#LikeNoOther #2 This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us - Sparks

Although the first two songs may seem to have a vague glam rock connection , there's going to be a lot of different stuff on this.  I first saw Sparks performing on The Old Grey Whistle Test  performing "No More Mister Nice Guy" from A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing which was OK , the most striking thing was Ron Mael's Chaplinesque looks and I liked the album title. More androgynous American rock but nothing special.

Then they signed to Island and gave us Kimono My House , more plays on words and phrases , but the lead single "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" was totally amazing.

From the opening piano motif you are hit with Russel Mael's falsetto , the a stop with a heavy stop start four note single heavy guitar riff before launching in a streamrollering you in almost Wagnerian style a song that still stands today as  one of the most amazing three minutes you will ever hear.

Everytime I listen to it, I don't want it to stop, there's always a change round the corner, and while it may be generally in 4/4 time it's hardly easy to dance to like your normal pop song should be, but it never loses your attention.

Plagiarists

You can see it's influence in things like Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and since then Sparks have continued to expand their musical envelops , collaborating with Giorgio Moroder on No 1 In Heaven and are still producing amazing music. Li'l Beethoven is an wonderful album.

This Town was when I though Sparks were special and was revisited on their collaborations album Plagiarism as a duet with Faith No More,  Mike Patton providing an amazing foil for Russel Mael. See the video at the end.




Recently they collaborated with Franz Ferdinand as FFS , a major success but you feel the Mael's were in the driving seat, but Franz Ferdinand's angular rock proved a brilliant vehicle for more Mael exploration and play.

So that's my thoughts on this great song.

What Am I Talking About?

It's the middle of the working week and the clouds are dispersing giving way to blue skies and sunshine. Everybody seems to be checking apps on their phones, tablets and computers to see what the weather will be like , I still stick with looking out of the window and if I think it's gonna rain I take my umbrella and if it's going to be wet and windy I take my hat (it's water and windproof).

The weather is a complex thing and while it can be influenced by governments with the right resources, nothing can be guaranteed.

A worrying development is the replacement of grass with plastic at Cowgate near me . In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, but in Earth's ecosystem plants take in CO2 and exhale O2, it's part of the balance of nature. The thing is if all the grass is replaced by plastic it will have a detrimental effect on the environment. It looks nice and new when it's laid but it soon gathers rubbish and I reckon it's going to soon get very tatty and it WILL affect our environment.

Astroturfing Paradise

Also we see trees being removed . An oak tree may take 50 gallons of water a day. I look at the plants and bushes and trees round my garden. The garden seldom gets too wet to walk on and those plants , bushes and trees are doing very well thank you . Take them away and I have a swimming pool. We are getting more and more floods and a big part of it is tree decimation. Trees can have negative effects , their roots can destroy buildings, roads and footpaths, but they need to be conserved and managed not destroyed.





Anyway I am not a scientist, but these are just some thoughts on stuff I have seen.

Anyway , I am going to leave for work soon and I supposed the line from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow
Taxi" is coming to pass:

"They Paved Paradise, and Put Up A Parking Lot"

Though Cowgate is hardly Paradise, it does have the best fish and chip shop in Newcastle DG Gorman's Fenham Fish Bar.

Anyway with that thought I will get off and you have a brilliant day.

Oh and Craig Charles just mentioned my Earworm  on his 6Music Show , just before the 7:30 news. It was Earl Mankey's Mau Mau.

Like No Other #LikeNoOther #1 Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie

A while ago I said I was going to post about songs that basically, to me , were like nothing I'd heard before. I was trying to think of a tag or description and the phrase #LikeNoOther seems appropriate. You may disagree with me, or you may agree. A lot of these songs have become part of the mainstream, often because they were that good, despite challenging the expected musical borders.

The first may seem incredibly obvious, but at the time I thought what the hell , well actually it was a bit stronger than that. David Bowie showing his Lindsay Kemp influence dressed as a clown, cutting between his padded cell and a desolate beach with self referential nods to previous songs, the video is as important as the song, the two being inseparable in my mind.

Scary Monsters

The song structure does have verses and choruses but still sound alien while retaining pop sensibilities making it accessible to the music buying public. Again this was Bowie showing what could be done cutting and pasting the music back together and producing a timeless masterpiece, giving us Ashes To Ashes.

While this is not my favourite Bowie song, for me it is probably his most important song in his musical canon, I still love it and still love the video, and love the album from which it came.




Can you think of any song prior to Ashes To Ashes that has a similar form or feel?


I don't know whether I have made you think or bored you with this, but there will be more to follow after this, but a Bowie song is always a great starting point.

The first of many songs #LikeNoOther

5:15

The worst thing about waking up 45 minutes before your alarm goes off is that you know that by the time you get back to sleep the alarm is going to go off. The other option is to get up, but if you're tired you really want to enjoy your bed and warmth of being wrapped in your duvet. But it's Tuesday morning and you have to get up to get to work.

If you wake up earlier it's worth going back to sleep, but not at 5:15. It does give you a bit of extra day to play with and if I'm tired tonight I can always go to bed a bit earlier.

I'm looking out of the window and it's been raining, which means the lawn doesn't need watering, in fact it is looking very green.

Self Portrait

We have the August Bank Holiday coming up and maybe I'll track down some music event to attend, even though I've missed every one so far this year. Lee Perry is playing Think Tank this Sunday and with Monday off that is a definite possibility.

I saw him at the Riverside and that was just an amazing experience, so that's an excuse to do it again.







Really this post is just a slight moan about waking up too early , but is an excuses to play The Who's 5.15 from their seminal Quadrophenia album and I am currently reading Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" so again I suppose that's me going off on tangents and finding connections between disparate things which links in to my admiration for lateral thinking.

Anyway it's Tuesday morning, so have a brilliant day everyone.

Complementary Opposition

I am often denigrated for not fitting in the boxes that people expect. I don't watch soaps (unless you count the episodes of Doctors that my friend Paul Campbell writes , and he is not your average soap writer) , and the programs I do watch often go completely over the head of a lot of people.

I am a great fan of lateral thinking and love the concepts of Edward De Bono. I was introduced to him during my induction training at Littlewoods nearly 40 years ago. This means often my ideas are dismissed by people because they seem to be not the normal way to achieve a goal.

At school everyone was into Led Zeppelin, Yes, Hawkind, Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad and ELP. I deliberately refused to listen to Led Zeppelin because they were everywhere. I loved The Bonzo Dog Band, Bowie, Pink Floyd,Hawkwind , T Rex and The Sweet. I remember being at a school disco and the DJ had a sense of humour because he segued Jean Genie  into Blockbuster. It took the heads on the dancefloor two minutes to realise before they stormed off in disgust. I loved both records , and so did the DJ and if you have any doubts about the Sweet's credentials take a listen to Sweet F.A.


The things is I am open to all ideas and like a very wide range of music. I still know people who won't listen to anything outside of 1972-1976 time period, and there is no point in trying to argue a case for listening to new music.

A while ago I posted a YouTube video of an Enya / Prodigy mash up and a few Prodigy fans were horrified. I could understand Enya fans being horrified but surely not Prodigy fans. This was the Evil Prodigy corrupting the Radio 2 Celtic Acceptability of Enya. I bought Orinoco Flow when it came out and love a lot of the Prodigy stuff and it's funny how people decided I am not a proper whatever because I actually listen and can enjoy most genres.

Complementary Opposition

Again I think the mash up above says a lot about me , I enjoy stuff with an edge , I enjoy stuff that
doesn't necessarily challenge , I enjoy going off into the unknown but I also enjoy knowing where I am going and what I am going to get.

Life is good and if I wasn't like I was I wouldn't have done many of the things I have enjoyed doing, and I am looking forward to many many more.

Anyway this is more rambling on my part, enjoy the rest of your Sunday my wonderful friends.

Psychiatrists, Avalanches and Frank Sinatra

I really want to go to bed. But I feel I should have written something today, so I have decided to write something now. I may not even get to a hundred words, but then again I might. I remember seeing if I could write two thousand words without having a game plan and I did that.

The human mind , when used correctly is capable of great things. Yes, some people are better than others but we are all capable of doing something that WE think is remarkable because it makes us feel good.

I have learned not to seek others approval or commendations because I know it's unlikely I will get it, and in a country like ours you are only setting yourself up to be shot down/

Luckily the friends I've managed to make do not fall into that group , they see positives and live positively , as well as caring for others , far more than I do.

This is post 1101 and I am just wondering if I will notice post 1,111 as it goes by. I marked post 1,000 and 1,100 so the chances are I will not miss it, because like everyone I do sometimes notice things , as do you. Having said that there have been times when I have nearly missed a bus because I have been looking at something on my phone , or maybe missed my stop because Ive been watching something , reading or sleeping.

Wildflower

Anyway I have managed to write something , it's about nothing in particular and the great thing about writing a blog is no one will tell you to shut up. You can say what you want , which is an enormous freedom. Well the thing is I said I would be lucky to write 100 words but I have hit 400 , so I am great at spouting rubbish , though I suppose everyone has it in themselves to write.









Anyway I have gone on a bit, the weekend is half over, we have Sunday to enjoy and I am going the pick Frank Sinatra by The Avalanches because I love the song and love the video and love the album Wildflower too. I think you should check it out too. This also made me think of Frontier Psychiatrist another favourite of mine so I thought I would include that as well.

Well I am going to hit my bed, I am having a weekend of rest and recuperation and will be totally charged up for next week. Enjoy your Sunday my friends.

Shine A Light

I got up this morning and needed lights on everywhere. The days are getting shorter. The Mail and Express blame it n foreigners . Seriously, we're still in summer, the weather has been great , it's Friday which means the weekend is here, so all is good.

This is my 1100th post on here, that's quite a lot , and does provide me with a great online diary of stuff worth remembering.

Think Differently

Recently I started another blog just for me to let off steam here as I do like to keep this one positive,and there are still lots of great things to be positive about. The UK are doing well in the Olympics and the EU actually tops the Olympic table , or it would do if we were part of it.

The obvious song for this post is Shine A Light , not the Take That version, or even The Rolling Stones.

I decided to go for the Gallagher and Lyle song of that name.

Anyway, as I said it is Friday, the weekend is nearly here , the weather is great (although skies at the moment are grey) so everything is in place for maximum enjoyment.

I know this isn't a particularly memorable post but 1100 is not a particularly memorable number really.

Go on enjoy yourself, you know it makes sense.