Yes it's Monday , and yes I feel tired despite nine hours sleep and a lie in til mid day yesterday , but for some reason the visits to this blog have doubled , so that makes me feel good that people actually want to read what I have to write. I try to be upbeat and despite so much negativity in the media they is a lot to be positive about.
This week is going to be relatively relaxing so hopefully I can see off my cold and get back to normal. I've woken up to mist and fog but I reckon that will burn off and we will have a very sunny
day.
I've just finished John Lydon's autobiography , Anger Is An Energy, 500 pages of not exactly easy going but some great insights to the man and his bands and the music industry and the media. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a challenging read, his opinions on certain people will probably surprise you.
Anyway this is just a quicky and we can have one of my favourite PIL songs Fishing which is just awesome though it doesn't get a mention in the book.
Didn't get out to AKQ Stottin' last night but I know Trillians would have been packed and it meant that I could watch some good films and get a reasonably early night. Today looks incredibly dreary , grey , wet and not exactly the ideal summers day.
I also didn't realise that England and Wales were in the same UEFA 2016 group , and Wales are top and Russia got a last minute equaliser although the bits of the match I saw looked fairly good, but whether Russia are meant to be the group fall guys I don't know , because Wales are looking good.
Anyway today is going to be a relaxing day , I will be practicing songs , listening to music , perusing the papers , getting irked by the Red Tops whicjh will tells us how immigrants will cost Europe £20 Billion (while the UK allows Corporate Tax Evasion / Avoidance of £200 Billion) , but knowing that they are rags written by idiots for morons.
Anyway today is going to be another positive day, enjoying the abundant greenery , maybe taking awalk with a hat or an umbrella , because walking is good for you and does make you feel better and does not cost you anything but time and energy and you can find lots of unexpected things if you go in a random direction. And that thought has given me a song for this piece , George Harrison's"Any Road".
There are so many reasons to be happy , find them and have a great Sunday my wonderful friends.
I really like to maintain a positive attitude and generally post positive things in here, but I do notice that the things that most of the public like are things they can complain about , things that they can moan about. I always used to think that the closer you got to Manchester , the more miserable people got .. after all that's where Coronation Street is set and let's face it it's not the happiest of places , though that can be said of most TV soaps , it's just that Coronation Street has been around for as long as me.
But really there are lots of great things going on. Newcastle has been holding the Jesterval where my friends Gavin Webster and John Scott performed and they always make me laugh , though John's gig was 10:30 to 11:30 on a Tuesday night, as I left the tent in front of the Baltic Mill I saw that last Quayside Bus disappearing meaning a walk to the Taxi Rank outside the Akenside. I realised I needed some cash and as I went to the ATM I was accosted by somebody who ran up to me and said "I've Had A Really Bad Time , Give Me Some Money Now!!" Really ? I took my money from the cash machine and suggested he made his may elsewhere and I wouldn't be threatened into financing whatever he wanted.
Tonight Trillians celebrates a year since it's reopening with the mighty AKQ Stottin' on the stage , and unbelievably I have never seen them so tonight that will be rectified. This is the thing about Newcastle , there are so many things to do , places to go , in such a small city. I just love the place. Also Trillians has become a regular lunchtime eatery for me with an all day breakfast or Bangers and Thrash watching whatever film they are playing with music leaning toward the rockier side, though their take on Black Sabbath is hilarious.
Today the weather is grey and rainy , but I mowed the lawn and it's not too cold, well really it is quite summery. So I am going to include videos of the three acts I have mentioned and this is hardly scratching the surface,
Although I managed to miss my friend Nick's daughter Alisha's debut at The Three Tuns, I love her voice , check her out here
SO everybody have a brilliant weekend , there are lots of great things to enjoy , go enjoy yourself .
I try to keep things positive on this blog but am a little sad to be thinking about the passing of two greats , Dave Swarbrick , fiddle player with Fairport Convention amongst many others as well as being an artist in his own right , and Muhammad Ali , peerless boxer and human rights activist.
I was introduced to Muhammad Ali from an early age , as he was the nearest thing to a hero for my my dad , a boxer himself who had to give up because he cut so easily. I knew him as Cassius Clay and then went the tmedia trauma of him converting to Islam and changing his name. We had Henry Cooper but Muhammad Ali was the man, my dad was dismissive of Cooper and eulogised Ali.
I was never into boxing because I was far too not liking the pain , also I remember seeing a book about Ali called GOAT , which was on Amazon with a retail price tag of £2,000 . You can now buy it here for a more reasonable , but still expensive £99.99 , but I wondered about the title, GOAT is an acronym .... Greatest of All Time.
There are so many stories surfacing , especially about his links with Tyneside , how he got married at a mosque in South Shields , raised money for a local boxing club , and basically just go on the net and you will see loads of information about the great man.
Another great loss was Dave Swarbrick who I saw at the Tyneside Irish Centre in 2014 , performing on a stage I have (dis)graced myself , my memories are here and he was incredibly funny and talented , I think I also saw him with either Imagined Village or The Albion Band at The Sage.
I first heard him on John Peel accompanying Martin Carthy on "Prince Heathen" , but remember the speed of his playing on "Fiddlestix" on Fairport Live which I still can't hear in my head , I have got to listen to the recording to hear is brilliance.
I do feel that 2016 is a year of incredible artistic departures but their legacy will endure, like Muhammad Ali's fights and words and deeds , we will always remember them, like Swarbrick's music. I'm going to include Johnny Wakelin's "In Zaire" about the Rumble In The Jungle with George Foreman and Swarbrick's live rendition of Fiddlestix.
In the seventies when my major musical influences were being formed , my attention was often caught by bands with a penchant for presentation, but most of my grammar school peers were into progressive rock, while the music teachers bored us with classical , and my out of school friends were Teddy Boys and Greasers with a taste for rock and roll and hard country.
Early need to see bands were Hawkwind and Pink Floyd , I caught Hawkwind but never got to see Pink Floyd, both had light shows and multi media aspects to their shows and Hawkwind had the attraction of Stacia an Amazonian Proportioned dancer.
Then I heard about a band called Kiss , masks , flame throwing guitar, fireworks , so I checked out their albums and .... was not impressed. They sound weak , turned out to be bandwagon jumpers and just plain annoying.
But then came Earth, Wind and Fire. They had mysticism , magic in their stage shows , huge sets , amazing musicianship .... but they were disco. This was totally at odds and messed with my brain, how could a band that looked and seemed so interesting be a disco band? Seriously.
Well forty years on I bought The Eternal Dance and I will give them a real listen, I have loved some of their stuff but my musical bigotry has stopped me from buying theor stuff.
That changed today so of course I have to include some live footage of the band from Japan in 1988 for you to enjoy. The stage set is very impressive .We didn't have this in the seventies , but we do now.
Over the past few weeks I have been asked if I am vegetarian , vegan and when did I become vegetarian and was it difficult to cut out meat and fish , just because I ate some vegetarian food. The answer is I am not vegetarian or vegan, when it comes to eating I am blood awkward and fussy. I eat all the wrong things, I am diabetic , I like a bacon sandwich although I think I may be weaning myself off chocolate , which I adore and today I bought some scales and recorded the terrible fact that the scales tell me I am 114.6 Kg that's like 18 Stone.
Anyway enough of that, last week I visited the excellent Bohemian Restaurant and recorded my thoughts here so you can check it out , apparently one of the top ten British Vegan Restaurants, it's in Pink Lane Newcastle and is definitely worth your time. They recommended Farplace which is a vegetarian / vegan shop / cafe in Clayton street , that sells Vegetarian and Vegan products AND supports animal welfare so to quote George Orwell it really is DoublePlusGood , the staff are really nice and when I went in they had the guy from The Nut Roaster demonstrating his machine and selling various nut butters (you can see his oven in action here)
I went with Cashew Nut Butter along with a lentil curry pasty and vegan Victoria Sponge and a Chocolate Orange Scone.
Then today I was walking up Grainger Street and noticed a new cafe called Super Natural , there is already one near Carliol Square but this is a new one and very pleasant it ism, I checked in on Facebook here. As my friend Katie says it's a great time to go Vegan is you are in Newcastle.
The places I've listed are all town center, and they are not the only ones. If you go out to other Novocastrian districts you will find more Vegetarian and Vegan places.
I thought I was going to have to you use Meat Is Murder by The Smiths as accompanying music for this pice buth then remembered The Mothers' Call Any Vegetable which is far more positive , which lets face it Vegetarianism and Veganism is.
They say you wait ages for a bus then three turn up at once, well this isn't quite the same but had arranged with my friend Katie so try out the vegetarian and vegan place.I was saddened with teh demise of The Stateside Diner and was glad when The Bohemian appeared. I had met a chef from there in Kazbat's Den and said I would visit.
Anyway I got there early and noticed that it was cash only , not a problem as Central Staion is two minutes away and full of cash machines. Anyway I returned and Katie had booked a table , and was impressed with the album cover decor and the music playing , load enough to hear but quiet enough to talk. I then turned round and saw they also sold Vinyl !! You can see my instagram video here , so I was on to a winner m definitely.
Two weeks earlier I had found The Long Play Cafe on the Quayside , food , drink and Vinyl , so hence the bus analogy. Both these places are must visit places , if you are near get yourself in there.
Anyway we started with three tapas , tempura vegetables , breaded mushrooms ad nachos with vegan cheese, guacamole and the usual trappings . This was augmented by 241 cocktails though mine was non alcoholic.
The atmosphere was lovely , the music superb and they had Major Tom by Peter Schilling on vinyl , a record I had never heard until seeing Deutschland 83, so that was a must purchase.
Mains were a vegan hotdog and a chilli cheese chimichanga , and that left no room for cake , which did look lush.
This place is gorgeous, while I normally only look for positives , this place positively ooozes positivity.
