Wednesday 28 December 2016

AN ANTIDOTE TO THE EVERLASTING OBITUARY SICKNESS. SOME NICE ENGLISH MUSIC

Jackie Oates, featuring Chris Sarjeant, Sleepers Awake.

12 comments:

Dick the Prick said...

Not for nowt but there ain't been much obituary sickness round our gaff. My main sickness is how the fuck John Virgo's still alive? Just come back from my mums and left her with a Meatloaf concert on - there was nothing I could do! You try to help these people but they just won't fucking listen (she never puts her hearing aids in) so all you're left with is vaguely in tune (to be fair) catarwauling whilst a guy is gonna have a cardiac on stage. Now he's fucking showbizness - you know, that old shit about turning up and doing a job. This celeb inevitable fest is kinda Vauxhall Conference - give me Kanye West and a Pogo Stick and i'll perk up or Elton John and a Monster Truck and that's news. The tabloid wank over people dying naturally isn't even mawkish - it's just voyeurism. As has been mentioned numerous times in Ishmael chronicles passim, any day of the week a 53 year old pop metrosexual smack head, a 60 year old teenage wankfest coke head, a 68 year old guitar sheister and a 95 year old rabbit watching dude don't make the news. It hasn't made news in our house - I demand more death showbiz. These cunts are meant to be good - go out in style ffs. Really boring deaths.

Just as a festive thing. Mince pies are proper disgusting - they're the kendal mint cake or margarine of food stuffs; awesome calories but instant diabetes.

The elveish thing is v funny :-)

call me ishmael said...

Cold and lonely in the deep, dark night, you can see Paradise by the dashboard light; I fucking love it, mr dick, ain't no doubt about it. Your Mum is a lucky lady, indeed. If any relation came and played me Bat Out of Hell, I would consider my life not entirely wasted. I believe that the producer and arranger, Lofgren and Steinman, I think, of BOOH got together and said, this fucking Bruce Springsteen, eh? Fuck him. Lets show him what rock'n'roll really is. And then sat down and wrote the greatest musical pastiche ever, every note on that album references a rock'n'roll classic, it's like they got twenty Mike Oldfields, shot them full of speed and locked them in a room and put Phil Spector in charge, pointing a machine gun at them all. It is truly magnificent. And, as you say, the FatMan is the real thing It's like the antithesis of that Sergeant Pepper pschadelic bullshit, pure teenage rock'n'roll, played by giants. Wonderful, you've cheeered me up, just mentioning it.

Yeah, there's times that even after thirty years of Type 1 diabetes i will eat some truly bad shit, but not mince pies, they should be classified as Class A, dangerous substance. I betcha Jamie O does a crackin' one,with chilis and olive oil and lemon juice and cayenne mayo, I tellya, you give yer mates some a them an' they'll love ya forever, all kinda gnarly, spicey but mellow, sweet an' savoury all at once. Man's a fucking lunatic, needs hospitalising, and a month of enemas.

Dick the Prick said...

Plus, mince pies used to be steak 'n' kidney, chicken 'n' mushroom or Cauliflower 'n' Aardvark etc; fuck that fruity, sugar based parcel of shite.

call me ishmael said...

I don't think you can beat a good, expensive, hand-raised Melton Mowbray pork pie, not of you like pigs in pies, anyway, with jelly.

Mike said...

For you pie-men:

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/03/13/sylvia-and-frans-the-upper-crust-pies-at-collaroy/

mongoose said...

I had mrs mongoose bake some mince pies this very Christmas. Heat 'em up good and hot and pour on thick custard. The food of champions. Ten thousand calories per spoonful, and you'll live forever too.

mongoose said...

Yikes, it is too cold for pallet-smashing. Time for some mince pie loveliness to warm me up.

But while I am here, mr ishmael, you might find on the Channel 4 i-thing "Seymour: An Introduction" about the aged and solitary piano teacher Seymour Bersnstein. Well worth the trouble - if it is still there.

Woman on a Raft said...

Meantime the weather has been cold but still and bright. I went to York where I had an entire river terrace to myself. Why people trapped themselves inside I do not know; the air was like soft gin although I had to keep my hat and coat on. They served me chestnut and cranberry soup with a hot roll which steamed as it was torn open and buttered. I had even picked up a book of poetry: Sarah Howe, A Loop of Jade, and read it while the low sun slanted off a gilded weather cock on a church spire.

Now you've chosen me some nice English music; a perfect evensong. Thank you.

callmeishmael said...

And thank you, mrs woar, sounds lovely. York is better, I think, in Winter, so long as it's not waterlogged. Storm Barbara was the reason we remained indoors. I strode out to fetch some coal for the Rayburn and simply couldn't stand--up to do it, drove, instead, to Mr Tesco and bought some of his bags of strange, non-inflammable coal which I could at least carry indoors.

Sleepers Awake is a Mike Heron song, although this version, from an album called One Minute Lullabies, is more dulcet than his, with the Incredible String Band. The English folkies have a way with harmony, be it the Copper Family, the Young Tradition, the Albion Band, Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span as well many other lesser known and probably ensembles there is just something of a disciplined magic about that As I Roved Out, finger-in-the-ear stuff.

callmeishmael said...

Cannot get the C4 i-thing, mr mongoose, will try the youtube.

Bungalow Bill said...

Lovely thanks. Born of the earth and us in it. I have been cheering myself up, similarly, with the bracing, exhilarating melancholy of Thomas Hardy's poems in this festive period. He Prefers Her Earthly, During Wind And Rain and I Look Into My Glass never fail to do the trick and to make the extinction of Gorgeous George and other titans in this murderous year somehow more tolerable.

Be interested to know what you think of Sarah Howe, Mrs Woar. Alice Oswald is another fine one if you don't already know her.

Woman on a Raft said...

I must confess to being personally partial to Sarah Howe as I have had the joy of seeing her at a public reading. I only know the tip of her work; it is academic and many of the pieces in this collection conciously refer to other poets. So it is not immediately accessible but neither is it deliberately impenetrable. Howe provides a glossary so that concepts which rely on a knowledge of Chinese society are explained. None of the pieces are very long, so if you do not care for one, then move on to the next and it will be different.

She is a fully trained traditional poet - she knows all the forms in both languages - so you cannot expect someone with my ears to be able to fairly judge her expertise. I can tell you that she is serious about her work without being cold or gloomy, even when a piece is about a personal difficulty.

I have not read Alice Oswald yet - I will move her up the list on that recommendation, Mr Bill.