First, more than anything else, through my own mental association(s), Aled Jones' 'Walking in the Air' from 'The Snowman' just aesthetically reminds me of how beautiful Britain and its culture once were (e.g. Shakespeare; Blake; Coleridge; Wordsworth; Thomas Hardy; DH Lawrence; Anglican evensong; the Old Latin Mass in Catholic Lancashire; Larkin; English folk music etc.) before the politically-'correct' anti-Christian totalitarian ideology took control of the country.
Second, Mark Lanegan does my favourite version of the incredibly beautiful 'Cherry Tree Carol':
Love the image of a fetal Jesus ordering the cherry tree to lower its branches for His Mother.
Here's another Father Christmas in Warsaw, this one with a more ornate-looking beard and coat. Just four more days to Christmas, and the poor guy must be tired out.
Over the last few days, I've been reflecting on my favourite gigs from 2014, and a few immediately spring to mind. First, it was incredible seeing Within Temptation for the first time, at Warsaw Torwar back in March or so:
Also got to see Gary Numan for the first time, which was also fantastic, at the Warsaw Palladium in February or so:
Yeah, this took me back to my old school years (1977-1982) in Bury, Lancashire.
In June, I went up to see Rich Robinson more out of curiosity than anything else, and, despite a small crowd at the Klub Progresja, this turned out to be one of my gigs of the year:
Have come to love Rich Robinson's 'The Ceaseless Sight' as one of the best albums I've heard in a long, long time.
Moreover, in July, as a kind of miracle out of nowhere, one of my favourite bands over the years, Kansas, visited the Klub Progresja and my good friend Dave Dealy came over from Ireland for this gig:
Yeah, this was always going to be a gig of the year.
Finally, I must also say that I really enjoyed Alcest supporting Opeth at the Klub Progresja in late October; Esben and the Witch supporting Solstafir at the Proxima in November, and the biggest surprise of all, Skid Row supporting Saxon at the Klub Progresja in November:
Never really liked Skid Row before, but they were pumped up for this and definitely won me over.
Finally, the biggest farce of 2014, well that would have to go to Morrissey for his 25-30 minute set at Warsaw Stodoła in November. Still he did manage to do a rousing version of 'Speedway':
Of course, well done to all the fantastic people who've put these great videos on Youtube.
Came across these 'bird' murals in an alleyway near the Solidarność-Jan Paweł II junction in Warsaw yesterday.
Would really love to know what they possibly signify or symbolise.
But even my Polish wife couldn't decode the inscription below, although she tentatively interpreted the pictures as possibly representing the solidarity of some local residents:
Still, whatever the murals signify or represent, I just found them eye-catching and worthy of attention:
Yeah, in general, they just add some colour to an alleyway that would be otherwise dull and non-descript.
Saw Submotion Orchestra at Warsaw Basen in late November, and a good gig it was. Was walking down near metro Politechnika the other day and came across this poster advertising the gig.
Here's a few shots from Warsaw on a frosty Wednesday morning. For some reason, this frosty morning got me thinking about the great DH Lawrence novels: 'The Rainbow'; 'Women In Love'; and 'Sons and Lovers':
Really liked the frost on the Christmas tree below:
A few shots from the Lamb gig at Warsaw Basen here, where vocalist Lou Rhodes looked almost celestial:
A lot of the tunes from last night's set were, as expected, from the recently released 'Backspace Unwind' album, my favoure being 'In Binary' which the band came on with. Also really liked the title track 'Backspace Unwind' as it was kind of surreal live.
Seen Lamb three times now, and what I also really like about them live is their appreciation of the audience, as they have a really nice humanistic touch about them.
Of course, interwoven with the new tunes were the older classics like 'Gabriel' and 'Little Things'.
And, as we neared the end of a really enjoyable 2-hour set, we got both 'What Sound' and 'Gorecki'.
And thus ended my three visits to the Basen in three weeks: Submotion Orchestra in late November; Swans last week; and Lamb last night, a nice way of finishing off my 2014 concert year.
At last, after much trying, I've managed to get a half decent mobile shot of the Orbis globe about 200 metres down Jerosolimskie from the Jersolimskie-Marszałkowska junction in Warsaw city centre.
Remember going to Lvov/Lviv in the Western Ukraine with Orbis about 7-8 years ago before the travel agency went bust. Ended up going on my own on a coach trip, because my wife never realised that her passport had run out and needed renewing.
This was always going to be hypnotic and mesmeric, and so it proved.
But it also had the unexpected, a touch of comedy, with Michael Gira's microphone not working early on, and a mortified-looking roadie being brought on stage to rectify things:
But of course, for Swans, this was no problem, just a contingency that nicely fitted into their full-on style.
And, of course, as ever, Michael Gira marshalled the proceedings:
As expected, my favourite tune of the night was the rip-roaring 'Frankie M'.
However, with the band coming on at 9.45, I only got to see about 70% of the set, as I had to get the last metro home before midnight.
Saw my good friend Captain Jaciek at Eric the Scientologist's today, who told me that the gig ended at ten past midnight with one hell of a crescendo.
As for me, today, I've had the mesmeric beat of 'Frankie M' running through my head all day.
When I was a child in the early 1970s, my mother used to tell me about the Soviet Union repressing religious practice. This was done to motivate me to go to (Catholic) Mass on a Sunday. Now, some 40 years later, like Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill have recently said, it is now the politically 'correct' West that represses traditional Christian religious and moral practice.
Really love the beautiful music from the Orthodox Liturgy from St. Petersburg above. Spent quite some time on Friday night reading American website accounts that were sadly being forced to admit that now the roles have been reversed: Christianity is being somewhat advocated and preserved in Russia, while the Western world is now almost a 'godless kingdom' due to political 'correctness', a zealous multiculturalist ideology that disenchants people through reducing all phenomena to baseline issues of race and sex ('gender').
Below are the pictures that I took from the excellent Submotion Orchestra gig at Warsaw Basen last night:
A few months ago, I checked Submotion Orchestra out on Youtube after seeing they were going to play Warsaw Basen.
As a result, I started playing their 'Finest Hour' and 'Fragments' albums as background music while doing work on the computer, and, of course, got a ticket to see them at Warsaw Basen (at 55 złoty a real bargain).
Ended up standing at the right side of the stage above the 'pool level' next to the speakers (definitely won't be in this position next week for Swans as I value my ears), which was a good place for getting shots of the band, and, of course, vocalist Ruby Wood is very photogenic:
Having only recently been introduced to Submotion Orchestra, and often listening to them as 'background music', I won't pretend to know any of the tunes by name, but this is quite nice as all the tunes seem to blend together as a soothing soundscape.
Moreover, like the Icelandic group Mum, another great 'soothing soundscape' band who I saw at the Basen last year, Submotion Orchestra really do come across well live, subtly mesmerising the audience.
Here I am in Koło Woods as I look into winter, expecting the temperature to start dropping below zero during the day before the end of November. Let's hope the winter is not as bad as I expect. Remember encountering -32 in Warsaw about 10 years ago.
Here's a few pictures from Mother's Cake supporting California Breed at Warsaw Klub Progresja on Saturday night.
Having checked Mother's Cake out beforehand on Youtube, I was expecting the kind of Led Zep-type sound and 'reggae-ish' slower parts, but, at times, the band also sort of reminded me of ELP (who I love) especially when the drummer got onto a roll:
Been lucky enough to see some great support bands recently (especially Alcest with Opeth and Esben and the Witch with Solstafir), and now I can add Mother's Cake to this number.
After the Morrissey farce midweek, it was great to get the good, solid, melodic Rock served up by Glen Hughes and his California Breed bandmates at Warsaw Klub Progresja last night:
My favourite tunes of the night would have to be the storming version of 'The Grey' which the band came on with and the incredibly beautiful 'All Falls Down', plus the Deep Purple classic, 'Burn', of course.
And Glen Hughes is a great frontman/showman. Below, he almost seems to be in prayer, and throughout the set he kept wishing the crowd 'God bless' (really like it when genuine goodwill is shown to an audience from a band):
And despite (like a lot of us now) getting on a bit, Glen Hughes was all over the stage, a truly great showman:
Also got a lot of time for young guitarist Andrew Watt (below) who looked modest and unassuming but also skilful throughout the set (as did the drummer, Joey Castillo):
Yeah, cheers lads, this was a great straightforward melodic Rock gig without any histrionics, just good music.
