Posted on 09/05/2010 8:39:36 PM PDT by GSP.FAN
A founding member of ELO has been killed in a freak accident when a giant hay bale rolled out of a field and landed on his van. Cellist Mike Edwards died instantly when the 50-stone cylindrical bale careered down a slope, flipped 15ft over a hedge and smashed on to the roof of his van. Mr Edwards, 62, was known for unconventional cello playing including plucking the strings with an orange or grapefruit and his bizarre customs which became a major ingredient of ELO, the Electric Light Orchestra.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Randy Newman - The Story of a Rock and Roll Band
They were six fine English boys
Who knew each other in Birmingham
They bought a drum and guitar
Started a rock-roll band
And Johnny played little violin
And Bobby Joe played the big violin
The one that stands on the floor
They were all in the rock-roll band
Their first song sounded like this
Please get me a witness
Please get me a witness
Right off, they needed a name
Someone said, “How ‘bout the Renegades ?”
Johnny said, “Well I don’t know.
I prefer E.L.O.” I love their “Mr. Blue Skies”
Almost my favorite is “Turn to Stone”
And how ‘bout “Telephone Line”?
I love that E.L.O.
When you are on an embankment with a round hay baler, you roll the hay up the embankment, always. Then when through making and wrapping the bale, the rule is to turn the rig sideways such that the bale is not oriented like a wheel heading down the hill, that is sideways. Then eject the bale. Green bales will sit, not roll. This was an accident. In the US, the farmer would lose his farm to a tort lawyer, who would win even on the basis of “what are the chances a bale would become airborne and leap over a hedgerow of trees and fencing and land precisely on the front roof of a van moving on a highway”
One other comment- it is haying time in England, fall having arrived for the last real “cut” tedding, raking and baling. Round bales were invented for ease and for preserving of total digested nutrient protein. As tight as one wants to get a square bale, they lose their TDN fairly quickly. In the states the “shelf life” of round bales is improved with waterproof covers wrapping them. This for the benefit of cattle, dairies, etc.
If i remember correctly they were fronting for Yes when I saw them. I remember I was about 6 feet from the stage with a huge camera (Thanks to my father the photographer). I was under the lights and the people on stage could see me. Got more than one shot of the violin player. I need to dig up those negatives.
Leaving the hay bales outside vs. barn storage has a lot to do with nutrient loss, and labor.
Understand. During baling you drop them in the field and then come back to spear them to trailers or to a barn. If this farmer is hassled for dropping them in the field as he bales (may not happen in UK , but it would in litigious US)then that would be a shame. Have baled thousands of round bales and on embankments, and there is a way to do it that doesn’t cause them to roll down hill.
Real shame about the musician being killed;and yes,in the U.S. the farmer might as well start packing.Some off-roading ATVers drove down a hill and ran into farm machinery legally on the public highway ,and yet the farmer needed legal defense!
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