in Politics
To be honest, I don’t think that much of Israeli pop. And there’s something of “Deep Forest” to the Idan Raichel Project.
But despite all that, I’m really enjoying this Israeli/Beta Israel themed band.
Learn about the fellow behind this record here.
Well, it must be a magazine editor’s worst nightmare…
The latest issue of Q Magazine dropped through my door today. It had a full page front cover of Michael Jackson. Well, at first I didn’t give it a second glance because Jackson’s picture has been everywhere. But then it occurred to me that it was impossible that the magazine could have been printed and posted so quickly. Then the horrible truth dawned on me as I ripped oven the plastic cover …
The cover story is billed as “Michael Jackson Unmasked”.
On the masthead page, the editorial declares in large type: “It’s the month of Jacko”. Well, I suppose he wasn’t wrong. Indeed, Editor Paul Rees peers into his crystal ball and editorialises thus:
“At the time of going to press, the self-styled king of pop was due to play the first shows of his proposed 50-night stand at London’s O2 arena within a matter of days. But, as Q has learned in the process of putting this issue together, there are no certainties in Michael Jackson’s world - besides the one that suggests that anything that can go madly, will go madly.”
This is the prelude to a 16-page full colour extravaganza on Michael Jackson billed as “The tale of the biggest comeback in history!”
On 13th July 2009 Michael Jackson is set to play the first of 50 dates at London’s O2 Arena. It is the most ambitious comeback in thehistory of popular music, but several questions still hang in the air. Will he turn up? Will he sing more than a few lines? Can Michael Jackson really survive 50 shows or will his body, mind, both seemingly so fragile, disintegrate under the pressure of it all?
And then the article goes on to talk about the man “gambling his reputation on Jackson turning up for the shows”. Ouch!
As a footnote, the writing on the magazine spine says: “Michael Jackson | The Enemy | The Dead Weather | Spinal Tap | The Horrors | Dead Rock Stars”
Alas, the “dead rock stars” story has a CSI-style forensic investigator re-examining famous rock star deaths, including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Buckley and Bob Marley. It couldn’t be more ghoulish following the 16-page Jackson extravaganza.
Oh, and its dated “August 2009″. So now bizarrely, Michael Jackson must be the first rock star to have a front page story in a music paper of record announcing a new concert series dated a month after his death.
Why he mattered– from a trailer for the great animated film Persepolis (28 seconds in).
I just turned on the TV News to hear that Michael Jackson has died. He was due to begin a series of comeback concerts next month.
Well, it goes without saying that he’s had his ups and downs, with more downs lately, followed by even more downs, but no one can take away his period of sheer pop genius. There’s very little else that can be said.
I think I’ll go and give my 7″ vinyl copy of Billie Jean a spin.
This is a guest post by Mike
Every morning without fail, I wake up with a piece of music playing inside my head. It could be any piece of music I’ve heard in my lifetime, a hymn, a song, a piece of classical music…
My first thoughts upon waking are to listen. The song is not part of my thoughts or dreams as such but it’s the soundtrack to them. As I become conscious I cling to what the final scenes of the dream that has entertained my sleeping self and the music that my subconscious self chose to accompany it.
Recently I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to the sound of Randy Crawford singing ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away”. this provided the sound bed to a dream of me desperately trying to manouevre my articulated lorry onto the Eurostar train at St Pancras Station. I’ve never had the pleasure of traveling on the Eurostar, nor have I ever driven a large lorry, although I don’t rule out the possibility in the future of either, nevertheless I have long been an admirer of Ms Crawford’s vocal stylings so it was great to hear her first thing in the morning, - singing, as clear as daylight on my internal jukebox.
I have woken up to Motorhead’s “Bomber” (on blue vinyl, of course) while sailing on a small boat in the Med and I’ve woken up to the strains of Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture” whilst desperately trying to finish my Economics A Level. Usually, the music and the dream dissolve as I start the day but occasionally they stay with me until I’ve played the real thing in a conscious state. Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” is a recurring song, although never used to such great effect as it was in “Pulp Fiction”, as is the simply incredible hymn “Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind” which I have grown to love so much that I often find myself singing it out loud, often at inappropriate times, which reminds me, apologies to anybody I may have startled yesterday evening in the ’10 items or less’ queue in the Portobello Road branch of Tesco Metro.
I don’t know if everyone wakes up with music playing in their head, or if it’s just me, but I’m glad that it happens.
Denis Healey was on Desert Island Discs last Sunday, speaking about his wartime experiences in the Italian campaign and mentioning the song D-Day Dodgers. The tune is Lilli Marlene, and he said he couldn’t remember who wrote the words.
A description of the Italian and Mediterranean Campaigns of World War II:-
Napoleon once said that the only way to invade Italy was from the top. The Allies did not heed his warning and paid dearly for every inch of ground. Battles compared in their sheer intensity and horror with those of World War One. At Anzio alone the Allies suffered 135,000 casualties and Monte Cassino, over 54,000. In Tunisia, another 45,000 casualties. 20 Victoria Crosses were awarded during the Italy Campaign - 5 at Cassino alone!
So the legend goes, veterans of the Italian campaigns were called “D-Day Dodgers” by Lady Nancy Astor MP in a speech, after she received a letter from a disgruntled British soldier who signed it “D-Day Dodger”.
The words of the song D-Day Dodgers were written as a response to Nancy Astor’s insult by Hamish Henderson, who also fought in that campaign.
The first few verses are sarcastic about the jolly time the soldiers were supposed to be having:-
We landed in Salerno, a holiday with pay,
The Jerries brought the bands out to greet us on the way,
Showed us the sights and gave us tea,
We all sang songs, the beer was free,
To welcome D-Day Dodgers to sunny Italy,
The last verse ends as most war poems must:-
Look around the mountains in the mud and rain,
You’ll find the scattered crosses,
the sum that have no name,
Heartbreak and toil and suffering gone,
The boys beneath them slumber on,
They are the D-Day Dodgers who stay in Italy,
This is the best version I could find on YouTube, with the swearing that you would expect from disgruntled soldiers though those words are not in the official lyrics.
(Link to video as I can’t add it to the post).
Hamish Henderson was a collector of folk music, poet and lyricist, and played a big part in the Scottish folk revival. Someone else who fought in the Italian campaign was E P Thompson, left wing historian and later one of the leaders of the peace movement during the chilliest days of the Cold War.
He describes the campaign thus:-
In one of his less happy flourishes Sir Winston Churchill described Italy as “the soft underbelly of the Axis beast”. Soft it was not. Italy has a singularly rugged spine and the successive mountains and rivers provided barriers behind which the German armies could execute an orderly withdrawal while their well-disciplined rearguard inflicted, day after day, sharp casualties on the advancing Allied armis. It was a preposterous error to plant large motorised armies in the toe of Italy and then to fight, mile by mile, up the boot. It may be because the whole campaign was so misconceived that it is rarely mentioned.
(from the essay The Liberation of Perugia.)
Thompson was an officer and recalls three dead troopers who were killed in the tank advance:-
They had shared in the resigned complicity of military life and had joined in the repartee of ironies as we camped in the evenings beside our tanks in the beautiful countryside of May and June.
The “repartee of ironies” is the exact spirit of D-Day Dodgers.
Every so often you come across user-reviews for albums which leave you scratching your head. This one I had to share:
One of my aunts gave my family a burned copy of this album with a photocopied booklet that explained how this album was banned in the US, how the government hides things from us, and how communism was a better system of government.
I have no idea what that was about, but I do know that this is a great compilation. Unlike another one of their Greatest Hits albums, this really does contain their greatest hits. Fantastic songs.
I’ll tell you which album he’s talking about in the comments.
I don’t know if there are any closet bedroom producers among Harry’s Place readership - but if there are, or if you know anyone who likes to twiddle knobs, musically speaking, this is an opportunity not to be missed.
Tony Allen has been called ”perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived” by Brian Eno for his 1970s work with Fela Kuti, and has remained active and keyed in to modern music since then - playing most prominently as part of The Good The Bad & The Queen project with Damon Albarn in 2006, and on the sublime La Ritournelle by Sebastian Tellier in 2004.
His new album Secret Agent is a relatively straightforward Afrobeat affair, but he and World Circuit records are offering its title track’s constituent parts up for remixers to do as they will with, and I for one am looking forward to hearing what they come up with.
All the info and music files are here: http://tonyallenremixcontest.blogspot.com/
The Abayudaya are a group of Ugandan Jews, who basically declared themselves Jewish to piss of the British.
Norm blogged on these guys a year and a bit ago.
If you have Spotify - and if you live in Europe, there’s not reason not to - you can hear the whole album here.
If you don’t have Spotify, get it here. If you live in the US and understand VPN tunnelling, you can probably also tune in, but don’t quote me on it.
This is not a substantial review of the Sam Raimi Film Drag Me to Hell, but just a plea for you to go and see it without reading any reviews. It’s a sort of 21st century horror morality play. Any detailed review either ruins the plot of the film, or the gross events within it. It manages the neat trick of being extremely amusing, despite being played straight, in the way that the writers of the dire film The Cottage probably aimed for, but failed to reach.
