Saturday, December 31, 2011

George Carlin on Life!

I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch and you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities. You become a little baby, you go back into the womb, spend your last nine months floating... and you finish off as an orgasm.


Monday, February 14, 2011

Beautiful Lenka around Sydney


Water Features



Lego Displays



Sculptures and Statues


Summer Bay / Palm Beach



In The City





Thursday, January 6, 2011

Bob Dylan

The Beginning

Robert Allen Zimmerman,born May 24th, 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota.Later he would change his name to Bob Dylan. Bob started writing poems at around the age of ten and soon also taught himself to play the piano and guitar. His first musical inspirations were the likes of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard. In fact Bob Dylan's goal in his high school yearbook was to "Join Little Richard."


After graduating high school, the young Dylan went off to the University of Minnesota in early 1959. In University his desire of becoming a musical artist began. Dylan had begun to listen to folk and rock pioneers Hank Williams, Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie. Dylan was soon playing in nearby coffee houses and it was at this time he adopted his stage name "Bob Dylan". It is still unsure where he got the name "Dylan" from, but it is presumed that the name was taken from the popular poet Dylan Thomas. In 1961 Bob Dylan got his break through. It is at this time he was offered a recording contract with Columbia Records. Dylan's first album was to be simply called "Bob Dylan". The album had none of Dylans works on it , Dylan played traditional folk songs on this album it was'nt until his second album  "Free Wheelin' Bob Dylan",that the world took notice. The second album contained only his own songs and this is what was to make Bob Dylan legendary. The album contained some of the most durable folk songs of the sixties. "A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall", "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and "Blowin' In The Wind".
Dylan's Blowing in the Wind was Cooke's inspiration to write A Change Gonna Come. He could'nt believe a white man wrote Blowing in the Wind.

 Sam Cooke Blowing In The Wind



 Dylan's next album dished out the same kind of protest songs. It was called "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and the title cut was a killer track. Some other good songs on the album were that of: "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll", "Boots of Spanish Leather" and "Restless Farwell".

Josephine Baker The Times They are a Changin
Live 1973 Carnegie Hall


   Then followed another album which was called "Another Side of Bob Dylan with the classic "It Ain't Me Babe" amongst the tracks.It's around this time that Bob Dylan had become friends with Joan Baez. She had begun singing many of Dylan's unreleased works.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez



     Dylan's next album "Bringing It All Back Home" the term "folk-rock" had been formed and Bob Dylan was leading the way. The recording took place in 1965 and was something new for Dylan. Into the recording, with Dylan, went a nine piece band. The album was half electric and half acoustic. Some of the songs from the album are: "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Mr. Tambourine Man" and 

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Joan Baez


Following are just a couple of Dylans Classics 

Bob Dylans Hurricane
 
This is about Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer who spent 19 years in jail for a murder Dylan felt he did not commit.
Carter was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 3 white people who were gunned down at a bar in Paterson, New Jersey on June 17, 1966. Police were looking for 2 black men and pulled over Carter and his friend John Artis. They were sentenced to life in prison.
Touring with the Rolling Thunder Revue, which featured Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Roberta Flack, Dylan raised over $100,000 for Carter's defense at a Madison Square Garden concert the day after visiting his prison. A month later, they held another charity concert, Hurricane II, in the Astrodome.
Dylan's efforts brought new publicity to Carter's case, getting him a new trial in 1976, where he was again convicted, with prosecutors claiming he killed the men in retaliation for a murder of a black man earlier that night. Carter was not freed until 1984, when his conviction was finally overturned.

Dylan A Hard Rains Gonna Fall


Bob Marley's version of Like A Rolling Stone




Bob Dylan and the Travelling Wilburys

The Forming of the Travelling Wilburys and the writing of Handle With Care
George Harrison was just finishing off an album and had a couple more tracks to cut.
 
" I just thought I would go into the studio tomorrow and do one, and it happened that Jeff was working with Roy and Roy wanted to come"- George Harrison
  It wasn't worth booking anywhere expensive so George telephoned Bob Dylan in Santa Monica whose 'little Ampex in the corner of his garage' was available the next day. 
Arriving late the following morning, Roy shook hands with Tom Petty - who Jeff, and to a lesser extent, George, had assisted in the production of a Del Shannon album in 1987. Petty had just backed Dylan on the tour that had terminated at Wembley. Petty had either tagged along, or was asked by George to come along.
  From merely providing refreshments, Dylan lent a hand when Harrison  with his B-Side only half-finished said  "Give us some lyrics, you famous lyricist" Bob enquired as to the subject matter.
George looked around and saw a box with Handle With Care written on it.
We sat on the grass and outside Dylan's and from the germ of an idea that George had on the guitar we wound up writing this song called 'Handle With Care'." - Tom Petty

Knockin on Heavens Door Gun's'n'Roses



Latest Dylan News
Dylan at the Byron Bay Blues Festival 2011
 This year’s Bluesfest will run from Thursday, April 21 to Tuesday, April 26.
BOB Dylan’s extra concert at Bluesfest has been approved by the Byron Shire Council after an extraordinary meeting today.
The extension to a six day festival, instead of the normal five day event to accommodate an extra concert by the American singer-songwriter will only apply to this year’s event. Councillors voted 6-1 in favour of the extension more....