Spare A Penny For The Karaoke Guv'nor

Over the past months I have had the chance, if that's the right word,to visit and witness the sights and sounds of a good few towns and cities.

It is with the sounds that I would like to concentrate on.

As a music lover and a former amateur tunesmith I have noticed a real and unfortunate decline in the traditional art of busking.

If you cast your minds back just a decade or so ago the streets,subways, alleys, in fact any spare piece of pavement was occupied by a chap or chapess and their guitar, open case,if they were lucky, on the floor or maybe their hat strategically opened to be able to hold the odd bit of change their efforts rewarded them.

Now at this point I'll repeat part of the scene, the person and their guitar...period.

What you heard was either their talent or their need to practice a bit more but it was them!

Various songs presented with varying degrees of success but you admired the effort and in a lot of cases the talent.

Let me bring you up to date and I'll use the example of my nearest city, Liverpool, though I could pick any of a dozen visited over the past months.

The main musical noise to be heard now in Liverpool, home of the Beatles and some of the greatest exponent of the guitar ever, is that of a cheap and tacky backing track which wouldn't seem out of place on the earliest singalong computer games.

In front of these machines are people who wouldn't know one end of a guitar from another and pretend to play and unfortunately not pretend to sing along to the tape.

Novelty at first, pain and sad now.

The voice and guitar can't really compete with extra volume generated by the karaoke kings.

It's like that worse nightmare at a party when the karaoke comes out and you know that the same person will hog it all night pausing only to remind everyone that they should be on The Voice.

Live music seems to have been relegated to the certain pubs or rooms with participants regarded as enthusiasts...real shame.

And it's not just live music that is suffering.

My other old hobby of DJ seems to be in the doldrums as well, a wedding I attended had a DJ armed not with discs but yep you guessed it a karaoke machine into which he and he alone sang all night, it was truly awful.

Karaoke was fun when it first arrived but now it seems no one can do anything without the backing track to support them...hardly surprising I suppose when TV programmes such as X Factor are just a glorified karaoke night.

It's time for our guitar toting musicians to hit the streets early, grab the best spots, grip your plectrums and get playing again, let's push karaoke back to where it belongs...behind closed doors.

Keeping Abreast Off The News

Now as those of you who have had the misfortune to stumble across or even read these rambles will know I am no prude.

So it may surprise some people to read that I was not totally disappointed to hear that the nations favourite alternative to Andrex is seemingly ditching the image usually reserved for the first inside page of its daily comic. 

So why I hear you yawn are you not disappointed? Well I am looking at this from a slightly different angle which is my want.  

This publication is thrust upon the public every day under the guise of being a newspaper, it isn't, so let's get that out of the way first. It then aims itself at the so called working man, another myth, but, a little closer to the truth, a word not normally associated with it, as males are in the vast majority the ones attracted to the image. 

It then in many cases takes the moral high ground and lectures to its masses, whilst looking to take their minds off their drivel by distracting it with an image that goes against what they preach. 

Images like these can be found everywhere on the Internet, so I'm told...ahem...so would there be any other reason to continue this practice? Maybe that is why it will continue on their online edition. 

But it may now challenge the printed copy to raise its game. There is no distraction, there is no skipping the front page and the pointless comment and opinion to gawp at something before turning to the back pages and read about Chelsea or Man U, it may now have to put something reasonable and dare I say accurate inside its pages...I live in hope, but I can't help feeling they may have boobed. 

Happy New Year?

Well...is it 2016 yet?

I write this at the end of the first full week of 2015 and what a week! 

I mentioned at the end of my final blog of last year that we went into 2015 hoping for better but I had my doubts...within days those doubts were confirmed.

It has been a horrible week.

I am not going to linger on the horrific events across the channel as we have all seen and heard more than enough of those scary 48 hours...and thoughts go out to all who lost their lives. 

What I will say though is surely now it is time to for everyone to stand back, take a breath and realise that unity is the biggest weapon we all have...

Just as sickening in my opinion were the attempts by some to use the tragedy for their own ends and promote the devision that is so dangerous. Blogging and tweeting about immigration, multiculturalism and putting it forward as a cause of what happened is truly loathsome. 

Creating even more fear, paranoia and mistrust is really useful isn't it? 

And if anyone is being swayed by the tasteless self promotion have a read of this from Dickens and ponder over it...

There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.

On a more trivial topic the new year has started for myself with someone giving me a late Christmas present of some kind of virus...apparently there are around 5 different virus' doing the rounds at the moment which is a bit scary as I have only had the one...so I was encouraged to read that there could be a new anti biotic on the way...all we need now is to be able to see someone who can prescribe it before the virus goes on its own. 

I did make a kind of resolution to make these blogs less of a rant in 2015... So I will always try to include something trivial but factual...so last Sunday before the virus invaded I was heading into town in the old horseless wagon. 

My route includes several roundabouts. 

I reached the first roundabout at an unfortunate time as I had to wait for at least 15 vehicles of various descriptions, sizes, colours and drivers...all different but with one thing in common...their vehicles appeared to all have either, no indicators, or all their bulbs had gone, what a coincidence! Or is  the cynic in me correct in thinking that they weren't being used? Perish the thought...although as 80% of them were also in the wrong lane for the exit they were taking I do tend to believe my cynicism. 

None of us are perfect drivers, I have been driving now for longer than I care to remember 30years+ and what I am going to suggest frightenes me as much as anyone...but could it be time for a refresher session every 10 years or so? 

I realise that this would exempt drivers of BMWs and Audi's as I am aware that their cars are not fitted with indicator lights at all. 

Happier New Year to you all...