Sandy Posey----- Wonk Alert

Big trouble getting these images on. The isp  Aotearoa Peoples Network doesn't seem to like the name. I couldn't upload from wiki. default back to the desktop every time. I believe that the name is also used by a chain of European brothels. Well that's not my problem. If you want to censor everything by blanket then you are being lazy and irresponsible. My friend is also having trouble with the name Corsair. another one on the shit list. I wanted to look at Mel Lyman from the jim kweskin band and he is on the index too. It seems that a whole dictionary of words is now being interwebbed out of existence because a machine cannot distinguish between legitimate and prurient usage.

and.

Just checked Charly Manson and he is on the shitlist as well.

so is the only history we are allowed to know is when was bubblegum invented and what is jayzee's favourite colour.

Its as bad as the news media in New Zealand who have decided all on their very ownsome that the prime minister John Keys is the only person who can get news coverage in the press or on TEEVEE these days. We fought the second world war to maintain our precious freedoms and now the media are busy taking them away by stealth. Very Strange!

Mike Bloomfield At Newport

Here ya are kiddies. Uncle Freddy promised you a special treat and here it is. Mike and Paul and Elvin Bishop and the rest of the boys putting on the electric show at the newport Folk festival. Gotta watch out for them fokies dude.

Europe Divided 1556-1598

Reading "Europe Divided" at the moment. History is great. Its all about comparisons and contrasts.

did it really happen like that uncle freddy?

yes it did kiddies.

but it wont happen like that again!

Its good for my brain. I have my Oxford dictionary of philosophy out and re-reading all the stuff I didn't quite seem to grasp way back then.

It's all becoming crystal clear.

I don't think I really quite understood what was being asked of me as a 50 yr old undergraduate.

the only reason I was there was because I had been written off by them and a pal in the university library suggested I do a course or two.

so I did.

I still don't have a job and my loan is over $60,000 but THEY don't seem to care.

Rot in hell is their motto.

anyway now I am almost nearly a certified man of leisure I have the time to reflect on my era.

some of it good and some of it horrible.

The best was Mike Bloomfield and the worst well its still yet to come.

think ozone layers and environmental degradation to provide luxuries for idiots and more mouths to promise stuff to if they just vote for you.

ugly dude.

and it ain't over.

Waiting for the afternoon re-runs of the Late Show.

Only got a fourteen incha wif rabbit ears so Dave if you are listening how about a mystery parcel?

The reception aint too good in a southwesterly.

OK?

United States Of America

Sorry I missed his name but one of  George Bush's functionaries was on the radio this morning talking about the rain the park and other things. I liked his analysis of the Afghanistan situation and Americas role in the world and his chipping of host Kathryn Ryan on her grudge or antipathy towards the US. Also his assertion that Americans are angry at the moment. Ryan first. New Zealand has a nasty little strain of anti Americanism that reduces to jealousy pure and simple and is backed by the narrow insularity of small people with a scunner on the world because they have more than us. As for angry Americans. I went to the New York Press last night for a quick scan and the comments pages were like something off new zealands most popular auction site. Ignorant, racist, angry, uninformed, jealous, blaming etc ad nauseum. I couldn't log on because I dont have a f*ckb**k account and I'm glad of that.

Just caught Phil Wallington on Jim Mora's show  who mentioned how Lord Winston does not do science shows in Britain anymore, "they have become celebrity based drivel with no relation to science or desire to inform. just fast paced freak shows to amuse the empty eyes of gazers on strange beauty shows".

We have truly become the idiot generation. No responsibility for anything but insatiable desires for everything. Noo noo headed morons prevail everywhere with the vacant post modern fashion dummies from the BBC leading the charge. Another Item in this mornings rag sought to illuminate the advent of drug dealing gangs in the wastelands of suburban Britain and the culture of violence. Well one could say that with a televsio0n network that purveys some of the sickest co-dependent creepy playbills of suburban cell phone snoops preying on each other and chipping each other about the quality of their goods and looking down their noses at their inferiors then the lid is going to come off the underclass sooner or later. It wont go away. the situation is entirely different from the chartist movements and trade union movements of the past. This is just social ennui and anomie full stop. 

east west



golden butter



Sneak in a bit of Traffic



The One and Only



Dragged East West out of the pile yesterday. Every time I go away from it and come back I am overhwelmed with the power of Paul Butterfields harp and vocals and the marvellous guitar playing of Mike Bloomfield. this album is one of the great Masterpieces of the 1960's. Mike was essentially a gunslinger roped in by John Hammond Snr to put some juice inot a band that could knowck it out but lacked a virtuoso. Mike was Hammonds golden boy and if you ever get the chance to read his bio you will be impressed by the discography. It is no coincidence tha Mike played on Bob Dylans magnum opus Highway 61 Revisited. His guitar is all over that with subtle featherlight fills and the full roar when he pulls out all the stops. There was no one better then and there aint now.

He could play the blues and anything else and the 13 minutes of the title track East West is a sheer joy as Mike writes sublime lines and paints soundscaqpes that have no equal.

low spark of high heeled boys

according to the goss Traffic found it hard to uh.. get

it together live.

No matter.

The records and Steve Winwoods voice were easily

sufficient to carry the day any old time.

He was only a skinny white boy to start out with but

it was impossible to tell that unless you knew what

he looked like.

And he could play the guitar and keyboards as well.

As for the sound. It was in the last analyis purely

and simply English psychedelia as made by the

group. It didnt fit in any other classification and the

verse was up there with the bobster when Winwood was

on form.

the two best songs in my opinion are Mr Fantasy and

Smiling Phases.

Mr Fantasy is easy enought to work out  and I had to go to the

fakebookfor the chords of Smiling phases but it was worth it.

It is a complex song and you have to actually learn it rather

than just jotting down the changes and comping

along.

Apparently Steve is bemused by his popularity down here

but he will never be forgotten till the last real hippie

takes the last "Trans Love Airways" flight out.

Also Steve Winwood was the powerhouse behind Blind Faith.

He wrote the best songs and sang the best and

generally made it all happen.

You are the one who made us all laugh.

We wouldnt have missed you all these years.

and.

speaking of thngs british.

Transport Secretaty Phil Hammond wants to put Britain back in the fast lane of global economies.

First.

get some decent rock bands.

Second.

Get the BBC to make some decent comedies instead of the drab dreary shit they are purveying at the moment.

Making crummy soaps about angry people snooping on each others marital infidelites is not the way to raise the consciousness and aspirations of a nation.

the big picture

Hi Megan Nicol Reed.

nobody is interested in the big picture.

Humans are like that.

They only want to impress those in the immediate environment.

Anything else doesn't count.

dig?

and yes the world is entering a climacteric.

but what or how it will be made manifest is uncertain.

ya get that.

in the meantime feast on the artefacts produced buy the most

industrious era the world has ever known.

never befgore inhuman history has so much been produced

by so many for so many.

We have become prodigious users!

just anything your precious little heart desires.

and finally.

the rolling stones were always the greatest British R&B band.

Keef drove them on with unlimited power and

musical taste.

Those days will never come again.