Lord, it's July!

I don't have much to say, good thing too, coz nobody's gonna bother reading this apart from me. Actually, just typing that ("gonna") reminds me of something. I think that it's acceptable to use that word, if I can call it that, here on a blog thing. But is it decent to use it in a daily publication? Take the Irish Independent for example. Occasionally it has tabloid-style headlines, with puns as shit as you might find in The Sun. But that's neither here nor there. Mr. Ian O'Doherty had it in one of his articles there last week. I've nothing better to do, and I've tracked it down.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/ispy-wee-willie-and-the-boys-ready-to-rock-again-742881.html

I just didn't think it very suitable to have such "words" in a daily newspaper, that's all, I'm not giving out or anything.

July in Ireland usually brings sunshine with it. Oh no, not this time. All we've seen these last two weeks are clouds and rain showers. There was thunder & lightning one night too. I think it was the night before my economics test, the 20th. Most days, if not everyday, have seen rain. There is a permanent cloud shield sitting over all of Dublin, letting in little direct sunshine, keeping the morning and evenings darker than they should be, but at the same time, maintaining a bleedin' hot, clammy atmosphere. Well, that's how it goes.

The day after my exams finished, I made a great purchase. 11CDs and 1DVD for €49.99. Can you believe that? You better. Blue Guitars, Chris Rea's momentus collection of 137 songs is surely something else. So far I've only listened to four of the CDs, so seven left. Great value I have to say. Obviously it's not just because of the price, Chris' slide guitar, the use of so many different insruments, and Gerry O'Connor's banjo playing all aid to make the music deadly. You'd think you were buying an LP at first because of the presentation book that the CDs are held in. I'm terribly impressed with the colour and art in the book. All the paintings were done by Chris, and I think they're lovely. I like the one on the front cover and the one that goes with "Louisiana & New Orleans." The Wikipedia article has some of the paintings, so have a gawk.

Having been listening to Chris Rea and the bleedin' legend slide that he does be playing, I thought what the heck, I'll give it a shot. I never got how they do it, y'kno, use a bottleneck, (not cut themselves,) or bronze/nickel slide and make a sound that's so raw, so filthy and yet so damn powerful. Chris is a master of it. Rory Gallagher is another. Duane Allman had it too, Derek Trunks, Bonnie Raitt, they're all there too. But anyway, I gave it a go with a open-G tuning and it's great craic altogether. It even encouraged me to clean up the acoustic with a bit of a polish up and a new stringing. Sounds a dream now again. I tried slide banjo too. 'Twas fun, maybe I'll have it over-dubbed somewhere in a song that I don't have.




So, that's all the news at this time. Join us again for the nine o'clock news on RTÉ1 at nine o'clock obviously, to hear how we won the libel case and we take money someone doesn't have. Cheers. Enjoy the shit weather while we have it now folks! God bless.