Donald Trump is up for re election in 6 months. By general consensus and supported by daily evidence, he is destroying America internally and internationally, ruining the Country’s Integrity, infrastructure, reputation and as thousands of people are literally dying daily he self aggrandises, makes up nonsensical stories, corrupts, lies, and generally does his appalling stuff on the world stage. So what do the Democrats do to offer an alternative in the one and only opportunity they have for another four years ? They put forward a candidate who is even older then Trump, has potentially worsening cognitive function, has a record of lying and public misstatements, has sexual harassment accusations hanging over him, has possibly some suspicion over dealings with Ukraine and or China, and high a profile nepotism scandal ongoing. They couldn’t have given Trump more ammunition if they’d tried. In 2016 by general consensus it was ‘anybody but Hilary’ who’d have beaten Trump, can’t they see that it’s quite possible this will turn out to be ‘anyone but Joe’ in 2020. The UK equivalent maybe would have been to replace Jeremy Corbyn with Diane Abbott. There must be millions of swing voters in the US just despairing that’s » Continue Reading.

Following the recent Mastermind featuring a round on Steely Dan, where the contestant acquitted himself pretty well, although not as well as anyone on this Blog, I was interested to see a specialist round on ‘Celebrity Mastermind’ on the popular artist known as Drake. The contestant, a presenter and comedian called Yung Filly ( no, I’ve never heard of him either) scored 2 points. He then followed up with one further point on General knowledge. Whereas late 50s Ade Edmondson scored more on his specialist round than every other contestant scored in both rounds, and then doubled his score with general knowledge. Clearly Yung Filly likes Drake, knows his music and so he thought he could wing it by answering questions on the subject. He couldn’t. It struck me that we’re seeing the signs of the generation where Google covers all bases, knowledge and information so there’s no need to learn anything. The lack of general knowledge displayed by Yung Filly’and the following contestant of a similar age who scored zero on general knowledge, shows how little is retained in the brain these days. I know I’m generalising, and you can quote University Challenge to prove the exact opposite, but » Continue Reading.

Something that I don’t understand, but I know where to come to ask : What does /did a specific record Label actually do for an artist? I often hear and read about Artists being signed to the ‘wrong’ label for their genre, or even for their entire future career, and I wonder, what does a specific label do for a specific artist that other labels wouldn’t? I know the big labels had their sub labels, and I’m guessing that it meant specifically genre-knowledgeable Producers, Engineers, Marketing and PR people. But is there more to it than that?

I’m sure many of the AW will be aware of the Stables. For any that aren’t, the actual previous stables of John Dankworth and Cleo Laine, it is one of the most civilised, artist and patron friendly music venues in the country, staging hundreds of gigs and other events every year. Builders have been encroaching for a few years, and now it’s under direct threat. A previous petition to the Council seemed to have got it an exemption from future residents complaints, but somehow the Builders have ignored or bypassed it, so another petition has been got up. Please do it a favour and stop it going the same way of many other small music venues, it really doesn’t deserve it. Thanks. LT PS I have no connection to the Stables, other than being a regular gig attendee there. Even now I live in Hong Kong, I still travel 6000 miles a couple of times a year to see my favourite bands there. That’s how good it is!

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-stables%20

Who’d have thought it? Neil Young’s ludicrous attempt to make us all buy our music again at double the cost for no audible difference when played through an electronic Toblerone has failed. But fear not, he’s going to come up with something else.

The AW must have been a prime audience for buying the Pono, being both audiophiles and Neil Young disciples – did anyone actually get one?

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/neil-young-streaming-service/

That annoys me for no real reason : Why , when someone famous dies, do the tributes apparently have to be ‘led by’ the most famous person who tweets something? Surely they should be led by the person closest or suffers the most from the loss. But no, if Simon Cowel, Ant or Dec or some other ‘celebrity’ manages a comment, they have automatically ‘led’ the tributes. Apparently George Michael’s tributes were led by Brian May and Elton John. I’m sure his family really appreciate that – whilst not going a toss at the same time. It’s just annoying..

If so, how’s it going? I was on the verge of getting one when it launched, but thought I’d hold back based on the lack, and cost of content. Interested to hear if anyone took the plunge and how they have found it.

Without wanting to get too deep into politics and starting a row on this here blog, I have a question – why can’t/won’t the international community deal with Assad in Syria? No doubt I’m being naive, but how on earth can he and we just stand by and watch his entire country be decimated, with all of the millions displaced and leaving the country leaving the starved and dead amongst the rubble that comprises the Syrian cities. I don’t think for a minute that the whole situation is easily fixed but how can ‘we’ all just stand by and let him continue? Why isn’t he called to account or even mentioned when the Migrant crisis is reported night after night? And how the hell does he go about whatever his daily business is as the so called President of this total disaster? Just interested in views on how and why he can possibly remain in power? It’s beyond me.

I’ve seen Sandi Thom a few times in concert. With a band, ie drummer, bass, keyboards, guitarist, plus her. She’s always done a decent show, mainstream bluesy rock well played, presumably influenced by her now ex partner Joe Bonamassa, with a few ballads thrown in. So when we bought tickets for her 2015 tour that’s what we were expecting. But, on taking our seats at The Stables last Saturday night, its clear there’s no band, just a chair and 2 acoustic guitars on stage. To summarise what then followed : Heavily pregnant Sandi sits, babbles incessantly about her pregnancy, new husband and dog, who are apparently with her at the venue, her relocation from LA to Essex, endlessly tunes her guitar between every single song, and tunelessly strums 3 chords ( D, G and A from what I could tell) along to her- admittedly expressive – voice singing a selection of songs new and old. She does say that due to her pregnancy she can’t be ‘rocking, bouncing around, diving into the audience’ so there’s no band, just a ‘stripped back, chilled vibe’ . Er, excuse me, fair enough but this wasn’t advertised as such, this isn’t the show we » Continue Reading.

Supertramp cancel all of their upcoming shows due to serious ill health of Rick Davies. Almost certainly would have been their last hurrah. We really are coming to the end of an era, what with all the 40/50th anniversary tours going on. Shame about this one, I’d never seen the ‘Tramp and was looking forward to seeing them do their greatest hits, of which there are surprisingly many. Oh well, King Crimson will have to do.

http://supertramp.com/news/detail/supertramp_cancels_upcoming_european_tour/