Biggest List Ever!

For all you spotify fans here be dragons:

Pete Dello/Chicago Transit Authority/Ten Years After/Blood, Sweat & Tears/Man/Seeds/Chocolate Watch Band/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Love/Pearls Before Swine/Steve Miller Band - no 5/Ghost/Combustible Edison/Essex Green/Kaliedoscope/Tea & Symphony/Edgar Broughton Band/Groundhogs/Amon Duul/Can/Dorothy Ashby/Moondog/Alice Coltrane/Blodwyn Pig/Fugs/Holy Modal Rounders/Michael Hurley/Trees/Pentangle/Comus/Jan Dukes de Grey/Band/Warm Dust/Pete Brown/Piblokto/Third Ear Band/Michael Chapman/Roy Harper/Incredible String Band/Rex Holman/High Tide/East of Eden/Daevid Allen/Gong/Jack Bruce/Traffic/Dave Mason/John Fahey/Nice/Beau/Godz/Blue Magoos/Ocassional Word/Liverpool Scene/Graham Bond/Brian Auger/Nirvana (uk)/Clouds/Spooky Tooth/Quintessence/Blue Things/Principal Edwards Magic Theatre/Electric Flag/Spirit/Carla Bley/Don Cherry/Amber/Peter Green/Bridget St John/Family/Tim Rose/Tim Buckley/Tim Hardin/Phil Ochs/Country Joe & Fish/Jerry Rayson/William R. Strickland/Ovary Lodge/David Ackles/Pretty Things/Vashti Bunyan/Linda Perhacs/Bill Fay/Leo Kottke/Soft machine/Al Stewart/Robbie Basho/Tontos Expanding Head Band/White Noise/Dead/Shawn Phillips/Scott Walker/Peter Walker/Gracious/Affinity/H.P. Lovecraft/Skip Spence/Gene Clark/Strawbs/Sun Also Rises/Oberon/Bobby brown/Cro Magnon/Cressida/If/Habibya/Pharoahs Daughter/Alan Sondheim/Agincourt/Dulcimer/Heron/Titus Groan/Trader Horne/Stone Angel/Tudor Lodge/Mark Fry/July/Blossom Toes/............

(to be continued...............)

Revolution No 9

Did I ever tell you about that time in 73 in the Vondelpark, Amsterdam?

How I could not get to sleep under the trees in my sleeping bag because of the torrential rain. I went under one of the bridges & got caught up in a full-on riot with the police. They wanted to try & gain some control over the hippies in the park.

I cannot remember if I did eventually sleep that night. However the next day was free concert by the great, late Freddie King.

Hotch Potch in Butcher Street

Morning mist bright red sun,

the sky clears, red sun

henna-red, blood red,

butchers busy cold hands,

bloody red carcass

red heart: naked for all to see

innards of slaughtered cow

-warm blood

intestines spill onto the square,

bloody red sun.

Temple bells,

the river flows past,

red blood flows onto the square

& down winding streets.

Red blood river,

river rushing fast.

Temples are strong & silent now, majestic against a cold red sun.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks (for Ti Jean)

Subterranean, hobohemians & hep cats, burning up highways of light,

into the night-angel night, searching for their next soul vision prisms of rainbow light

prisoners of dark night,

speeding by with roadside cafes, hamburger joints, dime-a-dances.

Fleet of foot & wide-shouldered, crawling the kerb for new kicks beat mystics

tap tap tapping on dashboards

to crazy .

'Go-man-go',bop Jazz.

Crazy-man-crazy hitch-hiking saints & angels,

bedraggled & beat the gone ones

Furtive hipsters

in T-shirts & jeans, get with IT?

its got to be IT get IT

now....

. . . . . .

Hard Times

When we were young, we were so poor,

our Sunday lunch was a cornflake, without milk

& most definitely

without sugar.

When we were young, we worked so hard,

we missed two centuries

of industrial change

& the birth of the Welfare State.

When we were young, we were saddened

by the fall of the Roman Empire & their exodus from our shores,

so, we fought the Germans instead.

When we were young,

we used to be this tall,

but now we are small , bald & fat

like this.....

Gullsatori

All the pain & loneliness of life all we ever hope to achieve

all our sadness & hope

all our lostlove & desires all our pastlives & futures

all that was before & ever will be can be heard in the cry of a seagull.

Future Shock

And

Now For Some Silent Meditation'

the voice booms out over the LOUDspeakers, 'Have your chequebooks at the ready'

of course, I cut on out of there

lights flashed, explosions overhead,

the city was becoming a dangerous place in which to live.

Sleeping on the wing,

running with the wind,

scraping thru the debris

& the charred remains of civilisation.

Hells Angels playing handball with a human, shrunken head,

discovering dark magic,

needing something to believe in,

a cloak of blackness, the sun refuses to shine.

Hitch-hiking was out of the question, hikers were now proclaimed fair game,

for crazy rich men in fast cars.

Walking & running & gasping for breath,

symbols of decadence decorate long, abandoned buildings.

Shock waves shatter my 'Easy Rider' sun shades,

there goes my only protection against the flaring fireballs.

'Have I died yet?', I ask myself,

'No, but I think you're crazy', I answered in disbelief.

We were always discussing our boredom before. 'You could have really been someone'

- a voice whispers, far off under six feet of water, 'I know' I replied with a grin,

as my feet slip off the end of the earth.......

Fallout

Instead of wallowing in the mud of silent disgust, let us talk about it

instead of chewing on our cud,

let's spit it out

instead of swallowing & choking on our words, let them flow, let's draw our swords.

Silence builds a wall between us

& we use leftover bricks as projectiles. We're both burning up inside,

like Vesuvius before Pompeii.

Everybody Must Get Stoned

I ran through Iran before Ayatollah.

Shan't miss the Shah though

would miss Meshed:

Edge

We walked to the end of the earth

& fell off

we stood

hanging on the edge

of a cliff

& tumbled to our doom

we stood

on the edge of the ocean

& jumped right in we found an empty space at the close of the day

& stayed there

Das Lied Von Der Erde

The dark youth's favourite instruments,

were cellos & oboes & sometimes solo trumpets & trombones. He loved to listen to Germanic ladies singing

in thick, throaty accents.

He particularily enjoyed the Warholian wench,

Who accompanied herself on sunken harmoniums. Her dark, menancing voice cut through him

like a chainsaw massacre

'This is the end, beautiful friend..'

Taking the Cure

Taking my horse to hospital

finding it full of Chinese doctors

& Chinese junks.

Car Accident Victim

A dusty,X-ray photograph of someone's delicate insides, lay outside, on the barren roadside

squashed flat

It seemed absurd to think of the number of times,

that this poor soul had been run over.

I thought I saw traces of blood on the furtherest corner of the print.

I also detected a slight stench of death,

but then, that smell is always present along the roadside.

Tyretracks traced a line along his brittle

a speck of bird-shit on his left shoulder,

but, on close inspection, one could see,

that all his ribs were broken

& that the backbone was split in two

& that the shoulderbone was fractured.

Obviously,the owner of this X-ray, had died in a car crash.

Where was he?

who was he ?

& how did this X-ray get here.

Just then, the wind whipped the print up into the sky for an instant & then carried it further on up the road

for someone else to find

& ponder upon.

Burn Baby Burn

Worms wriggling underground, women burning bras

broken candelabras

& me:

burning candles at both ends,

flaming youth going up in smoke

piped music calmly tiptoes into my room,

clouds drift by my window momentarily taking on human forms,

heavy uniformed officials march up & down,

choking on cigarettes & all the lies they are taught to believe in.

Alone Again Or AndMoreAgain

'Where would you be if it were not for me', she said with scorn

He thought deeply

& lost himself

among the Matto Grosso indians & Mayan temples.

She repeated her question

spat out with venom, more like a command or a demand.

This time he had to shake himself free, from the Billy Liarland of the imagination

lost in the Himalayan foothills in a rickety wooden bus.

Useful Inventions pt 1

Hauntological & Hypnological

The' Wire' s overuse of the above two words makes it an easy target for scorn. However, I am amazed at how great the magazine can be, e.g recent edition covering:

radio art, los angeles free music society AND Catherine Christer Hennix was truly massive.

That's Why I'm Here

The only good thing about these last few weeks of madness is due to the fact that I now have an mp3 copy of James Taylor's live concert bootlegs & I can mellow out in my classic car & sing along.

Among the Minging Middens

Oops before that last post, I should have apologised for lack of active posts of late. Personal circumstances & car crash & too much time to update Twitter/Facebook presence.

One thing that is cheering me up at this difficult time of year is the sight of gardens full of sunflowers erect & sturdy among the berries, before the onslaught of yet another harsh winter

Remodelling the 60s

How did we get from White Bicycles & love & peace to I, Me, Mine?

What happened to the sharing & caring? I want to get 'back to the garden' & climb up a ladder & read a note that tells me to 'breathe'...........smile at each other & get together right now!

Boo! Audioboos: Soundmapping the Counter culture Revolution in Your Head

Note: the revolution will not be televised, but it will be streamed

Trekking through the inner recesses of my mind without the aid of a map or a sherpa armed only with a canvas bag of pinhead oatmeal & a block of black crowdie & warm thoughts of ready- made audioboos

National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland

I got dragged out to Oran Mor to catch nyjos, but I was expecting great things as 'the Herald' & the happy highlanders gave them such a good review.

The last time they covered material by British jazz legends Kenny Wheeler & by way of South Africa, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath.

Last night apart from their own stuff, they covered songs by Julian Arguelles (ex Loose Tubes), now resident in East Lothian.

Such a great concert as Julian was playing with the nyjos & he is working closely with them.

As you know from these posts, I have a passion for British jazz & I am concerned that much of it will never make it to cd.

The nyjos are keeping this flame alive & this reader is going to dig out those rare albums of the period & get groovy.

Gumbies or Crocs

Another visit from the happy highland campers in their camper van. We used to compare armfuls of the latest psychedelic vinyl & now we compare illnesses, medication & whether it is more correct to call our footware gumbies or crocs?

What Animal Are You

Or how I learned to live without fear of the bomb by joining the Circulating Library & learning to cook pinhead oatmeal

Great Scots

This is the first of an ongoing trilogy in 4 parts giving a very personal account of what we contribute to the world, that robs us of our birthright, our freedom & our oil..

I am going to try & keep it in the 20th century, but perhaps not as I will start with John Muir.

As a nation we are quick to put ourselves down. Hopefully this list will rectify that situation. Here we go: oops if I offend anyone: good

• john muir
• ivor cutler
• jack bruce
• jimmy reid (rip)
• ron geesin
• bert jansch
• robin williamson
• mike heron
• dick gaughan
• bill shankly
• jock stein
• irvine welsh
• kenny dalglish
• joe jordan
• dennis law
• momus
• alex ferguson
• sean maloney
• bill mclaren
• john beattie
• 
  
• 
  

Books

Listening to Bill Callahan while reading the Scottish Review of books & drinking java puts you in a strange mood for the whole day.