Brief notes
After a long break, just a few things to comment on:
1. Apparently, Michael Jackson was somewhat in debt at the time of his death – perhaps as much as half a billion dollars – which makes me wonder if he’s done a John Stonehouse?
Perhaps he’s gone to live with Elvis….
2. Ok, so he was the King of Pop, but why does EVERYONE have to pay tribute to him? Watching the Wimbledon coverage today, the first thing Tim Henman and Tracy Austin had to do was to tell the world what a loss it was. Exactly what does it have to do with tennis coverage? Is the tennis so boring that you need to talk about something else?
3. After much (tedious) arguing, the Formula One Teams Association and the FIA have reached an accord. Despite everyone saying all the way through that it wasn’t about personalities, that accord includes Max Moseley’s retirement as chairman of the FIA when his current term expires in October. This is a Good Thing.
But, as he did once before, Max is now claiming that he doesn’t have to keep to the terms of the agreement because FOTA have already breached them. Basically, he’s wriggling out from under because he doesn’t want to give up control of the FIA. This is a Bad Thing, because it’s Max and his co-conspirator Bernie Ecclestone that have caused Formula One to become the sad joke that it currently is.
Brief notes
1. I’ve been talking this week with an old friend from school, and one of the subjects that came up was names and how we’d both not really liked ours for one reason or another. But having read this story, I can see that we got off easy. I mean, I thought Moon Unit, Fifi Trixibelle and Zowie were bad enough – but Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii? Come on, how stoned do you have to be to lump your daughter with a name like that?
2. The BPI has pressurised the Government into pressurising the major UK ISP’s to make it their problem to deal with illegal online file-sharing. So, if you’ve been sharing files illegally you might soon be getting a letter from your ISP to tell you to stop it. I’m not sure that I agree it is the ISP’s problem – what about the people that produce the software that make it possible?
3. It’s official; Max Moseley is not a Nazi. Son of a fascist, bad for motorsport in general and Formula One in particular, an embarrassment to his family, and £60,000 richer after the verdict – but not a Nazi.
4. Poor old David Cameron, Conservative leader and (in)famous cyclist. He’s had his bike stolen while out shopping. Wonder if it’s up on eBay yet?
5. Fans of Beaker should check out this clip. Priceless.
Brief notes
1. What do you do when your helicopter breaks down in Snowdonia? Call in the RAF to airlift it back to base for repairs. I think this qualifies as “amazing footage of the week”.
2. Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for winning the British GP this weekend; he’s now back in the running for the championship. Commiserations to David Coulthard for crashing out early in his last ever home race. And well done (!) to Bernie for finally doing what he’s been trying to do for years and taking the GP away from Silverstone. Given that one of his objections has always been the lack of facilities at Silverstone, I’m not sure how he thinks that Donnington is a suitable replacement, when it needs even more work than Silverstone.
I don’t know who it is at the BRDC that Bernie doesn’t like, but there’s obviously someone! Or perhaps it’s just that the BRDC told him where he could stick his outrageous demands for money. The sooner that the premier class of motorsport is not controlled by such a devious, manipulative and two-faced person as Bernie Ecclestone, the better that it will be. Between him and Max “not a Nazi, but definitely the son of a fascist” Moseley, the sport long ago descending into farce and it needs to be stopped.
3. You’ve probably seen much talk of this around the Net over the last few days, but in case you missed it a judge in the US has ruled that Google must hand over a log that contains details of the videos that You Tube users have watched. The log, which “contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details” has to be handed over to Viacom in an argument over copyright infringement.
Quite rightly, privacy groups are up in arms that this information is to be handed over, as it contains data that could allow individuals to be identified and is a massive breach of privacy. But what worries me, additionally, is why this information is being kept in the first place. Yes, I can understand you want to know which videos are popular, etc, but why do you need to keep personal information? Isn’t it enough to know that a video has been watched 100,000 times? Why do you need to know which 100,000 people watched it?
There has been some speculation that Viacom may use this information in an attempt to prosecute individual users, so I’d recommend that if you’re a You Tube user you only watch non-copyright infringing clips from now on.
4. In a related issue, Virgin Media is warning file-sharers that they risk being taken to court if they illegally download music. It’s part of a BPI initiative to stop the illegal downloading of music by making the ISP’s responsible for it. Years ago we had “Home taping is killing music (and it’s illegal)” stickers on LPs and cassettes; now we have its online equivalent. But the “Home taping” campaign back then was based on a fallacy, and it’s the same today; music was never at risk. What was at risk was the strangle hold that the music industry had on it, while they milked it for every penny they could. They can’t (and never have been able to) move with the times and want to protect a profit margin that really doesn’t belong to them anymore. If it was all about protecting the artists, as people like the BPI would have us believe, I could give it more support but it isn’t; it’s all about record label profits.
If I download an album through iTunes or any of the other online music stores, rather than buying the CD, why should I have to pay the same price as the CD? There’s no physical product that has to be manufactured and shipped to a retail outlet, after all, and my consumer experience is reduced because there’s no cover artwork or inlay card, etc and no handy CD to enable me to take my music on the road with me. Why, then, was my recent purchase of Melody Gardot’s Worrisome Heart only £0.30 more for the CD than it would have been for a download version? (And, in fact, at the moment it’s actually cheaper for the CD!)
The music industry needs to wake up to reality and rather than going after people who illegally download music, they should be making it much easier to download music legally. Which must also include getting rid of DRM completely, and making artist’s back catalogue’s more readily available.
It’s the song, not the singer
At one time or another, a lot of us have been in bands. And we’d probably rather forget some of first musical foot-steps. Luckily, for most people that isn’t too difficult especially all you really did was just goof off in your mate’s garage.
Some of us, though, have documentary evidence that comes back to haunt us. I was going through some old tapes a little while ago, converting them to mp3, when I came across some gems (?) from my youth. Listening to them again, I was reminded how bad they really are but I can finally listen to them without too much embarrassment.
I don’t remember quite how it came about, but back in ‘85 (when I’d just left secondary school) a friend and I got together and started to do covers of Dire Straits tunes. As a guitarist, Ian was much influenced by Mark Knopfler and the year before he’d got me into the group. So when he said he was looking for a singer, I said I’d have a go.
I don’t know why I volunteered, but I suppose it’s that thing that makes all those complete no-hopes on X Factor think that they can be the next Kylie or Robbie or Elvis. We’d get together at weekends and run through stuff in Ian’s lounge (where he had the largest set of speakers I’d ever seen for a home stereo), practicising – supposedly – for some fabled time when we’d get up in a school concert and do a couple of numbers.
In the summer holidays, the music teacher from the school that we’d just left suggested that we use the recording equipment at the school to “lay down some tracks”. By this stage, it was clear that for one reason or another the intended public performance was never going to happen so the three of us (me, Ian and our producer – the music teacher who’d suggested it) got together and recorded two tracks – Sultans of Swing and Expresso Love – as a document of what we’d been trying to do.
Listening back to them as I write this, it’s a good thing we never got the chance to perform publicly – I was really paralysed by nerves just singing in front of two people and it made my voice even worse that was before, and Ian’s guitar playing was probably not as good as he’d have liked it to have been. But it was a fun thing to do and I’m actually glad that I’ve got those two tracks to remember that time by.
If you really feel that you want to put yourself through the torture, you can listen to Sultans of Swing – but I take no responsibility!
Songs are around whenever you need them
Do you ever get those times when you need a particular song to play? Maybe you’re getting all dressed up for your first date with a new girl or guy and want something to take away those nerves. Maybe you’re annoyed at that dumb-ass customer who just doesn’t understand and need something to chill you out. Maybe you’re down about something and you need cheering up. Or maybe you just love music and want to hear some kicking tunes.
I’ve used music for all these things and more, and the one thing I can be sure of is that it never disappoints. I’ve realised this again over the last few weeks – since getting the new Mac – as I’ve been slowly digitising my entire CD collection into iTunes. The process has helped me to re-experience some of the music that I haven’t listened to in ages, to remind me why I loved it and to re-kindle all sorts of emotions and memories (good and bad).
I’ve also been playing about with the iLike application on Facebook in the last few days and it made me think about the songs that I really love; those songs that either completely capture a moment or are just so good muscially that they never fade. So, I thought that I’d share a few of my favourites with you, Constant Reader. Some will be obvious – they are just that good – others I’ll tell you the reasons why I love them. Others I maybe won’t tell you the reason, but you might be able to figure it out for yourself. Let’s call it Wolfie’s (in no particular order) Top Ten.
Year of the Cat by Al Stewart
This is definitely top of the tree; since I first heard this, I’ve loved it. The breadth of the musicality, the bittersweet nature of the lyrics (I think I probably first heard it on Ambrose Harcourt’s late night sho on Southern Sound – AM radio man!). Brilliant opening:
On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress, running like a water colour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations she’ll just tell you that she came in the year of the cat
Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon
This is most likely the only Warren Zevon song you’ve ever heard, unless you’re a fan. He doesn’t seem to get much coverage on mainstream radio. The only werewolf song that wasn’t used in An American Werewolf in London (supposedly because the man himself objected) but the one that is most fitting. Comic horror (“little old lady got mutilated late last night”, “saw a werewolf drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s; his hair was perfect”) and a fantastic tune.
England by Ralph McTell
I first heard this as the theme tune for the TV series that Billy Connolly did as he travelled round the British Isles. Again it’s one of those bittersweet sort of songs, but with an uplifting melody and a resonating lyric that celebrates the country in which I live.
Now don’t make this out a battle hymn, or a song for victory.
It’s just a way to try to say what England means to me.
And our accents and our colours change
From the city to the farmland, from the moorland to the mountains
From the rivers to the sea.
Beautiful World by Colin Hay
If you don’t know him, Colin Hay was lead singer of Men At Work (Down Under was their big hit here in the UK). A while ago he appeared in an episode of Scrubs, singing a song called Overkill. As I tried to find that version of the song, I came across this gem. Just Colin and his guitar, the song pulls you in with beautiful imagery, but is all as beautiful as it seems?
All around is anger, automatic guns. There’s death in large numbers,
No respect for women or our little ones. I tried talking to Jesus,
He just put me on hold. Said he’d been swamped by calls this week
And he could not shake this cold.
Far Above The Clouds by Mike Oldfield
I’ve been a big fan of the Tubular Bells series since I first heard One years and years ago. This is the closing track from Three. A more dance-inspired album than the other two, Three leaves you on a high with this track; just as you think you’re not going to hear the bells, they crash in leaving you nowhere to go but into full bliss mode. This is the one track that is guaranteed to get me smiling, whatever mood I’m in before you play it to me and it will quite often go on loud on a Friday night, to pick me up from the travails of the week and set me up for the weekend. Nothing gives me chills like the chills that I get as the little girl speaks the final lines…
And the man in the rain picked up his bag of secrets
And journeyed up the mountainside, far above the clouds
And nothing was ever heard from him again
Except for the sound of Tubular Bells!
Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival
It’s tough to pick just one song by Creedence, they have so many excellent ones, but I think this one perfectly encapsulates why I think they are possibly the greatest band of the 20th Century. No frills, driving rock ‘n’ roll, with that unmistakable guitar sound and screaming voice.
I first got into Creedence through two films; Twilight Zone – The Movie featured their version of Midnight Special in the opening segment, with Dan Ackyroyd and Albert Brooks (“Do you wanna see something really scary”) and Bad Moon Rising was, of course, fearured in An American Werewolf in London. I’d never heard of Creedence before I saw Zone, but you can bet that as soon as possible afterwards I found out all about them. Check out their 11 minute version of I Heard It Through The Grapevine – absolutely brilliant – and tracks like It Came Out Of The Sky, Have You Ever Seen The Rain and Fortunate Son.
Raincoat And A Rose, Tell Me There’s A Heaven and She Closed Her Eyes by Chris Rea
My absolute all-time favourite music artist by miles. I was introduced to his music by two friends (both called Ian), one who played me Stainsby Girls from the Shamrock Diaries album and the other who played me Josie’s Tune from Dancing With Strangers. Since then I’ve been hooked, seeing him in concert more times than any other artist. His change to a more bluesy direction after his illness is, to me, the work of a supreme genius.
It was impossible for me to pick just one track from the man, and it’s been hard to limit myself to just three but the ones I’ve picked are special to me for one reason or another.
She Closed Her Eyes is the closing track of the Espresso Logic album and is really a poem, read over a lilting accompaniment. It’s one of those tracks where the lyrics either pass you over entirely or really make you stop and think. The closing lines are what do it for me:
Chasing it like it was everything; it was nothing.
Only the sound of his own breathing was all he really had at the end of the day
And reasons to wonder, reasons to cry, too late for this selfish sinner
Who never asked “Why?”
Tell Me There’s A Heaven is the closing track on Road To Hell, which was really the album that put Rea on the map. Everyone remembers the title track – a rocking lament on the state of the world, inspired and typified by the M25 around London – but only those who listen to the whole album will know this track. Again, almost a poem the tone here is much darker and gives no real cause for hope of redemption – but it is the stand-out track for me.
The little girl she said to me “What are these things that I can see?”
“Each night when I come home from school, when Momma calls me in for tea?”
For me, Raincoat And A Rose (from the early album Deltics) is a song that I identify with very much; it’s an intensely personal song, describing a person who has never been very lucky in love and who is embarking on a blind date in what may well be the last chance they’ll get at finding happiness.
Love is for fools and fools have no grace, damn them while you can
Out here on the fence it’s such a lonely place, I wish I was foolish now
Sailing by Rod Stewart
A little ago I wrote quite a long post about how music can resurrect memories that you didn’t necessarily want to relive (I won’t re-hash it here, check it out using this link if you like). Suffice to say that this song is very emotionally tied-up with my father, who I never knew because he was killed in a motorcycle accident when I was still a baby. It reminds me, too, of my mother who had to deal with her husbands death only months after her only child almost died. When I hear it, I realise that she never did get the son she deserved.
Once Is Enough by Aerosmith and Just A Gigolo / I Ain’t Got Nobody by David Lee Roth
I’m not a massive fan of either Aerosmith or David Lee Roth, but these two songs take me back to happy times; nights out at the Plough & Harrow at Jevington, watching a succession of artists like Ivan Phillips (“Do you do Mustang Sally?”) or Brian (“I remember Pawis in ‘49″) – heck even The Boogie Brothers – having a skinful to drink and then blasting back to Seaford, sun-roof surfing to the strains of Aerosmith and David Lee Roth.
The Aerosmith track is difficult to find and when you first hear it you won’t know it’s them; it sounds like some deranged C&W band that have had too much moonshine that night. Then the drums and guitars kick-in and it’s rocking all the way. “Once is enough; it’s one time too many!”
David Lee Roth has a way of taking an established song and making it all his own. He does the same here and it’s a trip. If this is not in your collection, add it now. “Everywhere I go, people know the part Dave’s playing”
Get Over It by Eagles
When Don Henley and the guys came back in ‘94 (“We never broke up; we just took a 14 year vacation”) for the Hell Freezes Over tour, they wanted to write some new material. This was one of the songs and it’s a scathing comment on the Ricki Lake, Oprah, Jerry Springer, Trisha generation. Having shared house space with at least two people like this over the years (they know who they are, and anyone that knows me probably knows who they are too), the line “I’d like to find your inner child and kick it’s little ass, get over it!” is one that sticks with me.
Well, that’s 10 (sort of) and I realise that I haven’t even got started yet. Anyone who knows me will be surprised to see no Dire Straits or Mark Knopfler in this list (bubbling under with Brothers In Arms and Silvertown Blues), and I haven’t had room for Feels Like Home by Bonnie Raitt, King Creole by Elvis Presley, Time by Pink Floyd, Left In The Dark by Meatloaf, That’s Life by Frank Sinatra or hundreds of others.You probably won’t agree with my choices (I wouldn’t expect you to) but hopefully you’ll at least check them out and maybe together we can spread the word about great music.
Wolfs Helpers
