Happy Christmas you Brummies, you lovely Brummies Abroad, and 60's music lovers across the world.Its here again! I've been dusting off my vinyl Christmas LPs, I like to play them at Christmas as it takes me back to better days of family values before the word Digital was ever used.
Bing Crosby " White Christmas" is always the first LP on the turntable as we sit down with a glass of Sherry to open our gifts, Oohing and Ahhing as Bing does his Thing. Pure emotion.
We are again full of the Christmas spirit here in the Bob Household and have checked our Christmas decorations to see if any need replacing, made a list of all the chocolate bars that we adore then looked at YouTube to learn how to make them at home to give to friends for xmas.
Now Mrs Bob's friend, "Bat Faced Eileen", actual photo below, is not someone I'd put
on my friends list but in the belief that it's better to give than receive, added to my respect for Mrs Bob's wishes, I've put aside my distaste for Bat Face and I've made her some Hard Nougat. She only has four teeth so that should glue her gob together for months. Ho ho ho merry Christmas.70TH ANNIVERSARY FENDER STRATOCASTER.
Now some of you Musos may be dreaming of getting your dream guitar and being Fenders 70th anniversary of the legendary Stratocaster, it might be top of your wish list. To celebrate this landmark event Fender have launched the Stratocaster ULTRA II as their latest variant. The ULTRA II replaces the ULTRA which in turn replaced the ELITE which replaced the PROFESSIONAL which replaced the PERFORMER etc ad nauseum. In fact during the 70 years of the Strat there have been more than 250 variants, which incidentally works out at 3.67 per year since 1954 and even the countries of production USA, Japan, Korea, Mexico etc have their own values. The Mexico model which was the cheapest is now set to rise in cost, but not value or quality, by at least 25% thanks to Santa Tariff Trump.
Fender say the ULTRA II is their best model and sells at around £2,500 British pounds and the ULTRA at £1,900.
To those of you who dream of getting the ULTRA II in your Christmas stocking I wish you well and hope your dreams do come true, such is the magic of Christmas.
However, the majority of guitarists would walk over broken glass to get their hands on one of the 1950's models because it's better in all respects. To quote Eric Clapton "In those days you knew that every Strat would sound the same as the other.....just fantastic".
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BEV BEVAN..80.
When I was a sprog of 14 years I first saw Bev Bevan in action with Denny Laine and the Diplomats. He was incredible even way back then playing with a great rock group. It was around that time that his band played as the support band for The Beatles for the first time in Birmingham and Paul McCartney commented on how good he was playing 5/4 time to the instrumental "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck. Over the next couple of years my band got popular in Birmingham and Bev was in our audience on occasion. I got to chat with him and was always impressed by his attitude, a very likeable guy with a huge smile and personality.
When The Move formed he was the right man for the job with his thundering drums at his best on hits like "I can hear the grass grow" and "Something Else". A real powerhouse.
Of course ELO were his real pinnacle of achievement that made him an international rock star. I last saw him just before I left Birmingham in 1970, still a great drummer and still a real nice guy. Happy Birthday Bev. I wish you many more.
CHRISTMAS GIFT BOOK.
FLOWERS IN THE RAIN. The untold Story of The Move.
The Move were a massive band of the day. They were a great live act, I've said all this before.
There is a new book available from Amazon Books on sale in time for Christmas for all you Brumbeat Fans. It is the only book that has been written about The Move and would be the ideal Christmas gift for lovers of this iconic psychedelic Brummie band.This new book written by Jim McCarthy has been the result of interviews with Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton.
My understanding is that Roy Wood was not interested in taking part. Too busy awaiting his Christmas songs royalties and eating pies probably. Ace Kefford declined to be interviewed but having personal knowledge of his time with the band I would agree wholeheartedly with his decision. Having two of the band members accounts of the bands story, left untold, means you only get 50% of the truth or of course half truths. Nonetheless Jim McCarthy is a talented author who knows rock music and its foibles so he has written this book with as much of the available accounts as is humanly possible. Not necessarily the whole truth though.
The band were systematically robbed by Tony Secunda and ruined by his lust for publicity going too far. They went from psychedelic heroes to cabaret flops. So with that in mind I'm absolutely sure that it will be a fascinating read about a generational mis-match of 60's group members.
MRS BOBS CHRISTMAS GIFT
I know that you readers like to know what I buy Mrs Bob each Christmas and this year we agreed to give each other a gift that that you have to organise or make yourself. Knowing it was made by hand or organised from the person you love makes it so much better. So my normal "go to" gifts of power tools has been scuppered which is a bit of a bugger because I had planned to get her a Pressure Washer to keep the driveway clean and had secretly got bookings from neighbours for her to do 14 other houses at £30 a time less my 25% management fee, a win-win situation I thought. However it's her 73rd birthday in January so I can buy it then!! forward planning is my watchword.
I have to admit that I had been worried about what I could do whilst, at that very moment, observing Mrs Bob through the living room window struggling to remove a heavy load of builders rubble from her last job. I felt a bit guilty seeing the way she was obviously not enjoying that strenuous work so I went down to the pub to give her time to finish.
Later that day I was looking at her pride and joy, her Ferrari yellow wheelbarrow I had bought her only 3 or 4 years ago and it was looking rather shabby, dented and with a wobbly wheel. She obviously hadn't looked after it too well but I have a forgiving nature and it was then that I got an idea. I got my mate Nobber to come and steal it out of the garden during the night. The following morning she saw it wasn't in the shed. "Oh its gone" she said. "You'll probably just have to use the big spade now" I said jokingly
Just like the TV show "Overhaulin", me and Nobber set to work the following day. Armed with sandpaper we set to work removing the rust and bashing out most of the dents and at the end of Day 1 we had resprayed the interior in lovely Aztec Gold paint.
There was no stopping us now. I got some 3 in 1 oil to sort out the squeaky wheel and put some grease on the wheel bearing which gave it a kind of 'Stealth' capability.
She could work with it in silence without me even knowing she was hard at it.
The plan was all coming together fine and then I got the best idea of all. To introduce envy into the equation, wheelbarrow envy!
I'd seen blokes walking past the house when she was barrowing in 3 tons of manure for the back garden and they were smirking at her, obviously thinking I should have bought her a Barrow with a bigger carrying capacity so she didn't have to make all those trips back and forth. But, an overweight Barrow isn't the answer, she's a woman, she wants the best things in life, it's style that's important to her and I want her to have the best things and still have the enjoyment of a good days barrowing. So in the dead of night I made the transformation that will make her the envy of the street.
Christmas morning will be a blast for her when she sees this:
Tiger stripes on the frame and a go faster flame paint job that Chip Fookes would be proud of. I cant wait to see her face on Christmas morning, I'll put a big red ribbon on it and put it the back garden so she sees it when she goes out to bring some coal in for the fire. The real bonus is that it cost me less than £10 to do it. She has told me that she doesn't know what to do for me so I suggested that she pays for me to record my new CD, that works out at around £600 which might seem a bit unbalanced financially but of course she will get the eternal joy of hearing me play, genius! She gets the best of both worlds, lucky girl!!
FINALLY.
I really want to say Happy Christmas to John Woodhouse, the Brumbeat.Net editor who allows me to nest my blog in his webpage.
I want to say Happy Christmas to my lifelong pal Oggie. Still poorly I'm afraid. He hasn't had the best year and I wish for him everything he wishes himself.
Also a Happy Christmas to The Skiffle King in his Welsh valley hideaway for being the first of the few that started British Rock and Roll and his participation in bringing Birmingham musicians to the fore during the 60s. An inspiration for the nation.
It's my birthday tomorrow so I shall be remembering all my mates from the Brumbeat days for their great and continued friendship and to all you Christmas season birthday celebrants out there too. Have a hug!
Love the ones your with
Bob
Copyright: Bullsheadbob
Contact: Bobsbullocks@Gmail.com
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