Today's Rock and Roll Call - #ALifeInNumbers #56

This is another contrived shoe in , but it's a great and funny record. It was released in 1956 (even older than me) and starts off counting to and from ten 1-2-3-4-  56 -7-8-9-10. Like all great comedy the Goons were very hit and miss, but for me "Bloodnok's Rock and Roll Call" is a definite hit.

This morning I was hoping to update Song of the Salesman but it's running slow , the support adon't seem to have a clue. It's funny how so much technology support is outsourced to the cheapest bidder regardless of their ability to do the job. But that's the world we live in today.

Still this week I have got to see The Bonzo Dog Band and Half Man Half Biscuit , found a great venue in the most ridiculously inaccessible town centre location. I do loke walking in parks but not after a late gig finish on a cold rainy night. Wylam Brewery's Grand Hall in The Palace of Arts is impressive though.

Anyway enjoy this wonderfully sunny day and if you fancy some lovely food and drink slip down to Wildflower Cafe on Westgate Road.

The Palace of Arts

Tom Waits For Now Man - #ALifeinNumbers #55

Well we're on the home straight now, after this four more posts. It's already been a great week with various excellent things happening. Last night got a huge compliment from management at work which is a sort of cherry on the cake for this week so far.

Tuesday night I say the Bonzo Dog Band at the Sage, which has now become a very fluid lineup but it was an absolutely brilliant night, and on Tuesday my friend Jessica and her friend Asher opened Wildflower Cafe on Westgate Road. I work near St James' Park so was hoping to walk there, I needed some cash so got some from the St James' cash machine (it only had twenties), then set off. I then realised there was a large derelict area / building site which would mean a long right or left detour, however when I got there I notices a tarmaced path that seemed to skirt the new Science building a head straight to where I was going,

Wildflower Toastie

I got there and then saw across the road a big "Wildflower" sign in the window. I got in and was greeted by Jessica and Asher and there were two girls having coffee and chatting. The place has been furnished via Freecycle,and is bright and airy and welcoming with some of Jessica's designs on the walls, art displayed and books and things to catch the eye. I was trying to find a menu to display , but the fare is mostly if not all vegan, with felafel , hummus and tiffin!  There is lots of choice and I decided on a cheese and tomato toastie and a coffee which I can show you (See Right).

It was delicious, and just right for my dinner (I'm from Preston , it's dinner), too many times toasties are served in doorsteps or huge slabs of pretentious bread. This was perfect, and complimented by green stuff with dressing, which I also enjoyed.

I am looking forward to making this a regular eaterie and general good place to go, though I can see it's going to be popular, it aleady is with me.

Anyway #ALifeinNumbers is "Ol' 55" a song I first heard by the Eagles, so they're getting their second run out in this sequence, but it was written by Tom Waits, and it is one of many songs that you probably don't know have been written by him. So I'm going to include the Eagles version AND the Tom Waits version, because I can, assuming Tom Waits has let it out on Youtube. He's very protective of his music and sued Levis and got them to take out big billboard apologies when they used Screamin' Jay Hawkins'  version of "Heart Attack and Vine".

So enjoy the music and enjoy your Thursday my friends.

Just Numbers - #ALifeInNumbers #54

I'm hoping to hit 120K viewsby the end of #ALifeInNumbers , but with six posts to go I will probably fall just short. I need four hundred hits and with an average of 50 per post I'll be 100 short. Not to worry.. This is a kludge one and Dave Wright mad an early suggestion of 534321 by Manfred Mann to cater for the first five posts. I didn't use it then and am not going to use it now, as I have gone for Patti Smith's take on the same song , 5-4-3-2-WAVE , which is great fun.

Anyway I am feeling very tired and I've nothing much more to say apart from the fact that this has been an interesting week so far, having seen The Bonzo Dog Band last night, and Looking forward to Half Man Half Biscuit on Friday , The CureHeads a week on Friday and the Star Spangled Chestwigs for two gigs in December, so although I want to sleep, I may not give my body that option.

So looking forward to the next couple of weeks and all the great things that are going to happen. Sleep well my friends.

Mortality - #ALifeInNumbers #53

A weird thing happened last night. I was going to see The Bonzo Dog Band at the Sage and decided to walk from the centre of town to the Sage over the Tyne Bridge. As you walk over the bridge there's a big sign with the Samaritans phone number to help people who may be thinking of ending it because things are so bad jumping over the side is the only way they can see of dealing with things. I know how easy it is to jump over the side because I did it in a charity abseil. While I have fleetingly thought of that once or twice in my life I reasoned that was not the way to make things better, also the number of people I would hurt by doing that weighed on my mind, and am I in a good place now.

Watching the Bonzo's it was great to see Rodney Slater (75) saying the crowd were getting better at getting older and a great night was had by all. After the gig it 15 minutes til the next bus and I walked back across the Bridge and had looked over the side and got vertigo, but when you come into Newcastle it's wonderful that you are walking above the rooftops. But again it is worrying that the exit option is so close. If ever you feel like this talk to friends or Samaritans, think of your friends, loved ones and people who rely on. We probably don't tell each other how much we like or love each other.

The other thing is that the older we get the more likely we are to lose friends and loved ones, Leonard Cohen recently declared he was gong to live forever on the front of the Times Culture magazine. I think he had a feeling he was on his way and was displaying his wonderful sense of humour. Enjoy your time with loved ones and friends, that will give you memories that will stay with you forever.

One other thing is that while I was waiting for the bus there's a psychological block that tells you it's a long way because it's across the river. I walked up to St James in around 15 minutes and saw my bus at the traffic lights , so had to then run 250 yards, which luckily I can still do.

Anyway back to #ALifeInNumbers and we hit 53. Sorry if this has been dark, it's actually meant to be positive and helpful.The song is "53rd and 3rd" by The Ramones and we have the album version and a live version with Rancid. This is classic Ramones and a great way to wake up your Wednesday.

Have a great day by friends, the weekend is in sight.

A Classic Motorbike in A Love Song - #ALifeinNumbers #52

Bike Music

I suppose I was brought up with motorbikes, British ones of course, generally. Japanese were dismissed as "japcrap" yet my mates still went for Yamahas. Did you know that the Yamaha logo is three tuning forks? It took me years to notice that.

These days almost every bike you see is Japanese with the odd Harley Davidson. If I see a British bike I will tend to photograph it, I still think they look great like  50s American Cars.

Harleys were seen in films such as Easy Rider, but I never knew anyone who had one.

 
One foreign bike that that a few of my friends had was the 250 Ducati Desmo, which despite the orange livery looked absolutely class. My brother tended to crash bikes a lot , one day spending three days in a muscular paralysis, he took a right hand bed too fast the bike slid across the road hit the pavement, through him off and crushed him against the school railings. He also once took a motorbike apart and put it together again and had a box of "things" left over. The bike still ran.

My problem with motorbikes is and was that I could never coordinate balance, gears, brakes, clutch , accelerator so always ended falling off. My limit was Speedway bikes which just have an accelerator. I do enjoy riding speedway bikes which just have an accelerator, and to this day Speedway is one of the only "going round in circles" sport that I actually enjoy.

Anyway we come on to #ALifeInNumbers #52 and there are two versions of this song, both of which are brilliant. The song is "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" written and originally performed by Richard Thompson. The structure is weird, the playing amazing , the story wonderful but sad but typical Thompson. Dick Gaughan covered it and his version is also excellent so I am going to include both versions. His is here.

The thing is I will never be able to play this song like I will never be able to ride a motorbike.

So enjoy you Tuesday my friends, the next post features one of my favourite bands, although really all these posts do.



Oh and I found this version by a band called Red Molly , a wonderful version. This is the first time I have posted three versions of the same song, and I love them all . This is great, looking for a great song I've found another great band. Their version is here. Today is a very good day.

A Short One - #ALifeInNumbers #51

This is just a very short post.This morning I seem to have been doing lots of things with no end product.  I 'm going to be positive thought , this week I am going to see The Bonzo Dog Band and Half Man Half Biscuit and over the weekend I managed to to vent my spleen about bad and annoying things, although that may happen this week. Anyway good morning to you all, and it's time to hit the week head on.

We're up to number 51 on #ALifeInNumbers and it's the excellent "51st Anniversary" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience a great way to kick start the week. Unfortunately there's very little Hendrix available on YouTube so I've included a cover by the excellent Hamsters.

So have a great day my friends.

Rush Makes Formula One Watchable - #ALifeInNumbers #50

Well it's Sunday evening and this weekend has included a lot of catch up TV mostly involving lot's of gore, violence , and shouting, but that's enough about the election fallout. Though the reality has been American Horror Story (Roanoke not  the election) , Ripper Street , Arrow and the excellent Rush about Niki Lauda and James Hunt. I must say I do find Formula One (and virtually anything that has things running round a track) incredibly tedious but Rush is a truly wonderful film.

The weather has been most depressing, drizzling greyness and I have a garden covered in leaves that I could do with clearing but it's far too wet to do anything with it, and as it is going dark at around 4 pm I'm not sure I will get to do it til next weekend.

So back to #ALifeInNumbers and we hit 50 today. I am sure there are lots of possibilities but I have gone for the raucous "50 Foot Queenie" by Polly Jean Harvey. It's her second entry but she is one of my favourite singers, and this will certainly blow any cobwebs away. Not music to drift off too, but it's something from one of our most original talents.

So enjoy the weekend as it drifts away and prepare yourself for the challenges of this week.

Thank you for reading my friends and feel free to follow me by email.

A Wonderfully Arty Vegan Lift To The Weekend - #ALifeInNumbers #49

In a week that has felt like the world is raining hammer blows on us, today I had two pieces of good news. My friend Craig is out of hospital, but posting on Facebook and sounding very upbeat and positive, though has a drug stash almost as big as mine.

Not Wildflower

Not Thousand Yard Stare

Secondly my friend Jessica, well we've met twice, she has given me cake and I know her mum and we are Facebook friends, and her friend Asher Turnbull are opening Wildflower, an art / vegan café in Westgate Road on 15th of November.





I mentioned that their logo reminded me of the one that one of my favourite bands, Thousand Yard Stare ,had used for their new album (which is excellent by the way). If you follow the tag or click on her name you will find details of the amazing exhibition where I first met Jessica , but as yet I haven't visited  Wildflower but will do as soon as it opens.


While I am pleased to have a vegan eatery close to home I will give a real review when it opens but I am just going to share Jessica's words with you for this. Yes it's a bit lazy I know, but as well as being an amazing artist , she can write too:


Wildflower is a vegan art café opening up on 283a Westgate road, just a little walk from town. We are a friendly place aiming to help creatives express themselves while eating delicious cake!

The café is owned by two very creative young vegans, Jessie and Asher, who aim to make this place spectacular. We want to have many fun events and parties, such as still life drawing sessions, anarchy knitting groups, themed dinner parties, vintage markets, art markets, live music, comedy, upcycling workshops, cooking demos and many more things! All with demonstrating an eco friendly ethic, and helpful attitude towards the local community.

We have started out with very little money, but have so far managed to get most of our furniture from Freecycle, which has been rather glorious. But there are a few essential things that you simply cannot get for free, such as ovens (that work properly!) so we are raising some money to try and get those few essential things! Link to our crowd funder is here: 


Their Facebook page is here  and this is where it is, so also handy for me for lunch.

Anyway this is being woven in with my #ALifeInNumbers  sequence and for number 49 it was always going to be "Funk #49" by the James Gang. The James Gang featured Joe Walsh on guitar, and I have always loved his economic style. Pete Townshend once said that Joe Walsh was his favourite guitarist and you can see the similarities. The chord holsds sway in their songs and this means that they are easy to follow for budding musicians. I've included an excellent live session but you can here the James Gang original here.

Have a wonderful Saturday night my friends.

Staying Positive - #ALifeInNumbers #48

I'm staying positive and will likely have a rant on And Annoyingly over the weekend. This morning we learned of the loss of Leonard Cohen, but he will live on in his writing and music and my belief in the evolutionary process makes me feel he will be progressing in one form or another, and no doubt his record company will have a treasure trove of unreleased material.

Anyway we are at the the weekend (well almost) and this is time for the good and sensible people to regroup and realise they can actually do good, and make a world actually worth living in. The thing is not to give up and very often you find something new to work towards.

Stay Cool

Anyway we come to number 48 of #ALifeInNumbers and it's "48 Hours" by The Clash from their first album, one and a half minutes to blow any cobwebs away. Incidentally The Clash and Leonard Cohen are still label mates, they may have departed this mortal coil (well Leonard and Joe) , but Mick Jones still produces some great music, and actually I am going to include "The News" by Carbon/Silicon because it's an incredibly positive way to start the day.

Stay positive and find good things this weekend my friends.

Post Office and Customs Tarot and a 747 - #ALifeInNumbers #47

Yesterday I got home and saw a note through the door. from the Post Office. There was apcakage for me but I have to pay £8 Customs Duty and an £8 fee to the Post Office to administer the Customs Duty. This is on to of the £37 I paid for the item , which is a Goth Rock Icon Tarot, which looks absolutely beautiful, so yes a lot of money for a small package but I've just had a thought, if Brexit goes through there will be a hell of a lot more instances of this I think.

Psychobilly Tarot

Still, at the weekend I will have the thing in my hands, so I am looking forward to that. I don't know much about Tarot, but have a beautiful Psychobilly Tarot set. These are both limited editions and things of total beauty.

Anyway we are up to Number 47 in #ALifeInNumbers and again  this is a slight kludge which was bound to happen the further we get from Number One.

I'm still disappointed I forgot to include "Map Ref. 41°N 93°W" by Wire for number 41, but hey we are up to 47 and for this I am going for "747" by Joe Louis Walker, so enjoy this slice of Rhythm and Blues as you venture out this Tuesday.

Toot and Smile - #ALifeInNumbers #46

This is the first blog post I've done since I got home. I try to keep things positive, but I am sad that Brexit and Donald Trump are causing many people to think aggressive bullying, racism and misogyny , as well as the demonisation of the weak and poor is now ok. Farage, the tories and Trump do it so it must be OK.. Well you know what, it isn't, and I hope I am never brought that low.

Anyway I want to be positive, and I will be, despite the storm clouds there are lots of great things to look forward to, like spending time with friends and loved ones, getting out to great gigs (although Blyth is a bit awkward for The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, still one of my favourite live bands), and in Newcastle we have so much to enjoy and savour.

I am thinking of my friend Craig who is going through a difficult time at the moment, but he is the most loving, positive , inclusive person you could meet and he is the sort of person that makes life worth enjoying. We need to all follow that example, put a smile on other people's faces, that is a great way to live.

I've just realised that I missed at least one great song from my list because my list was on my home PC. Bugger.

Anyway we hit Number 46 and it's a bit of a kludge but it's "54-46 Was My Number" by Toots and The Maytals, and it's an excuse to fit one Toots song in. I found this live cut , but click on the title if you want to download the studio version.

Anyway that is Monday over with, enjoy your week my friends.

Thousand Yard Stare - #ALifeInNumbers #45

This morning I got another follower on twitter, someone called Kelly. I thought the name was familiar and I think she is a great girl I worked with at EE, I am not 100% certain but may be right or wrong. I was Facebook friends but dropped her when I started getting some spiteful harassment from other people and decided it was not a good idea to be Facebook friends with management at the place where you work. The good thing about social media is you can connect with people who are worth your time and effort and I do look to try and be friends with positive people and Kelly is definitely one of those. Who knows we may reconnect on Facebook.

Today is fairly grey and this morning was spent dodging cattle and sheep on the road between Orton and Shap on the way to Tebay services via the back roads. Today was meant to be total relaxation, with no driving, but needs must and I took the car out again. This means that I will have driven on every day of the holiday, which has still been very relaxing and enjoyable.

It is so nice to not have to get up and go to work. As I write this I am sitting in the warm listening to Tom Ravenscroft on 6Music, with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Yak, Prince and Grandaddy flowing through the airwaves.

Anyway we’re up to number 45 in #ALifeInNumbers and it was always going to be “God’s P45” by Thousand Yard Stare. Thousand Yard Stare are a band I always loved but didn’t get the success they deserved. I think their sound and attitude is in the same universe as Half Man Half Biscuit and The Wedding Present, and loved the titles of their songs such as “Happenstance”, “Buttermouth” and “0-0 After Extra Time” (that could have been Half Man Half Biscuit. I was delighted to hear they had got back together and produced a new digital album, which still have to buy, but it’s here.

 "God's P45" is the first song that I can't find on Youtube and it's not even available digitally. I have a copy at  home, so I will create a slideshow and put it up at the weekend and include it here. Anyway enjoy “Version of Me” , and enjoy your Thursday my friends, the weekend is nearly here.

Howling - #ALifeinNumbers #44

Well we are two days into November and although there was frost this morning it has been a pleasant day. The rest of the week is not meant to be as good, but this week I have visited Kirkby Lonsdale, Kendal and Ambleside as well as using Orton to walk and relax.

I have done catch up TV, finishing series one of Fortitude and continuing with Better Call Saul which is most entertaining.

While in Ambleside I noticed front pages from the racist Daily Mail and idiotic Daily Express and I am seriously sad that people I know still defend the red tops, because the like the crossword or the horoscope or the sport coverage. But I will try and not let that bother me, you cannot argue with these people, because they are too stupid to understand what you are telling them.

Anyway that’s enough of a rant and we can continue with #ALifeInNumbers #44. I was racking my brains for this one and was sure there must be some kind of firearm or motor vehicle or motorbike with that number in its name or description, and sure enough there is a Howlin’ Wolf number called “Forty Four” which is about his gun, which he has to pawn.

I love Howlin’ Wolf and always thought “Smokestack Lightnin’” was an amazing title with a monstrous loping riff. A couple of years ago I found that he used to watch steam locomotives go past his residence at night with the funnels shooting out smoke and sparks and fire, the funnels are also called smokestacks and fire was Howlin’ Wolf’s Lightning.

So enjoy you Wednesday evening my frienda and enjoy this classic slab of Howlin’ Wolf.

Nothing About Samhain and All Hallows - #ALifeInNumbers #43

I’m obviously a bit on my guard after the data drain caused by the Windows 10 update. The main “enhancements” see to be trying to make me log into OneDrive every time I connect to the internet and telling me I need to upgrade my copy of Microsoft Office (I’m on 10 but obviously I need their rented version) . I still like having some control Microsoft.

Similarly Apple did an update that forced me to add a credit card so I could use Apple Pay. I don’t think I will ever have an iPhone, and I won’t use my iPad to pay for anything, but it was a dead end, give us your credit card details or you can’t use your device. Very nice Apple you have really gone up in my estimation.

Anyway it lookslike yesterday I used about .7 Gb of data. My usual use is maybe 1 Gb a week, but that is in environments where wifi is often available, and this week I am in an area where wifi and phone signals are seen as a form of magic only practiced by “outsiders”.

Anyway we are up to number 43 of #ALifeInNumbers on this beautiful sunny 1st of November. I thought it was unusual that 39,40,41 and 42 could have been represented by those numbers as the song titles. I didn’t use 42 for reasons explained in my last post.

Number 43 I have no such qualms about , and I am going for “Made-Up Love Song 43” by The Guillemots, one of those bands I haven’t really followed but always enjoy hearing, they are just a casualty of there being so much great music to listen to in my musical universe.

Anyway enjoy your first day of November,Today is either All Hallows Day or Samhain depending on your belief system. Enjoy and and celebrate.

Author Author and No Coldplay - #ALifeInNumbers #42

Number 42. This is a really difficult one for me. I can think of a song called “42”, but it’s by Coldplay and I listened to it and it's Coldplay in limp chinned student mode. Having said that there are probably not all that many Coldplay songs I would countenance so really I don’t want to include it.

Because it’s 42 I want to include something related to The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, because Douglas Adams told us that the answer to the Ultimate Question was 42 , that answer was of course 42, provide by the mega computer Deep Thought. The quest for the ultimate question… well read the books and you’ll find the answer.

A similar scenario occurs in another of my favourite books “Venus On The Half Shell” by Kilgore Trout.

Kilgore Trout is an author who is a figment of the imagination of the wonderful but sadly missed Kurt Vonnegut.

However this pseudonym was taken up by Philip Jose Farmer to write the book. All three authors are incredibly intelligent, have a healthy attitude to life and humanity, as well as a wicked sense of humour.

The premise is the search by the hero to find the answer to the ultimate question, “Why are we born to suffer and die?”. At the end of the book the hero gets to meet God and asks God the question. God’s reply: “Why Not?” One of my favourite las lines in a book.

Anyway I have decided, for number 42, to go with The Eagles “Journey of the Sorcerer”, because it is awesome and the theme to “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” which has as the answer to the ultimate question the number 42. And that is good enough for me.

Enjoy Halloween my Pagan and Wiccan friends.

When You Take You Eye Off The Ball - #ALifeInNumbers #41

Today something happened that shouldn’t have happened to me. I’m in a low connectivity area so I’ve been using my phone for tethering to give me internet access. I have a contract that gives me 4Gb a month which is usually plenty of data.

This morning I was doing a couple of blog posts and the laptop required what I thought was a routine update. Then all of a sudden web sites were not available. I looked at my phone and there were messages saying I’d used 80% of my data then all of my data. I thought my phone company have screwed up again, then I checked and saw that according to the phone it had used up all the data in background tethering.

So it wasn’t my phone company, but I noticed the iPad had connected, so that was the next thing to blame because Apple products are always downloading stuff in the background. So I bit the bullet and bought 10 Gb of data, and the download had finished then it said it was 50% complete.

I disconnected the tethering but the laptop continued to update itself, for the next two hours. It was that massive Windows 10 Update that happened on my desktop a couple of months back.

The thing is that I have experience of IT and mobile phones so I should have realised what was happening. But that is a lesson learned and it won’t happen again to me … I hope.

Though we cannot foresee everything no matter how much information we have at our disposal.

Anyway we hit number 41 in #ALifeinNumbers and the song I’ve chosen in #41 by Dave Matthews, an artist who doesn’t get enough exposure.

Here is some excellent guitar playing for you to enjoy, and for me to enjoy too. There are another 18 songs to go, in the sequence so we will hit the end probably in mid November.

Last month over 3,000 people visited my blog, that’s 100 people a day. It’s not a great number in the scheme of thing but given the number of visits I got for my first posts it’s nice to know that people return to look at what I have to say. So enjoy Dave Matthews and enjoy your Sunday evening.

The next one is 41 which everyone knows, because Douglas Adams told them, is the meaning of life.

U2 CAN BE "40" - #ALifeInNumbers #40

This is sort of a cheat to hit number 40 in #ALifeInNumbers, I’m writing in the same session as “39” and will post these two consecutively. Again for was peened in early, and it’s another song from a massive band, one of the few that could be considered bigger than Queen, that band is U2.

  In the mid-eighties I was working and Hygena near Goole. I remember Jasper Carrot posed the question on what inhabitants of Goole were called, but told a story of how he’d been and found that all the restaurants and eating places shut in the lunch hour. I couldn’t believe it, so thought I would investigate, and it was absolutely true. It may have changed, but you drove into Goole and the main road in ended in a roundabout that sent you back the way you came in.

 Anyway I went into Woolworths and got a sandwich and saw the new U2 album, the live “Under A Blood Red Sky” a budget mini album with a striking red cover. I got it home; side one was good but side two was amazing, culminating in the absolutely gorgeous “40”.

So that’s what you get here. Enjoy this my friends.

Getting Regal - #ALifeInNumbers #39

It’s quite amusing when you are suddenly in a place where the internet is a thing of mystery that people shun and pretend to never of heard of. The mobile phone is viewed with suspicion and a signal is a total Will O’ The Wisp. Still that’s a minor price to pay for staying somewhere quiet and relaxing.  The thing is that when you come away from home you tend to forget the odd thing although nothing essential. One thing was the spreadsheet with my list of songs for #ALifeInNumbers so I will be relying on memory this week although 39 and 40 were pencilled in very early.

Anyway I wondered if I would be able to hit forty posts this month, and this is number forty. I thought I would reach it easily but reckoned without being disconnected for the World Wide Web. I find it’s odd that the phone signal is no unreliable but the television signal is very reliable, and surely the travel through the same atmospheric ether.

Anyway we hit number 39 and again this was one song that I decided on and didn’t bother looking any further. In the mid-seventies a friend of my mums told her that a certain album was the greatest record ever made, and that ended up as one of my Christmas presents. The album was very good and every one was raving about a particular over the top piece which the band promoted with a suitably over top video on Top of the Pops taking it to Number One when the singles charts actually mattered. The song was “Bohemian Rhapsody”, the album was “A Night at the Opera” and the band was Queen. The thing I really liked about Queen is their total disdain for fashion and criticism and how they did just what they wanted. Generally I wasn’t a fan of Brian May’s guitar sound unless it got heavy.

But the song that hit me most from the album is the acoustic “’39”, standing out because of its beautiful simplicity in a very over the top setting of the album. So enjoy this under rated, under played Queen beauty. Enjoy your Sunday my friends.

Copping Out With The Electric Light Orchestra - - #ALifeInNumbers #38

When I'm tagging posts I am sometimes very surprised at the things I've written about. Going back I find some very short posts , maybe about twenty words. The thing is a blog is a diary and sometimes you may not have much to say but still want to record it for one reason or another. Here is my first ever post that states what I wanted to do with this blog and I think it's grown a bit since then and now each post gets around fifty hits which is nice (though I don't know how many are robots). I love it that a core of friends visit and so are reading my thoughts and putting me right when I need it.

Anyway we  hit number 38 and this is one of the many cop outs as Dave pointed out, but this one was decided fairly early on, and it's an amazing record, which I bought as soon as I heard it. The Electric Light Orchestra was conceived by Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood to continue where the Beatles left off after "Strawberry Fields" and "A Day In The Life" which was rock and popular music where the orchestra became and integral part of the piece.

The Electric Light Orchestra are responsible for what is still my second favourite album ever "El Dorado" and that was after Roy Wood had departed but prior to them hitting paydirt with "A New World Record" and "Out Of The Blue"

Anyway the song I've chosen is "10538 Overture"  because it does contain "38". It starts with that huge descending guitar arpeggio / riff  (lifted by Paul Weller for "Changing Man") then joined by the muscular string section (led by a hirsute Roy Wood on Cello if I remember rightly).  So you can enjoy this , because this is what the ELO were formed for, but I think they lost their way after "Face The Music" The video is from 1972, and the masks are very worrying given that I've been watching the current series of American Horror Story (My Roanoke Nightmare).

Anyway this month has seen the most posts I've ever done in one month and there's still three more days to go. So have a great Friday my friends, the weekend is almost here.

Beatifully Southern - #ALifeInNumbers #37

Unbelievably there were a few options for "37" including "37½" from Soft Machine "6" , "37 Hours" by Kristin Hersh and "We Do What We're Told (milgram's 37)s" from "So" by Peter Gabriel, but I decided to go for "Straight In At 37" by The Beautiful South as I have always loved their playfully subversive pleasantness.

I had a far better night last night than the night before , sleeping well but finally throwing off (well almost) this cold. For the first time in a long time time I had a smoothie which included frozen blueberries from Aldi , you can see me making it here. So I definitely think that helped along with the drugs.

Have a great Thursday everybody, the weekend is getting nearer.

Good Things Do Happen - #ALifeInNumbers #36

Today is a new day. After yesterday's traumas it's time to be positive once more, although there is The Walking Dead second installment next Monday and Preston play Newcastle again on Saturday, but at least they're on separate days and won't be after a day at work. I definitely need some comedy and music to lighten the mood and still have to write a review of the GOAT and Josefin Öhrn gig last week which was excellent, so that's what I need more of, though I am missing a Women In Revolt gig at the weekend , but c'est la vie.

Anyway number 36 in the series is the excellent "36 Hours" from The Bard of Salford, Dr John Cooper Clarke, the guy who helped bring poetry to punks in the 1970s and he is still doing it although he has done an album of covers with Hugh Cornwell here, which I am tempted by , just because it's a great pairing.

Anyway it's time for work and one of my favourite records has just come on the radio (6 Music of course) the beautiful "To Ohio" by The Low Anthem, which I will include because it is so lovely, then I found this collaboration with Emmylou Harris

See - Good Things Do Happen , you need to appreciate them.

Have a great day my friends

Everybody Must Get Stoned - #ALifeInNumbers #35

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Well today started out full of hope and tonight I feel totally crushed. While I was aware that the new opener for The Walking Dead was brutal, I still wasn't prepared for it . Then that was followed by Preston not putting up much resistance to Newcastle in a six nil defeat at St James' Park. Any Newcastle player's weekly wage is probably close to the value of the whole Preston squad but today was a particularly bad night at the office, not helped by a numpty screeching "send him off" at every Preston challenge and then "you're getting sacked in the morning" , though tomorrow is probably the repayment day on his Wonga loan.

Anyway  the song has to be Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" , with it's refrain of "Everybody Must Get Stoned" . Dylan used to be difficult to track down on Youtube but I found a copy.

It's time for bed now, so enjoy yourself, for me things can only get better as we have Newcastle at Deepdale on Saturday. This time we will turn up.

One Two Free Four - #ALifeInNumbers #34

A couple of years ago Pink Floyd took out a court injunction to stop albums being sold as individual songs. While I understand this for an artistic integrity point of view, when you are selling, the aim is to make money, and surely it is better to receive a pound or two for two songs that the buyer wants than lose ten pounds that would have been the cost of the album. They won the case but must have changed their minds because you can buy the songs individually now.

I do prefer putting and album on and listening to all of it , but digital music gave us the skip, repeat and program options  and these days there are people who cannot stay to the end on a three minute song. I remember watching an artist on X-Factor covering "Nights In White Satin"  by the Moody Blues which clocks in at 5 minutes , but the X-Factor version finished at well under three minutes. When I mentioned this to the person who cajoled me into watching it, they said "Yeah they do that with all the songs otherwise you'd get bored" which confirmed my preconceptions that X-Factor had nothing to do with music.

Anyway this was one of those songs that was penned in as soon as I thought of doing this. It's "Free Four" by Pink Floyd from "Obscured By Clouds" the soundtrack to La Vallee by Barbet Schroeder. No reason apart from I have always loved the song with it's slight acoustic riff underpinned my Rick Wright's menacing synthesizer, Roger Water's deceptively dark lyrics and some Dave Gilmour perfunctory heavy guitar.

So enjoy this, it's time to go off to work now. Have a brilliant Monday my friends.

In 78 Everyone Born In 45 will be 33⅓ - #ALifeInNumbers #33

Pure Pop

"In 78 Everyone Born In 45 will be 33⅓" was a very clever tagline for a Stiff Records compilation "A Bunch of Stiffs" . For  those who need an explanation singles play at 45 rpm and LPs play at 33⅓ rpm and the album was a compilation of singles released in 1978. That got me thinking again about numbers and measures, how inconsistent they are in certain areas . Imperial weight you have 16 ounces to a pound , 14 pounds in a stone, a hundredweight is 8 stone (112 pounds) , then a ton is twenty hundredweight.






For vinyl playing speeds we have 16 (usually for spoken word), 33⅓ for long playing albums , 45 rpm for singles and 78 rpm for singles prior to the seven inch and made out of shellac rather than the more durable vinyl.

I know it's #33 but I am choosing "33⅓" by Jesus and Mary Chain because every time I get the chance to include one of my favourite bands I will take the opportunity, and it gives you more decent music to listen to.

Thirty Two By The Back Door - #ALifeInNumbers #32

Colin Hodgkinson has always been one of my favourite bass players, and I first heard his cover of Robert Johnson's "32-20 Blues" when I discovered Back Door in the seventies . They didn't have a guitarist but Hodgkinson's bass playing mad up for that. This is a live performance and he still has it, probably the first time I have seen a solo blues piece played on the bass. Most of  Back Door's music was saxophone led underpinned by Hodgkinson's bass and are well worth checking out , they even covered "Dashing White Sergeant".

Anyway the weather outside looks grey and I have groceries to buy and friends to meet, so enjoy the rest of your Saturday my friends.

Copping Out With Lee Perry - #ALifeInNumbers #31

This is the first real cop out and there will be a few more before the end. It's 2 am and I have woken up with a horrible raspy dry cough, so what do I do? I make some milky hot chocolate and write a blog post. I normally post on a Friday but yesterday I was tired in the morning after going to see GOAT and Josefin Öhrn the night before which I will write up on Spoongig here and that should appear over the weekend.

Anyway the copy out is that I can't find a "31" song so the best I can do is "3 In 1" by Lee Perry and The Upsetters (or The Heptones according to the Amazon listing) and Dave Wright may point it out that this is a total cop out , but it's my blog, my sequence and my rules and I need to get back to bed. It's also an excuse to get Lee Perry in here so that's fine by me,  I'm just glad I'm not reduced to  X-Factor trash , although they tend to exclusively cover other people's stuff anyway so I would always have the original to fall back on.

Anyway enjoy this and by the time you read this I will probably be tucked up in bed. Have a great Saturday my wonderful friends.

Tom Waits at the Halfway Point - #ALifeInNumbers #30

Well this is just past the halfway point of #ALifeinNumbers and this is on of the prebooked slots with one of my favourite artists Tom Waits with "Sixteen Shells from a Thirty-Ought-Six" or "16 Shells from a 30.6" from the wonderfully named "SwordfishTrombones". If ever you think that the USA is down the drain Tom Waits is one of those people who restore your faith in the artistic brilliance that has come out of the States.

I found this great live take from The Tube in 1985 , absolute genius.

The first thing I heard by him was "In The Neighborhood" , still one of my favourite songs, his songs have been covered by lot's of popular artists such as The Eagles ("Ol' 55" which is penned in for number 55) and Rod Stewart ("Downtown Train" and "Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda]") and no doubt lots of other more mainstream artists.

Today is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. Tomorrow is my friend Helen Morgan's birthday. I have two friends called Helen Morgan , one lives in Africa or New Zealand or somewhere, and one lives in Newcastle, their birthday's are one day apart.

Anyway I'll leave this as a short post, although Preston North End hammered Huddersfield last night so that's two of the top 4 dealt with , only Newcastle United (twice) and Norwich to deal with now and on paper we should be steamrollered. Dwight Gayle cost more than the whole Preston squad but we will see what the situation is in a fortnight.

Have a wonderful Thursday my friends, I am going to see GOAT tonight so going to have my mind blown. See you tomorrow.

Palms Awakening and Two World Class Goals From Preston North End - #ALifeInNumbers #29

What do you do when it's 3:19 am and you feel wide awake. I've had five hours sleep so I am not exactly sleep deprived, but really it's two hours before I need to get up and three and a half hours before I can get into work. Yesterday I was working on a problem and kept running into brick walls but by the time I shot everything down I had the answer and had discovered something I could do with our data warehouse system (actually more like a data garden shed system but that's another story) which isn't documented and  may prove to be useless, but may also prove to be very useful.

It's great when you have days like that where you were looking for an answer and when you get it, you have several other pieces of beneficial information. That's what happens when you work in a supportive environment with great people, and most of my working life I've been able to do that. So I suppose one of the things keeping me awake is the fact that I can present these answers and move on to the next goal.

Anyway it's now 3:29 so it took me ten minutes to write those two paragraphs. I certainly didn't know what I was going to be writing about apart from the fact that it would be part of the #ALifeInNumbers sequence.

 Last night Newcastle United went top fo the Championship, tonight Preston North End play Huddersfield who were top on Saturday morning , on Saturday we play Norwisch, followed by Newcastle in the EFL Cup, followed by Newcastle in the League so starting last Saturday (when we drew 2-2 with Brighton although Sky are insistent Brighton threw away a commanding 2-1 lead, conveniently forgetting Preston scored the first goal and were in the lead in the match for longer than Brighton were). I won't be surprised if we lose our next four matches, but I won't be surprised if we win them either. I'm not a pessimist and I do expect the unexpected from Preston, under Simon Grayson we have been promoted via the play offs for the first time ever, seen our first Wembley victory since 1938, won a playoff final by the highest margin ever, and in two playoff semi finals at Deepdale seen two of the greatest goals you will ever see period. And thanks to Youtube  I can include them below.

It's now 3:41 am, so here's number 29 and what else but the wonderful "29 Palms" by Robert Plant. I've always loved this song and love Percy's solo work, and was amazed when a couple of years back he managed a double CD retrospective called "Sixty Six to Timbuktu"  and that came out thirteen years ago in 2003 so he has not been idle since Led Zeppelin released their last album.

So it's now 3:52 so I'm going to go back to bed and get a few more hours sleep. Hopefully you will be reading this after a good nights sleep.

Joe Garner's Goal:



Jermaine Beckford's Goal:

Greeks and Pizza - #ALifeInNumbers #28

I must be feeling a bit better. I've updated Song of The Salesman and though about buying a VR headset which you can pick up for a few pounds these days , but I resisted for the time being.I also checked out Al Buco  in Old Eldon Square for lunch and had a pizza and drink for a fiver, great atmosphere and great value.

Anyway for number 28 we go to Vangelis and "28th Parallel" from "1492 Conquest of Paradise" , like most of his stuff you will be sure you have heard it even if you haven't . He's already appeared in this sequence as a member of Aphrodite's Child at Number Four.

Well it's time for tea so enjoy your Tuesday night my friends.

Another Bottling With "27" - #ALifeInNumbers #27

Yesterday Chris Hawkins mentioned this sequence on 6Music saying that they had already done it from 1 to 100 and back, but "27" like "26" was chosen due to lack of other options. Most of these songs are from my own collection, and I have to say I am not averse to a bit of Biffy Clyro and "27" is rather good so that's why it gets it's place.

The only 6Music top 100 I can find is here their 100 Greatest hits worryingly topped by Coldplay's "Clocks" which I do admit is one of their finer moments but gets topped by their collaboration with the Buena Vista Social Club on "Rhythms Del Mundo".

The problem with any listing like this is that the further you get from the origin, the more sparse the pickings become. There are still a lot of great songs to come, some which you will be able to predict, some where you will accuse me of bending the rules (my rules incidentally) too far, but I have not and will not put up any song I wouldn't happily listen to.

Anyway have a brilliant Tuesday my friends.

Bottled It With "26" and Son Palace Discovered - #ALifeInNumbers #26

Today has been a weird day. I am absolutely shattered. I'm still hit with this lurgi but went into work, then came home mowed the lawn and covered the garden furniture. As well as working I got tickets for Goat at the Riverside on Thursday from RPM and was asked to review and push a new CD by Son Palace called Accumulations , so I have been busy and am ready for tea and TV.

As I write this I'm listening to the first track on the Son Palace album , "Joey and Mo", it shounds familiar making me thing thing of Neil Young and The Velvet Underground. The album is short, clocking at 28 minutes , but then so did the first Ramones album. It sounds like "Joe and Mo" is an instrumental and I like it a lot, I need to see if we have a youtube video.

The second track "Page To Pillow" has a pastoral feel, again a guitar based instrumental and the first two songs on this album warrant further investigation and listening.

Anyway the song for #ALifeInNumbers is "26" by Catfish and The Bottlemen who have produced a couple of excellent albums , but this only got in because it was called "26" but it is excellent. It's rock and it's good.

Up to track 3 of the Son Palace album "Feathers Like A Wild Beast", and now I am thinking Nick Drake and Pentangle, but loving the distant dustbin drum sound on "Experimental Move". Anyway if you want a copy get yourself along to RPM in Newcastle, it always amazes me that peopel come up with new music. Now listening to "Accumulation" , all tracks have been instrumental and this just has an eerie edge to it, but could be an out take from "Tubular Bells".

An album I would buy if I didn't already have it, it is beautiful. I can't find them on the net so get yourself down to RPM and get this beauty. I know this has been hijacked , but this album is beautiful

Chicago Bound - #ALifeInNumbers #25

In Transit

When I first started this my mate Andy suggested I could kill three birds with one stone by using Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" , well I always loved the song and though it could do for number 25 in the sequence. Before they became wimp rockers Chicago (originally Chicago Transit Authority) were purveyors of muscular jazz rock slabs and this was an absolutely prime example, heavy on the brass and sharing a descending riff ans heard in Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker". I don't know who ripped off who but we all know that Led Zeppelin were not averse to uncredited borrowing of other people's material.




I remember Chicago's albums were just numbered although they brought out a four disc live at Carnegie Hall album which will cost you £100 on CD or a tenner as a download here, when a double album as considered stretching it a bit. Also I believe guitarist Terry Kath lost his life playing Russian Roulette.

I was never a big fan of the band apart from this single and when they hit their wimp rock phase they were way past their sell by date for me.

I suggest you research what I've told because it has all just come from my head so maybe needs taking with a pinch of salt, but enjoy this and if you want to really check out Chicago check out their early stuff and expect some serious brass. I found an excellent live take from 1970, and yes I would have gone and seen they , plus you get a brilliant guitar solo from Terry Kath.

Enjoy your Sunday night my friends.

How Many Numbers - #ALifeInNumbers #24

There are a hell of a lot of songs that feature the number "24" but there was only ever one contender for this. I often wonder about our temporal and up to 1970 monetary number collections.

Before we went decimal it was 2 farthings to a halfpenny , two halfpennies to a penny , then you had a threepenny coin and a sixpence and twelve pennies made up a shilling, known as a bob.  Then you had a florin (two shillings) a half crown (two shillings and sixpence), a crown (five shillings) before hitting the ten shilling note (today's fifty pence piece)  going up to the pond (twenty shillings) and the guinea (21 shillings, work that one out). I've probably missed out lots of other coins and number collections.

Then we come into time. Sixty seconds in a minute, then sixty minutes in an hour , that's all good and consistent. Then we have 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week , 28 to 31 days a month, 12 calendar or 13 lunar months in a years or 52 weeks or 365.25 days in a year, that seems a little inconsistent. I seldom speak of my employers, but when I was at Littlewoods time was tracked in deci-days, that is  one tenth of the seven hours and 24 minutes that made up the actual working day which works out at 44 minutes and 24 seconds per unit. It's one of those things where someone tries to merge two systems that are at odds with each other. Malcolm McLaren's "House Of Blue Danube" is an impressive musical example merging 4/4 rock / dance time with 3/4 waltz time featuring Bootsy Collins, Jeff Beck and the music of Strauss.

Half Man

Anyway back to my 24 choice . It's "24 Hour Garage People" by Half Man Half Biscuit from the album "Trouble Over Bridgewater" and while you can get the original version by clicking on the title , the definitive version was broadcast on Andy Kershaw's Radio 3 program in 2002  live from the Brampton festival and is available for download free here along with lots of other sessions and broadcasts.

This song about the drudgeries of a twenty four garage , and the fun you can have with people behind the perspex screen when they decide to be miserable narks , although working in a garage would send me into dark places I think especially if you got annoying customers, but really everybody has to play ball and work together to get the best of things out of situations.

Anyway enjoy "24 Hour Garage People" and if that's not enough check out "House of Blue Danube" before enjoying the rest of your Sunday.

Getting Biblical With Pink Floyd - #ALifeInNumbers #23

This morning it's grey and cold and it's like there's almost a sea fret over Fenham (which I believe is the highest point in Newcastle so we're unlikely  to be troubled by floods.

As a teenager I got of of a bootleg cassette record of a Pink Floyd tour , one of the songs "You Gotta Be Crazy" finished up as "Dogs" on the vastly underrated "Animals" album , the second song was monstrous, even on a second or third generation cassette bootleg, and that was called "Raving and Drooling" (see below for a very early airing) and that became "Sheep" which is the song featured for number twenty three in the sequence. Those two songs are available on the Experience edition of "Wish You Were Here"

Sheep? 23?  What the hell is going on here.

You know I like to go off on tangents and 23 was a problem number like 31, but while reading my Bible (you know that's a joke unless you equate The Bible with Google or whatever book I'm reading) I remembered that "Sheep" contains a take on "Psalm 23".. as you can see Roger Waters amended it slightly, but it would fit in with the other mindless violence in the Bible:

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want 

He makes me down to lie 

Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by. 

With bright knives He releaseth my soul. 

He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places. 

He converteth me to lamb cutlets, 

For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.

 When cometh the day we lowly ones, 

Through quiet reflection, and great dedication

 Master the art of karate, 

Lo, we shall rise up, 

And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water."

So this was an excuse to include another of my favourite Pink Floyd songs and provide you with ten minutes of brilliant music accompanied by images from the excellent black comedy "Black Sheep".

Enjoy your Saturday even more my friends.