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July 11, 2009 07:55PM
Third attempt. Yes I completed the daily event. Yes my friend died of cancer and writing a blog became irrelevant to my life. And yes I really enjoyed doing it.
Ray I really miss you.
Blog I wish I had continued you.
That's how it goes,I suppose. Anyone wanting to know the 365 events just let me know!
Bob
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July 18, 2008 08:13PM
January 30th t: ‘I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday’ by David Bowie off the 1993 EMI Cd ‘Black Tie White Noise’ C/w Morrissey’s original form ‘Your Arsenal’
This is the first time that Bowie event has been entirely manufactured by me to suit my day, inasmuch as there is no single release of this track, I just picked it off the album. There was a reason.
For today was the day I finally got to see Morrissey in the flesh. After 20+ years of devotion dating back to buying ‘Hatful of Hollow’ on tape - I’ve been reeling around the fountain ever since.
‘Hatful of Hollow’ was one of those special albums in my life. I had finally accepted that I had dropped out of University aged 21 and wasn’t planning on going back. I was also determined I wasn’t going straight to work either. So rather than return to my parents in Maidenhead where work was frighteningly plentiful, I hid up in Leeds where jobs were scarce and I knew I could get my head back together.
I lived on the dole following a principle that I would payback this money many times over once I’d got a job and started paying taxes, a principle that was contrived, but nevertheless sound. I stayed away from my parents for an entire year, which is just what I needed to do, though it had its moments of deep pain. It was the first of two times that I would call ‘the best of times and the worst of times’.
You can see how Morrissey was good company for me.
I was living in a house in what was a run down part of Burley, Leeds, in Autumn Street and partly funded by my mate John Cassidy who was still at University. Without his help I would surely have had to go home, tail between my legs and I would have lived a whole different life. I was entirely on my own for weeks at a time and mostly either listening to or reading plays until I finally felt confident to write my own - ‘Johnny Don’t Do It’, which got its title from a 10 c.c. song. Later I did get it typed up and sent to the BBC for consideration, but they didn’t take it.
I had to count every penny and sometimes it completely ran out. My chicken risottos eventually became ‘nothing’ risottos, and I cooked sausage meat in roughly 743 ways. Yet in spite of this, I managed to pull the cash together to buy this tape, and when you’ve got so little, what you have is worth so much more.
Ever since then there’s barely been a Morrissey release I’ve missed, as anyone who follows his career knows, you need to buy the singles to catch the hidden gems in his catalogue.
The concert was in the unlikely venue of the Doncaster Dome, and I went with Kathrin and Joe. We were just feet away from him, but in the heave and the ho of the crowd it was still hard to see him all of the time.
The music was simply fantastic, and guess what? He opened with ’How Soon Is Now?’ a track from my beloved ’Hatful of Hollow’ tape. He must have known I was there! Well either that or it makes a cracking opening track to any concert…
The band truly were all together. ‘Life is a Pigsty’ and ‘Death of a Disco Dancer’ were mesmeric. Then ’First of the Gang’ a track my family have all sung along to many times doing the washing up or on long car journeys ended the concert on a terrific high, that literally left you wanting more.
For a tour that coincides with the release of a Greatest Hits album, the concert, in true Morrissey style, had almost none of them, which was a bit disappointing in terms of having a good old sing song, but I’m guessing that’s precisely why it did not.
Doncaster to Leeds is a surprisingly long trip given that they’re both in Yorkshire, and it was gone Midnight before we got in, around £200 poorer in the pocket once tickets, t-shirts, meal out and petrol had all been considered. All Joe and I could say was ‘ I can’t believe it, we‘ve just seen MORRISSEY!’
Kathrin and I would have seen him in Manchester back in 1996, before he pulled out of the gig, taking half of Manchester with him. That was so disappointing it would have been just about the most perfect concert imaginable.
As for the time they did meet musically - I didn’t know ‘I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday’ was a Morrissey song when Bowie covered it, ‘Your Arsenal’ being an album I do seem to have missed on its release. Other than looking at the writing credits, I would never have guessed either. Nicholas Pegg relates that Bowie covered it because it was Morrissey have a loving dig at Bowie, which again is entirely unobvious to me.
Apparently Morrissey filled up when he heard Bowie’s version, which I imagine would be anyone’s reaction once a legend and a hero chooses to honour one of your babies. Naturally I love both versions and obviously the original wins the day for the best version due to its gentleness and supplely, but Bowie gives it a good run for the money.
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July 12, 2008 02:10PM
A statue in Nice.
Don't worry I'm not feeling lonely right now, far from it, I've lots of really great friends that I see plenty of times, too. It's good to ackowledge that sometimes.
I use this picture because it reminded me of a time when I was lonely, many years ago, and to illustrate this lyric from 'Without You I'm Nothing' which I thought wasn't a happy relationship song, so I didn't show a picture of my wife and I!
But I'm rubbish at interpreting lyrics on the whole.
January 29th: Placebo featuring David Bowie. Without You I’m Nothing. 1999 Cd EP.
Includes: Single mix; UNKLE remix; The Flexirol Remix; and Brothers In Rhythm Club Mix.
OK I listen to these Cds as I’m driving around doing my work in my car. Yesterday’s choice in truth only got to about track 10 because the news had come through that entirely out of the blue, the football team I follow, Leeds United, had lost their manager.
The ins and outs of this are not for this site, but the upshot was I was in a state of semi-shock and needed to listen to the radio phone-ins on the subject as catharsis and to see what news there was of a replacement.
So I deliberately chose a Bowie event that would not take up too much of my listening time.
On the journey in to work, I finally realised there was no more Leeds United news to be had (we’re in the third division, so we rarely make the national news these days, hence even this big story had dried up) so I finished off yesterday’s Cd and started the Placebo Ep.
I remembered I liked this Ep more for its remixes than the lead track. I mean I know you need the straight forward version to make sense of it all, but this disc is a perfect example of how remixes can surpass their originals!
UNKLE are a production team that I’ve only come to recently, through their work with Thom Yorke, and the latest release of ‘War Stories’ is one of my more recent power plays in the car - or was before all this Bowie nonsense started! I’d forgotten I had a mix of theirs already on this Cd.
But of the three my favourite mix is the The Flexirol Mix which like Ziggy Stardust should be played on maximum volume!
The thing I remember about this coming out was that as it was over 9 minutes long, it didn’t qualify for the singles chart so only it seemed to disappear without it’s due acknowledgement. This was either very brave or rather stupid of the record company. Stupid gets my verdict - I would love Bowie to get more hits! These days with individual track downloads hitting the charts this would not have mattered.
I associate it with my emergence of finding the joys of the computer and the internet, so whatever was going on for me in 1999, I associate the Cd with feeling happy.
With all the uncertainty over Leeds United it was great having this in the car again after so many years to blast all unhappy thoughts away, and it must have played round 4 times before I took it out the next day.
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