Boys and girls can join into this, it is not meant to be a creepy thread. I dream of having a girlfriend like Lucinda, blond, tattooed, beautiful, fragile, immaculate and stunningly talented. I’m supposed to be over this (I’m 50 FFS!) but when I listen to her, I just imagine what life would have been like if we had met 30 years ago and got on rather well. I think I would have ended up having my heart broken, but would have counted it one up for me. Who are you still in love with?
For my lovely Sandra, the prettiest postmistress in Norfolk.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I have just discovered ee Cummings, and I have fallen very heavily.
If I was American today, I would feel like this.
Enough?
It’s time for a funk thread, I feel.
God I love a bit of funk. Sex set to music. We have not had too much funkystuff on the site, time to fix that I feel. Shine up your shoe soles, let out your trousers, grow your hair and dance round your kitchen!
LETS GET FUNKY!
The night I finally got Springsteen in my tractor
!990. Harvest time in Suffolk. I’d just finished law school and was working my last harvest on the family farm before submitting to a life of suits, offices, lies and legal rackets. Fieldwork in the tractor lasted until 11pm, and I was kept company by Broadland country radio. They played this, and it was the moment I realised that Springsteen was not just another bombastic shouty American twat, and that Emmylou Harris had the voice of an angel.
Do you think you’re skint? Been to a foodbank? Really?
I sold a magazine today on ebay for 8 quid, including postage. It paid for for dinner. Spent the week working at tree surgery, out of the house at 6am and back at 7.30 pm after a 2 hour commute each way. £50 quid a day. My missus does 2 days a week in the local post office for minimum wage, and we spend the rest of our free time buying things to sell at the local car boot sales. And I read a whinge in the Independent about a nurse on 26 grand a year who says she needs to go to foodbanks. I’ve not bought any music for two years, we think music is great but grub is better. We are lucky to live in such a great country. Not sure what this post is about to be honest.
Rock and roll.
Anjem Choudary
AC has been convicted of encouraging terrorism. Set aside for a second your worries about free speech etc, and remember this. Many of you recall (and have posted) going to seminal gigs by the Stones, Beatles, Buzzcocks, Pistols etc. AC was reported as having been a beer monster in the early 90’s. There are pictures. I proudly state that I went on the piss with him in 1992, and he was thrown out of the nightclub for having a knee-trembler in the loos with a local venus. Beat that Concheroo!
I am now divorced. It’s official, and rather sad.
My D.I.V.O.R.C.E became final yesterday. I understand that many people in my position have a knees up, celebrate, look forward to their freedom etc. If they have been in a crap relationship, been abused or made to feel unhappy, then good for them. Me, not so much. The beautiful and sweet mother of my two scrumptious girls has now been legally severed from me. I have a wonderful loving GF, which is great, and what is even better is that we are all having a family get-together tomorrow with my 82 yr old dad who is still somewhat bemused by all these unorthodox romantic arrangements. What with my dog dying and all, it strikes me that I am the subject of a country song. That’s it really. Post some maudlin country if you want to, be good to hear. Vim out.
The pinnacle of pop, Sam Cooke.
I’m not sure why, but tonight I have been listening to Sam Cooke. He is known as someone who was cut down far too soon, but he had a ten year recording career, which is much better than most. My goodness, but his voice goes right through me. He makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I am struggling to think of another singer who can move me like this. He is so technically perfect, yet without any evidence of craft or effort. Ella Fitzgerald can do this to me sometimes, and Otis too, and Van as well. But Sam is the man. He invented modern soul music. Can he be topped?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX6QlnlMqjE
Time for a Stevie Wonder thread
Inspired by recent threads about great runs of albums, may I propose SW’s great early 70’s run? Innervisions is in my all time top 5. Songs in the Key of Life is bubbling under. Although many would tell you that that record was the end of the run, I will maintain that Hotter Than July belongs with the greats.
Stevie was and is a polymath and a musical genius. Nobody, I mean nobody can do joy like he does. Plus funk, soul, jazz, balladry etc. He can even do top 5 cheese, and dismissing him for THAT SONG is a surefire way of demonstrating that you know fuck all about fuck all.
He is my musical hero. Share your love for SW here.
The joy of jingle jangle guitar
This record makes me sob for the lack of a Rickenbacker. Post your fave Byrds favourites here, and the best Lovin Spoonful, and Stonr Roses. What IS IT with that guitar sound?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlsWwR7Ar1o
The best news ever
Vim minor has just received an offer to read English at Cambridge. I know that this is all rather Mumsnet, but fuck I am proud. The first time this has happened in any number of generations of my family. All state school too. My heart is singing!!!
The Beatles. Where should I begin?
Ok. I suspect that I am not alone in being a big music fan who has always taken the Fabs for granted. I know all their singles like the back of my hand and can play half of them on the guitar, but I’ve never really explored the albums. To me they are a bit like opera, there to be discovered when I get round to it.
So, where should I begin?
Love Devotion Surrender
I picked this LP up on Sunday for 50p. I could not resist the gatefold sleeve featuring Mahavishnu John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana, and their groovy white suits. Most of all I was warmed by the relative innocence and sweetness of the idea of a Coltrane tribute album influenced by Sri Chinmoy. Happier happier days. Is it worth buying a record player to listen to it or is it a bit of a dirge?
Today’s charity shop treasure!
Today I picked up some Talking Heads singles (39p each) and was well pleased. Then I had a rummage in the sheet music box and found a bunch of original sheet music released contemporaneously with the singles. Much of it is silly fun stuff (Cliff Richard(Carrie), the three degrees, a couple of Drifters ones, some Status Quo. Really? You need sheet music to learn how to play the Quo?
They cost 50p each. Then, at the bottom of the pile, was a 1967 original song sheet (with original artwork by Klaus Voorman) for Here, there and everywhere. It’s worth a bloody fortune according to eBay apparently. I also found a signed one by Herman’s Hermits and a Pentangle one (“Take three girls). I know folk stuff goes well, particularly if it involves Thompson/Renbourne/Jansch. What a result!
The Smokie and David Soul might be going straight to the carboot though.
All the things I love, in one song
Fishing. Marriage. Divorce. 2 daughters, one fair and one fragile. Country. John Prine. Regret, love, poetry, insomnia (is that the time???). New love. Folk. Idealism. Love. My favourite song.
Redemption
It’ been a few months since we were off air, and it has been a strange and difficult time for me. My boozing had reached Olympic levels, and it was not doing my mental health any good at all. I have been living on a dwindling supply of capital, and it ran out in February, so that I had no money left to meet my obligations, most important of which was my youngest daughter’s 15th birthday. To cut a long story short, the rope seemed the best way out. So I strung myself up, while very pissed (I understand that this is relatively commonplace) and awaited developments. My beautiful girlfriend came home early (unexpectedly) and cut me down. Apparently my face was white, my lips were blue and my eyes were goggling. Police and ambulance came, my neck was strapped up, I had a brain scan, and was threatened with being sectioned when I tried to walk out of the hospital. For the last 4 weeks I have been resting at home, trying to get better. 4 weeks without the booze on next Tuesday. I have thrown myself upon the pro’s at the local NHS recovery service, and have really » Continue Reading.
My guitar ups and downs
Hello all, long time no speak!
Time for another of my guitar lesson updates. Alas, my posh guitar has been in hospital for a few months (badly dehydrated, unlike me…) but I now have it back and am joyfully picking away. I have discovered the magic of double drop D tuning. It’s fantastic, and has got a wonderful folky sound. I came across it while learning the attached Kate Rusby number, and it really lends itself to picking. Anyone got any great songs in this tuning? Surely Nick Drake must have used it?
Peace
Vim.
