Cynthia Size A

It's been a restful weekend although I copped out and didn't get to The Late Shows but did get a copy of The Concert For Bangla Desh put together by George Harrison on Vinyl from Vinyl Guru. Spent a bit of time walking would town getting some essentials and forgetting about others. Put a brit of grass seed on the lawn to hopefully address the less grassy bit and made my first smoothie in an absolute age with some oranges and apples and frozen smoothie mix, ginger and milk. I'm sure it was very healthy and it tasted dead refreshing.

I don't follow recipes in smoothie making or cookery, just throw things in and hope for the best and it usually comes out good. The worst results are usually just too much so I have to despose of what I can't eat. At least when you are cooking, or making from reasonable fresh stuff you know it's not overloaded with sugar and salt.

I picked up an acoustic guitar today and ran through a basic "Big Muff" (John Martyn & Lee Perry) and was surpised that I knew all the chords but not all tehe words to "Ziggy Stardust" and "Rebel Rebel". Acoustics are so easy to pick up and do things with, although my electronic keybord is quite easy too, but I'm not as dextrous on that as guitar but I can still make some noise with it.

My son in law mark soldered together a synthesiser kit I got for Christmas, he is very impresive with sort of anything mechanical, electronic or computer based, but while the synthesiser is less capable that a Stylophone it is great fun to play with now that it's working.

Cynthia Size A was the name give to Hi T Moonweed's (Tim Blake) synthesiser of Gong's "Flying Teapot album just in case you were wondering where I stole that from.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #1 - Man In The Hills - Burning Spear

I'm quite surprised this is the first time I have mentioned Burning Spear on this blog.

My friend Denis Jackman nominated me to post #TenAlbumsInTenDays on Facebook. This is just ten albums that you still play, and to be quite honest good music should stay with you. Since starting walking and and especially since getting my Emopeak headphones I have been listening to a hell of a lot of music as it usually takes me forty minutes to an hour to walk to work which is time to listen to an album.

I'm not sure when I picked up on this, it was definitely early eighties and I think I got it from Rumbelows near Matthew Street in Liverpool when I was working an Littlewood. I may have heard him on John Peel or may have just liked the cover of the album, I was already into reggae from the sixties skinhead ska and then Bob Marley and Lee Perry, but when I put this album on it grabbed me from the first song (which is the title song).

The thing is if you buy the CD  you can get one that has "Dry and Heavy" also included, but I do enjoy playing ska and reggae on vinyl with the bass turned up. One you put a vinyl album on you tend to enjoy it more because the inherent push button laziness in us all makes us listen to the whole side before we turn the thing over or switch it off.

Tomorrow is Record Store Day so I will be out in Newcastle seeing what is available and seeing bands an whatever. Given the good weather it looks like a good weekend.

Have a great one

Copping Out With Lee Perry - #ALifeInNumbers #31

This is the first real cop out and there will be a few more before the end. It's 2 am and I have woken up with a horrible raspy dry cough, so what do I do? I make some milky hot chocolate and write a blog post. I normally post on a Friday but yesterday I was tired in the morning after going to see GOAT and Josefin Öhrn the night before which I will write up on Spoongig here and that should appear over the weekend.

Anyway the copy out is that I can't find a "31" song so the best I can do is "3 In 1" by Lee Perry and The Upsetters (or The Heptones according to the Amazon listing) and Dave Wright may point it out that this is a total cop out , but it's my blog, my sequence and my rules and I need to get back to bed. It's also an excuse to get Lee Perry in here so that's fine by me,  I'm just glad I'm not reduced to  X-Factor trash , although they tend to exclusively cover other people's stuff anyway so I would always have the original to fall back on.

Anyway enjoy this and by the time you read this I will probably be tucked up in bed. Have a great Saturday my wonderful friends.

There Goes August - Here Comes September

Another day gone and lots to look forward. to. We are having some amazing weather at the moment, and there are lots of amazing events coming up in the area such as Monty Python's Holy Grail being shown at St Nicholas' Cathedral , we've had Lee Perry, Primal Scream and the Tall Ships at Blyth

Without thinking I picked up my guitar and played Rebel, Rebel and People Get Ready. Given that I've not played the former for years and latter for months I was quite surprised how naturally it came, that must be what a real musician feels like. Soon after that I saw an ad on Amazon for the soundtrack to Nicholas Roeg's film "The Man Who Fell To Earth"  featuring David Bowie which was never released at the time. The thing is it features Stomu Yamash'ta fairly heavily and I've just been listening to Floating Music.

So in what I have just written about there are lots of cross references and tangential connections. Anyway that soundtrack will soon be joining my collection I think.

So I know this is a short post but have a brilliant day , enjoy yourself and just have a totally great time.

Fallen

5:15

The worst thing about waking up 45 minutes before your alarm goes off is that you know that by the time you get back to sleep the alarm is going to go off. The other option is to get up, but if you're tired you really want to enjoy your bed and warmth of being wrapped in your duvet. But it's Tuesday morning and you have to get up to get to work.

If you wake up earlier it's worth going back to sleep, but not at 5:15. It does give you a bit of extra day to play with and if I'm tired tonight I can always go to bed a bit earlier.

I'm looking out of the window and it's been raining, which means the lawn doesn't need watering, in fact it is looking very green.

Self Portrait

We have the August Bank Holiday coming up and maybe I'll track down some music event to attend, even though I've missed every one so far this year. Lee Perry is playing Think Tank this Sunday and with Monday off that is a definite possibility.

I saw him at the Riverside and that was just an amazing experience, so that's an excuse to do it again.







Really this post is just a slight moan about waking up too early , but is an excuses to play The Who's 5.15 from their seminal Quadrophenia album and I am currently reading Pete Townshend's autobiography "Who I Am" so again I suppose that's me going off on tangents and finding connections between disparate things which links in to my admiration for lateral thinking.

Anyway it's Tuesday morning, so have a brilliant day everyone.

Legendary Times

Not quite yet

Well the last few months have been amazing and the next few weeks are likely to be just as good. Have been catching up with friends, started an excellent new job with some great people in an excellent location, been involved with an amazing start up GeekTalent , done a small amount of volunteer work for Oxfam, taken part in Record Store Day and World Book Night, seen two total music legends, George Clinton and Lee Perry in accessible settings and Preston North End are within a win of returning to the Championship. Joe Garner winning League One Player of the year , and despite having a lengthy layoff still managing to finish as probably the league's top scorer. Here's that goal from last season's playoff defeat , but it is amazing:


So that's what's been happening, this week is more work , and more music with Public Service Broadcasting , Jordan Reyne next month Black Grape as well, with a possibility of fitting in the Fall. I'm just so lucky to be living in Newcastle with all this amazing stuff going on. Oh and there's going to be Summertyne , The Mouth Of Tyne Festival , Corbridge Festival, the Newcastle Unity Festival and The Green Festival, it is looking like an exciting summer.

It kicks off with a half eight hospital visit tomorrow morning which should be just routine stuff. Also lots of garden stuff to do , a new website to design and put live , and to record some songs I've half written (initial ideas recorded to phone now sitting on my PC)  when I finally get my set up running though may just go for recording to system microphone.

So basically it's now time for bed. Enjoy the rest of your weekend , I certainly will. I've include John Cale's Bamboo Floor because it makes me happy , with suitably dark lyrics.