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Friday 23 August 2013

Straw Man Red Sun River Gold



The whole world has been concerned about debt for quite awhile now since the financial crash in 2008/9 and if you read a daily newspaper or watch any news programme on TV then there is always an article or some coverage of the state of the Euro, the Dollar, Sterling, Mortgage rates or the crisis in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Ireland etc.
On a personal level I try to avoid debt at all costs. I try never to be overdrawn, always pay off my outstanding amount on my modest collection of two credit cards and even actually try to save some money for my retirement, which in my case can’t arrive soon enough. I do understand that many people are suffering with all the benefit cuts, unemployment and the minuscule increases too most people’s wages. I am quite lucky that my pay generally increases every year, but that is only through Union negotiation because if it was left to the management of my company they would give me nothing at all. Union’s generally have a bad press and admittedly I do not agree with everything they try to do but overall I would not be in a workplace and not join the Union if there was one in situ.
Unfortunately this financial crisis has not hit the top level that governs and makes decisions that affect our daily purse; they often own mega-companies are chief executives, board members and are the higher ranks in our financial services. These people earn far too much and do not distribute their wealth, talent, benevolence to the benefit of the people they just continue to exploit the system which they have created in their favour to make more money. I would like to ask this question of these types of individuals, when do your large amounts of money become irrelevant ? you surely cannot spend it all, and it must get to a point where it becomes meaningless.
We are currently run by a bunch of toffs from Eton, who have never worked in a Greggs, a call centre, a mine, driven a bus, removed your bins, sat in an office in front of a pc for seven hours a day week in week out etc etc. Yet these Tory toffs are making decisions that have no consequence to them at all. I am at Socialist at heart and despise them all but when it comes to voting again I expect I will not vote because there is no political party that represents my general view of the world and our society.
As per normal I started one topic and moved into another.
As an old Labour supporter  I say to Ed Milliband sort it out mate or Labour are as doomed as the Liberals who sold themselves down the river when they made their coalition deal with these devil’s.
Enjoy  





Saturday 10 August 2013

Two Days Til' Tomorrow


Today let’s talk about music, as this is mainly a music blog.
 
When I was younger I travelled a lot more especially to the South of the United States of America. I was always into music so through my travels I would buy albums, cassettes, cd’s and try to get to as many gigs as I could. I remember seeing Evan Johns and The H-Bombs at the Antone’s blues club in Austin, Texas sometime around 1986. My mate Paul and I were going to see Omar & The Howlers and Evan Johns was the support act, he was a giant of a man and his band really rocked so as an obsessive collector I had to go out and buy all the H-Bomb albums I could get my hands on. I have five or six albums but none beats his 1986 effort “Rollin’ Through The Night” on the Alternative Tentacles record label.

 
A few years later I was back in the states in New Orleans attending the wedding of my friend Yvette and I was loitering in a few dusty old second-hand record shops when the Schramms “Walk To Delphi” album caught my eye, I now can’t remember whether I had heard of the band before because the leader of the band Dave Schramm had been an early member of  Yo La Tengo but I bought the album and I have always had a soft spot for the LP especially the title track. Bucket Of Brains magazine review said it was ‘a record with a heart of gold, classic Americana’. I still have the review as I cut it out and put it in the record sleeve. I paid $6.50 for it back in 1992.
 
 Last but not in any way least ladies and gentlemen I give you the MC5. I was playing these tracks yesterday and I decided that these two tracks certainly get my vote as the best ever band introduction thanks to their manager and White Panther party activist John Sinclair the band then go straight into two of the best heavy guitar riff’s you can ever hear. Recorded live at the Grande Ballroom, Detroit over two night in 1969 the MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams” is a classic of it’s kind and should be higher than 294 in Rolling Stone’s greatest of all time list.
 
 
 Enjoy