Salty Material and The Salto Mortale

      I wasn't sure I was going to be bothered to post anything today, but the latest victim of poor cbeck's "Forbidden P0rn sites" is, to say the least, a surprise.   I'm thinking this blog eventually have to do something to earn that assessment.

      That said, I should note that it's the Belfast Cowboy's birthday today, which should require that each of you go out and dig up a few tunes by The Man to which to listen, preferrably over a very potent series of potables. It occurs to me, though, that most of you will dig up The Best of Van Morrison or Moondance, the first the hit-compilation, the second probably the most romantic album ever made (no wonder I can no longer listen to it; well, I no longer have a copy of it either).   I, however, would encourage you to look out for songs like Stepping Out Queen, Part II or the live version of Rave On, John Donne, or his magnificent rendering of Caravan from the 1974 live album It's Too Late To Stop Now.   Better than anyone in "pop" music, Van The Man knows how to use a variety of different instruments to powerful effect, and not just guitars and pianos and saxophones, but trumpets, flutes, oboes, and strings; only Van would give the lead rhythm parts to piccolos, or conduct vibrant tête-à-têtes with a single violin.   Greil Marcus (methinks, anyway; memory slips at this age) once said that rock stars should realize that the quality of one's music is inversely proportional to the number of instruments one uses-- unless you're Van Morrison. There's a lushness to his best music that very, very few others can even come close to replicating.   Listen to it, as a famous Leonard Cohen character says, "with that part of your mind that you delegate to watching out for blackflies and mosquitoes." Search out albums like Astral Weeks and Into The Music and Veedon Fleece and No Guru No Method No Teacher and Enlightenment and Days Like This and Down The Road: there's some truly marvellous stuff in them thar hills.   Check out, by the way, this review from 1979 of Into the Music which remains one of the better rock reviews of Morrison I've ever read.  

      POST-SCRIPT: This blog (as of 3.30 PM EST) is astonished-- flabbergasted-- fucking amazed-- at who's on top here.   Nice to see, especially for an opus posthumous.   Or, as some might say, "pretty fly for a dead guy."