Some People Make me Angry

I get angry sometimes, I don’t tend to rant and scream, but I get angry. I get angry with people usually, well people and traffic lights to be honest, but mainly with people. Not all people, most people I know are great…. The ones that I get angry about tend to attract at least one of the following epithets to them… parasite, liar, hypocrite, time waster, judgemental… Sounds like a particular occupation? Maybe, but in many ways we are all guilty of the last point. Don’t kid yourself… you have been ready to condemn because that lad is wearing a hoodie, because his hair is too long, she is wearing a low cut top and short skirt, he is black, she is fat, he is ginger… yes, you are judging based on a single characteristic without any evidence to support you

I have a few specific people in mind, but I suspect I will get in deep trouble if I name names, or make it too obvious… but I will describe the types of people generically. I think anyone who knows me well wont need telling who I am thinking of, but don’t ask me if you are right… in case I answer!!

So, like many people I know, I do voluntary work, and like 95% of others who do, I do it for one reason and one reason only. I see a need for improvement, for understanding and to defend people who don’t have a voice to raise in their own defence. I don’t seek praise, reward or anything else. The only reward I value is to see someone getting some support as a result of something I have done, fought for… or to see what I think are evil or inept practices being challenged and corrected.

I think I speak for all genuine campaigners and voluntary workers in that. What really frustrates me is when the authority we are challenging won’t listen, but I can live with that.

The people that anger me are people working for charities, campaigning, but who don’t share my commitment and passion to achieve something positive. Individuals who can wring their hands in passion, declaim eloquently about how we have to make changes, but will not take the next step to do something. I have seen people bellow indignantly, strike the table, declaim like an old testament prophet of wrath and eternal damnation, but ask them to approve a stiff letter, or a piece of action, and the answer is always “no”.

I question the motivation of these people… do they really want to see change, to help their nominated sector of society, to improve things, or do they simply want the brownie points of nominally supporting the cause, but in practice simply hold back any improvement. That way they can tell their golf club, or their ladies circle about how they do good works, but without the risk of ever having to get their hands dirty by actually doing anything to help, after all, they don’t want to have to deal with the working class do they?

The second group that I want to highlight are simple liars, people who do not tell the truth, who hide truth behind falsehood for their own gratification or self aggrandisement. Obviously this is wrong, but I wonder how many liars understand the implications of what they do. I am not perfect, like everyone else I have ever met, or ever will meet, I can lie… I can add to incidents for comic effect, the “white lie” to avoid offence (Does my bum look big In this?” “no dear”) these things don’t matter in the great scheme of things.

Where lieing does matter is in people in authority… in people who we need to have every confidence in… such as teachers, doctors, religious leaders, politicians, police officers.

If we are ill, or our loved one is ill, we are whether we accept it or not, vulnerable. We need our consultants to be honest and open. Of course there are times when it is acceptable to blur the truth… a dieing man may prefer not to know that, to live the rest of his life as normally as possible. It is, however, my firm belief that it is totally wrong to deceive his family. The bottom line of this is that a consultant tells you that your loved one is doing ok, will recover and be home in no time… but they die all the same.

Sometimes of course the prognosis is genuinely optimistic, and something happens to change it, but all to often their really is no hope, and, possibly for the best of reasons, the consultant will say all is well, knowing it not to be, to avoid the family getting upset or panicking. For me, these families deserve to know the truth, need to know the truth, so that they can come to terms, make their farewells, and prepare for the inevitable… maybe not now but in a year or too when it becomes imminent, but if they don’t know, they cannot make the arrangements, the appropriate gestures. They will lose their loved one with regrets and greater sorrow.

When a consultant does not tell the truth, they undermine all their own work, and all that of their colleagues immediately they are found out, as they inevitably will be, they lose the respect of the patients and their carers, the word of “the doctor”, any doctor, is not trusted, and this can have serious implications for any subsequent illnesses in the family group.

It is never acceptable for people in authority, where trust is a vital commodity in the process, to lie… there is no problem saying “I don’t know, I’ll check for you and get back to you” or “it’s not good news but…. “. Always better to tell the truth.

Then we have the parasites, they will encourage  the genuine people to do things, achieve things, then their egos or apathies will walk in and take the plaudits… like many I do my share of graft for the causes I seek to espouse… and I aim to get publicity for the cause by writing articles, letters, making phone calls or simply by waffling incessantly at people.

At other times in order to deliver my projects it is essential to work in conjunction with someone else, maybe another group, because I have the skills and they have the money to push it forward… there could be other things of course, but this is a typical one.

I would really get upset if we had an agreement to work together for the good of the sector of society I choose to work with, and the other party provided the resources, and I worked my butt off to deliver the good deeds, only to find that they impose a condition that they tell me how to do the project to tie in with their agenda, rather thn need, and that it will carry their branding and none of mine.

Sadly there are many organisations, often within City and County Councils, who have no real commitment to anything, except using decent hardworking people doing good important works only to take the credit for everything as though it was theirs from the beginning and be handsomely rewarded for it.

It is all about power, taking advantage of the willing, honest person with commitment and passion, sucking out all the goodness and taking it on themselves without doing anything at all to earn it.

All of the above types are time wasters, but some people are time wasters without any of the above sins. How often do you see people asked to do something, or support something, but even knowing it is important and the path forward clearly signposted, will want to give it another 48 hours before doing anything, then wanting not only to review everything from the first discussion, but to have it all illustrated in pie charts, graphs, a 48 page report in triplicate and further discussion.

These people seem to be indecisive, and sometimes they are, and it could be a result of depression or anxiety, both of which lead to difficulty in making decisions. As often as not, however, they are time wasters, hoping against hope that if they prevaricate long enough the need or possibility of action has passed and they can move on to wasting someone elses time.

These people, are called time wasters and can often be found in the corridors of decision in council halls around the country.

Yes, I am frequently referred to as a Victor Meldrew type, forever moaning about things, about people… and yes, I don’t suffer fools gladly and do raise issues when I feel they need raising, but I think I achieve a damn site more for my causes than the kind of people I describe here. They hold back any possible progress and improvement and that makes me angry…

Live Albums

Well, I was driving home earlier, listening to random tracks from the ipod... when up pops this rather rocking piece of blues... knew it at once, it was Statesboro Blues from the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore double album. The Allmans are a band I have always loved, and to hear them at their best, you need to hear them live, so this album is both a fine remembrance and a fine album.

                
It did, however, make me think on the value of the double live albums which virtually everyone had to release in the early 70's... and are still fairly common currency even today... i was thinking this: the live album.... a blessing or a curse.?

Once again I have decided you can't generalise, for some artists the live album is a fine album critical part of their legacy, for others it is an inferior greatest hits album, for a third section of the music world, a contractual obligation to cover a lack of material... for so many more a serious error.

Whichever category it falls into, is it generally a fair reflection of the concert recorded.

I have a few examples...  for me the aforementioned Allman Brothers Band Live at the Fillmore East is a glowing example of the quality and music of the band, it flows, it has short sharp pieces, extended pieces and a couple of their extended jams, a fair representation of their set, a mixed bag of pieces, and taken and pressed untouched from the live recording. I think there are other albums that come into this category, most of the Grateful Dead live albums do it. There are others of course.... i would include especially Rory Gallagher's live albums in this list

I have a live Creedence Clearwater Revival album, it is a greatest hits set, all inferior versions to the recorded originals partly because John Fogarty was not in the band at the time. I also have a pukka greatest hits album, so never play the live one.

Live albums to cover lack of material, classic one comes to mind is the Rolling Stones Get Your Ya-Ya's Out... at the time they were clearly marking time, I think they lost the plot when they lost Brian, though Micky Taylor did a sterling job in his brief involvement, but they had nothing coming along, were not in a creative phase, so out comes a fairly miserable live album. The other may be the Eagles Hell Freezes Over... a bland rehash to cash in on their reunion when they didnt seem to be really together and had no creative spark.

The final category is the total disaster album... I would also include Ya Ya's in this category... down the years I have heard so many ill advised live albums, live albums by bands that simply should not get up on stage, should stay in the studio with the technology to help out. As I say, I have heard so many... just can't think of them now as I have hopefully put them out of my mind.... The one I cant excuse though is the John Lennon/Mothers of Invention farce that made disc 2 of Sometime in New York... to say that was appalling would be to praise it beyond it's worth

Then there is the question "How live is a live album". I recall a friend did a recorder weekend, which ended with a concert by the ensemble, a recorder orchestra, which i thoroughly enjoyed..... Obviously biased because of his presence, but I've played it to others without mentioning him and they have been quite impressed by it. However, the day after the concert, they all reassembled to re-record a number of bars, probably about 25 bits within the 1 hour concert.

Again, back to the YaYa's album, popular legend has it that all of the guitar solos were re-recorded in the studio, because they were all totally out of tune, and in some cases, the wrong key. 

In these cases the albums are not representative of the concert, and actually are a bit of a con. I am sure however that many live albums are rerecorded later.

I actually listened to a live album the other day (Sandy Denny - Gold Dust") where all the backing vocals were re-recorded for the album by people who had not played at the concert.

The other aspect of Live albums is banter... I love the John Sebastion live album because it has music I like, with typically Sebastian banter, which brings the concert closer to you. On the other hand, much as I love the Humble Pie Rockin' the FIllmore, the banter and exhortations to rock and so on sound banal and irritating sitting in your living room, while they work perfectly well in a concert hall. It certainly evokes the quality of the band live, and they were a live band rather than a studio band, there is a fair bit of that on Rory's Live in Europe, especially on the mandolin piece

So, there we have it, I have been philosophising on the live album lately... 

The other aspect of course now is the DVD... so many bands are releasing live DVD's now... for quality you cant beat Pink Floyd Pulse... has everything you want in a Pink Floyd concert, same applies to the Bands Last Waltz. DVD'S by the like of Roy Harper have a different value, they are also revealing insights into the man and his work.

One suspects that most live DVD's are basically untouched, although some merge sections from different concerts, when a piece was played better on a different night in the tour... can live with that

At the end of the day, among my favourite live albums and DVD's are the Bruce Springsteen ones, both audio and video discs include a selection of live recordings from concert stage, and tv studio over a decade, and include the obvious hits as well as some more obscure stuff. Not a concert, but a series of live versions of the songs – in some cases the studio versions are vastly superior, in others the live fel and performance adds to the song.

Music, or Not... It's all a matter of opinion

I have listened to music for as long as I can remember, I don’t recall songs in the family, but ever since I listened to Uncle Mac on a Saturday morning; music has played a significant part of my life. There is music out there that inspires me, soothes me, drives me on, makes me emotional, makes me happy, and that reflects every mood you can imagine, and music that reminds me of most of the incidents of my life.

As, I think, with most people, the music I consider best, most important to me is the music I was listening to as a youth and young man, growing up, in my scuffling days. Nowadays I echo the words of my parents generation, the music is ok, but not as good as when I was younger. I always said I would never go that way… 

I have always tried to follow contemporary music, the music of the day, but my tastes are very broad, ranging from traditional, rock, blues, jazz, opera, classical, medieval… a broad range of stuff. I don’t, however, like to pigeon-hole music, it simply doesn’t work. There are some performances that fir snugly into a category, but the majority, especially when you look at albums, concerts and careers, that span many genres.

I personally prefer to consider music in three categories, I like it, I don’t like it, I am ambivalent towards it, and what fits into each category will be your own, we will all have different lists under each heading. It doesn’t mean the music I love is better than the music you love, or vice versa. Of course some music is “good” in that it conforms to the musical rules, is technically well played and sung, but that doesn’t mean it is enjoyable necessarily, as there is some music that doesn’t conform to the rules, is technically badly played and sung, but can still be enjoyable.

The thing that horrifies me about music nowadays, what has devalued new music over the last 10 or 15 years can be summed up in two words… Simon Cowell. Of course Cowell wasn’t the first to do what he does, but he is probably the best at it, and the current “master”.

Historically people made music, yes, many had managers, producers and the rest, but historically most artists, certainly the ones that lasted more than the one brief spark of fame, learned their craft on the streets, in clubs, pubs, colleges and bottom of the bill at festivals and concert halls. They learned to respond, they learned to adapt their material, they learned what was liked, what wasn’t. They could build on the good things and grow into mature quality performers. If you are playing a small club to 100 people, you can see their response to what you do petty clearly.

Too many artists now think the road to success is through the talent show route, Britain’s Got Talent, X-Factor… and of course that is the way to short term success… every series, thousands of “wannabees”  makes total fools of themselves, lining Cowell’s pockets in the process, for the sake of the life changing payday. Of course if they can invent a heartrending back story they have a better chance of being “talented”.

Listen critically to these shows, the 12 or so individuals or bands that get to the live finals have all displayed some qualities in the auditions and early part of the process, then in the finals, under the glare of a massive publicity machine, the are morphed by the show into 12 identikit acts, singing songs they wouldn’t touch in real life, in a way they wouldn’t sing them for themselves, to identikit arrangements… until they are all totally interchangeable, and interchangeable with last years class as well…it is all bland manufactured music. These people haven’t learned their craft around the live circuit, benefit parasitically from the expertise of the soulless machine that Cowell presides over to turn out mindless identikit

 music .

Look now at the music racks in the supermarkets… what percent of the CD’s on display are spawned by these talent shows? I don’t have a figure, but it is pretty high. So where is the space for the talented artists who learn their craft and do it for themselves.. no chance. At least now with u-tube and downloads they can get their names and product out to more people, but the machine will never support anyone like that, because, well, they are too maverick, they have not sold their souls or integrity…

Very few people have come through this process and gone on to develop careers as stars, there are exceptions, of course, in the like sof Will Young who is a gifted artist and entertainer, and I feel Leona Lewis will also achieve status. Others are currently very successful, mainly because of their youth, looks and charm (I’m told) such as One Direction and JLS, but do either have anything of their own to offer the world?

The most hapless and appalling offshoots though are the acts that achieve success through novelty value…such as Jedward and Chico.

I’d prefer not to comment on the singers who have been in the finals of Britain’s got Talent and gone on to “stardom”.

The other musical area which I detest, as much as the “reality show” syndrome is the bad crooner or standard singer. One thing I demand when listening to music that the arrangement and performance be sympathetic to the lyric, it doesn’t have to be the same arrangement and style as the original versions, even where the original can be remembered. It does however have to be sympathetic.

I recall watching a TV variety show, with one of these so called crooners topping the bill. He ended on a jolly bouncy song, where he danced energetically around the stage exhorting the audience to clap along to the beat. That in itself is no bad thing, a crowd pleasing jolly climax. The song he chose for this performance was a song written by Joni Mitchell, charting her frame of mind at he break up of a major relationship, a song called Both Sides Now. It is a very personal and introverted acknowledgement of sorrow and despair. It is not the sort of song that can be treated as this artist treated it.

These crooners are, in my view, parasitic performers with no soul or integrity, just cashing in on a song which was popular at the time, regardless of it’s meaning and content.

There are of course, crooners of this type who read songs perfectly, the obvious examples being Frank Sinatra and Matt Munro, both of who seemed to understand every lyric and to reflect it beautifully in the performances.

I don’t think I am a luddite when it comes to music, as I said earlier my tastes are wide, much of the music I listen to dates back before my own lifetime.. I thrill to a Mahler Symphony, the blues of Robert Johnson, the jazz stylings of Django Rheinhardt, I worship the traditional ballad singing of the Watersons, the Copper Family. Many of my favourite artists grew out of the hippy generation, such as the Grateful Dead. Bob Dylan has been an inspiration to me and a route into other art forms, and we will never see the like of the Beatles again.

When the music of my generation grew too pompous and grandiose, up came some wonderful music, a total antidote to it, and I stlll love the music of the Clash and the Sex Pistols who refreshed things when it was needed, unfortunately, the punk rising was as short lived as it was meteoric, and left behind a bit of a void that has been filled with what is, in my opinion, a bland vapid form of identikit popular music springing out of shows which valued production and formula above originality and talent, and as far as I can see despised ant form of originality or personality.

I long to see a 21^st century version of the Sex Pistols appear, in whatever guise, to busrst the bubble of mediocrity and revitalise music as an artform.

As I said right at the beginning, music is a subjective thing, not good or bad, but liked or not liked. I have tried to share some of my views on why I dislike some music so totally. In my personal opinion, this music is simply dumbing down music and art, and leads to reducing everything to the lowest common denominator, which is something I sadly regret.