Plastic Analysis

Welcome to a wet and miserable South Manchester where the rain is drizzling down and making my cats wet. You may think this is funny but it isn’t. Off they go outside through the cat flap and spend their time wandering around getting soaked before having a dig in soil and then coming back in, leaving a trail of dirty footprints on the kitchen floor, the windowsills and, arguably worst of all, the clean trousers that I put on this morning. To add insult to dirt, they shake like a dog to let me know how it feels to be outside at the moment. 

The good news this week is that my favourite band of all time, the Canadian band Rush, have extended their tour to include Europe and, in particular, Manchester where they will be playing at the brand new Co-op Arena. There will be a post about Rush coming soon (if you are interested) but the great news is that I managed to get a ticket despite the gig being pretty close to being sold out. Such is their popularity that they have added a second date in Manchester. I have to wait until next year but I already know it will be one of the gigs of 2027 for me. 

Let’s dive into a silly Sunday Stealing survey. 

Silly Survey Questions …

1. Did you/will you have coffee or some other form of caffeine today? 

I will have a cup of decaffeinated coffee later today. I stopped drinking caffeine around 2016 after I realized the effect it had on me. My boss asked me to come in early one Friday to fix something and because I succeeded he decided to reward me with several large mugs of what I can only describe as a nuclear caffeine bomb. I have to say that it tasted delightful but a couple of hours later I was so wired that I didn’t know what to do with myself at all. I’ve heard of the phrase “climbing the walls” but I was more like Spider-man; I honestly thought I could walk on the ceiling. I can’t imagine what I was like to talk to. I decided to eliminate caffeine that very day and that includes in tea. 

There are some places where the concept of decaffeinated coffee is as alien as Mork from Ork. A couple of years ago, I went to Amsterdam for a university reunion and at breakfast in a lovely café I asked the waiter for a decaffeinated coffee. He looked at me as if I had just grown a second head and, in a delightful Dutch accent he said “Decaffeinated coffee? We only have NORMAL coffee!” 

I sometimes indulge in coffee made from decaffeinated coffee grounds when I want to treat myself and that brings back memories of decent coffee from my past. 

I have to add finally that while I like coffee, I prefer tea (the decaffeinated variety). 

2. Who did you last have a text conversation with and what was it about? 

It was to my eldest son who was asking for my sister’s phone number so that he can invite her to a big party he is having later this year. 

3. Are there regular trains in and out of your town/city? 

There are hundreds of trains in and out of my city per day. Manchester has two enormous railway stations called Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly, as well as several smaller ones in the city centre. I can catch a direct train to most other UK major cities from there. For example, trains run to London two or three times and hour and it takes about two hours to travel the 200 miles between the cities. 

The local light railway or trams, called Metrolink, also has a station at each railway station making it easy for most Mancunians to get to the stations from the suburbs and surrounding towns.

4. Have you ever been hospitalised due to dehydration?

I have never been hospitalised. I drink lots of fluids so I rarely get dehydrated. 

5. Someone texts/IMs you just as you’re about to go to sleep. Do you reply? 

It depends on who it is and whether it is urgent. I will ignore it unless it requires my immediate attention. 

6. Do you grind your teeth?  

No – but Mrs PM does. She has woken me up doing it in the past. 

7. When you listen to music with headphones, do you keep the volume low enough to hear surrounding noise, or do you blast it?

It depends on where I am. I have a pair of earbuds and when I am out walking in the morning, I have it on a very low volume so that I can hear what is going on. However, if I am walking on a main road, I usually turn up the volume a little to lessen the impact of the engines of buses, cars and lorries. If ai am in a park I have the volume as low as possible.

On trains, trams and aircraft, I have the volume a little higher to lessen the impact of the engines of the vehicle I am travelling in. 

In a car, I don’t use my earbuds. 

8. Are you wearing nail polish?

Absolutely not. I have never worn it and I never will (unless for some crazy reason I decide to become a rock star or an actor in my old age – and even then I will only do it if I am paid a lot of money to do so). 

9. Do you have an ice maker in your refrigerator door?

No, sadly. I think it would be a useful thing to have. Mrs PM’s dad has one and in the summer it is quite useful. We (or should I say Mrs PM) plan to have a new kitchen in a year or two so we may consider it then. 

10. Do you have a friend named James?

Yes – I have several friends called James. One of my oldest friends, who I met at university, is called James but I haven’t seen him for about twenty years sadly. Closer to home I have an old workmate who I still keep in touch with called James. 

Oddly both of them insist on being called James as opposed to Jim.  I used to work with a guy called Jim and I used to call him “Jimbo” with the emphasis on the “BO”. Why? Because one of the first things he said to me was “Don’t call me Jimbo!”. It’s an unwritten law amongst a lot of blokes that if you react negatively to a name or a nickname then that name will stick. I discovered this to my own cost many years ago and occasionally I have to deal with old friends who still call me a nickname from a few years ago because I objected. 

Neil Peart

Another one of my musical heroes has gone and this is one of the saddest of them all. Neil Peart died on January 7th 2020 at the age of 67 from brain cancer.

Neil was the drummer of my favourite rock band, Rush, who retired a few years ago after a wonderful career spanning 40 years. While a lot of people may have heard of the band, their songs rarely received the airplay they deserved. Yet this magnificent trio of legends, Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee had a huge cult following and regularly embarked on stadium tours all over the world to huge audiences of fans just like me.

I was lucky enough to witness their legendary stage performances four times, from the first time in 1983 in Birmingham at the National Exhibition Centre to their final British tour supporting their last album, Clockwork Angels, in 2013 at the Manchester Arena.

The band have been part of my life since the late 1970’s with their unique and influential style of progressive rock and for almost all significant life events, there is a Rush song or Rush album that can take me back to those moments in time.

Neil Peart was the drummer of the band and also the lyricist, producing poignant and profound words for songs with subjects that people wouldn’t necessarily write about normally. From the age of around 18 I would always get really excited whenever Rush announced a new album. Their discography includes 19 albums and they all raced into the album charts in many countries.

According to Wikipedia, they are an impressive third behind only the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for the most consecutive gold or platinum records by a rock band. Yet, sadly, many people have never been exposed to their music. They were almost the most famous band that people didn’t really know.

Rolling Stone magazine placed Neil Peart as the 4th greatest drummer of all time behind only Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham and as well as being a virtuoso with one of the biggest drum kits I have ever seen he was also a part time writer, producing three books later on in his life about his travels.

All of this gives me an opportunity to show off just how brilliant Rush were. I present to you below a song from each of the last five decades showing how the band evolved and what they meant to me at that time.

1970’s – Closer To The Heart from A Farewell To Kings (1977)

This was the very first song by Rush that I heard. At the time I was just getting into heavy metal and rock music, as were a lot of my old pals from school, and the albums A Farewell To Kings and the magnificent 2112 used to do the rounds as people bought the albums and lent them to their mates to record onto tape. I borrowed A Farewell To Kings and recorded it onto a battered old tape but eventually I actually bought the album because I enjoyed it so much. The song itself was a fan favourite and also actually made it into the UK singles charts.

1980’s – Mystic Rhythms from Power Windows (1985)

Rush became my favourite band in the early 1980’s when I saw them live for the first time. They were prolific releasing seven albums in the decade. I could have chosen any one of the songs from the albums of that decade because I love them all – no exceptions. I chose Mystic Rhythms for two reasons. First of all, it showcases what a great drummer Neil Peart was. Second, I was commuting down to London from Manchester every other week, because of a long distance relationship with my ex-wife and the album Power Windows was my constant companion on my old Sony Walkman, keeping me sane on the journey there and back and across the mayhem that was the London Underground. I hated that commute but the music kept me sane and allowed me drift of into my own little world as I endured the tedious two and a half hour journey there and back and the chaos of London on a Friday evening.

1990’s – Nobody’s Hero from Counterparts (1993)

Counterparts is the album that coincides with the first of my two lads being born. I used to play the album at a low volume in the middle of the night as I took my turn trying to get my baby to sleep and Nobody’s Hero was particularly good for relaxing and rocking him to sleep. There are a couple of more heavy songs on the album and my main goal was to get him to drift off to this particular song. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t but I didn’t mind too much because it meant that I could listen to the entire album. It sounded as good at 3am as it did at any other time of the day. Coincidentally, the follow up to Counterparts was called Test for Echo and that was released in1996, the year that my second lad was born. That, too sounded pretty good at 3am.

2000’s – Secret Touch from Vapor Trails (2002)

Neil Peart had a double tragedy in the late 1990’s, losing his daughter in 1997 in a car crash and his wife 10 months later from cancer. The way he dealt with the pain was to take a huge sabbatical and travel 55,000 miles on a motorcycle, writing about his experience and the healing process in his book Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. At the time, I thought that the band was finished and I would never see another Rush album again. However, after a period of about four years, Neil announced to Geddy and Alex that he would return to the band and the result was the 2002 album Vapor Trails.

I have chosen the song Secret Touch because it is possibly the only song by Rush that Mrs PM has admitted to liking. I was listening to it a few years ago, and she came up behind me and said “Who’s this? I quite like this one.” I almost fell off my chair because Mrs PM has been very vocal in expressing her displeasure for the music I listen to. Of course, it has given me an excuse to play the song more often when she is around.

2010’s – Headlong Flight from Clockwork Angels (2012)

Clockwork Angels is the final album by Rush and is also one of my favourite albums by the band. It also coincides with the last time I saw them live. Headlong Flight is a monster of a song and when I look at my iTunes application on my laptop, this song is my second most played song since I first installed it. I think the album is magnificent and for me, it is like stepping back in time to the late 1970’s and 1980’s when I played their music all the time. I’m glad that I can play it on my laptop because I would have worn the CD out by now. I have to admit to trying to persuade Mrs PM that this song is worth a listen to but she is not impressed.

I am glad that Rush finished on a high but I am sad they retired soon after, due to Neil Peart suffering from arthritis after decades of pounding the drums.

A Drum Solo and a Speech

I’ll leave you with a drum solo from the master himself just to show how utterly brilliant he was. Also, the Rush acceptance speech, including Neil,, when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Rest in peace Neil and thank you for the music.

The Weapon

There is a song I by Rush called The Weapon and some of the lyrics are particularly relevant:

“And the things that we fear are a weapon to be held against us”

The media thrive on it and also use it to make us (a) buy their paper (because they claim to tell us how it is) and (b) force their political agenda on to us.

Here are some headlines related to Brexit that came from The Daily Express - one of the worst papers on the entire planet:

“New EU Rules Wreck Pensions”

“Each Illegal Immigrant To Cost Us £1million”

“Britain 40% Surge In Ethnic Numbers”

“No Job Unless You’re Polish”

All of these headlines are meant to scare gullible people and persuade them to alter their thinking.

I don’t believe a single word of them. And if you read closely they are written by people with a deep political agenda. Of course, the same is true on the other side of the political spectrum too.

Moreover, fear is used as a means to sell us things that we don’t necessarily need. Salesmen use it all the time. Let me give you an example.

The first property I bought was a brand new three bedroomed semi-detached house that was just a lump of dirt when we actually reserved it from the house building company. We were so proud when we eventually moved in to this brand new estate with similar young people. I was 24 years old.

And then the vultures appeared.

We were swamped by door to door salesmen trying to acquire what little money we had left. One in particular sticks in my mind.

He arrived at 8pm and tried to sell us a burglar alarm. We stupidly let him in and allowed him to demonstrate his device to us. After an hour of his high pressure sales pitch he offered us a piece of paper to confirm the purchase.

“It’s too expensive,” I said. “We’re not interested.”

He was one of those middle-aged salesmen who refuse to take no for an answer. At first he offered us a package where we could pay in monthly instalments and when we refused that, he offered us a deal.

“I can get you 10% off the asking price,” he told us. “My boss will have my guts for garters but I’ll do it for you.”

“What part of “NO!” do you not understand?” said my (ex) wife.

 He tried another tactic.

“Do you care about your family?” he asked me.

I was taken aback by this.

“Of course I do,” I replied.

“It doesn’t seem that way,” he replied. “If your wife came back and surprised a burglar, who knows what could happen? With this alarm, that will never happen because no burglar will get past you front door.”

I didn’t like this one little bit.

“Get out,” I said, now quite angry. “I’m not interested.”

That didn’t deter him. He then started talking about another scenario where my brand new house could be wrecked, my wife injured and my property destroyed.

He was trying to scare us both into giving him money so that our house would be protected. My ex-wife was also not taken in by this. She actually got up, opened the front door and said “Please leave!”

“Are you sure?” he asked me again.

“Yes,” she said, answering for me. “Now go before I call the police.”

She gave him a taste of his own medicine because he said “No need to be like that!” before leaving.

It taught me a lesson about dealing with salesmen, particularly those high pressure types who squat in your house until you sign the bit of paper just to get rid of them.

If you think about it, there are certain companies that use fear to con you into buying things you don’t need. As well as the home security example above, we have things like:

Products that make you look younger. Obviously there are a plethora of anti-ageing products for women that will get rid of those wrinkles but for men we have hair-dye that miraculously turns a decrepit grey-haired old man into an Adonis who has to beat off women with a shitty stick. Like this load of old bollocks:

Products that stop you catching a disease. We all know that if you catch a bad cold, you may need to take a day off work. But certain adverts imply that without their flu remedy you will have to take days off work and probably be sacked as a result. As a hypochondriac, I feel particularly vulnerable when it comes to disease prevention. These bastards are targetting me.

The media. Yes, I know. I feel that I am constantly moaning about the newspaper companies using lies and sensationalist headlines to make us buy their newspapers and even influencing the way people think as I mentioned above. I am certain that they invent stories to scare people and when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of them, there is no substance.

Insurance companies. Mrs PM and I were conned into buying pet insurance for our cats. And then, when I thought about it, and did all the maths, I realised that that I would only save money if the cats became very ill once a year and had to be dragged clawing and screaming to the vet. I am glad that I cancelled it because Jasper and Poppy are now fifteen years old and I shudder when I think about how much pet insurance would have cost in the meantime. There are some insurance policies that you need, for example home and car insurance (but even then home insurance is preying on your fears of being burgled). But do people really need to insure their body parts, for example?

Jennifer Lopez and Kylie Minogue have supposedly insured their arses; Julia Roberts has insured her teeth; Mariah Carey has insured her legs; Dolly Parton and Madonna have insured their boobs; Keith Richards has insured his hands.

I wonder what body part I should insure? Actually, there are no bits of my body worth insuring. At my age, most of it is defunct and drooping now anyway.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 30

Today’s song is another by Canadian power trio Rush, called Cut ToThe Chase.

This is a song about chasing your dreams and ignoring those who try to dissuade you because they think it is a waste of time.

Everybody should have dreams and strive for them, otherwise what is the point of being alive? I truly believe that with a little willpower, it is possible to achieve your ultimate desires; history is full of such people.

Some people choose to be proactive but others simply wait until they are older and add desires to their bucket list when they realise that death is approaching.

I know that death is following me around and while I am doing my best to outrun him, I am relatively content not to create a bucket list of things that I feel I need to do before the Grim Reaper finally impales me on his scythe.

To be honest, I feel it’s now too late to try some of the things I would have attempted as a young man.

Age and sensibility have taken over and, for example, the very idea of hurling myself out of an aircraft with nothing but a huge silk sheet attached to my back with rope does not appeal to me in the slightest.

I might actually have tried it at the age of 20 when my fear of heights was non-existent.

Other features of growing old would simply interfere with such desires.

That’s not to say that I don’t have dreams – I do. But the difference is that I don’t want to achieve them just to cross an entry off a list and boast about my achievement to other people. I don’t want to tell my mates that I swam naked in the Mediterranean Sea for many reasons, not least of all that the mental image of me stumbling into a cold sea showing my fat arse and worse would be something that they would never forgive me for.

An image like that remains etched in the area of the brain marked “OH MY GOD!” for eternity.

Friends' response would almost certainly be a tsunami of verbal abuse that would make Quentin Tarantino run away in shock.

Actually, I realise that I may have given you the same mental image of a strategically shaved ape waddling into the sea, dear reader. I am truly sorry about that.

My dreams are personal ones and a lot of them are ongoing. Additionally, there are some that I haven’t even thought of yet.

I believe that no matter how old you get, you should continue to strive to make yourself happy with achievable and pleasant dreams that you can still manage. Put aside thoughts of having a dangerous liaison with the Angel of Death – you can’t do anything about that but you may bring forward the date if you decided that abseiling down the Eiffel Tower was something you feel like you must do.

What’s wrong with making an effort to be nice to people?

What about travelling?

What about writing that book of your innermost thoughts that your family friends can enjoy after the Grim Reaper carts you away?

All of the above are on my list, as is meeting as many new people as possible (as long as I can rid myself of the Shyness Beast).

Such things are easy, dear reader.

I bet you’re still thinking about a naked ape in the Mediterranean aren’t you?

Progressive Thoughts - Day 12

Today’s song is another by Rush. This is a recent one called Headlong Flight, which basically talks about how being happy about your life despite the ups and downs that you have had to endure.

As you can expect, in 54 years of living on this weird planet, there have been quite a few ups and downs, a lot of which I’ve bored readers with in the (almost) nine years I’ve been writing crap for the world to read.

In the grand scheme of things, however, my contribution to the history of this planet (or more accurately, the history of humanity on this planet) is in fact so tiny that it is negligible. In two hundred years’ time, my contribution to history will probably only be a footnote in the hobby of a descendant researching their family history. That assumes that I am lucky enough to have descendants at that time. I have two boys at the moment and I would like to hope that they will both produce clones who will also produce clones (etc. etc. etc.).

What will they discover?

With any luck, they will find an ancient blog out there on whatever the internet evolves into and hopefully they will regard my wittering as something they can appreciate, despite all of its flaws.

As I get older, I find myself looking backwards to the past more and more often. There are constant reminders, such as music, television programmes and people dying (as morbid as that sounds) that remind me of times gone by and I am beginning to feel an urge to scribble it all down in a medium other than an amateur blog.

That’s why, a couple of years ago, I started scribbling down a kind of autobiography. As usual, procrastination has been victorious and beaten me into submission so I have left it untouched for at least a year. My main reason for starting it was to hand it down to my lads so that they could remember me when the Grim Reaper knocks at my door.

I didn’t do this for selfish reasons. On the contrary, I want them to see what my life was like before they were born first hand rather than looking at history books primarily because I regret not finding out more about my own family history.

My own family may seem unremarkable in the grand scheme of things but when you dig down there are some nuggets of interest.

My grandmother’s brother, for example, was killed in World War I and my grandad was a prisoner of war in World War II.

These stories are gold and I hate the fact that, as a child, I didn’t interrogate my grandad about his experiences in those tragic times.  I can’t change that now because, sadly, there is nobody around to inform me.

My own life is far less exciting, as readers will agree. Nevertheless, there are some nuggets even in my life that may be of interest to future generations. For that reason, I aim to complete my stupid little autobiography and possibly even to delve into my own family history and write something about that.

Who knows what I may uncover?

I may even find an old book written by an ancient ancestor of mine full of rants about how unfair life was back then.

Now wouldn’t that be interesting.

Progressive Thoughts - Day 7

A progressive rock blogathon wouldn’t be complete without a song from my favourite band of all time, the Canadian power trio that is Rush.

This song is called Mystic Rhythms from the 1985 album Power Windows.

 The album is right up there with my favourites of all time and reminds me of commuting between Manchester and London. At the time I was in a long distance relationship with my ex-wife. We weren’t married yet but she had moved to the south of England as a temporary measure.

It was a real strain and expensive too. I used to listen to the album repeatedly during the journey that, at the time, took almost four hours each way, every other week. These days the journey is a lot quicker and more enjoyable, thankfully.

I don’t regret doing so but at the time, it was a challenge.

I think this happened for about a year and during that time I ploughed through more novels than I have ever done at any time in my life. I alternated between reading and listening to music on my Sony Walkman, which bizarrely was considered the height of music technology at the time. That little device saved my sanity but the problem was I had to take a bagful of cassette tapes with me.

Alongside the novels, it made my overnight luggage heavier than expected.

These days I can take one tiny little iPod with me that contains my entire CD collection plus a Kindle that can accommodate hundreds of books. It’s so much easier, although I do have to make sure that they are both fully charged, particularly for long journeys and has made them more enjoyable as a result.

Actually, when I say “more enjoyable”, what I really mean is “less tedious”. Though I am a keen traveller, the actual travelling to my destination is not really enjoyable at all. I’ve spent many a blog post ranting about travelling, particularly long distance flying so I won’t go down that road again. To be honest, back in 1985, train travel was pretty much the same.

Worse, London is a hub and for many of the towns and cities in the south east of England, you would have to get to London, cross London and then take another train out. Getting across London these days takes almost as long as actually getting there.

And if you are unlucky enough to arrive during the rush hour then you are totally screwed. You end up standing on a platform with seemingly thousands of fellow travellers waiting for the next train.

When the train actually arrives, invariably it is full and cannot accommodate the sheer volume of people waiting to get on. This doesn’t stop everyone trying to get on board and if you are lucky enough to actually manage that, you find yourself crammed up against total strangers. Personal space is non-existent during such journeys.

Most of the time, you don’t know where to look. I tend to look up simply because it is awkward when you are pressed up against a total stranger, particularly if it is a woman. When this happens, I don’t know where to put myself – and I simply don’t have a choice.

It can be embarrassing.

Thankfully, if the train isn’t crowded, the journey is more tolerable and I can entertain myself watching my fellow passengers, in a non-creepy way of course. Some of the people who live in London or just visit are actually quite eccentric – and I love eccentricity. I particularly love places like Camden Town and Camden Market where a lot of these people are drawn too.

Campden Town

It's not everyday you see the Mad Hatter on the streets of London

People-watching is one of the things that also make travel more tolerable. It is a pastime that quite a few people enjoy and I sometimes wonder what these people make of a weirdo like me.

Do they regard me as eccentric or just plain boring.

To be honest, I regard myself as slightly weird but not excessively so, and I imagine that people ‘s eyes just gloss over me in search of a more interesting person.

And believe me there are plenty of them about.

Rock Fusion

I’m off on my travels again on Monday and I can’t wait. I’m heading west across the pond again but this time, I’m heading south of the Equator to Brazil. We are starting off in Lisbon for a day before flying to Salvador, Iguazu Falls, Rio de Janeiro and finally a couple of days by the beach in Búzios.

We’ve never been to South America before and I am looking forward to crossing off another country from my travel bucket list.

I will post more details on my return but in the meantime I thought I would offer you a couple of rock songs that cross over into other genres. 

Regular readers know that I love rock music and I my quest to introduce new music to readers will continue (sorry about that). The songs below are all probably by artists you haven’t heard before but have been influenced by other musical styles.

Rock meets 1980’s Pop – Yes – Owner of a Lonely Heart

I love pop music from the early 1980’s and Yes, a progressive rock band, produced the perfect fusion of this style with rock. Many die-hard fans of Yes hate this song accusing it of being too commercial and that the band sold out. I totally disagree. I love it and it was of my favourite songs from the 1980’s.

Rock meets Reggae – Rush  - Digital Man

Regular readers will know that Rush are my favourite band and they often incorporate other musical styles into their songs, which is one of the reasons I love them so much. This particular song has a heavy reggae influence throughout.

Rock meets Blues  - Led Zeppelin – I Can’t Quit You, Baby

To be fair, Led Zeppelin started life as a blues band and evolved into something that many people think was the start of heavy metal. As you can see from the song below from their eponymous debut album the band’s roots are deeply embedded in the blues.



Rock meets Gospel – The Answer – Preachin’

I love a good bit of gospel and when combined with a bit of rock and a slide guitar, it is a recipe for a cracking feel good song. The Answer are a cracking British rock band who I first saw before they were famous in a tiny venue in Manchester. The next time, they were supporting AC/DC at the Manchester Arena. They are definitely worth checking out.

Rock meets Jazz – Nightwish – Slow Love Slow

Nightwish are a Finnish symphonic metal band who regularly cross musical genres. I am not a huge fan of jazz music at all but this particular slow and sensual song is just brilliant and wouldn’t feel out of place in a 1950’s jazz club. Here are the band performing it live at the Montreux Jazz festival:

Rock meets Latin American – Santana – Smooth

Okay – Carlos Santana is from Mexico so it’s hardly unexpected that his music is heavily influenced by his Latin American roots. However, he is a fantastic guitarist and in my humble opinion it makes his style of Latin American music much more enjoyable.

Rock meets Dance – Nine Inch Nails – Only

Nine Inch Nails have always flirted with electronica (which is the main reason they are one of my favourite bands). Only is a great little song that borders on being a pop song. It’s certainly a song that would persuade me to jump onto the dance floor and strut my funky stuff, even though these days I look like an embarrassing old man at a wedding.

Rock meets Mexican Mariachi – Rammstein – Te Quiero Puta!

Rammstein are always producing bizarre songs and this is arguably the most bizarre of them all. Most fans of the band hate the song but I find it quirky and intriguing. It is sung in Spanish and I won’t bother translating the words for you (because as you can guess they are offensive).

Rock meets Opera – Nightwish – The Passion and the Opera

The original singer of Nightwish, the fabulous Tarja Turunen, has an amazing and very operatic voice. To be honest, I could have chosen many more early songs by Nightwish to illustrate her vocal capabilities, but I selected this one because it focusses more on the operatic range of her voice. I’m not a fan of opera at all but somehow her voice fits in snugly with the heavy music. About two minutes into this song you can hear for yourself how operatic her voice is.

Rock meets Techno – Joe Satriani – Devil’s Slide

Joe Satriani is a brilliant guitarist, arguably the greatest rock guitarist in the world. The album Engines of Creation is probably the most experimental he has produced, with synthesisers and computer manipulation taking centre stage alongside his guitar genius rather than the traditional drums, bass and keyboards.



I hope you enjoyed the songs and I will see you in a couple of weeks.

The Poet

I was tempted to call this post Poetry is Rubbish.

The truth is that generally I find what’s known as serious poetry genuinely is rubbish, a sort of pseudo-intellectual bullshit similar to contemporary art.

Contemporary artists use paint, bricks, unmade beds or in some cases absolutely nothing to appeal to pseudo-intellectuals, inspiring them to wax lyrical about what the painting says to them, using quotes from philosophers and basically talking nonsense to make themselves seem to be more clever than the rest of us.

Some poets do exactly the same – but with words instead of weird materials.

When I was at school, my English teacher forced me to write a critical essay comparing two poems about horses. I read them both and didn’t understand a bloody word. I didn’t trust my English teacher, a man who had forced me to read The Mayor of Casterbridge (arguably the worst book I have ever read) and hailed William Shakespeare as a kind of modern genius (read my post Shakespeare is Rubbish  for my thoughts on the bard).

I was tempted to write the shortest critical essay ever:

The poems are both about horses and they are both rubbish.

Instead, I pretended to be a pseudo-intellectual and wrote a load of old horseshit (pardon the pun). Guess what? I got a good grade and that essay helped me to pass my O-Level English Literature. Incidentally, I had to write essays about William Shakespeare’s plays and The Mayor of Casterbridge as well.

My only conclusion is that all you have to do succeed in English Literature is pretend to be a pseudo-intellectual.

I stand by this.

In fact, I once wrote a poem on this very blog. The poem was proof that anybody can devolve into a pseudo-intellectual and, with the aid of a dictionary and thesaurus, can come up with any old rubbish.

Here for your pleasure (or otherwise) that poem entitled The Loquacious Figment:

I contemplated the torso of a despondent galactic masterpiece

And my heart thanked my voracious sight.

I hastened my swiftness, disoriented by my awareness

Yet somehow did not submit to fright.

It’s utter garbage. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. It took me about two minutes to write.

If there is anybody who thinks it is good, then let me know and I will write an entire book filled with this kind of nonsense and – perhaps – make some money out of it.

Yeah right!!!!

Anyway, you are probably wondering why I decided not to call this post Poetry is Rubbish. The truth is that there are poems out there that I actually quite like. These are usually silly limericks, puerile nonsense and, most importantly of all, the works of terrific songwriters.

Songs are simply poems put to music and I have some terrific thought-provoking songs in my collection that can stand alone as poetry.

Here are some examples of silly little limericks:

A stupid young man from Crewe

Once decided to build a canoe.

When out on the river

He found, with a shiver, 

He’d forgot to use waterproof glue

A funny young fellow named Perkins

Was terribly fond of small gherkins.

One day after tea

He ate ninety three

And pickled his internal workings.

I have also written poetry for a couple of friends on their birthdays. Here’s an example (with the names changed to protect the guilty):

A new decade's upon you; it's your 50th today.

The little hair that you have left will soon be turning grey.

You still play squash and cycle, to cling onto your youth.

But soon your muscles will give way, along with every tooth.

And when your gums are toothless (and chewing is a chore)

The only food you'll manage will be sucked up through a straw.

You take your lady dancing (Mimi is her name)

But believe me, waltzing's tricky when you use a zimmer frame.

Your pension is approaching more quickly than you think.

But forget that for the moment - we'll buy you lots of drink

To wish you HAPPY BIRTHDAY and, if I may be so bold,

To make sure you remember, Bill, that you are VERY OLD.

Now I’m over fifty myself, I think that might have hurt.

Moving on to songs, I think that the words can be almost as powerful as the music itself. In some cases, the words actually elevate a song for me. Here are some examples:

Rush – Nobody’s Hero

Dream Theater – The Answer Lies Within

I can only conclude therefore that poetry is not rubbish, only those pretentious poems seemingly auto-generated from a dictionary.

Well, I feel inspired to write another on for you, dear reader. Picture the scene. I have opened my browser and have begun looking for quotes from celebrated philosophers. I am devolving into a pseudo-intellectual.

I am now an arrogant smartarse who is looking down on the world. My inspiration is complete. In the words of Plato:

“The beginning is the most important part of the work”.

I present to you: The Enigmatic Equation:

The imperceptible formula, cloaked in derangement,

Struggles to reveal its worth.

Yet the analyst blindly persists in frustration

Anticipating its Caesarian birth 

What a load of gibberish. I hope you agree.

Over to you, dear reader.

Do you like poetry?

If so, does all of it make sense to you? Am I just being thick?

Do song lyrics inspire you?

Rush - The Meme

Following on from my last rant about music, I thought I would be a little more positive in this post. I don’t expect this to be a post that people will enjoy too much because it is a little self-indulgent. In these deep dark January days I need a little self-indulgence.

Regular readers will know that I often mention my favourite band, the progressive rock power trio from Canada called Rush. Well, I have discovered a meme that allows me to explain why they hold this lofty position in my musical world and, hopefully, to introduce the band to anybody who has not heard of them.

This year is their 40th anniversary and they have somehow survived with a cult following for all this time despite receiving very little, if any airplay. Mrs PM, for one, was stunned two years ago that this band sold out the Manchester Arena, the largest music venue in the city. She would never have heard of them if it hadn’t been for me.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the meme and hopefully it will give a little insight into why I love the band and a little history of how they rose to the throne in my musical world.

1. How long have you been a fan?

I have been a fan since 1982, when a friend at university lent me a tape of their latest album at that time called Signals.

I had heard of the band before, when I was at school, because a lad in my school urged people to listen to, what he then described as, the greatest band on the planet. Being a hormone-fuelled arse at the time, I chose to ignore him.

At university I mellowed and grew up a little. I remember putting the tape on and listening to the first song, Subdivisions, a song about dreamers living in suburbia and being regarded as pariahs for not living the mundane “cool” life that suburbia demands:

Subdivisions

In the high school halls

In the shopping malls

Conform or be cast out

Subdivisions 

In the basement bars

In the backs of cars

Be cool or be cast out

I was totally blown away. This was a band that wrote intelligent songs about interesting things. On the strength of that one album I paid a fortune, as a poor student, to travel about 80 miles from Liverpool to Birmingham to see them live. That concert, way back in the early 1980’s, was when I handed my soul to Rush.

I’ve been a fan ever since.

2. Do you remember the first song of theirs you heard?

Strangely the first song I heard was a radio friendly song that somehow crept into the back end of the UK charts in 1978 called Closer To The Heart. It didn’t really appeal to me as I was just drifting into heavy metal at the time and, compared to bands like Black Sabbath, it was just a short vaguely pleasant rock song.

3. What’s your favourite album(s)?

I have all of their studio albums apart from the first three – that’s 17 albums if you count the extended play album called Feedback. I love them all but the following stand out:

Signals (1982)  - the first album I really loved by the band – it was their 9th album!

Power Windows (1985) – this album was my best friend on long distance commutes every other weekend to London during my long distance relationship with my ex-wife.

Counterparts (1993) – I just love this album; it has some great songs.

Clockwork Angels (2012) – Their most recent studio album is a return to their progressive rock roots and pays tribute to their earlier work while maintaining a modern forward looking feel.

4. What’s your favourite song(s)?

This is a really difficult question as there are simply so many to choose from. Here are three off the top of my head (ask me tomorrow and I will pick three more).

Red Barchetta (from Moving Pictures (1981):

Stick It Out (from Counterparts (1993):

Headlong Flight (from Clockwork Angels 2012):

5. Have you ever seen them live? (How often?)

I have seen Rush five times live. The first time I have mentioned above and was back in 1982 at the NEC in Birmingham. I travelled down to Birmingham again in 1989 to see them on the Presto tour. All of the other times were at the Manchester Arena, in 2002 for the Vapor Trails tour, for their 30th anniversary tour in 2005 and finally in 2013 for the Clockwork Angels tour.

6. Have you ever met them?

No I haven’t, sadly, but I would love to meet them and discuss their music and the inspiration behind it.

7. Do you have a favourite era of their career?

Die hard Rush fans may disagree with this but from 1982 to 1993, keyboards and synthesisers played a major part in their music. While I love all of their music, I have a particular soft spot for the albums of that period.

8. Do you have their autograph or a photo with them?

As I said, I have never met the band so the answer is no.

9. Is there a song or album of theirs you dislike?

There are a couple of songs that I am not too keen on; I am not such a die-hard fan that I love every single piece of music they have composed. A couple of albums disappointed me, although not all of the songs on them are bad. My least favourite albums are Roll The Bones (1991) and Test For Echo (1996).

Having said that, I still listen to them occasionally.

10. What do they or their music mean to you?

Rush have provided a soundtrack to my life since 1982 – and before if you count my old school friend who I should really have listened too in the 1970’s. For every major event in my life since that time, I can mention one or more Rush songs that remind me of those times, both good and bad. If they ever make a movie out of my life, Rush will feature heavily in the soundtrack.

11. Would you pay £200 for a front row ticket?

No. Having said that, I have a limit on ticket prices, which I rarely exceed, but did so for the last concert I saw them play in 2013. I paid £84, mainly because I thought that I may not get the chance to see them again, but also because Clockwork Angels was such a great album.

I have to say that a Rush concert is worth every penny normally because the band has no support and, since they have so much material, they play for around three hours.

12. Do you get annoyed when other people don’t like them?

Not really. I may rant about music but I don’t try to enforce it on people. I am just keen for people to explore outside the box that we find ourselves in thanks to the greedy music industry. One thing does surprise me about Rush; a lot of people are closet fans. A friend of mine heard that I was going to see Rush in 2005 and actually phoned me up asking me to get him a ticket. I didn’t even know he was a fan. That’s the good thing about Rush – there are lots of secret Rush fans out there, despite the fact that they are unfashionable.


13. Which artist do you want them to collaborate with?

I don’t want them to collaborate with anybody because there music would be diluted. Having said that, many other artists have performed their songs, like Dream Theater. When the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I discovered that the Foo Fighters are huge fans of the band and actually performed live with them, impersonating the band at first before Rush joined them on stage. If you are a Rush/Foo Fighters fan you will find this video entertaining, with Dave Grohl impersonating a younger Alex Lifeson:

Also from that same induction, Alex Lifeson’s speech is quite memorable and quite embarrassing for his fellow band members who had no idea about what he was going to say (he is the last member of the band to speak). You can see their amused discomfort (start at 4:36 if you don’t want to see the first speeches):

The audience seemed to like it anyway.

14. Are they underappreciated/unknown?

They are not unknown but I think they are underappreciated for the same reasons that I ranted about in my last post, that is, they are rarely played on the radio.

15. Is there a song of them that everybody likes but you dislike?

They have a song that is a token rock song. You may have heard it:

Actually, I still like it.

And Finally ...

I liked this self-indulgent meme and I think I may repeat it for some other bands I like that are unknown or underrated.

Sorry about the self-indulgence.

I needed it.

Yet Another Music Meme

I love a good meme and I love a good music meme even more. I have discovered yet another one while prowling cyberspace so without further ado, let’s get going.

1. Which bands/artist do you own the most albums by?

That’s easy – Rush. Given that the band is very soon celebrating their 40th anniversary, and they have been my favourite band since 1981, it’s kind of obvious really. In total I have nineteen albums by the band, including live recordings. Let’s hope they continue to make superb music for a while yet.

2. What was the last song you listened to?

I am currently have iTunes on shuffle on my desk top and the song that has just finished is Here Is The News by Electric Light Orchestra, a classic from the early 1980’s.

3. What’s in your CD player right now?

The song I am currently listening to is Every Day Is Exactly The Same by Nine Inch Nails:

So the album is With Teeth (by the same band of course).

4. What was the last show you attended?

The last gig I went to was Within Temptation at the Manchester Apollo, earlier this year. For those of you who haven’t heard of them, they are a symphonic metal band from Holland.

5. What was the greatest show you’ve ever been to?

I think that would have to be Rammstein, a highly controversial German industrial metal band who sing almost exclusively in German yet are massively popular among the metal loving English speaking world. The show was incredible, full of fire, fun and a massive audience of English people all singing in German – myself included.

6. What’s the worst show you’ve ever been to?

That’s easy – Cher. My ex-wife persuaded me against my better judgement to drive all the way to the Birmingham NEC in the late 1980’s to see this so-called superstar. The support was fairly dreadful but Cher simply took the piss in terms of value for money. I was used to seeing the feature artist on stage for at least an hour and a half. Sher came on and sang a few songs, changed her costume every five minutes and played for just over an hour. The best bit of the concert was when she disappeared for five minutes and left her dancers to show their art to a fairly good rock instrumental – but even that was ruined by a big screen showing us all how great Cher was at singing and acting. At the time it was the most expensive gig I had been to, which is another reason why I hated it.

7. What’s the most musically involved you have ever been?

I guess that means taking part in a musical act of some kind. I have played a trombone in the school orchestra at Walsall Town Hall in front of an appreciative audience of parents and teachers and also played in a brass group in the school hall in front of a similar bunch of people, including a stand up solo to the Floral Dance. How embarrassing.

8. What show are you looking forward to?

I have three concerts lined up in the next few months but the one I am looking forward to most is Steel Panther, a kind of extreme version of Spinal Tap who take the piss out of 1980’s heavy metal. They are extremely  rude and offensive but hilarious.

9. What is your favorite band shirt?

I don’t buy band shirts anymore because, quite frankly, they are a complete waste of money.  The last one I bought was Guns’n’Roses way back in the early 1990’s, so I’ll select that one.

10. What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?

I think my current favourite is a guy called Steven Wilson, a progressive rock genius who is the main songwriter and driving force behind Porcupine Tree. He has recently released his third solo album called The Raven That Refused To Sing (and Other Stories) which is one of the best albums I have heard for years. I would like to spend a day watching him at work.

11. Who is one musician or group you wish would make a comeback?

I would like Led Zeppelin to go into the studio one more time, with Jason Bonham replacing his father John on the drums, and record an album in the same style as their very first album.

A particular favourite is Dazed and Confused and if they could reproduce a bluesy masterpiece like this I would be absolutely delighted.

12. Who is one band/artist you’ve never seen live but always wanted to?

Again that has to be either Steven Wilson as a solo artist or with his band Porcupine Tree. He toured last year and played in Manchester but sadly, I was in Muscat so I couldn’t go.

13. Name four or more flawless albums:

I have a lot of flawless albums - but these immediately leap to mind.

AC/DC – Back in Black
Air – Pocket Symphony
Dream Theater – Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory
Foo Fighters – Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace
Joe Satriani – The Extremist
Metallica – Master of Puppets
Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral
Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
Queensrÿche – Operation Mindcrime
Rammstein – Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da
Rush – Clockwork Angels
Steven Wilson – The Raven That Refused To Sing (and other stories)
Within Temptation – The Unforgiving

14. How many music related videos/DVDs do you own?

I own a couple of Rush DVD’s, and ones by Alice Cooper, Roger Waters and Nine Inch Nails.

15. How many concerts/shows have you been to, total?

I’ve been to so many over the years that I simply cannot remember. I would say well over a hundred.

16. Who have you seen the most live?

Bizarrely, the band I have seen most is Thunder, a British rock band from the 1990’s who still tour occasionally. They play good old British rock music that is totally inoffensive and extreme fun. In fact I have actually met the guys when my mate managed to wangle a couple of tickets to the after show party.

Here is a sample of their work:

Here's when I met them (in 2005):

17. What is your favourite movie soundtrack?

I don’t own this OST but I would say The Matrix because it has two fantastic songs on it as well as a few other great songs. Here are Du Hast by Rammstein and Dragula by Rob Zombie.

18. What was your last musical “phase” before you wisened up?

To be honest, I love music from all the phases I have passed through – including 1970’s disco. See next question.

19. What’s your “guilty pleasure” that you hate to admit to liking?

I know – I shouldn’t like this but I do and I can’t help it. it takes me back to a time when I loved bopping away with all the other kids at the school disco in the 1970’s.

I present to you, Daft Punk with Get Lucky – and I love this song and I don't mind admitting it.

Progressive Rock Is Magnificent

I have written a number of negative posts about things I dislike, such as golf, opera and Shakespeare. I think it’s about time I started to be a bit more positive and perhaps a little more self-indulgent; I aim to pepper my inane drivel with posts about things I truly love.

I will start with a music genre that you may or may not be familiar with: progressive rock.

What is progressive rock?

Progressive rock (or prog rock) is a subset of rock music where the normal accepted rules about what constitutes a song or the music are cast aside in favour of experimentation, key changes, lengthy masterpieces and fusions with other styles of music to elevate the pieces above the normal formulaic rock recipe.

Basically it is rock music without rules.

Progressive rock music tends to be experimental and the songs range in length for you normal four or five minutes up to 15 minutes, 20 minutes or more. The songs are full of key changes, time signature changes and are serious musical works of art in some case, comparable with classical music. Some songs I have even fused genres I’m not keen on into the mix, such as jazz and although I am not too keen on every experiment they try, for the most part the result is resounding success.

The very first single I ever bought was a progressive rock single by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. My favourite band is Rush, a progressive rock band that are approaching their 40th anniversary. My CD collection is full of albums by artists such as Rush, Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and Pink Floyd the true heavyweights of the genre in my view.

And these days, Muse are carrying the torch, producing commercially acceptable music but filling their albums with superb progressive songs.

I have mates who share a lot of my musical taste and we often go to rock gigs together. The overlap is significant and I have seen some phenomenal rock bands with them.

However, they draw the line at progressive rock and leave me alone in my love of the genre. I don’t like going to gigs on my own but have recently been forced to simply because I can’t persuade anyone to part with their cash to see a band who, in my opinion, is full of technically brilliant musical virtuosos.

“Why don’t you fancy going to see Dream Theater? “ I asked my mate two years ago.

“Because their songs last about 15 minutes and go on and on and on,” he replied. To him a song should last five minutes at most.

I can see his point but I disagree. When I listen to classical music, a symphony for example, I listen to a musical masterpiece that lasts for ages and carries me to a happy imaginary place.

Progressive rock does the same for me.

Of course, not all of their songs are that long. For example, these days, the average length of a Rush song is around five or six minutes. The problem is that these shorter songs are also technically stunning, intelligent songs that challenge the status quo in terms of acceptable music.

Detractors of progressive rock argue that the genre is self-indulgent, long-winded and pretentious. I know Mrs PM thinks so. To her and many others you should be able to dance to a song and it should be a short sharp bout of happiness. To her, progressive rock is all about fantasy, geekdom, weirdness, self-indulgent solos and nonsensical lyrics.

Her views are summed up in this entertaining  little parody from Bill Bailey:

However, when I listen to prog, I have no desire to dance, mostly I simply want to sing, conduct or play the air guitar or drums or simply close my eyes and let the music take me on a long journey through my imagination. The lyrical content, particularly from Rush, is intelligent and well-crafted.

Music is more than little pop songs. It’s much, much deeper than that.

Here are some examples by my favourite progressive rock bands, that I think illustrate the diversity of the genre. If you are expecting a load of noise, rock guitars and heavy metal, then you will be surprised. Have a listen and see what you think. Don’t get me wrong, some output can be extremely heavy and noisy; the difference is that even the loudest and fastest songs are technically brilliant:

Muse – The Second Law: Isolated System 

If you have seen World War Z then you will recognise this song as it was used as the main theme of that movie. This particular song is almost orchestral, extremely melodic and is a far cry from some of their more commercial output.

Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

There are certain songs that bring a tear to my eyes and Comfortably Numb is one of them. Again, it is a wonderfully enchanting song with a beautiful orchestral feel to it, yet with a suggestion of malice as an undercurrent to the song. 

Rush – Mystic Rhythms
Rush are one of those bands that have a loyal army of fans but only few people have heard of. I went to see Rush this year and when I told Mrs PM that the venue was the MEN Arena, Manchester’s biggest musical venue, played by people like Madonna, she simply couldn’t understand how they would manage to fill the place. They did and the concert was fantastic. The fans are loyal because Rush have been producing brilliant music since I was a teenager. Mystic Rhythms is the song I selected because it reminds me of a key moment in my life in 1985. I could write a book about my life with the music of Rush as the soundtrack.

Porcupine Tree – Arriving Somewhere, But Not Here

This song is an example of a relatively long song that is a classical masterpiece. I love songs that start off slowly and melodically, and then build up and up taking you along for the ride. It is a beautiful song and reaches a crescendo about half way through before drifting back to a soothing melodic conclusion. I love it.

Dream Theater – Bridges In The Sky


Dream Theater are classed in some quarters as progressive metal, that is, their music has a much harder edge to it. Furthermore, the average length of their songs is well over ten minutes, some of them approaching and exceeding twenty minutes. This is a typical example of a Dream Theater masterpiece, with throat singing at the start, a choir and an almost orchestral mix before the guitar kicks in and we find ourselves in heavy metal heaven. Dream Theater music is extremely complex and musically very challenging to play, I imagine. Yet at the same time, some of the band’s music is melodic and almost classical.

One of my favourite songs by Dream Theater is the 24 minute Octavarium and I recently found a symphonic version of the song covered by an orchestra. If you are a fan of classical music and have the stamina, listen to this masterpiece below and then look up the original Dream Theater version for comparison.

This sums up why progressive rock is magnificent and my favourite music genre. It is moderan classical music.

Over to you dear reader:

Have you heard of progressive rock?

Are you a fan of progressive rock? If so, who are your favourite bands?

Do you think progressive rock is a load of old pretentious crap?

As usual, if you disagree with me, let me know. I don't mind.