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Colin Hay - Men at Work - - Music Review
Are You Looking At Me? - Colin Hay’s 2007 release has found it’s way to my disc player. Let me just dispense with the suspense. Oh my god - I freaking love this disc. Holly smokes out of the blue comes a mature, sophisticated, smart, intelligent, sumptuous delight of audio, lyric, fun and contemplation from the former Men At Work front man. I can not rave about this disc enough. First off Colin’s voice is still intact. Secondly, his sense of humor is as strong as ever tempered with age, wisdom, insight, humility, compassion, and yes love. The production is first rate. The tunes bounce along, float, rock, boogie and reflect. The syncopation isn’t hurried but tempered and well I am so impressed - this is now my new favorite disc. He’s out touring with Ringo - that’s just completely perfect. If he comes to Virginia Beach I’ll be the first to buy tickets.
Well done Colin well done and welcome back amigo!!!!!!!!!!
This time is different - this time we got you — and I thank you for that!
Paul
Author- Journey Home
Ray Davies Other Peoples Lives
I waited a while to purchase this CD because of some bogus reviews (and budget of course). Well without leaving you in suspense this is a great disc. I read a bunch of insipid comments about the lyrics weren’t tricky enough - here’s a reminder you negative dopes - this man rhymed Lola and cola and you loved it - and you should.
In Ray’s latest effort there are plenty of sonic delights. The production is stellar, the energy is up and direct and Ray…well hearing Ray’s voice again is a sheer delight. Now I’m not a hard core Kinks fan and you don’t have to be to enjoy this album. Archetypal themes mix with Rays wit and salty mind set to produce a rather surprising disc. In fact I’m surprised by how much I really like this batch of tunes. It starts out rockin’ and then the third song bounces in with a very Kink like tune, a bouncy theme that runs counter with the look at yourself lyrics. I’ve always loved how Ray makes a song sound all light and airy while the lyrics paint a different story, but in the end still hopeful.
Well done Ray!
There’s a lot going on here - different styles of music at once edgy, rockin’, folky, satirical, spacey, acoustic, humor. In other words it doesn’t sound all the same cut after cut. Welcome back Ray and for the uber fans lighten up. His lyrics are just fine and as insightful, hopeful and honest as ever. This is a big boy record by a man, and completely accessible to all. You don’t have to know about the Kinks or even like them to appreciate this disc. It’s well worth the buy! Stand Up Comic is a hoot and it rocks…and that’s that!
Arturo O’Farrill
I have been meaning to write about Arturo for a while but every time I do I put on one of his CD’s and start listening. Well I can’t help it his playing just rifles along in bouncy rhythms that disguise the effort. The man can play and well writing about playing is very difficult especially when listening. Afro-Cuban Jazz I guess if you are going to label something that’s as good a name as any. I would throw out the phrase World Jazz, or describe it as jazz with an island sensibility. Calypso meets Swing meets Coltrane. It doesn’t matter the music has heart and a real sense of joy. His father (also Arturo) was an innovator but over looked by the establishment. Well the establishment is a bunch of small minded idiots protecting their own turf. So they suck and who cares what they think. Now a days more enlightened individuals (thank you Wynton Marsalis) have opened doors for Arturo. His Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra performs at the Lincoln Center in NY as a regular gig, and all over the world.
I’m not really sure how I stumbled into his work. Pulling on the Buena Vista Social Club string I probably came across his recording Night in Tunisia and well I’m hooked. This is not unaccessible music and the Brazilian and Santa Domingo influences from Latin America are here as well as the mellow classic jazz lines of Monk and Mcoy Tyner, and even shades of Vince Guaraldi very, very nice. It is a wide musical landscape played very tastefully.
Music is gumbo and Arturo is a world renowned chef - and so now you know - dig in and enjoy - hot and spicy, cool and mellow and it swings - it’s all here.
Happy Birthday Angus!!!! AC/DC is ROCK!
I love Angus and Malcolm and the band more than life itself. I kid you not. AC/DC is just sheer joy, a thing of beauty, a band that is what it is and it is ROCK! It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock n’ roll and thank god Angus and Malcolm took that Journey together. I love that band in all it’s forms in all it’s sounds in everything they do. I can not wait to see you guys back in the States. Come when you are ready. I’ll be there and along with everyone else we will bring the rock n’ roll of the gods down upon our collective heads, and have it resonate through every fiber of our beings. Happy Birthday Angus! You my friend ROCK! You are the very definition of ROCK. You are the embodiment of ROCK. No one else comes even close. If you want ROCK pure and direct from the gods themselves go see Angus and Malcolm. Thank you, thank you, thank you and Happy ROCKIN’ Birthday!
Paul
Author-Journey Home
The Orchestra of Piazza Vittorio - Movie Review
This is another movie I can highly recommend especially for movie lovers, dreamers and those with the ability and who appreciate the effort of bringing dreams into reality. It is a lot like giving birth both wrenching, powerful and fulfilling. As I put this documentary into the DVD player I winced at the subtitles (long day at work) and slow pace of the introductory credits - just fast forward to the start and within a few moments (give it a chance) the apparent odyssey of the journey begins and takes hold of you. The sheer joy in playing reveals ego, dissension, ability, understanding or lack there of but also the unbriddled joy of the creative process. This film is that good and another highly recommended movie for your NetFlix list! I really loved it and musicians and music lovers will chuckle at the insights, missteps, warts and all harmony of the players, orchestra and organizers. It’s a marvelous piece - ENJOY!
Paul
Author- Journey Home
Clear Channel Won’t Play Springsteen’s New Album!
Using excuses Clear Channel has banned it’s stations from playing Bruce’s new album. They want this quiet very quiet and not to have a Dixie Chick back lash reaction when they banned the Dixie Chicks for exercising their rights. It’s important to remember the airways belong to the Public. I was on the bubble about buying Bruce’s new album but now I’m buying it out of spite!
The serious issue here is the consolidation of media (across the board TV & Print) and the control of information to the vast majority too busy to dig for it. What gets played on the radio is what is being marketed. The commercial radio stations are just marketing arms and the cycle for marketing is a short one. I was psyched for a promo copy of one artist a while back but because it was thirty days after the release the record label didn’t want to send me a promotional copy. Talk about short sighted but they have very clear marketing strategies.
Back to the main issue - if there is money to be made they’ll play anything - artistic quality has zero, zilch, nada, absolutely nothing to do with what you are hearing on radio - it’s about unit sales and target markets. So what’s with banning Bruce? His album is selling well. Clear Channel’s strategy runs counter to their typical business model?
A Free Press was singled out in the Constitution as being essential to our democracy.
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom…of the press.”
If media across the board is consolidated into the hands of the few because of laws made by this government cleared the way then rights and freedoms are restricted by the whims of the few and the political leanings of the few. In essence the vast liberty that freedom requires and leans on has been SOLD OUT by the establishment, and those wide ranging freedoms guaranteed under our Constitution become the dictate of the few.
The essence of this issue is freedom, dissemination, availability and variety. As the public we not only own the air ways but the public lands they are mining for next to nothing. Some of the worst deals of all time have been foisted onto the American public concerning mining rights and the lost revenue that could /should be plowed back into our public institutions and needs.
Back to Freedom of the Press: Without those broad parameters of freedom of information, and broad dissemination in place and available we more than risk we guarantee that the powerful who wish to remain powerful will restrict pertinent information when it runs counter to their special, specific and highly individualized wants and needs.
Unfortunately, those needs may and often do run counter to what is best for the majority. Including being able to pollute the Delaware and Chesapeake because a company would sell less of something.
Paper back ups for voting machines is a great example although essential for voting integrity they cut into the profit margin of the manufactures. Whats more important here - obviously voting count integrity, but because we have a warped sense of the importance of profit margins trumping all other concerns we have a fight on our hands to get paper back ups for our new electronic voting machines - so much for defending the Constitution.
We shoot ourselves in the foot time and time again even to the point of the destruction of the actual air we breath, water we drink and land and oceans we harvest. It’s mind boggling and devoid of common sense.
In order to fix this mess profit has to be dropped from the number one priority of all time and considered only after the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and the health and welfare of our society as a whole is taken into account. Unbridled profit for profits sake is not a panacea or cure all for what ails us. Never has been never will be! In fact unbriddled profiteering is the quickest way to destroying our planet, each other, and ourselves.
I hope we learn this lesson before it is too late.
Did you know there were cars already in production that run on compressed air? This should be front page news. The big boys don’t have their hands around it (yet) so we don’t hear about it.
Just think how peaceful and clean the world would be today if the guys that make the most off of oil weren’t in control of the White House and Congress for the past 60 years. Don’t get fooled or roped into a phony fight Republicans versus Democrats. It’s the have mores (that’s W.’s quote) versus the rest of us.
It’s time to put the oil monopoly and their minions their dirty oil money, politics and schemes out to pasture and reclaim our country of the people, by the people, for the people!
Paul Burke
Author - Journey Home
Is it any wonder that Human dignity has all but evaporated. From the willingness to blow up people in a market getting their daily bread to the visceral, violent and ugly words and images from our entertainment industry the idea of human dignity has all but disappeared. Somewhere along the time that it became hip to be stupid we have trended downwards. Look at the talking heads screaming at each other on television (pathetic, immature, irrational and stupid) or the trash that is sensationalized and paraded on daily television for what we have become. It’s not funny it’s sad. Decorum, respect, dignity, class, education, elite, excellence, work, awareness, liberal, sharing, kindness, tolerance, peace, patience, understanding and love these have become the dirty words. How about our politicians and the examples they set with lying and corruption justified as the norm and how much one can get away with the goal. That’s the petulant behavior of a five year old and not very wise. You can only lead by example. We show up on foreign soil with Christianity in one hand and an empty basket to fill up in the other pathetic hypocrites.
No Human dignity is a thing of the past. It’s hip to be an aggressive punk. Throwing trash in the street and crying about being dis-respected we don’t see that our actions are what actually earn respect. Religious bigotry, intolerance forgetting to live and let live or simply ignoring the golden rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) are all symptoms of an immature world petty and futile with no real vision beyond greed and ego. The world is flipped out. I guess an era of uncivilized behavior is necessary to re-educate man that ignorance is self and globally annihilating.
Well World in order to survive the word we must relearn is civilization. Without it we reduce ourselves and our neighbors to less than nothing defecating in our water, poisoning our food, polluting our air and waging war all for profit. A respect for all humanity (including yourself) is the cornerstone of success. Jefferson called it the obligation of the good citizen. I call it common sense.
Paul
Author - Journey Home
Amnesty International
“when Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he said he thought it would be a good idea”
There’s a lot of things going wrong in the world; peak oil which claims in 40 years all the oil reserves will be gone, our arrogant cowboy diplomacy, polluted water, polluted air, polluted food, melting ice caps, massive daily species extinction, unaffordable health care, a devastated and destroyed public educational system, corporate monopoly over the political system, media and commerce, mountain top mining, slaughtering wolves from helicopters, dog fighting, rape, murder, depleted over fished ocean resources used as a sewage dump, theft of the public treasury by private corporations, an unrepresentative government spewing out ideological non-sense to divide and conquer, religious organization that kill, hate and destroy themselves and each other, music that spews vial and disgusting attitudes, the erosion of civil liberties, greed, hatred, jealousy, fear, indifference, apathy, diet, 5% of the worlds population consuming 25% of the energy. We are a decidedly out of balance, corrupt, disingenuous, angry, selfish, ignorant, lacking knowledge of history and culture, blundering nation. Like a huge headless colossal buffoon blindly in the night we trip over ourselves, exploiting and hustling the angles and the angels until we come apart at the seams. We need to get right. Our pool of candidates and politicians are a vapid, self indulged, corrupt, hypocritical, dangerous bunch of loonies because of the culture from which they come. A society which puts profit above even survival is indeed ludicrous.
As individuals in each of our tiny little corners of life in every moment, every day and in every way we make a difference creative or destructive. Hope is a living thing and there is nothing we can not do or accomplish. Make the world around you a better place. You know what to do and the difference between right and wrong. Listen to that small quiet voice within and be the change you seek.
American Farmland Trust
Bio Gems
Earth Justice
Green Mountain Coffee
http://www.greenmountaincoffee.com/
Mountain Top Removal
Natural Defense Council
Oil Change International
Peak Oil
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
Union of Concerned Scientists
World WildLife Action
http://wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/PageServer?pagename=can_home
Paul
Movie review time - I know I’m about ten years too late on this one (actually not that bad) but seriously if it wasn’t for NetFlix I wouldn’t have a clue. I saw Claire Danes with Leo in a remake of Romeo and Juliet. Watching that movie I realized that she has this quiet dignity that really shines on screen. I like Claire quite a bit and also respect that she’s not fodder for the Tabloids. Poor Britney what a mess and Lindsey Lohan’s Mom should be beaten for what she has done to her child. Okay back to Shop Girl. Years ago Steve Martin produced a play and I ran to the Ford theater to see it in Washington D. C. “Picasso at the Lapin Agile”. I loved it! The triple threat to Shop Girl is Jason Schwartzman. I have to believe Bill Murray told Steve to work with this guy and I loved Jason in Rushmore.
What possibly could go wrong with this cast. Nothing and the music score is beautiful. If you haven’t seen Shop Girl grab your significant other and rent this movie. I would even say it’s worthy of a buy for your home collection. The story has depth and lightness and Claire carries the whole thing off with aplomb.
Four Stars - for intelligence, thoughtfulness and laughs. Much like the Gilda and Steve dance number from way back when on SNL. Mr. Martin has always infused his work with a poignant, bitter sweet quality with laughs to spare. Shop Girl tones the guffaws down quite a bit but there are still some light hearted moments. Above all else a real human chord is struck throughout the movie. So ignore the cheesy DVD cover and delve into this one.
Enjoy and let me know what you think,
Paul
Quite simply - I hate “hate” and that’s the only thing I hate. It’s a stupid word, it’s a stupid response to being insecure about your own self and your own choices in life. Somewhere along the way people need to realize that even if we were all the same it wouldn’t cure our insecurity or make us feel better about ourselves - that’s just an illusion based on fear. Variety has been and will continue to be the spice of life. Until we embrace the differences in each other and until we recognize the intricacies in creation are also in our very selves, and until we realize we are creation, just as varied and spectacular as mother nature herself - because we are mother nature, until we realize we are a part of nature and not apart from nature we will continue to be ignorant of who and what we are, do the wrong things, and fear (hate) what we don’t understand about ourselves, each other and our planet.
Guitar Shorty (Double Holy Smokes)
David Kearney (Guitar Shorty) is a lights out awesome, righteous guitar player. What a show! I just happened to check our local blues club and stopped in to see Guitar Shorty over the weekend. Holy smokes either I was ready to cut loose or this was the best freakin’ show I’ve seen in a long, long time - holy smokes - we completely lost track of time.
I love being surprised when checking out acts for the first time. I had no idea what to expect and truth be told I was pretty played out by the end of the week. We could have used the night off. But we rallied late and got there just before show time. I know I’m in for a good show when just walking into the venue I almost knock over the headliner. He was on his way out to change before the show. Well I’m happy to say we had a complete blast as David Guitar Shorty strutted his stuff and worked the audience. We were laughing and crackin’ with him all night. It was a real event and the place was packed! By the end of the night he had us dancing in the aisles. I woke up the next morning with a slight twisted knee from playing air guitar all night looooonngggg!!!!! (LOL)! Here’s a section lifted from his web site(s) to give you an idea of his pedigree:
“Right out of high school at the age of 16 Shorty joined Ray Charles and his band for a year. At the age of 17 he recorded a single under the direction of Willie Dixon on the Cobra label. When Shorty was lured away to play with Guitar Slim he moved to New Orleans. He gigged steadily through the late 1950s and 1960s, working with Little Milton, B.B. King, Lowell Fulson, Sam Cooke, Otis Rush, Johnny Copeland and T-Bone Walker. Shorty lived and worked in both Los Angeles and Canada until in 1961 he met his wife, Marcia, in Seattle. When Shorty married Marcia he also got Jimi Hendrix, Marcia’s (step)brother for a younger brother-in-law. The young Jimi Hendrix came to see Shorty play often…”
Okay, enough said the man’s the real deal! Here’s a great interview from two years ago “Guitar Shorty Interview ” that tells a great story. It’s a quick read. After all this time Shorty is finally reaping the benefits of his decades long pursuit of music and hard work.
One other thing the man is a class act. He spent all night with his fans until the last one straggled out the door. His band was rock solid and it was just a great fun night for all. Do not miss this American Treasure when he comes to your town. Here’s his current schedule.
I went to see Walter a few weeks ago and got funked up! It was awesome. I needed to post something up about this unsung Cresent City hero and quick! I had the opportunity to play his music on my radio show a few years back. What I get most out of Walter is that good Philly soul sound mixed with the blues and funk and seared with New Orleans everything. Earth Wind and Fire meets the DelFonics and Chris Cain and I’m not even getting close to explaining the great house party music he and the roadmasters pump out. Walter is a pure entertainer and has been in the business a very long time. He’s the real deal and has 50 years of playing and listening, touring and entertaining under his belt. Rip open his repertoire and you’ll find a gumbo stew of influences all of them cool. He had fans whipping out their cell phones telling their friends to get their asses down to the club now! I was knocked out that he was in my little hometown. I can recommend three of his disc’s On the Prowl, Funk in the House, and Get on Up: Charly Blues Masterworks, Vol. 9
Visit his website and buy direct - this is a New Orleans musician and he cautioned all of us - our donations to the hurricane relief go through several layers before getting down to the people. So if you really want to help New Orleans - get yourself down there and deliver your cash to the locals first hand whether you are eating Etoufee or funkin’ it up with Walter at Bank Street!
