Tell me what you saw, I'll tell you what you missed when the ocean met the sky...

Heres a little bed time story...

I headed down to Frank's Place, this old sailors bar down by the harbour. I'll go in there just like I do most of the pubs in this town, but week after week on a Thursday I'll strum the old folk songs on this beat up old acoustic guitar they have.  Its never too busy, just nice, the usual punters, some small groups, couples huddle away in the booths, some guys just come and sit; sit and drink the night away. Maybe they're sitting there without their lost loved one, maybe they just came in from a few days on the sea, or maybe they just couldn't get control of that television remote at home but I seem to have the attention of some of these sailors who sit there night after night to hear me strum my songs, applauding gently at the end of each number, sometimes they'll join me at the bar when I go for another whiskey. I like it though, it relaxes me, i'm in my own world, singing my heart out, they say nothing they just listen. One guy speaks up, asks for Whiskey In The Jar, and why not.

Part way through in walks Janey. Everybody in town would recognise her, I've seen her around. I hear she came out the rough end of a hard divorce some years back, never really settled down after that. I'd never seen her in Frank's though. She walked through got herself a drink of something clear and took a table at the back but she gave me this smile, I'm not sure if I was singing at all at this point, I joined the rest of my audience, transfixed...

She was young for her years, this long blonde hair, wavey like the sea... she had class. I regained my composure and sung one of my own numbers, a new one, they hadn't heard it before, Brothers... then I went up for another whiskey. People were filing out now, it was getting late but she walked over to me and introduced herself. She knew my name, maybe she'd heard me mentioned in one of the other seaside bars down by the shore. We didn't hang around either, we headed out and just walked, we walked and we talked down to the shore until we hit the boardwalk. It was peaceful, the waves crashed and that was the only sound besides our voices under the light of the moon. I think I got her, she seemed to get me, she could see why I enjoyed just singing the nights away in these quiet little pubs. I never felt I was good enough to make the big time, I was happy just being some kind of local hero but it was all about the music for me, I just needed that quietly appreciative audience and I'd keep coming back.

It felt like we talked for hours, leaning on the end of the pier staring out into the endless ocean. It was like I'd known her all my life, I wished she'd walked into that bar years ago. I pulled her to me with one arm around her shoulder as we leaned there in silence, to keep her warm in the night breeze I guess. I started singing low, right down at the bottom of my range, a sea song that I heard once and right then as I took in that sea air I thought... The ocean really does breathe salty... it went like this...

Click the link

Sun Kil Moon - The Ocean Breathes Salty

I didn't just write this story randomly, its based on the lyrics of one of my songs, a little acoustic track called Janey Jones. I hope you like it, follow the link below.

Janey Jones by Alex Magrath

We Need More Of These Nights They Always Go Too Fast...

By now some of you may have seen my song Young & Wild doing the rounds on facebook, twitter and soundcloud. Heres a bit about the song:

I have this ritual when I write songs, I have notebooks with countless lyrics scribbled into them, different versions and layouts of verses and choruses I've written over the years. When I have versions I am happy with I write them into my best songbook. Im now into my second songbook but Young & Wild comes half way through the first. I date each song when I finally write it in and Young & Wild came from 2006 which would have been the summer after my second year at university.

At this point University was getting serious. Every student knows first year doesn't count, we just partied hard and exams weren't taken seriously and as long as you passed with better than 40% average you were ok. Second year counted for 25% of my degree or something. In the words of my professor on graduation day "You did fuck all in second year" and he's right, if he was saying this it must have been bad, my average was in the mid forties so by third year it was time to really pull my finger out and get this degree. We'd had another year of serious partying, some people were squeezing work in between various nights out and social occasions but I was sleeping a lot, eating junk food, playing my guitar, watching dvds, drinking the nights away and just hanging out just like most students and all my friends would. It was a good time, the wider world was still a year away, we didn't have to worry about it yet we had a big group and most of us were pretty close to each other by now. I loved this group I still do most of these people, I dreaded the end of summer semester because I knew it would be three months before we could pick up where we'd left off. The concern for me was, I knew that as well as enjoying myself I'd have to work hard in third year, I also knew everyone else would be busier so at this point, two thirds of the way through my university career I couldn't help but feel nostalgic during summer break, like our best days were behind us now and third year would just be a let down. In some ways it was but as I was looking back I wrote a couple songs about friendship, youthful friendship, fun in the sun, hanging out kinda songs. One of which was Young and Wild but it was originally titled Young and Wired after the Bon Jovi lyric in their song 'In and Out of Love'. The song lyrics themselves are pretty self explanatory, we were our own people, we did what we wanted, we thought we were the kings of the road back then, nobody could keep us down we just walked around like we owned the place or something but we were just enjoying the life and so there it is, Young & Wild if you haven't listened it visit my facebook page and find the link on there.

As for my plans to record some of my songs to an album, progress is being made. I have a list of twelve songs I want to be on the album some of which are only partially written but its all one big work in progress. When I have all the demos done I will distribute the demos to various musicians that may be helping me and when they have learned the songs hopefully we can make stuff happen but this is time away at the moment. This album has a theme and therefore I also have a working title for it. The songs are all going to be linked by the dreams, hopes, regrets, wishes, experiences and stories of people just making their way through life. A few of the songs are slightly biographical or inspired by feelings that I have had at times but by no means are they all necessarily true stories about me, that will remain a mystery...

The song of the blog this time around is a song by a man named Dave Hause, this is a perfect song to fit with the subject matter of this blog post because it is about a guy looking back at all his old group of friends that have been spread out now and they arrange a reunion night were they re-live the crazy times of their youth. Ive only discovered this guy recently because he sings in a band called The Loved Ones and he will is one of a quartet that I will be watching on this autumns Revival Tour. Its a great song and if you like looking back on the past times and reminiscing like I do I think you will like this song, again maybe its one for those who were at uni and are now all spread out across the country, maybe you miss the rest of your old gang. Its all in the lyrics here guys there aren't any better videos of this currently on you tube but this is pretty good, click the link or better still look up the song on spotify to really be able to pick the lyrics out...

Dave Hause - Meet Me at The Lanes

Thanks for reading...

BON JOVI... We were born to follow!

In an earlier blog I said it was 6th time I would be watching Bon Jovi, correcting myself its actually the 7th and its still a great show even now! Although their latest albums aren't hitting the standards that their classic pre-2000 albums did, the energy and quality of the performance is still amazing to see.

Those who read this blog each time I post will know that in an earlier blog I have expressed my concerns about how Bon Jovi are now a business not just a band etc etc. That doesn't take away from the fact that they are one of my best bands of all time. Jon Bon Jovi is arguably the best front man in rock and he is backed by three of the best musicians in the business in Richie Sambora, Tico Torres and David Bryan and this makes for a hell of a show. Tonight was the Manchester show at Old Trafford Cricket Ground on the UK leg of the Greatest Hits tour and it was awesome!!! Heres a pic of the view we had although I'm sure it doesn't do it justice as we had a great view considering we arrived late.

I said before the show I wanted to hear my two favourites Blood on Blood and In These Arms and a couple of rarities and they didn't disappoint. They kicked the show off with Blood on Blood before playing through You Give Love A Bad Name and Born To Be My Baby. Blood on Blood is more of a song to end a show with, its an anthemic song about friends growing up and having each others backs and I like that in a song, I write several of my own songs with my own friends and memories in mind. In These Arms was also played and they even played their epic ten minute Dry County so I was content. Besides this they ripped through all the hits you would expect Its My Life, Bad Medicine, Wanted Dead or Alive, We Weren't Born To Follow and ending with Livin On A Prayer and with a few odd numbers thrown in between. For you romantics out there you may know Bed Of Roses which was also great. It was good to see Richie Sambora still at his electrifying best on the lead guitar despite another stint in rehab but Jon was struggling at times on the slippery stage with his leg in a splint as he awaits surgery on his ligaments. Heres a closer pic of the band...

The band were unfazed by the rain which poured throughout the show, JBJ joked about all the people sitting in the mud at Glasto and said he'd rather sell out stadiums on his own rather than with the help of fifty other bands. Tonights sell out show was reportedly played to 46,000 people. Thats 92,000 arms in the air, what a sight that must be from the stage! Although I liked and cheered at this comment I am annoyed that we didn't try and get to Glastonbury this year. If only you could be in two places at once...

I also liked the comment Jon made about having no pre-recorded tracks playing on stage with "no girly backing singers, this aint no reunion tour" etc unable to resist a dig at the music industry today.

Unfortunately I still feel this may be the last time I will see Bon Jovi live, not because I'm bored after 7 shows but because I am now content that I've seen them enough. I have seen them play all of their hits several times over and there are still more songs rarely played in their shows that I would love to see but the chance of them playing those songs are getting slimmer with every new album released. On top of this ticket prices are going up as I have mentioned before. Tonight they played Work For The Working Man, a song about regular people coping with the recession. At face value its a good song but its marred by hypocrisy in my opinion. How can Jon Bon Jovi sing for the working man when ticket prices have shot up for a band that don't even need the money anymore. However this is just a small complaint about a great night.

So although I am in Bon Jovi retirement as of tonight its not because I wouldn't want to see them again its just I want to prioritise bands I haven't seen as much of. I still want to be at the front to watch Bruce Springsteen, The Gaslight Anthem, Against Me!, I've never seen the Counting Crows or Augustana (and I want too!),  and Matchbox Twenty will tour again soon. Having said that I could be like Paul Scholes for England... I may consider coming out of retirement if asked...

My song of the blog this time has to be a Bon Jovi song so I thought I would put up this video of In These Arms which I took at the show. The sound quality is decent. Click the link below to watch...

Bon Jovi - In These Arms live in Manchester 24.06.11

For those who have never seen Bon Jovi, maybe you have been tempted in the past, you should go they will play for two and a half hours and you won't be disappointed. 

Bon Jovi rock! May this continue for years to come...

The biggest man you've ever seen!

I apologise in advance if this gets a bit deep and meaningful. Its been a good weekend, Wigan beat Saints in the derby in one of our performances of the season, we had a bbq, the weather held for our party, we had a good a night out, I saw some friends i hadn't seen in a while, but this has all been marred by the death of one of my favourite musicians: Clarence Clemons, The Big Man, age 69, the best saxophonist you ever saw, he had a big heart, a big smile and big lungs too and has spent nearly four decades playing his sax alongside Bruce Springsteen in The E Street band! Before I ramble on heres a couple pictures I've found on brucespringsteen.net and three others off various websites.

In an ideal world guys like Clarence would live forever but nature has taken its course in the cruel way that it does. Its hard to explain how upsetting this passing is for me, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street band are my all time favourites so it cuts me up to see band members leaving like this. I first discovered Bruce Springsteen back in about 1998 with his greatest hits album and since then I've never looked back as his performances and songwriting both with and without The E Street band have been nothing but inspirational to me. When you see The E Street Band perform you can see the closeness between the band members, they are like family and if I'm upset about Clarence passing I can't imagine how Bruce himself and the rest of the band must feel right now. Organ player Dan Federici one of the original band members passed away in April 2008 but the band played on. Can The E Street Band ever be the same again without their token saxophonist, I'm not so sure. I'd like to think so but I don't know how I would feel watching the band without Clarence or with someone else in his place. Time is taking its toll on one of the most legendary bands ever to take the stage and knowing the great songs that they continue to produce its upsetting to me that their era is slowly coming to an end. I'm just glad I was able to see the full band live in concert before all this began to happen and from now on, these great musicians will just have to live on in our memories.

Bruce Springsteen released this statement on his website:

It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th.

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

This suggests that the band will play on and I wouldn't be surprised to see Bruce write a song in tribute to Clarence as he did with Dan Federici. When Dan; not as prominent a figure at the front of the stage like Clemons (but just as important) passed away I was gutted then but I don't remember feeling like this. Clarence had this loveable presence on stage, Springsteen would share banter with him night after night and the audiences loved him, so did I. He will be sorely missed by all the fans.... 

There are many great sax solos that Clarence has played, Born To Run, Sherry Darling but most notably 'Jungleland'. This is my favourite of all the Bruce Springsteen songs, the romantic imagery between 'The Rat' and 'The barefoot girl' and the story that unfolds is nothing short of a masterpiece in this ten minute song. For about 3 minutes in the middle though is the best saxophone solo that you will ever hear where Clarence steps to the front of the stage and takes over. I hope you take the time to watch this video, I realise it is ten minutes but it is worth it and when you do bear in mind that Clarence has continued to belt this solo out way into his late sixties with the same precision that he could in his thirties and take into account he has had surgery in both knees and this video was only shot in 2009 so he sits down for the most part. Found myself welling up when I watched this...

Jungleland - Live Hyde Park Calling 2009

Thanks for the music and the memories, see you further on up the road Big Man, 

Rest in peace....

Eric fell in love with an FBI informant.

In my last blog post I hopefully introduced some of you to the band Against Me! Their singer is a man named Tom Gabel and in between the last two Against Me! records Tom recorded his own seven song EP called 'Heartburns'. This was a collection of songs that were mostly driven by political motivation but one song in particular I've found interesting, the song 'Anna is a stool pigeon'. Apparently a stool pigeon is an old term for a police informant but is also a hunting term. Anyway I was listening to a podcast with a half hour interview with Tom Gabel and he was playing a few of his new songs in between talking. He explained that he got the idea for this song out of Elle magazine when he read a story about this girl only known as 'Anna'. This is the article but read to the end of this blog before you read it.

Elle Magazine article about 'Anna'

Basically, this Anna was at some sort of activist movement and she became associated and hung out with some pretty hardcore activists. Whether she felt threatened by them or what they were capable of I'm not sure but she ended up writing an article about them. The FBI saw it and decided they wanted to pay her to go undercover with some activists and be an informant, to keep an eye on them in case they should start some trouble. Anna became an undercover activist and infiltrated a group of three people named Eric McDavid, Lauren Weiner and Zachary Jenson and maybe a few others.

The impression I'm getting is that they weren't really a dangerous group, they were standing up for what they believed in but from what I've read so far, they weren't planning on taking it to the next level and conducting acts of terrorism. Tom suggested that Anna hadn't had a lot of attention from her father when she was growing up and that she maybe felt she had something to prove to the FBI so she began to encourage these three activists to become a bit more hardcore (but this could just be speculation as Anna said she had a regular upbringing), as in blowing up the Nimbus Dam in Sacramento California as well as some other locations. These guys didn't know how to build bombs but Anna did because the FBI had provided her with fake recipies as part of her cover. Using these recipies would build something that would perhaps spark and smoke but not explode but it would outline the groups intention to make bombs.  These guys didn't even have a car to drive to buy the ingredients but Anna sorted that out as well. It seems Eric had a crush on her and therefore perhaps trusted her more than he should have and went along with her encouragement but it turned out Anna was recording the conversations and even videoing their living space, thus entraping Eric. This is what is called a 'thought crime' (from Orwells 1984) where the thoughts are there but no actions are taken yet and Eric has been sent down for 20 years in solitary confinement. His two friends pleaded guilty to smaller offences and had it easier when they testified against Eric to save their own skin. Isn't entrapment a crime in itself. My interpretation of the story is that Eric was set up but if you read the article in Elle it does suggest in places that he wasn't quite all there (but this is only from what Anna has said).

These are the events as I know them but don't by any means hold me to these as facts. It is a true story one way or another but this is just my interpretation you should come up with yours and decide if you feel Eric should be locked up so watch this song by Tom Gabel and listen to the words because they pretty much tell the story.

Anna is a Stool Pigeon - Tom Gabel

 Once you have watched it you can visit the support Eric website which contains the background info, court documents, letters that Eric has written from the inside and more. I've found it interesting and after hearing Tom Gabel's song and his own explanation of the story as he sees it I couldn't help but feel like Eric was wrongly imprisoned for the better part of his life. Since reading the Elle article I'm not as sure. They definitely took action to make and test bombs and were caught buying the ingredients but I think my argument is that without Anna coaxing them into it they probably wouldn't have aimed for such drastic action.

http://supporteric.org/index.html

Please discuss if you wish....