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mrepstein · 5 years

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Brian Epstein’s Address & Telephone Book

A small leather bound pocket address and telephone book that was owned and used by Brian Epstein. The book dates to 1967 and it consists of 57 pages of addresses and telephone number some of which are typed, some of which are in Epstein’s hand and some which have been added by hand on his behalf. // (click HERE to view more pages from the book)

The book contains a total of 404 entries - a selection of them are listed below:

ATV Ltd

ABC Television Ltd

AIR London Ltd.

Tom Arnold Ltd

Neil Aspinall

Artistes Car Hire

Annabels [nightclub]

Alexander’s Restaurant

Ashley Steiner Famous [talent agency]

Al Aronowitz

Atlantic Records

Eric Andersen

Bob Anthony

Bryce Hanmer & Co [accounting firm]

Bedford, Okrent & Co

BBC Television Centre

BBC Broadcasting House

Al Brodax

Cilla Black

Mr. & Mrs. Tony Barrow

Mr. & Mrs Don Black

Bryan Barrett

Jack Barclay Ltd [Bentley dealership]

Peter Brown

Mr. & Mrs. B. Bullough

Mr. & Mrs J. Bullough

Miss J. Balmer

Mr. &. Mrs. Ivan Bennett

Eric Burdon

Francisco Bermudez

Lionel Bart

David Bailey

Bag O’Nails

Tony Barlow

Ray Bartell

Rodney Barnes

Bruno One Restaurant

Sid Bernstein

Kenn Brodziak

Leonard Bernstein

Al Bennett

Beverly Hills Hotel

Brian Bedford

Scotty Bower

David Ballman

Bob Bonis

Bill Buist

Arthur Buist

Dr. Norman Cowan

Curzon House Club

Crockfords Club

Clermont Club

Cromwellian Club

Paddy Chambers

Radio Caroline

Michael Codron

Cap-Estel Le

Mr. & Mrs. J. Cassen

Columbia Pictures Ltd

Eric Clapton

Capitol Records Mexico

Michael Cooper

Roger Curtis

Neil Christian

Maureen Cleave

Thomas Clyde

Cash Box

CBS Records Ltd

Denny Cordell

William Cavendish

Caprice Restuarant

David Charkham

Capitol Records

Columbia Broadcasting System

Bob Crewe

May Cunnell

Car Hire Co. for Lincoln

Dr. Kenneth Chesky

Capitol Records (Voyle Gilmore)

Irving E. Chezar

Danny Cleary

Bobby Colomby

Bob Casper

Andre Cadet

Daily Express

Disc & Music Echo

Decca Records

Bernard Delfont Ltd

Bernard Delfont

Noel Dixon

Jimmy Douglas

Chris Denning

Simon Dee

Rik Dane

Dolly’s [nightclub]

Hunter Davies

Terry Doran

Pat Doncaster

Norrie Drummond

Alan David

John Dunbar

Peter Dalton

Kappy Ditson

Robert Dunlap

Robert L. David

Diana Dors

Ivor Davis

Tom Dawes

Brandon de Wilde

Don Danneman

Malcolm Evans

Clive J. Epstein

Mr. & Mrs. H. Epstein

EMI Records Ltd

EMI Studios

Geoffrey Ellis

Etoile Restaurant

Tim Ellis

Terry Eaton

Kenny Everett

John East

Bob Eubanks

Esther Edwards

Ahmet Ertegun

Alan Freeman

David Frost

Georgie Fame

Robert Fraser

Andre Fattacini

Dan Farson

Billy Fury

Barry Finch

Marianne Faithfull

Robert Fitzpatrick

Warren Frederikson

John Fisher

Danny Fields

Francis Fiorino

Dr. Geoffrey Gray

Hamish Grimes

Derek Grainger

Rik Gunnell

Rik Gunnell Agency Ltd

Derrick Goodman & Co.

Peter Goldman

Christopher Gibbs

David Garrick

Geoffrey Grant

Mick Green

John P. Greenside

Michael Gillet

General Artists Corp.

John Gillespie

Voyle Gilmore

George Greif

Ren Grevatt

Milton Goldman

M. Goldstein

Gary Grove

Henry Grossman

Mr. & Mrs. Berrell Hyman

Doreen Hyman

Mr. & Mrs. Basil J. Hyman

Mrs. A. Hyman

Steve Hardy

H. Huntsman & Son Ltd

Simon Hayes

Frankie Howerd

Henry Higgins

Chris Hutchins

Tony Howard

Wendy Hanson

Marty Himmel

Casper Halpern

John Heska

Ricky Heiman

Joe Hunter

Ty Hargrove

Hullabaloo.

Walter Hofer

M.A. Jacobs & Son

David Jacobs [lawyer]

Dick James Music Ltd

Mr. & Mrs. D. James

Mick Jagger

Brian Jones

Michael Jeffries

Drummond Jackson

David Jacobs [d.j.]

Brian Joyce

Gerry Justice

Gibson Kemp

Johnathan King

Mr. & Mrs Maurice Kinn

Kingsway Recording Studios

Ashley Kozac

Kafetz Camera Ltd.

Reg King

Andrew Koritsas

Ed Kenmore

Walker Kundzicz

John Kurland

Murray Kauffman

Larry Lamb

Martin Landau

Kit Lambert

Dick Lester

Mr. & Mrs. Vic Lewis

Tony Lynch

Radio London

Mike Leander

John Lyndon

Bernard Lee

Kenny Lynch

Denny Laine

Lomax Alliance

Ed Leffler

David G. Lowe

Richard W. Lean

Goddard Lieberson

Laurie Records

Liberty Records

London Records

Alan Livingston

Melody Maker

Peter Murray

Keith Moon

Mr. & Mrs. G. Martin

Mr. & Mrs. Brian Matthew

Midland Bank Limited

Vyvienne Moynihan

Gerry Marsden

Ian Moody

Michael McGrath

Cathy McGowan

Mr. & Mrs. J. McCartney

Albert Marrion

Robin Maughan

Peter Maddok

Gordon Mills

Brian McEwan

John Mendell Jnr.

Marshall Migatz

Fred Morrow

Chruch McLaine

Vincent Morrone

Jeffrey Martin Co.

Gavin Murrell

Dean Martin

Gordon B. McLendon

Sal Mineo

Scott Manley

Bernard Mavnitte

Verne Miller

John Neville

Joanne Newfield

Tommy Nutter

Francisco Neuner

Tatsuji Nagasima

New Musical Express

NEMS Enterprises Ltd

Graham Nash

Nemperor Artists Ltd

Louis Nizer

Bob Nauss

Gene Narmore

George H. Ornstein

Olympic Sound Studios

A. L. Oldham

Myles Osternak

Roy Onsborg

Col. Tom Parker

Jerry Pam

Plaza Hotel

PAN AM. rep

Bob Perlman

Allen Pohju

Robert H. Prech

John Pritchard

Prince Of Wales Theatre

Don Paul

Sean Phillips

Jon Pertwee

Ricki Pipe

Dr. D. A. Pond

David Puttnam

David Puttnam Associates

Tom Parr

Harry Pinsker

Kenneth Partridge

Larry Parnes

Priory Nursing Home

Viv Prince

Steve Paul

Radnor Arms [pub]

Leo Rost

Keith Richard

Record Mirror

Dolly Robertson-Ward

Charles Ross

Rules Restuarant

Marian Rainford

Bobby Roberts

Bill Rosado

Vic Singh

Speakeasy [club]

Simon and Marijke

Simon Shops

Judith Symons

Keith Skeel

Tony Sharman

Simon Scott

Barrie Summers

John Singleton

Squarciafichi

Don Short

Dr. Walter Strach

Walter Shenson

John Sandoe Ltd

Bobby Shafto

Harry South

Brian Sommerville

Robert Stigwood

David Shaw

Chris Stamp

Aaron Schroeder

Stephen, Jacques & Stephen [law firm]

Leo Sullivan

Gene Schwann

Herb Schlosser

Gary Smith

Jim Stewart [co-founder, Stax Records]

John Simon

Jerry N. Schatzberg

Lex Taylor

Robert Shoot

Lauren Stanton

St. Regis Hotel

Eric Spiros

Howard Soloman

Taft Limousine Corp

[Sidney] Traxler (lawyer)

T.W.A. Ken S. Fletcher [director, public relations, TWA]

Derek & Joan Taylor

T.W.A. (Victor Page)

Martin Tempest

Evelyn Taylor

Twickenham Studios

Kenneth Tynan

Alistair Taylor

F. T. Turner & Son Ltd.

R. S. Taylor

Michael Taylor

George Tempest

Norm Talbott

United Artists Corp Ltd

U.P.I.

Klaus & Christine Voormann

V.I.P. Travel Ltd

Mark Warman

Gary Walker

Robert Whitaker

Peter Watkins

Peter Weldon

Mrs. Freda Weldon

Alan Warren

Orson Welles

Sir David Webster

Alan Williams

Dennis Wiley

Terry Wilson

Nathan Weiss

Norman Weiss

Gerry Wexler

Murial Young

Bernice Young

Peter Zorcon

#Brian Epstein #handwriting #60s

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dusted’s Decade Picks: The Lists

Protomartyr, who appear on at least three of these lists.

Of course, those picks from earlier today didn’t just manifest out of thin air; most (if not necessarily all) of us wound up coming up with some sort of decade-end list in the process of picking an album or two to ruminate upon, and a few that didn’t have specific pieces on singular works still had a little something to say about the decade just now passing away. Below the cut, then, is a more expansive but less wordy account of what various Dusted personnel found most personally essential in the 2010s. Enjoy!

Andrew Forell’s Ten Others of the Tens:

Algiers – Algiers (Matador 2015)

Burial – Rival Dealer (Hyperdub, 2013)

Deerhunter – Halcyon Days (4AD, 2010)

Goon Sax – We’re Not Talking (Chapter Music, 2018)

John Grant – Pale Green Ghosts (Bella Union, 2013)

John Murry – The Graceless Age (Evangeline, 2012)

Low – Double Negative (Sub Pop, 2018)

My Bloody Valentine – m b v (m b v, 2013)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree (Bad Seed Ltd, 2016)

Tim Hecker – Rave Death, 1972 (Kranky, 2011)

Ben Donnelly’s A Decade of Albums, Alphabetical

Sina Alam – Cut Pieces (Tekehaye Borideh Shodeh) (Sina Alam, 2011)

Marisa Anderson – Traditional and Public Domain Songs (Grapefruit Records, 2013)

Shana Cleveland & The Sandcastles – Oh Man Cover the Ground (Suicide Squeeze, 2015)

Demdike Stare – Tryptych (Modern Love, 2010)

Esben and the Witch – A New Nature (Nostromo, 2014)

Fire! Orchestra – Exit! (Rune Grammofon, 2013)

A Hawk and a Hacksaw – You Have Already Gone to the Other World (LM Dupli-Cation, 2013)

Heron Oblivion – Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

James Holden & The Animal Spirits – The Animal Spirits (Border Community, 2017)

Kelsey Lu – Blood (Columbia, 2019)

Cate Le Bon – Cyrk, Cyrk II, Mug Museum, Reward (Turnstile, Mexican Summer; 2012, 2013, 2019)

Zabelle Panosian – I Am Servant of Your Voice (Canary, 2017)

Stara Rzeka – Cién Chmury Nad Ukrytym Polem (Instant Classic, 2013)

Ufomammut – Eve, Oro: Opus Primum, Oro: Opus Alter (Supernatural Cat, Neurot; 2010, 2012)

Ulaan Passerine – Moss Cathedral, The Landscape of Memory (Worstward; 2016, 2017)

Various Artists – Sky Girl (Efficient Space, 2016)

Derek Taylor’s Ten for the Decade

Wadada Leo Smith – Ten Freedom Summers (Cuneiform, 2012)

Joe McPhee & Paal Nilssen-Love – Candy (PNL, 2015)

Jaimie Branch – Fly or Die (International Anthem, 2017)

Evan Parker – As the Wind (Psi, 2016)

Sonny Rollins & Don Cherry – Complete Live at the Village Gate (Solar, 2015)

Ellery Eskelin – Trio New York (Prime Source, 2011)

Henry Threadgill – In for a Penny, In for a Pound (Psi, 2015)

Peter Evans – Zebulon (More is More) 2013

Various Artists – FMP In Ruckblick (In Retrospect) (FMP, 2011)

William Parker – Wooden Flute Songs (AUM Fidelity, 2013)

Ethan Milititisky’s 10 Others That Deserve More Attention:

The Whines — Hell to Play (Meds, 2010)

Terry — Terry HQ (Upset the Rhythm, 2016)

Fly Ashtray — The Eponymous Object (Self-Released, 2012)

Metal Mountains — Golden Trees (Amish, 2011)

J. McFarlane’s Reality Guest — Ta Da (Hobbies Galore, 2019)

The Coolies — Kaka (Feeding Tube, 2015)

Hidden Ritual — Zebra Bottle (Monofonus Press, 2015)

Watery Love — Decorative Feeding (In the Red, 2014)

Uranium Orchard — Knife & Urinal (Cold Vomit, 2018)

Rose Mercie — Rose Mercie (Monofonus Press, 2018)

Ian Mathers’ Personal Top 20 of the Decade (Alphabetical)

Chelsea Jade — Personal Best (Create Music Group, 2018)

Clinic — Free Reign II (Domino, 2013)

EMA — The Future’s Void (City Slang, 2014)

Julianna Barwick — Will (Dead Oceans, 2016)

King Woman — Created in the Image of Suffering (Relapse, 2017)

Leverage Models — Leverage Models (Hometapes, 2013)

Los Campesinos! — Sick Scenes (Wichita, 2017)

loscil — Sea Island (Kranky, 2014)

Low — Double Negative (Sub Pop, 2018)

Mansions — Doom Loop (Clifton Motel, 2013)

Mesarthim — The Density Parameter (Avantgarde Music, 2018)

Mogwai — Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. (Rock Action, 2011)

The National — Trouble Will Find Me (4AD, 2013)

Picastro — You (Function, 2014)

Protomartyr — The Agent Intellect (Hardly Art, 2015)

Sleigh Bells — Reign of Terror (Mom + Pop, 2012)

Spoon — They Want My Soul (Loma Vista, 2014)

SubRosa — No Help for the Mighty Ones (Profound Lore, 2011)

Swervedriver — I Wasn’t Born to Lose You (Cherry Red, 2015)

Zeal and Ardor — Stranger Fruit (MVKA, 2018)

Jason Gioncontere’s 10 From the 10s

Recency biases can render exercises such as these moot; fortunately my palate continues to evolve at a glacial pace. Compounding matters is the flash-cube sized attention span the Digital Age is leaving us with in its wake. If it hasn’t honestly hasn’t affected the way you digest and connect with music one iota you are luckier than I. From the opening notes I knew all these albums below were a different beast, each and every time I am left with no choice but to go on the journey in its entirety as intended. Best efforts were made to sequence these in number of rotations:

David Nance - Calling Christine (CDR, 2016)

Helen - The Original Faces (Kranky, 2015)

Dreamdecay - N V N V N V (Iron Lung, 2013)

Uniform - Wake in Fright (Sacred Bones, 2017)

Lou Barlow - Brace the Wave (Joyful Noise, 2015)

Protomartyr - Under Color of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Axis:Sova - Weight of a Color (Kill Shaman, 2012)

Beachglass - Clouding (Bandcamp, 2017)

Birds of Maya - Ready to Howl (Richie, 2010)

La Hell Gang - Thru Me Again (Mexican Summer, 2014)

Jennifer Kelly’s 2010s Favorites

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds — Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd., 2013)

Protomartyr — Under Colour of Official Right (Hardly Art, 2014)

Sleaford Mods — Divide and Exit (Harbinger Sound, 2014)

Meg Baird — Don’t Weigh Down the Light (Drag City, 2015)

Heron Oblivion — Heron Oblivion (Sub Pop, 2016)

Amy Rigby — The Old Guys (Southern Domestic, 2018)

Steve Gunn — The Unseen in Between (Matador, 2019)

Patois Counselors — Proper Release (Ever/Never, 2018)

Damien Jurado — Maraqopa (Secretly Canadian, 2012)

Skull Defekts — Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

Jack Rose — Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey, 2010)

Rangda — False Flag (Drag City, 2010)

Tim Clarke’s A Baker’s Dozen From the 2010s

In a nod to The Quietus’s regular feature, here are 13 albums that have meant a lot to me in recent years. I’m sure there have been musical trends during the 2010s more worthy of coverage than a personal list of favorites, but if one thing’s clear from this list it’s that, for better or worse, my taste hasn’t changed much in the ensuing years and is rarely swayed by the flavor of the month (or year, or decade). Most of this is expansive guitar-based stuff, and they’re all albums I don’t hesitate to revisit to this day. So, if that sounds like your bag, you can’t go wrong with any of these, presented in alphabetical order:

Big Thief — U.F.O.F. (4AD, 2019)

Chris Cohen — Overgrown Path (Captured Tracks, 2012)

Loma — Loma (Sub Pop, 2018)

Sandro Perri — Impossible Spaces (Constellation, 2011)

Radiohead — A Moon Shaped Pool (XL, 2016)

Roommate — Make Like (Strange Weather, 2015)

Andy Shauf — The Party (Arts & Crafts, 2016)

Shearwater — Animal Joy (Sub Pop, 2012)

Chad VanGaalen — Light Information (Sub Pop, 2017)

Mark Van Hoen — Where is the Truth? (City Centre Offices, 2010)

The Walkmen — Lisbon (Fat Possum, 2010)

Wild Beasts — Smother (Domino, 2011)

Women — Public Strain (Jagjaguwar, 2010)

#dusted magazine #lists #best of 2010s #andrew forell #ben donnelly #derek taylor #Ethan Milititsky #ian mathers #jason gioncontere #jennifer kelly #tim clarke

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kayla1993-world · 3 years

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Quebec is still angry about the Sept. 9 English-language leaders’ debate in which Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet was asked several questions implying that his home province has a racism problem. In a recent column for the Journal de Montréal, Blanchet didn’t blame moderator Shachi Kurl for a question in which she implied that Quebec laws banning religious head coverings on civil servants were "discriminatory." Rather, Blanchet said she was the “victim” of a Canadian culture that instills its citizens with the “same prejudices, the same contempt and the same moral superiority” towards Quebec.

Kurl, meanwhile, thinks this whole thing is ridiculous. In a column for The Globe and Mail, she said it is not a great look for the federation when a simple debate question leads to official censure by a provincial assembly and demands for apology by party leaders. “The question gave Mister Blanchet the opportunity to talk to people outside Quebec, about secularism, about laicite. He could have shared the Quebec perspective with the rest of Canada. He chose not to,” she wrote.

This time last week, Michael Kovrig was packed with three other men in a windowless 90 square foot cell, taking his meals in stainless steel doggy bowls. Now, the former detainee is doing errands in Toronto while being spontaneously feted as a hero. Both a Toronto barbershop and a pharmacy posted images to social media of Kovrig entering their locations for a haircut and a COVID-19 shot respectively.

Both China and the United States are officially claiming there was no link between the release of Meng Wanzhou and the return of the two Michaels. According to the United States, their justice department just happened to resolve the Meng case and China freed the Michaels on their own. But reporting from The Globe and Mail, among others, is already casting doubt on that explanation, and alleging that the resolution of the Meng affair was resolved as a direct result of US President Joe Biden's desire to secure the return of the Michaels.

Green Party Leader Annamie Paul didn’t actually resign on Monday, per se, but she began the “process of resigning.” What this likely means is that the next few weeks will see her negotiating some kind of severance from her official employer, the Green Party Fund. Reportedly, Andrew Scheer also got some kind of severance package when he was booted from the Conservative leadership in late 2019; a five-figure cheque just makes it easier to shunt people out of the way.

Dozens of Alberta intensive care doctors penned a public letter this week warning that the province’s health-care system is on the verge of “collapse” due to record-breaking rates of COVID-19 patients in intensive care. With 1,063 COVID-19 patients currently in hospital, Alberta is experiencing a more acute wave of COVID-19 than has been seen by anywhere else in Canada during the pandemic. With the surge in hospitalizations occurring almost exclusively among the unvaccinated, Premier Jason Kenney rejected calls for a “hard lockdown,” arguing it would make “no sense for the 80 per cent of the population that is vaccinated.”

Yet another poll has emerged to confirm that Canadians are all feeling pretty surly about the last election. A Research Co. poll found that only 42 per cent of respondents were happy with the prospect of another Liberal minority government, and public support for NDP-Liberal collaboration has plummeted as compared to 2019.

A Leger poll wrapping up the aftermath of Election 44 asked voters to sum up the singular reason they voted the way they did. Liberals said they wanted to avoid a Conservative government, Conservatives said they wanted to defeat the Liberal governmentand NDPers said that they liked the NDP.

It’s no secret to the Maverick Party that they didn’t do very well in Election 44. With only 35,247 votes total, the entire party received less support than a single Conservative MP, John Barlow, who got 44,456 votes in his riding of Foothills. Nevertheless, in an interview with iPolitics, interim leader Jay Hill (a former Conservative House leader under Stephen Harper) remains optimistic that the People’s Party of Canada will inevitably implode and his Mavericks will be able to take their place. Said Hill, “it’s not the People’s party; it’s the Max Bernier party, and it’s all about him.”

Writing for Maclean’s, Terry Glavin is extremely averse to the Trudeau government’s claim that the return of the two Michaels was thanks to some feat of diplomatic manoeuvring. On the contrary, Glavin paints a picture of a Liberal government that was actively prepared to cave to China on Meng Wanzhou, but held off only because the prospect wasn’t too “politically toxic.”

The Conservatives aren’t the only ones chewing on themselves in frustration over their performance in Election 44. The NDP, of course, added only one seat to their caucus in Election 44. According to former Ontario NDP official Ish Theilheimer, this is due to the NDP committing the “same old mistakes.” Namely, an inflexible adherance to “tax the rich” rhetoric, the “tone deaf” arguments that the Conservatives and Liberals are the same, and a bizarre culture of never admitting that they have no chance of forming government.

Rex Murphy might have some clues as to why so much of Canada is seeing angry pushback to COVID restrictions and vaccine mandates. While Canadians were generally quite amenable to COVID-19 lockdowns at the pandemic’s outset, Murphy tracks a string of missteps, flip-flops and outright hypocrisies that seriously undermined trust in public health.

#canada

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Aqualung at 50: Jethro Tull’s Half Concept Album Hits Half a Century

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

“In the beginning Man created God,” reads the back cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung. “And in the image of Man created he him.” The album came out 7 million days later, on March 19, 1971. We’d only recently been told God was “a concept by which we measure our pain,” by John Lennon.

Aqualung is framed by two halves of a concept. The first songs on the first side tell the stories of the outcasts, those out of sight of the eyes of the man who created god. The B-side explains why organized religion blinds us. In between are songs which have nothing to do with either theme. First off, for those who don’t know, Jethro Tull is not a person, but a band. The songs on Aqualung were written by Ian Anderson, bandleader, singer-songwriter, guitarist, occasional saxophonist, and heaviest metal flutist to make Bach swing. Anderson maintained, throughout numerous interviews, Aqualung was not a concept record. He would go on to mock the very idea of it with the satirical prog masterpiece Thick as a Brick.

The Beatles suffered the same misnomer dilemma. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band wasn’t a concept album. Paul McCartney got the idea the band would play the album as if they were this other band. The concept lasted two songs and a reprieve. The rest of the album is a full immersion into the possibilities of the studio under the steady gaze of George Martin. Aqualung opens with songs inspired by true life candid shots Ian’s wife Jennie Anderson (now filmmaker Jennie Franks) took while studying photography. One was a homeless man, another an under-age prostitute. Other than that, the first side includes a beautiful love song, and hard and soft confessional pieces.

The first concept album is Woody Guthrie’s 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, which stuck to one theme: the economic and ecological fallout of the devastating 1930s drought. Frank Sinatra explored loneliness and late nights on a pair of classic concept long-players unified by mood. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention’s Freak Out!, from 1966, is the first concept album, as well as the first double-album, of rock, although every song on the Beach Boys’ 1963 album Little Deuce Coupe is about a car. The Who’s Tommy, Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall are rock operas which tell full stories. Bands like the Kinks tried unifying songs with imperceivable segues and tone.

Aqualung delivers a consistent tone. Sometimes the songs fluctuate between soft acoustic and hard rock, other times the individual pieces grow through progressive layering. The harder and more social pieces employ metric modulation, and the religious ones dabble in the chordal modulations of spiritual music. The acoustic songs are less folk than singer-songwriter stylings. The album revels in its contrasts. We get riff-rock ready-made for Madison Square Garden, and intimate nylon string fingerings to burn toast to.

Ian Anderson’s lyrics are filled with rich, detailed imagery, regardless of how pretentious critic Robert Christgau found him. The band mix progressive rock, hard rock, folk music, jazz, classical, and even medieval and pagan music, along with what Anderson would call “ugly changes of time signature and banal instrumental passages” on the Thick as a Brick album notes.

This Was

Jethro Tull formed in 1967, the same year Anderson took up the flute, on a whim. After realizing as a guitarist, he “was never going to be as good as Eric Clapton,” Ian “parted company with my Fender Strat, whose previous owner was Lemmy Kilmister, who was then the rhythm guitar player for the Rockin’ Vickers,” Anderson told Classic Rock. He then “bought a flute, for no good reason. It just looked nice and shiny.” Energized by Pink Floyd’s The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, the band was able to drop the twelve-bar blues songs which led to non-pop record deals in London.

Anderson got the name Jethro Tull from the 18th-century agriculturist who invented the seed-drill, which gave birth to modern agriculture. Their first album, This Was, was blues, but the band distinguished itself, especially live. They were the first band to perform at The Rolling Stones’ Rock and Roll Circus, though their part was mimed, with Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi on guitar. Martin Barre took over for the band’s original guitarist, blues specialist Mick Abrahams, and on their 1969 album, Stand Up, the band stood out, sounding unlike any other band. It was eclectic, incorporating Western classical, Asian music, English folk, and harder rock. The band continued experimenting melodically and rhythmically through 1970’s Benefit, which just failed to make the U.S. Top 10.

Jethro Tull has become known as a band of ever-changing instrumentalists. Aqualung was the bridge album towards reassembling one of Ian’s first bands. Anderson was 23 when he led Jethro Tull through Aqualung. When he was young, Anderson could be found in Dunfermline, Scotland, where he was born on August 10, 1947. But he was packed off to school in Blackpool, where he sang and played guitar and harmonica for The Blades in 1963. John Evans, who joined on piano, organ, and mellotron, had been a guest musician on Benefit. Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond, who’d been mythologized in the songs “Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square,” “Song for Jeffrey,” and “For Micheal Collins, Jeffrey And Me,” replaced Glenn Cornick on bass. Both had been in the Blades. Barriemore Barlow, also from the early sixties band, would replace Clive Bunker on drums after Aqualung.

Tull mythology says Hammond-Hammond didn’t know the instrument and had to be taught on a note-by-note basis. He may very well have had to have been coached through each specific part he was playing. They are often incredibly intricate runs, and often go against the grain of what is expected from the bass. He had to have been familiar enough with the instrument to click in with both Clive Bunker and Barriemore Barlow, each were virtuosos with vastly different approaches to rhythm. Bunker never met a beat he couldn’t undermine for unexpected force and dynamic. Yet, he could make a 5/4 song danceable.

The ensemble playing is tight, the players moved easily through more intricate arrangements. The orchestrations are done by Dee Palmer, who later joined as a full-time member. The British press coined the term “progressive rock” to describe bands like Frank Zappa, Yes, King Crimson and Genesis. Tull was prog, but more accessible than classical music enthusiasts Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Guitar Gods and Flute Solos

Jethro Tull is probably best known as the classic rock band with the lead flute. “Aqualung,” possibly their best-known song, has no flute. Martin Barre’s guitar solo was rated #25 in Guitar World‘s “100 Greatest Guitar Solos” reader’s poll. But it could just as easily have been a whirl of woodwind. “In those days, if you didn’t get a guitar solo in one or two takes, it might become a flute solo. It was, ‘Go in there and do it or else,” Barre told Guitar Player in a 2015 interview.

Aqualung was recorded in a large, cold-sounding studio that Island Records built in a converted church in London. Led Zeppelin were recording their fourth album in the moderate sized basement studio that had been the crypt. “The only thing I can remember about cutting the solo is that Led Zeppelin was recording next door, and as I was playing it, Jimmy Page walked into the control room and waved to me,” Barre remembered for Guitar Player. While there have been countless theories about why the players had the faceoff, both Tull and Zeppelin fans appreciate the dual pressure of the session. “And here was Jimmy, waving like mad – ‘Hey, Martin!’ – and I’m thinking, ‘I can’t wave back or I’m going to blow the solo.’”

The song “Aqualung” opens with one of the most recognizable riffs in rock, in the same league as Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love,” and the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” It has been venerated and mocked in equal measure, but in all cases lovingly. It opens the song with the drama of the four-note opening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and becomes a motif.

“Aqualung” is “a tortured tangle of chords,” according to Ian, with atonal harmonies, meaning the root is open to interpretation. The chords themselves are a journey to the acoustic segment of the song, which then builds, like most songs on the album, one instrument at a time. The audio effect on the later vocals is called “telephone burbles,” which happens when all audio frequencies are removed except for a narrow band around the 1,000 hertz mark, making the voice sound like it’s coming through a megaphone. The song has a cold ending rather than a fadeout, which makes it perfect for stage performances.

Bad Intent

Ian got the title for the album and song from the TV show Sea Hunt, where the main character, played by Lloyd Bridges, wore an Aqualung for underwater breathing. Aqualung was a brand name, and the Aqualung Corporation of North America took legal action after the album came out. Artist Burton Silverman, who created the cover portrait, also sued, saying the likeness should not be used on merchandising, T-shirts, and promotional materials.

Before the codpiece and the medieval minstrel suits and lutes, Ian performed in an overcoat, which had been stolen after a concert, but has been described as looking ratty. This led to further complications of identity. Because of Tull’s manager, Terry Ellis, Silverman’s cover portrait looks like Anderson, against the singer’s wishes. “I’m not this character,” he told Louder Sound. “I’m not a homeless person. I’m a spotty middle-class English kid. I’ve never had to sleep rough on the street, and I don’t want to be pretending to be that character.”

The character Aqualung, is a homeless man like the character in Pearl Jam’s “Even Flow.” Both characters are blank slates in everyday life and can have any association imposed on them. Besides inspiring the album through her photographs of homeless people living under the railway arches on the Thames Embankment in south London, Anderson’s wife Jennie also co-wrote the lyrics. “I had feelings of guilt about the homeless, as well as fear and insecurity with people like that who seem a little scary,” Anderson told Guitar World in a 1999 interview. The lyrics have more to do with the assumptions people make of Aqualung, like his predilection for little girls or frilly panties. But he also saw the angry man as “a free spirit, who either won’t or can’t join in society’s prescribed formats.”

She’ll Do It For A Song

“Cross-Eyed Mary” didn’t only capture the attention of Aqualung, she was one of the subjects in the photographic collection of the lesser people cast into the void: a child prostitute. The song transforms her into a squinty Mary Magdalene, whose jack-knife barber abortionist drops her off at school. In the lower income neighborhood Highgate, she’s a Robin Hood figure. In wealthy Hampstead Village, which was the site of the St. Mary Magdalene House of Charity in the Victorian era, she’s a business expense. The song opens with flute and mellotron rising in rhythm and pulse until the band kicks in. The interplay between guitar and piano is delicate, and the bass line buzzes with riff-worthy changes. Iron Maiden transformed the flute part into baroque metal guitar when they covered it.

“Cheap Day Return” is the first of three short acoustic songs on the album, each under two minutes. A “cheap day return” is a reduced-price round trip train ticket, and the song was written while Ian was waiting for a connecting train on his way to visiting his father, who was seriously ill in a hospital in Blackpool. In interviews, Anderson has said the song would have been longer, but the train arrived.

“Mother Goose” opens with acoustic folk guitar under Elizabethan madrigal sounding recorders played by Barre and Hammond-Hammond, who also provides harmony vocals. The electric guitar comes in late in the song, kicking the childhood Piccadilly Circus nursery rhymes into the adult playground of Johnny Scarecrow.

“It’s only the giving which makes you what you are,” Ian sings in “Wond’ring Aloud.” The second short acoustic piece is a simple love song made grandly beautiful by the piano and string arrangement. The longer version, “Wond’ring Again,” which appears on Living In The Past (1972), reached the opposite conclusion, but kept the idealistic romance at the center of the piece. The third acoustic piece, “Slipstream,” from side two, presses Ian’s last dime on God’s waiter to pay the tab. The song is tideless, but the unreasoning strings paddle the way out of the mess.

“Up To Me” opens not with a recognizable riff, nor a classical piano twist, but a whole hearted laugh which is as contagious as the song itself.

Praying ‘til Next Thursday to All the Gods that You Can Count

Side two, subtitled “My God,” deals with religious hypocrisy, golden cages, and plastic crucifixes. If Jesus saves, then he’d better save himself. The song “My God” had been kicking around since at least the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. The imagery recalls William Blake and the metallic break-in sounds like Black Sabbath, both the band and the dark holiday. Once again, the song uses progressive modulation beginning with a solo acoustic guitar introduction like Evan’s piano on “Locomotive Breath.” But when Barre’s electric guitar takes over for the nylon classical fretwork, the song is full-blown metal.

Ian’s voice drips with as much disdain for organized religion as his songwriting does for musical structure. The song goes through the arpeggios of classical guitar, through hymnal chord changes, a metallic flute lead back by instruments, another flute lead back by a chorus of harmonizing bishops, inverted chromatics, and comes to a dark Pied Piper ending.

“Hymn 43” is a piano-driven soul-stirrer with enough propulsive licks to set the white man free. Ian’s preaching to the faithless on this one, though. He bears witness in the city, on the moon and on that bloody cross. The guitar and flute interplay works like a gospel call and response, and Ian’s voice stings with insinuation.

If you want to hear Ian play electric guitar, you should give another listen to the rhythm on “Locomotive Breath.” He’s also on the hi-hat and bass drum which he laid out for the basic rhythm, allowing Bunker space for tom-toms and the cymbals. The song opens with Evan giving a jazzy spin to dramatic classical concerto piano. The song, which is about overpopulation, rhythmically careens like a train about to derail. It is a concert favorite and frequent showstopper.

“Wind Up” asks this God a question and learns it’s “not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.” The song is structured to grow on you, and age well. It begins with acoustic guitar and vocal, which is joined by the rest of the outfit until the climactic solos, and then reminiscences a second time symmetrically with piano grounding the build-up. In a fairly straightforward song, Bunker plays everything but a straight beat.

Anderson concludes, in the liner notes which are cast in liturgical-style Gothic lettering, the Spirit that caused man to create his God lives on, but goes unnoticed. He advises listeners, “for Christ’s sake,” to start looking. The album has been pilloried and praised by people of all faiths and none. The title song gave a face to the homeless and inspired grassroots organizations to create aid. Musically, it is a constant irritation to sitcom characters and an equally steady inspiration to players. In spite of having to explain how flute was a heavy metal instrument after winning the Grammy for 1987 Crest of a Knave, Jethro Tull was a huge influence on heavy metal and hard rock. Even the Sex Pistols’ John Lydon ranks Aqualung among his favorite records.

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It may be dinosaur rock to some, but Aqualung is far from extinct. Tracks like “Aqualung”, “Cross-Eyed Mary, “Hymn #43” and “Locomotive Breath” take up the bulk of Jethro Tull’s playlist on classic rock media outlets. After 50 years, Aqualung can still blow a wheezy breath of fresh air into stale misconceptions, even if he does have snot running down his nose.

The post Aqualung at 50: Jethro Tull’s Half Concept Album Hits Half a Century appeared first on Den of Geek.

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the-record-newspaper · 5 years

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The Killing of Rhonda Hinson: Part 11

Sarah McBrayer,

Rhonda Hinson’s neighbor

By LARRY J. GRIFFIN

Special Investigative Reporter

For The Record

“Grief is something you never get over. You don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘I’ve conquered that; now I’m moving on.’ It’s something that walks beside you every day.”—Terri Erwin, posted on Facebook by Judy Hinson

Bill Holland and his wife, Wanda, played tennis with Rhonda Hinson from time to time. In fact, when Rhonda and Rick Steiner won the Valdese Tennis Association’s Mixed-Doubles Paired Partners tournament in the Fall of 1981, by a playoff score of 21-19, it was Wanda Holland who presented them their awards.

And it was Bill Holland who was the first Burke County Sheriff’s Department officer to arrive on a crime scene—the early morning of December 23rd—in which a young woman, known for her tennis prowess, lay dead from a gunshot wound.

Officer Danny Barus, who was making rounds on North Laurel Street, crossed Main Street and then onto Eldred. According to his recollections, he arrived at the crime scene approximately a minute after Lt. Harry Feimster; both had been on-site ‘a good while’ prior to Holland’s arrival. “The scene was turned over to Sgt. Bill Holland of the Burke County Sheriff’s Department upon his arrival,” Barus subsequently documented in a “little ole’ incident report.” Other detectives appeared as well, one of whom was John McDevitt.

In a demonstration of pathetic fallacy by Mother Nature—as if responding to the horrific Yuletide murder—it commenced to drizzle raindrops down upon the crime scene. Sgt. Holland removed his coat and covered the lifeless body of his young friend to keep her from getting wet.

Wayne Chapman—with whom Rhonda had ridden to work less than 24-hours earlier—left the Omelette Shoppe in Hickory with a group of revelers from the Hickory Steel Christmas party. He and his wife were driving on Interstate 40 West toward their Morganton home and passed the Mineral Springs Mountain Road exit. They would later recall seeing the “blue lights from police vehicles on the north side of the intersection.”

Though the Chapmans apparently did not stop, other drivers traveling on Eldred Street commenced to do so; a small group of onlookers begin to gather. Richard Barlow was one of them.

“Bobby and Judy had heard about someone being killed on their police scanner; and Bobby kept calling asking us to come over,” Mr. Barlow recounted during a telephonic interview. “I told my wife [Linda] that Rhonda was all right and that I didn’t think anything had happened to her. But we decided to go on over there. We left home and drove on Interstate 40 [West] and got off on Exit 112 [Mineral Springs Road] and started up the hill. There was Rhonda’s car.”

Mr. Barlow stopped, exited his vehicle, and walked toward Rhonda’s Datsun. The first person whom he encountered was Burke County officer, Bill Holland. “I asked him if that was Rhonda Hinson and he wouldn’t answer me. I said, ‘Look, I am on my way over to Bobby’s and Judy’s house right now, and I need to be able to tell them something.’ He asked me not to do that and to let them tell the Hinsons first. I told him that he’d better hurry and do so.”

Detective Holland asked the Barlows to return home and that he would phone them just as soon as law enforcement had the opportunity to speak with Rhonda’s parents. Richard Barlow agreed. He returned to his car, parked behind the ambulance, and watched as emergency personnel loaded Rhonda Hinson’s body.

“I believe it was Robbie [the Hinsons’ son] that called us to say that it is OK to go over there now, “recalled Mr. Barlow.

By the time their good friends arrived at the Hinsons’ house, Judy and Bobby had learned that Rhonda had been killed. It was Richard Barlow who told them that she had been shot to death.

Another passing vehicle, a beige 1981 Chevy Citation, made a U-turn, and returned to the crime scene—the driver was the Reverend Charles McDowell. SBI Agent John Suttle saw him.

“Mr. Mc Dowell left and went to look for her [Rhonda] in the beige Citation. Charlie did not get home before Valdese PD called and told us what happened,” Betty McDowell explained in a February, 1982 interview.

“I came through the crime scene, stopped and asked what happened. I thought that she [Rhonda] had passed out, ran off the road and that was what had killed her,” Charles McDowell recounted for Judy Hinson in a couple of documented conversations. “I asked them about the car, ‘cause I said it looked like the car of the person I had been looking for. They would not tell me what had happened. And they asked me who I was and I told them, and they told me to go on over to your house and there would be a detective over there to tell me what was going on.”

It was after 3 a.m., when John McDevitt and Bill Holland knocked on the door of the Hinson’s Hillcrest home to confirm their worst nightmare—their 19-year-old daughter would not be coming home.

Judy Hinson vividly recalls the moment that law enforcement appeared at her door.

John McDevitt was wearing jeans and work boots of some kind; Bill Holland was with him, and another man that I did not recognize and thought he was one of the detectives because of the way he was dressed. McDevitt asked me if there was anyone that he could call for us. I responded that he could call Rev. McDowell. That’s when the unknown man stepped forward and said that he was McDowell. Well, I didn’t know Greg’s father, though I remember seeing them briefly at Rhonda’s graduation. But that was the first time that I really saw him to know who he was.

Next-door neighbor, Sarah McBrayer, remembered that it was her mother who awakened her the early morning of December 23rd. “…She got me up and said something has happened at the Hinson’s house. So I walked across the street. I was there when Charles [McDowell] arrived…I did not know one policeman from the other at that point.”

At 3:37 a.m., John McDevitt placed a long-distance phone call to Greg McDowell, from the Hinsons’ telephone, to apprise him that his girlfriend had been killed on Mineral Springs Mountain Road. Thirteen minutes later—at 3:50 a.m., Charles McDowell telephoned his wife, Betty, and son, Greg. “I don’t know all that he said; but I did hear him say, ‘You’d better get up here,’” Judy Hinson recollected.

Ms. McBrayer later observed Charles making a second call subsequent to calling his wife and son. “I couldn’t hear much of the conversation; however, it sounded to me as if he was already making funeral arrangements for Rhonda. But I didn’t think that he would have been able to that so very early in the morning.”

Ms. Hinson also remembered the arrival of Greg and his mother. “Mr. McDowell was standing by the door that led into the kitchen from the carport when his family arrived. They [Greg and Betty] did not speak to him or him to them when they came in; the two of them headed straight into our bedroom [located off the kitchen] and sat down on the bed. Neither Greg, his mother, nor his father spoke to us at that point. I even asked Reverend McDowell if he would take me to tell my mother about Rhonda. He didn’t even acknowledge the request I made. So, Linda and Richard Barlow took me to tell my Mother.”

Greg appeared very pale and seemed upset when Judy finally walked up to him in the bedroom, put her arm around him as he sat on her bed and said, “Greg, what are we going to do?” Greg did not respond but immediately bolted toward the bathroom and threw-up.

“I remember his throwing-up about three times while he was there,” observant neighbor Sarah McBrayer reported. “In fact, he was either sitting on the bed or making trips to the bathroom the whole time he was there.” But something else struck Sarah as ‘strange.’ “I noticed that Greg was freshly shaven and appeared to have already showered—he smelled good.”

“Greg had fast beard growth and would have to shave twice-a-day, Judy remembered. “But when I hugged him, I thought to myself ‘he’s already shaved this morning.’ I just felt it odd for him to be clean-shaven that early.”

Sarah McBrayer drew a similar inference, “Let me put it to you this way—if I had been asleep and had just gotten a phone call that my girlfriend had been killed, I don’t think that I would have taken the time to shower and shave—I would have thrown on whatever I could find and out the door I would go. I would not have cared about how I looked.”

The McDowells did not remain at the Hinson house long before they left for their Wilkies Grove parsonage. They apprised no one of their departure.

About a mile away in Holly Hills, Revonda Turner was awakened by the screams coming from her daughter Jill’s bedroom. “I rushed into her room to see what the matter was,” Ms. Turner explained.

“Thirty-minutes or so after Bobby called me looking for Rhonda, I get a phone call from a high school classmate and friend, Shelly Kaplan, telling me that my best friend had been killed earlier,” Jill Turner-Mull recalled. “I couldn’t believe it; I lost it; all I could do was scream.”

“She [Jill] was inconsolable from that point on. No one was able to sleep after the news came that Rhonda was dead,” Ms. Turner indicated in an initial interview in her Holly Hills home.

But later morning—just a few hours after her best friend had been killed—Jill decided that she and Mark Turner should go to Wilkies Grove to check on Greg. “I didn’t give him much of a choice. I told him about Rhonda and said that he had to come pick me up so we could go check on Greg. He did, and we arrived at the McDowell’s house—well I know it was before 7 a.m. Greg’s mother, Betty, was still there and had not gone to work yet. She answered the door and—quite frankly—seemed irritated that we were there.”

Mark Turner, in his first-ever interview, conducted in the office of Detective James Pruett on Jan. 4, 1996, also remembered that he and Jill visited Greg’s house around 7 a.m. “I think the TV was on; Greg was lying on the bed, and he didn’t talk much.”

“I don’t remember Greg’s saying anything to either Mark or myself,” Jill averred. He acted like he was in a daze, lying propped up on the bed, staring straight ahead toward the TV. He never made eye- contact with either Mark or me the entire time we were there, and he didn’t respond to anything that we said. I just figured he was too upset to even talk to us.”

The couple decided to leave and was driving away when Mark Turner saw Greg “run out of his home” waving them down.” “I stopped while Greg went to his car—I can’t remember which car—and brought a pack of condoms and gave them to me. He said something like, ‘I don’t want them—I guess his parents or Rhonda’s parents—to find out we were having sex.’”

Mr. Turner remarked that he felt this act was very odd behavior for Greg, especially since he was noticeably unresponsive only minutes earlier. The package of condoms was unopened and Mark stated that he “thinks he threw them away later.”

In her Jan. 26, 2019, initial interview with this writer, Jill Turner-Mull recounted another occurrence that “struck her as strange” during the 7 a.m., visit with Greg on December 23rd. “I noticed that Mr. McDowell didn’t seem to be at home when Mark and I arrived. So, I asked Betty where he was. She told me that he had already ‘flown-out’ that early morning to pick-up some relatives who were going to visit them during the Christmas holidays.”

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the-hindu-times · 5 years

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March 2019 reviews roundup

Impressive sets from the youthful White Lakes and Natalie Shay put the dated Rainband to shame on the first day of the month, upstairs at the Garage (at Thousand Island in Islington). On the Monday, whilst Russell Brand was on at The Exchange in Twickenham, we were at Self Esteem's A capella in-store at Banquet Records, before the shop put on 2 full band shows for Bryan Adams across the road, at Pryzm. After the first gig we headed a couple more doors down to the Fighting Cocks for Outside The Box Comedy Club, headlined by John Robins. With the Conservatives closing venues, we're lucky that Kingston can still host more than one event in an evening. We were back at Banquet Records on Wednesday for Japense House but opted for Twenty One Pilots at Wembley over Billie Eilish at New Slang in Kingston on Thursday. Another visit to Banquet on Sunday for Newton Faulkner, before I joined James Walsh to perform acoustic songs at the Groucho Club in Soho the night after, led to the high-grossing ‘Dreamworks Animation’ trilogy ‘Madagasgar’ the following evening, in the shape of an action-packed musical at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking.

With the stage-set creating a slightly more intimate space, Brandon Gale was as heroic as his character; stepping into the role of Alex the lion. With, X-Factor winner, Matt Terry’s understudy unavailable to fill in during his absence, it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing the lead after such a fantastic presentation from the recent graduate. It was soon the audience’s turn to roar – this time with laughter, helped by the ensemble of penguins and Timmika Ramsay’s hilarious hippo character, Gloria. Experienced puppeteer, Jamie Lee-Morgan, had a perfect portrayal of Melman the giraffe but the best was still yet to come: The second half saw locally-trained actor, Jo Parsons, present King Julien in a way Robin Williams would have played it. Also reminiscent of the side-splitting stylings of Mike Myres, he favoured the flamboyance from ‘Cat in the Hat’ over the outlandish ogre from fellow animated film franchise ‘Shrek’, where Myres had jelled with Eddy Murphy – of whom Antoine Murray-Straughan was channelling the comedy characteristics of for Marty the zebra; adding another dynamic to Chris Rock’s voice-acting in the Madagascar films. Along with some well-crafted routines, hilarious moments and vocal performances of the highest quality, there was fun for all the family to be had.

The next day, we joined 8 other audience members for Seann Walsh's £5 work-in-progress show at the Museum of Comedy in Holborn. After the next morning's Tunbridge Wells radio show, we were at Embrace's sold out Roundhouse gig the following evening in Chalk Farm. Celebrating 21 years since the release of their debut LP 'The Good Will Out', they're still with the original line up. Having seen them on that first tour, at Folkestone's Leas Cliff Hall, some song arrangements have changed, with Danny McNamara no longer playing his Lowden acoustic guitar on timeless classics, such as 'My Weakness Is None Of Your Business' and 'Retread'. After the best possible opening for 'All You Good Good People', the audience seemed to enjoy the ballads, like 'Fireworks' and 'That's All Changed Forever', above the overdriven 'I Want The World' and 'The Last Gas'. They played the album from start to finish - not something all bands do when promising to tour a record in its entirety. They returned for a 5 song encore; ending with songs from their first comeback album 'Out Of Nothing' after opening with 2 from their second comeback/sixth full length, either side of 1 from their latest effort 'Love Is A Basic Need'. Tonight, the Roundhouse was the best it has ever sounded; with the drum kit and Danny's voice standing out as particularly pleasing. A vinyl box set of the show is soon to be released via their website.

After a midweek Outside The Box at Langleys, Surbiton with Reginald D Hunter, we returned to the New Victoria Theatre for Calendar Girls.

Tonight attracted one of the biggest turnouts, for a run at Woking’s New Victoria Theatre, since Jersey Boys. Although the majority were of the same age and sex as the leads they’d come to see, the hugely popular Calendar Girls felt like a show that could not be missed. Starring This Morning’s Fern Britton; Four Weddings & A Funeral’s Sara Crowe; Family Guy voice actor, Anna-Jane Casey; comedian, Karen Dunbar; leading lady, Rebecca Storm; Loose Woman, Denise Welsh; Porridge’s Sebastian Abineri; acting veterans Phil Corbitt and Pauline Daniels; one woman cabaret show, Catherine Digges; theatre regular, Derek Elroy and ‘90s Coronation Street star (Gary Mallett), Ian Mercer, it was youngsters, Danny Howker, Tyler Dobbs and Isabel Caswell who offer the much needed dynamic.

After the first half’s slow moving and minimal, repetitive scenes felt a bit thin, it paved the way for a bigger impact in the second. A slow burner, like Rocky or The Shawshank Redemption, it was worth the wait. With Nick Pinchbeck’s live band in the orchestra pit, the familiar songs of Tim Firth and Gary Barlow were largely sound-a-likes of hits from yesteryear; with ‘My Russian Friend And I’ feeling almost credible enough to be mistaken for a Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan track from the early 2000s. Still, this story of recovery and power, gave us hope that we could all be on the right road after all.

The end of the month was rounded up with Milton Jones and Andrew Bird at Outside The Box comedy club, Surbiton (Langleys)

Nic Bennett

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 5 years

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Alpaca accounts are underrated social media treasures

In the vast world of animals with social media accounts, common household pets like cats and dogs typically reign supreme. But if you’re not following your fair share of alpacas on the internet, you’re sorely missing out.

Though social media accounts dedicated to alpacas are rare, they're remarkable — like delicious pieces of hay in the ridiculous needle stack that is the internet. You have to do a bit more searching than you would to find a cat or dog account, sure. But when you do happen upon a dedicated farm or fan posting camelid content, it doesn't disappoint.

Since following several alpaca accounts like Alpacas of Instagram, Barnacre Alpacas, and The Woolly Army, I've found the animals' presence in my daily digital life, though small, to be a real mood booster. After noticing that lighthearted alpaca content makes Twitter and Instagram significantly more bearable, I decided to reach out to some leaders of the alpaca social media movement to learn more about the underrated animals, and what it's like making a space for them online.

SEE ALSO: This cat named Michael Scott is the World's Best Cat

Alpacas are the ideal internet animal in my opinion. They're cute — but not too cute — and bursting with personality, which comes across perfectly in photographs and videos. They're experts at sporting goofy grins and shooting skeptical stares, and often give off major IDGAF vibes that speak to me on a deeply personal level after scrolling through pages and pages of monotonous selfies and brunch shots.

Some alpacas — like Chewy, a 4-year-old male camelid in Australia, and Cody, an especially small but resilient female alpaca in Colorado, who defied her odds of survival after being born prematurely — have thousands of followers on Instagram. But if you're craving a variety of diverse and delightful alpaca content, Alpacas of Instagram is the account for you.

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A post shared by Alpacas of Instagram (@alpacasofinstagram) on Jan 23, 2019 at 5:54am PST

The human behind the Alpacas of Instagram account, who asked not to be identified in this article, explained in an email that the account was born while she and a friend interned at an alpaca farm in high school. The farm had 15 alpacas, two crias, a St. Bernard, and a sheep named Gracie at the time. In between learning how to properly care for them and shear wool, the two pals would post photos of the animals to Instagram.

The social media platform was just starting to gain traction, the Alpacas of Instagram creator explained, so when she left for college she decided to keep up the account by reposting photographs from other people who used the hashtag #AlpacasofInstagram.

Using clever captions and quotes, the account tries to post at least one adorable alpaca photo or video a day. And Alpacas of Instagram also works to foster the online alpaca community by sharing content from smaller accounts to its nearly 180,000 followers followers.

"The engagement from followers has been amazing," the creator said, noting the hashtag currently has around 140,000 public posts. And while the attention and positive feedback is nice, she's ultimately just happy to help put the beloved animals in the spotlight.

Image: screengrab/alpacasofinstagram

"I am intentionally private about myself on the account," the account creator explained. "I started it because I wanted to share my love for these animals with the world, not so much myself ... I really enjoy giving a platform to these animals and their owners."

Alpacas' personalities, she explained, are what she loves most about the animals. "Yes they’re cute, and adorable, and fluffy, but they’re also really curious and sweet animals" that can be initially skeptical of people. "They can be really silly and awkward too, which is why I think they’re starting to have such a presence on social media ... They're these stupidly cute animals who do really awkward looking and hilarious things sometimes."

I first learned about the the Alpacas of Instagram account through alpaca lover Hilary Duff, whose boyfriend recently bought her an alpaca named Ivan for Valentine's Day. For now, though, Ivan has to live at the farm with his friends, since alpacas are happiest in herds and will quite literally die of loneliness without an alpaca friend nearby. Is that not the most precious thing you've ever heard?

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Omg my baby Ivan. Welcome to the family! Ivan will stay on the alpaca farm with his friends until we are ready to be farm people! We get to visit when ever we like! I’m the luckiest girl. Ok. @matthewkoma serious swoon ♥️

A post shared by Hilary Duff (@hilaryduff) on Feb 10, 2019 at 2:57pm PST

Alpacas take on the Twitter-verse

Though alpacas clearly have a growing presence on Instagram, accounts for farms like Barnacre Alpacas, and individual herds like The Wooly Army have been stealing hearts on Twitter, too.

Paul and Debbie Rippon, the husband and wife team who run Barnacre Alpacas at Turpin's Hill Farm in Northumberland, UK, said they've gained nearly 16,000 followers since they started tweeting in January 2011.

"It's as much part of our farming day as feeding the alpacas," Paul said when describing the farm's approach to social media. "We try to tweet every hour and include lots of pictures and videos."

Hello boys, you need a little haircut Pascal so you can see. pic.twitter.com/mYCEv7iOGw

— Barnacre Alpacas (@BarnacreAlpacas) February 11, 2019

Thanks to one of Michael Palin's travel programs, alpacas made their way onto Debbie's radar in the early 2000s. She and Paul then spent years researching the animals before buying their first three female alpacas in Feb. 2007. After more than a decade of learning, breeding, and expanding the family, they now have an impressive herd of 300 alpacas — one of the largest in the UK.

Barnacre Alpacas breed and sell alpacas, make their own knitwear, and host visits, events, and more. But the farm is also well known for providing a daily dose of hilarious and informative alpaca updates.

I was just saying hello Grigio I don’t have anything. pic.twitter.com/fjv4bI5E5O

— Barnacre Alpacas (@BarnacreAlpacas) February 7, 2019

"They're such characters that it's very easy to invest a lot of time watching and learning all about them," Paul said. "We know all 300 of ours by name — and they know their names too."

The same goes for Alpacaly Ever After, a farm in the UK that offers unique first-hand experiences with the animals, such as private, guided walks around the stunning grounds of Lingholm Estate.

Emma Smalley and Terry Barlow, who run Alpacaly Ever After together, care for a herd of over eighty alpacas. They lovingly refer to the herd as "The Woolly Army," and created a Twitter account for the army back in 2015, which now has nearly 10,500 followers.

Checkout little Stevie :) this was the first time he met the herd! look how many kisses he's getting. . You can now take him for a walk :)https://t.co/HKJg2WSWSE .#alpaca pic.twitter.com/Twmiz3XxTU

— The Woolly Army (@TheWoollyArmy) March 25, 2018

"We call them the 'Goonies of the alpaca world,'" Smalley said of The Woolly Army. "It doesn’t matter to us what they look like or if they have award winning fleece... they will always find a welcome home in our gang."

Smalley and Barlow said their main goal with social media is to let people around the world know how fascinating alpacas are.

"They all have incredibly individual personalities that are fascinating puzzles to work out if you spend the time and effort," Smalley said of the animals. "It’s lovely to have people invested in what we do and to feel a part of something bigger."

Why alpacas are worth a follow

For those of you who have yet to be convinced that alpacas can change your Twitter and Instagram feeds, I asked about the benefits of looking at alpacas through the social media lens.

"The obvious answer is that they are either stunningly gorgeous or spectacularly goofy, it really is hard to take a bad photo of an alpaca," Smalley of Alpacaly Ever After said. "But they are also an animal that is still mysterious and exotic to us."

Image: screengrab via alpacalyeverafter / instagram

Another main perk of following a professional alpaca account, is that you'll get to see a far more intimate side to the animals. The photos and videos of them are being captured by people they trust, in environments that bring them comfort, whereas if you were to visit the animals in real life they might take some time to warm up to you before revealing their looser, more playful sides.

"Some of our alpacas have lots of fans, like Curio who is an orphan and currently being bottle fed," Paul Rippon of Barnacre Alpacas explained. "If we have a poorly alpaca we get lots of love and support from our followers."

Rippon said the farm receives an overwhelming number of positive messages on social media, and people take the time to thank them for helping improve their mental wellbeing or brighten up their days.

So next time you're searching for a safe haven on social media, go ahead and give the alpacas a chance.

WATCH: Dogs are eating edibles in record numbers

#_category:yct:001000002 #_author:Nicole Gallucci #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_uuid:a15fe139-2afb-3535-9f05-c25aee7add06 #_revsp:news.mashable

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artwalktv · 7 years

Video

vimeo

An origin story, of sorts—LIGHTNINGFACE stars Oscar Isaac as Basil Stitt, who in the aftermath of an inexplicable incident, decides to sequester himself inside his apartment, setting the stage for a profound transformation. Written and directed by Brian Petsos. http://bit.ly/2eHL8HN Official Selection of the 2016 BFI London Film Festival, 2016 Brooklyn Film Festival, 2016 Denver Film Festival, 2016 Marfa Film Festival, 2016 Milwaukee Film Festival, 2016 New Hampshire Film Festival, 2016 New Orleans Film Festival, 2016 Nitehawk Shorts Festival, 2016 Palm Springs International ShortFest, 2016 Short Shorts Film Festival, 2016 Tacoma Film Festival, 2016 Virginia Film Festival, 2017 Atlanta Film Festival, 2017 Capital City Film Festival, 2017 Collinsville Film Festival, 2017 Dingle International Film Festival, 2017 Manchester Film Festival, 2017 Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, 2017 Montclair Film Festival, 2017 Nashville Film Festival, 2017 Newport Beach Film Festival, 2017 Omaha Film Festival, 2017 Oxford International Film Festival, 2017 RiverRun International Film Festival, and the 2017 Sioux Empire Film Festival. Nominated for Best Actor (Oscar Isaac) at the 2017 Vaughan International Film Festival, and Best Narrative Comedy at the 2016 Miami Short Film Festival. Winner of the Vortex Grand Prize at the 2016 Rhode Island International Film Festival, and Best Short Film at the 2016 Filmfestival Kitzbühel. LIGHTNINGFACE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY   Brian Petsos PRODUCED BY Brian Petsos  Cary Flaum  Milos S. Silber  Todd Wiseman Jr. STARRING  Oscar Isaac EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS  Kristen Wiig  Taryn Benesta  Oscar Isaac  Zach Lasry DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY  Daniel Katz PRODUCTION DESIGNER  Chris Trujillo   EDITOR  Bryan Gaynor COSTUME DESIGNER  Stacey Berman   ORIGINAL MUSIC AND SOUND DESIGN  Justin Hori HAIR, MAKEUP, AND PROSTHETIC DESIGNER  Lexan Rosser   LINE PRODUCER — Eddy Vallante  FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR — Eric LaFranchi  SECOND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR — Adam Keleman   OSCAR ISAAC as Basil Stitt, and Rick (voice)  TIM ROCK as The Pizza Man  KRISTEN WIIG as Katherine (voice)  ERIKA RANKIN as Tanya (voice)  JULIE PETSOS as Mrs. Stitt (voice) CO-PRODUCER — Bryan Gaynor  ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS — Daniel Katz, Justin Hori, Micah Scarpelli   GAFFERS — Zach Frank, Chad Dougherty  KEY GRIP — Matt Kessler  PRODUCTION SOUND MIXER — Alberto Leon  FIRST ASSISTANT CAMERA — Adrien Bertolle  ART DIRECTOR — Nora Mendis  POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR — Cary Flaum  CG — Justin Miller  VFX — Nic Seresin, Cagan Yuksel, Liam Kirtley, Inti Martinez, Ryan Saxe  DIGITAL INTERMEDIATE — Company 3 New York  COLORIST — Rob Sciarratta   ONLINE EDITOR — Lucas Howard  ASSISTANT TO MR. ISAAC — Natalie Gee  FINAL MIX — Bang Audio Post  RE-RECORDING MIXERS — Nick Cipriano, Paul Vitolins   ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER — Karen Boyer  COSTUME DEPARTMENT INTERN — Grace Interlichia  ON SET DRESSER — Dani Broom-Peltz  SET DRESSER — Thomas Macowski  SECOND ASSISTANT CAMERA AND DIT — Jamie Li  STEADICAM OPERATOR — Afton Grant  BEST BOY ELECTRIC — Sean Coia  BEST BOY GRIP — Lori Dinsmore  LOAD OUT GRIPS — Brad Morse, Max Barlow  DI PRODUCER — Nick Monton  COLOR ASSISTANT — Giovanni DiGiorgio  COMPANY 3 EXECUTIVE PRODUCER — Stefan Sonnenfeld  STILL PHOTOGRAPHER — Alisha Wetherill  CATERING — David Dreishpoon’s Gourmet Craft Service  PRODUCTION LEGAL — David M. Slater   VERY SPECIAL THANKS  Shishi, Grong, and Chooch   SPECIAL THANKS  Dan Berk, Steven Petsos, Jeremy Good, Drew Leary, Jonathan Gray, Alex Resnikoff and Hand Held Films, Jerome Thelia, Terry Leonard, Bradley E. Randall, Alex Lavrenov, and SAG-AFTRA FEATURING THE MUSIC OF  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  and Iannis Xenakis  Vic Damone  Grotesque  and Albert Ayler FILMED ON LOCATION IN NEW YORK CITY This motion picture is protected pursuant to the provisions of the laws of the United States of America and other countries. Any unauthorized duplication, distribution and/or exhibition of this motion picture may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. Characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, characters or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional. © 2016 Lightningface LLC. All rights reserved. http://bit.ly/2eHL8HN (Significant inquiries may be directed to [email protected] and will be responded to accordingly.)

#Videos & Films

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chelseajackarmy · 5 months

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#neck deep #ben barlow #matt west #sam bowden #pop punk #seb barlow #matt powles #defend pop punk #rock #kerrang #music #band #terry barlow records #in bloom

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rockandrollfool · 3 years

Text

Some people say politics and sport should never mix. Michel Platini and Bernie Ecclestone have both suggested that these are quite separate endeavours and should be kept apart. They are talking bollocks obviously as sport and politics have long history of co-existence and at times the success of this marriage is obvious. Mandela utilised sport in terms of driving a moral imperative when discussing equality and inclusion which were central to unifying South Africa. Jessie Owens humiliating Germany in the 1936 Olympics is beyond question Miles (2014) Our histories are informed and influenced by the heady mix of political discourse linked to sport.

Pop music and sport that might be different matter. I am referring here specifically to football and music. With the European Championship almost upon us one is left to wonder, whatever happened to the Men's National Squad assembling pre-tournament to record a rousing and uplifting tune to strike fear and terror in the hearts of the opposition? (and the ears of the audience)

Whilst most of us would associate the blokes national squad and its musicals efforts with the World Cup there have been attempts to crash the charts during European Tournaments.

Chris Kamara (featuring Joe Public) Sing 4 England (2012) and with over three hundred and twelve likes on Facebook you get a sense regarding both quality and popularity of this tune. (https://www.facebook.com/Sing4England/)

Of course the bar was set high (apparently) by Baddiel and Skinner/The Lightning Seeds – Three Lions (1998) The tune was originally released in 1996 pre European Championships (once was more than enough honestly) but somehow found its way back down the tunnel and onto the pitch for 98 World Cup. According to the Telegraph Sport (2018) the song describes “the joy and pain of being a fan’ on the terraces at both club and international level. Honestly does it?

The repeated refrain of ‘it’s coming home’ is probably one of the most nauseating and truly horrific lines ever to be uttered by pop star or supporter. I sense supporters garner all their hopes at the start of every respective international tournament and slaughter them on the altar of a pop melody that incites ‘us all’ to dream big. At the end of every competition since 1966 ‘we’ inevitably lie slumped in a heap of disappointment crying as ‘Gazza’ did, knowing ‘we’ are at best mediocre and that it will all come again in two/four years’ time.

The other pop classic that gets a regular airing pre any international competition is The England Squad and New Order - World In Motion (1990) Leaving aside the credible association with Manchester and all things uber f*cking cool Telegraph Sport offer that “this is a stone cold electronic pop classic (2018) and Ryan Kelly suggested as recently as May 2020 that the song is “one of the most memorable England World Cup anthems”. Well Ryan let’s just check what World in Motion had to compete with shall we?

In 1986 The England Squad recorded “we’ve got the whole world at our feet” and you don’t need me to point out just how dreadful this effort was do you? In 1998 we were offered (how does it feel to be) on Top of the World. The quadrant of evil at the helm were Space, The Spice Girls, Echo and the Bunnymen and Simon Fowler. Jones (on-Line) argues this was “the least memorable song ever” (joe.co.uk) something akin to any of our recent Eurovision entries but a lot more shit.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse we had ‘we’re on the ball’ featuring Ant and Dec (2002) yep that Ant and Dec, Psyche.

Let’s get ready to rumble as 2014 brought us ‘greatest day with Gary Barlow, Eliza Dolittle, Katy B, Melc and Emma Bunton all ‘singin for England’

There was Embrace in 2006 with ‘World at your Feet’ and as Jones so eloquently offers “your brother in law probably liked them’ and may have been to see them at V Festival in 2005 (joe.co.uk) They are some footballing credentials right there. Yes they were from West Yorkshire but they knew a bit about football eh?

If you think that was grim you must remember Fat Les with a rousing rendition of Jerusalem in 2000? No. Well it was an offering to the Footballing deities in the hope of seeing England through to the European finals that year. Fail. This was of course the follow up single to Vindaloo (1998) which was an equally offensive and turgid affair. Fat Les being the alter-ego of Keith Allen, that bloke that appears in World in Motion behind John Barnes when he ‘spits them rhymes’

I am almost sure James Corden recorded ‘shout for England’ (2010) and the fact that he was alongside Dizzie Rascal doesn’t make it alright or indeed bearable. Even the fact that it is a cover of of a Tears For Fears track doesn’t get you beyond James Corden recorded a song for the 2010 World Cup. Yes James Corden. Let me repeat James Corden.

The glory day and it was only a day is surely embodied by The England World Cup Squad - Back Home (1970) I still find myself occasionally singing this song. I do ‘think about them while they are far away’ and yes I was ‘really behind them in every game they played’. Written by Martin and Coulter (1970) it is the definitive tournament song. It opens with that clap thing they do at football matches, has a brass band all over it and the team never once mention winning. As Barker (2020) observes England were champions of the world and all they aspire to is ‘to not let England down’ (everynumberone.com)

The song feels more about having a go, being part of the tournament, Barker notes the tune is atmospheric and more like a ‘charming postcard’ from a time when football was innocent and naive. I don’t agree with these sentiments but ‘the beautiful game’ wasn’t quite as fuelled by ego, corporate greed and personality. It was however fuelled by ego, corporate greed and personality. Still, what a blooming tune that was eh?

Other than the 1970’s squad the whole list is like a Eurovision nightmare that was dreamt up by Terry Wogan, with one single entrant competing against itself for last place. We can sit here and say it all just a bit of fun and that it doesn’t really matter and we would be correct. However in my world there is no room for sport and pop music, the two should never mix. I mean look what happens when they do.

The Rock And Roll Fool

#pop #pop music #alternative #rock and roll #rock #football #punk rock #punk music #soccer

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tipsoctopus · 5 years

Text

"Natural born winner," "Sublime", "Exceptional" - Many Wolves fans heap praise on summer signing

Wolves fans have taken to Twitter to heap praise on Joao Moutinho’s performance against Bristol City in the FA Cup fifth round.

The Portuguese international bossed the midfield at Molineux on Sunday afternoon, as Nuno Espirito Santo’s men recorded a 1-0 win to progress into the quarter-finals, although it was not without its nervy moments, including a last minute scramble in the box involving Robins ‘keeper Frank Fielding.

Nonetheless, last season’s Championship winners are now well on their way to a seventh-place finish in the Premier League, and have a quarter-final tie to look forward to in what has been a phenomenal season so far.

It was a frantic affair against Bristol City, but Moutinho’s composure and ability in the middle of the park helped calm things down and allow Wolves to see the game out.

As a result, the club’s supporters on Twitter wasted no time in praising the former Monaco midfielder for his classy display…

He’s five foot seven, he’s football heaven…. @JoaoMoutinho #wolves #wwfc pic.twitter.com/IDCSpEJara

— Kev Baker ? (@bakes1970) February 17, 2019

IMO the best we’ve seen in the gold and black since the late great Peter Broadbent. A sublime player.

— Terry Barlow (@Shrewsburywolf)

Say it time and time again but Joao Moutinho is a wonderful football player, Coady was absolutely excellent today as well.

— Callum (@CallumD_4) February 17, 2019

Fair play what a game @JoaoMoutinho had 🙌👏🐺💛🖤

— Alice (@aliceb_1408) February 17, 2019

Joào Moutinho is simply fantastic. We paid £5m for him. I'm waiting for Interpol to announce the investigation into the daylight robbery carried out in Monaco last summer by us… #wwfc

— SouthBankResistance 👥 (@SBR_WWFC) February 17, 2019

https://twitter.com/Wolvesrug/status/1097171999514939397

Joao Moutinho though. The most unflustered man on the field for 96 minutes. Looked like he was in a training game as he strolled through it. Beautiful footballer.

— HUGEWolf 👥 (@HUGEWolf) February 17, 2019

Natural born winner @JoaoMoutinho …..all over the pitch today & nonstop today✋🏻

He came here to win things & the FA Cup is 1 route 👊🏻🐺

— Adam Pardon (@adampardon) February 17, 2019

And Joao Moutinho, I’m running out of superlatives to describe that man. A true Rolls Royce of a player #WWFC

— Ben Rasmin (@benrasmin) February 17, 2019

João Moutinho put in another terrific shift today. Exceptional. We all know how good he is technically and with leading his team in possession and on attacking moves, but he performed his defensive duties today brilliantly for Wolves. All-round, the complete central midfielder.

— Alex Goncalves (@Aljeeves10) February 17, 2019

Tell you what. You need to dig out results sometimes and when you have a maestro in the middle like @JoaoMoutinho running himself into the ground and creating magic like he does. Still can't believe we have someone like him in our squad #wwfc

— Mitch Davis (@mitchdavis_1) February 17, 2019

Joao moutinho is different gravy #BRCvWOL

— Lee Newman (@19newman88) February 17, 2019

from FootballFanCast.com http://bit.ly/2ImmDhu via IFTTT from Blogger http://bit.ly/2BI9fyz via IFTTT

#FootballFanCast.com

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theliberaltony · 6 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Graphics by Rachael Dottle

Terry Wolfe has a dog, three cats and a deep desire to help elect members of Congress who will check President Trump.

“I just cannot really tolerate that man,” he declared.

Wolfe is putting his money where his mouth is.

Since January 2017, Wolfe, a 68-year-old retiree in Morgantown, West Virginia, has contributed more than $14,000 to Democratic congressional candidates.1 Like millions of other Democratic donors, he’s been giving via ActBlue, a fundraising platform designed to allow grassroots donors to easily give to Democratic candidates. His average contribution? Less than $11.

Wolfe is one of the most active members of an army of grassroots donors shoveling a mountain of cash into the coffers of Democratic House and Senate candidates on the November ballot.

ActBlue, a nonprofit whose online fundraising tools have been used to varying degrees by nearly every Democrat running for Congress, says it has raised more than $2.9 billion for Democrats and progressive organizations since its founding in 2004. September was the biggest month in its history.

An analysis of campaign finance data by FiveThirtyEight and the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization, shows that ActBlue is handling more political contributions than ever before. Between January 2017 and Sept. 30, 2018,2 nearly $564 million, or about 55 percent of all contributions from individual donors to Democratic congressional candidates, passed through the platform, compared to about 19 percent at this point in the 2014 election.

Democratic congressional candidates have collectively raised more than three times as much in small-dollar contributions (amounting to $200 or less) as they had at this point in 2014 — jumping from about $81 million to $276 million. Republicans haven’t matched that increase, and ActBlue is a big reason why.

To get a better sense of the role ActBlue is playing in the Democratic party, the Center for Public Integrity and FiveThirtyEight analyzed almost 38 million Federal Election Commission records of contributions to federal political committees that were sent through ActBlue since January 2017, along with the records of contributions made through ActBlue up to this point in the 2014 and 2016 elections. Donors are using the platform to reshape the map of competitive races, becoming a powerful force that could sway Democratic politics beyond November’s election.

Information about donors giving $200 or less is often hard to come by because campaigns aren’t required to publicly disclose those records if the money is given directly to the candidate’s campaign committee. But because ActBlue operates as a legal conduit — a federal political committee that passes contributions through to other committees — it does have to disclose the donors who give to federal political committees through its platform, regardless of the size of the contribution, which provides a window into the small-donor boom.

Our analysis of ActBlue’s filings since January 2017 found:

Donors in California and New York combined to contribute roughly one-third of the dollars that have flowed through ActBlue to House and Senate candidates since the beginning of 2017. For comparison, those two states provided about one-fifth of the national popular vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Fifty-seven percent of dollars directed to congressional candidates via ActBlue went to out-of-state races. Take Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat who has set fundraising records while challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas. Most of the $45 million in individual contributions O’Rourke raised through ActBlue came from Texas donors — 52 percent. But even though less than half — 48 percent — came from outside Texas, O’Rourke is still the biggest beneficiary,3 in sheer dollars, of out-of-state cash routed through ActBlue because he’s raised so much in total.

Since the beginning of 2017, donors in states Clinton won have given $157 million to support House and Senate candidates running in states Trump won. That’s more than five times the amount of cash flowing from Trump states to Clinton states.

Erin Hill, ActBlue’s executive director, noted that the states sending the most money through the platform are, generally, also the states with the highest populations, so it makes sense that they are the source of so much cash. For example, donors from Texas, a red state and the second-largest in the nation by population, give the third-largest amount to Democratic congressional candidates via ActBlue — slightly more than 8 percent of all the money going to congressional candidates through the platform. A little more than half of that Texas cash comes from three large, blue cities: Houston, Austin and Dallas.

The analysis conducted by the Center for Public Integrity and FiveThirtyEight did find, however, that ActBlue donors across the country give more money in states that Clinton won by a higher margin. In states where Trump won, donors gave an average of $2.39 per vote cast in the 2016 presidential election via ActBlue, a little more than a third of the $6.35 per vote that Clinton states gave. But the states where Clinton won by a margin of less than 20 percentage points gave an average of $4.16 per vote, while places where Clinton won by a margin of 20 percentage points or more4 gave an average of $8.64 per vote. In other words, the bluer the state, the more money came from it, regardless of size.

It’s clear that what Republicans have taken to calling “the green wave” of cash to Democratic candidates is counteracting the large-donor advantage that Republican groups continue to boast over Democrats, with billionaires such as casino mogul Sheldon Adelson funding super PACs that then make ruthless decisions about which GOP candidates get a boost — and which candidates must fend for themselves.

Of course, candidates with the biggest fundraising haul don’t always win, though cash can still make or break campaigns and strong grassroots fundraising can indicate voter enthusiasm. Democrats are hoping the cash haul and donor growth reflect real momentum heading into next month’s midterm elections. The money could also allow Democratic candidates to outspend their Republican rivals, even those with support from cash-flush GOP super PACs, and force Republicans to actively defend more seats than they would have otherwise.

The surge in individual donations also sets the scene for the 2020 presidential campaign. “The pool of small-dollar donors keeps growing,” said Hill. How big that pool will get is still an open question.

ActBlue, founded in 2004 by two friends and based in Somerville, Massachusetts, is a fundraising tool that outlasts the mayfly-like lifespan of any single campaign by establishing relationships with donors that bridge the lull in enthusiasm between elections. Any Democratic candidate5 or left-leaning organization can use its tools to raise money, but the organization itself doesn’t fundraise for any candidate, it just processes and forwards individual contributions. (ActBlue does give users the option of giving “tips” that go to ActBlue itself — these tips are the organization’s primary source of revenue.) Donors who save their credit card information online can make future contributions with a single click.

That has led to a swell of donations from Democrats who don’t have a vote in the races they’re contributing to.

Sibylle Barlow’s outgoing voicemail message puts you on notice: “I do not promise to give to any organization over the phone.”

Most people hang up when they hear that, she said.

It’s no wonder people are calling Barlow, 91, for money. So far this election cycle, she’s given money via ActBlue at least 4,800 times,6 the analysis of federal filings showed. She gets at least 50 online appeals per day, she estimates, and said she tries to keep her contributions to $20 or less at a time — in part because she worries about triggering a fraud alert on her credit card.

She lives in Concord, Massachusetts, but nearly all of her contributions go out of state to recipients including Rep. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat running for a Nevada Senate seat, and Gina Ortiz Jones, a House candidate in Texas.

“Massachusetts is, I think, safer for Democrats,” she said, so she gives instead to places where a progressive candidate seems to need a boost. “I think it seems really important for the Democrats to win this time,” she said.

This election cycle, there are lots of Sibylle Barlows living in blue states and giving in varying amounts and at varying frequencies, looking to take action in hopes of putting a check on the president or boosting Democrats. Many of them have decided the best action they can take is giving, often in small amounts.

“I’m not a big-bucks contributor, but I did know what I could do is try to be as effective as possible by looking at races around the country,” said William Nottingham, 68, a retired newspaper editor who lives in Los Alamitos, California, and has given $7,600 since the beginning of 2017. Nottingham said he looked for races in the South and Midwest with “good candidates.”

“I can’t get in the car and drive to Kentucky and campaign for someone like Amy McGrath,” a high-profile Democratic challenger campaigning for a House seat, “but I can sure send her a couple of bucks now and then,” Nottingham said.

His thinking isn’t unique. An analysis of money McGrath has raised from people who gave more than $200 shows the largest amount came from Kentucky donors, but many of her smaller donors come from the coasts. An analysis of the $4.3 million in contributions made to her committee through ActBlue — which includes smaller contributions that aren’t in the FEC’s analysis — shows California at the top of the list in terms of both total dollars and the number of donations.

Meanwhile, ActBlue raises the classic chicken-and-egg question: Are Democratic candidates able to raise more money because ActBlue makes it easy, or are ActBlue’s tools simply equipping Democrats to better capture a surge of anti-Trump enthusiasm?

It’s impossible to know for sure — especially since conservatives have no single comparable fundraising platform for small-dollar donors. But many insiders are convinced that ActBlue has brought more donors to campaigns.

Who’s benefiting most from ActBlue?

Active candidates who raised the most from individuals using ActBlue, by share of all individual contributions made via ActBlue, since January 2017

Individual contributions Candidate Chamber Race Rating Total ActBlue ActBlue Share Danny O’Connor House OH-12 Lean R $6.5m $6.1m 93.1% Andrew Janz House CA-22 Likely R 7.1 6.2 87.5 Kirsten Gillibrand Senate NY Solid D 15.6 13.2 84.5 Conor Lamb House PA-17 Likely D 7.8 6.5 83.3 Mike Levin House CA-49 Solid D 4.0 3.1 77.8 Katherine Porter House CA-45 Lean D 4.1 3.1 76.4 Harley Rouda House CA-48 Lean D 4.1 3.1 75.1 Randy Bryce House WI-1 Likely R 7.1 5.3 75.1 Josh Harder House CA-10 Likely D 5.3 4.0 75.0 Beto O’Rourke Senate TX Likely R 61.6 45.4 73.8 Amy McGrath House KY-6 Toss-up 5.9 4.3 73.5 Christopher Murphy Senate CT Solid D 10.3 7.0 68.2 Jacky Rosen Senate NV Toss-up 13.6 9.2 67.5 Heidi Heitkamp Senate ND Lean R 9.3 5.8 62.4 Joseph Donnelly Senate IN Lean D 8.3 4.9 58.7 Claire McCaskill Senate MO Toss-up 23.5 13.6 58.0 Kyrsten Sinema Senate AZ Lean D 12.6 6.7 53.0 Elizabeth Warren Senate MA Solid D 19.8 10.1 51.2 Tim Kaine Senate VA Solid D 8.7 4.3 49.5 Robert P. Casey Jr. Senate PA Solid D 12.6 6.1 48.1 Bill Nelson Senate FL Lean D 20.0 9.3 46.4 Jon Tester Senate MT Likely D 12.2 5.2 42.9 Sherrod Brown Senate OH Solid D 16.1 6.7 41.8 Debbie Stabenow Senate MI Solid D 8.9 3.6 40.2 Tammy Baldwin Senate WI Solid D 21.2 8.4 39.8

Source: federal election commission

If ActBlue disappeared tomorrow, it would be “an absolute disaster for Democratic party fundraising,” said Tim Tagaris, a digital fundraising consultant who worked on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign and who said he’s been using ActBlue since 2004.

But ActBlue isn’t going away — it’s just getting bigger. And despite several Republican efforts to create an “ActRed” of sorts, no such system has taken flight.

“Obviously that’s an advantage” for Democrats, said Rebecca Donatelli, the president of the firm Campaign Solutions, who recalls raising money online for the GOP New York gubernatorial candidate George Pataki in 1998. “I wish we had something a little more seamless like that, but we don’t.”

The fact that any Democrat can use ActBlue’s infrastructure also makes it easier for outsider candidates to generate money without support from party gatekeepers, said Michael Malbin, a political science professor and executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. “As long as you’re a Democrat, they’re not running ideological litmus tests,” he said of ActBlue.

The lure of online fundraising forces candidates to pay close attention to the policy priorities of the base, said Tim Lim, a consultant who has worked on digital advertising for Democratic presidential and congressional campaigns.

The downside: Some candidates catch fire, some don’t, and there is no real way to ensure that resources go to the most competitive races.

“It’s a mixed bag. We’ll see how we do this cycle,” Lim said.

For example, earlier this month, Andrew Janz, a California Democrat challenging Republican Rep. Devin Nunes for a House seat, touted the $4.3 million he raked in during the third quarter. “That’s quite a lot for a Solid R race,” tweeted Dave Wasserman, a FiveThirtyEight contributor and the House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

FiveThirtyEight recently gave Janz a 5 percent chance7 of winning the seat, but his campaign has nonetheless ranked among the top recipients of dollars given to House candidates through ActBlue this election cycle. That could be because Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is a high-profile Trump ally — and a tempting target for angry grassroots Democratic donors, even if their money isn’t likely to bring him down.

Even Democrats have been shocked at the totals that some of the party’s candidates have been raking in. Earlier this month, McGrath’s campaign in Kentucky said she had raised $3.65 million during this year’s third quarter. A little more than $2 million came through ActBlue.

Alixandria Lapp, head of House Majority PAC, a super PAC working to ensure Democrats take control of the House, sounded a note of incredulity on Twitter. “How do you even spend that much money in KY-06?? Wow!” she wrote.

To be sure, Democrats continue to have their share of super PACs and billionaire benefactors (check under, for example, Bloomberg, Michael and Steyer, Tom). But Corbin Trent — a spokesman for Democratic breakout star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former Sanders campaign staffer and one of the leaders of Justice Democrats — said the grassroots fundraising this cycle is showing candidates that there are alternatives to soliciting contributions from corporate PACs and big donors.

Hill, the ActBlue director, credits grassroots donor activity for pushing Democrats to prioritize special elections around the country last year, even though Democratic candidates weren’t always favored to win.

“The grassroots donors were there before other donors were there, before institutional donors were there, saying, ‘We want to contest these races,’” she said.

Wolfe, the West Virginia donor, doesn’t himself live in a competitive congressional district.

He has given about $230 — spread across nearly a hundred contributions — to Richard Ojeda, a Democrat running for an open House seat in a neighboring district rated as “likely Republican” by FiveThirtyEight.

Wolfe says he about fell over when Ojeda took the time to call him not once, but three times.

“He just wanted to say about how he was interested in representing the common man,” Wolfe said. Ojeda told Wolfe he wasn’t taking corporate dollars, something Wolfe liked. “For him to take his time on small donations to thank me — to me, that is a man of character,” Wolfe said.

Madalin Sammons, the Ojeda campaign’s communications director, confirmed that the candidate spends a few hours every week calling donors who give less than $100 — a sign of the importance the campaign places on such small contributions.

“It’s really hard for us to call everyone — we have a lot of small donors,” she said. “We try once a week to have him call anywhere between 25 and 100 people and thank them.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Carrie Levine and Chris Zubak-Skees

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allpunkedupofficial · 6 years

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Neck Deep has created their own World Cup jerseys

Neck Deep has created their ow World Cup jerseys.

To celebrate the #WorldCup we have created an online exclusive of the NDFC Terry Barlow Records shirt!

Available until the end of the World Cup, ONLY at https://t.co/vFBlSBAWx7!

Once it’s gone, it’s gone! pic.twitter.com/Xg8rgKmWj3

— Neck Deep (@NeckDeepUK) June 19, 2018

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#Neck Deep

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andreblogson · 6 years

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1937

Morgan Bulkeley

Bulkeley was one of the founders as well as the first president of the National League. For one year, in 1876, anyway. And he was also part of the commission that falsely declared Abner Doubleday to be the inventor of baseball. Bulkeley was also the mayor of Hartford, the governor of Connecticut and a U.S. Senator. Before all that, he owned the Hartford Dark Blues of the old National Association (and briefly of the National League). which featured Candy Cummings (the dubious inventor of the curveball), Tom Barlow (the pioneer of the bunt) as well as Tommy Bond (who should probably be in the Hall). And he really wanted you to know that he was related to the JP Morgan family. Okay. Super. I’m sure tons of tourists take their photo with this plaque when they visit the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

Ban Johnson

Johnson was the founder and president of the American League. In a time when the National League was seen as a rowdy, drunken shitshow, Johnson wanted to create a cleaner version so it wouldn’t scare women and children have to death with how vulgar it all was. Men. The league would also support its umpires and pay higher wages to its players, which lured away top talent from the N.L starting in 1901. Dude was basically Vince McMahon eighty years prior.

Everything was going great for Johnson until the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when Kenesaw Mountain Landis was put in charge of Major League Baseball and ruled with an iron fist. The two men did not get along and everything came to a head after Johnson criticized Landis for how he handled the Ty Cobb/Tris Speaker gambling affair after 1926. Johnson was forced to resign. And Landis continued on as authoritarian commissioner until his death in 1944.

Nap Lajoie

Not that many people have the distinction of having a Major League team named after them. But from 1903-1914, the Cleveland franchise was known as the Naps, after their player-manager second baseman. It would have helped if they’d gone by his last name, so we knew how to pronounce it (Lodge-Way). But then, of course, Lajoie left for Philadelphia, the 1914 Miracle Braves happened and then Cleveland decided to go with a less inclusive-sounding name and logo. But that’s a whole nother story.

Lajoie came up with Ed Delahanty’s Philadelphia Phillies before being lured away to the higher salaries of the American League in 1901. He promptly became the league’s first superstar, batting .426 in the league’s inaugural year on his way to a Triple Crown. Considering Lajoie hit .345 over five seasons with the Phillies, I’m not too sure about the level of competition in the Junior Circuit at the time. But I’ll let that slide for now.

Lajoie was the best first baseman in baseball in 1897. And the best second baseman in 1900-1901, 1903-1904 and 1906-1908, before taking a back seat to Eddie Collins. Some of those gaps are due to bizarre injuries, like the time he busted his hand fighting teammate, Elmer Flick, while they traveled separately from the team to avoid arrest in Pennsylvania. Or when he got blood poisoning in 1905 from being spiked and then having the dye from his socks enter into his bloodstream. He also had a 1904 suspension for spitting tobacco juice in an umpire’s eye. And in 1907, George Stovall broke a chair over his head in a hotel lobby. Lajoie’s response to the press was, “George didn’t mean anything by it.” And my response is, holy shit.

Being player-manager probably also negatively affected Lajoie’s play. He still managed (no pun intended) 3,243 career hits (the 3rd man in the 3000 hit club after Cap Anson and Wagner), a career .338 batting average, as well as five batting titles. And over his own career (1896-196), he was the best second baseman in baseball and the second-highest overall in fWAR after Honus Wagner. I would have given him the A.L. MVP in 1901, 1903 and 1904. And I would have given him top 10 finishes in 9 other seasons.

Lajoie is probably still most famous for that infamous Chalmers Race with Ty Cobb in 1910. And it’s still somehow a thing that people can’t seem to agree on (Lajoie totally fucking won). But Lajoie would retire second in all-time career hits. He was the third-greatest deadball era player after Wagner and Cobb. And the third greatest second baseman of all-time after Rogers Hornsby and Eddie Collins. Maybe Cleveland should think about going back to calling themselves the Naps. Just a thought.

Connie Mack

Cornelius McGillicuddy began his career in baseball as a very mediocre catcher, who was known for his dirty tricks behind home plate. As one of the first catchers to play directly behind said plate and not at the backstop, he used his vantage point to fake foul tips (all caught foul tips were outs until 1891... because of dirty tricks by Mack), play mind games with batters and just generally interfere with batters’ swings. He was a real cocksucker back there.

Mack also served as player-manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1894-1896. But when the new American League opened in 1901, he came on board as manager and co-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. And it’s a post he didn’t relinquish for the next 50 years. 5-0. Not a typo. He’s the longest-serving manager in Major League history. The owner of almost every single record in managerial history. And it’s a longevity record for all of professional North American sports. No big deal, Connie. Those A’s won 9 pennants between 1902 and 1931 as well as 5 World Series titles.

Those A’s pennant teams included Hall of Famers, Eddie Plank and Eddie Collins (6 times), Chief Bender (5 times), Frank Baker (4 times), Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove and Al Simmons (3 times), Rube Waddell and Herb Pennock (twice), as well as Waite Hoyt, Elmer Flick and Nap Lajoie (one time). Mack also managed Ty Cobb, Jimmy Collins, Stan Coveleski, Nellie Fox, George Kell, Tris Speaker and Zack Wheat on the A’s. And he managed Jake Beckley in Pittsburgh.

There were also the down years following the 1931 pennant. The A’s didn’t field a winning team between 1933 and 1947. And they were often really bad. Mack was in his 80′s and known to slip mentally, mistakenly calling for players from decades earlier to pinch-hit. Or he would just sleep in the dugout during games while his coaches ran the show. Attendance got to be so bad in Philadelphia that the other American League owners (mainly the Yankees) forced Mack to sell the team and move the franchise to Kansas City because they lost money coming to town.

Managing the team you own is kind of a major conflict. And unlike most other owners, Mack had no income outside of baseball. While he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937, he’d yet to tarnish his legacy. But he would eventually overstay his welcome.

On the bright side, if you stick around the game of baseball until you're in your late eighties, you probably get to see a lot of history. Mack was on the receiving end of Christy Mathewson’s masterful performance in the 1905 World Series. He saw Frank Baker earn his “Home Run” nickname against Rube Marquard and Mathewson in consecutive games in the 1911 Series. He watched the 1914 Braves finalize their Miracle season. And within two years, he fielded one of the most legendarily awful teams in baseball history.

But Mack rebuilt the team and came back in epic fashion, much like the “Mack Attack” 1929 A’s, who humiliated the Cubs for another championship. Sleeping or not, Mack was a living legend in that A’s dugout. And hey, maybe he should have called on players from decades past. Because those later years fucking suuuuucked.

John McGraw

McGraw began his baseball career as a mouthy and quick-tempered infielder for the infamous Baltimore Orioles teams of the 1890’s that won pennants in 1894, ’95 and ’96 with Dan Brouthers, “Ee-Yah” Hughie Jennings, “Wee” Willie Keeler, Joe Kelley and Wilbert Robinson. There’s some debate as to just how dirty and villainous those teams were. But apparently McGraw liked to intimidate umpires and stand in the way of runners while they were in the base paths. Listed at 5’7” and 155 pounds, I don’t know how that could be possible. But for a brief window at the end of the 1890’s, McGraw might have also been the best player in the world.

I would have given McGraw the National League MVP honors in 1898 and 1899. And I would have given him 3rd in 1900. He had a .547 on-base percentage in 1899, which is 4th all-time for a single season after Barry Bonds in 2004 and 2002 and Ted Williams in 1941. His career OBP (.466) is third all-time after Williams and Babe Ruth. For real. McGraw led the league in WAR in 1899, he’s 10th in WAR for the 1890’s and over his own career (1891-1907) he’s 15th. He was pretty good. But John McGraw is not in the Hall of Fame as a player. He’s in as a manager.

Beginning in Baltimore, managing Jennings, Robinson and Kelley, as well as Joe McGinnity and Roger Bresnahan, McGraw eventually made his way to the New York Giants, which he managed from 1902-1932. His New York squads won 10 pennants and three World Series championships during his era. He managed an absurd amount of Hall of Famers, but that was also greatly exacerbated by Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry while they were on the Veterans Committee. That list includes High Pockets Kelly and Ross Youngs and Freddie Lindstrom, who probably don’t deserve to be in there. But hey, they were part of four consecutive pennants with Frisch and Terry between 1921 and 1924. The list of deserving Hall inductees also includes Bresnahan, Christy Mathewson, McGinnity, George Davis, Brouthers, Jim O’Rourke, Keeler, Edd Roush, Bill McKechnie, Waite Hoyt, Dave Bancroft, Casey Stengel, Travis Jackson, Hack Wilson, Billy Southworth, Mel Ott, Burleigh Grimes, Carl Hubbell and Ray Schalk. And Rube Marquard as another dubious selection.

McGraw has the second-most managerial wins of all-time, after Mack. And he was ejected 131 times in his career, which was a record that stood until 2007, when it was broken by Bobby Cox. Much like Mack, McGraw saw a lot of history over the years. Including the history he made by refusing to play in the 1904 World Series. But there was also the Mathewson performance in 1905 against Mack’s Athletics. Losing to Mack and Home Run Baker in 1911. Losing his third consecutive World Series (also to Mack) in 1913. And losing in even more dubious fashion (to the point that it might not have been on the level) in 1917. He had better luck against Babe Ruth’s Yankees in 1921 and 1922. But he lost his final two, to Ruth in ’23 and Walter Johnson in ’24. McGraw even returned to manage the first ever All-Star Game in 1933. He got out with his legacy in tact.

Tris Speaker

I feel like the Grey Eagle is largely forgotten today, which is pretty odd considering everything he did on the diamond. Playing at the same time, in the same league and at the same position as Ty Cobb doesn’t really help his cause. Either does having some of his best seasons during the ascendency of Babe Ruth. Or maybe its the assertion, true or not, that Speaker was a member of the Klan that makes people want to forget his racist asshole face. I dunno. It’s not like that accusation did much to diminish Cobb, who was already seen as a heel during his career, as well as after.

That said, Speaker was the best player on the Red Sox (and their Million Dollar Outfield) from 1909-1915. And he won two World Series with Boston in 1912 and 1915. Then he was the best player in Cleveland from 1916-1925, including their first World Series title in 1920 (the same year as the death of his teammate, Ray Chapman). And going off fWAR, where Speaker was a better fielder than Cobb (Speaker played extremely shallow and they nicknamed him ‘where triples go to die’), he actually would have been the best center fielder in baseball in 1909, 1912, 1913, 1916, 1920, 1922 and 1923. He won the American League MVP in 1912. I would have given it to him in 1912, 1914, 1916, 1922 and 1925 for a total of five. Again, that’s impressive in any era, but especially when Cobb and Ruth were in the same league at the same time. I also would have given Speaker top 10 finishes (and usually top 5 finishes) in 13 other seasons. He was fucking good.

Speaker may have only been second-best at his position while he played. But he’s still the #3 center fielder of all-time on JAWS. When he retired, he was also #3 all-time in career WAR. He was the 5th man in the 3,000 hit club. His 3,514 hits still ranks 5th all time. His .345 batting average ranks 6th all time. And he still has the all-time career record for doubles. He was so good that he and Ty Cobb basically got away with fixing games in 1926. Maybe.

As a manager, Speaker introduced the platoon system into Major League Baseball. And he was a staunch supporter of Larry Doby when he broke the American League color barrier in 1947. So either Speaker chilled out about race, or the Klan shit is overblown. I hope it’s the latter. Because, second Hall of Fame class or not, Tris Speaker is criminally underrated.

George Wright

They say Wright was the best player on baseball’s first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. That Cincinnati team went undefeated in 1869, with Wright hitting .633 with 49 home runs in 57 games. Next, Wright moved on to the Boston Red Stockings, who won National Association pennants every year from 1872-1875 and were so goddamned good that it essentially caused the league to disband. Wright was the second-best position player on those Red Stockings, which made him the second-best player in the league. Wright was also the first batter in National League history. He managed the Providence Grays in 1879 and won the pennant his only year as a manager. Wright also served on the commission that falsely named Cooperstown as the birthplace of baseball. And he’d go on to design America’s first public golf course in 1890. Unless that’s made up too.

Cy Young

Yeah, you’ve heard of him. Cy Young began his career in 1890, when the pitching rules were so different from today’s game that they would anger you. He didn’t even wear a glove until his 6th season. But over his 22-year career, Cy Young became a one-man bridge from the old timey 19th Century style of base ball into the era of modern baseball. The confusion over which era Young belonged to was probably the sole reason he wasn’t in the first class of Hall of Famers in 1936. And over that 22-year career he set basically ever pitching record that would ever be broken, along with some that won’t be touched in a billion years.

Denton True Young got the name “Cy” because his fastball tore enough boards off of backstops that it looked like a cyclone had hit them. Or so the story goes. But he, Amos Rusie and Jouett Meekin get credited as the reason the pitching distance (the box, as they called it) was moved back ten feet to give hitters a fighting chance. Most star pitchers of the 50-feet days couldn’t cut it after the rule change. Cy Young could. But his catcher did have to start wearing a piece of raw steak under his glove to handle the heat.

I would have given Young his namesake award in 1892, 1893, 1895, 1896, 1899, 1901, 1903 and 1905. That’s eight times. And I would have had him in the top 5 eight other times. Young threw three no-hitters, including the first perfect game under modern rules. The third no-hitter was in his age 41 season. He won a Triple Crown in 1901. He once went 25.1 innings without giving up a hit and 45 innings without giving up a run. He threw the first pitch in a modern World Series in 1903. And his rivalry with Rube Waddell is great. But let’s be honest, Cy Young won the war. He also won 511 games. And Major League Baseball honored his legacy with the award given to the year’s best pitcher the year after his death.

Should Have Chosen:

In 1936, 5 men were voted in. They were Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner. You could argue that Tris Speaker and Cy Young should have gone in on the first try. In every scenario (fWAR and JAWS) Ruth, Cobb, Speaker and Young are in the top 5. But all men are worthy, so it’s fairly moot.

Now, if the Veteran’s Committee had done its job and selected 5 19th Century players, they should have been Cap Anson, Roger Connor, Dan Brouthers, Tim Keefe and John Clarkson.

In 1937, three players (Lajoie, Speaker and Young) went in. Young and Speaker are certainly correct. And Rogers Hornsby had just retired, so I think it should have been Eddie Collins over Lajoie

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