johnnyguitar

I love SD. It must be my age!

'Pretty Paracetamol you ease my aching brain....' Definitely Fischer Z. They were far bigger in Europe than in the UK, so maybe that's where the confusion lies. As far as I know Squeeze's only drug record was 'Black Coffee in Bed'

Steve Earle's 'Copperhead Road' manages to be historical, political and a great song to boot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc86_Weoye0

Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins) meets Joni Mitchell in a lift. They joyfully harmonise their way to heaven to meet Nick Drake and ask him to play on Stephanie Dowsen's debut album, A Lily for the Spectre. He agrees on the proviso that some of the songs have a dark melancholy heart and ooze aching and longing, as well as some of the most uplifting arrangements you will ever hear. 'No problem'. says Steph. And it's done.

It's nice to have inspired something. RLJ is fantastico....she's written some fantastic songs and is a terrific musician. ...is one of the saddest songs ever...and that moan she does as a car goes by is spine-tingling on the album (it pans across in stereo and evokes a bleak empty highway like nothing else). Night Train was years ahead of its time too...awesome arrangement and superb band too. I think she had a very dark period and drugs definitely took the shine off her creativity for a while...but a great voice. I think she was pretty gorgeous too, in a Joni kind of way, which probably didn't do her any favours due to comparisons. Her first album is a 10 star, down on the floor classic!

I saw him only last year touring as support to the Edgar Winter Band. He's pretty darned good but hasn't developed as a virtuoso. Woodstock was the time when he was supposed to be the 'fastest' guitarist on earth and, in his day he probably was, but advanced 'sweep picking' and 'tapping' techniques hadn't really been discovered then and nowadays every young gunslinger on the block could out-shred him. Still pretty darned good though and I was glad to have seen a legend from my youth. Edgar Winter was awesome!

Peg - Steely Dan Good Sunday afternoon stuff.

Yesss! We have that...the boys love it! Good idea.

I've already got all the Beach Boys and Rickie Lee Jones, Don Henley and Eagles I need. Got some Colbe Caillat and Stephanie Dowsen, There will be plenty of bluegrass (Nickel Creek, Alison Krauss)There will be six of us from 50 to 13 years old. Girlies and boilies. I'm hoping to compile a few CD's of classics and obscurities from the last 40 years to the present day. We will be passing through hot, barren desert...and then hit the surf...Big Sur! Dead Kennedys sounds good. I'll check out Sufjan (thanks)....keep 'em coming!

Our Summer holiday this year is going to include a Winnebago drive across the Mohave and then a week up the California coast road. Of course we have to have a musical soundtrack for the journey.... Suggestions please...so I can get burning!

An 'ice wagon' was also slang for a hearse, or the ambulance that picked up a dead body.

Colbie Caillat is wonderful, by the way...excellent! Thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkMaHqHrxmM

Utterly beautiful.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkMaHqHrxmM x

I look forward to BF's quiet and measured response to this calumny.

There's your trouble...as the Dixie Chicks would have it...you can't separate the song from the singer. You don't like the idea of the Pistols...or you don't like one of their songs...or you were being rogered over a barrel by an 8 foot tattoed Haiitian gaol master, when you first heard them...or you are just an immature twazzock (tick the correct box) so you can't hear...or be bothered to hear any of their other stuff. Consequently...for you, all their stuff is crap. It's not...just most of it!

I hadn't realised it offended so many people! Good.

No you're not...you're just trying to humiliate me. So, your knowledge of Punk is a scholarly one...not having been a sentient being at the time...or just an onlooker? Billy Idol gobbed on me when I saw Chelsea play at the Underground. It was at that point I divested myself (literally, as well as metaphorically ) of the suggestion that Punk represented anything other than a fashion statement. I still think 'Dancing With Myself' is a good tune. The Pistol's best tune was an old Monkees cover (and I was a founder member of the UK Monkees fan club...aged 10 ). I saw the Sex Pistols getting out of a van to go to a gig. I could have seen the gig. Me? I was off to shag an impressionable teenager. I still think I made the right decision. (and I still love her!). Music's just music...it either moves you or it don't. I know you are fond of the social and political deconstruction of such phenomena...and you do it very well...but sometimes its just more fun to admit that we like some stuff...and we don't care quite so much for other stuff...and, that's about it, really. I chose my avatar purely to provoke you. Oh, how quickly we forget!

If BF ever saw the Sex Pistols (and I doubt it) he would know that I speak with considerable authority on the era...I remember the days when BF affected to not know what an avatar was, let alone become embroiled in a debate about the relative coolness of said feature. Having said that, I am reminded of the old saw 'If you remember the 60's...you weren't really there'. There are several gigs of the 80's for which my sole evidence that I was in attendance is the ticket I have framed above my computer. In truth, although I remember Mudhoney with some fondness and SY as an aural cacophany (is there any other sort?)...I haven't a clue whether they were any good or not...I was wrecked! Doesn't mean I'm not going to offer an opinion though.

An oddly solipsistic stance, if I may be allowed the observation. So, you only send cards to those who share your predilections? I consider myself blessed to be removed from your circle. Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said he wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have him?

Sadly, it is probably because Janis had been clean for so long that she OD'd. That is the terrible paradox of 'cleanliness'....one slip and, because you have lost your 'tolerance' built up over years of abuse...your chances of surviving an OD go down. I like to keep my tolerance levels up.... Amy is bound to be compared to all the sadly wasted talents over the last 100 years. They are comparing her to Billie Holliday over here! Luckily, she does have the talent to be reasonably compared with the best...I just hope she lasts long enough to leave a decent legacy. She isn't quite unique at the moment....but she yet might be! Jx

She's gorgeous too...when she's got those extra pounds...I really, really don't know why women think men prefer skinny birds...it just ain't true.

I have burned myself several CD's of stuff to sing along to in the car, when I'm on my own of course. Favourites that I wouldn't want anyone else hearing me sing to include Mrs. Potter's Lullaby (Counting Crows), There's Your Trouble (Dixie Chicks), Made Up Lovesong (The Guillemots) Here Comes The Flood (the Robert Fripp version...far superior!)and many more, all belted out in a perfect off key rasp.

Back to Black was definitely my album of last year....awesome stuff. She might cream up...it certainly looked like she would a few weeks ago...but what a talent. If she ends up a 'Janis' of the 21st century then so be it...she's already left some wonderful music! I hope she cleans up and ends up doing cabaret...but, somehow, I doubt it!

Dodgy filming...but here's the original. My little band used to do this every time we performed....and I always ended up with a tear in the corner of my eye...