Opa Loka

Yesterday I used some recording software to create a blog post. The name Opa Loka came to mind, I know it is a song by Hawkwind and could refer to the city in Florida , which I didn't know existed.

I had to edit it and it's still messy so I need a lot of practice to start using it in earnest.

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Right I'm just going to actually try this as a blog post.

I'm walking.
I just walked across the frozen Leazes Park and I want to see if this actually captures the text, so that I can actually use it for a blog post.


I'm actually walking while I've just put out a stream of consciousness and ,so to speak, a lot of writers  use software to actually scripts or whatever, and then you've got to go through and edit.

I've actually done one of these once before, but obviously I've not done this much, but this one I'm trying to actually hit 366 posts this year and I need to do maybe another 16 .


I'm just walking back now. It's very very cold so I'm not too sure what music I'll use to soundtrack this but obviously I'm going to get this text, get it back, format it, and it'll make  no sense whatsoever so it's going to be a "Stranger Things" for you and  just another test for me but it would be great if I could actually talk and make sense as it means that you can actually say things and nobody's stopping you you can put it out and you can say what you want.

Really I use mine as a diary to remember things or just record things that I either have missed or I want to remember and want to be able to go back to, and I'm not too sure how the police siren is going to affect this because that's what  was happening as I'm recording but I'm going to actually stop this now as my hands are absolutely freezing at St. James's Park.

Need to get across the road to Citygate and hopefully get in the warm have some porridge and maybe a cup of coffee and thinking maybe some Hot Chocolate. I know that Tesco actually sell that so I will divert via Tesco's get some hot chocolate and maybe we'll have a soundtrack by the band Hot Chocolate you actually did some very very good records so this is the end of this ok

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We'll go with "Brother Louie"

From 77

Yesterday I recording what was going to be my next blog post, but due to a headache and other stuff last night I went to bed early and will try and use that later today.

This morning I have a hospital appointment for my Cirrhosis trial which has been going on for many years and thanks to this making me aware of my situation it means that my body is still fully functioning if not perfect. You can find all the posts on this if you click on the words or the associated tags.

Tomorrow I have a 7:40 doctors appointment which I do roughly each month as it allows me to officially check my weight and blood pressure, and if anyone is going to help you with your weight loss it's a good doctor and practice and mine is Thornfield Medical Group. who I have been with for twenty years and they have always been brilliant. Despite the nefarious attacks of our current government , they and our whole NHS have always been brilliant.

So I now need to get out of the house, the footpaths are frosty, it is cold, and when I finish at the Freeman Hospital, I need to go to work and sort out data for another idiot HMRC made up requirement going back over ten years running on a network is really not fit for purpose.

So again reading "On Some Faraway Beach" I saw "Love Goes To Building On Fire" and that is this mornings share.

Enjoy.

Exclamation Mark

Although I've rightly described David Sheppard's Brian Eno biography "On Some Faraway Beach" as like wading through treacle (I'm just over half way through, the book is also extremely readable. Almost every page throws up something I either didn't know or hadn't noticed.

The band Ultravox were originally called Ultravox! , a homage to the German band Neu! (originators of motorik, and heavy influencers of lots of bands) , the exclamation mark was dropped at some point , possibly when John Foxx left and Midge Ure joined. That was one thing I was unaware of.

During the Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite produced first album Brian Eno was invited to work with Bowie (who had recently been producing Iggy Pop) on his next album at the Château d’Hérouville where Elton John recorded "Honky Chateau" and the single "Honky Cat" was obviously a nod to this.

The thing is this album was "Low" , the first of the "Berlin Trilogy" and while Bowie , Eno and Iggy were between Berlin and the Château d’Hérouville I was unaware and always assumed that the album was fully formed in Berlin.

We will go with the finest song from the Ultravox! debut , "My Sex", it is disturbingly good , with John Foxx's monotone machine voice over a fragmented lush backing.

The Flavour of Drink

I find it odd how manufactures add different flavours to drinks. Whisky (or whiskey) seems always unadulterated but you can mix it with whatever your preferred dilution is. But Gin seems to have many variations like Whisky but when you start adding fruit flavours isn't that a bit odd? But then wine while usually grape based I think can have other fermentations.

Beer and Lager seem again unadulterated , but Stout sometimes has chocolate, and what is this with flavoured Ciders ? Ciders are Apple flavoured , Perry is Pear but when I see every other fruit flavouring cider I do find that odd. They seem to be the new Alcopops.

Then with the soft drink, Cola should taste of cola, not Vanilla, Ginger , Mango , Strawberry or whatever. I drink Coke because I like the taste of Coke. They don't need added flavour. But what do I know.

I mean Fanta is Orange, but now there are so many flavours that I lose count.

So we go with "Drink It Up" by Negativland  from the "Dis-Pepsi" album, you can listen to it all here because it's almost impossible to track down in any form.

2 Early Morning

An early start the morning and there was a lady with a big dog outside the house before 5 am, you do wonder about what others are doing up so early. I know lots of people have dogs and have to be out early to walk there dogs and play with them throwing sticks and balls.

It's funny how when you have to get up early for work you are always tired, but if you are up early on a non work day it's easy to get up before you normally do because you know you can always relax later during the day.

I have been listening to a lot of music over the weekend and was very impressed with the quality of a copy of Al Stewart's "Past Present and Future" but was at first disappointed with "All The World's A Stage" but the solution was to turn the record player up louder and then it sounded good. I remember having the same problem when I got "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" by The blue Oyster Cult. It was heavy metal and it sounded small and tinny, not what I wanted or was expecting. Then I had a lightbulb moment , "TURN IT UP LOUD" , and then it sounded great. My parents were not too impressed, so I switched to headphones and only had it on loud when they were out.

So we will go with "Hot Rails To Hell" from that album, best played loud, great guitar soloing and possibly the best recorded version of this song that the band did.

On The Tip Of My Finger

I wear contact lenses and quite often when putting them it, I drop them or cant find them in their container or hit other problems. Sometimes I think I have dropped one in the solution filled receptacle and come the following morning see that I messed and it's dried out next to the sink. Usually a dip into the solution revives them. Sometimes I find them on the floor, but if you drop them they can go anywhere, down the plughole, stick to your clothes or the side of the cabinet. Today I lost the contact lense for my right eye, I could find it anywhere, and eventually gave up then I got mt left eye lens and noticed the end of my finger was very shiny, the right lens had stuck to it so well that I couldn't see it at first.

Any non contact lens wearer, if you wear glasses or have good eyesight you never hit this problem, but as a contact lense wearer it's one of the many inconvenienced you experience , however these are worth the hassle as the benefits of wearing them against glasses are huge not least of which is they don't steam up when you come from the cold outside into a warm house (ship shops are terrible for that).

Anyway at the beginning of the month, to hit 366 posts for the year I calculated I needed to post 13 posts every 11 days. Actually it's 13 posts every ten days which is roughly four every three days and and today is the fifteenth and this is the twentieth post this month so I am just on track so can actually do it.

Continuing on with "On Some Faraway Beach" it put forward the premise that if a record label had a following, that following would investigate and maybe buy anything that that label produced, this had been true of Atlantic, and was true in the seventies of Island and Brian Eno's Obscure imprint. The only records I have on this are Gavin Bryars "Sinking of the Titanic" and "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet", which was based on a homeless man's singing but features Tom Waits as well.

I also have Brian Eno's "Discreet Music" which features deconstructions of Pachelbel's "Canon" which I will share with you for this post, it's strangely relaxing and relaxingly strange, familiar but alien.

Splitting Ions In The Ether

I am 45% of the way through "On Some Faraway Beach" and we have reached Brian Eno's third solo album, although for some reason I thought it was going to be "Before and After Science" but it actually is "Another Green World", one of the two Brian Eno albums I own on vinyl although he is generally more digital artist, defining this as vertical music rather than the more standard horizontal format (beginning, next , next end).

It is full of great songs and instrumentals but I always loved "St Elmo's Fire" (not the John Parr AOR one which is not too bad) for it's lyrics especially the:

"..and we saw St Elmo's Fire

    Splitting Ions In The Ether"

And a stunning incendiary guitar solo from Bob Fripp follows that line, which many people regard as his finest recorded guitar solo. It does take some beating, have a listen as that is the song that I am sharing. Incidentally St Elmo's Fire is a weather phenomenon often seen by sailors as a positive omen.

This is definitely a very short post but is an excuse to share this wonderful song with you soundtracking a Felix The Cat cartoon.

Stay Free

I don't need any more vinyl, bet deciding on coffee at Meli Cafe near Haymarket, I had to drop into Stay Free Records. I had no intention of buying anything, but Tony is a really canny guy who knows his stuff and we chatted about general stuff , the price of music and what have for what seemed like a very short time but I thought it was later than it was but it wasn't.

Anyway I looked At what was around and there was a Queen flexi disk which I thought my friend Jim may want, the a copy of Al Stewart's "Past Present and Future" for £4 . If there is one Al Stewart album I would have bought on vinyl it would be this. I had also been considering buying "All The World's A Stage" by Rush, and he had a copy of that for £8 . So it was a total foregone conclusion, two vinyl albums on three discs (or is it disks?) both of which were stuff I wanted.

I've also ordered 12" vinyl copies of Television's "Marquee Moon" and "Prove It" from Discogs and think I will ask my daughters to get the album for my Christmas present as I have been considering that.

I need to trim my vinyl collection and Tony has told me to bring some stuff in, so I may do that over the next week of two, but I have plenty to play at the moment so will enjoy my new additions tomorrow morning. So what to share, we had Television the last post, so I thing I will go for Al Stewart's "Nostradamus", one of the reasons I love this is that it is relatively easy to play (or seemed so when I was a teenager, and I reckon I could give it a good stab now if I could remember all the lyrics), I've shared a recent live take but every recorded version is worth listening to.

Every Word

One of the reasons I am finding David Sheppard's "On Some Faraway Beach" slow going rather than hard going is as well as the small typeface and word cramming, I really do have to read every word because skimming immediately loses the sense of what you are reading. In the same way that the human eye / brain combination constructs your vision from limited input I often read books in the similar fashion, but this is definitely not an option with this one. It is engrossing and is continually throwing things up that I did't know about Brian Eno and therefore provides more music to share with you.

Essentially it is reminding me of things music that I love although I need to further investigate "The End" the album by Nico, but I was unaware how impressed Brian Eno was with Television, who's "Marquee Moon" is one of my many favourite albums , combining rock and free jazz stylings with Richard Lloyd's and Tom Verlaine's twin guitars intertwining into an amazing sonic tapestry. The thing is , if free jazz were this wonderful I would listen to a lot more of it.

The Label feature on this blog is still very slow, so I'm not sure what is happening there.

So I am going to share "Venus De Milo" from the album "Marquee Moon" by Television. I found a live version from 2016 and also a demo version from the seventies here.

Five Hours

That's how much sleep I had last night, you probably know why. I just hope I don't fall asleep at work today. Sleep is essential for recuperation, but I have a lot to do so it may be a day of lots of coffee. This will be a short post on a sort of appropriate day, Friday 13th , for what happened last night but we need to be positive, find ways forward and connect with people who matter to us and look out for people who need us and be there when we are needed.

Still on with David Sheppard's "On Some Faraway Beach" and we have reached Eno's involvement in Phil Manzanera's excellent debut solo album "Diamond Head" and the excellent "Miss Shapiro". This si a reason why one should continually read because sometimes you learn new things and sometimes you are reminded of things that you have either forgotten or that have just been pushed from the forefront of your mind.

The older you get, the more you experience, and therefore the more you learn, but your mind has to organise things and if you don't immediately need it, then it get's stored for future reference. Whether it then gets used or recalled is another matter but it is there and David Sheppard's book has reminded me this Friday and it means I can share it with you.

The Labels feature on Blogger keeps locking up, but there is an option to search by word so I will be a little careful with it. Maybe the blog is getting too big, over two thousand posts, imagine that was chapters in a book although chapters do last more than my average of 25o words.. People have suggested I turn this into a book, but that seems a bit pointless as you can just read it here, and also the point of writing this is to spark an idea for a book, although maybe then the writing of the blog is more important in my mind than writing the book. We shall see if it ever comes to fruition.

Whatever happens today have a good one and enjoy "Miss Shapiro" with me,

The True Wheel

This is the title of a song from Brian Eno's "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" which I am currently up to in David Sheppard's "On Some Faraway Beach" . Apparently Eno had a dream of people singing :

"We are the 801

We are the central shaft"

That was the name chosen for the superstar pick up band on his live album, which features a stunning take on Lennon and McCartney's "Tomorrow Never Knows". The 801 thing is documented in this post and you can listen to the song there too, I was going to include "The True Wheel" here but I will choose another song from what is and absolutely essential album.

This week my walking has not been up to par, I'm still ahead of where I need to be but haven't hit 11K steps since last Friday so I need to up my game on that.

Also I've been trying to write this post for two days, being beset by feeling absolutely drained and the blogging software continually locking up, which the label processing seems to cause.

Yesterday I caught a little of the Sky Sports Manchester City coverage by Shaun Goater. He is extremely well spoken with the same slightly unusual enunciation that a work colleague of mine has. I chatted with her today and asked her where she came from, because her and Shaun's accents were identical. She told me she had gone to the same school as him and they were both from Bermuda.

I'm going to include "The Great Pretender" the closing song from side one of the original vinyl album, which runs into an insectoid closed groove meaning that unless stoped the song never actually ends, as far as I know you can't to that with MP3 or CD.

"She was so impressed that she just surrendered"

An album you must own on vinyl for that reason alone.

Forgot

I was going to post this yesterday but got waylaid by other stuff, so I will post it now , even though it is quite late. Yesterday I went to work and convinced I had forgotten something , but wasn't too sure what it was.... until I got in and realised I had left my work pass at home. My work has the most pedantic lost pass process ever, they give you a piece of card that can't be used for anything useful like getting you in through doors, then you have to contact someone so they can escort you to the office, and if you want to go out you have all this rigmarole again.

The thing is visitors get normal passes.

So I went home to get my pass and got into work 45 minutes later than I expected.

On getting home from holiday I received a bowel caner check kit from the NHS which you use to send a poo sample to be checked. This is the second one I've had and even though it's simple, it is a funnily unpleasant experience getting the sample, it can't land in the toilet, then you place it in a tube ans send it back for testing (which is done at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.) so I should know in a week or so the results. This is standard preventative procedure and I'm sure all will be fine, but it's always good to check.

I have friends who have suffered from and been treated for many forms of cancer, and when I was kide cancer was the end, but now people have a far better chance to survive which is great, but I've also lost friends and that is something that is horrible. You have your memories but you no longer have your friends.

I'm sorry this seems to have nosedived but I didn't mean it to, just happy that I am being looked after by the NHS which despite certain people making out that it's free, it isn't, we all pay for it in outr National Insurance and taxes.

So I've gone with Ronnie Spector's take on the great Johnny Thunders song "You Can't Put Your Arms Round A Memory" although I thought it was "You Can't Wrap You Arms Round A Memory" . Either way,  it's a great song so please enjoy, if that is the right emotion for a song about loss.

Stay positive, it's what keeps us going, believe in better.

Back

I'm back in Newcastle and back to work and sort of sad that I'm not still in Settle, but finances don't currently allow me to be on permanent holiday, I am not impressed with the so called "Christmas Village" that has been rammed into Newcastle centre, to me it's just blocking where I can walk and messing up the road system but it does make me more determined to shop locally, especially in The Grainger Market.

Apart from catching up at work I will need to send my Christmas cards this week and must sound curmudgeonly as I see this and Christmas decorations as a chore. I am fine with people celebrating Christmas , went round to my neighbours for impromptu drinks and socialising and love things like that, Christmas can do a lot of good but I do hate the adverts saying that to really celebrate Christmas you need to spend a fortune on Amazon. No you need to socialise , talk to people and have fun.

I am old enough not to need presents and in some ways would like to put a fiver limit of people who want to buy me things.

For some reason the song "Temporary Secretary" by Paul McCartney has been going through my head, love the repeated sequencer motif that runs through it, and this has nothing really to do with this most but maybe it is a Monday Morning record.

Spoonful

Some days things just hit me and make me want to to write about it and my friend,an avid Moody Blues fan, on Instagram shared a picture of a clear vinyl copy of "Moanin' At Midnight" by Hownlin' Wolf. Earlier this year I had linked Howlin' Wolf with The Moody Blues which was a coincidence here and in 2014 wrote about the origins of the song "Smokestack Lightnin'" here. so the disc certainly piqued my interest and I will now investigate further.

Howlin'

The clear vinyl version looks wonderful, though I'm not sure if the wolf in on the vinyl or is seen though the vinyl, but I do like the design.

Another of Howlin' Wolf's songs is "Spoonful" (written by Willie Dixon) , a brilliant loping riff that I first heard on my friend Harry Clark's "Best of Cream" album as a teenager. I listened to my vinyl copy which I picked up from Beyond Vinyl.

This is my third post today so I am a little worded out, although I need extra posts if I am to hit 366 posts this year which is possible. This is post 339 so after this I need to post 27 times in 23 days which seems to be getting further away from me, but I won't let that happen.

So I'm going to share Howlin' Wolf's "Spoonful" although my favourite take is by Cream from the live "Wheels of Fire" album, but this post is all Howlin' Wolf.

Bay Uke Grainger Christmas

Today I was in the Grainger Market and hears a Christmas Ukulele band finishing off "Let It Snow" , and they sounded quite good but I'd missed that and was expecting them to break into another similarly veined song, but no, they went into one of my favourites "I'm The Urban Spaceman" and did an very jolly version which you can see above (sorry it's phone portrait and not landscape but the sound is good.

They started with Dean Martin and were going to continue with "Rockin' Round The Christmas Tree" and asked me to join in their choir but I had to do a few things but totally enjoyed this pleasant interlude.

Bay Uke are on Facebook here where you can join their group, if you have a Ukulele I am sure that they will welcome you.

Incidentally "I'm The Urban Spaceman" was produced for The Bonzo Dog Band by Paul McCartney under the pseudonym Apollo C. Vermouth.

As I said this is a very short post to record a lovely interlude in my Sunday morning.

The Weight

One of the reasons I write this blog is as a diary, another is when something happens or grabs my attention that I can , however tenuously, link to a song that I can then share with my readers and listeners, maybe I should try a podcast too, though I'm not sure that the sound of my voice will enamour everyone, an ex boss once told me he couldn't understand a word I said!

Anyway I don't eat healthily, I dislike regimentation intensely (diets, exercise - especially gyms) so obviously I am destined as I age to just get fatter and fatter. I do see some people, and they may have a lot of issues, but I think "didn't you at some point realise you were getting fat". I know damned well I could easily be 30 stone if I didn't constantly say no to certain temptations, although as Oscar Wilde said "I can resist anything but temptation", so I suppose I do think about what I eat at times.

For the second time after a week away in Settle I have lost a kilogram bringing me down to 96.75 Kg  (see here on Instagram) that's fifteen stone three pounds in imperial measure. I remember maybe being 13 stone in the late seventies so I have been a lot lighter. The thing is on holiday you normally over eat and indulge and there was fish and chips, big breakfasts , curries , potato salads and a Terry's Chocolate Orange all part of my culinary intake.

So as this has been on about my portliness and weight, I'm going to share the song "The Weight" by The Band, which was pencilled for inclusion in the "Easy Rider" soundtrack, but the producer either had a falling out with The Band and went for a cover of the song by a band called Smith, I've chosen a live take with The Staples Singlers from the Martin Scorsese directed "The Last Waltz", an awesome concert film, well worth watching.

It's a cold sunny Sunday so have a great day everybody.

Wading Through Treacle

That's how I feel reading "On Some Faraway Beach" the David Sheppard biography of Brian Eno. Two weeks in I'm only up to page 140 of 450. The thing is the writing is excellent and interesting and unskimmable, you want to read every word. Roxy Music were probably the band I was furthest into combining so many stylish elements visually, lyrically and musically. It's just the typeface and setting makes it difficult to read many pages at one sitting, but I do actually love it.

I am just passing Brian Eno's time with Roxy Music and flowing into "No Pussyfooting" which features two twenty minute drone pieces  "The Heavenly Music Corporation" and "Swastika Girls"  his wonderful album with Bob Frip and his first solo "song" album "Here Come The Warm Jets". One of the pieces on "No Pussyfooting was accidentally played backwards by John Peel and in the deluxe CD version you have that option as well as a half speed (so double length take.

So included a part of "The Heavenly Music Corporation" and I often listen to this to go to sleep to, no hooks, nothing that grabs your attention but , in my opinion, an amazing wash of sound.

Enjoy.

Twelve Inches

This week I bought three 12" vinyl singles from Skipton Sound Bar. I don't need any more vinyl but one was a blue vinyl take on Ron Grainer's "Doctor Who" theme by Mankind, which you can see here, but I have never heard, and listening on Youtube sounds remarkably sanitised and weedy, The original given to us by Delia Derbyshire in the sixties wipes the floor with it.

I am going to listen to it once I get home but have a feeling it will be dispatched to a trade in The original and subsequent series reboots are all excellent but the Mankind version is so sanitised that it would be rejected by an elevator music soundtrack.

While the Blue Pearl and Shamen records are both excellent it looks like Mankind is the dud, but that's just one of the ways to discover new sounds, you've got to take a chance, and the Blue Pearl one was worth the gamble.

I'm also pleased that the blog is going to hit the 400K visits before today is out, and my hope was that I would hit that before New Year's Eve, seems I've hit it over three weeks to spare.

So this is just a post to record the Mankind single and the visit to The Skipton Sound Bar before my return tomorrow.