Seventies Copendium

A fifth of the way through "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and we are into the 1970s, with Alice Cooper, Be Bop Deluxe and a 20-page sequence on the Blue Öyster Cult. This is all music that I am familiar with but think it will be a while before I am finished with this.

The book itself is printed on very thick paper so it is a fairly hefty tome.

I recently discovered that my American Amazon Author page has a feed from this blog which you can see here. It only shows on the .com site but not on others. C'est La Vie.

The music is "Hot Rails To Hell" by The Blue Öyster Cult

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. Barter Books - An Amazing Bookshop In A Railway Station In Alnwick
2. The Plagiaristic Poetry Series - Poems Taken From Random-Themed Lines
3. Another Raven - A Take On Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven"
4. The Cleaner - An Autism-Focused Christmas Special
5. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
6. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
7. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
8. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer and this is her Instagram

A Play(List) For Today

Thanks to Sky Comedy I am working my way through Veep and 30 Rock. 30 Rock is not on demand and is broadcasting three episodes a day, which I am trying to keep up with, and am now just two episodes in arrears after watching four of five episodes a day for the last few days. It is an easy watch , and the episodes are short as well as being on the nail funny, but am I watching too much TV?

I'm also going through Lucifer and Picard on Amazon Prime as well as having two Clive Barker books on the go, sio am I doing to much being entertained rather than actually doing stuff?

Also today I went to a local supermarket who's shelves were being cleared by panic buyers and the queues at the tills were backed up with huge loaded trolleys, I laughed , walked out , and went to a smaller local shop, got what I needed and came home. Most of this is fuelled by a lying media and a government that is only bothered about lining pockets of the already wealthy, but c'est la vie , what do I know.

After my earlier post I thought I could list a few songs relevant to our current situation, though it's still not that long when you had to put together a tape in real time rather than a playlist. All the songs link to a Youtube video for you to watch and listen to.

So here we go:

• Panic in the World - Be Bop Deluxe
• Spreading The Disease - Queensryche
• Isolation - John Lennon
• Panic - The Smiths
• Virus - Iron Maiden
• Splendid Isolation - Warren Zevon
• Virus - Bjork
• Shake The Disease - Depeche Mode
• Isolation - Joy Division
• Hot, Hot, Hot!!! - The Cure

I had to have something by The Cure in , didn't I? And from 30 Rock we have Alec Baldwin in a quartet singing on the underground.

Summer Rain

We're in the middle of summer and a week of rain is forecast. The good thing is that you don't need sprinklers and water plants and garden, but does mean you need to have some kind of rain protection although it's still very hot so a waterproof jacket or coat is not an option and umbrellas are often cumbersome.

I never thought I would wear a hat, but many years ago in a windy wet Whitby , someone suggested I spend £12 waterproof hat (which you can see here) and that was brilliant , it keeps you mostly dry , leaves both hands free, and stays om your head when it's windy, and generally when it's raining it's my preferred method of keeping dry.

After the mess of the leak in the extension not being addressed by the last lot of disappearing  fixers , the excellent and professional Responsive Roofing  came and looked and put a temporary fix up which kept us dry last night, now I'm just waiting for the estimate which will punch another big hole in my finances, but it has to be done, and they are great guys and happy knowing the will do a good job. The problem is we expect things to last forever and they don't.

So what do we go with this morning, maybe "Wonder Toys That Last Forever" an absolutely brilliant song from Bill Nelson's (one of Yorkshire's finest) Red Noise  (post Be Bop Deluxe) , yes it's very 1980's in it's production but it is a great song.

Enjoy your Saturday.

Thing about Yorkshire ...It's Big

Today I've driven about bit's of Yorkshire , visiting Rievaulx Terrace and Abbey before scurrying off to visit The Durham Ox at Crayke.

Rievaulx is a brilliant walk which includes woodland , sculptures , two impressive Temples at either end of the terrace, a wire horse in the middle and fighting wire hares at the end. Plus impressive views of the Abbey ruins all of which will eventually appear on my Picassa pages when I get home.. Here are some from a few years back.

Anyway was trying to think of a tune for today and it will be "Adventures in A Yorkshire Landscape" by Be Bop Deluxe featuring the genius of Bill Nelson. You can download it here. Enjoy:

Isn't Hindsight A Great Thing?

Just currently reading "The Olivetti Chronicles" a compilation of John Peel's articles over the years and came across on from 1975 . In it Paul Simon just makes up the numbers in a very bland American Top Ten , Bruce Springteen , is reponsible for some jolly type rock , but nothing to get excited ablout , Patti Smith is a pretentious poseuse (well she still is , but that has resulted in some cracking albums and music).

He also hopes that Queen , Thin Lizzy and Be Bop Deluxe will make stratospheric breakthoughs , and he couldnt have foreseen how successful Queen would go on to be , Thin Lizzy rock legends , and Be Bop Deluxe have left a respectable legacy with Bill Nelson still plying his trade.

I recommend the book to anyone who can read and has even the most cursory interest in music!!

Remastered Deluxe Derangement

Just checking the reissues this month and it seems that everyone is going overboard with 2 CD , DVD deluxe reissues of old albums. We've had the Beatles Remasters series , where the sound has been scrubbed up and CDs augmented with a documentary which is unfortunately in Quicktime format . Why they couldnt do it as DIVX so you can play it on your DVD player I dont know, Quicktime is part of the Apple Bloatware Empire.




I recently acquired "In The Court of The Crimson King" and "Red" by King Crimson which sound incredibly great on my basic 5.1 system. These are part of the King Crimson 40th Anniversary reissues:




While this is all very well these Deluxe Reissues seem to be becoming the norm rather than the exception, very often augmented by out takes which were deemed "not good enough" for the original release. So this poses the question - "Is this just andnother money grabbing exercise by the record companies?".




Probably , but it does give you the opportunity the hear stuff that would have been lost , and hopefully doesn't affect the production and promotion of new music , but I feel that shops and companies are more likely to push a Beatles reissue than a new record by , say , General Fiasco. And that's a bad thing!!

Adventures in A Yorkshire Landscape 2: Fire and Snow

The second installment of the holiday entry. We approached Oswaldkirk on a Friday night in the dark and fog , with ice on the roads , not helped by the fact that Sutton Bank on the A170 is a one in four hill (ie steep). The benefit of this is that during the day you can get some excellent views, though towards the end of the week anything but a main road was very dodgy for our renault Clio, seen below at the far end of our snowbound car park.

Once we were in Oswaldkirk we had an excellent meal in The Malt Shovel , and meant to get back there but weather and other commitments meant it will have to wait until our next holiday.

The short video below starts with the chimeniere (we have two in our garden and they are fantastic) outside the excellent Star Inn at Harome near Helmsley (A Michelin Star pub apparently , and the food is excellent). The place is run by Andrew Pern who's published a history of the restaurant cum cook book called "Black Pudding & Foie Gras" , available here.


The following section sees birds behind the Fox and Hounds in some village that I cant remember then a lot of snowscapes. The music is "Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape" by Bebop Deluxe from the album Axe Victim and can be downloaded here should you wish to purchase it!