#AprilSongs #26 Black Friday

This is early because tomorrow morning I need go and get some milk, go to the Post Office Depot to pick up "All Good Clean Fun" on vinyl, then post a "Best of" Sandie Shaw to fulfil a Discogs order (I notice that a new one on Amazon will set you back £143 maybe the buyer saw this), then go to work, and afterwards go to the Boiler Shop to see Half Man Half Biscuit.

So for the #AprilSongs sequence I'm closing Friday with Steely Dan's "Black Friday", the opening song from "Katy Lied" which featured a Katydid on the cover. Steely Dan took their name from a Steam Powered Sex Toy in William Burroughs "The Naked Lunch". I only recently found out that "Black Friday" was when businesses finally hit paydirt and went into profit for the financial year supposedly, though it may have once been true, I doubt it happens today.

So this is my third post today although it's an early installment for tomorrow so I will now leave you to enjoy some classic live Steely Dan.

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.