High marks on the Gray-scale

I honestly did not have it in mind to do a David Gray post any time in the foreseeable future, as I had never paid all that much attention to him since he became rather famous for a while in the late 1990s; prior to that, I bought his first few albums and had been to see him live in Cork a few times in the early 1990s. My memories of his gigs are vague but I do recall he used to shake his head from side to side quite a lot as he sang, almost so much one would fear it may fall off somewhat disconcertingly mid song.

To be honest, since then, I have had liitle cause to ponder much on him until I read the interview below in the Irish Times Weekend supplement of 8 August.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0808/1224252211919.html

On reading his comment about feeling so much gratitude to the people who went out and bought his CDs, how he knew it was a big deal for them and how he did not want to let them down, my estimation of him rose around 1046576% (and that is a rough estimate). This is exactly how I would imagine I would feel if I were someone who made money from their art (of whatever sort) but have never heard anyone put into words so eloquently, humbly and admirably. This is so far from the kind of rock star arrogance (best exemplified for me by bands like Oasis) that it puts them to shame for once and for all.

I was so impresses I had to log a quick post on the subject to say well done and admit that I have a whole new appreciation of Mr Gray. Imagine my further pleasant surprise when I went looking (as Yousual) on Youtube for a clip to accompany the post (as is my wont) and found the following highly likeable cover version of the Cure's 'Friday I'm in love':

I think the David Gray reassessment exercise will be rather dramatic from here on in. I also found a nice audio (no video) clip of him covering another of my long-ago favourites, in Soft Cell's
'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' here.

To finish up, my favourite of his own songs comes from his debut, 'A century ends', and is 'Shine', as seen live here:

As a final note for tonight, I have started a new experiment, putting short posts on Twitter (see right-hand column), which I will use for quick thoughts and short reviews or comments on books, movies, CDs or anything else, and hope to update as many days as I remember and get time. So far, I haven't much of a clue of what I am doing but that just adds to the fun of it!