Leamington Spa has a brand new live music venue called the Assembly. It’s a beautiful Art Deco building, and I try to go to as many concerts as possible. Recently I bought tickets for ‘Gong’. I had never heard of them before, but I liked their description as “Music for Pothead Pixies”.

Gong were great. The music was really spacey as promised, and the concert had a lovely feel-good party atmosphere. At one point the lead singer of Gong came on stage with a giant pixie hat on his head. It was very funny.
 
Gong reminded me of another ‘new group’ (they have actually been around since the 1970’s), I discovered at the Assembly; ‘Enid’, though Enid had a more classical music base, whereas Gong were firmly into progressive rock. 

John Lennon was always trying to capture the moment of artistic creation. His idea was to go into a studio with a song, rehearse it and record a final version, all within 24 hours.

This appealed to the lazy part of his nature, but it was also a reaction against the laborious studio work that the Beatles did with George Martin, after they finished live touring.

The first time Lennon tried this was during the recording of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. The Beatles had ignored this film project at first, but when they saw early rushes of the surreal cartoon, they realised how good it was and wanted to contribute some new songs.

1) Go into your Wordpress Dashboard and look for ‘Users’ click on this and then go to ‘Your Profile’

2) When you are in ‘Your Profile’ you need to tick the first box you see which says “Disable the visual editor when writing”. Click ‘Update Profile’.

3) Go to You Tube to get the code for your video. When you have found the video, you need to select ‘Embed Code’ and copy it.

4) Paste the code into your draft post, in the position where you want the video to show.

Finally, 40 years after first having the idea, I have completed a painting of John Lennon based on the psychedelic poster issued in 1967.

It’s only thanks to Google Images that I have been able to fulfil this ambition, as  the posters sold out on the day of issue, and I didn’t have anything for reference.  However I was able to download a jpeg photo via Google, and used this as the basis for my canvas.

John Lennon is my favourite Beatle and because of that I was actually quite scared to commit any paint to canvas. If I was going to paint Lennon it had to be good, and I wasn’t sure how it woud turn out.

The Beatles evolved and changed with every album they issued. I prefer the second half of their career starting from the Revolver album. However there are some lovely tracks on Help, despite the heavy workload that the Beatles were operating under. Help was issued on 8th June 1965, and was both the soundtrack to the film and their 5th album in three years of intense activity.

The title track ‘Help’,was also a No.1 single of course. This was not a ‘churn it out’ pop song but a genuine plea from the heart. Lennon really was feeling stressed by his pressure-cooker Beatle existence…”When I was younger….I never needed any help in any way. Now those days are gone, I’m not so self assured….HELP I need somebody.”

1967 was the ’summer of love’, the Beatles had released Sgt. Pepper and had a number one hit that encapsulated the spirit of the times, with “all you need is love”.

I was a 13 year old teenager completely immersed in the music and psychedelia of the time, so when I heard that the Beatles were going to release psychedelic posters of themselves, I couldn’t wait to get hold of them.

The day the posters were released I went into my local branch of WH Smith Newsagents, and found them – trouble is they were expensive; 10/6 (or 52.5p in new money). No problem, I would save up my newspaper round money and get them later.

Atom Heart Mother has always been my favourite Pink Floyd album, even though the members of  the band are rather embarrassed by the pomposity of  it. However I’m not the only one who thinks this is a great soundscape.  

“If you were to ask anyone to name a Pink Floyd LP their immediate reaction would no doubt be Dark Side of The Moon or The Wall (- two very superb LPs). However, I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone mention this LP, which is a shame…but in that respect it makes Atom Heart Mother a true gem; something that is overshadowed in many ways yet shines through, in my opinion, perhaps more than many other acclaimed Pink Floyd work.

Oasis are more often compared to the Beatles, but my comparison is with live stadium rock events.

I saw the Rolling Stones liveat Wembley Stadium on 7th July 1990. It was their Steel Wheels / Urban Jungle tour. The Stones were great but I wasn’t impressed with the sound quality.

It was very loud, and any subtleties in their music was lost by the sound blast. My impression was that the acoustics were rubbish because of the open air stadium; the sound was escaping into the sky. 

Pink Floyd have had three completely different singer/songwriter leaders, and still kept their fans, becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

Coca Cola is often regarded as an extremely powerful brand, yet when they changed the formula to their drink, the public reacted against this and they swiftly reverted back to the original recipe. 

Pink Floyd however have had three different musical incarnations and despite this actually became more and more popular. Does this make Pink Floyd a more powerful brand than Coca Cola? Certainly the groups fans seem to be more loyal than Coca Cola’s customers.
1) Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd (1965 – 1968)

The world is coming to terms with the shocking death of Michael Jackson. I can’t help thinking however that Jarvis Cocker could have saved him from his own excesses.

I am not a religious person, but when I saw the live 1996 BRIT awards,  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was a man impersonating Jesus, with a white flowing cloak, spotlights behind him, and a wind machine, so that he was both glowing and windswept.

Then unbelievably he had groups of children coming up to him to be blessed. “Suffer the little children to come unto me” said the Lord (Mark 10:13-14). And at that moment I believe that Michael Jackson thought he was some sort of diety.