Things I feel the need to share; Volume One

Notes on a Saturday

I took some pictures yesterday during my bike ride to the next town east. But the computer won't let me have them, so the pictures will remain hidden for now and I'll plagiarise this one from the internet.

I went along the coast, past old churches and castles and monuments and coastguard cottages. There was also a military canal, a left over guard point from WWII, a lot of signs detailing history. The Normans were here, there were smugglers in the eighteenth century, it was French territory until Henry VIII, the shoreline was further inland, seventeen coastguard men lost their lives in a storm at this point at this time.

In the town of Rye the antique shops outnumber the rest (including one called RYE DIY). I can hear the accents of American and French tourists and it seems strange. We don't get tourists in Hastings, the reputation of St Leonards is such that even people in neighbouring Hastings and Bexhill don't go there.

The train from Rye only comes once an hour. I catch it back and check the map. Must have been about 17 miles I rode today.

That evening I meet friends and we go to the (re)opening of The Roomz. Back in December, when I arrived in St Leonards I was delighted to find a music venue just around the corner called The Rooms, basically a small cafe/performance space with some rehearsal rooms in the basement. It went to see a blues band play there in December and the next week I saw it had closed down. Well last night it re-opened with a new coat of paint and now definitely more hip with a 'z' in its title.

The highlight of the night was the Swedish/Russian gypsy punk act called The White Trash Family. The drama of the night came when, during the warm up act, a member of The White Trash got locked in the toilet. It seems the new door handle was reluctant to move. The barman who was in middle of fetching my round had to go and help. In the end, my friend Mark (a plumber by day) used a knife from the kitchen to get it open- all to massive applause from the packed out audience. However, this was not before the fire service had been called and for some reason the bar staff had been told not to serve anyone until the fireman had given the all clear. The barman, quite young and now very flustered, got back to my round. I felt very honest in reminding him of the two drinks he had forgotten to charge me for.

Still it was nice to be listening to good live music again and to have A Very Nice Saturday.

Where it all started.

FOR CURMUDGEON

This is actually the song I was most referring to:



Note the jaw grinding between every line. This is actually only about six weeks before he died.

The thing I love about music (especially now with the Internet and YouTube... and blogs) is just how much one song can take you on a journey to other music. I don't believe any songs exist in isolation, with out some kind of influence.

I never was much of a fan of hip-hop or pop and rock music seemed to be less likable as it headed out of the 1990s so it made a bit of sense to me to search in the other direction- to it's origins. I was a MASSIVE Pink Floyd fan about ten years ago, now I've gone as far back as Big Bill Broonzy. By this time next year I may have fast-forwarded to the post-emo apocalyptic rock of 2015.

Trouble in Mind

Trouble in mind, babe, I'm blue,
but I won't be blue always
Yes, the sun gonna shine,
in my back door someday

I'm goin' down, down to the river,
I'm gonna take my rockin' chair
Lord, if the blues overtake me,
I'm gonna rock on away from here

'Cause I'm trouble in mind, you know that I'm blue,
but I won't be blue always
Yes, the sun gonna shine,
in my back door someday

Big Bill Broonsey

At the end of this week it will be the half term break. This will be a week long, and for me, unpaid. But, I'm going to Ireland for six days in which I will seek commiseration with the down-trodden Irish. On Saturday, the day I leave it will have been seven months since my arrival to England. I can't really think of a statement in which to sum up this time, so I won't even try.

By Friday it will complete a seven week long half-term in which I have felt like teaching has drained the life out of me, rather than providing any kind of backbone of meaning. Including the Christmas break which I spent working in the pub in London and the half term prior that I was doing supply work and starting my job, it feels like I have barely had a moment to breathe since early November- all with an inadequate amount of sunshine hours. The last musical gig I attended was early December, the last trip to the theatre was about three weeks before that.



This last weekend I was in London, my first time back in six weeks. As well as catching up with friends and shopping, I went to the London Transport Museum and thought a little bit about The Underground and other things. I brought back to St Leonards a few CDs bought over the summer. One was from the Rise and Shine Blues Festival I went to in London in August. I got to see Vali 'Sir Blues' Racilla play- a Romanian blues guitarist- and it was delightful to listen to him again.



Being indentured to an education system I am losing faith in does have a flip side- it provides a healthy weekly wage and I'm clinging to the idea that it might lead somewhere. As Shakespeare said, "The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope". So bear with, this blog will cheer up soon.

Top Five of Two Thousand and Ten: #5. Live Music (worldwide)

Seeing your musical idols and heroes live in the flesh can, in my opinion, result in one of two outcomes. Either you see a false pawn of an industry of cool, or, you realise their humanity, their brilliance in a world that has dealt them the kind of fate you can relate too (and more). Seeing Neil Young live at the start of 2009 for me was the first instance of the latter. It was 43degC in Melbourne and Neil walked out looking like a middle aged accountant at a BBQ- linen shirt, cargo pants and leather sandals. But that's where the comparison stopped as he played with ferocity for over 2 hours in the intense heat. He ended the set playing until every guitar string broke.

But enough of 2009, this post is about 2010 and I was able to see a lot of live music throughout the year. From seeing friends and favourites at the Wellington Botanical Gardens in January to the local indigenous music in the Chaing Rai markets in Thailand, the local radio music of bus drivers in Albania to the influenced styles of open minded Japanese artists on Shikoku Island and Dixieland Jazz players in Tokyo. It was a year of taking on what the encountered world had to offer.

There had been a purpose to this. I had left Aotearoa on March 9th with a purpose to see and hear more music. I'd left behind my ipod and any copy of any of my previously owned music. This has caused frustration at times, yet it has also forced me to listen to the live world as I have encountered it. See other people's music as they saw it.

Shortly arriving in the UK on July 19th I noticed that Bonnie 'Prince' Billy was playing. I think his music has a depth to it I rarely find anywhere else. So, surviving on baked beans for a fortnight allowed me to pay for the ticket at the Shepard's Bush Empire. And it was a thrill, to see a musician who hadn't been sucked into the suckers of the music industry. To give you an idea of his depth Johnny Cash covered one of his songs in his American Recordings.



Well, to tell the event succinctly, I went to see a true musician play at one of the world's iconic venues and didn't come away disappointed. Seeing this musician's ability in the flesh has left me more of a devotee than I had ever been before.



The music was amazing, because I got the feeling (much as I had with Neil Young) that these musicians in front of me were playing music with their own passion for it and we were just lucky bystanders who became part of the sound and part of the experience. That to me is really good music.

The other delight of the year was seeing a concert with Gillian Welsh, Dave Rawlings, Old Crow Medicine Show, John Paul Jones (best known as bassist for Led Zeppelin) and Mumford and Sons at the Troxy on September 17th. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole idea of people recording parts of concerts and putting them on YouTube- but it gives you get a taster of that night.



Gillian is just super- she seems to be all about the music, never bowing to the idea that she must cake herself in makeup or have a stylish haircut in order to be a respected musician. Unfortunately, in the above video her mic wasn't working and she looks across to the right at the sound man trying to get the attention of the sound man who wasn't paying any. So I give you the below as well.



I never learnt to play an instrument, as much as I would have liked to the chance and determination weren't there. This means I'll always be limited to being a music appreciator. 2010 felt like a year in which I did that well.

This week she'll be my idol

Quite a few years ago I walked into The Warehouse in Gisborne with the prospect of a long drive ahead of me to what ever other part of New Zealand I was desperate to escape from there to. I went over to the bargain bin and pulled out a handful of CD's that looked interesting. One was a recording of Bo Diddley live and I got it for $1. I'd never heard him before, but it was cheap and my constricting environment was making me feeling experimental. Two days later as I drove the windy roads I placed the CD on. From the first track I was fixated, the rhythm seemed so simple, yet was complex enough to be masterful. It was John Lee Hooker upbeat. This was somewhere in the mist where blues became rock and roll and I wanted to know more.

A couple of days ago a documentary on Sister Rosetta Tharpe gave me that. This was a woman who suppossedly influenced Elvis. This clip is from a disused railway platform just outside Manchester, UK when Rosetta was aged 49.



The story of her life is incredible, being slamed between the twin forces of the church and the music industry from the age of six (mostly by her mother), never knowing anything other than a life on the road.

I'm not going to tell all it to you here, but I thought I'd make a note of it anyway.