Cracking the Code

In a world already tipped on its head, the very thought that I would be offering New Blogger tips to others (and not vice versa) would, you'd have thought, be a stretch of the imagination too far even for regular visitors to this remote outpost of the internet. 

But I could see that in my recent posts, and posts by fellow bloggers too, featuring uploaded Youtube videos, the video footage could only be viewed whilst in 'web version' (i.e. when you're looking at the post on a PC or Mac), but not in 'mobile version' (it disappeared totally when viewed from your phone). And the reason why? It's all in the html code. However, after a little chin stroking and not an inconsiderable amount of exasperation, I've been able to crack the code. Me!

So, if you have trouble viewing your blog videos on your phone, please drop a self stamped addressed envelope to Medd Towers and I promise I'll get back to you before the clocks go back.

In the meantime here's the ridiculously talented Rachel Flowers playing a Keith Emerson piece she learned by ear.

Rachel Flowers - The Endless Enigma

 

Someone Get Me a Ladder

£3.00 in the British Heart Foundation, Dumfries

I've just read Greg Lake's autobiography: he wrote Lucky Man in 2016 when he knew he was dying - Greg passed in the December, and the book was published posthumously last year. Keith Emerson, the 'E' in ELP, had taken his own life in March 2016, which leaves Carl Palmer the last man standing.

Trilogy (1972)

Lucky Man is a Dear Diary type read, and none the worse for that, full of facts and figures, if a little lacking in emotion; understandable, though, given the circumstances.

Brain Salad Surgery (1973)

Emerson Lake and Palmer have cropped up once or twice around here - prior to punk they were a touchstone in my life and in my record collection; I often tell people that you can condense their whole back catalogue into just two albums - Trilogy, released in 1972, and, a year later, Brain Salad Surgery.

Still You Turn Me On is from 1973's Brain Salad Surgery. When the band wanted to dial back the pomp and circumstance running through their long players, they would turn to Greg Lake and say "Write us an acoustic ballad." Their debut album carried Lucky Man, Trilogy was tempered with From the Beginning and this was the point in their live shows where Keith and Carl could slope off to the bar while Greg sat out front on a stool and held court. Whilst simultaneously chewing gum.

Greg Lake - Still You Turn Me On 

Karn Evil 8

This afternoon I found myself listening to The Sounds of Jimmy Smith, his long player from 1957. I'm guessing a young Keith Emerson probably played this album a lot when Emerson Lake & Palmer were writing Brain Salad Surgery. The Fight predates prog by a good ten years and is almost certainly the template for ELP's Karn Evil 9; God knows what the jazzers made of this when it landed on their turntables.

Jimmy Smith - The Fight (mp3)

Hey Keith, Aaaaagh!

John Lydon and Keith Emerson 2006

Depending on which side of the prog fence you reside, the chances are you have an opinion on the merits, or otherwise, of Emerson Lake and Palmer. You'll either be scratching your head in wonderment that, once again, they missed out in the Queen's New Year Honours list, or you'll have filed them away in the furthest recesses of your brain under T for tossers. And reading Keith Emerson's candid biography Pictures of an Exhibitionist would only reinforce one or other of those schools of thought. Yes, of course they were overblown. Yes, of course they were one of the reasons why punk had to happen. But in their defence they did record Brain Salad Surgery. OK, we'll pretend that whole Jim Davidson thing never happened, shall we?

However, and thank you to Sid Smith for lighting the blue touch paper, even if you despised ELP and all the pomp and circumstance they crammed into their audacious career, you can't help but tip your hat to Emerson for his elegant one night stand in 1976 with jazz legend Oscar Peterson. That Peterson saw fit to have him on his highly prestigious show in the first place speaks volumes; that and the fact that Peterson was often heard bigging Emerson up to his friend Count Basie. And praise doesn't come much higher than that in my book.

Look out for a 'heavily disguised' Carl Palmer behind the drum kit.

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