Copendium Completed With More PostPunkSampler

That's it, "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope is done. I thought PostPunkSampler was the finale but there is a PostPunkSampler2 and there are a few bands I know in that 26 extra songs but they are all part of my collection so it is an excuse to include "Ambition" from Vic Goddard's Subway Sect.

Next up is "Creation Stories" by Alan McGee (that's the record label, not religion or history)

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book is printed on 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 "Ambition" by Subway Sect

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

 

Copendium PostPunkSampler

Almost through "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope. The DanskRockSampler only contained one band I had heard of Burnin' Red Ivanhoe but PostPunkSampler has a few more including Jane Aire and The Belvederes.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book is printed on 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 "Yankee Wheels" by Jane Aire and the Belvederes

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

 

Copendium GlamRockSampler

 

Enjoying the Samplers section of "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and we are into the third one which has twenty four tracks featuring The Move, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Kiss, and a few other familiar (to me) names.

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book and no doubt it will be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book is printed on 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 "King Of The Rumbling Spires" by Tyrannosaurus Rex

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

Copendium HardRockSampler

Into the last hundred pages of "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and the album reviews finished in 2010 and so far have caused me to buy three of them. Now it is a few chapters of samplers with singles from various genres the second being twenty three tracks from HardRockSampler featuring Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, Budgie, Kiss, Love and a few other familiar (to me) names. It also includes one of my favourite Thin Lizzy song, and possibly one of the greatest ever chord riffs, "The Rocker".

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book and no doubt it will be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book 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 The Rocker by Thin Lizzy

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

 

Copendium DetroitRockSampler

Into the last hundred pages of "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and the album reviews finished in 2010 and so far have caused me to buy three of them. Now it is a few chapters of samplers with singles from various genres the first being twenty eight singles from DetroitRockSampler featuring MC5, Grand Funk Railroad and a few other familiar (to me) names.

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book, and no doubt it will be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book 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 House of the Rising Sun by Frijid Pink

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

Copendium, The UFO / Throbbing Gristle Connection

Four hundred and sixty pages through "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and a little snippet when in the chapter about the album "At Last" by The Heads that the naked couple on the cover of "Force It" (a play on the American word for tap, faucet) by UFO were Genesis P. Orridge and Cosi Fan Tutti from Throbbing Gristle.

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book, and no doubt it will be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book 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 "Let It Roll" from "Force It" by UFO

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

Copendium Millenium

Four hundred and thirty pages through "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and we are finally into this Millenium. It is the final decade in this book that goes up to 2010, I have bought three albums so far based on what I have read. I wrote about it in this Vocal Post

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book, and it will be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book 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 "The Way Down" by Comets On Fire

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

Copendium Ninety

Four Hundred pages through "Copendium" the 700-page treatise on music by Julian Cope, and and am well into the nineties now. I've included a video from The Tight Bros From Way Back When and Australian band I have never heard of.

It looks like the Facebook problem was the meta redirect to Amazon, but you can just follow the link and if you hang around it will take you to Vocal.

Since the blog became about the books I am reading, this has been the most commented book, and it is now more than halfway through but won't be finished this month.

Cope's writing at times goes absolutely but entertainingly mad by describing one band by roping in three, four or five others. 

"It's Donovan being Nick Drake singing 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' down a storm drain, as recorded as an out-take from the more outré moments on Nico's Chelsea Girls. Got me?" 

The book 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 Hurricane  by Tight Bros From Way Back When

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

 

Hazy

Since the weekend the sky has been a uniform grey with mist almost to ground level. This has burned off for the last two afternoons revealing sunny blue skies, but my phone's weather app showed an icon that looks like waves , so I was thinking Tsunami? Flood? ... apparently it actually means hazy so that means I can rest a little more safely.

It's now after work and the sky is still grey. I will go out for a walk and visit a local Roman Temple, the weather is at least conducive to walking which is good. I've managed to keep my steps up this month.

Today I opened a pack of toilet rolls that I bought when lockdown started and everyone was panic buying, throughout this lockdown I have never gone short of anything , I noticed shops that have sold out but always found alternatives close by, while a lot of people I know were telling me how impossible it was to get things. The irony being they all own cars so in theory can go anywhere , whereas I rely on public transport and shanks pony.

Although my CD is slowly shrinking via my Discogs store I will be buying the new Nadine Shah album "Kitchen Sink" , here music is like nothing else , all the instruments are so percussive and she is one of the few artists who I have a complete collection of. I am also going to download the 40th anniversary version of "Two Sevens Clash" by Culture, I have the original in digital format so will do the same for the anniversary edition.

As this is named Hazy I will share "Hazy Jane" by Nick Drake.

#AprilSongs #21 Sunday

You can't search for music about and Easter day without bringing back nothing but hymns and worship songs, which I mentioned in my Good Friday post. This time I have gone for a Nick Drake instrumental, "Sunday" the closing piece from "Bryter Later" for the #AprilSongs sequence. The opening flute made me think of the spooky sixties "Wicker Man" folk but actually this turns into a lovely listenable piece.

This is the day after I have started a seven day ban on Facebook, for sharing a picture FROM facebook , which is still there and you can see here which is basically mens bum cheeks decorated as Easter Eggs. The thing is it's a link to a site and the linking site posts the pictures. This has happened to me before when I posted an IMDB link to the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" . The film itself features nudity but the DVD cover picture, if you really zoom in has the suggestion of a female nipple underwater. Follow the link and see for yourself.

The problem is this is just a Kafkaesque situation and if you are a member of club then you abide by the rules but when those rules are applied arbitrarily without warning then that becomes annoying . I see a lot of  shall we say more explicit pictures than those I have been banned for, and of course racism and right wing hate and political lies are fine, freedom of speech and all that. So for a week I can't like, share or use messenger, without any dialogue or explanation from Facebook.

So anyway, it's another lovely day, enjoy your Easter Eggs and Easter Sunday.

The Best Record Ever?

We are always seeing polls about the greatest record, album , song , gig ever and people often ask me what was my favourite bit of some performance. My answer is almost always that I can't give an answer. I have a lot of  artists that I like and a lot of albums that I enjoy listening to over and over again but I am always open to new ideas. Having said that if you were to posit that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was the finest piece every written I wouldn't argue against that.

I'm a great fan of Bob Dylan , Van Morrison , Tom Waits , Nick Drake and then I like Yes , Pink Floyd , Pop Will Eat Itself and Genesis . The list is very very long. I love Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" but while probably "1983" is my favourite song , his take on "All Along The Watchtower" would be my favourite single of choice because it combines Hendrix's voice and playing with some excellent Dylan lyrics. The thing is "Elect Ladyland"'s predecessors are both amazing albums as well.

So I've hardly started and there is so much I could say. My favourite album of all time is Spirit's "Future Games" followed by "El Dorado" by the Electric Light Orchestra. "Future" Games" also contains a Spirit take on "All Along The Watchtower".

Going back to Dylan maybe "Lily,Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts" is by favourite song and is from "Blood on the Tracks" but then songs like "Desolation Row" and "Tempest" are wonderful (and long) songs.

I am also a fan of keeping it simple, and while it's amazing to play a million notes a second, if you can make one note interesting, then that is true genius. The Coasters' "I'm A Hog For You Baby" and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash both contain one note guitar solos. Added to this songs that just contain one or two chords mean that anyone can play them m Van Morrison wrote "Gloria" and Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" gets away with two chords.

I was writing this as an excuse to share The Avalanches "Frontier Psychiatrist" a totally dumbfounding patchwork of samples that solicitors gave up trying to sue for. Is is comedy ? Is it pop? I haven't a clue but it sounds amazing and the video is wonderful too, another example of musical genius and while it is a favourite of mine I really still can't tell you what my favourite is.

Red

I missed the Lunar eclipse and can't understand why it's listed as a "Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse" , yes because it's red "Blood" but why include the word "Wolf" in there? It seems a pointless addition like when mobile and broadband companies describe speeds of Super Ultra Mega Fast, it's either fast or not. TV manufacturers and broadcasters do the same with picture quality with Ultra and Super HD. Pointless extra adjectives.

There were some amazing red skies this morning, examples on my instagram channel here. I don't know if that was caused by the Lunar Eclipse.There are lots of explanationa on line on how the moon was turned red by the eclipse and that should keep you occupied for quite a while if that is to your particular taste.

This post is unusual in that it has no musical content, though you can always go for Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of The Moon" or Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" as vaguely related, but I just got a bit of video from the Guardian to see what happened, and I am sure that is far more relevant.

Flexibly Free

Back in the sixties and seventies music was often promoted by giving away vinyl flexidiscs. These were'nt meant to last but were meant to give you a taster of something so you would buy the actual single or album and generate income for the artist and definitely the record company.

The thing is sometimes these flexidiscs contained exclusive music (at the time), I'm thinking Alice Cooper's "Slick Black Limousine" which was promoting "Billion Dollar Babies" and the interludes on the promo for the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street". These were both NME freebies as it was my music mag of choice at the time. Both these were committed to cassette as soon as I got them, but were lost way back. They may be worth something now.

I recently bought a couple of flexidiscsfor Long Play Cafe / Empire Records in The Grainger Market and was surprised that the Adam and The Ants one had no track name on , but is their take on The Village People's "YMCA" called apparently "IMCA". Because the flexidiscs slip you need to put a couple of coins to stop the vinyl slipping.  The other was by Hazel O'Connor and you can see the details here. LAter sounds actually started giving away vinyl EPs.

But in the sixties we started getting loss leader compilations. At first I thought these would be very expensive, but they were very cheap and full of amazing music. Again these often contained music you couldn't get anywhere else, I'm thinking "America", Yes' ten minute take on the Siman and Garfunkel song and Led Zeppelin's "Hey,HeyWhat Can I Do" on the "Age of Atlantic" samplers.

The first one that I bought was Island's "Nice Enough To Eat" which introduced me to Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, King Crimson and many more.

In the disgital age Amazon used to give free downloads but that seems to have stopped but often artists make music available to download for free in exchange for an email address.

I suppose music is still effectively free to listen to on the radio and Youtube, but I do like to have the music and make sure the artist gets something from me.

Well I am looking out at the blue sky and sunshine and think its time to wake the neighbours by mowing my overgrown jungle of a lawn.

Today Fiona and Helen are doing a 26 Mile walk for MacMillan which you can track here and donate here.

Have a most enjoyable day

Ooh That Wasn't Nice

Nice Enough To Eat

Thursday night in the middle of the night woke up with cramp in my left foot , it hurt like hell , as cramp does, and you get out of bed stamp around and that cures it doesn't it? Well usually it does, this time cramp wanted to really hurt me , and it kept coming back for about half an hour. This was followed by leg pains , then a bad head head pain and finally a  chest pain that hurt like hell (not heart attack stuff , but without being too ungentile , my right moob felt like it had been severely kicked and punched, I finally got off to sleep listening my made up CD compilation of my first ever sampler album "Nice Enough To Eat" which I must thank for being my first introduction to , among others , Mott The Hoople and Nick Drake. (If you want a copy let me know because I don't thinks it ever got a CD release).

Anyway come morning , I felt ok if a little tired, but resolved to go and see by doctor and used the excellent Patient Access App to book an "Acute On The Day Appointment" . I booked it for 2:10 and turned up at the surgery to find they had no record of a booking , but had one for September 4th. I had spotted a flaw in the system and also not checked the date it had given me. Anyway I'm with Thornfield Medical Group and they booked me in for an Emergency Appointment at 5 , where I was seen fairly quickly checked over and all seemed good (Including a 3Kg weight loss) . The lovely doctor told me that cramp is exacerbated by dehydration but I tend to drink a lot of water anyway but maybe too much coffee (which is a diuretic) . I work with a Patient Focus Group at my surgery so will be feeding back about the app.

So that's where I am after a great week and looking forward to an excellent weekend , with not too many nights like Thursday. Have a most excellent day everyone.