Saturday, June 6, 2009

Gnome World, Indian Queens



Indian Queens has seasonal traffic congestion, a MacDonalds,a Gnome World, a half-marathon, and a small power station, so probably deserves a categorisation all of its own. But I'm sticking with "town", in the flexible, friendly spirit of RR. This shows Nick Lowe at his country balladeering best (he's had Johnny Cash sing his songs you know) - he turned 60 this year and probably doesn't feel right hanging on as a new-wave rocker.

Bert Jansch's Road tae Dundee simplifies the original's melody a little, and has his beautiful finger-picking as always. Bert pops up on Guardian Unlimited from time to time... http://www.guardian.co.uk/users/BertJansch/comments

I took Van the Man & The Chieftains "Irish Heartbeat" to a St Patrick's party once and failed to win anyone over. It has a certain lyrical gruffness. I hope this song goes down better here...

And I like to take any opportunity to post Thelonius Monk. Best middle name in music("Sphere"). This is from 1954, a CD called "The Complete Prestige Recordings" and the quintet includes Art Blakey on drums.

9 comments:

Carole said...

I love Irish Heartbeat, a lovely album.

When I split up with my ex, she claimed the CD. It doesn't seem to be available any more, but it is supposed to be being re-released this year.

Anonymous said...

Carole, I just had a peek at amazon (uk) and the cheapest 2nd-hand copy is £21. The music industry can't really complain about copying / file-sharing if the record's not on sale, so let me know if I can help with MP3s or whatever.

bethnoir said...

I regularly travelled through Indian Queens in the way to visit my Grandmother, until they bypassed it. Didn't know there was a song about it though!

DaddyPig said...

Hello bethnoir - Yes, I went to see Nick Lowe recently. I've posted on RR itself about Nick Lowe's tale of how he came to write a song about it, to do with buying a little place on the Cornish coast in the vain hope that it would become a creative retreat. There was a small discussion about it being a village rather than a town, so I'm summoning Gnome World to back my case.

bethnoir said...

Hi DaddyPig, well it has a pub and fish and chip shop, so that counts as a town to me. I love that Bert Jansch track, great to hear it :-)

DaddyPig said...

I enjoyed seeking it out too, I hadn't heard that version before.

treefrogdemon said...

so DaddyPig, do you have an objection to Dropbox of something? Because I should gladly add that Carrickfergus to my other Carrickfergi.

BTW there is allegedly a place near Silverstone called Dead Queen, because Boudicca might have been buried there. Or she might not.

Anonymous said...

Hello TFD, I installed Dropbox when we were contributing for Maddy's CD, but this old computer was running slowly and it was one of the things I uninstalled to declutter it, and it works a bit better without it and other downloaded stuff. I've not got into Spotify yet either, for similar reasons, and also to try and control the too-much time I spend doing RR !

Where was I ? If you want, my e-mail address is on my profile here, so if you e-mail me, I can send the MP3 back... Or if there's some other way I'm happy to try it.

Anonymous said...

...and, by the way, I like the plural. I wonder how Queen B. would've ended up that far west ?