Showing posts with label Alfie Boe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alfie Boe. Show all posts

Thursday 27 August 2020

Not Doing Things - #AnimalAugust #19


I think I've done enough posts fro #AnimalAugust , but while working from home I listened to "Classic Quadrophenia"which features, among others,  Alfie Boe as Jimmy. Then I decided to revisit "My Generation" , the album by The Who and towards the end of that is the excellent instrumental "The Ox" featuring Nicky Hopkins on piano and I thought that would be a perfect addition to the #AnimalAugust sequence.

I hadn't intended to write anything today , but , as I've said before this blog is a diary where I record things of interest to me , and I had forgotten about "The Ox" . It's by no means the only decent track on the album but is a definite stand out as you can hear on the video in this post. It features Keith Moon's manic drum work , showing how important drummers are in rock bands.

The Ox was the nickname of the Who's bass player John Entwistle , one of the finest ever rock bassists.

So this is going to be a very short post because it's juts a marker for "The Ox".


Saturday 11 April 2020

Keep Me In Your Heart


I've been wanting to post this for a while , essentially to share the wonderful Warren Zevon song "Keep Me In Your Heart For A While" which he recorded shortly after he was diagnosed with inoperable pleural mesothelioma (a cancer of the lining of the lung), and it was released just two weeks before his death on September 7, 2003. It is a truly beautiful song and has been covered by many people including Jorge Calderon on the "Enjoy Every Sandwich" tribute album, and a recent cover by Alfie Boe, a classical based singer but impressive taking the lead in the orchestral "Quadrophenia" and fitting right into the alt-folk / country for his take which I discovered below.

I have a lot of close friends who have lost parents , partners and children and if they read this I hope this will warm their hearts. All three takes are beautiful. I lost my mum thirty years ago and due to my (unscientific and non religious beliefs) I have dealt with that, but loss affects everyone in their own way.

I really don't know what else to say on this, it is a great song , by a great artist and no doubt we will see more covers in time , but here is the youtube search if you want to discover more versions of this wonderful song.





Tuesday 17 September 2019

Alarm


Is there anything more disappointingly annoying than waking up warm and in the dark, checking the time to see it's one minute before the alarm is meant to go off, then do you wait, switch it off , get up or what? I waited.

Continuing on "The God Delusion" and the treatment of atheists is absolutely disgusting bry religious zealots and idiots. We are seeing this is the USA today where Christianity has been engineered as a power grabbing money making machine and woe betide anyone who questions it. One example was an atheist who wanted to protest against a faith healer who was telling diabetics to throw away their insulin and cancer sufferers to stop their treatment and pray for a miracle. He contacted the local police department about protection from the faith healer's supporters and was threatened in no uncertain terms by everyone in the police department because he was questioning "god's work".

I keep using a lower case "g" for god because in my sixty one years I have yet to see any evidence of a god, though seen plenty of evidence of the harm caused by religion.

It looks like another cold but bright day today and I was surprised to see that I was up to series five of "Parks and Recreation" so still 55 episodes to go but a lot nearer the end than I thought, and thoroughly enjoying it.

So this weekend Sky Arts are screening a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the film of "Quadrophenia" and to be honest I have never watched it, although I love the album and thought the classical version with Alfie Boe in the was very good. I will be recording all the Sky Arts programs and will get round to watching the film which one of the many unwatched films in my DVD collection.

So we will go for a live take of "The Real Me" the opening song from the the "Quadrophenia" album.

Saturday 20 June 2015

A Little More Positivity Please


... especially from me. My last post was a little whingy , but hopefully it provided a little food for thought. Sometimes things can not seem good , but when you take the time to look at them sometimes they are nowhere near as bad as you thought. I got my payslip and thought it was a bit down , but was due to starting a new job , some jiggery pokery with tax and this month was my first proper months pay , which made me feel much better.

Classic Hmmm
This is just going to be a short post , nowhere near the last one and really I'm generally feeling good , it;s Saturday night , I've watched and enjoyed Game of Thrones and listen to the classical reworking of Quadrophenia featuring Alfie Boe in the lead. Generally listening to it part of me is saying "No No, its like one of them 'Classic Rock'  albums where they gave rock music the Mantovani / James Last  treatment" , but the other part reckons Alfie Boe makes a good fist of it with excellent support from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra , Pete Townshend , Billy Idol and Phil Daniels taking Keith Moon's parts.


And my overall opinion is a thumbs up. So something I was apprehensive about has turned out to be a good experience , though still not up to the original., obviously. My does of current day music was provided by The Wytches.

But anyway , today has been full of good TV , good music , good food and good fun.

Of and last night was in Trillians and bought a round of four drinks for a tenner. Atmosphere was great , Barbara and Dave are doing a great job and it's definitely an object lesson in being positive.

Sleep well my friends.