C'mon, Pass the Tinfoil!

I was once accused of being a conspiracy theorist on the basis of a UFO sighting.

OK, so 'accused' is a pretty strong word, but it's how I felt at the time. Someone, who is a conspiracy theorist, heard that I had seen a UFO and had a ghostly experience, and said something along the lines of, "I didn't know you were part of the tinfoil hat brigade.  You're one of us."

At that time I had seen a UFO (since then I have seen several more), and had 5 or 6 ghostly encounters. I'd also had a bunch of other occurances I simply couldn't explain. But I never considered myself a tinfoil hat wearer. I mean, I know the earth is spheroid, I know we went to the moon, and I know Paul McCartney didn't die in an accident in 1966 only to be replaced by William Campbell.

So it was strange to be considered a conspiracy theorist.

I was recently called cynical in regards to a comment I made about a situation. Yup, I stand by that comment, and having worked in government departments for many years, and seeing a couple of managers with little integrity, I do believe that some things are manufactured.

Project Blue Beam? Not a chance. But I do believe governments know more about UFOs than they are letting on. In fact, there are conspiracies to manufacture events, there are conspiracies to keep information from us, and there are people in power who lie about things so they and their friends can profit from us.

I'm reminded of the old adage, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you."

I'm off to listen to some Wings albums. Surely William Campbell couldn't have maintained that same high standard through the seventies.  Could he?

Drive.

With a longer drive to work, I now have more time to listen to music. Until a week ago I generally managed one song. On good traffic days, that journey was just over 3 minutes; on bad days it was still under 4 minutes. Now my trip is closer to half an hour each way and so every day I get to enjoy an entire album.

I've been revisiting my teenage years, listening to the remasters of McCartney's albums. Yesterday (pun not intended) I checked out Wings Over America. This morning was McCartney II. Last week I listened to Ram, and Band On The Run.

Surprisingly, I think Ram holds up rather well. Band On The Run, like much of his other work since, has a few special moments but is generally shallow and lightweight.   McCartney II sounds like demos that should have stayed that way. Wings Over America, being a selection of his personal and The Beatles' best, works quite well.

I've posted before about how so many of our old rockers have lost their musical way. In McCartney's case I think he's lost touch with more than just his musical beginnings. How could such an influential rocker have become the parody of himself that he now is?

I suspect it has to do with a number of things. Looking back at documentaries from the early 60s I can see glimpses, with the added benefit of hindsight, of what he would become. The last to leave when the cameras are running, the continual hamming, the lame jokes, and the willingness to please and be seen as the nice guy. And the continual rewriting of Beatles history.

By the late 60s McCartney was the most business savvy of the Fab Four, the one who was stockpiling Apple shares surreptitiously. I suspect once that became his focus, once he started to grow up and become an adult, he lost that edge, that creativity.

I recently had a discussion about this with an artist I know. His view was that our creative types need to remain like children. And that means innocent, full of questions, seeing wonder, and, sometimes, behaving childish. And this is a problem record companies and management have - they want their artists to be creative, but want them to behave like business people.

Very few manage to 'stay young' once they get old and rich. Neil Young is one of the few exceptions I can think of.

Is this true of writing also? What does this mean for our future, when so much of the business and financial responsibility is being thrown back on artists?

Twenty-nine Years Fly By.

The only thing I knew before I went into the pub last night was the name of the band, Rubber Soul. Yet just before they started playing I told my companion that they would open with ‘I Saw Her Standing There.’ OK, with a name like that there was a fair chance they would play Beatles stuff, but to be absolutely sure of which song they would open with is pretty impressive. How did I know it? I have no idea, just another mystery in this universe.

Of course it got me thinking about the fabs, and particularly John’s death. The anniversary was just a few weeks ago.

I could have sworn it was a Friday, but I’ve just checked online and it can’t have been. It was an evening, and I was working my part time job at a local supermarket. I think school had finished for the year, but I was working and still had several hours to spend in the deep freeze and dairy case. Another schoolboy came in, someone we worked with, someone who was always a bit of a smart-alec, and told us that John Lennon was dead.

He said it with a grin, in that schoolboy kind of way, and I didn’t believe him. I figured he knew about my Beatles infatuation and that he was having a laugh. A bit later, when someone else mentioned it, I presumed it was a publicity stunt. After all, John had just released his first album in over five years and he probably needed all the advertising and publicity he could get. I thought I’d get home and find out it was all OK, a mistake or a hoax, and that John would be on TV making some quip about how he was very much alive.

Of course, as we all know, he wasn’t.

Others went of to early morning vigils in the city centre, my friend and I talked about wearing black armbands to school – but didn’t get around to finding any black material. So the two of us sat around and played Beatle and Lennon albums till late. And we talked.

Something similar happened a few years later when George passed away. In some ways that one was more upsetting. George always seemed like the nicest, the most down to earth, the most honest of the four lads.

And then there were two.

I’ve previously written about how Paul’s music no longer interests me, and Ringo hasn’t had a decent album since the early 70s. Drag out the remastered Beatles, throw on some early 70s solo stuff (be choosy) and crank them up. If you’re looking for new music, go and pick up a Wilco album instead.

And have a wonderful Christmas.

The Emperor's New Clothes.

I recently saw Neil Young in concert, and during the show it occurred to me that he was still relevant and vital. Even his recent albums have been strong. (OK, maybe not Living With War, but at least that had a purpose!)

You see, I had this theory that it was hard to be an inspiring (and inspired) artist when you’re a sixty-something multi-millionaire. Can you be an ‘angry young lion’ when you sleep on 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheets, with a dozen expensive cars parked in the garage on your ranch?

Over the past few years, the dinosaurs of rock (Dylan, McCartney and so on) have received great reviews for new albums. On its release, I listened to the McCartney album, Memory Almost Full, and was thrilled I hadn’t actually purchased it. And yet people raved about it.

What is it I am missing?

I'm a Beatle (and a Paul) completist (Yes, I even have mono mixes of Ram) but I can't understand the high praise for this piece of crap.

I found it to be sedate, pedestrian, uninspired and quite dull - the sort of throw-aways that show Paul is sorely lacking a foil, someone who'll look him in the eye and tell him that a song is substandard.

Would an unknown artist have even landed a deal with this disc as a demo? I'd be surprised.

The best album since...? Well, to be honest that's not hard -- Paul's releases over the past decade or two have been scattershot at best. And although Chaos and Creation had moments, it wasn't as superb as people claimed.

Paul stated somewhere that this album was mostly written (and even recorded) before the previous album, which means it's not a response to the divorce.

What a shame! Maybe a bit of anger and angst is what he needs.....

Maybe people are so desperate for new Beatle product that any glimmer of hope is immediately seized upon and put on a pedestal. Thank goodness Neil is around to carry the torch.