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

HUMAN OR DANCER ?

HUMAN OR DANCER ?

Long heralded as the front man for the resurgence of the New Wave movement at the beginning of the 2000's, the clean cut lead singer of The Killers, Mr Brandon Flowers has that certain ability to connect the dots on three important elements,
a) Catchy Tunes
b) Image
c) Thought provoking lyrics

The challenge laid down recently by my daughter Philly to provide insight into a song I had been recently tapping my two left feet to... as  a side note of influence and explanatory notion, while other recently hatched millennial's were seeing bland  Disney style shows like Britney, Hannah, or Hillary as Lizzie McGuire , she was front and center showing signs of incredible musical fortitude, chanting lyrics of distane about cheating girlfriends back at the band in frenzied motion

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies
Choking on your alibi
But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside

Inspired and ready to face the musical world head on, with her first Solo live Show being the Killers at WAMU Theater in Seattle 22nd April 2009.

Inspiration, destination or just lyrical thought in the times we live in, the question was posed as to what the song "Human" really addresses .

I enjoy a good crowd pleaser and have been privileged to have sung along with sometimes 100's or thousands be it Pressed up against the stage realizing that Lola was not what she seamed or  really wanting to take the weather with me at a Crowded House Show...
Human is one such song I have not had the chance to see done live unlike the aforementioned  Philly....
Though I reckon I could do justice to the opening lines....

I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line


So I closed my eyes for a moment, paced myself and played the song once more.
OK, so the obvious are we human or are we dancer, dancers do everything in Choreographic form, we as Human kind do our own thing...
Then there is the giving away of things that make us Human, the likes of Virtue, Grace and Romance...
Take these away and we become less Human, so interestingly i'm now seeing a pattern, the giving up of individualism and stepping in line, wow, in the times we are living in it becomes more and more relevant as the youth of today are being asked to give up freedoms in favor of Socialism, what a dangerously slippery slope..
I think Brandon is addressing the youth of now, to wake up and listen before they succumb to do everything they are told, saying goodbye to everything you know, wondering if you'll be home tonight, its even got that George Orwell vibe of believing you are being guided by some non spiritual force, ending up cold to each other and our surroundings but ending on our knees begging for what we used to know... though as older generations die off, there is a lot less history around and even as young as America is, the millennial's are being forced into line by technology even though they wont admit it, not being able to see over the tops of their i phones etc. I do realize how ironic this sounds as i hit this missive out over the blog-esphere... am i part of the problem or part of the solution, am i Human or am I dancer, ouch....

Having turned to the Man from Vegas, brought up as a devotee of the church of Jesus Christ of the latter day saints, i wondered in deed what Brandon Flowers was thinking as he wrote this and i was interested to find out i was not far off
Based on a Quote from Hunter S Thompson himself "We are raising a generation of dancers" implying that the youth of today are soft and easily swayed..

If you really examine history you'll see times were people have been swayed and bad things have happened, its a social commentary on things of the past and warning against a Dystopian future...

On the other hand its just a catchy Pop Song...

#bennysantiniproductions
#grahasataconcertagain
@notfromphilly @voicefromphilly

LYRICAL THOUGHTS...

LYRICAL THOUGHTS.

Its hard to write down that lyric that hits you in the feels. You've either got it or... well you don't!
If I am being honest the cliche of they don't write them like they used to still prevails.
I found myself falling down the rabbit trail of Alice's wonderland fame, thinking about those missive's written in four four time and though the old adage is true that you "can't go home again" there are songs with lyrics so well crafted that you are often transported in time to a place with fond memories, or new discoveries, long lost loves or yes just simply going back home, of course it takes that right voice to communicate it, the voice that accesses the sensory overload...
I never had the pleasure of seeing Glen Campbell live, having the opportunity later in life, i couldn't

pull the trigger as he started to fade with Alzheimer's.
The legacy of who he played for and how he sang those songs still makes me sit up and listen....

It's knowing that your door is always open
And that your path is free to walk
That makes me tend leave my sleeping bag rolled up
And stashed behind your couch
And it's knowing I'm not shackled by forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains dried upon some line
That keeps you in back roads by the rivers of my memory
Keeps you ever gentle on my mind

Keeps you in back roads by the rivers of my memory, what a line...

The one two punch of Jimmy Webb's songs and Glen's vocal styling...
Can you hear the pain  and travesty of the man gathering himself as he shine's his gun and longs for home, wondering if he'll ever see those sea birds flyin' or hear the waves a crashin' ever again "Galveston" it rips you apart...
Or the mundane, what seemingly is the world most tedious and boring job the guy setting up the phone cables as they stretch county to county, thinking about life and where its taken him.
Just the opening line in its delivery, wow, "I am a lineman for the County...." There is no doubt as you close your eyes and let that waft over you that you half expect to open your eyes and be in Witchita....

I've always had a full appreciation for Lyrics, but as I've gotten a little more tread on my tires, i'm digging in and remembering with a lot more "Love and Affection"

As a young man I remember wanting to be Davy and follow in his footsteps, Travel was always something i had dreamed of, wherever the wind would take me and as Manfred Mann sang

Davy's on the road again
Wearin' different clothes again
Davy's turning handouts down
To keep his pockets clean
Sayin' his goodbyes again
Wheels are in his eyes again
Sez if you see Jean now ask her please to pity me
Downtown in the big town
Gonna set you back on your heels
With a mouth full of memories
And a lot of stickers for my windshield
Shut the door
Cut the light
Davy wont be home tonight
You can wait till the dawn rolls in
You won't see our Davy again

Hardly classic lines I suppose but gathering that mouthful of memories and stickers for my windshield, that was so mouth wateringly appealing... lyrics man unbelievable...

LA's fine the sunshine's most the time... It is absolutely my good fortune to now reside in Southern California and even more so appreciate where I come from, you know the depressed industrial blue collar Northwest of England, described so accurately by Chris Rea "The screaming desolation of the English Northern Coast"  and where i now place my size 9's
I am I said to no one there, Neil Diamonds voice could surely be the only one that could sing those lines, the frustration of being alone, and still longing for home, caught between two coasts.
Having landed and traveled, there are no regrets, embrace, enjoy and roll along...

The true root of what made me think about lyrics as a stimulation of late... has to Paul Heaton, How I

missed this genius the first time around is beyond me, oh yeah i was travelling ...
Anyway his lyrical twists are humorous, sad, happy and true

If rain makes Britain great
Then Manchester is greater

I guess you need to have lived in both the UK and Manchester to truly appreciate every sentiment of the lines !!

I have a new affinity for Irish ballads of late and truly respect the art of Christy Dignam, Finbar Furey, Shane MacGowan, Paul Brady, Mundy, and the much under appreciated Sharon Shannon's squeeze box playing.

But again its the lyrics as they tell the stories

Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride,
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside,
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done

Picture yourself sitting down to take a rest and glance over and imagine the story of the young man and why he died so young, "The Green Fields of France" depressingly beautiful, and closing your eyes you feel the warmth of the sun and as you listen to Finbar Furey and Christy Dignam's version, if you can hold back the tears your a better person than I...

Maybe its better to think of a lost love and contemplate "The Lakes of Pontchartrain"

How then can i not tell you to listen to the story of a young man down on his luck during the Irish famine,who took some corn from an English farmer to feed his children and sweetheart then paid the price and was shipped off to Australia...

The word picture of this incredibly beautiful song truly has you walking the banks of the River Clarin, past the old Dominican Priory, and into the fields of Athenry,

But a lonely prison wall,
I heard a young girl calling
Michael they have taken you away,
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
So the young might see the morn,
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay

Low lie, The Fields Of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing
We had dreams and songs to sing,
Its so lonely round the Fields of Athenry

I am not sure you can top the song for its atmospheric turbulence...

Phew its an emotional ride, ill leave for the moment with another poet of days gone by, remember that first time you thought this is it i'm home, weather a place you where born and raised, somewhere you were forced to, or just that magical place of self discovery, doesn't matter what age one or hundred and one, maybe you were born in the summer of your own twenty seventh year?

He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door

When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
It keeps changing fast and it don't last for long

But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high (Colorado)

He climbed cathedral mountains, he saw silver clouds below
He saw everything as far as you can see
And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun
And he lost a friend but kept his memory

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it raining fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

Now his life is full of wonder but his heart still knows some fear
Of a simple thing he cannot comprehend
Why they try to tear the mountains down to bring in a couple more
More people, more scars upon the land

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I've seen it rainin' fire in the sky
I know he'd be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly
Rocky mountain high

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain 
bennysantini.blogspot.com

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

SO IT GOES

SO IT GOES...

There are those books that you struggle to read , in which you re read each sentence over and over in the hopes of maybe understanding what in the ten types of instant cake mix they are trying to say, I've read a number of those, and my brain will ever be the poorer for it, naming those that you had high hopes for will remain fodder for another post...
Then there are those that are page turners like you were actually there, I suppose it all depends on the interests of you dear reader, but  as good old David Coverdale would say "Here I go again on my own"
This wasn't an epiphany in any way as I am familiar with the most famous person you have never heard of, THE Jesus of Cool, you know pure pop for now people, but hearing the words as they jumped off the page and piecing the information together chronologically, made me realize how blessed I was to have grown up in an era where this mans influence on the life and times of music of my misplaced childhood were foremost.

Kudos's must of course go to Will Birch for this classy Biography "Cruel to be Kind... the life and music of Nick Lowe".

As you read, its clear the author loves his subject, and has a talent for writing it down, which can also be seen in his previous recants of the life of Ian Dury or the great pub rock revolution " No sleep till Canvey Island", check out the man his own self on his blog or twitter accounts as he's a force in his own right as lyricist, drummer, erstwhile rock writer and so it seams all round good guy, I will shake your hand one day Mr Birch
As a teaser for those not as familiar, the ride Nick Lowe has taken is not the path well trodden, more the lets just push through and see what happens, and as if blessed by the music Gods in a time before we wish we knew what we knew now when we were younger, otherwise we just wouldn't understand anything "about peace love and understanding"... "So it Goes"
I mean the connections to The Marquee, Dr Feelgood, Huey Lewis, Elvis Costello, Nashville, Christmas and the man in black himself to namedrop a few into the Rockpile of time gone by...see what i did there!

It was earlier this year before this bio was released I had my own full
circle, I mean sitting in my comfortable coffee shop in San Diego, Its not lost on me that I've pushed my own path forwards since the days of growing up in the depressed industrial North West of England, whether its an unfair amount of shows seen at the Apollo in Ardwick Green Manchester, traipsing around a non commercialized Soho and Carnaby Street, witnessing shows at the The Marquee on Wardour Street, or for that matter embracing the Dingwall's side of life Rhythm and booze its all about the music ...

Flash forward an obscene number of years to an equally dingy and exciting venue on the Beautiful Pacific Coast line of Sunny Southern California, I'm sitting enjoying four truly great and innovative American singer songwriters of the late 90's early 2000's

who were doing the songs and stories acoustic tour they felt an endearing public wanted to see, I mean its been a while since i saw Elvis Costello and the Attractions perform a 3 hour set in their last show together in the USA, i digressed again to name drop, but here I am enjoying Art Alexakis of Everclear , John Wozniack or Marcy Playground, Max Collins of Eve 6 and Chris Collingwood of Fountains of Wayne.
As they tripped the light fantastic of memory lane, they all four took the stage to relay and sing a song that had influenced all of their careers, and led by Chris, sang an incredible homage to Nick Lowe by singing "So it Goes", from the Jesus of Cool Album, I wondered to myself will anyone ever write a Biography about the most famous man no one knows..
Surely now you can hear the sound of breaking glass.....
Ask me about that time I was with Phil Lynott in a bar on the Isles of Scilly, maybe when I shake your hand Mr Birch we can swap stories, dear readers do yourselves a favor and read this book...

@will_birch #bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain @bennysantiniproductions

CATCH A FALLING STAR

CATCH A FALLING STAR.

It's just as you imagine it to be, picked up by that Kansas tornado, and flung westwards only to crash and lodge itself into the seventh floor of Jacobs Hall the engineering dept. building on the UCSD campus.

What in the twelve realms of suspended reality is happening here.

My brain is seriously on overdrive, not because I fell and twisted my ankle as I was on the hunt for this little hidden nugget, more because it really can't figure out whats going on. Visually from down below I'm are already thinking nah, can't be, but as I hobble towards the elevator that's going to take me skyward, and I alight on the aforementioned seventh floor, there are two signs, to the left is the Deans office, ugh flashback, don't want to go in there again, on the right however, and I remind you again that I am in fact seven floors up, I step gingerly (at this juncture more of a limp) out onto a brick path, i'm wondering if at some point it might indeed have been painted yellow, surrounded by a well manicured lawn,with signs inviting one to please not step on me! East Coast style shrubbery and plants adorn the rim of the garden, a couple of Adirondack chairs sit invitingly around a small table by the entrance to this beautiful off kilter Cape Cod Cottage...

I've forgotten about the pain in my ankle for now as I step through the door, I fight with my brain to come to grasp with what I see verses what I am feeling, somewhat woozily I scan around looking for my horizon, that thing I hope will stop the impending doom of vertigo, maybe I should have stopped and read a
book, maybe Gail Russel's biograph "Fallen Star"
There is a bookcase full of literature, a desk, couch, lounge chairs, beautiful brick fireplace, large round rug, family pictures grace the walls all seemingly in the right places, they aren't moving, spinning, why am I.
Rescue comes in the form the calming voice of the septuagenarian I see sitting, with her newspaper by the fireplace, calm as you will, like she's spent the last six months a drift at see and has come to grips with the fact she will never be rescued....wwwwiiillllsssooonnnn...

She asks me to alight my eyes on the one thing that cannot defy gravity, quickly again my eyes fumble, but what, the pain in my ankle is coming back, I'll need to steep outside if....ahhhh I get it
Gravity works, I smile, I even sit down with my new friend for a chat, she asks me not to mention what Billy Crystal is looking for in City Slickers, you know that one thing...that will remain a mystery till you go for yourself.

Turns out this is a piece of art from Do Ho Suh, yep that one, do you know any others?
Born in 1962 in Seoul South Korea. Suh arrived in America in the early nineties to study at the Rhode Island School of Design. Fallen Star ( built in 2012) along with other works came about as he transformed his own feelings of displacement, as if he had been in his words "dropped from the sky", and then he continues to explores the notions of home, cultural displacement, along with ones perception of space and how one builds a memory around it ( maybe he also saw the move "Blinded by the Light" lets hope this calliope doesn't crash to the ground) What is Home after all?

All the aspects of this cottage I find out are exact replicas of the home he lived in on the east coast, and as I look at the family photographs all around the walls, they are of Do himself along with his parents and family. the more time I am here, the more its coming to feel like home.
I'm in need of ice for my ankle at this point, so I make my excuses, stumble past a few other bemused guests, struggling to make sense of their brains that have turned to jelly, I sign the guestbook, I smile and realize that David Cassidy had it wrong all this time and yes you really can go home again.

Fallen Star is only open limited hours so if your planning a visit (and you should) Tuesdays and Thursdays 11am. to 2 pm. No reservations necessary come on in the kettles on....

#bennysantiniproductions   #grahamsataconcertagain

THE CALLIOPE CRASHED TO THE GROUND

THE CALLIOPE CRASHED TO THE GROUND

Luton Sucks !.
It could well have been any erstwhile depressed factory town in England at the time.
I'm finding that as I grow a little longer in the tooth, that which was just an aspect from my past, the experiences, sights, sounds, feelings all of which shaped me to be who I am today, are  fast becoming fodder for today's movie going public.

I head into the affluent Cineplex of the American, Southern Californian suburbs, desperate to spend an hour or so escaping the pressures of life, and hoping that Gurinder Chadha can again truly "Bend it Like Beckham", and send me back on that magic carpet ride to my British roots.

As I watch this cinematograph unfold Its not lost on me that I "got out" and became an immigrant in another country searching for that better life, I always was set for leaving, as far back as I can remember, way before the calliope crashed to the ground....

Blinded By The Light , the latest offering from acclaimed British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha is more than just an hour and a half's worth of  escape from the ritual of daily life, Yes a fabulous movie of that there is no doubt, and particular kudos to the cast and crew, most notably to you Sarfraz Manzoor.
Thank you for sticking to your dreams writing and writing as you did and showing what can be done, I hope one day to silently shake your hand, and share a smile knowing words have already been written, you are an inspiration and in fact seamed to have climbed the mountain, rode the river and drank from the magic fountain, not unlike Jesse James...

I squint walking back out into the sunlight, allowing the warmth and brightness to wash over me, I find it hard to capture the flashbacks that recur in my minds eye after walking the story of Javed in parallel to my own.
The driving angst of Springsteen's Born to Run, its all I can do to stop myself running down the street as the gravelly voice of the working class man known simply as the Boss echos deeply ...

On a dreary, damp, dark, dare I say depressing evening, in the cold baron outskirts of Sheffield a town itself struggling with the closing of the stainless steel factories, I've crossed the Pennines as if running from my own screaming desolation, Bolton whose cotton factories long since gone, and simply replaced by only the promise of Thatchers increased taxes to the unemployed, this is the early eighties, living the eighties not quite as bright as the pop songs of the time would have you believe.

The singer I've made my pilgrimage to see, is the guy who's songs I am exposed to, and just as Javed hears the Greetings from Asbury park icon, Springsteen in his head, I am inspired by my own working class hero.

Its a bit early for the show at Dingwall's night club, whose tag line Rhythm and Booze flickers in faded neon attached to the dirty brick wall, so, trudging across the street to a Wimpy Burger joint, hardly the James Dean Diner of route 66 fame, our band of friends united as a group to see "Our own" as Depeche Mode would write in the future "personal Jesus"
The food very much reminiscent of Lindisfarne's "sickly sausage rolls" but as the darkness outside gets deeper and time gets later, the passenger tucked into the corner of the same lame British burger joint looks familiar.
Long before the internet, social media and paparazzi telling you where the celebrities of the moment hang out, fate seams to have shone its light, and the closer i get, the better it looks.
I have now somehow gone, nay glided it seams, from there to here and am standing now in front of my own musical hero.

That was my first time meeting Chris Rea. Likely only a short conversation but time froze, in one

instant every lyric and thought flashing through your mind, what in the world should I ask.
This wasn't at all where I thought this movie would take me, I've seen first hand the 80's, the ugliness of depressed industrial northern towns and the underlying urge to get out.

A short while later at a different show I once asked him about his first album .. Whatever happened to Benny Santini? his reply simply with a glint in his eye, and in his wonderfully colorful Middlesbrough accent said "I dunno you're here aren't you?" the name stuck as you can see if you're reading this blog.

Gurinder's accuracy as she tells the story of Sarfraz from his  biographical book "Greetings from Bury Park" is uncanny  and unnerving all at the same time, the reality of the National Front in the 80's to her spectacular cameo as the teller in an Athena store at the mall, wow.

She made time travel possible, as I walk up Bradshawgate in Bolton circa 1982, chips and peas in a tray with gravy, the sustenance of champions, a pint in the Clarence, but this thriving little town will soon again bow to the winds of change and the boarded windows will reappear... "Badlands, you gotta live it every day, let the broken hearts stand, as the price you've gotta pay, we'll keep pushin' till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good..." BS

Her use of Springsteen's lyrics confirm her fandom, and tell the story perfectly, so if you are looking for that silly coming of age movie that intends to waste the next hour and a half, don't go see this movie, if on the other hand you want to smile, laugh, be inspired, cry, cheer, go see this gem of a picture, and i hope you get transported as i did.

It took me rather a lot longer to discover my love of writing, but I've always loved music and love to live life through those well written lyrics still. 

"I've been ten thousand miles from this place and seen it I swear
I've woke up happy thinking that I was there
It's the place I love, it's where I wanna be
And I won't give up until I get to see
A little something in there to call my own
Pass the time of day and head off home
The evening shadows on the dry stone walls
The night draws in and the ale house calls
And happy I will be
When the road goes no further than what I see
When past here it's nowhere to go
And I ain't gonna give up until I get see
Those angel eyes looking up at me
The prince of peace and time is standing still
On Chisel hill"

Chris Rea once described as England's answer Bruce Springsteen, and most recently described as everyone's fourteenth favorite singer, is a survivor and his music and lyrics do for me what Blinded by the Light did for Javed.

Go see this movie its bloody brilliant...

#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain