Band of Electric Gypsies

Posted Thu 4th Feb 2010 at 11:11 pm by sooty

Since at least 1995 the script on the net for the Cash episode of The Young Ones has egregiously mistaken the band responsible for the music playing in the fourth act. Here’s the incorrect bit from the net transcript:

NEIL: No, listen, Stonehenge…No, listen, everybody, right, listen…

[frustrated, Neil silences the loud music by smashing the record player with his truncheon. Everyone is quiet.]

Right, listen…

[he realizes what he's done]…

Oh, no…Led Zeppelin! Anyway, listen everybody, right, like I don’t want to bring the whole evening down or anything, okay, but basically you’re all under arrest.

[Stonehende collapses aginst her wall. Warlock discovers Neil's radio and takes it out of his belt.]

Okay, roll the film!

What we are hearing are the strains of Electric Gypsies by Steve Hillage. Fifteen years later, the very commercial, radio-friendly Led Zeppelin are still getting the credit for music they’ve nought to do with. Whatever else the late Willie Dixon might’ve thought, they’re not even close:

The Canterbury scene (or Canterbury sound) is a term used to loosely describe the group of progressive rock, avant-garde and jazz musicians, many of whom were based around the city of Canterbury, Kent, England during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Many prominent British avant-garde or fusion musicians began their career in Canterbury bands, such as Hugh Hopper, Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Daevid Allen, Mike Ratledge, Fred Frith, and Peter Blegvad. Over the years, with band membership changes and new bands evolving, the term has been used to describe a musical style or subgenre, rather than a regional group of musicians.

Here’s the Gong in its entirety.

Meditation On a Tiny Book

Posted Fri 15th Jan 2010 at 4:02 pm by sooty

Manny searches for the right passage

Manny searches for the right passage

The Little Book of Calm, by meditation teacher, Paul Wilson, is quite little as books go, measuring 3.5 x 3.4 x 0.5 inches. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has not ruled on the safety of this type of product, but they’ve been advised to consult the debut episode of the TV comedy, Black Books, called Cooking the Books.

In the episode, Manny Bianco (as in white), an accountant under a great deal of stress, who hates his job, accidentally swallows his copy of The Little Book of Calm during an unpleasant exchange with his supervisor. He bought the book for £2.50 (decimalized British currency) from Bernard Black, the putative proprietor of the Black Books establishment located in some London High St area.

Whilst Bernard searches for distractions from doing his accounts for the Inland Revenue menace, engaging Johovah’s Witnesses in philosophical discussion and folding a huge pile of socks, Manny, now in hospital, is being advised by an NHS doctor, played brilliantly by Martin Freeman, that his chances of survival were 30% which was consider quite good by current standards. He reinforces this prognosis by reading a passage from the The Little Book of Calm visible on an X-Ray of Manny’s abdominal area. The surgery scheduled for Manny is abruptly canceled when it’s discovered the book once lodged in him has disappeared without a trace, apart from an odd transformation in his disposition. The doctor surmised that the book must have been assimilated.

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