(0639) New week, chaps and chapesses. (1132)

 

 10. Safest way is anything Starmer says

… is the diametric opposite:

9. How’s your boiler hanging on?

8. IYE corner

Was going to run Grifty at HQ but IYE has it up at 931, plus a piece on Livelsberger military reality show.

7. Keep saying but

… living midway between three cities, only two which are visible from this hillside, and also having heard that snow is falling in Liverpool just now, not here though, different climate, then this is understandable:

Just adore winter … used to be late autumn/winter but this time now is definitely mine, ours, yours … nature is wild, does all sorts of crazy things, esp. at this time of year.

6. It’s not just the music as such

… in this, yet another look at Sultans of Swing … fear not, I’m not going to play the Alchemy concert version for the umpteenth time, though I did sixteen times yesterday. Why sixteen?

They were all reaction videos and that’s where my interest was … in the humans watching, reacting, commenting, given who each person was. I believe that each song requires a certain type of person reacting … for example, Paul Simon’s Diamonnds on the Soles …. benefits from looking at the history, inc. South Africa, 1987 … and I want to see a black bro reacting, not a Euro music presser … would it pass muster with the bro? It did.

With Sultans, universally praised by receptive rock/pop audiences for its sheer energy, the killer guitars and other instruments, the way they all fed off each other, the whole professional tone … the quality of playing.

But I wanted to know more … how different demographics would react along gender lines, generation lines, national lines, whether the listener was a professional or just Joe Public. Many reactions were from females and almost universally, whether black, white, Asian, old, young … the female simply “melted” … females are soooo responsive if the triggers are there … this is the ancient delight for the man, though a double-edged sword at the same time.

Then the boys … black, white, different generations. Overall, Gen Zee, male female, whatever ethnicity … reacted favourably, as the song, frankly, the performance, was so darned good. But I wanted to know just how good technically and so, when I saw a guitar teacher and classical guitarist reacting, methought oh ho ho, this might be interesting.

It was … the guitar teacher explained, picked up his own guitar and rattled off the chords, the notes … noting that it was not the notes played but the way they were played … the tone, the cadence. Yes, that’s what I’d wanted to see analysed … does Knopfler stand up in a harsh critical environment? He did.

The other one … the classical guitarist, was bopping away soon into it, laughing at times that Knopfler had gone classical in places.

Now all that was sweet but it does lead to two other points. How can, say, some classical music buffs not appreciate talent and elan, just because it is a different genre? At the same time, why can I not stand the auto-tuned, adenoidal guff post 1997? Swift? Sheeran? No thanks. It’s difficult to know why these things at times. Why did glam rock in the 80s leave me cold, especially in those poncy costumes?

Finally, I decided to bring it back home … to find a responder, a reactor, who actually was British, a local lad, could see the performance through “homie” eyes … with one difference … not of the era but too young to have known the era … a gruff lad from a decade and a half later … how would he take it? (Click pic to get the reaction video).

These things, to me, are a buzz … to see how other humans respond, in different cultures and eras. For example, Debbie Harry, in Heart of Glass or Rip Her To Shreds, was playing the hormonal teenage girl … so, was there a reaction vid by just such a creature … a bratty girl of the age today, not from back then? There were two … a right pain, actually … but what both said was they were amazed how high pitched Debbie was … in other words, feminine, not tough girl badass … plus how much it was their moms’ type of thing from that time. Very interesting.