The Genius of Simple

When I was at primary school my headmistress Mrs Walsh told us that a genius who could see and explain things very simply. She gave the example of a guy who went to a match company and said he could save them a great deal of money for actually stopping doing something.

In those days match boxes were sandpapered on two sides. He posited that people always checked for where they were goig to strike the match , so the boxes only needed one strip of sand
paper instead of two. At a stroke halving the company's sandpaper bill. It does sound obvious, but until he came along no one had thought about.

Genius at Work

I am currently reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History Of Time" , and there is no down in my mind that the guy is probably in the genius category. The book is less than two hundred pages, but is packed with content and not a word is wasted , which means it is slow going , but his style of writing comes across with a "Go On, You CAN Get This!"  message.

That's a long probably unconnected intro to what this post is actually about . I may have blogged about this or touched on this before but it is really about musical genius. If someone were to ask for an example , Jimi Hendrix , Brian Wilson , Lennon and McCartney are probably goig to come over in responses and there's no doubt that these  were musical Genii . I would add Joni Mitchell , PJ Harvey , Kate Bush and Sandy Denny to that list as well , but it's annoying that music is seen as a boy thing. Girls are good too.

The problem is that most of the music that these artists produced was complex, and taken to extremes by bands like King Crimson , Emerson Lake & Palmer and Yes. One of the main ironies was that of Yes's initially simplest constructs "And You And I" is a lovely melody set to basically three acoustic chords , but by the time it's finihed it hits ten minutes with lots of additional bombast. I still love it though , and it was released , uncut as a seven inch single.


Ok we're here , real genius is to do something musically so simple that anyone can do it. Songs with three chords or less. The Velvet Underground's first album didn't initially sell many copies but everyone who bought it formed a band. The descening G riff from "I'm Waiting For The Man" can be heard in "White Riot " by the clash, "In The City" by The Jam and "Holidays In The Sun" by The Sex Pistols. The inspired Jonathan Richman , who's "Roadrunner" is only two chords  "D" and "A" which any one can learn on a guitar in minutes. Van Morrison's Gloria and The Who's "I Can't Explain" are more examples of easy to play songs , along with The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" a staple of any garage band's repertoire , and The Kinks "You Really Got Me" and  "All Day, and All Of The Night" also fall into this area.

Another example of genius is the one note guitar solo. If you can make one note sound good you are a true genius. To this day I am only aware of two examples of this "I'm A Hog For You Baby" by The Coasters and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash. To do that , is inspired genius.

So I've bookended this post with those two songs , sitting an Amazon MP3 selection in the middle for you to sample. Love to hear your thoughts on this , and sorry this one has gone on a bit

Coconuts

Feed The Birds

I have a garden and a stand with various forms of bird seed to give the birds something else to eat. As well as seed I put out fat balls and half coconuts filled with fat and seed. When first half coconut I put out stayed for ages and I thought , maybe it's badly designed, maybe the birds don't like it , or whatever. The one day there was some kind of blitz on the food stand,  Everything went! including the coconut contents.

I'm not sure what caused this, I had seen some crows , although they tend to prefer roadkill, and then the bigger birds are magpies and pigeons as will as the smaller birdlife.

So I put another half coconut out and that has been devoured too. The smaller birds like finches are devouring the fatballs , and am just wondering whetehr they are the ones enjoying it.

Well I'm not going to let it bother me , but will get some more today , and it is an excuse to play Harry Nilsson's Coconut, just one of the weirdest songs that you have to sing along to , and we all know Harry was an "interesting" guy as the video testifies ...

Have a great Sunday everyone.

Sometimes....

I feel the urge to write about something but I've really nothing to write about that is interesting or has caught my imagination.

Last weekend I managed to completely miss the Mouth of Tyne and Corbridge Festivals which I attended last year, that almost shocked me. One of the problems may be that there is just so much going on that it did manage to pass me by.

Next weekend I'm going to see Big Country in Scotland and then just after that Ash play Chase Park in Whickham , not forgetting Summertyne that is going on this weekend.

I've written about all these in previous years mainly on the Spoongig site so will probably update if I get time after those festival.

Oh and tomorrow we have a Pride March in Newcastle. I like diversity and love to acknowledge and be part of it. Sometime people forget what GAY means (acronym for Good As You) , which we should all feel we are.

Also now I'm going off on a language tangent about the word "Homosexual".

"Homo" can mean man as in "Homo Sapiens" , or the same as in say "Homogenous"

I'm doing all the reasoning without referring to anything so my reasoning can probably be blown out of the water.

But "Homosexual" uses the meaning of the same , but I suppose in male / male relationships could be misconstrued as man.

Anyway , although I'm  "straight" all my friends delight me , whatever their orientation , and they are part of a rich and diverse tapestry that I am so lucky to be enmeshed in.

All You Need To Know

So I'm gonna choose Tom Robinson's "Glad To Be Gay" , a great singalong song which me and my mates had great fun with putting on the jukeboxes in severely homophobic pubs in the late seventies. It was fun because we were well able to take care of ourselves . Also reminds of the time me and three mates went to see a Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything"  lecture in Newcastle's Centre For Life . We are not the smallest of frames and we were sat at a table in the what I believe is a gay pub called "Barons" , when a girl came up to us and asked "Are You Gay?" in hushed tones , to which my mate Chris replied "But Of Course We Are!" somewhat louder.

Anyway , It's time for bed and I have managed to ramble on for quite a bit about nothing. Sleep well my friends

We All Make Mistakes .. And Often That's Good

Someone asked me if I knew about the Alberts as they'd seen a great documentary on them. I said yes, I have , and have a couple of their records, and whilst they were influential I thought, they're hardly the sort of band who would merit a documentary, especially now. Although I then pondered and thought well, with today's access to recording and media , anyone who's willing to put the work in can actually make a documentary about anything. In an experiment I did a very short one about Staddle Stones here just to see if I could talk about something maybe people had wondered about. It was unprepared, so I just said what I knew, but there's a good example of the story of of mine and John Peel's second favourite song about Liverpool , Amsterdam's "Does This Train Stop On Merseyside" here. Anyway that's by the by...

It's All Jazz

The band I was talking about was the trad jazz band The Alberts, from the early sixties who were a big influence on The Bonzo Dog Band and other less illustrious musical combos. I'm not sure if they even made any albums , as I can only find odd tracks on compilations.






They were talking about Alberts an Australian music dynasty , responsible for bands such as AC/DC and the Easybeats and many, many more and a new documentary called Blood and Thunder that has been released documenting their history. The trailer of it is below. So it's just an example of how you can be talking about the same thing but actually be talking about something different. While searching for this I found a documentary on The Easybeats here. which is well worth a visit.

And the good thing about mistakes like this is that you can discover even more about stuff that you didn't know about, a great example of a good mistake.

Anyway hope you enjoy the music , and I hope this post isn't marked as abusive and offensive by Facebook like the last one was. Have a great Sunday everybody

Quietly Raising Hell

This week has been back to work , I saw the Grateful Dead's last gig at the cinema with a friend I hadn't  seen in years and sort of signed up to do an introductory presentation at  work , while discovering the problems of support teams who use the Apple model of pretending there is nothing wrong and the problem is with you , like ordering steak and being served bacon and then being told that's what you ordered !

A Puzzle

Still these are the challenges that make life interesting , and it is pointless getting angry , I just see it as a puzzle to be solved , and talking of puzzles I've almost finished the latest Clive Barker book The Scarlet Gospels , and we all know how the Cenobites are summoned ....... I've always been fascinated by the puzzle box since I first saw Hellraiser , but wouldn't dare have one in my house. The book however is up to his normal standards though not a Weaveworld or Imajica. So I've done an Amazon carousel with some of my favourite CB Books below.





Anyway summer is continuing with good weather interspersed with showers, and I'm listening lots of good music. I have been mightily impressed with Ezra Furman , but the slideshow I did for One Day I Will Sin No More is banned in a lot of countries for copyright reasons by Youtube , although I believe my antipodean and American friends enjoy it here. , the guy has talent. It has had almost fifty views so far , so that's not too bad given the audience limitation.

Shakespeare, Breaking Bad and The Grateful Dead

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) .

Heisenberg at the Door

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.

Heatwave

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.

Dancing In The Street

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.