Song Of The Week LXVII

This entire album is one of the best things I've discovered, but I probably say that about all my new favourite music.  Everything is my favourite.  I'm excitable, what can I tell you!

This is my favourite, no wait, this is my favourite, no, this is my favourite...

Maybe I just like a lot of really great stuff!

Well of course I do, I have fabulous taste, it goes without saying!

April Smith & The Great Picture Show -Terrible Things:

Craic

So here's what's been going on:

I had a weird dream. A really weird dream. Actually I had two, but the second one faded to nothing and I'm really cross I forgot it.
However the first one was superbly surreal.
I dreamt that I had a baby. It was a little boy, I don't remember naming him but a short while later I'd misplaced the baby. Careless and anywhere other than a dreamworld, a really terrible thing! Anyway, I had another baby, this time it was a girl. It was only a little while later and I seem to remember that mid birthing process I decided I'd have a sleep and finish off in the morning. Very realistic obviously. So in the morning I had a baby girl. I was really stressed out because I couldn't decide on a name for her. Then I found the baby boy and both babies turned into cats. Weirdly the baby boy turned into Mifford - especially as Mifford is a female cat. I was really worried that the baby boy/Mifford wouldn't like the baby girl/other cat, especially as I hadn't named her, but then Mifford starting licking the face of the other cat and I was ecstatically happy.
That's weird right?

My choice for a belated Song of The Week is coming up, damn this is a seriously sexy song, there was one video that had some superb photography but I went with this one instead.

Jace Everett - Bad Things:


I've been out in the garden quite a lot, eating almost exclusively every evening from what I've picked fresh from the vegetable patch. Salad is one of my favourite things in the world! Also I've had to put in new sowings of various things. I want my allotment!
Speaking of which.... I took a wander round the village to post back one of my lovefilm dvd's and as I passed the village noticeboard I paused to see what was posted there. I found myself reading, thoroughly, the minutes of the recent Parish Council meeting. I read the whole thing and what worries me most is that I found it quite interesting.
I got to read a bit about what is happening as regards the allotments and it's good to know I might still be in the running for a wee plot of land. Fingers crossed.

Someone ran into my Sky dish. I have a caravan as my prime suspect. What was really a pain was that it was going to take almost a full week to get it repaired. Again. It's sited in a ridiculous place and is frequently getting bash by high vehicles. Anyway, the delightful engineer arrived early on Saturday morning and moved the dish to a location that will require incredible ingenuity to be hit with anything at all. Oh how I missed my TV!

But, on the plus side, it did mean that I found time to sit and watch the entire box set of My So-Called Life. I am obviously deeply in love with Jordan Catalano again. What's rather disturbing is that, as this came out originally in 1994, I am now closer in age to the parents in the series than the kids. Crap. Back then, they were twice my age, now they're just 5 years older. Crap.

Oh, the other week I went to see the Battlefield Band! My last gig for a while, but on the upside I do have Cambridge Folk Festival in just over a week! Must be getting near the time where I have to start choosing my outfits! The weather forecast is not looking pretty so I suspect a lot of my outfits will be revolving around wellies. What looks good with wellies? Hmm? Anyone?
Yeah, nothing.
Can you even dance in wellies? This remains to be seen. Although to be fair, I'm not so sure that I dance so much as flail wildly and jump around. I'm not sure about my ability to dance a ceilidh in wellies though... what a shame there will be no video of my attempts.

I'm attempting to slowly take down my hateful conifer hedge. I don't strictly have permission to do so, so am attempting a very definite trim of the hedge in the hope it won't survive. If you feel like lopping off a few branches, please don't hesitate to pop over, for I shall not hesitate in handing to you the loppers! I'm wildly generous that way.
Mum is coming to stay for a while so I'll offer to let her cut some hedge too. See, my generosity knows no bounds.

Oh and finally, I have not sustained any new injuries! Remember that incident with the hand blender and my finger? The fingernail dropped off. Nice eh? Not in a gross way though - which is what I was really worried about. The slashed nail grew until finally it was too weak to carry on. It was a bit misshapen for a while but I think it's actually going to be ok, I'm sure that's a massive relief for everyone. I will have normal (ish) fingernails. Well, until the next time I do myself an injury that is....

Cats & Ducks

Thursday last week, I made my way down to Bristol to watch The Cat Empire. Always superb live and great high energy fun.
With the exception of missing one junction - which I will continue to blame on poor road signs - I made it without a problem, even driving into the city centre and finding my destination without a wrong turn. Without sat nav. Not half bad!
Met up with Siobhan and Aaron and we went for a pizza dinner, trying out the one of the new Leggera pizzas. God, just the word pizza makes me hungry.
Afterwards we headed to the venue and made our way in, taking up my traditional spot towards the front.
The support came on and were pretty good.
I told Siobhan that Felix in the Cat Empire was beautiful. She asked whether he was really beautiful, or just my idea of beautiful.
I think she might be trying to infer that I have occasionally unusual taste in men.
I assured her he really was very beautiful.
The band took to the stage, I pointed at the stage and said "That's Felix".
"Oh my God, that's like a real life Patrick Dempsey" she said, then turned to Aaron and continued "I'm sorry, but I might have to leave you".
Look how beautiful he is:

That man was standing just feet from me and I was able to contain myself. That's self control I tell you.
And for your viewing pleasure, here they are live, doing one of my favourite songs, in fact the chorus is my ringtone on my phone.
Oh, and check out the dude in black on the trumpet. That's Harry. I wouldn't be turning him down either! Plus that Harry, he can really scat.

A little bit of the lovely Harry (I'm generous today eh?):


So, after they came on stage the crowd got a little, well crowded, a lot of pushing and shoving commenced. After a song or two Aaron decided to bow out and during the next song, Siobhan and I nearly ended up getting pushed over. I grabbed her wrist and despite her declarations that she was fine I insisted it wasn't safe and we made an exit. Or rather I shoved a number of people and trampled on a lot of feet. We headed upwards and watched the gig from tv screens and where I was free to dance like a dervish, as is my wont.
Despite the crush at the front I had a splendid time.
When they did The Chariot (the first video) it went to an instrumental in the middle before suddenly morphing into Billie Jean, which was awesome. None of the band sang the verses but as it moved into the chorus the whole crowd started singing. I sorely missed someone doing a moonwalk but it was just brilliant, as they morphed back into The Chariot, Felix said they felt he deserved a tribute and it was an excellent one.

Post gig we headed back to Siobhan & Aaron's place where I kipped for the night, before heading home at lunchtime.
I again missed the damn junction, for the exact same road, but this time, brilliantly, I managed to not only miss the junction but then get caught up in the tailback following a small pile-up. And thus welcomed an extra couple of hours on to my journey.

Finally made it home in time for tea and started preparations for the picnic I'd arranged for Saturday. Only a small affair, but as it was the annual Dunston Duck Races I thought it would be a laugh for some of my mates to come over and bet on a duck or two.
So, at 11pm on Friday night, I was busy whipping up a couple of batches of cupcakes. I'll be uploading the recipe for the cupcakes with mascarpone & fruit on my cookery blog soon and you must try them, find any excuse you can, they were just so very, very good.

Saturday rolled around and it was picnic time, I took a sack trolley and made my way up to the green, laid out blankets and started to feast. To begin with it wash just Rachael and I as it was also a massive airshow just down the road and traffic was rather heaving. I suspect we looked quite funny with this enormous amount of food and just the pair of us, bit by bit other folks showed up. The kids ran up and down the beck, slowly getting wetter and wetter, but it was so warm that they seemed to dry almost as quickly. There's something about kids just jumping around in water, free fun and they make seemingly endless games out of it!

A little while later the races commenced. I bet on races 4 and 5.
Below is my duck, number 43. It's safe to say that this little grouping of ducks is towards the rear. I was in no danger of winning.

These would be the ducks making it under the finish line. Mine was still feasting on weeds or stuck behind an obstacle. Quite frankly number 43 let me down.
Truth be told, my bet on number 7 didn't go any better either. Ah well, it's a good job I'm not a gambler.

I managed to get a wonderful circular spot of sunburn on my back, having not thought through the keyhole part of my top very well. I just can't reach there with suncream!

Everyone but Rachael made their way home after the racing had finished. Rachael and I headed to my garden where we reopened the picnic leftovers. There was more feasting. I had made fresh lemonade and some elderflower cordial but Mifford wasn't allowed any, so as not to be outdone, she found her own sweet nectar:
Got to love a bit of watering can water, although that might only apply if you are a cat, or Mifford.
Once the sun started to cool, we headed in and watched Transporter 3, which I enjoyed. I know it's not a good movie, but I do like the Transporter movies, they make me laugh and the violence is just so wonderfully choreographed!

A final couple of notes. I totally ran over the big toe on my left foot with the sack trolley, I cannot tell you how that smarted. I did well not to curse in a number of different languages.
So, on Sunday my big toe was clearly swollen and I therefore decided that the ideal way to proceed would be to stub my little toe and hard. So hard it went a purple/black shade and I wondered for some time if I'd actually broken it.
It's a talent.

That's all for now folks, I have to go pick tea from the garden.
Oooh, it's raining and the sun is out, I also have to go see the rainbow.
I'm easily excited, me.

Michael Jackson

Song Of The Week LXIII - Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror:

I wonder how many blog posts are out there written about Michael Jackson and his sudden, unexpected death.

I heard the news and felt the shock. Sometimes you feel as though some people are going to live forever. The fact one day they will die is a concept you can't even begin to grapple with.
I watched the news, read the reports, saw the pictures but somehow you still expect that they'll turn round and tell you it's actually not real.

As a child I idolised Michael Jackson, I was a real fan. My best friend and I collected everything we could find about him, I had folder upon folder of newspaper & magazine clippings and dreamed that one day I'd see him perform live, that I'd get to be one of the girls that why always showed on TV in the throngs desperate to see him.
We went to see Moonwalker at the cinema so many times we got to know all the lines and sat in the back row singing along, being asked by the ushers how many times we'd seen it. I'm actually not sure of the number.

When the allegations hit, huge numbers of his fans stuck by him. I don't think those die hard fans ever believed he was capable of the terrible things he was accused of.
There was something about Michael, they called him Peter Pan, but to my mind he really had never grown up. He seemed barely to have progressed beyond adolescence in his mind.
Being in the spotlight for 45 years of your life has to take its toll.
Adults are a judgemental bunch and children so much less so. I really felt as though he chose to have a large part of his life around children for the freedom it gave him to be himself.
I remember an interview he did with Oprah, they had shots of a cinema he had built, which had hospital beds so that sick children could come, have fun and be cared for.
It never struck me as the behaviour of a man who would wish to cause children harm.
For those who chose to ignore his complete acquittal of the allegations made against him I feel a little pity, that they choose to believe the worst about people, I only hope that if they were ever placed in the same situation the world is kinder to them.
To loosely quote one of Michael's friends interviewed on the news; "I hope history will be kinder to Michael than contemporary media".

I remember, many years ago, when River Phoenix died I felt a profound sense of loss. I couldn't explain how I felt this grief for someone I didn't know. For someone who existed for me only on a screen or through the words in a magazine, but it was there and it was real.
I knew that I was not alone in that grief but it wasn't until I found a magazine article by someone explaining the reasons they felt a grief for this movie star that I really understood my own.
They ended the article by saying:
"We wondered how anyone could comprehend the grief we felt. How could they understand when he belonged to our generation. We understood because River spoke our language, voiced our worries and fears about our future. Only in the years to come will they realise how much he meant to us - a symbol of both our frustrations and hopes. Like his name suggested, he rose from the ashes of obscurity and flew in the face of public opinion with a poetic grace that matched the rhythm of the times."

Michael Jackson was a part of my childhood, my formative years, I practiced my terrible singing, I wanted to make a change, I wanted a pet chimp to be my best friend. I did feel almost as though I knew him, I felt his shyness and maybe I appreciated his eccentricity, knowing I carried my own with me.

I feel a deep sadness about his death. I feel for his family and his children who must now feel so bereft.
There's little to say that hasn't already been said, but what a real loss to the world of music too. He might not have released anything for a long time, but his catalogue stands up, as someone said, his World Record Album sales for Thriller will never be topped. So much is sold online now that that number of real world sales will just never be beaten.
That's one hell of a legacy.

I am to be found regularly joking about my age, about getting old, but then when someone just 16 years older than you are, dies, suddenly you appreciate how young you are. 50 is no age to die. I'm not sure what IS the right age, only that at 50 you expect to have decade upon decade left in front of you.

So, I join in with all those other grieving fans and people who felt like they knew him, who grew up with his music, those who don't care a jot that you couldn't put him in the pigeonhole marked 'normal' and those that will miss the opportunity to know what he had left to show us.

Sessions

This is very much how my weekend went:It shot past in a tremendous blur, although it was a very enjoyable blur!
I headed to Leicester to go to the 5th Big Session festival and had a superb time.
Friday saw me picking up Gary, loading up the car with tents and bedding and heading off to find ourselves a camping spot.
We put up our respective tents - I'm still sporting my vintage tent. It's so noticeably different from everything else it stands out really clearly in the field. Which rather suits me down to the ground.
Friday evening brought me the Peatbog Faeries and the Levellers. It's almost perfect I swear, I got myself to the front and danced, danced and danced. Included in that dancing was a lot of jumping and bouncing. I just can't help myself. It's safe to say I was thoroughly exhausted!

When I woke up on Saturday I was aware of several things. Firstly it was my birthday, I'd made it to my 34th year. Secondly my left foot was distinctly sore, I had a suspicion I'd landed funnily during a session of jumping and the sore foot was proof positive. Not only that, I appeared to also have rather hurt my ribs somehow. I'm clearly not built for that much bouncing.
As I laid there, thinking about opening the cards I'd brought with me, just so there would be something to open on my birthday I heard singing begin outside.
"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you"
What the hell?
They were women's voices, they clearly weren't singing to me. I listened to multiple birthday greetings, finally rousing myself and exiting the tent. I queried who was celebrating and when she stepped forward, I told her it was my birthday too!
What are the odds that in that big field two birthday girls would camp literally next to each other?!

Gary and I ended up spending most of the day in the Big Top, there's something strange about laying on a blanket where it feels clowns and acrobats should surely be dashing about. We listened to the bands that played without really moving to go the main stage until later in the day, but when we did I was suddenly taken by what I could hear. I felt myself being drawn to the stage and cursing myself for not having been there earlier. On stage were Baskery and I can't even begin to explain how good they were, I went to the CD tent to get their album almost immediately, I just had to have it, but they didn't have any! I was going to have to wait till I got home to hear more!
I'd intended to go back to the Big Top and dance in the ceilidh but the foot injury was clearly going to prevent any leaping about in a crazy fashion, much to Gary's obvious relief.
I ended up seeing Eliza Carthy for the third time in a couple of months and started to feel not unlike a stalker.
And as for the two women who talked for the entire set oh you're going on The List. I see a maiming in your future.
Gary was excited to see Billy Bragg who was next on stage, I made a swift exit and headed over to see Edward II where I danced most sedately, predominantly on one foot. These guys are doing a 12 month reunion, 10 years on from when they originally split. I am consoling myself that come hell or high water I am going to go and see them in November and dance properly! (That's like a maniac!)

Oysterband were closing the festival on Sunday and I was so excited about getting to see them again, I just always enjoy the camaraderie that comes from being in a crowd that has a deep love for the band on stage.
But before that Gary and I settled ourselves back into the Big Top as the sun was making infrequent appearances sadly.
I was most impressed with Fatima Spar & The Freedom Fries - definitely worth seeking out, I'll probably pick myself up an album at some point. They weren't at all like I was expecting and I do so love being surprised.
Gary had opted to stay and watch Adrian Edmondson & The Bad Seeds when I headed off to see Oysterband.
I was restrained and stood at the front but off to the side so I wouldn't be tempted to start leaping around!
The very last song they performed as an encore was done without microphones, and as such was very quiet, John Jones sang the first verse and without prompting, the audience all quietly joined in when it came to the chorus. There's something about that which I love, the knowledge of the songs, I feel like part of a shoal of fish, all moving without any apparent trigger to tell us what to do. I don't mind being a sheep in times like that, it's like a community for that song.
It's like knowing how a song goes and knowing that although there's a slow start, soon the fast part will come and as that first beat hits, the crowd raises as one into a big jump. I can't explain how exhilarating it is for me.
Without music I think I'd lose a part of myself.

I've written previously about the fact I'm not excited about Cambridge this year, but the Big Session has fully left me in the mood for it, I'm looking forward to seeing some new bands now.

When I got home and had to cut off my wristband, I felt a moment of loss, it's over for another year and the anticipation of what will come next year begins.

Song Of The Week LXII

Last Friday I went off to a festival, just for the day, at Southwell.
As there was a ceilidh on as well it seemed like a good chance to have a good dance and to see some new music.

I was really surprised to see that both of the stages had rows of chairs set up in front of them. I have never seen a festival with seating like that and it made me feel a little disappointed. What about dancing? What about lounging around? I'm not good at being stuck into conforming little rows.
Anyway, Rachael and I sat and watched a few acts, keeping our fingers crossed that the weather would hold.
As we watched one guitarist the lady behind us started commenting to her husband;
"I didn't think much of that first one" she said "it was just a bit of strumming!"
I should point out here that the guy was playing a wonderful bit of slide guitar and that Rachael had leant over to me at the end and said how much she'd liked it. He played beautifully and it showed how ignorant she was to assume it was 'just a bit of strumming'.
I willed her to be quiet.
For his second number he sang a song and for his third it was another instrumental piece on an acoustic guitar.
Again she piped up "I just don't understand it, is this a tune with a beginning, a middle and an end? Or does he just go on playing until he gets bored?"
I don't remember her husband replying, I'm only hoping that he was rolling his eyes and resisting the strong urge to slap him.
It would seem it is only music in her mind if there are words.
Poor old Beethoven. If only he'd known I'm sure he'd have mustered up a lyric or two.
Eventually she decided to leave and try the other stage. I did not shrilly scream Good Riddance as she exited, but trust me that took willpower.

The second stage at Southwell had been given a, somewhat uneven, wooden floor. I'd slipped on it twice and was becoming a little worried about the idea of dancing a ceilidh on it later on!

By now the rain had come in, Rachael and I decided that a pizza was the way forward and queued for a lovely wild mushroom affair which we then huddled under cover to eat before heading for more music.

Finally ceilidh time rolled around and this is where the song of the week comes in.

Steamchicken - Boston Tea Party:

Rachael and I danced this one. Well not this exact one as shown in the video, but this dance.
To be fair, in the video it doesn't look too chaotic, but imagine the hall filled with twice or thrice the number of people. Oh I can't tell you how I love to dance in a ceilidh, it's just guaranteed to make you laugh. If you ever get the chance, go on, go for it!
All I'll say is if they say the next dance is going to involve the move called 'the basket' sit that one out. Someone will always get hurt!!