Riders .....

The John Densmore book "Riders on the Storm" is not living up to it's dark first chapter but is still an engaging and interesting read.and is endorsed as "The Real Thing" by Robby Krieger The Doors' guitarist on the back cover.

Jim Morrison could sing and come up with some pretentious but excellent lyrics but as a person could be an absolute arse, but as a band they produced some great music.

Really the most important member of the band is the drummer, they can make or break the sound, they hold the performance together. In our first gig with The Bok we used a pick up drummer. Two songs in we told him to stop because he was ruining the songs. I saw a band supporting the Buzzcocks at Newcastle University, can't remember who it was, but their set was ruined by a bad drummer.

In my opinion The Doors produced four albums worth having , their debut, "Strange Days" (the first of their albums that I bought), "Absolutely Live (my favourite) and "LA Woman" (in my opinion their swansong). There were odd songs from other albums that I liked, particularly  "Five To One", and "LA Woman" has two stand outs, the title song which was seven minutes , one and a half chords, a memorable descending riff , though I suppose  "The End" is twelve minutes based on a couple of notes, eastern style improvisation and stream of consciousness. Then there's the sublime "Riders on the Storm"  deceptively laid back and menacing.

So really that's my opinion of The Doors' music and albums but have another two hundred pages of the book to go, so I'm wondering if I will discover any more interesting facts.

It's a freezing Friday morning, so have a great day, and we'll go with "Riders on the Storm".

.....on the Storm

The rain is gently hitting the window pane and it's dark outside , although the back neighbour's security light  which is on permanently and has been for over a year (must cost a fortune) , and was wondering what book to read after "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young.

Another which was destined to go straight to a charity shop without me reading it. This would have been ironic as it has an Oxfam sticker on the back which means I probably bought it from Oxfam when I was working there pricing music after I left EE, so that is like five years back. The book is "Riders on the Storm:My Life With Jim Morrison and The Doors" by John Densmore the drummer with the Doors.

Like the Neil Young book I am very apprehensive about this and it starts almost like a modern gothic horror story, but more than readable. Now I lump Jim Morrison with Shaun Ryder and Morrissey , partially responsible for some amazing music (and some rubbish) sometimes great on stage but you wouldn't want to socialise with them for any length of time. Also Jim Morrison's lyrics were often incredibly pretentious , but pretentiousness can sometimes result in great music if you don't take it seriously (think "The End" and "Horse Latitudes") .

Anyway the book has now morphed into Densmore's early life and how he learned the piano and the the drums (separately in marching bands)  and is rolling along nicely.

No doubt I will report more as I go along and it means I get to share some Doors with you. They took their name from a William Blake line:

"There is the Known

And The Unknown

And In Between

Are The Doors of Perception"

So I'll go with "The End" as it is probably my favourite Doors song.

No Parlez

This is the second post about albums where the CD was an extended version of the vinyl artefact. Prior to his solo career Paul Young hand been in excellent voice as the lead singer of the Q-Tips and possibly with the awful Streetband and their awful single "Toast".

"No Parlez" contained some decent covers such as "Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home". "Love Will Tear Use Apart" and "Love of the Common People" , but the stand out for me was the cover of Anthony Moore's "No Parlez" , and I have featured a few Anthony Moore songs on this blog , check here, Anthony Morre collaborated with Peter Blegvad in Slapp Happy as well as Henry Cow so off the commercial spectrum but still managed some great singles.

Then I though of the phrase "No Parlez" and thought although we are more connected than ever, there was a couple on the train up to Edinburgh who spent most of their time texting on their phones rather than speaking to each other, and this is something you see more often than not, people preferring the company of their device rather than the company of real people. Sometimes I am guilty of this too though I will excuse it by saying I am looking up something or trying to find something out.

Still my preference is for face to face conversation and today I received the first video message on my phone from my 83 year old dad, being cajoled by his girlfriend's daughter to reply to a video that I sent her. Technology is great at times but it should be used judiciously.

So Far Away

When we got hit by CD I noticed something about two particular albums "Brothers In Arms" by Dire Straits  and "No Parlez" by Paul Young. I'll talk about the latter in my next post, but the CD versions of these albums were longer than the vinyl versions, taking advantage of the fact that due to compression and dropping of frequencies you can fit up to eighty minutes of music on to a CD (though I believe a Mission of Burma one actually exceeded that).

Basically the songs were just longer than the vinyl release, the ideal length for a vinyl album is about 18 minutes a side, and making it louder shortens that, the early Led Zeppelin albums have virtually no run out as Jimmy Page wanted the maximum effect from his production. Again Todd Rundgren brought out a sixty nine minute vinyl album "Initiation" which came with a warning to use a new needle each time you played it (that may be an urban legend but you get the point).

Anyway "Brothers In Arms" while a decent album , I only liked every other song on it and particularly the opener and closer. I first heard Dire Straits playing the excellent "Sultans of Swing" laid back but with stunning guitar work from Mark Knopfler.

The opener is "So Far Away" and got me thinking, thirty years ago , everyone I knew was on this island apart from a couple of relations who had departed for the antipodes. When I went to Mexico around the millenium someone told me that a bus from the Texas border to Mexico City took 24 hours. Mexico is BIG , but our maps show it as this little isthmus joining North and South America. Someone also mentioned about flying across Australia taking seven hours to fly! In Britain I don't like travelling by train for more that three hours (though some journeys are far more pleasant than others).

Now thanks to social media and the internet I am in contact with with people around the globe (remember messaging a friend to see if he wanted to come to a gig, he replied he had moved back to India) and the main problem is the time differential, but it does bring us much closer together in a way we couldn't imagine even in the nineties.

So another day , and another walk towards work.

Sweet Pea

Day one back at work passed without incident, although still have a cold and feel weak but that's it. I had intended to finish at four but due to our new rubbish IT set up and a sheet to check 250 statements took twenty minutes to open, pre upgrade it was instant.

Anyway the reason I wanted to post this is to share the song "Sweet Pea" by Tommy Roe , which I discovered as the "B" side of "Sheila". "Sweet Pea" was also the name of Olive Oyl and Popeye's baby (also known as Sweepie) which then made we think were Popeye and Olive Oyl married? But that's a complete aside.

I think "Sweet Pea" was also covered by Manfred Mann , but also got me thinking how the vinyl single used to be the main selling item, the thing to have, and you you at least got a "B" side and sometimes two or three songs on the "B" side. However lots of people bought singles and never listened to the "B side. I remember my mum bought "Brown Girl In The Ring" by Boney M which when it started dropping down the charts the record company flipped (the "B" side was "Rivers of Babylon") and my mum bought another copy because she seldom listened to "B" sides .... she wasn't the only one.

It seems now we've gone through albums and the youth of today are now just streaming single songs and sometimes not even whole songs, their impatience makes them skip to the next one after twenty seconds of whatever they are hearing. Digital music makes things instantly available but also instantly disposable as it's always available 24/7 .

Anyway I finished "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young in less than a week, and it is very readable although finishes with a final forty page chapter full of hope and despair , hope that we can save the world by using renewables , but governments are in the pockets of corporations who see fossil fuels as a quick buck and electorates believe the lies rather than look for facts. This book is well worth reading.

So another day starts........

Getting Better?

I think I am finally over the 'flu' , still weak , but I felt like this last Monday. The problem is I want to be back to 100%, my mind wants me to be there but my body keeps letting me down. I have been resting but also finding any excuse to do things and then after I do, I wish I hadn't. Yesterday was spent in Edinburgh with a ninety minute train journey each way and walks to and from the station to Grey's Monument.

So basically today is going to be a first try back at work this year, with all the month and quarter end stuff to catch up on, though the reality is that I have just lost two days so it's hardly amajor problem.

I'm still getting through "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young and didn't really know about the existence or benefits of biodiesel, although big fossil fuels I think have destroyed that, same as they are trying to do with all renewables. The Earth provides us with Solar Power (I know that's the sun) , Wave Power and Wind Power all of which is effectively free and will be as long as our Solar System keeps going. Fossil Fuels need to be stopped in their tracks.

So anyway I have another thirty or so pages to go on "Special Deluxe" so I will have finished it in less than a week. Also this year my steps are progressing well after missing my December 2020 target by 16K steps , which was still a creditable effort given the last week and a half that I couldn't even get out of the house.

So we'll go with "Getting Better" by Shed Seven a song we once covered with Spoon.

Now time for work.

Special Deluxe

I don't read fast .. at all ... but I am , for me, tearing through "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young. As I've said this nearly went straight to the charity shop but it is very readable. Also it has a lot of blank separator pages and pages containing one of Neil's drawings of one of his cars , so it's not really 375 pages of print to read. It does give a great insight into his musical history and his incredibly difficult family background and you do find a lot that maybe you didn't know. I have certainly learned a lot.

The really odd thing is that this book (a $30 American important seems out of print in the UK unless you want to go for the CD version at £167, though it is readily available on Amazon.com , very strange. And even stranger is that two days ago it was out of print today you can get it at a very reasonable price.

I was originally going to title this "Skinning Satsumas" which has been a big part of me try to get myself out of this 'flu' situation but obviously that is just a fleeting instance.

I also want to be a little more relaxed in my posting this year, so I don't expect anywhere near the posts I made last year. So another Neil Young song for us

Long May You Run

My intention is thot to post as frenetically this year as I did in 2019, but to still maintain my diary of observations. I am still suffering from being hit by the 'flu' making it difficult to work or concentrate or do anything, although my mind is generally fine, but body not up to doing what my mind wants to do. My mind will say  "Yeah you can walk to the supermarket" so I will do that then be so shattered I need to take the bus back, except around this time it's Saturday or Sunday service so I walk back and then think I should have just stayed in bed.

New Year's Day I finished "On Some Faraway Beach" the David Sheppard biography of Brian Eno and despite the dense and difficult to read typeface it was an absolutely excellent read, often pointing me to revisit / rediscover / visit and discover music and artists.

So what next .....

I often buy books that are on sale or cheap that have some potential interest for me, one of these was "Special Deluxe" by Neil Young. I love Neil Young's music and my voice has been compared to his, there's a couple of Youtube examples "Love Is A Rose" and "Rockin' In The Free World" if you want to check me out, but this book almost went straight to the charity shop as it is Neil Young writing about cars. Cars have little interest to me, but I needed a next book and thought give it a whirl.

Typeface was good so easy to read, and same number of pages as "On Some Faraway Beach". The concept is Neil Young's life and the cars in his life with illustrations by him (which are cute) and a chronology of his musical development as well as the cars and his growing up. He is certainly an engaging  writer and I am nearly a hundred pages in after two days and loving it.

Pre preface are the words "Long May You Run" that is a good wish to anyone and anything you likeand was a favourite of mine by the Stills Young band, so that is the song I will share with you, and the book is great by the way.

Hello 2020

It's 1:20 AM on 1st January 2020. My intention was to be asleep but a persistent tickly cough has woken me up, so it's, among other things a cup of Hot Chocolate to try and calm my throat down.

It's not painful, just keeping me awake, although I know lots of other people are awake bringing in the new year.. I do need my sleep though.

Last year I averaged more than one post a day, I doubt that will happen this year, although I am proud to have actually done it while posting 250 words or more for each post. That's close on 100K words last year, enough for a novella if there were much coherence to what I write.

I know writers will probably knock that off in a week, or a month so all of a sudden it's not that impressive.

So I am tired and I want to really go back to bed, and music wise in 1972 I saw McKendree Spring perform "God Bless The Conspiracy" on The Old Grey Whistle Test, Michael Dreyfuss on Violin and electronics is amazing, and was well impressed with it. I still still am, and so will share that with you now, absolutely amazing stuff.

Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New

This Christmas and New Year break has seen me hit by 'flu' and a cold and I am still probably only functioning at 50% but still smiling and looking forward to the new decade. We lost the wonderful Neil Innes but we have his digital, musical and comedic legacy to keep smiles on our faces. Technology has enabled some amazing situations, if we lose someone their immortality is now virtually guaranteed (as long as they leave something behind). It is one of the many reasons I post on this blog.

In previous years I have sent texts to people on my phone lists but this year I just see that as spamming them, they know I am thinking about them and I know they are thinking about me.

So this is my "Happy New Year" post taking a line from George Harrison's "Ding Dong" which sort of sums up some of my feelings:

Go Forward

Be Happy

Smile

Look Out For Others

Accept Compliments

Stay Positive

Look For New Things

Enjoy Yourself

Be With Friends

Make Me Time

Make Time To Be Social

And Have a Happy New Year

So this is my Happy New Year to you all.

Wrestle Poodles And Win

After the smiling positivity of my last two posts yesterday I saw the news that Neil Innes had unexpectedly died. I'm not sure when  I first was exposed to him via the Bonzo Dog Band, possibly on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" , the the hit single with "I'm The Urban Spaceman" and listening to "The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse" in the Sixth Form College common room  to the annoyance of the "cool heads" but there was a guy there who took no shit from them and we continually played it, and when they listened they liked some of the stuff.

Although essentially born in trad jazz the Bonzo's were the English equivalent of The Mothers of Invention (Frank Zappa's lot) seemingly anarchic and chaotic but absolutely spot on musicians and composers covering all sorts of genres meaning you didn't necessarily know what to expect. They incurred the wrath of politician Quentin Hogg for crediting him with "Piggy Grunt" on "The Intro and The Outro", and the band continued to delight and surpries.

While Bonzo's songs were often credited to Innnes with front man Vivian Stanshall , they were not a two man unit, with other members contributing much of their repertoire.

But this is essential my remembrance of Neil Innes who along with the Bonzo's was the mind behind the Rutles , absolutely spot on Beatles pastiche band and many other musical and comedy collaborations including beith dubbed the seventh Monty Python member.

So although our Urban Spaceman has left the plane he will always bring a smile to my face , and he's now joined Vivian in the next phase of existence.

Stay Happy

This post is post 366 this year and while there are generally assumed to be 365 days in a year it's actually 365.25 days a year so to adjust it every four years we have a leap year , and the devil in me says , "Ah but you've not really averaged on a day, have you?" , so this post is just nails it.

As I was sharing my last post, vehicle I love "Happy" by The Carpenters , I probably love "Happy" by The Rolling Stones even more, with it's joyous hedonistic loping riff and brilliant night out lyrics so that was on my mind during the last post and will be the piece for this post. It's from "Exile On Main Street" probably my favourite Rolling Stones album.

The thing is Amazon's search algorithm seems to have gone all to pot. Search for "Rolling Stones Happy" and yu get "Exile on Main Street" then clothes and playlists and unrelated album, so the list below is my personal choices.

Sport wise this week has been awful for Preston North End and Newcastle which is a bit of a bring down, but I expect both teams to pick themselves up and kick on from here.

I also am not going to hit my step target for the month, although really the monthly target is a notional one as part of the three month Million Step Challenge so that means I haven't really missed a target there, although it feels like it, but again I need to kick on with that. Also the 'flu' I've had really stopped me from walking so I sort of have an excuse.

So without further ado it's back to work now, and remember what a smile can do for for you , smile lots today.

If I Make You Smile ....

... then I take that as a huge compliment. I do like talking to people , sometimes reassuring them that they can deal with their situation like my dad with his upcoming cataract operation. Smiling boosts our health and immune system so just smiling is a quick win. If you smile at someone and they smile back then that's two people who's lives have improved. . Here's a few more reasons to smile.

It may be difficult to smile in bad times but I always try and find positives in every situation no matter how unpositive they may be. A smile always helps.

"A smile is formed primarily by flexing the muscles at the sides of the mouth. Some smiles include a contraction of the muscles at the corner of the eyes, an action known as a Duchenne smile. Among humans, smiling is an expression denoting pleasure, sociability, happiness, joy or amusement."

"Smiling Boosts Your Immune System 

 Smiling can also boost your overall health. The act of smiling actually helps the human immune system to function more effectively. It is thought that when you smile, immune function improves because you are more relaxed (thanks to the release of certain neurotransmitters)."

That's a couple of thoughts on why you should smile, and do it now. Your mood will improve, your day will improve and if you share it with others their day improve as well and making lots of people feel better is a total win/ win.

Although I've used this recently, it's one of my mums favourite songs and probably helped me appreciate the Carpenters.

By the way this is post 365 , so I have done one post a day for 2019

Art Decade

I've just realised that this is the last Sunday and the last week of this decade, it just suddenly came upon me, this time next week it will be 2020. I think I am finally getting recovered from the #flu' and speaking to my dad he told me, touch wood, that he had never had it. I do quite feel tongue in cheek when people have it continually. This is not the worst I have had it as I have been able to move, but now I will be expected to be there for people and to do things that are expected of an average human being.

In the last decade I've learned things, forgotten things, done different jobs, bought things that have turned out fairly useless,, set targets, still not written any songs or a book and we are now on the cusp of another decade.

No doubt there will be some numerical significance gleaned from the onset of 2020, but you often find such significance is just in the nature of the numbers themselves. Numbers only reach significance when they actually represent something significant. Humans always look for significance and patterns, and lets face it if we could work out how these things work, we could improve our lives significantly but random is impossible to predict, that's it's nature.

So anyway I am going with Bowie's song from the instrumental side of "Low" (i particularly like the colour changing underground video accompaniment for this) on the grey drab Sunday morning, it's ironic that I finish this decade by failing to hit my step target for the month, but I am likely to hit a post a day for the year for the blog which I didn't expect to hit, so sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't quite hit it..

The thing is once you have done certain things you do not need to repeat them.

This Here 'flu' and Cold

.. has certainly allowed me to write about my situation and the sheer annoyance of being stopped from living normally and being unable to do even the very basics. This is the first month I won't hit 340K steps for several years although the three month rolling million steps will be fairly safe, as I am currently 57K short for the month and have three days left, and normally I over hit by at least 40K so that will be all good.

The worst feeling is feeling you should be doing something but being unable to do anything because your mind or body is just stopping you from actually doing anything. Your mind's ability to think shuts down and you get this real restlessness to just do something, which in itself is good.

I am annoyed that I can no longer apply labels to the blog, but if I can't I can't. I can still search it.

So I am overheating again, so need to strip off (don't worry no pictures) so what should I go with. There are lot's of medical related songs that I can share, but I'll go with the original Delia Derbyshire / Ron Grainer "Doctor Who Theme".

Rest

Today I have to rest, no ifs, no buts , rest. I am improving but the end of each day I have regressed, and also needed to majorly cool down. It is always to tempting to just do a little thing, and this morning I heard a bin lorry in the distance so thought it would be prudent to take out my bin and my neighbour's to be picked up if and when the bin lorry comes.

Yesterday I taught myself the basic notes to "Troika" by Prokofiev , the perfect Christmas musical piece and just wondering whether to record it or not, it is relatively simple and I am not going to do the whole piece but I've always loved it sine Pete Sinfield and Greg Lake lifted it for the memorable instrumental section in "I Believe In Father Christmas" which is another perfect Christmas song,

As I blog I keep seeing spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and am not sure if it's my own incompetence of the built in spelling and grammar checker. I also cannot add labels either as it locks up the blogging software, which is more than annoying. I did try Wordpress but found it unusable, I know I'm in the minority, but it just never worked for me.

So we will go with "Troika" by Prokofiev which is lovely, seasonal and relaxing.It is from the "Lieutenant Kije" suite with Sting also raided for "Russians"

Overheating

I had a relapse yesterday, part of this is due to my mind wanting to do anything and my body not being up to it, this is then followed by me getting into bed, my body overheating , and heating up the contents of my insides and making me feel queasy to sick and unable to eat, which then weakens me further.

Sleeping on top of the bed with the window ope definitely improved the situation. At the moment my physical ability is really just about making a cup of tea and that's it. My problem is that I always go further than I should resulting in a potential relapse.

I know it's still Christmas and I am not one of these loons who are out at the sales in the cold often spending money they don't have on bargains that maybe aren't all they seem. Remember it's only a bargain if you were going to get one anyway. That's me just being a humbug.

I think I am gonna have a cup of hot chocolate for breakfast, wil nip out for eggs to have scrambled eggs and then really rest. I know I've put this blog post together and think I'll go with Graham Parker's "Heat Treatment" , great record, Enjoy.

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.

Disturbing

Today in bed I felt there was someone there with me, I don't know who, but I know someone was looking out for me.

Later I saw a dark sheet hanging over me with hands and a head full of teeth, looking fairly frightening, but I have confidence in my own abilities to fight off flimsy night demons and that is doubled because I know so many people want me back to 100% for both personal and professional reasons, all of them good. The demon stayed where it was and finally melted away but was fairly impressive.

During this influenza some of the side effects have been night blindness, dizziness almost to the point of collapse and a lot of this possibly caused by anaemia, which is not being helped by me not wanting to eat. Today I decided on a fried egg sandwich for breakfast but that just didn't happen, and a trip to the chemist for a folic acid prescription didn't really do me any good either, apart from getting more tablets that I need, thanks to my wonderful doctor at Thornfield Medical Group. I love our NHS.

My mind is tired but by body is awake, I had the heated up remains of a Mirch Aloo Begun from the amazing Rajnagar and managed to eat that without too much of a problem. I am now drinking Hot Chocolate as I write this in the hope I can kick start my body to properly repair itself. I am a bit like my dad in assuming my own indestructibility although I think I look after myself a bit more carefully.

After the dream I think an appropriate sequence would be "Night on Bare Mountain" by Mussorgsky from Disney's "Fantasia" one of my mum's favourite films and a wonderful introduction to classical music for young people, if only they had shown that in music lessons at school I'm sure a lot more of us would have taken notice. The piece also found it's way on to the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack as "Night on Disco Mountain".