'Finian's Rainbow'

Have you ever seen 'Finian's Rainbow', either on stage or the film? I saw the film about 35 or so years ago on telly and all that I recall was Petula Clark and Fred Astaire wandering through sunny fields and Petula singing about Glocca Morra. But its stuck in my mind so I asked Santa Claus for the DVD last Christmas and he obliged. It's definitely a Sunday afternoon film so the grand viewing was yesterday afternoon, with nibbles and drinks within reach of the couch. And what an odd film.

I didn't really know what to expect but I dearly hoped that my vague memory of Petula singing about Glocca Morra wouldn't be sullied and, thankfully, it wasn't. I've seen Petula on stage twice and each time she'd referred to working with Mr Astaire on that film so I'm pleased that she has happy memories of the project.

The film tells the tale of an immigrant Irish father and daughter (Fred and Petula) walking across America on a quest, the dad's mad get-rich-quick scheme. They end up in Rainbow Valley near Fort Knox where we learn that Fred has somehow got hold of a leprechaun's crock of gold from the old country. Add in the complexities of the racial divide in America, the rich white folks and the poor black and white trash, the depression, menthol cigarettes, Sears catalogues and credit, all building up to burning Petula's character as a witch, and you have a mighty fine and weird film for 1968. All directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

The film is obviously from the late '60s, with the hippy-ish leading man with his guitar, songs about happily living together, the nods to the supernatural with the leprechaun and the racial tensions of a post Martin Luther King equality stirring in the south. And then I learn the original stage show is from the late '40s. Which makes it very weird if the racial overtones reflect what was actually on the stage o the late '40s. That was rather uncomfortable and I can sort of understand why it hasn't been repeated on telly every other year like most old musicals.

The musical was revived on Broadway last year and, unfortunately, closed just before we went there a few weeks ago. As Chris pointed out, it's probably easier to forgive some things happening on stage in front of you than things immortalised in film. I would certainly have gone to see it if it was on.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed most of the film. Fred was great (as always) and had his traditional moment of dancing on 'things' (on this occasion, packing crates of stuff from the Sears catalogue) and Tommy Steele was watchable as Og the Leprechaun (but he was, obviously, playing Tommy Steele). Petula stole the show as Sharon, the loyal daughter who finds love. Hers was also the most steady of the Irish accents in the cast.

I don't think I'll watch the film very often but, now and then, when I need some magic and daftness and moist eyes, I think I'll try to find Glocca Morra with Petula and Fred and (ok, I'll say it) Tommy Steele. If only for the memories. I immediately downloaded 'How Are Things In Glocca Morra?' and 'Look To The Rainbow', both of which sum up the film for me.

Buffy Sainte-Marie: 'My Heart Soars'

This evening I downloaded a *new* song by Buffy Sainte-Marie! Well, not exactly new, I think it's from the mid-'90s but it's new to my collection - 'My Heart Soars'.

I found a 30 second clip of this song a few years ago, a song Buffy recorded for a Ba'hai album but it was only available in Canada. I'd never heard it all the way through, so it was great to hear it on YouTube. That sent me scurrying to my friend, Mr Google, to try to track it down again and, guess what? It's now downloadable! So I did. It costs $1.24 to download (and since I paid through PayPal I also had to pay VAT at $0.22) which is nothing for a new Buffy song. Download it here.

So, with thanks to David for posting about it on the Buffy email group and to Annie1844 for posting the video on YouTube, guess what I'm listening to tonight?

Gil Scott-Heron - "Me And The Devil"

From his excellent and powerful new album, 'I'm New Here'.

Amanda Palmer: New Record

The delightful Miss Palmer is in Australia at the moment making people happy, doing shows, appearing on telly and, importantly, making a new record. Or, at least, recording songs. She invited people to pop into the studio last night to watch and join in. It was a bit short notice for me to jump on a plane and head down to Oz so I will not feature on her new record. I think she tweeted that she'd recorded something like 20 songs so there's plenty to choose from. No idea when it'll be released but it's good to know she's been back in the studio.

It's only a few weeks until the 'Evelyn Evelyn' record will be available and then, a short time later, Amanda and the Evelyn twins will be at Bush Hall at Shepherd's Bush. So it won't be long until I see her again. That makes me happy. Click the record cover to visit the Evelyn Evelyn MySpace page and listen to some music.

Heavy Metal Britannia

How do I spend a Friday night in one of the world's great capital cities? Watching 'Heavy Metal Britannia' on telly on BBC4, that's how.

I've never been a fan of metal and probably only have half a dozen or so songs in my iTunes library that would really be considered metal... until I downloaded 'Deaf Forever' by Motorhead last year. Well, Motorhead were sort of punk-friendly (Lemmy's speed-freak approach to music), so that's ok. But I thought it would be interesting to see what the 'Britannia' music series made of heavy metal.

It kicked off with a short interview with Dave Davies about him creating the first metal riff with 'You Really Got Me', meandered through the '60s blues bands, progressive rock, hard rock and then stumbling onto heavy metal through a circuitous journey, the onset of the punk wars and then the rediscovery of metal in the early '80s with Iron Maiden. It was quite fun seeing clips of early Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, the bloke from Uriah Heep who couldn't stop smiling (possibly because he's finally on telly talking about the glory days) and all the rest. Two blokes from Judas Priest were interviewed throughout but didn't really fit into the programme properly except for a comment about the leather and stud homoerotic link. The stunning thing was that when Ian Gillan was first featured (as in now with short hair, not then with a mop) I thought 'what's Richard Burton doing on a heavy metal programme?' - the resemblance is uncanny.

Would it be terrible if I said I enjoyed it? Loud guitar and drums, screaming vocals, pulling poses, o yeah! And all the old blokes on it that, in their heyday, were metal gods. It comes to an end one day for all of us and they were revelling in it - and good on 'em! But don't worry, I won't be downloading back catalogues like crazy or start wearing leather or spandex. I hope...

Who Are You?

I've been invited to a posh black tie thing through work and I was mulling it over this morning on my way to work and decided that black tie offended my punk sensibilities. And then I thought, hang on, my "punk sensibilities"?

You see, I can't help but associate black tie with the worst of the '80s excesses, with braying hooray Henries and too much champagne and cocaine and that's not the world I move in. And have never wanted to move in.

And that started me wondering whether that's who I think I am, the ultimate me, a punk? Punk was a long time ago but it's also now. Punk was never about wearing the uniform and having the hair, it was about being yourself, actively being yourself. But we all turn 'being yourself' into being one of the herd. Even the most individualist of us is part of a herd, a herd of individualists who gather together to poke fun at other herds. I'm no longer 17 (thankfully), don't have the hair to spike up and never saw the point in bondage trousers so why did my subconscious throw up 'punk'?

I started listening to The Ramones on the way home this evening. New York punk is sufficiently distant from my roots to allow some thinking space and that started me thinking of when I saw Buffy Sainte-Marie in New York with Tommy Ramone's new bluegrass project as the support act (Uncle Monk). I shook Tommy's hand and said I enjoyed his set - I shook the hand of a Ramone. But, if you look on Buffy's MySpace even she is part of a herd in terms of the bit of blurb beside her name - 'after the beatniks and before the hippies'. Replace 'Sheena' with 'Buffy' and you have 'Buffy Is A Punk Rocker'.

It's strange really. To look at me you'd think I was a mild mannered middle aged gentleman but, obviously, deep inside (very deep) I'm a mass of raging hormones, rebellion and rather odd principles.

Who are you? Yes, you over there. Who are you really, deep down? Do you even know?

Michael Foot RIP

I don't know where today's gone but I've just realised that Michael Foot has died at the age of 96. 'Who?' you younger and overseas readers might ask. Michael Foot was a giant in the Labour Party and was leader for a few years before Neil Kinnnock. His leadership coincided with my student years in Cardiff (when Kinnock used to speak to the Students Union Labour Party group, in English, not Welsh) and the start of the Thatcher years that led to so much bad news later in the '80s.

I recall reading a book of his essays many years ago and quaking in awe at his intellect and at the way he could get across very complex theories in relatively simple language. I remember him attending the Cenotaph in a duffle coat and being savaged in the press. I remember CND and marches through London.

Michael Foot was one of those relatively few people who lived their convictions throughout their lives. He was always a radical. All too often the radical of youth becomes the conservative of middle and old age. Not Mr Foot. A "conviction" politician indeed, and that is why so many people supported him and believed in him as a barometer of political opinion. He was part of my youth.

I haven't thought of Michael Foot in years but I'm sad to hear the news of his death.

Talk To Me

Oh, yes, I meant to remind you to talk to me. Yes, that's you I'm talking to, Mr Ray Davies.

We have this deal you see - I buy your records and gig tickets and you tell me when you've got a new record out or are playing in my town. What's the point of signing up to your email list and suchlike if you don't talk to me? Well, I find things out anyway and I've booked tickets to see you at the Royal Albert Hall on 23 May. You tried to sneak that one past me didn't you?

I will expect a rousing rendition of 'Lola' ("that fag song").

And after this tour please prepare a cast recording of 'Come Dancing' or record the songs yourself. Thank you.

'Smile Piece' by Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono's been busy on Twitter today sending out messages about her Smiling Face Film project.

As she said in 1967, "My ultimate goal in film-making is to make a film which includes a smiling face snap of every single human being in the world." Rather than doing a film, she's asking people to upload a photo of themselves to the Smiling Face Flickr group which supports an ongoing slide show of photos of people smiling from all over the world.

I love this idea and will upload one of the rare photos of me with a big ole smiley face on me.

Yoko also includes some words on the smile site and I like 'Smile Piece', pasted below:

SMILE PIECE by Yoko Ono

Send a smile to your friend so he/she can smile, too.

Think of a way to do it.

You could send a photo that says 'smile',
or a picture, a story, or a piece of pie,
but specify that it's a smile you're passing on.

Ask him/her to do the same:
to pass on the 'smile' in his/her own way.

Consider this blog as my smile that I pass to you. Please pass on a smile to someone else, someone you love or to a complete stranger. Smile.

'Private Lives' at The Vaudeville Theatre

This evening we went to see 'Private Lives' at the Vaudeville Theatre on The Strand. A technical problem on stage meant we were a bit late getting in but, once we took our seats I could breathe a sigh of relief at the sheer luxurious leg-room in the seats - luxurious compared to Broadway theatres in any case. Plus a bar and ice-cream at half-time - sheer decadence!

Anyway, the play. 'Private Lives' is, of course, by Noel Coward and the leading man suffers slightly from having to be Coward-ish in his delivery since some of the lines, particularly the one-liner repartee, is pure Coward. It's the tale of two divorcees who were previously married and who are in adjoining rooms in a French coastal hotel with their respective new spouses, who decide they love each other really and run off (or, in the parlance of the play, "orf") to Paris together, leaving their new spouses alone and none the wiser. The tale continues in Paris with the inevitable consequences.

After about 15 minutes I lost all my critical faculties and, surprising myself, decided I loved it. A clever and witty script that was dated in places but every now and then threw something at the audience that seemed incredibly original and current. The simple set for the first half of the play was the hotel balcony which I found rather annoying a few times since there wasn't enough space for the cast to move without brushing past the net curtains which I found rather distracting. I much preferred the Parisian flat of the second act with the odd shaped giant goldfish bowl and luxurious couches.

It's the cast that makes or breaks a play like this and Lisa Dillon and Simon Paisley Day were excellent as the hapless spouses who find themselves deserted by the leading characters. Matthew Macfadyen has the task of trying to 'be' the Coward character and he did this with ease most of the time but occasionally fell into the trap of seeming to do an impersonation. He's only being doing the play for a week or so, so I'm sure he'll get the right balance. The star of the show (in many senses) is, of course, Kim Cattrall who was excellent. A flighty madam of shifting morality who seems to love everyone but not quite as much as she loves herself, she was compelling and totally believable as Amanda, with the right mix of vulnerability and challenge as a modern woman (for the '30s). There was some nice chemistry between Kim and Matthew that made me wonder whether their relative real-life partners had already seen them together and given their approval. Kim commanded the stage with her acting, not with her star gloss.

I had a grin on my face for most of the play and that can only be a good thing. Go and see it - book tickets now to avoid disappointment.