Tom Robinson Band – Power In The Darkness – a Punk song of resistance.

Posted on by Opher

The Tom Robinson Band were a defiant unit of protest.

Back in the dark days of Thatcher minority groups were under attack. Gays were being victimised by law. There were riots in the streets over the way minority groups were being harassed. There were fascists and racists marching on the streets with impunity. There were trade unions targeted and vilified. They were dark days for people who cared.

The Tom Robinson Band produced a superb pair of albums with hard hitting songs such as Power In The Darkness and Better Decide Which Side You’re on.

Tom Robinson Band – Power In The Darkness

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

Freedom, we’re talking bout your freedom
Freedom to choose what you do with your body
Freedom to believe what you like
Freedom for brothers to love one another
Freedom for black and white
Freedom from harassment, intimidation
Freedom for the mother and wife
Freedom from Big Brother’s interrogation
Freedom to live your own life, I’m talking ’bout

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

“Today, institutions fundamental to the British system of Government are under attack
the public schools, the house of Lords, the Church of England, the holy institution of Marriage, even our magnificent police force are no longer safe from those who would undermine our society, and it’s about time we said ‘enough is enough’ and saw a return to the traditional British values of discipline, obedience, morality and freedom.
What we want is

Freedom from the reds and the blacks and the criminals
Prostitutes, pansies and punks
Football hooligans, juvenile delinquents
Lesbians and left wing scum
Freedom from the niggers and the Pakis and the unions
Freedom from the Gipsies and the Jews
Freedom from leftwing layabouts and liberals
Freedom from the likes of you”

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

Tories incapable of displaying a caring attitude!!

Posted on by Opher

With the immense anguish and suffering of the people of the Grenville Flats it was paramount that our government displayed compassion.

Theresa May went down and met with the Fire Chiefs and avoided the public.

Jeremy Corbyn went down and met with the people, heard the anger, saw the grief and expressed his sympathy.

Enough said.

The Journey Pt. 29 – Egypt and the Valley of the Kings. Photos

Posted on by Opher

Off for lunch by the Nile, crossing a bridge where tens of large Nile Cruise lay in mothballs waiting for the tourists to return. There was a cool breeze to dissipate the heat, swallows rested on the mooring ropes of boats, a colourful larger bird sitting in the palm tree watching me, the call to prayer drifted over the water, a serene moment of calm.

Then we stopped at the Luxor Temple which was built along the same lines as Karnak but had a mosque plonked in the middle of it? What is it with these religions that they have to desecrate someone else’s beliefs? We find churches built in Stone Circles, Mosques on Temples, Cathedrals in Mosques. Why can’t people just agree to disagree and respect other people’s faiths? Or lack of faith?

Next stop was the incredible Collossi Memnom statues staring out majestically from their giant thrones across the plains with the backdrop of the mountains behind them.

The Valley of the Kings was full of restraints – We were only allowed to visit three tombs plus Tut Ank Karman. But what tombs!! What splendour, what colours. I’ve seen a lot of photographs of Egyptian tombs but never have I seen such rich coloration – worthy of a king. These religious fanatics believed in the Gods and the afterlife with such devout faith that they waged wars to gain incense and precious materials in order to perform ever more lavish ceremonies. They designed tombs of the most elaborate nature with diagrams to help them make their passage to the future life. They built temples and showered the wealth of the nation, even to bankruptcy, in order to guarantee their safe passage to eternal life. Their bodies, after death, were carefully prepared and their sarcophaguses were gilded with gold. An army of artists and priests worked on the tombs. Armies of slaves built the temples. It is a shame they did not put as much energy into the secular aspects of life. Their faith was for nought. Their religions have passed into antiquity. Nobody believes in that any more.

What we have left are the spectacular tombs, most robbed by grave-robbers, with their colourful hieroglyphs. So that misplaced faith was not wasted. We weren’t allowed to take photos under pain of death so these are photos I took off the web to show you how great it was. The colours were spectacular.

Egypt a cauldron of contrasts, of past splendour, a recent indifference, violence and religion, creating a minestrone of experience.

More from Petra next – then Suez and Jerusalem.

Anita Pallenberg – Keith Richards partner of Yore – RIP.

Posted on by Opher

Not too many people could keep up with the lifestyle that pervades Keith Richards but Anita Pallenberg seemed to have managed it. Anita was a model with both intellectual prowess and an appetite for an alternative lifestyle. She was quite a lady who exerted a big influence on the Stones.

This obituary in V Magazine sums her up well.

http://vmagazine.com/article/anita-pallenberg-the-woman-who-out-keithed-keith/

Let me tell you a little about my books.

Posted on by Opher

I am a writer. I started writing way back in 1971. I completely my first book in 1973 – a very weird composite of cartoons, poetry and narrative in a surreal sixties style. I thought that I had created something original and unique. The publishers thought that it was probably too unique. It never saw the light of day.

As I had a young family I had to get a day job. But that did not prevent me from writing. Late at night, after the kids and wife were tucked up in bed, I would get down to some serious writing. On my old type-writer I produced volumes of work, typing until two or three in the morning as the ideas flowed and the ecstasy of creation buoyed me along. For weeks I would manage on four hours sleep and though greatly fatigued I would be energised by the stream of thoughts, the wonder of writing and the complexity of the story. All through the day new ideas would come into my head and I’d write them down. I’d wake up in the night with a new one and scribble in the dark. It was all-consuming.

I wrote what I was inspired to write on whatever I wanted – as the inspiration hit. Sometimes it was a novel, sometimes a poem or short story, sometimes it was a memoir and occasionally it was an account. It made no difference to me. I was writing for myself.

Over the years I accumulated the manuscripts, all my babies, conceived in the fertility of my mind. They sat on shelves gathering a patina of age.

I was nowhere near as motivated to market them.

I promised myself that when I had time I would work on them more, send them off and get them published.

That time came when I retired. I found myself with time and began rewriting my masterpieces and editing them. Self-publishing gave me an outlet. I could finally transform those old typed manuscripts into real books. I could also write new ones – because time gave those drives more impetus.

At this moment in time I have produced a series of forty odd books, and odd they are – a body of work encompassing Sci-fi, Rock Music, Education, Art, Experimental Novel, Novels, Memoir, Anecdotes, Poetry, Antitheism, Environment and Travel.

I will stop writing soon. At least I will stop rewriting. I will have copied up my back catalogue. The plan is then to look for a standard publishing outlet and market.

I’m not there yet. I’m still writing.

If you are tempted to give my work a read then I would be delighted. A writer without an audience is like a play being performed in an empty warehouse. My work is available on Amazon.

In the UK:

In the USA:

Elsewhere in the world please check out your local Amazon.

Thank you for supporting an Indie Writer.

Wave Goodbye? Overpopulation Blues.

Posted on by Opher

Wave Goodbye

There is a giant Tsunami coming – a wave of biblical proportions that will sweep everything before it. It is already inundating the land and wiping the earth, sea and air clean. The flood is coming. But where is the Ark? Where is our present day Noah to come to the rescue? Nowhere to be seen.

The wave is already building. I can see it rising before me – a wave so great that it is already flooding the whole world and drowning all that lives.

The super-tsunami is driven by us. We are being burying ourselves alive with tuk-tuks, mopeds and cars, drifts of rubbish and litter, and people – swarms of people – like locusts, stripping everything clean.

In Manilla our peddle rickshaw man, in his twenties, boasted of his seven children. In Oman the average family is five or six and we were told of one man with four wives and twenty eight children. Then there was India, Vietnam, Africa and the spectre of China.

We passed the tuna nets in the sea and saw only three distant sea birds. There were no dolphins jumping or whales blowing.

Our planet is being systematically sterilised. The tsunami is rearing above our heads. The flood is already upon us. Where is Noah?

The New York Times sums it up – Brexit and Trump – the decline of two great nations.

Posted on by Opher

Click on the headline to open the link. I would advise everyone to read the article. It sums up the dire situation we are in and the stupidity that has led us here. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see it clearly.

Acoustic Guitarists of the Sixties – Bert Jansch, Davy Graham, John Renbourn and Roy Harper.

Posted on by Opher

The mid-sixties produced a wealth of great acoustic music loosely under the initial heading of Folk-Blues but in reality extending much further than that. The Greenwich Village Scene, sparked off by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Phil Ochs, had sparked a massive resurgence in folk music and made it a commercial proposition. So much so that the record companies were chasing acoustic performers and the Pop Charts featured them. The popular performers, like Donovan, were propelled into Pop stardom. But there was an underlying scene that did not see itself as part of the Pop scene at all. They were producing music for a new generation of aficionados.

Davy Graham was probably the most seminal to the movement. His brand of Folk-Blues was adulterated, if that is the right word, with jazz and middle Eastern rhythms and chords. He started the ball rolling with his brilliant Angie (Anji) which set a new innovative standard in guitar playing. Teaming up with the Folk Traditionalist Shirley Collins he took Contemporary Folk in a different direction.

Bert Jansch came roaring down from Scotland with venom and spark to illuminate the Folk Scene with his verve and mastery of the guitar coupled with strident singing.

John was more mellow and melodic and based a lot of his music on more traditional material. He was the ideal foil for Bert and together they produced some excellent music before expanding and teaming up with Danny Thompson and Jacqui McShee to form Pentangle.

Roy burst on the scene a little later, befriended Davy, Bert and John, and developed his own acoustic style that tended to be more aggressive, at least in those early days. For a time Roy had a number of musical directions to follow – his love songs, social protests, humour and instrumentals. It was a toss up as to which he was going to progress.

I was fortunate to see all of them perform on a number of occasions back in the days of Les Cousins, The Barge and Bunjies and I enjoyed them all. I also used to frequent the Three Horse Shoes where, in the basement, Pentangle performed for free – more a meeting of friends.

My feeling was that the fires that stoked Davy, Bert and John cooled pretty quickly as their proficiency developed. Their music was sophisticated and high quality but I preferred the energy, vibe and stridency of the Harper songs – like One For All, or Blackpool. They had an urgency about them. Though Roy was not as technically proficient as Bert, Davy or John, he more than made up for that with his drive and innovation. But then, as with everything, it is always a matter of taste, isn’t it? And musical proficiency does not always produce the best music, does it? Sometimes a bit of raucous energy injects a spark that is lacking in more sophisticated exponents and propels the music into a different dimension.

Oh for the wonders of those days. I’d give anything to see those four perform again. It is so strange to think that Roy is the only one of those four who is still alive.

 

The Journey Pt. 25 – Melting in Male in the Maldivian theocracy. Photos

Posted on by Opher

We bobbed to Male in our boats, rockin’ to the reggae of the waves.

Male – capital of the Maldives – a set of islands so low lying that a ripple might wash them away. So strange to see Male low on the horizon – a small island the size of our village covered from end to end in high-rise buildings – seemingly rising out of the sea in one unbroken block as if built on water.

The Maldives is a strange country – a constellation of coralline clusters of idyllic islands and ultramarine seas where there is a theocratic law that states all citizens must worship Islam. I’m afraid I didn’t and don’t.

The heat was stifling and the humidity sapping. The people were friendly but I always find it unsettling to see most of the men in modern cool polo shirts while the women are consigned to be cloaked from crown to toenail, often in black heavy robes, in which they must slowly broil. It’s not called Male for nothing. Females seem to get a rotten deal.

This was Male and not the Maldives. It was a mediocre city of high prices and few redeeming faults, with not a great deal to admire. The real Maldives are the beach resort islands quite far out. We did not get to visit those. They were exclusive and expensive and seemed not cost efficient in a journey of this expanse, duration and magnitude. But perhaps we should have opted for a beach day in paradise on a desert island instead of a sweaty day in town.

We admired what we could – the Mosque and a building that passed as a palace. The graveyard was the most exciting with its elaborately decorated gravestones in Arabic scripture. Muslims seem to value death more than life. I find that sad.

We even headed off on a ferry to another island. The ferry cost pennies and was fun sitting with the locals, and they seemed to appreciate us being there, but the island was disappointing. We drank coffee, bought from a kiosk surrounded by palm trees, and came back, did some shopping, got very sticky, avoided the multitude of mopeds and hopped back to the ship for a shower.

The expensive desert islands commandeered by the hotels may be the places to go for a beach holiday with water sports and snorkelling thrown in – but Male is a dead loss. I find it strange that a country based on such strict religious abstinence (you can’t get a glass of beer anywhere in Male and there is a dress protocol) should go out of its way to build (out of crushed coral) a series of islands awash with near nudity and afloat with cocktails of every flavour and alcoholic strength to attract tourists with the sole aim of extracting the sheckels. The native population set up the resorts, service the islands, sell the booze and pander to the tourists but despise their way of life. Smacks of gross hypocrisy to me.

Fortunately there was a great rock and reggae duo to dance to for hours and hours and lift the spirits as we ate barbeque food, drank beer and watched a huge moon hang over the stern of the boat as a cooling breeze whisked the hot humid air away.

Getting back to the cabin we were confronted with a set of instructions as to what to do in the event of being attacked by pirates! We are going near to the coast of Africa where Somalian or is it Sudanese pirates operate. But it’s OK – I have it on good authority that the waters are patrolled by destroyers full of fearless military marines of her majesty.  As a belt and braces operation we have security guards on board – I haven’t seen them yet but I am sure that they are a bad bunch of bearded, burly black-belted bandits bristling with birettas, burp-guns and bazookas to blast the baddies back to bedlam.

However, I’m taking no chances – I’m breaking out the cutlasses again!! If they want pirating they can have a dose of their own medicine! Fortunately I am a black-belt in origami!

Cheers – yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!!

Strawberry Moon at Kardomah Hull – Jeff’s Birthday/Retirement Bash – Photos

Posted on by Opher

What a night!!!  Jeff Parson’s Birthday/Retirement bash!!  One of the leading lights of the Hull Music Scene is taking time out to practice more music. That can’t be bad!!

If this gig was anything to go by there is a wealth of great stuff still to come!! All three bands were different and scintillating and Jeff’s guitar-work was a driving force both acoustically and electrically.

This was the first – Strawberry Moon. An acoustically based band who reminded me of Richard and Mimi Farina. Great stuff – squeezebox, harmonica, recorder, marimba and packing case drums. Great melodies and lovely harmonies. It really worked for me.

A superb venue with great acoustics and a wonderful atmosphere. Hosts of friends in Hull were gathered to wish Jeff all the best!!