A memory .. . .. . . ..

Fairport Convention took the Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" into the charts, albeit in an unusual fashion: the group translated the song into French (partially, retaining the English "...you gotta stay all night" as the end of a line beginning in French for comic effect) as "Si Tu Dois Partir". Recorded for the ‘Unhalfbricking’ album, the song coming from a game of 'Ghosts' that Sandy Denny won with, the song was issued as a single in 1969. I was 16 and yet to hear ‘The Great White Wonder’ Dylan bootleg that I would buy in Holland years later which featured him singing his own song but we had heard another charted ‘pop’ version. This version of Bob Dylan's "If you gotta go, go now" was the band's only charting single, reaching number 21 and staying in the British Chart for nine weeks. When it came out and everyone I knew was playing it, I thought why are they getting excited about a pidgin French Cajun version of a Manfred Mann song!? We gathered regularly round a friends house round the corner from where my parent’s lived and listened to records, drank coffee and smoked cigarettes encouraged by their parents to be there rather than hanging out on the streets. Rumour has it that Fairport played a gig in which they asked members of the audience to translate Dylan’s song which made it’s pidgin Cajun French more explicable!

Si Tu Dois Partir

C'est pas que je te demande

Que faire que tu ne jamais fais

C'est seulement qu'il fait trop tard

Et il fait trop noir pour trouver la porte

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Si non, tu dois rester la nuit

C'est pas que je te demande

De prendre part dans ce jeu

C'est seulement je n'ai pas de montre

Comme toujours faire le par contre

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Si non, tu dois rester la nuit

Tu sais j'aurais des cauchemars

Et aussi mauvaise conscience

Si je t'empeche de faire

Ce que vraiment tu espère

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Mais si tu dois partir, va t'en

Si non, tu dois rester la nuit

I didn't 'get it' but friends bought 'Unhalfbricking" the album from whence the track came on the strength of it which contained the heartbreaking Sandy Denny track " Who Knows Where the Time Goes" which was more my speed and it has haunted me ever since, I just didn't get the jokey French song when they could have released that one! Why it even included breaking glass bottles as percussion. The album also contained a further two Dylan titles though I don’t recall being aware of this at the time. The Convention had been invited to Bob Dylan's London music publishers to hear then unreleased tracks from The Basement Tapes sessions. The band's bassist, Ashley Hutchings, said "We loved it all. We would have covered all the songs if we could." In the event, versions of "Percy's Song", "Million Dollar Bash" and "Si Tu Dois Partir" were used on the album. Nor did we know the heartbreak and sorrow behind this album’s release only later to discover that just months before ‘Unhalfbricking’ had come out, Richard’s girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn, and Fairport drummer Martin Lamble, who was a mere 19 years old, were both killed in a car crash.(*) This made the unfettered jollity of the Bob Dylan pastiche more confusing to me. 
(* Simon Nichol's moving account of the terrible van crash on the M1) 

Unhalfbricking

In an attempt to educate myself as to what was going on, I bought the Island budget-price sampler, ‘You Can All Join In’, which had a profound affect upon me and I have stuck with many of the bands I heard therein, not dissimilar to the other sampler of the era 'Rock Machine Turns You on" an American version if you will of the same idea and I stuck with many of the bands on that album too. 'You Can All Join In' included Jethro Tull, Spooky Tooth, Free, John Martyn, Traffic with the titular track and of course Fairport Convention.


 Liking the Fairports' sampler track, ‘Meet on the Ledge’ the chart success and jolly sound of Si Tu Dois Partir confused me as to why everyone thought it such a blast. 'Meet on The Ledge' also haunted me forever and seemed a much more serious and relevant song.

What ledge? Why would we meet there and didn't I want to jump off? Or were we all just clinging on? Huddled together, holding on against the wind. Too many friends indeed blown off this mountain side. True now as it was then……

"The song's title comes from a large, low hanging tree limb on which Richard Thompson used to play as a child, and which he and his friends had dubbed "The Ledge". Richard Thompson acknowledged that some people interpret "the ledge" as some sort of code for the afterlife and that it is popular at funerals. In an interview with Mojo magazine March 2011 Richard Thompson said: "The hardest thing about being a 17-year-old songwriter is that you're embarrassed - you're never going to write a song saying, 'These are my feelings, I love you.' So I was trying to find some semi-veiled language that conveyed something to somebody somehow but which didn't really say anything up front. It's a slightly naïve song, a little obscure. I don't even know what it means." Thompson added: "I had to sing it at my own mother's funeral. It was in her will. That's about the hardest thing I've ever done".

MEET ON THE LEDGE

We used to say

That come the day

We'd all be making songs

Or finding better words

These ideas never lasted long

The way is up

Along the road

The air is growing thin

Too many friends who tried

Were blown off this mountain with the wind

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

If you really mean it, it all comes round again

Yet now I see

I'm all alone

But that's the only way to be

You'll have your chance again

Then you can do the work for me

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

If you really mean it, it all comes round again

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

When my time is up I'm gonna see all my friends

Meet on the ledge

We're gonna meet on the ledge

If you really mean it, it all comes round again

As a consequence of my not ’getting’ the song ‘Si Tu Dois . . . ‘ I chose to sulk and not go when the guys heard that Fairport were up the road at the Manor, Richard Branson’s recording studio, and imagine my chagrin when they duly returned later that day with tales of being asked in and playing in the garden on a beautiful English sunny summer day and one of the boys returned with Sandy having signed his plastercast where he broken his arm replete also with signed copies of the single too to add insult to injury as it were! It didn’t seem much later but in fact it was to be nearly ten years later that reports came down that Sandy had died in an ‘accident at home by falling down the stairs’ but in reality she had left Fairport in 1969 to pursue solo efforts and formed 'Fotheringay' but also by the seventies had begun to use drugs and drink heavily and had banged her head on concrete several days before then subsequently prescribed 'distalgesic' by an ill informed doctor not understanding the fatal consequence of this drug when combined with alcohol. Sandy had by then stopped caring for herself or her child by that stage and that angelic ethereal yet all too human & troubled voice was lost forever to us.

WHO KNOWS WHERE THE TIME GOES

Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving

But how can they know it's time for them to go?

Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming

I have no thought of time

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

Sad, deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving

Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go

But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving

I do not count the time

For who knows where the time goes?

Who knows where the time goes?

And I am not alone while my love is near me

I know it will be so until it's time to go

So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again

I do not fear the time

For who knows how my love grows?

And who knows where the time goes?

New (ish!) Bobbie Boots Source

Guess I get a bit down reporting all the deaths of late but here's some cheer

A THOUSAND HIGHWAYS

1000 Highways linkage

Thanks to chat amongst folk at the newly rekindled Croz' forum ROIO* I found this site where the folks are making compilations of Bob Dylan themed tracks available from the tour that never ends. Now lots of you may be put off and have given up the ghost where Bobbie is 'seemingly' playing all the same set night after night and the mix is always the same but this wonderful site proves otherwise. The quality is peerless!

for any Bobbie afficiando I cannot recommend this site highly enough.

Not a dud amongts them and the guy's artwork is ACE!

[see above and below]

You better decide which of those bills you want before they all disappear!

Having been hounded out of sharing any of my music files these days not least by Dylan's Sony agents over here, it is only a matter of time before they are told to be taken down, so get them tamales while they're red hot!

a favourite compilation that is rarely off the record player these days (what's a record player? ED)

 

Piano Blues & Barroom Ballads: European Tour, Fall 2003

 

Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) - November 3

Tryin' To Get To Heaven - November 11

Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - November 3

Million Miles - November 24

Desolation Row - October 20

Can't Wait - November 3

Jokerman - November 24

Queen Jane Approximately - October 15

Cry A While - November 3

Boots Of Spanish Leather - November 15

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - November 25

Bonus Tracks:

 Dear Landlord - November 24

Love Sick - November 25

Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) - November 23

Romance In Durango - November 24

Silvio - November 23

Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - October 16

*Croz was the wonderful bloke who made the Bob Dylan radio show 'Theme Time Radio Hour' available to us mere mortals who couldn't get it any other way and he has still got the files hurtling around the interweb - some folks even charging dollar for the privilege! (SHAME on YOU!)

He is a fine guitarist and singer who is as obsessed with Dylan as any of my pals and has rekindled a music forum to discuss such things. You'll find him if you know what you're doing! 

Any probs email me separately and we'll see what we can do.!?!

Very sad news to report today.

Bob Casale of Devo has passed away

Born: July 14th, 1952 . Deceased: February 17th, 2014

photo circa 1980 by Jules Bates/Artrouble

"As an original member of Devo, Bob Casale was there in the trenches with me from the beginning. He was my level-headed brother, a solid performer and talented audio engineer, always giving more than he got. He was excited about the possibility of Mark Mothersbaugh allowing Devo to play shows again. His sudden death from conditions that lead to heart failure came as a total shock to us all."

Gerald Casale, Devo founder.

Ultimate Classic Rock reports:

Bob Casale, the guitarist for New Wave hitmakers Devo, died yesterday (Feb. 17) at the age of 61. The news was broken by his older brother Gerald, who played bass and keyboards in the group.

The Casales formed Devo at Kent State University near Akron, Ohio around 1973 with the Mothersbaugh brothers (Mark, Jim and Bob — who was known as “Bob 1″ while Casale was “Bob 2.”) Jim Mothersbaugh left in 1976 and was replaced by Alan Myers, who died in June 2013.
Devo gained traction with the release of their 1978 debut, largely on the strength of a stilted, synthed-up take on the Rolling Stones‘ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,’ which angered purists and delighted iconoclasts. Their image, which saw them perform in matching jumpsuits and terraced, plastic hats called “energy domes,” was an extension of their art school background.
While they only had one Top 20 hit, ‘Whip It,’ other songs like ‘Girl U Want,’ ‘Working in the Coal Mine’ and ‘Through Being Cool’ were modern rock and college radio staples for years. By the end of the ’80s, their commercial peak had been long in the distance and the group broke up.
Devo reunited in 1995, periodically recording one-off songs for soundtracks and touring. Their 2010 album ‘Something for Everybody’ was hailed as a solid return to form.
Mark Mothersbaugh told Cleveland.com that the news has understandably hit him hard. “This is so sudden and tragic… He was the nicest guy in the band. He had the best personality. He had the longest fuse. He was a problem solver.”

I bought their first single when it came out here in the UK and everything after, albums et al
Loved the witty thought provoking clever but ultimately danceable electro synth pop beat

DEVO - released here

PETE SEEGER R.I.P. 1919-2014

Pete Seeger, the singer, folk-song collector and songwriter who spearheaded an American folk revival and spent a long career championing folk music as both a vital heritage and a catalyst for social change, died January 27, 2014. He was 94 and lived in Beacon, NY. His death was confirmed by his grandson, Kitama Cahill Jackson, who said he died of natural causes at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Seeger’s career carried him from singing at labour rallies to the Top 10 to college auditoriums to folk festivals, and from a conviction for contempt of Congress (after defying the House Un-American Activities Committee in the ’50s) to performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural concert for Barack Obama. “My job,” he said in 2009, “is to show folks there’s a lot of good music in this world, and if used right it may help to save the planet.” - New York Times

"I grew up with the folk songs of Pete Seeger. Big Bill and the political songs of Paul Robeson and the repertoire of ‘labour’ songs, ‘Joe Hill', "If I had a Hammer” ‘Michael Row’, ‘Little Boxes’ et al. He may have upset us younger folk when he turned into the axe wielding reactionary going after our beloved Dylan but we forgave him . . .eventually."

 Pete Seger’s music has been covered by The Byrds and Joan Baez. His message has been mimicked by musicians like Tom Morello. For more than 70 years people have been listening to his music. Arlo Guthrie, the son of Woody Guthrie, shared his thoughts on the iconic singer today on Facebook.

Big O covers these things so well and there has been much written these past day or so but not least by my daughter's fellah, Rob Power, over at Music Radar

Pete Seeger obit by Rob Power

I have to post a link not least because my daughter would hound me if I didn't but also cos it's a fine piece of work ad contains the following Youtube link

Arlo wrote that Seeger was a mentor, father figure, and most of all a friend to him during his life.

Guthrie writes on Facebook:

“I usually do a little meditation and prayer every night before I go to sleep – Just part of the routine. Last night, I decided to go visit Pete Seeger for a while, just to spend a little time together, it was around 9 PM. So I was sitting in my home in Florida, having a lovely chat with Pete, who was in a hospital in New York City. That’s the great thing about thoughts and prayers- You can go or be anywhere.
“I simply wanted him to know that I loved him dearly, like a father in some ways, a mentor in others and just as a dear friend a lot of the time. I’d grown up that way – loving the Seegers – Pete & Toshi and all their family.

“I let him know I was having trouble writing his obituary (as I’d been asked) but it seemed just so silly and I couldn’t think of anything that didn’t sound trite or plain stupid. “They’ll say something appropriate in the news,” we agreed. We laughed, we talked, and I took my leave about 9:30 last night.
“Arlo” he said, sounding just like the man I’ve known all of my life, “I guess I’ll see ya later.” I’ve always loved the rising and falling inflections in his voice. “Pete,” I said. “I guess we will.” I turned off the light and closed my eyes and fell asleep until very early this morning, about 3 AM when the texts and phone calls started coming in from friends telling me Pete had passed away.
“Well, of course he passed away!” I’m telling everyone this morning. “But that doesn’t mean he’s gone.”

Big O post this nigh on complete concert set from Pete and another hero Big Bill Broonzy
and I can't put it any better than this:

midnightcafe reviewed a copy of this show in 2007:
There are many thoughts that come to mind when I hear the name Pete Seeger: Socialist, outspoken folkie, encyclopedic knowledge of music worldwide, compatriot to Woody Guthrie, Pinko-Commie, and axe-wielding madman running after an electrified Bob Dylan. It is his love and gift for folk music from around the globe, though, that I hope he will always be remembered.
Listening to Pete Seeger, in concert, is like being with a historian and archaeologist of the world’s music. He seems to know every song ever sung, and to be friends with their writers and singers. He is the soul of America, a true treasure trove of song.

Pete Seeger & Big Bill Broonzy 1956

Picture of Pete Seeger with Big Bill Broonzy at Circle Pines Center in MI, 1957
by John Glass, posted at berkshirefinearts.com - Thanks!

Just a note [of astonishment] if correct this picture dates Big Bill to the year before he died at 65. 

Gosh he sure looks well for 65! No?

Rest easy Old Fellah! Time to put down the Hammer (and the Axe)

 Big O has posted a Glastonbury '95 set from

Jeff Buckley

If you don't have this set already this really worth a punt a fine quality BBC radio broadcast

There's no Hallelujah but seven tracks from 'Grace' one of the finest albums ever recorded IMHO

I had this already but actually this is better quality

 Big O says:

This is an absolutely stunning set from the late Jeff Buckley. The day he drowned (May 29, 1997) was definitely a massive loss for the music world. His only album, Grace, is fantastic and it would have been a pleasure to watch his career evolve. For the time being, enjoy this set - just incredible, even for those unfamiliar.

Jeff Buckley - Glastonbury 1995

They also have posted today a set from Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood and with Al Cooper on keyboards trubute to a favourite of mind Jimmy Reed a couple of months back from New York's 'Cutting Room' venue. It's fun and worth a punt if not the real deal, [Mathis James Reed died in '76] it's a good example of two guitar rock and blues masters to one of the greats
I first bought a picture gatefold EP of Jimmy Rogers called Bright Lights, Big City at the age of 13 when I first discovered the blues through my older brother Steve, who had introduced me to Leadbelly and Mississippi John Hurt and it also contained Big Boss Man the two legendary songs that defined Reeds oeuvre for me.
Big O quotes Patrick Doyle of Rolling Stone

: Wood and Taylor’s show last night at the tiny venue was a loose blast as they played the blues they grew up on – the setlist included no Rolling Stones songs and mostly explored Mississippi electric blues pioneer Jimmy Reed… While the pairing may seem surprising, the duo go way back: Wood was a huge fan of Taylor’s in England in the Sixties. He would even fill in for Taylor when he was stricken by stage fright in his band the Gods. “He used to be too nervous even to go on, and he’d say ‘Ronnie, play my bit for me,” Wood recalled in According to the Rolling Stones. “Mick Taylor always underestimated his talent”…

Ronnie Wood & Mick Taylor - Jimmy Reed tribute November 2013

Reed Songs covered:

Good Lover 5:10 (8.7MB)
Big Boss Man 5:01 (8.4MB)
Bright Lights, Big City 4:22 (7.3MB)
Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby 3:56 (6.6MB)
Baby, What You Want Me to Do 5:35 (9.4MB)
Blue Carnegie 4:53 (8.2MB)
I’m Mr Luck 8:28 (14.2MB)
I’m the Man Down There 5:45 (9.7MB)
High and Lonesome 4:50 (8.1MB)
Going to New York 4:04 (6.8MB)

Ronnie Wood - guitar, harmonica, vocals
Mick Taylor - guitar
Simon Kirke - drums
Al Kooper - Hammond B3 organ
Wilbur Bascomb - bass

Enjoy! I know I did

Big O excels

from The Night Before Last!

NEIL YOUNG - WINNIPEG JAN 16 2014

Neil Young - Winnipeg 2014

Treaty? What treaty?

The ACFN refer to themselves as K’ai Taile Dene, meaning “people of the land of the willow.” A Legal Defense fund was set up to support the ACFN’s legal challenges against oil companies and government that are obstructing their traditional lands and rights. As people of the land the ACFN have used and occupied their traditional lands in the Athabasca region for thousands of years, hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering to sustain themselves and continue spiritual cultural rights passed down through generations. The ACFN’s legal challenges will ensure the protection of their traditional lands, eco-systems and unique rights guaranteed by Treaty 8, the last and largest of the nineteenth century land agreements made between First Nations and the Government of Canada, are upheld for the benefit of future generations.

Wonderful stuff again from Big O! The guy’s is a global treasure, enigma and wonderment. Active politically and creatively still more than most of his peers
and informed too, I'm ashamed to say I didn’t know about Athabascan K’ai Taile Dene - keep sticking it to the Man Neil while you sing you heart out, power chords or nay!
Cool as it comes . . . . check this OUT!

The Everly Brothers - I'm On My Way Home Again 

with Clarence White on guitar

R.I.P. Phil Everly

Dedicated to the Memory of Colin 'Bill' Northcote

a dear friend from school days I learned today has passed away before Christmas just when I was trying to take in the death of Phil Everly - Bill and I shared a great deal and not least our love of music along with his older brother John who was pals with my older brother Steve, so it seemed apposite to post the Everly's version of 'I'm On My Way Home Again'. I dedicate this to you Billy!

We got up to all sorts and he introduced me to suede Levi jackets, going to festivals and The Grateful Dead, mostly by turning up one day with a copy of 'Working Man's Dead' under his arm, when it came out (1970?) and raving on and on about it. We hung out and played it into the ground, we lingered over analysing in wonderment the first Led Zeppelin album when it came out, we hung out at the recreation ground and generally made nuisances of ourselves. When I went away to college we lost touch, as you do, and I know he had his struggles but lately we had been talking about getting to meet up gain through another mutual friend in Leon. It wasn't to be and I am deeply saddened for that. Taken away too suddenly - my thoughts are with Liz, his children and all his family at this time

Of course Big O stepped up straight away and have posted two Everly Brothers gigs here

Everly Brothers from 1973

and another from

Everly Brothers - Holland 1990

They say -

On January 3, 2014, Phil Everly, a lifelong smoker, died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank at the age of 74. Phil died of complications from lung disease, his wife, Patti, told the Los Angeles Times. Phil Everly and his brother Don made up the Everly Brothers, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1950s and early 1960s. The pair had an onstage breakup in 1973 that led to a decade-long estrangement, but Phil later told Time magazine the brothers’ relationship had survived this. “Don and I are infamous for our split,” Phil said, “but we’re closer than most brothers,” the BBC reported. The Everly Brothers were elected to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, and they were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 1997.

On a technical note, I have always been obsessed by their guitars; the custom built Gibsons with the famed moustache plates and always wanted one but could never afford one. Epiphone did a copy budget version which you can still find knocking around for £200 or so and they were always beautiful. The Gibson version now would cost you a few thousand pound but they are really beautiful and play like butter. I first saw Donovan playing one and I think he liked it because they had stars running as fretboard markers and the moustache shaped pick guards were mock tortoisesehell and always black and gorgeous. Still want one today!

Phil and Don had them custom built to their own specs. . . . . . they even had them built with different colour pick guards too  .  . . .  . juss sayin' 

Swappers' Review of the Year!

Part One

Well it’s been an odd year, quite weird all round really. Since my accident last September this year I have not been at all well. Strange symptoms and endless tests at the doctors and then the hospital all thus far to no avail. All seem to think there is something wrong with my endocrine system which is helpful as up till now I didn’t even know I had one! This has affected my work rate and I am lucky to have been needed to fill posts as a locum throughout the city where people know they could rely upon me to turn up to work in the social care field and be  . . . . well reliable!

This year saw me turn 60, which is weird also! Hope the coming year is better for all of us but  . . well, me too!

Deaths – those we lost this year

    Nelson Mandela

It had been expected of course and the hullabaloo was all to be celebrating the man who got apartheid shifted in South Africa. Some of the hypocrisy was a tad strong. Current politicians who believed Thatcher when she told us he was a terrorist! She was a liar! The one thing Madiba did try to teach us was the power of forgiveness and if I can’t forgive Mrs Thatcher then I will try to forgive this current lot! I said I’ll try! If I wish to remember him, I put on Jerry Dammers’ ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ and dance around the living room with joy.

    Seamus Heaney

Heaney’s death affected me curiously more than I imagined. I have always had a soft spot for him and whilst I don’t believe I own any books of his, I always enjoyed his poetry when I read it and his readings when they were broadcast. However to find myself moved to write a poem for him myself surprised me and though I am quite pleased with the outcome, it’s still a little like reading a piece by someone else. Which used to be why I wrote in the first place! To give myself something else to read.

An Irish master gone

   JJ Cale

JJ passing saddened me and since buying the first album [with a lifelong favourite song in ‘Clyde’ about a bass playing dog!], I have been a fan. I also recall the excitement of hearing another hero in Captain Beefheart cover Cale’s ‘Same Old Blues’ and don’t ya just love it when you discover your heroes like each other!? JJ much missed and not least for his introducing me to Harmony guitars and my small collection of their acoustic range. Check out what he did to his electric! Call me The Breeze!

  David Jacobs

For me David Jacobs was simply the first voice of popular music. He always seemed a true gentleman with a natural dignity but as ‘straight’ old society went, we admired him too and he was always a voice of authority that we loved.

Pin your ears back pop pickers!

    Ray Manzarek

Ray, Ray! What does one say about Raymond Daniel Manzarek. It was he who first heard the Dionysian lyric poetry of Jim Morrison on the beaches of LA and thought there’s something going on here. Let’s set it to music! Mystic and keyboardist extraordinaire, I had a love hate relationship with him, as I just wish he hadn’t sung!

I have finally got to that age where all my heroes are dying off where once I thought they would live forever but then I thought that about my brother, my father and lastly my mother!

    Lou Reed

Lou I knew could not die! He was too curmudgeonly! How dare death come and take the old rock n roll grumpy bastard hisself. Again another love/hate relationship with his pro needle heroin shite! Mock (allegedly) shooting up on stage is wack, Jack! Lost too many to the vicious sludge that is and will ever be Sister DiaMorphine. But ‘New York’ is a timeless classic for me and always fairly close to the turn table (what’s a turntable?! ED) The work with John Cale, another true poet hero, is tireless also! Songs for Drella I defy anyone with artworld pretensions not to adore!

    Iain Banks

I met Iain Banks at a Book do (The Nibbies way back) and he was a delight to meet and unerringly kind and solicitous to a mere bookseller. I admired everything he wrote and The Wasp Factory remains a favourite along with several others. Curiously I have never read any Iain M Banks and perhaps I should do so now in memoriam to a thoroughly decent fellow and fine fine writer

   Sir Anthony Caro

I met Sir Anthony through my work at MOMA in Oxford and as for gentlemen and thoroughly decent chaps, he was right up there in the pantheon of people solicitous of the wellbeing of lowly folk such as I. This was true of many great artists, John Piper, David Hockney, R.B.Kitaj etc but sadly not true of so many burgeoning fame monkeys playing the ‘Don’t You KNOW who I am?” card it was laughable. Sir Anthony was invariably kind, gentlemanly and interested in others. I find my interest in his sculpture whilst not one naturally drawn towards, always fascinating and aesthetically pleasing.

    Richard Griffiths

Ever ‘Uncle Monty’ to those of us obsessed with the Bruce Robinson film ‘Withnail and I’ I ws saddened to hear of Richard Griffiths passing. I enjoyed his History Boys to his Harry Potter’s unspeakable dad, from his cop turned chef, Henry Crabbe, in TV show ‘Pie in The Sky’ to his King George in Pirates of the Caribbean part 127 but it was as the raging thespian ‘Uncle Monty’ we adored!

“Oh, you little traitors. I think the carrot infinitely more fascinating than the geranium. The carrot has mystery. Flowers are essentially tarts. Prostitutes for the bees. There is, you'll agree, a certain 'je ne sais quoi' oh, so very special about a firm, young carrot.”

Withnail: MONTY, YOU TERRIBLE CUNT!

    Peter O’Toole

What to add about the passing of Peter O’Toole one of my favourite drunks and exquisite actor who it will always be said didn’t live up to his early promise. How many of us has THAT been said!? Too busy living to make our sad lives more palatable to worry about something as vulgar as ambition! The stories about O’Toole are legion, more so than the  parts he portrayed and this is in part why we loved him so. His Lawrence of course too pretty not to be famous but his ‘Venus’ too in late life I adored. The Ruling Class remains a perennial favourite and of course my hero Dylan Thomas’ 1972 film and radio broadcast of ‘Under Milk Wood’ in which O’Toole personified Captain Cat. I enjoyed The Stunt Man and the self parodying ‘My Favourite Year’ and even fripperies such as the delightful cartoon Ratatouille. In drink he hung out with Richard Harris, Richard Burton, Peter Finch, and classmates Alan Bates and Albert Finney and inlaer life TV presenter and radio DJ Chris Evans even regales when in his drinking days about finding Peter knocking at the door of his house and the next three weeks being a blur! THREE weeks mind!

Lawrence Of Arabia occupied O'Toole for two years, filming in seven different countries.

By the end of it, he'd lost 2st, received third-degree burns, sprained both ankles, torn ligaments in both his hip and thigh, dislocated his spine, broken his thumb, sprained his neck and been concussed twice.

But his extraordinary performance made him a star. Lawrence Of Arabia was a world-wide smash when it opened in 1962 and was hailed as one of cinema's true masterpieces.

"I woke up one morning to find I was famous," he said. "I bought a white Rolls-Royce and drove down Sunset Boulevard, wearing dark specs and a white suit, waving like the Queen Mum. "Nobody took any fucking notice, but I thoroughly enjoyed it."

The drink finally took it’s toll and he was hospitalised. There was so little of his digestive system left that any amount of alcohol could prove fatal. Having come so close to death, O'Toole was determined to live each day to the full.

"The time has come to stop roaming," he said. "The pirate ship has berthed. I can still make whoopee, but now I do it sober." He was in his forties!

For ‘Venus’ playing opposite the mesmerisingly wonderful Jodie Whittaker (Attack The Block) O'Toole notched up his eighth Oscar nomination for his performance, the story of an almost wholly platonic romance between an elderly thespian and a 21-year-old girl.

O'Toole was delighted at the script and at his casting.

"No one better for a dirty old man who falls for a sluttish young woman," he said.

So O'Toole was known s the Last Man Standing of a generation of hard drinking thesps, the last surviving British reprobate. "The common denominator of all my friends is that they're dead," he said.

"There was a time when I felt like a perpendicular cuckoo clock, popping up and down in pulpits saying: 'Fear no more the heat o' the sun.' They were dying like flies."

But like all the other hellraisers, he has never once regretted the mistakes he made.

"I loved the drinking, and waking up in the morning to find I was in Mexico," he said.

"It was part and parcel of being an idiot."

The ALTERNATIVITY

 Christmas Message!

From Sir Christopher Lee

with Musical Accompaniment from 

THE BEATLES

MASH UP

by mojochrooic!

Merry Thingummie and a Happy Wassnames

- 2013 REVIEW a half hearted tip of the hat to the year

Much missed Lou!

The Little Willies - Lou Reed

and from the wonderful Writer's Almanac a seasonal poem from the legendary Garrison Keilor:
Gift of the Magi

In the tiny apartment on the Lower East Side,
The beautiful Della combed her long hair,
And thought about Christmas and bitterly cried,
For they had no money, no money to spare.

So little money, and Christmas was near,
And Jim worked so hard and for so little pay.
He’d grown discouraged, her darling, her dear
She must give him Christmas, she must find a way.

So she went to a wig shop and sold them her hair,
Her beautiful hair that her husband adored,
Her face was all pale as she sat in the chair,
And she cried as the barber cut it off short.

And out in the street, with a scarf on her head,
And the money in hand, Della searched through the shops,
And there in a window was the gift she must get:
A platinum chain Jim could hang on his watch.

His beautiful watch that his father had owned,
So handsome and beautiful, just like her Jim.
And she bought him the chain and gladly went home
And curled her short hair as she waited for him.

He opened the door and he saw her hair
And she ran to his side and tried to explain
It would grow back so quickly and she didn’t care
And she gave him the beautiful platinum chain.

Jim took her gift — how brightly it shone.
He covered his face and sighed in despair,
And he told her, “I bought you those tortoise shell combs,
Tortoiseshell combs for your beautiful hair.”

He had pawned his watch to buy her the combs,
To buy him the watch chain, she sold her hair
And the two of them looked at each other and groaned,
At the sight of the two useless gifts sitting there.

They sat holding hands and they started to laugh
At the beautiful emptiness of what they were wishing
The gift of the Magi is to hold what you have
And not think a minute of what you are missing

Happy Crimbo!