You made us feel like we could fly (Queen)

Radio Wozza is an amazing station. It mixes genres and decades into a wonderful eclectic mix of magical music moments. Mmmmmmmm. I love it.

Radio Wozza doesn't really exist as a broadcasting unit, of course, because I'm usually the only one who gets to hear it (if you're lucky enough to live with me you'll catch glimpses of it).

Radio Wozza beams out of the p-pod whenever I'm away from my collection. The play list comes from the 23,000 songs it holds (how amazing is that and there is still room on it for more).

Radio Wozza is the audio version of Mojo Magazine - a head spinning, psychedelic, gush of wonderful noise.

Jacky and I are currently staying on Waiheke Island with her dad. I'm away from my collection so I've set up the p-pod dock in the lounge so that I can listen to music while I read. All was going fine until Well by Captain Beefheart came on Radio Wozza.



Well did that cause a ruckus as both Jacky and Brian stopped their conversation and honed in on me - what the hell is that???

It's singing, I said.

That's not singing, said they.

Yes it is, said I.

This kind of intellectual riposte continued for some time but neither side gave ground. You can imagine their reaction when I said it was by Captain Beefheart. That just confirmed things for them (the name - they don't know who Captain Beefheart was)

For my money Captain Beefheart is a great great singer. Mmmm - maybe an acquired taste I admit but Well is one of his most accessible songs - certainly on Trout Mask Replica. You be the judge!

My word's but a whisper (Jethro Tull)

Thick As A Brick 2 was a CD that I had to own but I was also nervous approaching it.

 

Like millions of others, I love Thick As A Brick - the 1972 album with the song split over two sides of vinyl. It is definitely the Tull album I play most often (Benefit and Aqualung come in second equal). I don't listen to it as a parody of a concept album, instead I always get lost in the word play and the wonderful music.

 

My worry with TAAB 2 was that it wouldn't live up to expectations, but Ian Anderson has successfully avoided that in cunning ways.

 

• He doesn't try to produce another long song to compete with the original.
• The sound he creates is identical to Jethro Tull of the early seventies, Aqualung and TAAB, era. It's so uncanny I had to read the liner notes to make sure Barriemore Barlow, Jeffery Hammond-Hammond and Martin Barre aren't on it. They are not.
• He starts and ends the album with a musical motif lifted from the original before soaring off in new directions, so there is a continuity of sorts between the two albums.
• The story of whatever happened to the central character of the original album allows enough scope for adventure and invention.

 

Quite Frankly I'm amazed. I read an article in Prog Magazine about it which was reassuring but I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it.

 

Ian Anderson in unlikely prog epic remake in 2012. Who would have thought it?

I'm ready, ready as anybody can be (Muddy Waters)

Yes I'm ready!

I'm heading away from my collection again for a lengthy period (a year at least) so I've loaded up the purdy-pod with all the stuff brought back from the years spent in the Middle East. As this involved a few trips to the UK as well (Fopp) it meant a lot of stuff.

This has joined the music I put on this amazing device before heading overseas in 2009 so that there are now over 22,000 songs on the thing.

I haven't downloaded a song from the internet in my life so these songs have all come from my CD collection. Sadly my records remain outside the p-pod at this point. I'm wishing I'd bought the record to CD converter I spied at the Virgin Mega Sore at the Dubai Mall before we came home but I had no plans to leave my collection so soon and besides, I'm sure I'll be able to find something similar in China.

Jade thinks I'm mad having so much stuff on the ipod but it's a huge comfort to knowing that I can play The Stooges No Fun, George Harrison's Brainwashed or Dream Evil's Dragonslayer if the mood should take me.

Having that many songs also makes the shuffle mode a continual exercise in discovery of the weird corners of my collection.

Like Blue Oyster Cult's great Burnin' For You frinstance (you have the studio version or a stormin' live from 1981 version to choose from).

I wish I was an Apple, a-hanging on a tree (Ricky Nelson)

I came across a Ricky Nelson double CD compilation that I just had to buy this week. It's a weird one -some of the big hits are on it but so is Ricky's first album in its entirety and his first single released in 1957 (a fantastic year!).

A Teenager's Romance was backed by his version of the Fats Domino song I'm Walkin' and it set the template for some great fifties and sixties music by Ricky.

Between 1957 and 1962 Ricky had an amazing 30 Top 40 hits. In 1959  he helped out John Wayne, Dean Martin and Walter Brennan in the Howard Hawks' western classic Rio Bravo. I just love this cosy singalong with Deno and Walter. Thankfully The Duke stays silent. A man's gotta know his limitations.

A cloudburst doesn't last all day (Hari Georgeson)

I've been catching up on my reading of late. We sent home 22 boxes of stuff from the Middle East and after an eternity (five months) they finally arrived at Wozza's place in August. A few of the boxes contained my stockpiled CDs, DVDs, and books. It was like Christmas at our place!

A lot of the books I had put on the shelf in Al Ain and knew I'd read them when I got home - mainly music books, and mainly large format Beatles related coffee table epics bought at the Dubai Mall.

So far I've made my way through May Pang's Instamatic Lennon - catchy name for her (slight) photograph book; Bob Gruen's John Lennon - The New York Years; Julian Lennon's Beatle's Memorabilia; Chris O'Dell's opportunistic Miss O'Dell; and Fab Four Faq.

The Bob Gruen collection of photos and text is the best of that bunch. Julian's collection of Beatles memorabilia is pretty slight - mainly a collection of Gold Records. It looks good though.

I'm currently working my way through Fab Four Faq 2.0 which concerns the 1970-80 decade of Beatle solo doings, before launching into Olivia Harrison's huge book called George Harrison - Living In The Material World.

The Fab Four Faq 2.0 is a better book than the first volume as it concerns itself with stuff that most Beatle books neglect - the 'what happened next?' stuff of the seventies which is where I really started to collect and appreciate the solo efforts and which, in turn, led me back into the Beatles music.

Ringo's solo efforts are fascinating to consider. I own every single one - that's also fascinating to consider (I also continue to collect every Yoko album). I eventually got to the point where I just had to keep on having them (knowing what I was in for) but it didn't start out that way.

I began with Ringo in 1973 and loved it instantly. Goodnight Vienna and Ringo's Rotogravure also had substantial merits that kept me hooked. From there I backtracked eventually to his first two false starts Sentimental Journey and Beaucoups of Blues. It's clear why Ringo considers his solo career starts with Ringo. After Ringo I've collected every album on its release. Bad Boy severely tested my resolve but I persevered.

His latest album is called Ringo 2012. Smart guy tapping into that feel good Brit feeling that's been so prevalent this year. It's not bad (nothing will ever plumb the depths of Bad Boy) but it's hardly essential.

And yet - when a random track came up on my ipod shuffle the other day it stood out in an unexpectedly pleasant way. And that cheered me up no end. I was made up that the still lovable Ringo is still putting out albums that contain songs that can do that to me.

Cheers Ritchie!

People are people, whatever they eat for breakfast (Ray Columbus)

Ray Columbus! Probably a name not very well known outside of Australasia but, in Nu Zild, in particular, it is a name that conjures up instant images (and lyrics!).

Ray has been an entertainer in NZ for five decades. He's had an amazing career, even if you don't like his stuff much.

For people of my generation he's the self-proclaimed Modfather (She's A Mod with his group The Invaders), the perennial family entertainer on musical TV shows of the sixties and seventies C'Mon, Happen Inn and That's Country, and in later years the knowledgeable manager of the brilliant Zed.

I picked up his autobiography, The Modfather, at the Waipukurau library while I was waiting for Jacky to finish some shopping. After flicking through it I borrowed it and haven't put in down in three days!

It's excellent! He writes as he has lived his life - with sparkles, breathless short sentences and (mostly) endearing hey-look-at-me bravado. Talent smellent - he dreamed it (Elvis, Jerry Lee, Buddy, Roy etc) and then made it happen through force of will. Failure smailure - he never entertained the idea.
I've never been a big fan but I did once own his greatest hits album for three reasons: She's A Mod, Till We Kissed and People Are People. Three songs that are firmly lodged into my DNA.

.

Yeah, don't ya hear the wind blowing mmmmmhmmmm Stoned Love (The Supremes)

They were well named weren't they? One listen to You Can't Hurry Love and how can you not be transported back to the wonderful sixties.

When a song comes on the p-pod shuffle, I sometimes need to get up and find out who it is (even though everything on the p-pod comes from my own collection). When Stoned Love came on this morning I had no such need. Clearly a Motown song (that drum/tambourine combo alone instantly recalls a few hundred other Motown songs), clearly a Supremes' song, clearly a sixties song.

Stoned Love comes from 1970 but reeks of the sixties.

 In so many ways the song  and its history (the groups last top ten hit in America) sums up that decade as well as anything does.

 The whole story of the song is suitably barking mad:

• unusually, the lead vocal is NOT sung by Diana Ross (take a bow Jean Terrell)
• the actual name of the song was NOT Stoned Love - it was Stone Love (listen carefully to the song) but mislabelled on release, unfortunately giving the song unwarranted drug connotations
• there are over 30 musicians on the song PLUS the Funk Brothers (Motown's legendary house band)
• as a plea for universal love and peace it is unusual subject matter for The Supremes
• the song appears in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump as a cipher to the sixties
• the song was written by Kenny Thomas but his writing credit is listed as "Yennek Samoht"; his name spelled backwards (with an extra "e" to aid pronunciation) 

Like I said - barking mad.

The song itself is fabulous. Those harmonies as the Supremes sing the words 'Stone Love' could only have ever come from that combination of voices (there are strong echoes of Diana Ross in the vocal delivery even though she was not on it).