Author: DOuG pRATt

The Greatest Concert You’ve Never Heard, Or Heard Of

Long before the Monterey International Pop Music Festival was held in 1967, in England there were the NME (New Musical Express) Poll Winners concerts. The 1965 event was held on Sunday, April 11, and it featured an unbelievable lineup, along with a couple of lesser-known acts. How did these huge names all clear their schedules to appear together on the same day?

The Moody Blues
Bo Didley
Go Now

Freddie And The Dreamers
Little Bitty
Pretty One
A Little You

Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames
Yeh Yeh
Walking The Dog

The Seekers
I’ll Never Find Another You
A World Of Our Own

Herman’s Hermits
Wonderful World
Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter

The Ivy League And Division Two
Funny How Love Can Be
Sweet And Tender Romance
That’s Why I’m Crying

Sounds Incorporated
Time For You
In The Hall Of The Mountain King

Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders
Game Of Love
Just A Little Bit Too Late

The Rolling Stones
Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
Pain In My Heart
Around And Around
Pain In My Heart

Cilla Black With Sounds Incorporated
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Going Out Of My Head

Donovan
You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Band
Catch The Wind

Them with Van Morrison
Here Comes The Night
Turn On Your Love Light

The Searchers
Bumble Bee
Let The Good Times Roll

Dusty Springfield with The Echoes
Dancing In The Street
Mockingbird
I Can’t Hear You

The Animals
Boom Boom
Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Talkin’ bout You

The Beatles
I Feel Fine
She’s A Woman
Baby’s In Black
Ticket To Ride
Long Tall Sally

The Kinks
You Really Got Me
Tired Of Waiting For You

The first time I heard about the ’65 NME concert was at a solo Ray Davies show, where he described how the Kinks were stuck being the follow-up act to the Beatles. Let’s all agree to ignore the presence of the posthumously disgraced Jimmy Savile, and please note that, despite being two hours long, the concert footage is far from complete, but what there is of it is fantastic. And now, on with the show!

Days of Future Passed Again

Sony SRS-BTX500

This is just about as silly and minor as a blog post can get. I’m playing around with my Bluetooth speaker in the sun room. By switching the wireless link over from speaker mode to headset mode, I can make it sound just like a cheap AM radio.

After spending so much time and money on listening to music from the Sixties in the best possible sound quality, I’m getting a nostalgic kick from making it sound like it did on a transistor radio from 50 years ago. For excellent audio, I can recommend the recent vinyl re-issue, by recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Moody Blues, of “Days of Future Passed.”

This is Retirement?

I was hoping that 2018 would have a better start than 2017, but such will not be the case. My father passed away in October, ten months after suffering a stroke. His death meant the end of me having Durable Power of Attorney and made me Trustee.

To see my father and carry out my responsibilities I have been to Phoenix twelve times in the past twelve months, with some of those visits extending to two weeks. Which wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t quit working. It’s technically retirement, but I’m having a hard time thinking of it that way, as I haven’t been able to do anything normally considered to be a retirement activity.

I am anticipating returning to Phoenix in a couple of months, but something unrelated has come up that could interfere with the trip. I have been diagnosed with a melanoma, adding injury to the insult of being bald since I was 28 years old. The skin cancer has apparently been a long time in the making, although I’m sure that being exposed to the hot Arizona sun so much this year hasn’t helped, so perhaps it isn’t entirely unrelated.

Today was my initial consultation since the biopsy came back positive. Being told by a Harvard-trained specialist to expect “extensive removal” and “significant scarring” isn’t very encouraging, but at least there was a picture of Annie Little to look at in the examination room.

13 Hours of Punishment

https://youtu.be/OMW_dPtm7Bo

For myself, the Silver Age of comic books ended when I graduated from high school. At this moment I can’t think of a comic book title that was introduced during what is, for me, the Bronze Age of comic books, that interests me all that much. Which means that I’m not much of a fan of Wolverine or the Punisher, hugely popular Marvel Comics characters that were introduced in 1974, while I was in college. Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” series for DC in the 80’s is an exception, but those characters were all based on Charlton comics from decades earlier. Speaking of Charlton, I really enjoy E-Man, and he makes the cut because he was introduced before I started college.

Vigilante justice has always been present in comic books, although Superman dropped that approach very quickly, and even The Batman let go of his angst after becoming just Batman and picking up a sidekick. What came about in the 70’s, when vigilantism was reintroduced, were extra helpings of violence to go along with the justice.

In “The Punisher”, now streaming on Netflix, I see more than a little borrowing of elements from the TV series “Person of Interest”, which wrapped up a year-and-a-half ago. There was plenty of obligatory shooting of bad guys, but being a network TV series it never reached the level of ultra-extreme violence that is seen in “The Punisher”. I can’t say that I actually enjoyed all the blood and gore, but one thing for sure is that Jon Bernthal is perfect in the role. He says he wanted the challenge of putting across a sympathetic character that isn’t likeable, and Bernthal pulls it off, as long as you can stand watching him when the Punisher is in “killing machine mode.”

There is one truly great line in the Punisher script — “Pissed off beats scared, every time.” I agree.

Preventive Measures

The safe assumption is that every man, at one time or another, has done something that a woman in the workplace considered unacceptable at a personal level. An overheard comment, a friendly wink, an approving smile, or whatever. So it seems that every man who works someplace where there are women will have to be fired.

P.S. But now the gay male accusations are also making news. Wonder if any men will claim to have been harassed by well-known women?