Birthday retrospective....... "my favourite band is....."

I frequently get asked, "who do you like, who's your favourite band/artist/singer etc." (not that people really 'speak' a 'forward slash' but you get the picture!). The answer to this question always gets to me because the answer is always in flux depending on my age, outlook, mood and influences - and of course whether I've been in the right place to actually hear any of the music in the first place. There could very well be a band in Chile that would blow me away but I'm probably never going to hear them play.

When I first started to listen to music rather than just as something that was played on the radio (my very first memory was getting a tiny tranny with a tiny ear plug and listening to Tony Blackburn [UK DJ] spinning 'Nelly the Elephant') I guess it would be when i got my first cassette recorder. Remember those cassette recorders that came with the microphone? I got one for Christmas in about 1974, I was 11 and I got a cassette of a TV music show called 'Supersonic'. It was ITV's answer to Top of the Pops that was still a BBC institution on a Thursday night.

This cassette included tracks by artists 'of the day' and I guess this was my first 'Album' that I listened to that formed the basis of my musical 'taste'. This was the track listing:

Side 1

1: ANDY BOWN Supersonic

2: PILOT Magic

3: DRIFTERS Save The Last Dance For Me

4: DEAN FORD Hey My Love

5: GARY GLITTER Oh Yes You're Beautiful

6: SHADOWS Let Me Be The One

7: HOLLIES He Ain't Heavy

8: SHOWADDYWADDY Chain Gang

9: GLITTER BAND Love In The Sun

10: OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN Take Me Home Country Road

Side 2

1: BAY CITY ROLLERS Keep On Dancing

2: HOLLIES The Air That I Breathe

3: CLIFF RICHARD Take Me High

4: BARRY BLUE Hot Shot

5: MATAYO Brother

6: SWEET Action

7: SON OF A GUN Maison De L'Amour

8: HELLO Games Up

9: LINDA LEWIS Remember The Days (Of The Old School Yard)

10: SHOWADDYWADDY Hey Mister Christmas

I know! A blast from the past, right?

It was a great sampler for me to be able to say to myself, "well I don't like BCR (sorry Roller fans) or The Drifters or Showaddywaddy BUT I kinda like The Hollies, Shadows and Pilot! 

Anyway my next 'watershed' was an influence from my Dad of all people! (He was into Demis Rousoss about this time so a bit of a strange one looking back at it}. He bought me a cassette called "24 carat Purple" a greatest hits of Deep Purple that he said a bloke at work liked and thought I would too! It was probably 'Yapper', eh Dad?

Anyway, this cassette was just an 'eyeopener' for me, I played it almost until the tape stretched. Within a week I new all the words, all the riffs (to air guitar to) all the drum beats (to air drum to) and I was hooked on Deep Purple - they were my first favourite band!

High School in the UK is 11 - 16 yrs old unless you stay on in sixth form until you are 18 and soon after the Deep Purple experience I went to high school and then of course got influenced by what all my friends were listening to. I had a paper round and therefore I could buy a cassette or LP about once a month and of course I got them for Christmas and birthdays, or 'record vouchers' as my parents knew they would get the selection wrong!

I made a fortunate mistake one Christmas. I was given money to get a couple of albums (read LP's) for my Christmas pressie from my Mum and walked into town and met my friend, Steve. Now, as i flipped through the albums I really knew that I wanted to get the soundtrack to 'Tommy' by The Who but as I was with Steve the album I chose sort of said something about me and I fancied myself as a bit of an 'at the edge' type of musical aficionado! So half with this in mind and half thinking well I'll get 'Tommy' with the vouchers I get after Christmas I bought an Album by a band I'd never heard much of, and it was the best 'mistake' I had ever made at that time, musically.

I brought the double album home and put the first side on my record player, plugged in my hifi headphones and lay back to have my first listen to 'The Song Remains the Same' by Led Zeppelin! WOW!

I flipped those records for the next 3 or 4 hours, missed tea, and remember just loving the way in which music that is new can transform from something that you listen to and like to something that you actually know and get inside of to the point that you tell yourself that if you could play those instruments you could probably recreate every note! 

I still bought 'Tommy' after Christmas but it taught me that I really needed to widen my musical 'funnel'. I started listening to AC/DC (Dirty Deeds era), KISS (Alive 1 and 2 era), Black Sabbath (Never Say Die era) and of course my fixation of my teen years, Staus Quo!

Quo were a big thing for me when I was 14/15/16 yrs old. I appreciated and loved all the other music I was listening to but this all fell into perspective after I went to my first 'gig' at Birmingham Odeon to see Quo play live on the 'Rocking All Over the World tour' in 1977, I was 14.

I wan't now just listening to music, I was experiencing it like never before; I just had no idea that music could affect me the way that first gig did. The loudness, the showmanship, the fact that I recognised all the tracks; I felt I was a part of the experience rather than just watching and listening; it blew me away.

I was hooked on music and it's been that way ever since. I have always tried to see as many of the artists I like play live.

Quo were always big in the playlist of my musical history but as I experienced new bands and artists and genres they took a back seat a bit as new music evolved through punk and then 'New Wave' and on through the New Romantic era and out through the other side I started to realise that I liked a whole load of completely different sounding music and that started to include classical as well as even a bit of opera!

I liked, and started to use, the word 'eclectic' when people asked what I liked. I was listening to the Four Seasons (not classically challenging now, but then......), The Clash, The Smiths, Rush, Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen as well as The Cure and a whole slew of heavy metal and rock bands.

Every now and again I obsess a bit over one band or artist depending on my mood and based on whether I am about to see them in concert or have seen them etc. and also if they have anything new 'out'.

My first obsession was probably Bruce Springsteen. Simon Morgan (who is the drummer in Suede) used to take the piss out of me religiously for this obsession but it never matters when you get these bouts, they are unstoppable and inexplicably rational to the subject of them. *I have never name dropped Simon before, strange that he crops up......anyway.....

I was about to see Bruce at a gig in Leeds, Roundhay Park I think and I really only knew Born in the USA so I decided I needed to hear more than just the 'Borns' ( ....To Run and in the USA)....Off I went to the record store and got every album he made.....

Greetings from Asbury Park, Born to Run, Darkness on the edge of town, The River and Nebraska...played them non-stop. My favourite? Oh, yes I loved The River and Candy's Room and Cadillac Ranch and so on but the album that I really LOVED was the one most people dismiss as not that great: Nebraska.

I'm not the only one who likes this album but I'm in the minority and I soon realised that my favourite music is always the music liked by the minority. I think it's the feeling that maybe I 'get' it and I like to think that most others don't.... so it's almost like a more personal experience for me when I like an artist or an album that isn't mainstream or loved by the masses.

Don't get me wrong I still love the Rolling Stones....seen them many times but they are not a personal music experience for me like, say, Julian Cope is.

Ah, Julian, one of my more aggressive obsessions! I've never stalked someone before but in 1995 Mar and I took a visiting friend to Avebury on the premise of seeing the stone circle and maybe checking out an old pub and surrounding buildings etc. Really, in my mind, it was an excuse to possibly, remotely possibly, in a pigs might fly way, 'bump' into Julian - as he lived locally and frequented Avebury a lot.

Mar and our visitor were interested in the gift shop way past my limited attention span so I stepped outside and as I walked around the next corner who did I see sat outside the 'Stones' veggie restaurant but Julian and Dorian!

It was was of those sharp intake of breath moments and my instincts just kicked in and marched straight up to them and introduced myself, went and fetched Mar and had a nice chat for half an hour or so. I remember asking dorky questions intended to demonstrate to him that I 'knew' his music and I still cringe a bit to this day. We got guest passes to a gig in Cambridge (we'd already seen him twice on the 20 Mothers tour but another time wasn't going to be sniffed at) and our friend went too!

Now Julian can get a bit 'out there' even for my taste in music and I have to say I have NOT listened to his 30 minute Odin chants! Recently I have not been such an avid listener and some of the recent Blood Donor stuff isn't for me.

In the realm of Jehovakill and Peggy Suicide and 20 Mothers, Julian was my favourite artist for a good 15 years and is still a top 5 favourite to this day.

I've had less aggressive strains of obsessions over the years; John Mellencamp, Rush, Thin Lizzy, Massive Attack, Portishead, The Smiths, The Human League (!!), The Jam but I feel a new aggressive obsession coming on and have done for a few years now......

I started noticing this artist later in her career than I should of but I think it was more down to the way in which she was marketed and promoted than me hearing and dismissing her.

It wasn't until I got back from Canada in 1995 that I started to catch her on shows and on the radio, she started while I was away from the UK so I didn't witness her debut or anything.

When I first heard "Down by the Water" it was like, uh, oh, yes, I like this sound, I'm liking it a lot and so it went with some of the more accessible tracks she wrote and recorded; Rid of Me, C'Mon Billy, You said something, This is Love, This wicked tongue...... I sort of liked some of her stuff and there was some quirkier stuff that was a bit beyond me but I was happy with my level of knowing and listening to PJ Harvey and then I thought it all went a bit 'south' with White Chalk in 2007, I just didn't 'get' the album at all and thought that my collection of 20 or so songs that exist on my playlist would be it. How wrong was I?

This past few weeks saw the release of "Let England Shake" - it's an album with a 'crust'; first listen and it's 'ok', maybe even 'not really my thing ok' but after the second third and fourth playing it becomes obvious, after you break though the cust, that this album is a classic, genius, out there and even a bit 'what the fuck is that'......but ultimately it's brilliant. 

If you don't know the music of PJ Harvey it's not the album to introduce yourself to her with but if, like me, you've been on the fence but falling slowly to her side of it and like most of what you hear then this album seems to pull ALL of her work together to such an extent that I went back and started listening to the tracks I wasn't so keen on the first time around and ...... WOW! This is the start of a new obsession for sure.

Let England Shake is by far the best album she has written and recorded and I just can't listen to anything else but PJ at the moment, I'm sure it'll pass in a year or so but the best birthday present I could get today would be to learn that she is touring North America in the next year or so and I can hear, experience and be apart of an event where this amazing artist plays her songs, just for me and the minority!

My name is Chris, I'm 48 and my favourite artist is PJ Harvey!

Have a great day.

Fontenelle Restaurant

We've been at the Font for the last few weeks so nothing new to report.... maybe soon......there is a new restaurant in town that we plan to visit for brunch very soon; Town here we come!

England vs Germany

I had to express my thoughts regarding today's match.......

Whilst I yearn for an England win, I yearn more so for England to thrash them by a bunch of goals so that we may get some confidence to play football like I know we are capable of.

Stop the dithering, stop the sloppy passing, keep possession, create space, run like the wind, commit, don't lose hope and win!

I'm offto the Font at half time; don't let me down!

Why I hate new year celebrations and other grumpiness.

Happy New Year! Do I mean it? Well, I certainly don't wish you any malice or harm, dear reader but do I mean every "happy new year" wish I have uttered thus far? Not really. I am guilty. Guilty of simply repeating the wish in such a pavlovic way that it is meaningless. I buy groceries from an adolescent at the supermarket who has been ordered to wish every customer a HNY, and I fucking well respond to this "do you want fries with that?" type of nonsense.

I hate the new year season more than Christmas, which is tedious and expensive and wholly anti-climactic as well as far too commercial; but you've heard these ramblings from many I would assume. New Year is worse though, forced to party by the masses, forced to kiss strangers and if not already drunk, make it appear so. If not forced to party then forced to watch some Times Square extravaganza on TV. Of course I don't mean forced in the strongest sense, more obligated by the rest of society. Any excuse for a good party eh?

I know it's an ancient ritual but I am just as happy asleep by midnight on the 31st than linking arms and forgetting about the hangover I'm about to get in the morning. This year I was indeed in bed and asleep by the time Dick Clark was wheeled out, I didn't miss anything.

My other 'grinds my gears' things about new year and certainly new decades is this journalistic tendency to 'top 10' everything under the sun. I'm as guilty as the next for this as a year or so ago I did a top 10 movies, but it's subjective and I know that. My top ten will not be your top ten and it'd be a boring old world if it were. The top ten of anything from the last decade is also so stupid; everything changes and in ten years it changes completely. No comparison can or should be made.

I liked Bono's idea of top ten things he would like to see in '10 although I didn't agree with it all, at least it wasn't negatively retrospective.

Which brings me to the subject of new year's resolutions which is a bit of a contradiction as in 95% of the time they are not resolute and often get broken after the first few weeks if that.

Gym's make their money by selling memberships in January a fraction of who will certainly no where to be seen by the following December. Gym's make money off attrition; if every member were to suddenly reignite their fitness regime the lineup for the steppers and bikes would be all the way out the door. It's a bit like AirMiles or any other loyalty scheme; the billions of points that lie never to be claimed is where the 'jam' is. I digress though.

I seldom make a new years resolution as I think it almost jinxes any longevity of commitment but I can't help thinking about things I've always wanted to do. Saw "One Week" a couple nights ago with Joshua Jackson playing a guy who found out he had terminal cancer and then decided to ride a motorcycle west through Canada. Great film and great message. How simple would it be to do all the things you would want to do before you die if you knew you were going to die soon. Don't answer that it's rhetorical!

No planning for the future, no worrying about finances, just do it. When you aren't on deaths door it becomes a little more complex though and people generally tend to 'spread' things they want to do through their life until something happens to put a halt to all that. Health, no money, responsibilities or even death!

The trick, therefore is to 'hedge' a little. Try to do as much as possible as soon as possible. Rather than a new years resolution to do something or stop doing something why not think bigger and create your own 'bucket list' before it's too late and act on it as best you can?

So that is my new years resolution. To put together my bucket list and start ticking them off. I also need to get over my love hate relationship with procrastination, but that's for another day, maybe next month even.

HNY
Drude

Chris's Five Star Meatloaf recipe.

I used to hate meatloaf until i decided to try a recipe I found in the recipe booklet that came with a juicer. I tinkered with it a bit and made a great meatloaf that even meatloaf haters (apart from veggies) will love. Serve with mash and a veg and Robert is your brothers brother.


This recipe fits a metal meatloaf tin approx 10" long so adjust the ingredients accordingly to fit your tin - you want to leave 1 cm gap between the meatloaf and the top of the tin for bubbling and glaze.








For the meatloaf:
half kilo of beef mince
half kilo pork mince (very important to have at least 2 meats)
2 large onions, chopped and pulsed a couple times in the food processor
pulse with a handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley
carrot pulp from juicing a few carrots OR a couple carrots chopped and pulsed to a pulp in the FP.
A cup or so of frozen or tinned sweetcorn
A cup or so of beef stock, I add a swig or two of Lea and Perrins too (be careful not to add too much liquid if you've reduced the meat to fit a smaller pan)
1 egg
about a cup of some thick cream, sour cream or condensed milk (I use sour cream)
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
salt to taste
ground pepper to taste


Add all these ingredients to a big metal bowl and mix thoroughly.


Pack into the buttered meatloaf tin.


The Glaze/Sauce


1 cup of ketchup
1 cup of bbq sauce
2 tblsp red wine vinegar
couple swigs of Lea and Perrins
half a cup of brown sugar


Add to a saucepan and bring to boil, immediately turn down the heat and simmer for a minute or so. Pour enough of the glaze over the meatloaf saving some (maybe a third or half) and shove the meatloaf in an oven at about 425f for an hour.


I put mine on a baking tray as you get some bubbling and spitting.


When it's ready lift out the meatloaf onto a serving plate. You should have a greasy gravy left in the pan - this is optional but I add this to the remaining glaze and reduce it down to make a sauce/gravy that I pour over the plated meatloaf and mash.


Meatloaf will often fall apart - to get a good slicing loaf you need to ensure you pack it in well when filling the pan. If you are worried about this too much - add another egg and some bread crumbs to the mix.

A film review of: Eagle Eye.......

I wasn't really in the mood for a film yesterday but I changed my mind at the very last minute, took the 1.15pm showing of Eagle Eye and was glad I did. Last week I saw Righteous Kill, a movie that would have been OK with any other two leading men but when you have Pacino and De Niro together (in the same scenes and shots for a change) you expect something more, and RK didn't deliver that; twists have to be cleverer than that! The reason I sidetrack to RK was that it was then I saw the list of films available and other than the Cohen movie which I have slated for next week when audiences have dwindled a bit (I hate packed movie theaters, I prefer them all to myself) there was little to tickle my fancy. Then I remembered that EE was out so I swung by and invested 2 hours. This Shia LaBeouf dude is, in my opinion, 'the' up coming lead actor in action/adventure movies. I didn't see him in Indiana Jones, I missed it. I saw him in Transformers and he was good; in this film he is very good.

He has this ability to be unwitting, vulnerable, slackerish, scruffy, smouldering, heroic, scared, determined and aggressive whenever needed; but he doesn't come across as superhuman which, maybe is the appeal and why so many movie goers are paying to see him.

Eagle Eye is a more a commentary on the 'big brother' State, that being Government and/or military, having the control over satelites that can delivery high def sound and vision from your cell phone and the CCTV camera that is following you down the street and at the subway station to track you. In this plot, track you and make you do stuff you don't want to do whilst taking control of automated stuff to stop others from catching you do the stuff you don't want to do......phew! Got that?

Throw in a 'super computer' hidden under the Pentagon, a 'we couldn't get Liv Tyler' actress as the female lead and a bit of badass anti-terrorist agent in the form of Billy Bob Thornton and you have yourselves an action 'romp' that makes 2 hours whizz by easily.

It's not the best plot to a film I've ever seen but it was pretty good.

6/10

It certainly beats watching the hours and hours of CNN talking about the vote that failed.......how long can people talk about one subject for?

....and I'm not belittling the subject matter, just the reporting thereof!! :-)

Until next time.

Drude

Enough is enough.....!

OK, I know that I've been a lazy bastard on this so called blog of mine, that I thought I'd use to review movies I've seen. Frankly it got a bit boring for me as the films up for viewing were getting worse, then Batman came out and it was like, "why would i blog about this along with the other billion people?", so I didn't!

Films have had a tough job living up to that film since I saw him (of course I mean the Ledger Dude); the rest of the film sort of tried to catch up to him and just about hung on even if it was 30 mins too long. Anyway, nothing since has really made me want to review or write here so It's been rather barren, dear reader. Sorry.

So what made me want to write today?

I think I'm turning into a 'grumpy old man' but at only 45 - how can that be?

Now I'm not sure whether it's the culture here in Canada or I'm becoming less and less tolerant of things when they are not as they should be.

Here's the story:

I have a great 'spousal' medical coverage through my wife's job and so I get to get new glasses with a free eye test for pretty much nada from my piggy bank.

So i trundle off to a local 'glasses shop' (name withheld) and get my eyes tested - they are actually about the same and all is well.

I pick out a new pair of clear and a second pair of sunglasses. "Clear ones in a couple days and the sunglasses in a week", she says. Great, see you in a week I think.

A week goes by and I pop in to pick up my glasses - clear ones are 'in' but no sunglasses. "probably in tomorrow", she says.

I leave it 2 days and go in (you are probably wondering why I didn't call ahead, but my wife wanted to glasses shop too so I was already there.

The sunglasses are still not in. "Monday or Tuesday", she says.

Canadian summer has and is no way to be compared with anything summery this year so I say, "OK".

It's now Wednesday so I call ahead to see if they are in, the conversation with the very nice, but inept, man went like this:

Man: hello
Me: My name is XXXXXXX I am enquiring as to my sunglasses. Are they ready to be picked up?
Man: (after checking) We have the lens' in, we just have to fit them, probably tomorrow or Friday.
Me: Why the huge delay - I was told a week it's now 2 weeks?
Man: We just got them in today.
Me: I realise that but i was told a week, then another 2 days then another 2 days - it's now 2 weeks. A week later than i was expecting, so I'd just like to understand why?
Man: well they are big lens'.
Me: I know, i picked them. What does that have to do with how long it takes?
Man: well I had to send them to a special lab to get them made.
Me: I see. Could you not have told me that at any stage of these 2 weeks?
Man: Eh?
Me: Well my expectation was to wait for these glasses a week. I'm getting slightly frustrated that it's now 2 weeks. BUT, if i'd been told that these glasses were special/large etc and had to be sent somewhere special and it might take longer - maybe 2 weeks, I would be happy to wait and let you call me when they were in.
Man: You see they are special lens'.
Me: Yes i understand that now. My point is that my expectations were different to what was going to happen - do you see that my frustration at waiting a week longer for these glasses would be non-existent if I'd been told about how very special my glasses were/are?
Man: We'll try to get your glasses ready today.

At this point I gave up. My ',managing expectations' sermon was landing on stoney ground here.

I come across this almost everyday, people generally saying what or when they will do something with data that makes me happy at the time but is in no way aligned with what they will 'actually' do or when they will do it - or complete it.

Has no one here ever been trained about 'managing expectations'?? It really does solve almost every complaint before the complaint is ever made.....and it can go further by turning a potential complaint into a happy customer who might even (gasp!) recomend said service/shop/garage/glasses shop to their friends.

The rule is simple = "be Scotty". Remember the original Star Trek?

Kirk: I need those engines Scotty!
Scotty: They're going to take at least 10 hours Cap't, the dilythiam crystals need realigning.
Kirk: You have 8 hours Scotty.
Scotty: I'll do my best Cap't. but I canna work miracles here.

Scotty fixes the crystals in 6 hours and is commended time and time again.

Lesson learned - this was the 60's - we are now in the 21st fucking century and people still want to please people at the point of purchase by setting expectations that do not live up to reality, in the wrong direction.

Another quick story - my A/C went on the 'blink' last week - I called my garage who had only just finished work on the A/C - they said bring it in at 2pm. I took it in at 2pm for them to check and they said come back in 30 mins - I said I would grab a burger around the corner and be back at 2.30.

At 2.30 i returned to find no one had looked at it. They know my numbers - could they not have called and said, "take your time over your burger, we haven't got to your car yet." OR just told me 60 mins in the first place! As it was I wolfed down a burger, fries and a shake and then spent 30 mins sitting in their sterile waiting area.

Should I just accept this or should I try to point out this whenever it happens - if I do the latter I am told that I'm being grumpy. Is this being grumpy, dear reader?

Maybe I should just accept this as 'the way'.

Maybe others should just expect more 'grumpiness'.

grumpily yours,
drude