Showing posts with label Richie Valens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richie Valens. Show all posts

Friday 15 January 2021

How I Found Kraftwerk

Most people see Kraftwerk's music as machine music and came to them via "The Robots" or "Showroom Dummies" or if they think they are really cool "Autobahn" (one of the few non English big hit singles in the UK , the only others I can immediately recall are "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand and "La Bamba" by Richie Valens & Los Lobos and incidentally Lou Diamond Phillips who played Richie Valens in the film "La Bamba" is rather excellent in "Prodigal Son" which also feature a brilliant scenery chewing Michael Sheen).

I came across Kraftwerk on a Vertigo sampler "Suck It And See" , with an almost vicious flute driven piece called "Ruckzuck" and it is still one of my favourite Kraftwerk pieces. Of course that was from their debut album and their sound became progressively less organic and more robotic / mechanical (and that is not a criticism , it is just the way they progressed) , to the point where they replaced themselves with robots on stage.

The reason Kraftwerk came to mind was because "Your Silent Face" by New Order (see last post) was based on "Europe Endless" by Kraftwerk the opener from "Trans Europe Express", which I have included her so you can listen to Kraftwerk where I found them and where they are now.

Wednesday 25 December 2019

Gaudete


Last night I think I shook off the 'flu' , I've lost 9lb but think that this may be muscle wastage rather than losing fat. That may be not too good but means that I am still weak but it has put me in a good position weight wise.

This morning on Classic FM a version of the Christmas Carol came on that sounded like the choir was on speed, and though that "Ah, that's another UK hit single that wasn't in English. The ones I can think of are as follows:

"Gaudete - Steeleye Span"
"La Bamba - Richie Valens / Los Lobos"
"Ça plane pour moi - Plastic Bertrand"
"Autobahn - Kraftwerk"
"Je T'aime,...Moi Non Plus - Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg"

I am sure there are at least two more , which I will add if I remember them, there are others with snippets of non English in them but I am just thinking of the ones with no English lyrics at all.

I will leave you with the Steeleye Span take as I am feeling a little queasy, but at least I have done a Christmas Day post.

Enjoy your Christmas my friends.

Saturday 12 October 2019

Violency - #Oktoberfest #13 - White Lightning - Big Bopper


I was walking past a King Koby Barber Shop called "Brotherhood of Defiance" which had a load of baseball bats hanging on the wall, and I don't think they were there as sports items and I got thinking how we enjoy violence and violent characters in entertainment, but how close does that come to spilling into normal life. We see toys of Negan's Lucille (a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire) and how many guns , knives , machetes and chainsaws especially around Halloween. As a child I had loads of toy weapons and I've not become a murderer so maybe I am just getting a bit unnecessarily perturbed, and I suppose the toy "Lucille" the most worrying because  I wondered if it could be used and it would be very easy to make one. That was still one of the most traumatic scenes in "The Walking Dead" which I have finally decided to call time on.

BB King's guitar was called Lucille but that is a completely different story.

For the #Oktoberfest I am running low on potential drink songs but will go with the excellent Big Bopper cover of George Jones' "White Lightning". The Big Bopper (JP Richardson) was killed with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens when their plane went down in Iowa..

Sunday 25 December 2016

Surely The Grim Reaper's Scythe Must Be Blunt Now


It's Christmas night and another one has gone. It's pointless me naming names, you know who I am talking about.

As we get older we are going to experience more people leaving this mortal coil, but 2016 seems to have been non stop. There isn't much we can do about it , every one still comes as a shock. Some of these people are relatively young too. OK there may have done drugs, alcohol and tobacco but  usually they have a fitness regime that counteracts it.

People will leave us in 2017 but I hope it is not the reaping that 2016 has been. When Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper died they were all under 22 and Eddie Cochran released a song called "Three Stars" not realising that Cochran himself would be soon joining them. I know this is a short post but I will leave the Eddie Cochran song as a tribute.

Goodnight my friends