#Oktoberfest #4 - Whiskey In The Jar - The King

I was not sure which version of this I was going to share, for me the definitive version in the Thin Lizzy one but for others it's The Dubliners and those may both reappear this month in the #Oktoberfest sequence but I found this live take of "Whisky In The Jar" by The King who covers songs by departed rock stars, and he usually delivers in spades with panache and an obvious sense of humour,

I started this this morning and know I need to finish this now, though I am feeling grotesquely lazy and unable to think of anything to add to this superb rendition. The next few days I can see me not posting anything , so now I am writing about my life as a failure as I can't even think of anything to blog about, although on the positive side although I can't think of anything to write I am still managing to fill up the page a bit.

It's also amazing how in depth these quite tiny posts seem to be when viewed on a mobile device while in your average browser it does look quite short.

I was wondering about whether it was "whisky" or "whiskey" and came upon this explanation:

"The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies."

So the program got it wrong as the song is Irish in origin.

OK so I have done my 250 words, so this post is not too short after all and you have learned how to spell the subject of the drink in this post depending on where you are.

Tired Not Tired - #Oktoberfest #3 - Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee - Jerry Lee Lewis

I wasn't going to write anything today, I have to be up early tomorrow to pick up a parcel from The Post Office because they wont leave stuff with my neighbours and I am feeling tired, but my mind has decided to wake up, so my body is tired and my mind is wide awake. This seems to be happening more and more, I just wish my body was as jumping as my mind.

Well the #Oktoberfest song is "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" by Jerry Lee Lewis a favourite of my sadly missed rocker friend Chris and one of the many rock and roll classics he introduced me to. Jerry Lee Lewis AKA The Killer produced a hell of a lot of classics but obviously his hell raising tailed off in to middle of the road country and western and he was never afforded the musical rebirth that Rick Rubin helped Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond with.

Maybe that's not such a bad thing as Jerry Lee has a great back catalogue but I am sure Rick Rubin could have done something with this firecracker..

Yes another short post but we have a third drink related post.

#Oktoberfest #2 - Cool Water - Frankie Laine

This was the second song  that I wanted to include because it was one of things that my mum and dad played on their radiogram that I actually liked, a best of Frankie Laine that included the song "Cool Water". I liked it so much that I have a best of Frankie Laine CD somewhere in my collection and it's obviously on my digital network.

It's quite heartwarming that I could actually but a radiogram from RPM in Newcastle who have some excellent vintage players and who sorted my current player , which I absolutely love. I seem to get more from listening to vinyl that from listening digitally , although digital music is great when you are on the move.

It is my birthday today and a lot of people have wished me happy birthday on Facebook although I can't actually see everyone who has wished me but I would like to thank everyone. I also have good wishes from the people I see and will be having tea with my daughters tomorrow, so all is good.

I know this is an extremely short post but it was just to share this song and to kick off the #Oktoberfest project with , in this case , a non alcoholic drink.

Birthday - #Oktoberfest #1 - A Beer and A Cigarette - Terraplane

Last night I got my first Facebook birthday greeting from my friend Keith who moved to the Antipodes nearly twenty five years back although I got my first card on Saturday from my daughter Juliet, plus a phone call from my dad last night. I've not yet gone on to Facebook yet so no doubt there will be the odd greeting. In case you are wondering this is my 62nd birthday.

During the night it's been pouring down and about five am there was a very loud big vehicle that woke me up but didn't manage to see what it was.

I've slightly changed my walking targets , which are a rolling million steps every three months which works out at 340,000 steps a month or 11K a day. My new target is just something to aim for but to try and hit 400K steps a month but I will only hold myself to the 340K. The weather this morning is not conducive to walking.

I was thinking of for October having my own #Oktoberfest with the criteria being something to drink, but not necessarily alcoholic. I have my first two lined up, the first one being "A Beer and A Cigarette" by Terraplane from the Stiff collection "The Akron Compilation" (with it's scratch and sniff cover) which for years I thought was called "The Akron Complication" which to my knowledge has still never been issued digitally. I was introduced to it with The Bok went for a meeting with Rabid Records to sort out our first single (which never happened as they folded but the demos are here on Soundcloud) and the guy said it was the most outrageous song he had ever heard.

It's great and I used it to soundtrack what I thought would be the final night at The Free Trade in 2010 but the financial crash of 2008 meant that the flats never got built and the Free Trade is still going with it;s amazing views down the Tyne.

ALso I am going for another record number of posts in a year and if I do 40 this month (my record is 54 last August ) then I only need 17 before the end of the year, but we shall see how this goes because I may not want to post every day, but we shall see. At least this is a start.

Enjoy your wet Tuesday.

Junk

I woke up from another intense dream about taking an exam. I hate exams as I can never remember anything. I don't have any exams coming up and have no intention of taking any, so an odd subject to invade my dreamspace.

I've just read a (to me) complex section on genes and memes in "The God Delusion" but luckily this was interspersed by an excellent illustrative story of building an origami Chinese Junk which helped illustrate what Richard Dawkins was talking about fairly well to me.

This was swiftly followed by the concept of "Cargo Cults"  which show how quickly a cult can actually spring up, and this bit piqued my interest about Mormonism when it was given as an example along with Scientology of "Intelligently Designed" religion. I knew Scientology was set up by L Ron Hubbard ("Barefaced Messiah" is a brilliant book on the subject by former Scientologist Russell Miller) , a second rate science fiction writer and first class con man  / charlatan because he found out churches didn't have to pay taxes. It turns out that Mormon was a similar exercise by Joseph Smith.

This is an excuse to play "Junk" by Paul McCartney from his debut album from nearly fifty years back.

Have a great Monday everyone.

Guess What?

It's either a certain TV program or continue wit "The God Delusion" or write a blog post, so I've chosen the latter.

Yesterday I posted a couple of short videos of the vinyl copy of "This is The Moody Blues" which reminded me of the excellent "Bluejays" album by Justin Hayward and John Lodge. A fellow fan sent pictures of their copy of the album, and I remember the single "Blue Guitar" was ok but not brilliant but I loved "I Dreamed Last Night" and love the coda from "When You Wake Up" which I will include and am playing as I write this.

I used to use MusicMatch but couldn't get it to run under Windows 10 , so have drifted between iTunes and VLC and VLC seems to have just died so I've got the the "Bluejays" album playing using Windows Media Player. That has reminded me just how many versions of Windows I have been through since I started this blog, but probably best not to think too much about that because I am sure there will be another one along at some point.

Though every upgrade seems to make the computer a bit slower, but maybe that's just psychosomatic, so anyway I shall listen to the rest of the album, though the thing about digital is that it is extremely convenient, you don't even have to look for the disc, of that means it's a lot easier to skip , skim and completely miss stuff on albums.

The thing is a lot of kids these days can't even listen to more that 20 seconds of a song before they get bored, I don't suppose they will ever enjoy classical or progressive music, but each to their own. Years ago a friend to me to watch X-Factor for the best new music. Grudgingly I did and someone was covering "Nights In White Satin" (a five minute song written by Justin Hayward for The Moody Blues' "Days of Future Past" album) and it finished on two minutes.

I remarked on this that the song was not original and it was curtailed and was told they did that with all the songs. I never bothered again.

Enjoy your Sunday evening.

And Awake

I switched the alarm off, was going to have a lie in on the rainy Sunday morning and woke up at 7:15 . I have been dreaming drifting in and out of consciousness and remember a lot of things that make no sense in a house possibly surrounding a courtyard , with fragile windows in the floor of one room which you could see fish and the the floor two storeys down (it seemed to be half way over a fish tank) and there was a work course with people I didn't know where I ended up in bed before getting up again wandering round, meeting one person I did know and there was a dog.

Yeah that does make a lot of sense doesn't it? But that is the nature of dreams.

Now I'm awake and counting out my drugs and writing this post. I think it's always good to write things down, you never know when ideas might come in useful.

I suppose the dream vaguely makes me think of the film "Paperhouse" directed by Bernard Rose, one of my favourite off the wall horror films. "Paperhouse" is also a song by Can who I was considering for inclusion in my last post but decided against it, because it's normally best to have just one song. So we can go for "Paperhouse" by Can but I will include a trailer for the film "Paperhouse" below. The two are not related.