Gregory Isaacs R.I.P.

It seems I have reached that age where all my heroes are long gone, dead or forgotten.One of them, Gregory Isaacs, has died of lung cancer.

The wife and I saw the Cool Ruler once at The Lyceum on The Strand. We were standing next to a well known national newspaper music critic who was smoking the biggest spliff I have ever seen, except  for the one Mr Isaacs had  on stage. There was a large contingent of screaming girls who looked like they were going to pass out every time he looked at them. Gregory's performance was slick, he looked the part dressed in white suit and hat and he did all his hits.  The voice was rich and  powerful. Andrew Perry writing in the Telegraph says very accurately " In his prime, Isaacs had a voice which could have seduced a female statue into bed". Here

I played some of his songs - Night Nurse included- last night, just to as a way of marking his passing.

Another legend gone. R.I.P.

Family Relationships

We have just come back from the annual family get together in Norfolk. Every year we get together for a weekend to just meet up and share our lives and get back in touch with each other. Some years to be honest  these events are the only time I have seen or spoken to my brother and sister all year. My Mum and Dad love it all, they are the centre of attention all weekend and they get to see their grandchildren all together, getting on together. Family, I think, as they get older becomes more important to them.

The kids are now growing up and  my brother's two daughters weren't there,my eldest nephew left early as did my son. These weekend are sometimes really good and sometimes really bad and sometimes, like this year, really average. The weekend weather, a mixture of rain and wind and low temperatures didn't help.
My brother has been unemployed for six months now and is starting to get stressed about it and that probably didn't help the atmosphere. Sometimes these weekend make me realise why I was so desperate to leave home at 18. But as we all get a bit older we become more alike and I like my family more now than I did as a teenager.

Music doesn't feature much in these weekends although my Dad is a very keen jazz fan. He thinks music is for listening to not as background noise. So there is no background noise. Sometimes there is silence,except for  the sounds in my own head. This is totally different to my wife's family where there is never any silence. My kids find this  difference between the two families fascinating.

This song by Billy Franks was the sound in my head all weekend. Don't know why. sometimes it happens that a song gets into your brain and you can't shake it off. Good job it's not a bad song

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She's The Messiah In Me- Billy Franks

The Distractions

I've written about this band before. I've written  of how they saw me through my university years in Manchester how almost 30 years later they still remain the group I have seen the most times and how I still listen to their songs.
Well , like lots of bands they are back. Not all the original line up (shame) but with Mike Finney and Steve Perrin the main song writing duo plus others. They have released an EP, Black Velvet available from Occultation. Its worth a punt and there is more to come. I am excited by this. Mike Finney's voice is still the blueprint of  top quality pop/rock for me, reminiscent of, but better than, R Dean Taylor. The music is the  guitar based pop that jangles and makes my feet move every time. Why this band weren't huge I will never  know.
Here is a website about them where you can keep up to date with their plans for more releases. Unfortunately the only way you'll be able to get hold of their original releases  is via second hand record fairs or Soulseek. For now it's all out of print. All that is apart from their single on Factory records "Time Goes By So Slow"which is available on the Factory Box set and various compilations and which is  ,in my opinion,apart from Love Will Tear Us Apart the best thing ever released on that label.

Daughter is growing up

A strange weekend, my 17 year old daughter has a boyfriend, he is from Doncaster and stayed with us this weekend.
I am trying to work out how I feel about this. On the one hand I am a pretty liberal, permissive, Guardian reading parent but deep down inside I feel weirdly uncomfortable about this but I am not saying I feel like Steve Martin in Father of The Bride. I suppose it's the recognition that my baby girl is actually now a woman and moving onto independence from me, the only man who mattered in her life up to now. It helps that he is a nice lad.

Would I feel the same way if my son brought a girlfriend home? I don't know is the honest answer.

There is a  twist to this story which appeals to the old romantic in me. My daughter and he met on a campsite near Biarritz about 6 years ago. Via text and MSN and latterly Bebo and Facebook they have kept in touch. Even when he joined the Navy at 16- he came up to see her before he went off to Portsmouth- they still kept in touch until earlier this year they decided to make a go of it and start a relationship. That makes me smile.

Love for life? I don't know but maybe it is.

Monday

After a weekend of rain worthy of the storms we saw in Cuba, today was a nice autumn day. Lots of sun. A light fresh wind and clear blue skies.

I have been having a break from listening to music on my daily trudge to and from my workplace. I am listening to Today on the way in and PM on the way back. I had almost forgotten how good a station Radio 4 is.
This listening has encouraged me to listen to much more of their output my departure this weekend from Radio5 hastened by the all day coverage of the Ryder cup, and I had almost forgotten how some of their programmes are so intellectual it makes your brain throb trying to follow them. Worth the licence fee on its own.