I HATE…

1. Trying on clothes in one size, and having them either be too farkin’ small or too farkin’ big, and when they’re small… not willing to go up a size.
2. Having a good day, and the very next, it turns into a shitty one.
3. Only thinking I look good in the morning, because I haven’t eaten anything yet to “ruin” my appearance.
4. Plotting, scheming, planning… whatever you want to call it… and randomly considering the perfect timing to fall back into my old habits.
5. That my brother has to be obvious that eating at a diner, or restaurant, or indulging in something won’t make me fat. And he’s right.
6. Feeling so unfulfilled and having no goals for the future.
7. The cold weather, for making me feel so fat with all the layers I have to wear.

BUT I LOVE…

1. Despite everything, I can still identify my good traits.
2. Having friends, my kitties, and my family support me.
3. My hair. it’sfantasticallyawesome.
4. My quirkiness. It’s wonderful to be odd.
5. My ability to help people with their problems. When you help someone, it brings you closer to them. It creates a certain bond.
6. My taste in music. Music, I believe, saved me. The Beatles, the Velvet Underground, the Who, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, and because I am a “friggin’ kid, for godsakes” Lady Gaga.
7. My eyes. They’re brown, but they’re wonderful. One opens wider than the other and, heh, I used to think in a certain light my eyes looked like David Bowie’s.
8. Eating. ED can’t make me feel guilty when I eat a sweet bowl of ice cream, or a fulfilling bowl of cereal, or – God forbid! – a slice of pumpkin pie.
9. Growing up. But not having to act it.
10. Being able to accept having breasts again.
11. Dancing without having to sit out or with not as much energy.
12. Being told I am pretty, cute, beautiful, adorable… that helps me so much. Because I’ll believe it.
13. Being “smart.” Most of my grade got a C or below in physics. Guess who got an A?
14. Living, because I wouldn’t be here without it.

As you can see… the second list is twice the size as the first, and it shows despite all the negativity I still have for myself, I can produce twice the amount of positive facts. I made this list feeling bad about my body, but with the making of the second list, I feel loads better. I encourage all of you to do the same: write out what you hate about yourself, and then make a longer list of the things you love about yourself. We can’t fool ourselves into believing we can destroy the first list, but at least we can turn our focus to the things we are willing to accept. Because when you compare the lists, it’s quite obvious which one matters more and makes the most sense.

Have a lovely evening. <3

– Delilah

There used to be a man in my street who kept the perfect front lawn. Once, we were playing football and the ball rolled across his lawn and he took the ball and wouldn’t give it back! I told him it was stealing, and he was defeated, and handed the ball back grudgingly. Proper English bully of the Conservative sort.

My brother and his friends called him Grouser Green.

This song goes in the collection titled “The Farcical Fame of Farquar D’Amour and his Fabulous Friends”. You can’t tell at all that I was listening to a lot of the Kinks. It’s really my version of Phenomenal Cat.

Yes it is me singing.

Grouser Green

Grouser Green
Waters his garden
But he’s unaware of
The hosepipe ban
He’ll swear in court he
Didn’t know

Mr Sun
Has parched his front lawn
He’s about to have a
Heart attack
Get a doctor and a hose

Then one day
He sailed away
Took a boat to a
Foreign shore

Grew a garden in the shade
Where it never rained

La la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
Oooh oooh eeeweee ooooh

Grouser Green
Is in his back garden
Planting azalias out into brigades
He’ll win the war against
Next door

His garden’s lovely
It’s such a delight
He thinks he’s found the
Secret to life
He’ll be eternally grumpy

La la la, la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
Oooh oooh eeeweee ooooh

G C B
D7 G D7 G E C B B7

Copyright 1998 by Iain Barnett

Today Sextoys.co.uk launched their brand new website which looks fantastic with new buttons and categories for each type of toy. What we especially like, and find different from the other adult sites out there, that you are not hit with lots of products all on the landing page which just can overload the senses and become a bit of a sex toy bomb going off in your brain.

Instead they have chosen a fresh clean look highlighting a few new products with clear buttons which take you to the category you want! It makes the landing page very nice and pleasant site to look at.

To celebrate they are giving customer a 10% discount by typing LAUNCH into the voucher code box and further more delivery is free on everything! So click on the banner at the top to take a look at the new site and take advantage of the voucher codes.

However, it wasn’t that the got us the most excited it was the following that sextoys tweeted:

“Watch in the next week or two we launch “The Vibe” Live community…….a fun and sexy community for all of you to be part of…”

As you are probably aware we are all about openness and breaking down barriers to make society more liberal and promote equality of all kinds of relationships and most of all sex positive. For a long time we have said that a social network for open-minded sex positive people to share their stories views and lifestyles with others would be great. Say a Facebook for adult naughtiness!

Now we can only read between the lines of what Sextoys.co.uk are promising with their new live ‘The Vibe’ community but hoping it’s what we have been looking for only time will tell.

Finally if you wish to follow sextoys.co.uk on twitter you can do here

Kittie and Charlie

x

Oziare in un pomeriggio di sole, nel mezzo dell’estate. I Kinks – gruppo rock degli anni 60, è loro la assai famosa you really got me – ce lo canticchiano ameni ed ironici, nel bel mezzo di un campo innevato. Noi pure dalla nebbia umidiccia e appiccosa ci uniamo al coro, anche noi amiamo vivere piacevolmente, meglio se una vita di gran lusso (And I love to live so pleasantly, Live this life of luxury).

Il personaggio della canzone è un gran furbone, il fisco gli ha preso tutti i quattrini, non può più salpare con il suo yacht  e la sua ragazza è fuggita via con la sua macchina (Leggete qui per credere!).

La prende con filosofia però, e così dovremmo fare tutti, amici miei:
Now I’m sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cool beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

In my time of deepest hmph I turn to arghablog as a balm to the spleen. If you, dear reader, lived in my brain (next to Goose Gossage), you would be privy to the finest blog posts ever written. I conceive them daily, with you, loyal thimbleful of arghablog hopefuls, who check your blogometers every day in the hopes that the dormant, tripleted fop who used to run this place might show up and juggle, in mind. But anyway they’ve not been writ, or wrought, so they just rot. I come back every few months with hat in hand, standing before you essentially naked, asking for forgiveness and coffee (for chrissakes).

Yeah, so here I be. And if arghablog is where my inner brain soaks these days, you should know it’s a kink-infused soak. I think of nothing else. In my Vanimal, my vanity-plated suburbanite mouseketeer auto, I plug my iPhone in to the audio jack and blair Kinks so loud as to thoroughly convince god I’m in a textbook midlife crisis. If I could be on a fucking Harley the ride would be complete (though then I suppose I’d have to listen to the Stones, which I did back in ‘04). Anyway, I plug that bad boy in, but I have to hold the fancy cable because it’s shot and w/ 60s music I only get one channel if I don’t apply the pressure just so, and that channel is usually drastically incomplete. So I ride around and blast my incomplete collection of Kinks, which is unfair because once I owned them all on vinyl but where oh where is those bag o’ albums. I’ll never know.

I went to see Ray Davies in concert last Tuesday. He was really fine. Played with some really first rate musicians (though it didn’t stop me from missing Dave, whose biggest booster I’ve become of late. Him and Mick Avory. God, people spend so much time underestimating and taking for granted Ringo Starr that they leave hardly a moment to do the same to poor old Mick, who of late has wound up in the Kastoff Kinks, a collection of ex-Kink members who from time to time even include Ray Davies. What has this world come to?).

Gradually I’ve imagined this post where I say the following, but far more eloquently and edited and stuff – it’d have to be a book, I guess, were it to live up to my grand expectations and standards and whatnot. The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society has become every thinking hipsters favorite album bar none, it’s the e-card passcode pin number into elite intellectual idea-traffic, don’t leave home without it. I read a book in the 33 and a third book series – that hipper than hip series about albums, each book dedicated to just one – about Village Green. All about how genius Ray was back then, and how the Kinks thoroughly and completely went to hell afterwards, like could you get more banal and stupid and sad as 70s Kinkdom? When I trod off to Kollege I was the only guy around w/ Village Green. But then it was discovered and I had to share my great love, and then in the intervening twenty or thirty or fifty years, when the hell are we, it’s become like Abraham Lincoln on the mountain, parting the red seas, greatest thing ever pooped by man, goes to eleven, don’t even look at that one. It makes me kind of mad (when I’m not busy loving it – because to my core I’m cool too. really).

It’s become overrated. I’m sorry to say it, I’m the wrong messenger. But Village Green is over rated. It’s overrated. I’m saying it. You can’t stop me. Look, no hands on the wheel, overrated. OVERRATED!!! hahahaha (evil snicker), I’m swerving off the road, I’m saying it and swerving off the road, you can’t see me, you can’t touch me, here I am driving at night on arghablog, swerving off the road, talking shit about the friggin Williamsburg Torah and you cannot even…oh shit…truck…TRUCK…..AUGHGUGHGUGHGUGHSGHGHGHGG…..

[I learned tonight that if you want to get a child to really listen to you, whisper.] The album you stupid Jaegermaester-drinking, Converse-hopping toads should be grinding into your breakfast mush came two later. Oh my poor friends – they hear this muchly. It’s Lola vs. Powerman and Moneygoround. I forgive you if push skip on Lola, I sometimes do it too. But go listen to that album again and again, as I do, again, and tell me we have anything to talk about anymore. We have nothing to talk about. You look like a clown in that shirt.

One day, when arghablog regains its decorum, its sobriety, I’ll tell you why. About how it’s one group’s coming into its own in the shadow of the 1970s, about how its Dave Davies capturing spirit, if not the letter, of Keith Richards, of how Get Back in the Line, and This Time Tomorrow, and even Dave’s Strangers, and certainly Ray’s Gotta Be Free are songs that should have made a Paul McCartney of the man, w/ interviews on Colbert and Superbowl appearances. If fate had been kinder. And to both of us. For as crappy as his luck has sometimes been, I shoulda been him.

Some of you maybe aware we have 3 large wooden boxes of sex toys to dip into when the need arises. Problem with this ’system’ is as soon as we acquire something new it just gets thrown on top. So sometimes when we get the chance we have a poke around, in the boxes of course, to see what we can find.

The end of last week on one of our usual poke arounds we found some a packet marked Fun Factory. Wrestling it out of the box we realised it was Fun Factory Smart Balls and to top it off they were unopened. Knowing there was something that we had not tried hidden in our box of delights meant we had to take the earliest opportunity to rectify the situation. Not taking these by halves we decided to try them out on Saturday and not doing things by half I decided to try them most of Saturday!

Saturday arrived and I couldn’t wait to get them inserted  it was late morning before I finally had a chance. Finally inserting I found that you naturally hold them in place…but most importantly the kept me on the precipice of pleasure all day this also resulted in a chilled Saturday and an explosive Saturday night.

The Balls contain gyrating balls inside them which vibrate against your g-spot every time you walk or get bumped. This made for a very interesting dash to grab some shopping at Marks & Spencers. I should explain we like to indulge in M&S’s 2 dine in for £10 offer.

As we like to be a bit naughty and take some naughty risks so food shopping in somewhere considered quite high-class whilst wearing them felt…. well quite exquisite. A few things did go through my mind though that made me giggle such as the “I want what she’s having” Restaurant scene from When Harry Met Sally. It actually started feeling very naughty and although they aren’t going to make you climax they do pleasure. It was at this moment as I was glancing the chocolate cakes the gloriously classic M&S food advert popped into my head.

It was rather a naughty but an exhilarating experience not just the wondering around on the cusp of pleasure but the whole afternoon kept me excited; and as Charlie was happy to tell me rather more chilled then usual. Which ended in some rather hot explosive sex later on that evening. These are excellently sexy fun and will open lots of naughty  avenues, or should that be aisles?

….But next time you see those wonderful M&S food adverts voiced over with an almost orgasmic sounding woman enjoying reading a menu out… just think it might not be to far from the truth!

Keep an eye out on our full review with all the ups and downs included soon!

Kittie and Charlie

x

I met her in a club
down in old Soho
where you drink champagne
and it tastes just
like cherry cola
C-O-L-A cola

The Kinks

Ray Davies played the Berklee Performance Center in Boston last night. His brother Dave is still recovering from a stroke, so another go-round for the Kinks wasn’t in the works at this time.

I went courtesy of Marc Hirsh, who was covering the show for the Globe.  They must have seated the media together, because when I took my seat I was surrounded by men with notebooks.

Dennis Brennan opened with a solo set.

Then Ray and guitarist Bill Shanley came out for a few songs.

Followed by a set with the rest of his current band.

The band was sharp, and the sound was very good.  The arrangements weren’t quite the same as the originals, but with a few exceptions (most significantly “20th Century Man”) the songs were still in touch with their initial greatness.

As usual, Ray worked to get the crowd involved.

And, as always, there was “Lola”.

All in all, another good show from the old man.  It fit in well with what’s turned into my “Year of Old Rock”.

1964 gick jag på Kärrtorps gymnasium, var 17 år och ett popsnöre. Året innan hade jag på minuten när skivorna kom till Sverige köpt de två första LP-plattorna med Beatles. Både Beatles och andra engelska band som Rolling Stones, Kinks, Pretty Things, Downliners Sect och The Who skulle 1964-65-66-67 snurra i ett i ett i ett på skivspelaren.

Jag köpte också Cornelis Vreeswijks debut-LP, ”Ballader och oförskämdheter” (1964). Varför då? Skulle det vara musik för ett popyngel? Inga elgitarrer larmade och inga trummor slamrade. Cornelis spelade akustisk gitarr och sjöng. Det var allt.

Cornelis Vreeswijks debut-LP.

Akustisk gitarr gick väl an men då skulle det vara amerikanska protestsånger typ Bob Dylan, som jag precis hade upptäckt. Men Cornelis sjöng ju inte ens på engelska utan på svenska. Han var, jag menar, vissångare…

Här har nu en visa skrivits
om William, stadens tok.
Åt skämt som med honom bedrivits
man skrattar sig ryggen i krok.
Man lurade dåren att klättra på taken
för att jaga hästar. Har du hört på maken!
Häst-på-taket-William, gå upp och hämta ned han!
Alla älskade William för dom fick skämta med han.
(“Häst-på-taket-William”, 1964)

”Häst-på-taket-William” ska faktiskt (enligt uppgift i bl a Klas Widéns biografi, se litteraturförteckningen) ha varit Cornelis Vreeswijks första egna låt – den allra första låten han skrev! Så häpen jag blev, när jag på senare år fick reda på det. Han var sig själv, som mest och bäst, redan i förstlingsverket.

Förresten kan det sista ordet syfta på hela debut-LPn (som föregicks av en EP med fyra visor som också finns med på LPn). Cornelis Vreeswijk debuterade inte som debutant utan som en (missförstå inte ordet) färdig artist. En personlighet och mer: en unik personlighet. ”Ballader och oförskämdheter” är, från första till sista spåret, en enastående debut. Han gjorde, i mina öron, ingen bättre LP. Möjligen den så kallade ”sambaskivan”, alltså ”Tio vackra visor och Personliga Person” (1968), men den är lite av en annan genre och historia.

Cornelis skulle bredda sig, både poetiskt och musikaliskt: bli fräckare och grövre i dikt och mun vad gällde sex och politik, sjunga till jazzkomp (som Jan Johansson, piano, Rune Gustavsson, gitarr, och Sture Åkerberg, bas) och popbandet Made in Sweden (med Jojje Wadenius på elgitarr), importera och omplantera brasiliansk samba, tolka Carl Michael Bellman, Evert Taube, Edvard Persson, Povel Ramel och Gustaf Fröding, översätta Victor Jara.

Amatörgitarristen Erikssons första sång- och spela-häfte.

Hans mest kända och populära låtar började komma året efter debuten – t ex ”I natt jag drömde något som…” och ”Brev från kolonien” (1965), ”Ångbåtsblues”, ”Jag hade en gång en båt” och ”Balladen om herr Fredrik Åkare och söta fröken Cecilia Lind (1966), ”Deirdres samba”, ”Somliga går med trasiga skor” och ”Felicia, adjö” (1968), ”Hönan Agda” (singel 1969), ”En halv böj blues” och ”Turistens klagan” (1978).

Han skulle lägga till men inte dra ifrån. Den han var vid debuten förblev han till sin död. Han var sig själv trogen. Roten, kärnan, hjärtat, själen – det typiska och kännetecknande, det som vi kände och känner igen som Cornelis – fanns fixt och färdigt redan från början.

Medborgare, ur spår är tiden,
det hävdar jag bestämt.
Törhända ni jagar standard?
Ja, jäklar vilket skämt!
Den varan är såsom såpa
som man hastigt försöker ta.
För var dag blir den bättre
men den blir aldrig bra.
(“Ballad på en soptipp”, 1964)

Vad bestod hans personlighet av? Eller låt mig formulera frågan så här: Vad var det som fick en popgalen 17-åring som repade med sitt band i cykelstallet att varva Beatles, Stones och Vreeswijk på grammofonen?

Det måste ha varit bluesen. Att Cornelis inte var någon vanlig vissångare som spelade valskomp – du-dutt-dutt, du-dutt-dutt – på gitarren utan tuffare än så. Som blues, nästan. Blues på svenska. Han var, så måste jag ha känt, en svensk vissångare i samma tid och anda som Beatles, Stones och Dylan, det musikaliskt och politiskt explosiva 60-talet. ”Jag sjunger en visa i vinden” diktade och sjöng Cornelis i just ”Visa i vinden” på debut-LPn. Visst var det samma blåst som ven genom Bob Dylan-sången ”Blowin´ In The Wind”?

Om förebilder och influenser har Cornelis berättat i flera intervjuer. Först ”lyssnarsånger”: melodier med texter att lyssna på, en tradition som var vanlig i Holland och som den unge invandraren Vreeswijk hade med sig i öron och kropp när han kom till Sverige, då var han 12 år.

Sen brukade han nämna Leadbelly och Josh White, bägge svarta amerikanska bluessångare/gitarrister. Han nämnde också Georges Brassens, fransk vispoet, och Mose Allison, amerikansk jazzpianist, sångare och kompositör.

Det var som gjort för mig. Josh White, som kring 1960 ofta besökte Sverige, hade varit på TV och sjungit blues och amerikanska folksånger till gitarr. Också Georges Brassens hade jag faktiskt hört. När jag åkte på språkresa till England fanns i samma värdfamilj en skolkille från Frankrike. Han presenterade Brassens för mig. Och Mose Allison bara fanns där. Alla som på 60-talet lirade i ett popband ”upptäckte” och gillade honom.

Cornelis Vreeswijk lyssnade in Whites akustiska bluesgitarr, förenklade tekniken något och anpassade till nylonsträngad gitarr. Han gjorde svenska visor, sånger eller låtar om människor och händelser med texter som var burdusa som Brassens och ordfyndiga som Allisons.

Resultatet blev, för att låna en kommande LP-titel, ”Poem, ballader och lite blues” (1970). (Forts…)

(Ur boken ”Svenska sång- och rockpoeter 1”,
utgiven 2005 av BTJ)

I’ve had John Mendelssohn’s infamous ‘Kinks Kronikles‘ (Quill, 1985) on the go downstairs and Ray Davies’s own ‘X-Ray‘ (Viking, 1994) upstairs as my loo and bathroom books respectively for a while now.  As well as their subject matter, both books share the distinction of having sub-titles on their covers that aren’t repeated on their title pages (and so don’t count according to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules!).  Those sub-titles are significant though.  Mendelssohn’s – ‘An unauthorised and uncensored history of the second longest-lived group in rock‘ – has rather been overtaken by time and the ‘uncensored’ is neither here nor there, while un-proofread (a dance called the ’samber’ is only one of the horrors) fits the bill better.  He may have compiled on disk the best Kinks ’60s anthology going (also called ‘Kinks Kronikles‘) but this is an idiosyncratic and self-serving take on the Kinks, albeit one not without a humour of its own, and one I don’t regret finally getting my hands on after all these years.  I still have fond memories of a piece by Mendelssohn in Rolling Stone a long while ago, detailing the failure of his rock group Christopher Milk; I’ve probably still got it somewhere in the loft but it will have to wait.

Ray Davies‘ sub-title is, as the man says, not like anybody else’s: ‘the unauthorised autobiography‘.  I have to admit that when it first came out I zipped through it, giving more attention to the narrative apparatus – Ray as an old man being interviewed by a younger man with his own sub-plot in a society run by the Corporation with a capital C – than what was actually being said about his life.  Another instance, I thought, of the man being too clever for his own good, complicating things for its own sake, striving for Art.  I’m still not convinced by this nebulous and lazy “them” that exists in his writing (though I know what he means!) but I can see now that this playing with the notion of autobiography and authenticity allows him to get to places – and leave room for speculation rather than a definitive certainty that he can’t and won’t claim – that an orthodox narrative would not.  For this is a remarkably candid yet modest telling of the tale, which is not exactly an apologia; there’s no flinching when it comes to breakdowns and divorce.  It’s not a bad social document of the times either.  There are some powerful passages, none more so than a frozen moment in a corridor backstage while recording ‘Dead End Street’ for Top of the Pops when he sees a newscast of Donald Campbell’s crashing to his death in Bluebird (page 326 of the Penguin paperback edition, 1995).  Much could be cited, but I’ll leave it with noting his description and justification thereof, of Dylan and Picasso as “piss artists” (p350).

A last reflection: when ‘X-Ray‘ was published 15 years ago, the Kinks were still performing and the book was set as being written pretty close to now.  Ray has done an awful lot more in the meantime, as well as finally receiving a degree of recognition for his achievements.  None of his contemporaries can compare, really, but it has to be said he makes a lousy clairvoyant.  Long may he run.

Enjoyed the Cathi Cook Quintet at the Shoulder of Lamb last Wednesday, reduced to a Quartet because their new bassist had chickenpox but as is the way with jazzers achieving sextet status temporarily for a very fine ‘All blues’.  Some lovely textual shadings – the trombone such a rich instrument once removed from its comedy ‘trad’ associations.  And as good a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord as I’ve had outside its county of origin – Yorkshire, for those that need to know.  Laughed out loud at Larry Charles‘ movie featuring comedian Bill Maher called ‘Religulous‘ (2008).  Maher travels the world talking to people of all sorts of religious persuasion, asking stuff like, “So you believe in the immaculate conception and the talking snake?”  Some of their faces an absolute picture, the session with a cardinal in Vatican City a jovial stand-up joust, the Birmingham jihadist rapper no fun at all.  I hate to say it, but  ‘Mystical journey‘, a DVD in Dave Davies’s Kronikles series isn’t that far removed at times, though it does have a few redeeming features of a musical and archival nature.

Just over half way into  ‘A dedicated man‘ (1988), the second in Peter Robinson’s Alan Banks sequence of detective novels, Banks is described as “a copper with socialist leanings … a paid thinker” – establishing the way forward for future volumes.  Still a way to go, though, in establishing the man as the compelling character he is these days, here lumbered with being a failing pipe smoker and an attempted signature shortness of height, opera giving way to English vocal music in this one.   Parts of it don’t ring true – the 16-year-old sleuthing for a start – and having a crime writer appear is a bit premature I would have thought, but the folk singer makes for an engaging passage or two and the plot twists and turns satisfactorily enough, the sense of place getting richer.     I’ve not tagged Robinson this time because that would make him enormous on the tag map.

Dave Davies, 1967, by Petra Niemeier

In my quest to backup every little bit of music I’ve ever done, and expose the world (not me, it’s you that’s in trouble) to all the rough demos, here’s another old tune.

I got my studio set up the other day, and started pulling stuff off old cassette tapes I had lying around. I found this, the 3rd song I ever wrote, and probably the first I ever recorded. The 1st song ever only had one lyric “I don’t want to kick him in, he’s my brother”, and the 2nd started “I want to die, I want to choke on my own vomit…” – truly inspiring

Luckily I’ve lost those.

She’s always the one

My baby’s coming home today
She won’t know what she wants to do with me
She’s a typically English girl
No wouldn’t hear of it
Got to keep a stiff upper lip

She’s always the one
Who picks up the phone
When she’s meant to answer the door

Mum cooked us a Sunday roast
The sun blazed away
Everything seemed ok
Pudding came as my just deserts
She told me things she’d done
Said she wasn’t mine anymore

She’s always the one
Who picks up the phone
When she’s meant to answer the door

My baby’s leaving home today
I didn’t want to know what she wants to do with me
I waved goodbye on platform 3
The train pulled away
Somewhere I hurt deep inside

She’s always the one
Who picks up the phone
When she’s meant to answer the door

C F C Am Dm G Dm G
C A F

Copyright 1994 by Iain Barnett

It’s not hard to tell I was listening to a lot of the Kinks at the time.

Now it’s dark and I’m alone
But I won’t be afraid
In my room, in my room
(Brian Wilson/Gary Usher)

Años de leche y bicicletas, cuando el arbitraje correspondía a la silenciosa lengua de la niñez. Habíamos regresado a Santiago, cruzando el océano en el barco Begoña. En el cine de cubierta vi por primera vez El hombre tranquilo y decidí que ese amor de prados colgantes era el amor que me empeñaría en buscar.

Vivimos durante unos meses con mi abuela en la aldea, antes de comprar un piso en el ensanche de Santiago, todavía entonces iluminado por las últimas huertas urbanas, que esperaban ser estranguladas por la catástrofe del desarrollismo.

Mi cuarto tenía dimensiones lacónicas y ninguna ventana al exterior, pero transfiguré las paredes en lejanías pegando fotos de mi gente: los Walker Brothers, los Beach Boys, los Kinks, los Beatles, los Who… Aquella plaga de saludables asesinos y coyotes con botines.

Algo estaba sucediendo y yo sabía, con menos conciencia que olfato, de qué se trataba. Las paredes decían:

Muerte a lo viejo

O bien:

No hay lugar para la asfixia

Mis padres, para conseguir un dinero extra, realquilaron una de las habitaciones a una muchacha de Ourense que estudiaba Hispánicas en la universidad. No recuerdo el nombre (¿quizá María José?), pero sí sus faldas, escandalosas y breves. A veces escuchábamos juntos mis extended play y ella bailoteaba en el salón. Le gustaban demasiado los Hollies, pero yo sabía perdonar.

En mi cuarto había un pequeño crucifijo al que mi madre, por alguna razón que tampoco alcanzo a reconstruir, veneraba con ardor. Era conveniente aquel Cristo ferroso, flanqueado por alimañas disolutas: cada ladrón tiene su banda.

La cama, de nogal, había sido encargada a un carpintero amigo de la familia.

Cuando regresamos dos años después a Venezuela, porque todo salió mal y mis padres ya no eran gallegos sino criollos, la cama fue guardada en el desván de la aldea (nunca le llamo así: siempre será el fallado, la lengua me empuja hacia la tierra).

La recuperé años después para mi hija A., que pegó sobre la cabecera a sus propios catecúmenos: Alex Ubago, Alejandro Sanz, Maná… Todavía sé perdonar.

Pese a la naftalina, con mis carteles acabaron las fauces bondadosas de la polilla: todos los ladrones encuentran la dentadura que merecen.

De la muchacha de las faldas esquemáticas tampoco quedaron restos.

En algún lugar leí que la eternidad tiene el aspecto del mar del Norte. No lo creo. La eternidad siempre es una habitación.

On Thursday I waxed poetic about a recent concert featuring The Rascals, The Turtles and Herman’s Hermits and left off at intermission. Here’s the rest…

I wondered why Herman’s Hermits was set up as the sole act past intermission, an obvious headline ploy (as if the posters didn’t make it clear enough).  As the lights dimmed after intermission, a huge Union Jack dropped down across the upstage scrim in tandem with explosive fanfare and British anthems blaring. But when Peter Noone hit the stage with four younger, energetic musicians dressed as if it was 1964, my question was answered. The British were coming…again!

Peter Noone is 62 but looks like he’s in his mid-40s and sings like he’s in his 20s. In reality, by the time he was twenty, Herman’s Hermits were just about done. But on this night in a packed auditorium, the only sign of age was in the crowd; the band was on fire and gave the songs a boost they never had in their original form; for the most part they sounded as good or better.

Noone led the band through an entire catalogue of beloved songs, and as each one played two points dominated my thoughts. First, every one of these tunes was melodic, crisp and fun, and he and the band played them with such enthusiasm and life that they should just hit the club circuit and win over a whole new generation of fans; ones who avoid “oldies shows” like the plague. And second…my God, this was a prolific band!

When people talk about the great bands of the ’60s, Herman’s Hermits seldom enters the discussion. Why not? For starters, just look at this string of singles - five Top Five hits…in five months! A dozen singles in the Top 15 in just over two years. Amazingly, in 1965, they outsold The Beatles in the United States!

And in addition to their own great material, Noone filled out the show with tributes both sincere and funny. Peers like Freddy and The Dreamers, Peter and Gordon and Chad and Jeremy got their due with excellent cover versions of some of their hits. But Noone’s funny between-song banter and occasionally randy storytelling also gave him an opportunity to imitate artists from Mick Jagger to The Sex Pistols (!) as the band launched into segments of “Start Me Up” and “Pretty Vacant”.  There was also a running gag about The Turtles being old men, although like Peter,  Mark Volman and Howard Kalyan are also 62 (their birthdays are a few months apart). It was just banter between and about old friends, playfully mocking them for being asleep in the limo before it gets to the hotel and wondering if it was their set list taped to the floor “because there’s only four hits on it“.

Like many UK groups from the pre-Beatles  era, there’s a strong music hall influence bleeding through their material, whether it’s vaudevillian jokes  about dim people requesting “She’s A Muscular Boy”, or the bounce in pop chestnuts like “Dandy” and “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat”. Until Noone pointed it out, I hadn’t realized that part of the charm about Herman’s Hermits was the unrelenting joy in their songs. Maybe “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” is a little sad, but only “The End of the World” is truly morose. The rest can’t help put a smile on your face.

He also wove in a couple of tracks from his underrated skinny-tie era album with The Tremblers and cheekily made up a song about his lifelong dream to be in this very theatre on this very night. By the time the vocal participation challenge went out to the audience during “I’m Henry VIII, I Am”, he had the entire crowd in the palm of his hand (not that there hadn’t been a few eating out of it since the moment he walked onto the stage). Knowing the show was closing with “There’s a Kind of Hush”, the audience was on their feet mid-song, providing Noone and band a lengthy standing ovation for what was truly a dynamic ninety minute show. The post-show autograph and merch line was enormous, and Noone graciously shook every hand and signed every item.

Some bands from long ago trot themselves out for these events to get a little adulation, connect with their glory days and make a little coin (sadly, perhaps for the first time in their career). Peter Noone and his new version of Herman’s Hermits might be a nostalgic act because of their catalogue, but their presentation, energy and musical chops were fresh and vibrant. No doubt they could kick the ass of a lot of current pop acts.

I’m not certain if Peter is writing songs these days, or even if he’s entertaining cutting new material in addition to bringing the old hits to his loyal fanbase of Noonatics. But he’s talented as hell, is a consummate entertainer, and he’s proven time and time again that he can deliver the goods. The Hermits era speaks for itself. The Tremblers album from 1980 still sounds wonderful. And as recently as 2001 he guested on pop wunderkind Richard X Heyman’s ep titled Heyman, Hoosier and Herman and nailed it with “Hoosier Girl”.

Someone get this guy and this band into a studio, get them the right material, and have at it. Something tells me we’d be into something good.

Peter Noone website.

Wiki pages for Peter and Herman’s Hermits.

Grab that Tremblers album!

56 tracks of Hermits

Forward, Into The Past

I don’t live in the past, but I don’t disavow it, either. I’m crammed into small clubs to hear The Gaslight Anthem and The Reigning Sound as often as I am out watching veterans like John Hiatt and Graham Parker still crafting magic. And when a tour like Sixties Spectacular comes rolling through town featuring The Turtles, The Rascals and Herman’s Hermits, well I’m there, too.

The show was opened by a ’60s cover band who played a competent set of radio staples. While hearing a pedestrian version of “Honky Tonk Women” might be acceptable at a wedding or corporate function, I dreaded the fact that my a quarter of my $50 ticket was designated to 30-40 minutes of this. I also feared I might be seeing these same people acting as the band behind the remaining original members of these featured groups. I’ve been to oldies shows before where a group of unknown musicians simply changed shirts between sets to morph from The Grass Roots into The Buckinghams. But as it turned out, I had nothing to fear (although one of these bands could have used the help). And old bladders be damned, the show lasted almost three and a half hours.

Why can't you and me learn to love one another?

First up was The New Rascals, a legally-retitled band featuring original Young Rascals members Dino Danelli on drums and Gene Cornish (a native of this town) on guitar. A long time acrimonious split with Felix Cavaliere and the absence of Eddie Brigati meant that the primary vocalists of the band were no longer in the fold, their slots filled by current members Bill Pascali on keyboards and lead vocals and bassist/vocalist Charlie Souza. (Although they are advertised as formerly being with Vanilla Fudge and Tom Petty, respectively, neither were ever with the named artists in their heyday. Souza played bass with a late version of Mudcrutch and left before Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers; Pascali sang and played keyboards on one of Carmine Appice’s many reanimations of Vanilla Fudge earlier in the decade.)

Unfortunately, despite a wealth of great material to offer, the New Rascals were disappointing. I’m hoping that the issue was merely being under-rehearsed rather than lacking in ability. I don’t expect Pascali to be as soulful as Cavaliere, one of the era’s greatest singers, but he was often flat and occasionally struggled when playing piano and organ simultaneously. On other occasions, the band seemed to be playing off-rhythm. Ordinarily I’d chalk this up to bad monitors and/or faulty equipment, but having just witnessed the cover band whip through a set unscathed, I can’t lay blame there.

Cornish, who recently has endured some health scares, was as animated as he could be and flashed solid rock chops as the sole guitarist, and Souza did bring great energy and good voice to the mix. Danelli can still play flash, spinning sticks and muting cymbals, and on several songs everything clicked to remind the audience what an incredible catalogue of music this band generated in their career. Highlights included a rousing ”People Got To Be Free”, “A Girl Like You” and a stripped-down “Groovin”, featuring a soulful harmonica solo by Cornish. The crowd ate it up warts and all, of course, and gave the band a rousing ovation. I saw enough good moments to warrant seeing them again in the hope that this was just an off-night.

Stll two of the greatest voices in pop music

When the musicians in The Turtles hit the stage one by one, the keyboard player spun in circles before taking his place behind the rack, and I thought I had seen that move before. Sure enough, it turned out to be Greg Hawkes from The Cars, who has been with The Turtles for three years; the remainder of the band (although also not original members) have been in their shells for twenty. But the show is all about Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, the original lead vocalists, who are still singing as well as they did in their prime.

Scheduled for approximately forty minutes like The Rascals, I wondered how many Turtles favorites I wouldn’t hear, since my admiration for them goes way beyond the hit singles. Thankfully I got a good sampling of both, from “Outside Chance” to “”Happy Together”, ”You Baby” and “She’s My Girl”. The band was tight, Howard and Mark sounded fabulous, and their infamous stage banter was on display as they ripped into sacred cows as well as each other. I’ve seen them several times over the years, and can honestly say that they are as good now as they have ever been.

It’s amazing to think how long these two have been (happy) together, from sax-honking friends in The Crossfires to huge stardom in the ’60s to the Zappa years, followed by literally hundreds of session appearances and their hilarious syndicated radio show. Yet here they are, almost fifty years later, still viable and still creative. There were a lot of incredible artists vying for chart position and limited radio play in the ’60s, and the under-appreciated Turtles were an integral part of that amazing musical era.

The concert was promoted as an oldies show, and the majority of the attendees looked to be several years older than me and there for the hits. I don’t think many appreciated the segment of the set where the band ripped into several minutes of Frank Zappa material (a medley including a ferocious version of “Peaches en Regalia”) and a couple of tunes from the Flo and Eddie catalogue, but I was thrilled. But even with the mid-set segue, after so much familiar material was performed so well, the band got several well deserved lengthy ovations and a standing O at the end.

During the break, the lobby was flooded with fans lined up in queues past long banquet tables where their heroes sat with Sharpie pens. It was quite the assembly line – hand over a twenty, receive a CD, get your autograph, thanks and keep moving please. I’m not certain how much the bands got paid to perform, but the money that changed hands at intermission was staggering; an exercise repeated after the show. It dawned on me that with a three thousand seat theatre almost sold out, this annual caravan of yesterday was far more financially viable than most bands or tours that come through town.

And now…Intermission!

I’ll finish this tale of time travel on Saturday. Until then, enjoy some of the great music that The Rascals and The Turtles brought to the world. Listen to samples of The Ultimate Rascals and The Turtles: 20 Greatest Hits and check out some video below.

The Turtles:  “She’d Rather Be With Me“

The Rascals: “Good Lovin“

The Turtles:  “Elenore“ - how great was Johnny Barbata on drums?

The Rascals: “People Got To Be Free“

And Happy Birthday, ‘erman! Hard to believe he’s 62 today!

Well, it’s been a week since this fancy blog of mine got started, and already I really have no idea what to tackle today. I had started writing about the controversy of the song “Science Is Real” off of TMBG’s latest kids album, Here Comes Science, but I just wasn’t feeling it. It probably would’ve turned out downright vile against those I hate, and I’m not feeling that today. So, in its place, I present a few songs about being out of ideas. With any luck, the ideas will start flooding in. On we go…

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They Might Be Giants – Number Three
First of all, I apologize for the video. It was the best I could do on such short notice. Disregarding that, when I think of songs about not being able to write more songs, this one springs to mind instantly. One of ol’ TMBG’s real oldies (it was on their fabled 1985 Demo Tape), it encapsulates their earlier abstract and absurd tendencies, while still managing to not sound forced. It’s fun, and, thankfully, the singer did manage to write more songs afterwards.

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XTC – Train Running Low On Soul Coal
This is really more broad than just simply a lack of ideas. In this song, Andy Partridge is the train, and, well… he’s losing steam. At this point in XTC’s career, they weren’t making money, they weren’t making hit records (although they never did that all that often), and they weren’t touring. They were losing it fast, and Andy just wasn’t up to it anymore. It would take a psychedelic side-project to get the creative juices flowing again, and after that, they were off again.

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The Kinks – Look A Little On The Sunnyside
While not entirely about being out of ideas, there is a sense of ideas being discarded on a whim by the powers-that-be. Ray Davies mocks the commercial music process with such lyrical chestnuts as “You sing ‘em the blues/And then they ask for a happy tune/And when you start to smile, they’ll say gimme that rhythm & blues/And when you give ‘em that rhythm & blues they’ll simply smile and say/We didn’t want to hear you play/We didn’t like you anyway.” So, not so much a lack of ideas, but a lack of interest by those who would allow those ideas to be heard. I suppose that’s similar.

Any others you can think of? I know I’m missing some great examples.

-Trevor

I don’t think i’ve ever expressed my love for the kinks on this thing before, so i think it’s time to make up for that. I really love the Kinks. Like, have days more and more where they’re all i really want to listen to. I’ll usually start at Kontroversy though, because i do get tired of the honky R&B shenanigans, but that goes across the board. Kinks got songs i can’t get tired of and am always finding new favorites or ones that hit me harder than they used to. There’s no other band that does this to me, with maybe the exception of John Fahey. Either way picking a favorite Kinks song or album is impossible and useless. I refuse to field such a question. People always ask each other, “beatles or stones, dude?” and there’s nothing wrong with that question but if i had a third option, i know very well what i would chose. Having spent so much time with the core albums it’s real nice to hear something new from their peak period that escaped making it onto their usual albums. The two i offer up today are The Great Lost Kinks Album and Dave Davies never fully released album that got canned for whatever reason, most likely canned with a little help from older, wiser and much more dickish bro, Ray.

The Great Lost Kinks Album came out in 1973 but has been way out of print since then which has always kept it a low profile trajectory. This is a true shame because some of the songs on here are really fantastic. Culled from leftovers mostly around Village Green era as well as really rare b-sides and movie soundtrack songs, the collage-d nature of the album doesn’t seem as it is.  That is to say, it passes very easily as cohesive effort.

On to poor old confused and belittled Dave’s big opus that never was. Word around the block goes, after Dave hit the target with “Death of a Clown” everyone started to either prop him up or knock him down, up from the record company and down from his big brother who was not interested in sharing any of the band’s reigns. The album was none the less planned and slowly worked on for a while but eventually got splintered into solo Dave singles, Kinks album tracks and some of it totally shelved. Poor kid. Anywho, i’m sure all that is behind him these days being that he has more important things to worry about such as recovering from a nasty stroke, but this album pretty much brings together every kinks song Dave wrote and sang prior to 1969, as well as a few more tracks from the would be album. These latter tunes are what you came here for and these are the real gems of the group. “Creepin’ Jean” and “Hold My Hand” just two of these rarities that make you understand why a total ego case like Ray would be very nervous that songwriting genetics weren’t solely his to express.

Download: Kinks – Great Lost Kinks Album

Dave Davies – The Album That Never Was

Sorry all these videos are pretty terrible, gotta do it for the tunes.

The Kinks, by Jack Robinson