Maybe one day we’ll buy rabbits.

n Manchester and elsewhere, Stevie Wonder has new concerts coming up. We nearly went last year. My sister changed her mind at the end.

In my family, nearly everyone is a Stevie Wonder fan. Even my wife likes his music. I’ve asked my sister to invite us.

Stevie Wonder might not live for much longer. Based on video of his last performance here, he’s doing well, nowhere near rusty. But he is not getting younger, either.

What. The. Heck.

Sold out, so I guess this is what counts as “best” now (coming to Manchester in 2 days).

I want the old culture of music back. I want bands, instruments, and good voices. Not flesh. Flesh makes no music.

The new stuff is awful because the new standards are very low.

hen musicians could play not just an instrument but several instruments and also had good vocals the melodies were more complex and therefore better, on average. Not dancing and “showing flash”.

he incredible thing about 10cc is that these people still perform. They’ve performed since the 1960s (before 10cc was formed). They possess the same qualities: still the same skills on musical instruments and virtually the same voice (no smoking, one might assume). Less than a decade ago they sounded the same, as people in comments too point out.

I wish I can do the same in my 70s (hopefully 80s) as I did in my 20s.

reat musicians can be active for half a century. Composers and producers even longer, as they usually need not sing, dance etc. They just need their brain to work and creativity is not about memory, it’s about taste and experience.

Sister Sledge, as it turns out, is still sort of active (some members are broke) and its ‘brain’ Nile Rodgers is still alive with some involvement in Coldplay.

Given his age and physique, maybe he can be active for 70+ years.

rowing up in the 1990s, I listened to a lot of music. Walkman was a thing back then, Discman came when I was in my early teens. My sister was collecting albums and I mostly “borrowed” (from her shelves) her music, which meant my taste in and exposure to music was heavily influenced by hers.

I am mostly grateful for it.

One thing that I can never forget is that she won many CDs by answering questions on the radio. Sometimes she phoned “too much” and won “two much”, so her little brother (me) phoned instead. I don’t know or cannot recall how many CDs I won this way, but I roughly remember which ones I won.

I listen to one of them right now (Warren G) and it always astounds me that something shipped to me 30 years ago still works impeccably. Stuff manufactured today is very unlikely to be usable or playable in 2056.

I might write a detailed analysis about this some time in the future in a more Linux-centric site, but I need a unique and useful angle. I don’t have that at the moment.