October 2019 – Fooyah

October 30 2019October 30 2019

Happy Place

I’ve just had a lovely calming weekend as part of the Directing Staff on the RAFAC Personal Awareness Course at the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre, Amport House. When I say as part of the directing staff really there’s just Carol and me ably assisted by George. It’s a shame that Jayne couldn’t make it this time, she’s always a delight to be around.

This was my fourth time in this place and I have really enjoyed every time. It is my understanding that this retreat is being moved to another house soon and I hope it has the same “getaway” feeling to it. You see, that’s the point. It’s a safe space for people to talk and exist. It’s away from the world. It’s a [slightly under-maintained] old house with calming spaces giving the chance to discuss and listen knowing it’s OK to do so.

I’ve been here before:

There’s so much to say but plenty I can’t say because the whole idea of the weekend is to experience new things and scenarios. I wouldn’t want someone [somehow] stumbling across this website and reading everything that was going to happen. The chairs above look lovely but are in fact not-plumped. When you sit in them you sink. But, they allow for discussion and relaxation. The whole building is a maze and I pretty much get lost every time. You can walk from one end to the other without going outside but sometimes you just know it’s easier to be outside the walls moving in obvious directions.

So, here’s to my colleagues and to another round of this brilliant course at Beckett House.

October 25 2019October 25 2019

Powerslave – Iron Maiden

Well, what can I say? I’m pretty sure I first listened to this after I had poured over the detail in Live After Death. There’s something remarkably clean about a studio album once you’ve digested the live version. My experience with Megadeth recently went the other way, the live version from Argentina made me revisit all the songs with a fresh perspective.

I used to spend time as a teenager lovingly looking over the album covers of the Iron Maiden albums trying to memorise every detail. The Powerslave album is one of the best covers I have ever seen, maybe Somewhere In Time comes close but I really enjoy the colours of the Powerslave cover.

The body bags and little rags of children torn in two,
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you
Adrian Smith & Bruce Dickinson

Aces High – continuing the theme of Empire and the greatness of Britain this song extolls the virtues of the Few who defended our island whatever the cost may be. A great song even if the over-arching themes of this East End band are tired and colonial.
Two Minutes To Midnight – well crafted and one of the best. It’s written by Adrian Smith you see and that adds a certain level of clever to it. I’ve been fortunate enough to play this on stage with a bunch of better musicians.
Losfer Words – it’s an instrumental. It’s ok.
Flash Of The Blade – I guess it’s Bruce harking back to his upper class hobby of fencing. To be honest it’s a good song. Proper Maiden.
The Duellists – is an OK song over-shadowed by the rest of the album. Another Maiden song about fighting for things I don’t understand.
Back In The Village – The opening riff of this is amazing and I love it. The whole song is a return the the Prisoner theme of earlier tunes. It’s pretty good.
Powerslave – Everything about this song is amazing but [oddly] my favourite bit is the end. THIS is how you write the end to a song. Fuck all you who use fade out. Write a proper ending.
Rime Of The Ancient Mariner – It’s over thirteen minutes long but doesn’t really feel like it. I mean the opening riff sounds like The Flight Of Icarus but the rest of it chugs along giving all the time.

The top songs on this album are: 2 Minutes and Powerslave followed by Aces High and Back In The Village, although the field is crowded. Go and listen to this album. It’ll burn your soul [well, it won’t will it but you can claim such].

October 25 2019October 25 2019

Beauty And A 40mm Beast

On the one sunny day this week I went to Chatham Dockyard because I’ve got an annual ticket and I’m going to use it. I was hoping to see the rope gallery but all the tickets for the tour were gone and I’m a bit gutted because it’s not often you find yourself in a room a quarter of a mile long. So this communication is going to cover some other aspects I saw.

The above panoramic photograph was taken in the loft space which was built after the slipway was filled in and the floor was used for storing boats for ships. This room has been used in a Bond film but I can’t remember which one.

Dockyard cranes are quite spectacular and I do love the sheer utility of them. I don’t have anything else to say about them.

This AA gun is one of two on HMS Cavalier and it’s an impressive piece of kit. I’d love to have a go. The whole C Class Destroyer is so amazing. I still think that humans are so good at creating machines of death that we don’t deserve to be here.

October 24 2019October 24 2019

Powerage – AC/DC

“You say that you want respect. Honey, for what?”

That sums up a lot of how I feel at the moment. Anyway, these communications are meant to be about the albums and what I think of them. I don’t think you can go wrong with ANY Bon Scott album. The way he sings, the lyrics he writes. You can feel the pain and love behind every song. I’ve been a pretty big fan of AC/DC since I was around sixteen years old. There’s something about that crunchy guitar sound and the delightfulness of Bon’s voice and cheek.

There were two of us at school who were really into AC/DC. We’d buy an album and then discuss it for ages. It was a common bond between us and none of the others. I shed a tear at the end of the Let There Be Rock video where the words “To Bon” come up on the screen at the end of the Paris show.

This is an excellent summer album. It has that lovely jauntiness where you can have this playing in the garden while drinking a large rosé. I can imagine the air around me warming my body as the sun dips below the horizon and Bon sings out about that Sin City and I slowly get drunk to remove myself from thoughts about anything specific. It’d be lovely. If I like sitting outside in the garden, which I don’t. Not sure why, I just don’t like it.

Rock and Roll Damnation
Down Payment Blues
Gimme A Bullet
Riff Raff
Sin City
What’s Next To The Moon
Gone Shootin’
Up To My Neck In You
Kicked In The Teeth

I love that plodding bass of AC/DC. The way the bassist and drummer work to ensure the song gets where it needs to. Malcolm riffing away in the background making all the songs work well to compliment Angus being over the top.

Then there’s Bon. Such a cheeky, tortured chap. He was amazing. I wish I’d had the chance to see him sing live, to see AC/DC in those early days. But, I couldn’t do much about when I was born.

October 23 2019October 23 2019

Given Up

I’ve given up. Or rather I keep trying to give up. I’ve always kept an eye on the news and I’ve always voted. Voting is the minimum a subject in the country can do to be part of the “democratic” process. I’m not going to descend into a rant about how general elections are controlled by those people who can’t make their mind up which direction this country should take. Instead I’m going to explain why I keep trying to give up.

I don’t understand patriotism. I don’t understand national anthems. I don’t understand this loyalty to an area of land.

However, over the last three years I have yearned for a time when the politics in our country was just a little corrupt and secretly filled with hatred. Since the referendum on membership of the EU was announced I have soaked up all the news and it has made me ill. Then there was the election across the pond. I soaked up all that too. It made me ill.

Trying to keep apace of all the lies told over there and, since de Pfeffel Johnson, over here and the lack a recriminations about the lies took its toll. Trying to care about what those cunts say and then do kicked my emotional and mental health suffer. I’ve written before about lying in politics. The current stage of “lack of honour” in politics means we can’t take anything they say as the thing they are going to do.

All of this and the lack of “THINGS I CAN DO ABOUT IT” makes me feel like I should just give up thinking about it. I should zone out and try to just do the few things I can. I will continue to vote in elections and wherever else possible. I will also continue my membership of a political party because that is literally the least I can do at this time. However, it is also the most I can do at the time.

I feel like I’ve been permanently angry for the last three years. I feel like I’ve been consistently let down for the last three years. I do think that in twenty years when the UK asks to be let back into the EU [or never managed to leave] then the social studies will show that the level of mental and emotional health dived to a low over these five years. It will show that the country suffered and those stupid acts of politicians will have had many lasting effect on the population of this country. They are fucking us all.

October 23 2019October 23 2019

Power Of Lard – Lard

Strictly speaking this is an EP rather than an album and as such it doesn’t really belong in this section of the website, but who could resist? There are three songs on this EP and they are:

The Power Of Lard
Hellfudge
Time To Melt

For some reason, and probably racist ones, I had thought that this band was a quirky north England piss take punk band. But, after looking it up it turns out to be almost a superband! The first song comes in at over seven minutes and is really well constructed. Hellfudge is a good little rock song.

Time To Melt is a thirty minute tour de force. I’m not even sure I’ve ever listened to it all the way through.

Look, Al Jourgensen is on this album. That’s all you need to know.

October 22 2019October 22 2019

Remote

Over the weekend I tried something out not because I wanted to but really just because I should have been able to do it. While I was at RAF Wittering I spent some time on the Playstation remote play feature just really checking that it would work. As I’d been feeling remote recently through stress and poor sleep I didn’t spend a great deal of time playing [in fact I practised some statistics] but I did confirm that I can play the Playstation when I have a wifi signal.

While on military bases I either use the wifi provided by BT on some bases or, on others, there is a private contractor service called Media Force. In my experience they provide excellent coverage [except in my room at Shawbury] and for £10 you can get a week’s worth of 24Mb/s connection.

The Media Force connection at Wittering was enough to get my PS4 working remotely via my laptop:

I only played a very arcade type game as I didn’t really have the time to get into a specific game. But, I proved the system worked. For the PC version you connect a Dualshock4 via a USB cable. This system worked well.

I then tested the system on my phone. It’s an Apple iPhone running iOS13+. I apologise for the crappy picture because I was using my laptop to take the photograph and both of its cameras point rearwards [towards the user].

In this setup the Dualshock4 is connected via BlueTooth which is pretty cool. You just have to re-pair the controller with your PS4 when you get home. I’ll definitely be using this system more in the future!

October 22 2019October 22 2019

Pornograffitti – Extreme

Much like some smells this album, when I think about it , takes me back to a specific time and era of my life. This one takes me to around 1990 and Thornbera Road in Bishop’s Stortford. I can’t remember when I first heard of Extreme but this album made them big. It’s got some massive songs on it, probably ones I’ve over-played and so now just can’t be bothered with. I do remember them playing “Get The Funk Out” on TOTP and me being quite excited at how racy it was.

The massive songs on this were:

Get The Funk Out
More Than Words
Hole Hearted

Looking over the track listing I think it’s fair enough to say that this is a pretty good album but just one I don’t think I’ve listened to for twenty years.

October 20 2019October 23 2019

Harriers Ascending (no more)

I really enjoy the things I do, if I didn’t it would be sad for me I guess, although many many people struggle to find enjoyment in their lives. I’m at RAF Wittering for a couple of days of training and as much as the commute from Kent to (almost) Lincolnshire on a Friday afternoon is hell it is great to be here. Everyone I meet or speak to feels privileged to be able to visit the places we do and have unique experiences.

While driving to the 504 Sqn building I passed two Harrier aircraft out on the pan enjoying the morning sun. It would have been a silly thing to keep driving past them so I stopped, got out the phone camera and tried to capture them in their morning glory.

This beast is, as far as I can tell, and I’m happy to be corrected a Harrier GR3. Although it looks a little old I do like the matt effect paint. There was a time when these screeching jets were all the rage around RAF Wittering but now the air force has a new VSTOL plane based at Marham. Next to the GR3 was the trainer:

I think there are only a few viewing angles where this one looks gorgeous. The extra bubble canopy really doesn’t help. I’ve never been a big fan of Harriers, they were always very noisy and didn’t seem that impressive to me but I might be slowly changing my mind. I saw two Spanish AV8 fly at RIAT this year and there’s definitely something special about them, especially on the slow pass and hover.

After getting back in the car I head to the little car park by 504 and what do I see but two fire appliances/trucks/engines or whatever you want to call them. I’ve got a mate who is a firefighter and so I tend to send him pictures of any trucks I see. It was while taking these I realised these trucks were from Ascension Island and the little air force base there. Amazing, the things you see.

Apologies for my shadow getting in the way. There was an issue with the sun and directions for the best photo.

October 17 2019October 17 2019

Piece Of Mind – Iron Maiden

I’m pretty sure I got this album after I had listened to a taped version of Live After Death. I don’t think I actually owned the live album, just a version that Mark Hodges had taped for me. I’ve bought it many times over since then though, on vinyl, on VHS and CD. But, we are here to talk about this album: Piece Of Mind.

You can’t help but love Iron Maiden. There’s that cheeky photograph on the back of the album with the band about to tuck into a medieval banquet of brains, there’s the “Britishness” [which those who know me will understand I struggle with] and there’s the public school boy humour from Bruce.

The rock and roll rules mean that if you change a band member they get to start the next release with an intro part. And thus begins Piece Of Mind with Nicko McBrain blatting out a drumming introduction to the rocking along “Where Eagles Dare”, which if I had ever really listened to the lyrics is probably a song about the second world war film about something or another.

“Revelations” is a fucking great song, so beautiful and lyrical. The worst thing is that stupid “Go” that Bruce shouts in the middle and when I first heard this song from the album I laughed at that point and I still do chuckle to myself. This song is better on Live After Death, it has a little more speed and a roughness to it. The album version is a little over-produced. I’ve just read that it was influenced by Aleister Crowley which is pretty annoying but I still like the song.

“The Flight Of Icarus” is boring and I don’t really like it. I mean, it’s a good song, I just don’t like it. The live version is a little drab too. The riff structure feels a lot like Mariner from the Powerslave album, it’s just the opening couple of beats that tell them apart!

“Die With Your Boots On” is a good song, well done live. But in reality this middle aged man struggles with the message of jolly good old bashing the enemy and dying on the field.

“The Trooper” a tour de force about another bloody battle the Brits got tangled up in. Nothing like bashing on about the glorious times. It’s a good song though. I think I’m just struggling with the jingoism and battle cry of it all.

“Still Life” has some excellent hi-hat action and it makes me excited.

“Quest For Fire” is ok.

“Sun and Steel” I like the riff and chorus structure. I like it all. It’s quite pop like in structure but I do enjoy it.

“To Tame A Land” is a good song but I think it struggles from being the last track on side two of the album and so I’ve played it little. It might be something to do with those pesky books by Frank Herbert.

Go and buy Live After Death rather than this. It’s a more powerful statement.

October 17 2019October 17 2019

Persistence Of Time – Anthrax

This was the second album by Anthrax that I bought after State Of Euphoria, which gets reviewed later. The problem is that I will compare it to Euphoria in this review! This album is darker and nastier than Euphoria. While I consider the first album a summer album Persistence is not a summer album. To me a summer album has a certain sound and feel to it, a lightness, a happiness, a breeze. Persistence doesn’t feel like that. It’s bloody good though.

I think I would have to say there isn’t a bad song on this album. There’s no song I would gladly skip, even the cover version is a rocking song.

“Time” and “Blood” are both good starters. “Keep It In The Family” is brilliant. “In My World” gives me chills. “Gridlock” is great. The way “Intro To reality” merges with “Belly Of The Beast” meant that for years I thought they were just one song.

“Got The Time” is that rare beast, a cover version that knocks socks off the original and a wonder to the ears, high powered and magnificent.

“H8 Red” was the first instance in my awareness of the number eight being used within a word, like in HATE, good song. “One Man Stands” is a good one. “Discharge” for some reason always makes me think vaginal but this is a great song.

Overall this album is a masterpiece. I love it.

Anthrax are the only band of the Big Four I’ve not seen live and that saddens me.

October 9 2019October 9 2019

Permission To Land – Darkness

This is a massive album. When the Darkness pounced onto the scene it was hilariously camp, 80s and rock. This small band from Ipswitch (?) made it big with their cheeky falsetto metal. But, what they did was make those sounds fashionable again. Of course I bought the album. I even went to see them play at Wembley Arena and for most of the gig the band seemed amazed that they were playing Wembley Arena.

I like the opening song “Black Shuck”. There’s one of those crappy mythical stories about a massive black dog roaming around the countryside of Anglia. As far as I know Anglia is that bit that sticks out to the north east of London. If you draw a line from Dartford Bridge to the Wash everything to the east of that is Anglia, I think. The big black dog is called the Black Shuck. It’s a really good shout out to the stories of my homeland.

Then you get “Get Your Hands Off My Woman” which, apart from the consent issues within that statement, is a great song. You haven’t heard the word motherfucker sung in a more beautiful way. If “your woman” has consented to have another person touch them then I am afraid there’s nothing you can or should do about it. She isn’t “your woman” she’s a person and if that’s what she wants to do then good for her. It’s probably time for you to have a discussion about your expectations of the relationship.

“I Believe In A Thing Called Love” is tremendous. Well worth the listen and a very well constructed song. It’s got some of my favourite types of song structures including lines with just the rhythm section playing – I do like that. That sound is a bit like why I like Dokken live, the bass and drummer belting out the riff while the solo goes on in the background.

The rest of the album is good and strikes a cheeky AC/DC vibe with the theatrics of Queen in the videos. It’s good holiday music I think. Not to be taken seriously but written with the style and panache of a grown up rock band who are having fun and making music that they enjoy. It’s a happy album.

During my visit to Washington DC in 2013 Rich and I listened to this album as we drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains. Great tracks for a great day.

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