A Few Thoughts on Going Vegan

No I'm not going vegan , though I enjoy vegan and I am really happy at the growing number of vegan outlets in Newcastle, though a few people have taken my Facebook posts to mean that I have become vegan. (similarly because I support GAY rights, some people have taken that to mean I am GAY, well only in the fact that GAY is an acronym that means GOOD AS YOU so I am as good as you though my sexuality is standard) but back to the vegan thing.

Vegan food is inventive, although I find the vegetarian / vegan sausage / bacon thing a little odd especially the bacon thing. If you want something that looks and tastes like meat then eat the meat. Sausages are a little different, they are offal enhances by spices and other tasty additives, so replace the offal by vegetables and add a vegan casing and that is fine, though I've yet to taste a vegan sausage I like.

Non vegans often argue that man is a carnivore / hunter so we are built to eat meat. Well look at our teeth and jaws and "claws" , just like a lion or a tiger aren't we , readty to rip our prey apart.

Just from a resource thing veganism is sensible, we take or food at source instead of letting it go into a cow, pig or sheep then get converted for months or years before killing the animal and cooking it.

I am not a big meat fan, though I lkie a bacon sandwich, I am fine with eggs and like most fish. So I am not vegan and am just fussy but if someone offers me vegan food then I (99% of the time) love it.

So what song do I choose this morning?  I just got a mention at 6:45 on the Chris Hawkins show for a made up Half Man Half Biscuit song title. This was the email:

"I had a nut roast at The Cozy Dove in Newcastle yesterday before the match (I support Preston so I didn't go)

Also the best HMHB Tribute band name is "It's Not Half Man, Mum"

My Title is

"I Printed My Sunday Roast (On My 3D Printer) Before The Match""

I was thinking mybe Paul McCartney, Half Man Half Biscuit but there are many vegan bands about and I have just remembered a Robert Wyatt song that would be perfect, if very dark. "Pigs In There" .. and that is one of the reasons for being vegan.

No Regrets and Changing Opinions

My first job was in the 1970s so I suppose mentioning names doesn't really matter too much as it's not defamatory. Of course I was a bit anti mainstream music at the time and I was working at Jame Mercers in Preston as an office clerk. It was a nice place to work and there were some great people there, but the money was not that great but you got a Christmas bonus and taken out for a meal as well.

One of the guys Phil Livesly was always immaculately dressed and maybe could have slipped unnoticed into "Life on Mars" or "Abigail's Party", but he canme in raving to me about he'd heard this brilliant song "No Regrets" by The Walker Brothers , I immediately countered by saying it was commercialised and the Tom Rush original was far superior. This was all good natured, and he's one of the people I do miss from my past.

"No Regrets" by The Walker Brothers came on my player today, and it is a stunning version, so I have changed my opinion on this. Part of this is because of Scott's amazing voice. What I then got to thinking was "I wonder if Phil has heard any of Scott Walker's work since then" and what would his opinion be now.

A contemporary Scott Walker album is not for the faint hearted, and I have a feeling that "Tilt" or "Soused" will not be on Phil's iTunes (I know he'll have an iPhone) . So on this I will include both versions for you to listen to , enjoy both , and if you dare ... go and explore some contemporary Scott Walker.

You Gotta Have Faith

We all have it in one form or another, and one of the problems is that concepts of faith is usually hijacked by religion to get your support without any real promise of a reall benefit to your reself. Your life may be bad but you need to have pain and poverty and then you will get unspecified rewards in heaven, really? I am agnostic and there may be a god but I have not seen any evidence in my lifetime or any real evidence from the past. People cite The Bible as support or evidence, but that book is continually being rewritten and amended. There's a King James' Bible , sixteen hundred years after the events supposedly happened. You think that would be accepted as evidence in court, yet we swear to tell the truth on The Bible!!

The faith I do have is the faith I have in my actions adn what they cause. I work and therefore onece a month I receieve money in my bank account to stave off poverty. That is then used to pay bills and I believe that the people requiring money with receive it.  We put a hell of a lot of faith in eletronics and people and most of th etime it is well founded, although tis week two things happened where my faith was not rewarded.

Firstly Betfair withdrwals are nrmall y in my bank in two days, and this week withdrawals from Wednesday and Thursday have still not landed. A worse example is my insulin prescription that I ordered on Monday. I went to pick it up from the chemist (I'd injected my last on Saturday morning) , and they said they had received nothing. Insuling is fairly important to a diabetic. The first thing they said was " .... and as it's Saturday we can't ring the doctors" ... that was swiftly followed by "but we'll give you an emergency box but could you ring the practice on Monday". The NHS don't usually let you die and I am thankful I don't live in the USA. These two failures maybe say we  have to be aware that sometimes things we have faith in fail us.

You thought I was going to include a George Michael Song, though you will have seen The Who picture when you opened up the post. I always like this song from their "Odds and Sods" compilation.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday

30th Century Man 2: Scott Walker vs Tom Waits

Last nigh I finished watching 30th Century Man and Fiona got hooked. She said that Scott was very like Tom Waits. I disagreed, but then thought they do have a lot of similarities. The main difference is that Tom Waits' music lives in a skewed version of reality while Scott Walkers' seems to me to be in a completely different universe.

As I'm witing this I'm listening to "Cossacks Are" the opening song from "The Drift" which features in the film. After watch the film you are left wonderfing the closing percussion instrument is, as you see dustbins and slabs of meat being used.

Both artiss started out reasonably mainstream, the main difference that Scott was a pin up and Tom looked like a tramp (a description often given to me). Scott charted with the Walker Brothers and when he split he was successful as a solo artist until "Scott 4". Tom's success was augmented my others such as The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart covering his songs.

Then for Tom came "Swordfishtrombones" and for Scott "Climate of the Hunter" where they both truly left the mainstream. Tom often used made up intruments but his composition still are recognisable as songs.

Someone wrote about Scott's pieces (and this is how I remember what they said) "they're not songs, they something else" and I can see what he means. You don't listen to a Scott Walker album and get away with not paying attention.

Currently playing is "Clara" inspired by the execution of Mussolini and his girlfriend that Scott had seen on cinema newsreels as a child , and the adults would not explain what had happened, it features the meat percussion.

His pieces are poems mixed with tone pieces, they give the impressions of massiveness and claustrophobia, they do make you feel, but you have a feeling of not knowing where or when you are, maybe something like a mental flotation tank.

Tom Waits is clearer, he takes you on journeys , on foot or in a dodgy automobile, he is Americanm but not a TV American, his stories are engaing and you often wonder "what's that playing". They are songs though.

I think the only other people I could group with these two are Captain Beefheart, The Fall then to some effect Bowie, Zappa and Siouxsie and maybe Pearls Before Swine.

I was surprised to hear that Scott Walker never listens to his work once it's finished. I can understand an autor not reading his own books, but given that Scott is often ten years between albums he does have time to listen to his amazing work.

Having said that Tom Waits is almost a relief after listening to Scott Walker. Two amazing, amazing artists.

30th Century Man

I'm currently watching the ten year old documentary "30th Century Man" (I seldom watch two hour programs in one session) about the reclusive and supposedly evasive Scott Walker. One the the big moments is when he comes into the studio wearing a pulled down baseball cap, and you think what's he going to be like, is this going to be a car crash, but his latest album is a collaboration with drone noise band Sunn O))) so you know he can talk to people and he comes across as open, knowledgeable and easy to talk to.

The film features contributions from lots of musical icons (see the tags) and I noticed one very interesting parralel. Scott had been drinking at the opening of the Playboy Club in London, got very drunk got talking to a girl who could drink more than him. They went back to her flat and he noticed that she had a lot of Jacques Brel albums which she kept playing and translating for Scott.

He became hooked on Brel from this and a couple of days later he met Andrew Loog Oldham for afternoon Black Russians. Scott mentioned Brel and Oldham said that's a coincidence, there's guy sent some piano versions of Brel English transciption that he'd done which were not that good. Scott said I'll have them. Andrew Loog Oldham was the guy who sued the Verve for using the orchestral tape loop of "The Last Time" on "Bitterweet Symphony"but that's an aside. So a girl in a flat got Scott Walker into Jacques Brel.

In the sixties the BBC gave Scott a TV series expecting a middle of the road entertainer, The show last six episode and the BBC destroyed all the tapes so all that is left are fragments and photographs. They got Scott Walker not a Jack Jones or Tom Jones.

Cut to David Bowie (Executive producer of this documentary):

David was dating one of Scott Walker's ex girldfriend, and was a bit pissed off that she had lot's of Scott's albums, which she kept playing which pissed him off even more. But the more she played the more he realised what a great voice this guy had, and so became a real Scott Walker fan. So a girl in a flat got David Bowie into Scott Walker.

They both covered Jaques Brel's "Amsterdam" so were obviously both fans.

Apparently they contacted Julian Cope who is a big fan, but Julian is even more interview shy than Scott so they just show the letter he sent in reply.

The song I will choose is a Brel translation from the sixties, but that voice is amazing, so for you education I'll include his debut solo TV performance on the Dusty Springfield show "Mathilda" or "Mathilde" depending on how it's listed .

Enjoy your Friday.

A Sight For Sore Eyes

When the opening notes on the solo piano start playing "Auld Lang Syne" you can be pretty certain that a Tom Waits song is on the way, and this came on the player today (I put it there so it's not magic like some people seem to attribute to iTunes, Dezzer and Spotify) and I have either forgotten it or not heard it before ... or maybe I have

... that melody playing I have heard before and then I realised it's the same as "In The Neighborhood", the song that hooked me on Tom Waits from the amazing "Swordfishtrombones". "A Sight For Sore Eyes" from "Foreign Affairs" predates "In The Neighborhood" by six years, but let's face it you're allowed to plagiarise or borrow from your own material.

I have been sharing quite a lot of Tom Waits recently and if you don't know his work you should really make the effort, you will be rewarded by one of the richest veins of songs by any writer, mined by Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles.

As he ages he does get further from the mainstream , but he was never really that mainstream, it's just that people with discerning taste appreciate the guy.

Anyway that's another gem I've shared with you and another post towards my #August50, and the sun is still shining very brightly.

A Favourite Rhyming Couplet

On my walk today a growling, sinister , pedestrian bass guitar came onto my headphones signalling the introduction to one of my favourite Half Man Half Biscuit songs, soon to be joined high pitched amaterish but efficient sounding guitars. The lyrics namecheck lots of seventies and eighties touchstones, "Jackie" magazine, Flintlock ,  Sade and T'Pau.

This is one of my many favourite songs of theirs documenting the minutiae of everyday mundanity. The album is "McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt" named after three footballers in Michale Palin's "Ripping Yarns" episode "Golden Gordon" the synopsis of it is:

"Barnestoneworth United is the worst football team of 1935,who lose every match. Gordon Ottershaw is,however,their loyal fan,determined to prevent them from being disbanded after their final game. To this end he recruits the players from the renowned winning team of 1922 who turn up to defeat rivals Denley Moor."

The IMDB entry is here and the episode is here on youtube (this may be removed at some point).

Anyway back to the rhyming couplet that inspired this, it's from the final song "Everything's AOR Now" but actually links yuppies with 1960's wrestling. My grandma used to watch it every Saturday intoduced by Kent Walton featuring such stars as Mick McManus, Jackie Pallo and the subject of this couplet:

"She’s the main man in the office in the city
And she treats me like I’m just another lackey
But I can put a tennis racket up against my face
And pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki"

And when that came on it did bring a smile to my face. The full lyrics are here . If you love it as much as me you can get it here and all Half Man Half Biscuit's recording here, and lots of free session here.

Enjoy my friends.