Monday, May 31, 2010

Voodoo Chile

Sometimes Jimi will come on the radio at the right time and place and I pretty much have to pull over. This song blew me away this afternoon. It's not that I think I'm some kind of Voodoo Child and I "relate" to his music but what I hear is a man at his peak of excellence and execution. He's got the slow blues down perfectly and his playing is so clean but still sounds dirty and improvised. He's all over the neck but it comes together as neat composition. It's smoky late night bar room blues - but recorded in a studio. That is a hard thing to do, to summon that feeling of desperation and angst and inspiration when you're in a climate controlled room with lots of rich people surrounding you who would never follow you into a smoky bar room. It's a lie, but when I listen to this I hear the truth and I'm moved. That's magic. Thank you, Jimi.


Common Sense: Part 1 of 4: Oggy Goes to Zanzibar

Common Sense
By Oggy Bleacher

In 1992, I joined the Merchant Marines. My goal was to join the Seafarer’s Union and ship overseas to the Persian Gulf where two friends of mine were making $400 a day in hazard pay looking for undersea mines. I arrived in New Orleans with a fresh National Guard endorsement and went to the union hall only to learn the demand for sailors was non-existent and the demand for green deckhands was even less. Able Seamen and Mates were taking jobs as Deckhands. Captains were taking jobs as Mates. Chief Engineers were washing dishes to stay employed. I was welcome to pay the health fee and begin paying union dues but it was likely I’d be donating to someone else’s union benefits and would never ship out. “Try Houston or Los Angeles,” said the dispatcher.


Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.