I posted some last year but the weather was crap.
Today we have blue skies so here they are again.
All city centres should look this good.
No need for captions.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Wisteria Weekend
Here are some photos of the glorious and gnarly old standard wisterias in Saint Giles' Churchyard in Norwich.
I posted some last year but the weather was crap.
Today we have blue skies so here they are again.
All city centres should look this good.
I posted some last year but the weather was crap.
Today we have blue skies so here they are again.
All city centres should look this good.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Let's Make A Racket - V
Improvisation and interplay.
Here's a silly little bit of fun.
We're back down at the blues club.
To recap:
Sunday Blues nights were where, each Sunday a band was put together who had never (other than Stevie and a very few regulars such as myself) played together before, to raise money for research into motor neurone disease (which Stevie is dying from).
The Rules of Sunday Blues were:
1 - Check your egos at the door (no showing off; just play what's right for the song);
2 - Nothing must be rehearsed; everything must be improvised on the fly.
We had a third rule for the vocalists: At least one song per evening must be made up on the spot. Newbies were allowed to sketch a few lines down during the break, but Steve and Luke and the regular vocalists loved to start playing a song with nothing in their heads and see what came out.
This is one of those.
I've included it here to highlight the interplay between the musicians.
The line up on that night (24th. June, 2001 according to the label) was:
Stevie: Bass and vocals;
Dave Sparrow: Drums;
Some Spanish session guy from Barcelona, whose name I never knew: Organ (He was on tour with someone like Julio Inglesias and Steve invited him in for the night. He brought a full-sized Hammond B3 with him and a Leslie cabinet the size of a carthorse. He played splendidly, as you'll hear).
Laurie A'Court: Tenor and alto saxophones;
Old Dive: Guitar.
What I love about playing with musicians of this calibre is that everybody is constantly listening to what the others are playing and adjusting their own playing to complement it.
This track actually requires repeated plays to hear what's going on underneath the soloing.
- You'll notice that (unlike most pub bands who simply turn up the soloist and carry on thrashing about behind them) when for instance the first organ solo comes in, the rest of the band drop the volume so that the nuances of the solo can be heard.
- You'll hear spontaneous changes in dynamics and volume as players react to one another.
- You'll hear Old Dive trying out a completely different rhythm guitar part in every verse to try to find one that fits in case this song becomes a keeper and gets played again on other nights.
- You'll hear Dave Sparrow play an immaculately loose little drum break; not the usual tub-thumping drum solo but a delicate skittering around the rhythm that suits the feel perfectly.
- You'll hear the usual appalling ending where Steve turns to say "this time" and then forgets to sing the last line.
- You'll hear an unlistenable cacophony at the start, as this song was started by Steve picking a key and laying down a bass groove for us all to join in. Actually the start of this one is missing because whoever was recording forgot to change the tape until we had started playing so it kinda fades in.
- You'll hear Old Dive winding Steve up by playing modally at the start. Steve cannot think outside the pentatonic (he thinks anything not strictly in the blues pentatonic mode is a "bum note") and Michael and myself would constantly goad him by playing in dorian or mixolydian, prompting him to turn and yell "Stop all that jazz bullshit, you bastards!" at which we would grin like guilty schoolboys and revert to pentatonic.
Sorry to be boring, but there's something about this one that keeps me coming back to it.
Quite apart from the fact that it gets a groove on, it is the live interplay and improvisation that hooks me. Dynamics between musicians cannot be rehearsed and this mess of a song is one of my favourites from all of the hundreds of hours of blues club recordings precisely because of that.
The song is called "Too Many Monkeys In My Tree", reflecting the fact that Steve had a lot going on in his personal life back then.
It is a bunch of utter tosh but I like it.
It is also the song that inspired the name of yet another of my sanity bands: The Groovy Fuckers (a throwaway line by Dave Sparrow off mic as the song finished: "Shit, we're a bunch of groovy fuckers." … Drummers, eh? Erudition personified).
This was also the very night when that disgusting "ponytail and stupid pointy sideburns" photo was taken, so I'll post it again here as it is the only shot I ever got of Laurie and myself playing.
Plus it's a nice shot of my guitar and it makes my cock look big.
Here's a silly little bit of fun.
We're back down at the blues club.
To recap:
Sunday Blues nights were where, each Sunday a band was put together who had never (other than Stevie and a very few regulars such as myself) played together before, to raise money for research into motor neurone disease (which Stevie is dying from).
The Rules of Sunday Blues were:
1 - Check your egos at the door (no showing off; just play what's right for the song);
2 - Nothing must be rehearsed; everything must be improvised on the fly.
We had a third rule for the vocalists: At least one song per evening must be made up on the spot. Newbies were allowed to sketch a few lines down during the break, but Steve and Luke and the regular vocalists loved to start playing a song with nothing in their heads and see what came out.
This is one of those.
I've included it here to highlight the interplay between the musicians.
The line up on that night (24th. June, 2001 according to the label) was:
Stevie: Bass and vocals;
Dave Sparrow: Drums;
Some Spanish session guy from Barcelona, whose name I never knew: Organ (He was on tour with someone like Julio Inglesias and Steve invited him in for the night. He brought a full-sized Hammond B3 with him and a Leslie cabinet the size of a carthorse. He played splendidly, as you'll hear).
Laurie A'Court: Tenor and alto saxophones;
Old Dive: Guitar.
What I love about playing with musicians of this calibre is that everybody is constantly listening to what the others are playing and adjusting their own playing to complement it.
This track actually requires repeated plays to hear what's going on underneath the soloing.
- You'll notice that (unlike most pub bands who simply turn up the soloist and carry on thrashing about behind them) when for instance the first organ solo comes in, the rest of the band drop the volume so that the nuances of the solo can be heard.
- You'll hear spontaneous changes in dynamics and volume as players react to one another.
- You'll hear Old Dive trying out a completely different rhythm guitar part in every verse to try to find one that fits in case this song becomes a keeper and gets played again on other nights.
- You'll hear Dave Sparrow play an immaculately loose little drum break; not the usual tub-thumping drum solo but a delicate skittering around the rhythm that suits the feel perfectly.
- You'll hear the usual appalling ending where Steve turns to say "this time" and then forgets to sing the last line.
- You'll hear an unlistenable cacophony at the start, as this song was started by Steve picking a key and laying down a bass groove for us all to join in. Actually the start of this one is missing because whoever was recording forgot to change the tape until we had started playing so it kinda fades in.
- You'll hear Old Dive winding Steve up by playing modally at the start. Steve cannot think outside the pentatonic (he thinks anything not strictly in the blues pentatonic mode is a "bum note") and Michael and myself would constantly goad him by playing in dorian or mixolydian, prompting him to turn and yell "Stop all that jazz bullshit, you bastards!" at which we would grin like guilty schoolboys and revert to pentatonic.
Sorry to be boring, but there's something about this one that keeps me coming back to it.
Quite apart from the fact that it gets a groove on, it is the live interplay and improvisation that hooks me. Dynamics between musicians cannot be rehearsed and this mess of a song is one of my favourites from all of the hundreds of hours of blues club recordings precisely because of that.
The song is called "Too Many Monkeys In My Tree", reflecting the fact that Steve had a lot going on in his personal life back then.
It is a bunch of utter tosh but I like it.
It is also the song that inspired the name of yet another of my sanity bands: The Groovy Fuckers (a throwaway line by Dave Sparrow off mic as the song finished: "Shit, we're a bunch of groovy fuckers." … Drummers, eh? Erudition personified).
This was also the very night when that disgusting "ponytail and stupid pointy sideburns" photo was taken, so I'll post it again here as it is the only shot I ever got of Laurie and myself playing.
Plus it's a nice shot of my guitar and it makes my cock look big.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Whatever Happened To …
Look out. Old Dive's feeling a bit maudlin about a bunch of has-beens.
Some of you may remember me talking about "sanity bands" in last Thursday's "Racket" post.
A "sanity band" is what musicians call those occasional bands of old friends you play in simply for pleasure between touring, recording and pro-band stuff (work).
The nice thing about Sanity Bands is that the band playing down at your local or at the village fête may well contain somebody whose records are nestled in your own collection, or at least the session players off their albums and tours.
And it's not just the background nobodies like Old Dive; Eric Clapton plays at birthday parties in his local village hall and will occasionally turn up at a blues pub, masquerading as "Dick And The Firemen".
Lots of famous folk have Sanity Bands.
Most use them for pre-tour try-outs in small clubs; REM used to play as the splendidly named "Bingo Handjob" before too many people found out; and metalheads Iron Maiden would play The Dial pub in Norwich (I helped out their soundman a few times there) or Steve Harris's bar in Santa Barbara do Neixe in Portugal as The Nodding Donkeys.
Quite a few famous folk stood in with us at the Sunday Blues club over the years and occasionally I'd bump into them at their own anonymous "sanity nights". I got a call a few years back asking me to stand in as lead guitarist for a heavy metal gig in the midlands and found myself playing with half of Whitesnake.
We were grinning away and thoroughly enjoying playing old crap like Boston's "More Than A Feeling" and Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" and having a fine old time. And all for a local charity.
It is so nice to see musicians having fun outside of work.
But then we come to the odder side of the music industry; that sad, flaccid tide-wrack washed up on the beach marked "Whatever happened to …"
Odd things happen to once-famous people when they drop out of the charts.
Some go on to open supermarkets or spend a few years hosting bitter little local radio shows.
Some have the sense to realise it's all over and get a job and start over.
But some just put their heads down and keep on going, defying reality with gritted teeth, usually playing the holiday camp circuit to a roomful of grannies who remember their hits and a bunch of kids who think them so naff that they're almost cool again.
Often, original members have died or want to kill one another, which leaves the door open for a bit of work for the likes of me.
Old Dive has wound up playing some fucking odd gigs with the has-been set.
Sheesh!
Here's a very brief selection of the odder ones:
Remember Errol from Hot Chocolate? I played a bingo hall (!!!!!) with him once. And the cabaret act had us playing a fifteen minute jazzy vamp of "Come On Baby, Light My Fire" … said cabaret act being a … ahem … fire-eating stripper.
I remember a horrendous holiday camp gig with Freddie And The Dreamers. Gack! I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but Freddie Garrity was a deeply unpleasant little shit whose idea of stagecraft seemed to revolve around swearing at the band and throwing the odd bottle.
Fortunately none of them came my way.
Some people are a lot nicer.
I played an Old Year's Night with The Bachelors once, and had a bloody marvellous time.
Our soundcheck consisted of Con and Dec (both virtuoso musicians, though you'd never know it from their hits) and ourselves thrashing joyfully through Stairway to Heaven and a bunch of REM numbers. Then we sat in the green room playing billiards, swapping Les Pauls and jamming for a few hours and reminiscing about "the old days".
I told them the first time I'd seen them play live was at Great Yarmouth ABC Theatre in 1964, when I was a nipper. They were on the same bill as The Inkspots (remember "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes? … No, you're all too young) and and their faces lit up. They remembered that tour as one of the high spots. And they had some great stories to tell about other famous folk of the time, some of which might leak out another day but most will go with me to my grave to give me something to giggle about when I'm dead.
That 1964 gig was a seminal moment for me. I'd just got my "Beatles" guitar and this was the first time I'd been to a real concert.
Bands were huge back then in a way that they can never be these days.
Probably the weirdest "has-been" gig I've ever played has to be a charity gig in a school hall with Ruby Murray (ask your grans … she was known as "The Irish Nightingale", though you probably know her as the Cockney Rhyming Slang for "curry" … Fancy a ruby?).
Phil was in the band then, too. Shit that was a long time ago.
Ruby - God bless her - turned up pissed as a fart at ten in the morning with her outrageously camp personal manager and proceeded to drink steadily all day, getting through at least two more bottles of scotch.
She was a trouper, however. Once on stage, she clung on to the microphone stand to keep herself upright and sang beautifully.
Afterwards, signing autographs, you'd have never guessed how totally shitfaced she was. It was only after the audience had gone home that she reverted to a drunken, Irish shouty-woman.
She must have been at least a hundred and thirty years old at that gig but she took a fancy to little Steve, our drummer, and snogged him horribly at every opportunity.
It's been an odd life …
Some of you may remember me talking about "sanity bands" in last Thursday's "Racket" post.
A "sanity band" is what musicians call those occasional bands of old friends you play in simply for pleasure between touring, recording and pro-band stuff (work).
The nice thing about Sanity Bands is that the band playing down at your local or at the village fête may well contain somebody whose records are nestled in your own collection, or at least the session players off their albums and tours.
And it's not just the background nobodies like Old Dive; Eric Clapton plays at birthday parties in his local village hall and will occasionally turn up at a blues pub, masquerading as "Dick And The Firemen".
Lots of famous folk have Sanity Bands.
Most use them for pre-tour try-outs in small clubs; REM used to play as the splendidly named "Bingo Handjob" before too many people found out; and metalheads Iron Maiden would play The Dial pub in Norwich (I helped out their soundman a few times there) or Steve Harris's bar in Santa Barbara do Neixe in Portugal as The Nodding Donkeys.
Quite a few famous folk stood in with us at the Sunday Blues club over the years and occasionally I'd bump into them at their own anonymous "sanity nights". I got a call a few years back asking me to stand in as lead guitarist for a heavy metal gig in the midlands and found myself playing with half of Whitesnake.
We were grinning away and thoroughly enjoying playing old crap like Boston's "More Than A Feeling" and Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" and having a fine old time. And all for a local charity.
It is so nice to see musicians having fun outside of work.
But then we come to the odder side of the music industry; that sad, flaccid tide-wrack washed up on the beach marked "Whatever happened to …"
Odd things happen to once-famous people when they drop out of the charts.
Some go on to open supermarkets or spend a few years hosting bitter little local radio shows.
Some have the sense to realise it's all over and get a job and start over.
But some just put their heads down and keep on going, defying reality with gritted teeth, usually playing the holiday camp circuit to a roomful of grannies who remember their hits and a bunch of kids who think them so naff that they're almost cool again.
Often, original members have died or want to kill one another, which leaves the door open for a bit of work for the likes of me.
Old Dive has wound up playing some fucking odd gigs with the has-been set.
Sheesh!
Here's a very brief selection of the odder ones:
Remember Errol from Hot Chocolate? I played a bingo hall (!!!!!) with him once. And the cabaret act had us playing a fifteen minute jazzy vamp of "Come On Baby, Light My Fire" … said cabaret act being a … ahem … fire-eating stripper.
I remember a horrendous holiday camp gig with Freddie And The Dreamers. Gack! I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but Freddie Garrity was a deeply unpleasant little shit whose idea of stagecraft seemed to revolve around swearing at the band and throwing the odd bottle.
Fortunately none of them came my way.
Some people are a lot nicer.
I played an Old Year's Night with The Bachelors once, and had a bloody marvellous time.
Our soundcheck consisted of Con and Dec (both virtuoso musicians, though you'd never know it from their hits) and ourselves thrashing joyfully through Stairway to Heaven and a bunch of REM numbers. Then we sat in the green room playing billiards, swapping Les Pauls and jamming for a few hours and reminiscing about "the old days".
I told them the first time I'd seen them play live was at Great Yarmouth ABC Theatre in 1964, when I was a nipper. They were on the same bill as The Inkspots (remember "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes? … No, you're all too young) and and their faces lit up. They remembered that tour as one of the high spots. And they had some great stories to tell about other famous folk of the time, some of which might leak out another day but most will go with me to my grave to give me something to giggle about when I'm dead.
That 1964 gig was a seminal moment for me. I'd just got my "Beatles" guitar and this was the first time I'd been to a real concert.
Bands were huge back then in a way that they can never be these days.
Probably the weirdest "has-been" gig I've ever played has to be a charity gig in a school hall with Ruby Murray (ask your grans … she was known as "The Irish Nightingale", though you probably know her as the Cockney Rhyming Slang for "curry" … Fancy a ruby?).
Phil was in the band then, too. Shit that was a long time ago.
Ruby - God bless her - turned up pissed as a fart at ten in the morning with her outrageously camp personal manager and proceeded to drink steadily all day, getting through at least two more bottles of scotch.
She was a trouper, however. Once on stage, she clung on to the microphone stand to keep herself upright and sang beautifully.
Afterwards, signing autographs, you'd have never guessed how totally shitfaced she was. It was only after the audience had gone home that she reverted to a drunken, Irish shouty-woman.
She must have been at least a hundred and thirty years old at that gig but she took a fancy to little Steve, our drummer, and snogged him horribly at every opportunity.
It's been an odd life …
Hey Ho
Hokay … Here's another snippet from the BBC news website to accompany the one about tea from a couple of days back.
The leaning minaret of WHAT?
The leaning minaret of WHAT?
Monday, May 05, 2008
A Wordy Fucker Writes
Hokay …
So I was chatting away yesterday and the subject of Scrabble came up.
Now you all know I'm a mild-mannered and uncompetitive sort of guy (alright … Fess up; who said "HA!"?), but put me in front of a Scrabble board and I morph into a complete and utter bastard; a twisted, cruel and evil torturer of the haplessly ill-educated.
I've even been known to cackle.
Being a black belt, fifth dan pedant, the complete Oxford English Dictionary is LAW!
We'll have none of that "Official Scrabble Words Dictionary" crap! That's just a gimmicky tie-in for ignorant twats with no vocabulary.
I am a Jedi master of OED arcania and in particular, that Scrabble-winning endgame coup-de-grace, the high-scoring two or three letter word that nobody's ever heard of.
I revel (indeed I wriggle and writhe with sensual glee) in such words as "fid" (a conical hardwood pin used by sailors to splice rope), "dzo" (a hybrid cattle from the Himalayas), "xi" (fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet), "ewt" (a kind of newt; I kid you not), "ax" for axe, of course, "od" as Reichenbach's arbitrary name for a force, and many other splendid words guaranteed to cause a fight over the Scrabble board.
Complain that it's not in the so-called "official" non-dictionary and I'll beat you to a pulp with the OED and I'll be sure and use every single volume in amusingly painful ways.
And don't even THINK about using a non-word from that cretinous charlatan Noah Fucking Webster. Try "color" and I'll kill you without further warning.
So …
That leads me to what popped back into my mind yesterday from the dank cellars of what remains of my memory; a competitive game a couple of decades back.
This was a local BBC radio organised thing. The prize was a trip to Moscow, which - being of the Anarcho-Syndicalist persuasion I was eager to win.
I didn't win, by the way. Some bastard ringer from London beat me by two points and I had to go home with £250 to spend in Jarrolds, the local department store.
My little tale today comes from the semi-final, where I was paired with an evil and bitter, calculating hag in the disguise of a nice little old lady.
We were up against a time limit and getting toward the last play and it was neck and neck.
Playing with an audience and a panel of judges (A fester of judges? A midden of judges? What is the word?) seemed to bring out the nasty in people and this nice little old lady was being a real bitch.
We were desperately blocking any high-scoring squares and frustrating one another at every move; jaws set into grimaces and steely glares flashing murderous hate across the table.
Last move …
The hag-lady laid first and was suddenly twenty-nine points up.
BASTARD!
But in her greedy haste she had left an opening. Had she gone for a lesser score somewhere else on the board she may well have beaten me, but her overconfidence left a tantalising triple-word score square naked and vulnerable.
My only problem was that the perfect word was not … er … the perfect word to use in front of a little old lady and a family audience.
Fortunately I am an evil, twisted bastard with no morals …
I called a judge over and he concurred - somewhat blushingly - and I laid my tiles.
V - 4 (triple-word score)
U - 1
L - 1
V - 4 (double-letter score)
A - 1
on a triple word score to give me forty-five and the match!
Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!
Her face was a picture.
I love being a bastard.
Hee hee hee hee hee.
Anyone for Scrabble?
So I was chatting away yesterday and the subject of Scrabble came up.
Now you all know I'm a mild-mannered and uncompetitive sort of guy (alright … Fess up; who said "HA!"?), but put me in front of a Scrabble board and I morph into a complete and utter bastard; a twisted, cruel and evil torturer of the haplessly ill-educated.
I've even been known to cackle.
Being a black belt, fifth dan pedant, the complete Oxford English Dictionary is LAW!
We'll have none of that "Official Scrabble Words Dictionary" crap! That's just a gimmicky tie-in for ignorant twats with no vocabulary.
I am a Jedi master of OED arcania and in particular, that Scrabble-winning endgame coup-de-grace, the high-scoring two or three letter word that nobody's ever heard of.
I revel (indeed I wriggle and writhe with sensual glee) in such words as "fid" (a conical hardwood pin used by sailors to splice rope), "dzo" (a hybrid cattle from the Himalayas), "xi" (fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet), "ewt" (a kind of newt; I kid you not), "ax" for axe, of course, "od" as Reichenbach's arbitrary name for a force, and many other splendid words guaranteed to cause a fight over the Scrabble board.
Complain that it's not in the so-called "official" non-dictionary and I'll beat you to a pulp with the OED and I'll be sure and use every single volume in amusingly painful ways.
And don't even THINK about using a non-word from that cretinous charlatan Noah Fucking Webster. Try "color" and I'll kill you without further warning.
So …
That leads me to what popped back into my mind yesterday from the dank cellars of what remains of my memory; a competitive game a couple of decades back.
This was a local BBC radio organised thing. The prize was a trip to Moscow, which - being of the Anarcho-Syndicalist persuasion I was eager to win.
I didn't win, by the way. Some bastard ringer from London beat me by two points and I had to go home with £250 to spend in Jarrolds, the local department store.
My little tale today comes from the semi-final, where I was paired with an evil and bitter, calculating hag in the disguise of a nice little old lady.
We were up against a time limit and getting toward the last play and it was neck and neck.
Playing with an audience and a panel of judges (A fester of judges? A midden of judges? What is the word?) seemed to bring out the nasty in people and this nice little old lady was being a real bitch.
We were desperately blocking any high-scoring squares and frustrating one another at every move; jaws set into grimaces and steely glares flashing murderous hate across the table.
Last move …
The hag-lady laid first and was suddenly twenty-nine points up.
BASTARD!
But in her greedy haste she had left an opening. Had she gone for a lesser score somewhere else on the board she may well have beaten me, but her overconfidence left a tantalising triple-word score square naked and vulnerable.
My only problem was that the perfect word was not … er … the perfect word to use in front of a little old lady and a family audience.
Fortunately I am an evil, twisted bastard with no morals …
I called a judge over and he concurred - somewhat blushingly - and I laid my tiles.
V - 4 (triple-word score)
U - 1
L - 1
V - 4 (double-letter score)
A - 1
on a triple word score to give me forty-five and the match!
Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!
Her face was a picture.
I love being a bastard.
Hee hee hee hee hee.
Anyone for Scrabble?
I Miss The Cold War
I just found this on the BBC News website.
The headline runs:
"Nuclear Threat Sparked Tea Worry"
"The threat of a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s caused concern over the supply of tea, top-secret documents which have now been released reveal.
Government officials planning food supplies said the tea situation would be "very serious" after a nuclear war.
"It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they stated.
The papers were released under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Archives at Kew.
The documents said a nuclear conflict would result in the loss of three-quarters of tea stocks."
I am so proud to be an Englishman.
Newbies might be tickled by my own experience of nuclear war.
Especially as it contains a photo of me in shorts.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Morrissey's Rubber Sheet
If there is a God, then may He, She, It or Them bless Maria for saving me from blogger's block once again and presenting me with a meme.
This one says, put your iPod on shuffle and press next for each question. Write down the song that's playing as an answer.
This could either be fun or a complete disaster (much like the options that greet me when my alarms go off every morning).
I'll weed out the classical ones, as answering "What Do You Like In A Guy/Girl?" with "Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio" or "Variatio 15 a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quinta in moto contrario" is not going to get us anywhere.
Right! Eyes down … Let the crap hit the fan!
1) How would you describe yourself?
Glorious Fool, by John Martyn, from the album of the same name.
I kid you not; this was the first track that came up!
Maybe my shuffle button knows the inner secrets of the universe.
Okay; I liked that one. What's up next?
2) What do you like in a guy/girl?
Blue Boy, by Joni Mitchell, from Ladies Of The Canyon.
HA!
I knew the first song was too good to be true; I just KNEW it!
C'mon, guys! I like kissing girls and looking at pert little boobs. I do NOT like … er … boys; blue or otherwise.
Okay, so my house looks like it's been attacked by gay decorators and is full of Tiffany lamps and paintings and books but that doesn't mean I … er …
Aww crap!
3) What is your motto?
Hello Central, Give Me Heaven, by The Carter Family, from The Best Of The Carter Family, Volume II.
Holy fuck! Perhaps God knows something this old atheist doesn't.
Shan; you could be right, my friend.
4) What do your friends think of you?
Complete Control, by The Clash, digitised off the original single.
Hee hee. I LOVE this meme! It tells lies about me that make me giggle.
For the record, I am not a control freak.
I AM NOT!
5) What do you think about often?
Broken Hearts Are For Assholes, by Frank Zappa, off Sheik Yerbouti.
Cool!
And true.
I've had enough of broken fucking hearts.
6) What do your parents think of you?
Puddin' Fingers, by The Handsome Family, off Milk And Scissors.
Yup. Phil and me always argued and fought to be the one to clean out the mixing bowl when mum baked cakes and puds.
Dee-smegging-licious!
7) What do you think of your best friend?
Be True, Be True Blues, by Henry Sims and Charley Patton, off Charley Patton: The Complete Recordings: Disc III.
Well, I suppose my small bunch of best buddies have lasted me the best part of fifty years, so they're pretty damned true.
8) What do you think of the person you like?
The Fat Lady Of Limbourg, by Brian Eno, from Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.
Uh-oh … Shit, I'm in big trouble now.
9) What do you want to be when you grow up?
Underdog, by Lisa Loeb, from Hello Lisa.
Yeah, I suppose I'm comfortable with that.
Not that I ever want to grow up.
10) What do you think when you see the person you like?
It Hurts So Good, by Millie Jackson, digitised from the original single.
Wow! This meme speaks more truth than the Magic Eight Ball did when I was a kid!
11) What song will they play at your wedding?
Woo Hoo, by the 5,6,7,8s, from the Kill Bill Soundtrack.
I think that one speaks for itself. Woohoo!
12) What will they play at your funeral?
Slidin' Home, by Danny Gatton, off 88, Elmira Street.
Fuck, I cannot believe this! I am honestly not cheating; just sitting here, hitting the next track button and grinning like a fool.
13) What is your hobby/interest?
Emily, by Bill Evans, from Bill Evans Live.
Really? I know three Emilys and I'm pretty damned sure this will give them nightmares.
14) What is your biggest fear?
All Of You, by Miles Davis, off 'Round About Midnight.
Hee hee hee! I laughed my socks off when this one came up.
Sorry, guys, but it looks like y'all are truly scary.
15) What is your biggest secret?
To Die A Virgin, by The Divine Comedy, off Victory For The Comic Muse.
Holy frijole, this just gets funnier and funnier.
Er … Okay, so I've not had sex for so many millennia that perhaps I can class myself as a born-again virgin.
16) What do you think of your friends?
Come On In My Kitchen, by Robert Johnson, from Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings, Volume I
Aaaahh. that's kinda sweet.
C'mon in, folks; the kettle's singin' and I'm cookin' up a storm.
17) What is your theme song?
Hey, Nineteen, by Steely Dan, off Gaucho.
Holy crapola! My midlife crisis has burst out of the closet.
Okay, I'll fess up! Just like in the song, I want to sleep with nineteen year olds while drinking tequila and snorting coke. Who the fuck doesn't?
Well maybe not the coke …
18) What do you think of your family?
I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore, by Dusty Springfield, off Dusty In Memphis.
Hee hee hee. Well, Mum and Phil often pop in to read this, so now they know.
19) What is your best friend's theme song?
Kittypants, by Shellac, off Excellent Italian Greyhound.
Yeah, right!
20) What is your mood right now?
Morrissey's Rubber Sheet, a talky anecdote about Morrissey and … er … a rubber sheet, off a bootleg recording of Billy Bragg, Live At The Barbican.
Well, I suppose that probably does indeed sum things up right now.
21) If your heart could talk what would it say?
Love Will Tear Us Apart: Susanna And The Magical Orchestra's lovely cover of the old Joy Division classic.
Actually, it's a bit late for that.
22) What do your co-workers think of you?
Muskrat Love, by America, from The Definitive America.
Now you're just taking the piss.
23) What does your future look like?
Fareweel (sic) Regality, by Rachel Unthank And The Winterset, off The Bairns.
Woohoo!
Hoorah for a bunch of fat Noocastle birds singing folk songs in their front room. They've foretold the downfall of the monarchy.
Sorry, Lynn, but the Magic iPod never lies … except of course with the Blue Boy thing.
Well, that was refreshing.
I think you'd all be well advised to sit there with that bunch of questions and flick through your songs on shuffle and see just what it says about you.
This one says, put your iPod on shuffle and press next for each question. Write down the song that's playing as an answer.
This could either be fun or a complete disaster (much like the options that greet me when my alarms go off every morning).
I'll weed out the classical ones, as answering "What Do You Like In A Guy/Girl?" with "Scuoti quella fronda di ciliegio" or "Variatio 15 a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quinta in moto contrario" is not going to get us anywhere.
Right! Eyes down … Let the crap hit the fan!
1) How would you describe yourself?
Glorious Fool, by John Martyn, from the album of the same name.
I kid you not; this was the first track that came up!
Maybe my shuffle button knows the inner secrets of the universe.
Okay; I liked that one. What's up next?
2) What do you like in a guy/girl?
Blue Boy, by Joni Mitchell, from Ladies Of The Canyon.
HA!
I knew the first song was too good to be true; I just KNEW it!
C'mon, guys! I like kissing girls and looking at pert little boobs. I do NOT like … er … boys; blue or otherwise.
Okay, so my house looks like it's been attacked by gay decorators and is full of Tiffany lamps and paintings and books but that doesn't mean I … er …
Aww crap!
3) What is your motto?
Hello Central, Give Me Heaven, by The Carter Family, from The Best Of The Carter Family, Volume II.
Holy fuck! Perhaps God knows something this old atheist doesn't.
Shan; you could be right, my friend.
4) What do your friends think of you?
Complete Control, by The Clash, digitised off the original single.
Hee hee. I LOVE this meme! It tells lies about me that make me giggle.
For the record, I am not a control freak.
I AM NOT!
5) What do you think about often?
Broken Hearts Are For Assholes, by Frank Zappa, off Sheik Yerbouti.
Cool!
And true.
I've had enough of broken fucking hearts.
6) What do your parents think of you?
Puddin' Fingers, by The Handsome Family, off Milk And Scissors.
Yup. Phil and me always argued and fought to be the one to clean out the mixing bowl when mum baked cakes and puds.
Dee-smegging-licious!
7) What do you think of your best friend?
Be True, Be True Blues, by Henry Sims and Charley Patton, off Charley Patton: The Complete Recordings: Disc III.
Well, I suppose my small bunch of best buddies have lasted me the best part of fifty years, so they're pretty damned true.
8) What do you think of the person you like?
The Fat Lady Of Limbourg, by Brian Eno, from Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.
Uh-oh … Shit, I'm in big trouble now.
9) What do you want to be when you grow up?
Underdog, by Lisa Loeb, from Hello Lisa.
Yeah, I suppose I'm comfortable with that.
Not that I ever want to grow up.
10) What do you think when you see the person you like?
It Hurts So Good, by Millie Jackson, digitised from the original single.
Wow! This meme speaks more truth than the Magic Eight Ball did when I was a kid!
11) What song will they play at your wedding?
Woo Hoo, by the 5,6,7,8s, from the Kill Bill Soundtrack.
I think that one speaks for itself. Woohoo!
12) What will they play at your funeral?
Slidin' Home, by Danny Gatton, off 88, Elmira Street.
Fuck, I cannot believe this! I am honestly not cheating; just sitting here, hitting the next track button and grinning like a fool.
13) What is your hobby/interest?
Emily, by Bill Evans, from Bill Evans Live.
Really? I know three Emilys and I'm pretty damned sure this will give them nightmares.
14) What is your biggest fear?
All Of You, by Miles Davis, off 'Round About Midnight.
Hee hee hee! I laughed my socks off when this one came up.
Sorry, guys, but it looks like y'all are truly scary.
15) What is your biggest secret?
To Die A Virgin, by The Divine Comedy, off Victory For The Comic Muse.
Holy frijole, this just gets funnier and funnier.
Er … Okay, so I've not had sex for so many millennia that perhaps I can class myself as a born-again virgin.
16) What do you think of your friends?
Come On In My Kitchen, by Robert Johnson, from Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings, Volume I
Aaaahh. that's kinda sweet.
C'mon in, folks; the kettle's singin' and I'm cookin' up a storm.
17) What is your theme song?
Hey, Nineteen, by Steely Dan, off Gaucho.
Holy crapola! My midlife crisis has burst out of the closet.
Okay, I'll fess up! Just like in the song, I want to sleep with nineteen year olds while drinking tequila and snorting coke. Who the fuck doesn't?
Well maybe not the coke …
18) What do you think of your family?
I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore, by Dusty Springfield, off Dusty In Memphis.
Hee hee hee. Well, Mum and Phil often pop in to read this, so now they know.
19) What is your best friend's theme song?
Kittypants, by Shellac, off Excellent Italian Greyhound.
Yeah, right!
20) What is your mood right now?
Morrissey's Rubber Sheet, a talky anecdote about Morrissey and … er … a rubber sheet, off a bootleg recording of Billy Bragg, Live At The Barbican.
Well, I suppose that probably does indeed sum things up right now.
21) If your heart could talk what would it say?
Love Will Tear Us Apart: Susanna And The Magical Orchestra's lovely cover of the old Joy Division classic.
Actually, it's a bit late for that.
22) What do your co-workers think of you?
Muskrat Love, by America, from The Definitive America.
Now you're just taking the piss.
23) What does your future look like?
Fareweel (sic) Regality, by Rachel Unthank And The Winterset, off The Bairns.
Woohoo!
Hoorah for a bunch of fat Noocastle birds singing folk songs in their front room. They've foretold the downfall of the monarchy.
Sorry, Lynn, but the Magic iPod never lies … except of course with the Blue Boy thing.
Well, that was refreshing.
I think you'd all be well advised to sit there with that bunch of questions and flick through your songs on shuffle and see just what it says about you.
Historical Fetish Fun
Hey ho.
It's another genitalia-fixated post from the British Museum.
Any newbies wishing to expose themselves to more Baps and Peepees can click here and scroll down to find Ame and Dive hunting for genitals and generally misbehaving.
No apologies for posting yet another photo of the splendid courtyard roof around the reading room.
First up: The label for this vase, conveniently placed at the eye level of any passing six-year-old reads: "A scene depicting some excited satyrs."
Excited?
"Mummy, why is that man's peepee doing that?"
The British Museum is a fine place for educating your kids about sex - and in this case, pony-boy fetishism - and hoorah for that!
We've also got some strange behaviour from the Assyrians. I'm sure that somewhere on the internet is a website catering for folk who like to dress up as birds, carry chic handbags and squeeze lemons.
Well, there's nothing new in the world; the Assyrians were playing those games thousands of years ago.
We'll round up this short post with a peepee that Ame missed.
A rather wince-inducing horses's hoof / scrotum interface situation.
That's gotta hurt!
It's another genitalia-fixated post from the British Museum.
Any newbies wishing to expose themselves to more Baps and Peepees can click here and scroll down to find Ame and Dive hunting for genitals and generally misbehaving.
No apologies for posting yet another photo of the splendid courtyard roof around the reading room.
First up: The label for this vase, conveniently placed at the eye level of any passing six-year-old reads: "A scene depicting some excited satyrs."Excited?
"Mummy, why is that man's peepee doing that?"
The British Museum is a fine place for educating your kids about sex - and in this case, pony-boy fetishism - and hoorah for that!
We've also got some strange behaviour from the Assyrians. I'm sure that somewhere on the internet is a website catering for folk who like to dress up as birds, carry chic handbags and squeeze lemons.Well, there's nothing new in the world; the Assyrians were playing those games thousands of years ago.
We'll round up this short post with a peepee that Ame missed.A rather wince-inducing horses's hoof / scrotum interface situation.
That's gotta hurt!
Friday, May 02, 2008
Hopper Again
There's a wonderful little exhibition of twentieth century American etchings in the Prints And Drawings section of the British Museum this summer.
I cannot recommend it too highly, especially to those of us like Rich and myself who are Edward Hopper fanatics.
Here are a few of my favourite pieces from the hundreds on display:
Hopper, of course.
And again.
(click on this to blow it up a bit)
And again (okay, so I like Hopper).
This one's by James E. Allen, who's a new name to me, but I'll definitely be checking him out some more.
As I will Martin Lewis, who produced this fabulous scene.
Glorious stuff. Get along there and see it.
It's free.
I cannot recommend it too highly, especially to those of us like Rich and myself who are Edward Hopper fanatics.
Here are a few of my favourite pieces from the hundreds on display:
Hopper, of course.
And again.(click on this to blow it up a bit)
And again (okay, so I like Hopper).
This one's by James E. Allen, who's a new name to me, but I'll definitely be checking him out some more.
As I will Martin Lewis, who produced this fabulous scene.Glorious stuff. Get along there and see it.
It's free.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Let's Make A Racket - IV
Dedicated to the memory of Ethel Rump.
It's Thursday, so it must be time for Dive to make another racket.
This time I shall be even more wilfully obscure and "out-takey" than last week's foray into the swamps and will post only half a song.
We retain last week's cheese fixation as today's racket is taken from the first rehearsal for what became yet another of my "sanity bands", The Cheese Mechanics.
A "sanity band" is what musicians call those occasional bands of old friends you play in simply for pleasure between touring, recording and pro-band stuff (work).
The Cheese Mechanics were:
Neil Daniels: Lead vocals, tenor sax, harmonica and bird-pulling;
Ron "I played the Hamburg bars at the same time as The Beatles and took so many drugs I can't find my arse with both hands" Brace: Drums;
Steve: Bass (and vocals on this track);
and inevitably Michael and myself on keyboards and guitar.
I think this must have been at least twenty to twenty-five years ago. I'm crap at dates and I'm too old to bother any more.
Anyhoo, we got together in West Somerton Village Hall, out on the coast, with a hamper of food and a couple of coolboxes full of beer and jammed a few dozen songs to get a feel for what direction we would take, recording them on to 4-track reel-to-reel so we could listen back later and weed out the crap.
West Somerton Village Hall has a little plaque over the stage that reads "Dedicated to the memory of Ethel Rump", which we promptly adopted as our band motto.
Neil would often announce on stage that a particular song was dedicated to the memory of Ethel Rump (usually one with lots of sexual innuendo in the lyrics); she became our patron saint.
This particular racket is Steve singing (rather badly, he'll be the first to admit) the first half of "Love That Burns". We always knew this song as "Love That Bums" as that's what it looks like scrawled on a set list and taped to the back of a PA stack under stage lights.
After the guitar solo, we stumbled to a halt, nodded to one another and said "Okay! That'll do for that one. What's next on the list?", which was about the extent of our rehearsals for that band.
But I rather liked some of the guitar bits (all improvised) so I kept the recording and will now inflict it on you and dedicate it - of course - to the memory of Ethel Rump.
For the nerds, this was played on Old Les, through a ratty ProAmps VSQ65 with a couple of valves on the fritz.
I also like the fact you can hear the amp click and buzz in the quiet bit before the solo.
Steve Albini uses the same noise to glorious effect in Nina Nastasia's "Nobody Knew Her". Most sound engineers spend ages removing those sounds from tapes but I love to hear them; it makes me grin. After all, that's the sound an amp actually makes when you change channels and light up a few more bottles, so why be ashamed of it?
Here's a photo from around that time with the same equipment (more about this particular gig - the "BBC fucks it up" gig - another day).
That's Ron on drums (having managed to find his arse and plonk it down on his drumstool) and Neil in the polka-dot shirt.
Playing on stage is a dirty, sweaty business and what started the evening as my nice, new green silk shirt ended up so trashed I threw it out the window on the way home.
More crap next week.
You have been warned.
It's Thursday, so it must be time for Dive to make another racket.
This time I shall be even more wilfully obscure and "out-takey" than last week's foray into the swamps and will post only half a song.
We retain last week's cheese fixation as today's racket is taken from the first rehearsal for what became yet another of my "sanity bands", The Cheese Mechanics.
A "sanity band" is what musicians call those occasional bands of old friends you play in simply for pleasure between touring, recording and pro-band stuff (work).
The Cheese Mechanics were:
Neil Daniels: Lead vocals, tenor sax, harmonica and bird-pulling;
Ron "I played the Hamburg bars at the same time as The Beatles and took so many drugs I can't find my arse with both hands" Brace: Drums;
Steve: Bass (and vocals on this track);
and inevitably Michael and myself on keyboards and guitar.
I think this must have been at least twenty to twenty-five years ago. I'm crap at dates and I'm too old to bother any more.
Anyhoo, we got together in West Somerton Village Hall, out on the coast, with a hamper of food and a couple of coolboxes full of beer and jammed a few dozen songs to get a feel for what direction we would take, recording them on to 4-track reel-to-reel so we could listen back later and weed out the crap.
West Somerton Village Hall has a little plaque over the stage that reads "Dedicated to the memory of Ethel Rump", which we promptly adopted as our band motto.
Neil would often announce on stage that a particular song was dedicated to the memory of Ethel Rump (usually one with lots of sexual innuendo in the lyrics); she became our patron saint.
This particular racket is Steve singing (rather badly, he'll be the first to admit) the first half of "Love That Burns". We always knew this song as "Love That Bums" as that's what it looks like scrawled on a set list and taped to the back of a PA stack under stage lights.
After the guitar solo, we stumbled to a halt, nodded to one another and said "Okay! That'll do for that one. What's next on the list?", which was about the extent of our rehearsals for that band.
But I rather liked some of the guitar bits (all improvised) so I kept the recording and will now inflict it on you and dedicate it - of course - to the memory of Ethel Rump.
For the nerds, this was played on Old Les, through a ratty ProAmps VSQ65 with a couple of valves on the fritz.
I also like the fact you can hear the amp click and buzz in the quiet bit before the solo.
Steve Albini uses the same noise to glorious effect in Nina Nastasia's "Nobody Knew Her". Most sound engineers spend ages removing those sounds from tapes but I love to hear them; it makes me grin. After all, that's the sound an amp actually makes when you change channels and light up a few more bottles, so why be ashamed of it?
Here's a photo from around that time with the same equipment (more about this particular gig - the "BBC fucks it up" gig - another day).That's Ron on drums (having managed to find his arse and plonk it down on his drumstool) and Neil in the polka-dot shirt.
Playing on stage is a dirty, sweaty business and what started the evening as my nice, new green silk shirt ended up so trashed I threw it out the window on the way home.
More crap next week.
You have been warned.
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