The Housemartins - The Greatest Marxist Band Ever To Pick Up Guitars

I read that statement twice when I read it in Jordan Ellenberg's "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life", I know the Housemartins were committed left wing and Paul Heaton definitely still is but does that make them Marxist.

Maybe Robert Wyatt could be Marxist, especially listening to his stuff post Soft Machine. His band after that was Matching Mole which is extrapolated from the French for "Soft Machine" , "Machine Molle" apparently. My french is only 'O' Level but Google translates as "Machine Souple" though the reverse translation comes out as correct.

There were a lot of bands that may have been Marxist  that are in my collection , a possible list here:

• Henry Cow
• National Health
• Crass
• Raincoats
• Art Bears
• Slapp Happy

And to some extent Billy Bragg, Woody Guthrie and the list could go on for a long time.

All these bands are well worth a listen whatever your politics, they are probably all on Youtube so go and have a look and listen. This is one of the great things about this digital age, you don't read this and then think I will have to go and research that tomorrow. I remember in the seventies when you read about a band you often had to look in the music mags like Sounds and NME scour the adverts and then order an album on import, hoping it would be as good as the title and blurmb made it sound.

Anyway I've included "Sitting On A Fence" the song that Jordan Ellenberg used to illustrate his point, and if you want to know what the point was you will have to read Ellenberg's book.

Have a good Tuesday.

Going American

I'm just loading up my phone with a lots of sixties and seventies American music. Although to me they are major players , the only ones you may have heard of are The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Of couse that atter leads off to Paul Kantner and Grace Slick and the wonderful Hot Tuna featuring the amazing guitar of Jorma Kaukonen , who I saw at Knebworth in about '76 when The Rolling Stones headlined , 10CC had a three hour soundcheck, Todd Rundgren's Utopia went over the top with their pyramid and Lynyrd Skynyrd played one of their last gigs before we lost most of them.

I'm also loading up Tom Rapp , Pearls Before Swine and Dave Ackles , all class acts though seriously forgotten these days, but I will be pushing them over the coming weeks as I visit them on my walk to work. I don't think I've name checked so many bands and musicians in a post before, although I probably have.

I leave you with Hot Tuna's excellent cover of Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy" . Enjoy. It's time for bed for me.

Never Saw That Coming

Or maybe I should have done it because the weather is unpredictable. I was walking home past St James' Park and suddenly was hit by a torrential downpour soaking my pants, shoes and socks. The wind was threatening to destroy my umbrella so I sheltered in a covered gateway before chancing the downpour when the wind dropped. I got to a bus stop and eventually, the rain subsided. As there was no but I walked a bit further and then the sun appeared. It had gone from torrential downpour to bright hot sunshine in little more than ten minutes.

I was still walking and listening to music. Today's album is "English Settlement" a double album by XTC full of their angular folk rock and a lot of fine musicianship, The lead single I think was "Senses Working Overtime" and "No Thugs In Our House" is unfortunately very relevant now with the right-wing racism being sanctioned by UK and US leaders. Some of my favourites are the melodic guitar motifs of "Yacht Dance" and the title track Other standouts are "Ball and Chain" and "It's Nearly Africa" before finishing up with "Snowman" which I will leave you with. One is an official version, the other soundtracking my first snowman at Chateau Dred

The weather is forecasting rain and 60 mph winds tomorrow, hopefully we won't get any snow ... yet.

Have a great evening.

That Was Lucky

An absolute deluge during the night, so glad it held off while The Great North Run was on. There were ceratainlt black couds about during the day. The sky looks a bit clearere this morning so a walk into work is going to happen, but I'll be keeping off the grass, and I won't be mowing the lawn tonight.

It's another Monday and even though it's halfway through September , the mornings are dark and this weather is not exactly the best , but weather is complicated so you take what comes and deal with it insted of moaning about it. Though there are people who are only happy when they are miserable and the weather gives them another reason to complain, and I am sure we have a lot of non sunshine on the way to cries of "We never had a summer" , in reality the last couple of years the weather has actually been excellent.

On my walk in today I will be listening to Primal Scream's "More Light" and I was vauguely thinking of including The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" but my mind says have something more upbeat and better, so Primal Scream's "Trippin' On Your Love" would be a good start to Monday , I think.

Have a brilliant Monday everybody.

Early To Bed

"Early To Bed

Early To Rise

Makes A Man 

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise"

That's probably a maxim for the mill owners to get their workers in early. It certainly doesn't apply now. People are expected to work harder and longer for less and the status quo is maintained. It's not like there isn't any money about , there is. At the cash machine I see people withdrawing hundreds as I usually take ten or twenty , or sometimes fifty.

But life isn't really about money it's about having fun and socialising , though money does help you to do that. Anyway I actually am sleepy and intend to have a good night's sleep before walking to work tomorrow listening to Primal Scream and maybe Kate Tempest , "Let Them Eat Chaos" is a wonderful album.

Anyway it's time for sleep and what should we have to go to sleep to? What better than "When You're Falling" by Afro Celt Sound System with Peter Gabriel, sort of perfect. Good Night everybody.

A Day For Primal Scream

Today has mostl y been walking though expending nothing like the energy of the people on The Great North Run. I crossed the bridge where the start took place and posted and Instagram picture here. While I know there are world class athletes taking place I was absolutely amazed to find that the Wheelchair racers covered the 13 mile course in inder 45 minutes , that is close on twenty miles an hour average (that's what I worked out in my head, so apologies if it's wrong).

The albums I have been listening to on todays walk have been:

• Malcom McLaren - Fans:  My favourite Mclaren album where he takes on Madame Butterfly and Carmen (Puccini and Bizet) as well as Verdi. It's only half an hour long but is absolutely gorgeous while anything but po faced as sometimes classical music can seem . This will have you chasing after the originals as well.
• Primal Scream - Chaosmosis: Love the title and more baggy electronica than rock, but still excellent listening. The opener "Trippin' on Your LOve" recals the gospel of "Screamadelica"'s "Movin' on Up".
• Primal Scream - More Light (Deluxe): A rockier Primal Scream from the off of "2013" to the lift of Hawkwind's "Master of The Univers" riff for "Nothing Is Real" on the bonus disc. One to finish on the walk to work tomorrow but another great album

So that's been my Sunday and I'll leave you with the "Boys' Chor us" from "Fans" , but I am sure I will be including some Primal Scream in the future , as I have in the path. Enjoy your Sunday evening everybody.

All Work

No Joy

Makes Mac

A Dull Boy!!

 

I Do Not Want To Do That

Some days you wake up and you really don't want to get out of bed. Having a shave and a wash and cleaning your teethare chores that you'd rather not do, because there are other things that maybe you do want to do, but let's face you have to do these things to make yourself at lease basically presentable to the world...and then you have got to have a shower because the rest of your body needs cleaning and after that it's time for deodorant, hair gel and bloody contact lenses , because you have to be able to see where you are going, and then there's that contact lens that will stick to everything apart from your eye. Eventually you actually get through all this and you are ready for the day and you know it was actually worth it. You could have stayed in bed but now you are up and ready to go.

This sometimes happens during the week, but has to be overcome because you have to go to work to actually fund your lifestyle. Not doing that is not an option. You have about 130 days in the year that you don't have to do that made up of weekends, bank holidays and your alocated holidays. Some people have more, some have less but it's something you have to do.

I have now committed myself to doing 340K steps a month. Today I don;t really feel like doing my steps but I am going to walk into town and back. I don't have to do this , but this walking has reduced my insulin intake by 75%, helped me lose a little weight, made me slightly fitter , and enabled to take some great videos , see things in my locality that I didn't know existed, catch up on some great music that I had either forgotten or bought and never even listened to, until I started the walking . So whether I feel like doing it or not I WILL hit 11.5K steps today. I have a place to aim for and thanks to technology I can document it while listening to great music.

The Jordan Ellenberg book is also not the most rivetting but I have got some great information from it and it's been worth reading and with only another twenty pages to go , the end is in sight.

So on my walk I will choose an album or two to listen to,  sometimes I don't listen to anything , but I tend to walk for about 90 minutes a day which should be time for two albums, and my collection is bigger than five thousand albums so even listening at two a day that would take over seven years to listen to my whole collection.

I 'll treat you to The Records' cover of Tim Rose's "Rock and Roll Love Letter" (also covered by the Bay City Rollers in one of their many lapses into taste) and go and sort out some breakfast. Enjoy your Sunday my friends.