After a week in which I saw a great production of Othello at the RSC in Stratford (despite the baking heat the aircon kept the temperature constant , so no slowly falling asleep as the place turns into a pizza oven fueled by body heat and stale air) .
As well as that watched the last 16 episodes of Breaking Bad , which never let up, not even to the last moment. I wonder if Badfinger benefited from an increase in sales of their records due to the final scene. A particularly tragic band , their leader Pete Ham committed suicide in the seventies despite his song "Without You" hitting Number One when recorded by Harry Nilsson , Badfinger's Baby Blue was the appropriate playout song and I've chosen an excellent mix up that summarizes Breaking Bad using that piece. It is very, very good.
So today has been housework, gardening and preparing for a return to work. I also have material for another two blog posts , one on betting and the other on the Alberts of the music world, but that will be something to keep be going next week. Oh also there is a screening of the final Grateful Dead concert. Information here , at the Tyneside Cinema , which I am going to tomorrow, though the setlist only includes one of my favourites , the gorgeous "Standing On The Moon", should I have two videos? Oh why not , they are both brilliant. Enjoy your weekend.
A great week to take a holiday , but don't do sunblock normally so ended up a bit burnt. It's very hot and very nice and very warm in the centre of the UK. It's nice to be able to read , listen to Radio 6 , enjoy the weather and the peace and not have to bother about work.
Today will be a visit to Stratford to see Othello , and visit any record shops I can find , plus any other interesting places I can find, and who knows what that might be. This post is going to be even shorter than the last two and I'm wondering what song to put up.
Decided to plump for Heatwave by Martha and the Vandellas who I intend to see headlining this year's Mouth Of Tyne Festival. I first heard the song covered by The Who who were one of the never ending list of bands who played this year's Glastonbury. Anyway , you all enjoy the weather wherever you are in the world and have a totally brilliant day.
A friend was surprised that I could find a elucidate about stuff related to Peru , and set me a task to find a song about pigeons. Two immediately sprang to mind "Pigeons" by Genesis from their Spot The Pigeon EP and "King of Rome" which I have only heard as a cover by Half Man Half Biscuit, but found this live performance by The Unthanks at the 2012 Folk awards. So here's a thing , leave a comment if you want me to write about some random thing and supply an appropriate piece of music. That could lead down an interesting trail similar to Radcliffe and Maconie's The Chain.
"Pigeons and doves constitute the bird clade Columbidae, that includes about 310 species. Pigeons are stout-bodied birds with short necks, and short, slender bills with fleshy ceres. They feed on seeds, fruits, and plants" See here for the RSPB definition.
Also pigeons play a part in the history of the Happy Mondays , but I'll leave you to look that up or you can watch this:
Sorry this is just a short post , although I noticed my last post was the 900th on this blog , so I've probably written enough to fill a book, although it would be quite incoherent but filled with interesting stuff. Anyway I hope you comment and leave your suggestions for the next post.
It's the last day of Glastonbury and the person who has got most publicity out of this is Kanye West. Befor I start Kanye West has never bothered be either , some people enjoyed the set others didn't , He continually self promotes and part of his spiel for this performance was that Rap is the new Rock and Roll and therefor he was the biggest Rock Star in the world. Well there's a classic of moving the goalposts into the next county to fit your argument ....
Prior to the festival , I was continually moved to laughter by the idiots who wanted Kanye West removed from the bill , probably because he's not "Rock" enough . The thing is Glastonbury is not a "Rock" Festival , it is a festival , in fact probably the biggest festival in the world. People don't go for the acts , they go because it's Glastonbury , and there is so much on , that if you don't like something there will something around the corner that you do like. If you work out what you get for the cost of your ticket, you probably are a very good deal. Complaining about Kanye West is like complaining that Harrods stock Tibetan Yak's Milk Cheese in gold laminated wrapping. I made that up but you know what I mean. The Eavis Family could have sold tickets for the festival five times over, it is a huge financial success and that's what you have to remember. So it's pointless complaining about Glastonbury because it's gone beyond criticism. If you want a more grass roots festival , there are thousands on round the country: Here are five:
..and that is barely scratching the surface...there are half dozen happening on Tyneside this year and lots more throughout the country.
Any back to Kanye West positing that Rap is the new Rock and roll. It isn't . When someone says A is the new B they are immediately on the defensive implying their new product is inferior to the old product, you hear it all the time in film , writing and music, and the nearest example of that being true was Bruce Springsteen being described as the new Bob Dylan. Rock and Roll has developed essentially as melody based over , usually , a 4/4 time signature evolving from blues and folk music.
Rap is different in that it is not sung , it is spoken or shouted over a rhythm. If you wanted you could say that Rap is music for those who choose not to sing. This is no bad bad thing. It's a development of spoken word poetry with roots in the fifties Beat Poets developing through the sixties and becoming it's own form utilsed across all cultures. Pop Will Eat Itselm and Eminem are examples of white rap, then you have Goldie Lookin' Chain , Welsh Charver Rap , as well as the roots rappers such as Wu Tang Clan , NWA , Fugees , Wyclef Jean.
I've just dropped a sprinkling of names showing that Rap is not the new Rock and Roll it is it's own beast and it's all the better for it. You get the odd cross pollination such as Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" especially the reboot with Run DMC ,or theElvis.
sanitized but fun "Ant Rap" by Adam and The Ants, but I'd rather Kanye had declared himself the King of Rap , because he can never take the crown from
I suppose on of my consuming passions is music and this morning , Peru came to mind, probably because I'd won a small bet on them beating Bolivia, and that recalled the song Big Day from Phil Manzanera's album Diamond Head which features Peru prominently in the lyrics , Brian Eno taking the lead vocals on it. To me Peru related music meant those bloody awful pan pipes (which I sure can sound good when used properly instead of a bloody awful lift music rendition of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" , incidentally written by Giorgio Moroder
Really I know next to nothing about Peru apart from itin the North West of South America (Three Direction in One Description) . Without looking I can't even tell you if it has a coastline and off hand I don't even know the capital of the place. I do know that Nolberto Solano , one of Newcastle's most loved players , as well as playing trumpet is going to have the first Peruvian restaurant in Newcastle (details here) named after him. Newcastle is well served for restaurants , but as far as I know , never had a Peruvian one.
Heres the Wikipedia entry for Peru and I now know it has a shoreline on the West Coast , but still don't know what the capital is. There is certainly some amazing scenery there, and they obviously have a pretty good football team.
So just a short post , but enjoy the song , and I need to educate myself about Peru.
Odd my last for posts have been two sort of angry ones and two positive ones, The angry ones got double the hist of the positive ones, which I 'm sort of not too surprised about but wish it was the other way round. Not that I don't want people to read my blog, I definitely do , and am pondering whether I can hit a thousand posts and 100K page views by New Years Eve. It is unlikely that I can do both but the 1K posts is achievable as I have 180 days to do 100 posts, so 2 every three days from now til 2016.
Ronnie Biggs came up in conversation and from that I started thinking of the association that the Great Train Robbery had with the Alabama 3 and Phil Collins and of course the Sex Pistols. I certainly can't condone robbery or what they did , but a mythology has grown up around them , giving them almost legendary status when in fact they brutally killed in their pursuit of money. Ironically Western society more than ever prizes money over human life.
There's a few things over that last couple of weeks have happened to me that have not been good experience, and too often that often leads to people blowing their top , feeling miserable , getting angry. Sometimes , for some people they deal with it by doing whatever they want to do , the worst examples being red top readers and daytime television viewers. I tend to be exasperated, and find something more positive to focus on. It's not the answer for everyone , but it's the way I deal with it.
There's been loads of good things happening , including getting some nice presents for Father's Day , of course i couldn't get in touch with my dad as he tends not to answer his phone , but I saw him last week and sent him a card.
The sun is shining and weather is good , and a good friend turned be on to Eddie Skiba, sounding like a more muscular Crowded House with a touch of Midnight Oil , with some interesting videos available on Youtube. You should really check this guy out , the music is great and he definitely has social messages for everyone.
SO although the weekend is coming to an end there's just another great week coming up to enjoy. And when you see things like the image below , you just gotta smile .
