DayTwelve

Hello and welcome to Day Twelve of South Africa’s 21 Day Lockdown.

Just got this on chat:

CORONAVIRUS
BETTER THAN BURGLAR BARS

:HERE IS THE AUDIO STREAM:

IF THE AUDIO STREAM DOES NOT START PLAYING AUTOMATICALLY,
HIT THE PLAY BUTTON ABOVE

For now I’m not doing any talky-talk voiceovers on these things.
I would like to. Not gonna lie. In an ideal world I would be on radio and talking about music. It’s quite obviously a subject extremely near and dear to me (…there is this whole blog containing some of my back catalogue of writing on my own long-standing psychosis and neurosis, being diagnosed, healed and journalled along the way.) In this back-story (if you will) you will find my “bubble-within-a-bubble” explanation for why this is so. My love for music, that is…

And speaking of which.

Here is today’s playlist. (which does include a hefty swipe at Donald Trump). I fiddled with some Youtube soundbites of the man (ugh) and found a way to creatively weave it into today’s listening…

Where exactly would that be?

ahhh, listen on dear listener. Listen on…

Muse – Time is Running Out
Bonnie Tyler – If you were a Woman and I was a man
The Bangles – Walk like an Egyptian
Pet Shop Boys – Left to my Own Devices [I stared at this record sleeve so many times and for so long growing up that it just about friggen hypnotises me now if I try look at it…]
Heavy D & the Boyz – Now that We Found Love [people think putting a “z” at the end of a word is a cool, new invention – like we haven’t already being doing it for decades. Sheesh…]
The Foundations – Baby Now that I Have Found You [now we’re going old school…]

Rhye – Taste [This song is inserted purely because of, well, taste. It doesn’t fit the context of the times of the songs it is surrounded by. And yet it’s such a pretty segway to…

Cyndi Lauper – True Colours
Starship – Nothing’s gonna Stop Us Now
Toto – Africa [because of the band’s Progressive Rock based heritage, this song should actually be in the last block of today’s music. Just shows you how hard it is to nail down a genre]
Top Loader – Dancing in the Moonlight
Dexy’s Midnight Runners & the Emerald Express – The Celtic Soul Brothers (More, Please, Thank You)

Placebo – Running up that Hill [Kate Bush was another artist who got me making a sudden musical left turn from the candy floss pop music I had grown up with until that point. Her vocal control, scoring and writing….]
Depeche Mode – I feel you [I saw them live at Standard Bank Arena first time they came. Dave Gahan was in his dark place and their music was in a deep and growing up phase. The bold step of putting drums and a twanging guitar on what was known as a keyboard-band, worked and the particular sound of this song, inspired many other songs such as….]
Editors – Sugar

Love and Rockets – So Alive [hahaha you were expecting a different song to start there weren’t you!]
The Cure – Lovecats [one of my favourite songs – and Lego Luke!]
OMD – Sailing on the Seven Seas [my ears got tired of these guys pretty quick. I can only take his voice for soooo many listens. If I listen to them once in a decade then I can appreciate and remember that they were actually pretty good with a couple of songs I can still like. LOL]
Siousxsie and the Banshees – Christine
Simple Minds – Belfast Child [No. We will NOT listen to “Don’t you forget about Me” and other obvious songs from their catalogue. Not today anyway.]
Ultravox – Dancing with tears in my eyes [ditto for these guys, and on a personal note. I have very vivid memories of sitting on the Friday morning Greyhound Bus up to Joburg, to visit my mom for the weekend, sitting in the smoking section in the back, listening to this song on my Walkman]

And now we’re going into a different place.

A place Frankie/#mrofnoctonod lives in when he gets behind a drum kit and lashes out at the pots and pans.

The world of Progressive Rock is a mashup of influences from straight-up and/or highly technical jazz / Classical Music / Spanish / World / Latin / Metal / Rock / erm.. well, pretty much everything, including traditional folk music which therefore broadly includes boeremusiek (by defintion) although I have (thankfully) never heard an instance of it. The closing block of 8 songs now following all come from various roots of the modern Prog Rock family tree. Some of them will sound frankly pop-like and familiar and this is because of the wide variety of musical DNA that Prog Rock can draw from. I’ve intentionally drawn on some “beginner-friendly” samples to work with. HAKEN for instance is – beyond today’s song of theirs – NEVER this quiet and subdued with their music. NEVER.

Porcupine Tree – Last Chance to Evacuate Planet Earth Before it is Recycled [Steven Wilson is a darkly oriented but unbelievably gifted guitarist-singer-songwriter-producer-musician. A prolific writer and performer with star-studded accompaniment on every project, he gets the best musicians to work with him (in this case the unbelievable BASS talent of Colin Edwin, with Richard Barbieri – former keyboard player for Japan -) and you can be sure we’ll be hearing from him a lot. -UK]
Spock’s Beard – June [Neal Morse is somewhat of a legend in Progressive Rock circles, attracting some of the best talent to work with him on decade long projects, of which Spock’s Beard was one -USA]
The Pineapple Thief – Mysterious Extra Track [Bruce Soord is another great Prog Rock singer-guitarist-songwriter-producer -UK]
Blackfield – Jupiter [A Steven Wilson project introducing you to his distinctive lilting voice in a swirling, ambient, orchestral oriented project. Blackfield is a collaboration between Aviv Geffen and the aforementioned. Don’t ask who Aviv is and how they know each other. The Prog Rock world is a never-ending warren of soap-story-like relationships between one person and another and the surprising collaborations that are born out of that -UK&ISRAEL]
Haken – Sun [You’re lucky. You’re being introduced to the uncharacteristically soft side of Progressive Metal band Haken. While these guys pretty much always produce incredible studio music they are thankfully growing tighter in their live performances with each album they produce. They were crap on stage in the beginning.
Now, having said “You’re lucky”, the lyric material is heavy on this one.
A good playlist is a list that lets you go emotionally everywhere, I reason. This is for the nursing staff and medical personnel on the frontline. My heart breaks for you all. -UK]
Steven Wilson – Personal Shopper [Here you get the man in a straight-up solo project dose, exploring a dark electronic side. -UK]
Big Big Train – Hedgerow [While we’re still digging about in the widely diverse world of Progressive Rock, here we explore a sub-genre referred to as “the Canterbury Sound“. The best way I can tell you what it is, is for you to listen to it. In my interpretation of the genre, I would describe it as “distinctly English feeling, although not necessarily only evoking images of a country garden” -UK]

Liam Lynch – United States of Whatever
Because I’ve decided this is my signature closing-out tune.
I will ensure that at least once a day, and whenever this song is played in my vicinity, I will stand up and dance and gyrate like a maniac to this song.
I LOVE THIS STUPID SONG.
Good bye…

WARNING – There is an angry RANT about DONALD TRUMP TO NOW FOLLOW…

If you’re not in the mood for drama, stop scrolling and go back to the 2 red bars at the top, with the nice friendly play button. Otherwise, here-following, a time to vent.

I cannot begin to describe to you with words how much I loathe this “man”.

This…sub-species.
This oaf.
This brute.
This wickedly cunning, yet woefully ignorant moron.
His predecessor had the decency and humility to roll up his sleeves and get to work.
This petty, carrot-topped tyrant walks around waving arms, pointing fingers, dodging accountability, pouting at cameras and ruining lives, cannon-ball jumping into deep waters of international power and of centuries-old international learning, which he knows jack-shit nothing about.

His handlers need to silence him.

The best single word I have for him is: “SLIMY“

I hated Jacob Zuma, enough to wish him dead, but this man frankly leaves me at a loss for actual words, or even intent. I would learn to speak Hungarian…

“After studying the Hungarian language for years, I can confidently conclude that had Hungarian been my mother tongue, my work would have been more precious. Simply because through this extraordinary, ancient and powerful language it is possible to precisely describe the tiniest differences and the most secretive tremors of emotions.”

Sir Bernard Shaw

…said to be the most eloquent and vocabulary-rich language amongst many literate men, and by such esteemed writers as the above, just so I could probe myself as deep as it actually feels I need to go inside the liquid lava core of loathing I have for him, to find the linguistic scaffolding needed to curse this man to the full extent necessary.

Oh that he were never born.

Donald Trump, you sir are morally repugnant, devoid of any core or even teeny thread of integrity whatsoever, and a stain and a blot on humanity.
Now go away.
Thank you.

Rant complete.

Transmission Over.