Darkness - #Oktoberfest #18 - Streams Of Whiskey - The Pogues

I know we're into Autumn because it's very dark when I wake, which does make more likely that I want to actually stay warm in bed. Why is it when you go to bed you often can't sleep (I always drop off within fifteen minutes, though that's sleeping too close to the edge of the bed) and I don't have a problem sleeping, but darkness does make it so much easier to sleep, shut your eyes and drift off to realms of Morpheus.

So #Oktoberfest continues and amazingly it's taken eighteen posts to introduce the first Pogues song , the excellent "Streams of Whiskey" from the "Red Roses For You" album, and is like almost Pogues songs, as soon as you hear it it moves either your body or soul or both. I found a libe take from Japan in 1988, and it's always great to see a band play their songs live, and while it may not always be a perfect mirror image  of the studio version (hopefully not) it always should add to the song. I think audiences can bring out the humanity of the band and it becomes a symbiotic process , yu need it all to get the best experience.

So the darkness is dispersing this Wednesday morning and it is time to leave for work (again).

Dis Pepsi Max - #Oktoberfest #17 - Drink It Up - Negativland

Yesterday I decided I had a motherlode for #Oktoberfest in the songs of Tom Waits, which is obviously true enough, but I don't think I've touched The Pogues, The Dubliners , Thin Lizzy and many others and I saw an ad for Coca Cola and this reminded me of one of my favourite albums ever "DisPepsi" by Negativland and fantastic discontruction of advertising and the Pepsi / Coke war. It is a bit difficult to track down now but it is available at the time of posting on Youtube here. An absolutely essential listen.

It's chock full of subversive tunes that are probably more relevant today that when it came out around 1990, still often played by me and I am listening to it as I type this, "Happy Hero" is so pertinent to Trump, Johnson and Michael Jackson.

The song I've chosen is "Drink It Up" which mainly refers to Pepsi but lists lots of other promoted beverages, but the whole album is an essential listen but I have never heard it on the radio on any station.

So what else?

The blog has hit 20K visits for this month and we are just approaching half way so it would seem it's very popular (with robots). I'm even getting the odd comment (though mostly advertising links) which I may or may not remove.

I have finished "The God Delusion" and is has hardened my attitude to religion significantly but it's time for another book now. I would still accept God if that God turned up and demonstrated that was actually what he was.

Time for Tea.

#AprilSongs #9 Tuesday Morning

I'm still waiting for my roof to be sorted, and need to have a shower before work, but after last week's "Tuesday Afternoon" by The Moody Blues we will go with "Tuesday Morning by The Pogues.

I don't know if you know that the Pogues take their name from the phrase "póg mo thóin" which is apparently Irish for "KIss My Arse" but at the time no one was sure if "Pogues was Kisses or Arses and "Pogue Mahone" was the seventh album by the band (wiki entry here) , but the Oxford English Dictionary lists Pogue as "Kiss" here.

"Tuesday Morning" is up there with The Pogues best and if you have never heard it take a couple of minutes not and enjoy it. There is so much music we never even hear, often by our favourite artists, and often we concentrate on two or three albums, and this is a discovery for me thanks to me doing the #AprilSongs sequence.

This proves that it's good to set up the tiniest of projects to force yourself to do things, and the main reason for doing this is that I want to hit two thousand posts on Seven Days In (Not Seven Day Sin as some people have pointed out) and I wasn't really posting enough this year, and April should put me ahead of the curve. I've also been nominated for #TenAlbumsInTenDays and am posting those as well, plus my appearance on The Chain, so there is every possibility that I may hit fifty posts this month, unlikely but you never know.

Christmas Day Too

Well it has been quiet and relaxing. Have exchanged messages and phone calls with friends ad family and done not very much at all, but it is Christmas Day. I've managed to avoid the cheesy Christmas Songs but heard an awful insipid instrumental take on The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" on Classic FM. Classical music does not need to be insipid and soulless but Classic FM like local radio seem to usually go for the blandest fare (or should that be "fayre") they can find.

Look at the take on Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" in the last post, how good it that? And lets face it the list of Classical Music both from the past and contemporary is vast. I remember my secondary school music teacher managed to put me off Classical music because he would just stick an LP on and we had to listen to it for forty minutes. It wasn't built up, or explained, it was just there, and to a teenager, it was not cool.

So I leave you with "Troika" by Prokofiev from his "Lt Kije" suite which provided the motif for Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas". The suite also provide the motif for Sting's "Russians" too ("Romance"), so there is a lot og great music out there to listen to without resorting to sanitised blandness.

I hope you Christmas Day is progressing wonderfully.

How To Start Christmas Day

As a kid Christmas Day started for us at 1 minute past midnight on Christmas Eve, by that time Santa had left some small presents at the bottom of our bed, though we couldn't go down until much later, like when it was light but there were things to eat and play with and by that time mum and dad had gone to bed and didn't complain about us having lights on at night.

I remember when I was living in Southport (and working at Littlewoods in Liverpool) the train line ran back and forth from Southport to Liverpool Central Station. My friend Jim had been out for a few drinks and left for home at 2 pm as they had visitors coming at 5 (it was a half hour journey). He fell asleep. ..... When he woke he was disorientated and then realised he was back in Central Station, so thought he would just just wait for the train to head back to Southport. He waited, and waited, and waited and then a uniformed train   person came down the carriage and Jim asked what time the train was leaving. The guy looked surprised and said "It isn't mate, the trains stopped running half an hour ago" . Jim looked at his watch, it was 11:30pm , he was twenty miles from home on Christmas Eve, five and half hours late for his guest, and this was way way before mobil phones. I never found out what the aftermath was..

Roll forward a bit further and Juliet and Kirsty have graduated from Duplo to Lego and I have been out for Christmas drinks so am not exactly the mot coherent and focussed and then remember I have two Lego Constructions to put together one was definitely a castle and the other maybe a Space Station. This was a very daunting task, but I did manage to complete it, but the lesson was don't drink and do Lego.

Today as I am so old I tend to wake up at odd times and today was no exception, but I thought well I can do a blog post and then go back to bed, there's no pressure , and the obly thing I need to do is check on my neighbour's fish. It's dtill dark and windy out (as it should be at 5:30 am on Christmas Morning) and there are no signs of a White Christmas (although it did rain a bit yesterday evening).

So these are a few tales of how Christmas has been for me previously, and I hope your Christmas turns out to be absolutely perfect.

My #SuddenlyItsChristmas moment is going to be the greatest Christmas song of all time "A Fairy Tale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, despite the latest outrage about the lyrics (see here), it's about two flawed people who are maybe not the Christmas paragons of virtue you might expect. I would never use those words as insults and sure all MY gay friends love the song , sing ALL the words and don't take offence because it's a self contained story, and to be quite honest it's probably nothing more than a convenient rhyme in the song (and often poetry does rhyme)

Anyway have a brilliant day

It Was Christmas Eve, Babe

It's Christmas Eve and over the past month we've been subjected to some particularly atrocious "festive music" . Last Saturday there were two members of a what I believe are Romanian Busking band on Northumberland Street , a double bass and accordion player , playing a particularly excellent piece which I then realised was "Jingle Bells" , I do hope I see them again , then I can record them. The euphoria was soon dissipated by walking into Marks and Spencers where a Michael Buble-a-like was murdering the very same piece of music.

There are stand outs of course , Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" , Slade's "Merry Christmas Everyone" , Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield's Prokofiev's "Troika" lifting "I Believe In Father Christmas", The Pogues "Fairytale of New York"  and Jethro Tull's "Ring Out Solstice Bells" and "Christmas Song" , so you can have great Christmas music , but you can bet you will only here these every now and then.

Celebrate

Anyway this is the time to embrace friends , family , neighbours and socialise and hug and kiss and enjoy the time but be compassionate for those less fortunate than yourself .

And you what , wouldn't it be great if that didn't stop and the main aim in our lives was to be happy and looking out for others and working to build a compassionate society instead of thinking about paying bills and winning the lottery and just looking out for ourselves.




So today , buy a sandwich and a drink for a homeless person if you see one, do some random act of kindness and make sure you hug and kiss as many friends and loved ones who actually want it.

Remember Christmas Spirit should not be what you drink.

Have a brilliant one my friends

First Monday In December

And I'm going to get the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl out of the the way for today's seasonal song. Just because things are popular doesn't make them bad. You can also get the video on iTunes here.

Today is the first Monday in December, the weather is still mild and no doubt corporations will be trying to get us to spend lots more money over the coming weeks to buy stuff we don't need.

I will not be spending money I don't need to, I will be enjoying myself with friends. I have a choice of six gigs I can go and see this week. I may not see any, but I do have that choice and the half price black friday television never even came on my radar. You should only buy things when you need them or they have something that can positively enhance your life.

So have a brilliant day, a brilliant week , It's time for work. Oh I haven't mentioned the "C" word!!