Been blog slack for a week or so now due to workload and feeling rather yukky. Good friend arrived with a homeopathic remedy last night, some energy pills which I started tsking immediately! Weather doesn't help, we all need our daily dose of sunshine and it's just not happening. Still, can't complain - when I see the homes being destroyed by this relentless rain, I thank my lucky stars. Am hoping to go to Kenilowrth castle this afternoon to see a falconry display ... do they make little plastic macs for birds?

Music been a little lacking also, have listened to Shirley Bassey's fab new remix CD GET THE PARTY STARTED a couple of times. Love it, more detailed review later.

Partner has just told me that she has read that Fopp are in financial trouble. Shame, they are the tops for CD and DVD prices and seem to have all the albums reviewed in Mojo [my music bible]. They seem to have gone from 10 shops to loads. Expansion, the curse of the modern business world. Why not just have enough shops that you can afford to stock well instead of loads which you can't afford to stock and ultimately keep?

Just a little thank you to presenter Brian Matthews. How warm and luverly is it to hear The Sounds of the Sixties each Saturday morning? His voice is very Saturday and his knowledge is awesome.

Well, I now know what it's like to be at Glastonbury! No, I wasn't there, I was in Snitterfield covering a village fete with the hospital radio I work with. Our tech guy set up the equipment in the back of his car with a huge plastic sheet covering him whilst our MC's travelled the field with the remote mic covering falconry, the raffle draw, football match and countless other traditional events.
My jeans had mud up to the knees and we were a little cold and damp but the relentless English spirit survived as the organisers told us they had taken much more money at the gate than last year when it was a perfect, English sunny day. Way to go AND they booked us for next year!!

Got a comment on my JJ Cale post from one of his band members and a legend in his own right Rocky Frisco. In his own way, correcting me about the meanings of some of the tracks. It was a thrill to receive it and I have duly bought JJ Cale's first album Naturally and will post my thoughts as soon as it arives and I check it own.

Check out Rocky's amazing photo's on www.rockyfrisco.com

Ventured in JJ's territory thsi week, recommended by various people so listened to his 2003 album To Tulsa and Back. Have given it a few listenings but kind of expected more which I can't quite understand as I didn't know what to expect at all.

It's warm, easy and gentle and can be played anytime - which I did. It has a real friendly sound oozing from it like he's doing it for fun and after reading his biog on www.jjcale.com I think that's what he does, have fun with it all. There are no heavy messages and that's perhaps where I felt let down.
Mind you it is worth a listen for the ambience of it which takes over the substance.

3 Best Tracks For Me:
Stone River - Blues through and through
Rio - 'fun'
Another Song - cute with great banjo

My itunes has classed the album as Rock - Not So! It's blues with heart.

Had a Starbies today and saw the new CD by Macca, Memory Almost Full, on sale. Funny thing, they wasn't playing it but hey. So after 30 years with EMI he has signed over to Starbucks. Seems an odd thing to do, probably one of the best songwriters ever signing up to a coffee corporation.
It also means that it could knock his chart position as sales in any of the 540 UK Starbucks co not count in the official chart. Why not? Anyway he said that he's not worried and that he was aware of this when he got into the deal. I believe him as what on earth has he to prove.
He also went onto say that 'It's about finding ways to reach new people' So begs the question; does he think that there are a few folks out there somewhere who have not heard of him?

Source: The Independant on Sunday
10th June 07

If anyone reads my blog regulary you will know that a couple of months ago I was ready to close it. This was due to me being unable to write on more regular basis. Work, home, hobbies etc., you know how it is. I received some encouraing replies mostly saying that regularity is not the issuue, it's just that you continue to do it. So I did.

But a few days ago I almost closed it again due to a powerful and somewhat overwhelming book just published in the UK: The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture and Assaulting our Economy by Andrew Keen.

It tells of the impact of Web 2.0 [2nd generation of the internet/web by means of broadband] which is bassically the oncoming death of the music industry, world of media etc. Stuff that we sort of already know but he does back it all up with facts and numbers.
He is quite vitriolic about blogging and bloggers and how the vast majority of them are boring, propganda or marketing vehicles for companies. He is right in many ways and my own crisis of content on my own blog was based on this. But now, several days after finishing the book, it has galvanised me to continue.

This is because I care passionately about music, it's history, it's writers and artists, in fact everything about it. I am accutely aware in this world of 'lists', 'charts' and 'bestsellers' that the dumbing down process offers less rather than more. It also does not encourage exploration into anything other than chart music.

At the hospital radio station I volunteer at, we get so many young people join who have no more musical memory other than the 80's. many come back from collecting requests on the wards asking; 'who is Frank Sinatra' or 'Ella Fitzerald'? And so in some small way I wish to open up the world of music to whomever stumbles onto my blog.

I will keep going, in fact I have gone Pro now and actually pay for my blog. I am not on some evangelical mission. I simply want there to be spaces out on the ether that tells of the glorious music and it's heritage there is available in the world, either by ordering via the net on Amazon, going into a huge chain group and asking for it or downloading it from the web.

To quote Robert Crumb: I'll keep 'Truckin On'.

Picked this CD up for £1 at our Quiz Night. Apart from one track from Alison Krauss I have no idea who any of the other artists are so it was fun to listen to. I am sure it was the subject of either a TV or radio show.
The tracks are country of all types and opens with the wonderful Vinyl Records by Todd Snider - the lyrics are fab so here they are:

I've got a dusty old pile of vinyl records sittin' on my floor
I've played each one of 'em over and over a dozen times or more
All I've got is a beat up chair a mattress a fork and another to spare
And that dusty old pile of records on my floor

I got Willie, Waylon and Woody Guthrie
Jimmy Buffett, Lyle Lovett and Bobby Gentry
Jerry Jeff, Bob Dylan, Donnie Fritts,
The Dead, The Doors, Patsy Cline, John Prine and more
I got Jackson Browne, Townes Van Zandt, Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Harry Chapin, Guy Clark and Van Halen
I got Rita, Kris, Keith Sykes and Country Joe when he was singin' with the Fish you know
I got Emmylou, U2 and Arlo, James Taylor, Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Mojo Nixon,
Hendrix, Haggard and a whole lot more
In that dusty old pile of vinyl records I got sittin' on my floor

One time in San Francisco I was standin' in an airport line
In one bag I had all my clothes the other was all them ol' records of mine
The lady said I could only bring one bag
I had two, Oh what a drag
I had to jump on the plane and leave all my clothes behind

I got all of Booker T's, Tom T. Hall's,
Bobby Bare, Belafonte and the New York Dolls,
Billy Joe, Jimmy Croce, Kiss, Crosby Stills and Nash,
John, June and Roseanne Cash
I got Forbert, Fromholtz, Stevie Ray,
T-Birds, Yardbirds, Sam and Dave,
And as some of y'all mighta guessed already
I got piles and piles and piles of Tom Petty
In that dusty old pile of vinyl records I got sittin' on my floor

....love the fact that he sacrificed his clothes for that ole' vinyl.

Other notebale tracks are:
Something Beautiful - Tracy Bonham
Back To Me - Kathleen Edwards
I Am Aglow - Sarah Harmer [beautiful love song]

Apart from listening to this on a car journey my only audible top up today has been The Jazz streaming on my computer. It's OK but jukebox radio, doesn't really tell ot teach or inspire anything in your regarding jazz, just plays it at you.

This is my new toy, bought by my partner on a whim when noticing that our local music shop was closing down and had a 20% Off Everything sale. Such a shame because they are a great shop with really helpful staff and it means that when I break my banjo strings, they are only 10 minutes away. Now they are moving to the next town because our council have put the rent up by £10,000. They are moving to a bigger shop for less rent. Absolutely ludricrous on our councils part plus I don't blame the music shop.

Anyway, beacause all seems to be going well with my banjo practice and beacuase I keep saying 'I think I'll get my old guitar restrung', Sara bought me this:

It feels very different from the banjo [obviously] and is currently out of tune. I plan to get right on it as soon as I've cleared some work.

I work in both the book and th gift trade and if you like books try Scott Pack's excellent blog. www.meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack I read it not only because I am in the trade but because he is as into books as I am about music, and he lovingly photo's the books he has either purchased or is about to read the way I photo my music [check out my new header ... yes I've gone Pro as I had run out of space for further images].

Happy Monday!