise of streaming and the demise of online physical music sales plus things like Shazam the end was determined for my Song of The Salesman site although I do maintain it is a very compact format on Facebook
Anyway recently I have seen various platforms that are meant to reward you with reads and contracts. One is Vocal that is on, but does not allow links or personal ads so you will have to visit my actual blog www.sevendaysin.co.uk to see the sort of stuff I recommend in ads. The other is Get Blogged that gives a fixed price for related blog posts but they need to be on specific subjects and I’ve not yet had any feedback.
I’m going to change my blogging method to create the document in Word then paste it into Vocal and my blog and then see how it progresses. It’s going to make it a bit more convoluted but we shall see if it generates any response and interactions.
One of the good things about producing the document using a word processor is that you can keep a constant tab on how many words you have written, which the blogging software does not.
So today has been bright and sunny and this morning I listened to the Lou Reizner production of The Who’s “Tommy” with the London Symphony Orchestra and various guests. I wasn’t impressed with Rod Stewart’s take on “Pinball Wizard” although the arrangement is excellent and Merry Clayton’s take on “The Acid Queen” is wonderful though possibly eclipsed by Tina Turner’s take on the same song in the Ken Russell film. I have listened to all the main versions of “Tommy” that I have on both digital format and on vinyl, and it still holds up in it’s best bits. There are a few awkward instances like Uncle Ernie and the Tommy’s Holiday Camp concept but there are a lot of fine musical sequences which make it an essential listen.
I am going to share Merry Clayton's take on "The Acid Queen" which I talked about above.
So now I want to see what happens when I paste this into my blog. It will probably keep the word font (I’ve used Ariel this time) but hopefully it will still be readable to everyone.
The other thing is because I intend to publish on Vocal my posts will be longer, but hopefully short enough for people to still want to read them.
I am half way through "The Keep" by F Paul Wilson and thoroughly enjoying it, with it's second world war setting , links to vampires and HP Lovecraft with the release of Molasar a possible strigoi or as described in the book moroi . Hence the title of this post, it's an easier read than a lot of my recent ones, but it's always good to keep reading, and this is the first in a series of six books , so that's going to be a bout two thousand pages of The Adversary Cycle
I am so glad that we have Wikipedia to at least point you in the right direction when I can't be bothered to expand on what I am writing.
Today I have been listening to "Tommy" by The Who on vinyl , and it shows how magpie like like I have been with my buying. I didn't even know is was an American Decca release. Also disc one consists of sides one and four and disc two sides two and three , implying it was meant to played on a stack deck like you did with singles. I don't think I've seen any new decks like that although I am sure RPM will have some around. The think is singles have a raised edge around the label to ensure the grooves don't come into contact with each other , whereas albums don't (why would you want to stack albums , twenty minutes of music should be more than enough for you).
So we'll go with a live take of the "Overture" from "Tommy" from 1989 . I have ten takes on "Tommy" including I think five live sets from various live albums and was shocked to see the deluxe version of "Who's Next" going for £1200 on Amazon and the extra disc on that has a live take of "Tommy". The thing is you can put any price on anything, but it's only worth it if someone want to buy , and I don't want to sell although if someone was to chuck me a grand I may be tempted
I had a dream in which a lot happened last night but the only specific thing was me chucking a pint of water over Donald Trump who was sat in a sink. I don't know if it's related to the fact that there are some tea spoons being bleached in a pint glass by the sink down stairs or what, but the dream involved country roads , cottages , buses and the aforementioned incident.
This is my sixtieth post this year , so that is averaging fifteen posts a month , although there is a lot of April to go so I am expecting maybe two hundred posts this year.
This week has seen me listening to a lot of music and realising that I have ten copies of "Tommy" by The Who in one form or another and the Ken Russell film sort of set a blueprint for decent pop videos with Elton John's "Pinball Wizard" and Tina Turner's "Acid Queen".
I have the original , orchestral and film soundtrack but all my live Who CDs have a live take of "Tommy" included , including "Who's Next". So it's gotta be Tina Turner's "Acid Queen" to play out with.
This is post number 1300. It's a gloriously sunny day. I will probably walk into work.
I love the light on the leaves of the trees, and I often try and capture that in photographs, though surely you can only see so many green leaves but every combination is different, it's the same with clouds. The number of times I've thought, that looks amazing, and two minutes later I decide to take a picture and it's gone. Clouds are big things but very volatile, and when you see that combination of cloud and light you need to capture the moment, although it will be there in your memory.
Imagine if you could photograph your memories or imagination, now that would be an amazing thing and I think it's probably not that far away. As I mentioned in my last post we now have the technology to do things on tap. The film Tangerine was filmed on iPhones, I don't know about the editing and stuff, but you could make a movie with your hand held device.
The film Monsters had all the special effects and CGI done on an everyday PC, so YOU can make your own film too. I've just noticed there's a follow up Dark Continent so need to check that out, both Monsters and Tangerine are great films.
We live in an age where we have the ability to do amazing things.
So for some reason "Amazing Journey" from Ken Russell and The Who's "Tommy" came to mind so that's what you get today. It contains some amazing imagery,
Enjoy yourself today , enjoy the sunshine and do something amazing.
The other day I saw an advertisement for a new musical called East End Babylon with the tag line "There are Three ways out of the East End - Football, Boxing and Rock and Roll" , like the East End of London is a bad place to be. Worse still it's the story of the Cockney Rejects - what next JLS , One Direction , Simon Cowell , Patrick Fitxgerald? But a musical ... no way , a film documentary I can live with:
Then I heard there's on about Susan Boyle, again Susan Boyle is a fine singer , but a musical about her life - surely not. Maybe she's had her fifteen minutes of fame , but I hope not.
Then we have Green Day's American Idiot . If I want to see Green Day I want to see Green Day , not a musical based on their songs. We have had the potential abberation of Queen being fronted by an American Idol contestant . That is not the way to honour Mr Bulsara's memory .. and of course the blockbusting Ben Elton scripted horror that is "We Will Rock You".
I don't mind concept album's finding their way on to celluloid , Tommy and Quadrophenia are excellent albums transformed into excellent films - and Tommy was transferred to an all star stage show.
When your heroes end up as musicals they are sanitised fro mass consumption , the danger and outrage is removed like when Biffy Clyro's "Many A Horror" was renamed "When We Collide" for it's X-Factor cover release.
I bet you won't get a musical about the life of Rage Against The Machine!!
