Nerds and Geeks

You don't just have to be a techie to be a nerd or geek, although many are. Just today for instance I was reading that the UK's version of the coronavirus track and trace app didn't work that well and they'd abandoned it in favour of the one jointly developed by Apple and Google. I don't know about anyone else but derrrrr. I did wonder at the outset why the UK government would bother trying to outdo the nerds and geeks from two of the biggest and in my view best tech companies going. It was always going to be an uphill battle but I'm glad at least they've now seen the light. What was it Churchill said about the Americans? He said you can always count on the Americans to do the right thing.... after they've tried everything else first. Sounds about right for the UK too.

Just this week we had some friends over for lunch (first time since the lockdown was eased) and somehow the conversation got around to accountants (spoiler alert I have an accounting qualification). Apparently they are all OCD (I think that's the correct acronym but in any event it means Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is just about what our friend meant). Our friend therefore asked me if I am OCD. Tricky question actually. If I said no, any subsequent display of anything approaching compulsive behaviour would be highlighted no doubt. If I said yes, it would simply prove the point. Of course I said no... just before I wiped the kitchen counter 5 or 6 times. 

That isn't why I started this post though. I have been watching lots of You Tube videos in the past few lockdown weeks. What a choice! I started out searching for interesting things but quickly homed in on the daily broadcast from 10 Downing Street (I know, quite painful at times), some history podcasts about WWI in the main, but mostly live music from the bands and artists from the 60's and 70's that I like. It has become something of a compulsion for me now.... there I have acknowledged it... but what a wonderful journey.

I don't know how it has happened but as I type I am watching a 3 hour special celebrating the 25th anniversary of the death of Rory Gallagher. 

Not a well known name I know but Rory was a fantastic guitarist. I remember watching him many times in the 1970's and he was always great. He was one of those guys who had no idea or interest about the business, just about playing. He was very good indeed. This special has some people playing who I have never heard of and they are also really good. It made me think that you have to be really lucky to make it in that industry. Skill alone just does not cut it. But how on earth did I get here watching this?

It came about because I also found several channels on You Tube from people who assemble these wondrous clips and in some cases long segments of live concerts from the 1960's and 1970's ... the era that I listen to. I imagine there is the same for other interests and times. One guy I have now subscribed to has dozens of such long segments on his channel and only a couple of days ago I started looking at the dates when he/she put them together. Many were at random dates over the last 3-4 years but a growing number are coming every other day now. Clearly someone else has lots of time on their hands too! The fact that one of the segments I watched yesterday with Janis Joplin, Cream and Pink Floyd was premiered only 3 days before and had been watched by 20,000+ people already says lots I think. 

Not just me then.

Rockers Class of 2019... RIP

Each year I write a short post remembering those rockers who made a musical difference to me that passed away the year before. I am very late this year, I know, but here goes for 2019.

Neil Innes

Neil wasn't a real rocker but has a significant place in my memory because he wrote so many great songs for the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (who can forget Urban Spaceman?), Rutland Weekend Television and of course Monty Python. If you remember the 'Holy Grail' movie, Neil sang the 'Brave Sir Robin' song amongst others. A wonderful story surrounding his time in the Rutles (with Eric Idle of MPFC fame) was when struggling for a musical interlude in a show, they asked George Harrison from the Beatles to come on. He agreed but refused to play his then Number 1 song 'My Sweet Lord' on the show, which ended up in total disarray. Wonderful stuff.

Iain Sutherland

Back in 1971, I went to a day concert at The Oval in South London to see a host of different bands but mainly to see Frank Zappa who had his orchestra with him for that tour. The opening act was a band called Quiver and they were terrific. A year or so later they joined forces with a Scottish duo, the Sutherland Brothers, and I went to see them in Southend at the Queens Hotel, a dark and dingy basement club that always had great music. You never knew if they were open, or who was playing, but you knew if they did it would be on a Sunday night and this night they were open and the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver played. They were tremendous. Their big song wasn't even a big song for them but for Rod Stewart (Sailing), a song I never really liked, but they had tons of other great songs. Great band, great songs.

Ginger Baker

I first heard this maniac drumming I think in 1966 and wondered what the hell was all that noise about. He just kept on going and going and going in all directions at once. Powerful, yup. Melodic, yup. Played with the best group of ALL time, yup. That was Cream, by the way, but he also played in Blind Faith. I saw him first in Southend with a band called the Baker-Gurvitz Army. Lots of silly stories about his previous band Air Force but this one played all the old Cream songs. The band were actually pretty terrible but seeing Ginger was a pleasure all by itself. What a player.

Robert Hunter

It was my brother Jan that got me first to listen to the Grateful Dead. The LP was Live Dead, in retrospect a magnificent record and great intro to the Dead. I wish I realised at the time that even though the songs were 24 minutes long and seemed connected one with the next all through the record, that that was a pretty good thing. Many years later I managed to listen to the show all the way through without having to turn the record over every 20 minutes or so and it was fantastic. Robert wrote the lyrics to most of the tunes the band wrote, mostly with Jerry Garcia but also with the others if they needed it. So Trucking' with Bob Weir and Jerry, Box of Rain with Phil Lesh. Many others too. Great lyrics. So much more than girl meets boy, falls in love, etc. Made the songs sound interesting and also in many cases downright weird. Just what do the lyrics from Dark Star mean --- 'transitive nightfall of diamonds' -- or Box of Rain, or...

Gary Duncan

Before the Monterey Pop Festival brought Jimi Hendrix and The Who to America, US rock bands had a different edge to them. Listen to the older Big Brother and Quicksilver albums and you'll immediately know what I mean. They played and sort of played in a classical manner. Then came Jimi and The 'Oo and everything changed. Among my first introduction to San Francisco music prompted by the Dead and Jefferson Airplane, I found 'Happy Trails', a live album by Quicksilver Messenger Service. What a record. What a band. What great guitarists. Yes John Cipollina of course but also yes Gary Duncan. Great player.

Peter Tork

It was only the really young teeny-boppers that liked the Monkees but OK yes some of us others also liked them but didn't really admit to it. I liked the songs. I thought they were really good, catchy tunes, really nice harmonies, all the rest of it. I didn't care if the actors really didn't do the playing. I still don't know what instrument Peter Tork played. Some episodes had him on keyboards, others some sort of guitar, others still nothing just that goofy grin. Peter Tork was definitely my favourite Monkee.

Others

As the years pass and I acknowledge how old I am, I then have to add on a few years and pretty soon it gets to three score and ten, 70. Lots of the old rockers who are left are comfortably past this landmark. Mention goes out to Larry Wallis of the Pink Fairies (just listen to The Pigs of Uranus, that's him), Larry Taylor of Canned Heat, Ian Gibbons of the original Kinks, Dr. John and Dick Dale, the original surfing guitar guy. Also Peter Fonda of Easy Rider fame which movie brought the world Steppenwolf and many other great classic rock bands of the 70's. RIP all.

Anyway I'll leave the last word to Neil Innes and George Harrison from Rutland Weekend TV.

The Big Apple in 24 hours

A short while ago, I was in New York and my youngest Ali flew in to join me. It was meant to be a weekend but life intervened so it turned out to be only a little over 24 hours of father son togetherness and I meant to make the most of it.

Ali lives and works in Cayman but on occasion goes to Bermuda for work as well so it was fairly simple for him to jump on a plane for the 1 1/2 hour hop to JFK. I'd suggested he take the subway and I'd meet him and walk him around for the next 24 hours.

First thing was a late breakfast and I chose Sarge's Deli which I knew made the best all around corned beef hash in the world. Topped with 3 fried eggs and home fries, this is a real breakfast!

We ached as we came out but with the weather an unseasonal and balmy 23 degrees with bright sunshine, I proposed to walk Ali all over town. With New York set out in a classic grid pattern, all you needed to know are cross streets and you can find anywhere.

Ali needed some shopping, personal items, so we hit the stores. Midtown Mall is right next to Macy's so after blanking there, this was our target for Ali was on a budget. This all made me realise just how much US retail is suffering. There's so much of it, so many people looking to buy too, but with incomes not really rising and Amazon crowding out many retailers, those that remain have a tough time surviving.

We found a fairly ratty JC Penney as it happened with the men's department hosted by an attractive young lady who found a very special deal for Ali. I would have been absolutely mortified to be served in this fashion when I was younger and actually let an attractive young lady know what undies I wore, but then again being from the old school of Speedo's and tighty whiteys, perhaps that would be the case now too. Ali being from the new generation of board shorts and boxers held no such feeling.

As we had a subway card, we hopped on the subway for positively 4th Street (a nod to Bob Dylan who used to live there). This is Greenwich Village and home to our evening's entertainment. I wanted to show Ali the clubs and of course actually confirm that something would be on tonight. Cafe Wha was still there with the House Band due to start up around 5 pm, and around the corner Bleecker Street was also there and ..... had become almost gentrified. Possibly a Starbucks even.

When I first went to NYC back in the 1980's, it was dirty, edgy and a bit grungy. Some nice parts too of course but it had a definite Noo Yawk edge. That was one of the things that made it attractive. Perhaps it was the crack cocaine epidemic which hit the big apple in the mid-eighties? I never saw that in person but do remember walking up 5th Avenue at night near Grand Central Station with a work colleague and a couple of big black guys wearing reddish blazers came up behind us and said 'keep walking'. I hadn't a clue what was going on but my colleague said 'don't worry, they are the Angels'.... it may have been a different name but these were guys that roamed the street at nighttime to prevent people from being mugged.

There you go, the Guardian Angels.

It was Rudy Giuliani who was responsible for cleaning up NYC sometime later with his no nonsense policing tactics and I think he did a great job at that. New York is unquestionably a cleaner and safer city than it was but as we strolled along Bleecker Street, I did get the feeling that it had been tidied up a little too much. Gone were lots of the old grungy bars and eating places, gone were a number of places that showcased music like the Blues and Jazz. However Terra Blues still remains and we were able to confirm that there would be music later on.

We turned left up Broadway and because it was so lovely a day kept on walking. And walking. So much life to be seen in a city when you walk around it. New York is so fascinating too. You may think that being a huge city it has no distinctive bits and pieces but that is totally untrue. Korea Town, Japan Town, Chinatown, Little Italy, Hell's Kitchen... some great names too! Sarge's Diner was in a section called Murray Hill (2nd and 30-something). There were actually a few hills too, but not too drastic. Because big retail is suffering so much, mum and pop shops proliferate which I think is great as the independents reflect the community to a large extent and add great feel to the place. OK, I am a fan of the big apple. It's a real pleasure to visit.

Of course I wanted to eat at a venerable NY steakhouse but first choice Keens was full and Del Monico's could only manage a ridiculous time so we settled for Frankie & Johnnie's Steakhouse on W 37th street. It was great... of course. Steaks were huge and done beautifully. Martinis sang to us. Just a perfect preamble to the rest of the evening.

Cheers!

After this we soldiered back down to Greenwich Village for the Terra Blues experience and after some bar hopping, we finally arrived. I am pleased to say it was just how I remembered it. Small, low ceiling, little tables with chairs dotted around the club and some terrific blues. We stayed for 3 sets and made it back to our hotel about 3.30 am.

The following day was a Sunday so we wanted brunch which we found to be what almost every other New Yorker was doing as well. The myriad eateries that offered it were packed solid ... it was another lovely day so this is not surprising, however I remembered a Greek place on 1st Avenue and we wandered down there and were richly rewarded with piles of pancakes, French Toast and other goodies that you associate with brunch.

As we left JFK to our different destinations, we both agreed that we'd probably skip the next couple of meals.

Remembering 2018

Being a rock music lover, I try to take a moment to remember some of the greats that passed last year and for that thanks go to the website Ultimate Classic Rock dot com for helping me out here. As time goes by more and more rockers pass as well so that the list seems to be getting smaller over the years. I will remember each of those that I knew well in turn. Also gives me a chance to watch them strut their stuff in their prime. They were great!!

Marty Balin

Marty started Jefferson Airplane and was THE singer of the late 1960's. Never a Frank Sinatra but he and Grace Slick out in front always made me tingle. They were so good together that it surprised me to read (in both Grace's and Marty's) autobiographies that they'd never well you know had relations together. Grace had apparently had relations with everyone in the band.... except Marty. Maybe that's why he quit after Volunteers, maybe not. He was a great though and I will miss him.... and in fact I will probably put on a JA record onto my newly acquired turntable right now.

Danny Kirwan

Danny was one of the awesome guitar lineup that was the original Fleetwood Mac. Or rather to give it it's full name Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Featuring Jeremy Spencer. Danny was a Peter Green protege and PG wanted him in the band for when he wanted to just stretch out and jam. Jeremy Spencer mostly played slide and loved the old blues guys and didn't want any of that so Peter got Danny in and they were just awesome together. He wrote a lot of Mac's tunes of the times when he arrived, still a teenager. And that is how I will remember him for he had a sad life later on.

Just listen to him and Peter Green go though. Just electric.

Otis Rush

What a guitarist. Not much more that I can add for although I loved how he played I sadly don't know much about him other than from what I picked up listening to his work on tunes I'd first heard from mainly English blues players.

Fast Eddie Clarke

Is it fashionable to like Motorhead? Not sure as people sneer at their down and dirty heavy metal but the metal heads love them. Why? Well of course who doesn't like Lemmy? He was dirty, drunk, fun and funny. He could play too and he wanted to play loud and fast. So he needed a loud and fast guitarist and who better than Fast Eddie? I don't care what people think, I love them!!

Ed King

I think I've written about Lynyrd Skynyrd's visit to my home town Southend on Sea supporting Golden Earring and playing their first album. That must have been in 1974. They were brilliant of course but I was more fazed about a really cute girl that I had been trying to meet whom I saw backstage with one of the cuter guitarists than Ed King. Talk about devastated. Mind you as I said the band were brilliant. Ed quit reasonably early so avoided the plane crash which wiped out the early band, as he didnt like touring apparently. Can't imagine why. That girl was really cute.

Ed wrote a lot of the tunes including Sweet Home Alabama where he played lead, and truly fantastic lead solos they were. In fact I recently watched a YouTube video of an early Skynyrd show and it was all Ed playing solos. Not the other two so much. Here's a 1974 video from You Tube from a show in Germany promoting the tune as their new single. Fantastic playing by Ed.

RIP all you guys.

Recapping

We've had three and a half months away from Penang, half in Bermuda, half in Toronto, and it was a great time. Visiting the place where we'd lived for 32 years, seeing friends and hanging out, going to concerts of rock bands from the 1970's who are just about hanging on but still rocking. It has been great.

Here are some highlights.

1. Bermuda Beaches

No words necessary here. I'd forgotten how beautiful they were. Here's a brief reminder.

Warwick Long Bay and one of the many nameless beaches at Coopers Island

Who wouldn't want to swim here?

2. History and Tradition

I don't think people look back enough and consider where they come from and just why what exists today exists today. It all comes from the past and whilst the way history was taught to me when I was at school was largely an exercise in rote learning dates and in a way that tried to parcel up history into chunks -- mine for example was at O Level from 1485-1688 and from 1688 to 1815... we had two exams, written essays both, covering each of these periods. In isolation this means that history did not exist either before or after these dates which is of course ridiculous.

History writers today cover this much better and attempt to contextualise history in that they also explain or rather try to explain the 'why'. Much of this is down to conjecture as nobody alive then (say in Roman times) is alive today.

I really enjoyed Quebec City but one of those history 'why' moments was the best. Napoleon's blockade of Britain during the Napoleonic Wars forced Britain to look elsewhere for timber for the Royal Navy... hence the opening up of Canada.

Trooping the color... all in French!

The St Lawrence Seaway, one of the great sea lanes that opened up the entire continent

3. Tennis

Both of us are tennis players and were able to indulge both playing and watching whilst we were traveling. I still think that our 'home' tennis club in Bermuda is one of the nicest places to play tennis and as hard courts go is up there with the best.

Beers under the trees in between the courts is very nice indeed!

We only planned to watch one day of tennis at the Rogers Cup in Toronto but ended up going 3 or 4 days... ironically the worst day was the one we'd originally chosen and the others ended up being far better. We also had visitors over this time too which made it doubly nice.

How do they manage to hit the ball?

4. Eating

We like to eat. Simple as that. So finding great places to eat and nice things to eat are important. We got really lucky!

Dodge City steak

Milanese from an Italian in Miami during our horrible hiatus

Quebec lobster

Poutine and traditional Quebec meat pie

Amazing French stick from Toronto

5. Music

Given that we went to all of those concerts, this just had to be included. I enjoyed all of the shows but if I were pushed would have to give pole position to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the last show of all. ZZ Top though were the only band to have not changed personnel for whatever reason over the years. They ran close but...

6. Selfies

Selfies are a great notion and do enable you to take interesting pictures but they do tend to be really awful a lot of the time. We tried to do at least one selfie each day and in almost all occasions deleted them immediately. Perhaps my arms aren't long enough or just as likely I am not that great a photo snapper.

See what I mean?

7. Traveling Companion

Of course the best thing of all was to have a wonderful traveling companion and I was lucky enough to have the best!

Lord Knows I Can't Change

You know when the world has gone mad when you read a review of a simple rock concert and it forgets about the music and drones on and on about inexplicable connections to random things that 20 year old kids never thought about when they wrote them. This is the Globe and Mail:

"At the Toronto concert, which is part of an extended farewell tour, Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant (the much younger brother of Ronnie Van Zant, the singer who was killed along with two other band members in a plane crash in 1977) asked if there were any Americans in the audience. People booed at that instance, but otherwise lustily applauded a retiring group “singing songs about the South land.” They cheered the loudest for the show-closing Free Bird, a euphoric anthem, a defiant declaration of the band’s rebel spirit – “Lord help me, I can’t change” – and, ultimately, a farewell.

"There’s a certain romance to the band’s rebellious spirit. Nostalgia is a part of it as well. But, mostly, the material was the main appeal of the night. It stands up, even if some of its most important creators no longer do. Sweet Home Alabama still has the ability to “pick me up when I’m feeling blue,” all these years later."

This makes me wonder if the reviewer was actually there at the show or simply wrote an op-ed based on whatever crusade he was on at the time. For goodness sake, these tunes were written by a bunch of 20 year olds hoping against hope to make the big time. No political side to things. Actually the band is very good friends with Neil Young and this was a gentle piece of mickey taking ... according to another biopic on You Tube, that great encyclopedia of the modern day.

It was a great night except that Viv gave her ticket to one of our friends who was visiting us, Martin from Boston. She'd threatened this at each show but this time it was for real which was a shame as it was the best show of all.

I hadn't realized there'd be other bands as well as ZZ Top and was surprised when we turned up to find Blackfoot churning away. Then 38 Special, another 2nd or 3rd tier American band who are very, very accomplished. Both I'd never given much time to but I was looking forward to ZZ Top and boy did they deliver.

I'd watched yet another biopic on You Tube and learned like many bands from the 1970s who sort of quit at the beginning of the 1980s when they became dinosaurs, out of fashion with what was going on, they got back together largely because the people who were their fans in the 1970s were still their fans, but now had jobs, families and other responsibilities. I remember crying when The Who announced their break up in 1982, for example. Returning to ZZ Top they got back together again a few years later and discovered that they had both grown beards, well Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill had anyway. So they kept them and started playing once more.

Who even knows what they look like before those beards??

This is what they look like before they had beards. Or rather long beards

They were great!

As for Lynyrd Skynyrd, I'd seen them 8 or 9 times before. It was John Peel in England who introduced me to them and I remember buying their first album as an expensive US import when I was at college during a (one of many) rail strike in London. I had to lug the damn thing around with me for days before I could get it home and listen to it. 

The first show of theirs I saw was in Southend at the Kursaal when they supported Golden Earring, a fabulous Dutch rock band. They were fantastic however I was really disappointed that a girl I really fancied who wore a long Afghan coat (as I recall) ended up backstage snogging one of the guitarists... and I suppose did other things too. I dropped the notion of chasing her immediately.

The guitarist on the right, Allen Collins, was the guy snogging that girl I fancied at the Kursaal!

Others followed including one in the US sometime in the 1990s when they played the same set as they did tonight. Boy, am I glad some things don't change. Sounds like the title of this blog! Mind you their significant years were in such a short space of time before they went down in a plane crash when a number died. Only one is alive and in the band these days.

The sole survivor, Gary Rossington

The audience went wild throughout... including myself! I video'd the encore 'Freebird' all 14 minutes of it and can tell you that holding up that damn phone was hard work on some muscles in my arm that I didn't know that I had.

Thanks guys! You were and remain the best!! Oh yes and here of course is.... from Toronto 2018 in all its glory. Hope you like it!!

Watershed

Its been a week or so since Viv and I went to see the next band on our summer to do list in Toronto and that time has provided food for thought. I cannot say that it has been great thought or even very deep, just rambling thought.

Unlike the other shows, this day it rained. Poured in fact and all the way down to the concert as we trolled from the trolley stop to the venue at the Budweiser Amphitheatre on the lake shore, I was trying to remember when Viv started quizzing whether I had bought tickets under the roof or not. I couldn't remember so kept my fingers crossed and tried to keep changing the subject.

I had also forgotten there were two bands that night: REO Speedwagon being the other. Now I'd never really had any opinion of them. They were just another 2nd or 3rd tier American rock band of the the 1970's when I was listening to 2nd or 3rd or 4th or 5th tier rock bands in England, so I never heard any of their songs. Tonight though they may have played a lot of them because the audience was very responsive. And of course truth be told they were very, very professional and very, very accomplished. Like every other band from that era.

Listening to them actually made me feel a little guilty. How had I missed them? Why would I have missed them? They were good. Distance of course made that happen but I'd heard of a host of other American bands, some of whom were pretty obscure, so why not them? I think it was because they released a single that was cloyingly sickly and put me off from day 1. Don't ask me what that song was as I don't remember but they probably played it.

Blame singles then. But that would be unfair as the headliner was one that I'd 'discovered' as a result of a single they released back in 1968 or 1969 that was a total killer in England. The song was 'I'm a Man' and the band was either 'Chicago Transit Authority' or just plain 'Chicago', the name of their first album as well and confusingly in the liner notes they referred to this as well. Subsequently they became just Chicago so lets stay with them there.

I had watched a documentary/biopic on the band a few days earlier on You Tube (and don't you just love You Tube for stuff like this) and the band had said that their earliest singles had flopped until... and then they named something else (forget which tune). But that was wrong I thought for they were unheard of in England until their I'm a Man single went into the Top 10 in January 1970 (I thought it was earlier than this). Anyway on the basis of this single I, or rather my brother Jan and I, went out and bought their first album. He has it now regrettably but in my view this is their best album.

The show was a replicant of their second album, Chicago II, and was just great. They played their music and it wasn't just songs. It was their album. The second section was in their words "the songs you hear on the radio all the time". Their greatest hits collection in fact and my goodness it made me wonder just when they had become a ballad band. That wasn't what I heard on their first album and again to get clarity on this we must return to the biopic.

Basically it happened all of a sudden without them noticing either. The first inkling they had was when their bass player departed for a solo career. He was the cute one with the voice that sang all those ballads. However, they are stuck with an amazing back catalog and that is what the punters want to hear. Hence the greatest hits.

I so wanted to hear their first album greats again but I suppose they have released 20 or so later albums so shouldn't be surprised. But for those longing to hear them in their pomp go back to You Tube and listen to their concert at Tanglewood in 1970. Here it is!! Anyway the audience went wild and Viv sang along to their ballads.

And if you want to know what it was that took England by storm back in 1969 or 1970 well here that is too!!

They were really good.

And if you've made it this far in the blog and want to know whether I had actually bought tickets under cover or not, well I'll tell you. You know the bit of the roof when it comes to the edge and sort of turns down? Well when it rains the drips keep on coming because of that design.

Sadly our seats were directly underneath this....

Does Bryan Adams look like Albert Steptoe?

A couple of days ago, we went to see Bryan Adams, the Canadian rocker, at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto... OK its called the Scotiabank Centre these days but I still think of it as the ACC as do the signs heading in. Whilst it didn't confuse me, it apparently did Bryan Adams who was stuck in traffic a way away and decided it would be easier to walk and found himself confronted with signs to the ACC! Anyway we all made it, him 21 minutes late as the show started at 8.21 pm not the advertised 8 pm.

This is something I find inherently weird as rock concerts in the old days never ran on time. The time on the ticket was merely a first stab in the dark. I remember some venues simply saying "Doors Open at ..." instead of even trying to hazard a guess at what time things would kick off. I suppose it is all down to getting old and the venues themselves now having to adhere to health and safety standards, employment standards, cut off times and such. But anyway along with improvisation, things have changed.

It was a really great show. He got everyone up from the first song and kept it going for more than 2 hours with everyone on their feet, stomping, cheering and singing along.

I still cannot fathom why The Eagles didn't do the same only a couple of weeks ago at the same venue. They have a great catalogue and could easily have done so but seemed to actively chose not to.

Bryan has got older though. I remember him as a teenager I think in early MTV days doing 'Summer of 69', a great song on many levels. But he is in great nick.

There was a movie of him as backdrop walking through the Eaton Centre mall. Most people didn't recognize him but about half a dozen did and he stopped to shake hands or high 5 them. All in all he seems a thoroughly nice guy too. I like the fact that its still his original band from teenage days. Not many are like that. The first time I heard him live was at Live Aid in 1985. This set in fact... enjoy!

Anyway I still think he looks like Albert Steptoe. A bit.

Music Nerds

It has been a while since I've given full rein to my inner nerd so far it runs to music but lately it has been picking up and I expect that by the time the next couple of weeks is over that it will be running at full blast as this is the time in which I will be seeing another three concerts of bands who are realistically towards the end of their careers as opposed to being in the early stages. Were you to suggest that I am ticking boxes, then to a certain extent you may be correct although these are bands that I will enjoy watching. 

However that isn't why this blog exists, that is because of a series of events that have taken place recently that haven't really shaken me as such as reaffirmed that somewhere there is someone who really does care who painted the goal posts for the 1959 FA Cup Final in England, for example. How or why I know that I do not know, but I do. His name won't mean anything to anyone, it is just trivia of the minutest sort. And that of course extends to music. All categories. All eras.

Were I to answer questions on my specialist subject for Mastermind (even if that show still exists), 20 years ago there would have been a toss up between 'The Lord of the Rings' and rock music between the years 1965 and 1975. If I could have gone to university on either of those subjects I would be classified a genius by now. Sadly both subjects are relatively useless in the real world... or so I thought until last week.

That was when I discovered Kop's Records in Toronto. And in particular Nick.

I was looking to sell some of my old vinyl records and found them on the internet. I liked the FAQ part in particular as those were clearly written by a sage of some sort. So I stuffed a bunch of records into my carry on and ultimately made it there where I met Chris first (Nick's dad) who spoke non-stop for 10 minutes about northern soul (English northern soul that is, not the generalist stuff) which amazingly I happen to like but Chris told me that his passion lay in the 1965-1969 era...

But that wasn't why I was there, I had mainly rock and blues music albums hence Nick. One thing throughout this that amazed me was Nick's knowledge of arcane details (I have the same disease) for one so young but even though the music was the same, i.e. the band would be say Savoy Brown, a relatively obscure English blues band from the 1960's, he would know stuff about them from a North American perspective whilst I had no knowledge of that, rather a knowledge of arcane details about Savoy Brown from an English perspective. I think I was able to impress him with my having seen the band at the Royal Albert Hall in 1971 when they were supporting Captain Beefheart. 

(Also this is my excuse to include a Beefheart tune!!)

It carried on from there. The first day, Viv and I dragged a bag each containing Cliff Richard, Dionne Warwick, The Eagles, Beach Boys, Beatles, Byrds, Yes, Steve Miller and more with the stand out top of the line album being ... 'Roll 'Em, Smoke 'Em' performed by those luminaries Patto. Yes, the exact same album that I found in that record shop in Tokyo with Indy a couple of years back which was the, sorry THE most expensive album in the store. Bar none. That made me listen to it again to see if it was any better second time around (for I had only ever listened to it the once and I thought it was rubbish). It was still rubbish. So that record which I bought probably in 1973 and played twice was THE standout in all the records I was selling!

It irked me quite a lot, I must say for Nick compounded it by droning on about the progressive guitarist that was very popular with the collectors, namely Mike Patto. And this record was rare in this condition too. 

This is what I found throughout the sale process. The sole Captain Beefhart record I was selling 'Bluejeans and Moonbeams', was a shocker. The concert to promote the album was also a shocker. No Rockette Morton or Winged Eel Fingerling. No Drumbo, just a bunch of hacks playing what sounded like Carpenters music. No matter, Nick said, people will buy ANY Beefhart album. No way were they going to touch any of my other classics, I thought. Anything you think may not sell, will and things that you think will, won't. And its nothing to do with how good the music is. It is all about whether the pressing is original, if its English (in North America that is rare), and so on. So my Spooky Tooth albums also sold well.

It all came as rather a wrench actually to see my treasures leave me like this however I consoled myself in the knowledge that they would in all likelihood go to a good home. The top sellers can run above $500, say for a Led Zeppelin 1 first day release which had unique identifiers on every album cover. So I went back a second day with some more treasures where I met along with Nick another guy who seemed to spend all his time poring through the entire collection of thousand of albums looking for that one.

No idea where the identifier was meant to be, I'm afraid

Unlike Nick, he didn't like to share stories. He just liked to talk and you know when you reach that point when you are with a subject matter expert, and he/she knows waaaay more than you do about that subject, but he/she keeps droning on for sooooo long that along the way even though you are really interested in that subject... you really just don't give a damn any longer? Well I reached that point and I couldn't even be bothered to correct him about his errors to do with The Voice, Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company (artful connection with previous post here!) which he just couldn't bring himself to stop making. So it came as quite a pleasant surprise when just as I was leaving he was bragging about finding a really old, original Beatles record and waved it around for at the top of it was Viv's name dated 1964, a present from her dad. I just told him that it was a Hong Kong pressing and as I left the shop I could see him examining the record from all different directions and just knew the old microscope would be coming out soon.

All in all though it was a great experience to just nerd up again and spend time talking absolute pointless trivia with someone who actually was prepared to share knowledge. Thanks Nick. Great to meet you and I will contact my brother who has an even more eclectic collection than I do.... did.... even though I still have more than 200 vinyl albums just lying around.

Is Three Really Better Than One?

In the sixties (and likely before that too), it was commonplace for groups to go out on the road en masse. Three or four different acts on a single bill. According to Steve Winwood, his then band, the Spencer Davis Group, went out under his record label's aegis with Jimi Hendrix, The Who and 2 other bands that would soon sell out stadiums. So when I saw the advert for the Stars Align tour I was all for it.

This tour combined the talents of Ann Wilson from Heart, Paul Rodgers late of Bad Company and Free with his new band called Free Spirit, and the last was Jeff Beck. I thought wow, this would be great so bought tickets for the show which was held last night at the Budweiser Auditorium down on the lakeshore in Toronto.

I didn't think much about whether the three acts would coalesce at all as in the past Paul Rodgers had made albums which Jeff Beck had played on, notably blues albums on which he'd done a marvelous job backing The Voice. So I thought that maybe they'd play together for some songs... but they didn't. It was three separate sets.

The event was very well staged, organized and all logistics well thought out so when the ticket said they started at 7 pm, that's exactly what happened.  So we missed Ann Wilson's first song and seemingly her only Heart tune called 'Barracuda'. However the rest of the set was pretty good and pretty well immediately she started showcasing her new album which is a batch of covers of old songs done anew.

Final song was 'Won't Get Fooled Again' which had the big crowd on their feet howling and screaming and by 7.45 pm she was off.

What exactly do rock stars do at 7.45 pm in an evening having played their one and only set? In the old days, she'd have been on around 9 or 9.30 pm and probably wouldn't have finished until past midnight, in those days there being no curfews like now.

This is the second time that I've seen AW, first was with Heart a few years back, and I did enjoy it although would have loved to have heard a couple more original Heart tunes. Like this one!

I love that song. Becoming a music nerd for a moment, I heard of the band pretty much as soon as Jefferson Airplane broke up and I was heartbroken at the thought of never hearing Grace Slick play again. I read a review of their first album in the English music paper, New Musical Express, and went out and bought it.

**

For some reason I thought Jeff Beck would be on next but I was totally wrong as it was Paul Rodgers and he came out with a 5 piece band and played a terrific set. I sang along and clapped happily but as I love Free so much, I will further descend to nerd-dom and write a single post in adulation of these guys. Well the original guys actually even though the band was pretty good and rocked on well.

I did wonder though whether for the North American tour, they had to add more Bad Company tunes to the set as it was pretty much 50/50 Free/Bad Company tunes. I know that Free never really made it in the US back then. Their first tour was supporting Blind Faith and the band acknowledged it was terrible and finally it was the prospect of another tour that broke the band up entirely.

It didn't matter to me much though as using my nerd hat yet again, I can claim to have been there when Bad Company played their first show. Charlton in south east London in May 1974. Bad Company opened. It was only a short while after Free had finally broken up and nobody knew any of the tunes at all. You can hear it when you listen to the concert tapes (which I have). They were really good though.

I'd seen The Voice again in Virginia at some point in the 1990's (can't remember exactly) and it was more a Bad Company set then although they did play 'Mr Big' as they did last night. But that time you couldn't here anything but feedback, this time was a bit better. And I do say a bit better for it was still a bit fuzzy.  Just listen to this one and see what the song should sound like!

The Voice is doing great though. He must be late 60's by now and is trim and in fine voice. Loved the show!

**

First let me state here that I think Jeff Beck is a great guitarist. Some of the things he does for a man of his age (into his 70's now) are truly incredible. I don't they should be allowed personally. But after the 4th tune into his set I was thinking that this must be the most difficult series of tunes to listen to as they were all improvised and all over the place. Self indulgence was the phrase that came to mind. I nearly suggested to Viv that we should leave ... but the rest of the huge crowd were going wild and as I thought these people are both my age and clearly old time rockers, there has to be something in this at some point that I will enjoy and well the more I listened, the more I did. Enjoy.

Actually it was mind boggling. Viv said her heart was palpitating out of control during the set. I wasn't that far but after a while I was able to pick up themes within each piece... not tunes yet. Not quite melody even. But themes. And then... I recognized a tune!!! I was pretty pleased with myself. It was 'Little Wing' by Jimi Hendrix without the original melody and lick, but with a vocalist and a theme that was Hendrix all the way through it.

So the set started pretty much for me at that point and I was able to recognize some other tunes too as the set progressed. 'Superstition' was a song written by Stevie Wonder that Jeff Beck had said at a concert I had been to of his with a band called Beck, Bogert and Appice back in 1972 or 1973, I forget which. They finished with 'Day in the Life' by the Beatles and 'Down, Down' a Beck blues reworking.  The crowd went nuts.

I still think though that I prefer him in a band. Like the Yardbirds, with Eric Clapton, or...

Like this!!!

All in all, this was a great Toronto night!!