About The Facebook Ban - Entrapment?

I've now been banned three times from Facebook. There seems to be a sliding scale, the first one was a day, the second was three days and the third seven days with Messenger shut down as well. As I've said being on Social Media is like being in a club, and you need to abide by their rules and the rules need to be consistent and need to address any potential transgression properly, I don't believe Facebook do, and their bans are almost arbitrary, I have reported racist , misogynist and race iting posts to no avail (but they get clicks don't they) , although Facebook has started to ban some extreme right wing groups and pages.

So here's what happened to me (so far):

1. I was watching the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" which is rather excellent art film and three women who murder their partners, and it does contain sex and nudity, but it is both funny and well presented. See if you can spot why I was banned. My problem with this is that it was IMDB that posted the image, which again is hardly explicit. The IMDB page is here.
2. I then shared a picture of an Helmut Newton image on the wall of No 28, I am OK with this as I thought the lighting on the image obscured the nudity. Facebook decided it didn't. The image is still on my Instagram feed here and is somewhere in my Facebook photographs without the light obscuration (is that a word)
3. The current one, which is virtual entrapment was caused by me sharing an image / link that appeared in my Facebook feed. I thought it was amusing so shared it and was immediately hit with a seven day ban from Facebook and Messenger. Because it was instant that meant the Facebook had decided to share it with me knowing I would probably share with others, so it my opinion I was set up. I have no way of complaining or arguing my case because everything, apart from seeing feeds is now banned for me. When I am let back on it won't be worth pursuing this, but I am now worried that anything I share could result in a ban. I am intending to share this post on Saturday and that may result in a month or permanent ban. The link is here. described by "Well, People Are Painting Glittery Easter Eggs Onto Their Butts Now"

The thing is my only contact on Facebook is via Messenger or a Facebook Posts , so if people are contacting me I cannot reply. So basically this is just a "Beware What You Share" PSA , just because it's in your feed doesn't mean Facebook won't ban you for it. The original post I shared is still on Facebook , so obviously there's a lack of consistency as well.

I just wanted to document this the let people know what happened. I've included "Number 2" from the "Drowning By Numbers" film soundtrack by Michael Nyman a long time collaborator of Peter Greenaway.

#AprilSongs #25 Thursday's Keeper

Hitting the final Thursday in the sequence and we will take "Thursday's Keeper" by The Orb from the album"Cydonia". It past years that would have been enough for a post and I am tempted at some point to do a one word post , a nonsensical post and a gobbledegook post just to see who actually reads them.

Anyway I've always liked the Orb with their generally long trippy  tracks and songs , particularly "Little Fluffy Clouds"  with their mix of samples and rhythms and sounds, which inspired a heck of a lot of other bands while harking back to space rock and kraut rock such as Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and Neu!, all bands I have mentioned or written about before in this blog so you can use the tags if you want to explore a little further.

Anyway it's Thursday so have a good one everybody.

#AprilSongs #24 Just Wednesday

A rather subdued Inspiral Carpets song, "Just Wednesday" for the final Wednesday post in the #AprilSongs sequence.

Now only another six posts to do and it has got my posts way on track to hit 2K since the start of this blog this year (does that make sense, well it does to me).

Anyway we are mid week, the weather is looking grey and there is nothing much to report apart from seeing  Rapasa Nyatiti on Northumberland street in Newcastle watch him here on my Instagram feed. His website is here

Enjoy that and have a great Wednesday

#AprilSongs #23 Gentle Tuesday

Apparently it's St George's Day , so a day for Little Englanders to moan about not having a Bank Holiday to celebrate their most English of Saints, for "celebrate" read go to the pub and get drunk on John Smith's or Bombardier, but actually today is the first day back after the Easter Bank Holiday.

Also today I heard a really annoying term "slashies" , this usually refers to self employed people who embrace multiple "careers" / "businesses" . Now I have no problem with people doing multiple jobs because that's what they want to do, but most people in this situation are forced into this because the only jobs are zero hours or short hours contracts that do not pay enough to basically live, so taxi driver / pizza delivery guy / toilet attendant  / bouncer would be an example of a "slashie" today. Says a lot about how our economy is run.

Now to the business end of the blog, the #AprilSongs and today we have "Gentle Tuesday"the opening song from "Sonic Flower Groove"  by Primal Scream for the penultimate Tuesday song. The guitar sound is almost Byrds like and is a welcome addition to this sequence.

So time to take drugs and take a walk to work and listening to some decent music on the way to work.

#AprilSongs #22 Come Monday

Well I am writing this at sixteen minutes past midnight so it's actually Monday and this will be my penultimate Monday post in the #AprilSongs sequence.

Again I'm not going for the obvious one so I have chosen "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffet which is not his best or most subversive but is pleasant and has a great introduction from the man himself on the video I am sharing with you. So enjoy , but check out his other stuff such as my favourite "Volcano" or "Margaritaville"

I am vaguely thinking of theming May's posts on Food, so songs about Food, but then again goven how many posts I've done this month , I may put that off for a month or two.

I know this is a very short post as it is now nearly half past midnight and I need to share this on non Facebook social media to get the Robots checking in on me.

So have a great Easter Monday everybody.

Woody Guthrie - 3000 Unrecorded Songs

I've just watched the BBC documentary Woody Guthrie: Three Chords and The Truth and it reminded me of a few things and showed me a lot i didn't know about them man. I didn't that Guthrie and his father were racist and his father was involved in or facilitated lynchings. A lot of Guthrie's early writing was awash with racist wording and illustrations until ...

.. on his radio show he played a piece called "Run Nigger Run" , and he used THAT word in the worst ways you could, but then he got a letter from a Negro listenten, an educated guy who said up to the that point the show had been excellent, but by playing that and using THAT word he was showing disrespect and race hate towards African Americans. Guthrie took this on board and vowed never  to use THAT word again, he apologised on air and in a letter and became very active in pushing race equality. The problem is race inequality is still with use but Woody showed that people can change when educated by events.

This then brought me on to the fact that though he was struck down by the horrifying Huntingdon's Chorea which destroys the nervous system and therefor you lose control of everything, he had been a prolific writer being inspired by everything. After his death there were over three thousand sets of lyrics to unrecorded songs.

A lot of these are now being picked up by artists examples of which are seen in Billy Bragg and Wilco's "Mermaid Avenue Sessions" and the wonderful  take on "Old Man Trump" by Ryan Harvey (with Anne Di Franco and Tom Morello) and he remarked bout the number of songs that Woody had written.

Another remarkable one is "Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" , my favourite take on this is by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez (see here), but this illustrates the absolute disdain the for immigrant workers not even acknowledging them as human and the same is happening today with Trump's Wall and Brexit in the UK.

The documentary is excellent watch it , listen to Woody's songs and if you need to change yourself for the better , do it.

#AprilSongs #21 Sunday

You can't search for music about and Easter day without bringing back nothing but hymns and worship songs, which I mentioned in my Good Friday post. This time I have gone for a Nick Drake instrumental, "Sunday" the closing piece from "Bryter Later" for the #AprilSongs sequence. The opening flute made me think of the spooky sixties "Wicker Man" folk but actually this turns into a lovely listenable piece.

This is the day after I have started a seven day ban on Facebook, for sharing a picture FROM facebook , which is still there and you can see here which is basically mens bum cheeks decorated as Easter Eggs. The thing is it's a link to a site and the linking site posts the pictures. This has happened to me before when I posted an IMDB link to the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" . The film itself features nudity but the DVD cover picture, if you really zoom in has the suggestion of a female nipple underwater. Follow the link and see for yourself.

The problem is this is just a Kafkaesque situation and if you are a member of club then you abide by the rules but when those rules are applied arbitrarily without warning then that becomes annoying . I see a lot of  shall we say more explicit pictures than those I have been banned for, and of course racism and right wing hate and political lies are fine, freedom of speech and all that. So for a week I can't like, share or use messenger, without any dialogue or explanation from Facebook.

So anyway, it's another lovely day, enjoy your Easter Eggs and Easter Sunday.

#AprilSongs #20 Another Saturday Night

Resuming the #AprilSongs sequence this gorgeous Saturday morning and I and going with "Another Saturday Night" by Sam Cooke, which was also covered by Cat Stevens (now Yusuf Islam). Both artists produced some essential songs in their bodies of work so it is nice to actually find this link between them.

Sam Cooke was shot dead in 1964 at the age of 33 by Bertha Franklin the manager of the Hacienda Hotel in Los Angeles. He was shot 30 times in wat the court decided was a "justifiable homicide", ir being black in the USA is still a reasonable excuse to shoot someone. There is one take on it here

The song does have some misogynistic lines, with the assumption of male privilege, but it is a fine tune and was a product of it's time but he was responsible for some extremely powerful songs like a "A Change Is Gonna Come" .

Yusuf Islam is still with us and making music that is still worth listening to.

So time for a shower and then despatching an Eric Burdon CD for a Discogs order and maybe a walk into town.

This Land Is YOUR Land

Tonight I caught a bit of a program I was recording about the great Woody Guthrie , Three Chords and The Truth which will be available on BBC iPlayer for the next month. While it is a great song and applies to any country, but is geographically situated in the USA stating that the land belongs to the people , not to governments and not to corporations.

I didn't know it had been used at Barack Obama's Inauguration as while it was sung in schools as an almost national anthem, only the first three verses were sung because the next three were deemed offensive.

At the Inauguration all six verses were sung, and it was very uplifting and moving and I am glad to be able to share it with you on this post thanks to Youtube. The documentary is very revealing but I just had to share this with you. Here are those words:

This Land Is Your Land

Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said : 'No trespassing'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple, I saw my people
By the relief office, I'd seen my people
As they stood hungry, I stood there askin'
If this land made for you and me ?

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking that freedom highway
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walkin', I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said: 'No trespassing'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Songwriters: Woody Guthrie

This Land Is Your Land lyrics © S.I.A.E. Direzione Generale, Ludlow Music Inc., Woody Guthrie Publications Inc, LUDLOW MUSIC OBO WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATION INC, LUDLOW MUSIC INC OBO WOODY GUTHRIE PUBLICATIONS

Enjoy , digest and remember This Land is YOUR Land

I suggest you watch and enjoy

The documentary features Billy Bragg now a UK music elder statesman (though he's younger than me), but I was surprised that I couldn't track  down a Springsteen recording of the song on Amazon as I am sure he has recorded the song, but maybe not.

#AprilSongs #19 Good Friday

As it's Good Friday and some of us have the day off, I thought I would do a Google search for songs about Good Friday and every link was about religion and hymns. Now don't get me wrong, I was expending a big proportion but not everything, and really Good Friday is a bit of a misnomer for who it's supposed to be remembering and what for. Luckily for me, in my collection I have a song called "Good Friday" by The Black Crowes and I found a live take with Chris Robinson doing an impression of The Man.

So this is today's #AprilSongs entry, and today I actually had a lie in until eight o' clock. I still haven't got dressed or showered but I will do as soon as I publish this.

I am still reading "White Wolf's Son" by Michael Moorcock and enjoying it although it does swirl around a bit and points me in the direction of more books by the author that I need to catch up on, but this weekend I am one of the lucky ones to have four days away from the work environment and I am definitely going to enjoy them a lot.

Have a Good Good Friday everyone.

#AprilSongs #18 Thursday

Next in the #AprilSongs sequence is "Thursday" by The Pet Shop Boys ft Example. While I'm all for collaborations (check out FFS) sometimes it just seems to be about making the product more marketable to consumers rather than any artistic exploration and adventure.

I'm surprised The Pet Shop Boys have not appeared in the blog before as they are relatively local to me, and the finest purveyors of sequencer / arpeggiator based tunes probably ever , with a dry sense of humour and a sense of occasion. Example is the stage name of Elliot Gleave who extrapolated his name from his initials E.G. (exempli gratia ("for example")) so obviously more than a little intelligence on both sides.

So just a short post on this beautiful looking day (or it will be when the cloud completely burns off)

Enjoy your Thursday everybody.

Rock Samplers

I've been meaning to write this, as I discovered, or got access to a lot of great music from the loss leader rock samplers in the late sixties and early seventies. I have been looking on Discogs and a lot of them can be picked up at very reasonable prices.

While I am semi tempted by some of them , the reality is that I have all the music digitally and the reason that these albums were put out was to tempt you to actually buy the albums. THe prices were as little as 50p with some of the double albums maybe hitting £1.99.

Sometimes these albums contained previously unreleased songs such as "New Age of Atlantic" which contained "Hey,Hey, What Can I Do" a stunning Led Zeppelin non-album song (although it did appear on later compilations, and a take of Simon and Garfunkel's "America" by Yes, ten minutes of it.

I'm going to put up ten covers of some compilations that I either have or have had, I still have a copy of the Island compilation "Nice Enough To Eat" which I loved so much I put together my own CD compilation so I could listen to it digitally as well, but the vinyl copy is downstairs and that will always be part of my collection.


Another favourite was the United Artists double compilation "All Good Clean Fun" which also had a booklet with it, but I have forgotten what was in it so need to track that down at some pome point.

The were many double sets such as Island's "El Pea" and "Bumpers", Vertigo's "Suck It And See". Harvest's "Picnic:A Breath of Fresh Air" (containing the , at the time, Pink Floyd rarity "Embryo")

Many of these are now available digitally and there and now often free digital downloads available to tempt you to buy more, but these all hold a lot of fond memories for me. The images link to Amazon but you can probably track them down on Discogs.

These are just a very small sample and you will probably have your own favourites but delving into these can bring some wonderful music into your life.

#AprilSongs #17 Wednesday Evening Blues

For the #AprilSongs sequence I have been surprised how many options there are for each day. At the beginning I was sure "Blue Monday" by New Order would be in here, it probably won't. I though I may have to include the Inspector Morse / Endeavour Theme by Barrington Pheloung because Morse's boss in Endeavour has a surname of Thursday, but I have a long list of Thursday songs.

Today we are going with "Wednesday Evening Blues" by John Lee Hooker another blues song like the one we opened with "Stormy Monday Blues" by T-Bone Walker.

So as it is a Bank Holiday Weekend we are more than half way through the week and I am well past halfway in the #AprilSongs sequence, which has surprised me a little from when I first had the idea, though it goes to show you never know if something can be done until you actually try it.

I'm sure I will have other ideas to make me write, but for the rest of April this will keep me occupied.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #4 - 9 and 10

Today I completed my #TenAlbumsInTenDays #4 and the last two I posted were "Another Day on Earth" by Brian Eno and "What Came From Fire" by Sound of Guns so I did manage to just include albums for this Century / Millenium.

As I have said your natural propensity is to go back to your teenage years and choose albums from when your musical opinion was being formed, so I did try and and limit my choices to lstuff from the last 19 years (although originally I wanted to do it from from the last ten years but the Carbon/Silicon album was from the last decade but still within this millenium.

The Brian Eno album struck me with the killer opening song "This" which is just based on a rhythm built by repeating the word "This". The rest of the album is just as good but that is a fine example of a killer opener and was his first song based album in about ten years.

I saw Sound of Guns at The Hoults Yard festival with my daughter Kirsty in Byker many years back, which was great but under advertised. There were a lot of great bands on but Sound of Guns weren't one I knew or had even heard of. They are used on a base jumping video  by Turbolenza  so I will include that video which features the songs "Sometimes" and "Alcatraz" plus a love video of "This" .

Enjoy your Tuesday.

#AprilSongs #16 Groovy Tuesday

First time I hears The Smithereens it was a compilation and the song was "Behind The Wall of Sleep" which is fairly dark haunting American country rock with Lovecraftian overtones to the title, so today I am going for their excellent "Groovy Tuesday" which is just more of their excellent sound , brooding and not taking any prisoners.

The Smithereens are a band I've never seen but if they come back into my vicinity I will definitely make an effort. I do have an anthology in my collection, but it's one of those things having a large collection , it's seldom you accidentally come across new music because you usually buy an ablum for a particular reason.

It used to be great when you would get the loss leader samplers such as "Nice Enough To Eat" or "All Good Clean Fun" which meant you could get new music for little investment , then that would hook you to buy more.

I now need to do a post about samplers don't I ?

Have a great Tuesday.

#AprilSongs #15 Monday Night

The #AprilSongs is sort of a bit of a chore but I am determined to complete it and it has made me revisit and discover music in my collection live today's selection "Monday Night" by The Golden Palominos from their eponymous album.

The Golden Palominos are (or were ) a fluid inventive and adventurous musical collective led by drummer Anton Fier  with a core set of musicians featuring Bill Laswell and Nicky Skopelitis, but among their guests were Michael Stipe, John Lydon and Fred Frith, as well as many others.

I first got into them when I bought "A Dead Horse" probably on the basis of a John Peel play or NME review or both, and was blown away by the way it was both incredibly polished but so far away from the rock norm while also being very close to it, with stunningly clear production.

I am now wondering whether to treat myself to a vinyl copy, because my record player sounds so good, but I can also listen to it on the walk to work or from my network, so maybe that is just another thing that I don't need to buy, but we shall see.

So it's Monday morning and time to drag myself out to work.

Have a good one everyone.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #4 - 7 and 8 and The Record Store Day 2019 Aftermath

This is just a short post to record numbers 7 and 8 in the #TenAlbumsInTenDays sequence adn they are:

• Tempest by Bob Dylan
• Have One on Me by Joanna Newsome

Both these albums contain a lot of long songs and the Joanna Newsome one is a three CD set. I first heard Joanna Newsome on the soundtrack to the excellent New York Blackout Orange advert ("THis Side if The Blue" from "Milk Eyed Mender") which you can watch here this was when the company that became EE had consistently excellent adverts , unlike the populist Kevin Bacon rubbish the continually push these days. Joanna Newsome's instrument of choice is the harp, and I think she is the only  harpist I listen to apart from Alan Stivell.

The Bob Dylan album is was his best with the thirteen minute title track about the sinking of the Titanic, but it is full of seven and eight minute stories that keep you riveted throughout the album.

For Record Store Day 2019 I picked up a Carter USM 12" single "Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere" and Brian Eno's "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" on vinyl as well as an amazing tea towel from Powder Butterfly , check out the website to see some amazing stuff.

So now it's time for bed as it's Monday tomorrow.

#AprilSongs #14 Sunday Girl

I know it's absolutely obvious but my mind and brain has told me to follow Billy Bragg's "The Saturday Boy" with Blondie's "Sunday Girl" from their most successful and well known album "Parallel Lines".

When I was searching for options I came across The Sunday Girl a make up blog which may or may not pique your interest, but few other "Sunday Girl" songs. I need two more Sunday songs and "Sunday Girl" was not on my original list but it just means I have more choice for my final two songs in the coming weeks.

I first got into Blondie when I heard "X-Offender" from their debut album and bought the single on the Private Stock label. I followed that up with a 12" single of "Denis" when "Plastic Letters" came out and sold the pair for £50 to a collector a couple of years later., and bout the two albums for maybe six quid as I was into the music rather than the objects.

When "Parallel Lines" came out I loved Bob Fripp's guitar work on "Fade Away and Radiate" as this marked out Blondie as being more adventurous than your average band, but "Heart of Glass" (which I still like) really marked the direction they were going to take.

I only saw Blondie live once, at The King Georges Hall in Blackburn with Television in support, and absolutely great night, and great to see Blondie still producing music and playing live.

It's 2:30 AM on a Sunday morning, I wasn't intending to write this now, but it is done, so I can go back to bed now.

#AprilSongs #13 The Saturday Boy

Well it's day 13 of the #AprilSongs sequence. It's funny that 13 is considered unlucky like seeing a single magpie or a lot of other thing. Things like this used to bother me, especially 13 , single magpies and a few other things, then I started thinking how silly it was , and if I'd been brought up to believe these were good things then that is how my mind would see it. After all 13 is a "baker's dozen" where they throw in an extra item in case one is not up to scratch, so it's a definite win for you. If I see a single magpie it's a good thing, no reason , apart from magpies can look impressive in flight with their black and white colouring, so now seeing a single magpie gives me a little lift and if I see more then that's a plus, although I am aware they can be annoying bullies, but I prefer to search for the positives.

So back to the #AprilSongs sequence on Record Store Day and I have gone for Billy Bragg's "The Saturday Boy". I loved Billy Bragg's minimal instrumental style although his voice grated a bit at first, but like Bob Dylan I loved the songs and grew to like the voice. He is not everyone's cup of tea, but is now an intelligent elder statement of music involved in so many musical areas it's very impressive.

Coincidentally I was watching a documentary about Skiffle on BBC4 last night which you can catch on iplayer here for the next month and he was pointing out the similarities between the skiffle movement and the punk movement, both a do-it-yourself reaction to the mainstream and the main Skiffle man was Lonnie Donegan. That was followed by a program on Chas and Dave (here for a month) who also played with Lonnie Donegan as well.

You can always find connections, but some times the connections jump out at you. Have a great Record Store Day and the weather is looking very good. I will take some photos while I am out today and probably nip to Snackwallah for one of their excellent curries.

Coincidentally ... A Book

I'm currently reading "The White Wolf's Son" the third in a vaguely Elric trilogy by Michael Moorcock following on from "The Dreamthief's Daughter" and "The Skrayling Tree" (he does like an indefinite article does Mr Moorcock). I've seen this book described as both the worst and the best he has written and while it is in my opinion neither it is certainly enjoyable in the first fifty or so pages.

The amazing thing is that it is set in North Yorkshire, Ingleton to be precise but close to Settle and Ingleborough which both feature in the book, and it also mentions the Beatles playing Preston. Now firstly there is the coincidence of it featuring somewhere I have recently holidayed and the place I was born , but tonight I was watching a documentary about Chas and Dave and when Chas Hodges was in The Outlaws (with Ritchie Blackmore) the supported the Beatles in Preston (I saw it on a gig poster) so that is another coincidence.

Of course if I hadn't been reading the book I would probably not have made the connection, but just another example of things falling together to create another coincidence.