It's at times like this morning - when the N2 was stationary as far as the eye could see, and Durban Road was little better - that the Pinelands branch of the Retroid Kollektiv explores his CD library (given that he is not permitted to play things loudly at home, for fear of interfering with House, or Private Practice, or Army Wives).
And he should have known - but somehow forgot - just what a good blues band Fleetwood Mac were, back there in 1970 (yes, that's why the title). As were Jethro Tull. And Gravy Train. Because it's the blues that calms the road rage as the taxis come roaring along past stalled traffic in the wrong lane; when morons run red lights to clog up Durban Road so traffic feeding in from Raapenburg can't get in with their green light - and when a Jammie shuttle pulls out in front of one again there by Condom Heights (aka Leo Marquard Hall), without signalling, and without due regard for bodywork.
Ah, me...
Got them almost-southern suburbs blues, mama
Got them commuter rage blues
Got them suburbian blues, babe
Right down, to my shoes
Stuck here in slow-down mode, yeah
With them N2 rush-hour blues....
16/09/2009, 10:41
'Once I used to join in
every boy and girl was my friend.
Now there's revolution, but they don't know
what they're fighting.
Let us close out eyes;
outside their lives go on much faster.
Oh, we won't give in,
we'll keep living in the past.'
(Living in the Past / Jethro Tull)
16/09/2009, 10:46
Yeah, baby, yeah...B-)
Really don't mind if [I] sit this one out...
'cause he was too o-o-old
To rock 'n ro-o-oll
But he was too young to die [hopefully!]
17/09/2009, 13:53
ha - the last chorus says,
"you're NEVER too o-o-old to rock 'n ro-o-oll, if you're too young to die"
I still think Tusk is better than Rumours.
I still have a soft spot for "thick as a brick" (must be all those years of working at UCT...) and I still hear Aqualung ("snot running down his nose") everytime I see a kid that needs a nosewipe.
No amount of therapy could save me. The 70s rocked!!
17/09/2009, 14:23
Nice irony that crazy words like these calm one down in the crazy traffic....:-)
In the shuffling madness
Of the locomotive breath,
Runs the all-time loser,
Headlong to his death.
He feels the piston scraping --
Steam breaking on his brow --
Old charlie stole the handle and
The train wont stop going, no it won't slow down....
17/09/2009, 15:45
chunka-chunka-chunka-chunk, no, it won't slow down.... I shall have to listen to that loud now, and it's YOUR fault, Laura!
And OB:
I didn't mind, if they groomed me for success - and taught me how not to play the game....
And Fleetwood Mac Blues is better than Tusk B-)
And the 70s STILL rock: I have a CD with 13 hours of UCT Radio-recorded Retroid Rock (1994-1995) which affirms this.
17/09/2009, 16:38
Damn, now I've just had to listen to the whole of Aqualung, with headphones on as I pretend to work...B-)
21/09/2009, 20:32
...and an interesting thing: exchanged views on the Jammie Shuttle with a DVC, no less, who says the same sort of thing has happened to him.
Time they learned how to drive, I think...!
22/09/2009, 09:02
Having also dodged the odd Jammie, but more often the very odd collection of VW Polos and Corsa Lites (with wide wheels, megaphone exhausts, pounding bass - sadly NOT Aqualung) - think of it from the Jammie's point of view. You have a huge chunk of metal and GRP, filled with moaning students (they're always late), you have places to be, things to do, and no-one in the traffic is gonna give way for you to get in, 'cos no-one wants a great big blue bus in front of them. So, you take a course at the Bullbar Ben Driving Academy, and hit the traffic.
22/09/2009, 14:09
...except that Bullbar Ben's cause is righteous!!