Chain Tarot

Today was my second appearance on Radcliffe and Maconie's "The Chain" and you can hear my low key conversation with the lads about 136 minutes in to this show for that next month or so, The link was very simple so I didn't really expect it to be taken up but I went from "Book of Love" by Magnetic Fields to Magnetic Fields Pt 2 by Jean Michel Jarre who has surprisingly only appeared on The Chain once until now. My friend Graham heard me and reckoned Elvis Costello and The Attractions could be a good link, he has a week to get his email off to them.

Probably my favourite Christmas present was the Dali Tarot set and was wondering, given that I have about six tarot decks whether I should try to use them. I do love the art work on the deck but basically reading Tarot is done differently for everyone and is based on intuition and interpretation, so you may draw the hanged man but that can be taken as an end, a beginning, a change , lots of interpretations.

It is similar to the I-Ching but I suppose you could take any set of random object to prompt you to interpret what you actually see, Like many things people look for answers, but really the only answers can come from you, and things will only happen if you take actions to make them happen, things seldom drop into your lap unexpectedly (though I once found £20 on the street, obviously I couldn't return it so I kept it) but when I was last in Settle we found a wallet which I took to the Police station and they knew who's it was from a photograph in the wallet.

So I may use the Tarot and it may point me in a direction, but I will always have the benefit of some amazing artwork in my hands.

Strange Days

I started this blog in 2007, so this in my thirteenth year of blogging. That year I posted six times. This is my tenth post this year and it's the eleventh of January, so despite the fact I said I was going to be more relaxed about my posting I am almost averaging one a day, though it does help if you have something to stimulate your writing.

Also as I have said, some of my blog posts were single line items, barely worthy of a post it note. I think my posts are now a little more involved and hopefully better quality, though that is determined by people who read it, although I still only have five followers, and a few people who comment on facebook although that last two months have had over 50K page views , but again only ten comments over the last thirteen years. I have deleted spam advertising comments but that points to a hell of a lot of robots or skimmers.

I was surprised to find that from my last post my friend Robin has a signed copy of the John Densmore book "Riders on the Storm" and shared the Guardian article by him with me and my eldest daughter is a fan of the album "LA Woman" which I really didn't know at all. It is great to discover good things about family and friends through unexpected interaction. Facebook is useful at time.

So I am half way through "Riders on the Storm" and it's still interesting and more than readable and they have just finished recording the album "Strange Days" which was the first Doors album I bought. I was surprised to find that the eleven minute "When The Musics Over" was recorded without Jim Morrison and the vocals were added afterwards, although they had played it many times live. "People Are Strange"  is a doors song that everyone knows probably from the Echo and the Bunnymen cover from "The Lost Boys" but we will go with the title track from the album.

I'd also never realised that the front and back cover of the album were two halves of the same photograph.

Strange Days Indeed ......

Riders .....

The John Densmore book "Riders on the Storm" is not living up to it's dark first chapter but is still an engaging and interesting read.and is endorsed as "The Real Thing" by Robby Krieger The Doors' guitarist on the back cover.

Jim Morrison could sing and come up with some pretentious but excellent lyrics but as a person could be an absolute arse, but as a band they produced some great music.

Really the most important member of the band is the drummer, they can make or break the sound, they hold the performance together. In our first gig with The Bok we used a pick up drummer. Two songs in we told him to stop because he was ruining the songs. I saw a band supporting the Buzzcocks at Newcastle University, can't remember who it was, but their set was ruined by a bad drummer.

In my opinion The Doors produced four albums worth having , their debut, "Strange Days" (the first of their albums that I bought), "Absolutely Live (my favourite) and "LA Woman" (in my opinion their swansong). There were odd songs from other albums that I liked, particularly  "Five To One", and "LA Woman" has two stand outs, the title song which was seven minutes , one and a half chords, a memorable descending riff , though I suppose  "The End" is twelve minutes based on a couple of notes, eastern style improvisation and stream of consciousness. Then there's the sublime "Riders on the Storm"  deceptively laid back and menacing.

So really that's my opinion of The Doors' music and albums but have another two hundred pages of the book to go, so I'm wondering if I will discover any more interesting facts.

It's a freezing Friday morning, so have a great day, and we'll go with "Riders on the Storm".

.....on the Storm

The rain is gently hitting the window pane and it's dark outside , although the back neighbour's security light  which is on permanently and has been for over a year (must cost a fortune) , and was wondering what book to read after "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young.

Another which was destined to go straight to a charity shop without me reading it. This would have been ironic as it has an Oxfam sticker on the back which means I probably bought it from Oxfam when I was working there pricing music after I left EE, so that is like five years back. The book is "Riders on the Storm:My Life With Jim Morrison and The Doors" by John Densmore the drummer with the Doors.

Like the Neil Young book I am very apprehensive about this and it starts almost like a modern gothic horror story, but more than readable. Now I lump Jim Morrison with Shaun Ryder and Morrissey , partially responsible for some amazing music (and some rubbish) sometimes great on stage but you wouldn't want to socialise with them for any length of time. Also Jim Morrison's lyrics were often incredibly pretentious , but pretentiousness can sometimes result in great music if you don't take it seriously (think "The End" and "Horse Latitudes") .

Anyway the book has now morphed into Densmore's early life and how he learned the piano and the the drums (separately in marching bands)  and is rolling along nicely.

No doubt I will report more as I go along and it means I get to share some Doors with you. They took their name from a William Blake line:

"There is the Known

And The Unknown

And In Between

Are The Doors of Perception"

So I'll go with "The End" as it is probably my favourite Doors song.

No Parlez

This is the second post about albums where the CD was an extended version of the vinyl artefact. Prior to his solo career Paul Young hand been in excellent voice as the lead singer of the Q-Tips and possibly with the awful Streetband and their awful single "Toast".

"No Parlez" contained some decent covers such as "Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home". "Love Will Tear Use Apart" and "Love of the Common People" , but the stand out for me was the cover of Anthony Moore's "No Parlez" , and I have featured a few Anthony Moore songs on this blog , check here, Anthony Morre collaborated with Peter Blegvad in Slapp Happy as well as Henry Cow so off the commercial spectrum but still managed some great singles.

Then I though of the phrase "No Parlez" and thought although we are more connected than ever, there was a couple on the train up to Edinburgh who spent most of their time texting on their phones rather than speaking to each other, and this is something you see more often than not, people preferring the company of their device rather than the company of real people. Sometimes I am guilty of this too though I will excuse it by saying I am looking up something or trying to find something out.

Still my preference is for face to face conversation and today I received the first video message on my phone from my 83 year old dad, being cajoled by his girlfriend's daughter to reply to a video that I sent her. Technology is great at times but it should be used judiciously.

So Far Away

When we got hit by CD I noticed something about two particular albums "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits  and "No Parlez" by Paul Young. I'll talk about the latter in my next post, but the CD versions of these albums were longer than the vinyl versions, taking advantage of the fact that due to compression and dropping of frequencies you can fit up to eighty minutes of music on to a CD (though I believe a Mission of Burma one actually exceeded that).

Basically the songs were just longer than the vinyl release, the ideal length for a vinyl album is about 18 minutes a side, and making it louder shortens that, the early Led Zeppelin albums have virtually no run out as Jimmy Page wanted the maximum effect from his production. Again Todd Rundgren brought out a sixty nine minute vinyl album "Initiation" which came with a warning to use a new needle each time you played it (that may be an urban legend but you get the point).

Anyway "Brothers In Arms" while a decent album , I only liked every other song on it and particularly the opener and closer. I first heard Dire Straits playing the excellent "Sultans of Swing" laid back but with stunning guitar work from Mark Knopfler.

The opener is "So Far Away" and got me thinking, thirty years ago , everyone I knew was on this island apart from a couple of relations who had departed for the antipodes. When I went to Mexico around the millenium someone told me that a bus from the Texas border to Mexico City took 24 hours. Mexico is BIG , but our maps show it as this little isthmus joining North and South America. Someone also mentioned about flying across Australia taking seven hours to fly! In Britain I don't like travelling by train for more that three hours (though some journeys are far more pleasant than others).

Now thanks to social media and the internet I am in contact with with people around the globe (remember messaging a friend to see if he wanted to come to a gig, he replied he had moved back to India) and the main problem is the time differential, but it does bring us much closer together in a way we couldn't imagine even in the nineties.

So another day , and another walk towards work.

Sweet Pea

Day one back at work passed without incident, although still have a cold and feel weak but that's it. I had intended to finish at four but due to our new rubbish IT set up and a sheet to check 250 statements took twenty minutes to open, pre upgrade it was instant.

Anyway the reason I wanted to post this is to share the song "Sweet Pea" by Tommy Roe , which I discovered as the "B" side of "Sheila". "Sweet Pea" was also the name of Olive Oyl and Popeye's baby (also known as Sweepie) which then made we think were Popeye and Olive Oyl married? But that's a complete aside.

I think "Sweet Pea" was also covered by Manfred Mann , but also got me thinking how the vinyl single used to be the main selling item, the thing to have, and you you at least got a "B" side and sometimes two or three songs on the "B" side. However lots of people bought singles and never listened to the "B side. I remember my mum bought "Brown Girl In The Ring" by Boney M which when it started dropping down the charts the record company flipped (the "B" side was "Rivers of Babylon") and my mum bought another copy because she seldom listened to "B" sides .... she wasn't the only one.

It seems now we've gone through albums and the youth of today are now just streaming single songs and sometimes not even whole songs, their impatience makes them skip to the next one after twenty seconds of whatever they are hearing. Digital music makes things instantly available but also instantly disposable as it's always available 24/7 .

Anyway I finished "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young in less than a week, and it is very readable although finishes with a final forty page chapter full of hope and despair , hope that we can save the world by using renewables , but governments are in the pockets of corporations who see fossil fuels as a quick buck and electorates believe the lies rather than look for facts. This book is well worth reading.

So another day starts........