“Get lost.” That’s what people used to say to me when I irritated them with one thing or another. “Just! Get! Lost!”
Sometimes, I may have taken umbrage at the remark. At other times not. I can’t really remember. So many people say so many things.
But attending a gathering, in her memory, of her friends, following the death of a colleague this week, I found myself, as I looked up at the poster-size picture of her, wishing that I had taken that advice and got lost.
Instead I have spent my life being found. At 55-years-old it was too late for Di to have been lost or found. She is simply not here anymore – thanks to cancer. But she did by all accounts live her life to the hilt. And apparently got lost from time to time.
Instead of being lost, I have spent my life being found. Found hopeless at sport, I turned to writing and literature and was found to be quite good at it. Later I was found to be a good journalist, found to be a reliable employee, found responsible and promoted. I am found by some to be trustworthy as a friend, found to reliable on a cloudy day.
And it, one day, may well be said of me “he was found to have been OK”.
None of that helps I guess when it comes to the end, when it’s all over.
Which makes me regret in some ways that I never got lost. Had I taken that advice imagine the adventures that I might have enjoyed. Not that I have not had my fair share. I have, but there could have been more.
I have been to the Middle East, Europe, Scandinavia and on the North Sea perched on the shuddering steel platforms of rigs pumping oil from under the seabed to Norway. I have been to North America, the Grand Canyon, New York, Washington and San Francisco and to South America, Sao Paulo, the Amazon, Rio. Closer to home I have been to the Comoros, Mauritius, Zimbabwe and Namibia and Swaziland. And I have been rover, I have walked alone, hiked a hundred highways *but I have never ever been lost.
Once in Venice I ducked down an alleyway and for a while, could not find my way back through the maze of canals. And then there was that time in Athens when I was so excited to be there that I dumped my backpack in a youth hostel headed for the ancient hills, then could, not for the life of me, find my way home.
There were a couple of minutes of sheer panic, then street by street I managed to find my way back, seizing on vague landmarks like handholds on a vertical face. I was too panicked, (my passport, my money, my tickets all in my backpack at the hostel ) to abandon myself, like Socrates, to my fate.
Now days, according to an article in the Cape Times you need technology to get lost. All you have to do, apparently, is be Swedish and type Carpi instead of Capri into your GPS and travel on oblivious. But that not it. Perhaps abandonment, rather than lost is the term I ought to use.
Those who abandon themselves to life, thrilling to the living of it, are those who thrive while those of us who are content to be found standing at the sidelines watching, are voyeurs each one, living our lives vicariously. Why else the crowds drawn to the gladiators, to the bullfights to the rugby, to rock concerts, or staring up at a man on a wire dancing between twin towers a mile high while New York stretches and yawns at dawn.
Is it because we thrive on how they abandon themselves, thrill at how they are totally lost in what they are doing to the exclusion of everything else; abandoned to life itself? Maybe. So then get lost!
* I have been rover, I have walked alone, and hiked a hundred highways credit Frank Sinatra, Love’s Been Good To Me.”
This column appeared in the Cape Times on 3 August 2009.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Alzheimer’s light
Alzheimer’s light is what I’ve heard it called. The ability that is, to forget where things are, when things are and even what things are.
My particular specialty is to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things that are not lost. I have simply just temporarily forgotten where they are, where I put them or to whom it is that I have lent them.
This week for example I have spent fruitless, frustrating hours trying to track down a number of DVD’s that I have collected over the years that were borrowed from me and never returned. “Why don’t you keep list?” people ask when I try to track down borrowed items that have not been returned. I did once but I lost the list, so that clearly is not the solution.
The problem is trust. We don’t really, in the polite chattering classes, want to admit that we don’t trust our friends and acquaintances. Even though we may not. It’s somehow a bit off to offer to lend a book, CD or DVD to someone then imply that you don’t trust them to return it so you are going to write their name down with a list of the items they have borrowed so you can stalk them even unto their graves until they, or their estate, returns them to you.
It’s far more acceptable to say, with a happy laugh, “of course you will return them won’t you,” and they say, “yes of course we will” and the conversation moves on even as they slide your treasured items into their possession.
A friend told me this week of a prominent media personality who used to steal CD’s from him by “borrowing” them when he was not looking — and never returning them. His solution was simply to visit the offending party and steal his own CD’s back.
He could do that because he knew who had taken them. With Alzheimer’s Light, that’s not an option.
Also my trouble is that I like to share. If I have bought a great DVD, or CD or book, I want my friends to watch it, listen to it or to read it and I want to discuss it with them. So when they visit I reach up to my shelves and say, “Here, read this, watch this, or listen to this… yes of course you can take it home I know you will give it back.”
And it’s my loss that I don’t have the courage, upon their receipt of the said article, to whip out a pen and paper and catalogue their name and contact number like cop writing out a fine.
I trust my friends and by default their friends but I wish I had listened to my mother. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”, she said. That advice, sadly, like so many other applications our parents taught, to smooth our way from tottler to toppie, went in one ear and out the next.
* By the way, thanks to my fellow Boomers who e-mailed me the titles of the books that graced the sagging shelves of their youth. In addition to those mentioned in my last column such as the Art of Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance, the Whole Earth Catalogue etc, were Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (thanks John) the Little Prince, the Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, Knots by RD Laing, Games People play by Eric Berne, MD, Hawaii by James A. Michener, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Linda Goodman's Love Signs and not to forget, the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Yes?
Sadly I don’t have any of them anymore. I must have lent them to someone I trusted. (Sigh)
My particular specialty is to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things that are not lost. I have simply just temporarily forgotten where they are, where I put them or to whom it is that I have lent them.
This week for example I have spent fruitless, frustrating hours trying to track down a number of DVD’s that I have collected over the years that were borrowed from me and never returned. “Why don’t you keep list?” people ask when I try to track down borrowed items that have not been returned. I did once but I lost the list, so that clearly is not the solution.
The problem is trust. We don’t really, in the polite chattering classes, want to admit that we don’t trust our friends and acquaintances. Even though we may not. It’s somehow a bit off to offer to lend a book, CD or DVD to someone then imply that you don’t trust them to return it so you are going to write their name down with a list of the items they have borrowed so you can stalk them even unto their graves until they, or their estate, returns them to you.
It’s far more acceptable to say, with a happy laugh, “of course you will return them won’t you,” and they say, “yes of course we will” and the conversation moves on even as they slide your treasured items into their possession.
A friend told me this week of a prominent media personality who used to steal CD’s from him by “borrowing” them when he was not looking — and never returning them. His solution was simply to visit the offending party and steal his own CD’s back.
He could do that because he knew who had taken them. With Alzheimer’s Light, that’s not an option.
Also my trouble is that I like to share. If I have bought a great DVD, or CD or book, I want my friends to watch it, listen to it or to read it and I want to discuss it with them. So when they visit I reach up to my shelves and say, “Here, read this, watch this, or listen to this… yes of course you can take it home I know you will give it back.”
And it’s my loss that I don’t have the courage, upon their receipt of the said article, to whip out a pen and paper and catalogue their name and contact number like cop writing out a fine.
I trust my friends and by default their friends but I wish I had listened to my mother. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”, she said. That advice, sadly, like so many other applications our parents taught, to smooth our way from tottler to toppie, went in one ear and out the next.
* By the way, thanks to my fellow Boomers who e-mailed me the titles of the books that graced the sagging shelves of their youth. In addition to those mentioned in my last column such as the Art of Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance, the Whole Earth Catalogue etc, were Jonathan Livingstone Seagull (thanks John) the Little Prince, the Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, Knots by RD Laing, Games People play by Eric Berne, MD, Hawaii by James A. Michener, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, Linda Goodman's Love Signs and not to forget, the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. Yes?
Sadly I don’t have any of them anymore. I must have lent them to someone I trusted. (Sigh)
Suburban Elvis survives gunmen to revive the King of Rock.
A year ago all that stood between Gordon Epstein and death was a thin single door that he held tightly closed against the two gunmen who wanted to kill him and steal money from the till in his CD exchange shop.
Today he is rebuilding his life as a popular Elvis impersonator and as a solo rock and roll singer and songwriter at live music venues throughout the city. And for a shy guy, who normally stays in the background he makes a very good Elvis indeed.
Southern suburbs lovers of popular music will remember Gordon as the owner of the CD Spot in Wynberg where people went to exchange CDs and DVD’s.
It was a thriving well-stocked shop that took Gordon years to establish. It was certainly a long way from the time he spent running his CD exchange business from a cardboard box on the pavement near Cavendish shopping centre.
“I was just beginning to make money, the shop was thriving, and I was happy,” says Gordon. Then early one morning one man came to the gate and I let him in and then another came to the gate about 10 minutes later. At first I didn't know they knew each other.
Gordon dismissed the unease of suspicion that swept over him, let them in then re-locked the security gate behind them and went back behind his counter. They walked to the back of the shop to browse an among the CDs on sale.
He suspected nothing when they called him to the back of the shop, pretending to ask about a horror DVD. Suddenly one produced a pistol and told Gordon to hand over the money in the shop. They took Gordon to the toilet, at the back, in the shop saying they would shoot him. One man stood just outside the toilet door to guard it while the man with the gun turned around and went to look for money in the shop. Gordon saw an opportunity to save his life and in one motion slammed the toilet door shut and placed the broomsticks and mopsticks in the toilet between the wall and the door to jam the door. The robbers tried to bash the door in and kept jumping against the door. "It was really like your worst horror movie and I was sure it would end with me being either badly injured or killed.
“I thought I they might shoot me through the door.” he recalled. “ But still I held on.”
“Gordon’s screams were heard in the kitchen of the small café next door to his shop. And the owner called the Wynberg Police whose charge office is a few hundred metres from the shop.
The police arrived in minutes but could not get into the shop because of the locked security gate. Eventually they managed to break the gate down.
Even when the police were in the shop, Gordon kept the door jammed with the broomsticks and his legs wedged between the wall and the door until one of the policemen smashed the toilet door in and found Gordon there.
The police were not fooled even though the “ suspects “ had no weapons on them. At Gordon’s insistence they held the men in the shop until a pistol was eventually found. They carted Gordon’s attackers off.
Although he was fee of the imminent threat to his life, the ordeal for Gordon had just begun. And the fear grew. He hired a guard to stand at the door. Still the fear remained. He asked a friend to help him in the shop. Still the fear remained. Eventually he simply could not go back. Each time someone sounded the buzzer to be let in Gordon’s heart stopped with fear that it would be another attack. Eventually he decided to close the shop. A friend sold off all his stock and Gordon was left without an income.
“I was a nervous wreck. Even today when I hear a car backfire I dive to the floor and heart pounds with fear,” he says.
Strangely he does not experience that fear when he goes onstage dressed in a white jumpsuit to bring Elvis back to life or when he does his solo performing.
I realised I was good at impersonating Elvis when I was at primary school “ says Gordon. Later at school in Robertson he formed a band and carried on singing Elvis songs. “After his matric he played as a conscript in the SA army Band and performed as a solo singer at venues in Knysna and later Namibia with guest appearances at nightclubs and at private functions.
“I enjoyed the life of a musician,” he says, “But it was a hard life. The shop took the pressure off. It allowed me to make a reasonable living although I did still perform on special occasions – by invitation.”
Since closing his shop Gordon has been painstakingly trying to piece his life together and to learning to live without fear.
“I have spoken to other victims of violence crime he said. We all share a new sense of life – which we have to live each moment. That is why I have returned to my Elvis impersonations. Its something I love doing.
“I also know that if you are to succeed you have to feel like doing what you are doing. There is no time for half measures. We have one life.
“I feel now more than ever that if there is something I really want to do I must do it now. There may not be a tomorrow.”
When he is not preparing for another Elvis show or solo rock n roll show Gordon is studying accounting and business management.
“Its taken time to get my confidence back: he says. But now I look for the positive wherever I can. I miss the shop. But I will never forget being in that small room expecting to be killed at any second. I have my life and I am determined to make a success of the time I have left to live it.
“In the meantime I hope that if ever I get All Shook Up, again it is only when am on stage doing a rock n roll show."
Today he is rebuilding his life as a popular Elvis impersonator and as a solo rock and roll singer and songwriter at live music venues throughout the city. And for a shy guy, who normally stays in the background he makes a very good Elvis indeed.
Southern suburbs lovers of popular music will remember Gordon as the owner of the CD Spot in Wynberg where people went to exchange CDs and DVD’s.
It was a thriving well-stocked shop that took Gordon years to establish. It was certainly a long way from the time he spent running his CD exchange business from a cardboard box on the pavement near Cavendish shopping centre.
“I was just beginning to make money, the shop was thriving, and I was happy,” says Gordon. Then early one morning one man came to the gate and I let him in and then another came to the gate about 10 minutes later. At first I didn't know they knew each other.
Gordon dismissed the unease of suspicion that swept over him, let them in then re-locked the security gate behind them and went back behind his counter. They walked to the back of the shop to browse an among the CDs on sale.
He suspected nothing when they called him to the back of the shop, pretending to ask about a horror DVD. Suddenly one produced a pistol and told Gordon to hand over the money in the shop. They took Gordon to the toilet, at the back, in the shop saying they would shoot him. One man stood just outside the toilet door to guard it while the man with the gun turned around and went to look for money in the shop. Gordon saw an opportunity to save his life and in one motion slammed the toilet door shut and placed the broomsticks and mopsticks in the toilet between the wall and the door to jam the door. The robbers tried to bash the door in and kept jumping against the door. "It was really like your worst horror movie and I was sure it would end with me being either badly injured or killed.
“I thought I they might shoot me through the door.” he recalled. “ But still I held on.”
“Gordon’s screams were heard in the kitchen of the small café next door to his shop. And the owner called the Wynberg Police whose charge office is a few hundred metres from the shop.
The police arrived in minutes but could not get into the shop because of the locked security gate. Eventually they managed to break the gate down.
Even when the police were in the shop, Gordon kept the door jammed with the broomsticks and his legs wedged between the wall and the door until one of the policemen smashed the toilet door in and found Gordon there.
The police were not fooled even though the “ suspects “ had no weapons on them. At Gordon’s insistence they held the men in the shop until a pistol was eventually found. They carted Gordon’s attackers off.
Although he was fee of the imminent threat to his life, the ordeal for Gordon had just begun. And the fear grew. He hired a guard to stand at the door. Still the fear remained. He asked a friend to help him in the shop. Still the fear remained. Eventually he simply could not go back. Each time someone sounded the buzzer to be let in Gordon’s heart stopped with fear that it would be another attack. Eventually he decided to close the shop. A friend sold off all his stock and Gordon was left without an income.
“I was a nervous wreck. Even today when I hear a car backfire I dive to the floor and heart pounds with fear,” he says.
Strangely he does not experience that fear when he goes onstage dressed in a white jumpsuit to bring Elvis back to life or when he does his solo performing.
I realised I was good at impersonating Elvis when I was at primary school “ says Gordon. Later at school in Robertson he formed a band and carried on singing Elvis songs. “After his matric he played as a conscript in the SA army Band and performed as a solo singer at venues in Knysna and later Namibia with guest appearances at nightclubs and at private functions.
“I enjoyed the life of a musician,” he says, “But it was a hard life. The shop took the pressure off. It allowed me to make a reasonable living although I did still perform on special occasions – by invitation.”
Since closing his shop Gordon has been painstakingly trying to piece his life together and to learning to live without fear.
“I have spoken to other victims of violence crime he said. We all share a new sense of life – which we have to live each moment. That is why I have returned to my Elvis impersonations. Its something I love doing.
“I also know that if you are to succeed you have to feel like doing what you are doing. There is no time for half measures. We have one life.
“I feel now more than ever that if there is something I really want to do I must do it now. There may not be a tomorrow.”
When he is not preparing for another Elvis show or solo rock n roll show Gordon is studying accounting and business management.
“Its taken time to get my confidence back: he says. But now I look for the positive wherever I can. I miss the shop. But I will never forget being in that small room expecting to be killed at any second. I have my life and I am determined to make a success of the time I have left to live it.
“In the meantime I hope that if ever I get All Shook Up, again it is only when am on stage doing a rock n roll show."
You can stay safe at home, and never taste the world’s wonders
That’s the thing about travel. It expands the mind, excites the senses, gives us a sense of place and puts things in perspective.
At least it does so for me. Years ago I worked in a pub in London as a barman. George, the elderly geezer who managed the pub, turned to me in surprise one day after I had told him that I intended going from Hammersmith to Piccadilly Circus on my day off. “What on earth do you want to do that for? ” he asked. “ I have never left ‘ammersmiff.” I was born here, I went to school here and I have worked in this pub since the day I left school. Everything I need is here why on earth would I want to go to anywhere else?”
Months earlier I had traveled from South Africa to Luxembourg — with only R750 in traveller’s cheques to my name — caught a bus to Calais, then a train to Dover, then hitched my way to the top of the country. I touched the sea at John o’ Groats in Scotland then zigzagged back from coast to coast until I arrived in London, a month or so later, short of money so took a job in a pub.
I was astounded at George. Piccadilly Circus was just around the corner in a manner of speaking but he had never been curious enough to stray more than a few kilometres from his home. On the positive side his remark made me feel like a brave and intrepid explorer traveling to the corners of the earth.
“But you have always had ants in your pants,” said my mother, Cynthia, recently when we were talking my need to be out and about.
Indeed I have, but they don’t call it that anymore. These days we have important names and alphabet soup for everything. What were then ants in your pants is now Attention Deficit Syndrome (ADS). There is apparently also Nature Deprivation Syndrome (NDS) and then we all have ETV and DSTV and that you get from too much Multichoice. And lets not forget the new ASDL which if you are lucky you may just get from Telkom.
Be that as it may, the reason I have been raving on about the mind-expanding advantages of travel is as a result of reading an article in a magazine I happened upon recently in which there was a story about a rock duo who call themselves the White Stripes.
The story was about their concert-playing trip to Brazil and it began by describing their travels on the Amazon River. It went on to describe their performance at Manaus Opera House or the Amazon Theatre (Teatro Amazonas).
In two seconds flat I was back in Manaus, on the river again, walking in the rainforest and recalling the sight of that opera house with is tiled dome glittering in the sun. Built in 1881 at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom, it was to be a jewel in the heart of the Amazonian rain forest and make Manaus one of the great centers of civilization.
Had I not traveled there my enjoyment of the article and my ability to picture what was being said would have been diminished.
Music does much the same for me. I remember arriving in London in the “hippy age” excited to be breathing the same air as the Rolling Stones. I went to Ireland, to Dublin just to walk down Cypress Avenue, made famous by Van Morrison with a song of the same name. And yes, I felt a cold shiver snake down my spine at the news of the Airbus that plunged into the Atlantic off the northern tip of Brazil last week. Not too long ago I boarded a flight at Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo that also flew over the Atlantic.
George, happy as he was in “ammersmif” would never have died in an air crash I guess, but neither would he have smelt the smoke of a wood fire in winter in the Karoo, swam in a lake during a lightning storm in Norway nor for that matter have been able to close his eyes and imagine the White Stripes on stage under tile-domed Teatro Amazonas.
This column appeared in the Cape Times on 8 June 2
At least it does so for me. Years ago I worked in a pub in London as a barman. George, the elderly geezer who managed the pub, turned to me in surprise one day after I had told him that I intended going from Hammersmith to Piccadilly Circus on my day off. “What on earth do you want to do that for? ” he asked. “ I have never left ‘ammersmiff.” I was born here, I went to school here and I have worked in this pub since the day I left school. Everything I need is here why on earth would I want to go to anywhere else?”
Months earlier I had traveled from South Africa to Luxembourg — with only R750 in traveller’s cheques to my name — caught a bus to Calais, then a train to Dover, then hitched my way to the top of the country. I touched the sea at John o’ Groats in Scotland then zigzagged back from coast to coast until I arrived in London, a month or so later, short of money so took a job in a pub.
I was astounded at George. Piccadilly Circus was just around the corner in a manner of speaking but he had never been curious enough to stray more than a few kilometres from his home. On the positive side his remark made me feel like a brave and intrepid explorer traveling to the corners of the earth.
“But you have always had ants in your pants,” said my mother, Cynthia, recently when we were talking my need to be out and about.
Indeed I have, but they don’t call it that anymore. These days we have important names and alphabet soup for everything. What were then ants in your pants is now Attention Deficit Syndrome (ADS). There is apparently also Nature Deprivation Syndrome (NDS) and then we all have ETV and DSTV and that you get from too much Multichoice. And lets not forget the new ASDL which if you are lucky you may just get from Telkom.
Be that as it may, the reason I have been raving on about the mind-expanding advantages of travel is as a result of reading an article in a magazine I happened upon recently in which there was a story about a rock duo who call themselves the White Stripes.
The story was about their concert-playing trip to Brazil and it began by describing their travels on the Amazon River. It went on to describe their performance at Manaus Opera House or the Amazon Theatre (Teatro Amazonas).
In two seconds flat I was back in Manaus, on the river again, walking in the rainforest and recalling the sight of that opera house with is tiled dome glittering in the sun. Built in 1881 at a time when fortunes were made in the rubber boom, it was to be a jewel in the heart of the Amazonian rain forest and make Manaus one of the great centers of civilization.
Had I not traveled there my enjoyment of the article and my ability to picture what was being said would have been diminished.
Music does much the same for me. I remember arriving in London in the “hippy age” excited to be breathing the same air as the Rolling Stones. I went to Ireland, to Dublin just to walk down Cypress Avenue, made famous by Van Morrison with a song of the same name. And yes, I felt a cold shiver snake down my spine at the news of the Airbus that plunged into the Atlantic off the northern tip of Brazil last week. Not too long ago I boarded a flight at Guarulhos airport in Sao Paulo that also flew over the Atlantic.
George, happy as he was in “ammersmif” would never have died in an air crash I guess, but neither would he have smelt the smoke of a wood fire in winter in the Karoo, swam in a lake during a lightning storm in Norway nor for that matter have been able to close his eyes and imagine the White Stripes on stage under tile-domed Teatro Amazonas.
This column appeared in the Cape Times on 8 June 2
Mr Lucky Chris Isaak
It’s great to have him back, singing his songs of love lost, love found, cheating hearts, happiness and loneliness. It’s been seven long years since his last studio album here he is again, on form, doing the heartbreak blues as only Mr Isaak can.
So let me point you to the tracks of the tears on this album in which celebrates just how lucky his is to be alive, and singing the songs he loves to sing.
That’s right. Lucky! He’s lucky he says in an interview, to be able live to sing and sing to live. And we, I suggest, are lucky that he has decided to stick to what he does best without any embellishment or attempt to be trendy, with remixes, overdubs and as Bo Diddley said “all that kinda stuff”.
So what do we have here? Well there’s track one, Cheaters Town, “ I’ve got a broken heart, torn in two and I don’t when I don’t know if I am ever coming home…. yeah baby you lied to me, you lied to me /you stood there you smiled you opened your heart and you lied (and) I don’t know when, I don’t know if, I'm ever comin home, “
Then there’s track 5, the wonderful Breaking Apart, done here in duet with Trisha Yearwood. It’s better then the original! Heartrending stuff. You feel the pain from the opening bars.
As far as the technical stuff goes Chris did much of the production himself assisted by Eric Rosse, who produces Tori Amos and Lisa Marie Presley, John Shanks who has produced for Sheryl Crow, Michelle Branch and Rod Stewart as well as his longtime mixer and collaborator Mark Needham. And apart from collaborating with Trisha Yearwood there’s Michelle Branch with whom he shares a lovely harmony on “I Lose My Heart” and “Baby, Baby.”
What more could any Chris Isaac fan want? Off you go then: buy it, rush home and pay it with your squeeze or play it alone you’ll love it. And if you don’t? Well baby you must have a heart of stone. EJH
So let me point you to the tracks of the tears on this album in which celebrates just how lucky his is to be alive, and singing the songs he loves to sing.
That’s right. Lucky! He’s lucky he says in an interview, to be able live to sing and sing to live. And we, I suggest, are lucky that he has decided to stick to what he does best without any embellishment or attempt to be trendy, with remixes, overdubs and as Bo Diddley said “all that kinda stuff”.
So what do we have here? Well there’s track one, Cheaters Town, “ I’ve got a broken heart, torn in two and I don’t when I don’t know if I am ever coming home…. yeah baby you lied to me, you lied to me /you stood there you smiled you opened your heart and you lied (and) I don’t know when, I don’t know if, I'm ever comin home, “
Then there’s track 5, the wonderful Breaking Apart, done here in duet with Trisha Yearwood. It’s better then the original! Heartrending stuff. You feel the pain from the opening bars.
As far as the technical stuff goes Chris did much of the production himself assisted by Eric Rosse, who produces Tori Amos and Lisa Marie Presley, John Shanks who has produced for Sheryl Crow, Michelle Branch and Rod Stewart as well as his longtime mixer and collaborator Mark Needham. And apart from collaborating with Trisha Yearwood there’s Michelle Branch with whom he shares a lovely harmony on “I Lose My Heart” and “Baby, Baby.”
What more could any Chris Isaac fan want? Off you go then: buy it, rush home and pay it with your squeeze or play it alone you’ll love it. And if you don’t? Well baby you must have a heart of stone. EJH
Sounds of the Universe
Depeche Mode
Frankly I liked In Chains, the opening track of this CD so much, with its kick-ass snarling guitarwork, that I found it hard to get to track two, so I asked a die-hard Depech Mode fan to give it a listen. And his is what Lieb Venter had to say.
“One minute, 24 seconds worth of patient expectation, as I wait for Depeche Mode’s opening track, In Chains, off their new album to kick off! As I turn onto the N1 north, Dave Gahan’s baritone voice fills my car, and a smile crosses my face. Expectation exceeded!
“From their earliest album, Speak and Spell, released in 1981 to their latest offering, Depeche Mode has always captivated their audience with unique and innovative sounds. Sounds of the Universe, is not any different, it delivers from start to finish with great vocals backed by hypnotic beats and guitar rhythms.
“Three decades of experience shines through on this album, I would happily drive to the end of the universe, and back, listening to this.
So there you are. But it you are still not sure, even All Music reviewer Ned Raggett loved it. “On the whole,” he writes “Sounds of the Universe is a grower and it shows Depeche Mode are still able to combine pop-hook accessibility and their own take on "roots" music for an electronic age with sonic experimentation and recombination — not bad for a band with almost three decades under its collective belt.”
As for me, I am still listening to track one and after all the raves looking forward to the rest. EJH
Depeche Mode
Frankly I liked In Chains, the opening track of this CD so much, with its kick-ass snarling guitarwork, that I found it hard to get to track two, so I asked a die-hard Depech Mode fan to give it a listen. And his is what Lieb Venter had to say.
“One minute, 24 seconds worth of patient expectation, as I wait for Depeche Mode’s opening track, In Chains, off their new album to kick off! As I turn onto the N1 north, Dave Gahan’s baritone voice fills my car, and a smile crosses my face. Expectation exceeded!
“From their earliest album, Speak and Spell, released in 1981 to their latest offering, Depeche Mode has always captivated their audience with unique and innovative sounds. Sounds of the Universe, is not any different, it delivers from start to finish with great vocals backed by hypnotic beats and guitar rhythms.
“Three decades of experience shines through on this album, I would happily drive to the end of the universe, and back, listening to this.
So there you are. But it you are still not sure, even All Music reviewer Ned Raggett loved it. “On the whole,” he writes “Sounds of the Universe is a grower and it shows Depeche Mode are still able to combine pop-hook accessibility and their own take on "roots" music for an electronic age with sonic experimentation and recombination — not bad for a band with almost three decades under its collective belt.”
As for me, I am still listening to track one and after all the raves looking forward to the rest. EJH
Review Clapton Winwood DVD
Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood
Live from Madison Square Garden
Reprise/Warner Music Group
At one stage in this mesmerising DVD, during a jam between himself and Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton drops his “professional musician at work mask” gets over himself and begins to play as if he is really having fun and enjoying every minute of it.
And there is no reason why he should not be having fun after all he’s up there on stage with an old mate and the world is at his fingertips.
Clearly Clapton is the more accomplished of the two, but Winwood adds a raw edge that makes the magic between these two palpable.
Clapton and Winwood go back to the early days when Briit pop was just beginning to look at the US Blues scene. They shared a flat and spent hours hunched over their guitars listening to blues records learning the notes one by one. Then Clapton went off to join John Mayall and Winwood joined the Spencer Davis group which had a hit with Gimme some Lovin’ before he went on to form Traffic.
Then at the height of the hippie era (now more than 40 years ago) they came together as Blind Faith, forming the first ever supergroup. They delivered one incredible album then broke up.
In an interview featured here, Clapton takes the blame for that. He was “unfaithful” he says. Went off with another band. So at last the truth has emerged. Apparently Steve took a long time to forgive him and they recently became friends again.
Now we have these two giants on the same stage jamming and having a lot of fun together.
In 20 recorded tracks they play the Blind Faith classic Presence of the Lord, some JJ Cale, some Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Child) some Traffic, Glad from Cream but mostly they jam, swapping notes, singing off and on key and pushing each other to the limit.
For those who weren’t there then and wonder what music was like when musicians such as these were at the top of the pile this is it. And it’s as astounding to watch, as it is to listen to. EJH
Live from Madison Square Garden
Reprise/Warner Music Group
At one stage in this mesmerising DVD, during a jam between himself and Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton drops his “professional musician at work mask” gets over himself and begins to play as if he is really having fun and enjoying every minute of it.
And there is no reason why he should not be having fun after all he’s up there on stage with an old mate and the world is at his fingertips.
Clearly Clapton is the more accomplished of the two, but Winwood adds a raw edge that makes the magic between these two palpable.
Clapton and Winwood go back to the early days when Briit pop was just beginning to look at the US Blues scene. They shared a flat and spent hours hunched over their guitars listening to blues records learning the notes one by one. Then Clapton went off to join John Mayall and Winwood joined the Spencer Davis group which had a hit with Gimme some Lovin’ before he went on to form Traffic.
Then at the height of the hippie era (now more than 40 years ago) they came together as Blind Faith, forming the first ever supergroup. They delivered one incredible album then broke up.
In an interview featured here, Clapton takes the blame for that. He was “unfaithful” he says. Went off with another band. So at last the truth has emerged. Apparently Steve took a long time to forgive him and they recently became friends again.
Now we have these two giants on the same stage jamming and having a lot of fun together.
In 20 recorded tracks they play the Blind Faith classic Presence of the Lord, some JJ Cale, some Jimi Hendrix (Voodoo Child) some Traffic, Glad from Cream but mostly they jam, swapping notes, singing off and on key and pushing each other to the limit.
For those who weren’t there then and wonder what music was like when musicians such as these were at the top of the pile this is it. And it’s as astounding to watch, as it is to listen to. EJH
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