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| Monday, May 12th, 2008 | | 11:13 pm |
The Past is Another County They do things much the same there. A couple of weeks ago in Waterstones on Ludgate Hill looking for the Rough Guide to Andalusia where we didn't go, I spotted this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Re-make-re-model-Michael-Bracewell/dp/0571229859/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210630562&sr=8-1and so I read the relevant chapters. And I must say, if anyone wanted for some reason to know what life was like at Reading University between 1965 and 1968 for those few folk who made some effort*, they'd get a good idea from this book. I was incredibly impressed; all the people I knew and hadn't seen for years sounded just as I'd remembered them. Sadly though, it reinforced my theory, which seems to remain mine alone, which is that nothing of any significance has happened in any Western art form since 1970. * Obviously I don't mean academic effort.. ==== Can't be bothered to make a new post for this, but Sunday arvo the Radio 3 request show played this - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Russo-Street-Music-William/dp/B000060O5D/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1210630853&sr=1-1and it's been a long time since I sat in the car, with the shopping festering and melting, waiting for a piece of music to end. | | Thursday, April 10th, 2008 | | 7:54 pm |
Heart's ease There's a school of thought that says that Cilla Black's version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" is better than Dionne Warwick's because it's more credible. Warwick sounds like someone who knows that it would be no surprise if the love of her life would suddenly just leave. Black sounds like a bellowing schoolgirl caught totally on the hop. Anyway, this from the Jazz list - (caught Shelby Lynne at the State Theater Monday; she got her record company to press vinyl records. yeah. mmm c'mon. When she came out I wasn't sure if she wasn't drunk and hadn't forgotten the words to "Just a Little Lovin'" The longest pause. Then the chorus. Just get the damn record, ok? Even if you don't like Dusty Springfield. Or at least check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuaHN1p8F9E Is that a Thorens?) | | Thursday, January 31st, 2008 | | 7:38 pm |
| | Thursday, November 1st, 2007 | | 11:42 pm |
| | Saturday, October 13th, 2007 | | 11:05 pm |
Everything but the Tail and the Oink We've always been a bit leery about going on long weekends to Eastern Europe. Budapest was great, highly recommended, but our fairly-undemanding dietary demands appeared incompatible with the signature dishes of those former outposts of Stalin's empire. We'd even formulated a shorthand for dismissing these places - "it'll be all pig's knuckle and rancid cabbage". Well, last Thursday we went to hear the London Gypsy Orchestra at this Romanian restaurant in Old Bailey. Proudly on the menu - Pork Knuckle & Beans. We had the fish. The place was packed, very heterogenous collection of folks, very good house wine, and the Gypsy Orchestra was pretty damn good. A few too many inaudible violins, a 23-piece band and the trumpeter couldn't stay in tune, but the vocals were dead good. Highly recommended for less than a tenner entry. I doubt they were on union scale. This weekend I'm on call (fx - cash register) after spending all last week on the first course ever after 6 years in this job - Fund Management for Dummies. So how come I'm still broke? Current Mood:  tiredCurrent Music: Rex on WFMU http://wfmu.org/playlists/FP/0710 | | Saturday, July 21st, 2007 | | 11:47 pm |
Exploitation or Empowerment? Or neither? I'm conflicted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o Someone sent out for Cecil B DeMille, the pillars will be here shortly. Current Mood: bemusedCurrent Music: Rex on WFMU | | Thursday, June 14th, 2007 | | 3:44 pm |
A knee-jerk reaction "Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty"
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,2102583,00.html
From googling "amnesty" to joining online takes 2 minutes. That's what I did, anyway.
Current Mood: NarkedCurrent Music: Daniel O'Donnell & Dana sing the Soeur Sourire songbook | | Saturday, June 9th, 2007 | | 5:40 pm |
It's been a long time.. ..since I saw a black man playing a banjo. There's no real reason for it to be rare; the instrument was invented by black people; it's very useful, like the accordion, for playing outdoors, because it can be bloody loud. But still, apart from perhaps Taj Mahal you don't see it. The bill at the Barbican last Thursday was the Preservation Hall Band and Allen Toussaint. Toussaint opened, which surprised me, played a lot of his hits (I would have liked to have heard Freedom for the Stallion and Wonder Woman and could have done without Southern Nights, but then) and was very profesional in his raconteuring, despite only starting performing live again quite recently. Well worth the £25. After the interval the Preservation Hall band. Very corny to start with - like that twerp Max Collie, making massive claims to authenticity while doing the Ted Lewis schtick - but the piano player was good, throwing Herbie Hancock licks into the hackneyed predictable standards. Then they did the funeral bit, with lengthy explanation about the "mournful out/cheerful in" procedure, and struck up a very slow "Just a closer walk" and Toussaint came out to sit in on piano. It was astonishing how well he fit in; added a sentimentality and simplicity that the other guy wouldn't have been able to fake. Things rather took off from there. The tempo speeded up and they went into a longish medley featuring each player. As well as the jazz favourites (The Saints was writen in 1939, it just sounds very old) they dropped in some Prof Longhair, sung by the banjo guy - Carl Le Blanc his name - and it really did the trick. The horns marched round the theatre, dozens of 40-year-old schoolteachers "danced" behind them, a good time had by all. Life-enhancing and thoroughly recommended. Current Mood: tired | | Thursday, May 24th, 2007 | | 9:53 am |
Camera, Action, Do It Again - As Farce! They're making a fillum about the young Karl Marx. His life from 1830 to 1848. It says so here : http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/24/karl-marx-the-pre-beard-years/#more-5900 This comment is what caught me : - "I think the biggest problem with the film will, indeed, be casting; where, after all, can you find actors with left-wing sympathies who can realistically portray an ambitious young dilettante with pretensions of political grandeur?" | | Sunday, April 15th, 2007 | | 3:44 pm |
| | Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 | | 5:09 pm |
Tribute Bands
Very popular, no? Try to sound like someone else, do their songs, they've done your marketing for you, profit ensues. Sometimes quite a big profit, e.g. Bjorn Again, sometimes less so, but the pubs are full of them.
'Twas ever thus; you could say that the Goodman band playing Fletcher Henderson charts was a Henderson tribute band, and in the early 60s there were things like Ral Donner doing Elvis impersonations.
1961 England was a pale shadow; Cliff Richard was a pale shadow and Dave Sampson was Cliff's pale shadow. Sampson tried to sound like Cliff at his drippiest. Which was plenty drippy. "Sadly" Sampson was on the same record label as Cliff, so he wasn't likely to get the pick of Cliff-suitable material. Short career for Sampson, though he's still alive and playing revival shows now.
Anyways, Sampson had a backing band, the Hunters, and they had their own recording contract, on Philips (or Fontana, anyway the label was blue and the records didn't get played on Luxembourg), they did instrumentals and I bought one, "Teen Scene". Imaginative title, probably a product of the Philips A & R Dept. I thought it was good, almost as good as a Duane Eddy record and way better than anything by the Shadows.
I never realised they'd made an LP. In fact they made 2, now remastered & re-released as a double and downloaded from Yahoo out of curiosity by me.
It's worth what I paid for it, maybe a bit more. The main fault is material, mostly they play covers of current-ish hits, but the execution is really very good. Lots of variation in tone, definitley some real thought went into the use of cheap (well, bloody expensive with 33% purchase tax, but YKWIM) instruments and really good drumming. I was pleasantly surprised & shan't wipe it.
Current Music: I wish | | Friday, March 2nd, 2007 | | 11:49 pm |
| | Friday, February 16th, 2007 | | 8:30 am |
"I'd much rather be with the girls..
...than with boys like you" yodels Donna Lynn.
It's track 49 or so of "One Kiss Can Lead to Another" a 4-CD Rhino masterpiece that's been the soundtrack of my journey to work these last few days.
Utterly brilliant, although there are very few hits on it, and very few songs I know, every song I've played so far has been a gem.
One such is Toni Basil's first record "I'm 28" recorded in 1966 when she was 23. An obscure Graham Gouldman song, it brought me up short this morning when it rhymed "unguent" with "pungent". You don't hear that every day, and either word would be a knockout if you were playing one-word Name That Tune.
Best track so far - Carole King's demo of "Crying in the Rain". | | Monday, February 5th, 2007 | | 3:09 pm |
A world record
Finished the Private Eye crossword for the first time in 40 years. Obviously it's not the same since Tom Driberg died, but still.
And another thing. I see a "senior Downing Street aide" was moaning at the weekend that the police initially said the bribery & corruption investigation would be over by the autumn and then by Xmas and it keeps slipping.
Well, Mr/Ms Downing Street aide, doubtless the investigation would have progressed more quickly had it not been for people like you perverting the course of justice. | | Thursday, January 25th, 2007 | | 11:10 pm |
Bob's moved again his radio shows, that is. Now he's at http://dsp.vscht.cz/pavelka/TTRH/ Then it's Rapidshare.com downloads. Not to be confused with rapidshare.de Current Music: Joey Molland "King of Kings" | | Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 | | 4:21 pm |
Is it just me?
I suppose every LiveJournal posting ever could have that heading. But.
We hear in this "terror trial" that the police had had these guys under constant surveillance for the best part of a year. They followed them to a camp, they bugged their conversations, they had them in their sights all the time. But they still let them make bombs, get on trains and buses with bombs, and it was only luck the bombs didn't explode, killing dozens.
Not reassured.
In other news, a very nice Greek bloke paid cash for the juke box and seemed very happy with it.
Current Music: The tap-tap-tap of work avoidance | | Friday, January 12th, 2007 | | 11:18 pm |
| | Monday, January 8th, 2007 | | 12:43 pm |
| | Monday, December 25th, 2006 | | 1:41 am |
Art, innit? A medium I don't have time for, an environment I feel contempt for, people I instinctively shy from, creating transcendent stuff. It goes on a bit too long, but this is astonishing. http://youtube.com/watch?v=8tYaI7UL_NE Merry Christmas, and that. Current Mood: tired | | Monday, December 4th, 2006 | | 12:21 pm |
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