Salvia

Today I learned that
Salvia is a type of sage
With three syllables

Scott 2 by Scott Walker

Full disclosure, Jackie - the opening song on this album - is one of my most played tracks of all time in my collection. It’s a glorious gallop of a Jacques Brel song, racing through a dazzling sequence of images and ideas (including some quite risque ones!) sung with tremendous gusto by Mr Scott Walker. The rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to the opener, but it’s still an enormously enjoyable experience.

The orchestration can sometimes be a little bit chocolate boxy - Best of Both Worlds sounds like it could have been a Bond theme (albeit for a louche George Lazenby rather than Sean Connery). There are flirtations with country sounds and a couple more Jacques Brel songs as well as original numbers written under Walker’s real name of Scott Engel. Perfect for listening to in your opium den!

Stupid-ass-tastic!

Cut Grass

After no mow May

Reluctantly trim the edges

Leaving a wild patch

Greetings from L.A. by Tim Buckley

When I reviewed Buckley’s second album Goodbye and Hello I noted that his reputation as a fey romantic folk singer was a misconception as it turned out he was actually a cheating lowlife who had walked out on his wife and infant son early in their marriage. This 1972 release only amplifies the impression that he was pretty much a sex addict on a path to inevitable self destruction.

The album opens with a cheery number about sleeping with a black woman and hiding from a jealous husband, and moves on to songs about asking someone to get on top, creaking bed springs and there are no prizes for guessing what ‘talking in tongues’ is referring to. There is no love or romance here, just drunken screwing around with the morals of an alley cat.

Musically, it’s pretty much by the numbers sleazy blues sung in a throaty croak which reminded me of Jim Morrison’s voice on LA Woman - another ‘romantic’ who was on a similar downward spiral. No coincidence that they both died without ever seeing their 30th birthdays.

Poltergeist

Although this film was directed by Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) it very much has Stephen Spielberg's distinctive fingerprints on it. He wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay and produced it, and it follows similar beats to his other films of this era of focussing on a typical suburban American family with 2.4 kids and a dog, facing an otherworldly threat. In case though, rather than aliens (friendly or not), the menace is coming from inside the house with (not really a spoiler if you've seen the title of the film and the poster) poltergeists coming out of the TV.

It really doesn't take long for the film to get going and amp up the peril with a mix of animated and practical special effects that mostly hold up. It's billed as a horror movie, but it doesn't really rely on jump scares but rather more leaning into the action and humour of the situation (scary clown dolls notwithstanding). I think I first watched this on a VHS from the video rental shop, so seeing it again on a bigger and sharper screen shows some of the cracks but it's still mostly enjoyable.

Wild Iris

Down in the meadow 

Where the wild iris grows free 

Natural beauty

Mountain, Pest

Continents crashing 

Ancient insects now trapped in time 

Climbers confounded