Moving House Can Be Easy With The Right Support:

Are We Nearly There?

January 26th, 2010

For a long time my website was being hosted without ftp access due to some earlier problems with another website. I decided at the time I would just leave it ‘parked’ until my present hosting deal ran out, sometimes even the thought of moving can make you nervous. The time arrived when I had to make that decision a couple of days ago. I have just found the ideal webhost and am very happy to say, hopefully now I can continue to bring you lots of stuff and nonsense on a regular basis! I don’t mind plugging the new hosts since I went to them just five mins ago trying to work out how to get this site back up and within five mins they had the answer and it was simple, and as you can see – it worked. So, if you are looking for webhosting at an extremely good price – try iPage.com Thanks guys! Technical live help was ace!

Right, that’s my news for now… I’ve a lot of updating to do on the music front – so bear with me, and thanks again for your support

Oh and Happy New Year!

Janet

EAW Singing Decades Part III Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIV: July 28 – Aug 4

Theme: Post a song from either or all of the following decades – 1950s, 1980s, 1990s

Qualifies for both 1980, and 1990.
My first collaboration with two of Youtube’s finest musicians/songwriters:

On Piano:
Duckscli

On Fiddle/violin:
rhopen

This is a tribute to the writer of this beautiful song Peter Bond, who I am led to believe was a folk singer/songwriter doing the circuits 1970’s – 1985, I could find very little about him, but if this song is anything to go by, I would imagine, hearing and seeing him live a great pleasure.

It is sung by June Tabor on her album “Against The Streams” in 1994.

Many thanks Duncan and Ron, you gave me an opportunity to sing something very beautiful and I am honoured to join you.

It was very hard to source the lyrics – so I had to listen and write them down, there is a chance the first lines may be misinterpreted:

I walked on a northern shore
Where the sandywort sped on before the ocean’s blast
The grass ran like lemmings for the dune’s high edge
And I thought it meant like the grass
We bend in the driving gale
and scarcely paused to think what makes the wind so strong
or if there’s a refuge from the drivers flag
But then I heard the saddest song
of the Irish Girl
The Irish Girl

Her eyes through a sparkling red
like raindrops on a laurel when the moon appears
She sang of her sorrow through the stinging spread
and through the sweeter brine, the salt of tears,
I weep for the lost of a love
Who’s gone brooding now and silent as a standing stone
Two sides of a coin we rolled a battered roll
but in time he chose to leave alone
His Irish Girl
His Irish Girl

I touched her and spoke my name
for it seems she didn’t know me for the song she sang
she said, oh I know your face but here’s the shame
for though I knew the boy, who knows the man
and I wept who might turn for the fool
who never saw the joys that make a blind man smile
seeking his fortune while the brightest jewel
was within his reach all the while
The Irish Girl
His Irish Girl

Images by kind permission:
RobRoyAus – Flickr

EAW Singing Decades Part III Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIV: July 28 – Aug 4

Theme: Post a song from either or all of the following decades – 1950s, 1980s, 1990s

1950:

OMG… every once in a lifetime there is a hairbrush song… heheh, this is mine! Please forgive!

Still playing – not sure Hmmm. Er. Harmony.

EDIT: 1.21am 29th July.

Ok. Time for out of shell, gulp… just found out this was recorded in 1954 by Muddy Waters, so, adding to:

Everyone’s A Winner Singing Decades Part III Challenge/Showcase Thingy CXX

Come and join us, no judging – just sharing amongst friends, just started and runs till Tuesday 4th August, 6PM EDT.

EAW “Night of The Living Dead” Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIV: July 14 – July 21

Theme: Post a song by an artist who has passed away.

Wow and I sang it in the dead of the night/dawn too – how about that? I wasn’t thinking of the challenge – I was winding down!

I do not know much of Nina’s music and must learn/listen to more… this is a great song and I kind of butchered and minced it into a reformed 100% CerebralJam and a little meat song as I really wasn’t singing it as if I knew it or wanted to polish it LOL – but maybe I am good for you? It’s natural, organic and fresh as a morning dew drop GRINS…

EAW One Hit Wonders Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIV: July 07 – July 14

This week’s theme was – Sing a One Hit Wonder! Well, Dani, this one wasn’t on your list – but here’s what Wikipedia says :

“…Ruby & the Romantics was an American R&B group in the 1960s. They had several pop and R&B chart records but are sometimes considered as a ‘one-hit wonder’ for topping the charts in 1963 with their first recording, “Our Day Will Come”, written by Mort Garson and Bob Hilliard. …”

“..Several more singles were released by Kapp which generally achieved minor chart status. A short spell with ABC was unsuccessful while one single for A&M in 1969 (“Hurting Each Other”, originally recorded by Jimmy Clanton some years earlier) proved to be their final recording before the group broke up in 1971. The group had remained intact throughout their recording career, as confirmed by Ruby in an interview in 2008 with Marv Goldberg (R&B Notebooks). …”

More Than This – 10,000 Maniacs

EAW Dedication Week Challenge Showcase Thingy CXII: June 2 – June 9

Theme Post a song you love and dedicate it to someone special, or sing a reflective song.…

You have got to grab life by the hands and shake it, eat it, grasp it, feel it, taste it, smell it, be it!

You cannot change the past, you cannot worry about the future, you just have the now, and the now is good!

A request from Kia in chat the other night… she said it would blow her away LOL I’m seeing dandelions phffft!

A DEDICATION TO A WEE TIMMERING BEASTIE CALLED ERIC?

Yep. I only did this yesterday I think? Can’t differentiate one day from another at the moment, so – er, yes, Eric! I decided to name ma wee pal who came and played with me yesterday morning. He made me smile, how do you tell the sex of a spider I wonder? Hmm, well he did raise a leg or two tentatively, but I’m much too bashful to check that close…

Anyway, Eric? Wherever you may be? I sincerely hope you were not squashed Thank you for being a friend when I needed one. Come and see me again soon eh? BUT stop hogging the mic! GRRR!

You know I even dreamt of spiders last night, big hairy ones – I was in a furniture type store which was selling bedlinen, large white duvets and bedspreads hung suspended from ceilings or on beds and on each one I looked at was a hairy long legged spider wandering around – I only remembered this dream this evening… normally I would have been scared by this, but I just turned to the staff of the store and said, “You need to do something about that!”. LOL

Come and join us if you are visiting, no competition, just friendly sharing … Sing-Share.com

Click the link above to view challenge or just click songs below to listen.

A Bunch Of Thyme – Foster & Allen

This is dedicated to:

‘ALL EAW THAT ARE BLOOMIN’ IN YOUR PRIME…’
When I sang this in the wee hours of the morning, I was extremely content – but as you can see it was a real pain playing it back… playing it this morning it is behaving a bit better and the freezes are not too ungainly – it had several washes last night in the mixer LOL

Anyway – I want to say thank you to all of EAW for restoring in me my faith in love, life and being all you can be… so on this week of dedications, I humbly submit my love back to you…

And Kia… it’s for you too You told me you wanted this one so with you in mind, I sat happily.

Eric wasn’t there – he was tucked up in his wee bed somewhere.

For all of you who are suffering now, Thyme will heal and make you whole again.

I guess you could call this a ‘head’ song Bruce
I’m not sure I was in it, at that hour of the morning – but I felt it, and it felt good.

Thinking of EAW…

EAW Mood Theme Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIV: June 16 – June 23

Theme Post a Mood song.…

Where are you then? Eh? (Comments on Singsnap.)

You Go To My Head – (Cover) with Inverkeithing Community Brass Band

Heh. Well I’m not actually singing with THE band, I apologize that this really doesn’t show how wonderful they are as I had to use a small digital hand recorder – then I had to pitch change as it was even higher originally and an instrumental

I kinda told them I might try to do this and yeah, I probably could have done it a wee bit better but ran out of time, it was originally for Walt’s challenge …

“You Go To My Head” is a 1938 popular song composed by J. Fred Coots with lyrics by Haven Gillespie. Source Wikipedia…

This was covered by:
Louis Armstrong (1957)
Frank Sinatra (1960)
Ella Fitzgerald (1960)
Judy Garland (1961)

and many, many more, earlier dates too…

Well, if going to your head is not a mood heh. I was originally gonna submit this for the 1955-65 theme but ran out of time again!

Come and join us if you are visiting, no competition, just friendly sharing … Sing-Share.com

Added bonus track: Inverkeithing Community Brass Band play April in Paris:
(warning you will be take you away from here to esnips)

http://www.communitybigband.co.uk
Band’s website – below is esnips widget please just click on it to be tellyported!

Such drama! – Wonderful heh.

I don’t know what it is about Spiders but yesterday they seemed to want to keep me company.

I wanted to sing a song – and my friend Kia had suggested I have a go at “More Than This” by 10,000 Maniacs as I’d played with Roxy Music’s version. So I thought I might.

I set my mic up as normal and then I discovered this wee money spider – it seemed to want to walk up and down the mic and the cable, couldn’t make its mind up! Was very funny because it would keep appearing out of nowhere. I carried on as if it wasn’t there and looked up to see, yes, it was walking along the top edge of the monitor.

Then the next thing I know is I’m smiling as I’m singing thinking about it’s antics only to see it danging from my hair!! I think it must have liked me.

Or was it trying to tell me something?  I have been experiencing some quite difficult times recently and both the song and the spider made me realise – there are some pretty wonderful little things in life to enjoy – and that what we have now is what we have… we can’t change the past, we can’t look into the future. Nothing is ever certain, so enjoy what you have, “you know there’s nothing, more than this”… moment… and the sun was shining.

The spider to me struck me like Rabbie Burn’s in the cave – you don’t give up, even when life isn’t smooth, hold onto your dreams instead, and live each moment as it comes and to its fullest possibility – even if it is only marveling at a friendly spider!

Here’s an embed of the song.   I did have one take where the spider was danging from my hair but I didn’t save it! Pity! I’ve another just after that moment where I am happy and say, I’ll save this no matter what, but I chickened out of putting public because it did freeze at the very end – argggh!

Later that night – without realising it, I dreamt about spiders! It occurred to me just now, I was in a large furniture like store with many double beds/ and on each bed was a white bedspread – and a huge spider would be wandering across each one I looked at! Normally, that should have made me nervous, but instead I merrily said to the staff, I think you need to do something about that? LOL.

I have the craziest dreams – I wonder what it meant?

EAW Sock Hop Challenge Showcase Thingy CXIII: June 9 – June 16
I want to say thank you very much to my new friend
Michael

Please go visit and say hi! He very kindly agreed to make this backing track especially for me.

This song is

For Bruce…  Cos.

Thanks for always being there for me.

Theme Post a song from 1955 -1965, …

Come and join us if you are visiting, no competition, just friendly sharing … Sing-Share.com

The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

As the versions of the ballad known under the title “Scarborough Fair” are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is a song about the Plague. In fact, “Scarborough Fair” appears to derive from an older (and now obscure) Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight (Child Ballad #2), which has been traced at least as far back as 1670 and may well be earlier. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task (“For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he”); she responds with a list of tasks that he must first perform (“I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand”).

As the song spread, it was adapted, modified, and rewritten to the point that dozens of versions existed by the end of the 18th century, although only a few are typically sung nowadays. The references to “Scarborough Fair” and the refrain “parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” date to nineteenth century versions, and the refrain may have been borrowed from the ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded, (Child Ballad #1), which has a similar plot. – Wikipedia…”

At last:

I did want to post this in the decades challenge for 1960 but ran out of time.