Friday Night With Rory Gallagher

So the coconut vodka is starting to kick in at my Friday night party for one on Grooverider Atol… may as well give my desert island a name… sounds good?… and it’s time to give the laptop some hammer.. good job I have a small wind powered generator to charge it and keep the music flowing.

Rory Gallagher.., thank goodness I have some of his songs on the hard drive, a guitar legend if ever there was one. Not the most famous or revered blues guitarist of all time, but he could stand up and play with the best of them in his day. He still sold over 30 million albums, though, and toured endlessly throughout his career… not bad for a very shy man who didn’t really like the spotlight on him too much. He died, unfortunately, in 1995 from complications after a liver transplant at the age of only 47… such a shame. But Rory left us with some great music, and I’d have to have some of it with me if I was stranded on my atol in the ocean. I’ve collected his albums since my teens… don’t think he ever made a single, he was an album artist, not interested in getting into the charts. And over the years I’ve pretty much managed to collect most of his stuff… not all of it because much of it was released on bootleg albums.. but the legit ones, I have them all.

So Rory’s music is blasting out over my private beach, it’s Friday night… and my mind drifts back to October 30th 1992 which, strangely enough, was also a Friday night… the night when I travelled over to Leeds to see him play live at the opening night of the Town and Country Club, and what a night it was…. he blew the doors off the place. The guy just ripped through all my favourites, smacking out one blistering solo after another on that battered old Stratocaster of his…. simply awesome. I just stood there and soaked it all in, jaw dropped, not quite believing what I was witnessing. He played an incredible set that night and right at the end I managed to shake his hand, a massive honour…. for me not him… then made my way home grinning from ear to ear… what a night!!

Two tracks from Rory in this post, both from one of his live albums from the ’70’s… Live in Europe… great live album, I reckon it’s his best. First track is the opening one on the album, Messing with the Kid, which is excellent… then the second is my favourite… Bullfrog Blues… Rory at his best, and accompanied by Gerry McAvoy on bass, with Wilgar Campbell on the drums, a very powerful trio who together produced some great music throughout their years together…. God Bless you Rory.., top man!!.. must have music for my digital desert island collection.

Zeropage

We’ll carry on with the electronic theme from the previous post for this next track, I love ambient/chillout stuff, but Zeropage make chillout music to be played loud !!… which is maybe a condradiction of what chillout is all about. I always think of it as great background music, you know?.., playing away in the background at a party and everyone asking “who’s this?…, it’s good”.. Anyway, I came across Zeropage on Jamendo.com.. never heard of Jamendo? well, I’ll explain later in this post. Zeropage are a duo from Switzerland and they make some fantastic music, all electronic, they’ve released a couple of albums in the past two or three years.

Now, today is Friday and if ever I came across a Friday song this is it… weekend’s here so let’s go for it. Thing is, this is music I’d take to a desert island… and it might be difficult to conjure up that Friday feeling if you were stuck on your own in the middle of the ocean. But I’m imagining my desert island would be awash with coconut trees, and from coconut trees tuba is made… coconut vodka no less… now we’re talking. A gallon of tuba all to myself, plus a laptop with a hard drive stuffed full of good music and a blazing beach fire…. maybe getting that Friday feeling going wouldn’t be too hard after all. So I’d imagine having three or four cups of tuba and cranking this up would have my beach party for one bouncing. The song is from an album called Ambient Pills, good album, and it’s called Ambient India … and remember, it has to be played loud, perfect… and no neighbours to worry about.

….oh, and about Jamendo. If you’ve never visited the website use the link over on the right, you’ll not be disappointed. Thousand of albums to listen to of every genre, there’s some fantastic music on there and if you like an album or a song or two all you have to do is register and you can download them.. for free. It’s all free and there is no limit to how much you download… and it’s all legal and above board because it’s all Creative Commons Licence… not Copyright… There are no mainstream artists as such, but it makes no difference because a lot of the music on Jamendo is excellent… so go have a look… and when you get there look up Zeropage.

808 State

Ok…, let’s get into this. Second song is by 808 State, a band that’s been around since 1988 and they’re from Manchester. Acid house/techno… if you thought this was going to be all old blues and rock, you’re wrong. I first heard this when they played it on Top of the Pops, the BBC chart show, and was instantly impressed. It’s probably one of the first techno songs I ever really listened to, or took notice of. I love the beat and the sound of this song, in a club, around the house or in your car… it just fits the mood for me and gets the fingers tappin’

There are several versions of it but the one I’m posting is my favourite version, as opposed to the original, which is brilliant, but this version has added vocal. It just gives it a little something extra, it has a real happy feel to it and makes it sound slightly eastern to me… if you know what I mean.., anyway, the song.

It’s called Pacific State, their first hit record…, I think it got to number 10 in the UK charts but that’s irrelevant because it’s still a great piece of music.

If you listen to it, via the link, and like the sound of 808 State then look over there to the right, the links. The 808 State link will take you to their website where you can listen to, and download some exclusive tracks by them. There’s a ton of their stuff to download, even some live gig recordings, and it’s all free to download for personal use. Having Pacific State on my desert island would sure have me dancing around the campfire at sunset…. awesome.