Australia Pub Choir singing Africa by Toto

I came upon this video this morning and thought it was great. It was the sheer joy and exuberance of singers, band members, soloists and conductor that made me think of you. So I thought I'd share it.

Australia Pub Choir Africa by Toto

Eclipse from James Webb Space Telescope

 I thought you'd like this photograph. I stumbled on it today going through my fb feed. Apparently it's the most detailed photograph of a solar eclipse ever taken.

A recent total Solar Eclipse from the James Web Space Telescope

Some Favourite Music Videos

While recovering from my second bout of Covid and still coming to terms with living the rest of my life from a wheelchair, I thought I'd put together some favourite music videos. 
My original intention is to put up a list of say at least 8 specifically made music videos. However, there are videos on YouTube that have been edited from much longer performances that I love watching, and will include these as well I expect.
I'm not gonna put these in any order, although I do think I know already which video I think is my number one all time favourite music video.

I suppose I ought to note down what I think makes a good music video. However I don't want to make a big fuss about this. I wanna be intuitive and even a little impulsive. But I also don't want to lead you down Cull du Sacs. I don't want to waste your time.
So I'm choosing good songs. Though not necessarily my most favourite songs.  

I'm going to be posting videos over the next few days or perhaps a couple of weeks.

Anyway, here's a first video.
I've only watched it once. And that's today, the day I first posted this post. Perhaps it was watching this that inspired me to post this challenge.

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

The sheer power and energy of this video is completely overwhelming.  I was shocked by its chaos and implied violence.
It begins quite conventionally. The band. A stage. A seated audience. Cheer leaders.
But then completely explodes.

When I came out of hospital last year I watched something on YouTube I really never expected to watch. And that was a recording on Joni Mitchell playing at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival. The performance took place on the 24th July.

I came out of hospital in October and started catching up with stuff I'd missed. 

I saw the  Newport Festival videos soon after but didn't realise there significance.

And then the penny dropped.

Joni Mitchell, Brandi Carlile, musicians and friends at the
Newport Folk Festival July 24 2022

 I really never expected to find a current or recent recording of Joni Mitchell singing. So I was blown away when I stumbled on these videos of Joni performing. The first couple of times it came up on my YouTube feeds I didn't believe what I was watching. I dismissed the posts before even watching them. Till eventually it dawned on me what I was being invited to watch.

Now I came across this third video years ago, while I was working at Richmond upon Thames College. I'd known the song but it really wasn't a special song for me. It still isn't actually. It maybe the least interesting song for me in this challenge. But the video absolutely makes this a contender for this challenge.

REM - Everybody Hurts - Official Video

What struck me about this video is how it connects to one of my all time favourite films, Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders.
In that film we hear the unspoken thoughts of various anonymous characters as they pass through their uneventful day. Their thoughts are not necessarily linked to what is actually happening to them. However the thoughts do link directly to the broader challenges they are facing in their lives. These thoughts are often about loss and grief and are very similar to the various characters we find in this music video.

Here's the fourth music video. In fact I'm gonna post 2 videos of this song. The official video and a live performance of the song.

I love this song. It would definitely feature in any Top 10 songs I'd do of David Bowie songs. This song has its hooks deep inside me, from the first time I heard it back in 1980 when it was first released. 
I have a memory of sitting in a pub in Burnt Oak - where I went to college - with a few friends from college and at least one teacher. We were all sitting round a table having lunch and a pint or 2, when this song came over the speakers. I still have a vivid memory of that afternoon and wrote a poem at the time about that lunch.
This live video is taken from a BBC Radio 2 Radio Theatre concert. I love this whole concert. It's probably my favourite concert of Bowie's. I think for me, this is Bowie's best line up of musicians: 

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes - Live Radio Theatre 2000

with Earl Slick – Guitar, Mark Plati – Guitar & Bass, Gail Ann Dorsey – Bass, Guitar & Vocals, Sterling Campbell – Drums, Mike Garson – Piano & Keyboards, Holly Palmer – Backing Vocals & Percussion, Emm Gryner – Backing Vocals & Keyboard.

I love Mike Garson - from Aladdin Sane days - the plucked keyboard introduction and the closing solo, Earl Slick's guitar solo, Gail Ann Dorsey's bass and of course Stirling Campbell's drums - which of course Bowie mentions at the end of this video. 

But I also have to post the original video for Ashes to Ashes. Apparently it was the most expensive music video ever made at the time. Co-directed by David Mallet - who also directed another video I'm gonna post. It depicts Bowie as a clown, an astronaut and patient in a padded cell. I think it's a completely brilliant follow up to Bowie's Major Tom - the main character in his 1969 breakthrough single Space Oddity.

David Bowie Ashes to Ashes Official Video

David Mallet also directed the next video. This video is the 2nd song of a 3 song encore from Pink Floyd's 1994 Pulse concert in London's Earls Court. This concert formed part of the band's Division Bell Tour. The first I knew about the concert, the tour or the video was watching - what I think was the encore - on YouTube. So here is the 2nd video from that 3 song encore.

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb - Pulse concert, Earls Court 1994

Well I was completely mesmerized by the performance. I'd never seen anything like it. It seemed to me that I was watching the greatest live concert performance of any band, ever. I've watched the videos over and over again over many years, and it still knocks me out.  


Here's Madonna and Like A Prayer. It's a good song. It's a good video. It has a strong narrative, it's sexy, the choir is great. The visuals, stunning.

Madonna - Like A Prayer

Here's a video I've come to quite a few times over the years. It was recorded during the On an Island Tour in 2006 at Gdańsk Shipyard in Poland. This was the last performance Richard Wright gave before his death in 2008. I think it's a stunning live performance.

David Gilmour and Richard Wright  - Echoes - Gdansk Shipyard 2006

There is so much to enjoy here. I particularly like the closing duet between Gilmour and Wright at the end of the piece. I also really enjoy the lighting effects throughout the video. 

I still remember the first time I watched this video. It was so moving. I think I cried. Such an emotionally charged and personal video. I was sure Cash had written the song himself. He absolutely owns the song – as any good cover artist has to. It felt that it was the last song he recorded. It felt like it was the end.

Johnny Cash / Hurt

I think that all these videos are tremendous. I've come back to most of them year after year.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn Peter Sellers 1956

I've been looking for this film for years. I first watched it in 1975. It was shown before the main feature of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I went several times to see that film and got to know both films quite well.
Watching it again, right now, I realise what a bad film it is. A showcase for Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan who were in the middle of recording The Goon Show - aired on the BBC World Service and The Light Programme - between 1951 - 1960.
I also thought that the character CID's Ace Det Supt Quill played by Sellers might be a forerunner for Ch Insp Clouseau from the Pink Panther films that started in 1963 with the first film, The Pink Panther.

The Pink Panther theme music and title from the 1963 film

Fawns Alert

 

Young Fallow deer, Richmond Park, September 2023

at the end
of their first summer
fawns alert