Showing posts with label #August50. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #August50. Show all posts

Tuesday 26 November 2019

Temptation


Oscar Wilde famously said "I can resist anything but temptation" and I am definitely the same, and the latest one is that this is post 322, and another 44 posts means that for this year I will have averaged more than one post a day. While I hopefully put quality over quantity, I started the year slowly but it April I posted fifty times that's like four every three days, and in August 2018 I posted 54 times for my #August50 sequence, so although I have trashed a December sequence, I may come up with one because I don't think I'll get the chance to do this ever again because of may inherent extreme laziness. 44 posts in 35 days is most definitely doable, nut we shall see whether I do do it.

Reading "On Some Faraway Beach" by David Sheppard is difficult. The writing and subject matter is excellent but the text is so small and dense that when I look at it my my screams, well not quite screams but becomes avers to, but I start reading and then I want to keep reading. It's just each time I open the book the format tries to push me away. It mentions "Musique Concrète" and a precursor and influence on  some of Eno's output and this also is a perfect description for the effect the book seems to have on me. I was also surprised to find out that Brian Eno's surname is his family surname (though I knew of his brother Roger Eno) but it's a contraction of the word Huguenot so that's something else that I have learned.

I've decided to included "Deserts" by Edgar Varese which is mentioned as an example of Musique Concrète, it is challenging and in my opinion interesting, I'm listening to it as I finish this off. I do like pieces that grab my attention, but it would certainly clear the house at a party, but it's a piece I was unaware of til this morning and has piqued my mind to explore the genre further..

I would definitely give it a try but I know a lot of people will dismiss it as rubbish, but, in my opibion, the function of all art is to have an effect and this certainly does.

Monday 29 April 2019

Post 101 - When I First Heard Joe Strummer


I just realised that  this is post 101 this year and I can't let this go by without it's Joe Strummer and George Orwell connections. I've probably done this before (follow the related tags) but what the hell. I've now started to wonder whether I will hit 50 posts this month, it means three posts today and three tomorrow but the #AprilSongs sequence will account for two of those, and this will account for another one so it looks like I might almost match last years #August50 where I did 54 posts , but that is definitely going to stay as my highest number of monthly posts.

Anyway back to the point of this post, I first heard Joe Strummer singing the song "Keys To YOur Heart" with his band the 101ers when John Peel played it. It appeared on the excellent Chiswick Records which was similar to Stiff (when Indie meant Indie) in being independent and similar to Stiff featuring New Wave, Punk and Pub Rock with others in it's eclectic spread, but I bought the record straight away. While not as attack minded as The Clash it is still a great rock record.

The band took their name from George Orwell's "1984" where Room 101 was where you were subjected to your greatest fear. I remember that scaring me as a kid when I saw the fifties BBC adaptation with Peter Cushing (you can watch it here) with the rat cage helmet contraption.

So that is how I first got into the music of Joe Strummer.


Wednesday 6 February 2019

1812


This is post number 1812 and as such need to ibnclude the "1812 Overture (with Cannons)" by Tchaikovsky. Interestingly "Night of Fear" by The Move was based on the main "1812 Overture" riff.

It's almost a week since my last post and one of my #August50 posts came up in my feed where I did mange to post over 50 times in August 2018. I don't expect to do that this year, although I once saw a blog that had thousands on one line link posts each day. I am not too sure of what the point of that was.

I'm just back from another weekend in Whitby managing to scoff lots of fish and chips at the Magpie Cafe and picked up a pristine copy of Can's "Tago Mago" from the MIND charity shop. he album was also inspired by the occultist Aleister Crowley, which is reflected through the dark sound of the album as well as being named after Illa de Tagomago, an island which features in the Crowley legen, which was a surpise to me.

I was once listening to a compilation CD curated by John Lydon and walked in and was listening to something which I though was maybe a remix of The Stone Roses "Fool's Gold" , but it was, in fact "Halleluiah" by Can. I have seen numerous spellings but that's what it is on the vinyl album. I do have it on CD as well (40th Anniversary) but the vinyl copy is something well worth having, and, as I said, was a charity shop bargain.

There are a few places in Whitby to pick up Vinyl such as The Whitby Bookshop, but most places are aware of their worth.

So this is my first post in February, and we shall see how many I do this month. It's really just about noticing things and being bothered to write things down.


Thursday 18 October 2018

Octoberpost


This is intended to be a short post just to say I have equalled my record number of posts on this blog for a year and I still have just over two months of the year left.  It was helped by my #August50 sequence that was the first time I did fifty posts in a month , and I am sure I won't be doing that again any time soon.

As I'm writing this it's dark, fireworks are going off and dogs are barking. It should be illegal except on designated nights because it upsets and scares pets and it is nowhere near Guy Fawkes night or Bonfire Night whichever you want to call it or celebrate.

For some reasons Barclay James Harvest's "Octoberon" album came to mind, just for the title although I loved the cover I don't really know the album, but I do remember "Rock'n'Roll Star" being a single. They produced some great music but never really hit paydirt, though apparently they gave Harvest records it's name, and they had , among others, Pink Floyd on their roster.

I first got into them seeing them perform "Thank You" on  The Old Grey Whistle Test with its brilliant loping guitar riff and I've alwys enjoyed their music though they are not the top of my playlists.

Well my next post will set a new record, so I am sure that will happen before October fades away .....



Saturday 1 September 2018

I Know


We're now into September and I won't be posting as much as I was for #August50, I actually posted 54 times last month, almost two a day, but for some reason the song "I Know" by Gary Wright's Wonderwheel came to mind when I was making coffee this morning. This is a song that has stuck with me since 1972 when it came out though for some reason I didn't buy it at the time.

Gary Wright was a member of Spooky Tooth and at some point parted ways to form Wonerwheel, and later found solo success with the excellent "Dream Weaver" which you will have heard unless you musical diet is X-Factor, Local Radio and Britain's Got Talent.

I found a live take of this which looks VERY 1970s but it is still a fine song for inclusion in #SongsYouveNeverHeard.  Although as I'm writing this the title track of the Arctic Monkeys' album "Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino" is drawing to a close and when I first heard it I wasn't too sure but now I think it is. The benefits of listening to Mary Ann Hobbs on 6Music. Recently I was surprised to find out her age and the fact that she is married to Miles Hunt of The Wonderstuff!

The spell checker has just suggested Tranquility should be spelt Tranquillity, that is strange or maybe not.

It's the first day of September, Autumn starts here, and the grey skies are clearing so the weekend is looking good.


Friday 31 August 2018

Fire On High


I first heard this as the 'B' Side of "Livin' Thing" . It is the opening track to the great Electric Light Orchestra album "Face the Music". I remember being impressed by the Electric chair cover, although the album was anything but grim.

It's actually quite a monstrous sound and shows fun, ingenuity and brilliance that seemed to desert the band in later years producing insipid pap such as "Mr Blue Sky" and "Xanadu".

ELO did produce my second favourite album ever "Eldorado"  and this song was the opener from the follow up "Face The Music" which contained some excellent blue eyed soul as well as this over the top sound storm. It is another one for the #SongsYouveNeverHeard sequence although it may one that you have forgotten.

The ELO were formed to continue where the Beatles finished with "Strawberry Fields" but when Roy Wood left it did become Jeff Lynne's vehicle.

So this is my last post for August 2018, and it is time to hit my bed now.

Enjoy this.

Tuesday 28 August 2018

Seventeen Hundred


I thought I would post this just to hit seventeen hundred posts since I started posting, breaking the #August50 target, and sharing another #SongsYouveNeverHeard to make it worth reading and listening to.

There is a hell of a lot of great Antipodean music and my favourite band from down under are The Saints, but I also love Split Enz, Crowded House and Midnight Oil. I completely missed out on AC/DC in my teens / early twenties but they are a perfect example of how to last while staying exactly the same. Similar to the UK's Status Quo who really lost it when they tried to change their twelve bar sound, although my favourite two Qho songs are "Mystery Song" and "Accident Prone" which do deviate slightly from their normal formula.

The #SongsYouveNeverHeard that I am going to share with you is the excellent "S'cool Days" by Stanley Frank which was backed by the equally excellent "On A Line", one of those perfect singles like The Beatles "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain". All I know about Stanley Frank is that he is Australian (I think ... and yes I know how silly that sounds) and that is about it.

Another for you to enjoy.



Fifty Up


This is my fiftieth post this month. I suppose the quality of a lot of these posts has not been up to my usual standard, though that's not very high anyway. I know a lot of my friends read the posts but find it odd and virtually no one leaves any comments . positive or negative on the blog, although my friend Julie leaves a lot on Facebook.

Still the main point of this blog is to keep a diary and store memories for myself, it is a fairly selfish endeavour and therefore by extension is fairly selfish to expect people to leave comments. Life does take it's toll and even leaving a short comment can sometimes take a lot longer than you think it will.

When I share these posts on Facebook (where most of my interactions come from) I tend to give a short resumé of wat's in the post, I don't know if that puts people off.

Given that each post will be around 200-250 words this month has seen me put down 10K-12K which is enough for a short novel, although this will be short on interesting narrative but high on  interesting music content.

I am wondering if I can hit 300 posts this year, which should only require twenty posts a month, which is obviously more than feasible given that that has been my lowest monthly total this month (in June) and this is post 221 this year.

My next project will be #SongsYouveNeverHeard which I will start with this post and continue til the end of September, I would love you to leave a comment letting me know if you have heard the song, if you like it and any other thing you like.

So how do we start this .. Earle Mankey's "Mau Mau" which I heard once on John Peel and then never again. I tracked down a vinyl copy on Ebay about fifteen years back, and still love the record. I wrote about it here, and also created a Youtube slideshow featuring among other thing my dog as a teenager Simba and my first dog when I left home Jasper.

Earle Makey was a guitarist with Sparks but that about as much as I know about him. Also don't you think Russel Mael looks like Freddie Mercury on the cover of "A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing" ? Enjoy.


Bath


Elizabeth the First reputably said she took a bath once a year, whether she needed it or not. I am probably in the same boat, although I do shower at least once a day, whether I need to or not. I don't know why that came into my mind as I showered this morning, although there are times when you are out and you are thinking there are people who who subscribe to the Elizabeth the First model.

Today is the first day back at work, for a four day week for the last week in August. The weather is decidedly Autumnal, Summer is drifting away as it always does, but that's the nature of time and the seasons.

I was thinking of titling a post "Farewell, Adieu, Goodbye, See You Later ...." thinking of all the ways you can say goodbye for no particular reason.

This is post 49 in the #Autumn50 sequence and I think that is really the maximum I could set myself for the month. I will probably do more than 50 but I won't be trying to do this many again. As I say I've seen blogs that do hundreds of posts a day which are basically links to other sites, and I have many friends who started to blog and then gave up, and have one or two friends who post when they feel like it, which is the best way to write.

Oh I've hit my walking target for the month, when I expected it to be difficult, but when you expect things to be difficult you often put in extra effort to ensure that you will meet your target and often hit it with time to spare giving you time to relax when you have hit your target.

Again, for no apparent reason, I will share "Toxygene" by The Orb with you, have a great Tuesday.

Monday 27 August 2018

... And There Is More


Another lazy day and I have an idea for next months vague blog theme, music that only I, amongst the people I know, have heard. The title is taken for "International Feel" the opener and closer to side one of Todd Rundgren's "A Wizard, A True Star" album which I wrote about a while back here

Todd Rundgren was responsible for the sound on Meatloaf's "Bat Out Of Hell" album as well as a lot more, including his own prodigious output. I found this video and love the number plate reference to another of Todd's albums.

I have been enjoying 6Music's Trojan 50th anniversary celebration and there is a very nice looking picture disc available, but for me the song selection doesn't really do it justice, maybe I should get a slipmat. Note that is my opinion of the songs, others may disagree with me but "Everything I Own" by Ken Boothe and "Help Me Make It Through The Night" by John Holt are hardly essential especially when you have gems such as "Ali Baba" to pick from.

So I'm going to probably watch "World War Z" (that's Zed not Zee) tonight, the first twenty minutes looks excellent.

Time for tea.

Sunday 26 August 2018

Darkness Falls


Nothing bad, but it is getting dark well early now. Today was grey and the central heating is switching it on and we're starting to feel the chill and the temperature dips short of the 20s we've been used to.

It is unusual when where you are expecting light and vision, there is now dark and blackness, lit by street lights and the odd car driving by.

It is only nine o'clock now but I am going to take the opportunity to get some more sleep and more importantly rest. I need to do nine thousand more steps to hit my target for the month so I have no pressure to do a lot of walking this week. I can lie in a little longer and take the bus to work, although I do like walking in and meeting up with the cows on Nunsmoor or seeing the CHAT Trust Phoenix.

Although it's Trojan's fiftieth I was thinking it's a bit late really considering the development of ska and reggae that began in the 1950s , and I was also thinking that Island was just as important, but reading the history here I found that Island launched Trojan so that explains that little mystery.

The first Trojan number one in the UK was "Double Barrel" by Dave & Ansel Collins around 1971, which was the first single my brother bought, and I also saw them perform at Greys Monument six years ago, I put three songs up here.

So I'll share a  full version  soundtracking James Bond dealing with various ne'er-do-wells with you before I go to bed.


Walking Through Treacle (Again)


Although I don't really have to do many steps, today has been difficult, feeling like I'm walking through treacle. I don't feel bad in myself but it's just that having to walk any distance I feel I am pushing against something, like wading through treacle.

Also I'm coming to the conclusion that Firefox is becoming very slow to becoming almost unusable. Microsoft Edge is definitely unusable and Internet Explorer is not very good either. At the moment Chrome seems to be the most reliable browser.

It has been raining but today has been made enjoyable by the amount of ska and reggae being played to celebrate Trojan's 50th anniversary, but I didn't realise that many of the Trojan singles were "enhanced" strings for the UK market, a prime example being Nicky Thomas' "Love of The Common People", although the youth of the time rebelled against this touching up preferring the original raw sound. I've included both so you can hear what they did.

Enjoy both.


Obediah


One of the lowlife characters from the excellent "Fourteen Letters" that I am reading at the moment. It starts of like a full on train, then I thouht it was going to get boring, having a Victorian timeframe setting, but no it just through a lot of connected threads into the pot and every so often you get those "Aaahhh" moments. I will definitely seeing this one through to the end.

This is now my highest posting month, and I don't think I will do it again once I've hit #August50 as you can't always think of something to write about, although in this amazing world there should always be something that you can put down a few words about, although you do sometimes hit a mental brick wall.

We're on the middle day of the Bank Holiday and I have some very mundane shopping today and also a few basic chores to do, but the main thing is I am getting some rest while still exercisng my mental faculties.

6Music are doing a feature on Trojan Records to celebrate it's 50th anniversay here. The real conundrum about sixties ska which was the music of Jamaican and Windrush Immigrants is that it was also the msuic taken up by racist skinheads which was a real mystery although it was very working class / classless music so maybe that was the attraction. It was also prevalent on fairgrounds as well , as I remember from my short time working on one.
Slade Looking Hard

So maybe we will go for Symarip's "Skinhead Moonstomp" one of the many songs on my huge Trojan Box Set collection. I don't know if you know but Slade (as Ambrose Slade and early on) were a skinhead band so I enclose a picture, with Mr Holder looking very threatening on the right.

Enjoy your Sunday people.

Friday 24 August 2018

Red Sky


This morning looked out the back and the sky was a definite shade of red and deep pink. Made me think of of the "Red Sky in th emorning, Shepherds Warning" , although the sky outside looks sunny and blue with wisps of fluffy clouds.

Musically Jimi Hendrix's "House Burning Down" - "Look at the Sky Turn a Hell Fire Red" sprang to mind as well as U2's "Under A Blood Red Sky" which was the first U2 album I really liked all the way through paving the way for "The Unforgettable Fire" which was their first studio album to show what they could really do.

The 22nd was my sister Yvonne's birthday but for some reason I didn't make a blog post, which given that I am trying to hit #August50 gives me another one to catch up, but this is my 43rd post this month which equals the number of post I did in October 2015 when I did my #ALifeInNumbers sequence which was a sequence of fifty nine songs for my fifty nine years in which the sequence number appeared in the song.

Hendrix music is very sparse on Youtube but this Randy Hansen tribute is rather impressive.

It's the Friday before the Bank Holiday, have a brilliant day everybody.


Thursday 23 August 2018

Being Lazy


Due to one thing and another I expected today to be the first day in a very long while that I stepped into the office having walked less than a thousand steps. It turned out I had done 1500 steps, still not a lot but more than I had expected. I am 50K steps ahead of my target for this month so there is very little pressure to up my game for this.

Weather is grey and rainy so not the most uplifting of days.

The thing is I hadn't realised that this weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend, so we have a long weekend which causes a short week next week.

On the subject of apathy and laziness I am feeling so tired and wanting to just sleep that I am not sure if I can even complete this post. I will do, but  it is difficult to actually just write about nothing when your mind and body are not firing on all cylinders as you need it to.

Tomorrow I have a physiotherapy session for my left arm, which hopefully will aid me, although to be quite honest while my arm is sore and weak, it is improving. That reminds of Rick Allen drummer with Def Leppard who lost his arm in a motor accident when his safety belt was improperly fastened. One of the things he said was he didn't realise how heavy his arm was and took a while to come to terms with only having one are.

I think that we all don't realise how much strength and energy we need to put our arm out for a bus.

There, I've managed to finish this and also weave Def Leppard into it and feature "Overture" from the first EP which I bought from a bargain bin in WH Smiths in Liverpool. I remember John Peel played it to death and then the band complained and said he never played them, John Peel was where I first heard them, and I am sure a lot of other people nationally.


One Word Poem


The last couple of mornings I've drifted awake at about five and thought I'll reset the alarm for seven and have a lie in. My body and my mind are fine with this, but there is something else, a nagging presence that keeps telling me I may as well get up, lying in be is just wasting tine.

I just thought that the noun / adjective derived from the verb to lie is lying. I suppose lieing or liing would possibly be a bit strange, but that's the nature of the disparities the English language. On that one of thos mad concepts came in to my mind, a "One Word Poem". How impossible is that, although I am sure someone has presented it as a valid piece.

Obviously One word rhymes with itself and has the same number of syllables as itself, and maybe you could have a poem made of words that are spelt the same but sound different, for instance:

"Wind
Wind"

or

"Read
Read"

Then you could have a list of words that sound the same that are spelt differently

"Wind
Wined
Whined"

or

"Read
Red"

Just a few linguistic mind wanderings before I finish my coffe and take off for work. It's Thursday and it's a good day.

Maybe an appropriate song is Bowie's "Eight Line Poem" from "Hunky Dory".It is amazing how Bowie still manages to influence us and make us think, an amazing man.


Monday 20 August 2018

A Quiet Walk


This morning the first half of my walk to work was done without headphones, so it was effectively quiet , just the sounds of nature and the traffic. It is sometimes nice to just have the non silence, although I always eventually need to listen, but more of that later.

I was in Bradley's on Saturday and mentioned and showed them pictures of the CHAT Trust Phoenicx which I decided to route my walk past this morning as you can see here. This was after noticing the excellent notices on the four doors of Dabbawal in High Bridge on Sunday here.

It always gives me a lift to see witty and funny and original window decoration, and this definitely falls into that category.

This post is about harlf the length of the posts I normally do, but when I add this bit and then talk about what piece of music I am going to share it will suddenly self expand and I will have hit my normal 250 word target.

Maybe we can go with the Happy Mondoy's cover of John Kongos' "He's Gnna Step on You Again" (a favourite of my dad's) which the slowed down, baggied up and retitled as "Step On".

Time To Turn The Hourglass


It's Monday Morning, which is nicely alliterative, but it is time to get off to work. The temptation is to get the bus.

Skies are grey, the trees are still green but Autumn is coming and Summer is slipping away, but this mean we get the beautiful colour changes in leaves and bushes.

Given that I have been continuing with th ehourglass analogy (and yes turn it hover and we have a full hourglass of fun time for the week, I am going to choose "Hourglass" by Squeeze, although reminds me of the first ever Squeeze song I heard, the amazing "Take Me I'm Yours" which I think was on the "No Wave" compilation (though I may be wrong about that>

Anyway this is a short post to keep me on track for #August5, it is Monday Morning so have a wonderful day everyone.


Sunday 19 August 2018

The Eighty Minute Hour


It is sort of strange and amusing how when the weekend starts petering out that time seems to go so musch faster. It's basically the fact that on Friday night after the Friday afternoon where the clocks seeme dto stop and hours stretched out to seem like eighty minutes or longer despite the fact you were doing so much and seemingly becoming unbelievably productive.

Then when you get out you have the whole weekend , and full hourglass of being able to take it easy and do as you please. Then at nine o' clock on Sunday night the sixty four hours of pleasure time you had are reduced to eleven hours and seven of thoses you will hopefully be sleeping.

It's like when you are trying to meet a tight deadline (although with devcnt planning you can always meet deadlines as long as everyone does their job and there are no surprises or unexpected hitches).

I've borrowed the title from Brian Aldiss' excellent story which is a wickedly simple concept and I suggest you investigate it further, and you may soon believe it is actually happening.

I always illustrate why time seems to get faster by this concept:

When you are six, you get six weeks summer holiday from school. That seems like forever, a week for every year of your life. To get the same effect now I would need a sixt week summer holiday to see a break as unbelievabley wrong, but we get four weeks a year and I never take more than a week at a time because I don't want endless weeks at work without a break.

Sorry if this is a bit of a downer, it's not meant to be so I'll leave you with "Time Capives" from "Journey by Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, a wonderful band who were one of the first to you the Bentley Rhythm Ace Drum Machine which once went on a fifteen minute drum solo that they couldn't stop. Ah when things were mechanical in the pre digital age.

Sleep well.

Friday 17 August 2018

Friday Morning


I was thinking August would be difficult to keep up my steps because of my Liver Biopsy at the start of the month, but surprisingly that's not actually been an issue hitting 20K steps on a couple of days and sitting with a 30K step surplus and close of play yesterday.

I was also thinking that #August50 was an impossible target but after this post I only need to post 18 more entries before the end of the month and we still have two weeks to go, so that's nine posts in each of the next two weeks which is more than doable (is that a word? and how many times have I asked that question).

The problem with doing an hour's walk it that it takes an hour of your time and  to hit my 11K a day that does take two hours and i often think that could be better spent doing someting else.

On my walk to work I am always looking for photo opportunities and vary my routes, but always in the direction of work (essentially Newcastle City Centre) from home. I seldom deviate from this direction except when I have to pick someting up from the Post Office, and to be quite honest I prefer traversing parkland to urban areas.

Walking is a simple form of exercise and anyone can do it and make it interesting. I always found gyms soul destroying but others swear by them, but it's different strokes for different folks.

Today on my walk in I kept with Mike Nesmith and listened to "Tropical Campfires" for the first time, and though it covers some standards such as "Brazil" and "Begin the Beguine" more than adequately the original stuff is excellent, I particularly liked the instrumental "One". Specific late period Mike Nesmith songs are difficult to find on Youtube (ie they are not there) but I found this full concert from 2012 at Union Chapel for your enjoyment, which includes a few songs from "The Prison"

While it is grey , it is Friday and we have a wonderful weekend to look forawd to. Enjoy