Realisation

Nothing deep, but due to my rate of posting from March this year , if I post twenty two times a month for the rest of the year then I will have another record year. I'm not expecting to do that though given this is my second post today you may not believe it.

The thing is the more you post , the more you feel like posting. I just wish I could get myself into gear with writing , and writing songs and recording them. I have all the tools so no excuse not to do it, just the extreme lack of discipline.

Today I found a couple more covers of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by The Cure and "Ceremony" by Radiohead. I was completely unaware of these though the song has been covered by almost everyone but it still belongs to Ian Curtis.

These songs don't seem to have been officially released but they are on Youtube so you can listen fairly easily.

So enjoy them , I am off to my pit.

Not The Best

Today I thought I was getting a lie in as they burglar alarm service team were coming. They did ... late ... and will be charging me for a new battery as they only last five years. Prior to that a serious roof leak reappears soaking a mattress and sheets and I am trying to get the person who should have fixed it to fix it..

This is what causes stress, when something affecting you is out of your control. Because of that I didn't go to the Queercastle finale party even though it was only six to nine with people I like to see, although I wasn't missed.

The day has been muggily hot so not comfortable at work. There's been rain and sun but I managed to get some stuff done at work then left phone messages about the roof.

I then watched some catch up TV finishing off with Janelle Monáe and The Cure's Glastonbury sets.

It's still hot and muggy so I hope to be able to sleep.

A work colleague recommended the Youtube Subliminals for weight loss and other things but the rten hours of rain sound is very relaxing although at odds with what is happening to my roof ate the moment. I listened to a few ten minute ones and an hour of the rain this morning , may download some as MP3s to listen to when walking into work.

So what music should we have,  Last night I listened to "Go" by Stomu Yamash'ta and it's one of my many favourite albums, so we'll have a live take of "Crossing The Line" featuring Stevie Winwood from the album.

Sleep  well.

Stumbolero

While looking for something else I came across a flash mob take on Ravel's "Bolero" . I had seen a wonderful one for Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" from his Ninth Symphony and this is just as charming in the way it draws the crowd of all ages, races, sexes and any other division we have and they all love it. Enjoying the music, taking photographs and videos, and loving it.

The great thing about these flash mob performances is that you learn how the pieces are actually made up. It is truly fascinating.

There are many Classical Flash Mobs on Youtube, check this list here.

I know this is not a very meaty post but I just wanted to share this phenomenon with anyone who stumbles across this blog post.

Enjoy and maybe learn, and hopefully one day you will be lucky enough to see one......

Feedburner and Interrupted Dreams

It looks like the huge increase in visits is due to being picked up by something called Feedburner which is some kind to data feed. I'm not sure if this is permanent, although I wont complain if it is. I'm not sure if this is as a result of me sharing the blog posts on Twitter or including a link with my most visited Youtube slideshow. , 26K views and featuring Christopher Lee, so it could have been any one of those. Twitter has resulted in a few retweets and also I tried MeWe after Google dropped their social sharing although I do not think that has resulted in any visits. I use it to post on then stipe the post to post in Twitter on my phone.

This morning I woke at 5:30 and thought I had quarter of an hour to enjoy, but fell back into an unspecified dream and the was rudely awoken by the alarm going off seemingly about thirty seconds later. That's is the problem with falling asleep when you are about to get up. It always amazes me that often at night sleep refuses to come, but when you have to get up, especially for work, sleep is so, so welcoming.

I'm over halfway through Stephen Fry's "Mythos" and thoroughly enjoying it and am now thinking about which book will come next.

So what should I share with you tonight, Huw Stephens featured Caught By The River and from that Jeff Barrett's Labe's first single release was "Under Dubwood" by The Dubwood Allstars featuring the tones of Richard Burton and the music of King Tubby (think it was used for Ali Baba by John Holt)

Dream Complex

I woke from an amazingly complex dream , just having to deal with people who don't understand reality. It reminded me of a situation at the PPA many years ago when I was charged with making 2 + 2 = 5 because someone had run an obsolete report and it didn't balance with the new one. There was an office full of idiots coming up with solution which were basically calculate to n decimal places and that might not solve the problem. I asked to speak to the accountants about it (it was caused by the VAT rate of 17.5% ) but I was told I was not a high enough grade to talk to accountants, so I instructed my team to SAY we were working on it if asked and at the end of two weeks told them it couldn't be done. Luckily in my present job I work with accounts who listen and have a more than basic grasp of numbers.

I was considering mowing my lawn today, but am going to give it another week to ensure it is up to being mowed, it's not laziness, it's being sensible.

I've decided on the theme for #AprilSongs and each day I will post a song relating to that day, it may be simply or complexly related, so Monday may be New Order's "Blue Monday" (or one of the many covers) or something by the Happy Mondays,  while Thursday could be the Theme for Morse / Endeavour by Barrington Pheloung because Morse's boss is called Thursday.

Another beautiful day although still cold, but looking forward to another great weekend.

As it's the ^Music Festival I thought I'd share Pete Wylie's "Heart As Big As Liverpool", mine and John Peel's favourite song about Liverpool , but ignored by the hip 6Music DJs. Amazingly it is not easily available on Amazon, my Handy Wah! compilation going for an eye watering £200, still you can listen on Youtube.

Two Suns

When I've been looking for music to share the image of this Pink Floyd song is always there in the selection list, so this has come thanks to Youtube prompting. It is a wonderful song, with a great evocative title "Two Suns In The Sunset" referring to a nuclear blast although the song is anything but based on the music but but the words do tear into you.

It's from "The Final Cut" which I think was Roger Waters finale with the band.

I suppose this song has been haunting me and now I have shared it with you, in it's brilliant bittersweetness of the finality of life, but the song will finish and life will continue but we do need that memento mori to keep us grounded in reality.

It is late on Sunday night and I'm in the basement lounge of the Settle holiday cottage having watched a few interesting programs tonight. I am not sure what tomorrow will bring but I will see Mike Harding, and , weather permitting, may go to the top of Castlebergh Crag above Settle to get some views of the place.

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Copy Wrong

I do find copyright application very strange and often just like bullying for the sake of it, like you see from traffic wardens, council officials and post office counter staff. I have just had eight notices from Instagram for copyright infringement from Warner Brothers for an old video, which is now blocked, which I posted to show off a shop (RPM) and it's vintage record players. Now anyone interested in the music would have probably gone out and bought it, so what I was doing was free advertising, but no that has to be stopped.

I posted a Christopher Lee video which YouTube initially took down for the same reason after nearly hitting 10K hits in one day, details are here, but Charlemagne Productions, the copyright owners were absolutely fine with it, since we lost Christopher Lee it seems we can now post, so my latest post has hit 10K.

This is just my opinion but copyright should enforced if people are being detrimental to the originator, or effectively stealing from the originator, say trying to advertise your own product using copyrighted music. If you are trying to share the music with others to get others to support the artist by buying records and going to concerts then that should be OK although it's probably impossible for a machine to determine where the real benefit lies.

Although this is my second time in Settle this is the first post that I've mentioned it in, and it is a lovely place but not the best place to drive in. I may write more about it this week but I am enjoying it. Among other thing it is home to the world's smallest Art Gallery which was opened by Brian May of Queen (my mate Jim Stevenson told me that) and you can see my Instagram take on it here.

Another plus is that Mike Harding lives here and hopefully I'll get to see him on Monday night.

This afternoon Guy Garvey played a song by The Monkees "Me and Magdalena" which I had never heard it before, and it's absolutely wonderful so that is the one that I will share with you.

The Joy Of Rubik

A friend shared a video of an animated (possessed?) Rubik Cube, and it is quite lovely, giving it the charateristics of a small puppy, whating to be friends and make lonely people feel better. The film is called "Scrambled" and is by Polder Animation who have their own Youtube channel.

I remember getting a Rubik Cube in the early eighties and being amused, frustrated, confused, fascinated and obsessed with this simple puzzle device that had so many permutations, most of them being wrong. You see people who can solve them in next to no time but they are great training device for dealing with impact analysis, ie "If I do this, then it's going to affect that, which in turn will affect the other thing".

It is an excellent way of training your mind as well as being a potential time waster, but it is still an amazing small device which can actually discipline you to remember and evaluate the impact of what you are doing.

Actually writing this has made me decide to get another one to see if I can still crack it, and I know it should actually sharpen my minds, although we shall see about that. I am quite amazed at the number of variations on th eoriginal 3x3x3 cube. having seen a 5x5x5 one as well as pyramids and objects with far more tha 6 faces, I'm afraid they would just fry my brain.

Past Imperfect, Present More Imperfect

All my posts have been getting around 40 to 50 views until five days ago when they have dropped to five or six. I think this is something Facebook has done because that's where, normally most of my visits come from. It feel a little like all of a sudden you are rubbish and no one wants to interact with you . Often in these situations you think "What have I done?" when the reality is that something beyond your contriol has changed, and you can't do anything about it. Well you could spend a lot of time trying to discover what the problem or change is, but to be quite honest I honestly can't be bothered. I amd sure if I keep writing and sharing stuff worth sharing both readers and robots will return and my stats will increase.

On the walking fron I will finish October on about 420K steps that's about 25% up on my target number of steps. Whether I can keep that up in November is a different story, but as long as I hit my target steps that's all that really matters to me.

This morning I listened to  Public Service Broadcasting's  "Inform, Educate, Entertain" and there was one song I hadn't noticed before, the rather excellent "The Now Generation". The thing I love about them is that you actually learn from listening to their music, so as well as being just great to listen to it's educational as well.  Most of their songs are also like films for the ears, although they often have acocompanying videos that are available via the Public Service Broadcasting Channel on Youtube.

All their releases are themed so fall into the "concept album" genre, but are still all essential listing from "The War Room" up to the present day "White Star Liner" EP based on The Titanic.

Anyway I will be listening to a bit more of them this week.

Timeslip

This morning I had a lie in, only half an hour but I thought and just enjoy a bit of extra time in bed. The heating hadn't come on, and I though it did automatic daylight saving changes so thought I'd have to manually change that as well. I'd done all the analog clocks, and the cooker yesterday and all the electronic stuff resets itself, so all was good. I washed and showered, and came in and switched the computer on and noticed my owl wall clock still said quarter to six. I thought the mechanism must be failing, then I checked my phone, quarter to six. Then it hit me, the only clock I hadn't reset was my alarm clock so I'd got up an hour earlier than I thought it was, though that means I feel like I've had an extra half hour in bed and I have an extra half hour to do stuff like this.

I spent the weekend in York and visited The National Railway Museum for the first time, and rathe amazing place. Just go, it's free, and you will spend a lot of time in there seeing these amazing examples of engineering and how we have regressed from luxury to the cattle trucks we have today. I saw this YouTube video of the place which will show it far better than I can describe it.

Coming back on The Cross-Country one, my phone was down to 4% power, but I thought they have charging points, which they do, but they don't work and the staff can't be bothered to see what's wrong. Sad, but when you're paid a pittance to work on substandard kit because the companies don't invest, you are going to think "What's The Point?".

Two records for me are going to happen, another thirty posts I will have posted three hundred this year, I've already done 270 which is a record but three hundred will be nice, and after walking round York (including 25K steps on Saturday) I'm on course to hit 400K steps for the first time in a month, unless the weather turns really bad, but I'm standing on 380K at the moment with three days left.

Amazingly I didn't buy any music in York but my friend Scott bought a best of Dusty Springfield album, with a self deprecating "a bit of easy listening " comment, to which I replied Dusty Springfield is anything but and shows excellent musical taste and suggested he tracked down "Dusty In Memphis".

Anyway it's Monday morning and maybe time to get off to work.

Have a good one.

A Bowie Experiment

Today I will test my theory that I proposed in my last but one post here that the Bowie album you are listening to is your favourite Bowie album. I will make sure it's one that is not on my usual list of favourites, maybe Heathen or Outside, but I will let you know later which one I chose.

It is still very dark outside and it is Monday.

6Music is doing a Home Town Glory feature on Glastonbury, and I remember the only time I visited there there was a pub / hotel called Backpackers with a sign on the door saying "No Jeans, No Shorts, No Backpacks" not sure if it was meant in irony or stupidity, we didn't go in.

I found a market with a record shop and my mate Mike O'Brien had either told me about or played this amazing version of "I Fought The Law" by Oysterband with Yarinistan, and I found a compilation CD which had it on. I put a slideshow on Youtube because I couldn't find an online copy anywhere.

So enjoy this on your Monday.

Morning Dark

When I left my bed this morning it was dark. I had to put lights on. It was 6AM. Autumn and grey skies are here.

In the shower I seldom want to come out, hot water on your body feels so nice, knowing that when it stops you will be cold and wet and have to dry yourself off.

The other thing is you know it's Monday and have to go to work. Will I walk or will I take the bus? I will start walking but my give up and get the bus eventually.

Yesterday I did 18K steps so that was a bit more than I expected to do, but it was fairly.

I must say I am very impressed by Claire Evans novel, "The Fourteenth Letter"  and although the clues are strewn throughout I didn't see the endgame coming and I still have 25 pages to go, so I'm well impressed with that and I only bought it to get myself free delivery on something.

Also in the last couple of weeks I heard a great song on 6Music called "Chevrolet Van" by The Nude Party. The record is great, but you get some interesting results on Amazon,Google and Youtube when you search for Nude Party.

Anyway have a great Monday everybody.

Three

This was going to be the third post I posted yesterday for #August50 ,which I think I've decided will probably be impossible without resorting to one line posts, which plenty of bloggers do. The other alternative is Vlogging but I doubt anyone would want to see me, and hear me talk, it's bad enough me actually rambling on in single words.

Today I don't want to walk into work, I don't want to mow my lawn, and lots of other things but they have to be done so I will attempt all of them. Obviously the black cloud is still floating aroundbut I don't have to let it cast it's shadow over everything.

I also need to change the music on my phone, although there's probably a lot more on there than most people have in their music collection because they now subscribe to Deezer or Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon Unlimited or YoutubeMusic and it plays exactly what the want to hear. Think about that for a second. Why not get a radio?

Music like BBC4 is a sort of bane of my life because you put them on and then you're happy to stay watching or listening until you are forced to switch off. 6Music has provided me with todays music, "Pool Hall Richard" by The Faces.

Enjoy your Tuesday.

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

Packing Plastic

This is the 1600th post on this blogm, thought I would just mention that.

Last Friday I decided to order a copy of "Under Dubwood" by The Dubwood Allstars. I can't remember where I heard this first, probably 6Music, but I had been listening to it on Soundcloud, but the song disappeared from there although the account is still there.

I followed the link to the website and ordered the single on vinyl, the third repress here on the Caught By The River site (it's not available on Amazon), I have recently really got into reggae and ska on vinyl through the home cinema sysem with subwoofer on reasonably loud.

"Under Dubwood" is a mix of Richard Burto reading the introduction to Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" backed by King Tubby and John Holt's "Ali Baba" as backing (see below and here). "Under Milk Woood" contans some amazingly eveocative phrases such as "Starless and Bible Back" (appropriated for thitle of a King Crimson album.

Anyway the point I was making is that the single was dispatched as well as an MP3 link, and on Saturday I went out , thinking that a seven inch single would fit through the letter box. On returning hope the was a  note from th epostman telling me that they couldn;t fit it through the letter box, so I had to go and collect it on Monday morning from the local depot. I then saw why it would fit through, a sturdy close on twelve inch package, so light I wasn't sure there was anything in it, so I opened it to make sure it was in there and it was. I told the lady in the Post Office about it and she wrote down the details to check on Youtube.

The thing is the service from Caught By The River was ultra excellent and efficient, but surely a little less packaging would be greener and more economical, but what the hell, I now have a wonderful piece of vinyl in my collection and here's the proof on Instagram.

Have a brilliant day everybody.

Na Pyg Chi Pig

Not Chi Pig

When I walk up a certaing road I see a car on a drive and the registration plate reads NA62 PYG. I have been convinced this was the name of a band that John Peel played and featured on the Stiff compilation "The Akron Complication". though Amazon list it as "The Akron Compilation".

This is one of a clutch of Stiff release that , to my knowledge, have never been released digitally. The album also features a scratch and sniff cover that releases the smell of rubber when you scratch it.

It turns out the band was not Na Pig (or Na Pyg), it was Chi Pig, and when The Bok went sign up with Rabid Records they raved about this album and played it a couple of times as we plotted world domination (which by the way never happened). The album featured some great. bands and is worth tracking down if you have any interest in music .

It shows how your memory can be fooled when an image supercedes the actuall reality, well certainly mine can be.

Anyway Chi Pig have a lot of great stuff on youtube here and "Miami" seems a wonderful album. This is a band I am discovering forty years after the event. "Dismal Dismissal" is playing as I finish this, but definitely a band worth investigating, but again not served well digitally just three songs on Amazon here.

The thing is there is more music in the world that we can think of listening to in our lives, and there is always something new (or old) to discover.

Right I'm going to make my tea now.

Weatherbeaten

Yesterday was the first time this month I've done less than 10K steps (8.5K) and the simple reason for that was that the wind was so cold it felt like it was burning my face off. So I wimped out and jumped on a bus. It puzzles me how extreme cold effectively feels like extreme concentrated heat, it burns and it hurts. Yes you can put up with it but you do feel as though damage is going to be done to you, so in situations like that I always go for the definitely safer options. So yesterday I was definitely beaten by the weather.

Weatherbeaten sounds like an English Thousand Yard Stare title , they have a habit of running two words together, examples being "Wideshire", "Halfsize", "Comeuppance" and "Halfsize". So the y are the obvious choice for todays post and we will go with "Comeuppance".

There is quite a lot of their stuff available on Youtube and they were giving away their back catalogue digitally recently. I did a slideshow for "God's P45" which I've also included below , although I got a recent copyright notice for it, but that's Youtube for you.

You Don't Have To Save Up For Music Any More

This is is quote from David Bowie about the way music has become ubiquitous, easily available, effectively free if you want to steal it and even if you buy it you can buy a brand new CD or download for the price of a pint of beer or glass of wine.

I think part of this is that if you got into music as a ten year old, you didn't have an income except maybe a paper round. I remember working for a week for my dad and getting a "Best of T Rex" as a reward from my dad.

While music was available on the radio and when cassettes became available you could tape stuff that you heard, but there was no digital catch up, and if you missed stuff it was missed. Given that I was a fan of a lot of European music often the only way to get an album was to send off a postal order to an import company such as Virgin when it was good and richard Branson actually did some good work. Then you would wait a week or two and eventually the postman would drop it off at your house.

When you get older you get an income and that makes things more affordable, but the digital revolution means we don't have to wait, it's on Vevo or Youtube and you can often download it for maybe a pound , or free if you have certain software.

When Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were here" was released I was claing the eqivalent of Job Seekers Allowance and that was £3.25 a week. "Wish You Were Here" cost me £3.25. If albums had kept pace with JSA we's be paying £80 for an album and I'd still have to save up for it.

These days the combination of cheapness and ubiquity means that music is freely and easily available to everybody in mainstream society, and maybe that sort of taks away the preciousness of it for most of the population.

I  was never a big fan of the Gallaghers but "Holy Mountain" by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds is really good and just to illustrate how easy it is to share I've included in this post but if you do want to buy it, it's here.

Have a great Tuesday everybody.

Awake

It's 30 minutes past midnight and I'm sort of wide awake, Part of me wants to sleep and part of me wants to do things. It's not really practical leaving the house or getting the guitar set up, and I don't really want to watch TV (having caught up a bit on American Horror Story and The Walking Dead) so I thought well maybe I will just put something don in the blog.

The wek in Orton I had plans to record stuff and possibly write stuff but ended up doing what I was supposed to do , relax, rest , see my dad, catch up on some TV (the excellent "Deadwood" , well series one) and do a bit of walking and enjoy the countryside around Orton. The cottage is quiet and relaxing and still doesn't habe Wifi although most local pub such as The George , The King's Head and The Black Swan do , but I still managed to trash my data, but that's part of what you do when you are away.

Anyway I am back now and have written a few words, and hopefully it will have moved my mind a bit closer to being able to sleep. I hope to be going to the Tyneside Cinema later today to see  "The Death of Stalin" which should be great fun.

I leave you with a cracking version of "In The Midnight Hour" by Wilson Pickett with Bruce Springsteen, but I'm not sure you can buy this version, but thanks to Youtube you can listen to it.

Sleep well my friends , and I hope my my mind will rest for a few hours now.

Just One Victory

I don't tweet very often (my twitter name is @mikeydred96) though I've just looked and apparently it also reports all the Youtube Videos I like, but I decided to tweet today with this:

"Booking with #RyanAir is like betting with #Ladbrokes . You give them your money and 99% you never get anything back"

 This may be my last September 2017 post, and I have been listening to a lot of good music , which I will post about but yesterday walking to work I decided to revisit Todd Rundgren's "A Wizard, A True Star" (not as though his confidence wasn't as high as a kite when he titled that) . This album really needs pairing with the follow up "Todd" which I listened to and wrote about here.

This is another box of  of delights ranging from blue eyed soul to heavy metal with a Judy Garland cover from "The Wizard of Oz" thrown, into the mix. The cover gives an indication of what to expect, there is a lot for you ears to delight in . Originating on vinyl it is very much two sides of Todd Rundgren.

A Studio Magician

Side one is bookended by the gorgeous elctrified rock of  "International Feel" before directy running into a solo piano take on "Never Never Land", running through about twelve pieces from the throwaway "Dogfight Giggle" to the metal of  "When The Shit Hits The Fan" hetting a number of genres with , of course , no track breaks.

Side two is more blue eyed soul and not quite as manic as side one, but the gorgeous soul medley, shows his wonderful arrangement and musicianship a backing vocals anlthough his lead vocals not quite up to everything else but still worth the price of admission alone. Although more sedate this side still has a metal punch in "Is It My Name" before the big hopeful  finale of "Just One Victory" to play out with.

It's Friday so I will leave you with "Just One Victory" and I would suggest that if you don't have a copy of this album, get hold of it now , with a copy of "Todd". You will not regret it.

Have a brilliant day everybody.