Blakk and Whyte

Today I shared a couple of posts with The Half Man Half Biscuit(HMHB) Appreciation Society on Facebook, because I'd been listening to Half Man Half Biscuit this week, and the likes and visits on those two posts are like ten times my normal number of visits. I think there are maybe twenty of my Facebook friends who visit my blog regularly and the rest are just robots but the visits today have really gone through the roof for me.

Maybe I don't put myself about enough, although I always hope that my titles and preamble will tempt in visitors, although that's obviously not working.

I love it when people read my stuff and make (ideally positive) comments about my stuff. Yesterday I wasn't going to write about Burt Reynolds and today I didn't expect to be writing about this but I am.

I expect this post to get maybe twenty or thirty hits but that's what I'm used to. It would be nice to have a million followers but I just have three, not very many for a twelve year old blog is it.

Today I saw an amazing young band called Trilogy busking in Northumberland street. I took a minute of Instagram video here so you can see how good and young they are, even younger than The Strypes and General Fiasco when I first saw them. They literally blew all the other buskers off the street very impressive.

So I will leave you with The Strypes covering The Beatles' "Taxman", the opener from "Revolver", in their youth , sleep well my friends.

Eno Collaboration

I was going to write this yesterday but with Burt Reynolds (see last post) leaving us I thought that more appropriate. Anyway I have been listening to a lot of Half Man Half Biscuit this week and started with "And Some Fell On Stony Ground" through "Achtung Bono" to "Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road".

The first album is is an excellent ragbag collection of non album songs including a banjo driven version of "Trumpton Riots" retitled (appropriately) "On Finding The Studio Banjo".

However it also contains the single version of "Eno Collaboration" and the last album contains, well,  the album version. Nigel Blackwell's dexterity with lyrical apposition is so brilliant on this singalong classic that I had to share it with you as one of the #SongsYouveNeverHeard and if you take the time to listen to it you will love it. Lines like:

"I know Bono and he knows Ono and she knows Eno’s phone goes thus:

Brian’s not at home, he’s at the North Pole

but if you’d like to leave a weird noise”

You can read the full lyrics here.

Enjoy your Saturday everybody

Even Burt Reynolds in that Black Trans-Am ......

We lost Burt Reynolds yesterday to a heart attack. Very sad as most of his films were great fun and he had a wonderful sense of humour as well as great comin timing, and on obvious model for actors such as Tom Selleck (also excellent and fun, brilliant in "Runaway" which featured Gene Simmons of Kiss and an excellent villain).

Anyway when Bruce Springsteen released "The River" it contained a plethora of amazing songs, one of which was "Cadillac Ranch" which is a public art installation in Amarillo Texas, created by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels,members of the band Ant Farm, full details here.

Cadillac, Cadillac, Long and dark, shiny and black

 Anyway one of the verses in the song ran like this:

"James Dean in that mercury '49
Junior Johnson runnin' through the woods of Carolina
Even Burt Reynolds in that black Trans Am
All gonna meet down at the Cadillac Ranch"

Reference to one of the many cars that Burt trashed in his movies, I'll let you find out which one and you can let me know. I also found a great Cadillac slideshow soundtracked by the song sto share with you and remember a wonderful actor by.

Nothing Succeeds Like A Toothless Budgie

A favourite line of a decent maths teacher of man "Pop" Moulding but also the sort of line you would expect to hear in a Half Man Half Biscuit somg. I do find it interesting how when you listen to one album by a band you want to follow it with another by them. I was listening to "And Some Fell On Stony Ground", a collection of odds and sods which is still hugely entertaining with gems like "Lock Up Your Mountain Bikes", "Hair Like Brian May Blues", "Blood on the Quad" and culminating in the hilarious thirty seconds that is "Vatican Broadside".

This made me think , how do radio stations check songs for offensiveness, does someone have to listen to them and check the lyrics or do they have software to do it. I once got banned from Yahoo for sharing "Vatican Broadside" because Slipknot fans complained about it!

Listening to that made me follow it up with "Achtung Bono" which must be up there with their best, every song is funny and brilliant. "Bogus Official" doesnt start promisingly but soon picks up and it contains the wonderful "Joy Division Oven Gloves". I could list every song on here as being brilliant but I seriously suggest you get yourself a copy of the album. Also including "Vatican Broadside probably includes this in the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence.

You will have  abig smile on your face and who can ask for more than that from the Bards of Birkenhead.

Old Posts

Well this week has been a little successful at work and managing not to do that much walking then I realised that it's only Tuesday. I was looking through past posts and found that I had recorded the fact that Anthony Newley co wrote "Feelin' Good" and recorded a decent version of it himself which you can listen to here

This is one of the reasons that I keep blogging, reading that post makes me think I can write something that is useful, perhaps not tonight, but every now and then I can, and that thought will keep me writing.

Although I am almost embarrassed by the brevity of some of my old posts, although if it's just a diary entry then you may not have to write all that much, just that something happened or caught your eye or ear, and maybe post a picture or some video.

I wasn't actually going to write anything tonight, but it is quite early, so I though maybe just share a few lines with you.

I am still enjoying "The Fourteenth Letter" but am now on the home straight and it has been far more enjoyable than I expected, but I am quite a slow reader, but am now eyeing up my text book to read.

So as I am going back I'll share my slideshow from when I took part in lighting Hadrian's Wall soundtracked by Ash's "Shining Light".

Jah Live

This shows just how easily I am distracted. I switched on the radio this morning and Mary Ann Hobbs was playing Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier". This threw my mind back to the mid seventies, when after getting into Bob Marley and The Wailers through seeing their performances of "Stir It Up" and "I Shot The Sheriff" on The Old Grey Whistle Test and buying the absolutely sublime live single "No Woman, No Cry" I must have heard on John Peel, there were few other music sources at the time though Johnny Walker and Alan Freeman played good stuff, put he played "Jah Live" which I had to have.

The 'B' side was "Concrete" , "Jah Live" in Dub so I've included that as well.

This was fairly difficult to track down though my DJ friend John Allan who had a record shop at Lane Ends, Preston managed to source me a copy. He was an absolutely top man but I believe died in a road accident. Any I used to often exasperate him with hard to get singles that I'd heard and maybe I might try and get a copy on vinyl as reggae and ska do lend themselves to playing on vinyl.

I know this is a short post, and if Mary Ann hand't played that song I wouldn't have written it, but it is a chance to hear a Bob Marley song that you have probably never heard.

I have a walk to Wylam to do, you enjoy your Sunday my good friends.

I Was Going To Write A Poem Today

Of course I'm not exactly a writer, not even close but several lines came to mind and this is a snippet

Fat bloke on a mobility scooter

Wheezing as he lights a second tab

Moaning and coughing 

As he tries to hail a cab

The "Sorry Not in Services Bus" 

That almost mows you down

These are everyday things

You see when you hit the Town

I'm surprised I remembered that much, but I've written it down now, and these are the dangers of wandering around the Clayton Street / Newgate Street area on a Saturday morning.

I've been quite amazed how hot it was this afternoon almost like Summer had invaded Autumn like when Winter invaded Spring and Summer. As I say to people , Weather is Complicated.

Darkness is falling and the nights are drawing in though I'm not sure what tomorrow might bring, probably more good weather, which is always a good thing.

I'll leave you with "The Aubergine That Ate Rangoon"  from Hawkwind's "Astounding Sounds,Amazing Music" album, a bit of laid back mental music that actually fits with the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence.

The title is a steal from "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" a title that I knew and thought it was a book or play, but is actually another song by Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band and was actually penned by Norman Greenbaum of "Spirit In The Sky" fame. So that's a song that I have never heard and may be sharing it with you tomorrow.

Just had a quick listen on Amazon preview and it's about an Alien Invasion and fairly close to a jug band versionSheb Wooley's "Purple People Eater" so I won't be sharing it with you tomorrow.

Sleep well my friends.

I Know

We're now into September and I won't be posting as much as I was for #August50, I actually posted 54 times last month, almost two a day, but for some reason the song "I Know" by Gary Wright's Wonderwheel came to mind when I was making coffee this morning. This is a song that has stuck with me since 1972 when it came out though for some reason I didn't buy it at the time.

Gary Wright was a member of Spooky Tooth and at some point parted ways to form Wonerwheel, and later found solo success with the excellent "Dream Weaver" which you will have heard unless you musical diet is X-Factor, Local Radio and Britain's Got Talent.

I found a live take of this which looks VERY 1970s but it is still a fine song for inclusion in #SongsYouveNeverHeard.  Although as I'm writing this the title track of the Arctic Monkeys' album "Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino" is drawing to a close and when I first heard it I wasn't too sure but now I think it is. The benefits of listening to Mary Ann Hobbs on 6Music. Recently I was surprised to find out her age and the fact that she is married to Miles Hunt of The Wonderstuff!

The spell checker has just suggested Tranquility should be spelt Tranquillity, that is strange or maybe not.

It's the first day of September, Autumn starts here, and the grey skies are clearing so the weekend is looking good.

Fire On High

I first heard this as the 'B' Side of "Livin' Thing" . It is the opening track to the great Electric Light Orchestra album "Face the Music". I remember being impressed by the Electric chair cover, although the album was anything but grim.

It's actually quite a monstrous sound and shows fun, ingenuity and brilliance that seemed to desert the band in later years producing insipid pap such as "Mr Blue Sky" and "Xanadu".

ELO did produce my second favourite album ever "Eldorado"  and this song was the opener from the follow up "Face The Music" which contained some excellent blue eyed soul as well as this over the top sound storm. It is another one for the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence although it may one that you have forgotten.

The ELO were formed to continue where the Beatles finished with "Strawberry Fields" but when Roy Wood left it did become Jeff Lynne's vehicle.

So this is my last post for August 2018, and it is time to hit my bed now.

Enjoy this.

Orange Clawhammer

Another for the #SongsYouveNeverHeard series, I first heard this as an unaccompanied sea shanty style song on "Trout Mask Replica", still one of th emost amazing albums you will ever hear should you be able to get your hands on a copy.

Then I got hold of an NME compilation CD which had a version with music, including a harmonica. The only accompanied version I can find features Frank Zappa on acoustic guitar which you can hear here.

The song inspired an eponymous Beefheart tribute band and their site is here.

It is incredibly powerful and once you hear it it will stay with you forever, one of the many gems left to use by Don Van Vliet.

I know this is a very short post, but I would love to know what YOU think about it.

Enjoy your Thursday.

A Kaleidoscope of Rainbows

Well I've hit all targets for this month, but will still be walking into work today. Last night I was searching for something to listen to and Neil Ardley's "Kaleidoscope of Rainbows" popped into my head, a wonderful piece of music despite the odd trumpet noodling interludes but the introduction, which I am sharing with you "Prologue/Rainbow One" is wonderful.  The descending bass line against the rising vibes is sheer perfecton.

Although this is in the jazz universe, Neil Ardley is described as a composer who works with jazz musicians.

Kaleidoscope of Rainbows uses the five-note scale of Balinese gamelan music and has been seen as an early example of world music and features composition and improvisations. Neil Ardley, who left us fourteen years back gives an overview here and if you want to listen to the complete album it's on Youtube here.

This has been a decent week and September will start with a walk to Wylam with my daughter Kirsty, son in law Mark and Fiona on Sunday, so September shouldn't be a problem for hitting my walking targets. I am just waiting for the first moth when I don't hit my target but then again it'll probably never happen, I will always try and make sure that it does.

Yesterday I had tea with my friend Krista who runs Kota based in Commercial Union House and that was just lovely to catch up  and we are going to do lunch. We were talking about how we always make vague dates that we never keep and she got out her diary and we nailed it down.

Visit the Kota link, there are some wonderful things there including a lot of Moomin based items.

Enjoy your Thursday my friends.

Seventeen Hundred

I thought I would post this just to hit seventeen hundred posts since I started posting, breaking the #August50 target, and sharing another #SongsYouveNeverHeard to make it worth reading and listening to.

There is a hell of a lot of great Antipodean music and my favourite band from down under are The Saints, but I also love Split Enz, Crowded House and Midnight Oil. I completely missed out on AC/DC in my teens / early twenties but they are a perfect example of how to last while staying exactly the same. Similar to the UK's Status Quo who really lost it when they tried to change their twelve bar sound, although my favourite two Qho songs are "Mystery Song" and "Accident Prone" which do deviate slightly from their normal formula.

The #SongsYouveNeverHeard that I am going to share with you is the excellent "S'cool Days" by Stanley Frank which was backed by the equally excellent "On A Line", one of those perfect singles like The Beatles "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain". All I know about Stanley Frank is that he is Australian (I think ... and yes I know how silly that sounds) and that is about it.

Another for you to enjoy.

Fifty Up

This is my fiftieth post this month. I suppose the quality of a lot of these posts has not been up to my usual standard, though that's not very high anyway. I know a lot of my friends read the posts but find it odd and virtually no one leaves any comments . positive or negative on the blog, although my friend Julie leaves a lot on Facebook.

Still the main point of this blog is to keep a diary and store memories for myself, it is a fairly selfish endeavour and therefore by extension is fairly selfish to expect people to leave comments. Life does take it's toll and even leaving a short comment can sometimes take a lot longer than you think it will.

When I share these posts on Facebook (where most of my interactions come from) I tend to give a short resumé of wat's in the post, I don't know if that puts people off.

Given that each post will be around 200-250 words this month has seen me put down 10K-12K which is enough for a short novel, although this will be short on interesting narrative but high on  interesting music content.

I am wondering if I can hit 300 posts this year, which should only require twenty posts a month, which is obviously more than feasible given that that has been my lowest monthly total this month (in June) and this is post 221 this year.

My next project will be #SongsYouveNeverHeard which I will start with this post and continue til the end of September, I would love you to leave a comment letting me know if you have heard the song, if you like it and any other thing you like.

So how do we start this .. Earle Mankey's "Mau Mau" which I heard once on John Peel and then never again. I tracked down a vinyl copy on Ebay about fifteen years back, and still love the record. I wrote about it here, and also created a Youtube slideshow featuring among other thing my dog as a teenager Simba and my first dog when I left home Jasper.

Earle Makey was a guitarist with Sparks but that about as much as I know about him. Also don't you think Russel Mael looks like Freddie Mercury on the cover of "A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing" ? Enjoy.

Bath

Elizabeth the First reputably said she took a bath once a year, whether she needed it or not. I am probably in the same boat, although I do shower at least once a day, whether I need to or not. I don't know why that came into my mind as I showered this morning, although there are times when you are out and you are thinking there are people who who subscribe to the Elizabeth the First model.

Today is the first day back at work, for a four day week for the last week in August. The weather is decidedly Autumnal, Summer is drifting away as it always does, but that's the nature of time and the seasons.

I was thinking of titling a post "Farewell, Adieu, Goodbye, See You Later ...." thinking of all the ways you can say goodbye for no particular reason.

This is post 49 in the #Autumn50 sequence and I think that is really the maximum I could set myself for the month. I will probably do more than 50 but I won't be trying to do this many again. As I say I've seen blogs that do hundreds of posts a day which are basically links to other sites, and I have many friends who started to blog and then gave up, and have one or two friends who post when they feel like it, which is the best way to write.

Oh I've hit my walking target for the month, when I expected it to be difficult, but when you expect things to be difficult you often put in extra effort to ensure that you will meet your target and often hit it with time to spare giving you time to relax when you have hit your target.

Again, for no apparent reason, I will share "Toxygene" by The Orb with you, have a great Tuesday.

... And There Is More

Another lazy day and I have an idea for next months vague blog theme, music that only I, amongst the people I know, have heard. The title is taken for "International Feel" the opener and closer to side one of Todd Rundgren's "A Wizard, A True Star" album which I wrote about a while back here

Todd Rundgren was responsible for the sound on Meatloaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" album as well as a lot more, including his own prodigious output. I found this video and love the number plate reference to another of Todd's albums.

I have been enjoying 6Music's Trojan 50th anniversary celebration and there is a very nice looking picture disc available, but for me the song selection doesn't really do it justice, maybe I should get a slipmat. Note that is my opinion of the songs, others may disagree with me but "Everything I Own" by Ken Boothe and "Help Me Make It Through The Night" by John Holt are hardly essential especially when you have gems such as "Ali Baba" to pick from.

So I'm going to probably watch "World War Z" (that's Zed not Zee) tonight, the first twenty minutes looks excellent.

Time for tea.

Darkness Falls

Nothing bad, but it is getting dark well early now. Today was grey and the central heating is switching it on and we're starting to feel the chill and the temperature dips short of the 20s we've been used to.

It is unusual when where you are expecting light and vision, there is now dark and blackness, lit by street lights and the odd car driving by.

It is only nine o'clock now but I am going to take the opportunity to get some more sleep and more importantly rest. I need to do nine thousand more steps to hit my target for the month so I have no pressure to do a lot of walking this week. I can lie in a little longer and take the bus to work, although I do like walking in and meeting up with the cows on Nunsmoor or seeing the CHAT Trust Phoenix.

Although it's Trojan's fiftieth I was thinking it's a bit late really considering the development of ska and reggae that began in the 1950s , and I was also thinking that Island was just as important, but reading the history here I found that Island launched Trojan so that explains that little mystery.

The first Trojan number one in the UK was "Double Barrel" by Dave & Ansel Collins around 1971, which was the first single my brother bought, and I also saw them perform at Greys Monument six years ago, I put three songs up here.

So I'll share a  full version  soundtracking James Bond dealing with various ne'er-do-wells with you before I go to bed.

Walking Through Treacle (Again)

Although I don't really have to do many steps, today has been difficult, feeling like I'm walking through treacle. I don't feel bad in myself but it's just that having to walk any distance I feel I am pushing against something, like wading through treacle.

Also I'm coming to the conclusion that Firefox is becoming very slow to becoming almost unusable. Microsoft Edge is definitely unusable and Internet Explorer is not very good either. At the moment Chrome seems to be the most reliable browser.

It has been raining but today has been made enjoyable by the amount of ska and reggae being played to celebrate Trojan's 50th anniversary, but I didn't realise that many of the Trojan singles were "enhanced" strings for the UK market, a prime example being Nicky Thomas' "Love of The Common People", although the youth of the time rebelled against this touching up preferring the original raw sound. I've included both so you can hear what they did.

Enjoy both.

Obediah

One of the lowlife characters from the excellent "Fourteen Letters" that I am reading at the moment. It starts of like a full on train, then I thouht it was going to get boring, having a Victorian timeframe setting, but no it just through a lot of connected threads into the pot and every so often you get those "Aaahhh" moments. I will definitely seeing this one through to the end.

This is now my highest posting month, and I don't think I will do it again once I've hit #August50 as you can't always think of something to write about, although in this amazing world there should always be something that you can put down a few words about, although you do sometimes hit a mental brick wall.

We're on the middle day of the Bank Holiday and I have some very mundane shopping today and also a few basic chores to do, but the main thing is I am getting some rest while still exercisng my mental faculties.

6Music are doing a feature on Trojan Records to celebrate it's 50th anniversay here. The real conundrum about sixties ska which was the music of Jamaican and Windrush Immigrants is that it was also the msuic taken up by racist skinheads which was a real mystery although it was very working class / classless music so maybe that was the attraction. It was also prevalent on fairgrounds as well , as I remember from my short time working on one.

Slade Looking Hard

So maybe we will go for Symarip's "Skinhead Moonstomp" one of the many songs on my huge Trojan Box Set collection. I don't know if you know but Slade (as Ambrose Slade and early on) were a skinhead band so I enclose a picture, with Mr Holder looking very threatening on the right.

Enjoy your Sunday people.

This Connect

The title is just more unknowns sending friend requests, I doubt  they would even speak to me, so they're deleted. If someone comes along and you have mutual interests or can talk or chat via text, then Facebook connection is fine, but an anonymous request, hit the delete button.

It's Saturday morning the Sun is shining and I feel I've got a load of things to do, including grocery shopping, physiotherapy exercises, a few website updates for Codonposis here.

Menu Français des Fleurs Sauvages

The weather is cold but sunny but I definitely feel a restful weekend coming on, after just feeling tired all week and missing a pirate metal gig ate Trillians.

I have also remembered I need to share a recipe for Tartiflete with Wildflower. after sampling their gorgeous French Onion soup yesterday. This is their menu for the next thee weeks so I will possibly sampling more, though it may be just more Onion Soup.

So now need to choose either some Francophile music or Pirate metal

Maybe we'll go with David Bowie's take on Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam" which manages to cover a few European bases,

Enjoy your Saturday, I intend to

Red Sky

This morning looked out the back and the sky was a definite shade of red and deep pink. Made me think of of the "Red Sky in th emorning, Shepherds Warning" , although the sky outside looks sunny and blue with wisps of fluffy clouds.

Musically Jimi Hendrix's "House Burning Down" - "Look at the Sky Turn a Hell Fire Red" sprang to mind as well as U2's "Under A Blood Red Sky" which was the first U2 album I really liked all the way through paving the way for "The Unforgettable Fire" which was their first studio album to show what they could really do.

The 22nd was my sister Yvonne's birthday but for some reason I didn't make a blog post, which given that I am trying to hit #August50 gives me another one to catch up, but this is my 43rd post this month which equals the number of post I did in October 2015 when I did my #ALifeInNumbers sequence which was a sequence of fifty nine songs for my fifty nine years in which the sequence number appeared in the song.

Hendrix music is very sparse on Youtube but this Randy Hansen tribute is rather impressive.

It's the Friday before the Bank Holiday, have a brilliant day everybody.