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twiststreet · 4 years

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I'd be curious for more of your thoughts on that Hibbs piece. I've read him for years and often find him insightful, but this one seems very reactionary in a very typical retailer way ("blinkered" was a good word Kim O'Connor used). Particularly, he seems to pretend that Diamond is just fine as is and that DC had no reason to want to switch distribution. I recently swore off DC, but I've noticed since the switch that those comics have been on time at my lcs each week. Diamond, not so much.

Yeah, I don’t really agree with that (I missed whatever Kim said), though I really don’t know what’s going on at a retail level. I haven’t gone regularly to a comic shop in years.

(Setting aside the health stuff, which is the most striking thing in there:) Hibbs is a retailer writing from a retailer perspective, so wishing that he was saying something else”... I mean, we know what we’re signing up for when we read it; we know how to slot it into our own personal worldviews. I’m not to going to complain that Hibbs isn’t going to tell me how long to cook a steak for, or that he’s not yelling that the Direct Market should be dismantled because if those were what I was looking to read, the egg should be on my face for pulling him up to begin with.

The question with Hibbs I think I always have is “how representative is he of retailers generally, as a store in San Francisco.” (And I think people slightly overstate how non-representative he is because if you hear him talk about his operations, he makes clear he operates differently for different retail audiences, when he had that second store going-- I don’t know if that’s still a thing, but. And also: I don’t fucking know what it means to be San Francisco anymore because what is that city even...). But generally, you know, you take that data point into consideration but still try to get at what you’ve signed up for, when you read what he says-- where are retailers’ heads at... You know, you go “well if Hibbs is at 8 then even adjusting -2 for factors x y and z, that mean Joe Median-Store might be at 6 and 6 is great / isn’t great, etc.”

Hibbs has always erred slightly worried, on the spectrum of human reactions, so you know, (even though I personally tend to be drawn to that more than optimism), I’m not sitting here going “I bet DC’s going to license all their characters tomorrow because he says so” because it’s not like the first time I’ve heard that-- though it remains entirely possible, possibly a good idea for the suits (though probably not for anyone else), who even knows. (Though if you’ve been listening to Rob Liefeld talk on Robservations about Heroes Reborn you’ll already know a significant challenge that would face-- that if they do a trial balloon, the people who already entrenched will do whatever they can to poison the trial balloon so as to make the case for not doing it and remaining entrenched...)(that becomes tougher after multiple waves of layoffs, though).

But what he’s talking about-- DC just did its own Heroes World...? As soon as I heard all that to begin with (and I didn’t pay close attention because the world was happening), my first reaction was “oh shit, Heroes World!” So a comic retailers saying “this is looking the same after __ months in these specific ways” ... I’m going to pay attention to that. I just remember how spectacularly unlikely it was that comics cleaned up the mess they’d made of themselves in the 90′s. It was a ridiculously unlikely set of events that turned things around, and I don’t think you can reasonably expect those events to happen again. (Especially after the “we learned a lesson from the 90′s” part turned out to be a lie, which is something I know I was yelling and screaming about for years and I was getting called like “ungrateful” or something by the Serious Comic Voices of Seriousness for it, there were entire CBR blog posts about how I didn’t understand how great things were now, etc, etc, etc... I don’t think they pull that “we learned not to rip people off” lie again, not this batch of assholes. Though who knows, maybe....)

I mean, sure there are criticisms of Diamond to be had, of trad retail to be had. And there’s the giant black box of “how desperate are people right now” that hasn’t been reported on. There was a time in ‘02-’04 or so when a book distributor or somebody like that went down, and it almost took out Fantagraphics with it. And this seems worse than that! Where’s the money flowing here and whose debts are getting paid first? I don’t have any idea. There’s all these systems in play that have been knocked out by COVID, and who knows who’s owed how much money or how much product is sitting in a warehouse collecting warehouse fees, etc., like this is all a fucking disaster and there’s no reporting on it (comic reporters are too busy encouraging Damon Lindelof to make Watchmen TV shows) and there’s ... DC is a black box in a black box in a black box (he said, having waited for 3 years for DC to answer an easy question once).

But even if DC had good reason to do whatever it did? It doesn’t seem to matter much if the rest of the comic market’s built around Diamond and if no one has the health of the Direct Market on its radar. And DC doesn’t if they fucking fired everyone who understands the health of the Direct Market as even being a fucking concept to begin with, which is extremely likely at this point. Or ... I don’t know-- it’s the old comic problem of people wanting to argue that “the thing is bad an we need to replace the thing.” Diamond’s bad and we need to replace it. Okay. With what? And with comics, the answer is usually “moonbeams and hopes and hugs.” There’s just a lot of wishful thinking out there that a Better Answer just shows up. I don’t know about that...

Comic retail’s built around selling Batman. For DC’s moves to be this impactful, that’s a problem at the core of the system. The undoing was in the origin. So i get that criticism, and it’s well taken (except to the extent there’s an entirely speculative argument built around it that either (a) there would be some other system that’d exist but-for and (b) there’d be some flourishing of human creativity but-for). But that’s still a lot of people and a lot of human energy that’s at issue. And the few life rafts that are out there, you’re not going to get a lot of people on them. Digital is a joke (according to me, a digital comic publisher! hahaha)-- hibbs if anything overstates the possibilities there because as a retailer, he doesn’t want to bring up that we’re in the Golden Age of Comic Piracy. (And ... I like being a digital comic publisher! I’m having fun. But). And bookstores-- bookstores are great, provided your readership expectation are 10-14 year old girls. Which might be better for comics if that became the default comic as compared to 35-50 year old bachelors that’s the DM’s bread and butter, but... I think you probably have to be okay with a lot fewer people having gigs. Bookstores can’t even remotely support the same level of human activity that comic shops can, by the look of things. (You know at some point you have a larger cultural heat death going on, that’s the part I find interesting, but...)

I don’t know. Hibbs might be to an extreme. I might be to an extreme. But having seen people voting for Biden and then going “wait, he’s going to hire racist industry-controlled centrists?? we got nothing for our vote? we’ve been betrayed!”... having seen people talk about what a great human being George Bush was (I saw a tweet fucking today that was like “George Bush was underrated because he was nice to a trans person once”)... I’ve become very cynical about the human memory or ability to learn lessons. I don’t think people remember 1995-1999 in comics, and just... how ridiculous it was when that got turned around. It was like watching them pull off a fucking heist to turn things around last time... Comics are selling-- people are buying comics. So it’s not as bad as last time. It’s nowhere close. But... People overestimate how structured the industry is, and obviously the DC layoffs suggest that the people looking purely at the bottom line don’t understand and didn’t account for the unique levels of institutional knowledge required for the industry... Other media, you don’t hear about hand-selling as much. When have you ever seen a movie because the guy who owns the theater told you it was good?? Or because you saw the director standing over a flea market table looking like they were about to cry...? Like... I don’t know.

I do know for me, I want to start thinking about a next project, and I’ve been looking again at what the Big Hit Books have been these last couple years (I kind of avoided new stuff when I was working on my things) and... You know, part of what changed things in the early 00′s was there were new voices with a new style ready to come in. Now? Jesus, I don’t know. At first blush, everybody’s writing books nearly identically, and it’s just this massive level of bombast and confidence (good for them!) and huge splash pages and hyper-emotional narration and... it all just is this blockbuster schmear that’s very impressive but entirely skippable anyways. None of it’s as a bezerk or strange or just weirdly interesting to me as 10 seconds of a Metal Gear Solid video essay... it’s a lot of big splash pages of Thanos or Thanos-for-creator-owned-comics... But it all seems like halls of mirrors-- none of it seems very outward looking... You know, Kojima did halls of mirrors by the 4th game, too, but in Death Stranding, he had like Amazon deliverypeople, and you’d play the game and go “oh shit, this gig economy is making my formaldehyde-baby cry” and like... he had something besides the hall of mirrors to him. (And I mean, the 4th game is a criticism of the hall of mirrors, according to a video essay I saw, but...). Or you know, it’s like the thing that Rebuild of Evangelion 3 is criticizing, they’re doing unironically... I don’t know. It’s weird; the books are weird; I keep wanting to ask like “what should I be reading here” because I’m mostly ignorant besides a Hulk or a Long Con or Sink or ... I never saw the end of Seeds but I thought Seeds had something...

Sorry to ramble.

#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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feelieking · 4 years

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Series 12

A somewhat belated post - I started typing up my thoughts about Series 12 shortly after it ended, but only found the energy for a sustained bout of typing while taking a few days off work.

Season 12 of Doctor Who is now over. Readers may recall that I felt season 11 was pretty lacklustre. Season 12… has been an improvement, but a lot of the issues remain. The cast are great – Jodie Whittaker is fantastic, and I honestly cannot understand the vocal subset of fandom who insist on saying she can’t act – but there are too many regular characters, which means that none of the three companions get a decent share of screen time or character development. There’s been an improvement in the number and development of the guest characters, but many episodes have really suffered from the problem of scooping up all of the NPCs into the TARDIS and carting them along. As a consequence, a lot of episodes really struggle to cultivate a sense of location, and having guest characters in the TARDIS becomes run of the mill.

It’s also very interesting to me that, after making his first series almost entirely continuity-free, Chibnall’s second series is probably the most fanwanky we’ve ever had. Spoilers for all of the episodes follow.

Spyfall is a strong start to the series. The aliens were far scarier and better realised than anything for the preceding series, and part one benefitted from a strong sense of style and place, a slow build of the plot, and a genuinely shocking and tense cliffhanger. Part two floundered a bit by comparison, choosing to rattle through both Ada Lovelace in Victorian England and Noor Inayat Khan in Nazi-occupied Paris. Either one of these pairs of characters and settings would have been strong enough for an episode on their own; smooshed together, neither was really given a chance to develop. Still, the Doctor/Master scene on the Eifel Tower was very well done.

Orphan 55 seemed to go down very badly with my friends when it was transmitted, but I rather enjoyed it. It was a very trad base under siege story with a proper cast of supporting characters and some genuinely tense and scary moments. The “twist” of it being Earth all along, however, fell very flat – it’s a bit of a cliché by now, added nothing to the story, and has been done better before by earlier Doctor Who stories! The Doctor’s moralising speech at the end also made me grind my teeth – as others have said, it’s not that I disagree at all with the moral, but that we were bright enough to work it out from the episode without needing to have the Doctor break the forth wall to address the audience directly. I also question the logic of the Doctor taking the entire supporting cast, including a frail elderly lady and a young child, with her on her monster hunt, rather than leaving a group behind at the more defensible holiday camp.

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror was really good, and felt like the most Doctor Who-y story of the Chibnall era by some margin. Great cast, great monsters (despite the usually reliable Anjili Mohnidra hamming it up as the scorpion queen) – all three of the main human guest cast were proper, fleshed-out characters – and a strong sense of location. The thing that struck me afterwards, however, as I rhapsodised about how much I’d enjoyed this episode and that it was the best new Doctor Who story in ages, was that in a Davies or Maffatt season, this would have been a good middle of the road episode, and not the showstopper it was here.

What can I say about Fugitive of the Judoon? The whole episode is one big slight of hand, which is pulled off very well – but as a consequence, it’s difficult to think on the plot as a whole. The Judoon are back as a returning monster at least in part to distract from the surprise reappearance of Captain Jack, which I suspect in turn was at least in part to keep the audience’s mind off of who Ruth could really be. The pay-off to that, when it comes, is a satisfyingly shocking moment that raises a lot of intriguing questions.

Praxaeus, sadly, was a bit of a damp squib. It’s one of the worst offenders for the Chibnall-era trope of gathering all of the guest cast in the TARDIS and setting big chunks of the story there. The idea of the Doctor and her companions investigating a global crisis at different locations around the world had a lot of promise, but because the Doctor was able to just swoop in and scoop them all up in the TARDIS whenever needed, that idea never really came to fruition. Because the guest cast were all thrown onto the ship, a lot of them never really got the chance to shine – and it’s never explained exactly how captured astronaut Adam is able to text his location to grumpy policeman husband Jake – though at least kudos goes to the episode for a really down to earth portrayal of a same-sex marriage.

Can You Hear Me? was hugely frustrating – this could have been a gem of an episode, but as it is it sinks like a lead balloon. The problem is that the writer has thrown far too many ideas at the story in the hope of seeing what sticks. A mental hospital in Fourteenth Century Aleppo being terrorised by monsters from the nightmares of one of the patients would have been a really good episode. The Doctor’s companions and their friends being trapped in their dreams in modern day Sheffield would have been a really good episode. A ship full of experiments orbiting two colliding planets would have been a reasonably decent episode – but by trying to do all three at once in fifty minutes, nothing is given any chance to breathe and develop. Again, supporting characters are just thrown into the TARDIS and moved from arbitrary location to arbitrary location, and then the monster is defeated by… the dialogue saying that they’ve been defeated. It’s such a shame, because there’s so much good stuff here – Ian Gelder is superb as Zellin, and could have easily been a great recurring villain if they’d chosen to make more than one episode from these ideas – but sadly the whole thing is so much less than the sum of its parts.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati, by contrast, is superb – one location, really well developed and realised, a strong, well-drawn cast of supporting characters (and some very handsome gentlemen as well!) and no TARDIS scenes. The early parts of the episode are fantastically tense and creepy, with the horror of being trapped in a moebius strip of a house very effectively portrayed. Like any haunted house story, it loses some interest once the reason for the “haunting” is revealed, but the second half remains strong not least because Ashad the emotional Cyberman is superbly well portrayed.

Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children is very much a game of two halves. Part one is pretty effective – Ashad continues to be an excellent villain (his big virtual confrontation with the Doctor is superb) and the grim reality of the Cyber Wars is very well conveyed. Showing the potency of the Cybermen by having them effortlessly destroy all the Doctor’s clever gadgets and scatter her companions is an excellent touch, and Graham and Yaz’s fight for survival is compelling and convincing. The wheels very much come off in part two, however – I like Dhawan’s Master (more on him later) but the fact that he perfunctorily kills off the far more interesting Ashad is a mistake, as is halting the episode for what feels like half an hour of tedious Gallifreyan story time. The “Cyber Lords” are a bad fan fic idea, look derisible and do absolutely nothing before they’re dispatched. The actual Cybermen, terrifying in small numbers last week, are unable to hit a single human with dyspraxia running away from them in their dozens this week. The big questions of the episode – why is there a magic portal to Gallifrey? How did the Master destroy the entirety of his own race singlehandedly? – are never even asked, let alone answered. And as for the awful deus ex “death particle” suddenly jumping out of the plot with no set-up – eugh! Pretty much the only thing this episode has going for it are the excellent Graham/Yaz scenes.

The two things this series is likely to be remembered for are the new incarnation of the Master, and the revelations about the Doctor. Sacha Dhawan is great in the role – his Master feels genuinely unhinged and properly dangerous, with a real predatory cunning – but given how perfect Missy’s arc and final scenes were, I’m genuinely a little disappointed to see the character back, especially in full-on villain mode. However, I will concede that jealousy over discovering that the Doctor really is “special” is a very in-character motivation for him to renew his vendetta.

As for the shock revelations – the idea of a secret incarnation that the Doctor herself does not remember is intriguing, and Jo Martin really makes the role her own. There was a lot of speculation at the time that she’s the “Season 6B” Doctor, between Troughton and Pertwee, and that’s still the idea that I like, and seems ripe for development. If she’s pre-Hartnell, then why does she call herself the Doctor, and why is her TARDIS a police box?

The whole “Timeless Child” nonsense however – why on Earth did anyone think that a protracted subplot to explain away a moment from the Brain of Morbius (transmitted forty-four years previously!) was a good idea? How alienating must this have been for casual viewers? As an idea, I think it stinks, not out of a slavish insistence that the Hartnell incarnation must have been the first but for the fact that the Doctor only really became the Doctor – the hero – as the series was starting. Chibnall tries to have his cake and eat it by erasing the Doctor’s knowledge of her previous lives, and reminding us on screen that the interesting thing about the Doctor is not her origins, but who she is now – but as that’s the case, why are we supposed to care about her Timeless Child incarnations? What was the point of it? Even if you subscribe to the idea that “who is the Doctor?” is an interesting and worthwhile mystery, the Timeless Child isn’t a mystery answered, just a mystery deferred. If I had to sum up my feelings in one word, it would be “meh.”

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #DW #review #writings

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just-anka · 5 years

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Woaaah that was one hell of a weekend. I went to the roaches with a couple of friends and some other people from the mountaineering club to climb and camp and I've been dreaming about that for weeks sooo

• Drove down on Friday night with two friends and two people I didn't know, so I got to know them on the way down and they're both great so the drive was already really fun. The light was so pretty too 😍 got there just on time to scramble to the top of the crag to watch the sunset.

• We hung out there for a while then went to look for the campsite where we found the rest of the people. It ended up being a really short evening because it got pretty cold fast and everyone was keen for an early start the next day. I was cold most of the night but actually managed to sleep regardless! This was a big win for me because I normally can't and it really stresses me out 😂

• Saturday morning some more people arrived and we went up to the crag. It was incredibly foggy and cold in the morning but the sun burned through and suddenly it was sooo nice and warm

• I spent most of the day climbing with my housemate E. She's one of my favourite people to climb with (and one of my fave people in general hey) and we did some really fun routes. And then I led! My first! Trad climb! I was so proud of myself :'D and it was actually really fun too, I felt really confident on it and E said all the gear I placed was great except for one so yay. After that I did another route with my other housemate S. He also led a route earlier in the day without placing gear in the top bit and watching him was SO SCARY but he made it so that was cool as well 🤣 the day also involved a lot of laying around on rocks enjoying the sun. Just overall really good

• unfortunately it got really cold in the evening again and I was so tired so my mood dropped a lot - I don't know why but I really can't handle being cold for any length of time :( in the end I just went to bed pretty early and got really warm in my sleeping bag fast so it was fine after a bit.

• Woke up to crazy winds a few times during the night and it was no better in the morning so I procrastinated getting up for a while. When I finally did everybody was already up, normally it's more the other way around 😂 we packed up and the others went back to the crag for more climbing while I set out for a run

• It took me a while to find a good route to run because I couldn't find the path I was searching for. In the end I just ran along the roaches ridge which made for awesome views but SO MUCH WIND. When I descended off the other end of the ridge the wind suddenly went away and it was so quiet and peaceful so that was nice for a bit. The way back was absolutely brutal though - uphill into the wind. I slowed down to a jog, then a walk, then a slow walk. Considered calling it quits so many times. Actually sat on a rock almost crying for a bit. The fact that I brought way too little water didn't really help either :/ luckily I randomly came across an ice cream truck while crossing a road so I bought some water - at that point it was an absolute lifesaver. Soon after that I reached the highest point of the ridge and started descending towards camp and finally felt better. So in the end, I made it to the 25 km I had planned! Including almost 600m of elevation gain/loss. It was definitely one of the harder runs I've done though.

• After that I was completely spent so I just spent the rest of the day lying on various rocks moving with the sun, watching people climb, talking to friends taking breaks and reading (finished Thru-hiking Will Break Your Heart which was such a good read, highly recommend for any outdoor/adventure living people which, considering the stuff I post, is probably just about all of you guys) (and eating snacks 😂). It was really peaceful and nice until it got cold again >.> but we left soon after that

• I was so tired on the car ride back that I actually fell asleep for a bit even though I normally can't ever sleep in cars. When we got home I dragged myself through the stuff I needed to do (unpack my bag, laundry, cook, eat, pack stuff for tomorrow) then finallyyyy had a hot bath - felt like the best thing in the world after all of that cold. The Epsom salts I ordered arrived while I was away too so that was even better. Then sleep.

• Now it's Monday and I'm back in the lab typing this on my lunch break and I'm still tired but so so happy. If you read this absolute novel of a post here's a virtual cookie for you!

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rivetgoth · 5 years

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I keep wanting to talk about my stupid band OCs but when i try i forget what words are idk. theyre an industrial band called Heat Pit and there’s three members and they’re kind of an homage to all my favorite bands but really fucked up and stupid. the three members are E.C., Eris, and King Ramses.

E.C.’s name is Eric Christian & he’s from the deeeeep South. he loves trad goth and old school industrial and experimental electro stuff. he plays keyboards of all kinds. he’s extremely extremely shy and quiet and people mistake that for him being sweet and nice but he’s really just sort of a dick in reality. he’s very self absorbed and hates most people and is just standoffish and likes to be left alone. he bitches constantly on tour cuz he hates being stuck with his bandmates for too long and he never goes out and does fun things with them and he’ll disappear ALL DAY before a show and barely make it back in time. he’s very... detail oriented, he likes to construct weird little inventions and creatures with little scraps of things he finds because it entertains him, he likes puzzle solving, he really appreciates little in-the-moment things, he loves nature and stargazing and watching the clouds and shit like that. because he’s so shy he refuses to sing and hates his singing so his solo work is always purely instrumental unless he’s collaborating. he also tends to wear some kind of face covering on stage so he has this weird mysterious aura around him, he almost never does interviews and if he does its with a bandmate and he almost never speaks. he worked in a record store with Ramses after graduating high school because college was miserable for him and he went to the same high school as Eris so he’s a middleman between them because he knows them both.

Eris’ name is also Eric cuz I thought it’d be funny to have two characters with the same name as an homage to you-know-what -___- His music taste tends to be like, synth stuff, new wave, post punk... Eris was born in LA but his family were like devout intense Christians and they moved to some shitty small dirt town in the South cuz they said they were called by God or w/e so Eris was dragged across the country to the pit of Hell and it was miserable. He was miserable. He hates God and he has religious trauma xddd. He was a choir boy throughout school and everyone praised him for having the voice of an angel. He learned to play guitar and did low budget local Christian rock gigs in high school. everyone loved that. he didnt. He realizes he was gay and his life fell apart. goth culture provided a place of solace for him and he started exploring harsher scarier shit in part to get away from the whole “uwuw what an angel!!!!” rep he had with his ugly christian rock stuff. Eris’ original stage name was Eros but he changed it cuz Eris was edgier. He wears fucked up gothic pseudodrag a lot and he is very excitable and energetic and very unafraid to aggressively speak his mind, but he doesnt really know exactly who he is or what he wants to be, hence the frequent name changes, and he ends up struggling the most with drug abuse as the band relations get worse over time :(

King Ramses ends up changing his name to Anubis later in life and he’s a major character in my novel LOL. Ramses is into all industrial stuff and metal and especially industrial metal. he’s from Europe, Greece I think, he’s Greek and Egyptian and he moved to Britain to go to university there and get a philosophy degree. he was a poet his entire life and he was exceptionally good at manipulating people and presenting himself however would best suite him, he adopted a very very upper class british accent and made himself out to be this elite rich intellectual despite being a foreigner from a pretty poor home. he’s incredibly good at reading people and then conforming to what will suite him best in their eyes. he’s a control freak but he’s good at it. he’s fascinated with the occult, with spirituality, with art, with philosophy, and he comes to consider himself a neotranscendentalist. hes an attention seeker and a thrill seeker and he played multiple instruments so he decided to move to the US and become a musician. he needed a band because he thrives so much on leading others, being a solo artist bored him, so he convinced E.C. (who really had only wanted to do solo stuff) to form a band with him after they met while working together at a record store. Ramses becomes increasingly fascinated by body modification and performance art & by the time of my novel he’s gone through extreme extensive body modification but that’s a whole other story 🤗

Heat Pit ends up falling apart cuz frankly they’re all assholes LMFAO. They all hook up with each other at various points and whichever one isn’t currently in the relationship ends up being a really bitter third wheel. they’re all very much control freaks in their own way and very uncompromising. In the end the final instigator is another OC named Sugar who’s a goth macabre pop performance artist & model. he’s really into self mutilation in his work. he’s fucked up. he meets Ramses at a club and the two start dating and Sugar’s influence is abhorrent. things collapse after that. Sugar actually ends up killing himself eventually which sets Ramses down this path where he becomes fascinated by the art of death and death as art which is when he becomes obsessed with body modification stuff. E.C. and Eris eventually reconnect after not speaking to each other for a long time and start dating in a slightly healthier fashion but things remain awkward forever. Eris disappears off the face of the planet and is presumed dead for like a decade but he’s “fine”? Yeah. Shit happens. :/

#soft hooting #ocs

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gg-astrology · 6 years

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BTS: Namjoon’s UN Speech (Astrology) | Bouncy Amplified

Virgo Boys Masterlist: JK Series | NJ Series

disclaimer: not everything is related to astrology these are just some of my notes on what could be potentially looked into when expanding on each placement/aspects. I’m not making any claims that we’re analyzing his speech but we’re trying to work through his placements. The focus is on how specific placement/aspects might be working for him, within the context. Please take everything with a grain of salt and use your own discretion while reading!💕

Hello! 💕 Let me just start off by linking you to BTS x UNICEF (Youth2030) and saying how proud I am of them 💕 Namjoon’s speech was absolutely amazing especially considering how meticulous it was 💕 To the audience of several important people (including their president and first lady) 💕 I’m so proud to see them up there, and learn to grow alongside them 💕 I truly feel like our generation is being represented well, and I’m incredibly grateful for that 💕

So today, our post is going to be focused in on Namjoon. I’m still trying to finish the promised NJ birthday series before I have to skip gears and get ready for Jimin. So if these posts are kind of short, it’s probably because I’m trying to divide/manage my time better (sorry!!!)

First of all, when it comes to social relationships we should possibly look to our Venus for it. Namjoon’s Scorpio Venus sets the tonality of how his speech is being presented/what he’s presenting it with. There’s a drive/force of ambition when Scorpio is in the Venus position.

Scorpio in the Venus position, seeks to understand/emphasize with others through intimately understanding themselves. Therefore, when making connections/speeches to others they tend to demonstrate the deepest part of themselves in order to bring that outward (transformation) use that force (internal) to rally up others as well (determination/goals - trad. ruler Mars)

That’s Water Venus empathy, and the style of connectivity to their social relationship. In Scopio’s case, there’s an internalized tension that seeks to bring this connection outward (forcefully- Mars) and is facilitated by a guiding contact to help others through himself as well (Venus-conjunct-Jupiter).

Venus-conjunct-Jupiter can talk about sharing/giving experiences in order to help others out (teach others). Jupiter is about expansion, and symbolizes hope/what we want to manifest into the world. When the Venus is in contact with this Jupiter, Scorpio brings a driving force to see it manifest (through themselves/transformation)-- through their empathy (forceful) and their hard-work (internal drive). There’s a tonality to how he delivers his speech-- and a large part of that might’ve come from this Venus.

If you go back to the video, we’re going to look at his physical composure now.

Namjoon was incredibly composed (physically). He delivered a great speech and did so incredibly smoothly. Throughout the reading you can’t help but notice the tensing of his jaw. Which was the only indicator of his feelings (nervous tic) throughout the entire time (tension in his Mars- physicality/body gesture + Moon).

The passion in his stance (Scorpio Venus but also the way he moves around) is incredibly controlled (Venus trine Saturn - external control in social atmosphere). His eye-contact in particular, was already predisposed by the Libra Mercury (equalizing positions, connections to others - Namjoon in Interviews | Libra Mercury ) But the power behind the eye-contact is a part of Mercury-Mars (square). That’s whats bringing the tension in the jaw (squared aspect), but also the drive/force in his verbal communication (what he’s saying/Mercury) and his physical posture (Mars).

Just to note: he already has a habit of tensing his jaw a little when he’s stressed/agitated. In this case, he’s clearly in a high-pressure position to deliver the speech. And rallying up the force/emotion behind his composure (Scorpio Venus) to truly connect/relate it to the audience (Jupiter - Venus-conjunct Jupiter) brings a emphasis on the Mercury-Mars aspect demonstrated physically.

(So besides him making the speech and the driving force behind it, his composure is restricted and it’s noticeable/emphasized the Mercury-Mars he has)

Because it is squared (Mercury-Mars), there’s some tension there. The speech was delivered in a way that combines personally bringing himself out (part of the speech was about his personal experience/life- Sun | Sun-Sextile-Mars) and a call for rallying out others (Scorpio Venus + Mercury-Mars) This can create depth the what’s being said, because there’s tension/fluctuation between the two pattern.

There are moments of tension, and moment when he’s clearly more relaxed. Its the part when he was expressing his personal life that his expressions seems to soften (particularly around his eyes) and the balance between the two (Virgo Sun - his own experience/life story/himself | Cancer Mars - delivering that outwards, his drive/goals/ambitions) is what creates the tension of how his speech is presented (and how smoothly it did as well).

It’s kind of hard to explain what this is, but as a viewer it’s a bit like ‘sensing’ how he shows/goes through his narration that’s pointing to these placements. A combination of his body language, his narrative and the tension/message that wasn’t exactly being said. The fluctuation between the relaxed + tensed posture gives depth to his speech.

Also in contrast: Mercury talks about the style in which he presented, which doesn’t really have to do with the fluctuating tension besides the physical appearance of the jaw tense.

See how in the gif his expression seems to become more open/soften as it becomes less about others (Libra/Sagittarius) and more about relating it back to himself (Virgo/Scorpio).

Not only is this a good indicator of Libra Mercury best delivering tactic/strategy on how to be diplomatic/connect to others. But it’s also a good source into looking at the adaptability he has, with his style/pattern of speeches delivered.

i.e. Other awards ceremonies, and how he switches up the style he presents due to the context/audience. Facial expressions becomes more open, uses more of his Sagittarius Moon delivering the speech underneath the smoothness of Libra Mercury, etc.

(look at how he’s so much more relaxed when giving news/pressed to the media in their earlier UNICEF campaign)

(This is what I mean by his nervous tic. The jaw tense. I think Jimin had mentioned before how Namjoon would juts his jaw out when he’s feeling some type of way. Although this part was already kind of explained above. I just want to show you another example of it.)

Not really a part of the UN speech thing but I just wanted to emphasize the contrast between the two.

If you look back at the UN video, after the speech Namjoon was clearly flustered prior to taking the photo with the president of S. Korea. His post-speech attitude was endearing, and the contrast between when he was being serious (delivering the speech) versus when he hides back into the members.

There’s a lot of need to just-- let out the jitters. The part where he looks back at the members and his postures/composure completely shifts is indicative of how he relates them to his Mars. Cancers sees/feels the support people have for them, particularly from people that they trust and associate with their driving force/family. Having that stability in their life (members) helps them exert their assertiveness without feeling like they’re overbalanced/too emotional.

That’s why there’s such a contrast between Namjoon giving the speech, and Namjoon just being himself afterwards. There’s some tension he has to let out, and the ducking/hiding behind the members afterwards (like mixing himself in with the group physically) helps him feel like it’s nurturing to be in their presence, a piece of home away from home and breaking himself free of the tension he had before.

Namjoon is also naturally pretty expressive of himself, whether it’s of his own personal life or how he gestures/bodily. It’s part his Cancer Mars, but also his Sagittarius Moon coming out to play.

His Moon-square-Saturn suppresses the Sagittarius during the speech. That’s why he wasn’t gesturing so much when he’s making a point. His body movement is restricted, but the tension could possibly eat up his facial features as well.

Releasing that tension, usually leads to just relaxing his facial features and being able to fully express himself again. It can also indicate a need to bury himself in order to take a deep breath (Cancer Mars) and a general Bouncy-ness that comes with Namjoon (Sagittarius Moon- expressing themselves, excitable, but also nervous energy- mutable).

This is unrelated to the UN stuff above, but I had some notes regarding Namjoon’s Bounciness that I didn’t get to finish. I’m hoping to add it to the end here in case you wanted to read:

Notes on Namjoon (Sun-Square-Moon aspect):

His habit of bouncing/externalizing his Moon is so ...Loud... like...with namjoon besides his Libra Mercury having such an importance to his life most of it his self-expression comes from his Sagittarius Moon- Virgo Sun.

He’s not loud like Hoseok: who speaks loudly/quickly/thinking-process wise

With Namjoon it’s through doing things intuitively (Virgo Sun- tactile quality) and just seeing it/working it out as it comes along. (Sagittarius Moon - spontaneous)

Most of the time he’s not even planning ahead, he’s just figured if he touches it and fiddles with it--- the tangibility of it will help inform what he needs to do. (Virgo Sun - Sagittarius Moon aspect)

It’s intuitive, but also relying a lot on his instantaneous reactions which comes from the Moon.

He probably relies a lot on his moon to be the fastest moving part of himself (reactive- his only fire sign)

Since he puts a lot of weight/emphasize on his words (Libra Mercury) he doesn’t want to burden it with everyday situation (Utilize a different side of him to handle other situation/expansion of himself | Sagittarius Moon, but also a possible credibility/pride thing).

Therefore, this Sagittarius fiddling with things and it’s square aspect with the Sun is like his Sun (Virgo/Capricorn) handing them (Sagittarius) a toy and saying ‘learn how to use it’.

The problem arise when Virgo Sun is the one who learns things through touching/toying with it, but the Sagittarius learns through interaction. (Square aspect- conflict in understanding each other/miscommunication)

Although it’s not a big deal, it does cause some external damage to things he does handle sometimes (exerting this tension outwards unknowingly)

However, combining both of that together (they’re still aspected-- which means there’s positives) he can take notice of things and quickly pick it up (utilize his fast reactions vs practical applicability). Because his Sagittarius is used to it.

It’s kinda like, training the moon to be receptive to these sort of things. Or handling a really selfish/lazy co-worker and you need to pick up the slack for.

He’s constantly taking in stimuli/external responses anyways, synthesizing it to what he can make sense of and post-production into what he can exert/connect to others is helpful for him (Moon sextile Mercury-- analytical/practical with Sagittarius | Libra, but also very emotive).

I hope you enjoyed! Once again I’m in no way an authority over these things. I’m just making notes on what could potentially be related to astrology. So please take from it what you can/take it with a grain of salt.

And also sorry it was kind of choppy at the beginning, I promised the next few posts will be more planned/drafted instead of running on the go like this.

I’m going to slowly trickle NJ birthday series in once a day (and possibly 5 a day when I have time) so this will be the only post today! 💕I hope you had a good time! 💕

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captawesomesauce · 7 years

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Thoughts at 230am...

Today was a really long day!

I actually woke up at 6am, and felt miserable. I’m still sick, and I’m coughing up a ton of green crap but it’s so far sort of just hovering in my lungs, mostly just staying in my sinuses.

I decided to “treat myself” and went back to sleep since class wasn’t till 2pm.

Normally I get up, putz around, realize it’s like 10am and it’s too late to go back to bed, but nope, today I made myself lay back down and go back to sleep.

Class went well, my quiz was NOT graded, everyone else’s were. Nice. :| He kept yelling at people that he was basically infallible and all quizzes received were graded and on the desk for pick up. Until I walked up, and the look... man the look. Today is the last day he’s teaching the course, thurs our new prof starts, and you remember it’s cause I asked the Ellis Act question which snowballed. Well, I took the quiz through CAE, because I type everything... and he forgot to add it to the stack and grade it. The new prof was standing there and you could see him cringe because it’s basically our midterm. I keep making the guy look bad, though not on purpose! The new prof said he’ll make sure to have my grade by thursday. But yeah.

We did talk a lot about the globalization and I learned quite a bit. One of the key things was how important manufacturing jobs were in america and the UK, because they provided a living wage/well paying job without the need for higher education. For example, when the median wage was 53k, manufacturing was 72k. When we lost those jobs to automation (mostly) and trade agreements, they were replaced with low income/very low income, often temporary jobs. That’s why the Obama administrations touted unemployment numbers were really, in many respects, a con-game. He posted some graphics that showed that most of the new/replacement jobs for those $73k were service sector and financial sector jobs and paid below median wage, sometimes as low as $15-$30k with no benefits. What compounded this problem is that many of these jobs required a bachelors degree in which the earner was entering the workforce with a high degree of debt, often bad credit, and no ability to pay rent or buy a home. I mean it’s great to say you’ve added thousands of jobs, and have low unemployment, but when you take jobs that pay a middle class wage and replace them with just above poverty jobs and the people are forced to take on a huge debt burden to even qualify for them... you can see why things got really fucked up.

After class, I had a slew of activities to pick from. We had a NonProfit Org meetup, we had a Grant Writing for NonProfits workshop, we had an amazing thing on meteorites at the Fowler museum, and we had a free sneak peek at the new King Arthur movie! We also had a baseball game, and some other stuff I’m forgetting lol.

I managed to go to the NonProf stuff, both the meetup and the workshop. I can now say I’m trained in grant writing :) It was a pretty good 2 hour course on how to craft narratives, write outcome reports, and the works. I learned a ton! Especially how much variety there is compared to big block grants from government agencies which is what I’m used to. Some just want a single letter narrative, some want online forms and limit you to 500 words or less! Huge differences. I’m going to look at doing more grant writing workshops because I feel that that, like GIS, and programming, and some of my research are really great tools for my toolkit/resume.

I will say that the workshop was put on by the Graduate writing center, and they tend not to allow undergrads to take part in those programs. BUT... I’m gonna be 40 this year, so I emailed the director and explained that I had a lot of experience in government grant writing and such, and being a non-trad, it’s different..... she absolutely agreed and so I was able to sit in and take part. I’m glad she bent the rules and you know, it never hurts to ask :)

One thing I’m really proud of, I haven’t spoken to much about fitness/health stuff, but when I first got my pedometer, 500 steps was a lot. 500 a DAY. I was hurting bad, needed my cane, and getting around was difficult. I set my goal at 2000, and I was aiming for that by not driving everywhere. It was so bad when the flares were at their worse, that I’d literaly drive half a block to go from one class to another because I was lucky that I could even make it from my car to class. But every day for the last 3 weeks or so, I’ve been hitting over 2000 steps. This last week I’ve consistently been at over 3000. It’s stuff like going to Costco and the Market, walking from event to event on campus. Parking in one place on campus and walking to classes without going back to the car. It adds up, and I’ve been gently increasing my walking based on the pain and so far so good. I really hope to be able to walk 10k by December without my cane. I don’t know if that’s possible, but it might be!

I even made it from 1 event to another in 6 minutes.... before my record was double digits, like 18 mins to do that walk. I didn’t rush, but I felt like I was walking at a normal, healthy pace.

As for King Arthur, man I read the reviews and they’re DUMB. Go see it, it’s an enjoyable action flick like Rogue One is. It’s classic Guy Ritchie dialogue/exposition, that traditional back and forth smug humor, and a lot of great fight scenes. It just throws in a handful of Arthurian legend stuff like lady of the lake, wizards, and sword stuff. But go see it! It’s fun. Fuck the critics.

Tomorrow (today) I’ve got a full day planned too lol. So now that it’s almost 230am.. I should lay down and get some rest. late nights are still hard, even being at the movies was hard because I kept feeling an urge to just leave and go home to mystic. It’s so hard to believe he’s gone, it just doesn’t feel real sometimes... and when i stop and think about it... it feels like it’s been a thousand years... and it’s so hard to fathom that I’ll never feel his hugs again. never. Never is such a hard thing to fathom... that’s the problem with death... it’s not temporary, there is no “he’ll be back later.” It’s forever.

I miss him a lot.

#thoughts

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redsoapbox · 6 years

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PAUL LEWIS / INTERVIEWS WITH VAN MORRISON AND SNATCH IT BACK

A gathering of the It's a Wonderful Life Club, that met each Christmas in the Lewis household to watch Frank Capra’s famous festive film - Left to right, Paul Lewis, Rob Jeffreys, Me, Huw MacDonald and Mandy Morris, sitting. Taken around 1990 - I think we are all singing along to our friend Big Al Davies, tragically just out of shot!

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of my great friend Paul Lewis. We first met, back in 1984, while working in the post room at Companies House in Cardiff - I was reading a biography of Jack Lemmon on my morning tea-break, and Paul wandered over to talk about Cinema. It didn’t take him long to get my measure - if he mentioned a Hollywood classic, whether it be Twelve Angry Men, The Searchers, or Bringing up Baby, then I had a view worth expressing. I was even able to hold my own on the silent movies of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. However, when Paul threw in Akira Kurasowa, Jean Luc Goddard or Ingmar Bergman my limitations were exposed for all to see. Needless to say, I was pretty impressed with my new colleague and soon to be best friend (we eventually ended up being best man for each other).

That chat only scratched the surface of Paul’s knowledge - it soon transpired that you could apply the lessons of that first conversation to music, literature, photography, architecture - just name it. As this is primarily a music blog, however, I’ll stick to Paul’s influence in that department. Paul, at the time of his death, had established himself as one of the leading blues journalists in the U.K. - even appearing as a guest on the legendary Paul Jones’ The Blues Show on Radio 2. I was lucky enough to tag along with Paul and his wife Wendy on many occasions, as he reviewed and interviewed iconic figures like Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis and Cardiff’s very own local heroes Snatch it Back.

So Karen and I will be raising a glass tonight to Paul’s memory and to our continuing friendship with Wendy and the Lewis clan. I’ll be listening to my favourite Snatch It Back tune, “Kind of Loving I Need”, Van the Man’s “Into the Mystic” and, perhaps, something from Nanci’ Griffith’s Little Love Affairs to remember the good times by.

The interview with Paul and Wendy’s beloved Snatch it Back, (the band played at the couples evening wedding reception - what a gig that was!), is available to read through the British Blues Archive and the UK Blues Federation (www.ukblues.org), and a link to the interview, which originally featured in issue No.17 of BBR Boogie, can be found at the foot of the page, together with a video of the band in action. As for the copyright of the interview with Van the Man, where Paul’s forensic knowledge of his subject really shines through, I’m winging it - but I think Paul would see the funny side if I received a letter from The Belfast Cowboy’s solicitor threatening to sue me!

Van Morrison in his skiffle/rock ‘n’roll years.

1991 Van Morrison interview

by Paul Lewis

From Now Dig This, December, 1991, pages 22-26

Van Morrison is, without question, one of the giants of the rock era. Having first emerged as a prime mover in the British r&b movement of the early '60s with his Belfast band Them, Morrison has remained remarkably faithful to those roots, developing a musical style at once highly original but also greatly indebted to his early heroes - the blues singers and jazz musicians; the 'voices' of gospel and r&b; the original rock n rollers. His lyrics are peopled by legendary names - Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, Leadbelly etc. - figures that appear almost as characters in an ongoing dialogue; indeed the beginner could amass a terrific record collection simply by checking out the clues that Morrison sprinkles. To get a fuller picture of the man's musical background and primary influences, I met with Van on a recent trip to South Wales. We were joined by a mutual friend, Gordon McIlroy (Wales' leading promoter of blues, r&b and rock n roll gigs), and the conversation was lively, informal and enlightening. What emerged was an engrossing guide to the musical roots of one of our most important performers.

Paul Lewis: Can I start by asking how you got introduced to the blues and rock n roll and all that kind of stuff? I know your father was a great collector of blues and jazz records...

Van Morrison: Yes, well that's really it - I sort of grew up listening to it. You probably heard that before.

PL: And wasn't your mother a singer?

VM: She did some singing, but never professionally. She did some local sorts of shows.

PL: Did she sing jazz?

VM: I don't know exactly what it was. I think it was just the stuff that was happening. I mean the dance band era, that sort of thing...

PL: How did your father get hold of his records? Was there an outlet in Belfast?

VM: Yes, Solly Lipsiz was the guy's name. He had a jazz record shop in the High Street in Belfast - a collectors' shop. It was very small, a very small shop, just shelves of...well, they had 78's then, and they had 10-inch LPs and EPs. Nowadays you can go to these big stores, Virgin or something... In those days you had to go to a specialist shop to get any jazz or blues records.

PL: Was there a lot of interest over there in Belfast then?

VM: No, there wasn't a lot, just small pockets really. There were just small pockets of interest.

PL: So when did it first hit you that there was something you might have liked among your father's records?

VM: Right away! When I could breathe, I think. I just connected with it right away. The first things I heard were Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Clara Ward Singers...

PL: All the gospel people...

VM: Yes. The earliest thing I can remember hearing was gospel, but I heard Leadbelly too, right from the beginning. I don't know the exact sequence, but I heard it all at once. And he was into the big band stuff as well, so I heard Tommy Dorsey and Harry James - because that was his era - so it's all mixed up, you know. But I connected with the gospel and Leadbelly - heavily connected with Leadbelly - and that's how I got into music in the first place.

PL: How old were you when you started playing music yourself?

VM: Well, I got a guitar when I was about 11 or 12. Then I got this Alan Lomax book, and I learned the chords and picked the shapes out of this book. It was called 'The Carter Family Style' - that was what I initially started learning on guitar. And I was trying to pick up also what Leadbelly was doing, but that wasn't in there. If you did The Carter Family, then you could pick up from there, you know.

The Carter Family - Maybelle. A.P and Sarah

PL: You mentioned The Carter Family; did your father have any country records as well?

VM: Oh yes. Well I heard Hank from friends in the street. Friends of mine had the Hank Williams stuff, so I heard that from five or six doors down - they used to leave the doors open. One of my father's friends used to bring all these 78's over, they used to have 'Hank Williams Nights'. Have a few drinks, listen to Hank all night.

Gordon McIlroy: Hank parties! That's unbelievable. Never happened here, you know, never...

VM: That happened in Ireland all the time. It was a big thing.

PL: Ireland's got a strong tradition of country and western though, hasn't it?

VM: Yes, because I think they're very connected you see. The cultures are very connected.

PL: So, guitar was your first instrument - did you play in any bands early on?

VM: No, it was what you'd call 'folk' then. I can remember when I started playing, there weren't any guitars around, apart from on the records by Leadbelly, Josh White, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. You never really heard guitar. You saw it on television - somebody like Ivor Mairants, or you saw people like Elton Hayes. And there were some comedians who played guitar - like I saw Max Wall play guitar once. But it wasn't 'in' then by any means; the guitar was not an instrument then.

PL: When you say 'folk' music, what exactly are you referring to - not 'traditional Irish folk music'?

VM: Yeah. Well when you started, you had to play on your own, because the players weren't available. It was so isolated to have a guitar. You'd see Delia Murphy, who was an Irish folk singer... There'd be Steve Benbow, who played Irish folk music - and English - and all kinds of stuff that you'd see on television. The only local traditional folk group that I heard were The McPeakes. But folk music was not something that was readily available; your entrance into playing guitar was folk music but it wasn't something that was everywhere, not where I was. You couldn't just walk in and hear it, as you walk in and hear rock n roll later on, when the guitar became fashionable and all the teenagers were getting the records. But people like Elton Hayes you'd see on television, so you'd only have that to go on: one person with a guitar, singing a song. Robin Hall, Jimmy McGregor - that's the only thing you'd have to relate to. Either that or the Leadbelly records, or Jimmie Rodgers who I listened to a lot as well. All of a sudden, in the next five years, I think it was - in this part of the world, the UK and Ireland - it was Lonnie Doneganwho brought the guitar *in*. When I started playing they called it a banjo - that's what they called it! So they didn't really register about the guitar until then. I think Donegan was before all the rock n roll stuff...I can't quite remember the sequence.

GM: Donegan made the players, without a doubt. The *players* came from him, I believe.

PL: Had you been following Donegan through the 'trad' period with Colyer and Barber?

VM: Yes. My father had the Ken Colyer records and the Barber records - things like 'Precious Lord', where Donegan was singing in the Barber band. When 'Rock Island Line' came out, it was a Chris Barber record, so my father bought it and that's how I heard it. But what I connected with was that I was hearing Leadbelly before that, so that when Donegan came along, I thought everybody knew about it. So in retrospect now, I realise I was really lucky then - I didn't realise it then, because I thought everybody was hearing the same things I was, but they weren't. So consequently I think I was really lucky to grow up at that time and hear what I heard then, you know.

PL: Had you been trying to tell other people about these records you were listening to, and meeting with resistance?

VM: All the time, all the time. The 'country' people were the most relatable to at that time. My friends who had brothers or uncles or fathers into country music were the most relatable. Hank Williams was *the* most relatable thing, so those people who were into Hank, I connected with them. But they weren't jazz or blues people per se - they were into Hank, so there weren't a lot of people that I came into contact with that were into it. I used to meet people that were much older than me when I went to the collectors' shop, but I didn't really start connecting until the '60s. But the skiffle thing was the bridge really because that sort of crossed over - when I was going from Leadbelly and blues into skiffle, it translated very well. The next thing for me was the early '60s when all these groups started to emerge; then it was like everyone understood it, you know.

PL: Was there a skiffle scene among young musicians in Ireland as well as over here?

VM: Oh yeah, absolutely. That was what was happening then.

GM: I think all the musicians in this country came from skiffle, more than from rock n roll. When they brought rock n roll over here, nobody could play it. Couldn't play it directly...

VM: In that period, in Belfast, the one guy that I've heard of that was playing rock n roll was Brian Rossi. He was playing at The Plaza Ballroom, the Mecca ballroom in Belfast, and he was the first person that I saw that was 'rock n roll'. He had a three-piece because they didn't have the electric bass then - they had two guitars and a drummer. The bass wasn't in then, wasn't happening. People didn't know about it. In rock ‘n’ roll they didn't have electric bass until a couple of years after that, it was very slow to come in. But they had a piano, Rossi was playing piano, two guitar players and a drummer. He was the happening thing in Belfast.

PL: What year would that have been?

VM: Oh, '50s - late '50s. He was from the mid-'50s on, I would say. I wasn't getting into these sorts of venues until the late '50s, you know, because I was too young before that.

PL: How big a part did radio play in your musical education?

VM: It was actually more the records. I mean I heard things on the radio, but it was more the records that my father had. The radio stuff was just additional - you know, the AFN and Luxembourg - but it didn't really play as big a part. The records were the main feature.

PL: What was the first rock n roll record you bought?

VM: The first rock n roll record...it was the only one I could get actually, the only Bill Haley record I could find: 'Razzle Dazzle' (see right). I can't remember the other side...

GM: 'Two Hound Dogs'!

VM: That was it! 'Razzle Dazzle'/'Two Hound Dogs'. That was actually the first 45 I bought when they made the changeover from 78's to 45's.

PL: Did your father approve of the rock n roll stuff as well?

VM: Yes. But the thing is we were so much into jazz that it was sort of part of it, but it was more background, it was just passing by. We were so much into jazz and blues that rock n roll was peripheral. I mean we liked it, but it wasn't in my face all the time, because of the wealth of other stuff, you know. At the time when I got into rock n roll, I was also into jazz saxophone. I started studying tenor with a guy called George Cassidy in Belfast, learning to read music, so when I entered the rock n roll thing, it was coming from that end of it, that angle. So the whole thing wasn't rock n roll, there were other ideas and things I was listening to. People like 'Fathead' Newman, who was playing with Ray Charles - so that was sort of running parallel.

PL: And were you into all those r&b 'honkers' - the Earl Bostics and so on?

VM: I listened to Sil Austin, I had a Sil Austin record...'Pink Shop Shoes' was one of the tracks. I used to listen to him before I went to school, to get me up for school, you know. I heard 'Honky Tonk' too, but I was more into listening to a guy called Jimmy Giuffre than I was to rock n roll. I decided I wanted a sax when I heard Giuffre doing 'The Train And The River'. I couldn't get enough of it after that. If ever there's anyone who was a footnote or asterisk it was him, he's my main influence on saxophone.

PL: I suppose your father would have had his records with Woody Herman, so presumably that would ultimately have come from those?

VM: No, not really - I mean I liked that music, but I didn't connect that strongly with it, not as much as I did with r&b. My father had the first record that Parker played on, 'Dexter's Blues' with Jay McShann, so I heard that, but again I didn't connect so much with that as I did with this other stuff later on. I don't even know what it was called, just some sort of fusion. They didn't call it that then of course - today they'd probably call it fusion. In between Jimmy Giuffre, the Bill Doggett thing with Clifford Scott and The Bill Black Combo would be my area. And then I had these Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan Quartet records that I listened to quite a lot. But when I heard 'Ray Charles Live At Newport', that was it. I started to understand something about the harmony, harmony phrasing, playing together, ensemble - all that kind of stuff. But that's what I was studying - more the jazz end of it than the rock thing at that point. When I joined my first rock n roll band, I was still listening to blues and progressive r&b and jazz. I never saw rock n roll as the whole picture.

PL: Were you playing the sax in a showband?

VM: No, no this was strictly a rock n roll band. It had two guitars, drums and saxophone. We had a piano player but he didn't stay there. He was working in another job, so it was like two guitars, drums and a tenor playing "Peter Gunn" and "Tequila" and all that kind of stuff. Then we actually became a showband because in Ireland you had to have more bodies to work. Because groups weren't really happening there - they were everywhere else with The Shadows etc., etc., but for some reason the promoters didn't want groups (laughs), they hated, you know, 'guitars, bass and drums' groups, they just didn't want to know. You had to have a horn section, you couldn't really work properly if you didn't. All the showbands had horn sections and a lot of them were really good, like The Royal Showband, Dixielanders, Swingtime Aces, Clipper Carlton... The horn sections were the main thing, so you had to have at least a seven or eight-piece band to work.

PL: Is that scene still thriving in Ireland now?

VM: No, no, it's all gone. That went with the ballrooms, they went at the same time. You had these five-hour dances, you see; the band would have to play for five hours for dancers. And people would come from everywhere, out of the woodwork. Some of these gigs were in the middle of a field, you know, in a ballroom. The Royal Showband were huge at the time and they went to Vegas for six months of the year. They'd come back and they were the biggest draw in Ireland.

PL: So presumably you were involved in this scene for quite a while. Were you trying to introduce r&b into it?

VM: Yes. Well, what happened was I was gradually trying to creep r&b in - we had this group situation and we had this piano player who was into Jerry Lee. So he used to come and listen to my Jerry Lee singles, and we'd gradually try to introduce them, and then Ray Charles. Bit by bit it was becoming more of an r&b band. And then we went to Germany where we could virtually play what we wanted. So at that point, it was no longer a showband, they wanted more r&b in Germany. They had showbands there, but they liked r&b, they wanted "What'd I Say" and "Sticks And Stones", you know...

GM: Jerry Lee had been down there at The Star Club. There's an album out of Jerry Lee...

VM: And Ray Charles had already been. So that was when it was beginning to turn around. And then a strange thing happened, just as we started to kick off on the r&b thing - we were playing a club in Heidelberg - I can remember the exact situation. We'd done three or four numbers and then we were announcing the next one when this American G.I. - there were a lot of G.I.'s coming in - he came up to me and said, "You guys ever heard of Dave Clark?". And from that minute, everything changed. All of a sudden it was groups again. So I went back - Calais, Dover and London - and it had all changed from six months previously. Now, the group thing was back and The Beatles were the biggest thing, and The Dave Clark Five. The r&b thing with horns was less predominant, you know, and then of course The Rolling Stones came after that. So, after Germany I went back to Belfast and opened an r&b club at The Maritime Hotel.

PL: So the band in Germany, was that Them at that point?

VM: No, no, completely different band, much better musicians. This is something I'll never understand, you see. The musicians in this band, we'd never got any commercial success, and I started this other situation from complete scratch. You know they actually just went their separate ways and got jobs in different bands and I got a job with Brian Rossi at The Plaza Ballroom in Belfast. I was playing some tenor, playing some harmonica and sang a couple of numbers, so I had a spot with Brian Rossi.

GM: What were the numbers then - rock n roll?

VM: No, it was r&b - that's why he got me. Because he was rock n roll, complete rock. His thing was like Jerry Lee, you know. He was like Jerry Lee, Little Richard...so he had that going. What was I doing? I was doing r&b numbers, like Ray Charles - "Sticks And Stones" or "What'd I Say", or some slow r&b songs, and I was sticking some tenor solos in as well. Then, during this period, there was an ad in the Belfast Telegraph which blew me away when I read it. It said: "Musicians Wanted To Start R&B CLub". I went and met these guys and they were in some other business - I don't know what exactly, but they weren't in the music business. The said, "We want to start this r&b club in Belfast and we're looking for people". There was only me and this other guy there; only two people showed up from the ad. So I went out and found this club, it was a Seamens' Mission; it was called The Maritime Hotel and they had a room set up, that's really where I made it - well, it came out of that situation. I had to just get musicians in at short notice, so the people that I really wanted, I couldn't get. I got another lot of people and we went into this club known as Them, and then it built up from there.

PL: Do you think that you did your best work (with Them) at that club, rather than on record?

VM: Oh...well, it's hard to say. Yeah, in some ways - energy-wise - yes, and as far as stretching the numbers out goes...I think a lot of it was more intense than on record. The records didn't really capture the whole thing because they were limited, you know. Like when you made records in those days, it was all 2:58, wasn't even three minutes, so it never really came across. Live gigs were much more stretched out, you know...

PL: Presumably you still like that club atmosphere?

VM: Oh yes, I think I'm at my best in a club situation, but it's difficult for me now to get that situation. It's not so readily available now.

GM: It's difficult to cope with the people that want to come in, you see. It's too "high-profile" sort of stuff. If you could move in, like, say come in tomorrow, without anyone knowing, it would work.

PL: You were obviously listening to the Chicago blues people - Muddy Waters, guys like that - by this point...

VM: Well, I heard the first Muddy stuff, his folk things, the Library of Congress recordings, I think, on French Vogue. Vogue were issuing records in England - 78's - when I heard Muddy it was from the 78's. You know that "Rollin' Stone" song? "I'm A Rollin' Stone", Muddy Waters? I hadn't heard the electric stuff by then, I heard that later on. But Sonny & Brownie, I heard them electric before I heard Muddy. Sonny & Brownie made an electric album, I heard that before I heard Muddy Waters, so that was like the first electric blues band I heard. I think it was called 'Back Country Blues' or something, but it was with an electric band.

PL: You mentioned that you'd started playing harmonica earlier; who were your influences there?

VM: Oh, Sonny Terry. The first one I connected with was Sonny Terry.

PL: Was that because you'd been buying those records - as a guitarist - to listen to Brownie McGhee and then thought: "Well, I could have a go at harp as well"?

VM: No. As far as guitar goes, I was just sticking with Leadbelly and doing the runs on 6-string - nobody had even heard of a 12-string guitar - and I thought: "Well, where can I get a 12-string?". They used to think I was insane when I was 12 years old and talking about 12-strings. They wanted to put me away. So I was trying to play the Leadbelly runs on a 6-string guitar, the best I knew how - I played more like Lightnin' than like Brownie McGhee, the Lightnin' style. Lightnin' and Leadbelly were the two main influences - and Hooker.

Van Morrison & John Lee Hooker

PL: When did you get into John Lee Hooker?

VM: It was an album on the Audiolab label, Hooker was on the one side, on the other side was Stick McGhee.

PL: Of course he'd played with Sonny Terry as well...

VM: That's right. He was Brownie McGhee's brother or something. But anyway, to get back to Hooker: the Hooker record was like it was done in an echo chamber. The guitar and the vocal were soaked in this echo. I'd never heard anything like that, there was nobody doing that. That's where I got "Baby, Please Don't Go" - from that. I mean, Hooker's name was on it, it said: "'Baby Please Don't Go' (John Lee Hooker)", and it was his arrangement that I started to work on.

PL: So you hadn't heard Big Joe Williams or any of those older versions?

VM: No, but it turns out that he never wrote it either. (To GM) You know the guy who wrote it...

GM: The original was Papa Harvey Hull and Long Cleeve Reid, in the 1920s. Incidentally, a funny thing happened the other week: we had Paul Burlison - Johnny Burnette's guitarist - staying in Cardiff. I think he set a standard for most of the British guys. You know "The Train Kept A-Rollin"? That's possibly where the lick came from for Van's version of "Baby, Please Don't Go".

VM: I think that's where Jimmy Page got the lick from - 'cause Jimmy Page played that lick on my record. But I'm sure he got it from "The Train Kept A-Rollin". I didn't really get this until years later, that it was the same riff, because I'd been listening to that record by Johnny Burnette.

PL: Were you aware of many of the rock guitarists of the time? Cliff Gallup?

VM: Oh yeah! WIth Vincent I was, yeah! For me, that was what the whole rock n roll thing was about. I heard the Johnny Burnette Trio first, then Vincent. I met him later on, about '65. I hung out with him, he was at The Royal Hotel in London and I got to know him a bit. He'd been to Egypt and he'd just got back; he was a really nice guy. For me he *was* rock n roll. I like Burnette, but not as much as Vincent. Whatever rock n roll is, for me it is Vincent.

PL: What about Jerry Lee?

VM: And Jerry Lee. To me, I couldn't say he was rock n roll. Jerry Lee's everything - he's jazz, blues, gospel, rock n roll... Jerry Lee to me means 'everything'. Vincent was to me what rock n roll was about.

PL: You recently did a gig with Jerry Lee. What was he like to work with?

VM: Easy. Dead easy. Very professional.

PL: You seem to me to be drawn to these people who cross over all these genres. I mean, Leadbelly is hard to pigeon-hole, and Jerry Lee as you said...Ray Charles... Would you say that's true - you like people that can straddle jazz and blues and country?

VM: Definitely. I think for me that's a key.

PL: I mean, you do that yourself...

VM: Yeah, I do.

PL: What about Ray Charles? When did you pick up on him?

VM: Oh, I bought three records - one was The Johnny Burnette Trio, another was a Ray Charles EP; it had "Don't Put All Your Dreams In One Basket", "Sittin' On Top Of The World" - it was the one they keep putting out every three years or something. But the first thing I ever bought by him was "What'd I Say". The first time I heard it was on AFN, late at night. It was a live version - it must have been out in America... The one I got was, you know, "Parts 1 and 2", and I was hooked. I was completely hooked after that.

Ray Charles & Van Morrison

PL: How about Elvis?

VM: I heard an Elvis Presley record - on Sun - was it his first record? It had "That's All Right Mama" on it...

GM: The first one we got was "Heartbreak Hotel". "That's All Right" never came across...

VM: I remember hearing one that was a Sun record. Somebody must've got an import. It was acoustic, had no drums on it. Must have been an import then, but I heard that one. But I never connected with that, I connected more with Vincent than I did with Presley.

PL: Did you explore all that stuff later on?

VM: I played it! When I was in a rock n roll band, I played it, jumped across the stage - did the whole thing. I did rock n roll for a couple of years really.

PL: Did you get the rock n roll films, the Alan Freed films, in Belfast?

VM: I saw 'The Girl Can't Help It', I saw that one. Vincent was in that. Little Richard... But I used to see Vincent on 'Oh Boy!'. He was on that fairly regularly, and 'Boy Meets Girls' and all that. Used to watch that every week. I remember seeing Ronnie Hawkins and Gene Vincent on 'Oh Boy!' with Joe Brown.

PL: What about the British rockers?

VM: Oh, Johnny Kidd, man. Johnny Kidd. He was it for me as far as the British end went. I remember he came to Romano's Ballroom in Belfast and he had a three-piece: guitar, bass and drums - and him. That was it, but it was like a big sound.

PL: What year would that have been?

VM: '62.

PL: Was Mick Green with them then?

VM: I think so, yes. But I mean, remember all those three-piece groups that came along much later? They were doing that *then*.

PL: The 'power trio' bit.

VM: Yeah, exactly.

PL: What about English r&b in the early '60s? Did it pre-date you doing it, or was it happening at around the same time?

VM: It was happening at the same time, but we didn't know. For instance, we played The Cafe A-Go-Go in Newcastle...

PL: The Animals' place...

VM: Yeah, but then nobody knew anything. They said there's this band in here called The Alan Price Band or something like that, which apparently became The Animals, but we never heard them. But we played this r&b club in the early '60s. I think there was a lot of crossover...probably Eric Burdon was doing the same kind of thing I was, but we never met each other then. This only came about when we had records out. We'd made a couple of records and The Animals and The Yardbirds and The Rolling Stones had records out, what, in '63 was it? The first British r&b of that type I heard was The Downliners Sect. It was at The Ken Colyer Club, there were doing it then, really doing it. I heard The Pretty Things later, we were on tour with The Pretty Things, but The Downliners Sect were *it*.

PL: What about the slightly earlier ones, like Alexis Korner, Cyril Davies and people like that?

VM: I heard Alexis during the skiffle thing with Ken Colyer, but you had to come to London to hear things like that then. Nowadays you could be in the outer Hebrides and you'd still be able to hear it, but then it was much more isolated. Alexis came and played the club I started about four years after I got it going.

PL: Were you, as a band, slightly out of it then, coming from Belfast? I mean, a lot of these bands evolved out of people that were sleeping on Alexis' living room floor. And they were all intermingled, those London-based bands...

VM: Yeah, probably yeah.

PL: Would that have made it harder for you?

VM: No. We met The Downliners Sect early on, when I was playing in a showband. I came through London and talked to them quite a few times, we went back to see them a few times, and so I started the r&b club I reckon about six months after that.

PL: Did you get many other bands in there outside of your own?

VM: Oh yes, loads of them. Because when it caught on - it took a while to catch on - but when it did, there were suddenly lots of r&b groups around, that came out of the woodwork, that just got into that when they discovered it could be done. Nobody thought it could be done before that. They just though: 'Oh, it's not gonna' work, it's not like a pop record...'. But when it did work, a lot of people that were playing in showbands suddenly wanted to be in rhythm and blues.

PL: I'd like to ask you about some of the people you met that had come across from America in the early '60s, some of the bluesmen that came across...

VM: I met Little Walter. We had a manager who brought us to London to stay at this hotel, called the Aaland Hotel, it was in Bloomsbury. We were sitting there for weeks, you know. We were having a jam session downstairs and all of a sudden these people were wandering through and somebody says 'Little Walter's coming in!'. I thought I must be dreaming, you know. And sure enough, he did, he came in. And I used to go for Chinese food for Little Walter - there was a Chinese restaurant a couple of streets away. I was always saying, "Well, can you show me anything on this harp?". But it was very tough, I mean he was tough, he didn't give anything away. His style was so 'off the wall' - I think he even had a number called "Off The Wall"! - that there's never been anybody since...the things he could do were just incredible. He had a scientific approach to playing the harp. As far as blues goes, he's the top, there is *nowhere* else. The outer limits. There's nobody to touch him. For me he's the outer limits.

PL: How different was he from someone like Sonny Terry?

VM: Well, I'm more like Sonny Boy Williamson, that's my speed. Walter, when he took the instrument to such an extreme, I haven't heard anybody come anywhere near it. But Sonny Boy, for me, I could manage my way around a bit, you know... But Walter was way, way beyond everybody.

PL: Did you meet up with anybody else then?

VM: We backed Jimmy Reed as a group - I backed Walter as well, backed him on guitar - met Jimmy Reed then, and I met Hooker in the same time period. That's really when I became heavily involved with Hooker.

PL: Hooker seems to have inspired you in all sorts of ways - phrasing and everything...

VM: I don't know what it is, but he had some sort of soul. He's got so much soul. When I heard him during that time, he had an acoustic and he came down to breakfast - he was just sitting around with three or four people in a room, and he got out the guitar and he started to play and I haven't heard anything like it since. It was just magic.

PL: I know you're not overly keen on much that's been written about you, but I came across something in 'Rolling Stone' that I'd like your opinion on. It was in a review of Paul Butterfield actually, it said: "Unlike Van Morrison, for instance, Butterfield always conceived of the blues as a tradition, not as a sensibility". Do you agree with that?

VM: Well, not really. I think I see it as both. The thing about it is, if you take Leadbelly or Lightnin' or Hooker, they're not always playing 12-bars. The blues is not always 12-bars, but somehow we've got it in our heads that that's where it is. I mean, some stuff Lightnin' does is not 12-bar - he plays different shapes. He's got records where he plays folk shapes. There's lots of different angles, but blues is a way of life. And it doesn't have anything to do with this thing about colour. When I was a kid, I used to think it was about 'black people' and this and that, but Hooker says "Blues is the truth", that's how he puts it. And I believe that. So whatever the truth is for you, that's what the blues is.

PL: You've always been quick to credit your influences in your own songs...

VM: A lot of that is tongue-in-cheek - you mean on the last album?

PL: Yes, well there's a couple on the last album: "Real Real Gone" and "Days Before Rock n Roll", but also going back to "Cleaning Windows" and so on.

VM: The last one ("Days Before...") was tongue-in-cheek, but "Cleaning Windows", that was reality. That was when I was listening to Blind Lemon, Leadbelly and Jimmie Rodgers.

PL: Do you see yourself in the role of some sort of educator?

VM: I think I could do that, it's a possibility. If I had a platform, I could get into that, it's a possibility.

PL: Do you ever think of doing an album purely in one of those styles? I know you did the folk album with The Chieftains, but a pure blues one or a pure rockabilly one...

VM: Oh, many times. Well there's stuff, actually unreleased material that is in that vein. Over the years you record things and there's only, like, 40 minutes on an album, so there's a lot of stuff gets 'canned'. This stuff exists, but it's long-winded going through all this material, finding out where the tapes are and getting it out.

PL: What was it like having Hooker record one of *your* songs? That's a rare occurrence!

VM: That was really strange, because Hooker recorded a version of "T.B. Sheets" and didn't give me any credit! At first I was really pissed off... Then I realized it was John Lee Hooker doing a *version* of it. He's doing an adaptation of it, it's not exactly the same. But I think if it had been anybody else, I would have done the legal trip. But seeing it was Hooker, I just don't see I could. I mean, it was a compliment, wasn't it, really, to do it - he would come to my gigs and say, "I dig this number 'T.B. Sheets', man. I wanna' do this number." You know, it's a compliment really.

PL: Were you involved in the 'Healer' project at all?

VM: He wanted me at the beginning to start on it, but they couldn't find me, they didn't know where I was physically, and they were trying to get in touch with me. By the time it got off the ground, Carlos (Santana) had got involved in it, and it became too far gone for me to get involved, but I became involved in the next one. I did two numbers for the next record: "Serves Me Right To Suffer" and "I Cover The Waterfront".

PL: You worked with Mose Allison...

VM: Yeah, I did a thing with him, two years ago, I think, in Bristol. A TV programme...

PL: Oh yes, but what I was thinking of was the concert that came out on video - that was from America though, wasn't it?

VM: Oh yes. Actually, the one in Bristol was better; there were more songs, it was stretched out a lot longer. The one I did in America was very rushed; the Bristol thing was shot over two days. There was much more chance to get into it, and he was playing some of my songs, which was good. But Mose has worked with me a lot, I mean been on shows with me for a long, long time, going back about 12 years. He's been on a lot of my shows in America. I saw him quite a lot when I lived over there. Sometimes I'd go see four sets in a row, you know. It's a completely different style, his music, from mine, but I really like it - I like his songs and I like what he stands for, what he's saying. He's a friend of mine; I've hung out with him, talked to him quite a bit, got a dialogue going - it's good.

PL: Of course you were playing with Georgie Fame around the same time, and he's obviously very influenced by him as well...

VM: Yes, I think Georgie's probably more influenced by Mose than I am. I don't really put Mose under 'influences', I put him under 'inspiration'. But Georgie's been into him for a long time as well. Georgie's a friend of his, too.

PL: How did you link up with Georgie? I imagine your paths must have crossed back when you were in Them and he was playing at The Flamingo?

VM: Well, our paths crossed, but we didn't actually connect up. We had the same agents when I was in a group called The Monarchs and he was playing at The Flamingo. So we had a lot of people in common, but we never actually connected with each other.

PL: Do you see much of the contemporary blues scene?

VM: No, it's like I have difficulty when the translation gets lost. I mean if you're brought up on Shakespeare, then it's difficult to read other things that aren't up to the same level. When you hear these people when you're very young - and it goes in all the way, it penetrates all the way and you absorb all that - the other stuff just seems feeble. I'm not putting it down, it just doesn't register. I always have to go back to Sonny Boy, Walter, Muddy Waters - I have to go back to these people because with the new stuff, there's something that's not there, there's something missing. I think it's got to do with people living it, and it was the consequence of this life and the way they really felt spiritually as well. And it's got watered down through the years. I mean it's good that people are still playing it, but there are very few things that I can say come anywhere near it. You know, I think the blues has become something else, it's become another vehicle. I think it's a good musical vehicle, but I don't think it's what it started out as it's become chipped away. It doesn't really have the depth of the original stuff is what I'm trying to say. There are very few people now that are penetrating the depth of it. For me, Butterfield was the last person that penetrated the depth of it. I haven't come across many people since then that actually were living the thing to that extent, anywhere near that.

Issue no 17 of BBR Boogie can be read here http://www.britishbluesarchive.org.uk/Docs/Blues_Review/Blues_Review-May91.pdf

Snatch it Back live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkKc88k_ZDQ

If you trawl the blog archives, you will find some of my own Van Morrison reviews.

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