Brrrrr it’s been a little frisky round here and not in a ‘luuuuuuuuuuurve’ Barry White kind of way. I’m currently under a wind chill advisory…well not me personally, we all are and in the northern counties they have a freeze warning.! I’m a hardened Mancunian when it comes weather…or at least I thought I was. Yesterday was so exciting, not only did I have socks on but a jacket AND a woolly hat. I was late leaving the house because I felt the need to share the experience with my friends in the UK……..I was genuinely excited and they thought I was taking the piss. It’s sad, we used to share so much and now my temperature crisis seems to be of no concern to them.Where are people when you need them the most, where is the love, where is the warmth?
Today I’m undecided, I have no idea which socks I should wear, is it to be the same hat, what about the feet? The flip flops lie in a corner, sad and neglected…….I feel bad, no one needs to treated that way. We’ve been through so much together and now they feel rejection…..they feel that my affections lie elsewhere, that I crave for a fully bodied shoe. Once again I need my friends, what can you honestly say to footwear that feels this way? I just wish they would call, make me feel that I’m not going through this alone. Maybe it’s a mid feet crisis but I need to get this out of my system…..I know we’ll be back together soon and yet I do understand when my flip flops tell me they give me all the space I need.
I don’t think I’ll discuss the weather with people back home anymore, they have their own crosses to bear… I know only too well. Nevertheless, my ex, Marie (no not marine!) arrives today with my husband in law Rob and once more it’ll be the topic of conversation……’we’ve been saving up for this for so long and it’s cold!’ Like it’s my dam fault!!
I used to think it was only the British who had a fascination with the weather but now I feel it’s a multi national obsession. Here you’ll sit around in 95 degree courtyard bistros and celebrate another hurricane skirting past you…then it’s back to the TV to watch the weather forecast and wait for the next advisory from the hurricane center in Miami. In hurricane season, a mere 5 months!… you get them every couple of hours, and boy do you need them……global warming and the whole ‘world gone mad’ weather changing patterns means there’s no avoiding it.
In spite of all this, today I actually felt like I got dressed! Living here in the sunshine state I share the same wardrobe as Robinson Crusoe with the exception that my loin cloths are probably slighlity ‘dressier’. Here my caps , hats and numerous chapeaus are donned for a different reason, to help protect my dome…..and to help preserve my Adonis look, never easy as the years advance. Hey, but what the hell Adonis is a lot older and he always got good press.
I’m off to brave the elements….elementary, my dear Watson. Full report to follow
Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, View from the room , tony michaelides
wotcher tone!
the first album i ever bought, at the age of 12, was ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ by Pink Floyd. which was from my auntie’s catalogue so i didn’t have to fork out 35 shillings all at once. The first album for which i paid the full ante was Mr Fantasy by Traffic on Island. i still love that record. Island was like a kitemark for everything that was great about music to my peer group. I think I owned just about every album on the label pre-1971, at one time or another and i wish i still had them all(anybody knows where i can get a copy of ‘Out of the Frying Pan’ by Wynder K Frogg will be my friend for life.)
I know Factory, 4AD, Mute, Stiff and a few other labels set out to create a similar thing but i never felt quite the same about them. Maybe it’s a generational thing. I only ever play the first couple of albums by Joy Division from the Factory canon these days, whereas I still play a lot of the pre-mid-seventies Island output regularly especially the sublime Traffic and the wonderful Spencer Davis Group.
‘I’m a Man’ is still one of the most amazing pieces of music i’ve ever heard; that opening sequence sounds like a sample but you didn’t get things like that in 1966 or thereabouts. People go on and on about The Beach Boys and how ahead of their time they were and I agree that they were brilliant, but ‘I’m a Man’ soundwise knocks just about everything from the sixties into a cocked hat, from where I’m standing. And what’s more Steve Winwood once bought me a pint which is more than Brian Fucking Wilson ever did! For me Island will always represent everything i loved about music and it was probably the main reason I wanted to work in the industry, but there’s another story!!!!!