Favourites You Didn't Know You Had

 At the weekend was talking about my favourite New Order songs and my top two I thought were "Temptation" and "Love Vigilantes". Fiona pointed me towards the Guardian's Top 30 New Order songs and I checked out "Your Silent Face" from "Power Corruption and Lies" which is absolutely beautiful, so that has joined my other two favourites , it's apparently a homage to Kraftwerk's "Europe Endless" which I will now have to check out.

When I was listening I thought the synth strings were familiar and think they were lifted for "Sunchyme" by Dario G , which also samples "Memory of a Free Festival" the closer from "Space Oddity" by David Bowie.

I am tempted to track down a 12" vinyl copy of "Your Silent Face" but it was not initially a single so that may be a no go (like "Love Vigilantes").

So a very very short post but I will share both songs with you so you can check them out.

Dreamworks - #AnimalAugust #6

Would this morning from a weird dream sequence. I was in an open plan office with my boss and team and someone started playing loud music but I was on a call . My boss suggested we move to an office (my normal response would be to tell whoever was making the noise to quieten down) , then I wanted a shower but couldn't because there was some guy in the shower bed (that is a bed that you had to sleep in before having a shower) so I couldn't and thought I will have to go home. The dream made no sense at all, although probably influenced by the fact that I listen to a lot of music while I am working from home. One of the things about the dream was to keep on going to get things done which I do normally anyway , but really it's Sunday afternoon , and the dream is almost completely gone from my memory.

This morning I tried to share an article on Facebook , but know I would probably be banned because it would not share the link without the Guardian image. The article is here and the image is not pornographic or offensive but Facebook's algorithms are dodgy to say the least. Her Instagram posts are here. The article's headline is :

"Instagram ‘censorship’ of black model's photo reignites claims of race bias #IwanttoseeNyome outcry after social media platform repeatedly removes pictures of Nyome Nicholas-Williams"

Now if this were a topless white man , nothing would be said.

TV is still providing a lot to watch though I have just finished "The IT Crowd" on All 4 and thought it was great , love the room with all the seventies technology like the 8-Track Sphere and the Sinclair Spectrum and Commodore Pet and the Altair 8000 (wasn't that a planet in "Forbidden Planet" ?

So to keep #AnimalAugust, on track I'm going with  "I Love My Dog" by Yusuf Islam as part of a live "greatest hits medley"  ,  when he originally released it he was Cat Stevens , and his is one of the box sets on my #MusicWhileYouWork list ("On The Road To Find Out") while I am working from home.

Do I Have To Cut My Hedge?

It's the last day of February, and it's misty and foogy and soon it'll be garden maintenance time. Half Man Half Biscuit are playing The Boiler Shop in Newcastle so that is one of my favourite bands playing at one of my favourite venues. It's similar to the excellent Wylam Brewery on Exhibition Park is being a very impressive building in a great location and a wonderful place for a gig.

At  The Wylam Brewery gig I was chatting with the guy selling the merchandise (got myself a 12" copy of "Dickie Davies' Eyes") and he told me how they nearly drove into the lake as the walk through Exhibition Park to the building is not exactly well lit.

Obviously the thought of having to trim my hedge coincides with the titel of the new album, which causes everyone who sees  and hears it varying degrees of mirth to eventual hysterical laughter. Whne I originally listened to the album I thought th einstruments were given too much prominence but on subsequent listens, it has just grown on me, and sort of encouraged to redelve back into the back catalogue and realise there are so many absolute gems from Nigel's pen that I have forgotten or completely missed.

You cannot finish listening to a Half Man Half Biscuit album and fail to have a smile on your face, and then want at least a little more. I was going to put a link on here re the genesis of Half Man Half Biscuit in The Guardian but when I did a google search it came back with this huge list. There is this on the lyric project page about half decent articles on the ban, so fill your boots and have a quick gander.

I'll just share "Everytime a Bell Rings" from the latest album (and you know the title) , now go and get your fvcking hedge cut !!

An Appreciation of Half Man Half Biscuit on National Album Day

I'm not a fan of National anything Day, and I'm sure Nigel Blackwell is of the same opinion, he did write "National Shite Day", the closer on "CSI Ambleside" . When people say "Oh I'm only into 80's or 90's" music , if you mention Half Man Half Biscuit they just gawp and go on about ABC or Duran Duran (both fine bands).

I cant't remember the first song of their's I heard , whether it was "Trumpton Riots" or "All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit", but the latter made me go out and buy their their first album, and I just loved "Dickie Davies Eyes" and was disturbed when they split after that hit number one in the Independant Charts.

There is a lot in the Guardian about the band and until I read this I didn't know Nigel did advert voice overs, the article is here but there are quite a few see here. This is the bit about how the first album came about.

"Their record label then, as now, is Probe Plus - as ramshackle and free-spirited an independent as one could find anywhere. Probe operates from the Liverpool home of its proprietor, Geoff Davies, whose rambling Sefton Park manse is cluttered with Biscuit ephemera. Some of HMHB's more celebrated merchandise includes collectors' item teatowels (Some Call It Godcore tour - six dates in eight weeks) and the almost unobtainable McIntyre, Treadmore & Davitt mugs. They are an unusual pop group. Blackwell is a most unusual fellow.

Davies vividly remembers him coming into the Probe shop with his demo tape. "I looked at the back of the cassette and it was full of things like The Len Ganley Stance and Venus In Flares. I said to him: 'If the songs are half as good as the titles, we'll do it.' I was listening to the tape with my partner that night as we drove home and neither of us could believe what we were hearing. The lyrics and the subjects were astonishing, and probably actionable - but I called Nige the next day to say that we'd do an album."

To Davies's astonishment, Blackwell turned up on his doorstep a couple of days later with the finished master tapes of the album. "He just said to me: 'This is it. I've done it. That'll be £40, please.'"

"I might've told him it was 40," concedes Blackwell, "but I think it was more like 30. We recorded at Vulcan Studios. They'd just got in this eight-track studio upstairs and Half Man Half Biscuit were the guinea pigs. We went in. We did it. We put it out." "

Their site here has a list of a lot of radio sessions , and the Brampton one contains the definitive version of "24 Hour Garage People" and a three way interview between Andy Kershaw, Geoff Davies and Nigel Blackwell, in which Andy describes them as England's premier folk band. These were available for free download but removed when people started selling them when John Peel passed on, but I do have copies of the sessions and if you want a copy please contact me.

I love their very black humour "Blood On The Quad" , social observation "Lord Hereford's Knob" and pure charm "What Is Chatteris" and they always leave you with a smile on your face.

The lyric project here allows you to read their lyrics and enjoy the sheer poetry of Nigel's penmanship.

If there's a record of their's missing from your collection today is a good day to fill that hole.

Have a good one.

The Art of Not Getting Up

Strange how when you stop trying to do things you suddenly have the ability to do it.
 I wanted to do fifty posts in August for #August50 but got nowhere near (I think I did about thirty), although to be honest the further behind I got , the more difficult it became to catch up. It's like riding a bike or remembering songs when you are playing live , as soon as you start thinking about it you fall off or forget what you are supposed to be doing. In September we're up to the 4th and this is my eight post already. I know that it will tail off but at this rate I could easily hit fifty for September.

Anyway after yesterday writing about how to get up easily, this morning I feel really tired. It is Monday, I do have to go to the Post Office to pick up a Nirvana box set, I have to go to work , and it's grey outside though not dark, and I was dreaming of being in bed at mid day listening to something on vinyl through a system with a decent thump for the bass subwoofer, then the alarm went off and I didn't want to get up.

I managed (mostly on autopilot) to shower and wash , read some of Jordan Ellenberg's "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" which is more about statistics and probabilities, and while interesting it's as far from what I consider maths as pilotting and airplane is from riding a bike, and that analogy probably shows how unintelligent I really am. I found a disted read on the Guardian site here if you would like a taste.

Anyway it's ten to seven so time to get myself into gear and maybe a little Nirvana to start the day, withem covering a song from one of my many favourite Bowie albums, "The Man Who Sold The World". Have a great  Monday, I managed to get up , now it's your turn.

Be My Valentine ... In Grey

Well Valentine's Day is here and the weather is very grey. It's doesn't matter where in the world you are the grey featureless skies with te promise of maybe some drizzle do not provide for the best inspiration.

"Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5^th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5^th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia."

There's a Wikipedia entry with more information here.

Today has also been chosen for the release of the film of "50 Shades of Grey"  in the UK in which a controlling  male abuses a young vulnerable female. The male actor is James Dornan (who played a controlling male who abused, raped and murdered young females in the BBC production "The Fall", do you think he may be getting typecast?)  and the girl he chooses is Dakota Johnson , daughter of Melanie Griffiths and grand daughter of Tip Hedren who suffered major avian abuse in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". I won't be going to the cinema to see the film , and apparently B&Q are preparing for an increase in demand for ropes , duct tape (what will rock bands do? oh they use gaffer tape so it's OK) , and cable ties which in the wrong hands could be very dangerous. This week Breakfast TV has been having features on  that make BDSM very cosy and fluffy. It isn't and , ironically somebody could get hurt (and I know that's ironic considering the nature of BDSM) and there a hell of a lot of free books on the subject on Amazon Kindle. They even have 50 Shades Restraint Kits and Party Games! 

50 Sheds

The marketing machine has even caused me to buy something that I can wholeheartedly recommend to all you and that is the excellent and very funny "50 Sheds of Grey" , the follow uphas also been recommended to me by my friend Julie , so I will avail myself of that at some point. So all this hype has at least brought a smile to my face and with pages like the one below you can see that it is a genuinely funny and slim volume that doesn't exactly take itself too seriously unlike it's source inspiration.

So thats my thoughts on the whole phenomenon, but the positives are that it is weekend , and remember you always have a choice.

Pain and Lego

Also according to The Guardian the B&Q run on duct tape was a PR Ruse which has been fairly successful. The article is here .

So enjoy yourself today , and don't get to tied up in things that dont matter, make sure you smile and laugh and have fun.

There's only one piece of music we han have and that's the Motorhead / Girlshool "St Valentines Day Massacre" EP leading off with "Please Don't Touch" and I'll bet there will be a lot of people using that line later on tonight. Have a brilliant day y'all.

Are We Just Renting ? Applespeak Strikes Again

A couple of issues with digital content here . Apple reckon that when you "buy" a download from them you are just renting it from them. Now 1 , unless they have bought the  said item from it's maker , composer , they are only licensees of the said item , taking their cut as a middleman . To illustrate a point you can either rent or download fims, so in Applespeak "buying" actually means just renting for a long time (see previous post here) . You can see the Bruce Willis situation here.

Amazon have done a similar thing , wiping a woman's Kindle for Kafkaesque unspecified account infringements (see Guardian article here) , and then mysterious restoring the said content , saying firsat that they are only renting the ebook out to you , despite saying you are actually buying the said item.

So for for all of thos infected buy Applespeak , here is what it means:

Buy  (b)
v. bought (bôt), buy·ing, buys
v.tr.
1. To acquire in exchange for money or its equivalent; purchase. See Regional Note at boughten.
2. To be capable of purchasing: "Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy" (Ogden Nash).
3. To acquire by sacrifice, exchange, or trade: wanted to buy love with gifts.
4. To bribe: tried to buy a judge.
5. Informal To accept the truth or feasibility of: The officer didn't buy my lame excuse for speeding.
v.intr.
To purchase something; act as a purchaser.
n.
1. Something bought or for sale; a purchase.
2. An act of purchasing: a drug buy.
3. Something that is underpriced; a bargain.
Phrasal Verbs:
buy into
1. To acquire a stake or interest in: bought into a risky real estate venture.
2. Informal To believe in, especially wholeheartedly or uncritically: couldn't buy into that brand of conservatism.
buy off
To bribe (an official, for example) in order to secure improper cooperation or gain exemption from a regulation or legal consequence.
buy out
To purchase the entire stock, business rights, or interests of.
buy up
To purchase all that is available of.

Right rant over , here's a song dedicated to Amazon and Apple: