Soooo Good to hear this after so long.

Thanks Radio Paradise for playing XTC

Last night I watched Rory Gallagher in  “Irish Tour 1974” , a film by Tony Palmer which Sky had broadcast a few days ago. This is a fairly poor quality film, at least in the audio department anyway.  However, as I watched the film and the usual wave of nostalgia washed over me, I got to thinking about when I had seen Rory live. He had performed at a weekend festival which took place on Southsea Castle Field.

And what really occupied my mind was the date. I can’t for the life of me think when it was. I have trawled the web and failed to find any reference to the festival.

I do know that it must have been about 20 years ago. This I know because Hayley, my eldest granddaughter, had been born. What I’m not sure about is if her sister Claire, the next, had been born too.

I also know that this was the first concert that their dad had been to. He being an ELO fan and there I was  introducing him to the blues.

The festival that weekend was spread over three nights. We were attending on the Friday and Rory Gallagher was top of the bill. I know that there were two other acts on that night. Opening the show was The Hamsters, doing their Hendrix show. I cannot remember the name of the second act of the evening other than the fact that they came from New York and the singer played a pretty mean harmonica. I believe they were a trio but am not sure.

Other things I know about that weekend are that the main tent blew down on the Saturday night putting the Sunday night finale in jeopardy. The final acts were moved into the Pyramids Centre at the other side of the field. Not that I was bothered since I had travelled up to Merseyside early on the Saturday morning.

So if there is anyone out there who can put these clues together and come up with a year I would be most grateful.

Grooving along to this Pink Floyd classic.

Classic track from a classic album

HiFi turned up to 11

Being in my fifties, one of the most heavily played albums in my vinyl collection is  “Tapestry” by the inimitable Carole King. The vinyl has been relegated to storage as I don’t have a deck to play it on so it has now been replaced by CD and of course MP3.

This album still gives me great pleasure and I apologise as I probably cause all dogs and cats in our neighbourhood to “sing” along with my own vocal renditions

So I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge

 

Thank you Carole & Happy Birthday

 

Has anyone out there heard this really surreal cover of the Black Sabbath classic, by Hellsongs ?

Paranoid

This is mildly hypnotic.

Workin an a chillin to  Los Lobos. Just love this track.

Just chillin to World Partys “She’s The One” What a good track that is.

Way to go Radio Paradise for wakening my soul.

Well it was that time of the year again. The Eurovision Song Contest hit our screens on Saturday night. But hey, was it just me or did the standard of the songs presented this year just leap to a new all time high.

From the opening act I thought wow, that’s better, a decent song. Not the usual bouncy metronomic euro garbage. And so it went on through the evening with only a couple of exceptions. I guess its difficult to completely throw off the old Eurovision style shackles in one fell swoop.

I was perhaps one of the few who had not heard the UK entry before Saturday night. So I didn’t have a clue as to what was going to happen. So you can imagine my dismay when approximately half way through the show the UK offering whimpered its way on to the stage. I say whimpered because compared to so many of the preceding songs our entry was weak.

The song itself may have merits but our choice of singer and the stage presentation did nothing to bolster the overall performance. To me the performance was lack lustre overall and why did Josh walk up over the boxes past the backing singers. He didn’t interact with them, in fact he walked past in the same way as you might walk past anonymous shoppers waiting at the till in your local supermarket. Not even an excuse me out of politeness.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Germany were able to walk away with the crown jewels. They had a much better song performed with much more stage presence and of course the UK song was long forgotten buried in the middle of many much better, more powerful offerings.

Satellite performed by Lena wasn’t perhaps the best of the nights songs but it is very good. And performed where it was on the night it stood out. Many of the other countries had submitted power ballads performed by very attractive singers with long hair and long dresses. In the end it was the consistently higher standard that was their downfall. How to sort the best of them from each other. This is why I think Tom Dice did so well. His performance of Me And My Guitar was so different from everything else on offer but ultimately he was never going to win against the stronger songs.

There will now be the usual post-mortem and once again there will be the detractors of the Eurovision Song Contest crying out for the UK to withdraw, to stop submitting us to this annual humiliation. I think that would be wrong especially now when most of the competitors have woken up and, for this year at least, have realised that they need to up the anti.

Shame the folks responsible for the UK entry haven’t also realised that the old formula songs don’t work anymore. Can someone tell me why it was felt that relying on a song writing team that haven’t had a hit for years was a good formula for winning this competition. What has producing songs for Kylie and Rick Astley back in th eighties got to do with modern musical tastes ?

What is required is something new, fresh and contemporary to be presented. And lets not select our singers on the basis that everyone wants to mother them or have them as their grandson. Lets choose someone who actually has some strength and stage presence.

Lets learn from this years experience and go forward to 2011 with a real chance of winning.

Is Radio Paradise (RP) the best Internet Radio Station on the planet ?

To date I believe it is. The variety of artists, musical styles and the quality of the broadcasts are what has sold them to me. The eclectic mix on RP  has your typical FM station beaten hands down.

And NO ADVERTS…NO COMMERCIALS…NO RAMBLING DJs WHO LOVE THE SOUND OF THEIR OWN VOICES MORE THAN THE MUSIC THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYING.

RP is a listener supported station, that means they rely on donations

Bill & Rebecca Goldsmith have put together probably the best format station. The linkage between the tracks is sometimes really quite sublime. The ability for listeners to rate and comment on the tracks played is quite often the most entertaining place on the web.