..the kid from "Outnumbered"

..sculpted hair,long eyelashes....pity Gary Numan brings the standard down.

Just reading Francis Ween's book "Strange Days Indeed," and a fine book it is.
it concentrates on the absolute dottiness inherent in the so-called "straight" society of the time, but anyone who lived through it (I'd hazard a goodly percentage here..) could conjure up endless examples in music and film that prove. for outright loopiness, you just can't beat the 70's.
Here are my two examples.
Music;
Comus, "Song To Comus"...mummy!

And film;
"The Wicker Man"

I was around 12 years old when music got a hold of me, and it was British blues that did it; Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, Cream and the run of LPs John Mayall made with Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor.
When I picked up a guitar at 14 these were my template. I sat next to the turntable working out the riffs to things like "Rattlesnake Shake", "Have You Heard" and "The Supernatural"
There were no sites to download tablature, and no Youtube, so I (and everyone else my age) had to actually use our ears to learn things.
My path led me on to other things, and I only returned to blues and soul in the early 80's when rock music finally succumbed to style over content, and the synth/Linn drum interface was king.
It was to these original inspirations (and their black forebears) that I returned, and by 1990 I was in a fairly popular (In Australia) blues R+B band called The Bondi Cigars (Don't ask..)
One of the songs on our debut is a little ditty called "Howling At The Moon" which proves (much to my surprise, the bloke who wrote it in about 10 minutes) to be very popular indeed.
One of the earliest big gigs we did was as support to John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, where Mr. Mayall took a little shine to our possibly slightly different approach to blues, so naturally we gave him our debut CD.
Fast forward 20 years and we are still around, though not quite as busy as we used to be (15 years on the road in OZ took its toll)
John Mayall and his latest incarnation of The Bluesbreakers have just toured, and on this tour lo and behold he has been duetting on that very song from our debut with his wife Maggie.
This makes me very proud of course (It feels, I imagine as it would to Neil Finn if Macca did one of his..)but more importantly it feels as if a massive circle has been completed.
Here is audio visual confirmation.

..I accept that she's not big massive material, and she doesn't appear in my radar at all, but my missus is a bit of a fan, and I found this album ("Stony End") in a charity shop and well..it's bloody brilliant.
Recorded in (I think) 1971, she was obviously aiming at a hipper audience with songs by Randy Newman, Nillson, Delaney and Bonnie and most importantly, the great Laura Nyro (Now there's an unsung hero if ever there was one) represented with 3 tracks.
Produced by Richard Perry, and peppered with the usual session faces of the time it sounds stunning.
Here's the tile track..bask in those chord changes!

..possibly reached its peak with this performance of "Witches Promise" by the mighty Tull.
The gentle 3/4 verses prove uninspiring enough to the 1970 scenesters, but it is that infernal extra beat in the chorus that sends the plates crashing.

..not ballads by rock bands, but ballads that rock.
They are, I believe quite rare.
Here's my current favourite.
Written by Jack Bruce and Pete Brown, but definitively recorded by Mountain.
Stay if you can for the two stunning guitar solos.

..is he the first major rock star to show a distinct Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen influence?

The wife is making Eggs and hash browns, we've already had "Stormcock" on vinyl, and now we've got champagne on ice and Steve Still's first solo LP, maybe Fairport next.
This afternoon we'll have Father Ted's Christmas Special and "Bad Santa"
Tomorrow we're off on tour playing blues finishing in Byron Bay.
Life, on the whole is good.
Merry Xmas all!

..and who better than Ronnie Lane?
(I miss the oboe, and ol' Ron ain't hitting the notes..but who really cares?)

Can we have some more rustic sounds?

..I'll start.

"Revolution In The Air"
I'm just reaching the end of this massive first part of Heylin's attempt to put Dylan's entire output in order and critique it.
While one can not question the mans ambition in doing such a thing it also can not be denied the thing is massively flawed.
The first thing one notices is Heylin's insitence on placing himself onto almost every page, usually taking pains to condemn almost everyone else who has written about Dylan. For a man who seems hell bent on the accuracy of others, his assertion that "Lay Lady Lay" was nixed from the "Midnight Cowboy" film in favour of Fred Neil's cover of Harry Nillson's "Everybody's Talkin'" is frankly laughable.
That, however is not my main gripe.
While Heylin is pretty sound on Dylan's trad "borrowings" (and why shouldn't he be, it's all on public record) he is absolutely rubbish on Bob's main wellspring, the blues.
His limitations in this area are apparent in his early statement, "Blues..that most limiting of musical forms". Bollocks..even more limiting than the three chords in "Blowing In The Wind"?
This casual aproach rears its head again and again.
"Maggies Farm" is appraised by Heylin as "..this 12 bar blues." Once again, for any professional rock critic that may read this, "12 Bar Blues" is not a musical style, it's a blues consisting of 12 bars with (usually) a 1 1V V progression, "Maggies Farm's" verses consist of a lot more bars than that (64, I think) and are really over one chord until the V1 V turnaround.
The musical framework of "Pledging My Time" is described as "Leftover strands of the blues" (Jeez, thanks Clint) No, it's a classic 8 bar format that goes back to The Mississippi Sheiks "Sittin' On Top Of The World," though Dylan probably derived it from Tampa Red's "It Hurts Me Too"
These are just two examples, it just goes on and on, God knows what he's going to do with Dylan's later almost excusively blues-based output.
Heylin only had to consult a blues scholar to clarify this, but obviously thought he didn't think it was important enough.
One day someone will write a great book about Dylans MUSIC. We all know that lyrics are important here, but Dylan is a singer/songwriter, not a poet.
P.S Clinton, if you're going to mention someone in passing, like..oh say Van Morrison, best not call him a "cunt" eh?

..Max Wall.

..here's Mr. Pastry.