Sunday, September 23, 2012

ZOMBIES ON A HOT TIN ROOF


Zombies have been in the news of late , The only guarantee in life is Death and Taxes , unless you are the Former People.






Fans show solidarity with the undead




Zombies gather at their favourite festering hole



They show their loyalty and Patriotism , just dont ask them to pay the Queen her Tax




They are back from the dead and promise to haunt us




Will the dead invest in the Sevco issue?






Sunday, September 16, 2012

BILLY BRAGG & KT TUNSTALL perform WOODY GUTHRIE 100TH CELEBRATION


Woody Guthrie was born 100 years ago.His Family has Scottish roots so it was fitting Glasgow would be amongst a few set venues for this celebratory tour.

Billy Braggs first connection with the work of Guthrie was when he was invited by Woody Guthries Daughter Nora.Out of an archive of over 3,000 songs Woody barely recorded a single digit percentage of them , none of them to a musical score.This presents problems and opportunities to would be ressurecters , Bragg resolved this very early on by intimating , with Noras blessing, his own style based mostly of Brit punk and independent acoustic traditions.

The event started with some wonderful songs from an upcoming KT Tunstall Album of which the best was an evocative piece called Invisible Empire:( give it about 30 seconds to kick-in).



The night was designed to showcase the totality of Woodys themes as well as his influences of which Leadbelly was a major inspiration.Paul Robeson also gave Woody many gigs leading to public exposure in the days when there was no such thing like  touring as we know today.Almost all of Woodys gigs were free performances at pickets and Strikes in an age when even being suspected Socialist was a blacklisted across the states offence in legal and cultural circuits.

Woody hated Fascists , here is a typical Bragg version of battle cry against the Nazis and their supporters at home and abroad:




In the video below Bragg gives an American audience a British style speech on the NHS and Twitter:



Woody spent some time in Glasgow when having been shipwrecked during the D-Day Landing he awaited transportation back to the US.Bragg performed a World premiere of the song Woody Guthrie wrote about the city and the clyde.You can see it performed in this link

Billy Bragg finished proceedings with an updated version of the perennial Great Leap Forward:




You can get a lot more details of the life times and legacy of Woody Guthrie from his dedicated website.


Thursday, September 13, 2012

SCOTLAND v MACEDONIA



The Tartan Army , of which i was a lowly foot soldier tonight, pride themselves on supporting you ever more.But , in the case of Craig Levein they are more than willing to make an exception.The Tartan Army have split into two camps concerning the current Manager , the "Flower of Scotland" brigade ( known to us Glaswegians as Tcheuchters) hate him , the Urban(e) populace despise him , whenever his face appeared on the Big Screens there was a searing cacophony of booos reverberating on two sides of the stadium ( the other sides were empty with a crowd of only 32,000) , the admixture of gruff gravely Glasgow accent booing in unison with the Gaelic adolescent high pitched lilting made for a very unholy parody of impotent petty venom.

"What the fuck are they saying" was what we Unbanities said to each other with quizzical bemused looks as the Tcheuchters started a massive chant , after a lot of hit and miss translations , de-coding and other linguistic real-time deciphering we made out they were chanted "Bring on the Subs" , there were only 8 minutes gone!.Though , to be fair , the quality of defending as the Macedonians ripped the defence apart at will on several occasions did seem to suggest immediate emergency surgery was required to avoid what people in the Balkans call a "Catastropht".Two minutes later the Catastropht happened.More slicing apart, a beautiful run , two step-overs while on full speed run from the brilliant Pandev , a quick corner, a deft pass , a stroke , bulging net , and that most famous of anti-Hampden roars....two seconds of silence.Realisation.32,000 Scots sober.




After that distraction the Crowd got back to the game of loathing Levein with fresh added ire.Leveins problems began when he came up with a masterstroke after the Spain game in Autumn 2010 ( which we won 2-3).In the midweek after we were playing the Czech Republic , who had lost at home to Lithuania earlier in the tournament , at a low ebb of form and morale.With the high of a good performance against the deserved World Champions the Tartan Army was on for catching the Czechs at just the right time to consolidate a position in the group that could have made Scotland unassailable as co-qualifiers along with Spain.But , Leveins masterstroke was not to press home the advantage and strike when the iron was hot.He went for a 6-2-2-0-0 formation , learned from the likes of Dundee Utd and Hearts , and go for a 0-0 draw.The hopelessly out of touch and disjointed Czechs ambled , shuffled and struggled to find any sort of form for a whole 70 minutes whilst the Scots sat back with no concern to score at the other end.Ironically , the Czechs scored from a British type set-piece goal late in the game.The points went to the home side.The advantage was lost.And the Czechs finished the job from which a more positive Scottish performance that night would never have allowed them.

Thereafter the Tartan Army has  gone seriously out of love with the 6-2-2-0-0 , as Levein has stubbornly stuck to it , citing , among other things , that Del-Bosque has also come round the Leveins way of thinking.The fact that del-Bosque has said this formation without a striker allows him to get 5 men into the last third when attacking , and Leveins allows the grand total of none , with the "striker" pressing in midfield, does seem to suggest divergence on the practical ethos of utilisation of the system.Considering last saturdays opponents Serbia beat Wales 6-1 suggests Levein was not wrong to start off in a cautious manner.Leaving tactical substitutions until very late into the day seems to be the issue of most concern.Though one must bear in mind Miller and Naismith could have done everyone a favour by being more professional with the golden chances that fell their way.Had scotland won the pressure on tuesday would have allowed the team to patiently probe the opposition with the crowd being a genuine 12th man.

Sitting near the dug-out i got to see quite a lot of Levein, he has the gait of a man who has a contract in which he would be better-off getting a severance payment by getting sacked than resigning and giving up on a bumper golden handshake.He will tough it out until told not to do so.In fact he has entered the Taking-The-Piss-Zone , stating we can win all our games just before getting two tame home draws , mainly due to a defend when in doubt postures.

One has to be fair and point out the current Scottish , despite what the MSM say,squad is not up to standard for an expansive system.Technically Macedonia were far superior to the Scottish players.It was no surprise goalkeeper McGregor was man of the match.

Friday, September 7, 2012

PATTI SMITH at the GLASGOW CARLING ABC



Patti Smith last night was superb! Stunning voice , a lot of New York Punk scene vibes about , a dynamic performance full of raw emotion and sincerity you just cant find in the corporate rock age.

This was the song that captured everything about a special night those who were lucky enough to be there will live again and again.



The Independent has a considered review of this sold out concert that very few would have expected to be the closest artist to the age of punk when her accomplished band got going.

There is a lot of confusion that the song "Because The Night" is a Springsteen song covered by Patti.The song was actually a joint collaboration with pieces written by both Patti and Bruce.The version of the concert had a typically rocky raw edge not seen for many years.



The night was rounded of by a version of Gloria with tributes to all those still fighting the good fights of social justice the world over.