Monday 2 July 2018

The Fog

This weekend, and this morning, I've been surprised by the amount of sea fret, fog and low flying cloud I've encountered. Coming down on the train at times the train was in thick sea fret and my attempts to take photographs in the earlymorning of the Forth Bridges were affected in the same way.

I know this is just part of summer weather and it will burn off.

Over the weekend I was in a taxi and the guy was playing music from local radio hell, Hall & Oates "Maneater",  probably the worst three minutes on their otherwise excellent "Private Eyes" album (standout songs "Mano A Mano" and "Head Above Water". This was followed by some American AOR mercifully wiped from my memory , then America's "Ventura Highway", even more bland that the one chord, one note of "Horse With No Name". He did eventually redeem himself with a popular Simple Minds song, either "Don't You Forget About Me" or "Alive and Kicking" although these, in my opinion don;t touch "The American" from "Sister Feelings Call" (the companion album to "Sons and Fascination") with one of the most vicious guitar solos that I've heard.

Then there was the instance of the guy on an East Coast Train with a West Coast Advance ticket having to stump up £150. While I think the rail network is a total rip off you really need to go in there knowing what you are doing. I always tend to go for open returns to cover me for most eventualities, though some people become so obsessed with saving money by booking fixed tickets, that they are left high and dry if  any part of the plan fails.

Then I was in the wonderful No. 28 and there was a group of 3 startled by their drinks bill and had to split it. Lesson here is if you are running a tab either now the price of what you are buying or have enough money to pay whatever your cost.

I know this has been very rambling, but it is and excuses to play "The American" , my favourite Simple Minds song.

Hope your Monday has been great.

Sunday 1 July 2018

Reading Out of The Prison


It is very hot (for me) . My phone says 17°C but it feels a lot hotter so I have taken action, but enough of that. On Friday' on the way up to Scotland, I decided I would read Michael Nesmith's "The Prison" novella / Short Story while listening to th eaccompanying album. You should finish the book when the soundtrack finishes.

But doesn't everyone read at different speeds? During reading the ticket inspector needed my tickets and a stopped reading but the music played on.

And guess what, as the final notes of the "Closing Theme" played, I finished the story.

That was a bit of a surprise as I just read at a fairly leisurely pace.

The story is slightly surreal and confirmed what many people had said that Nesmith is a better songwriter and performer than he is an author, but it's brave and , in my opinion, successful attempt. I 've read the book, listened to the music and am still coming to terms with what it was about, but I still have a wonderful album that I can revisit at my leisure.

When I got home Edgar Froese's "Solo" was waiting for me, and this is an example of how the value of music has plummetted. There are six albums spread over four CDs and it cost me a little more than a tenner. That's close on five hours music for the price of a single album. It's a great collection and I would have thought twice about paying twenty pounds for it but at that price I thought it was fine (rightly or wrongly) to inflate my music collection.

I alsmentioned to my friend Maureen about how brilliant Bill Bryson's "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" is and how I bought a lot of copies when it first came out to give to my family and others.

So on this hot first of July what to play, well Stevie Wonder had an album called "Hotter Than July" and from that we'll borrow "Master Blaster (Jammin)".

Hope you can sleep



Friday 29 June 2018

A Prison, A Garden, A Country Singer, A Snow Goose and A Camel


A far longer title that the post itself. Today I will be going up to Scotland and the other night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith and the concept was that you read the book that comes with the album and the album is a soundtrack. The music stands on it's own but on the train up I am going to read this while listening to the album.

The general consensus is that Nesmith is a far better musician thatnauthor but that's a moot point as far as I'm concerned.

He followed the concept of "The Prison" up with "The Garden" which I am going to order after writing this very short piece. I'm not going to analyze or even tell you the story of these because I actually don't know. When I get back and have listened to both and read both books I will follow this up.

This concept was also used by Camel with Paul Gallico's "The Snow Goose" which I know a bit more about because I have done the read / listen thing with this, set in the wild, desolate Essex marshes and is an intense and moving tale about the relationship between a hunchback (Rhayader) and a young girl (Fritha) who nurse an injured bird and Rhayader's involvement in Dunkirk. It is very short and very moving and takes about the forty minutes which can be soundtracked by Camel's album based on the book. A fuller synopsis is available on Wiki here.

The weather is hot, England have been beaten, and the weekend is here so have a great Friday and a great weekend and do try to investigate these albums and books.

However I am not going to choose a song from the albums but another Michael Nesmith song "Some of Shelly's Blues".

Have a great day.

Thursday 28 June 2018

Turn This Crazy Bird Around


I switched on the radio this morning and that line came out of the speakers sung by Joni Mitchell singing "This Flight Tonight" from her album "Blue". I think my first introduction to this song was hearing Nazareth's excellent heavily rocked up version with Manny Charlton's ghostly guitar solo which I bought as a single, but was on their album "Loud'n'Proud".

Soon after Judas Priest did the same to "Diamonds and Rust" penned by Joan Baez on their "Sin After Sin" album although it doesn't have the intensity of the Nazareth cover.

But these are two iconic songwriters covered by two iconic metal bands and it is an excuse to play these songs.

These albums haven't been on my playlist as I have a few more racked up to listen to but last night I listened to "The Prison" by Michael Nesmith which I will dedicate a future post to.

A couple of weeks back I bought some vinyl on albumwas "Electric Warrior" by T. Rex with it's incredibly cool cover, and it came with a download code. Surprisingly I haven't got it on CD, so I decided to download the album and was surprised that it was in WAV rather than MP3 format resulting in significantly larger files but without sound loss. One of te songs was like 24Mb for a two minute song. That is 2.5 times the capacity of my first hard drive computer which I got from my friend Chris Brough. How times change.

Anyway enjoy all this, I'm off to Scotland for the weekend.



Wednesday 27 June 2018

Walk On Gilded Splinters - #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #9


I do find it amazing the amount of music that I have available to me, but I do keep going back to revisit old albums, but because they still sound incredible today. "Gris Gris" by Doctor John was something I missed in my teenage years but once I heard it's hypnotic gumbo voodoo tunery it's an album that has never left me.

I'm also doing  #TenAlbumsInTenDays which gives me another excuse to revisite enjoy and write about this stuff.

Similarly Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica" is another amazing epic piece that I did pick up as a teenager much to the chagrin on many of my Led Zeppelin / Bowie toting friends. This was several steps too far for them, as would have been "Gris Gris".

Rumour has it that Beefheart took the Magic Band into the desert and learned them to play from scratch. The album combines so many musical elements that if you don't approach it with an open mind you will not be able to appreciate the eclectic mix of brass, woodwind, free jazz, sea shanties, blues, garage rock and pure avant-garde. It is truly an experience and again, once you're in there you are truly in. You will never forget or fail to appreciate this masterpiece.

The back to the New Orleans Voodoo of Doctor John, The Night Tripper in full regalia for "Gris Gris". One song "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" has been widely covered by such luminaries as Cher, Marsha Hunt, Paul Weller and Humble Pie but that is just the grand finale of an album of seven amazing and hypnotic songs.

So really that has to be the song I leave you with but check out both these albums and the other versions of the song, you may love them.

Tuesday 26 June 2018

A Wolf In Babylon


God it's hot, but I'm not complaining , it keeps the power bills down and makes walking into work pleasurable. Unfortunately I have to remain fully clothed so as not to frighten any living creature in my vicinity, so I am enjoying mytime at home where I can be on my own and therefore don't have to concentrate too much on my appearance.

After listening to Edgar Froese's "Aqua" I decided to put on "Wolf City" by Amon Duul II complete with it's winged sphinx cover (see here)designed by Falk U-Rogner, the band's keyboard player ,  From the opener "Surrounded By Stars" this album does not have a dud moment. The lyrics my be a little out at times but English is not their primary language and when they sing in german on "Deutsch Nepal" they sound supremely confident. I played it through twice and could have kept going, but I do realise that I can put it on whenever I want.

I then put on it's predecessor, "Carnival In Babylon" and at first I wasn't too taken with it. It's more pastoral in feel and while I think all the songs are in roghly 4/4 time the introduction of tablas and eastern percussion draws you into it. On the second play I was rehooked all the songs just held me and I could just listen to both these albums for a very very long time.

These are just two albums from the excellent Amon Duul back catalog and after "Vive LA Trance" they seemed to lose their way, but hit back remarkably with their last release "Duulirium"

So I've gone for "Deutsch Nepal" with some Ralph Bakshi animation which may be from his "Lord of The Rings", powerful stuff.

Sleep well.


Saturday 23 June 2018

Real Head or Artificial Head?


Been slightly worried as a few nights I've been so tired I've had to go to bed at nine. I'm up at six most mornings, sometimes earlier so that should give me nine hours sleep which should be more than enough, but I was under the impression that the older you got the less sleep you got.

Today I wasn't feeling exactly energetic but for one reason or another I've ended up doing 18K steps, the most this month, which i sjustover six miles. Included in that is mowing my lawn and trimming some of the wild edges of the garden resulting in a full brown bin.

Yesterday I listened to "Aqua" by Edgar Froese with it's artificial head recording and while it sounded fine, I wasn't exactly blown away. The title track consists of running water with some electronic sounds weaving in and out and eventually this becomes hypnotically excellent, great music for walking theough green parks to and just the sort for relaxing your mind. I was impressed enough to order the Edgar Froese "Virgin Years" and stick my copy of "Aqua" on Discogs here.

The thing is there's lots of other songs and pieces that have made better use of stereo options and one of the best is still "May This Be Love" from Jimi Hendrix's debut "Are You Experienced" apparently used in the film "Singles". Stick on your headphones and experience this for your self. YOu dontneed an artificial head for this, a real one will do just fine.

Enjoy my friends.