Sunday, May 28, 2006
My life continues to revolve around trains so little time to blog. It's Sunday night and I've just finished going through work emails so a few minutes to do something more fun! In spare moments I've been celebrating Liverpool's anniversary of winning the European Cup for a 5th time by watching the match again. At the moment we are losing 1-0 but I'm hopeful we can sneak a couple of goals late on!
I've been reminiscing over the last week about my youth which I can just about remember. This was triggered by Helen deciding we should clear the attic (she decides, I clear!). I found all my old photo albums and slide collection which covers numerous concerts as well as Greenbelt from about 1979. Seeing all those old faces brought the memories back. Days at college, youth group weekends away, sharing a flat with Trish in Brixton (probably the worse dive I've ever lived in), various trips around Europe, and my life at Greenbelt. It is quite fitting that most of the concert pictures I have of Greenbelt are Steve Farnie & Bev Sage in their different bands. Farnie was a huge influence on me at the tender age of 17 when I first turned up at Greenbelt. I'd never realised Christians could be so normal, and abnormal, all at the same time. It was the early days of punk (although Saturday Night Fever was all the rage) and Fish Co, as they were then, took main stage (the only stage in those days) by storm. I rushed out and spent all my food money on Beneath the Laughter. Probably out of date when you listen to the songs and compare them to the band live, but still today an excellent album. I've always likened it to Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits which came out about the same time. When I first heard Dire Straits on the radio I thought it was Fish Co.
Sadly Steve Farnie died over a decade ago now - his influence on others was shown by the turn out to his funeral - over a thousand people turned up. I hadn't realised how wide this influence had gone - the closing lines of the Zoo TV show were "I have a vision... television", borrowed from Farnie. In the funeral book of condolense Bono wrote "You have the vision, I just had the television". I discovered this recently in an interview given by Willie Williams who started out life on the road with Fish Co, Famous Names, Writz..... It's a great article and I really recommend you spend time reading it - you can see just how much Steve Farnie influenced Willie Williams, especially in the world of art. When Willie's on tour with U2 his first port of call seems to be the nearest art gallery - something that seems to stem back to the many hours spent with Farnie, who taught him the relationship between art movements and music movements.
You can find the link here Farnie
I've been reminiscing over the last week about my youth which I can just about remember. This was triggered by Helen deciding we should clear the attic (she decides, I clear!). I found all my old photo albums and slide collection which covers numerous concerts as well as Greenbelt from about 1979. Seeing all those old faces brought the memories back. Days at college, youth group weekends away, sharing a flat with Trish in Brixton (probably the worse dive I've ever lived in), various trips around Europe, and my life at Greenbelt. It is quite fitting that most of the concert pictures I have of Greenbelt are Steve Farnie & Bev Sage in their different bands. Farnie was a huge influence on me at the tender age of 17 when I first turned up at Greenbelt. I'd never realised Christians could be so normal, and abnormal, all at the same time. It was the early days of punk (although Saturday Night Fever was all the rage) and Fish Co, as they were then, took main stage (the only stage in those days) by storm. I rushed out and spent all my food money on Beneath the Laughter. Probably out of date when you listen to the songs and compare them to the band live, but still today an excellent album. I've always likened it to Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits which came out about the same time. When I first heard Dire Straits on the radio I thought it was Fish Co.
Sadly Steve Farnie died over a decade ago now - his influence on others was shown by the turn out to his funeral - over a thousand people turned up. I hadn't realised how wide this influence had gone - the closing lines of the Zoo TV show were "I have a vision... television", borrowed from Farnie. In the funeral book of condolense Bono wrote "You have the vision, I just had the television". I discovered this recently in an interview given by Willie Williams who started out life on the road with Fish Co, Famous Names, Writz..... It's a great article and I really recommend you spend time reading it - you can see just how much Steve Farnie influenced Willie Williams, especially in the world of art. When Willie's on tour with U2 his first port of call seems to be the nearest art gallery - something that seems to stem back to the many hours spent with Farnie, who taught him the relationship between art movements and music movements.
You can find the link here Farnie
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Just sitting in the study listening to some of Steve Lawson's new album which is due out shortly and 3 tracks available for sneak previews on myspace. I find Steve's mussic very ambient and a great help when travelling early mornings each day to London from Kings Lynn - helps cut out carriage noise and enable me to sleep - plus gives you feel good feeling.
So back to yesterday. Sadly not at the game - impossible to go to football these days on a Saturday as I take Helen out for the afternoon. Yesterday was no exception so despite being one of the most important afternoons of the year I was in a coffee shop rather than the Millenium Stadium or in front of the TV. Original plan had been to record the game and then watch it without knowing the score. However, the radio was on in the cafe and being in London kept giving the update (presumably as West Ham winning). But I was home in time to see extra time, penalties and wild celebrations. My own celebration was fittingly with a bottle of red wine, kindly supplied to us at Christmas by our Chelsea fanatic neighbours - the perfect use for it!
I felt sorry for the West Ham fans to have been so close and yet so far, and the blue half of Merseyside who must be getting sick of Liverpool comebacks. I had been reminded yesterday morning of Stuart McCall's epic final in 1989 when he twice brought Everton back level with Liverpool - I didn't expect Steven Gerrard to be doing the same in the afternoon. Well at least it saved Rev J Davies the embarrassment of trying to fit into his West Ham colour football top from his school days - John that was over 25 years ago - throw it out!
The game reminded me of one of the big highs and lows I can remember at a match - Wimbledon vs Liverpool in the League Cup - a cold night at Selhurst Park. We had gone a goal down very early, and equalised in injury time via a form of rugby scrum that resulted in the ball being forced into the net. The Liverpool fans were ecstatic having sat through 90 minutes of frustration. We then won a penalty in extra time, only for John Barnes to miss. And at about 11pm we lost in the penalty shoot out and had to endure the Crazy Gang go mad. One can never take winning for granted.
So back to yesterday. Sadly not at the game - impossible to go to football these days on a Saturday as I take Helen out for the afternoon. Yesterday was no exception so despite being one of the most important afternoons of the year I was in a coffee shop rather than the Millenium Stadium or in front of the TV. Original plan had been to record the game and then watch it without knowing the score. However, the radio was on in the cafe and being in London kept giving the update (presumably as West Ham winning). But I was home in time to see extra time, penalties and wild celebrations. My own celebration was fittingly with a bottle of red wine, kindly supplied to us at Christmas by our Chelsea fanatic neighbours - the perfect use for it!
I felt sorry for the West Ham fans to have been so close and yet so far, and the blue half of Merseyside who must be getting sick of Liverpool comebacks. I had been reminded yesterday morning of Stuart McCall's epic final in 1989 when he twice brought Everton back level with Liverpool - I didn't expect Steven Gerrard to be doing the same in the afternoon. Well at least it saved Rev J Davies the embarrassment of trying to fit into his West Ham colour football top from his school days - John that was over 25 years ago - throw it out!
The game reminded me of one of the big highs and lows I can remember at a match - Wimbledon vs Liverpool in the League Cup - a cold night at Selhurst Park. We had gone a goal down very early, and equalised in injury time via a form of rugby scrum that resulted in the ball being forced into the net. The Liverpool fans were ecstatic having sat through 90 minutes of frustration. We then won a penalty in extra time, only for John Barnes to miss. And at about 11pm we lost in the penalty shoot out and had to endure the Crazy Gang go mad. One can never take winning for granted.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Cometh the hour (well 91 minutes) cometh the man, there is only one Stephen Gerrard
more to follow
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Well big brother has been busy at work - John Davies and Jude Adam blog sites now come up as containing inappropriate material so are now banned!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Another week another blog - maybe I should rename this page to this.
The Premiership finally came to an end last weekend despite efforts from Spurs to prolong it a bit longer. With so much riding on the last game it would have been hard to postpone the game without also allowing Arsenal the same option. Liverpool had to settle for third in the end, but only a point behind Man Utd and 9 behind Chelsea. It shows how far we have come this season as a team. And next weekend we will hopefully win at the Millenium. I think West Ham will be a hard game as they are a young team with some very talented players. Hopefully Alonso will be back and the defence a bit more on the ball than when we last met.
We are fully engrossed at work in the bidding process. This means that I now have to allocate weekend time to the process as there is so much to do.
I look at all the intelligent blogs around and wonder how people have the time to write what they do. I'm lucky to have 5 minutes a week!
On the music front I am waiting to hear news from Chicago about who is coming over in the summer. I have one name already pencilled in but hopefully a second name will be added by the end of the week. Listen out for Hey Gravity!'s single as it will be playing on a radio near you very soon. We have an amazing marketing company involved (saw the band and wanted to get involved) who seem to have secured the single on the playlist for most major radio stations. If you are near Manchester then check the band out later this week.
The Premiership finally came to an end last weekend despite efforts from Spurs to prolong it a bit longer. With so much riding on the last game it would have been hard to postpone the game without also allowing Arsenal the same option. Liverpool had to settle for third in the end, but only a point behind Man Utd and 9 behind Chelsea. It shows how far we have come this season as a team. And next weekend we will hopefully win at the Millenium. I think West Ham will be a hard game as they are a young team with some very talented players. Hopefully Alonso will be back and the defence a bit more on the ball than when we last met.
We are fully engrossed at work in the bidding process. This means that I now have to allocate weekend time to the process as there is so much to do.
I look at all the intelligent blogs around and wonder how people have the time to write what they do. I'm lucky to have 5 minutes a week!
On the music front I am waiting to hear news from Chicago about who is coming over in the summer. I have one name already pencilled in but hopefully a second name will be added by the end of the week. Listen out for Hey Gravity!'s single as it will be playing on a radio near you very soon. We have an amazing marketing company involved (saw the band and wanted to get involved) who seem to have secured the single on the playlist for most major radio stations. If you are near Manchester then check the band out later this week.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
link for Hey Gravity! video http://www.archive.org/details/HeyGravityInsideOut
