Andy Johns, brother of Glen Johns, who worked with the Doors and the Eagles, died yesterday or sometime of liver cancer at age 61 or something awfully young. You had to know I was going to blog this story even though I had been "planning on taking the day off". We need to just chronicle a list of mainly British groups that this guy either produced or engineered or both. They include "Axis Bold as Love" by Hendrix, which is strange because he was only sixteen when this album was recorded. I was only seventeen or there abouts myself. "Stand Up" by Jethro Tull, and the "Blind Faith" album, and "Why Doncha" by West Bruce and Lang. Three songs off this album have ended up on ZAC compilations over the years and most notably "Third Degree". This one graces "Don't Take Me Alive" which originally "came out' in September of 2004. My brother Al had the quadraphonic version of this album we listened to in his trailer and notibly the "trailer" portion of "Third Degree" is a much longer fade than the version I own. Of course I'm a die hard "Blind Faith" fan and in general this is "My kind of Music" including the production of Led Zeppelin II and IV and "Houses of the Holy" and "Coda", all of which albums I used to own, and still do, technically. My brother Al owned "Spooky II" and he also owned the follow up "Free" album after "Fire and Water" out in 1971. As you know it's a saying of mine that Eric Claptin no longer sounded as "annointed" after he got rid of Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist, and I'd like to buy this 1972 album. I've never owned a Humble Pie album and know very little about the group. And Andy Johns produced "Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street". Of course knowing me also- - the Federation yesterday said as an explanation for why they might not be contacting me as much in the next few days is that "We are preparing for an important new arrival" but at the time I had no idea whether this individual was even from this planet. It is interesting the high percentage of albums this man has produced or engineered that I once owned, or own now.
Let's talk about the famous "Glen Johns' or is it "Glyn Johns" tapes from "Let It Be". I have spoken of that KMET tape listed by the DJ as being 33 minutes and 30 seconds consisting of nine songs. These nine songs are "Get Back", which is used on the vynal record but has been "embellished' a little at the beginning, and "Teddy Boy" which appears on Anthology III, and "Two Of Us" "I Dig a Pony" and then "I Got a Feeling" and this track also appears on Anthology III, then "Let It Be" and then "Don't Let Me Down" and this version I've heard played on the radio in the past year, but I'm uncertain whether it's the identical version that appears on "Let It Be Naked" but it might be. Then there is "For You Blue" and "The Long and Winding Road" which is NOT the version you hear on Anthology. Anthology uses the vocal track from the original vinyl record minus the choir and orchestral embellishment. I believe I've covered that. Again at 33:30 and nine songs it's almost enough for a full album in itself. All you needed to do is to throw in "One After 909" not on this tape, and you've got your album release.
Three other deaths grace the news. Last week it was Roger Ebert, who survived Gene Sisco but for a long time they were a super media Duo with their thumbs up and thumbs down. If they BOTH either liked or hated a movie, it could sway that movie's draw at the box office. Then we have Anette Funacello. They had one of her movies in the big room late yesterday afternoon and I'm not sure if that was a coincidence or not. I inquired whether Anette was one of those 'Hollywood A" people on Aldeberan VIII and some representative told me "Hell no, those people are all a bunch of snobs". Then we come to Maggie Thatcher or "The Iron Lady". Johnny Wendell gave considerable comentary on her this morning. Saying that this legacy of patriotic revival and conservatism is basically a bunch of propagandistic bull. England was just used to getting all of their raw materials used in industrial production for free. But after the War, echoing what Pat Buchannon has claimed, that WW II sapped the sap of England and they lacked the will to hang on to their colonies but had to let them go, and suffered economically for it. Of course in this country we used to have FREE labor in the South because of our "peculiar institution" of Slavery. Now all of these Republicans who want to build electric barbed wire fences and gun towers at the border- - Still want a "Guest Worker" program. May I suggest that these migrent workers are treated as anything but "guests". They just want to drive down the wage base and feed the corporate-ocracy. Of course Maggie Thatcher to prove her nation's virility- - took back the Faulklands from Argentina, and Ronald Reagan the next year fought the Battle of Granada, and I'm still not sure what happened there. But of course conservatives from both countries remember the 'eighties as some golden revival era for patriotism and prosperity and it being "morning in America' and all of that.
Some people are puzzled why libertarians today are so different from eras gone by. Of course today's libertarians in most cases are all for the Military Industrial Complex, and people like Larry Elder are their champions. Some have suggested that regulating the border crossings is "anti libertarian" and anti free market. Well, I believe in a regulated free market, but I also believe in a nationalist economic policy which these corporatists don't. I don't see how in any way it's fair play to let illegals stream accross the border and drive down our wage base. I think it's just synacal that "There are certain jobs American's just wont Do". I think they will DO them - - if they aren't being under-cut with wages no American could possibly live on. And nobody can even live on today's minimum wage- and so they certainly couldn't live for Less than minimum wage. Of course today's libertarians are all for these recent abortion law restrictions, which might violate Roe vs Wade. Not that I wouldn't like to see the issue of Roe vs Wade revisited myself in the Courts, but I'm saying "Let's just not jump the gun. First things first". And of course these people are all for the "War on Drugs" - which is a poor way of handling the rapent substance abuse problem - - and the war on Labor unions and pension funds (apparently collective bargaining is not a "freedom of expression" they endorse), and seemingly they are now for other kinds of wars, such as the War on School Teachers by imprisoning a bunch of them in some nice "Guantanamo Bay West" setting where their rights are being violated- they are mistreated and humiliated- and forced to lose their jobs without a conviction or in many cases to defend themselves directly or face their Accusers, or even to know the specific nature of the (apparently sexual) charges leveled against them. It makes no sense to me that over three hundred LA school teachers would suddenly be guilty of sex crimes against their students. The students have to suffer now from incompetent Substitutes. David Cruise has talked about this whole "economizing" and "efficiency" stuff that Businesses are doing to squeeze that last ounce of productivity from their workers. They work them to death and that the productivity of workers is now the highest in over fifty years- - means nothing to these Employers. They demand more. So they put the workers in these gold fish bowls spying on their personal lives. How "libertarian is that'. And they will also push them so hard that stress mounts and they are forced to take sick days off, and the quality of the workmanship drops. Worst of all for the Employers themselves, worker's loyalty falls to nothing and they will leave these job hell holes at the drop of a hat. Either that or they will be fired by the Corporations themselves perhaps weeks before their scheduled retirements.
Of course people are trying to make sense of what the Republicans consider a proper gun regulation bill. We have told you these NRA people aren't interested in gun safety or skill in opperation, or in any way the interests of gun owners, but their whole thing is Gun Production and increasing sales by hook or crook or sheer fear. They thrive on that. Unfortunately our country does not thrive on their kind of Fear. Common sense has flown out the window. Someone pointed out that gun deaths will soon overtake automobile deaths. You see we have regulated the automobile in the past ten years making them safer and highway deaths have plumetted. Of course we've made them more fuel efficient too. People like Judy maintain that we get fuel efficiency due to the fact that the metal is thinner and they aren't as safe should a collision occur. For a tea party member, they don't let actual Facts get in the way. Fear is their thing. Of course under Clinton the crime rate dropped dramatically through things like the assault weapons ban and this "100,000 New Cops" program, that Rush Limbaugh mocked endlessly on his show. The thing is that government regulations DO work. Many have suggested that these whackos must be afraid that they Themselves- - would not pass a Background check, or they themselves have sociopathic tendencies that would recomend against their owning firearms. I think we can all agree we don't want sereal killers or rapists or wife beaters or people nursing irrational and dangerous beliefs to own guns. Randy Rhodes makes it clear it's only those who have been Ajuticated by a Court to be Insane and remanded to some State Institution. All of my "Internments" have been "Volentary" at least technically. Besides even if I wanted to own a firearm, which I don't, I believe I would think of the safety and "peace" of my countrymen and their perception as to whether I was a danger, and for the sake of "keeping the peace" I would defer and not seek a firearm. Of course now you hear absurd things like how it only takes a few seconds to switch off magazines. However this is under ideal circumstances and not being a psychopath with adrenaline and panic running through your system. Those seconds are valuable. Lives have been saved because of those precious seconds. It takes almost a sociopathic mentality not to have at least a little for those twenty dead kids and other countless innocent victims of these shooting rampages. No amount of extremety is enough to rouse these people to moral consciousness They are morally Dead. They have this Ayan Rand mentality that they are lords of their own universe or whatever, and nobody matters but then. We need to consign people like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan to the ranks of mentally incompetent people not fit to even serve in government as a "public servant".
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