Always regarded myself as a knowledgeable Pink Floyd fan so was surpised when my friend Mark Johnson asked me if I had a copy of "Moonhead" by them . I assumed it was a bootleg or something but was a commissioned piece for a 1969 broadcast of Omnibus on the BBC. The piece is reminiscent of stuff like "Set The Contols For The Heart Of The Sun" and "Careful With That Axe Eugene" driven by a descending Roger Waters bass riff.
It is amazing how the net allows us access to so much material we thought was lost forever , or in this case we didnt even know it existed!!
Walked on to an industrial estate the other day and was greeted by the sight on the right. If JG Ballard were still alive this would be the new religion. The cross , totem , centre of worship replaced by the mobile phone mast , which is taller than a lot of church steeples.
Theres even places to sit so its an open air church of sorts , and how many people do you know who dont have a mobile phone? Theres far more mobile phone users than attend any regulare religious ceremony. And their mobile often dictateds their lifestyle.
Itn the early nineties on mobile phone executive was expecting to maybe hit 20% mobile phone ownership. Today the figure is approximately 130%!! The mobile is ubiquitous.
It started out with voice , with text as an , extra which progressed to data and pictures , and now there fiull blown interenet access and most handsets are fully fledged personal computers.
Telecommunications is an industry than is almost universally beneficial , seldom causing any problems , apart from maybe the siting of some of their masts, but it has musch vaster benefits than bad side effects.
Anyway just people watch and see if your can spot the person who doesnt have a mobile phone!!
The LG Chocolate isa fine enough phone , as a phone . It looks cool , slim and black ,but it also has a music player , and here's the rub: It takes 3 minutes to load the music library !!! I only have 4 Gb of music on the phone and it takes three minutes to load. The phone purportedly takes a 32 Gb card . God knows whatthe reponse would be like with that musch storage.
Once the library is loaded , assuming it doesnt decide to close down the music player, songs are arranged in alphabetical order . Chooses an album and they're in alphabetical order, create your own playlist - it automatically sorts them . What happened to the track numbers and album running orders? Who do they think they are ? Apple?
Need less to to same I'm none too happy with this "feature" . The track number is the first MP3 tag , and this software completely ignores them . The point of playlists is to create and number of songs that play in YOUR order , not alphabetical. No doubt they'll have so eBook software that'll automatically arrange the words in the book in alphabetical order for ease of reading. Unbelievable!!!!
It's amazing the way the smart phones have taken off . Apple lead the way with their iPhone but they are being run to the wire with the Google / Android based competitors. There are thousands of apps available , from the ordinary spirit level and compass , to the banal "gaydar" apps , to the useful stuff like banking and share dealing - hell you can even make phone calls on some of them. You can easily customise your phone with ringtones and wallpapers and cases , and the Indianjo site has some great free wallpapers for the iPhone. The site is here:
Sure it wont be long before one has a teleport function.
Since Friday night's fantastic concert , I m quite amazed and the number of songs from the set that keep running through my head . Different ones appear each day , whethere it's "Great Day" or "Daddy Sang Bass" , I'm amazed that these songs are sticking with me.
I knew a few of the songs in other incarnations but the choir sessions have left a lasting impression, due in no small part to the excellent musical education (from the latin educo possibly which means "I Lead") given to us bt Sharon Durant , well supported by the proper choir members in the group.
The image to the left is the choir onstage having a ball with Solomon Burke
Anither great thing that happened is I've recieved emails from other choir members who enjoyed similar experiences to mine. The social contact is well worth the effort.
Will I do it again? Only time will tell , but I tend to keep doing things I enjoy , and this is something I really did enjoy.
Today the "Get Carter" car park in Gateshead was demolished . An eyesore from the day it was built, to house cars that the residents of Gateshead didnt own , so it became a police parking lot for stolen cars - so no change of emphasis there.
Amazingly I took a photo of it last week (see right) , unaware of the impending demolition , thinking how incongrous it looked squatting above the Sage and the Millenium Bridge.
So now the only way to see it is to buy yourself a copy of Get Carter (see below) , the Michael Caine one of course , not the Sylvester Stallone aberation.
This saga would be ideal for an episode of Sesame Street , dominated by the letter "S" , Summertyne , Solomon Burke , Sharon Durant the choir leader, The Sage, and the lovely Sally Kat who organised and also sang in the choir as well as letting me tag along.
The final rehearsal was on Thursday , and again Sharon tooks us through the warm up , and the songs , cueing the four or five parts for each song and getting everyone to sing and sound absolutely heavenly . The members of the choir were extremely professional and able , and unfortunately I didnt get anyones name , but who knows . Luckily I was fairly close to a pleasant bearded chap called Gary who really could sing , so tried to follow what he did.
In the last rehearsal the choirs had organised a presentation of some beautiful flowers for Sharon and Sally for all the amazing effort that had gone into this venture.
Finally we made the stage , no dressing rooms for us , just waiting in the corridor waiting to come on. As always with these events , you practice and work for weeks and as you step out , even as a group of 80-90 strong the nerves still get you , and then suddenly it's over - half an hour goes by in a second. Sharon metaphorically held our hands and guided us through the set from "Daddy Sang Bass" to the closer "Great Day" , each bringing amazing applause from a packed Hall One at the Sage. Here's a tour of Hall One if you've never been there.
Afetr that it was sit back and enjoy the superb "Phantom Limb" and country . soul , blues band with a stunnig lead singer more that ably backed by a bunch of superb musicians. Below is a video from them on Balcony TV.
Then finally , the headliner , Solomon Burke with a band featuring his youngest daughter Candy as band leader - who got here own spot when she sang Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", and his 37th grand daughter (forgot her name) who stunned us with a cracking rendition of Dorothey Moore's "Misty Blue".
Solomon held the crowd in the palm of his hand from start to finish , resplendent in his sparkly suit on his majestic throne , still the true king of "Rock and Soul" . Stand outs for me were "Nashville" and the Atlantic medley , but the growd were jumping , clapping , dancing , problem being after clapping through a number your hands are too sore to applaud!!
Finally the choir were invited on stage to back Solomon on "None of us are Free"and we stayed on to back him on a rock and roll medley includin "Proud Mary" , Lucille" , Tutti Frutti" and a few others.
The concert closed with "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" which ran in to "The Saints".
Some other nice touches to the night is that Solomon gave Sharon the microphone during "None of Us Are Free" and all the girls I went with got a rose from Solomon. One of the greatest nights for a long long time and I wont be forgetting it. If you get the chance go and see this man.
