Monday, August 03, 2015

bagpipes make it all better

hello there

i know you are all excited about that title, look you see, so let me lay it down straight for you - yes, you will see and hear bagpipes being played in this blog post. if you take that as either incitement to carry on reading or your reason to make your excuse and leave, well, that's up to you.

my lunch, and indeed the lunch of many others, was beautified today by the presence of a bagpipe player. he, for i am sure it was such, was stood in one of the pivotal spots demarcated for being where buskers and other such performers may stand and perform their art in exchange for coins of money from those that approve.

video clip a little bit lower down, but for now, to act as some sort of teaser if you like, here's a still that i have trimmed down off the classy video i covertly made.



going around and randomly filming people doing stuff is not what they call the English way of doing things as such, but i could not resist the chance to capture this for you. i trust that it is all appreciated by those of you who elect to select "play" on the clip below when it crops up.

weirdly, during the course of verk today i stumbled upon a national college for bagpipes. they offer four courses a day, five days of the week. where are all of these people who are learning the bagpipes?

to leave that sort of thing briefly aside for one moment or perhaps two; bagpipes, to the best of my knowledge, shall not be cropping up on this, this rather fine gem of a CD i found today over at Poundland.

i spotted that, right, and said that looks a bit like it is the celebrated Forever Changes album by Love, except it isn't. indeed it wasn't. it turned out to be something i had not heard of before, the Forever Changes Concert CD set, recorded in 2003.

if you've not heard of the band, the album or this apparently celebrated concert recording, don't beat yourself up or get all Australian about it; few have. the band disintegrated not long after the album was released in 1967, with this reunion thingie in 2003 (or thereabouts) being the first time that most, if not all, of the songs from it were ever performed.

as is the case with them two that i love dearly, Harry Nilsson and Warren Zevon, Love were a band that had a profound influence on other artists - other artists that went on to have massive success, with the success being of a level that those who inspired never got close to. the so-called "classic" line up of The Stone Roses were unified by their love of this record, for a start, and their intention with the album The Stone Roses was to capture the same groove and vibe that Forever Changes gave them.

a review of that to follow, but for now you want bagpipes, and here you go. a video of some dude playing the bagpipes during lunchtime today.


yeah, sorry that it is so short if you wanted more, but also you are very welcome if that's quite enough bagpipe action for you.

as for who it is that's learning the bagpipes so much that firstly some sort of national college was formed and secondly they have to offer so many lessons, i bet it is them hipster b@stards, or possibly some or all of them f*****g "millennial" twats. it just seems the sort of poncy, wanky, avant garde stuff they would get up to, to be honest.

indeed i do have quite a crop of pictures and stories here from our time away on a brief break, and i probably should be using my time to post them here. the presence of bagpipes in my day, however, was something that could not be overlooked or allowed to go with no reference.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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