A SLAP IN THE FACE

 A Slap In The Face ( I'm more of a Hero than you'll ever be) 2020

Pop culture never fails to bring a smile to my face, I mean, I, like you,  can answer stupid quizzes about "Friends" , chuckle and look at what the child star of yesteryear looks like now, and of course there are  quotes from movies that have edged their way into the lexicon of our lives as you shout out daily "Ill be Back" or during the holidays "Buddy the Elf, What's your favorite color?", Don't we all wonder what we would have done if we had attended that infamous work party at Nakatomi Plaza back in 1988...Yippeekayay....even "Dr Hook" after telling us about "Sylvia's Mother" asked us what we would have done if we found our picture on "The Cover of the Rolling Stone"

We all have our favorites ... but none strikes home and plays melodious chords on the heartstrings more than the voice over opening scene at Heathrow Airport, so eloquently written by Richard Curtis ( thank you Sir for the entertainment) and spoken as only he can, by the flop topped adorably goofy stereotyped Hugh Grant in character from "Love Actually...." words which seem ever more apropos today than it ever was when written, long before fearful pandemics, childish politicians and a tumultuous world.

" Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around."

Words I wish I had penned, but alas, here I sit, sentenced to anonymity.....yet sidled with keyboard at hand, you do suddenly find you've hit a chord as you wonder what it would be like to be hailed as someone worthy of praise, relentlessly hearing about everyone else being a hero except for your own self...as the previous missive took an upswing ( check previous blog " ( https://bennysantini.blogspot.com/2020/05/i-wanna-be-hero-maybe-just-for-one-day.html ) I sat back in the comfort of the hundreds that read said post and replied with encouragement.. Maybe being a working class hero is what we should be...

Time passes as it so inevitably does, the world gets darker as it reaches for the answers, the high hopes of a Christmas filled with the delights of familiar smells, new discoveries, sidewalks filled bustling with people, decked out window fronts and that " in the air there's a feeling of Christmas" sense we all long for... the Currier and Ives images of a simpler time, dashing through the snow, hearths warmed with chestnuts and mulled wine, your particular Magi visiting from afar....

There is no such thing as normal any more, the shops are indeed empty in my neck of the woods, those few i see have heads down and by the sense of body language are really displeased with life, hunched shoulders, no eye contact, masks hiding the true emotions...

The saddest part of the holiday season as i walked my local mall ( granted its an annual thing so am I contributing to this ?) was in deed the silence, the lack of decorations, the grumpiest store clerks, and strikingly the way everyone seemed to just pick up as step as they scurried past a for lease sign on a failed shop front, the signs touting going out of business sale, I made my purchases and made my "Exit...stage left." ( nod to my fellow Rush fans out there...see pop culture)

....As we grapple with our own self worth "in a world of dread and fear", How do we pay the bills after being laid off?  How do we make ends meat when we are forced to close?, The resilience of our fellow humanoids shine, despite everything though, my fellow Americans we are out there...doing it, just doing it as the mighty swoosh tells us too.... So therefore the one true thing you don't expect is to be slapped right across the face through Pop Culture itself !!

Time magazine has long been at the front of mind when it comes to News, Culture and the events of the year, A magazine long heralded in stature, with a legacy of indelible stamps to the mind, The Twin Towers, Dr King, John Lennon,  The Queen and Mother Theresa to name a few 

Disappointment, that nauseous sinking feeling, glancing at the latest cover of this periodical i wonder if they truly have "jumped the shark". 

"Time" you missed big time with this one, I know, I know you even had Hitler on the cover, but you see, each and every person place or thing that has previously graced your cover has actually done something ..not all good granted, but they have all done something and those deeds, actions lives, are recorded in History. Trust me, as my mind swirls, this is not a political commentary, its the true sadness at the lack of recognition for those Hero's even just for one day...

These are the ones we should place on the winners podium. 

Anthony Gaskin couldn't believe his eyes as he rounded the corner of his daily UPS route in Richmond Virginia, hundreds of people lined the street to wave and cheer, as with a smile all the way through the pandemic and  2020 he has continued unabridged to deliver to the fine folks of the Hallsley neighborhood, why isn't this guy on the front cover, or any of the other UPS,

 Mail men and women, Prime delivery guys or other folks that have diligently put them selves out there so you can sit in your cozy warm alcove, press a button and away they go, working class hero's maybe ?

Front liners, Head liners for sure, why aren't the medics, the hospital workers, doctors, surgeon's, nurses mentioned, we braved the outdoors at 8 pm of an evening to clap our hands into the silence of the night in awe and respect for their hard work, I love the truth that Letha Love said as she headed to her overnight shift, treating corona virus patients at the Coney Island Hospital she works at, flying on her own dime from Atlanta to New York and quarantining her self to a hotel room away from her loved ones to do her job, showing up every day to be with those patients, she admitted "You can call it brave if you want to, It is brave, but I'm scared, I'm very scared, but most importantly I'm here" Why isn't Letha on the cover, working class hero maybe ?

My trash can got emptied every day, how about yours ? The grocery store clerk was always there with a smile and to ask me how my day was, how about yours? The train driver, the bus driver got us to our destinations no questions asked working class hero's maybe?

My local Coffee shop The outstanding "Nutmeg Bakery and Cafe"  like 100's across this beautiful country of ours doesn't know if they are coming or going, With a second location opening right as the pandemic hit, with a young family to support Drew and his team reinvented themselves as a Take out service, Grub Hub service, Grocery shop, doing everything and anything they needed to to survive, and have done so with dedication hard work and well shameless plug ...some of the best food and lattes around...Working class Hero's for sure!

 All these and many more like them should have been on the cover as they fight the good fight against the invisible enemy.

Here is where we know Love actually IS all around us, the aforementioned and the overlooked …(can I call, us average Joe's without offending anyone?) the ones that should have graced the cover this year, I'm talking about you and me, yes we all wanna be hero's in our own right as I last wrote, the sort that leap tall buildings in one bound, that can fix situations with a single glare, that can spin the world on its axis, you know the glamourous outfits, and superpowers... well turns out not so much, the everyday working class hero kicked to the side again by an arrogantly, favor seeking magazine that has all but clearly shown its affinity to one side over another, no fairness, complete bias to the haves over the have nots, They have done nothing, i do hope they do something and they can have next year but this year Time you failed, you missed, and oh so many choices...

We are Hero's, and in my opinion are on the cover of Time in my mind, the ones who lost loved ones, who comforted the bereaved, who lost jobs because business were closed, who struggle to put food on the table, who raise children and teach them online, those who share with others because they cant afford what they did last year, who dropped off goodies at their neighbors door step, who donate to charity a dollar or so as its what they can ill afford, those that lift each other up in prayer and don't cut each other down, those that send a virtual hug, those that show compassion to our sisters and brothers, I'm talking about you, yes you who are reading this, you are a hero...and may it be said for way more than one day...

Celebrity is a thing, I know this, and it drives pop culture, no doubt sells copies of a magazine, but this time more than any other time, this time you are wrong, these folks have done nothing, yet you celebrate them as more important than the billions of people world wide that need the recognition way more than these two, we are as the song says "Everyday People"

Even just for one day

Please comment here and let me know of your hero story

I've got soul but I'm not a soldier

#bennysantiniproductions

GOING TO CHURCH...THE LEGEND OF THE RYMAN

Going to Church:- The Legend of the Ryman Auditorium

On Oct 2nd 1954, a young artist performed his one and only time at the hallowed venue, after singing

a terrible version of "Blue Moon of Kentucky" he was told by the Opry talent manager he would never perform here again and that he should go back to his day job. Next week that same performer signed on to do 52 Saturday nights at the Louisiana Hayride, thus started the career of one Elvis Presley.
I guess you don't always get it right!!

In my chase to learn about Americana, Hollywood, and Music there are but a handful of bucket list venue's that top the heap. This is the story ...nay, legend of my relationship with one such place, now on the National Register of Historic landmarks as designated January 3rd 2001.

This is "The Ryman Auditorium".  

You know that question people always ask you, who would you like to meet from History dead or alive and have dinner with, well instead I've always had the notion that during the course of my life I would like to see concerts or shows at classic venues that are haunted with the talents of the past, my list sequestered deeply into the recess of my mind, I mean how could this kid from Bolton ever visit The Hollywood Bowl, or be live at the Greek, or listen to WSM at The Grand Ole Opry??

Life has a way of turning tricks and thinking I may have piqued at Wembley Stadium (the real one before they knocked it down to build something much less than its former self) on July 13th 1985.

 ....The summer of 1990 finds me walking past a very glamorously run down Victorian era brick building, in an as yet non-gentrified, highly debatable, lower end of Broadway in Nashville TN.
The musical ghosts of those hallowed halls, still hovering behind the red brick, deserted and run down now, but as if time travel were possible, the thoughts stream fast as I imagine myself sitting on one of the wooden pews, how many stories they could tell me, Caruso singing here in 1919, Helen Keller's lecture  was the first sell out of the building in 1913, or Harry Houdini performing in 1923, never mind the likes of Johnny Cash in 56 or Patsy Cline in 60 along with the magical list of Little Jimmy Dickens, Bob Hope, Hank Williams or Minnie pearl in 64....

Its too late, what was once the thriving cultural center of Nashville is now left to the fates of time, I walk past trying to sneak a peak and am left to wonder, just wonder....

Strong people and strong buildings survive, so here I am almost 30 years later, and the storied building is once again the thriving centerpiece Thomas Ryman always intended it to be, when he opened it as the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892 for his friend Evangelist Sam Jones...Ryman died in 1904 and his memorial service was held at the tabernacle, during the service Jones proposed renaming the building in honor of his friend, and the Ryman Auditorium was born, sadly just two years later Jones himself passed away.

The building designed as a place of worship carried on this way until in need of funds, Widow Lula Naff started leasing and booking events to fill her time, she became the buildings manager in 1920

Naff had a knack of getting world renown entertainers to perform here, despite Jim Crow laws, audiences were always integrated despite the signs saying it shouldn't be, a pioneer in her time she retired in 1955 and passed away in 1960.

Why is this hallowed ground? ...The list of events and performers that have tripped the light fantastic and their spirits that still swirl are brought all that much closer to me as I cross the threshold for the first time.

I am deliberately early, walking up the central red velvet stairwell it dawns on me how it hasn't changed, creaking wood banisters,  solid wood pews , stained glass windows, walking to the center I look down onto the stage, its simple, the swooped curtain ready to be drawn, an inkling of modern technology as I pop back to reality and see the TV screens advertising the coming events. It doesn't matter, I'm here.

Sitting for a while to take it in, the mind explodes with an overwhelming gratefulness to the people who fought so hard to keep this place and great music alive. The walls tell the stories with all the one off Hatch posters declaring who played here and each one signed, its the bedroom wall of my youth.

                                           Hatch Posters Ryman Walls            pic Benny Santini

Its a place you dream of playing, its a place you dream of visiting, to see a show, to walk the halls, to enter into the myth brought to life, the legend.

                               Maggie Rogers                                                   pic Benny Santini

With all the sincerity I can muster, it is...like going to church.

#bennysantiniproductions 

#grahamsataconcertagain

I've got Soul but I'm not a soldier

Check out the Ryman "Who's played Me?" Blog for a Historic list of the players

THE GREATEST LOVE SONG...

 The Greatest Love Song Ever Written...

Going to the Match by L.S.Lowry

"In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone..."

Between 3 pm and 515 pm on any given Saturday afternoon in Britain, men and women from all walks of life can be heard singing songs like this at the top of their limited vocal range, along the terraces of their favorite football stadium. I was no different, as a lad as I ran down Manchester Road on the way to the hallowed turf of Burnden Park to watch my beloved Bolton Wanderers.

I had no idea the impact classic melodies of the terraces would have on me over the years, Yes "You'll Never Walk Alone" at Liverpool, You will be " Forever Blowing Bubbles" at West Ham but sung with the most vivacity in later years is the tune "Grace" sung to this very day by every Celtic fan the

world over ... 

"Oh Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger..." In its rawness and sung by thousands I struggled to understand the lyrics but was aware of the goosebumps crawling up the back of my neck...

What is this Song? Whats it all about? Wheres it from?  

All thoughts lay quite dormant until prodded to life once again during a new playlist search on the old Amazon Music.  I Love " The Fields of Athenry", "Green fields of France" and Christy Dignam's version of "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" so naturally thought what else can I plug in here...

The story that unfolds in this revived epic, is so wistfully and beautifully told....  The song "Grace" written by brothers Frank and Sean O'Meara in 1985 tells the tragic, very true tale, packed with heart wrenching emotion in the melody, of Grace Gifford who married her fiance, rebel leader and poet Joseph Mary Plunkett, during the Easter uprising of 1916. 

They married in the harshness, the austere chapel of Dublin's notorious Kilmainham Gaol. 

Plunkett was arrested for his part as one of the seven signatories of the proclamation for a free Ireland from the Tyranny of the English on the Easter of 1916. Plunket was an educated man, of good stock, was a journalist and poet, and was engaged to Grace and set to be married on Easter Sunday 23rd April 1916 at the local church of St Stephens Green, and here is just another reason why we don't demolish,vandalize or eliminate Historical landmarks or stories, because as the story follows fate intervened...

Always interested in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and anything connected with Irish Nationalism, he told Grace that something had come up and he must postpone their date at the alter. The Rising ended up taking place on Monday the 24th not the 23rd as planned. Plunkett in all his avante-guard splendor showed up at the GPO in white silk scarf, brandishing a Saber alongside Michael Collins and held the GPO for 5 days. While at the GPO standoff it was discovered he was sick with TB and needed to lie down on a mattress, the story so goes that James Connolly's son asked his father who the man was lying down on a mattress in the middle of a revolution, the famous quote came back " That's Joe Plunkett he has more courage in his little finger than all the other leaders combined"

Now, Saturday April 29th Joseph sat down to pen a letter to Grace not knowing it would be his final transcript, later that day he was captured at the surrender and sentenced to death for his part in the Rising.

So here we are at the Pathos, gut wrenching aspect of their story, Grace partitioned with success to marry her beloved ....and on May 3rd 1916 in that bleak chapel of Kilmaiham Gaol , in a cold 15 minute ceremony, with no family present, only British soldiers with bayonets fixed and at the ready , hand cuffed and not allowed to touch each other or speak to each other, Father Eugene McCarthy read them their vows.

Just seven hours later on May 4th Joseph Plunkett was shot by firing squad.

As we gather in the chapel here in old Kilmainham Gaol
I think about these past few weeks, oh will they say we've failed?
From our school days they have told us we must yearn for liberty
Yet all I want in this dark place is to have you here with me 

Oh Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger
They'll take me out at dawn and I will die
With all my love I place this wedding ring upon your finger
There won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye

Now I know it's hard for you, my love, to ever understand
The love I bear for these brave men, my love for this dear land
But when Pádhraic called me to his side down in the GPO
I had to leave my own sick bed, to him I had to go

Oh, Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger
They'll take me out at dawn and I will die
With all my love I place this wedding ring upon your finger
There won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye

Now as the dawn is breaking, my heart is breaking too
On this May morn as I walk out, my thoughts will be of you
And I'll write some words upon the wall so everyone will know
I love so much that I could see his blood upon the rose

Oh, Grace just hold me in your arms and let this moment linger
They'll take me out at dawn and I will die
With all my love I place this wedding ring upon your finger
There won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye
No there won't be time to share our love for we must say goodbye

https://youtu.be/IxIrmWfKJuQ

Grace took up Josephs cause and spent time in Kilmainham Gaol herself in 1923, but she never re married and died alone on Dec 13th 1955.

When I think now of Stevie Knicks "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You" It would be hard to top what the O'Meara's did .....and I dare you to listen and not fight back tears... it is indeed the greatest love song ever written....

Grace Gifford

Originally sung by Jim McCann of the Dubliners fame he had the song at the top of the Irish charts for 36 weeks. Recently Rod Stewart put it on his 2018 album "Blood Red Roses" 

The Dark Way

Rougher than Death the road I choose
Yet shall my feet not walk astray,
Though dark, my way I shall not lose
For this way is the darkest way. 

Now I have chosen in the dark
The desolate way to walk alone
Yet strive to keep alive one spark
Of your known grace and grace unknown

Poem by Joseph Mary Plunkett

Give a listen and comment let me know what you think...

#bennysantiniproductions 

#grahamsataconcertagain

I've got soul but i'm not a soldier.....

I WANNA BE A HERO ( MAYBE JUST FOR ONE DAY)

I WANNA BE A HERO, MAYBE JUST FOR ONE DAY...

Lately it would seam the word hero is being bandied around quite liberally, and honestly I don't disagree with who its being showered upon, I mean come on shower the people you love with love and all that, but, it has gotten to me a little, and as I sit, still swimming and marveling in the thing that truly gets you through the repetitiveness of "shelter -in-place" or "#stayhome" , the world of "Magical Mystery Tours" aligning with the "Spiders from Mars", and yes Gustav Holst "Planet Suite" the melancholy mood enhancements, yet sheer transportation thrills of music.

So as my turntable spun the next disc of wonderment and escapism, It got to me a little as I chewed on The Beautiful Souths lyrics by Paul Heaton...

"I've been scruff bag, dirt bag, always someones binbag
But never been bono or sting
However I dressed never really impressed
So they never got to hear a damn thing
I've been bad man sad man certified mad
But never 007 or saint
Trendsetter go getter international jet setter
Are just a few things that I ain't"

Trendsetter, Go getter International jet setter ...

Hmmm, i'm also not a Nurse, Bin Man, Grocery Store Clerk, Farmer, Truck Driver, Scientist, Doctor, NHS worker, Janitor, Food Handler, School Counselor, Bus Driver, Foster Care worker, Non Profit staffer, Nursing Home attendant, Police man, Security Guard, News Reporter, Fireman, Ambulance Driver.......

You see its easy to hear all this shoved down your throat and not for the lack of wanting to be grateful, but i also, have up heaved my life and am currently working more than 10-12 hours a day in a Work From Home environment, to keep afloat a family that has also suffered layoff, furlough and dried up business revenue, so yeah David Bowie had it right and  I also wanna be a Hero, maybe just for one day...

Is that so wrong? 

I sing the song as well for every one of my fellow Americans and well yes all you World denizens out there that are struggling to make life as normal as can be expected. 

To those that have joined the unemployment lines, I salute you, 

For those in trades such as mine, I salute you, that we have to work twice if not three times as hard to produce less than half of what we used to do, in order to bring home less than half of what we used to, that has to spread round three times more than it used to, are we not ourselves instead of "Holding out for a Hero" as Bonnie Tyler sang, maybe in our own selves The Hero that comes along, as Mariah sang. 

We are still searching for that patriarchal or maternal dominance we once used to feel when our families looked up to us as the unwritten hero's we once were.

You know who you are, you're just like me, yes there's time now to play but we mustn't connect, there's now time to talk, but only through screens, there's now time to travel, but that's not allowed, you can go to the beach, but don't dare sit down....

Profit, power and control will one day again resume control, I understand this, its how the world works...but for now then dear Celebrity and Politician, we are not all in the same boat or prison as you like to post, your prisons seam to have swimming pools, and movie theaters, and unlimited time to watch Netflix or play video games, and order from the over inflated delivery companies like Door Dash or Uber eats, blend exquisite cocktails and create Tik Toks...

I fear i may not be a hero, as i don't wear spandex, leap tall buildings, fight crime, or have a butler....

I choose to dedicate this to my  fellow newly derogatorily labelled "non essential", personnel.

You, yes you, Retail Store Worker, Teacher, Waitress, Furniture salesperson, Insurance broker, Barman, Personal Trainer, Gym Worker, Gardner, Realtor, Florist, Hairdresser, Spa Worker, Museum Worker, Admin Worker, Disneyland Employee, Movie Theater Worker, Concert Hall Worker, Landscaper, Caterer, Barista, Manufacturer, Cosmetologist......

You are the ones that have been punched in the gut and you keep bouncing back, you never give up and never surrender ( Thanks Winston) it is the realization that like me, you all are Hero's of a different kind, and yes we can be hero's just for one day, or we can claim our blue collar mantel, our work your ass off attitudes and be true "Working Class Hero's"

As soon as you're born they make you feel small

By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years

Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

#bennysantiniproductions

#grahamsataconcertagain

I've got Soul but I'm not a soldier

THE GRAND ILLUSION

THE GRAND ILLUSION.

Welcome to The Grand Illusion
Come on in and see whats happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star....




As I write a few notes down on paper, and try to start the next missive, I really don't know what the next inspiring spark will be, its elusive, unpredictable, fickle even.
The journey of memories reside nonchalantly waiting to be unpacked.

America was always the ideal, the New World, a place that seamed so far off, a place only found in the movies......I knew a kid once who went to Disneyland, I mean that was it, I could maybe talk to someone who had been there once.
Joan Armatrading sang about "Calling all the way from America" Neil Diamond sang about "Coming to America", Bruce was "Born in the USA"....

It was a place of dreams and well places that only resided in song, I wondered if I really would ever "Stand on the Corner in Winslow Arizona"( see me to the left doing my best David Letterman impression and actually standing on a corner in ... well yes you guessed it Winslow Arizona) or indeed "fly from Phoenix Arizona all the way to Tacoma" even experience as previously written about that " Rocky Mountain High"
I've taken music with me on this incredible life journey, I even remember waiting in a small bus station in the early 80's down town Tel Aviv, ready to go explore some far flung corner, the best companion I had then for the adventure was the Talking Heads Little Creatures Album on loop in my Walkman, was I really on that Road to nowhere,

Very early on Rich Mullins had a song called "Here in America", which I was enamored with and was also encouraged by, I mean that the God of Israel truly does love me here in America, and he's provided ways and means to experience this amazing country, and to this day drawn in by the lyrics of the song, I still crave the sights and sounds of the waves crashing off the coast of North New England.

And so as I sit in The Magnolia Theater in downtown El Cajon on a balmy Southern California evening in March 2020 (unknowingly, and unwittingly just moments from being told to stay home and live music as I have known it will cease to exist, the world stopped turning, and as we have found out in the last few weeks music did not die as the iconic song wisps,,,,stay tuned as rather this is for a different blog)  anyway, here waiting for Dennis DeYoung to wander on stage and take me through the Best of Times. It was there as I contemplated the upcoming lyrical bombardment of memories, that the elusive, "fickle spark" aforementioned came to the forefront.

How true were the words as we embarked upon this endeavor, close your eyes, pretend your 17 again, sat in your room on a Saturday afternoon, arriving back from your favorite record store and slide that magnificently grooved twelve inch spherical midnight black colored disc of wonder from its perfectly drawn and marketed sleeve, enticing you to simply unpack those memory banks and as the vinyl spins,the stylus crackles and reacts.... for the next 40  minutes or so there is no one else, no place else you would rather be, the absorption of the content inscribed into those modulated spiral grooves.

Dennis is a tall distinguished, grey haired gentleman, dressed in his finest, and well rock star sunglasses, but don't they all !! Effortlessly playing the entire length of the album with the promise of greatest hits to come, the night

sent that triggered spark of thanks, as I recalled not only the exceptional Styx moments, with the curtains parting for Paradise Theater, opened once more for that fleeting moment in time. But it was the shout out of gratitude to America herself, in the form of the song Miss America, not actually written by Dennis but by James Young that has given me this exceptional musical journey.

Well aren't you Miss America
Don't you Miss America
Won't you Miss America

Originally probably a some what misogynistic song about the Miss America beauty pageant, that has evolved and changed meaning, to the Miss America we live in, that place of musical dreams, from Laurel Canyons gift of The Eagles, and Joni Mitchell to Nashville's Ryman Auditorium trying out Elvis and giving us real Country and Western Music or lets not forget CBGB's in New York the club set to lay way to Country Blue Grass and Blues ( CBGB get it) instead laid waste to groups like Television, Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith... I love America.

It was the robotic classic Styx that took me back there, and still fired that spark that said you're lucky mate, you get to dig in hit the road and experience this, also amazingly you just need to look round the corner and hit the Belly Up in San Diego or the Ace Hotel in LA....

Sweepingly familiar, Dennis danced and played to the crowd and we didn't seam to care that he used the same jokes he used 10-15 even 20 years ago, clearly no more the angry young man, with too  much time on his hands, more apt to coax us to come sail away with Loreli, and sing ballads Lady and Babe, to his wife also on stage of over 30 years.
At 73 trips around the sun he is still showing us the way and as kitsch as it seams to wrap the songs into the final paragraph, raising his Kilroy mask he makes that final statement we as fans chant back Kilroy was indeed ...Here.

Live music is for sure my guilty pleasure, I dedicate this as an ode to that moment dotted in time somewhere in the future that we again will gather in fearless surrender to the magical sounds from a stage, large or small, what does it matter.

#grahamsataconcertagain
#bennysantiniproductions



I've got soul but i'm not a soldier

LYRICAL THOUGHT II

LYRICAL THOUGHT II

"Deep within the Heart of Nowhere", circa 1978, there was a certain scruffy Irishman that somehow spoke to me.

I was still in full discovery mode, you know the sort that has you trying to unscramble the lyrical belt from the St. Cleve Chronicle....the twists of Jethro Tull's fine flutist himself, magical mister Mephistopheles ( if ever there was a cat so clever) his own self, Ian Anderson .
I will understand then,as is so appropriately stated in the first few lines of the epic "Thick as a Brick" side one..." I really don't mind if you sit this one out"  you see how quickly it gets to me even today, usually just buzzing around the inside of my cranium, now I just want to type the titles of Jethro Tull songs all day long, I mean "Jeffrey goes to Leicester Square" "Skating away on the thin ice of the new day" or the veritable "Too
old to Rock n roll Too young to die" how could you not...
Unsurprisingly I was as fascinated back when with music and Lyrics as I am today, even in the late 60's and early 70's the more "words" the better.


Can you relate to the  "...Real imperial aerosol kid" of "Lamb lies Down on Broadway" infamy.... or wonder if the "Maples were right about the Oaks" in what on the face of it is a simple tune by Rush from their "Hemispheres" album, oh lets not go down the oppression path...

I know there are many other examples and many that followed later in my life , one that took me on a trek, on a cold December day in 1987, driving the winding roads of the Utopian British countryside, wearing thin through sideways rain as I stared at the misshapen images through raindrops on the windshield, the shops on Princess Street decked out in their blurred seasonal finest as I arrived for a two night stand with "Marillion" at The Edinburgh Playhouse.

Sometimes  moments and memories are best served on the home turf of a Band, and that little extra is given, absolutely the case as this "root-in too-tin cowboy", was grateful for those "lonely stretches of headlights" as I searched as a "wide boy" to "wear my own White Feather", lost voice and ears ringing, I wondered if I had hit the pinnacle in the "heart of Lothian" and my "Misplaced Childhood" was over...

So there I was in 1978 surrounded by the latest sounds of this tremendous era of rebellion and angst

through the ultimate vehicle of emotions, Late 70's in England was a great time to be young,  (sneaking home your own copy of "Never Mind The Bollocks" by the "Sex Pistols" and playing it in your bedroom seams very tame by today's standards !!)
Most certainly the unrequited feeling of being "in love with the girl on the Manchester Virgin Mega-store checkout desk"
The Freshies nailed it as they sang the lines, I mean c'mon there was no better promotion to being hip than having a Virgin bag hanging at your side crossing Market street to the Arndale Center on a Saturday afternoon in Manchester town center...


"She takes money 
She gives change
She sells records
And that's special"

(take  a listen   https://youtu.be/VvV465SHJBg  and a wander down memory lane, I can recite this song word for word even today, and it really does take me back to those halcyon days)

Yeah, there was Blondie, Elvis Costello, Buzzcocks, The Damned or XTC, but it was that scruffy Irishman that had me. Understandably looking back you realize these guys couldn't sing they just seamed to shout down the microphone and that bothered some folks...

I remember hearing "Mary of the 4th Form" for the first time and thought Hmm there's something here, ahead of my emotional time maybe!
But "Joeys on the street again" ...
" Look at the brick wall gravestone, where some kid has sprayed nobody could be bothered to rule here OK"
I always thought that I wanted to be Joey and get out of town. The song spoke of a time where it was hard to leave your blue collar surroundings, its hard to grab a hold of your self before sinking into the abyss of factory labor or unemployment, and what that looked like when you did leave, I will leave one day and folks will say I wonder what hes up to " someone said they had seen him, they were nearly always wrong, no one knew how much he had, where he'd gone or for how long".
I thought of this moment some 15 to 20 years later, when I heard I was missed at a college reunion, the only one not there as I was "In America or something" a romantic notion I dare say.

As their second album hit the charts "it was a Rat Trap Billy" and I had been caught, fortunate enough to see the "Boomtown Rats" play numerous times at Manchester Apollo or Dominion Theater London or the Empire in Liverpool, even at the Shobox in Seattle. There was one time along with a cluster of my closest chums, we had taken the very familiar route to Ardwick Green where we would see them on "The Fine Art of Surfacing Tour" The X'sand O's of the stage lights, "Someones looking at You" or "Diamond Smiles", but it was here for the first time, live, I heard the haunting lyrics about a girl in the USA who shot her school class mates because she "Didn't like Mondays"
Maybe a tear did roll down the face that evening, does that make me uncool... gee I hope so
It was merely 6 or so years later as I stool with 72 thousand of my closest friends that those lyrics again poignantly hit the sky with a clenched fist "...and the lesson today is how to die"
13th July 1985 was Live Aid, Bob Geldof's Opus and he deserved the roar, the children of Africa deserved that roar, the victims of Barbra Spencer's shooting deserved that roar, and if I am being totally honest, even as I screamed aloud myself  being in attendance, yeah maybe I deserved a bit of that roar...

On another equally grey British weekday, having landed at Piccadilly Station in Manchester, I trudged the very familiar fifteen minute walk to Ardwick Green once more. Times were changing, and the feeling crept over me that things would never be the same again, hunched over from the rain as I walked those final steps to the Apollo, I side stepped into the stale brick faced Aspley Cottage Pub for refreshment, fate plays tricks on me sometimes and it sure has its quirks, but sitting at the bar, unkempt, un-assuming and seemingly happy for that moment, in that instant every memory hitting my synapses at the same time, I couldn't gush, it wasn't that kind of moment, I wanted, no I needed to play it cool......thirty seconds to last a lifetime.

So as Vinyl makes its come back, I smile at times gone by, and think I must dig out that Autographed album..

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain

I got soul but im not a soldier