Showing posts with label John Bindon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Bindon. Show all posts

Tuesday 24 October 2017

Happy Trails ....


Still on the Dylan Jones "David Bowie: A Life" and it seems a lot of the articles are about the (insert your superlative here) sex they had with Bowie, although this is like the red top sensationalism, there is zero expansion. If something is fantastic or amazing you say why it is so. I write about things that catch my eye or imagination , but I don't write "I had a fantastic walk to work" or "I saw an amazing band last night" and leave it at that. The only slight expansion is the Angie Bowie / John Bindon / Pricess Margaret situation where obviously something was afoot in the members club.

One amusing interlude is when Bowie invited Glenn Hughes (then with Deep Purple) up to his room. Basically Bowie kissed Glenn but that was definitely not Glenn's taste.

Then we had the really interesting encounter with Amanda Lear. Bowie had seen her on the cover of Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure" clad in leather and was disappointed with her look when she arrived. But they chatted ad she became aware of holes in his eductation and introduced him to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" . Now that is interesting, as the look of "Metropolis" influenced Bowie possibly directing him towards his Berlin period.

Amanda, Bryan and a Cat


Quicksilver
Yesterday I listened to "Happy Trails" by Quicksilver Messenger Service. When I first saw the cover I couldn't make out whether the guy was riding toward you or away from you. It was years before I finally got the album and realised he was riding toward the artist.

The album basically consists of three extended workouts and two short songs including the throwaway coda of the title track.

Side one is an extended workout of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" which starts out well but loses it's way losing the threat of the original in some saccharin west coast vocalising.






I walk 47 miles of barbed wire
I use a cobra snake for a necktie
I got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide

I got a brand new chimney made on top
Made out of a human skull
Now come on take a walk with me Arlene
And tell me who do you love?

Tombstone hand
And a graveyard mine
Just 22
And I don't mind dying

It's still worth a listen, but is rescued by the introduction of "Mona" another Bo Diddley song which lasts for seven minutes and this one does not let up.  "Calvary" is a psychedelic spaghetti western theme and these three pieces make the album essential listening.

Anyway it's time to get out on the road, so enjoy your Tuesday everybody.





Monday 23 October 2017

Darkness


It's twenty to seven and looking out the the window it is black, it is Monday and I really need to walk to work not having done much walking over the weekend. I have had the Beastie Boys ("Stake Your Rump") and The Stooges ("1969") spun by John Hillcock on 6Music so all is not doom and gloom. I am hoping it won't be as cold and windy as last night.

I was reading about how Lewis Hamilton, despite being the most successful Formula One driver ever is not universally loved.I find this similar to the Andy Murray situation in tennis. Murray is the most successful UK tennis player since Virginia Wade, but when he won Wimbledon the press missed her out of UK successes (she's a woman) and Murray is Scottish so still not as acceptable as Tim Henman. Same with Hamilton, and could I suggest it's partly media racism. Both of them also do things that the UK press hate... they do their job and succeed, which the press find very difficult to denigrate, so when they run out of insults they ignore them.

Personally I find both sports tedious (F1 is going round in circles sounding like a mosquito, and tennis is stop start and goes on for too long like cricket and American Football), but love Murray and Hamilton for their attitude to their sport and the way the treat the gutter press.


The Brexit and Trump victories have also validated open racism and misogyny, which the red top media perpetrates and its subscribers lap up the hate and spread it often defending the rags becuase of the crosswords or sports coverage.

I today found out about Princess Margaret's allegend liaison's with gangster John Bindon, there is a documentary listed here but I suggest you google to find out more as all the links were to gutter press websites.

So what song for this morning, it has to be "Darkness" by Van Der Graaf Generator, as at ten past seven it's still black outside. Try and have a great Monday, it will get lighter .... I hope .