List Entry - Records That Have Touched Me

There's loads of tush on Facebook that I don't bother with, but today I was challenged by fellow guitarist, Joe Peden of The Persuaders, to come up with a list of ten songs that have touched me. Not the Top ten songs, because I would find that impossible and there are many more x10 that I could have chosen...

The quick list went on FB but in case anyone is interested to know why I chose these... Here we go!

1 Ella Fitzgerald - Manhattan

This is just such a classic. I own it on a 10 inch 78 rpm record and it has another classic, Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye on the other side. I chose this one for the warm warm timbre of Ella's voice and for that classic backing with glockenspiel teamed with strings and woodwind. And of course for the writers' sheer audacity in introducing a Bronx accent so they could rhyme "Foil" with "Girl"!

2 John Leyton - Johnny Remember Me

I was only seven when this came out, but the strummed guitar to a tango rhythm stood out amongst all the other records on the wireless (never called "radio" in 1961). At the time we were watching him playing the part of Ginger in the TV series Biggles. I met him a few years ago and he very kindly pretended to be amazed I was old enough to remember that!

3 The Carpenters - Goodbye To Love

Probably my favourite guitar solo ever. Perhaps not the hardest to play - but not a pushover either, but that guitar just soared and took my heart with it.

4 Bert Weedon - Red Guitar

This was actually a B side to China Doll which failed to bother the charts. However this was a much better track and was certainly featured in the background several times during a recent BBC radio documentary about Bert. I have been known to play it on stage myself once in a while.

5 The Eagles - One Of These Nights

I'm not particularly an Eagles fan and like some of their other tracks at least as much as this now, but at the time it came out I just couldn't stop playing it for that first appearance of the guitar power chord sliding up a note. Had a real shiver effect on me!

6 Magna Carta - Seasons

This could be a cheat really, because this was a montage of songs and poetry lasting around 20 minutes - an entire side of their second LP album. There was a brilliant combination of steel acoustic guitar from one speaker and nylon-strung guitar from the other speaker with a booming double bass by Danny Thompson and an occasional burst of zero-effect electric guitar from Davy Johnstone, who would join the band as replacement for Lyell Tranter just after this release. I saw him with them on the tour that went round to promote this album and just sat mesmerised. Meanwhile my mates all moaned that I had an unfair advantage at pulling girlfriends because I was able to play this to them!

7 The Moody Blues - The Story In Your Eyes

The very first time I heard The Moody Blues was the very first time I listened to music on stereo headphones. I was in the third form at school and it must have been 1969. The chap whose albums and equipment they were, chose those tracks with spectacular stereo effects whizzing round inside my head, but I heard enough to go and buy all of their albums from Days of Future Past to To Our Childrens' Childrens' Children. Four albums at once - must have cost me a fortune! Anyway this track is the first musical one on the 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and again as a guitarist I loved the way that this track simply explodes into the sound of the prolonged sound effects, instrumental motifs and chanting of the first track. Oogh! Going to have to listen to it again...

8 Kate Bush - Symphony In Blue

Wuthering Heights turned me into an instant Kate Bush fan. I bought the first three albums as they came out and this is the opening track on the second album, Lionheart. Such a pure voice and a plaintiff simple song with a beautiful melody.

9 Barclay James Harvest - For No One

In the early seventies I was playing lead guitar in a band called Spiral who were based in Failsworth between Manchester and Oldham. BJH were one of several "hero" bands and were relatively local to us, as they came from a village on the other side of Oldham. We made several trips to Manchester's Free Trade Hall to see them and they came to be referred to as "The Poor Man's Moody Blues". They were a very different band as far as songs went, but the combination of mellotron, guitar bass and drums and a knack for storytelling through their music was enough for this nickname to start. This is the final track from the album Everyone Is Everybody Else and is one of their dramatic ballads, with heavy atmosphere from the mellotron and some cutting guitar from John Lees. "Poor man's...?" To me they were a great alternative and I loved both bands. I never saw the Moodies on stage, but saw BJH several times and was never disappointed with a show!

10 Fleetwood Mac - Need Your Love So Bad

A guitarist's dream of a song. This was the first song I played solo whilst with Creeping Bentgrass, first unveiling it at my 50th birthday party. Must be at least a week ago... alright, alright, shut up! We do one gig year on year where the organiser warns me we won't be paid unless I play it...

Add your own lists via the comments if you wish - they will not appear though until I have seen and approved them. I won't ban anything because of song content, but adverts, swearing and abuse will not get through! Adverts includes links to your website or blog if you sell stuff on it.

Have you ever....

I always appreciate it when someone starts to "follow" my blog and a very warm welcome to Dorothy who added herself recently.

It's nice to reciprocate and see whether followers have a blog of their own and yes she has, but not a regular updater are you Dorothy? Not to worry - that pumpkin pie looked a bit of alright and I also found this list.

It looks a bit American, given some of the entries on the list but the idea is to see how many of these you have done! Those you have, you make bold and those you haven't you leave alone. I'm going to be complicated and use italics for some I've gone close to! So...

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band - a few in my time...
4. Visited Hawaii and danced on a lava cliff with the roar of the Pacific below - it's not enough just to have visited Hawaii???
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland - Florida and Paris
8. Climbed a mountain - to be honest, I was in motorised transport...
9. Held a praying mantis - you must be joking!!! Yuck!
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning - not quite as much an achievement this one...!
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill - not for a very long time, I hasten to assure my employer!
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb - ah... Lambie was the "pet" of Jackie when we were 17. We went round one week and it had been eaten...
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse (lunar)
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language - perhaps the natives in Germany, Spain and Italy might not agree. The most humiliating comeback from a waiter was "Which language are you trying to speak?" delivered in faultless English...
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied - comes with age perhaps. I don't need as much to be satisfied these days. I've more age than I need to be satisfied too, come to think of it...
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David - I've seen the replacement at Florence. The original one now is in a museum and we didn't go in.
41. Sung karaoke - yeuch no! But playing my own accompaniment yes!
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted - a pen, not paints but twice!
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris - the top was shut but we got to the second platform
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving - cor I'm not doing so well for a while huh?
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check - another achievement!
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle - blame someone else though. I was the one screaming on the back...
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican - drove past it on a coach...?
82. Bought a brand new car - an ex-demo model
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper - several times, not for court appearances either!
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury - Never got on a case but wasted several days in a small room with lots of other people...
91. Met someone famous - lots in fact :-)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby - well Miss Franny had one... I can't bear children...
95. Seen the Alamo in person - the John Wayne film...?
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone - ooh this is an old list!
99. Been stung by a bee

Your turn! Enjoy!!!

Telly Watching

Almost halfway through the year and time for a list entry. 15 of the things I've watched on TV so far this year: -

I'm a sucker for the BBC's documentaries. Anyone who knocks the BBC or begrudges the license fee obviously don't watch their documentaries. Far better than the boring talking heads and endlessly repeated 3 action shots of their rivals, the photography is stunning (especially in HD) and the commentaries well presented.

Pixar do it again with this one borrowing a little from Conan Doyle's The Lost World and making a hero of a crotchetty old man.

Another BBC documentary series, stunning - will watch the repeats when they come round!

A super hero movie but just a touch dark this one. There's some seriously disturbed characters in this team and for me it showed the difference again between Marvel and DC comics. This one, based on DC leaves you wondering what special powers some of them had and why and how in particular one character's mask shifts and changes, yet once unmasked his face is perfectly normal... details, folks, details...

From the Marvel stable comes this one - talking of unstable characters... The Punisher isn't one of my favourite Marvel comics and I really only know him from his appearance in the Spider-Man and other series, but Ray Stevenson gives him the same character as he gave Pullo in HBO's Rome - violence first and ... well, not a lot after to be honest...

The cinema isn't always to be trusted with history, but this was an enjoyable piece of fluff as long as you keep that in mind.

I enjoyed this series which played out over ten weeks on Sky. Gritty, realistic and based on the real-life exploits of American Marines in the Pacific during the Second World War.

I never cease to wonder at the Americans' willingness to portray themselves as morons, particularly those supposed to be leaders, but forget that - the effects are to be savoured here and if you can ignore the fact that huge chunks of rock float in the sky, but water on them falls over the sides as waterfalls, then it's a visual feast and a decent yarn!

Die Hard as a comedy! Better than The Punisher!

Anyone who lived during the mid to late 1960s must surely love this film for its soundtrack alone. But the antics of the DJs (most of whom you can immediately identify as a real DJ of the time) are wonderful and it's funny, witty and poignant all at the same time.

One of the US unfunny "comedies". But it does have a rear view of a naked Aniston which just about managed to wake me up for a few seconds...

Our answer to America's willingess to portray its leaders as morons... We have real ones! I started calling this "Britain's Got Morons" only about two weeks in and it proved it week after week... Whether they are all in the contestants or in the voting public who voted for precosious kids and dogs doing parlour tricks, or in Piers and Amanda who voted through some of the most appalling singers ever to (dis)grace a stage I'm not sure.

From the Dreamworks stable, this was good! A young woman gets hit by a meteorite and as a result grows to gigantic stature and finds herself impounded by the military along with other freaks and results of scientific experiment and saves the day when aliens threaten the Earth. Favourite bit was the blue blob doing the Steve McQueen bit with a ball in his pen!

This probably should have come further up the list to be in chronological order, but was a repeat anyway! The Top Gear team in a challenge that must seriously have been a challenge. A superb extended special, filled with good fun, boyish humour and the odd spot of real danger.

Whilst loving fantasy as a genre, I've always found Terry Pratchett books quite hard to get into. This TV adaptation though, was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it, all the improbable characters and situations added up to a brilliant romp through the Pratchett world.

Wonder what July - December will bring...?

Movies on TV in 2009

Ages since I did a list entry so here for your edification, enlightenment and incredulity, here are ten movies I watched on Sky HD during the year. If nothing else you will be amazed at my ability to watch anything...! :-)

In no particular order. Well... ok, they are pretty much in alphabetical order, which means nothing...

A spoof... made me laugh so that's good!

First seen as a silent movie on an aircraft - no way will I pay extortionate prices for earphones that won't stay in my ears anyway - though I always end up watching and wondering what on earth they are saying...

Chick flick - you just know it'll be alright in the end...

Marvel comics bring out the best in Nicholas Cage. Although when he's a skeleton he really comes to life...

More superhero antics from an actor who is far better when the director turns his volume control down! I saw him once - I was passing through Leicester Square as he turned up for the premiere of I Robot. An over-excited girl asked me if he was going to sing. I'm afraid I burst out laughing...

Yes... well... Oh come on... I've reached a certain age you know...

Will Smith again! Oh my God... Am I a fan? (Checks pulse, sighs in relief, thinks "no...")

Chick flick - you just know it'll be alri.... actually she gets her head chopped off... They don't show that bit...

But this one makes up for the lack of any blood in the last one! Watched Son of Rambow too which I thought was more entertaining than this!

Brendan Fraser does what he does best - well pretty much does what he does always...

DVD covers shamelessly filched from the Internet - if any company or copyright owner is outraged at my advertising of their product please let me know and I'll take them down and make horrendous fun of you! I did watch more than ten movies but these covers all came from the same convenient website... Not that I wouldn't have gone on visiting more websites had I not reached the magical figure of ten! Nothing is too much trouble to entertain my readers!

Great Music

I thought it might be fun to show some of the albums I've collected over the years which are not exactly mainstream. I have a huge collection of music including some 400+ 78rpm records, a thousand or so vinyl 45s and around 300 vinyl albums plus lots and lots of CDs.

I've digitised a lot of the music myself - particularly the 78s which can be hard to find on CD. So here are five of my albums which you may not have heard of, starting with the one that you are most likely to have heard of. It's possibly true to say that any readers over on the US side of the Atlantic may have a better chance of having heard of some of the following.

But we start with this one- The Beat of The Brass by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

I was still a teenager when I bought this and the music from the record was featured in a TV special recorded by the band. It's a very laid back record that starts with a version of Cabaret and ends with Herb's only vocal hit - This Guy's In Love With You. One of my favourite tracks is a jazzy thing called Slick. And a bit of trivia for you - Herb Alpert is the 'A' of A&M Records.

The Cactus Brothers

What can I say about this album? It wasn't even available in the UK when I bought it. We were in Florida on holiday in 1993 and I wanted to bring some of the music back that we were hearing on the car radio. I plucked this one off the shelves purely at random but have never regretted it and I play this album as much as any of the others in my collection. It is a country hillbilly group with a large collection of motley characters playing fast driving country rock and with a couple of finger pickin' instrumentals thrown in for good measure. It starts with a hard smacking version of Sixteen Tons and there's loads of superb tracks to savour.

Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen

I was introduced to this one by John Briggs, who was bass player with a group I was in called Spiral, way back in the early 1970s. He played it to me after we had listened to our traditional playing of his 78rpm version of the Everly's All I Have To Do Is Dream c/w Claudette and it knocked my socks off. There's a track called Boogie Man Boogie with some of the best boogie piano playing I have ever heard. Again though, this is an album without a single mediocre track!

In Search of Amelia Earheart by Plainsong

A strange mixture this one. It looks like a concept album but only two of the songs are about the titular flyer and her probable doom at the hands of the Japanese. The rest are a mixture of songs of the soft folk rock type. The band featured Ian Matthews, of Matthews Southern Comfort fame and Liverpool Scene guitarist Andy Roberts. I bought it after hearing them on a BBC radio In Concert programme.

Songs From Wasties Orchard by Magna Carta

Now if you like modern folk music or even just nice gentle sounds then this album has to be one of the ultimates! Best known for their concept album Seasons, which was their second album, this was the follow up with soon-to-be Elton John's guitarist, Davy Johnstone replacing Aussie Lyell Tranter full time. (He had played on Seasons as a session musician). I went to see them at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester as this album was coming out and they were absolutely superb.