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Shriekback are crowdfunding the production of their new album. You can participate at different levels (with different goodies available). Check them out at: https://shriekback.com/crowdfunding .

9 May 2020 | Rolling Stone byDAVID BROWNE Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday. He was 87. The musician’s son, Danny Penniman, confirmed the pioneer’s death to Rolling Stone, but said the cause of death was unknown.   Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics. “I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it,” Elton John told Rolling Stone in 1973. “I didn’t ever want to be anything else. I’m more of a Little Richard stylist than a Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. Jerry Lee is a very intricate piano player and very skillful, but Little Richard is more of a pounder.”  Although he never hit the top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including“Long Tall Sally,”and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock and roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup and glass-bead shirts – also set the standard for rock and roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989 before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!” Born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5th, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. “I was born in the slums. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. Although he sang in a nearby church, his father Bud wasn’t supportive of his son’s music and accused him of being gay, resulting in Penniman leaving home at 13 and moving in with a white family in Macon. But music stayed with him: One of his boyhood friends was Otis Redding, and Penniman heard R&B, blues and country while working at a concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium. After performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Penniman landed his first record deal, with RCA, in 1951. (He became “Little Richard” when he about 15 years old, when the R&B and blues worlds were filled with acts like Little Esther and Little Milton; he had also grown tired with people mispronouncing his last name as “Penny-man.”) He learned his distinctive piano style from Esquerita, a South Carolina singer and pianist who also wore his hair in a high black pompadour. link .

Just posted today's journal, which completes the one I posted yesterday. Lots of photographs with it, so remember to scroll down after the text.

Animals Roam Free In Petra Heritage Site Under Jordan's COVID-19 Lockdown May 7, 20201:32 PM ET Jane Arraf Cats overtake an empty tourist shop in Jordan's ancient city of Petra. Moises Saman for NPR What happens to a popular travel destination when visitors suddenly stop coming? In Jordan's ancient city of Petra, it makes way for the cats, dogs, birds and other creatures to take over. Normally, the city teems with Bedouin guides and their animals — camels, horses and donkeys — bringing some of the thousands of tourists a day to the site's tombs and temples carved out of colorful rock more than 2,000 years ago. But with Jordan's coronavirus lockdown in mid-March, all sites were closed and workers sent home. Theft is so rare in the tribal area that souvenir sellers left their wares out on outdoor tables and open shelves — which is where the cats wander. On a recent morning just after sunrise, six cats curl up on top of piles of cushion covers and hand-woven rugs across from the iconic Treasury, the 120-foot-high colonnaded tomb featured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The felines are staying close to a sleeping Egyptian laborer, the only worker visible on the 20-square-mile site. The cats are so hungry that these carnivores fight to devour banana muffins offered to them The cats in Petra are left without tourists and tourism workers to feed them. Moises Saman for NPR Falcons wheel high overheard, but on the ground, the site has been taken over by sparrows. They hop along the sand and gravel paths normally crowded by tourists' feet. They twitter inside the caves and elaborate tombs. Where there is normally the din of tour groups and sales pitches, birdsong has become the loudest sound. The stray dogs seem the loneliest. Used to being played with and fed by tourists, they wander the empty site, scrambling up hilltops and barking at one another. A brown and white dog with his ribs showing follows us all around the site, eating the only thing left to offer him — bread — and wagging his tail for an entire hour. Farther down the mountain, the Bedouin say wolves are venturing out again. Petra is a World Heritage site and a fragile one. Before the pandemic, visitors coming from cruise ships stretched its daily capacity at times. While the shutdown has had devastating economic repercussions, it has eased pressure on the ancient city, says Suleiman Farajat, Petra's tourism commissioner. "Now the site can breathe," he says. "It's like ... it says, 'I'm happy to be alone now and I'm happy to relax' because it was consumed too much." https://tinyurl.com/y7mbm36p

A very happy birthday to the late, great T. Max Graham, born on this day in 1941. I miss you, man. .

Re-discovered them on youtube!! Really enjoyed listening again yesterday and today, whilst I've done housework! Loving 'Living on the Frontline' with David Sylvian once more. Think it reminds me of being a teenager! :)

Just uploaded a new journal entry for 22nd April 2019 which reveals the final track list/running order for 'Stand By: Light Coming...' It's a 15 track album but with ten tracks left over which I'll probably use as a separate 'overflow' album. But. you can read the track list in this latest journal entry. Take a look. (Two images also attached.) https://www.billnelson.com/journal/resolved

A big happy birthday to Ian (felixt1) in Scotland. Cheers to you. .

To the Man in the Rexine Suit a very Happy Birthday wish. All things being well I will see you on November 9th. Best wishes, Eugene and Noeleen xx

Residing 704 million light-years from Earth, this system is catalogued as Arp-Madore 2026-424 (AM 2026-424). This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captures two galaxies of equal size in a collision that appears to resemble a ghostly face.

I am planning to travel by train from Oxfordshire later to arrive in Leeds at teatime. I understand from news reports this morning that travelling to Yorkshire today has been seriously disrupted by the weather. Can anyone closer to the ground, as it were, provide the latest and whether or not there will be any changes for the positive please? Many thanks, Douglas

If you've got three pickups with three volume controls, why do you need three on/off switches!?