It is estimated there are 7 Billion people alive on earth, I would like to think there is only one of me. Alas if only that were true. I think we are not unique and whilst we are products of our DNA, it does not make me the only one of me. For all my belief that I have something new and unique to say by blogging, I am not unique and my words are not new......they are just the random words mixed up in my head and then re-arranged into sentences posted on to this blog to make it sound like me.
....and so I have finally got to a full house of my A to Z of SoD's...
my initial thought was to go for the Zutons, who put on a great show when I saw them at Thetford Forest a couple of years or so ago.... then I thought....nah.... I'll cheat....... then I thought bugger it.....
this is my blog I can do what I like...
so to end the week I have a double header and yeah yeah yeah's one is a cheat......
But the only why I need concern myself with is which Y to take as my SoD.
Looking at my iPod~cum~iPhone my Y artists are somewhat bereft.....
I did think of going for the Yardbirds for 2 reasons, 1 because Jimmy Page
was in their lineup once, and Jimmy Page was in Led Zepplin. One of my older
brothers is 8 years older than me, so when he was 16 and into music, I as an 8
year, found myself immersed with Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars, stuck on a
Heap with Uriah and then getting a whole lotta love from Jimmy and the
Zeps..... the 2nd reason for the Yardbirds........ because from the same
formative years...... and again thanks to my older brother there was David
Bowies album of cover songs..... Pin Ups...of which one track was Shapes of
things to come, originally by non other than the ....... Yardbirds....
But for today I have not chosen the Yardbirds..... I prefer the Bowie
version...instead I have gone for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs..... a more upto date
track. It sort of reminds me of Camera Obscura in a way...and oh my
word the lead singer Karen Lee Orzolek..... she is just so divine and bed
bouncy the way she dances around the top of the Empire state building at the
end of the song....
Going back to my formative years, the younger brother of a 16 year, to me
the Empire State Building was just a dream like place.....something
unobtainable only to be seen in American Movies. Given my background on a
council estate to go to the Empire State Building was just a pipe dream.....
Roll forward the years...and we had escaped the clutches of Kyle Land and
now I was traveling the world. A life on the ocean waves had been my
gateway...and now firmly employed in the shipping world but land based, there I
was standing on Broadway and only a stones throw away from the Empire State
Building. I went to Times Square at midnight, and couldn't believe just how
busy and active it was....... I didn't visit the Empire State Building..... I
regret that.... I wish I had....
....... I had been thinking that I would have little to choose from, for the X's.... and as much as I would like to say I am/was a fan of X-Ray Spex I am/was not.... although to be fair I see the medical profession are it now seems.... I can see a ready market on eBay for these...as opposed to stupid fooking google glasses....
No, for my choice of X, it was simply a happenstance moment.... a few days back I was driving along in my usual day dream world and I happened to look at the number plate of the car in front.... for some reason this is an act I often do, mostly in a conscious way but always seemingly noting the number plate of the car in front....so on this day, my X offering for today, was staring me right in front of my eyes..... XTC.
XTC have had a bit of history since their formative years, from which I take today's track, but they have reworked some of their material. Perhaps if they were reworking todays SoD they could call it Making plans for Nigella. Now to be fair to the gorgeous Nigella she still has her day in court to come, and who knows the email written by her then caring husband, may well have just been written with malice aforethought.... a stark contrast to the behaviour of his brother Maurice towards his 2nd wife.....
...and what I was doing on the day when I first heard this song......
Today's offering is a joint effort, in order to get my Q list endorsed.....
1981, I was home on leave, a cold autumn/winters day and being a poor Deck officer in training I was working on my crappy car. I was in my dad's garage, in what was then my home by proxy....
With the radio playing this song came on, it stopped me in my tracks..... funny how 32 years later I can remember that moment exactly, I can even see my self looking down at that crappy car in the cold listening to today's SoD except it was my former days SoD....
I may age, my mind may sometimes falter, I might get old and disillusioned but there is still music to turn to....
.... I noticed from my SoD playlist that in the style of QI, I have nearly completed the alphabet.
Conveniently, I am 5 short of a full house.....namely O...... Q ....... and the classic X~Y~Z.....
So that mean's a SoD lexicon week.....
Today's offering is O. I had thought of Roy Orbison, who I think is fab...... blue bayou in David Bowie's man who fell to earth, is sublime in the extreme.... and who cannot but think of Del Boy every time you hear Roy Orbison and KD Lang sing crwying..... almost too painful to laugh....
But as much as I love the big O, it wouldn't work for my SoD play list as it would lodge him in the ever hopeful R's..... so today's offering is Orba Squara..... never heard of them ? well if you remember the first lot of adverts for the iPhone.... then you will have heard Orba Squara. It is in fact mainly 1 man and lots of jingly jangly instruments coupled with his jingly jangly voice.
It can be a bit twee at times but on a cold dark winters Monday it can also lift the spirits.... So I will offer up a medley of Mitch Davis in his Orba Squara guise.....
following on from my suggestion that Lady Chatterley seemed out of place at a Billy Bragg gig....reading a couple of articles since, perhaps I was totally misplaced in questioning why such a posh lady would be at a Billy Bragg convention.....
Reading this article about Billy Bragg in which there is reference to him being described as the Sherpa of heart break, then it's not all about the politics, Billy Bragg has a much wider repertoire... and so for that alone, maybe my post on irony was wrong after all.... how ironic.... posting about irony when maybe it wasn't ironic after all....
So as proof of the wordsmith talents
from the Sherpa of Heartbreak,
here is the song he wrote as a tribute to his dad...
so there I was, stood with a bag of corn in one hand and a Guinness in the other, but alas as no one else had a bag of corn, there was the risk that my visit to the Cambridge Corn Exchange might have been a wasted visit...... were it not for the arrival of Billy Bragg on stage...... so I dumped the corn, drank my Guinness and took to my seat.....
But that was not the irony......
Billy Bragg is known for his left wing politics and his music is deemed a reflection of many of his strongly held views...not just politics I hasten to add.... but I only went to listen, because regardless of his self accepted singing qualities, he bangs out a decent tune....
But you would normally expect his audience to be of similar left wing leanings [ as I say I am leaned to the music not the ideology ] but as I sat there waiting for him to appear, the lady sitting next to me piped up...... Oh I say Rupert, Issac would just love one of these mugs [presumably a BB tour mug], the song... I was a miner between the wars is his favourite....
Not sure of the plum supply status in Cambridge at the moment, but for sure this lady was hiding a couple in her mouth as she spoke.... With names like Rupert and Issac in the family, you just know that left wing politics is not their bag, and I doubt they will be sending christmas cards bearing the hammer and sickle....... To be fair she is probably a delightful and charming lady but that was the irony....as I sat at a Billy Bragg concert, that was not the accent I fully expected to hear..... may be like me, she, Rupert and Issac [by proxy], were there just for the music......
So today I dedicate
the SoD to Issac....
a pity you were not there last night,
you would have loved it
Interestingly Billy Bragg himself faces a suitable paradox of lady chatterly who was sat next to me last night, in that he has come in for some targeted criticism [and I do not say it's right] because as this out spoken socialist, he has found his own wealth and lives a comfortable [financially comfortable] life.
As I say I make no judgement and I am sure he would readily and easily defend him self upon that charge.... he is a very eloquent and articulate advocate, but it must irritate him ever so slightly the paradox he has created from himself.
....listening to the radio in the car, most of the time is banal wittering and serves as back ground noise.... but....
I was listening to a story being told by Sir Ken Robinson, how he found it difficult to listen a particular Leonard Cohen song..... a song about Leonard Cohen's loss of his mother...and also touches on the death of his father when leonard cohen was a young child.....My dad's dad died, when my dad was a young child.
Sir Ken Robinson recounted how he was driving south for a meeting the following day, and then the Leonard Cohen song came on the radio...... it made him think of his own mother...... did he carry on his journey or did he make a 200 mile detour to see his mother ? ..... he wasn't sure what to do....
He made the detour.....he said he had a wonderful meal with his mother....he was glad he did....
...so instead of trying to write something smart and clever....
I will simply offer up a double header SoD
I was going to post.....you don't have to be in the army to fight the war....
if only to illustrate this guys voice does not match his body !
but it appears not on Youtube
But you can download the song free from his website....
.... feeling pretty fed up with life, far too much work to do, against relentless deadlines [most of which are artificially created by my clients].......
thieving bastards everywhere you turn... whether they be money grabbing no-hopers stealing my paid taxes under the auspices of benefits, or motorway services stations stealing my money under the auspices of stay longer than 2 hours and I will shaft you with a £100 fine...... or the building trade who think it entirely appropriate to put their hand in your pocket, do shit work and then fuck off as if it is perfectly normal or just as bad, they waste...ach erm.... steal your time....
I am not normally a big fan of flash mobs and those who stand around them in awe thinking wow this is cool.... but for Deborah Cohen I will make an exception. My mantra these days always seem to be that cancer is shit...... still is, but I will give Deborah her dues, she is finding one way to make it less shit. I won't join the chorus of rebel rousers who gue....go girl ! go girl ! go girl !...... but I will acknowledge that for her, this is her way of dealing with the shit of cancer....
Reading Deborah Cohens caringbridge web page, I like how she encouraged everyone to share her dance at exactly the same time to the same song.
A vicarious dance between strangers. There are no random acts, you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate the breeze from the wind.....mitch albom all over again....the 5 people you meet in heaven.
When my daughter shared Deborah Cohen's flashmob with me, she noted the quote with her own......
"Life
isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about dancing in the
rain." Thank you for showing me a perfect example of someone dancing in
the 'rain'.
And I realised. It doesn't matter whether
we're chewing elephants up bit by bit, hammering walls down on houses,
writing countless essays, selling umpteen salmons or simply dancing in
the rain... at least we're doing it together. And that's what matters.
So whether it's strangers de-shitting cancer, or daughters who understand the power of love.....
...more than enough has been written about the passing of Lou Reed, that I am not sure there is anything wondrous I can say, for which anyone would gue... oh I hadn't thought of that....
But as a fan of Bowie/Iggy/Byrne et al, how could I not be a fan of Lou Reed. In days before MP3's and online ripping of music, we had the wonder of modern science..... the cassette tape....
So in 1980 as a just turned 18 year old, enjoying the sights of Singpore I didn't need to worry about waiting 30 years for digital pirates to rip my music for me..... the locals were doing it with 50p tapes....
All the latest European and USA artists and Albums, and some prior ones too..... and so it was I topped up my collection [yep guilty as charged] and one of those albums..... Lou Reed and Transformer..... from 1972. Not sure if as 9 year old rather than a 18 year old I would have been into the music of Lou Reed, but I sure was in 1980......
and so the storm is over and it's all beautiful nature......
I remember life at sea and some storms left you wondering if the roller coaster would ever stop......
Regardless of the size of vessel, the seas can be unforgiving...... seeing this picture reminded me of many a storm I encountered when at sea.....
but when the thunder and lightning stops, you are left with this view.......
This was the scene over looking the Indian Ocean from the beach in Perth, WA at 5am on the morning of my dad's funeral......
I suppose that is what you call
beautiful nature*....
*[I do confess to only have one album by Finley Quaye..... the album from which this song is taken and it's highly recommended if you like today's SoD... not sure why he's not more of a household name but he has one of those voices, whereby if your brian is being turned to mush by the storms of life...... calm can soon be restored......]
.... For some people F1 may be considered boring, and even some sports fans consider F1 is not a proper sport....but for me, who has always loved sport, watching and participating, and also daydreamed about cars since a young age, admiring a Ford Consul before I could reach the door handle...then F1 cars reach the pinnacle.
Not only do they make a wonderous noise, but an F1 car from any era....... are simply works of art.
During one of my many trips to Essen Techno classica car show, I purchased for a modest price, a signed original photograph of a John Surtees Ferrari.
When I got home, more out of curiosity, I wrote to John Surtees with a copy of the picture, just out of interest like....what a fab bloke. He wrote back within a week, confirmed the signature was his, and despite the photo being taken some 40 years previously he told me all about the car, and even to the fact that the picture was taken in the team garage at Monza. Funny enough john Surtees does not appear in the photograph, but what a top bloke...... the only man to win a world championship on two wheels and fours wheels.... and he was gracious to reply promptly to my letter.....
So as beautiful as John Surtees Ferrari from the 1960's was/is [he said it drove like a pig, and not the one he won the F1 championship a year earlier] for me an F1 car from any era is a work of art.
Regardless of whether you think F1 is boring, I defy anyone to go to a Formula One Grand Prix, and not come home full of the joys of these cars. I was 42 years old before I had my induction to my first F1....... and where else, but the spiritual home of sports cars, the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.
My best mate and I drove through the sunflower drenched fields of France [not literally through the fields] and then through [or more like around] the mountains of Switzerland to arrive in Monza late on a sunny summer/autumn friday afternoon. The 3 days we allowed ourselves for the drive there were fantastic, we admired the view, laughed at the inanity of life and listened to a fantastic sound track. One of those drives you don't want to end....but when it did end what a place to end up at.....on a green field park, across the road from the Monza circuit.
€uro 45 the bloke said in his italianglish..... each ? per night ?.... I asked....no, €uro 45 for 2 people 2 tents [we might be best mates but we do need our private sleep, Morecambe and Wise we are not] and the car, for 3 nights..... a bargain we thought...... after 3 nights we soon realised why it was so cheap. If you can imagine camping on a 24 hour fairground site and then you will know.
So on the night of our arrival, after some hearty beers we settled in for sleep [in our separate tents]. Given this was our first F1, we did not appreciate just how fanatical some F1 fans can be, especially Austrian fans of Juan Pablo Montoya. These Austrians were parked behind our tent[s]. My mate and I had small tents side by side.....
.......and so to Saturday morning...... what in fook's name is that loud noise ripping out my ear drums...... It seems the Austrians had switched on their music full throttle and in effect converted mine and my mates tents into sub-woofers..... clearly these fanatical Austrian start each day with their F1 rally cry, which is now today's SoD.......
So as we were awoken with our ear drums stripped bare, the sun was shinning, we got the bacon sizzling and with the sound track of F1 cars hurtling around Monza, had one of the most fantastic weekends of my life...... as for the Austrians....they may have got me from my slumber in a most un expected way, but whenever I hear this song, I am always minded of that great weekend.
....and as for the race, well on race day the Austrians had lager for breakfast, and as we bumped into them on the way out of the circuit, it seems they had had lager for lunch and tea and had been snacking on it all day as well. Worse still Juan Pablo Montoya had won the race and they were in sparkling form.
So on return to the fair grou....ach erm...camp site, which was now emptying, as we were staying one more night, we lifted our tents and carried them to the other side of the field..... that night we could still hear the Austrians celebrating...... we smiled very loudly......
....from the heat of the blue nile with their downtown lights we go to the cold of snow patrol and the brightness of 100 million suns....
I did once read that Snow Patrols - Chasing Cars was the most played sound track in movies/tv/adverts, not sure if that is correct but it certainly put Snow Patrol on the map.
Snow Patrol hit my radar with a late night niche TV program Nylon ~ New York/London. The usual rules.... you hear a song and wonder wow... but Nylon was before the days of Shazam....but after a little bit of research and low and behold I was hooked.
And so for my 46th birthday I was given a copy of 100 Million Suns and the following day 10th January 2009, I slipped the DvD into the car radio and on a long drive home after a fab night out...up popped this song.... it is in fact 3 songs wrapped into one....
Petula Clarks downtown gives me the link for song number 2, in other words any excuse to listen to the Blue Nile.....
This came from their second album, Hats... it took at least 5 years to wait for this album to appear, after A walk across the roof tops..... but like any Blue Nile/Paul Buchanan album worth waiting a life time for, as they never disappoint.
