Enjoyment

The first Rod Stewart album I bought was "Every Picture Tells A Story" and that was so good I wasn't sure about the follow up. I seem to remember the album and lead single "Maggie May" both topped the American and UK charts simultaneously in the days when you had to move product to actually get a chart placing.

The follow up "Never A Dull Moment" was possibly even better with some gorgeous songs and the excellent lead single "You Wear It Well" plus many others including "True Blue", "Lost Paraguayos" and a storming take on Sam Cooke's "Twistin' The Night Away" with a cracking drum break from , I assume , Kenny Jones. The Faces were always around for the early Rod outings.

Rod Stewart is one of the all time finest interpretive singers and he could write a good song himself.

His early albums contain some great songs and covers, check out "Gasoline Alley"

For the creative finale came with "Atlantic Crossing" which was when he hit paydirt, although he has still produced the odd gem. It is quite amusing when no one knows our favourite artists and we complain because they don't get the appropriate recognition, and then when they do it hit the big time we complain that they sold out. Let's face it we all do what suits us best.

So this brief Rod Stewart appreciation is topped by "You Wear It Well" and that's for everyone that does.

Leaf Mouse

It looks like the feedburner feed has finally fizzled out two thousand visits short of half a million, c'est la vie , I 'm surprised it has gone on as long as it has. The half million will come , just not as quickly as I was expecting.

Tonight I was out walking and heard a noise near my feet and thought it was a mouse or rat. On closer inspection it was actually a leaf! I may have been influenced by the rodent I saw aon West Cliff at Whitby. Who knows what can twist and lead our minds. I also saw and disposed of a huge spider in the kitchen tonight, I've seen bigger, but not that often.

I was thinking of writing a (science) fiction story as a post with the title "The Probability Conundrum" bas on the fact that everyone expects something to happen whether it be good or bad, based on fact or heresay (or heresy ... I wonder if those two words are related) and then do those people cause the expectation to happen abdor does it just happen ... eventually, and also could people make things happen for other people if they knew someone was expecting a particular outcome.

I wasn't sure where I would go with this but there's some bits here that I may pick up on one day.

It seems the tags on posts are working again so I've added a few for this post, which I hadn't really planned to do as it is past eleven on a Friday night and also this year I don't intend to post as much.

I've also stopped posting on Mewe but maybe I will post this on there and see if visits pick up.

So a song to go with this, maybe "Science Friction" by XTC which is a song from my long ago youth, but still worth a listen. This is one of the things about getting older , your back catalogue of experiences and likings increases with everything you do , or it should, and it certainly does with me.

Ok almost time to hit dreamland and see all my friends there.

Fair To Middling

Last night I finished watching Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar", it's taken me a week to do it and I don't know what I was expecting, but when it started I thought "I thought this was film about space exploration". Well it's Christopher Nolan and is a wonderful, touching and mind bending film, yes things happen that you think that's far fetched, but when you suspend your disbelief it is an absolutely brilliant film.

I am more than half way through the Elektra story by Jac Holzman "Face The Music" and we are still following The Doors. The importance of The Doors to Elektra is emphasised by the back cover of the book that has fourteen album covers, four of which are by The Doors, other bands and artists get one. It's still interesting and readable but a lot of this I know from The John Densmore book but that's bye the bye.

I also got through a few pages of my favourite book "Imajica" on my Kindle Fire and otherwise did nothing. Is reading and watching film efficient use of my time? Who knows but it is enjoyable.

I was thinking that this was about beginnings , middles and ends but the Thousand Yard Stare song "Fair To Middling" (a phrase from my youth) came to mind, and as they are one of my favourite bands I will share that with you, although that was the name of the album so we'll go with "0-0 After Extra Time" or "No Score After Extra Time" depending on who's reporting the title, still appropriate in this FA Cup replay week.

I also want to do a Youtube video of me playing Tom Wait's "In The Neighbourhood" and "Does This Train Stop on Merseyside" by Ian Prowse / Amsterdam . I know I can't match the originals but the songs are both simple and wonderful.

Favourites

Favourites is one of those words where the American spelling misses out the "u" , like colour or neighbour . The thing is often the American spelling is more accurate than the English version, I think Aluminum / Aluminium is one such example. Anyway this is a digression.

Staying with Matt and Craig in Dillons I found that as well as their normal excellent service and welcome they'd upgraded their TV's to Smart TVs so there were lots of options to watch catch up TV (such as "The Thick of It" on BBC iPlayer from episode one which although it is only fifteen years old gets dated by the plethora of CRTs and flip phones , though the dialogue (American dialog ? ) is still sharp as ever.

Coming home I started on "Veep" another Armando Iannucci driven series as manic, sweary and brilliant as "The Thick Of It" part of the new excellent Sky Comedy channel, and followed that with a few episodes of the excellent "Miracle Workers".

The book I am reading "Follow The Music" has just covered the signing of The Doors to Elektra but the book itself is far too big to conveniently carry , so I bought a similarly sized book for my Kindle Fire "Imajica" by Clive Barker which is my favourite book of all time and was drawn into that and read twn chapters over the weekend and on the train back so that is another favourite I now have on the go (again).

Meanwhile the TIVO box is filling up with recordings and I am working my way through Christopher Nolan's excellent "Interstellar" which is rather amazing despite a lot of heartrending moments caused by the bending of time in space travel through black holes.

So today is back to work and I may walk to work although it is quite cold.

Another five thousand visits and this blog will have had half a million visitors which is a sort of milestone, although when I think I cover more than a million steps every three months that number does pale into insignificance.

So what song should I share this morning, the only band I have mentioned are the doors but I was also mentioning how technology can make film and TV look dated (but don't let that stop you watching because it is the dialogue that makes it essential viewing) so we will go with "Living In The Past" by Jethro Tull.

Lost Connection

Got to Whitby and the charging port on my Google Pixel died on me, so it was a case of slowly watching the woer drain until it died. An new port will be about sixty pounds but of course I was away in Whitby with no other form of connection to so many things. I have my Amazon Kindle but that is reliant on a wifi connection and  while there are numerous connection options it's not a phone and is hardly portable.

The cost of a refurbished Pixel 2 is only a hundred pounds more than the Pixel itself , and the reason I want to stay with the Pixel is that it keeps pace with Operating System Upgrades so my Pixel is on Android 10. I bought an old Samsung Note that could only take up to version 4 so a lot of the apps I need wouldn't work and didn't  do 4G, so went back to CEX and exchanged for a Samsung A3 which was smaller and goes up to V6 and does 4G. It's a bit smaller and slower but does the job and is a decent holding handset until I get a new on or the Pixel fixed, though a second hand Pixel with a 12 month guarantee is around £90 so not much more than getting this one fixed.

If I had been in Newcastle I'd have probably found somewhere to fix it but when you are on holiday it's a little more difficult, although life without a phone is not impossible.

So it's now finding options and finding my way back to work tomorrow.

Ezra Furman's "Lousy Connection" seems fairly appropriate don't you think for this first February post. Oh and I need to install twitter on the A3 to share this.

Length

In yesterdays post I spoke of "Revelation" being the first piece by a rock band (Love on "Da Capo") to take up a side of a vinyl album. That got me thinking of what followed from that.

Classical music seems to have often consisted of lengthy pieces in the form of symphonies , but these were usually split into movements to give orchestras and audiences a rest. Remember permanent functional recordings that could cope with that sort of length of music did not come until the vinyl album which was around the late forties early fifties , and some symphonies outlasted the realistic forty minute vinyl limitation (anything else results in groove cramming and sound degradation).

Pink Floyd took up s side of "Meddle" with "Echoes" and "Atom Heart Mother"'s title track took up the first side. Yes did the same with "Close To The Edge" and "Relayer" opened with the first side being taken up by "Gates of Delirium" .

"Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd and "Sergeant Pepper" by The Beatles were merged song cycles that had defined songs that segued into others.

Yesterday on my walk to work I listened to Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" which is just a single forty minute piece, obviously consisting of movements and it does amage me that artists can remember everything to perform these live. That was followed by "Passion Play" which was split by the silly "Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" by effectively took up a fill vinyl album.

However Tull were outdone by Mountain who on the original vinyl album of "Twin Peaks" stretched "Nantucket Sleighride" over two and a half sides even though it was only thirty minutes long, so we'll go with the studio take of that for this last post in January. It's only six minutes long and amazing song about whaling, a section of it was also used for an ITV news program "Weekend World" , and I always loved the early Mountain album covers, amazing artwork.

Revelation

On my last post I realised I'd posted 21 times this January, last January I posted 17 times and I thought if I keep this up it will be another record year. I'd worked on in my heat that 21 x 12 = 372 !! Obviously my brain wasn't functioning correctly as it often doesn't.

This is probably my last post this month and will probably resume early  next week. I am off the Whitby for the weekend staying at Dillons one of my two preferred stays in Whitby (the other being La Rosa) , Dillon is brilliant , Craig and Matt are great hosts , the rooms are great and their breakfasts are awesome. This time it's Whitby by train, I wonder if the train will make it. Last time the line was blocked at Hartlepool so a taxi was laid on that got us to Whitby 45 minutes early...... you can't do negative delay repay (smiles).

Anyway I am getting through "Follow The Music" and the Elektra label has got it's first rock acts, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Love. Love, led by the unfeasibly talented Arthur Lee, were the first band to fill a side with a single piece, the eighteen minute "Revelation" on "Da Capo", their second album which you can listen to by clicking on the title link. It starts off with cod harpsichord  before reverting to more standard 4/4 pop rock progressing / descending into a jam, though more than listenable , owing a lot to long blues jams.

Love covered "Hey Joe" and the Bacharach / David song "My Little Red Book" book I'm going to share "Alone Again Or" with it's amazing brass arrangement and trumpet solo. It was also well covered by the Damned which you can hear here.

Archimedes' Devil

A quarter of the way through "Follow The Music" and it mentions that Jac Holzman had a desk toy called an Archimedes Devil. I'd never heard of these and couldn't really find anything on the web until I came across the Cartesian Diver or Cartesian Devil a classic science experiment which demonstrates the principle of buoyancy (Archimedes' principle) and the ideal gas law. So now I know what it is and I have seen them in the past, but this is another reason why it is great to read because it either brings back things you've forgotten or lets you discover new things.

I'm still not up to the introduction of rock music to Elektra (though the book's cover has about four Doors albums and The Beatles have been mentioned) but several unexpected names have popped up, one of which was Joshua Rifkin a player with the Even Dozen Jug Band (I really need to look into what a Jug Band is (A group that uses unconventional or improvised instruments, such as jugs, kazoos, and washboards.)  DuckDuckGo and Wikipedia are a great reference library.

But it a semi parallel with Brian Eno's Obscure imprint , Jac Holzman came up with the idea of a budget Classical label selling good quality albums for $2.50 undercutting major labels, and Rifkin was a musicologist who wrote the sleeve notes, The label is Nonesuch ,and I first came across this and Joshua Rifkin when he covered some Scott Joplin ragtime and his version of "The Entertainer" was what brought ragtime to my attention, Marvin Hamlisch covered it for the theme for the film "The Sting" , so that's what we go with today for your enjoyment.

Repetition

I heard some of the new Ed O' Brien (Radiohead) album and remember Thom Yorke saying they were dispensing with melody. Essentially music should contain some sort of recognisable pattern which may or may not be defined as melody.

Then I started thinking (and I have probably written about this before so I am repeating myself) that all songs and musical pieces are generally based on repetition , often starting with a drum beat or a rhythm in one form or another and then built up from there.

Obviously there is music that maybe doesn't have a beat as such (say in acapella) but there is recognisable repetition.

For a piece to not repeat and still be recognisable it needs to be very short, and often you will get bits in songs that do that, but repetition is essential to the actual production of a song or musical piece.

Ironically prose and film has to generally avoid repetition except in cases such as the two excellent Duncan Jones (David Bowie's lad) films "Moon" and "Source Code" where repetition is essential to the excellently executed storylines.

Life is full of repetition we sleep , wake eat , work then repeat. When we eat we have to wash and dry utensils and then repeat, same with clothes , we wear , wash  then wear in a never ending cycle which is not necessarily a bad thing , life is cyclical.

Yes it's a short Saturday morning post , and there is only one song for this , "Repetition" by The Fall.

Missing Targets

I was hoping for the blog to hit half a million visits by the end of January but with eight days to go and 21K short I think it will happen in the first week in February. January's step count is back to normal with 51K to do in eight days so that is fairly easy, and in theory I could do it in one day but that would mean walking over twenty miles and I'm far too lazy to do that.

My Christopher Lee slideshow video has passed 40K visits which is impressive when you consider the a hundred visits is considered a success for me. The Dr Seuss / Nick Cave Red Right Hand one is up to 5.6K (the first one I did hit 16K but new images became available so I extended it). Given "Red Right Hand"'s use in "Peaky Blinders" and the fact that it was the first ever non commissioned piece of music used it the "X Files".

I'm only a tenth of the way through "Follow The Music" but it is enjoyable finding out about recording , distribution and Jac Holzman's unimpressive attitude to women in the fifties, plus dealing with blacklisting during the McCarthyist Witch Hunts  is all very illuminating and interesting and I may have up to ten weeks of this, which is not a bad thing.

I am almost impressed with myself that I have written a decent length blog post with absolutely nothing to to say, just plucking the odd things out of the air to put down and share with you.

So the last thing on this Friday morning is to share the "Red Right Hand" video for you with excellent graphics by the brilliant Dr Faustus. , Oh here's a thing, because I've been writing this I've completely forgotten to take my tablets!!

Cars Hiss By My Window

This is basically my start to the days, around 4:30 - 5 am I start hearing cars on the road, then about 5:30 I hear the Central Heating Boiler (serviced today by my friend Harry Willis) start up , then at 5:45 my alarm goes off, which I turn off immediately then stretch to wake my body up before going to the bathroom to shave and clean my teeth, followed by a shower. That's my normal start to the day except today I heard a car and then the alarm went off, meaning I sort of had to get up immediately, with Harry coming to service the boiler at eight.
The "Follow The Music" book is very similar to "On Some Faraway Beach" , a lot of text, but very interesting and is going to be a long and interesting ride, about the history of Elektra records as well as the history of recording media and lots of other things including interviews with the artists involved and Jac Holzman's first record shop "The Record Loft" (it wasn't a loft but he thought it sounded folky.

The title of the post is another song from "LA Woman" one of my eldest daughter's favourite Doors albums so we will use that for this post methinks.

Rising

Last month I was 20K steps short of my step target, this month I am, so far,  37K ahead of my target. Last month I was plagued by 'flu'  which lasted into January and I am still recovering from it. Today, for the first time in a long time I walked into work and then walked home , so that 15K steps which is about six and a half miles, and it was quite easy. I was helped by listening to David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World" and the "No Plan" EP.

This morning I started reading "Follow The Music" by Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws which is large format , small but readable print and four hundred pages , so it will take me a long time to get through, but has started out promisingly, and is a wonderful accompaniment to my most impressive box set "Forever Changing" the story of Elektra Records , you can see some pics by clicking on the Follow The Music link.

Anyway during my walk I listened o "The Man Who Sold The World" , disturbingly dark and although there were some songs I thought I didn't rate highly , namely "Running Gun Blues" and "Black Country Rock" I found that I actually did, and "She Shook Me Cold" is the only one that is not on the same level as the rest, and it's still good.

I followed this with the "No Plan" EP which I had dismissed as out takes, but even though it leads with the prophetic "Lazarus" from "Blackstar" it is remarkably good while not part of the "Blackstar" universe but thoroughly worth your time.

So we obviously go with "Lazarus".

Back To Front

Yesterday I posted that generally we can trust technology. After finishing  "Riders on the Storm" by John Densmore I picked up "On Tyranny" by Timothy Snyder and it has pointed out a couple of instances where technology is possibly not to be trusted.

The book is small , 128 pages and large, easy to read print and has 20 lessons on tyranny in the last two centuries culminating in our current situation, and what YOU should do to combat this and defend freedoms. It is an absorbing, informative read, highlighting a lot of things that you may have missed, assumed were OK and the like.

One if the the points was electronic voting, machines can be manipulated, so the only safe way of voting is on paper slips that can be checked and recounted, although we know even that can be manipulated.

It mentions how easy it is to ignore when others are being mistreated , especially by authoritarians.

There are also example books of how authoritarian groups can subvert nations with the implicit approval of the silent majority , namely George Orwell's "1984"  and JK Rowling's "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows" . "1984" and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" highlight the power of destroying books and relying on screens and billboards and an ever decreasing number of controlled words.

I will probably finish this book today but it really should be in everyone's library , and I do worry about people who say they don't read or don't like books.

We are in worrying times and one of the problems is that we laugh at our political leaders rather than taking them to task, so I think given the rise of the acceptability of racism in both the UK and USA thanks to their governments we will go with the excellent "Ich Bin Ein Auslander" by Pop Will Eat Itself.

Inside Out

Today is going to be functional. I was changing the bedding and whichever way I pulled the quilt cover and pillowcases they seemed to be inside out. I got it right eventually but it is a tribulation to say the least.

Then I tried to fix the charging port on my phone, apparently it's full of compacted fabric so the charger wont stay in so it needs cleaning out. I tried it at work yesterday and thought I had broken it, but it seems as it was at home so that's something I also seed to look at.

Also the sink plug mechanism is sort of broken , it's nothing major just a bit awkward to put back together.

Add to that basic shopping and a haircut , as you can see a very functional day.

I thought there was a Hawkwind song called "Inside Out" but it's actually called "Upside Down" , thein I remembered Imelda May did a song with that title so I will share that with you.

Psychological Barriers

Yesterday I had a doctors appointment in Shieldfield , East of Newcastle Centre over the Central Motorway, I live in Fenham to the West of the city centre and took the first bus that actually terminated in the city centre (it's the only one on that service that does).

A bus that would have served me just pulled out as I arrived so I walked down to the next stop where there were huge queues and I thought  "Could I walk? But it is across the Central Motorway" . Immediately I was placing a psychological barrier to stop me actually walking there. I looked at my watch and had 21 minutes to make my appointment and thought well I may as well try.

Six minutes later I was over the motorway and one bus stop away from the surgery, I kept on walking and five minutes later I was in the surgery , just over ten minutes from town centre to my doctor's surgery. My blood pressure was initially up after the walk according to their machine in the waiting room and the doctor was slightly concerned so retook it and all was fine. It was just after a brisk walk your blood pressure can go up.

Coming back I thought I can wait for a bus or be back in town in ten minutes walking. I chose the latter, and also took some photos and video of the Central Motorway on Instagram here.

This is just one example of the barriers we put up to stop us doing things when really we would benefit from actually doing that thing.

I now have to walk to the Post Office to pick a delivery and think I will go with "Walkin'" by CCS.

Trust In Techno

On Monday morning I had to get up at 4:45 Am , my alarm normally goes off at 5:45 and while it's fine to switch on an off , it's messy to change the alarm time, so I set my phone alarm for 4:45. No we are generally well served with technology, things generally work and failure is normally an exception, so generally you can trust technology (although computers and be a bit awkward and phones are not really phones anymore they are computers that, among other things allow you to make phone calls.

I also use mine to send videos to my dad and he, under Francesca's direction is getting a lot easier with sending video messages., and this all generally works.

If you press the light switch the light turns on or off, same with any number of devices so when I set the alarm on my phone, that should have been it until the alarm sounded, but I woke up at 1AM , 2AM , 3AM , and 4:30 AM . I am not sure why because I trust the technology but each time I woke I thought I had missed the alarm. I hadn't of course, and eventually at 4:30 I just got up and switched the alarm off, so it never got to sound.

So we'll go with one of my favourite bands The Alabama 3 , a live take of the excellent "You Dont Dance To Tekno Anymore" from their "Exile on Coldharbour Lane" amazing debut, and any time listening to the Alabama 3 is time very well spent.

The Grey Quiet

This was a phrase that came to me when I was out early Sunday morning, the sound of my footsteps disappeared almost before my feet hit the floor , there were no vehicles and the only person I saw was someone soundlessly walking their dog. The dog never barked. There was no wind, there was just an uncanny stillness in the air. It was quiet, and the quiet seemed to swallow all the sound.

It was an almost science fiction scenario, imagine if it was always like that. I'm sure there is at least a short story in this scenario, but it was something I just wanted to write down. Maybe I will revisit it sometime in the future.

Normally in life there is sound and movement but when you are the only thing moving and making any sound it gives an unusual feeling of loneliness. There are times you need to be alone, but not all the time. When I write these posts I can only do it when I have my own space and time.

So I still haven't finished "Riders on the Storm" but John Densmore has reached the making of "LA Woman" and according to him the word "Mojo" is a negro word for sexual prowess, I'd always assumed it was sort if charisma. This comes from the phrase in the title song of the album, as I 've said seven minutes, one and a half chords and a riff and totally brilliant, "Mr Mojo Risin" which is an anagram of Jim Morrison. To record the album, which Paul Rothschild didn't want to produce , so he didn't, the band co produced it with long term engineer  Bruce Botnick and "regressed" from 16 Track to 8 Track recording, recorded it in a couple of week and credited all songs to the band, going back to the situation with their first two albums, and producing one of their best discs.

So I am now off to the doctors and leave you with "LA Woman"

Chain Tarot

Today was my second appearance on Radcliffe and Maconie's "The Chain" and you can hear my low key conversation with the lads about 136 minutes in to this show for that next month or so, The link was very simple so I didn't really expect it to be taken up but I went from "Book of Love" by Magnetic Fields to Magnetic Fields Pt 2 by Jean Michel Jarre who has surprisingly only appeared on The Chain once until now. My friend Graham heard me and reckoned Elvis Costello and The Attractions could be a good link, he has a week to get his email off to them.

Probably my favourite Christmas present was the Dali Tarot set and was wondering, given that I have about six tarot decks whether I should try to use them. I do love the art work on the deck but basically reading Tarot is done differently for everyone and is based on intuition and interpretation, so you may draw the hanged man but that can be taken as an end, a beginning, a change , lots of interpretations.

It is similar to the I-Ching but I suppose you could take any set of random object to prompt you to interpret what you actually see, Like many things people look for answers, but really the only answers can come from you, and things will only happen if you take actions to make them happen, things seldom drop into your lap unexpectedly (though I once found £20 on the street, obviously I couldn't return it so I kept it) but when I was last in Settle we found a wallet which I took to the Police station and they knew who's it was from a photograph in the wallet.

So I may use the Tarot and it may point me in a direction, but I will always have the benefit of some amazing artwork in my hands.

Strange Days

I started this blog in 2007, so this in my thirteenth year of blogging. That year I posted six times. This is my tenth post this year and it's the eleventh of January, so despite the fact I said I was going to be more relaxed about my posting I am almost averaging one a day, though it does help if you have something to stimulate your writing.

Also as I have said, some of my blog posts were single line items, barely worthy of a post it note. I think my posts are now a little more involved and hopefully better quality, though that is determined by people who read it, although I still only have five followers, and a few people who comment on facebook although that last two months have had over 50K page views , but again only ten comments over the last thirteen years. I have deleted spam advertising comments but that points to a hell of a lot of robots or skimmers.

I was surprised to find that from my last post my friend Robin has a signed copy of the John Densmore book "Riders on the Storm" and shared the Guardian article by him with me and my eldest daughter is a fan of the album "LA Woman" which I really didn't know at all. It is great to discover good things about family and friends through unexpected interaction. Facebook is useful at time.

So I am half way through "Riders on the Storm" and it's still interesting and more than readable and they have just finished recording the album "Strange Days" which was the first Doors album I bought. I was surprised to find that the eleven minute "When The Musics Over" was recorded without Jim Morrison and the vocals were added afterwards, although they had played it many times live. "People Are Strange"  is a doors song that everyone knows probably from the Echo and the Bunnymen cover from "The Lost Boys" but we will go with the title track from the album.

I'd also never realised that the front and back cover of the album were two halves of the same photograph.

Strange Days Indeed ......