Friday 11 May 2018

SHEENA IS A PUNK ROCKER


Probably the main reason for writing on this blog is as a diary so I can record things that happen and that I want to remember.

Although I have written one post about our great friend and inspiration Craig Puranen Wilson here I want to record some memories from what was a wonderful day today. I reconnected with Bethany, Andrew and Katie and and hugged Krista for the first time since Craig left us. I hadn't intened to write this but part of me wanted to remember today permanently.

I came with Ange and Andrew and we were not sure if we wald all fit into the Chapel for the service. We did do and I didn't get to meet up with Sophia and Nicky but shared hugs with Jon, Hedley and Bethany remembering why we were there.

It was a humanist celebration of Craig's life and his achievements including books, bands, music and travel and his work with the Comfrey Project that helps refugees and asylum seekers, and if you want to help visit their site for more information. There was a collection box at the service so Craig and Krista are still helping.

There were emotional readings and Bethany sang two songs beautifully, "Wild is the Wind" and "Jerusalem", accompanied by Kit Haigh (Thanks Jon and see his Art installation at Art In The Barn) which garnered emotional responses.

There were tributes and readings and at the end the Ramone's "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" was played and the congregation joined in very vocally before finishing with tumultuous applause.

After saying goodbyes we met up at the Cumberland Arms although I couldn't see anyone I definitely knew until I spotted Jon Lee's pink "Hello Kitty" socks, and realse Hedley and Jon were there along with Andrew and Michael.

A beautifully emotional ceremony and was so happy to see Krista laughing at the end as we all sang Sheena out.

I just felt I had to write this down. If anyone wants their name removing let me know, but it's a small way of remembering what happened on the day we said goodbye to someone who will never be forgotten.

PAINT DRAW WRITE


Last night I went to the opening of PAINT DRAW WRITE an exhibition and event  which the first solo one by by friend Nicola bringing together elements of words, poetry , art and photography with live readings by people including a poet I met and chatted to Richard , and the excellent Arch 16 Cafe.

This is the intro written by Nicola to gove you and idea, but the exhibition is running til the 20th June so there is plenty of time for you to vist:

"Paint Draw Write....is an exhibition of pictures and poems celebrating the way in which people express their innermost selves via the creative arts."

 I loved being able to walk round enjoying the images and spending time reading the words on the wall and will no doubt drop in again to take in the experience once more.

It also brought a lot of people together to see something new, I was talking to a skateboarder when I got there and found out that they have skateboard themed gathering.s

The Arch 16 space is airy and open and ideal for this sort of exhibition, there is space to show images and I did take a quick instagram video which is here. 

I was decided to write a Haiku for this to keep in the spirit of the event:

Paint, Write, Draw, Enjoy
Create, Share and Experience
You Know It Makes Sense 

Nicola worked with my friend Craig who we say farewell to today (my tribute is here  and here is a post which touched on one of his great exhibition which he colloboarated with Nicola on), and this os just one example of his insrirational legacy., and I am looking forward to many more.

While there I was talking with Richard about the brilliant new Janelle Monae album, and the song "Make Me Feel" which reminds me so much of Prince's "Kiss" so that is the song I will use for this post because thais whole thing made me feel great. I've also included the Dirty Computer Emotion Picture a 45 minute video to accompany the album, well worth taking your time to watch.


 

Wednesday 9 May 2018

Walk #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #9 - Camper Van Beethoven - Tusk


This morning I have a routine hospital appointment at The Freeman and the weather is still good so I am going to walk it. The problem is that the route doesn't really have any buses so if I am running behind time I haveto walk faster, and that's not really a bad thing as I do want to keep my steps up and this will definitely do that.

I was discussing the best Fleetwood Mac album and a lot of people go for "Rumours" but mine is "Tusk". When it came out in the middle of the seventies punk explosion an AOR "dinosaur" releasing a double album (the ultimate self indulgence) did not bode well for a good response from critics. The NME made it album of the week and it was noted that the Warner executives probably saw their bonusses going up in smoke when they heard it. The songs are all killiers and Lindsey Buckingham's out there genius along with the songwriting and voices of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks backed my the rock solid musicianship delivered an indespinsible brilliant album.

The songs are so go good that when Camper Van Beethoven were stuck in a remote cabin, they recorded and released their take on "Tusk" and, while not as polished it is still an outstanding album with a mad ten minute take on the title track which is what I will leave you with.

One song "Honey Hi" has a lot of car horns and shouting and this was very disconcerting as I was trying to cross a four lane road intersection while listening to it. Who knows what will happen today.

Right off on my walk to the hospital, have a great day everybody.

Monday 7 May 2018

Remake #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #10 - Blue Oyster Cult - Extra Terrestrial Live


A friend of mine, Bill has nominated me for a third #TenAlbumsInTenDays and because I have an eclectic taste in music and a reasonable amout of friends I will be able to complete the third lot.  I had listed Hawkwind's XIn Search of Space which is a great trip album but the cover by Barney Bubbles was and still is a wonderful vinyl package. The Hawkwind Log is the most sought after part of this package and can jack the price up by close on a hundred pounds but you can download it and print your own here. If this infringes copyright and you are the copyright owner please contact me about it.

Today has been hot again but I went for a walk and decided to give Blue Oyster Cult's ETL (Extra Terrestrial Live) a spin. I'd always regarded this as an inferior addition to their live canon of the superlative "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" and "Some Enchanted Evening" and it came after "Fire Of  Unknown Origin" and essentially was a potted history to date and included a cover of The Doors' "Roadhoad Blues" (also covered by Status Quo).

While the album starts out similar to "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" with "Dominance and Submission" , the sound is excellent and viciously dirty. The first huge surprise is "Doctor Music" which in my opinion was the ruinous opener to "Mirrors" but here is an excellent live work out. THe album's take on Godzilla and ETI are so good that by the time the album closes with "Don't Fear The Reaper" it is just another brilliant song.

This is the first time I have listened to this in many years and I have been missing a brilliant if fairly short live album from a truly great heavy metal band. I will share ETI with you as it is one of my favourites with an absolute killer riff and brilliant metal lyrics.

I've just discovered that the Columbia BOC Boxed set which did cost me about fifty quid is now selling for over a grand on Amazon.

Enjoy

Saturday 5 May 2018

Hot #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #6 - Carl Orff - Carmina Burana


It has been a hot and worrying day today. The weather has been wonderful but I had to get back up the road before they shut Sutton Bank for the Tour De Yorkshire. That was fine but I had ordered a new washing machine from Argos and though I would go for the install and dispose option. I was worried that I would not be able to disconnect it or would end up flooding the kitchen as I don't rate myself with water pipes. Water can also be very insidious, sneaking through the most impossible of gaps sometimes over years.

That is happening tomorrow but they expect you to disconnect the old washing machine. It's been connected for fifteen years or more, and I could not get the hot water tap to move. Then you start thinking is it clockwise or anti clockwise. After a lot of messing it turns out the cold is clockwise and hot is anti clockwise, there's nothing like a bit of conformity (or not) to make life interesting.

Then it was a case of dragging the damned thing into the garage where it is sitting now awaiting a call for them to bring the new one sometime between 7am  and 7pm tomorrow, nothing like a narrow delivery slot and this is nothing like a narrow delivery slot. Still when it is fitted it will be nice to have a washing machine that doesn't sound like it's filled with metal hub caps.

I finished "The Liar" by Stephen Fry an dit's entertaining enough but hardly essential reading and now I am on to "The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ"  by Philip Pullman which is an off kilter trip through the lives of Jesus and Christ and I'm more thatn a third of the may though after a day although it is large pring on small pages with a decent amount of white space, but I expect to finish it before the end of the Bank Holiday

I wasn't going to document my second #TenAlbumsInTenDays stint but todayday I chose my favourite classical piece. I like bits of others but this is something I love listening end to end. It sufferes from the main fault of Classical Music , the extreme dynamic ranges from almost solence to exploding noise. Samples of it have been used and reused and should be a staple of every household although Orff's work was produced under Nazi rule, but this is an amazing piece of music.

The Sand Animation video by Hungarian animator Ferenc Caco is an amazing accompaniment and you can see his work here 

OK I will leave you to enjoy this

Friday 4 May 2018

Nothing


Sometimes there is nothing to write about, well there are a couple of small annoyances but I would rather report on positives than negatives. I have seen examples of how small minded and self centred some people can be, despite me pointing out the positives of their situation but some people are only happy when they are miserable and complaining.

I've been to some brilliant places in Yorkshire this week and the staff in every shop, restaurant and historical site have been absolutely brilliant, an absolute joy to speak to and be in the company of.

Yesterday was a supposed five mile walk round Thirsk which hit a sort of brick wall when we hit a level ploughed field and the directions stated "walk across the field and down to a path". Normal directions state left or right or north, south, east or west unless you are near a hill in which case up or down becomes a valid direction.

The problem is that books are fixed while the state of the landscape can change significantly (like a field being ploughed), the positive out of this was that I ended up doing ten miles again yesterday, and that means I've done ten miles twice this week yesterday and on Monday. I think I normally do thirty miles a week, and that is over fifteen hundred miles a year which seems a lot, but it's John O'Groats to Lands End and back with three hundred miles to spare although to walk round the coast of the UK you would be looking at nearly eight thousand miles , which at this rate would take me six years to do on foot.

Anyway the title of this post is inspired by the poem by The Bard of Salford , John Cooper Clarke which I will leave you with a performance of and the actual poem which you can also see here (as well as all his other poems).

                                                  NOTHING


Something is but nothing
Something it is not
Nil plus nil is nothing
Nothings what I got
Nothing on the tele
Nothing going on
Nothing to get worked up about
Nothing by the ton
Nothing times a million
Nothing minus ten
Don’t say nothing to no one
It’s nothing to do with them
Come all the way from nowhere
And now I’m nowhere else
Where nothing is out of place
No one lives
And nothing smells
Talking to no one
It’s like talking to the wall
I give you what I get
I give you bugger all

So have a brilliant Friday everyone as we run into the weekend


Wednesday 2 May 2018

RadMac


Listening to Radcliffe and Maconie on 6Music and just as they have come on the radio, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out. It's the second day of May and I intend to keep up my million steps every three months, but today looked like a no go because of the weather, although I have already hit 2K steps and intend to visit Helmsley Castle this afternoon so there is a possibility I may hit todays step target after yesterday's trip to Whitby.

I did go for a walk and followed a direction marker into a field and it turned out there was no exit. The field was one of the most securely fenced fields I have ever seen and it was almost over run with rabbits and rabbit holes.

Radmac have Microdisney on as guests as they have just reformed, and I was going to give you "GaleForce Wind" but they have started playing Jane's Addiction's "Just Because" and the guitar riff on that is such a killer that I have to share that with you.

Enjoy the rest of the second of May when you are finished.