Buffy St Marie
Buffy was a full Blooded American Native Indian and it showed in her uncompromising stance. She took up the plight of the American Native Indians in no uncertain terms with numbers like ‘Soldier Blue’, ‘Now that the Buffalo’s gone’ and ‘My Country it is of thy people You’re Dying’. For me that angry lament is one of the best songs ever written. It is a heart-felt entreaty concerning the genocide and cynical policies carried out against the Native American Indians. Everyone should be forced to sit and listen to it. I have never heard another heart-felt paean to match it.
Buffy also did her ant-war songs like ‘Universal Soldier’ but had her softer gentler side with the beautiful ‘Until it’s time for you to go.
She is a singer-songwriter who it is impossible to categorise there were so many facets to her talents.
I heard the message though.
Buzzcocks
The genius of the Buzzcocks was the cleverness of Pete Shelley’s words and the way they married Pop and Punk into a high energy hybrid that was both explicit and melodic. Pete Shelley’s high pitched voice was also very different to the usual Punk offering. It took the aggression out of it without reducing the energy level.
The Buzzcocks were equally as controversial as any of the other Punk outfits with numbers like ‘Orgasm Addict’ and ‘Oh Shit’ being banned by the Beeb. Their biggest hit was ‘Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve?)
A very British group.
Byrds
The Byrds started up in Los Angeles in the wake of the Beatles. They married the style of the British Beat Group to Folk Music. This was not quite as radical as it might appear. They had all been Folk musicians. When the Beatles stormed America they were instantly smitten and wanted to form a Rock Band with the same instrumentation as the Beatles. The Folk and Beat elements came together naturally.
The band got hold of a demo of Bob Dylan’s ‘Tambourine Man’ and produced a Rock version of the song. The jangley sound of Roger McGuinn’s 12 string Rickenbacker and the close harmonies of the group gave it a distinctive style. They had created something different that went on to be described at Folk-Rock.
They invited Dylan along to hear what they had produced and he was impressed. He even joined them on stage at Ciros’ on the Sunset Strip where they had a residency pulling in all the hip dudes from Hollywood. It was the start of a long and fruitful two-way relationship. Dylan, who had started out in Rock before going down the Folk route, was turned back on to doing Rock by the Byrds, Manfred Mann and Animals, who had successfully converted his or other Folk songs into Rock idiom. The Byrds got the endorsement of Bob Dylan who was riding high as one of the hippest dudes around. It gave them the propulsion they needed.
The single and album took off and established the Byrds as a major force. They followed it up with other Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger Folk songs as well as a number of their own compositions.
When they arrived in England they were served with a writ by the British Birds, a Beat group featuring Ronnie Wood, who were doing a publicity stunt based around the American Byrds stealing their name.
As the sixties went on the Byrds moved with the times into a more psychedelic direction and got themselves in trouble with the media for what was perceived as drug references in their lyrics. They made the cross-over into being viewed as serious members of the alternative counter-culture and also have been cited as major influences on the Acid Rock scene in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. Their songs were spacey with extended psychedelic phases though the relationship with Dylan material and Bob himself continued.
They suffered a series of personnel changes and their best album by far was the wonderful ‘Notorious Byrd Brothers’. The singing, song-writing and musicianship all reached a peak. Unfortunately things inside the band were not so hunky dory. Crosby was acrimoniously ousted and instead of building on this perfection they got Gram Parsons in, went down a Country route with Christian overtones and petered out into mediocrity.
It was a sad end to what was an outstanding band, a true original sound and a great force on the scene. They left a legacy that was immense.
Canned Heat
Canned Heat formed in the mid-sixties in Topanga Canyon California. Their initial form was a blues/jug band created by a group of Blues fanatics and record collectors. The two major players were the large and exceedingly hairy Bob Hite who for some obscure reason was called ‘The Bear’ and the rather scholarly looking Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson who was so near-sighted that he could not see a thing. Both of these guys had extensive collections of blues records amounting to thousands. Alan was a brilliant slide guitarist who was instrumental in teaching Son House to relearn his songs for his legendary sixties album following his rediscovery. Alan also played on that record.
The band took its name from an old Tommy Johnson number about Canned Heat. Canned Heat was an alcohol gel that was sold as Sterno and used as fuel on old cooking stoves in Mississippi. Shoe polish was another substance that was an alcohol substitute. Both of these were heavily abused by a section of the Black community living in rural parts of Mississippi. The shoe polish was allegedly heated up to release the intoxicating fumes. I’m sure it did neither you your body nor brain much good.
Canned Heat developed a good Boogie style that became very popular. Unlike in Britain the Blues did not take off in America to the same extent. The old rediscovered Blues Singers found a better audience in England and Europe and there were few authentic American Blues Bands. Canned Heat were probably the most successful.
They got taken up by the sixties counter-culture and featured at a number of the big festivals, their psychedelicised boogie going down well. They also released some seminal singles and albums. ‘On the road again’ and ‘Going up country’ were typical of this period. They were blues based but with a big nod to the Acid Rock and alternative culture of the day.
Their album ‘Boogie with Canned Heat’ was released in 1968 and was a bit of a departure from their first album in that it featured a number of self-penned songs and moved away from being a pure covers, blues-boogie album. Songs like ‘Amphetamine Annie’ endeared them to the hippie culture.
They never lost that Blues authenticity though and took every opportunity to play and record with the blues greats around. This resulted in collaborations with John Lee Hooker, Sunnyland Slim, Clarence ‘Gatemouth Brown’, Albert Collins and Memphis Slim. The album ‘Hooker ‘n’ Heat’ was probably the best.
Alan Wilson tragically died from a barbiturate overdose in 1970. It was probably suicide. He’d attempted that before. Bob Hite died of a heart attack in 1980. The band is still going though.
They were a great American Blues-boogie band.
Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band
I’ve see most of the world’s greatest bands from Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones to Stiff Little Fingers and Ian Dury & the Blockheads but right up there with Jimi for excitement and brilliance is Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band.
Don Van Vliet came out of the desert with his acid drenched blues poetry in 1967. I saw them play at Middle Earth and it blew me away. I’d never heard anything like it. The beat was incredible, complex and heavy. The guitars weaved in and out of each other, swapping riffs, spiky and jagged and that voice growled and boomed over the top of it all with such range and intensity. Then we get to the lyrics. You can talk about poetry but there is nobody who plays with words and sounds like Don Van Vliet. He makes the sounds jump with alliterating cool.
At first hearing the sound is so different to anything you’ve ever heard that it appears discordant. That soon passes when you get into it. The power drives you forward and what appears at first to be clashing guitars rapidly clarifies into complex mesmerising brilliance. There is nothing subtle of simple about it and that is what makes it so interesting. I never grow tired of listening to the music or lyrics because the complexity yields more and more pleasure and insight. This is the classical music of Rock. This is when it all came of age. There is an emotional and intellectual depth to it.
I think one of the problems people sometimes have with Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band is that it is so opaque at first that it is difficult to find a way in. I was fortunate because that first album was less complex and so more accessible and I also got to see them perform live at the very beginning. When you experience the band in a live situation in a small club you cannot help getting sucked into their spell. It is so pulsatingly powerful that it overwhelms you. It is loud, aggressive, raw and yet sophisticated at the same time.
I’d bombarded all my kids with my music and particularly Beefheart. They hated it. Then I persuaded my youngest to go to a Magic Band concert and he was as blown away as me. He came out saying that it was the best thing he’d ever heard. It is. It was as exciting as Hendrix!
One of my best concerts ever was seeing Beefheart at the Rainbow around 1973 with Zoot Horn Rollo, Rockette Morton, Drumbo and Alex St Clare. The band was steamin’ at the peak of their form. Nobody else could get near them. They were the most proficient and original band in the world.
There were lots of stories surrounding Don Van Vliet and the band. It’s all part of the mythology. He supposedly took on a bunch of people who couldn’t play instruments and taught them from scratch. That wasn’t true. He didn’t teach them to play but he certainly taught them to play differently to anyone else. He could neither read nor play music and hummed and sang his stuff so that Drumbo (John French) could interpret it, write it down and teach it to the band. That is as maybe. You might think that John French was the force behind it all – and there’s no denying the man played a major part – if it wasn’t for the fact that (with the exception of the mediocre Tragic Band of 1974) it was the Captain who took on a series of musicians and got them all to perform in the same extraordinary manner. Don was a genius on many fronts. I even love his saxophone playing which wails and screeches perfectly with the music. He might be an untutored musician but he had an ear for perfection.
While the band did not achieve the commercial recognition it should have done it did gain a huge reputation and has had an influence well beyond their financial success. Many great artists cite Don as a major influence.
Don became ill and stopped producing music in 1981. That was a tragedy. But he left us with a string of outstanding albums, incredible poetry and stupendous sounds. He went on to produce equally impressive art. Fortunately for us John French went and put the Magic Band together with Rockette Morton, Denny Walley and Eric Klerks and it is brilliant. It keeps the music alive.
Chris Barber
Chris Barber is the unsung Grandfather of British Blues and Rock. He is still regarded as a Trad Jazz performer, and did stay true to that style of music throughout, but he was so much more important than that. Single-handedly he did three incredible things that transformed the music scene in Britain.
Firstly he encouraged and facilitated the introduction of a scaled-down unit in his act that focussed on simple versions of American Folk-Blues. The sub-group was led by Lonnie Donnegan and they went from having a short set in the interval at the middle of Chris Barber’s act to becoming an over-night sensation and starting the whole Skiffle Boom of the fifties. The Beatles and every other Beat group in the country started off in a band because of that. Just think if Chris had not given them a place in the performance and had not gone on to record them in one of his sessions all that might not have happened. Without ‘Rock Island Line’ there might not have been any Beatles.
Secondly he provided a platform for Black American Blues artists to visit, play and record. By doing that he exposed future British musicians to the real thing and got a sizeable group of the British public interested in Blues so that the British bands had an audience when they got going. The Blues guys were bemused by the enthusiastic responses they got from White British audiences. They did not receive that reception in their native America.
Thirdly he brought Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies back together to work on a Blues album he was recording in 1961. Out of that came Blues Incorporated, the first, seminal R&B band in Britain.
I reckon those three things are sufficient to give him legendary status in anybody’s book. In my eyes he was responsible for the Beatles, Stones and the whole British Rock Scene. Without Chris Barber we’d still be on a par musically with Sweden and I can’t stand Abba.
Christy Moore
Christy was a founding member of Planxty but it was a solo artist that he shone most. He was a hard drinking, hard living man who spoke his mind on everything. He supported the Irish Republican cause and produced such outspoken songs such as ‘Minds Locked Shut ‘, and ‘On the Blanket’ that he got himself raided by the police and even shaken down at the border by the anti-terrorist squad.
Not that Christy restricted himself to the Irish troubles; he roved far and wide where-ever he saw injustice. He turned his attention to South America with songs like ‘Allende’, ‘El Salvador’ and ‘The Disappeared’. He spoke out against the inhuman brutality handed out to Steve Biko whose murder by the apartheid government of South Africa shocked the world.
Christy also took up the cause of the old religion where the brutality of Christian religious fanatics culminated in an estimated eight million ‘witches’ being horrendously murdered; many callously burnt to death. His song ‘Burning Times’ is chilling. It also was used to reaffirm a respect for nature and highlight the pollution, destruction and war we are inflicting on the world through our violence and greed.
His hard drinking life has taken its toll on his health but if you want to hear the music of an uncompromising man then Christy Moore is the one.
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Why no mention of Clarence White’s tenure in the Byrds? An uninformed reader would think anything after 1968 isn’t worth listening to. Untitled certainly is.
Why no mention of where Beefheart got his ideas from? I know you’ve mentioned Beefheart loads of times before, but never mention that he stole his whole gambit, lock, stock & barrel from Gamelan music, the traditional ensemble music with synchronous rhythms from Java & Bali.
His music wasn’t actually in the least bit original or inventive.
Clarence White was OK but not my cup of tea. Bit too country for me. Untitled was alright but not a patch on the Notorious Byrd Brothers in my opinion. Gram Parsons sent the band plummeting and they never fully recovered. Plus they got on to that annoying Christian kick that I found irritating.
I’m not even sure Beefheart had ever heard of Gamelan back in 1966 or ever. I doubt it very much. Having read everything written about him and his influences – more Blues and Ornette Coleman than anthing from Java or Bali.
I think we’d have to disagree on original and inventive. I haven’t heard anything as original or inventive anywhere. For that Beefheart is number one in my book. The imagination is unprecedented.
“You didn’t like it, because you didn’t think of it”. Hotlegs 1970.
The album “Music From The Morning Of The World – The Balinese Gamelan” was released in the USA in 1966. It was embraced by the hipster cognoscenti contingent. Zappa liked it, so I would not be surprised if Beefheart also heard it. He must have as the similarities are too obvious, 2 peas from the same pod.
But who exactly have you read? Zoot Horn Rollo’s terribly written little book of complaint. John French’s “paid-to-tell-it” lengthy essay found within “Grow Fins” where he spent more time describing cups of beans for dinner than the actual music – or origins of. He wouldn’t know anything anyway as he came across as just a mere gofor teaboy kinda individual. And then there’s the clueless music hacks warbling’s – as that’s all there is. I went through reams of Melody Makers, Sounds, NME’s that were stored in the shop – all 70’s heyday issues. The Beefheart content was no more than a half-hearted reviews of an album or concert. There was no genuine content. Yet these same people waxed lyrical about Neil Young. So guess is the UK rock press people didn’t understand Beefheart.
Even interviews with original members such as Doug Moon revealed next to nothing.
Unfortunately Beefheart never attracted good reviewers Stateside, such as the Robert Shelton’s or good analytical criticism such as Lester Bangs.
You haven’t had much to go on for any such enlightenment.
Originally, the US had the same exposure to Gamelan music as the UK had. It was Richard Attenborough’s show who had filmed it’s performance for one of his world travel programmes in 1955. He in fact held the microphone and operated the tape recorder. In due course these same shows commissioned by the BBC were sold to American broadcasting networks.
I think I have probably read everything ever written about or by Beefheart. Including the Zoot, poorly written Lunar Notes and a number of other equally poor fanzine type books.
The best by far was the biography by Mike Barnes. I did enjoy the large John French ramble Through the Eyes of Magic. He was far from a gofor and did all the musical arrangements for the band. Beefheart played it on piano or hummed it and John French wrote it down, arranged it and communicated it to the band. I do not recall a single mention anywhere of Gamelan.
The range and variety of Beefheart’s output, much as I love Gamelan far exceeds the strictures of that musical form. Beefheart was an original genius. Not too everyone’s cup of tea, I grant you – but the most exciting live band I have ever seen – right up there with Hendrix.
Why would Beefheart ever have given his game away? He would be the last guy to be losing face and mystery in front of his guys – teenage boys, really. Re-read Grow Fins and compare to Through The Eyes. There’s little difference. Yes, I know French copied down notes but that wasn’t my point. My point was 1) French would never have known what Gamelan was. 2) Even if he did, was he man enough to stand up and confront the Captain about that? Quite obviously not, as described by himself in these 2 similar publications, he wasn’t up to that and lived in a kind of comatose sense of fear. He couldn’t even bring himself to ask for some money now and again, yet he would see the Captain returning from his tailor’s wearing a brand new suit. The Captain retiring to a feast with his missus whilst the boys tuck into a cup of boiled beans, night after night.
If memory serves, it wasn’t until the Captain slapped him down a flight of stairs that enabled him to muster the courage to leave. French was something of a whimp.
Don’t you realise how little these “rock music” writers – so-called writers, actually know?
Rock music journalism isn’t called the lowest form of journalism for nothing you know.
Your old man could have told you that.
All the majority of these chancers do is copy from one book to another, make a few bits up that would be difficult to challenge and slap their name on it. Hey presto! Most of it is utter BS hyperbole.
I told you earlier this year of my own personal discoveries concerning Bowie. He’s had more books written about him than I’ve had hot dinners. Yet not one of this multitude contains one single aspect of the tiniest reference to what I came up with. Why? Because they simply didn’t know about it or had made any further research than the last guy had done.
So the same story perpetuates itself, albeit just jumbled up from the last one.
You surely know all about this. Surely? Maybe not.
Listen to the outtakes for Trout Mask Replica to the instrumental tracks and swap (in your mind if you can) an electric guitar for a percussion instrument and the rhythms will appear as clear as day as Gamelan. Naturally, of course, I will know Gamelan better than you will by a country mile as I had a 20-piece band playing in the foyer for my 4 years in Jakarta. They’d been there since the 70’s and some will still be there tonight too.
I know I’m bang on right about this aspect as it’s just so obvious to me.
Perhaps I should clarify now (as it’s becoming habitual having to do so 2nd time round) that you won’t hear Beefheart EXACTLY like Gamelan, as in note for note verbatim, but it’s about the synchronous patterns in the rhythms that are so obvious. Nothing to do with vocals, lead guitar soloing (not that there was much of that).
I can’t believe you can’t hear this loud and clear for yourself.
Or are you blagging me that you know what Gamelan is when in fact you don’t?
You won’t be the first person to have done so, so don’t be shy admitting it.
What you’re saying to me is that when the rises it’s Green.
Which makes me think you don’t actually know.
This isn’t the 4-piece troupe kinda stuff that you might have heard in your travels, with 2 bongos, a finger cymbal and a tambura. This is the 20-piece orchestra rendition version. But I can’t see any backpacker walking into the Hilton Jakarta for a sundowner costing 4 days backpacker food money. Hence maybe why I’m now thinking you haven’t actually heard it.
An interesting conjecture but based purely on surmising. I am familiar with gamelan. The Electric Company, our top local band, even incorporate it into one of their songs. I can see the similarities but I have not heard of a single connection to Beefheart. It’s pure speculation.
Not that it makes one iota of difference either way. If Vliet was influenced by Gamelan he certainly ran with it and created a whole series of quite unique sounds from it. Truly original and amazing. If I had a choice of playing a Gamelan album or a Beefheart album I know which I’d go for.
I suspect you’re just picking up on a similarity of rhythms. It’s no big deal.
Beefheart was a very weird genius.
I explained why you might not have heard of it. If I can do it for Bowie, with his hundred or so authors, well just maybe I can work something out for Beefheart.
It’s very curmudgeonly of you to just swipe my take away by saying “well I haven’t read about it before”. Do you think the sun shines out from these authors arses or what?
My father had 2 best friends, one was MD for Scottish & Newcastle Breweries for 24 years, the other MD for Collins Publishing, John Bisland, sometimes came round on a Friday night with his hottest new writer signed to the company. We met loads of writers over the years. I was always interested in how and where writers got their ideas from. Later, in Newcastle in 1983, as a young assistant, I heard that Melvyn Bragg was coming to do an in-house interview for his then new book. A copy of which he gave me and to this day still have not read. The interview was supposed to be done by the S&M manager for printing in British Rails Magazine. She was stuck in Stavanger port due to bad weather, so I did the interview. I reviewed her question list and added a load of my own much more interesting ones.
He was very honest and forthright explaining that he approaches his writing like a musical. He had to have “hit” chapters, he couldn’t waffle, he wasn’t looking to answer big questions but he did want to make people think outside the box. That’s about all I can remember today but there was one more very interesting thing he had to say regards my final question, where I asked him if he enjoyed Science Fiction. He said he did to a degree depending upon whom the author was and what their “credentials” were. I asked “what’s the difference”. He smiled in realisation that I didn’t understand what he was getting at. He explained that to be an excellent Science Fiction writer you didn’t have to be a fan of Star Trek or anything of that sort. What was integral to success in this field was the writer had to be no stranger to DMT! “You mean like Acid”, I meekly asked. Yes, only DMT is about 100 times stronger and completely different. Your brain explodes into an unimaginable world completely unrecognisable from anything we know of on Earth. And it only lasts about 12 minutes, therefore, the writer can go there, come back and continue writing as it’s still completely fresh in his memory bank.
This part of his story never left me as it was just such a revelation. He asked me who I liked to read and told him I was currently reading Burroughs new one “Cities of the Red Night”. He seemed quite pleased to hear that, exclaiming “heavy duty”. A very pleasant guy.
I’ve come across similar type before in similar instances where they can’t see the woods for the trees. There are so many people out there who talk about music but in fact they don’t know anything about the music itself. but just the people that play it. Titbits stuff, devoid of any knowledge about the music itself. They wouldn’t know the key of C.
But we’ve been down this road before haven’t we, when you made claim that some American that sold zero albums was responsible for the rise of the new Folk Music Movement in England in the 1960’s. And despite me giving you the names of the people who were exactly responsible for such, you still would not accept what I had to convey.
You must be hell to live with or engage in conversation. You don’t have conversation skills in written text, just black and white belief scenarios. Very strident “this is the way it is because I say so”. I think that’s an indication of why only about 4 people bother to actually write into this blog. No doubt there are more readers but how do you know they didn’t just glance at a post heading and press delete?
As I said before “you didn’t like it because you didn’t think of it.”
Of course I’m “just picking up on the similarity of rhythms” !
What on earth else would there be to pick up on? The boiled beans maybe?
“It’s no big deal”. It absolutely is as it spotlights exactly where he got his rhythm ideas from, doesn’t it and big time, too.
I don’t know how you can shrug that off so easily, but I do understand why you want to. You cannot tolerate the concept of your sycophant bubble being burst.
I’m going to try and contact a guy I used to know in the 80’s. The imitable Andy Kershaw. He is a true Musicologist with an incalculable wealth of knowledge regarding world music, to ask him what his take is on this.
Didn’t you call yourself a “musicologist” quite recently?
If that’s the case why do you always just talk about the same 5 artists over and over again. I get the impression you stopped listening properly many years ago with exception of a few newer people although they’re not so new anymore today. But I’m much the same as there’s very little new stuff I hear today that’s interesting or not 4th time around.
What about talking about Cambodian Power Pop or Mexican Psyche bands. Some of whom are utterly amazing. What about Renaissance Electronica or Ambient Electronica whose soundscapes inhabit a whole brave new world. Bring your own DMT.
Or as I suspect were you simply pulling legs?
Well I’d be interested to hear if you come up with a connection to Gamelan. I know of none but, as you say, he might have been hiding it. Next time I see John French I’ll ask him.
Having read everything from a wide source and talked at length to other Beefheart nuts, and discussed things with Rockette Morton and John French, I think I might have picked up on Gamelan if it was there.
I go on about the major 5 artists because they are the ones I like best.
I am not so receptive to new sounds because most of them don’t grab me. I buy albums, play them once and never feel the need to listen again. I would be interested in having a listen to Cambodian Power Pop or Mexican Psyche bands. Might be good.
But you know – I can’t say that you are very open to a conversation. What I seem to get are a series of put-downs, assertions of your great, superior knowledge, accomplishments and what you could do if you could be bothered. There’s no room for discussion with such categorical assertions. If you could write the ‘war and peace’ on Rock Music, Business and Beefheart, why don’t you? I’d be interested to read it. You know Andrew – they don’t get more strident and black and white than you. You’re the epitome of it.
It’s not a particularly newsworthy topic. It’s not Led Zeppelin’s current case in US where they’re being sued for stealing the opening chords to Taurus. CB is so far down the scale (although not in ours) as to be negligible, unfortunately. It took me years to twig this aspect and long after buying Grow Fins with the instrumentals and owning for years before the subsequent Brown Star, Spotlight sessions instrumental stuff.
I think it’s remarkable. But seriously, how many people would know what it was? I ask people if they like Qawwali music and they look at me like I’ve got 2 heads! Ignorance of world music is rife. It’s so way off their tiny radar.
I possess absolutely zero interest in writing anything about rock music as it’s all been done since time and memorial. I’m not remotely interested in their personal lives either and these are the tittle-tattle that sell the most. I wouldn’t have the front like that 30 something John Harrison arsehole, who thrives on 4th generation information, churning out “The Story of Led Zeppelin” or whatever he does. Or in the cases of a lot of the books coming through today on the US Grunge scene or Brit-Pop garbage (how much did I hate that shite!) where it’s just page after page of the drugs they took. I’m not interested, besides drugs are a very personal thing and too many people can’t handle them so I’m not too keen on that sort of celebratory promotion. Coupled with the fact nobody needs to tell me what certain drugs do to you as I was very much indulgent for some 35 years. I haven’t touched a thing for 6 years now and am completely over them. 9 out of 10 of them ain’t all they’re made out to be, but there are a few of the specialist variety that are, frankly, unbelievable.
I could write a very good book on drugs, but as I said I don’t believe in their wanton promotion.
Cambo-Pop and Mex-Psych is the sort of thing that Henry Rollins will play on BBC 6 Music radio, when he’s doing it now and again, but there’s always youtube. He presents a wild and exciting menu.
To be honest I think you’d have great difficulty turning anybody on to Son House, he’s just too generic, you hear one number, you may have heard them all. There are far better blues performers than he. I don’t mean the slick stuff either, but people like Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey, Skip James, Tampa Red all of whom have a much more interesting presentation style, yet equally as bleak in context. But I love old blues stuff and listen to several hundred artists from the 20s-30s. I’d put Son somewhere in the middle. But there again I didn’t get to see him, so maybe that impression is indelibly stamped upon you.
You must surely be lacking to a degree in self confidence if you feel all you see are a series of put-downs! Just look at the manner in which you dealt with my interaction above here – and on my part conversational indeed it was – with regards to this subject. Your short shrift retort towards me was actually downright appalling. It was simply one of “I don’t know about this, therefore, it cannot be plausible.” And you said the same thing again within your following 3 posts!
Had this been proposed to me, I would have said “I’ll look into that”, but no, you couldn’t even bring yourself to do that and simply swiped it as far away from you as possible.
So you have either by design or bedevilment created a situation where upon I am unable to even talk about Captain Beefheart with you. WTF!
People with such manifested traits are usually termed Megalomaniacs and Dictators!
Don’t you see that generally through any discussion I also actually provide a bit of factual backup as opposed to just my own opinion, otherwise any of my replies would just be a series of “I’s”. They are not, therefore, such commentary is extremely unfair and curmudgeonly.
“As for “assertions of great superior knowledge”, are you serious? In terms of the standard of operations that I lead, well yes, too true. There were not too many people in my industry at my level. And I only achieved that because I looked, listened and learned from my superiors. If one prefers the half-baked approach they might reach the heights of a 3-star operation. I couldn’t have lived with myself stuck at that level although thousands are very happy there.
However, an alternative point of view coupled with a bit of factual backup is nothing of the kind. That’s your lookout if you see it this way.
That’s just my experienced counter to all the hair-brained ideas that were presented to me and rather than just saying “No, I don’t think so”, it’s better to sit down and strip them apart and to find the weaknesses, therefore, giving the original presenter positive food for thought that may enable them to restructure to make it work better.
You will also find if you care to read them properly that I provide some informative factual backup or at least key indicators on the occasions where I feel compelled to disagree with you. What more do you need? What more could I be expected to do? Except agree with you upon the first instance of course which I guess would be far more pleasing to you. Let’s get real here.
I don’t even hold any political persuasions and am long done with all of that crap. I really struggle with anybody that does in this century. What I do is analyse what works and what doesn’t work.
I’m amazed at your constant applauding of Corbyn. The guy isn’t in power and can do absolutely nothing! He is responsible for SFA. Anybody with half a brain can no longer trust Labour. They committed so many heinous actions, hence why their voters eventually voted with their feet. Such a waste of your conjecture, but I guess you’ll hang in there regardless of sanity or morals. I’m amazed at your constant sniping of the Tories. Do you ever watch Prime Minister’s Question Time broadcast live from the HOC? Cameron is unbelievably good, like him or not, and so what if he’s got a bit of his own money. I bet you didn’t say “no, I’ll just have a basic teachers salary” when you were promoted to HM. You bloody well didn’t did you? Yet not a word on that despicable creep Kinnock, whom after being ousted got himself ensconced into Brussels and is now on 3 times the salary that he had previously. And what does he do for anybody? Bet you didn’t even know that. Btw, that’s called factual backup, go check him out yourself. And wasn’t one of the best things Thatcher ever did was allowing Council tenants to buy their own homes at seriously discounted prices? That sorted out a lot of Labour local council financial shenanigans, didn’t it? Labour just wants to tie people to a stake, sorry, state. Whereas the Tories possess somewhat more worldliness.
I’m very happy for all the former council house renters who sold their homes and moved to Spain for a life in the sunshine. It really couldn’t get better than that.
But you believe that all I say is strident and black and white. Whereas I think that anybody holding any hard boiled political beliefs is as such.
I guess this could be the result of all these countless days tucked away for 12 hours on end on one’s own where insularity begins to prevail. You’ve said it yourself, your words, not mine.
Conversation is an art and you are gradually losing it.
Well maybe you’re right – conversation is difficult on the internet. Maybe not my strength.
I just write about what I’m interested in. That goes for music, books and art. I don’t really care if it’s technically good. If I like it I like it. I actually like a lot. Some things that are extremely good I don’t like.
I think you’re probably right about Son House, and the same applies to Captain Beefheart, seeing them live was an immensely powerful experience. That probably colours all that follows. Son is my favourite of the old delta guys just as Elmore James is my favourite Chicago guy. But I love a lot of others.
As for Tampa Red – he’s OK but doesn’t bowl me over – I really like Bessie Smith. Ma Rainey’s good. I saw Skip James on the same bill as Son House – he was good. Willie Johnson was superb – though the jesus stuff gets on my nerves. I would have loved to have seen Charlie Patton live. I think I would have liked him – and Tommy Johnson – showmen. Sleepy John Estes is another of my favourites – he is quirky. I preferred the Chicago Blues in the end.
As for Thatcher – well selling council houses at cut-down prices was certainly a political ploy that worked. A good thing? No.
I don’t have hard-boiled political views though. I am extremely critical and cynical regarding all politicians. I merely support the ethos behind the Labour party over the ethos of the tories. It’s all grey. Labour will be marginally better in my view. The tories come over to me as arrogant, elitist rich kids who represent the top 10% very cynically. Labour have become watered down tories. But I like most of what Corbyn stands for. He seems to have some belief in what he does. The rest are in it for themselves.
There’s at least 5 or so Beefheart albums that could only be removed from me over my dead body.
I don’t dislike Corbyn at all, I think he’s a breath of fresh air. He possesses an air of normality and he’s not a jargon boffin.
My only negative (so far) is he wants to lose Trident. I don’t think that’s too good an idea but I also don’t see the pressing need to upgrade to these new super weapons and this is SNP’s complaint patter. Who said we need to? (So many of these SNP’s are just chattering fish-wives as evident from the parliament broadcasts and I’m embarrassed for them.) After all we’ve never used them, we don’t threaten others with them and they simply sit as the deterrent they are supposed to be.
Me too. I love ’em.
I’d be quite happy to sit with Trident or upgrade to a Cruise-style missile at a fraction the cost. But I’d prefer to get rid altogether.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
Here’s an extract. It’s fun to flick through and dip into, to discover new artists and read my take on ones you know and familiarise yourself. I enjoyed writing it.