No Chrome… Just Smoke And BBQ

Busy day on my island today…, I’ve been fishing in the bay so I think I’ll have a fish supper… again… I’d best get the fire sparked up, wrap the fish in some leaves and throw them on the BBQ… pleasant way to end another day. And after all the ambient music I’ve had playing I think it’s time to liven the place up a bit with some good ol’ ZZ Top…. that little old band from Texas. I’ve tons of their music in my desert island favourites..

So while the fire’s blazing away on the beach in front the shack there, I’m going to have a good blast of music and get my feet tappin’… Concrete and Steel, one of their best… that should do it. Not much concrete and steel around here.., but I don’t miss it, I much prefer the palm trees… for now. But I’m sure I’ll have days in the future when I yearn for all that city noise in the concrete jungle…. but not tonight. I’m going to wait while it’s dark, watch the sparks fly and listen to the fire crackle.., and click through my digital desert island discs…. Chrome, Smoke and BBQ…, some of ZZ Top’s finest tunes. Ahhh, a perfect way to spend an evening.

The Lonely Planet

Stuck on a desert island would have you realise just how lonely you can be, and what a huge planet we live on. One of my favourite TV shows is Lonely Planet.., or Globe Trekker as it’s now known. It’s a travel show, mainly for backpackers, that visits countries and cities around the world and provides information on transport, accomodation, the sights to take in, that kind of thing. Some of the places featured on the show I’ve been to, others I haven’t…, nor ever will probably. So I travel vicareously around the globe with the presenters and crew… very entertaining and interesting, like the guide books…, but never the same as actually going and seeing it for yourself.

Throughout each show there’s always some great ambient/world type music playing in the background, I love it… and the theme tune itself. I have the four cd collection with it all on, all the music that’s been used in the show. Each song has a name.., a country, a city or place that’s been featured at various times, some short, some long.., but the same melody is there all the time throughout each album.

I’d have the whole lot with me on my island, for sure, but I’ll have to pick my favourites for this post… and it’s not an easy task to pick them. But after giving it some thought I’ve chosen three tracks, couldn’t whittle it down to two. I’ve chosen the Lonely Planet Theme for the first one, had to… and the second one is the song they used for their visit to Brazil.., both great tracks

The third one is called Mountain Girl …, I couldn’t leave it out. It’s one of those strange pieces of music that conjures up an image in my mind, very different.., a real world music mix of vocals and instruments. The story goes that when the crew were doing the show for Vietnam they visited a mountain village called Bac Ha, in the north of the country. As they approached the village they were greeted by a small girl who sang to them.., they recorded her voice and used it in the background theme. The voice you hear on the track is hers, accompanied by the backing music.., which even features bagpipes, true world mix.., but the effect is haunting in a way. It conjures up the image of early morning misty mountains to me…., maybe similar to what I’d see on my island?… The sound of the little girls voice drifting down the mountainside to the sea shore, and the bagpipes wailing through the mist…., stirring stuff, but there’s also the innocence of the girls voice, even though I have no clue what the heck she’s singing about… As I say, it’s different.

Some of the Lonely Planet music was composed by a guy called Ian Ritchie. He’s a composer and saxophonist who’s played in various bands… he tours with Roger Waters on his Dark Side Of The Moon tour… so now you know he’s good. I’ve put a link over there to Ian Ritchie’s website, when you get there go to “sounds”… and there’s a list of music from various projects he’s been involved with, he did the theme for Lonely Planet and a few more besides.., the best thing is it’s all free to download straight from the website. So if you want some nice, free ambient music… and for those who are searching for the the Lonely Planet Theme, it’s there…  go have a look.

And They Say That You Never Know When You’re Insane

…. and would it matter if you were on your own on an island in the middle of nowhere?.., would you know? Hard to say, there wouldn’t be anyone there to be the judge of it…, only yourself. Maybe one of the benefits of having a good collection of music with you would be that it would keep you in touch with reality, a connection to the outside world and all that you missed about it. But that might be a bad thing, listening to all these songs, and the memories they evoke, might drive you insane because they’d remind you of your life in the modern world. I’d prefer to have then with me, though.., because I reckon the lack of music and something to sing along to would probably drive me crazy eventually…. who knows?

And I’d definately be singing along to this next song on my list…, I love the lyrics to this, know them off by heart because I’ve listened to them thousands of times. It’s called Pinball, great song…., sung by Brian Prothero. He’s a musician and an actor, been on lots of TV shows but I just know of him for this song, can’t recall ever seeing him on the TV but maybe I have and not realised it was him.

It’s one of those songs where people say.. “oh, I like this.. haven’t heard it for years”.. when you play it. I don’t think it got very high in the charts but I heard and it just stuck in my mind… 1974, I think… but I’ve always listened to it. And you could never find it anywhere, you know.. to buy, to download…. whatever, it was hard to get hold of and it’s only very recently been uploaded onto YouTube… so if you like it maybe you can go and “acquire” it from there…. no internet connection on the desert island so it’s a good job it’s already stored on the laptop…, great song, and the title of this post is a line from it.