The Loose Connections Recommender #6
On Good Influences, Escaping, Retreating & Lakes
Soak up good influences. Absorb what you love and it will be reflected in your work. Life has a strange way of coming full circle. Examples of this are bountiful and everywhere you look, not just in music and culture but in our methods of doing things and seeing things, our outlooks. I believe this to be the simplest and best advice for creating good work and good lives.
I know Lou Reed and ‘ridiculously heartwarming story’ are not generally found in the same sentence but here is one great example of life’s cyclical nature and how just bathing in the stuff that gives you goosebumps can keep on giving in mysterious ways.
Lou Reed says growing up he wanted to sound like Al Green but ‘I just couldn’t do it, I didn’t want to humiliate myself by even trying in public’. Eventually he met Reverend Green who shocked Lou but telling him how much he loved his music. He has just released a gorgeously ecstatic cover version of ‘Perfect Day’ with that unmistakeable Al Green deep feel.
“I loved Lou’s original ‘Perfect Day’—the song immediately puts you in a good mood …We wanted to preserve that spirit, while adding our own sauce and style.” Just wow. Lou Reed must be over the moon up there in the cosmos. He might even be smiling.
Escape & Retreat by Holiday Sidewinder
New music from
is always a treat (I’m not biased, although I know could be), and the suck-it-up sweet elastic soothing groove of ‘Escape & Retreat’ with the propulsive ‘just a bad time, just a bad vibe, gotta ride it out til 2025’ mantra makes for an anthemic track that will stick around like that treasured best friend in the worst of times... Listen here and thank me later.Lakes. (And pies).
Loose Connections is brought to you today from beside a very beautiful lake. It does feel sacrilegious to be using a laptop in such a divine spot but don’t worry, I’ve also lazed around, eaten Bumbleberry* Pie purchased warm from a roadside stall and admired the trees and the view. Something about gazing into the endless blue tranquility of a lake is good for forgetting everything else and remembering that letting everything extraneous to your immediate survival and happiness fall away, is the ultimate way to live. For a while at least….
Signing off and wishing you all serenity, pies, views and good influences til next week x
*Bumbleberry Pie is an insanely delicious combination of cherries, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Yes I embarrassed myself by asking the pie creator what a bumble berry tasted like. 🍓 🫐 🍒