Category: Music

#1356 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music1 Comment

How to fill an empty space?

Put on a performance of the London Songs by Sian Jamison.

With a choir of 60 all dressed as Londoners from any period of history.

I popped back 40 years to late 70’s punk.

I can still get into the lycra/ jersey mini skirt but my knees are not so pretty. The make-up flowed on like I still do it every day, but…

The Wrinkles. Who put a contour or topographical map on my face?

Every year etched on my face as a trip hazard for dramatic make up.

So the knees just had to show their age and the face went for a modified version because nobody needs to look quite that ghoulish on a Saturday night.

And we filled the space magnificently.

#1296 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music, SerendipityLeave a comment
London Concertante

Over the weekend we went ‘out’ out to Exeter Cathedral to hear the music of Radiohead played by a classical music ensemble.

In many respects a surreal experience . Watching the sun go down on the creamy Salcombe Stone of the cathedral’s walls was more magical than the flickering candles that were setting the intended ambience of the performance. Listening to English rock music from the nineties, played by classical musicians in a sacred space made us lose any sense of which century we were in or what genre of music we were listening to.

Outro from Karma Police

Karma Police was not a track played by London Concertante but they were certainly in the building.

https://videopress.com/v/jJoyYH6s?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

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#688 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music, pondering, Serendipity1 Comment

Striking images make you think. Two striking images this weekend have provoked widespread pondering. Despite being musically aware throughout the career of Black Sabbath, their music has largely been an outlier for me.Breakfas today, with Black Sabbath was an easy way to reconnect. Although there is a lot to like, my somewhat flimsy reason for limited knowledge is that Heavy Metal gigs were uncomfortable places to be, with sweaty leather and testosterone laying heavy in the air. As contemporary ballet goes this one was somewhat patchy but with moments of unforgettable beauty. For the reasons above I can’t be knowledgeable about the music choices but my favourite snippet was included,so it gets a ✓from me. The audience was wild for the performance by the time the final curtain went down. Despite the fabulous image on the programme this scene did not exist in the performance we watched. We were rather disappointed, but not on the scale of disappointment that many people felt when there was no moment of joy when an actual Black Sabbath band member appeared out of the orchestra pit. Maybe that happens in Birmingham.

On a sartorial and olfactory note the atmosphere of the theatre was not filled with too much sweaty leather or testosterone.

©Banksy

Banksy, of course, made everyone think this week. Two hours of googling and research cannot make sense of a subject that makes no sense. But refreshing knowledge always shines a little more light. Madness for me, that the history homework where I first tried to understand the history of the Middle East would occasionally have had Black Sabbath as my background music of choice.

My dad would have shouted up the stairs ” How can you possibly understand what you are studying with that noise on”

My response now would be. ” Tell me what music makes any of this understandable”

#687 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Friends and Family, Music, Serendipity1 Comment

Live music in a standing venue is one of the great timeless experiences. Humans have been standing around in semi-circles listening to other humans making music for ever. Dancing in that semicircle can be a messy, sweaty, life affirming experience shared with absolute strangers. Beer, or sometimes worse, on your feet and trampled toes are a tiny part of the experience of moving as part of a human mass to music. Last night we joined the throng of three university’s worth of Freshers on Freshers Friday in the city centre.

We were there to see a friends band, Ushti Baba play.

https://m.soundcloud.com/ushtibaba

We had the best time. Nothing hits the spot quite like live music.

Ordinarily the question below would have had me pretty ponderingly stuck. My music tastes are eclectic, unsophisticated and possibly unpredictable.

What’s your all-time favorite album?

I don’t have enough time or head space to condense my love of music to one album. I love the effort involved in an album. Not for me a couple of highlight tracks or the shuffle option. I want to listen to an album as the musicians wanted it to be published, in the order that was argued over and then decided upon.

Had I not been out to listen to live music last night I would probably have skipped the prompt question. But I feel all topped up with good stuff this morning. Ready to be honest and say that it is beyond me to make such a decision. I may not yet have heard my all time favourite album. I have almost certainly forgotten some absolutely sublime albums. In my head there are many albums poking at my aural grey matter.

“Choose me” they beg, giving me tiny earworm snippets of their favourite tracks.

” Choose me, because you love the artwork”

“Choose me, because you fell in love to my soundtrack”

“Choose me, because I am the best break-up album ever”

“Choose me because you grieved so deeply , my tracks were your slow recovery and salvation”

I am not listening, my mind is made up. I do not have a favourite album. I am aurally polyamorous. No shame.

#643 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music2 Comments

Sunday started on a high note of good weather, good friends and cakes. It ended on many high notes with the televised Glastonbury Festival headline act. Elton John playing his last ever gig in England.

We settled down, still wrapped in towels from our evening swim, with hot tea and fruit crumble. To watch the last set of this year’s festival. At Glastonbury, without the tea and crumble, thousands gathered in front of the Pyramid Stage to enjoy a brilliant setlist.

Watching thousands of people, with beaming smiles, many of them wearing silly specs, singing music from a 52 year career had a proper summer vibe.

Every year at Glastonbury I try to find some new music to explore and enjoy in the summer months. As luck would have it, me and Elton have similar tastes and one of his invited guests was Jacob Lusk from Gabriels whose amazing voice has accompanied me in the kitchen all weekend.

A vision in pink, singing with the London Gospel choir he fulfilled my love of seeing a man in a well- tailored suit. Wouldn’t formal occasions be wonderful if all tail suits were this flamboyant.

One of life’s TV moments.

#629 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music2 Comments

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1031554194342380/permalink/1436904737140655/

I’ve made two reels this morning for Facebook and Instagram advertising a communal gardening event in my local area. The links to both are above. The photographs in both are largely the same but for ease I chose two different pieces of accompanying music.

The music choices make a tremendous difference to the sensation of the reel but both accurately reflect the feeling of a beautiful secret garden by the sea. Before doing a Social Media course I was not a “reel’ kind of person but I was persuaded that reels increase engagement. For the most part I am a sound-off kind of person when viewing social media but recently I have realised it can introduce me to music I have never heard before. I’m not sure everyone takes their music/reel combos too seriously so the hit rate for liking reels music is quite low but I am willing to make a small sacrifice to find new musical paths to follow. Although I discovered this music at a funeral, I have shared it on some reels. I hope it makes your 2nd of June jog along on some great notes and proves that even 30 seconds of great music can make a difference.

Readers in London could experience this fabulous man at the Union Chapel on the 10th of June.

More than 30 seconds of mellow sounds. Welcome June, you are most welcome.

#27 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music1 Comment

The reason for yesterdays late blog and slight discombobulation of the daily blog schedule was that I was scurrying around to get tasks done so I could be in a calm frame of mind to attend an on-line broadcast of a funeral. While such things are never easy this particular funeral had lovely and unexpected music. Ave Maria by Sarah Brightmam to start. Mr Brightside by the Killers to end.Proper wake up music for the soul . No one ever expects a gift from a funeral but hearing new music was exactly the gift from yesterday. New York by Riopy which calms the soul and may become a headphone favourite on my dog walks. Too good to not share!

Something lovely to just take some time out and enjoy.

https://youtube.com/user/Riopyjp

Pandemic Pondering #368

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Music, Nature, Photographs, Serendipity2 Comments

This is the last photograph I took in March 2020 before the first Covid-19 lockdown in Britain. It was mid afternoon at Cotehele and I was recovering from a nasty virus. My last virus as it happens, a welcome benefit of adhering to Covid restrictions is that @theoldmortuary we’ve been virus free for a year now despite doing public facing/touching jobs.

In colour this picture is nothing much. Reeds on a managed flood plain on a typically greige day in the Tamar Valley. What the colour picture would never have shown was the amazing sound that was produced as the wind blew through the reeds. I took the picture just to remind me of that sound. True Whispering Grasses.

Really the original picture was nothing much, just a diary note to remind me of a lovely serendipitous sound on a walk that was being done more out of a sense of necessity and desperation than for pleasure.

I tinkered about with the image altering the contrast and then converted it into black and white.

Ta Da!!

A dull photo has turned into a sound. Not perhaps the gentle sound of whispering grasses, although I can hear them when I look at this with an imagined low volume. If I switch it up to medium volume I hear the interference on a television in the eighties or nineties when the signal was lost. Up a notch again and it is the feedback on a performers mic ( when ever have I felt nostalgic about that piercing scream ) it could also be, currently, two people having different Zoom meetings with their laptops too close together. My final auditory assault from one picture is this.

Imagine sketching it in chalk on an old school blackboard.

I’m fairly certain that last suggestion was not kind. The link below is a gentle salve to give you a good earworm for Friday. The mellifluous Sandy Denny.

Whispering Grass

Pandemic Pondering #326

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Exhibitions, MusicLeave a comment

Friday- Remember Fridays!

6 years ago I was preparing for an exhibition in Brixton, London. At the time I was working in Central London and knew that in order to encourage my work colleagues and friends to an Art Gallery over a weekend I would need to advertise the areas proximity to a wide variety of places where people could mingle , drink and socialise into the small hours of the night. Somewhere culturally significant.

Electric Avenue*, Brixton.

By co-incidence, currently, I am helping to prepare for an exhibition. To encourage visitors to the exhibition I am advertising its safety, the fact that you can visit it alone and from the safety of your own home.

https://drawntothevalley.com/

Fridays, they are not what they used to be…

* Electric Avenue. Built in 1800, the street was the first in the area to get electric street lights. The street is home to a famous multi- cultural street market and was made doubly famous by Eddie Grant, who wrote the song “Electric Avenue” in 1983 . At the time he was working as an actor at The Black Theatre in Brixton.

Fridays , not what they used to be but today I bet I have gifted you an earworm**

** An earworm, sometimes referred to as a brainworm, sticky music, stuck song syndrome, or, most commonly after earworms, Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), is a catchy and/or memorable piece of music or saying that continuously occupies a person’s mind even after it is no longer being played or spoken about.

Have a Happy 2* Friday.

Pandemic Ponderings #155

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Lyrics is the word for the Art Group prompt.

I created this image giving an almost identical value to the word and the picture.

Which is the most important?

The words or the music?

So many lyrics so little time was my first thought.

For this reason I sent myself down a rabbit hole , investigating the lyrics of one hit wonders. A genre of popular music that seems to suffer from less interesting lyrics, in my opinion. It was quite the rabbit hole and gave me an exception that proved the, self imagined, rule.

There is a curious transatlantic difference which muddied things a bit.Listed One Hit Wonders in the U.S are often from well established British bands that simply never made a prolonged success of music in the U.S. The lyrics of these One Hit Wonders are of a higher calibre.

The UK list has more solidly poor lyrics. Then a golden nugget of a One Hit Wonder landed at my fingertips.

One Hit Wonder on both sides of the Atlantic.

One Hit Wonder for the original writer.

One hit Wonder for the recording artist.

Poetry/Lyric crossover One Hit Wonder.

Surely in a Pandemic what the world needs is a re-release of Desiderata.

Max Ehrman was a lawyer and writer of Poetry. Desiderata was his only well known poem.

Les Crane was a spunky ex Air Force pilot who became a provocative and well respected TV presenter, quite what persuaded him to record a hippy new age recording of Max Ehrmans poem in 1971 is not making itself obvious to me. It’s more spoken word than lyric , but some of the words are sung, making it so much more lyrical.

It made him a One Hit Wonder
https://youtu.be/3bUTcy6w2Rw

Lyrics, just words that take you places.