What is the link between Black Sabbath and The Charlie Daniels Band? Plus Christina Aguilera and Neil Young. Miles Cirus. Foreigner. And the Kinks. The link is easy. Me. Me and fucking YouTube. It’s music porn for the addictive personality. It’s a simple waste of time and (no) energy. Yet its so good that once you’re ‘in there’ there is simply no escape until you run out of music (good luck with that) or someone shouts at you to GET A FUCKING GRIP!!!

I have no grip. And last night as I was just going to bed… Sky Arts, Legends of the Canyon. Not about mountaineering or there’d be no story. But Laurel Canyon and the music that came from within. Joni Mitchell, a host of others and Crosby Stills & Nash.

That was bed done with then. I love(d) CSN, even with Y when Neil Young joined them for protracted periods. And so after an entire class this morning of tai chi with Judy Blue Eyes and rising blocks accompanied by Teach your children Well, I went to YouTube. ‘Just for a minute’. To rid the ear worms.

An hour later and I’d rediscovered so much. It’s like hooking up with the girlfriends of your youth. But they hadn’t got any older. And then I saw, in the ‘next suggestions’ column, put there by the devil of lethargy personally, I found ‘the 10 best guitar riffs’. Well, what could I do? I’m a sucker for a guitar riff. Otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting my time on YouTube. But I realised there are good riffs, Voodoo Chile, Paranoid, Whole Lotta Love, and there are the ones that make the hairs on your neck rise. Like Layla. Like Smoke on the Water. Like… Iron Man.

But then I drifted in the virtual but inescapable hell and found Adele, whose every not sends shivers down my spine. Christina similarly, but smaller. Lady D’Arbanville by Cat sodding Stevens; I mean…

And then there was You Really Got Me by the Kinks. The first ever ‘rock’ riff for which Dave Davies partially destroyed his speaker to get that ‘fuzz’ sound which would become ubiquitous forever after. The first ‘power chords’ which in turn gave rise to big hair when they were translated into snake-hipped American.

Ahhhh, and it went on. And on. And on…

That’s what happens when tennis gets cancelled. Something has to fill the void.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx