Larry David Norman (4/8/1947 – 24/2/2008)

The American ‘Dylan-esque’ singer songwriter Larry Norman died last week. He’s a man I’ve seen in concert more than a few times, and had the honour of sharing a limo (people carrier) back from a gig to a hotel in Eindhoven one time. I didn’t know him personally so wouldn’t pretend or assume to write a homily, but I’ll write about my experience of him.

Underrated by the main stream? Certainly. Overrated by the Christian music scene? Most definitely.

It feels disresepectful to write what I’m gonna write next, but I know there will be loads who think the same when they hear he died. They’ll say, seriously! You mean he’s not dead yet!? I remember going to a concert with GrumpyMan in the Assembly Buildings in Belfast circa 1990, everyone was in their seats waiting expectantly about half an hour before Showtime when the promoter came out and told us that he was actually still in Holland, pretty much at death’s door. Over the next, well 18 years I guess he had been rumoured to be almost dead. I wonder how it would have changed his life to know in 1990, than actually death wasn’t just around the corner. Maybe that’s a great way to live, or maybe it’s not.

Next time I met Larry was in 1997 when my little band of musicians were sharing main stage at a festival called Flevo in Holland. He held the crowd of thousands in awe as he stumbled through his repertoire, like an aged price fighter, every anthem felt like it could be final. Afterwards myself and Vox were waiting in the back stage drivers area waiting to be shipped back to our hotel - the drivers were having a bit of banter with us, talking in dutch of course and probably taking the mick, so we were in the boisterous mood pretending to be jack-the-lads ourselves. A knock game to the door and for some reason I thought it would be funny to pull the door open really quickly and shout YES?! WHATAYAWANT! At who ever it was. It was of course Larry. “I need a drive, man” he mumbled. I felt really daft and said…. “ur, um I’m … an artist not a driver” (I’m going red, as i did then).

Of course now that Larry was wanting a lift the drivers swung in to action, yes larry, no larry. So we were told we could share a car with Larry. Memory fails me, but I think I jumped in the front seat, just for the laugh of seeing Vox have to make small talk with the big man, but it didn’t mater, all Larry wanted was a McDonalds. At 1am! In the outskirts of Eindhoven! The legend is that Vox made some comment under his breath re: Cheese Burgers causing his heart problems… but I can’t remember if he actually did.

An hour or so driving round looking for a Micky D’s and suddenly Vox and I were less in awe of him and more in a ‘ can we, the heck, get back the hotel please’. So we talked him into the idea that there would be food at the hotel and he seemed happy.

I’m doubting that story tells much about an important and sincere artist like Larry Norman. But it’ my story, it’s my addition to his legend.

For a real obituary jump here - http://www.stocki.ni.org/news/item/127

What I want from Billy Scientist

I want him to invent a method or a drug that guarantees a good night’s sleep. So good in fact that we only need 3-4 hours and when we wake up we feel totally refreshed and ready for the day. I would even be willing to enter some sort of pod. How hard can that be? Surely doctors, scientists and pharmacists have invented more complicated things

It would mean that we have more time in the day to spend doing what we want to do… be it working, relaxing, reading, whatever. You might say that you ‘like’ sleep and don’t want it to be shortened, but when you’re asleep you don’t know it, so it doesn’t matter if sleep lasts 3 hours or 8 hours. You could go to bed at mid night, wake up at 4am feeling GREAT, do the household chores with a whistle, go to work at 6, get home again at 3 and have 9 hours of free time to do whatever you want with your life - sort out the garden, help out at a charity, rock climbing or just watch TV.

Even if it meant we died at 80 rather than 90, I think I’d take it

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

The Story of Stuff

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

a bit preachy and bleeding heart… but really well presented.

Tragedy of Wine

Amy Winehouse in 2004 and in 2008, she’s still got ’something’ but the effect of drug abuse, fame (and tattoos) are hard to watch.

Brits 08

In a New York minute

[greatist 'hits' redux] 

As mentioned in an earlier post, myself and GrumpyMan spent the millennium on a pilgrimage to New York City. We maxed out the credit cards, jumped on the last Aer Lingus outta Shannon, dodging a few millennium bugs on the way and landed in the Big Apple with woolly coats and big hearts. People forget now, due to the events a year later, but there were serious Islamic terrorist threats on Times Square - the news was doing a ‘countdown to carnage’ rather than countdown to new years. At one point it was rumoured that it would be called off, but in the end it went ahead so as not to ‘give in’. During the actual ‘standing around’ in Times Square bit a middle eastern looking guy who was standing in front of us was thrown to the ground by police who dragged him away (probably to father of Guantanamo).

GrumpyMan and I often used to get into a reckless game of egging each other on to do things, which sometimes led to excitement, but more often led to feelings of ‘hmm that wasn’t the best idea in the world’. On our first night there we were looking for a great NY Bar to go to, so we looked up a nightlife brochure we found in the hotel (hotel was of course one block from the Empire State Building - I say again, nothing by halves), anyway, bars… we found one we liked the look of, it was the Korova Milk Bar, based on a Clockwork Orange theme. We jumped on the Subway and emerged near to were it was, which of course, turned out to be downtown Brooklyn. Dodgy empty looking streets, no cars, dudes standing on street corners, us walking around in the cold for 30 mins looking at a map (jeepers). Eventually we came of a hidden doorway, walked in (expecting to maybe die soon) and arrived in the blacked out pub/club. If I remember right - it was actually a tad rubbish, but we stayed there for a couple of drinks anyway due to the hassle getting there.

This picture was taken by GrumpyMan from the Staton Island Ferry. Good uh!?

The next day we went to the World Trade Centre towers, I remember it like yesterday, leaving our coats in the lobby, getting in the express lift of Tower 2, up to the Windows on the World restaurant on the top floor. It was an awesome sight and chilling to think what happened there a year or so later.

That night we decided to make sure we went to a bar that was packed and happening. “Hogs and Heffers” was the choice. To give you an idea, this bar was the inspiration (in 2002) for the movie Coyote Ugly. The blurb said “the barmaids dance on the bar to country hits, try the dentist chair, for a great night out”. Must be said (to wives and such who are reading) there was no hanky panky sought or had - we just thought - this is bound to be a good story to tell.

Again - the rule should be to check out where the bar is before you jump in a taxi. The taxi driver gave us a ‘look’ when we told him where we wanted to go - then promptly dropped us off behind some scary warehouses down by the docks… the kinda place you expect to see cop cars chasing bad guys, knocking over fish crates and boxes. When we saw the bar we hung outside for a while, having decided not to go in, it was just too scary looking. Problem was there were no taxi’s around… so we bit the bullet and headed in. I can’t quite remember the rest of that night.

Next day was New Years Eve, and seeing as we were going to die in a terrorist attack, Grumpy and I decided to get tattoos in Greenwich village. Ok, this is heavily disputed by Grumpy who said he never intended to get one himself. He certainly encouraged me to anyway, we spent a while looking round for a good ‘parlour’ and we eventually found a guy with a spiders web tattoo on his face and thought - he looks nice, lets ask him to do it. So Grumpy told him what I wanted (yes), which was something to commemorate the date and the place… he spent a while drawing it out in pen on some paper, so it would have been rude to then say no. So, the rest is history, except its not, its present on my right shoulder - and I’ve just heard that these things actually don’t wear off!

There are other tales from the american odyssey - but sometimes a blogger has to know when enough is enough.

Those pesky islamists

There’s something very oppressive about the climate of fear brought about by deadly Islamic attacks on western civilians. Has there ever been a more unnecessary statement you may say, but it’s the small things that get to me. Yesterday evening I was coming back from a work meeting on the train, and sitting across from me was a Muslim woman, head to toe in black complete with a head scarf. She was quietly sitting there by herself, eyes closed, lips moving, obviously praying to Allah. I wanted not too, but I couldn’t help it, I was looking around to see if she had any large bags or if she looked like she had any bulk around her waist. Whether I liked it or not I thought that my chances of making it to my destination had at least slightly reduced.

Two years ago I was in Australia with my then girlfriend, flying from Perth to Sydney. It was completely clear as we flew over Western Australia and we could see the shadow of the plane miles below on the dessert earth. After about an hour’s flying time I noticed that we were slowly changing course. At first it didn’t even register as unusual, I thought it was a change of flight path or normal routine, but slowly over the course of 5-10 minutes we kept turning and turning in a large circle until it started to become obvious that we were headed back the way we came.

I don’t know if anyone else noticed but certainly no one said anything and there was no message from the pilot. I took a breath and started an internal dialog, asking myself if what was happening was really happening and what it meant. I decided that either some person was forcing the plane to turn back or something technical was forcing the plane to turn back, neither was good.

I was listening to some music at the time, the song was Bob Dylan’s Forever Young - that’s irrelevant, but I just remember it. It sounds so naff and bravado-lite but I started to physce myself up for trouble. I swapped with my girlfriend from the window seat to the isle, put on my shoes and looked around for any likely helpers should it all ‘kick off’. A bit embarrassingly Rambo-esque, but at the time it felt completely real.

I didn’t want to tell my girlfriend what was happening, as I knew she’d be quite panicky, but unbeknownst to her I was planning to ask her to be my wife that evening, on the steps of the Opera House. The idea came to me that I should just go for it now in case I didn’t get the chance (seriously, this is how I was thinking). So I turned to her and said…. Bing Bong… it was the captain.

‘Ladies and gentlemen you may have noticed that the plane has turned around, we had a slight problem but it’s been resolved and we’re now turning back on our original flight path’

The cabin crew had smelt ‘something funny’ in the food storage area… which on further investigation turned out to be rotten coffee at the bottom of a trolley. Good job I was all physced up for some Steven Segal action!

By the way she said yes, on the steps of the Opera House that evening

Water Water Everywhere

BBC’s Panorama last night broadcast an interesting program investigating the impact of bottled water on the environment. It caught my eye in the light of the ‘Why not waste water’ question I posted last week. I’ve nothing against bottled water, but I do find it a bit poncy. I’d never claim that it tastes better, and never actually buy it to consume at home. I would however buy it if I was out and about and it’s a choice between that and a Fanta.

The best moment (and I do love moments like this), was when they got together ‘water experts’ to do a blind tasting and mark them out of 20 on various qualities, and also to try and identify the ‘Thames tap water’ from the other 9 contenders. As you’d expect, not one of them managed to pick out the tap water, and one of them actually rated it the highest. Surely that’s gotta be embarrassing.

At this point I was 100% with the general drive of the program, I was on their side, but then it got silly. They travelled to Fiji to check out a bottling plant of a supposedly expensive water sold in the UK. It all got a bit weird when they started to blame the plant for the fact that some people in Fiji don’t have clean drinking water - even though the government guy had just said that the water plant had actually helped identify underground water sources, and the tax and royalties they were paying where helping the country’s health system. But on and on they went visiting poor families and sick children in hospital, which was of course very sad but lost the program all credibility for me.

AND THEN IT TURNS OUT the Fiji water company have just declared themselves CARBON NEGATIVE, that’s right, not neutral, negative. They care so much about the environment that they plant trees and get involved in programs to mean that not only does their water shipping not harm the environment but actually helps.

As the program ended the presenter looked earnestly at the camera to appeal to our conscious and our children’s future. I ended up thinking, if I care about the environment I need to turn off my house tap and start buying Fiji bottled water!

Paisley, the pope and me

[greatest ‘hits’ redux]   

 

School was boring, most of the time I wanted to be doing something else and the worst time was always from after lunch to home time. I used to sit beside a guy called Mark, whose dad was the assistant Minster at Ian Paisleys Martyrs Memorial church. He was good craic and we usually spent the time chatting and drawing silly cartoons to while away the hours until the bus came to take us back to the Gilnahirk ‘hood.

Occasionally he’d tell me that Big Ian was round at the house/manse for dinner the previous evening or that he was joining Paisley and his dad protesting outside some den of iniquity (or something or other). He even roped me in one time to going door to door with DUP European election leaflets - im embarrassed at the thought.

One Monday afternoon, after a double PE he told me that his dad was off to Brussels today to kick the pope (exact words). I enquired further and discovered that his holiness John Paul II was addressing the European parliament, so his dad and Paisley where heading over to voice their disagreement with some of JP’s theological musings.

I turned on the six of clock news that night to see Big Ian being dragged out of the chamber by his ankles, shouting. I RENOUNCE THEE THE ANTI-CHRIST… I RENOUNCCCCCE THEE THE ANTI-CHRIST!! There standing beside him was Mark’s dad, holding his papers - he was dead proud in school the next day.

The best concert i ever attended?

[greatest 'hits' redux]  

In my late teens and early 20s this would have been a question to which I could have replied immediately, with my top 5… and this top 5 would have changed yearly! My circle of friends were very into going to gigs - it wouldn’t be unusual to see 4 or 5 a month.

But now days I maybe get to 3 or 4 a year, none of which seem to really compare to the emotion and excitement of those heady days in the mid 90s.

So, therefore I think im about ready to say that my greatest concert experiences are probably behind me - and I can now objectively look back at the ones I remember as being great. (im limiting it to ‘event’ gigs in venues of over 500 or so)

Cracker, Mandela Hall. They were/are pretty unknown, I heard the single Low on BBC Radio 1 once, and it became my immediate favorite song. My buddy AD and I learned the words to the songs in an instant, and when we heard they were supporting Counting Crows on their tour – well it felt like Christmas.

The Stunning, Olympia Theatre, Dublin. The Stunning were a great band, one of those Irish bands that were only really big in Ireland, but with a couple more ‘hits’ could have been a household name. AD got me into their first album by playing the tape on a loop, in his VW beetle multiple times! Their second album was just as good, and we heard tell of a gig in Dublin that summer. So we got tickets and drove to Dublin (if I remember rightly we took a wrong turn and ended up driving for hours through IRA bandit country). It was a midnight start for the gig and the place was packed with the big names of Dublin culture and music. The band seemed to the treating every song like it was their last and the crowd bellowed their love at every opportunity. It was only at the encore that we realised that it was their last ever gig (everyone else seemed to know), the singer thanked his parents in the ‘royal box’ and thanked the fans for all the good times. We drove home in the Beetle as the sun was rising, knowing we’d witnessed an event.

REM, Slane Castle. Slane gigs were always more about the day than the actual gig, but in the case of this one I remember being completely un-impressed by the 99 support acts (apart from spearhead who were great). After 5 hours of standing there I really just wanted to go home… but REM were mesmerizing – it was around the time of ‘what’s the freq Kenneth?’

Hothouse Flowers, Ulster Hall. I just remember them being so cool, great songs belted out with intensity and a real sense of something communal. A few years later I saw them again in the Limelight bar (with about 2000 fewer people), totally different kind of gig, but once again, memorable.

Elastica/Ash, Limelight. I know its very Britpop, but there’s no use censoring my taste in retrospect. Ash were the support act, they were still in school and this was their first real gig – a great feeling of these guys are just like us as we moshed around. Elastica were at their peek –and I still maintain, very underrated.

U2, RDS, Dublin. Zoo TV comes home. We slept out over night on the street at the Virgin Megastore in Belfast to get tickets,  so much was the anticipation. The concert was mind blowing – almost overwhelming, it felt totally important (if that’s not to pretentious). I think history will laud  Zoo TV, I think that Achung Baby and that tour was as important to 90s music as Beatles/Stones were to 60s Sex pistols/Bowie to the 70s etc. (nothing like a bit of hyperbole) (Rick Astley to the 80s?)

Radiohead, Queens University. They had released OK Computer on the Monday – the only album I’ve ever queued for before the record shop doors opened. They were about to become the greatest band on the planet for a while, and to our almost disbelief, there were roomers of a ‘secret’ gig in Belfast on the Tuesday. Myself, AD and SG got down to Belfast town centre at 7am (if memory serves me) to queue for one of the 100 tickets… we were about 578th in the queue! We hung on anyway until 9am when we were officially told no. I can still feel the disappointment. But with 2 hours to go before the concert I got a phone call from good friend and local rock Svengali, SO,  that there were 2 spare tickets going – I jumped at it, but then had to take the decision to ditch SG … who was very and rightly p1ssed off! (only for a week or two, but still mentions it).  The gig it self was a bizarre experience, the greatest band in the world playing to 100 or so people in a university hall, it was ethereal, almost other-worldly. The sounds and melodies of that album are still amongst my favourite.

OK, number one U2, Earls Court, London. AD and I didn’t have tickets… we got them from a tout just before it was due to start.  Bono had been flying home in between earls court shows to visit his dying father, which added to his connection with the songs. Once again emotion and passion in every song, reaching out to every one there. AD and I weren’t even sitting together, but when we met up after… AD looked like he had tears… I mocked him (of course) but I had been welling up all through it. We actually paid a fortune to see them again at Slane Castle a month or so later – but it was a waste of money – nothing beat that earls court show.

Why not waste water?

It’s been requested that I ask an easier question on this post, rather than …flippin abortion! It’s a fair and welcome request.

So here it is. I recycle lots of stuff, we have 3 boxes in our kitchen for paper, cards and cans… and another food waste bin. I say this to ratchet up my credentials for when I ask the next question.

Is water preservation really an environmental issue?

We live in the wettest country in Europe, why should I save water? Is that not like asking the Eskimos to save ice? If we have shortages of tapped water, then we should just build more reservoirs - sorted. Water is a renewable recourse so surely we should be treating it like we treat, say, air.

I’m quite happy to admit that I’m probably missing something, in fact I know I am… because people in the know seem to talk about it a lot - so that’s the question - what is the answer, so I may know and be more enlightened.

Santos vs Vinick

A bit of classic West Wing, from the final series… the worst series certainly… but still great.

This episode was actually broad cast live, apparently they only had a basic script and pretty much did a live debate… it was great at the time, and is still pretty good on YouTube. I think i ended up wanting Vinick to win the election in the end, which said a lot that the show managed to keep ‘the oposisition’ so likable.

Good story in the locker! - the Tour de France

[greatest 'hits' redux] 

I’m always of a mind, that it’s good to have an array of good stories in your (metaphorical) locker. To the point were i’ve certainly ‘done things’ in my past just cause i knew it would make a good story to tell.

Sometimes though , good stories just happen. A few years ago i went to Paris with a couple of mates (very last minute thing - wanna go somewhere next weekend? yeah. ok where? etc etc). I should note that we were staying in the south coast of England anyway, so its slightly less flash than it sounds.

ANYWAY, on the Saturday we decided to go to the Arch de Triomphe, to check it out. When we got there is was crazy busy, and i mean busy! There was obviously some kind of event happening on the Champs Elysees (we assumed Red Bull promo or something). Being up for any kinda of craic we fought our way to the front of the crowd only to see a whooosh of colour and excitement as, of course, the riders of the tour de France crossed the finish line right in front of us!

People in the crowd had traveled all over the world to be there, for a once in a life time opportunity, and we had just stumbled upon it!

I think thats a reasonable story, and 100% true. What do you think?

(still think cycling is boring though)

Got to admit, it’s getting better

 

Again this is just a nugget of a thought, non parsed, ill thought out and under researched. What t’internet was made for! It’s a topic I’ve touched on before a little bit, so you’d think I’d have worked out what I was trying to say, but alas…

A week or two ago we’d some Jehovah’s Witnesses or something come to our door to tell us the good news that the world was going to pot, all we have to do is turn on the news to see what a state the world is in.

That kinda attitude disproportionally annoys me… how can someone claim that the world is getting worse? Bad things happen, but they always have and to say that the world is somehow ‘getting worse’ shows an embarrassingly naive knowledge of history.Never mind world wars, work houses, slavery, plagues… for goodness sake, its only 20-30 years since the world was on the cusp of complete nuclear annihilation… now that the threat of this has somewhat receded, can Mr Witness at least admit that a spate of stabbings on the local Points West news (the example he gave), while tragic, is small bananas… and the very fact that it makes the news, is a positive.

TwoBigYellowCranes (regular commenter) brings to light the tragic case of the man who was killed last week in Belfast, in front of his pregnant wife. I’m not saying that TBYC isn’t right to highlight this, but i remember the days, all too well when this wouldn’t even have got a mention on the local news, because of all the other tribal killings, shootings and punishment beatings. We do ourselves a disservice by not recognising progress. Sometimes the glass IS half full.

Reasons to be cheerful:
Child mortality at record low
Gap between crime rates and fear of crime
UK homicide rates failing (note that the 2000-2003 jump is seen as largely down to better recording)
Life expectancy set to soar

Late Valentines Solution

http://www.code-d.com/tesco-cards/index.php

Sharks and eagles warm my cockles

We watched a DVD last night which had kinda passed me by. We were really renting Atonement for valentines night but in order to be able to keep it for two nights we had to rent an other one too (complex). It’s got him offa Flight of the Conchords, which is really what sold it to us, and we weren’t let down. It’s about a 30 year old guy who acts exactly like a 10 year old nerd trying to break free from his family problems, well worth a watch.  The cockles of my heart were well and truly roasted.

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