SIR MACCA'S BACK HOME IN LIVEROOL AT LAST, GOOD ON YER 'R' KID!

Possibly the most famous man on the planet and he's a SCOUSER'!....Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.....MR /PAUL (SIR MACCA) McCARTNEY once of a poular little beat combo that went by the name of 'THE SILVER BEATLES' when they wore leather cloths and greased hair in the strip joints of the Reeperbaum in the naughty red lit streets of Hamburg where they played almost constantly and got the hang of playing this ROCK N' ROLL stuff. Coming back home playing around various clubs n' boozers sleeping in vans before getting a posh manager who smartened them up much to the orgasmic pleasure of the growing numbers of screaming female n' male fans as they played in a grotty little warehous in a grotty cobbled little back street ...THE CAVERN in MATTHEW STREET in the fair city of LIVERPOOL.

50-Very -odd years have passed and MATTHEW ST and the CAVERN is one of the worlds major tourist sites from a world still full of BEATLES(the SILVER was dropped) manic fans.....No other band in the world can claim to illicit the fervour displayed by so many of all ages at any time during or after their career any where or anytime on the planet. The old boozers where they drank are still there, some with 'the lads 'scribbles on the wall. THE GRAPES was right opposite the CAVERN, many bands ,THE WHO,THE STONES ,etc all dropped in for 'a few scoops!', to sit there is amazing ,the history of a time long gone ,i once spent an afternoon having a skinful and a gab with ALAN WILLIAMS the BEATLES first manager and BOB WOOLER the DJ of the CAVERN ,a fascinating ,drunken afternoon.....Much to my disgust theres a karioke there now instead of Macca n' Lennon swopping ideas.

As we all know JOHN LENNON and GEORGE HARRISON died tragically leaving RINGO STARR, whom gets a lot of stick ,maybe as he's not the rock drummer we are all accustomed to, but he was a skilled talented drummer who drummed on the finest songs ever recorded for the finest band ever ,so he can't be too bad. He's travelling the world with his 'BLUES BAND' telling how PAUL McCARTNEY actually did die all those years ago and was replaced by a look-alike BILLY SHEARS who is the guy we've really been listening to all these years. He's also the reason for the BEATLES bust up ,as LENNONdidn't get on too well with the imposter SHEARS!

But BILLY SHEARS or PAUL McCARTNEY, we'll call him Paul McCartney ,i think for ease! SIR MACCA, his official LIVERPOOL title ,cos the Queen invited him to 'er 'ouse!' for some 'sarnies' n' a bevy! Macca's always loved playing live and has never stopped ,way back to his WINGS days where this superstar ,bored, wanting to get back on the road ,jumped into a truck with his new band and literally turned up at collages and universities and offered"to play that night!"...Slightly gobsmacked student union staff ...."...Er go on then?" I will always love him for that!

He's beenhome this week. ,As my other hero ,MR PETE TOWNSHEND once described it "It's great to be back in the MERSEY MUD!".....Sir Macca was back in the MERSEY MUD. In the massive ECHO ARENA which now stands on what used to be the KINGS DOCK which is where i saw 'The Man' out in the open sunshine and it was a joy....I'll never forget 'LIVE AND LET DIE' i'd never seen it live with the fireworks and explosions...Wonderful!

All the reviews of his tour and the LIVERPOOL shows were all 5-stars, he even let a couple propose marriage on stage with him.....is that not a story to bore the arse of everybody for ....Well ever!

He told stories of 'the early days' and his Liverool days much to the joy of the Liverpool audience. I read of his trip from JOHN LENNON airport through SPEKEand GARSTON his and GEORGE HARRISON'S childhood home and stomping ground, all familiar sights as he drove into town, i'd say a few tears were shed.

You can't knock the fellah for lack of effort ,as he was up for over 3 hours and 38-40 songs were performed, thats not bad, boss !

Not bad 'r' kid! 

"WOKE UP THIS MORNIN'.....AND THE KING OF THE BLUES , B.B.KING WAS DEAD!"

Over the last few years i've got quite fond of 'DA BLOOS!' music......My love of 'THE BLUES' is, alas not shared by my beloved missus ,the LOVELY LYNNE..... she can't stand it. But i have to admit to a fondness indeed from early ROBERT JOHNSON, to  MUDDY WATERS to B.B.KING (gawd bless 'im!).....To HOWLING WOLF ,to BUDDY GUY and SEASICK STEVE, etc......

I got to like it when i heard the gravel voice and gravelly chuckling of JOHN LEE HOOKER when he apeared on an album by PETE TOWNSHEND...THE IRON MAN based on the poem by TED HUGHES. So i got an album and enjoyed a few compilations ,preferring the so called 'ELECTRIC BLUES', but still like the harmonica and 'traditional' stuff. I currently am spellbound by BUDDY GUY, his blistering guitar stuff with a beautiful powerful voice which reminds me a little of TOM JONES which i mean as a compliment.

The giants of the blues crossing the old days through to modern times are possibly MUDDY WATERS  and B.B. KING, these ol fellahs showed the rock stars from the 60's on 'till now 'how it's done!'Everything from pop music to hard rock ,heavy metal and prog rock all spawned from the blues and these 'ol fellahs', who started in huts in cotton plantations in places like Mississippi ,and had a real bad time of it and armed with an old guitar played for buttons in clubs, bars, speakeasies,brothels ,etc constantly playing the soundtrack to America's 20th century, eventually getting the recognition the wholly deserved and Playing trendy places like GLASTONBURY and wowing the crowds and the cool groovy ,pain in the arse Radio 1 DJ's.

B.B.KING died the other day. The man used to play hundreds of gigs every year and never really left 'the road'....It was also said ,and admitted by himself that he couldn't play the guitar properly, he reckoned his skill was because he always played out of tune . I couldnt tell you ,but it sounded good to me.

The masters and true artists are diminishing as time wears on , but not to worry i'm sure the next king of the blues will be found on the X-FACTOR.

MUSIC ,LOUD N' TWANGY !....WITH DISTORTION ,FEEDBACK AND JUMPING AROUND!!!!!

When i were 'nobbut a lad' in the 'swinging 60's'( much as it pains me to admit it!)....Music to me was the theme tunes to classics on the telly like; 'SUPERCAR', FIREBALL XL5, STINGRAY and later 'THUNDERBIRDS. And lest we forget DOCTOR WHO and another personal favourite of mine was 'GARRISONS GORILLA'S! The joys of MERSEYBEAT were lost to me ,except for the CILLA BLACK show and for some very strange unexplainable reason i fancied the pre nose job Cilla something rotten . Even more inexplicably i enjoyed and still do enjoy some of her major hits. The other one i liked was PETULA CLARKE....She had the voice of an angel and when i heard 'DOWNTOWN' i loved it and couldn't stop whistling it. Even today ,even typing about it ,i'm whistling the damn tune. We went to see her last year in Manchester and she was still good and i was whistling that damn tune for weeks. The funny thing was when i mentioned it to anyone a few minutes later they'd be humming or singing it. Without doubt it is the most infectious pop song ever!....Don't listen to it without ear muffs and a bio defence suit on!

Years later i'd watch bands in pubs ,even old cellars in dingy back streets in the fair city of Liverpool which gave me an idea of how it was in a variety of pubs ,clubs and dingy cellars in those days where in that fine city the biggest music explosion took place and the world is still shaking now! A whole heap of our own local lads inspired by BILL HALEY, ELVIS and LONNIE DONEGHAN and his home made 'SKIFFLE' band made their own bands and started playing something called 'ROCK N' ROLL' clad in leather and brycreem'ed hair they played bloody awful stuff wherever they could. A similar sister port to LIVERPOOL was the naughty red lights of HAMBURG where a lot of the bands served an apprenticeship playing all day and night in various strip joints. One group of four greasy leather clad rockers who hit Hamburg and came home to tell the tale and got quite a following in their home town was 'THE SILVER BEATLES', soon shortened to 'THE BEATLES.'....They started playing in a dingy cellar called the 'CAVERN' in a dingy back street that now inspires billions of tourists to visit called 'MATTHEW STREET!' The walls would drip with sweat and the toilets would overflow and it was an absolute shit'ole that people would queue for hours to get into and scream their lungs out worshipping these heroes. Bands from all over played at the Cavern ; THE ROLLING STONES; THE WHO and anyone you want to mention. Directly opposite the Cavern is an old Liverpool pub called 'THE GRAPES'...Most of the famous rock stars from then and now drank in there , LENNON n' McCARTNEY wrote in there, but if you go in that musical holy of holies now ....It's a bloody KARIOKE BAR!

For some reason my first record was 'MORNING HAS BROKEN' by CAT STEVENS...Which i swopped for ALICE COOPER'S 'SCHOOLS OUT!' I had never bought an LP, as they were in those black n' white ,far flung vinyl days, so i'd never listened to the 'FAB FOUR' unless they were on the telly. But one day my dad came home with an 8-Track player bought from the biggest 'knocking shop' in the world FORDS, HALEWOOD! He had two 8-Track discs ,i can't remember one ,but the other had a great picture of an exploding pinball machine and it was by a band called 'THE WHO'!

That was me hooked....I played it to death and even bought 'THE BEATLES' and was pleasantly suprised. I didn't buy a lot of records ,etc ,but TOP OF THE POPS' Was onthe telly with 'THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST' with 'WHISPERING BOB HARRIS' for the serious rock music follower ,as opposed to the pain in the arse RADIO 1 D.J.s for pop fans, or 'pop-pickers!' all blathering like ,well caricature pop D.J.s that HARRY ENFIELD and PAUL WHITEHOUSE would take the piss out of. 

One thing worse than the D.J.s was the bands in the 70's n' 80's, when'GLAM ROCK!'kicked in, glitz n' glamour was the main thing, make up ,platform shoes ,remember 'THE SWEET'; SLADE; The tartan of 'THE BAY CITY ROLLERS'....(oh god!) . The good thing about them days was that the 'GIGS' were played in theatres like the EMPIRE in Liverpool, old victorian theatres, great for watching a band....I'd've loved to have seen THE WHO with KEITH MOON when they were at their peak in the Empire. Now they play in ARENAS ,massive places requiring the aid of huge videos to see the bands. You often have to stand at ground level ,even though ,nowadays its all seated ,some pains decide they have to stand so everybody has to stand. I remember seeing PAUL McCARTNEY at the KINGS DOCK in Liverpool and getting stuck behind some stupid bastard with his girlfriend waving her arms sitting on his shoulder. Whenever i see some silly cow sitting on her fellahs shoulder i imagine the 50 yards of people behind who want to rrip her head off ,because i've been there. There was a phase were people lit matches and held them up during the show. Then small cameras ,now telephones and now I-pads held aloft to block the sight of shortarses like myself!

Music is a matter of personal taste and its a case of whatever floats your boat!....I love guitar rock and my hero is PETE TOWNSHEND i can't take my eyes off him when he lets rip. JEFF BECK, DAVE GILMOUR, etc ,etc i've seen them ,all brilliant. The other day we were out having a drink and in THE CAVERN watched a local band and the lead singer was an absolutly blistering guitarist, brilliant! My missus ,the LOVELY LYNNE, plays trombone in a SKA BAND and they're great to watch and through Lynne who started in Brass bands and Swing orchestras ,etc has got me into that stuff and even a smattering of classical music.....Not too much tho'!....She's played on the stage of THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, and fallen off!.....As did PETE TOWNSHEND...Well ,it impressed me! Recently i've been playing a lot of THE BLUES....Which it must be said Lynne hates.

Music can help your moods .....If THE WHO'S 'LIVE AT LEEDS' doesn't charge your energy levels ,nothing will....If i was feeling pissed off i'd always play 'QUADROPHENIA' that got me buzzing. There are tons of sounds that have an effect.I like prog rock ,saw PETER GABRIEL ,recently ,listening to the old GENESIS stuff. Watched YES recently, then played THE SEX PISTOLS the following day, not progressive, but good! I was playing the soundtrack of some of the JOHN BARRY early JAMES BOND films ,helps me feel like 007 when i'm walking the dog, lean ,mean and licensed to thrill

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

'ORRIBLE HARRY POTTER N' THE UN 'ORRIBLE 'OO!!!!

                                                                           WHAY HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................Its a grotty wet cold Warrington morning, not that theres any other kind ,so i'm fairly used to it ,but what makes this grotty morning different from all the other grotty mornings is that for some reason i've managed to get an image on the fuckin' blog ,at long last!......Forgive the colourful language, but i've been totally screwed for weeks and ,although i haven't a clue what i've done .....I've done it!.....I did a couple of pure painted caricatures the other day ,not using pencil sketches or anything ,just slapping on the jolly old acrylic paint. The reason you have been exposed to yet another WHO image is twofold.....If you are sitting comfortably ...I shall explain.

The other week we were across the'pond' in the good ol' U.S.of A. We had a trip to Florida no less. The weather was nice and there wasn't that many people there so the 'parks' weren't full so 'yours truly' could go on the rides 'again n' again....I admit it ,i'm a middle aged ol' fart and i love 'the rides ,even the simulated ones ,like SPIDERMAN and THE SIMPSONS at UNIVERSAL....But the main reason for the park trip was because my daughter ELARA is an out n' out HARRY POTTER nut!.....Her mum THE LOVELY LYNNE is quite fond as well it should be said and has read the books a heap of times. The two of them have the ability to 'fly' through books ,Lynne can read an 8 inch thick tome in a day...It's a gift i'd love to have, but alas! Elara takes after her mam ,thankfully and zooms through books retaining the information ,yet another gift i don't possess. But anyhow the two of them were reading HARRY POTTERin the Florida sun and going on the HARRY POTTER RIDE again and again and yet a few more agains and again, but its all very clever and impressive and they loved it.

But HARRY POTTER was a big part of the trip ,but not all .....There was something else ,far more important due to take place!

THE WHO were playing in down town ORLANDO!!!!.....And we were going to see the boys. Anight or two before we went to see them ,they played their first QUADROPHENIA gig and after when they were ploughing through the hits when my best mate PETE TOWNSHEND with his much publicised hearing difficulties muttered something about the sound levels and walked off....Nothings ever simple when the 'ORRIBLE 'OO go on stage. Our tickets were for Petes side of the stage and we had visions of bare stage with tumbleweeds blowing across. But the boys were there on the night in fine fettle and let rip !!!!.Townshend leaping about like a madman, wonderful! And Daltrey sounding stunningly powerful after surgery on his throat a while back....Even ELARA conceeded "THEY WERE AWESOME!"......Praise indeed!

Across the road was a boozer where we met a few English lads who'd lived in the states for years, one had a proper Union Jack jacket as TOWNSHEND  and MOON used to wear i got a photo of me wearing it ,if i can work out the advanced technology in putting a photo on the blog i'll treat you . Lynne now knows what she can gether stylish hubbie, me for xmas, wether she'd let me out in it is another matter, although she'd not be above nicking it for one of her SKA GIGS ,as she's done to her daughters DOC MARTENS boots( what would the bank say?...) And you lot thought she was nice and respectable, well !Let me tell you!...............

The other reason for the WHO picture was purely because it was on the scanner from last week so PETE n' ROGER were my scanner guinea pigs..............

PETE TOWNSHEND THE FEEDBACK KING AND JAMES BOND AND DANIEL CRAIG ARE GOING TO MAKE MY YEAR.

                                                                                  I may be a miserable middle aged ol' fart, but i'm still just a big kid at heart. I read comics ;watch action films and i'm even starting to read the old pulp fiction paperback novels i read as a schoolboy. I tried reading educational non-fiction, but i got really pissed off watching the daughter and the missus,The Lovely Lynne race through a 2ooo page book in an hour and a half. Lynne said to try just reading some stories and stop the futile attempt to educate myself. So i started reading paperbacks again. I remember my dad used to read war and westerns and always had a 3 foot mound of paperbacks by his chair. A few of you will remember the old SVEN HASSELL war books about the german penal battallion with PORTIA,TINY ,THE OLD MAN, THE LEGIONNAIRE ,HIEDI..As their adventures through Europe and the Russian front unfolded in a series of gory war  stories. There was a series of books called the DESTROYER,a bout a trained assasin called REMO WILLIAMS and his aged korean trainer in the killing arts CHIUN. There were hundreds of them .Also the EXECUTIONER, A guy namedMACK BOLAN waging war against the MAFIA,who not very nicely murdered his family, there are thousands of them.There were lots of characters with names like THE PENETRATER,or THE DESTRUCTOR,THE PUNISHER,etc.... There was also a cowboy series about a half indian very mean guy named EDGE, which satiated any blood thirsty schoolkid... O.K. not great literature, but i'm enjoying myself. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. films were shown on TCM lately ,so that spurred me on to trashy telly ,VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA;THE INVADERS; GARRISONS GORILLAS ;KUNG FU. And some home grown talent;SUPERCAR;FIREBALL XL5; U.F.O.; CALLAN....And JAMES BOND.

                                                                                   Pathetic as it may seem i'm quite excited at the fact that the new BOND film, SKYFALL will be out in a few months. I just hope they cut out that hi-speed frenetic action ,or just plain bad editing that marred the last two films .They were filmed so you just couldnt figure out ,just what in god's name was going on,no matter how many times you wound foreward and back. I still, to this day cannot work out what is going on in the car chase that QUANTUM OF SOLACE opens with. But heres hoping they go back to the more traditional way of filming...Action and violence is like a fine painting and has to be done right so it looks right and can be displayed and enjoyed forever like most of the scenes in all the other BONDS through the years.

And if the worlds favourite secret agents return in SKYFALL isn't enough the worlds greatest musician, guitarist ,songwriter and character  PETE TOWNSHEND is releasing his autobiography after years of trying and failing to get his life down on paper, and dropping himself in deep troubles along the way.... . So with two of my own personal heroes making a showing around October ,i think i'm going to be a happy man thats my birthday present ,(or some) solved. And if THE WHO announce a tour to help promote the book , i'll be a happy middle aged grumpy old schoolboy.

WHAT DO 'THE WHO', SKY +, N' A SORE LEG HAVE IN COMMON?

ME, THATS WHAT!....... A week ago , i woke in the middle of the night shivering and shaking with a raging fever, it was a patriotic fever ,my leg ,where some infection had started (cellulitis, for those clever medical sorts) was red and the rest of me freezing to death was blue except for my clenched jaws and knuckles which were white. The following week was spent in and out of sleepy byes on the setee in front of the telly catching up on all the stuff we'd recorded. This was interuppted by the occasional howls of agony as i tried to stand to go for a pee, which is quite a lot as they've given me so many tablets that i truly do rattle when i move. And to aid the consumption of these truly awful tasting tablets i'm drinking gallons of water and ,of course tea. But all was forgotten and forgiven the other night as i went to bed and left SKY+ on, to record the SUPER BOWL!!!..Not through the slightest interest or understanding of or in AMERICAN FOOTBALL, But because, the Yanks ,Gawd bless 'em ,dont do things by halves.....AT HALF TIME THEY HAD THE WHO IN CONCERT!!!!!! Over here ,half time you go for a piss , over there they watch THE WHO?....I've no idea when they go for a pee, must be during the 8 hours of football, they wouldnt go during THE WHO...Even the Yanks aren't that much of a philestines.
But i hobbled from bed to settee and fast forewarded the SKY+ through the 4n' a half hours of the first half and ,finally there , in all their glory ,PETE TOWNSHEND and ROGER DALTREY! They let rip on an awsome circular platform with light displays ,rockets and lasers and were wonderful. At the start , with the crowd away in the darkness in the middle of a huge empty field with 12 minutes to 'do the works' .Ol' Daltrey started a little hoarse, but by the time they finished with WONT GET FOOLED AGAIN, Daltreys scream was as good as ever he's done .And Townshend 'exploded,' leaping ,windmilling and 'blistering' as only Townshend can. And a poorly sick dying man didn't feel quite so miserable, i almost bounced off the settee and leapt into the air to do a few air windmills ,a'la Townshend ,but that might not've been a good idea. But from there things started looking up . I'd gotten my WHO-BOOST, and i'm going on holiday and i'm walking. Tried a Townshend leap , but soon found out , it probably wasn't the brighest thing i've done recently, nearly pulled my shoulder muscle and landed on my bad leg and nearly bit through my lip stifling a scream. To give you an example of the differences between our transatlantic cuzins and ourselves. Whereas the super bowl half time show was THE WHO. Warringtons half-time rugby league show was....JEDWARD!!!!!.....I cant give a critique on that show as for some reason i didnt record that showbiz spectacular.

I was going to train every day so i'd look wonderful and DANIEL CRAIG-like in my 'cozzy', but i've been flat on my back for a fortnight and my legs all lovely ,blistered with a skin like a blood orange, swollen and where this rough skin has missed the rest is a bright crimson colour, very pretty. The problem is in comparison to the white spindley other leg it looks a little odd. Don't think i'll be bothering with my 'cozzy'!