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| copyright Graham Denholm/WireImage |
New Leonard Cohen album
POPULAR PROBLEMS
streaming on NPR
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
BEEFHEART BOXSET FOR NOVEMBER
Previously unheard Captain Beefheart recordings are set to be released as part of a new boxset.
Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 To 1972 features the three albums that Beefheart and the Magic Band released over that period - Lick My Decals Off, Baby, The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot - as well as an extra disc of alternate versions. The whole limited-edition set, which will be released as four LPs, four CDs or digitally, has also been newly remastered. Sun Zoom Spark is released through Rhino on November 10, 2014. - Uncut magazine
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
GARETH DICKSON
Nick Drake tributory!
"Nicked Drake!"
Found this lurching around t'interweb
From Scissor Tail @ bandcamp - What we have here is a reverent and very beautiful cover versions album by Gareth Dickson of his favourite Nick Drake songs. If you've not checked out Mr. Dickson before you'll be kicking yourself on hearing this as he's a quiet marvel on the six-string. His own songs spill with a discreet lulling beauty, and when he "Does Drake" you realise he's paying homage to someone painfully dear to him in the vast realm of popular music.
In turn these versions retain a lot of the intimacy, warmth and magic of the originals and it is a true pleasure to hear them re-broadcast through his fingers and voice. The production is warm and involving, his voice even rendered startlingly in the style of young Nick. In lesser hands this could be a little pointless but Gareth is a bit of a master at this sort of thing and 'Wreaths' is a worthy homage to a great man, by a great man.
releases 25 October 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
"And being a fool, he was simple minded, he didn't see a king.
He only saw a man alone and in pain."
-Robin Williams,
The Fisher King
He only saw a man alone and in pain."
-Robin Williams,
The Fisher King
Robin Williams
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| July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014 |
So sad to hear of the apparent suicide of Robin Williams, actor and stand-up comedian and star of many of my favourite films, not least in another hero of mine Terry Gilliam's 'The Fisher King' with Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer or 'Awakenings' with Robert De Niro but I started thinking and realised how many of Robin's films I had in fact seen and enjoyed, after a while I stopped counting. How many other actors can you say that of? Whether in more maudlin sugary things, the kids things like 'Toys' or 'Jumanji' to the profoundly moving 'Dead Poets Society' or 'Good Will Hunting', or whether to the more quiet performances that I truly found gripping like 'Insomnia' opposite Dustin Hoffman playing a psychopathic murderer (!) and 'Moscow in The Hudson', I always enjoyed his work immensely and his work always seems struck a chord as in so many of us I that we now feel we have lost a dear dear friend.
A favourite stand-up gig. . . . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdIRME3EpFY
another favourite from the 80's at the New York Met (this s the set that had me weeping!)
Pt I
Pt II
Knowing that he will be sorely missed, the issue of depression and mental health will be uppermost for a while as we reflect how it is no respector of class, fame or wealth. We will simply miss him as a force of nature and good humour, despite the wrestling with addictions we will remember the smile and the crying with laughter at his stand-up comedy and marvel at his abilities in his movies which I for one have spent time watching over and over
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| Good Morning, Vietnam |
Films I found I had seen him in from 'The World According to Garp', 'Good Morning, Vietnam', 'Dead Poets Society', 'Awakenings', 'The Fisher King' , 'Good Will Hunting' , 'One Hour Photo', Jakob The Liar', 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence', 'Jumanji', 'The Birdcage', 'Insomnia', 'Moscow on the Hudson', 'What Dreams May Come', as well as financial successes such as 'Popeye', 'Hook', 'Aladdin', 'Night at the Museum' and 'Mrs. Doubtfire' which curiously I was less enamoured of but also he was in 'Baron Munchausen', 'Cadillac Man', 'Ferngully: The Last Rainforest', 'Toys', 'Being Human', 'Nine Months', 'Patch Adams' and 'Bicentennial Man'. I stopped counting there and realised he was someone who truly I would go and see in anything. I can't think of another actor who consciously I could list more than 30 films they'd been in and I had seen . . . . . . At Peace Now
The Fisher King
the dance scene from Fisher King . . a favourite
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| from Baron Munchausen |
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| Robin Williams - Rest In Peace |
Monday, August 11, 2014
Dick Wagner
Dec. 14, 1942 - July 30, 2014
Like many guitar fans and Lou Reed fans too especially the release of 'Rock 'n' Roll Animal' came as a shock not least because of the astonishing guitar work of Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter. The legendary intro to 'Sweet Jane' a full suite of guitar beauty/battle before Lou had even strutted on stage took our breath away (credited by Wagner to Steve Hunter incidentally) and if you want a treat it still does and turn it up to a window rattling 11, lie back and enjoy it!
Sad to report that Dick Wagner has passed away at the age of 71 from complications with his heart and astonished t learn more about the legendary axeman! Not least that he at least co-wrote 'Only Women Bleed' a single by Julie Covington that I bought when it came out and astonished to read the credit to Alice Cooper but here to find it was written by Dick Wagner amazed me and I trust it brought him some royalties. The other side of his work left me cold somehow never being a fan of Cooper per se or indeed Kiss and the like but the obituary linked here from Rolling Stone says it all and is worth a read
Dick Wagner - Rolling Stone obituary
Lou Reed - 'Rock 'n' Roll Animal'
'Sweet Jane' intro by Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner
Dick Wagner at 70
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Never Dull!
Occasionally returning
to work after some time off whether from illness in my case or for whatever reason causes us to take a moment's respite, we suddenly see the
world we work in a new way and sometimes with unusual possibly even surreal clarity
One of my favourite
residents in the hostel where I work (we don’t HAVE favourites of course, that
would be most unprofessional but on occasion certain perhaps cheeky clients
endear themselves for one reason or another, and we end up smiling inwardly at
pretty much everything they do!) . . . So this one guy disclosed he had been “banging
up Mandy in the leg” to which
our resident Nurse who is a wonderful antipodean lass who suffers no fools and
is about as down to earth as it’s possible to get, said
“OH NO! He can’t do THAT! Injecting someone else in the
groin is really dangerous and could leave him liable to arrest!”
She, unaware that
‘Mandy’ is the slang terms for MDMA in powder form so that folks can inject or snort it!
This
guy, who I will call Jack, has been injecting MDMA, Heroin and Crack into his
bad leg till it hospitalised him so he now injects into his groin where the
abscesses on his leg and groin have had to be treated with frightening regularity and in fairness he needs
to stop injecting into abscesses if he wishes to keep his leg but it looks unlikely.
He also says he is also daily
taking 4-5 Valium and 4-5 Rivitrol and drinking up to 8 cans of super-strength
lager each day. He does not consider any of this excessive.
He approached one of the senior workers here with a proposition for a treatment option that I hadn’t come across before. He (seriously) maintained if we were to buy him the Lego ‘Millennium Falcon’ from ‘Star Wars’ the effort involved in his concentrating to make it would wean him off the need to inject drugs!
He approached one of the senior workers here with a proposition for a treatment option that I hadn’t come across before. He (seriously) maintained if we were to buy him the Lego ‘Millennium Falcon’ from ‘Star Wars’ the effort involved in his concentrating to make it would wean him off the need to inject drugs!
In her last meeting with Jack my fellow staff
member noticed him gazing abstractedly at the embroidered logo upon his
baseball cap which read “Cocaine and Caviar” of all things and in a reflective moment he
suddenly observed “You know, I don’t really like fish!” as if that were the sole problem! (sorry!)
Jack duly turned up
later that same day to ask at the front desk to ask if they could give him some
toilet paper and he replied when questioned as to why he needed it
“Well I could
leave it but I have just shat meself in reception!”
Not that others of the
residents here aren’t similarly engaging from time to time. I am also especially
fond of a former photographer possibly even journalist perhaps of the punk era
and he is an engaging drunk who doesn’t SEEM to consume vast amounts but who’ s
behaviour of late had led us to take him to be medically examined as his memory
was getting really poor, only to be told he has early stages of Korsakoff’s
Syndrome or what we used to call ‘wet brain’, we will call him Billy, and he
had been observed earlier the same day saying he did not trust the look of the
windows. When quizzed as to why, he stated he did not recognise them and had
they been changed and they looked ‘foreign’ – there’s a degree of truth in this
in that several months ago now , it could have been last year come to think of
it, the entire sixty bed hostel had it’s windows replaced but he had only just
noticed! Either way Billy didn’t trust them!
One of the more
formidable clients there had made a scene when told his Keyworker wouldn’t take
him to see the Medical Centre for an appointment because he was too drunk, he
hurtled into the office as we were about to have a full staff meeting and
shouting at full voice he had
to go to the Doctor despite being drunk as he was suffering from “verbal
diarrhoea”!
“You don’t know
what it’s fucking like! I’ve shit my pants every day!”
I guess that’s a mixed metaphor or is it
an oxymoron?! Malapropism? Spoonerism perhaps?
On ‘room checks’ I had
been disturbed enough to report one of our female residents (room check is a
safety feature of the service and we accompany each other usually a male and a
female staff member but in this case we are two chaps and we know especially at
a female resident’s door to knock repeatedly and shout out we are coming in and
ask whether they are decent) having had no reply, we opened the door to be met
with the vision of this female client recumbent and masturbating on her bed. We
silently and discreetly shut the door and went on to the next room but I was
troubled, so I asked if I shouldn’t report it at least to her Keyworker to be
met with the response that it had happened before and that at least this time
she hadn’t been comforting herself during her menses as her hands had been
covered in blood!
By now it was time for
my lunch break yet for some reason I wasn’t especially hungry. I wandered outside where I found a
couple of our residents, one of whom is constantly on official watch for
domestic violence from her ‘boyfriend’, to discover they had both been drinking
quite heavily which is oddly unusual but it made the situation additionally
confused it seemed to me as the woman, who is what shall we say? - a big lass,
had both of her ample breasts sticking right out of her dress in broad
daylight which I cautioned she should not really be doing in public but they
both just threw back their heads and laughed at me and it was only later I
learned that they had to be warned in no uncertain terms about their possibly
being arrested for “anti-social behaviour” immediately outside the hostel front
door for ‘setting light to the
boyfriend’s pubic hair’!
On thing’s for sure –
it’s never dull!
. . . . . . . and no none of this is made up!
Saturday, July 19, 2014
JOHNNY WINTER R.I.P. 1944-2014
Blues musician and producer Johnny Winter has died on July 16, 2014 in Zurich, Switzerland at the age of 70, just days after playing at the Lovely Days Festival in Austria. There was no immediate word on the cause of death. Winter, who played with Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters, was a friend of John Lennon, who wrote Rock and Roll People in his honour. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote a song for him in 1973 called Silver Train. Winter, like his brother and musician Edgar (of Edgar Winter Group fame) was an albino and known for his long, blond hair and a cowboy hat. During the late ’60s, he performed frequently with Janis Joplin and the pair became lovers. Winter suffered from terrible addiction problems with heroin in the early ’70s and although he had spells of recovery, much of the ’90s was blighted by a reliance on antidepressants, vodka and methadone. Even at 70, Winter was still performing around 200 concerts a year and admitted once that “guitar is the only thing I was ever really great at”.
He kept good company too!
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| Johnny L & Johnny W - Go Johnny Go! |
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Gabba Gabba HEY! - No More!
TOMMY RAMONE R.I.P. 1952-2014
The Ramones’ original drummer Tommy Ramone has died on July 11, 2014.“We are saddened to announce the passing of Ramones founding drummer Tommy (Erdelyi) Ramone. #RIPTommy Ramone,” a posting on the band’s official Twitter account announced. The band, founded in New York in 1974, had a major influence on punk rock. Tommy Ramone was the last surviving member of its original lineup. He died aged 62. Variety said Tommy Ramone had been undergoing treatment for bile duct cancer at a hospice when he died. All members of the band adopted the surname Ramone although they were not related. Tommy Ramone, whose real surname was Erdelyi, was the last of the original four Ramones. The other Ramones were guitarist Johnny; bassist Dee Dee and vocalist Joey.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
BOBBY WOMACK R.I.P. 1944-2014
Bobby Womack, the legendary soul singer whose career spanned seven decades, died on June 27, 2014 at age 70. A representative for Womack’s label XL Recordings confirmed the singer has died to Rolling Stone, but said the cause of death was currently unknown. Throughout most of the Eighties, the singer struggled with drug addiction, eventually checking himself into a rehabilitation center for treatment. A series of health problems would follow, including diabetes, pneumonia, colon cancer and the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, though it was unclear if any of these ailments contributed to his death. Womack was declared cancer-free in 2012. Among his notable albums were The Poet (1981) and The Poet II (1984).
Bobby Womack - Inter Radio FM, November 21, 2012 BBC Session
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Legendary songwriter Gerry Goffin dies aged 75
In a statement his ex-wife and songwriting partner Carole King said, 'Gerry Goffin was my first love. He had a profound impact on my life and the rest of the world. Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come. His legacy to me is our two daughters, four grandchildren, and our songs that have touched millions and millions of people, as well as a lifelong friendship. He will be missed by his wonderful wife Michele, his devoted manager, Christine Russell, his five children, and six grandchildren.'
'His words expressed what so many people were feeling but didn't know how to say. If you want to join his loved ones in honoring him, look at the names of the songwriters under the titles of songs. Among the titles associated with me, you'll often find Gerry's name next to mine,' King added.
Extraordinary! Who of us might have an ex partner say such wonderful things about us if we passed away?
Oh, you want an insight into exactly what he wrote the lyrics to?
Gerry Goffin, a prolific and multi-dimensional lyricist who with his then-wife and songwriting partner Carole King wrote such hits as Will You Love Me Tomorrow, (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, Up on the Roof and The Loco-Motion, died on June 19, 2014 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 75. His wife, Michelle Goffin, confirmed his death. Goffin, who married Carole King in 1959 while they were in their teens, penned more than 50 top 40 hits, including Pleasant Valley Sunday for the Monkees, Crying in the Rain by the Everly Brothers, Some Kind of Wonderful for the Drifters and Take Good Care of My Baby by Bobby Vee. Goffin was able to pen jokey lyrics or achingly sad ones. He also did it for solo artists and multiple voices. The couple divorced in 1968, but Goffin kept writing hits, including Savin’ All My Love for You for Whitney Houston. Goffin and King were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three years later. - The GuardianGuardian's obituary (in full)
Aretha - Natural Woman
The Shirelles - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
The Drifters - Up On The Roof
Carole King - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
And they also wrote . . . .
Little Eva - The Locomotion on 'Shindig' c 1966
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