U2 New Album Looks Good

Good article here profiling U2’s new album and some of its overt spiritula content.

by the Rev. Julie Golding Page

Die-hard U2 fans finally have their wish, after waiting five long years since the release of How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon, is a carefully crafted series of songs about being lost, finding the self in God, becoming disoriented and lost again, and becoming re-oriented to God and the world. Musically, the album continues the U2 tradition of vigorous rock tunes, complete with the classic guitar riffs, but with the addition of Middle Eastern overtones in several songs, giving homage to the band’s time recording in the unusual location of Fez, Morocco….

Full article here at the excellent Empire Remixed

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Being In Dire Straits and other Memories of the Past

Did you know that Leonardo DaVinci invented scissors? I thought he just did movies like the Titanic… What is even more fascinating is that I found this out off the back of a sanitary pad…why do they put trivia on these things? Why did I read a sanitary pad, hmmm…
on to my blog.

I was helping Christine fill in the blanks for the journaling component in a photo album of my life she is putting together. We got to January 17th 1984 – 21 years ago last week. The day my life changed forever…in fact I believe every day your life changes forever but that is another story.

On that day in 1984 the car I was travelling as a front seat passenger in veered off the road and into a guard rail, slitting the car and almost severing my leg at the ankle.
The story that folows includes many miracles of God and amazing experiences of incredible community and friendship, I may blog the story one day. The memories that flood back when I look at the photos of nurses, doctors, locals that visited me in my isolation in Ballarat, of gore and blood, of smashed van, these memories were only enhanced as I jumped up from the table and headed for the CD rack and selected Dire Straits – Making movies. This was the tape I listened to in my hospital bed, over and over, along with Tim Finn Escapade (remember “There’s a Fraction Too Much Friction” and “Made My Day?”)

These two were classic albums that people still rock to today, and they were my comfort in my hospital bed for 2 months. I was not allowed to get out! Just me in one bed, stinking of gangrene from my rotting foot, my Dad in the middle bed, who passes wind at the best of times and some alcoholic guy who seemingly never stopped farting pure methane. His wife kept smuggling in beer and smokes and as he too, was bed bound due to a broken back from a drunken horse fall (he was the drunk one) the farting and other deligtful smells hung so thick in the air the nurse would come in and spray us!
But I had my Romeo and Juliet (Straits) and Finn and was lost in my own little world of dreams.

Is it not just amazing how the music that I played tonight brought back stronger memories of those times than even the photos themselves did? Maybe the photos bring the memories and the music adds the feelings to the memories.

Maybe I could do a series on songs that create memories and feelings.

Thompson Twins would win the feelings competition! Remember them…ho boy, I do! That’s a whole other story…speaking of story – back to Dirt Music.

A Spiritual Experience

What do Fields of Gold, When We Dance, and Fragile all have in common? Yes you got it, they all have a “Sting” in the tail…Sting in my opinion is one of the worlds greatest musicians. I have none of his cd’s maybe one or two tapes from the 80’s somewhere still. But I spent the night with my mate Andrew watching ‘…all this time’ a DVD produced when Sting got the best musos he knew to hang out with him for two weeks in his stunning house in Italy and produce a CD/DVD. They film all the rehersals and interactions and interviews etc all in this amazing location. All of a sudden it’s Sept 11 and the planes fly in to the twin towers. The whole place has been set up for a big concert that night – Sept 11. You get their reactions and thoughts…and then you get the concert, a little more mellow than it was planed but respectful of the situation and none the less powerful Sting. “It takes more than combat gear to make a man…” – Deep!
I have to say his wisdom along the way was somewhat ‘spiritual’, it was a great watch!