It’s getting pretty cold out now. But I was out working on the greenhouse again anyway. Filling in the little gaps between the opening windows and other glazing.
One of the ten little wooden ‘fillets’ in place.
On the ‘front’ face, or the side facing into our garden, there were six such gaps. Four on the little stained glass frames either side of opening windows, and two either side of a non-opening one.
More gaps to fill…
It was quite easy to do these. I just hope, held in place by glue and friction fit alone, they last alright. It was certainly quite satisfying cutting and fitting the wood, and seeing the gaps gradually disappear.
Another one filled.
Some of these filler parts fitted beautifully, and sit very flush with the surrounding elements. Others less so. But all in all I’m pleased. It’s another small but significant step towards completion.
This one’s not an opening window.
On the neighbour’s fence side, it was harder to do these in-fills (unless I went into their garden; and I didn’t want to do that today). I wound up doing it ‘blind’, so to speak, from inside the greenhouse. But there are only four on this side, and they were fairly accessible. So it wasn’t that hard.
On the neighbour’s fence side.
As can be seen in many of these photos, these new bits need sanding and painting. Indeed, the whole of the greenhouse needs sanding, filling and painting. Much of the old original paint of the many recycled window frames that comprise most of the structure are peeling and flaking.
Also on the same side.
But now, at long last, the bulk of the structural stuff is complete. And even most of the final minor tweaks are done. If I can sand and paint the unpainted and rough sections, and seal the few remaining cracks, that’ll be good enough for this year.
Oh dear… the door’s all out of whack!
And speaking of such remaining tasks, even after what I did today, there’s still quite a bit to do. Sadly despite all the efforts I put into keeping the doorframe square and getting the door in position so it closed neatly, either I balls-ed up massively, or stuff has shifted. Whatever’s the cause, the door doesn’t shut properly, nor is it even square or aligned with the frame. Hey-ho! Quite how I’ll deal with this I’m not sure.
There are still a few little seams that need filling.
There are also, as alluded to already, numerous little gaps such as the one pictured above. Some, like the above, are only parts of temporary fixes anyway, to be replaced with glazing in the fullness of time. But others are part of the structure, and need filling somehow.
But with the door shut (kind of!), and all the windows closed, it’s still a lot warmer inside the greenhouse than outside. So the edifice works as it ought to, despite all the little ‘leaks’.
I usually prefer to buy CDs, as I’m a bit old fashioned that way. But this is selling for silly money on CD, so I’ve had to content to myself with downloading MP3s.
I already have Tago Mago on both vinyl and CD-reissue. But this 40th Anniversary re-re-issue has allegedly been significantly improved audio wise. Plus there are three bonus tracks. This being one of my all time favourite Can albums, I had to hear it.
The first four tracks are just mindblowingly awesome. To me at any rate. And they are why this gets five stars.
Paperhouse is kind of oddball, starting with a loping laidback but intense 6/8 groove and one of Michael Karoli’s best ever guitar parts, before turning into one of their hyper intense thermo-nuclear jams, finally emerging the other side, into a laid back jazzy swang-thang version of part one. Part one is my favourite section, followed by the jazzy re-iteration. But the whole thing is a real trip, in the parlance of those days.
Mushroom is fabulous. But I’ve waxed lyrical over that one elsewhere, and don’t want to repeat myself here. Likewise, Oh Yeah is just totally awesome. And it’s driven along on a groove by Leibezeit that I utterly adore. But I’ll say no more about it here for now.
Halleluwah- what a fantastic title! – is an epic grinding groove monster. Once again Jaki Leibezeit’s drum performance is just utterly flawless, and sublimely funky. But, as brilliant as he is, it only really becomes the complete Can experience because of what the collective bring to bear. And it’s a juggernaut of awesomeness!
And what about that middle eight or interlude? Which is followed by a kind of music concrete section of ‘noise’ solos, conjured from synths, guitars, percussion and goodness knows what.
My preferred version of the cover.
For me it’s these four tracks that make Tago Mago an undeniably essential recording. And whilst I haven’t yet done a direct A/B/C comparison across the vinyl and my two different remasters as yet, there is both an intensity and clarity to these recordings that does seem to me to bring a new depth and power to bear.
And these recordings have always kicked aural ass, as far as I’m concerned. So for them to grow even bigger hairier musical balls, so to speak, is wonderful.
Oh, and whilst – perhaps partly cause I’m a drummer – I feel Jaki Leibezeit was Can’s secret weapon number one. After him I have to single out Damo Suzuki, whose nutty shamanic hollering and lyrics/melodies really add the song dimension to what might otherwise have been an amazing instrumental jam band.
But having singled out Leibezeit and Suzuki, whilst still listening to an extended instrumental section of Halleluwah I can’t not mention Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli and Holger Czukay. These cats are awesome. They really know how to brew up a cosmic groove!
Although it’s massively different from Weather Report, it’s also fundamentally very similar. If not in exact musical styles or textures, in that everyone is always soloing and yet no one is soloing. And at their mighty beating heart it’s all about improvisation.
This latest remaster is really something! I usually lose interest after Halleluwah. But Aumgn is playing now, and it’s fantastic. It’s certainly less accessible and compelling than the first four tracks. But as art-rock experimentation it’s top notch. I usually find such stuff anathema. But the clarity and sonic depth and richness of this latest remaster is helping me hear this afresh.
It may perhaps wear out its welcome eventually. But there are some terrific moments. What sounds like a bowed double bass at one point, achieves a sonority that’s astonishing, made more so by the context. But, as we pass ten minutes, even though the sounds are now pretty pristine, and continue to morph through numerous soundscapes, as improved as it is, and as good as it is in its own (left) field, It’s charm is starting to feel spread rather thin!
But wait, there’s the famed barking dog! Crazy stuff. In the end, thanks to the improved sound, I find I can take this monstrously indulgent bit of experimental improv’ much better now. It helps that I’m a drummer as the final five or so minutes are essentially a drum solo.
Czukay and Suzuki in session.
They finally do lose me, with Peking-O, which I could happily do without, improved sound or no. Bring Me Coffee Or Tea is a ‘slight return’, to a more typical Can sound of the era. And it’s good. Especially with the improved clarity making all the parts crisper and clearer than ever before. But as good as it is, it’s not up there with the first four tracks.
So, the original album is done, by this point. And, improved as it very audibly is, it remains a beast of two parts for me: the first entirely sublime. The second a much more mixed bag. Next up are the extra bonus live tracks.
Mushroom (Live, ‘72) is illustrative of how even when revisiting ‘compositions’, Can’s improv’ imperative might render the track almost unrecognisable. This is a decent variation, showing plenty of imagination. But it’s not a patch on the official Tago Mago album version.
Next is a much more recognisable rendition of the song Spoon, the final track on 1972’s Ege Bamyasi. Spoon was also a surprise chart hit in Germany, helping bring the babd greater prominence (and leading to their famed free concert). But this time it’s not just the song we get, but a doorway into an überjam. The initial part is a pretty decent version, and nice for a Can fan to have/hear. But when it goes into the lengthy jam then it’s a more debatable proposition.
I’ve yet to take the plunge with Can’s Lost Tapes, mostly ‘cause I fear that the best stuff was put out. What remained on the cutting room floor, must therefore, inevitably, be less good. Surely? Given the nature of their ‘process’, a lot of less compelling material had to be worked through to birth the real gems. This extended version of Spoon, which meanders around a lot, mostly quite aimlessly, morphing in places into other songs (there’s a definite Coffee Of Tea passage!), kind of backs such ideas up.
The third and final live extra is a version of Halleluwah. This has the most noticeable layer of audible hiss, and still retains a pretty muddy sound. So was this perhaps the most challenging ‘restoration’ from the famed Can archives represented here? Whilst this remains a closer rendition than the first of the three live cuts presented here, it lacks the focus, punch and outright balls of the studio/album version.
In conclusion, the added live material is nice for the Can fan, of which I’m certainly one. But it’s not what’s best about this whole package, which remains tracks one to four. And the whole caboodle, most notably the official album tracks are also fairly clearly sonically improved. So it’s really just for tracks one through four, in their improved state, that I shelled out for this third iteration of this classic album.
First off, a big thanks to Guy Snape for coming out to see the gig. I’d have gone on my own (again!). But it’s so much nicer to share an experience like this. We drove down, and parked for free not far from the venue. Poifeck!
After a bag o’ chips and ages queuing, we checked our coats, I bought an older Louis Cole CD, and we promptly got in another queue, for some beers.
With unaccustomed brass neck I jumped the queue when the opportunity presented itself. And then it was just a matter of standing around, right up front, by the stage, awaiting the performers.
Not great pics from my old iPhone! The empty stage, before either act performed.
First up was Genevieve Artadi. She performed with two other ladies; all three sang, one of the others playing a little keys. The bulk of the music was played off a laptop. GA is a real babe, but her music, especially in this karaoke format, does absolutely nothing for me (I’m not really much of a fan of knower, either, tbh).
I feel bad even saying that! And I suspect Louis would probably deliver a quick and very hard n’ sharp kick in the jaffas, if he heard me or anyone else say such a thing! But it just didn’t connect with me at all.
There was another long wait – about 30 minutes or more – before Cole and co appeared. Billed as a big band, there was a seven-strong horn-section, two female backing vocalists (GA being one of them), keys, bass, and Louis, on vocals, keys and drums.
GA’s set was delivered in front of a video screen, the three ladies dressed in skimpy tight spangly gear, bouncing about a lot. Nice! Cole’s set dispensed with the screen, but found the entire group in ‘skellington’ onesies. So both sets had aspects of stagecraft in addition to the music.
Another pretty duff phone snap!
As a drummer, and lover of live music, I find DJ or karaoke type music culture strangely flat; lacking that spark of energy that comes from the live in the moment interpersonal interactions of real musicians. And usually it also sounds (as well feeling) very different.
Last time I saw Louis Cole it was a one man show, at Heaven, under Charing Cross. It was excellent (and I bought Time whilst there). But I preferred tonight by immeasurable orders of magnetite!
The set was superb, mostly intense and high energy, but with occasional very moody ballad moments. I was particularly overjoyed to hear full on live large band versions of Thinking About You, Things, Drive and When You’re Ugly, etc. His ‘viral sensation Bank Account was in there, as was a high-energy rabble-rousing F*ck It Up, which was the only tune they did twice, the second time as a show-closing encore.
Weird Part Of The Night, Blimp and one or two other YouTube faves (Drum Solo, for example) were notable by their absence,. There were several other tunes off of Time, whose names escape me now. But all told it was a terrific set. Just a pity they didn’t have a spare tune in the tank for an encore.
I grooved my ass off, in my own peculiar way, as did a great deal of the audience. The vibe in the room for Louis was fantastic. And I was pleased and gratified to see Guy apparently enjoying it all a great deal as well.
The venue is great; the size of the room was perfect (in the Goldilocks zone, neither too large nor too small), the sound was great – at least it was where we were (I’ve noticed some folk saying the sound where they were was lousy, in comments in my YouTube vid) – the staff were friendly and efficient. Although that said queuing for the bars was purgatory!
Driving to and from London and parking for free very near the venue all worked out just peachy. What a great night out!
Misc: Thoughts, 15th Nov, ‘21. Gonna go a bit stream o’ conch on this one!
Very poor nights’ sleep. Appalling headaches. Multiple doses of co-cocodamol ineffectual. Head-ache, or top of spine/base of skull-ache? Physical or psychological?
Eventually fell asleep round 3+am, only to wake around 5am from kaleidoscopically psychedelic dreams of cartoon based anxiety! Some character, like an offshoot of my imagination (or a facet of me?), as a paranoid genius psychedelic cartoonist.
A whole showreel of this stuff plays out visually, rapidly and intensely, in my mind. Very much in ‘the mind’s eye’. Way too complex and rapidly evolving to be captured or replicated. Very very VERY powerful stuff! Alarmingly so.
Got me thinking and worrying about illness, most specifically psychological or mental health. And relation to modern diseases, from Covid to ‘bi-polarity’, & my current medicated self: adalimumab, citalopram and co-codamol…
[Pic?]
I’ve been off the citalopram anti-depressant about a week. Through my prescription lapsing/laziness. Are the whirling visions/headaches symptoms of addiction and withdrawal?
Feel like I must get these meds, my script rather urgently, today!
The bonkers psychedelic cartoon dream thing of this morning was incredible. I kind of wish I could harness the talent or power of what I was imagining. But it strikes me as a forlorn hope. As it was a maelstrom of multifaceted divergent weirdness.
It was like a combination of r crumb, that Zappa clay-mation guy (name? why is the name Travis Bickle coming to mind… that’s the Taxi Driver nutter, right?) and Terry Gilliam’s Monty Python animations. But also totally unique. Part of the idea was that it was totally uncorked, unrestrained, (out of control?); so wild and varied as to bewilder and frustrate categorisation …
And there were disapproving antagonists, who ‘belonged’ to a fuzzily ill-defined community. The psychedelic nutter artist was like that aspect of me that simultaneously doesn’t want to be caged by definitions and yet seeks approval for the depth, range and intensity of its evolving ‘visions’.
[Pic?]
This was some seriously powerful shit! That had (has?) me properly freaked out! What’s with all this psychedelic maelstrom stuff? When I’m straight… what’s the deal with my neurological-biochemical psychological set-up right now, that it’s suddenly gone so intensely hyper and volatile, and, frankly, a bit scary?
Writing all this down puts me in mind, I knoweth not why, of that saying about folk being ‘scared of their own greatness’. An idea I’ve always poo-poo’ed (that brings to mind a Lord Melchett scene from Blackadder Goes Fo(u)rth!), but that seems apt to my mind in context of this mornings Krakatoa of mental and physical weirdness …
I took a lateral flow test yesterday, cause I’ve been coughing, had a sore throat, and have these clanging chimes of doom headaches. But, as ever, it came out negative.
On the one hand that’s good. But on the other, I feel something is definitely amiss. Mentally, or physically. Or both!? But then again, perhaps not!?!? I suppose that’s the mystery of life! One really never quite knows exactly what’s happening, or what it’s really all about…
[Pic?]
If I could capture the powerful range of expression in the art I dreamed about. But making dreams real? Or believing what one dreams to be either ‘a messsge’ or ‘sign’… is it not oft said that that way madness lies?
At one point the somewhat enraged frustrated ‘artist’ character in my dream says ‘what do I have to do to win your approval?’ Which touches on another deep well of psychological angst!
I’ve been kind of opting to ‘go with the flow’ of life lately. Is it just laziness? Or is it also, at least in part, a fruition of a process that I feel has bought me the hugest degree of inner peace and happiness I’ve known in years?
Surrendering to ‘what is’, and not hankering plaintively after what imagination – or other mirages of the mind; whether that’s my own mind or society’s – sometimes suggests, has, or so I’ve been increasingly believing, really helped change me from a mass of quivering jelly like neuroses to a reasonably calm happy individual…
All Things Must Pass, George Harrison’s post Beatles debut, is actually his third solo album. His previous albums, Wonderwall Music (1968) and Electronic Sound (1969), are both rather obscure oddball affairs.
So, in a way, this set – originally released as a triple album! – is actually his first ‘proper’ solo album, despite its precise sequential position in Harrison’s own catalogue, and regardless of its relation to that most famed of pop groups he had formerly been part of.
As much as it might be taken to signify George’s own personal guru trip vibes – he seems to have been the most susceptible of the group to the burgeoning Eastern mystical schtick – the albums’ title is inescapably just as much or more so a reference to the ending of an era. That the demise of a pop combo could assume such self consciously Wagnerian weightiness is at the heart of issues I have with both this album, The Beatles as a whole, and post-Beatles solo doings by any of the former Fab Four.
Not sure why the reissues eschew the original tinted colour cover.
Until I bought this 60th anniversary (!!!) reissue I’d only ever heard the single My Sweet Lord. And it was so underwhelming I felt no desire to look any further, despite the hype around this album. But then I’m the kind of ornery curmudgeon who feels The Beatles, whilst mostly very good and occasionally superb, are seriously overrated. So I viewed the popular critical acclaim for this album with deep suspicion.
Anyway, enough contextualising. On to the album itself. In our times – I’m already a dinosaur for having it on CD – three vinyl discs have become two CDs. Given the enormity of the original release, at a time before double-albums were to become commonplace (and a byword for bloated rock or prog-rock self-indulgence), it’s not as hu-yowj as the format suggests it could be.
Indeed, CD 1 is just shy of 40 minutes, and disc 2 just over an hour. Did it ever really need to be a triple-album. Is the fact it was put out in that form emblematic of a need to ‘flatter a groaning self of sense importance’? * Not, I hasten to add, on Harrison’s own part, necessarily. But on his behalf, most of all by the dreaded biz.
This rather sublime image graces the inner gatefold. Pity the music doesn’t match this!
But what is enormous – as well as former Beatles’ egos and their properties – thanks to producer Phil Spector’s patent ‘wall of sound’ production aesthetic, is the sound. I’m not quite sure what I make of this aspect of the recordings. If the music were suitably monumental, then this sonic aesthetic could be very effective.
But with music that’s actually quite modest, the woolly-ness of the sound is in danger of just sounding rather self-consciously portentous. The mood of much of the music here might’ve benefitted more from the openness and clarity George Martin is famed for, a style whose legacy lives on in much contemporary music (the sound of Beck’s Sea Change album springs to my mind, for some reason).
All Things Must Pass, the title track, is easily one of the best numbers on the album. But it’s hardly an earth-shattering song, it’s just merely good. Sadly, to my mind, the long-shadow of Beatle-mania, casts its doleful spell over things. Desperate for something post-Beatles to worship, this is perhaps one of the easiest projects those besotted with their Liverpudlian heroes can shift or project their affections on to.
A fabulous portrait of Harrison in his amazing home, included here as a fold out poster.Here’s the untreated original. Much nicer. Wish they hadn’t done the dark fade on the supplied version!
Had this been the sole release of an unknown, I think it would barely have registered a ripple of interest or notice anywhere in the music world. It only manages to bluff it’s way on to ‘top 100 albums of all time’ type lists because it’s by a former fab-four fella.
For example, I Dig Love, from almost anyone but a former Beatle would be, in all honesty, pretty laughable, perhaps even risibly or contemptibly so. But the near religious awe accorded The Beatles elevates passé hipster patter to neo-mystical profundity.
Ironically I’m a sucker for such retro argot. And I, um… dig it. But not so blindly as to mistake fairly mundane incarnations of it for sublimity. Am I being hypocritical, when I find the phunky filosophising of James Brown far more compelling?
Harrison attains that Hippy-Jesus look superbly.
By the time we reach Isn’t It A Pity (version two) – one of a couple of extra tracks on this anniversary reissue – I feel that, as mundanely pleasant as it is, I’d need to be buried under a wall of opium smoke to mistake the reverb-drenched sonic palette for genuine grandeur.
When I wound up shelling out excessive amounts of coin for a number of Marcos Valle’s albums of the early 1970s, many moons ago, I didn’t feel robbed. But this – costing about around about £16-17 when I bought it a day or two back – is, like it’s production aesthetic, and the regard in which both it and The Beatles are held, irritatingly over-inflated.
It’s ok. It might even be pretty good. But it’s far from sublime, or essential. It’s merely decent reasonably run of the mill 60s-70s pop. So I do feel rather cheated, disappointed, and overcharged. I suppose it might be so popular in part for being an example of how run of the mill music can achieve super-stardom status.
The 45 version of My Sweet Lord.
One of my favourite tracks at present is opener I’d Have You Any Time, a song co-written with Bob Dylan, that has a very slight tinge of jazziness in some of the chords. Maybe with further listening ATMP will grow on me? But for now? It’s alright. No great shakes.
And indeed, listening to it again the following day, it is growing on me. Particularly the first little clutch of tracks. Given my history with My Sweet Lord – I’ve had it as a vinyl 7” single for donkeys years – as mentioned above, it says something about the overall quality of this album that this song, very Harrison-esque without being as strong as Here Comes The Sun, or While My Guitar Gently Weeps, etc, is perhaps the strongest number on offer here.
Whilst I am digging this album much more on day two, partially because of the fact that my car stereo is better (!!!) than the mini-CD-player I first listened totree tree EU V this on, even this improvement in audio quality doesn’t make the last four or so turgid bluesy jams ant more appealing.
Harrison looking totally groovy.
These last few tracks are a bit like some of the out take extras on certain Eric Clapton records from the early/mid seventies. Not such a surprise when one realises that it was at the sessions for ATMP that the Derek And The Dominos band coalesced. But where Clapton and co. manage to milk something with character and personality from such familiar territory, here it’s less inspired.
All told? A disappointing album that doesn’t live up to the hype. Merely ok. Certainly not great. I like the more downbeat slightly melancholy stuff best. It’s a register Harrison seems best suited to. Stuff like Wah Wah and I Dig Love has period charm. But also does sound both dated and naive.
I suppose ATMO is worth checking out but it’s a long long way of being essential listening, in my view.
* This is a rather lovely – and, importantly, accurate quote from A. Partridge, From The Oast House. Look it up online and the delish spooneristic switcheroo is undone. Riddle me that, nutters!
Hmmm!? Oh dear, George. Super-stardom enables ‘country squire’ style indulgence. Beautiful image. But does it depict genuine enlightenment?
PS – Some might think it churlish of me, but one of my favourite things about this album is it’s period visual aesthetics. The cover is excellent. The inner gatefold image of this reissue, a triple album style picture of George dwarfed by the leafy greenery of his mansion gardens, is sublime Harrison had taken that hipster hippy-Jesu look to a level of near perfection at this time. It’s just a pity that, unlike Brazilian maestro Marcos Valle, the music doesn’t match the genius of the look.
There’s something almost hideously gauche about pop stars attaining supposed enlightenment or nirvana when the hideous beasts of mammon and the music biz have elevated them, via ultra-capitalism and the cult of celebrity, to levels of wealth that facilitate footballer style acquisition of palatial homes.
It’s more obscene than enlightened that folk such as Harrison can gain a privileged access to such dwellings as Friar Park, whilst 99.9% of humanity are condemned to live and die as drones packed into the cellular hovels our society deems fit accommodation for the hoi polloi.
I travelled ‘darn sarf’ today. Two hours each way. And for what? A new guitar!
I’ve wanted a nice old vintage arch-top guitar for years. I was lucky enough to borrow a Hofner President from my pal Patrick, for a period of several years. That was a gorgeous instrument. But rather beyond my budget.
Phwoar… get a load of those curves!
The President was also fully ‘lectric. Whereas this, a Hofner Congress, is fully ‘coustic!
The Congress was at the low end of Hofner’s offerings, way back when it was launched. And remained at the budget end of their catalogue during its heyday. And it had a heyday, being a very popular ‘decent yet affordable’ axe, those many moons ago.
I read online somewhere that this was Hank Marvin’s first guitar!
Dang nab it, she’s lovely to look at. (Despite missing string and frets!)
Anyway, this has been on the list of potential guitars for me, in this line – hollow bodied, arch topped – for several years. I know it’s hardly a top of the line legend. But they look lovely, and plenty of folk online testify to them being decent enough, even possessed of a degree of charm.
A sexy back, eh!?
But even these budget axes of yesteryear have become quite expensive. They typically sell anywhere between £200-800! So when I found this one pretty cheap – they were asking £85 – I thought it worth taking a look at. I drove the 70 odd miles to Thundersley, Essex, and decided I’d get it.
The concave bend of the neck is clear.
It has a fairly major issue; the neck. This was a pre-truss-rod guitar. And the tension of the strings on the neck has bowed it. It looks as if it’s possibly even been broken, and repaired. The frets are appalling, and two are missing, suggestive of further fiddlage!
Odd doings on the heel of the neck.
The body is in good order, and looks lovely. All the other fittings, bridge, tail-piece, scratch-plate and tuning keys are original. The guitar is numbered 7735, which, according to a website that supplies such info’, means it’s of 1958 vintage!
The weathered old label, inside.Only five strings on her, and they’re coming off.
Here are a few more pictures.
The floating bridge, floating off…And in situ. Note locating pin!The bass side of the body. A few dings.The treble side.The rather utilitarian headstock.Reverse side of the headstock. Oddly asymmetrical!Hofner’s patent ‘compensator’ tail piece.The on-body decal. Good nick for a 64 year old!
My plan is to take the neck off, repair it, and put it back on. Keeping it as original as I can. Ideally with the addition of a truss-rod. I have no idea if this is feasible, using the neck as it is.
Can I retro-fit a truss-rod into a neck of this sort?
Another idea is to fit a different neck. One with a truss-rod. There’s one pictured below. But I’m not so keen on that idea, for two reasons. Silk purses and sow’s ears, for one, and originality and integrity for another.
I love this type of Hofner neck; mother o’ pearl a-go-go!Seriously sexy headstock!
Well, for now I’ll leave the strings off, and see if the neck bends back into shape. In the mean time, I’ll gaze on her adoringly, and dream of the fun I’m going to have tickling her strings some day soon, when she’s restored to a more playable state.
Hmmm!? Not sure about this film. The constant wibbly-pibbly soundtrack, and the near constant mumbling of the dialogue… These do not add up to the grandeur or gravitas that this movie seems to assume it has.
‘I confess, it’s wearing on me…’ says Roy McBride, Brad Pitt’s character, at one point. This is about halfway through the film. An hour in to two hours. And boy do those hours feel long. Damn right, Roy. Me too!
Numerous elements really grate, such as the frequent references to Christian religion/belief, the themes of relationships (all of which seem strangely neutered), and the total lack of credibility in the quantum leap from Mcbride’s very believable getting digitally ‘locked out’ at one point, to the totally bizarre way in which he hijacks the Cepheus, not long after.
Some good visual moments…
To me, even though there are some strong visual moments, this is a mess of a movie. And not a very compelling ness of a movie either. Something to be endured, rather than enjoyed. It has the feel of Christopher Nolan, i.e. pompously self-important whilst actually not very interesting.
So, Pitt finds Pops (Tommy Lee Jones). Dad’s lost it, and killed all his crew. Dad then opines that he must not fail, but must continue to seek… ‘To find what science tells us doesn’t exist’.* Eugh….
It comes over like something written by a teenager. A cosmic tantrum dressed up as if it were deep. ‘Why go on? Why keep trying?’muses Pitt, as he drifts, lost in space. But then he quite literally ‘sees the light’. Uuuugh… spare us!
Martian manhole cover…
This film seems like a big budget reminder of how solipsistic modern culture is continuing to grow. Other characters drift in and out, including some played by Donald Sutherland and that rocker’s daughter, who played Aragorn’s elvish chick. Who are they? I simply don’t care. That’s modern cinema in a nutshell. A vacuum where one might hope for character or humanity.
Best avoided, in my view.
* This reminds me of that joke about the search for intelligent life in outer space… cause there’s none here on Earth. Ba-dish!
Today Teresa and I worked on sealing off some of the still open spaces on the greenhouse. The two largest are, or rather were, the front and rear panels in the ‘gable ends’.
The rear, seen from inside.And the rear viewed from outside.
The next largest gaps were a series of six, three per side, between the frame that forms the tops of the walls and the glass roof. These were all different. Plus they had to be notched, to accommodate the smaller roof framing parts. These took a lot of work!
Sealing the gaps in the ‘eaves’ of the glass roof.
There’s still a deal of work to be done. Rather annoyingly the door frame is well out of square. I recall making Herculean efforts to ensure this didn’t happen, when I built the greenhouse framing. So, whether things have shifted, or I just got it wrong from the start… I don’t know???
Well that’s all immaterial, frankly. I just need to fix it somehow. I certainly made sure all the upper body opening windows fitted. I remembered using the electric plane to do so. But these too now refuse, like the door, to close. So they all need sorting as well!
There are little gaps each side of these latter windows; a pair each per window. And with four such windows that’s eight little leaks! Once those are done, all that will remain will be the little metal pegs and latches, so the windows can be kept open as and when needed.
I don’t know why, but there are just three episodes of this terrific TV programme on Prime at present. And I watched them in reverse order: guitar, telephone, lawn mower.
Utterly wonderful!
About to start the guitar…… nearly finished.The final piece… the pick!*
* Not really part of the guitar. I mean, I play guitar quite a lot. And I never use a plectrum.
The old Bakelite telephone is a thing of beauty. It looks great. And the ringing bells? It sounds great as well. We simply must have one!
Paddington 233?
I’m not really one for GIFs, they’re dumber than Trump, by and large. But I did like the bit in the guitar episode when May discussed and demo’d’ ‘air engineering’ (as opposed to air guitar). And when I googled for pics of the show as a whole, the GIF below did make me smile. What am I becoming?
The lawn-mower man…… assembles the engine.
I adored these programmes. Why are there only the three episodes (currently available on Amazon Prime), I wonder? I seem to recall seeing others when they came out on BBC4, a ways back. I want to see the other episodes!
Holy-guacamole! What an astonishing debut. Joni Mitchell just knocks me off my feet. I’m winded, as if with a hefty punch to the solar plexus. And tears come. The music is just so powerful. The swift one-two combination of I Had A King and Michael From Mountains is a pair of knockout blows right from the get go.
The other and most notable thing, for me, is the emotional register of it all. It’s beautifully and very powerfully melancholy. Even Night In The City, the most overtly or ostensibly ‘jolly’ song – track three (a perfectly good song, but the weakest here, for my money) – has an inescapable element of that Joni blue.
After the slight anomaly of Night In The City, come Marcie and Nathan La Franeer, and we’re plunged back into the cold icy waters of Joni’s oceanic Northern consciousness. When we get to Sisotowbell Lane, any dam on my constipated emotions is obliterated. I love the entire album. But Sisotowbell Lane is a snowy peak of Himalayan stratosphere piercing sublimity.
But, as if to confound my gushing hyperbole, she follows this with the magnificence of The Dawntreader. This album could easily be the dictionary or Brewer’s definition of the phrase ‘an embarrassment of riches’.
Mercifully the intensity let’s up a fraction with the slightly strident mildly experimental Pirate of Penance, and remains at a lower ebb for the title track. Every single track, save perhaps Night In The City, gives the lie to the ‘female folkie’ label occasionally applied to Joni (esp. in her early days*), as they are all far more richly complex, more ‘compositional’…
And so we come to journey’s end, with Cactus Tree. And once again we’re stood atop a mountain, or are we riding the crest of an emotional wave of titanic oceanic proportions? How could such a slight willowy polio afflicted young woman become the lightning rod for such powerful elemental forces?
As long as I live I will love Joni with an unrequited passion. Who was it – Woody Allen, perhaps? – that said unrequited love was the only kind that really lasts! Song to a Seagull is an astonishing album. A masterpiece. And that it was Joni’s debut is even more astounding.
The version I’ve just listened to, which ended with uncanny Joni-esque perfection just as I arrived at work (how will I explain my puffy red teary eyes?), is the recent 2021 remaster, from the Reprise Records reissue box. It’s been ‘improved’, from the original David Crosby produced sessions, apparently.
I have to confess that I don’t find the engineering or production interventions particularly noteworthy, or even very noticeable (mind, this particular listen was whilst driving, so the music was competing with all the noises associated with that). Although STAS is sonically different to the following albums, that’s also part it’s period charm.
The remaster certainly doesn’t spoil that. But nor, so far at any rate, to my ears, does it radically alter or improve it. STAS simply remains a sublime slice of early Joni. Totally essential, in my world.
* One has to go back to her pre album café gig era, some of which is documented on the terrific Volume 1, The Early Years, 1963-1967, from the marvellous Joni Mitchell Archives series, to find her sounding like a more typical ‘60s folkster.
