http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/ Out and about on Formby's highways and byways en Copyright 2008 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:23:13 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Work has just begun on this summer's cereal harvest. The number of fields being cut is increasing daily and soon I expect the road will be alive [albeit slowly] with tractors and trailors taking straw and grain from field to barn. But while farmers are able to get on the land hereabouts, it is not the same everywhere. Last night I was listening to the markets programme on RTE radio and it painted a completely different picture of the harvest in Ireland. Rain has brought a real dampener to the countryside there. Continual rain has meant that many farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to take heavy machinery on to the land, with serious consequences. Farmer Sam Houlihan was interviewed and spoke about life on his farm at present, where rain means he cannot start cutting his corn. If he took his machinery on, it would simply bog down. This meant that his workers were having to stand idle, or do unnecessary jobs. "We're sweeping the same yard twice," was his wry comment. The ground was drying out a little but the topmost layer was still damp. Walk on to it and your boots were soon caked in mud. Imagine taking a combine or baler on to that. Some farmers were managing to get on, but at a price, said Sam. Those farmers with straw choppers were able to work, running their combines over chopped straw. But this would present a premium in the future. The price of straw would rise in the winter as supplies shortened as so little was being brought into the farmyard because it was being used for this unusual purpose. Grain was also posing a problem. Moisture content had gone down to 21% but heavy rain on Saturday had seen it shooting up again, meaning more work for the dryer if it was harvested. Listening to Sam, you felt he was not complaining just for complaining's sake. Hopefully things will improve and we'll be able to get our harvest in without the same troubles on this side of the Irish Sea. Music On The Moss: Not everyone likes cover versions. In the early days they were a way of English artists getting a quick hit with an insipid version of an American rock-n-roll original. But the attitude of the singer recording the cover makes a difference. I bought the last of the Johnny Cash American series of recordings recently, chosing from the five in the series mainly to see how he handled two non-original songs on V, the fifth in the series. I first heard Gordon Lightfoot's If you could read my mind when it was released in 1972, light and optimistic, realistic in the belief that if love doesn't work out there is time for a young man's heart to heal in the future. Cash's version, though, is the aching of a much older man, who knows that he's said farewell to his last taste of love, the heartache in his voice real and compelling. Rick Rubin's production lays Cash's vocals and his feelings bare in an intimate fashion that borders on the insensitive yet it is this quality which both men have been aiming for; you could call it truth, an honesty that a younger singer could never summon. It's certainly compelling. Cash has a more optimistic view of Rod McKuen's Love's been good to me. He's looking back at a life that has seen happiness and fulfilment, content to have tasted his chances rather than wasted them. McKuen originally wrote the song for Sinatra [Cash sings Sinatra - a rare thought there!] but I saw him sing too many years ago when he toured England. He, too, took an optimistic, grateful view of the song with its lyrics about loves long gone in happier times. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/o-JQvzVcMeU/not_all_gold_at_harvest_time.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/not_all_gold_at_harvest_time.html Cash harvest Lightfoot McKuen Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:23:13 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/not_all_gold_at_harvest_time.html Every day I go across the Moss. Some days the Moss comes to the office. Or what could be thriving out there. In fact, it was thriving in Jack Richardson's garden. But what was lurking in the undergrowth of Palmer Crescent had him baffled. After all, what is as thick as your finger, even longer, and has four false eyes at its sharp end? Jack didn't know. Nor did his pals who tried to find out on the interweb. So he brought it into Elbow Lane. A little bit more research on the interweb threw up the answer. It was an elephant hawk moth catepillar. It was a great thing, too. When walking it stretched out to around six or seven inches. When worried, it retracted its head and thrust up its "shoulders" with the double pair of false eyes, hoping to scare off any predators. Now Jack has returned it to the undergrowth where, hopefully, it will pupate over winter and in spring emerge as a beauitful lilac/pink moth with a wingspan of 70mm. What a beauty. Music On The Moss: Perhaps it's a good tune for a reporter in transit, False Knight On The Road. I've been listening to two versions of it this week. One by Tim Hart and Maddy Prior when they were a duo on the folk circuit, the other when they were part of Steeleye Span. The first showcases Maddy Prior's heavenly voice as she composes a slow version over the twinkling accompaniment of Appalachian dulcimer. The second is faster, grittier, with Martin Carthy's voice twinkling at the ironies in the lyrics while the electric accompaniment gives it a hefty punch. TH&MP were a favourite of mine from the late sixties and SS produced some great music, although I've rather lost touch with them in their present days.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/CRmDkz1c8WU/its_not_every_day.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/its_not_every_day.html False Knight Maddy Prior Steeleye Span Tim Hart Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:26:43 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/its_not_every_day.html Jefferson Airplane's 1969 live album, Bless its pointed little head. It is one of my favourite albums and just oozes energy and good times. The blending of Grace Slick's voice with that of Marty Balin is nearly ethereal - in a heavy way. Their voices rise and fall against each other's on Somebody to Love and Balin's composition Plastic Fantastic Lover. Spencer Dryden's drumming is energetic and drives the band along, while Jorma Kaukonen's guitar screams and whips along wicked lead lines. Jack Casidy is one of my favourite bass players and he thunders away, moving the basslines into and out of the limelight with ease, oiled with the eprfection that only practice brings. Paul Kantner's writing and rhythm guitar helps them to storm along on a selection of songs that give new life to Fred Neil's folk classic Other side of this life and Donovan's song Fat Angel. www.jeffersonairplane.com]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/IDrbjEzW0fQ/hidden_places.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/hidden_places.html casidy jefferson airplane kantner kaukonen slick Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:35:51 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/hidden_places.html Music On The Moss: there can't be many cowboys born in the city but Rambling Jack Elliott is one. Modelling himself on Woody Guthrie, he learned to pick guitar and search out old songs from old cowboys and toured Europe and America telling tales and making music. Young Brigham is his album I've just been listening to, one which he made when he had been cut free from the constraints of a label which wanted him to do more of the same. He tackles the Stones' Connection with a vengance, and comes up with what he calls the only night herding song a cowboy would ever sing round cattle - all the others would be likely to spook the longhorns, which panicked at the slightest provocation - as well as the first song he wrote himself, 1912 Greens. It's a spoken blues-type, though it's not sad at all, just a fond looking back at a visit with guitarist Billy Fahr to a house at 1912 Toulouse Street in New Orleans and the events that happened there. His rickety guitar backing adds to the sense of homeliness that RJE engenders. Speaking of Rambling Jack, isn't the interweb a wonderful thing? Seaching on it just brought up another Rambling Jack, real name Edmond Houlihan. A Fenian, he was blinded in a fight and had to go about earning his living playing the fiddle at fairs and suchlike. According to the article, "The anti-recruiting ballad is one of the great strains of Irish resistance songs. The story is told that in Ferbane, County Offaly, Rambling Jack defied the British Army when he sang an anti-recruiting song as a recruiting meeting was about to begin in the main street. The song was one of the finest, Patrick Sheehan, by Charles Joseph Kickham, the Tipperary Fenian who was the foremost writer on the IRB newspaper The Irish People. Both Kickham, who was partially blind and deaf, and Edmond Houlihan, would have identified with the character in this song, a young Irishman blinded fighting in the British Army in the Crimea." He died aged 92 in 1931, having lost his sight in a battle in 1867. From then on until his death his fiddling playing and Republican ballad-singing was all that kept him going. There, we've all learnt something. No doubt there are more Rambling Jacks around if we did but know it. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/wqN8ZGgx8-Q/sorry_im_late_but.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/sorry_im_late_but.html Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:30:37 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/08/sorry_im_late_but.html Music on the Moss: I only ever bought one Little Feat album, their first. But I always liked Lowell George. I've been listening to his first solo album. He had a soulful voice but not in the Motown way. This album showcases a variety of styles - even one track with a Paraguayan harp accompaniment - and shows why he is sadly missed. With Ry Cooder, he was one of the great modern exponents of the slide guitar.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/MZ1Oga4PK5Q/a_road_with_a_view.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/a_road_with_a_view.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:03:54 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/a_road_with_a_view.html Music on the Moss: With ringing guitars and a particular penchant for a particular rhythm, Charlie were a group that could only be English. After all, their lead singer and writer was called Terry Thomas! But success eluded them here and they made more of a mark in America, which is a pity as I think Thomas was as an individual writer, with the ind of style that could only come from an Englishman, as Ray Davies. This 70s guitar band - which even added a second drummer once it crossed the water - produced some really catchy tracks. I've been listening to their second album, No second chance, and I'm surprised at just how good it is still is after all these years. The title track and others has a particular shuffle rhythm that Thomas uses to great effect to move the song along. The guitar breaks are clean and crisp, too, and the lyrics show a deal of sophistication. And only an English writer could pen an anthem to that stalwart of 70s heavy metal concerts, the Greatcoat Guru! You must have seen him in his Army surplus overcoat! ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/kNJejEKoEZ0/hedgerow_haiku.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/hedgerow_haiku.html charlie guru hedge terry thomas Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:29:00 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/hedgerow_haiku.html Music on the moss: Buffy Sainte-Marie has long been one of my favourite singer/writers. Her early career in folk blossomed into some good rock music. I've been listening to She used to want to be a ballerina which features a wide range of songs, from the upbeat title track - I like the notion that "Rock n roll will never be Tchaikovsky, but Tchaikovsky will never be rock n roll" - to a great version of Helpless backed by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Another fellow Canadian that Sainte-Marie helped popularise is Leonard Cohen and she does an evocative version of his The Bells. Even more striking is the portion of one of his novels which she set to an electronic score as God is alive, Magick is afoot on her brilliant Illuminations album. The lyrics are rather dense and you never understand the same way twice but her performance weaves them into a spell. Her voice and guitar were treated electronically to provide soundbite links between tracks, very avante garde in 1969. The other tracks range from really soft fluffy lovesongs to rock tracks which really bite. Try logging on to www.creative-native.com to learn more about her and the sterling work she does for the Native American community and her educational work.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/9SU8LMaJpDM/lifted_up.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/lifted_up.html Buffy hay Moss Sainte-Marie Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:46:42 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/lifted_up.html Music on the Moss: I've been listening to 5 Hand Reel this week. Scottish folksinger Dick Gaughan is perhaps the pre-eminent voice, though the contribution made by the other group members can't be overlooked. Tom Hickland's fiddle playing matches Gaughan's dexterity on the guitar, while Bobby Eaglesham's vocals and guitars provide a tonal contast. Barry Lyon's bass playing is really good, far heavier and intricate than you might expect for a folk band. And then there is Dave Tulloch in the crash-bang-wallop department. His drumming sets 5 Hand Reel apart from other folk-rockers. It has that distinctive Scottish marching band feel and he really set up a driving, swaying rhythm. The actual marching band drumming is tremendous [but only if you've ever taking part in walking days and processions and had to line up behind the band!]. I remember seeing them live several times and they were great crowd-pleasers. Well worth a listen, though it's handy to have a Scotsman standing by to help understand some of the lyrics. Kempy's Hat is a fine tune, Wee Wee German Lairdie is a fine song, the Haughs O' Cromdale is a particularly fine song very well arranged, and the band do some admirable treatments of Rabbie Burns.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/zd8AiN2He9U/turn_turn_turn.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/turn_turn_turn.html Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:50:35 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/07/turn_turn_turn.html Music on the Moss: This week it is an Irish folk-rock group Horslips. Long ago disbanded, they created catchy rock songs from reels and jigs, as well as playing traditional music. Their first album, Happy to meet ... sorry to part, is a brave expedition into celtic rock, paving the way for others to follow. A later album, Dancehall Sweethearts, shows a more aggressive stance, although they can still turn a ballad with the best. Stars is a good anthem while Mad Pat has a really good chorus. So, if you want your rock music tempered with some fiery electric violin and mandolin - not to mention uillean pipes and concertina - Horslips were the lads.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/7Q0aF3qRCQ4/aerial_attack.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/aerial_attack.html Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:11:34 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/aerial_attack.html Music on the Moss: It would be remiss not to refer to yesterday's sad news about the death of Bo Diddley. I remember saving up to buy my first record player and having no money left over to buy any records! After two weeks of silence I'd saved enough to buy my first LP. It was Bo Diddley's In The Spotlight. For 21/- [or twenty-one shillings, or £1 1s 0d, or a guinea for those who love old money] it was a really good buy. I still have it and still love the music on it. While at school we had thrilled to the old red-and-yellow Pye R&B label records that featured Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, the latter apparently playing bass on many of the former's hits. They even recorded an album together, Two Great Guitars, with tracks like Jaguar And The Thunderbird. Diddley's home-grown and much-copied rhythm - say "Shave and a haircut, two cents" and you have it - kept British groups going in the sixties r&b boom when rhythm and blues meant something entirely different to what it does today. With Billy Boy Arnold on harmonica, Jerome Green on those trademark maraccas - and sly reply vocals on Say Man, reputedly the first rap song even though it was recorded in 1958 - Diddley had a fiercesome stage act. Many people still believe Elvis the Pelvis took his leg moves from the man the called "The Originator." He was out on his own in employing women guitarists in an age when that didn't really happen. His half-sister The Duchess and then Lady Bo all helped power a catalogue of songs and sounds that kept up with musical fashion and electrical wizardry. Diddley was turning knobs all the way round to maximum long before it was fashionable or psychadelic. And if you were to ask me to name the real rock-n-roll guitar, it would have to be Diddley's square Gretch. A killer instrument in sound and looks, although he had a stable of similar instruments built by various makers. His music will live on. You'd be surprised at how many people have covered his songs. My particular favourite cover is Quicksilver Messenger Service's set of variations on Who Do You Love? over a whole side of their Happy Trails album. A great musician who was under-rated by many people but a legend nonetheless.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/SLaiQ4oiSgo/who_do_you_love.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/who_do_you_love.html Wed, 04 Jun 2008 13:26:18 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/who_do_you_love.html Music on the moss: Oh dear, a hippy-dippy moment. Steve Hillage was best known as the guitar hero on Daevid Allen's Planet Gong before launching into a solo career. Then he disembarked Britain to live in France where he apparently now does very well on the dance/trance music scene. His Rainbow Dome Music is the very essence of hippy-trippidom, composed as the ambient music for an event or happening or installation centred around some artwork or other. Whatever, it really does take you back to the days of tie-dye and tedium, bubbles and so on. Throughout there is a continual sound of running water which must have had people running off to the little lads and lassies room. I find it soothing, rather strangely, as the sound of running water is always one of the natural elements you listen for in the country. There is no recognisable melody, just lots of synthiser parts and electronic trickery. I reckon it is what Frank Zappa would have called "noodling." He had this theory that people playing avant garde music or experimental stuff could be put into two camps: those whose "noodling" demonstrated they knew what they were doing and those who were just making a noise. Hillage knew what he was doing but I don't think it really stands the test of time as some hippy stuff has. To reinforce its place in hippy-dippidom, the original LP was pressed in a clear vinyl! Very odd on the turntable. They don't do with with CDs, although a CD I bought on Saturday of Miles Davis's Kind of Blue had a very impressive scaled down print of the original LP, even down to the groove on the record. Neat. And the old folkies among you will recognise the title of this piece comes from one of Buffy Sainte-Marie's very early albums. Time to get some of her stuff from the loft, I think.]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/E0jFhQ_2W7I/little_wheel_spin_and_spin.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/little_wheel_spin_and_spin.html Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:55:53 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/06/little_wheel_spin_and_spin.html Music On The Moss: I read an interview in one of the quality papers with author-TV presenter-columnist Clive James that he was going into partnership with Pete Atkin again. Pete who? Thirty years ago, James and Atkin were a formidable partnership with James' lyrics matched with Atkins' music and stage performance. As you can imagine, their songs were erudite, witty and off-centre enough to make you smile. Master of the revels is a jaunty funsong which the original liner notes said featured the former Salvation Army tuba played on the Sgt Pepper album. Have you got a biro I can borrow is a wistful tale, while Girl on a train is another subtle twist on the boy-girl theme. Beware of the beautiful stranger is one of their better tracks, though few fall below the very good mark. Tracks like Session man blues show how perfectly Atkins could adapt James' lyrics to form a perfect song. If you come across one of their LPs in a rack somewhere, snap it up, though they're apparently quite pricey these days. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/ZK06Al0Jmqc/llama_ted.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/llama_ted.html Tue, 13 May 2008 16:39:25 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/llama_ted.html Cast not a clout until May is out. They were, of course, in their Olde English way, warning us not to stop wearing winter clothing until the may blossom was on the trees. Once the hawthorns in particular had started producing flowers, then it was safe to cast off your winter clothing and wear something more appropriate to spring. The hedgerows are filled with blossom now. Gardens are pink and white with cherry blossom - and magnolia if you are lucky enough to have a tree - while the country lanes are bright with the white flowers of the hawthorn. Now the buds have burst [and until then they are apparently quite tasty as a countryman's snack] it really looks as if the countryside has come to life. The trees coming into leaf is exciting enough but the sight of the blossom always brings summer that much closer. Magnificent trees like the horse chestnut are also in flower now, tall splendours that they are. Other trees will also be in flower. Hay fever sufferers will already know that the silver birch is shedding its pollen as this is one of the major causes of early-season hay fever. Music On The Moss: Back to the sixties again with Shawn Phillips, one of my favourite musicians. Red hair down to his waist, a 12-string guitar in hand and latterly a double-necked guitar, his music moves easily from folk through rock to jazz, aided by a voice capable of covering several octaves that was powering a music far ahead of its time. I'm listening to his first major album, Contribution, along with his second, Contribution II. From the stunning beauty of Withered Roses which opens the first to the way Phillips works with slow ballads, adding orchestra to a catalogue of rock heroes which include Traffic's Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi along with session guitarist legend Jim Cregan, in a variety of styles which range from the complex to the simple. Phillips is still making music thankfully. Check out www.shawnphillips.com]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/oBRdiWGmt-w/casting_clouts.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/casting_clouts.html Mon, 12 May 2008 11:05:30 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/casting_clouts.html Music on the moss: It's been a varied week. Legendary folkie John Stewart has been strumming away on his live Pheonix Concert recording. He helped make the Kingston Trio famous in the sixties, then ventured into a solo career. He came to prominence with California Bloodlines, a landmark album, then took on board Fleetwood Mac's Lyndsey Buckingham as his producer for some more rockier albums. Then there has been Hot Tuna with their blues-rock on Yellow Fever. And just in case anyone is wondering where the title to this blog came from, it's the opening line of a song from The Incredible String Band's terrific album The 5000 Spirts Or The Layers Of The Onion. I wonder why they don't write album titles like that any more?]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/n5MNEPtRwys/somewhere_in_my_mind_there_is.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/somewhere_in_my_mind_there_is.html Thu, 08 May 2008 16:34:23 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/05/somewhere_in_my_mind_there_is.html Also making a colourful addition to the morning was a charm of goldfinches near to New Hill House Farm, dashing for cover into the hedgerow. Hardly colourful but no less impressive was an oystercatcher flying over the fields in Lord Sefton Way, its beautiful black-and-white plumage presenting a striking zig-zag pattern as it passed over the fields. And I spotted my first pair of swallows yesterday. Music on the moss: The first Tim Buckley record I bought was Lorca, his first real expedition into jazz. It's an uncompromising record that sees Buckley using his voice as an instrument more than anything else, stretching words into syllables of sound rather than normal verses. The brilliant Lee Underwood backs him on guitar and pipe organ. ]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ManOnTheMoss/~3/f74JzQb_r1w/red_eye_express.html http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/04/red_eye_express.html Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:03:12 +0000 http://www.manonthemoss.merseyblogs.co.uk/2008/04/red_eye_express.html