"SHARING THE THINGS WE KNOW AND LOVE"

There are some bands and musicians that I've listened to for many years and never tire of like: Van Morrison, Little Feat, Randy Newman, R.E.M., David Byrne/Talking Heads, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Ry Cooder etc. The music is timeless and, where there's quality it lasts.

One rock/jazz band stands out head and shoulders over many others though and that's Steely Dan. From the first releases right through to the last Steely Dan and Donald Fagan's music has gripped me. The whimsical and cryptic lyrics supported by complicated composition and almost uniquely pure sound is as good today as it was in the 1970s.

I was lucky enough to see Fagan and Becker playing in Auckland a few years before Becker died. It rates to me as one of the best concerts I've been to.

I watched this You Tube clip the other day and, to me, a musical appreciator without much musical knowledge found the discussion of the blues mu major and the construction of Deacon Blues fascinating.

COMPOSING DEACON BLUES

If you don't like it then don't shoot me - I'm only the piano player.*

* Not really. My mother sent me off to piano lessons when I was a kid but I was too lazy to learn properly and then the teacher caught my brother and me pinching apples off her tree.

OH YEAH!

The Curmudgeon said in one of his posts that now that The Old Girl has gone back to Wellington, he can listen to his 60s and 70s music.

Well, tonight I've been listening to just that via youtube on the TV.
Rory Gallagher, Peter Green, Stan Webb, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee, Jeff beck - and the rest. Lovely.

Now I know that these guys, accomplished as they were, shamelessly stole from underpaid and under-recognised black American musicians. That's a fact but, to me, at the time, I felt that I had more in common with young, white, British musicians than a bunch of old guys from the 40s and 50s.

PRISON BLUES

THINGS AINT WHAT THEY USED TO BE

My local club had a jazz event yesterday - free to members.

The John Leigh Calder jazz quartet played between 4.30 and 7pm.

It was marvellous and such a nice day for it. The group set up on the deck overlooking McLeod Bay, sheltered from the bright sunshine but there was enough sun coming onto the deck to make it warm and lovely. I perched on a barstool by the deck rails and got the best of the view and the music.

I've been a bit disappointed in the club recently as it has changed in character and become like a Cosmopolitan club. It's been a bit boring going there. 

The usual crowd sat inside the bar area probably wishing that it was Barry Manilow playing, not some weird jazz group.

There was plenty of room to sit out on the deck closer to 'the action' but it was mostly visitors to the club that did this.



Oh well. I just hope that we get more of this sort of high quality entertainment.

WHO THE FUCK WAS PEARLY SPENCER?

Remember this?

THE DAYS OF PEARLY SPENCER

David McWilliams recorded this in 1967. It was quirky and the low tech. gave it a bit of mystery.

I didn't hear McWilliams' version until much later having heard The Avengers cover version in 1968. I remember community dances at Brooklyn when I was in the fifth form and The Avengers was one of the bands that played there. See: DANCING

THE AVENGERS - THE DAYS OF PEARLY SPENCER

I thought that this was an original song of theirs - how naive we all were in the pre-Google days.

The Avengers

********************

So, who the fuck was Pearly Spencer?

Wikipedia has some information on McWilliams and the song: HERE


Here's an except if you can't be arsed reading the Wikipedia link:

"The song had, according to Stuart Bailie of Radio Ulster, a "flickering, almost documentary style" in which it took listeners to the more run-down parts of Ballymena where people walked through rubble bare-foot looking old beyond their years. Due to the title of the song, many listeners believed that the song pertained to an individual harrowed by a poor lifestyle and poor-quality alcohol; McWilliams said he had written the song about a homeless man encountered in Ballymena. Some of those close to McWilliams, however, claimed he was writing about two ladies from his hometown."

FOUND IT

I'm sure that you occasionally have a piece of music in your head that drives you nuts because you can't remember the lyrics or the name of the song.

I've had one in my head for at least the last year and for the life of me couldn't place the name of the band, the lyrics or the name of the song. All I knew was that it was good, it was a New Zealand song and it originated in the 1990s. I would say it to The Old Girl - "It goes like this - da de da da dum.." and I found her to be very unhelpful. Google searches also were unhelpful as without the name of the song or the band, typing in "da de da da dum.." gets you nowhere.

I had a vague idea of the chorus line but it was like those songs where you've misheard the lyric and you go off on a tangent as I've done in the past:

• "Goodbye groovy Tuesday" instead of Goodbye Ruby Tuesday.
• "Loosely in the sky with Simon" instead of Lucy in the sky with diamonds.
• "These ants are my friends, they’re blowin’ in the wind" instead of The answer my friend is blowin' in the wind.
• " I skipped the light then dangled" instead of We skipped the light fandango.
• "Excuse me while I kiss this guy" instead of"Scuse me while I kiss the sky"

And of course in prayers at school: "Our Lady of the petrol sucker" instead of Our Lady of perpetual succour.

With this song in my head I'd sing the lyric "Copraphilia said.." to the Old Girl and ask if it rang any bells. She would just look at me strangely.

**************

This morning I read a list of the best New Zealand songs of the 1990s and there, in the middle of the list was GLORAFILIA by ZED. "This has to be it" I said to myself and then, with excitement looked it up on YouTube. It was - beauty!

GLORAFILIA

It's the song that's been bugging me for ages and was well worth the wait. It's a great quintessentially New Zealand pop song that captures being young and footloose in the Summer.

She keeps me waiting in the morning
Tying ribbons in her hair
And come the evening theres no warning
Why I'm not to know why she isn't there
No time to tell her all the reasons
Why I always disappear
And in those desperate situations
I just fade away still she never cares
But Glorafilia says
She says its just another Sunday afternoon oh oh
And Glorafilia says
She says there ain't no point in loving you no oh
She keeps me wrapped around her finger
So I don't know what to do
And using my imagination
She could set me free
I bet she's dying to
And sipping wine around a table
Her expense is plain to see
Entertainging for a living
She's got everything that she doesn't need
But Glorafilia says
She says its just another Sunday afternoon oh oh
And Glorafilia says
She says…

"SEE THOSE DOLLAR BILLS GO WHIRLING ROUND MY BED"

I've written a few posts about Patti Smith over the years. Here's one of them:

STILL GOOD AFTER 37 YEARS

I still listen to her music and would love to see her in concert again.

Patti Smith is coming to Auckland in April 2020 to perform in the excellent and intimate setting of the Auckland Town Hall.

Unfortunately I heard about the concert too late and when looking on-line for tickets to an extended show discovered that all of the upstairs seating was sold out and there was only standing room downstairs. I'm too old and infirm to stand in a 'mosh-pit' at a concert nowadays so that wasn't a consideration. Another thing that wasn't a consideration was the cost. $200 a ticket - to stand while being jostled by a whole lot of dickheads who probably don't know half of Smith's music.
Now that sounds arrogant and it actually is but I first started listening to Patti Smith in 1976 on the release of the first album HORSES and have bought or listened to all of her music since so I sort of feel that I have some investment here.

Further investment of $400 (The Old Girl wanted to come as well) plus the cost of her flying Wellington/Auckland return, the cost of me travelling Whangarei/Auckland return and the cost of accommodation in Auckland (we will have either sold or rented out the apartment by then) makes the whole exercise unaffordable.

Shame that. We need some: FREE MONEY

STEELY RHYTHMS AND RATTLETY-BANG

Wellington composer Chris Winter was on the news today with his soon to be released sound project based on traffic going through the Mt Victoria tunnel. It is named Carcophony.

CARCOPHANY

It is worth noting that a work named Car-cophany was made in 2013 in Sydney by Matthew Timmis

CAR-COPHANY

This got me thinking that Richard (of RBB) should get into this and create a symphony based on the car sounds from his neighbourhood in Nuova Lazio.

A possible name for it could be A RHAPSODY IN WAINUI (borrowed shamelessly from Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue. RHAPSODY IN BLUE and he could also borrow from Gershwin's An American In Paris with the Paris taxi horns TAXI HORNS.

SECTION 1: 

• Theme 1  Sound of car braking and sliding out of control.
• Theme 2  Car crashes into other parked cars with sound of broken glass and tearing metal.
• Theme 3  Car driving off with flat tyres - screeching sound of  wheel rims on road.
• Theme 4  Upward glissando of police car siren.
• Theme 5  Fluctuating tempo as fleeing car stops - doors open and slam shut - soft sounds of hot engine ticking over.
• Theme 6  Full orchestra playing faster with sound of police cars and Eagle helicopter chasing running car thieves 
• Theme 7  Dramatically slowing tempo as car thieves are captured and pushed down on the ground. Sporadic yells, cries, grunts and oaths.

SECTION 2:

• Theme 1 Staccato and repetitive sound of car running over potholed road
• Theme 2  Fortissimo dissonant chords lead into sounds of car alarms and smashing rear windows. Cymbals crashing.
• Theme 3  Trombones start low and then increase in volume as sound track of approaching car with no muffler nears. Percussion softly and becoming louder plays the beat
• Theme 4  Full orchestra plays upward chromatic scale with intermittent strident trumpet notes as sound track reveals car doing 'do-nuts', 'burn-outs' and 'wheelies'.
• Theme 5  Piano accompanied by sforzando orchestra leads to choir chorus in rising tempo as soundtrack introduces sounds of angry neighbours yelling at car drivers.
• Theme 6  Silence then soft glockenspiel and piano accents tinkling down again to silence.

           End.