Thursday 13 December 2012

I'M A PROGRESSIVE REGRESSIVE !

I haven't always liked music ,when i was a kid i didn't particully like THE BEATLES for instance ,there were bands on the telly ,but mainly your Sandy Shaws ,Dusty Springfield, and , of course CILLA, who i'm ashamed to admit i fancied as a snotty 5 year old, but that passed as the teenage juices were formed and fermented to screw me up forever ,as far as i can tell.....52 and still seriously screwed up and proud. The telly was also flooded with your ANDY WILLIAMS,MAX BYGRAVES ,THE BATCHELORS,etc, etc ,enough to drive anyone to get out of watching music shows on the telly, and then i started listening to some records ,dont ask me why, but the first record i bought was 'MORNING HAS BROKEN, by CAT STEVENS. Followed by 'SCHOOLS OUT' by ALICE COOPER. By then i liked the 'FAB FOUR', although i hadn't got any records yet ,but time passed and i remedied this lapse in musical taste. Dad came home one night with an 8-Track player with two tapes ,can't remember one, but the other was THE WHOand although i only heard it a few times there was a couple of "Ay ,Dad put that one on again!" tracks.....It was a few years later when they released 'WHO ARE YOU' that i watched the video of them recording it in the studio and that was it !I was hooked!

As the years've ground by i've listened to most stuff . I am not particually knowledgable on music matters, but "I know what i like!"....Over the last ew years i've always likedrock guitar- based music and hated synthesisers and Moog thingies n' stuff and the keyboard pop bands, but i have developed a liking for a lot of the 60's-70's progressive rock ,mainly the main ones ,GENESIS,PINK FLOYD, YES,etc although THE LOVELY LYNNE cant stand YES' JON ANDERSON 'S singing ,admittedly it can be an aquired taste, but i must've aquired it. I love the musical half hour long tracks, i love instrument solos, but still like a good tune.

Although i like nicetunes i still like nasty stuff ,some of the PUNK ,although it was the music of the kids and all that shit  you have to admit there was an awful lot of shit out there....SID VICIOUS, etc as an example ,i loved THE SEX PISTOLS, but he was ,well!!!..

Recently i've developed a liking for the old BLUES stuff, LYNNE hates that as well. I like folk and even some COUNTRY(eeeek!!), y'awl !

I've had to develop a liking for SKA as LYNNE is in a Ska Band and i get to hear a lot ,the other day we went to see MADNESS ,and very enjoyable they was too. And ,apparently we're going to see THE SPECIALS sometime soon. 

I like a proper orchestra too after going to a few performances with lynne ,and love film music ,the soundtracks by people like JOHN BARRY, JOHN WILLIAMS, etc.

Having said i'm not a keyboard fan ,we went to see RICK WAKEMAN a while back and he was great to watch and listen to his banter between songs ,a clever fellah he is ,indeed his son is carrying the family torch as e also saw him perform with his son....on the keyboards!...

Now any day now i'll get into boy and girl bands ,HIP HOP and various music of 'DA STREETZ??' and all that fuzzy,dance DJ SHITE!......I DONT THINK! ......But for now THE WHO are the boys ,well maybe not boys, but definitly 'the dogs bollocks' ,just listen to 'MY GENERATION' from 'LIVE AT LEEDS'....I rest my case, m'lud! 

Wednesday 12 December 2012

HEAVEN WONT BE RINGING TO THE SOUND OF CELESTIAL HARPS ,BUT THE LATE PATRICK MOORES XYLOPHONE!


If you walk outside into the freezing frosty night and look up at that clear star studded sky, thats why its so 'effin' freezing 'cos that bloody clear star studded sky.....That cold ,but nice 'Sky at night ' looks as it should, but if you removed the MOON it ,very suddenly wouldn't look quite so normal and 'right!'.....Likewise if you took the longest running telly series in the world, 'THE SKY AT NIGHT' and removed SIR PATRICK MOORE it would have a similar effect as removing the MOON from the heavens. But as the MOON is drifting away from us into space, in a few millions of years the moon'll be gone and the sky at night will be weird ,empty and just quite simply not right. A similar thing, but over a much shorter time period has happened and SIR PATRICK MOORE has drifted away to who knows where leaving his eternally long running 'THE SKY AT NIGHT' a very empty and weird place.

Who'd've thought this scruffy, oddly shaped totally nutty , eternally old aged ,even in his youth, man would be one of the most beloved of British characters with his burning enthusiasm for everything outside the thin blue line that covers the PLANET EARTH. His '15 INCH REFLECTOR' became almost a national catchphrase. His mapping of the MOON through that '15 inch reflector in his back garden and his scribblings with a soft leaded pencil in notebooks formed the maps that NASA would use for the APOLLO space programme that landed man on the moon......Thats pretty impressive when you think about it.

Everybody thouht he was a miserable ol' git. He was so seriously wrapped up in his subject and addressed his viewers as fellow 'nerds' who shared his obsession, which ,if you think about it was a compliment when we're surrounded by various telly smartarses speaking down to us. The nation was stunned when this seriously miserable ol' get turned up in sketches on the 'MORECOMBE AND WISE SHOW' and he was shown to be a musician and playing his beloved XYLOPHONE...."Holy Galaxies, Batman!....PATRICK MOORE has a sense of humour and he's a musician !!!."

If ,God forbid, or God allowing anybody, does find themselves up there in paradise. ,If Heaven rings to the BING ,BONGS,of xylophones, instead of the DRIIIINNNG! of celestial harps, SIR PATRICK MOORE might just have something to do with it.