#AprilSongs #6 Saturday Night Fish Fry

SIx days into this and this morning I'm on https://www.thechain.uk/The Chain with by suggestion to follow Bowie's "Warszawa", but today's choice for #AprilSongs is Louis Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry".

I am not sure when I first discovered Louis Jordan, but was almost shocked when I heard "Ain't That Just Like A Woman" because the main riff (played in alternative versions by brass and piano) is the same note sequence as Chuck Berry's signature guitar riff. So Chuck didn't get it from Michael J Fox in "Back To The Future" but from Louis Jordan back in the forties. Musicians always "borrow" from others but it would be nice to see a little acknowledgement (Led Zeppelin I'm looking at you).

Also the brass section reminds me of Frank Zappa's take on  "Stairway To Heaven" (which was the subject of a copyright claim for it's similarity to Spirit's "Taurus") on "The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life" where the brass section play the guitar solo perfectly.

So I need to shower before I get my phone call from 6Music.

#AprilSongs #5 - Friday

Still banned from posting on Facebook and no one has noticed, am getting about four visits for each of the #AprilSongs posts, but also the realisation that I am maybe too reliant on Facebook to spread my posts.

Anyway back to the sequence and the first thing that came to mind was "Friday on My Mind" the first UK Number one by an Australian band The Easybeats and covered by Bowie on his generally excellent "Pin Ups" album, but I have shared this before, though that is not a reason not to share again.

Instead I've gone into my JJ Cale catalogue and simply "Friday" with his wonderful hypnotic laid back guitar sound.from his "5" album, referring to weekly pay and a five day week, which are both gone for so many people these days. Seriously I think this song contains just a single chord, absolutely amazing but very listenable, with some sweet guitar licks.

I've also just heard an amazingly trippy piece by him called Durango which I have never heard before but is definitely JJ Cale territory with a touch of Steely Dan's "Do It Again".

So it's Friday morning and if you have a non working weekend have a great day.

#AprilSongs #4 - Thursday Afternoon

I'm still on my Facebook ban for daring to share the Helmut Newton image on the wall of No 28 (see here as it is still on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, go figure) . A lot of people will call Facebook Fascists or whatever, but essentially Facebook is a club, and you can opt to be in or out and if you are in you HAVE to abide by their rules no matter how petty they may seem. You have to decide if the rules are worth the benefits of being a member, and I enjoy being able to know what friends are up to and being able to share things. I just thought the Newton picture with the lights looked great, and it is , in my opinion, a vision of empowerment.

Anyway today's post in the #AprilSongs sequence is the one hour long piece "Thursday Afternoon" by Brian Eno. This is not a song or even really a song , it has no tune, but is a go to album to go to sleep to, because it is their but does not demand your attention. Brian supposedly invented Ambient Music when he had put on an album but it was too quiet for him to hear properly, but he was too ill to actually get up and turn up the record. This then gave him the idea to just have sounds that did not demand the listener's attention but still added to the atmospherics of the situation.

Last night I was wondering if I could actually complete the #AprilSongs sequence so, as I don't have a decent MP3 catalogue I thought I'd try just using Windows Explorer to search based on the day, and it worked, so as long as I actually post something each day, which shouldn't really be a problem.

Snackwallah Diction, Snackwallah Gain

Why would you pay for something to eat. In my opinion the food has to be good and hopefully value for money. About three weeks ago I tried Snackwallah in the Grainger Market for the first time and was absolutely floored by it. When somewhere advertises "street food" very often it's sort of "like in a restaurant but on the cheap but not as good", this is definitely not the case with Snackwallah as I've been back there about ten times in the last three weeks.

As well as the Indian Street Food aspect it's also vegan sp that is a huge plus. Here is a list a things that make this place great:

• Absolutely great food, full of different stimulating tastes and flavours
• Wonderfully engaging staff, great to talk to, who will help with any questions
• Big range of dishes to both eat in and take away
• Great atmosphere to eat in
• Vegan
• Excellent Value For Money
• Perfect Portions for a working lunch

This place is in the Grainger Market and is competing against Meat Stack (best burgers in Newcastle, and I don't normally do burgers) and Spanish, Chinese, Turkish, Lebanese and English eating hubs, so it's not as though it's the only option. Every time I consider what for lunch I keep ticking things off and Sbackwallah keeps winning because after everything else it tastes great and it's vegan therefore healthy,

Today I am serving a ban from Facebook for posting a shot off the Helmut Newton image in No 28 and also Google+ has gone so I have signed up with MeWe to see if that can offer an alternatibe to share my ideas. It may turn out not to be the greatest idea but we shall see,

So after this morning's snow I'm hoping for a quiet night bit may go Indian (Bangla Deshi actually) for my tea and order an Aloo Chole from Rajnagar. Music wise I'm going share possibly one of the greatest records ever to go with some of my favourite eating places, "Reach For Love" by Marcel King.

#AprilSongs #3 - Wednesday Week

I'm under a three day Facebook ban for posting an Instagram shot of the art on the wall at No 28 (here and you can see it on the site link), this is following a ban a couple of months ago when I shared a link from IMDB for the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" (you can see the image I was banned for on the link) , this is because of the pathetic fact that some people can find offense at absolutely anything and while male bodies are OK, females are totally out of bounds and must be fully covered, how ridiculously puritan. So I can't link this post to Facebook til they let me on.

Also Google+ has been withdrawn with no alternative that I can see so I can't actually share this post with any social media platform, so this may be my first post that doesn't get read by anybody, because even if you follow the blog you don't get notified of updates.

I've woken up to snow, which is just what I want when I found that my roof is leaking.

But to the main point of the post the #AprilSongs and today is the excellent "Wednesday Week" by The Undertones, and while I thought they were a more than decent band (and John Peel had "Teenage Kicks" as his all time Number One record) that's all they were to me with the odd song that raised them above the norm and Wednesday Week was one of the songs that did that.

#AprilSongs #2 - Tuesday Afternoon

This is possibly not good, I'm using a song that should be a last resort on my second post, although it is from a fairly "important" album, "Days of Future Past" by The Moody Blues where they collaborated with Peter Knight with full orchestral backing on their first concept album based on  #ADayInThe Life transitioning from a rhythm and blues group (gotta say that because some people see R'n'B as the bland Rhythm and Beat string of Soul / Dance rather than the rawer rockier Rhythm and Blues of Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters , Bo Diddley and the like). I wrote a comparison here.

Actually "Tuesday Afternoon" is a decent record with the mand heavy on the mellotron, though for this album everything get's overshadowed by the classic "Nights In White Satin" (though I'm always tempted to write it as "Knights in White Satin". Parts of the album suffer from some awful sixties pretentious spoken word sequences, and although they carried this into further concept albums they managed to hone it into acceptability.

So on this rainy April Tuesday I will leave you to enjoy The Moody Blues "Tuesday Afternoon"

#AprilSongs #1 - Stormy Monday Blues

This morning I woke, opened the curtains and was surprised to see icy rooves on cars and houses, it really doesn't feel that cold although I am in a centrally heated house. The #AprilSongs sequence needs me to share 30 day related songs over the month (5 Mondays and Tuesdays, and 4 for the other days) as well as actually posting everyday, because it doesn't seem right posting a Tuesday song on Wednesday or Thursday.

It's April Fools Day and I am starting my #AprilSongs project with "Stormy Monday" by T-Bone Walker. While I was thinking of using "Blue Monday" by |New Order toi kick this off, this came to mind remembering the Tyneside based film of the same name.

"Stormy Monday" is variously titles as "Call It Stormy Monday" and "Stormy Monday Blues" and has been covered by so many people is the blues, rhythm and blues , rock and jazz genres from Albert King through Linda Hopkins to The Allman Brothers and a myriad others.

The film is a violent gangster movie featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Sting and Sean Bean and is worth watching to get some idea of Newcastle in the late eighties when I came up here. It is entirely coincidental that this film was made then.

So this is a bit of classic blues to kick off the week, the month and the 'AprilSongs sequence