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....

We were searching for a saviour, just like anybody else...

For the past two weeks I've been waking up each morning to pictures and blogs from The Horrible Crowes working in a studio in "a secret location on the Jersey Shore". They have completed the album now so I'm looking forward to its September release right before the Revival Tour kicks off.

Meanwhile I am preparing to record an album of my own songs. I've been writing my own material for probably nearly ten years, not all of it worth recording mind you but in the past few years the style I've been writing in has definitely matured. My concern is though that the longer time goes on, the more songs I write I'm going to end up forgetting how earlier ones were supposed to sound so I want to get them all recorded in acoustic demo form at least and then the ones I consider to be the best I hope to one day put onto an album with several instruments behind them. I guess I've reached a point where I feel I am writing songs worthy of recording. I'm not 'bigging' myself up, song writing doesn't come naturally to me. I can stare for hours at the screen and only write a few lines and I've written several 'dead wood' songs along the way but recently I'm at a stage where I'm happy with what I'm writing, a stage where I feel I'm not going to improve much more than this. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to "make it". This is a project purely for my own satisfaction but once complete if I get playing some open mics and acoustic nights that would perhaps be a good goal right now.

Recording will most likely take place in my "home studio" which may lose a bit of that studio quality but I'm optimistic about how good this can sound and would hope to have a finished product in a years time. I want this to be as good as it can be but I've still got a lot of work to do. I'm still gradually improving as a guitar player so theres that to consider and a few of the songs are still only partially written so they need to be completed, I need to re-work lyrics on a few older songs and then need to write lead guitar and bass parts for the ones that will go on the album. I will be posting samples of songs on here and maybe Soundcloud at some point and will be interested to see what you readers think. In the meantime here is a link to my song 'Sweetheart Serenade'. Its the only original song of mine available on You Tube so I hope you like it.

Sweetheart Serenade

That wasn't my song of the blog by the way. Recently I've discovered this band called Against Me!, another gem that I've plucked from the endless galaxy of music available to us. They are considered to be in the 'folk punk' genre but this isn't heavy punk rock, the lyrics are well written and the band are easily compared with bands such as Rise Against, Hot Water Music and Alkaline Trio. Here is a link to a song from their new album and this is the title track 'White Crosses'. Educate yourself.

Against Me! White Crosses

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through The Streets of London

I've always liked London. I've always loved the buzz, that hustle and bustle of big city life, so many people with different agendas all rushing around and going about their business it creates this great atmosphere  and thats something thats always fascinated me.

One visit to London, I must have been eleven or twelve, back when my parents were still together. We were staying in a hotel on Knightsbridge. I remember this seedy little hotel that we stayed in called The Stuart, the lift was broken and we had to haul the cases up five flights of stairs to the top floor. Our room overlooked Knightsbridge and one night we'd just got back from having our dinner out somewhere. It had gone dark and we'd completed the usual bed time rituals of shower, pyjamas, teeth and lights out. My parents and sister were in bed but we had this tall bathroom window that slid upwards and I was able to sit on the toilet lid and lean out of this window to look out at the street below. It was late at this point but it was summer, there was a warm breeze, close to midnight too but cars and taxis were still zipping past and the odd person would go walking by and it interested me. All these people still out and about... Where are they going at this time of night on their own? Home? The train station? Somewhere out of the ordinary? It started me wondering about these lone passers by, what their story was and I guess the interest for me at that age was imagining what these people were up to, walking off into the night in this huge, dark city. It made me want to be out on those streets, maybe I could follow them through the streets and alleyways off into the night. Maybe I would just wander on my own, scared but excited at experiencing the city at night. Unfortunately that was all in my head I had to settle for closing the window and heading to bed but that fascination with the city at night still sticks with me to this day. The city at night, never sleeping, lights, neon signs, life constantly moving.

I'm recently back from my latest visit to London and no matter how many times you go theres always something new to see that you never noticed before. There are so many little streets linking all the main streets and they're all full of little businesses, traditional looking pubs, people making a living or even just living in their hidden backstreet apartments. There are so many people, so many different stories, I feel I could just find a seat outside of a pub and just watch this all happening, the world going by. I guess this makes me somewhat of a people watcher but again I'm just soaking up that city atmosphere and I'm pretty sure I've got this trait from my Dad. We all become our parents in many ways as we grow older. Thats my theory.

London seemed such a huge place when I was kid. We went everywhere in the taxis with our parents and maybe thats why but now that I'm older I realise how easy it is just to walk from place to place. I don't like using the tube unless I have to. You see more when you travel on foot, things that you wouldn't discover otherwise. Many people, different nationalities, different buildings, little pubs, hidden parks, markets, I think you're getting the picture. When I was in New York it was the same. I wouldn't have walked through Chinatown, Little Italy or Greenwich Village if I'd hopped on a train and these places are all worth seeing and at least walking through in order to see the diversity in culture and lifestyle. Some of these places have character of their own and lets face it, walking helps save the planet and helps work off the greasy footlong you just bought from one of the many subways. Its win win.

If you've taken the time to read these almost pointless musings then heres your reward... a little gem. My song of the blog this time is this old song by Ralph McTell called 'The Streets of London'. This deals with some of the stories of a few different characters, some of the more forgotten members of society, lonely in this big city and the singer makes his partner aware there are lonelier people in this city than they are. Its a sad song but the words are nice and kind of romantic I guess. I hope you give it a listen. Xiao for now

Ralph McTell - The Streets of London

Words & Music

I've said before that music is great because there is so much of it. I'm not contradicting myself but  lately I feel I can't possibly absorb all the music that I buy and appreciate it for what it is because there is so much of it. Do you know what I mean?

You see for me a good song is all about words, yeah the musics important too but words are far more important than some catchy tune that just sounds good. Don't get me wrong I do like tunes like that but they don't stick around and when you get to the porch they're gone on the wind. The ones that do stick around are the ones that talk about stuff that I relate to, places that I know, situations I've been in. Songs about stuff thats important to me like friends and our past,  throwing caution to the wind and not caring about the future and just valuing what we have now. Songs that tell stories about people and the way they live their lives. Maybe bad shit happens to them or maybe things work out but what I'm saying is that some real thought has gone into these lyrics.

I'd like to say that when I buy a new CD I turn it on and sit down with the lyric booklet and follow each song through. Unfortunately I don't have time for that, its a ritual I reserve only for the best but lately I feel that a lot of good music is slipping through the cracks, theres so much to buy that I barely get the chance to listen to it and take it in before I buy the next one so I think I really just need to cut myself off from buying and take a few hours somewhere just to catch up. This may sound a little over the top to some people but music is just one hobby of mine like anything else. Lying around listening to cd's is only the same as the guy who goes cycling through the countryside for a whole afternoon with the wind in his hair and the sun on his back. This is deep stuff, but it'll sink in.

The latest bands I've been listening to are the Dashboard Confessional, The Bouncing Souls and the Wallflowers fronted by none other than Jakob Dylan, yes Bob Dylan's son but I also discovered Brian Fallon's latest acoustic masterpiece of The Gaslight Anthem song 'Bring It On'. Thats my song of the blog this time around. Hope you take 3 minutes to listen because its incredibly soulful, he's just lost in his own little musical world from the first chord and thats kind of how I feel when I lie down and listen to these bands and songwriters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1zj0Ghz5PE&feature=related

Heres a cool picture of Brian Fallon that I found on the internet by someone called faap-de-oaid. A great drawing that really captures the soul that Brian sings with (If you're reading i hope you don't mind me posting your picture but I think its awesome!) Its currently the background on my laptop!

And finally....

Bryan Adams has announced a tour in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of his 'Waking Up The Neighbours' album. For the slim few of you reading that may like Bryan Adams I'd recommend seeing him live, in my opinion this is his best album and its a chance to see a lot of these songs performed. The album actually spawned the song 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (although that isn't the best song on the album). Get yourself a ticket I say, get yourself a ticket!