No Vegas

I have never felt the urge, the need, the curiosity nor the inclination throughout my life to visit Las Vegas. Never wanted to go to Disney World either but that's another story. They both seemed so fake. Maybe back in the 60's or 70's I might have found Las Vegas to be somewhat interesting in a nightlife kind of way but that didn't last very long nor was it something I ever felt like acting on. There was never any attraction for me to gambling or being in a hotel where there were gambling machines in the lobby. I love going out to see music but there are a lot better places in my opinion to see shows than some fake entertainment center in the middle of a desert. 

Certainly part of my issue with Vegas is the gambling. I've never felt the urge to gamble in any meaningful way whatsoever. During my years in the Navy I did some poker playing with the guys onboard ship and even went to some casinos around the world. I even walked through the real casinos of Monte Carlo in southern France but I was not impressed. Later in the 1970's I strolled through a couple of casinos in Atlantic City but never once felt like playing any slot machine or sitting at a gambling table. Never. I pitied the people there and felt sorry for them and their addictions. And felt for their families too.

Over the years gambling became more and more readily available. It had been such a big deal when gambling was allowed in Atlantic City when previously the only legal place in the country was in Las Vegas because of the payout of politicians by organized crime bosses. Then gambling became a Native American thing and suddenly casinos were everywhere. I still didn't go.

Not only do I not go to casinos for gambling but I won't go there for any kind of shows or concerts either. I refuse to support them in any way whatsoever. There are several casinos in the Western New York area and I know plenty of people who love going to them. There is even one in downtown Buffalo. The casino complex in Niagara Falls has lots of what looks like some great opportunities to see quality rock concerts but I have not really considered going to any of them over the years. I'd rather pass them up. There are plenty of other places to see live music without supporting a gambling casino. Is this a moral thing? I guess it is. 

People say that Vegas is a family friendly all purpose resort. Bullshit. It's a mecca for gambling addicts. Period.

I will be turning 70 this year and can proudly say I've never been to Las Vegas.

Cup of Tea

I've been a tea drinker for some 40 years or so. I never drank coffee and before tea I would have some juice in the morning. Then I got hooked on tea. 

For many years I would have a cup of tea in the morning with breakfast and usually a cup in the afternoon. This was a regular routine while I was working in the library. Sometimes I would have a cup after dinner but not always. Usually only if we were having a quiet evening at home.

This routine continued in my retirement years. Then the pandemic struck. I was home all the time and the cup of tea became a pot of tea. I was drinking tea all day long. At breakfast I would make a pot of tea and drink it all throughout the morning. After lunch I would make another pot of tea and drink it throughout the afternoon. After dinner I would make another pot of tea and drink it throughout the evening. Then later I often would have a couple of beers. This has been going on close to a year as the pandemic wore on.

I always had a cup of tea next to me when I was reading, writing, watching TV or listening to music. In the living room on the couch, in the front room next to my reading chair, at the kitchen table with my laptop, on the front porch, in the cabana sun room, and in a backyard chair. Always a cup of tea.

For the past two years or so I've only been drinking decaffeinated tea. I had some heart issues with some afib symptoms which some meds took care of right away. I've haven't had any problems since that initial situation. At that time I switched from regular tea to decaffeinated and have continued to this day.

I should also add that I always drank a large glass of ice water with every meal.

So... I was peeing a lot. All day long and throughout the night. I started to be concerned that there was something wrong with my bladder or prostate. I guess I wasn't doing the math on how much liquids I was consuming but eventually I figured it out.

I suddenly stopped drinking tea cold turkey. I wanted to see how my body reacted. I went two weeks without drinking a drop of tea. My body went back to normal. I also didn't seem to mind not drinking tea. 

I recently started drinking tea again but I've been limiting myself to two cups in the morning and one in the afternoon. My peeing is reasonable and I'm glad to know there is nothing wrong with my plumbing.

So down at Katie's house this week I've been having one cup of tea in the morning and one in the afternoon from the packs she got for me.

A couple of movie stars

That's what Henry called themselves when they were wearing the sunglasses... movie stars. They put the sunglasses on and suddenly we were treated to a show that included a lot of running around and dancing followed by a rest period on the kitchen floor. Very entertaining.

Brown Cheese

Clara had gone into the kitchen while Todd was making dinner and grabbed on his leg looking for food. He gave her a piece of the percorino romano cheese he had been grating which she immediately put it in her mouth before sitting herself on her mother's lap. 

We sat there amazed as she chewed the piece smaller and smaller. She must have been channeling her Sicilian great grandmother because after Katie took it away Clara began "I like the brown cheese" a few times, then "I want the brown cheese" repeatedly, then it was plaintively "I need the brown cheese" and then she stood up in her chair and with clenched fists started yelling "give me the brown cheese".  She did her "I need brown cheese" chant several times over the next few days.

The Bridgets

Today is Saint Patrick's Day. The other patron saint of Ireland… Saint Bridget of Kildare. No parties or parades for her but I wanted to celebrate the Bridgets in my family on this Irish holiday.

My maternal great-grandmother Bridget McDevitt Keegan raised her family around the corner from where I grew up. Becky and I lived in that same house during the 70’s, we slept in her old bed and we still use her chest of drawers today in our bedroom. She and my great-grandfather Thomas Keegan moved into that house in 1909. The house was built in 1876. 

On my father’s side I have several great-great-grandmothers named after that saint and all born in Ireland. All named Bridget.

Granny who I remember living down on Greene Street with Nana Emery was our grandfather's mother Teresa Maguire Emery. She passed away in 1955. Her grandmother on her mother's side was Bridget Loftus Maguire born in Ireland in 1825 and died in 1909. She was my Great-Great-Great Grandmother.

My father's mother was Katherine Galvin Emery. Her grandmother on her father's side was Bridget O'Rourke Galvin born in Ireland. Her grandmother on her mother's side was Bridget Dunn Finley also born in Ireland. They were both my Great-Great Grandmothers.

Babylon Berlin

Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher, 2007

I read this book in March 2021. It took about a week. I had watched the TV series on Netflix a couple of years ago and was surprised to see this book recently available as an e-book from the public library. I really didn't know anything about the novel from which the tv series was developed although I knew it was a German story.

I also discovered that this is a series featuring the Berlin detective Gereon Rath that takes place in 1929 was an international bestseller too.

I liked the TV series a lot and the book was awesome too. I hope there is a second season and the library makes more books available.

I've been reading a lot of Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther Berlin detective series over the past ten years or so and was excited to find another Berlin Noir series set in that time period. It looks like there are eight books in the series.

The Netflix show in 2018 was actually the first two seasons of the German series that was shown as one 8 episode season that combined two episodes for each American episode. It covered the first novel. The 3rd season has been shown in Germany and in other parts of the world but not in the US yet.

Portrait Demo

Becky recently came across these photos of her mother, Catherine Catanzaro Koenig, in her art class doing a portrait painting demo of her art instructor Charles Burchfield at the Art Institute of Buffalo. The photos are dated November 1955.

Catherine and Jim were friends with Charles Burchfield over the years and Becky knew him in her childhood. Catherine went on a few years after these photos to become an adjunct art instructor at SUNY Buffalo for about twenty years. She taught portrait drawing.  We have a couple of nice portraits she did of our children.

The Ozzie Moment

The phrase of me having an Ozzie moment began when I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes going through the house looking for something beeping. It was an erratic beep with no pattern. I was down in the basement looking at the smoke detectors and also up in the bedrooms doing the same thing. I was out in the kitchen checking the refrigerator door. I was confounded and couldn't find the beeping. I was walking aroud the house in a daze.

Becky, Katie and Sean were in the living room the entire time watching TV and not aware of what I had been doing. In my frustration I came into the room and asked if they were hearing the beeping that was driving me crazy. Then I heard the beep again and saw Ozzy Osbourne sitting on the couch on his TV show getting bleeped out every almost every time he opened his mouth. He was the cause of the beeping I was hearing. Everyone started laughing and my confusion became known as an Ozzie Moment.

The Osbournes show on MTV ran from 2002 to early 2005. Katie and Sean were both still in school so this probably happened in 2002 when the show was new and interesting. Ozzy was always acting stupid and saying dumb things laced with profanity while his wife and kids yelled at him. Thus all the beeping.

So after that any time I was wandering around the house helplessly or hopelessly looking for something it was called having an Ozzie Moment. I still use the phrase nearly twenty years later.

Personally I didn't watch anything more than a few minutes at a time when the show was on in our house. The kids sometimes watched it for laughs but they didn't really know much about who Ozzy really was and all that.

Thin Man - Dylan Cycle

A new mega mix based on several old Bob Dylan mixes. All things Dylan. Songs by Dylan, lots of people covering Dylan songs, some songs about Dylan, Dylan covering other people's song and some live Dylan too. The mix covers his entire career except for the Christmas albums and those recent albums of standards.

The mix starts off with Dylan's Ballad of a Thin Man thus the title of the mix.

The mix...

1. Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan
2. All Along The Watchtower - Bob Dylan
3. Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again - Bob Dylan
4. Shelter From The Storm - Bob Dylan
5. Too Much Of Nothing - Peter, Paul & Mary
6. Blowin' In The Wind - Stevie Wonder
7. This Wheel's On Fire - The Band
8. Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds
9. If Not For You - George Harrison
10. Simple Twist Of Fate - Joan Baez
11. It Ain't Me Babe - The Turtles
12. I Want You - Bob Dylan
13. Tangled Up In Blue - Bob Dylan
14. 'Til I Fell In Love With You - Bob Dylan
15. Like Dylan In The Movies - Belle and Sebastian
16. All I Really Wanna Do - Bryan Ferry
17. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat - Raphael Saadiq
18. Gotta Serve Someone - Mavis Staples
19. Just Like a Woman - The Persuasions
20. Lay, Lady, Lay - Angélique Kidjo
21. Not Dark Yet - Ruby Amanfu
22. In My Time Of Dyin - The Be Good Tanyas
23. Song To Woody - Bob Dylan
24. Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan
25. The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo) - Bob Dylan
26. Don't Think Twice - The Wonder Who
27. All Along The Watchtower - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
28. Highway 61 Revisited - Johnny Winter
29. Absolutely Sweet Marie - Jason & The Scorchers
30. Jokerman - Built To Spill
31. You Ain't Going Nowhere - The Byrds
32. Tangled Up In Blue - Mary Lee's Corvette
33. Bob Dylan Blues - Syd Barrett
34. Song For Bob Dylan - David Bowie
35. Whatever Happened To Soy Bomb - Eels
36. My Back Pages - Steve Earle
37. Mr. Tambourine Man - Odetta
38. All I Really Want To Do - Bob Dylan
39. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 - Bob Dylan
40. Political World - Bob Dylan
41. Thunder On The Mountain - Bob Dylan
42. Trying To Get To Heaven - Bob Dylan
43. Congratulations - Traveling Wilburys
44. Lo And Behold - Bob Dylan & The Band
45. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Ramblin' Jack Elliott
46. You Ain't Going Nowhere - The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn
47. Girl From The North Country - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
48. I'd Have You Anytime - George Harrison
49. It's All over Now, Baby Blue - Marianne Faithfull
50. Lay Lady Lay - Isaac Hayes
51. Make You Feel My Love - Adele
52. It Ain't Me Babe - Lucy Kaplansky
53. One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later) - Bob Dylan
54. Simple Twist Of Fate - Bob Dylan
55. Went To See The Gypsy - Bob Dylan
56. Dylan, Dylan, Dylan  - The Black Watch
57. Dylan's Hard Rain - Ryan Bingham
58. All Along The Watchtower - XTC
59. Subterranean Homesick Blues - Michael Franti
60. Like a Rolling Pin - The Replacements
61. Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Live) - Bob Dylan
62. Masters Of War (Live) - Bob Dylan
63. Ballad Of A Thin Man (Live) - Bob Dylan
64. The Times They Are A-Changin' - Flogging Molly
65. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry - Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, Steve Stills
66. Like A Rolling Stone - Seal & Jeff Beck
67. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight  - Robert Palmer & UB40
68. The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll - Cage The Elephant
69. Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) - Bob Dylan
70. Love Sick - Dylan
71. Tweeter and the Monkey Man - Traveling Wilburys
72. Drifter's Escape - Bob Dylan
73. Maggie's Farm - Bob Dylan
74. Baby, I'm In The Mood For You - Bob Dylan
75. The Ballad of Bob Dylan - David Peel and The Lower East
76. Hurricane - Bob Dylan
77. My Back Pages - Marshall Crenshaw
78. Knockin' On Heaven's Door - Bryan Ferry
79. Positively 4th Street - The Persuasions
80. Simple Twist Of Fate - Jeff Tweedy
81. Shelter From The Storm - Mary Lee's Corvette
82. Don’t Think Twice, It's All Right - Odetta
83. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues - Judy Collins
84. You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go - Shawn Colvin
85. I Shall Be Released - The Flying Burrito Brothers
86. The Times They Are A-Changin' - The Byrds
87. Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan
88. Blackjack Davey - Bob Dylan
89. The Boxer - Bob Dylan
90. If Not For You - Bob Dylan
91. Big Yellow Taxi - Bob Dylan
92. Blowin' In The Wind - Peter, Paul & Mary
93. All Day And All Night - Jakob Dylan
94. Buckets Of Rain - Fistful Of Mercy
95. Handle With Care - Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
96. Boots Of Spanish Leather - Nanci Griffith
97. Girl From The North Country - Joe Cocker & Leon Russell
98. Baby Let Follow You Down (Live) - The Band With Bob Dylan
99. Hazel (Live) - The Band With Bob Dylan
100. Forever Young (Live) - The Band With Bob Dylan
101. I Shall Be Released (Finale) (Live) - The Band With Bob Dylan
102. Highway 61 Revisited (Live) - Bob Dylan
103. That's Alright Mama - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
104. Ring Of Fire - Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash
105. Watching the River Flow - Bob Dylan
106. Drifter'S Escape - Jimi Hendrix
107. Baby Blue - The Chocolate Watch Band
108. All I Really Want To Do  - The Byrds
109. Lay Down Your Weary Tune - Billy Bragg
110. Talking New Bob Dylan - Loudon Wainwright III
111. Tangled Up In Blue - Robyn Hitchcock
112. Pledging My Time - Greg Brown
113. Paths Of Victory - Cat Power
114. Knockin' on Heaven's Door - The Persuasions
115. Not Dark Yet - Bob Dylan
116. Too Much Of Nothing - Bob Dylan & The Band
117. Million Dollar Bash - Bob Dylan & The Band
118. Please, Mrs. Henry - Bob Dylan & The Band
119. Blowin' In The Wind (Live) - Bob Dylan
120. All Along The Watchtower (Live) - Bob Dylan
121. It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) (Live) - Bob Dylan
122. Gotta Serve Somebody - Eric Burdon
123. One Headlight - The Wallflowers
124. My Back Pages - The Ramones
125. Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35 - Lenny Kravitz
126. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream - Taj Mahal
127. Love Minus Zero/No Limit - Jackson Browne
128. Bob Dylan's 49th Beard - Wilco
129. Girl from the North Country - Sting
130. Just Like A Woman - Richie Havens
131. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Peter, Paul & Mary
132. Bob Dylan's Dream - Peter, Paul and Mary
133. You're No Good - Bob Dylan
134. Chimes Of Freedom - Bob Dylan
135. This Land Is Your Land  - Bob Dylan
136. Blowin' in the Wind - Ziggy Marley
137. Pressing On - Glen Hansard
138. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - John Hammond
139. Stepchild - Solomon Burke
140. Dear Landlord - Joe Cocker
141. Lonesome Day Blues - Bob Dylan
142. Sittin' On Top Of The World - Bob Dylan
143. Someday Baby - Bob Dylan
144. Million Miles - Alvin Youngblood Hart
145. Everything Is Broken - R.L. Burnside
146. All Along The Watchtower - Dave Mason
147. Watching the River Flow - Leon Russel
148. Drifter's Escape - Patti Smith
149. Pledging My Time - Luther Guitar Johnson
150. It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
151. Visions of Johanna - Marianne Faithfull
152. You're A Big Girl Now - My Morning Jacket
153. Girl From The North Country - Eels
154. Tomorrow Is A Long Time - Rosalie Sorrels
155. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) - Kris Kristofferson
156. Every Grain Of Sand - Marco Benevento
157. Tryin' To Get To Heaven - Lucinda Williams
158. Can't Help Falling in Love - Bob Dylan
159. I'll Remember You - Bob Dylan
160. 6th Avenue Heartache - The Wallflowers
161. Shot Of Love - Bob Dylan
162. Bye & Bye - Bob Dylan
163. Night After Night - Deer Tick
164. I'd Have You Anytime - Evan Rachel Wood
165. Seven Curses - Joan Baez
166. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right - Kronos Quartet
167. Maggie's Farm - The Specials
168. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry - Taj Mahal
169. Masters Of War - Odetta
170. The Times They Are A-Changin' - Bryan Ferry
171. You Ain't Goin' Nowher - Brett Dennen
172. Just Like A Woman - Carly Simon
173. Not Dark yet - Silversun Pickups
174. I Shall Be Released - The Band
175. Blowin' in the Wind - Kek Lang
176. Forever Young - Pete Seeger

Random Album Effect - Modern

This set went on a little longer than usual. I started off with one of my favorite albums of the early 80's and 1983 in particular The Call's Modern Romans which was a very political record. I hadn't listened to this album all the way through in some time and enjoyed it very much. There were a lot of songs here I played regularly during my barroom DJ days. I used their song The Wall Came Down on a couple of mixes over the years.  This was their second albums and they actually had a big hit record a few years later in

It definitely felt like a random album effect when the next artist started playing. Nicola Conte's The Modern Sounds of Nicola Conte: Versions in Jazz-Dub from 2009 was drastically different from The Call but in an interesting and thoughtful way. I was immediately drawn into the music which was an Italian guitarist, producer, DJ and classically trained musician's take on acid jazz. It was actually a very enjoyable album as background music that would occasionally make it's presence known.

The next album was a nice segue into some large band soulful country music. Ray Charles' Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, 1962 was a two volume set that sounded great. It had been some time since I've listened to this album too. Every song was wonderful.

Next up was The Knitters and there album The Modern Sound of The Knitters released in 2005. Their name was a play on the Weavers and their music is a mix of country, folk and rockabilly which sounded fine after Ray Charles. The band members included three members of X and also Dave Alvin from The Blasters.

The album that followed was Bob Dylan's 2006 release Modern Times. It's hard to believe this was his 32nd studio album. Commercially it was a very successful album. The album didn't have a lot of stand out tracks but the whole thing holds together very well and sounded very appropriate after the Knitters.

This is the second album from the band Celebration. The Modern Tribe was released in 2007 and sort of flew by here without leaving much of an impression although it was pleasant with a very modern rock sound and an outstanding female vocalist 

The set ended with the Vampire Weekend's 2013 release Modern Vampires of the City. I enjoyed this very thoughtful third album of theirs very much.

Overall a very entertaining set.

 

• The Call - Modern Romans, 1983
• Nicola Conte - The Modern Sounds of Nicola Conte: Versions in Jazz-Dub, 2009
• Ray Charles - Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music Volumes 1 & 2, 1962
• The Knitters - The Modern Sounds of The Knitters, 2005
• Bob Dylan - Modern Times, 2006
• Celebration - The Modern Tribe, 2007
• Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City, 2013

Goody Two Shoes

I had always thought Goody Two Shoes was an expression or something out of my grandmother’s generation. We heard it often as kids. That idea was reinforced when I had acquired this book about 20 years ago after it was withdrawn from the collection of the Canisius College library. The copy of this book was published in 1911 but it originally came out in 1765.

It was taken out of the collection because the records indicated that the last time it was checked out to someone was Oct 21, 1969. The previous time before that was May 29, 1941. Maybe it wasn’t a popular book in the late 20th and early 21st century but we all seemed to have heard the expression Goody Two Shoes.

I posted these pictures with a brief description of the book to the Germantown Facebook group and my own feed and everyone seemed to know the expression but did not know it came from a children's book. There were some interesting comments. 

One comment mentioned the song Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant.

Mix Making History Pt. 3

Continued from the A Side / B Side Facebook group.

My mix history Pt. 3. In the 2000’s and beyond I expanded my mix making into social media and the sharing of mixes with like-minded mixers. I always shared my mixes among family and friends as gifts since the early 80’s but the online world radically changed things. I had actually been part of several online groups discussing music and mix making going back to the early 2000’s. It was great sharing music with so many people and I certainly learned a lot about many bands and artists I was unaware of or may have overlooked over the years. At this time I was also spending a lot of time creating CD cases with special software using images and text for my mixes. I really enjoyed making those cases which now take up the shelves of a couple of bookcases. Some of those groups were Art of the Mix, the Splitters, MixCloud, Zen Running Order, Mix Tapes to Go and probably a few others. It's been a lot of fun and have met a lot of great people over the years through this mix making obsession. Pt. 4 will be the retirement years and the mega mix.

Pfizer #2

In and out in 20 minutes. Yesterday Becky and I got our second Pfizer vaccine shot. The process this time was even more efficient than our first time which I wrote about here. It helped that we knew what to expect this time but we were still pleasantly surprised at how well run the state ran this operation at UB South Campus.

It took twenty minutes from the time we walked into the building, checked in with the State Trooper, filled out the brief paperwork at a desk, went into the vaccine room where we immediately sat down for our shots and then waited fifteen minutes in the lounge for potential side effects. Yes, that was just five minutes to get our shots.

The whole process from the time we left our house until we were back home again took less than an hour. Later in the day I had a sore arm which has continued through the night and into today but no other effects.

We both feel so much better now that we've had our second shots and are looking forward to two weeks from now when we will be fully vaccinated from these shots. I've been reading the CDC guidelines that came out this week concerning the recommendations for those that at are fully vaccinated and their interactions with other people. I can't wait to start going to restaurants again although being very careful.

We are also looking forward to driving down to Philly in a couple of weeks to see Katie, Todd and the kids. We're expecting to see Betsy and Joe, Dan and maybe a few other people too.

And then of course in another few weeks after that we will go see Sean and Ashley and the new baby. 

We've also made arrangements to spend a week in Long Lake with Katie and the kids.

Starman - The Bowie Cycle

An all things David Bowie mega mix. This mix was quickly put together with several older Bowie mixes along with a quick search in iTunes under David Bowie gave me a long list of songs that Bowie wrote done by other people. I also collected songs about Bowie and songs of other artists covered by Bowie. I threw in a few live cuts too.

The mix went on for a little over ten hours by the time I was done using what I had collected. Could have kept on going for more but I was trying to keep in my mega mix range of 8 to 10 hours.

There is a link to Spotify at the bottom of the page for listening to this mix.

1. Space Oddity - David Bowie
2. Life On Mars? - David Bowie
3. Starman - David Bowie
4. Ashes To Ashes - David Bowie
5. Major Tom (Coming Home) - Peter Schilling
6. Heroes - Janelle Monae
7. Boys Keep Swinging - Duran Duran
8. Let's Dance - David Bowie
9. Fame 90 (Gass Mix) - David Bowie
10. Golden Years - David Bowie
11. TVC15 - David Bowie
12. Young Americans - The Cure
13. China Girl - Pete Yorn
14. Diamond Dogs - Beck
15. Jean Genie - The Dandy Warhols
16. Watch That Man - David Bowie
17. White Light White Heat - David Bowie
18. Let's Spend The Night Together - David Bowie
19. It's Hard To be A Saint In The City - David Bowie
20. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere - David Bowie
21. Nightclubbing - Iggy Pop
22. Tonight - Tina Turner
23. Starman - Jen Chapin
24. Changes - Lewis & Clarke
25. Life On Mars? - Karen Ann
26. Modern Love - The Last Town Chorus
27. Me and David Bowie - Ian McCulloch
28. Satellite Of Love - Lou Reed
29. Growin' Up - David Bowie
30. Song For Bob Dylan - David Bowie
31. Days - David Bowie
32. Lazarus - David Bowie
33. Buddha Of Suburbia - David Bowie
34. All The Young Dudes - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs
35. Fannin' Street - Scarlett Johansson
36. Black Out - Pavement
37. Funtime - R.E.M.
38. I Feel Free - David Bowie
39. See Emily Play - David Bowie
40. Slow Burn - David Bowie
41. Modern Love - David Bowie
42. Fascination - David Bowie
43. Ziggy Stardust - Bauhaus
44. The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana
45. Space Oddity - Exitmusic
46. Ashes to Ashes Pt. 2 - Warpaint
47. Major Tom - The Space Lady
48. Bowie - Flight Of The Conchords
49. God Only Knows - David Bowie
50. Starman - Golden Smog
51. Sound & Vision - The Sea And Cake
52. Heroes - The Magnetic Fields
53. Rebel, Rebel David Bowie
54. The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie
55. Life On Mars - David Bowie
56. Sunday [Moby Remix] - David Bowie
57. This Is Not America - David Bowie
58. Cat People (Putting Out Fire) - David Bowie
59. Letter to Hermione - Robert Glasper
60. Let's Dance - M. Ward
61. Andy Warhol Dana Gillespie
62. Drive-In Saturday - Game Theory
63. Man Without A Mouth - Rustic Overtones
64. Pretty Pink Rose - Adrian Belew
65. Like A Rolling Stone - Mick Ronson
66. Cactus - David Bowie
67. Loving The Alien - David Bowie
68. Hallo Spaceboy - David Bowie
69. I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship - David Bowie
70. Reflektor - Arcade Fire
71. Boys Keep Swinging - A Camp
72. Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
73. Dancing in the Street - David Bowie & Mick Jagger
74. Friday On My Mind David Bowie
75. Waiting For The Man (BBC Live) - David Bowie
76. Shapes Of Things - David Bowie
77. Working Class Hero - David Bowie
78. (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six - The Brian Jonestown Massacre
79. I Am A Laser - Ava Cherry and the Astronettes
80. Province - TV On The Radio
81. All The Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople
82. Saviour - Kristeen Young & David Bowie
83. Moonage Daydream - David Bowie
84. Heroes - David Bowie
85. The Next Day - David Bowie
86. Blue Jean - David Bowie
87. Suffragette City (Live) - Red Hot Chili Peppers
88. David Bowie Wants Ideas - Bongwater
89. Sector Z - Rustic Overtones & David Bowie
90. Gunman - Adrian Belew
91. Sound + Vision - Mechanical Bride
92. China Girl - Iggy Pop
93. Baby Can Dance - Tin Machine
94. We Used To Be Friends - The Dandy Warhols
95. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix) - David Bowie
96. Jump They Say (Brothers In Rhythm 12'' Remix) - David Bowie
97. I'm Afraid Of Americans (Nine Inch Nails V1 Mix) - David Bowie
98. Panic In Detroit - David Bowie
99. Changes (Live) - David Bowie
100. Knock On Wood (Live) - David Bowie
101. Bring Me The Disco King - David Bowie
102. Fame - David Bowie
103. Stay - David Bowie
104. Soul Love - David Bowie
105. The Sun Machine (Memory of a Free Festival) - Mercury Rev
106. This Is Not America - Petra Haden
107. Heroes - TV On The Radio
108. Blue Jean - Papercranes
109. Five Years - The Polyphonic Spree
110. You've Got A Habit Of Leaving - Davy Jones & The Lower Third
111. I Dig Everything - David Bowie
112. John, I'm Only Dancing - Killing Process
113. With David Bowie - Veruca Salt
114. When The World Falls Down - Mick Ronson
115. Queen Bitch - Hotrats
116. Moonage Daydream - The Chameleons UK
117. Under Pressure - Queen & David Bowie
118. Fashion - David Bowie
119. D.J. - David Bowie
120. Pablo Picasso - David Bowie
121. Hop Frog - Lou Reed
122. Always Crashing in the Same Car - Chairlift
123. Scientist - The Dandy Warhols
124. Night Clubbing - The Human League
125. All The Young Dudes - Gene Loves Jezebel
126. Suffragette City - David Bowie
127. Sorrow - David Bowie
128. Wild Is the Wind - David Bowie
129. Heroes (Wildebeest mix) - Peter Gabriel
130. Rebel Rebel - Rickie Lee Jones
131. Life On Mars - The Flaming Lips
132. O Astronauta De Marmore - Seu Jorge
133. Janine - David Bowie
134. Queen Bitch - David Bowie
135. Teenage Wildlife - David Bowie
136. Station To Station - David Bowie
137. Blackstar - David Bowie
138. A Better Future - David Bowie
139. My Death (Live) - David Bowie
140. Sound And Vision - David Bowie

I Hear Sirens in the Street

I Hear Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty, 2013

I finished reading this crime novel in early March 2021. It is the second book in the Sean Duffy detective series which takes place in Belfast, Northern Ireland during The Troubles. 

I probably enjoyed this book even more than the first one I read last month because now I know the character better and also the author's writing style. I wrote about that first novel here.

Looking forward to reading many more books by Adrian McKinty.

BTW, we got our second covid virus vaccination today!

Get The Led Out

Earlier today a member of an FB music group I belong to initiated a rather heated discussion of Led Zeppelin which got me thinking about that band. People in the discussion group were making list of their favorite Led Zeppelin albums. I've always had a love hate relationship with that group. There are some aspects of them that I love about rock music and others I find to be the most awful characteristics of AOR dreck. 

I was an obsessive reader of record reviews and articles about music. I read newspaper review and music magazines all the time. I loved the Yardbirds back in their time and was disappointed when they broke up in 1968. I was surprised when Jimmy Page reconfigured the band into Led Zeppelin and laughed when come critics scorned them for copying the name concept from Iron Butterfly who formed in 1966. That light and heavy thing.

I saw Led Zeppelin perform in 1969 in a hall that had been converted from a tire warehouse to a premier rock club in downtown Philadelphia that barely lasted two years before being shut down for "excessive drug use" a few months later that year. Actually I was not overly impressed with the show and at the time saw their performance as a copy of the Blue Cheer sound.

I did already have their first album and bought the second album when it came out in the fall and soon we were hearing Whole Lotta Love on AM radio which was weird. By the end of the year I was in the Navy and except for grabbing a cassette copy of the third album in 1970 I would not hear much at all of Led Zeppelin for four years because of so much time spent at sea. Then I came back but listening to rock music had changed with AOR radio and Led Zeppelin was becoming brainwash fodder that got worse through the mid to late 70's. It would be decades before I loved that band again.

So back to my favorites... Led Zeppelin III is definitely my favorite studio album followed closely by I & II. I never listened to IV, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti until much later. I don't think I've heard the others. However, my real favorite is really How The West Was Won which may also be one of my all time favorite live albums. From the mid 70's on I avoided all classic rock radio which had ruined many fine groups IMHO and also concentrated way too much on mediocre copy sounding groups. That's also why I was making my own mixes. I didn't start listening to Led Zeppelin again until the early 00's. Now as an old man I still like to get the led out.

I should also note that I really like the Page & Plant No Quarter album and much of Robert Plant's solo albums especially Raising Sand with Allison Krauss.

underground radio

Stand Down Margaret

We've been watching The Crown TV series over the past couple of years. We  watch an episode every now and then and we certainly have not been binging it but sometimes we watch it in spurts. Season 4 which we are watching now was released in November 2020 and we're about halfway through the season here in March.

Season 4 takes place during the Margaret Thatcher years and the other day we watched one particular episode that particularly resonated with me. The fifth episode Fagan about a desperate out of work man who breaks into Buckingham Palace to talk with the Queen. I had totally forgotten about that little bit of history which was so weird at the time but I don't think I ever knew that he broke into the palace and got to her bedroom twice.

The episodes this season have had a few that focused on Thatcher and her policies including the Falklands War which she used to distract the public from the high unemployment that she was responsible for along with the crack down on unions and working people in general. It was kind of funny that Fagan put the idea into the Queen's head that she was striving to bypass the crown as the moral authority of the nation and the show ended with Thatcher taking the salutes from the troops that would have normally gone to the Queen who was not happy. The actor that places Margaret Thatcher is very good.

I've also been reading a crime novel that takes place in Belfast Northern Ireland during this same time period. The police force has been decimated by the army reservists in their ranks that have been called for service in Thatcher's Falklands War. One scene has two detectives talking in an office where one sits at his desk blowing smoke up at the ceiling that has a yellow tobacco stain shaped like "Thatcher's hair".  

The music at the end of this particular episode was the English Beat's song Stand Down Margaret.

16 - 17 - 18

On one of my music oriented FB groups people were talking about the music they saw live when they were teenagers and in particular bands they saw when they were 16 to 18 years old.

Although I had seen a few shows when I was 14 and 15 the bulk of my teenage experience of live music when I was 16 to 18 year old during the years 1968 to 1970. I went to a lot of shows in 1968 and 1969 but 1970 was more spotty because I was in the Navy at that point. However, from May 1970 until the end of the year I was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center outside of Chicago and I regularly took the train into the city to attend shows at places like the Aragon Ballroom and the many outdoor concerts in the park along the lake.

The places I saw most of the shows in Philadelphia in 1968 and 1969 were the Electric Factory, Trauma and the 2nd Fret downtown. The Kaleidoscope in Roxborough, out at the Main Point, the Be-Ins in Fairmount Park, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the shows down at the old Convention Center and of course that long weekend at the Atlantic City Pop Festival.

I had already made a somewhat complete A to Z list of shows I've seen throughout my life that I previously posted here but for this list I picked out the shows from that 16 to 18 time period.

• Allman Brothers Band
• Amboy Dukes
• Eric Anderson
• American Dream
• The Association
• The Animals
• The Band
• The Byrds
• James Brown
• Big Brother & The Holding Company
• Blue Cheer
• Tim Buckley
• Blood, Sweat & Tears
• Chuck Berry
• The Bee Gees
• Booker T & The MG's
• Blues Project
• Paul Butterfield Blues Band
• Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
• Eric Clapton
• Chicago
• Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
• Joe Cocker
• Judy Collins
• James Cotton
• The Chocolate Watch Band
• Canned Heat
• Cactus
• Crazy Horse
• Crazy World of Arthur Brown
• Country Joe and the Fish
• The Doors
• Miles Davis
• Bob Dylan
• Dr. John
• The Dells
• The Delfonics
• The Dovells
• Edison Electric
• The Four Tops
• The Four Seasons
• Aretha Franklin
• Frijid Pink
• The Hollies
• Richie Havens
• Gong
• Gentle Giant
• Grateful Dead
• Marvin Gaye
• Iron Butterfly
• Ian & Sylvia
• The Incredible String Band
• Howin' Wolf
• Tim Hardin
• Janis Joplin
• Jefferson Airplane
• Tommy James & The Shondells
• The Kinks
• Albert King
• B. B. King
• The Kit Kats
• Al Kooper
• Joni Mitchell
• The Moody Blues
• Buddy Miles
• Moby Grape
• Hugh Masekela
• Wes Montgomery
• Martha & The Vandallas
• The Marvelettes
• Mother Earth
• The Mamas and The Papas
• Nazz
• Phil Ochs
• The Orlons
• Odetta
• Wilson Pickett
• Peter, Paul & Mary
• Pacific Gas & Electric
• Tom Paxton
• The Peanut Butter Conspiracy
• Quicksilver Messenger Service
• Paul Revere and the Raiders
• The Rascals
• Tom Rush
• Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
• Santana
• Steppenwolf
• Shocking Blue
• Simon & Garfunkel
• The Supremes
• Steeleye Span
• Pete Seegar
• Sly & The Family Stone
• Soul Suvivors
• Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs
• The Seeds
• Steve Miller Band
• The Temptations
• Three Dog Night
• Ten Years After
• The Troggs
• Traffic
• Ultimate Spinach
• The Velvet Underground
• Dave Van Ronk
• The Ventures
• Vanilla Fudge
• Johnny Winter
• Stevie Wonder
• Muddy Waters
• Wendy & Bonnie
• Jr Walker & The Allstars
• Neil Young
• The Youngbloods
• Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention