ZOMBIES ON A HOT TIN ROOF

Zombies have been in the news of late , The only guarantee in life is Death and Taxes , unless you are the Former People.

Fans show solidarity with the undead

Zombies gather at their favourite festering hole

They show their loyalty and Patriotism , just dont ask them to pay the Queen her Tax

They are back from the dead and promise to haunt us

Will the dead invest in the Sevco issue?

BILLY BRAGG & KT TUNSTALL perform WOODY GUTHRIE 100TH CELEBRATION

Woody Guthrie was born 100 years ago.His Family has Scottish roots so it was fitting Glasgow would be amongst a few set venues for this celebratory tour.

Billy Braggs first connection with the work of Guthrie was when he was invited by Woody Guthries Daughter Nora.Out of an archive of over 3,000 songs Woody barely recorded a single digit percentage of them , none of them to a musical score.This presents problems and opportunities to would be ressurecters , Bragg resolved this very early on by intimating , with Noras blessing, his own style based mostly of Brit punk and independent acoustic traditions.

The event started with some wonderful songs from an upcoming KT Tunstall Album of which the best was an evocative piece called Invisible Empire:( give it about 30 seconds to kick-in).



The night was designed to showcase the totality of Woodys themes as well as his influences of which Leadbelly was a major inspiration.Paul Robeson also gave Woody many gigs leading to public exposure in the days when there was no such thing like  touring as we know today.Almost all of Woodys gigs were free performances at pickets and Strikes in an age when even being suspected Socialist was a blacklisted across the states offence in legal and cultural circuits.

Woody hated Fascists , here is a typical Bragg version of battle cry against the Nazis and their supporters at home and abroad:




In the video below Bragg gives an American audience a British style speech on the NHS and Twitter:



Woody spent some time in Glasgow when having been shipwrecked during the D-Day Landing he awaited transportation back to the US.Bragg performed a World premiere of the song Woody Guthrie wrote about the city and the clyde.You can see it performed in this link

Billy Bragg finished proceedings with an updated version of the perennial Great Leap Forward:




You can get a lot more details of the life times and legacy of Woody Guthrie from his dedicated website.

SCOTLAND v MACEDONIA

The Tartan Army , of which i was a lowly foot soldier tonight, pride themselves on supporting you ever more.But , in the case of Craig Levein they are more than willing to make an exception.The Tartan Army have split into two camps concerning the current Manager , the "Flower of Scotland" brigade ( known to us Glaswegians as Tcheuchters) hate him , the Urban(e) populace despise him , whenever his face appeared on the Big Screens there was a searing cacophony of booos reverberating on two sides of the stadium ( the other sides were empty with a crowd of only 32,000) , the admixture of gruff gravely Glasgow accent booing in unison with the Gaelic adolescent high pitched lilting made for a very unholy parody of impotent petty venom.

"What the fuck are they saying" was what we Unbanities said to each other with quizzical bemused looks as the Tcheuchters started a massive chant , after a lot of hit and miss translations , de-coding and other linguistic real-time deciphering we made out they were chanted "Bring on the Subs" , there were only 8 minutes gone!.Though , to be fair , the quality of defending as the Macedonians ripped the defence apart at will on several occasions did seem to suggest immediate emergency surgery was required to avoid what people in the Balkans call a "Catastropht".Two minutes later the Catastropht happened.More slicing apart, a beautiful run , two step-overs while on full speed run from the brilliant Pandev , a quick corner, a deft pass , a stroke , bulging net , and that most famous of anti-Hampden roars....two seconds of silence.Realisation.32,000 Scots sober.




After that distraction the Crowd got back to the game of loathing Levein with fresh added ire.Leveins problems began when he came up with a masterstroke after the Spain game in Autumn 2010 ( which we won 2-3).In the midweek after we were playing the Czech Republic , who had lost at home to Lithuania earlier in the tournament , at a low ebb of form and morale.With the high of a good performance against the deserved World Champions the Tartan Army was on for catching the Czechs at just the right time to consolidate a position in the group that could have made Scotland unassailable as co-qualifiers along with Spain.But , Leveins masterstroke was not to press home the advantage and strike when the iron was hot.He went for a 6-2-2-0-0 formation , learned from the likes of Dundee Utd and Hearts , and go for a 0-0 draw.The hopelessly out of touch and disjointed Czechs ambled , shuffled and struggled to find any sort of form for a whole 70 minutes whilst the Scots sat back with no concern to score at the other end.Ironically , the Czechs scored from a British type set-piece goal late in the game.The points went to the home side.The advantage was lost.And the Czechs finished the job from which a more positive Scottish performance that night would never have allowed them.

Thereafter the Tartan Army has  gone seriously out of love with the 6-2-2-0-0 , as Levein has stubbornly stuck to it , citing , among other things , that Del-Bosque has also come round the Leveins way of thinking.The fact that del-Bosque has said this formation without a striker allows him to get 5 men into the last third when attacking , and Leveins allows the grand total of none , with the "striker" pressing in midfield, does seem to suggest divergence on the practical ethos of utilisation of the system.Considering last saturdays opponents Serbia beat Wales 6-1 suggests Levein was not wrong to start off in a cautious manner.Leaving tactical substitutions until very late into the day seems to be the issue of most concern.Though one must bear in mind Miller and Naismith could have done everyone a favour by being more professional with the golden chances that fell their way.Had scotland won the pressure on tuesday would have allowed the team to patiently probe the opposition with the crowd being a genuine 12th man.

Sitting near the dug-out i got to see quite a lot of Levein, he has the gait of a man who has a contract in which he would be better-off getting a severance payment by getting sacked than resigning and giving up on a bumper golden handshake.He will tough it out until told not to do so.In fact he has entered the Taking-The-Piss-Zone , stating we can win all our games just before getting two tame home draws , mainly due to a defend when in doubt postures.

One has to be fair and point out the current Scottish , despite what the MSM say,squad is not up to standard for an expansive system.Technically Macedonia were far superior to the Scottish players.It was no surprise goalkeeper McGregor was man of the match.

PATTI SMITH at the GLASGOW CARLING ABC

Patti Smith last night was superb! Stunning voice , a lot of New York Punk scene vibes about , a dynamic performance full of raw emotion and sincerity you just cant find in the corporate rock age.

This was the song that captured everything about a special night those who were lucky enough to be there will live again and again.



The Independent has a considered review of this sold out concert that very few would have expected to be the closest artist to the age of punk when her accomplished band got going.

There is a lot of confusion that the song "Because The Night" is a Springsteen song covered by Patti.The song was actually a joint collaboration with pieces written by both Patti and Bruce.The version of the concert had a typically rocky raw edge not seen for many years.



The night was rounded of by a version of Gloria with tributes to all those still fighting the good fights of social justice the world over.

VAN GOGH TO KANDINSKY at the SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY

This exhibition examines Expressionism, symbolism, impressionism and finally leads to the early cubist movements.

The entrance has an optical illusion which features two of the paintings on display.




70 paintings by 54 artists are featured , with the majority being from Scandinavia including an uncharacteristic display of colour by Munch.There is much Poetry and Music coming at you with most of the Finnish works connecting the natural landscape as a metaphor for the Finns to resist encroaching bordering on blatant Russian attempts at expansionist domination in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The exhibition is about the inner attitudes of the dominated or excluded towards the forces of expansion,colonisation and ideas of the era in which Darwinian might is right was seen as a virtue in the age of stronger replacing the weaker under the veneer of civilising missions and road towards natural secular progress.

Major stand out attraction is the sower by Van Gogh 

This interesting analysis gives an indication of Van Gogh articulation of the painting through the course of the years he painted the theme.

"Perhaps prescient of what was impending, in November of 1888 Van Gogh produced a second canvas of The Sower which showed an even more dramatic use of color [painting above]. But in this image, an enormous sun is setting in “a very low yellow-green sky-- just as Vincent had described it---with a few streaks of pink cloud...” (Gayford, 2006, p.186). Gayford goes on to describe this second portrait as melancholic. In both instances, the color and mood that Van Gogh was personally experiencing came to dominate the painting."

The exhibition  closes with the blurred lines becoming defined the bordered colours, shapes and symbols of Kandinsky ushering in the age of abstract and cubes.

This painting is called "The Cossacks", an analysis of it reveals a musical symphony of shapes and colours representing emotions and spiritual themes.

Kandinsky style delineated shapes and colours to provide a mood for engendering a deep emotional philosophical response.

Black and  Violet has rich colours inspired by the work of Gauguin and Matisse , it is an example of his concept of Spiritual Art.This analysis gives an indication of his theories and what he was trying to achieve with his chromatic concert theatre. 

You can see some works of Kandinsky set to Music in the vid below:

EDVARD MUNCH at the SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART

In Glasgow we like to call a spade a spade , a hun a hun and a woman a dug.On a trip to Edinburgh we had to mind our p's and q's and pronounce Munch not as it is spelt but as Moonk , it took us a lot of getting used to.

Though his most iconic image is The Scream , Munch was a very early exponent of the  pressures , stresses and strains of Modern Life , this is why his work has a quality of currentness to us Today, giving his pictures an aura of sympathy , empathy and warning as to whether we serve the system or the system should serve us.Alas it is a rhetorical question in the negative which reflects sadly on the issue of progress or regression in the over one hundred years since most of Munch's work has been with us.

Munch himself suffered from many of the ills such as anxiety ( above) and melancholy ( below) which very much made him a suffering artist who points a mirror to society in which it can see what it is doing to our being.

His work is probably more relevant to us that it was to his times as we all are caught in the debt and work off the mortgage trap which exacerbates the very ills he brought out into the public sphere.

This review gives more details of the actual exhibition.

You can see a revealing documentary about The Scream in the video below:

OLYMPIC FOOTBALL AT HAMPDEN

Michael Kelly had a dream to host the Olympics in Glasgow , Michael Kelly is now quite rightly remembered by his affix "disgraced former Celtic director" .He even had a venue fixed for it , Govan. Therefore it has to be said the first Moonbeams were , as always , from an ex-Custodian of the pre-McCann revolution Celtic.Since that time many a shimmering Moonbeam has enshrined that same spot.But , still to this day it is a derelict scrawny shrub land.

Michael Kelly , as Celtic fans say, "talks a lot of shite" and the club is miles better without him , though it has to be said his dream was not completely off the mark as we were graced by having a portion of the Olympic Football tournament at Hampden Park.On the first evening we almost re-ignited the longest continuous war in modern history.Having somewhat resolved that before things got nuclear we came to the second day , what could possibly go wrong.

On asking a Group4S official the exact location of the ticket collection point we were greeted by an incredulous look of "whatever possessed you to ask me a technical detailed question like that" , at that moment we knew we were enjoying the Olympic experience , UK style.We left the official , still with a frozen face of confused bafflement permanently etched on his puzzled face , continuing the treasure hunt for an alleged Eldorado located within some oft spoken off but never seen white portacabins said to be somewhere , no one quite knew where, near the ground.

When we finally found them the ticket selling and collection booths were like a trip to the third world with queues of bewildered undirected patrons four wide clamouring to get an audience with a single window slit.The operation was so streamlined each person took about five minutes the process with prospects of more to come later.For some the experience was an emotional roller-coaster ride as they would negotiate two questions , name and address, only to fall at the third hurdle , booking reference number.The Scots within the ticket booths seemed to take a grim satisfaction in sending people "home to think again".Some skittled off meekly holding bits of paper in a sad lament.Others , desolate they would never see an Olympic event for the rest of their earthly life , decided to make a last stand for economic justice , after all they had paid £20 a ticket , in the vain hope that standing on the spot , shouting loudly , refusing to budge may oil the wheels of bureaucracy and gain then a special dispensation.They were sent home with the ultimate weapon of modern day renaissance contract workers , a shrug of the Shudders ( as we say in Glasgow) accompanied by a polite smile just so they would know they have been dealt  with a ISO9002 company.

All this exciting action took place from us arriving well before the first installment of a double-header package until half time of the opening match.The last dramatic theatre was a real tear-jerker , just ahead of us the rate of processing a customer was comfortably passing the five minute a patron mark , with a Nigerian breaking the seven minute barrier ,every patron at this stage was being dealt with a booth operator joined by a bemused onlooker , no doubt a newly trained supervisor , continually on the phone to some central helpline pulling melodramatic faces and wiping her brow with a pile of ample non-issued tickets.

At last we got to a Family of Four one ahead of us , a lady and three kids.All they seemed to have in their possession from what i could gather was a scribbled set of numbers on post it note taken down from a facebook message , not only did they have difficulty with the name of the original purchaser but also had a problem with the address and the scribbled number appeared to be wrong.Their appeal to use the latest technology to dig out the proper number from the original email from the android cut no ice with the two person team in the booth who only deal in printed matter.At first the middle-aged boy went round the corner to have a whimpering sulk , shortly after his younger sister went round the corner to console him and bring him back , with things getting no nearer to resolution the sister and brother went round the corner together to bulp and gulp in each others hugs.Then it was the turn of the older brother to get al fresco in the emotions department.The final flourish was the mum doing a howling , gulping and bulping in front of the booth window as the impatient queue behind , having long since ran out of sympathy , wished police would take them away in some corner out of the road.

Alas , i happened  to have all my paperwork and credit cards in order , amazingly processed in under three minutes , even then i felt i had left a part of my life and some of my soul in that booth with me.

When we finally got into the ground 54 minutes of the first match had already gone with Morocco 1-up and in control , the Hondurans seemed to be playing like a bunch of women , arguing with each other , trying not to get their gear dirty, hanging about in groups doing something and nothing , given to exuberant affectations of pain and anguish whenever the opportunity arose.All of a sudden they got a goal out of nowhere.

Now it was the turn of the Moroccans to play the role of scorned women.This complete role reversal led to Honduras taking the lead.Thereafter Morocco resorted to horizontal tackles , yielding to a deserved sending off.The Moroccan fans near us were becoming a wee bit hysterical , gesticulating and screaming themselves like shrieking banshees over non-issues.At long last the Moroccan team managed to regain enough composure to get a spectacular equaliser.Both teams them settled for a draw , though Morocco will feel they dropped two points.

We were sitting next to some Japan Fans , the Japanese also had a dedicated end heaving with drums and banners.The Spanish Fans were in small groups dotted around the ground.There were also a lot of Plastic Spaniards with spotty local complections and gingeroid hair as unspanish as you can get wearing Spain strips emblazoned with star names.

The Japanese team showed a characteristic tenacity that was just not quelled within 90 minutes of intensity.The Spanish team were, for the first time in many years , outcrowded and outworked in midfield even with the presence of double ( at club level and International) European Champion Mata.

Japanese Goal is in the vid below:




In the second half a very sorry looking Spain were being hit on the break constantly , failing to keep possession in midfield , and having no wide over-lapping play despite the Hero of the recent Euro 2012 Alba being in the team , Japanese forwards squandered a series of scorable chances with finishing reminding the local crowd of Kenny Miller.The 1-0 final result did not do justice to the Japan performance which showed a team with apparent lesser technical ability , but fortified with belief , hardwork, and a well thought out plan can accomplish the seemingly impossible.