Showing posts with label Tyneside Bar and Cafe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tyneside Bar and Cafe. Show all posts

Friday 9 February 2018

Are You Experienced?


This is the post I was going to write on Wednesday night. A week or so ago, for the first time I listened to "Electric Ladyland" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience for the first time as rambled on here.

Axis
On Monday afternoon I was in the tyeside Bar and Cafe and notice a young student guy (rough estimat 14-17) , with vinyl from HMV.  I wondered what it was fearing it my be the new Ed Sheeran or Sam Smith, but when he pulled it out it was "Axis:Bold As Love" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. I wanted to congratulate him on his choice of music but thought better of it as it might be for an elderly relative and he might have been an Ed Sheeran or X-Factor fan. The cover of Axis is so striking with it's band as part of an Asian God image.




This then prompted me to revisit "Are You Experienced" and "Axis: Bold As Love" to listen to on my walks. The first album is better but my copy is augmented with singles and "B" sides but I just regard that as desserts after the banquet, as it contains a lot of classics. My friend Harry Clark reckoned that "Third Stone From The Sun" ripped off the "Coronation Street" theme, though Cozy Powell ripped off the Hendrix riff for his hit single "Dance With The Devil". "May This Be Love" is a total beauty with some brilliant speaker panning by the guitar and drums, and the album opens with "Foxy Lady". "Red House" is great blues and is sort of echoed by "House Burning Down" from "Electric Ladyland"

"Axis:Bold As Love" is not as good but still a wonderful album with the amazing anti-establishment anthem "If 6 Was 9" which was used in the film "Easy Rider", "Castles Made Of Sand" and "Little Wing" are two more nailed on classics, and basically if you don't have all the albums I've mentioned in your collection in one form or another , you need to rectify this immediately.

Hendrix studio recordings aren't readily available on Youtube but there are many covers so I've chosen The Pretenders take on "May This Be Love" from their 1990 album "Packed". It's Friday, it's raining , have a great day.

Sunday 7 January 2018

Straws


It's 9:30 on this Sunday night and iTunes is still importing my music collection. It started at around ten am this morning. I don't know how far through it because I can't query it without stopping he import. Also as it imports it starts randomly playing songs from album playlists, it never plays a complete song and the songs it plays are random and unless I stop the import not of the buttoms work. Typical Apple rubbish programming. I'm just hoping iTunes will work when it has imported all the songs.

Anyway today we went for a nice brunch at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe and were treated to "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" (now a thirty year old Steven Spielberg classic) . While at the bar we got talking about the plastic straws that were in my mang smoothie and I asked about if it would be more eco friendly to use paper straws. They said they were often not actively providing staraws but leaving them in a cup on the bar so those who wanted them could take them. One guy also pointed out that paper straws are often laminated like paper coffee cups therefore probably can't be recycled. Here's one campaign to make a difference, though there are a few. If you go to a pub or restaurant state you don't want a straw BEFORE they serve you , not after they've brought the drink with a straw in it.

So what should I leave you with at the end of this weekend, I suppose "Think For A Minute" by The Housemartins really instructs us how to approach the problems of addressing small changes to look after our environment.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Back To Work #6 - 1962 - Dave Brubeck Unsquare Dance


Well today it's back to work , feels like autumn / winter . It's dark and rainy and doesn't do much for making you feel good. But I am gonna put on a happy face , find things to do including so holiday ket to treat my co workers and gonna have a great day. It may be a long one and run into my Music Quiz and the Tyneside Bar and Cafe where I may be in a team of 1 !

Back To Work
I've chosen Dave Brubeck's Unsquare Dance , because although I was completely unaware of it at the the time , being that progressive jazz rubbish , this is a piece I have come to love over the years due it's weird seeming timing and being just rather excellent. I found this wonderful version with the LSO so had to share didn't I?

Wednesday 19 August 2015

Woke Up Smiling


I'm in an incredibly good mood  today, I know I'm generally positive anyway but , today feels special. Good things seem to be happening. Last night Preston got a goalless draw with Rotheram , we never beat them but three matches in we've not been beaten. A good friend has signed the paperwork and moving to a bigger better house and last night I saw ny friend Bethany leading the North East Socialist Singers at a rally for Jeremy Corbyn , hopefully the next Labour Party Leader.

Big JC
I was there courtesy of my friend Craig who got me a ticket , and met with my other good friend Gillan who hasn't changed her hair colour since I last saw her at the Chase Park Festival , she was there with her family. I delivered Bethany's very belated birthday present via a NESS member, and it's the first time since I heard her duetting with Jon Lee on "Where The Wild Roses Grow" at The Tyneside Bar and Cafe.

Anyway , it's the first political rally I have attended , and including the people outside the Tyne Theatre there well close on two thousand there. We got lots of rousing call to to arms for Union Leaders , Council Members and Activists to universal applause. The we had Jeremy Corbyn.

What can I say , electrifyng , galvanising , an answer for every question , vey clear , and a commanding presence , no wonder the opposition are running scared. This is no career politician , this is a hard working guy , not afraid to tackle anything and also address the supposedly thorny issues of funding the NHS , helping those who cant help themselves , working for everyone's good, in politics for what he can put in , not what he can get out.

I think my Muse is with me today , and feeling incredibly inspired. I even took some video of NESS for you to enjoy singing a song from 1012 about Suffragettes according to Bethany.

Anyway time to go to work ,and have a good day, I going to have and amazing one.

Having said that the lyrics to this song are remarkably pertinent. Big JC by Steve Gibbons

Wednesday 3 June 2015

Springing Into June on The Coast Road


The last couple of days has seen some of the most mental weather for a long time , blue skies , rainstorms , high winds , hot sun . Yesterday I was sitting in work and one side of the building was in bright sunshine and the other side looked like snow , but was slow falling rain.

Also yesterday was feeling remarkably disoriented and demotivated by the evening , just coming home and going to bed. I haven't a clue why this was. There was a thing at work where I was told I was doing something wrong , when in fact I was just doing something that no one had thought of before and saving a couple of hours of drudgery. The rest of the day was really positive as well, I am loving all aspects of the job and life at the moment , maybe I'm o/ding on happiness , I really REALLY cannot complain.

The Coast Road
This morning I'm looking through the window as I write this at blue skies , white clouds , green trees and bright sunshine and tonight will be going to to see The Coast Road (the band not the tarmac construction). I looked for them on youtube but the main thing that came through in the feed was the beautiful acoustic piece "The Coast Road" by Stuart Ryan. I've never heard of the buy before but this is absolutely amazing. This means I will definitely go to see them tonight at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe and tell them about this.


It's quite amazing how good  things can happen that you don't expect and this is another one for me.

Have a good day.

Monday 23 March 2015

A Complaint Or Two


I tend to keep this blog positive and try not to moan about things. Although one thing I have moaned about is that positive things seem to get little or no coverage , whereas gripes, moans and complaints  seem to capture most of the proletariat. Always wondered about that, I would love to get on the bus and overhear something generally nice or positive that had caught someone's fancy. Having said that , most of my friends are positive and usually have good things to say about things, or tell me about good things that have happened or are happening.

Anyway here are my three life complaints:

iPad
  1. Shrink wrap on CDs, Biscuits and Weetabix. Why are they almost impossible to get into, sometimes damaging the content as you try harder and harder to remove the packaging , sometimes resorting to blades to do so , potentially cutting the CD or it's cover.
  2. Radio and TV Adverts where someone reads the Terms and Conditions but it's speeded up, meaning you can;t really take it in anyway. This is the aural equivalent of the unreadable small print that you have with your mobile phone contract , or Apple or Android apps. I just updated my iPad and there was a 37 page Terms and Conditions document that I was supposed to agree to before I could do those essential updates.
  3. People  who refuse to watch films if the have subtitles or are in black and white

Anyway after saying that the Tyneside Bar and Cafe is showing Amelie as a freebie tonight. It's French and it is one of the greatest feel good films ever. It really is a must see. Watching films like this lifts your spirit , and does talking to great friends , laughing , smiling , enjoying yourself. There is so much good in the world take advantage of it. Have a brilliant day. I'm going to include Eddie Izzard's iTunes Terms and conditions routine and the trailer for Amelie for you to enjoy and to make you smile and laugh.

Thursday 12 March 2015

Grey Days Can Be Good


Today the weather is a bit grey and I have time to myself for a change. So I'm going into Newcastle and maybe visiting the many great places to go such as The Discovery Museum , and maybe take a coffee and cake at The Tyneside Cafe I love being in Newcastle because almost everywhere you want to go is in walking distance. And really on this day I suppose walking is is a bit of a thread going through this post.



Fit Phone


The other thing is that since I got my Samsung Note 4 , I've enjoyed the excellent camera, but there's an app  on it called S-Health which sets you a target of 10,000 steps a day to do. I don't know whether I have OCD but I find myself aiming to hit and surpass the daily target. And because the phone seems to register steps fairly accurately I carry it with me a lot more permanently that when I used to have my previous phone which didn't seem to be as sensitive. I've also tried pedometers which just didn't seem to work, and tried  a gym membership , which if you look at me , you'll realise I got bored with. But this is so easy to integrate with your everyday life.

Anyway I'm going to go into town town and leave you with one of my favourite songs about walking, Fats Domino's "I'm Walking"

Monday 9 February 2015

Brief Encounter at The Tyneside Bar and Cafe where Dali Meets Disney


Today after doing a couple of hours at the excellent Oxfam Books and Music in Jesmond , I got mack into Newcastle and decided to go for a cup of coffee and a cake at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe. I was chatting with the girl behind the bar (who's name I didn't get) and she recommended the carrot and cinnamon cake to go with my coffee and I noticed the film playing. The Tyneside Bar and Cafe has a program of silent film screening every afternoon and a couple of weeks ago I caught some of The Battleship Potemkin. It's really brilliant idea to have these films as a backdrop to be engrossed in as you have your coffee or cake.

Anyway I asked what the film was that was showing and she told me it was a thirties rendition of Faust, she didn't know much of the story of Faust but was determined to find out more having watch most of the film and , like me she was impressed with it. It's a two hour film and you can watch it above. This led to a chat about German Surreal Horror and Salvador Dali's involvement with film and I was racking my brains about a film that I'd seen recently but also seen as a child with some lasting images of strange angular paths and a bearded eyeless monk through a window (yes I remembered that from my childhood). Anyway a girl a the bar called Amy who also works at the Tyneside Cinema and threw in some ideas including Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'Or but more intriguingly mentioned a Salvador Dali and Walt Disney collaboration. This is a short film called Destino started in 1946 and completed in 2003. You can watch it below and to me it is jaw dropping, I have to thank Amy for telling me about this absolute gem:


However I still couldn't  remember the film I'd seen,
That Path
so decided to search while I had my coffee and cake. After about ten minutes I remembered it had featured in a documentary on European Horror films by Mark Gatiss and then googled European Surreal Horror and there it was "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" , which I had discussed at some point with my friend Craig another Tyneside Cinema guy. So I had a really good day , discovering things I didn't even know about thanks to Amy and finally remember THAT film , which I'll use to finish off this post.

Have a great night everybody, because I have had a great day

Thursday 15 January 2015

Battleships, Garage Rock, Physiotherapy and The Weather



It's been an interesting week, not least the atrocious weather we've been having.  Had a guy out to fix the roof, which has still to be sorted, but had to rescue him when his ladder blew down . We decided to postpone the work until things got a little better.

The great thing about this week is although I was planning to relax I have been up at or before seven each day. I've doing lots but the most enjoyable thing is to actually spend time with people who matter to me and to catch up with people who I've not seen much of.

Garage 
So it's been a busy week and I have managed to do quite a bit resulting in job interviews for next week, volunteering to work in an Oxfam Music Shop , catching up with friends at the Tyneside Cinema Cafe as well as taking in some of The Battleship Potemkin, the classic masterpiece silent film from director Sergej Eisenstein from 1925, and committing to some work for events at the cinema as well as possibly performing again, as well as spending time talking about garage rock.






Coincidentally early this week , the guy doing my physiotherapy at the RVI told me his father had worked as a projectionist at the Tyneside Cinema which was called something else then and Tyne Tees had done a film called The Messenger in 1959 (two years after I was born)  about his work. I've not been able to unearth anything further about it but if I do I will update this post.

Anyway it's time for bed, another busy day tomorrow.





Wednesday 15 October 2014

Autumn, Hemp, Nettles and Australian Penetration from Pauline



Autumn is definitely here, the leaves are turning yellow , gold and brown and falling from their trees covering paths and gardens, and it's windy and rainy but we are in the middle of  October. It's dark when I leave for work and dark when I'm getting back and the heating is now on for longer and getting turned up.

There's a couple of upcoming gigs, next week including a warm up one for Pauline Murray at the Tyneside Bar and Cafe before her first tour of Australia. I've seen her twice fronting Penetration recently , check out posts here. so I am looking forward to that. I recently went for an evening of Nic Cave songs so as yet my gigs there have had an Australian connection.

Blood Better
The other thing this week is that I had noticed that my blood sugar was getting high, yes I'd been on holiday , but it was hitting 12 to 20 at it's worst. I couldn't think what had changed , and then realised I'd run out of hemp oil tablets, and at the same time I read that nettle tea was good for reducing blood sugar , so I got myself some and the blood sugar is now back to normal after a couple of days. I'm quite amazed that something can have an actual effect that quickly so I'm going back to see my doctor to discuss it with her.





So an interesting week, and hopefully we can all keep warm and cozy while enjoying the good things in life. Have a great day everybody. Thought I'd include the Philosopher's Song from Monty Python as it always bring a smile to my face and I'm sure it will to yours.