I'm surprised that I have got this quickly to the final book in "The Adversary Cycle" by F Paul Wilson, but the books are , for me , remarkably good reads. I am still surprised the the cycle is shown as six books as "The Tomb" and "The Touch" are tangentially related in introducing characters Repairman Jack and Alan Bulmer who appear in the finale "Nightworld".
While I remember the overall plots of "The Keep" , "The Tomb" and "Nightworld" a reread is a bit like watching a TV or film prequel , there is no jeopardy , although I liked the way that "Gotham" tackled the Joker in a very unexpected twist..
I have not reread "The Touch" yet though I have started it on my Kindle fire , because I do not have a physical copy.
So into "Nightworld I go, while "The Tomb" feels a bit disconnected from "Reborn" (the real second Adversary Cycle book) , "Reborn" , "Reprisal" and "Nightworld" do flow into each other like a single entity, and I expect "Nightworld" to be as good this time round as the first time round.
In more personal news I am still suffering from a cough and cold , though it may be hay fever. As I write this before work I am listening to the soundtrack of the film "Dazed and Confused" which is packed with classic seventies rock although ironically not the Led Zeppelin song of the same name which you would expect.
It also contains the only song worth having by the abhorrent idiot Ted Nugent "Stranglehold" , which I first heard between bands when I saw The Rolling Stones at the first Knebworth concert in the mid seventies.
So I will share that with you this sunny Friday morning.
I am actually writing , well typing and not dictating, this draft article on my Google Pixel 2XL phone. Dictating gives me too much editing and fixing, but this is the first article I have done completely on the phone and am surprised that it is basically rather good. Not as convenient as a computer keyboard , but more than adequate and very fit for purpose.
While the title obviously refers to Christianity , this concept is prevalent 8n most religions, anything that brings us pleasure is wrong, and the right way is whatever the controlling body says is the way , hence subservience. We see it today when raising money for good causes ,where the very rich and powerful give nothing themselves but tell the "lower castes" to give and donate to help the less fortunate. Helping others is a worthy pursuit but when you think Jeff Bezis and Elon Musk could probably eradicate world poverty and not leave themselves short you see the issue I have. On a lesser scale Gary Barlow has evaded tax yet still partakes in money raising events (it gives him exposure) , but Mr Barlow is not "The Devil's Music" , far from it.
This article is very unresearched and is just coming from what's 8nmy head and my past experiences, so apologies for any glaring errors. It also contains a lot of my opinions and, despite what lots of people get on their high horses about, opinions and ideas mean nothing unless they are logically argued and backed up by facts.
However a lot of what is going down here is not provable , I may say I think song A is the devil's music and song B isn't , that is my opinion and thoughts on the subject and you may disagree and since The Devil is not here to question I have to assume and opine.
One of the earliest associations between modern popular music and the devil is that the blues singer Robert Johnson wet to the crossroads and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for being able to play guitar. Enough to damn him in the eyes of the church.
Lots of popular music from the late 1800s which then became fused and influenced by and with African and swing rhythms would often implicitly and explicitly refer to ess ee ecks , an the "great and good" , were very disapproving of that.
This music often came from "the other side of the tracks" that was usually the black quarter , again you start to see the racist elements in the disapproval and terming of "the devil's music".
During the wars soldiers were given time off for rest and recreation which is the same acronym as rock and roll , an African American label for that old ess ee ecks , and around 1951 DJ Alan Freed appropriated it for a musical style supposedly kicked off by Jackie Brenton's "Rocket 88" which , I believe also featured Ike Turner on guitar .
Crooners like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were also frowned upon in certain circles , though it was ironic that "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets and used as theme to the film "Blackboard Jungle" sparked riots and wrecking of cinemas , but Haley was a middle aged man with a receding hairline leading a white western swing band , hardly the blueprint for the devil's music.
With media such as radio , television and cinema helping spread the word, or the sound , Elvis Presley , The Beatles and The Rolling Stones outraged many just by their existence , but they covered and were influenced by black music which gave a reason for certain organisations to attack them. When John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus that stoked record burnings and protests in the USA , though to burn them they had to buy them.
The Stones "Sympathy For The Devil" was an obvious candidate for the devil's music.
Heavy Metal and it's various exponents took on Satanic overtones exemplified by bands like Black Sabbath , and then genres such as Black Metal and Death Metal.
Religious organisations also decided that playing records backwards revealed Satanic instructions and messages and this was cited when a young man committed suiced and Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution" was cited as the culprit, but you don't need to play that backwards and obviously the young man had other problems.
Also in this case Rob Halford of Judas Priest quite rightly said "If we could influence people using hidden messages , it would be BUY MORE OF OUR RECORDS , not Kill Yourself."
There is so much good music and it is always progressing, it takes in all influences.
If you listen to "Tubular Bells" it is an impressive and beautiful piece of music but was used (without Mike Oldfield's permission) in the film "The Exorcist" so does that make it Satanic? I think not but anyone can put any interpretation on what they hear.
The thing is WE have the best music , because WE take inspiration and create music that can be described as how it affects us and others.
This morning I lost a contact lens trying to put it in my left eye. Usually if I drop them I eventually find it but to today absolutely no sign. Looked round the sink , on the bathroom cabinet and floor, it does amaze me that when you drop something it can go absolutely anywhere.
Given that my right and left are out of sync I decided to ditch the right one as well well and open new ones but was worried that maybe the left one was actually in my eye but had slipped behind it.
That has happened to me once before and I didn't realise until it reappeared on a hospital visit. I tried inserting the left one but it felt that there was already something there, although this was probably psychosomatic caused by by attempts to take out a contact lens that wasn't there..
Decided to go with my glasses then checked my phone and noticed an odd reflection. It turned out the lost contact lens was stuck above my palm at the bottom of my index finger, and there is apparently no name for that bit of the hand, like as Vivian Stanshall said in "Sir Henry At Rawlinson End" - "There ids no name for the back of the knees".
So that's my start to this beautiful Saturday morning when the 2019/20 football season restarts in empty stadia , but it is a good sight to see even if it's just on TV.
Chris Hawkins on 6Music is playing a Rolling Stones cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" . I was one of the backing singers and in the Gospel Choir support when Solomon Burke played The Sage ten years ago, see here .
This weekend will see lawn mowing , Roman Temple visiting and football watching and we need a song to go with that don't we. For some reason Johnny Clarke's "Rockers Time Now" was in my head yesterday, it's an absolutely great song , perfect for today, so we'll go with that.
I'm just writing this to share a great song which I heard on the Warner Brothers Music Show compilation that I bought for 59p on vinyl when it first came out, and to be quite honest every song on it was, and still is, excellent. The song is Montrose's cover of The Rolling Stones' "Connection" and is a universe away from the dreadful "Insania" by Peter Andre that I shared in my last post.
"The God Delusion" is providing a lot of thought provoking entertainment, and it's shots are mainly at organised religion, which mostly has as it's foundation an unquestionable belief in a God with an evidence free existence. Richard Dawkins just listed a few or the reasons given supporting the existence of God with a full list here
It's Friday morning and time for work. I know this is very short but I really couldn't get motivated to write, but also wanted to share the Montrose song and would highly recommend that LP if you can play vinyl. You should be able to pick it up for a fiver.
I don't know whether I expected to do this many posts. I do know I expected to have a book written but the ideas come and go, and I expected to have some recordings out there and a combination of laziness and "not having enough time" , life and things have distracted me from hitting those targets.
My first Millennium Post can be seen by clicking on the link and was about eight and a half years after I started this blog. This one is about four years after the last one so the rate of posting has doubled and again I'm not sure if the quality has improved although the quantity definitely has.
One of things in the last four years I have started walking a million steps every three months on a rolling basis which was inspired by the Diabetes UK One Million Step Challenge which raises money for charity. I just did it to see if I could do it and it has helped me discover a lot of places that I would never have seen if I had not been on foot.
The fact that this has fallen on a Sunday would have some kind of divine significance for some people but lets face it there was a one in seven chance it would happen. At the beginning of the year I wanted to hit two thousand posts by the end of the year, and because I kept posting I realised I could actually hit it this month, so I have done that.
This means I will soon have the number of posts up to our number of Anno Domini years whether that's significant or not.
So nothing momentous to write about, and trying to think of a significant song for this , should we go with Pulp's "Disco 2000" or The Rolling Stones "2000 Light Years From Home" but definitely not Robbie Williams "Millennium" (which I always thought was spelt with one 'n') or "2000 Man" by Kiss , but then I saw on "Their Satanic Majesties Request" the Stones had a song called "2000 Man" so we will go with that, with it's heavy Kinks influences. The video is full of images that appear in "The Illuminatus Trilogy" so it's strange how many things just coincide.
I thought Captain Beefheart had a song called "2000 Man" but I had got it mixed up with "25th Century Quaker" , understandable mistake.
So it's a sunny-ish Sunday have a good one and thank you for reading.
This is post 1977. There can only be one song, can't there. Is this going to be the shortest post I've ever done?
Well not quite because this was my first ever blog post, and it was fairly short maybe about fifty words (I can't be bothered to count but you can do it yourself.
1977 was the year that punk really got underway. but it started way before that. The Bok sent demos to John Peel , Stiff Records and Rabid Records in Manchester. John Peel said we were primitive , Stiff sent a rejection letter , but Rabid wanted us. It was only when Rabid asked which studio we had recorded it that it dawned on us the reason for Peel's reaction. We'd never seen a studio and recorded direct to 2 track cassette. The single was decided, people stopped talking to be because the bassist said we were going to be on Top of The Pops , then Rabid went bust and the band split.
We formed on a Tuesday and played our first gig on the following Saturday, and it that time we managed to write and learn songs for something like a one hour set, including "Waiting For The Man" , "Gloria", "The Passenger" , "Egyptian Reggae" , "Shot By Both Sides" and the demos on the link above.
One of my favourite guitarists was Ollie Halsall who recommended learning with heavy gauge strings and playing with light gauge strings. What this didn't take into account was the fact that in the heat of the gig they went out of tune almost immediately. After a gig one guy said he was impressed with my in song tuning.
Anyway 1977 was the year of The Roxy , any number of punk bands , many still around now, and off course "1977" by The Clash , the "B" side of "White Riot".
"No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones
In 1977"
Absolutely brilliant and The rolling Stones are still going but The Clash aren't , two trully great bands
I'm in the sixties in age and in post numbers. This is post 1967 an in the year 1967 we were getting a lot of great music, albums and singles coming our way. More of that in a minute.
Last night I decided to check my blood but couldn't find my testing meter. I though maybe it had dropped off my desk. I saw my banking PINSentry , tablets , testing strips, testing needle but no meter.. Maybe cleaners had moved it. No sign. I do have a new replacement but I am working through the old testing strips before I move to the new device, then just as I had given up I noticed it on top of my PINSentry and I realised that I had noticed that there was something on top of the PINSentry but it didn't register. A similar incident yesterday was me wondering what had happened to my phone ....... which I was holding in my hand. What am I like?
It the mid sixties music had really started to take off after the initial kick from rock and roll and to be quite honest this blog post could go on for a very long time to properly write about . I remember seeing the Who playing "My Generation" on maybe Top of The Pops and the Byrds doing "Mr Tambourine Man" on Thank Your Lucky Stars , and going to my uncle's friends who put on "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" by Pink Floyd. This was all in the period 1963-1969 and added to this you had The Beach Boys, Beatles , Kinks, Jimi Hendrix , Cream, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, The Doors and a veritable cornucopia of music and acts to choose from. See what I mean.
As I listed the albums below, Amazon told me I had purchased "Blonde on Blonde" in 2006, I don't remember buying it but I do know I have it.
Below are seven albums from the time and we will go for "Good Vibrations" from "Pet Sounds" by The beach Boys for you to enjoy this sunny Friday morning.
This is just a shortish post about an app called "Speechnotes" that I put on my phone (a Google Pixel though I expect to upgrade to a Pixel 3A in the next few months) just to see if it could actually take what I was saying and put it into readable format. This is a first try so it didn't do paragraphs (I don't think) but generally the translation was OK, what I was saying maybe wasn't that good:
This is just a check to see if there's some software actually
works could I have suddenly my words write them down and then before me
wondering about it for writing my blog and things like that to be actually
working in the actually putting most of the word rightly in this in this sir
wondering alright basically it's gonna get a slightly funny but it's trying to
trying to understand what I actually say which a lot of people can't actually
do but that's just the nature of this sort of thing but I'm just wondering
whether I can do this instead of typing.
It's it's so far there's a bit of
repetition and things like that and obviously I keep saying on and things like
that the breaks up my speech sudden it's one of their one of those things you
know no I mean one of the things today that came about her I was going to write
about something then I forgot about it and this will enable me to capture it
assuming that I can talk and people don't think I'm some kind of nutter who just
starts talking in the street like you do sudden see so many people having loud
conversations on the phone in public and you think who does he think he is you
know so that I know everything about what he's actually saying and ways that
should be they should make an attempt to privacy but often there for two
important to deal with that the obviously.
If you're listening to what they're
saying then you're intruding on their privacy which is just get outside just
weird anyway I'm just wonder capture this my blog and then see what actually
happens paragraph.
Alright I was hoping that it would actually but it's put the
word paragraph in just one of those things and today I was in somewhere having
something to eat and they played the very first song that I think I played in
public where I sang and played guitar on which was the Rolling Stones what's
the cover of a Chuck Berry song (Come On) it's got a mouth organ harmonica solo in it and
that bit I played on the guitar but that was as a teenager a long long time ago
but basically it's a three chord. Chuck Berry song one of my favorites and I
will possibly included with this now and we shall see cut this and send it
somewhere.
So that is what it did , a lot of mistakes but there is some sense in it, and that's about 400 words or so. I'm just wondering if it gets better the more you use it so I may try this again and see what comes out and also actually make some corrections. On the one hand it may create more work, but it will mean just actually editing so it's probably going to make me a little more involved in what I am writing.
So I will obviously include The Rolling Stones take on Chuck Berry's "Come On" for you.
It's always good to talk and chat with peopla about non essential things. Today I was in a shop discussing the merits of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" (wheich everyone should have and at least try to read and understand) and Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" which while educating you about mathematics is also a brilliant cliff hanging detective novel.
Then I held the door open for a girl with amazing hair braiding / dreadlocks and mentioned a Facebook post by my friend Kaz which brought a smile to many people's faces., about her encounter with a Jamaican "bruddah", (see image).
The thing is encounters like this definitley make youy day better and it's always good to talk.
In my work environment I encourage lots of social talk and interaction, because that makes it much easier to then talk work when it matters. Social interactions remove inhibitions about whether you can actually speak to people.
I still see a lot of cliquery but often that's induced by familiarity and inhibitions about straying outside your box. Maybe my problem is that I often go way outside the box and end up tripping over my own feet, but more often than not it is a good end result.
Anyway today's music can only be "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk, which is a break from the recent proliferation of Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Rolling Stones.
It's Friday, it's the weekend and it's still sunny. Enjoy everyone
I hadn't really thought about before, but it's only the unusually hot weather that made me think about it. This morning I picked up a copy of The Rolling Stones "Sticky Fingers" with an intact zipper cover, and of course to have to try it out and play the record, don't you? It's The Rolling Stones. I Instagrammed it here. if you want to see.
There's an article about the cover and why it was abandoned here.
The cover was designe d by Andy Warhol and featured some well filled underpants that various people have claimed to be, see here
Then, as the sun came through the window, and started getting really hot, I thought if I left this record out it could end up melting on the turnatable. Possible similar the RCA's Dynaflex in the seventies which just seemed to be a built in warping mechanism for albums and David Bowie was on RCA , how not good was that?
Today I noticed HMV were selling The Rolling Stones "Hot Rocks" for £9.99 but if I bought it, I'd have five pieces of Rolling Stones' vinyl and I don't think I need that. I was also tempted by a green label Warner Brothers copy of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" with it's desk sleeve (though missing the original paper panties that it came dressed in) , I also managed to avoid buying that as well.
So basically keep your vinyl out of the sun or it may become unplayably flexible
Today I had a little free time in the house to myself and decided to listemto some vinyl while catching up on some reading. Today it was still "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman, while listening to "Velvet Underground and Nico" , "Strange Days" by The Doors and "Exile on Main Street" by the Rolling Stones.
Then I realised the "problem"
When walking and listening digitally I can listen to an album, even a double album end to end. When CD came out you could listto 78 minutes of music without interruption. When "Godbluff" by Van Der Graaf Generator was released the NME said that it needed to be heard as a continuous piece and vinyl didn't give you that. At the time you would have had to record it on to a side of a C90 Cassette, but CD changed all that.
And therein lies the problem, a side of a decent sounding vinyl album (33⅓ rpm) will clock in at ten to twenty minutes, so the music, while enjoyable runs out fairly quickly for me. I still like listening to vinyl but if I am reading then usually I up every fifteen to twenty misnutes to change the record.
That's all I wanted to say so I will leave you with "Sweet Black Angel" from "Exile On Mainstreet" which was the "B" Side of the lead single "Tumbling Dice".
Back in the sixties and seventies music was often promoted by giving away vinyl flexidiscs. These were'nt meant to last but were meant to give you a taster of something so you would buy the actual single or album and generate income for the artist and definitely the record company.
The thing is sometimes these flexidiscs contained exclusive music (at the time), I'm thinking Alice Cooper's "Slick Black Limousine" which was promoting "Billion Dollar Babies" and the interludes on the promo for the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street". These were both NME freebies as it was my music mag of choice at the time. Both these were committed to cassette as soon as I got them, but were lost way back. They may be worth something now.
I recently bought a couple of flexidiscsfor Long Play Cafe / Empire Records in The Grainger Market and was surprised that the Adam and The Ants one had no track name on , but is their take on The Village People's "YMCA" called apparently "IMCA". Because the flexidiscs slip you need to put a couple of coins to stop the vinyl slipping. The other was by Hazel O'Connor and you can see the details here. LAter sounds actually started giving away vinyl EPs.
But in the sixties we started getting loss leader compilations. At first I thought these would be very expensive, but they were very cheap and full of amazing music. Again these often contained music you couldn't get anywhere else, I'm thinking "America", Yes' ten minute take on the Siman and Garfunkel song and Led Zeppelin's "Hey,HeyWhat Can I Do" on the "Age of Atlantic" samplers.
The first one that I bought was Island's "Nice Enough To Eat" which introduced me to Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson and many more.
In the disgital age Amazon used to give free downloads but that seems to have stopped but often artists make music available to download for free in exchange for an email address.
I suppose music is still effectively free to listen to on the radio and Youtube, but I do like to have the music and make sure the artist gets something from me.
Well I am looking out at the blue sky and sunshine and think its time to wake the neighbours by mowing my overgrown jungle of a lawn.
Today Fiona and Helen are doing a 26 Mile walk for MacMillan which you can track here and donate here.
It's the seventh day or the seventh month and England are in th elasteight or the World Cup Finals where all the media darlings have been unceremoniously dumped out leaving a wide open competition.
Keeping on the seven theme Preston North End put seven past Bamber Bridge in their first pre season friendly and setting an example for England to follow, hopefully.
The heat is still on and it is showing no signs of abating.
I've been listening to a couple of albums and for a compilation Primal Scream's "Dirty Hits" is both eclectic and impressive and they're a band who have demonstrated they have Rolling Stones style longevity and "Rocks" could actually be a Rolling Stones song coming close to "Rocks Off" from "Exile on Main Street".
Then I revisited Genesis' "Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" which is a remarkably coherent album of a dream of Peter Gabriel's which has the full libretto on the album's sleeve, but you really need the vinyl copy to be able to read it. A remarkable number of songs have a single one note heavy bass line I think produced by bass pedals, and some remarkable keyboard solos on "Riding The Scree" and "In The Cage", and The Slipperman are an incredibly worrying creation. Well worth searching out the video on line or just buying a copy of the album to hear the story of Rael and his brother John who continually screws up the situation.
I've probably written about this before, but was talking with my son-in-law Mark , and daughters Juliet and Kirsty yesterday at an early Father's Day pizza meal at the excellent Dat Bar and Mark and Kirsty were talking about the clarity they got from listening to certain records (the "Blade Runner" soundtrack was an example), hearing things they hadn't noticed before. This is on probably a near perfect set up.
My own set up is a GPO turntable with a Samsung Soundbar with subwoofer which I also use for DVD Audio which also can sound incredible. A particular incredible recording is KirngCrimson's "In The Court of The Crimson King" that sounds incredidle on DVD Audio through a DTS system.
But back to the vinyl premise.andI have witten about it before including a post about the evolution of Music Media here and all of my vinyl posts are here. and there are a few.
When you play something on vinyl you don't tend to skip songs , especially on albums. This is why I preferred singles when I DJ'd as that meant you knew exactly where you were and didn't risk getting the end of an album track or missing the start of another one , although that did happen more than I'd like. This meant I did have a fair collection of rock and roll and also introduced people to a lot of "B" sides and it was remarkable how many pepleonly listened to the "A" sides often missing some absolute corkers, Bowie's "Queen Bitch" and "Holy Holy" spring to mine and The Rolling Stones "Let It Rock" and "Bitch" which backed "Brown Sugar".
These day I buy vinyl for the whole package and was surprised to see that Velvet Underground's eponymous debut had the "Peel Slowly and See" yellow banana skin that was missing from by CD box of the same name.
While enjoying the often excellent artwork and covers, I put an album on and it always plays through to the end. It is also great to enjoy the beautiful picture discs with the mandala effect on Curved Air's "Air Conditioning" or the hypnotic Vertigo Swirl which I am still amazed at. It's like you are about to fall in to a three dimensional time tunnel.
Sometimes these albums contain books and incredible fold outs which often don't translate well into CD (Although I do have some excellent CD packages that are beautifully put together).
However a vinyl album seems lest disposable that digital media and makes you feel you have something. The size also gives designers space to work, and the laser etchings and holograms are more amazing enhancements that couldn't be done on CD and I am still amazed that they have been done on vinyl.
For Father's Day I was given "Exile on Main Street" by The Stones and "Strange Days" by The Doors.
There will be no remote skipping when I listen to these albums and I will enjoy every minute. I thought I would treat you to Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" to show you the Vertigo Swirl.
I've vaguely wondered why February is so short. We have seven 31 day month , four 30 day months and February which has 28 days (29 in Leap Years). Surely we could have five 31 day months and seven 30 day months (February hitting 21 in a Leap Year). I was thinking maybe it's a sort of apology because people tend to be paid earlier in December and then Janauray seems an awfully long month although you don't get the small benefit of the four week February until March. Basically The Romans were to blame (what did they ever do for us?) and originally Februay was the last month of the year, but with various calendrical reorganizations January became the first month of the year (which is odd because the God Janus had a face at the front and back of his head so he could look backwards and forwards so you would expect that to be the first or last month of the year). Anyway here's some links about February:
I recently found some John Niven books I was unaware of "Coma", "Old School:Roman" and "Enfant Terrible". "Old School:Roman" dropped through my letter box and I unwrapped it and looked inside and thought my eyes were not reading properly then realised it was a German edition. I checked the orlder (which had been desptched from Germany and the language is listed as German. C'est La Vie I thought, I'll find the English copy but every copy I found was German. John Niven is Scottish. I checked "Coma" - German. "Enfant Terrible" - French. It turns out these are retitled versions of existing novels, "Coma" is "The Amateurs", "Old School:Roman" is "The Sunshine Cruise Company", "Enfant Terrible" is "Straight White Male". While "Enfant Terrible" is French it has found it;s way into the English language, but why have the German translations got English titles apart from to maybe catch people out. Luckily I have German friends so it can find a good home but if I were German if I saw an English title I wouldn;t expect it to be a German language book.
Anyway the last of the bands that have covered "Happy" by The Rolling Stones and I'm going for Spirit's "Animal Zoo" from "The Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus" and classic album from Spirit in their first incarnation.
Enjoy the first day of February 2018, the last time it will ever happen my friends.
I don't know if it's just age or what, but I often think I see things, then look again and realise it's just a trick of the light, and arrangement of shadows or something else. I remember seeing a program about a guy who had seen a ghost at work and when he looked into it (he was a scientist) he actually replicated and showed that it was some device that caused air oscillations at a certain frequency that caused the "ghost" to appear. A couple of months back I saw this "flying saucer as I walked out of my front door. It was a cloud formation and a couple of seconds later it was gone. However there are a lot of people who would say that this WAS a flying saucer, and I suppose it could have been, but the probability to me is that it was just an unusual cloud formation.
The thing is that we should always question things and demand proof, even if we have to get that proof ourselves. Although we can assume that some things are true because we trust the framework that helps reinforce our belief. I believe that my keyboard and wires are working because I can see the words appearing in front of me on the screen. That reminds me I had dream that I got a computer last night but it had a CRT screen, that just got dredged up from my mind because of the analogy I was using.
So my lost contact lens has not appeared although my left eye is a bit irritated, but is that because I have two contact lenses in there or is it just psychosomatic. I don't know but I will keep you posted.
So next in the artists who have covered The Rolling Stones' "Happy" is Nils Lofgren and wile my favourite Nils Lofgren song might be "No Mercy", I've gone for "Secrets In The Street", cheesy eighties video with a great sequencer intro and outro used as a backdrop to an excellent song with some brilliant guitar lines.
After spending half an hour waiting for Excel to save my workbook, I was not happy when it crashed, said it had recovered my workbook (and the hours work I'd done on it) and restored it to it;s state as it was when I started. Still I just closed down my laptop and will do it all again tomorrow morning except then I am sure it will work. They say a bad workman always blames his tools, well 95% of the time Excel is really useful, but every so often it can really let you down. Really when you thing these programs just move round binary digits and such a clever way you can do some incredibly useful calculations and analysis.
I suppose that it still puts a strain on my tiny mind. Tonight I managed to lose a contact lens. The worry is that's it's still somehwere in my eye. That happened to me once before, so we shall see if it resurfaces at some point.
Anyway I said my next three posts would feature artists's who'd covered the Rolling Stones' "Happy" and the first of those are The Pointer Sisters with their excellent cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Fire".
Right it's time for bed, there will be more tomorrow.
One of the great thing in life is when people say what you are doing is good, that they enjoy it, that it makes things better, and that does give you a lift and makes you want to do more. In a work situation this encourages teamwork and working together. Outdie of work it makes you want to interact more and work with and help others. It can bring your life to another level.
You get the opposite, people looking to find faults, trip people up and cause trouble and mischief, the sort of people who are only satisfied when they and others are miserable. It's not enough to succeed, somebody else must fail.
Part of my job has always been to spot faults and errors and to fix them, the fix rather than blame culture is so much more positive. Also encouraging others gets the best out of them.
Social interation also helps in a work situation because if you talk about non work things, it becomes easier to share ideas and deal with problems.
I wrote this post because someone gave me some encouragement, it was unexpected, but it was appreciated.
Also yesterday I saw someone almost resorting to violence because of a small mistake in a shop, and the person behind the counter was being very helpful but the customer was having none of it and ended up being ejected, it would have taken five minutes to sort his situation but he wanted blood.
Anyway I thought I'd try and find a cover of one of my favourite all time songs "Happy" by The Rolling Stones, and listened to covers by Nils Lofgren, The Pointer Sisters and Spirit but for my mood all fall short of the Stones doing that song. However my next three posts will include songs by each of those bands.
Anyway it's Tuesday, it's still dark but dry so have a brilliant day.
I'm just loading up my phone with a lots of sixties and seventies American music. Although to me they are major players , the only ones you may have heard of are The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Of couse that atter leads off to Paul Kantner and Grace Slick and the wonderful Hot Tuna featuring the amazing guitar of Jorma Kaukonen , who I saw at Knebworth in about '76 when The Rolling Stones headlined , 10CC had a three hour soundcheck, Todd Rundgren's Utopia went over the top with their pyramid and Lynyrd Skynyrd played one of their last gigs before we lost most of them.
I'm also loading up Tom Rapp , Pearls Before Swine and Dave Ackles , all class acts though seriously forgotten these days, but I will be pushing them over the coming weeks as I visit them on my walk to work. I don't think I've name checked so many bands and musicians in a post before, although I probably have.
I leave you with Hot Tuna's excellent cover of Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy" . Enjoy. It's time for bed for me.
We all do things automatically , as a matter of course, like lock the door when we go out , switch off the cooker when we finish cooking , switch off the TV when we've finished watching. I can count on th efingers of one hand (and I am not a mutant) the number of times I have gone back to check I've locked the door, set the alarm or switched the cooker off. I will always go back if I have forgotten keys / bus pass / money but anything else I trust that I have done it. If you are OCD you don't have that option and I feel every sympathy for everyone with the condition.
Last night I woke up needing to go for a wee (one of the effects of diabetes) , and reached for my glasses , which I couldn't find anywhere. I always put them on my bedside table when I go to bed, but last night they had disappeared . Had some Imp absocnded with them? I went for a wee and looked round everywhere I had been last night before bed, no sign. I got into bed wondering if I had left them on when I when to sleep and they were now somewhere in the bed waiting to be mangled as I rolled over them. I was mystified. I couldn't sleep/ This is OCD except 100% of the time about everything. For me it was "Where the heck are my glasses?". I got up again went to my computer and they were next to my keyboard, I was sure I had looked there before, but at 2am with imperfect eyesight I can understand how I missed them. They went on the bedside table and I got another four hours sleep.
Over the last couple of days while walking my listening has been:
Primal Scream - Screamadelica (20th Anniversay Edition): Primal just amaze me in the breadth of musical styles they effortlessly cover, they can be The Rolling Stones, they can do country , they can be gospel , they can be baggy. There are not that many bands who can cover so many styles so easily, and it is all on this album.
Magazine - Maybe It's Right To Be Nervous CD1 : When Howard Devoto left the Buzzcocks he moved away from their pure pop and into a a vicious and suphisticaticated universe as demonstrated by songs such as "Shot By Both Sides" and "Permafrost" on this compilation.
Al Di Meola - Land of the Midnight Sun:Di Meola is a jazz / rock guitarist , and while I amd not normally a big fan of jass or jazz rock, when I heard this I bought it immediately because it's an amazing mix of melody and skill you seldom hear.
Anyway it is Friday and after the rain yesterday the weekend is upon us. Today looks fairly bright, but today I still have to go to work so I will leave you with Primal Scream's "Loaded" , have a great Friday everybody.
