Music Not Static, Please...

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Les Paul Morrison, left - Pesda Roc, our one-time local festival, right

I have to admit to a bit of information overload today. It was easier when I was working, to at least bury the chaff and the noise in what I was supposed to be doing and use that as cover. An excuse is a good filter. The only problem I can see with being retired is that I'm now a sitting target for all this data, good or bad or just noise.

To be honest, although I've always been pretty good at triage-ing out the good stuff and quickly rejecting what is of little use let alone of any interest, it does get a bit a bit wearying at times. Especially now, with so much negative attitude and 'news' filling every spare bit of space across the media, traditional and social alike; a breather now and again would be a lift.

I used to be an adherent of Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd; the foils against mundanity and the mediocrity of petit-bourgeois existence. But to be surrounded on all sides by the genuinely surreal and absurd that passes for the new 'normal' - and I'm not referring to the pandemic - is just plain unsettling in large amounts. This is not just the reaction of an old man to new surroundings. It is the reaction of someone dropped onto an alien world that no one knew even existed five years ago.

Today, I visited the grave of a bloke who died in 2011. He was two years younger than me, so he was just about fifty-five when he went. His name was Les Paul Morrison. He was a musician and producer who latterly toured with Super Furry Animals. He actually stood on the stage of The Grand Ol' Opry and sang a song. This was arranged by the band with the management as it had been one of Les' lifelong ambitions to sing there. It's out there on YouTube if you care to look. You know something? That's a far greater thing to have done than anything the likes of our current crop of politicians and pundits are ever going to achieve; trivial to some, but I know which side I cleave to. Here's the link
 as it's dropping down the search hole these days...

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