Hey all - just noticed that's how long I've been hanging round these here parts. Just wanted to say thanks for the laughs, the recommendations, the stern words, the friendly ones, the chance to have a virtual noggin and a natter about this, that and The Auteurs.

Peace and Love

Oh - and as usual...

(Stay - Station to Station - David Bowie - what were you expecting?)

How can a simple request, quietly expressed, sound as if made from river and rock and time itself - and move one to tears?

I nearly missed this - it was tucked away in the "Something for the Weekend" email newsletter from a couple of weeks back.

It features a lady called Ronnie from Botswana and she may be the most incredible guitarist I've ever seen.*

*oops - sorry Ronnie me old china- you're a top geezer! (see below)

So it may not be Clapton or Hendrix or John McLaughlin or Johnny Marr that - as usual - is the answer. It may be Ronnie or it may be some other person, a villager in Borneo or Lesotho or Honduras.

Time and fate and fortune and the happenstance of when and what and where you're born determine whether you achieve fame or anything like it

A line of school days poetry from Gray's "Elegy" came back to haunt me

"Full many a Flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its Sweetness on the desert Air"

How many like Ronnie does our world contain - and that we know nothing about - or ever will?

a bit crackly, not quite perfect, but then lurve rarely is - it just is is all

Sam Cooke "Nothing Can Change This Love"

Smoke-drawn, shimmering, icy brilliance

Look, I think it's a great song. Classic pop.

Eh? There's a video as well? Oh, I hadn't really noticed

The One Hit Wonders Spotify list as compiled by Wordistas is truly a thing of joy and beauty.

http://open.spotify.com/user/thewordmagazine/playlist/1yRoqMgCrgV0EJCxC5...

Added the above track and got lost in a wave of nostalgia - what a time it was, it was. Oh to be 21 again

Is there a one-off, a one-hit-wonder that brings a special time all flooding back for you?

Might be of help to those in non-Spotify places too

Bumping bassline, drums that skitter, guitar wailing.
Sweet-spot phrasing, husky mouthpiece, Bruce is sublime.

Percussive, staccato, sibilant - simultaneously a requiem for and a celebration of a fleeting love. A symmetry of sound and imagery - unstitched by self-consciousness.

"White Room" by Cream is preposterous - and - perfect.

Somthing that's become something of an in-joke on this 'ere blog. But it is - isn't it?

A few examples off the top of my head from recent-ish threads:

Best Bass Line: "The Secret Life of Arabia"
Best Riff: "Stay"
Best Use of Strings: "Life on Mars"
Best Use of Piano: "Aladdin Sane"
Best Cover Version: "Working Class Hero"
Worst Cover Version: "See Emily Play"

And if you were to ask for one song that sums up the spirit of an age, then you'd have to look no further than Bowie for each decade he's been active.

Is there anything more redolent of the Sixties than "Space Oddity", or the Seventies than "All the Young Dudes" or the Eighties than "Ashes to Ashes", of the Nineties than "Dead Man Walking" from Earthling or of the Noughties thsn "Everyone Says Hi"?

Or if you'd like the best example of a ballad in pop - there's "Life on Mars" (again). Best anthem - "Heroes". Best power-pop - "Queen Bitch". Best pure pop - "Changes".

He does three things which are key to any major artist:
Synthesis - the ability to absorb from a variety of musical and non-musical sources. Mutation - the ability to subvert the norm. Adaptation - the ability to create a new construct suggestive of origins and yet entirely unique.

Oh and the last thing. He is a bigger and better influence on everything since his advent than were The Beatles. It is invidious and probably slightly silly to consider outcomes had events and characters that shape history been different. But without Bowie, his persona, his artistic courage, his inclusiveness, his lead - much of the most exciting and innovative music of the last three decades from Punk through Dance to Dubstep and so much of what we take for granted now - the incorporation of electronic, dance and non-Western tropes - into the mainstream sound may not have happened in anything like the same way.

You can bet too that all those who shape the sound of any decade from behind the mixing desk - Quincy Jones, William Orbit, Rick Rubin, Mark Ronson - have all paid attention to Bowie (and Tony Visconti's) work.

So, there you are - if you want the "best" example of something or just exemplary or totemic or perfect or someone who actually is better than The Beatles - as usual, the answer is David Bowie

As the T-shirt of yore had it

Okay then. Yowsah

R.I.P Mr B and Iceman

But I wonder if there's a few cold beers and some hot blues blowin' somewhere

Anyone else watching this? Another HBO hit. On FX over here currently.Dark and funny - like Breaking Bad, Six Feet Under, True Blood, Dexter, Weeds, Entourage etc

God, the Land of the Free is making some great TV these days. Don't think I watch anything of British provenance anymore - apart from Life and QI - but nothing in the drama/comedy field. Although - of course - can't wait for the next Robson Green, Ross Kemp, Sarah Lancashire masterpiece

Hung features great music too - not least the fabulous opening credit sequence soundtracked by "I'll Be Your Man" by The Black Keys

Amazing news - long lost Folk legends Hunter Muskett may play a few gigs next year

Details sketchy at this stage - but check this out http://www.dougmorter.com/

For those unfamiliar with them - here's a taster

had joined the Stones instead of Ronnie.

I could make a case for "Memo from Turner" being the greatest ever Stones track.

- which is a strange urgeof a Sunday morning I'll admit - but there it is - and here you go - "Love Games"