bernie connor presents 'the sound of music' episode fourteen: leaving on a jet-plane.
Download this episode (84 min)
i've known from the very get-go that this would happen. in his defence he was brutally honest, he told me he was leaving for pastures new at the end of june. i thought he was full of shit, everybody i've ever known has been leaving for pastures new at the end of june for the last thirty years or so. it must be a weather thing. or some thing.at this juncture i would like to say a resounding and unconditional thank you to weezle mcweezler for his invaluable contribution to this podcast over the last fourteen weeks. absolutely effing priceless! little over three months ago, robin jackson had a brilliant idea in the garden of sudley house, the ancestral pile of the famous and influential holt family, now a gallery and ornate garden.
the brilliant idea was this: "you should do a radio show on the internet, it'd be really good and if only we listened to it, it would still be ace just because it's there." or words to that effect. when people say things like that to me i tend to ignore them and hope they'll go away. remember, i am one of life's great lazy bastards and hitherto don't let anything get in the way of my easy life and/or countdown. this brilliant idea may very well have gone to the wall had i not stumbled upon weezle looking longingly in a tattoo studio window. i told him the gist of robin jackson's brilliant idea, he picked up my ball and ran with it. he so fast and far i couldn't keep up, i had to concede, we were gonna have to act on robin jackson's brillliant idea.
so we did.
fourteen weeks later we're still on-line every week, never missing a beat and nearly always on time. if you listen to this nonsense regularly, you'll notice that i'm constantly amazed by the reaction i receive to this, the amount of love shown can be disproportionate to the amount of work i put in. and the work i put in can never over-shadow the hard work and effort and time weezle has put in to make these broadcasts entertaining and listenable from the raw materials i pass on to him. i myself, marvel at his skills in turning potential shite into base metal into gold, and for that i will be eternally grateful.
it really was one of my favourite fortuitous meetings ever, bumping into weezle like that, he had the software, know-how and the will to get it started asap and get this show soaring skywards. i'll miss his presence here every monday, and even though i have a new 'knob-twiddler' beginning next week -the incomparable and more than capable, sike upstairs- the first stage of the sound of music has flashed by in the batting of an eyelid and has proved a success we never could have imagined and the weezle is every bit as responsible as i am.
thank you weezle, without you it would never have existed. there would be just silence.
this week: we lost a weezler and gained a sike. or something.
WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.
beach baby.....first class.
city for sale (beat pharmacy dub).....floppy sounds.
skunk (sonically speaking).....mc5
life's a gas (dub).....black mustang/kerrier district.
melody.....serge gainsbourg.
bring on the love (why can't we be friends again).....gloria jones.
with a little help from my friends.....chris clark.
robot eyes.....chicken lips presents 'zeefungk'.
big gay heart.....the lemonheads.
washing machine.....mr fingers.
let's stick together.....wilbert harrison.
when the levee breaks.....led zeppelin.
don't let the sun catch you crying.....gerry & the pacemakers.
presented in abstract form by mr bernard connor. deconstructed to tiny bits and reassmbled with all the zeal of a five year old child by weezle von weezlestein. for the last time.
welcome sike upstairs. he shall lead us into future battles. long may he reign.
in the true absence of anything tuly worthwhile to report, i give you the sound of music summer trainspotters quiz. one point per question, the one who gets the most is the winner. simple.
so, the uneasy on the eye challenge that is nick griffin has been duly elected to represent me, my family and an awful lot of those that i know, in the european parliament. what does that say about us as a people? it says that if you repeat something, however untrue or inane, for long enough, it becomes the gospel truth. and everybody believes it.
there were technical problems, fuckin' big technical problems. in the back of the cab, flying at high speed, the weezle began to prod me. it stunned me out of me lovely, deranged moment, i was the count of monte cristo, spoon in hand desperately digging from tokyo to liverpool. once we had checked in we decided to investigate the local culture, dead fish, ankle socks, expensive imports. this man, him said "we don't have what you need, look somewhere else." the pair of us, eyes like saucers, heads like teacups found solace in the bassline from 96 tears, it was pumping out of the door of a car occupied by the smallest beautiful woman on earth. she uttered something to me, i ignored her, i was dazzled by her beauty. she shouted at the weezle, in japanese she said "you loooking in the wrong place, what you need is not here. leads and things. get your shit together, man." as the early stages of extreme hunger began to set in i was reminded of the dead fish. and something ghastly we'd seen in a window in kuala lumpur. i asked weezle if he rememebered what it was, he just shrugged and fixed his hair. even though he was a mere inches away i could hear his distant voice blending in with the traffic and lights, and, barely make out what he was saying. what he was saying was this "kok, we gotta get hold of this thing and get out of here. i know other places where the aliens are more like the people, do you remember?" for my sins, i couldn't remember a fuckin' thing, and as i raised my head he had wired up a stereo and was standing with three discs in his hand, they were: the misunderstood, thelonius monk, king tubby. just before the bathroom door imploded into a trillion technicolor polka dots the opening strains of i can take you to the sun forced themselves into my mind and played metaphoric spoons with everything i ever knew. the weezle said that back in kuala lumpur, we won ten grand in a bet on the fa cup final but in the confusion and panic of the moment we'd shook down the bookie and unless we were very lucky every eagle-eyed policebloke from jakarta to just about everywhere will be in our back pockets and after what we have. and what we need. once we got rid of the people in the doorway and i'd prized my face away from the window we began to record the voice links. weezle was taken aback, as i openeed my mouth a voice let fly. weezle said it wasn't my voice. i wasn't suprised, i had told him a long time ago that it was only a matter of time before they swapped everybody's voice. probably when they're asleep. we kept on going , i was becoming rather fond of the new sound from my open mouth and, i could see an end in sight. it was in stunning high definition, but it was shit. weezle thought so, i thought so, the visitor from another floor thought so. we left all the sounds in the room, the big one was: razzmatazz by quincy jones. that sounds about right. and the only thing we could think, see, imagine or be was scrawled across the hotel room above the bed, it read: THE SOUND OF MUSIC MUST BE BUILT. yeah, man. right.
