Wilko Johnson has recently announced that he is terminally ill with cancer of the pancreas and has decided not to undergo any chemotherapy. Wilko, for those of you who don't know, was the guitarist in the English blues band Dr Feelgood until they split up in 1977. Since when he has carried on recording and touring with his own band.
I saw Dr Feelgood once before they split up, but saw Wilko and his band many times after that. I don't remember where I saw Dr Feelgood, probably in England some place before I moved to Edinburgh, but I saw Wilko in Preservation Hall in Victoria Street, Edinburgh. The venue no longer exists as a pub or music venue. It became an Indian Restaurant called Khushis which then had to close after a mysterious fire. I think it may have re-opened as a pub/bar now. Will check it out next time I'm up that way.
Preservation Hall was an excellent music venue, mostly used by blues bands and some folkies. I once saw Tam White record a live album there, which I have somewhere, probably worth a fortune nowadays, so if you see it , buy it. He was a great blues performer, now sadly no longer with us. If you have seen Tutti Frutti on TV, it was Tam providing the vocals for Robbie Coltrane. I recently bought the CD set and should listen to it, now that I've got my new tele, but maybe I'll wait until my home cinema is up and running, which should be soon as it's sitting through there waiting to be set up.
Wilko Johnson was the most intimidating performer I have ever seen and you just never knew what to expect from him. He seemed wild, threatening and unpredictable, so it was best not to get too close to the stage, which in Preservation Hall was sometimes easier said than done. But he was a brilliant performer and always worth the effort. He was never the same without Lee Brilleaux at his side. Lee was the singer in Dr Feelgood, and he too is now dead having passed away in 1994. Together they were a much greater band. I'm glad to have seen them, though, together and apart. And I'm thinking of the friends I used to see him with, in those long gone days of yore.
He is playing a farewell gig in Glasgow on 9th March if anyone fancies going let me know....
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
An Evening with Terence Stamp
I had the pleasure of Terence Stamp's company recently when I went to see his new film Song for Marion at the Cameo Cinema, and what excellent company he turned out to be, looking very fit and handsome for his seventy four years. Just a youngster really. He's a superb raconteur. I reckon he could have gone on for much longer than the forty minutes the Cameo deemed fit to allow him. How often do the idiots think he's going to be coming to entertain us? An hour should have been the minimum, and even that would not have been enough.
He used to share a flat in London with Michael Caine in the sixties when they both started acting. Which seems to have been a lot of fun. Caine told him he was pleased to have another Londoner on the scene as he was fed up with all the Northeners, Welsh and Scots he was having to work with. Which sounds par for the course from Caine. He spoke about some of his best films, or at least the ones the audience asked him about, including Billy Budd, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He says he had to be convinced about the latter but once he got into his dress he loved it. I reckon Priscilla and Far from the Madding Crowd were his best movies, not that I've seen them all, but what does that matter between friends.
I enjoyed Song for Marion too, though not one of the great movies of the year, well worth a couple of hours of anyone's time. He plays Vanessa Redgrave's grumpy husband, and looks after her as she dies of cancer. She joins a choir and he thinks they are all nuts. Once she dies of course he joins the choir and I'm sure you can guess the rest. Vanessa made me cry and then Terence gets me going again. I really will have to do something about all this lachrymose business. Must get a grip, or maybe its too late to do anything about it now. When one is reduced to tears by the toys in Toy Story 3, what hope is there.
Christopher Eccleston was good as the son, with a difficult relationship with Stamp. Probably another movie could have been made out of that. So all in all a very good movie, heartwarming, and an excellent evening with the main man.
I was going to tell you about No and the times I saw Wilco Johnson, who has just announced that he is dying of cancer. But more of that later.
He used to share a flat in London with Michael Caine in the sixties when they both started acting. Which seems to have been a lot of fun. Caine told him he was pleased to have another Londoner on the scene as he was fed up with all the Northeners, Welsh and Scots he was having to work with. Which sounds par for the course from Caine. He spoke about some of his best films, or at least the ones the audience asked him about, including Billy Budd, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. He says he had to be convinced about the latter but once he got into his dress he loved it. I reckon Priscilla and Far from the Madding Crowd were his best movies, not that I've seen them all, but what does that matter between friends.
I enjoyed Song for Marion too, though not one of the great movies of the year, well worth a couple of hours of anyone's time. He plays Vanessa Redgrave's grumpy husband, and looks after her as she dies of cancer. She joins a choir and he thinks they are all nuts. Once she dies of course he joins the choir and I'm sure you can guess the rest. Vanessa made me cry and then Terence gets me going again. I really will have to do something about all this lachrymose business. Must get a grip, or maybe its too late to do anything about it now. When one is reduced to tears by the toys in Toy Story 3, what hope is there.
Christopher Eccleston was good as the son, with a difficult relationship with Stamp. Probably another movie could have been made out of that. So all in all a very good movie, heartwarming, and an excellent evening with the main man.
I was going to tell you about No and the times I saw Wilco Johnson, who has just announced that he is dying of cancer. But more of that later.
Saturday, February 02, 2013
Mantel & Self & Eagleton
One of the pleasures of life, which technology has deprived me of, is being able to see what books other folk are reading, as they sit in cafes, or on planes, buses and trains, or waiting in all the waiting rooms of the world, where we seem to spend so much of our time nowadays. Or is that just me?
But nowadays they sit there with their kindles and ipads reading away in secret so no-one knows what on earth they are reading. Most unfair if you ask me. Once or twice my curiosity has got the better of me and I've just gone ahead and asked "what are you reading there". But since the success of Fifty Shades and its various follow ups I've decided it's not such a good idea after all. You just never know what you might find out, or what you might get, a smack in the mouth or the gob, if you are very unlucky. And while I'm here why call this type of rubbish "mummy porn"? It's not porn, it's just crap. So there, that's that sorted.
Can't remember now where I was going with this post. I've been on the phone and then had to go for a coffee and I've forgotten what its all supposed to be about. Memory is not quite what it used to be. Which reminds me; if you see me repeating myself in this blog, please let me know, as I sometimes forget what I've written about, and it's often not important enough to say it twice. Or maybe it is, which is why you never ever tell me to shut up.
I've just remembered what it was I set out to write about today. And it's to tell you about my own recent and current reading material, which I hope will be of some little interest to you all. And if not, well you can switch off now, as it were.
I've made a start on Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, which won the Booker prize a few years back. I'm afraid to say I'm making heavy weather of it and I've had to take a break from it. Although I do intend to go back to it, as I'm told the follow-up Bring up the Bodies is a better read. I reckon I should give it one more chance to impress.
Instead I'm now reading Will Self's book Walking to Hollywood, which seems to be a mixture of truth and imagination. And he has an abundance of imagination, does old Will.
He does sometimes obscure the border line, between his facts and his fiction, which makes it even more fascinating to read and turns it into a very strange kind of book, disturbing even, and eccentric, as one would expect from Self.
And of course the lesser used bits of the English language get a good airing. He gives an outing to some words which probably did not expect to see the light of day again. Sometimes I think he just likes to show off his erudition, which is vast, needless to say. Its one of those books where a dictionary is essential, which is where my iphone and it's dictionary app comes into it's own. Always knew I would find a use for my iphone.
My bedtime reading is a book by Terry Eagleton called Saints and Scholars, where he imagines a meeting between, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and James Connolly, in a cottage on the West Coast of Ireland. It's a very comic, funny book. I didn't realise that Eagleton had written any novels, but found this one, by chance in the Oxfam shop, next door. Maybe it's his only novel for all I know. I've been to a few lectures of his over the years and he is hugely entertaining and erudite speaker. His novel is the same. I'm making slow progress as I'm reading it in bed and keep falling asleep mid sentence. Nothing wrong with the book, it's just my poor wee brain giving up on me. Or maybe I'm just tired. Anyway its an excellent book to have discovered.
Russell and Wittgenstein are chatting about the latter heading off to Ireland, and Russell says "I must go to bed. Don't kill yourself yet, Wittgenstein." He paused for a moment at the door. "Are you serious about this Ireland business?" Wittgenstein came towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Death or Connacht," he said hoarsely.
And Wittgenstein did eventually kill himself, though not before Eagleton imagined him to this cottage in Ireland. He got Connolly there by somehome snatching him away from the English firing squad, just before they pulled their triggers.
Will let you know what transpires in Ireland. If I stay awake long enough.
But nowadays they sit there with their kindles and ipads reading away in secret so no-one knows what on earth they are reading. Most unfair if you ask me. Once or twice my curiosity has got the better of me and I've just gone ahead and asked "what are you reading there". But since the success of Fifty Shades and its various follow ups I've decided it's not such a good idea after all. You just never know what you might find out, or what you might get, a smack in the mouth or the gob, if you are very unlucky. And while I'm here why call this type of rubbish "mummy porn"? It's not porn, it's just crap. So there, that's that sorted.
Can't remember now where I was going with this post. I've been on the phone and then had to go for a coffee and I've forgotten what its all supposed to be about. Memory is not quite what it used to be. Which reminds me; if you see me repeating myself in this blog, please let me know, as I sometimes forget what I've written about, and it's often not important enough to say it twice. Or maybe it is, which is why you never ever tell me to shut up.
I've just remembered what it was I set out to write about today. And it's to tell you about my own recent and current reading material, which I hope will be of some little interest to you all. And if not, well you can switch off now, as it were.
I've made a start on Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, which won the Booker prize a few years back. I'm afraid to say I'm making heavy weather of it and I've had to take a break from it. Although I do intend to go back to it, as I'm told the follow-up Bring up the Bodies is a better read. I reckon I should give it one more chance to impress.
Instead I'm now reading Will Self's book Walking to Hollywood, which seems to be a mixture of truth and imagination. And he has an abundance of imagination, does old Will.
He does sometimes obscure the border line, between his facts and his fiction, which makes it even more fascinating to read and turns it into a very strange kind of book, disturbing even, and eccentric, as one would expect from Self.
And of course the lesser used bits of the English language get a good airing. He gives an outing to some words which probably did not expect to see the light of day again. Sometimes I think he just likes to show off his erudition, which is vast, needless to say. Its one of those books where a dictionary is essential, which is where my iphone and it's dictionary app comes into it's own. Always knew I would find a use for my iphone.
My bedtime reading is a book by Terry Eagleton called Saints and Scholars, where he imagines a meeting between, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and James Connolly, in a cottage on the West Coast of Ireland. It's a very comic, funny book. I didn't realise that Eagleton had written any novels, but found this one, by chance in the Oxfam shop, next door. Maybe it's his only novel for all I know. I've been to a few lectures of his over the years and he is hugely entertaining and erudite speaker. His novel is the same. I'm making slow progress as I'm reading it in bed and keep falling asleep mid sentence. Nothing wrong with the book, it's just my poor wee brain giving up on me. Or maybe I'm just tired. Anyway its an excellent book to have discovered.
Russell and Wittgenstein are chatting about the latter heading off to Ireland, and Russell says "I must go to bed. Don't kill yourself yet, Wittgenstein." He paused for a moment at the door. "Are you serious about this Ireland business?" Wittgenstein came towards him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Death or Connacht," he said hoarsely.
And Wittgenstein did eventually kill himself, though not before Eagleton imagined him to this cottage in Ireland. He got Connolly there by somehome snatching him away from the English firing squad, just before they pulled their triggers.
Will let you know what transpires in Ireland. If I stay awake long enough.
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