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

Evan Johns and The H-Bombs - Rollin' Through The Night

The Schramms - Walk To Delphi

MC5 - Ramblin' Rose - Kick Out The Jams

If You Want Loyalty Buy A Dog

Modern Times = Loyalty cards

How many of this annoying little pieces of stamped cardboard do we need ?

I was struck by this thought again today whilst shopping with my dear wife in a local farm shop.

We go there occasionally maybe once every couple of months, I generally buy some beer and we buy fresh produce, we never spend more than fifteen quid and every time we get to the till the polite assistant always asks us for our loyalty card, which of course we don’t have. They have now given us a form to complete on at least three occasions but we cannot be bothered because basically how many of these little cards do we actually need in our wallets and purses at any one time ?

Nearly every coffee shop, supermarket, retail chain, farm shop, petrol station has a loyalty card, they all ask you, they want us to have them but you just can’t have them all plus what do you actually get back for your so-called loyalty ?

Some points, discounts, money off, yes all of these apparently but if they didn’t have these cards would anybody really care, I don’t think so. As a very young lad I remember collecting Green Shield stamps and filling up books and books to take them along to the store to get a new kettle or tea tray or something else usually accompanied by my mum or my old gran because it seemed to be a very non-male environment and like everything of that era in the 60’s and 70’s it died away and now people want to collect air miles or discounts to Alton Towers or get a free tea towel.

 

What’s the point……………….

 

RIP J.J CALE

 

Enjoy

J.J Cale - If You're Ever In Oklahoma

Leon Russell and the Shelter People - Home Sweet Oklahoma

Bonnie Bramlett - Atlanta Georgia

The Beat Farmers - Texas Heat

Jepp - Las Vegas

A Thousand Gigs Ago Part 2

Well, tonight on a whim I did a bit of Internet crate digging and confirmed that my first gig was a tour date on Johnny Winter's 1974 European Tour and I now remember the support group were British rock band  Nutz. The date was Saturday 26th October 1974. I was thirteen years old and went with my Dad and this was all because I bought Johnny's 'Still Alive & Well' LP in 1973.

 

Memories...

 

http://www.vinylrecords.ch/winter/Timeline/winter_timeline_1974.html

Otis Redding - I've Got Dreams To Remember

A Thousand Gigs Ago

 

Everyone has regrets in their lifetime, some are pretty major ones I’m sure but for now I want to mention one of my more annoying regrets. As a big music fan I am also a collector of certain stuff (or in a posh sense some memorabilia if you will).

I used to have a collection of concert tickets going way back to my first proper gig in the mid-seventies, ‘Johnny Winter And – Live At The New Victoria Theatre, London’, I don’t think the place exists today but I know I was there and can still prove it. So I always kept my tickets, torn stubs, wrist bands etc from gigs and festivals but about a year before I moved away from London I stuck them all on a bedroom wall alongside my collection of gig posters and at the time I wasn’t too bothered but now about 15 years later I would like to have them in my possession again but alas I know they were painted over by the tenants who moved in after I left the premises so that's a no go on that one…

 BUT… I did manage to keep the Johnny Winter ticket stub and as you can see it’s now on display on the internet alongside a creased ticket of one of my favourite R&B bands from the eighties ‘The Inmates’ and also alongside these is the napkin I have kept when many years ago my parents spotted Paul Jones eating in the same Indian Restaurant as we all were in Paddington, London and asked him to autograph said napkin and it’s still here today!.

Plus I can’t believe it only cost £1.50 to see Johnny Winter, how times have changed.

RIP T-Model Ford

 

Enjoy

T-Model Ford - Chicken Headed Man

Oblivians - Call The Police

Johnny Winter - Still Alive And Well

The Inmates - Mr. Unreliable

Augie Meyers - You Ain't Rollin' Your Roll Rite

Your Revolution Is Over....The Bums Lost !!!

Certain events this week seem to have all come together for me to form this thought 'The Ignorant are Ignorant of their Ignorance' basically. I hope that makes sense in a week where a checkout assistant refused to serve a customer because she was on her mobile but the supermarket went and apologised to the customer and offered vouchers for her upset. Certain callers to a radio show felt that they had a right to speak on their mobile at a checkout because quote 'the staff work for me' apparently !!

I then found out that it was a more or less the norm these days for people to use their mobiles in libraries and of course we all know the abusers who still use their mobiles whilst driving their vehicles and those that have conversations out loud on public transport but this is not just about ignorance it is also about respect for an individual and the property of that individual.

In my case this week I have had to walk out of my parents house to 'have a go' at two youths who pulled up in a car in her road a leafy suburban cul-de-sac so that one of them could relieve himself against a lamppost in full view of their house and many of the neighbours if they happened to be watching, of course they thought they were not doing anything wrong but I was having none of it and gave them my personal point of view in no uncertain terms, then yesterday some neighbours that back onto our property were out in their yard and this morning my wife found an empty coke can lying in our garden obviously thrown over the wall into ours, I immediately returned the said item

this morning back to the home it came from. I will not be disrespected especially by the Ignorant so there !!!

Plus I would promote the checkout girl to manager and then still could put a ban on phones at the checkout in her store permanently so let the fightback against Ignorance begin.

 

 

On a more musical note I was sad to hear of the passing of Bobby 'Blue' Bland, he always had one of my favourite singing voices and should have been much better known in his lifetime, also this week I was privileged to see JJ Grey & Mofro live for the first time.. what a band and what a frontman JJ is, he is superb, so check them out for the best soul, blues, funk, rock, Florida Swamp sound around in fact it's really Mofro !!

 

 

"A BIG SIXER"

JJ Grey And Mofro - Hide And Seek

JJ Grey And Mofro - Country Ghetto

Bobby Blue Bland - Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City

Bobby Blue Bland - Road Of Brokenhearted Men

Estelline - Save Us From Our Ignorance

U.S Ape - Ignorance Is Bliss

Cold Facts

 

Gaps between posts seem to be getting longer and I have to find the time to come up with something new each time. So today is more of a personal news bulletin of sorts. My Dad has been ill again and has caused my mum a certain amount of worry and wasted time. I have been continually updating my digital music collection and to a large degree I have been helping my wife finish our Country Cottage garden project which has been an ongoing joint effort since I singlehandedly dug up about a ton of old broken tarmac about 3 years ago. I have then joined forces with my neighbours to fight the ‘Great Old Town Residents Parking Battle With Our Local Council’ and I am on the committee, so let battle commence !

I have also watched some great documentaries recently, a couple on BBC4 regarding the life and times of soul singers Charles Bradley and Bobby Womack. Then I finally caught up with ‘Searching For Sugarman’ the award winning film on the obscure Detroit singer-songwriter Rodriquez which deserved it’s critical acclaim and to finish off my cultural tour I saw the documentary on war photographer Don McCullin whose exhibition I saw a couple of years ago in Bradford, again I recommend this to anyone who is interested in politics, art and history.
 Then I have watched two films that left me slightly perturbed 'Kill List' and 'Valhalla Rising', I think I understood them but I've not quite convinced myself, following those I then watched the Coen Bros 'A Serious Man' a film I have been hoping to see for quite awhile and to be honest I thought it was piss-poor and I've still yet to see their version of 'The Ladykillers'.

Listen boys if your reading this then just film the Big Lebowski II and I'll be happy again. Plus a big thumbs up to Modern Toss, god you make me laugh, check them out, just Google it and make them even more money to not pay their taxes on (that's Google not Modern Toss !)

 

 

Enjoy

 

 

Charles Bradley - Hurricane

Bobby Womack - Across 110th Street

Rodriguez - Inner City Blues

Dolorean - Violence In The Snowy Fields

The Game Of Life

The sun continues to shine, work is still a chore and I stopped taking my medicine. So that's a summation of my last few days. I have been getting headaches like my brain is stuffed with cotton wool, I've felt nauseous and have gone off beer, so all in all I have been feeling a bit sorry for myself.

I have even lost the urge to hurl my wrath at an unfair and cruel world but I haven't lost the urge to find and download music across the "interweb". This past week I have been filling the gaps in my Van Morrison and Flamin Groovies mp3 discographies and now that I am satisfied I can move on to someone else. I am addicted to collecting music. always have been always will be (I'm typing this listening to Bobby Whitlock - 43 tracks).

I've collected LP's, cassettes, mini-discs, CD's, singles, books , tickets and magazines. Over time though I have let a lot of this go mostly for money not for free because I had found my modus operandi I found the computer music library a fascinating and useful tool. My preferred software is WINAMP I use this to select my play lists and monitor all my music libraries. I keep everything on external hard discs , I now have three in case anything terrible happens. I'm on nearly 75,000 tracks and rising I have so much I can't possibly ever hear it all but I keep collecting it's my drug. I just feel better knowing I have a track or album that I can refer to at any given moment, it comforts me, it is my passion. Yes, I often doubt myself, question whether it is all ultimately pointless but I won't stop because the next band, the next song could be the best music I have ever heard, so my road goes on forever.

By the way I still have about 1000 vinyl albums these are my own big red book, as Eamonn Andrews used to say The Man That Time Forgot (me that is !) ' This Is Your Life'........

Enjoy  

Bombino - Amindinine

The Nite Riders - Pretty Plaid Skirt (And Long Black Socks)

David Byne and St. Vincent - Road To Nowhere (Live)

The Nomads (Sweden) - Showdown