SHEENA IS A PUNK ROCKER

Probably the main reason for writing on this blog is as a diary so I can record things that happen and that I want to remember.

Although I have written one post about our great friend and inspiration Craig Puranen Wilson here I want to record some memories from what was a wonderful day today. I reconnected with Bethany, Andrew and Katie and and hugged Krista for the first time since Craig left us. I hadn't intened to write this but part of me wanted to remember today permanently.

I came with Ange and Andrew and we were not sure if we wald all fit into the Chapel for the service. We did do and I didn't get to meet up with Sophia and Nicky but shared hugs with Jon, Hedley and Bethany remembering why we were there.

It was a humanist celebration of Craig's life and his achievements including books, bands, music and travel and his work with the Comfrey Project that helps refugees and asylum seekers, and if you want to help visit their site for more information. There was a collection box at the service so Craig and Krista are still helping.

There were emotional readings and Bethany sang two songs beautifully, "Wild is the Wind" and "Jerusalem", accompanied by Kit Haigh (Thanks Jon and see his Art installation at Art In The Barn) which garnered emotional responses.

There were tributes and readings and at the end the Ramone's "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" was played and the congregation joined in very vocally before finishing with tumultuous applause.

After saying goodbyes we met up at the Cumberland Arms although I couldn't see anyone I definitely knew until I spotted Jon Lee's pink "Hello Kitty" socks, and realse Hedley and Jon were there along with Andrew and Michael.

A beautifully emotional ceremony and was so happy to see Krista laughing at the end as we all sang Sheena out.

I just felt I had to write this down. If anyone wants their name removing let me know, but it's a small way of remembering what happened on the day we said goodbye to someone who will never be forgotten.

PAINT DRAW WRITE

Last night I went to the opening of PAINT DRAW WRITE an exhibition and event  which the first solo one by by friend Nicola bringing together elements of words, poetry , art and photography with live readings by people including a poet I met and chatted to Richard , and the excellent Arch 16 Cafe.

This is the intro written by Nicola to gove you and idea, but the exhibition is running til the 20th June so there is plenty of time for you to vist:

"Paint Draw Write....is an exhibition of pictures and poems celebrating the way in which people express their innermost selves via the creative arts."

 I loved being able to walk round enjoying the images and spending time reading the words on the wall and will no doubt drop in again to take in the experience once more.

It also brought a lot of people together to see something new, I was talking to a skateboarder when I got there and found out that they have skateboard themed gathering.s

The Arch 16 space is airy and open and ideal for this sort of exhibition, there is space to show images and I did take a quick instagram video which is here. 

I was decided to write a Haiku for this to keep in the spirit of the event:

Paint, Write, Draw, Enjoy

Create, Share and Experience

You Know It Makes Sense 

Nicola worked with my friend Craig who we say farewell to today (my tribute is here  and here is a post which touched on one of his great exhibition which he colloboarated with Nicola on), and this os just one example of his insrirational legacy., and I am looking forward to many more.

While there I was talking with Richard about the brilliant new Janelle Monae album, and the song "Make Me Feel" which reminds me so much of Prince's "Kiss" so that is the song I will use for this post because thais whole thing made me feel great. I've also included the Dirty Computer Emotion Picture a 45 minute video to accompany the album, well worth taking your time to watch.


 

Walk #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #9 - Camper Van Beethoven - Tusk

This morning I have a routine hospital appointment at The Freeman and the weather is still good so I am going to walk it. The problem is that the route doesn't really have any buses so if I am running behind time I haveto walk faster, and that's not really a bad thing as I do want to keep my steps up and this will definitely do that.

I was discussing the best Fleetwood Mac album and a lot of people go for "Rumours" but mine is "Tusk". When it came out in the middle of the seventies punk explosion an AOR "dinosaur" releasing a double album (the ultimate self indulgence) did not bode well for a good response from critics. The NME made it album of the week and it was noted that the Warner executives probably saw their bonusses going up in smoke when they heard it. The songs are all killiers and Lindsey Buckingham's out there genius along with the songwriting and voices of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks backed my the rock solid musicianship delivered an indespinsible brilliant album.

The songs are so go good that when Camper Van Beethoven were stuck in a remote cabin, they recorded and released their take on "Tusk" and, while not as polished it is still an outstanding album with a mad ten minute take on the title track which is what I will leave you with.

One song "Honey Hi" has a lot of car horns and shouting and this was very disconcerting as I was trying to cross a four lane road intersection while listening to it. Who knows what will happen today.

Right off on my walk to the hospital, have a great day everybody.

Remake #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #10 - Blue Oyster Cult - Extra Terrestrial Live

A friend of mine, Bill has nominated me for a third #TenAlbumsInTenDays and because I have an eclectic taste in music and a reasonable amout of friends I will be able to complete the third lot.  I had listed Hawkwind's XIn Search of Space which is a great trip album but the cover by Barney Bubbles was and still is a wonderful vinyl package. The Hawkwind Log is the most sought after part of this package and can jack the price up by close on a hundred pounds but you can download it and print your own here. If this infringes copyright and you are the copyright owner please contact me about it.

Today has been hot again but I went for a walk and decided to give Blue Oyster Cult's ETL (Extra Terrestrial Live) a spin. I'd always regarded this as an inferior addition to their live canon of the superlative "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" and "Some Enchanted Evening" and it came after "Fire Of  Unknown Origin" and essentially was a potted history to date and included a cover of The Doors' "Roadhoad Blues" (also covered by Status Quo).

While the album starts out similar to "On Your Feet or On Your Knees" with "Dominance and Submission" , the sound is excellent and viciously dirty. The first huge surprise is "Doctor Music" which in my opinion was the ruinous opener to "Mirrors" but here is an excellent live work out. THe album's take on Godzilla and ETI are so good that by the time the album closes with "Don't Fear The Reaper" it is just another brilliant song.

This is the first time I have listened to this in many years and I have been missing a brilliant if fairly short live album from a truly great heavy metal band. I will share ETI with you as it is one of my favourites with an absolute killer riff and brilliant metal lyrics.

I've just discovered that the Columbia BOC Boxed set which did cost me about fifty quid is now selling for over a grand on Amazon.

Enjoy

Hot #TenAlbumsInTenDays #2- #6 - Carl Orff - Carmina Burana

It has been a hot and worrying day today. The weather has been wonderful but I had to get back up the road before they shut Sutton Bank for the Tour De Yorkshire. That was fine but I had ordered a new washing machine from Argos and though I would go for the install and dispose option. I was worried that I would not be able to disconnect it or would end up flooding the kitchen as I don't rate myself with water pipes. Water can also be very insidious, sneaking through the most impossible of gaps sometimes over years.

That is happening tomorrow but they expect you to disconnect the old washing machine. It's been connected for fifteen years or more, and I could not get the hot water tap to move. Then you start thinking is it clockwise or anti clockwise. After a lot of messing it turns out the cold is clockwise and hot is anti clockwise, there's nothing like a bit of conformity (or not) to make life interesting.

Then it was a case of dragging the damned thing into the garage where it is sitting now awaiting a call for them to bring the new one sometime between 7am  and 7pm tomorrow, nothing like a narrow delivery slot and this is nothing like a narrow delivery slot. Still when it is fitted it will be nice to have a washing machine that doesn't sound like it's filled with metal hub caps.

I finished "The Liar" by Stephen Fry an dit's entertaining enough but hardly essential reading and now I am on to "The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ"  by Philip Pullman which is an off kilter trip through the lives of Jesus and Christ and I'm more thatn a third of the may though after a day although it is large pring on small pages with a decent amount of white space, but I expect to finish it before the end of the Bank Holiday

I wasn't going to document my second #TenAlbumsInTenDays stint but todayday I chose my favourite classical piece. I like bits of others but this is something I love listening end to end. It sufferes from the main fault of Classical Music , the extreme dynamic ranges from almost solence to exploding noise. Samples of it have been used and reused and should be a staple of every household although Orff's work was produced under Nazi rule, but this is an amazing piece of music.

The Sand Animation video by Hungarian animator Ferenc Caco is an amazing accompaniment and you can see his work here 

OK I will leave you to enjoy this

Sometimes there is nothing to write about, well there are a couple of small annoyances but I would rather report on positives than negatives. I have seen examples of how small minded and self centred some people can be, despite me pointing out the positives of their situation but some people are only happy when they are miserable and complaining.

I've been to some brilliant places in Yorkshire this week and the staff in every shop, restaurant and historical site have been absolutely brilliant, an absolute joy to speak to and be in the company of.

Yesterday was a supposed five mile walk round Thirsk which hit a sort of brick wall when we hit a level ploughed field and the directions stated "walk across the field and down to a path". Normal directions state left or right or north, south, east or west unless you are near a hill in which case up or down becomes a valid direction.

The problem is that books are fixed while the state of the landscape can change significantly (like a field being ploughed), the positive out of this was that I ended up doing ten miles again yesterday, and that means I've done ten miles twice this week yesterday and on Monday. I think I normally do thirty miles a week, and that is over fifteen hundred miles a year which seems a lot, but it's John O'Groats to Lands End and back with three hundred miles to spare although to walk round the coast of the UK you would be looking at nearly eight thousand miles , which at this rate would take me six years to do on foot.

Anyway the title of this post is inspired by the poem by The Bard of Salford , John Cooper Clarke which I will leave you with a performance of and the actual poem which you can also see here (as well as all his other poems).

                                                  NOTHING

Something is but nothing

Something it is not

Nil plus nil is nothing

Nothings what I got

Nothing on the tele

Nothing going on

Nothing to get worked up about

Nothing by the ton

Nothing times a million

Nothing minus ten

Don’t say nothing to no one

It’s nothing to do with them

Come all the way from nowhere

And now I’m nowhere else

Where nothing is out of place

No one lives

And nothing smells

Talking to no one

It’s like talking to the wall

I give you what I get

I give you bugger all

So have a brilliant Friday everyone as we run into the weekend

RadMac

Listening to Radcliffe and Maconie on 6Music and just as they have come on the radio, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out. It's the second day of May and I intend to keep up my million steps every three months, but today looked like a no go because of the weather, although I have already hit 2K steps and intend to visit Helmsley Castle this afternoon so there is a possibility I may hit todays step target after yesterday's trip to Whitby.

I did go for a walk and followed a direction marker into a field and it turned out there was no exit. The field was one of the most securely fenced fields I have ever seen and it was almost over run with rabbits and rabbit holes.

Radmac have Microdisney on as guests as they have just reformed, and I was going to give you "GaleForce Wind" but they have started playing Jane's Addiction's "Just Because" and the guitar riff on that is such a killer that I have to share that with you.

Enjoy the rest of the second of May when you are finished.

Verushka

Today I walked ten miles, which is a long way for me, especially on the last day of the month. It was basically Helmsley to Riveaulx and back much of the way through fields containing horses and sheep, and up and down some fairly steep inclines, one of which was nearly a thousand feet (remember this was meant to be a leisurely walk not a hill walking expedition). You see some Instagram images here.

This means that I have maintained my rolling million steps every steps every three months for the last year. That's not that much , roughly 11K steps a day which is maybe four and a half miles. I have a friend who did ten times that so my effort is not really that impressive, but I will continue doing it this year, although I will have a couple of days in hospital for a liver biopsy so that may be a little obstacle, but easy to overcome.

Today I saw a man mowing a field with what looked like a lawn mower, very odd.

The word "Verushka" came into my mind, so I wondered what it was. It turns out it's an alternate / mis spelling of Veruschka von Lehndorff and actress who appeared in the Antonioni film "Blow-Up" which featured a cameo from The Yardbirds featuring Jeff Beck playing "Stroll On", and this came up in a BBC4 documentary on Beck on Friday night which you may be able to watch here, so that is maybe where Verushka came from.

So I will leave you with the Yardbirds for this last April 2018 post.

Superstitions

It's weird how tradition and what you are told from childhood conditions you to accept superstitions. One Magpie for Sorrow, the number 13, walking under ladders are a few examples of this.

However I have just changed my perceptions in the last couple of months I love seeing Magpies and even a single one brings be joy, although there is no doubt they are bullies. A Bakers Dozen is thirteen and lets face it if you get thirteen items it's usually better than twelve if you want them. I still don't walk under ladders unless there's no other option and it's actually safe.

It looks like I'm going to make my steps for the month despite continually falling off the pace but am now in Yorkshire so should get some walking in

Anyway pleased that Preston are still in with a slight shout for the playoffs although that would relegate Burton who are on a run of three wins and fighting for their Championship lives.

Anyway we shall see what today brings, so I'll leave you with Beck,Bogert & Appices cover of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition".

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #10 - IV (Mask/Security) - Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel's first four albums were effectively untitled concieved as a magazine format, but society always needs to identify and compartmentalise. This was his last album before hitting paydirt with "So" and the mood is dark, African influenced but more Burundi drums and desert woodwind than Paul Simon's "Graceland" jit.

From the opener "Rhythm of The Heat"  through to the single "Shock The Monkey" the abum is definitely dark and full of foreboding but highly listenable featiuring the Fairlight and avid Rhodes' crackling guitar. The album is mostly electronic and smapled with guests appearing on percussion and backing vocals.

The final three songs are more reflective but complemet the openening sequence perfectly.

This is the closer for my #TenAlbumsInTenDays but I will start another sequnce next Saturday as I had a second invite, but I will be on holiday with no computer access for a change , just like the pre millenium days.

There are so many albums that are worth listening to and this is another one of those. It is playing as I  pen this post, and is still as impressive now as when it was released in 1982,  thirty six years ago.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #8 & #9 - Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy - Brian Eno

Dispepsi by Negativland was my #8 choice for #TenAlbumsInTenDays but I have already commented on it for my #LikeNoOther series here , and it really is an album worth investing some of your time in.

#9 is Brian Eno's "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" his second album after falling out with Bryan Ferry and leaving Roxy Music after their excellent "For Your Pleasure". I've just realised that Ferry and Eno despite sharing a common first name spelt it differently.

The album breezes in with the beautiful "Burning Airlines Give You So Much More" and the songs on the first side of the album never drop in quality culminating in the closed groove ending of "THe Great Pretender" if you listen on vinyl. Side two opens with the proto punk of "Third Uncle" before lurching into the Portsmouth Sinfonia backed silliness of "Put A Straw Under Baby".

The album closes with the totally engrossing and beatiful title track almost making you feel as though you are climbing Tiger Mountain' I will leave you with that song to tempt you with.

This album was concieved using Oblique Strategies , a series of cue cards developed by Brian and Peter Schmidt, who also did the cover featuring four prints for a seris of 1500 lithographs. This is another of my favourite albums that I constantly revisit.

Sleep well my friends.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #7 - CSI Ambleside - Half Man Half Biscuit

Described by Andy Kershaw as England's greatest folk band and may John Peel said the describe the minutiae of everyday life every album holds gems to be discovered and this is no exception. If you want to sample to poetry of the lyrics check out the HMHB Lyric project here

The album opens with "Your Evening of Swing Has Been Cancelled" careering though incidents and accidents by way of detours and u-turns to hit the finale of "National Shite Day".

The cover feature the lovely Royal Oak in Ambleside who were unaware of their adornment of the sleeve when I first informed them of it. I'm am not sure if they were pleased about that, but both pub and album are wonderful artefacts of our times.

The thing is Half Man Half Biscuit have so many essential songs in their canon, anyone that you choose is something that you just never want it to finish. Lyrics like the following make you realise just how essential this band is:

And the christening party arsehole
Who hitherto had blurred
My conception of man as nature’s final word
Was fleeing from the lava
His satnav pleading thus:
“I’m not from round here mate, you should have got the bus”

So I will leave you with their opening salvo and get myself to bed.

 

In Loving Memory

This is difficult to write although in some ways it isn't . Today we all lost a wonderful personal friend who inspired us, loved us, made us laugh, made us feel included, made us feel wanted, fought injustice and was anything but average. Where he was Craig Puranen Wilson or she was Sheena Revolta we we always in wonderful company.

A fan of great music, grat films , great art, and well as a creator in most art genres. Most people have been far more eloquent than I but Craig and Sheena will always be with me, from the number of times I saw Women in Revolt to sharing coffee or a drink in town or watching trashy films you alway were part of the gang.

Craing and Sheena organised events that you wanted to go to and was instrumental in the resurrection of The Star And Shadow.

I'm sorry I can't speak but you will alway be an inspiration to us all on how life should be lived.

A BIG THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING CRAIG AND SHEENA.

We must keep all the thing that Sheen helped start such as Mondo Weirdo, the happenings , the gatherings keep going in the spirit of Sheena.

And this is my 100th Post this year, is that a coincidence.

Keep on keeping on

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #6 - Godbluff - Van Der Graaf Generator

When this album came out the NME reviewer said that there should be a way of playing it end to end without a break, the vinyl record had to be flipped half way through to continue listening. This was an understandable thought as that's how most classical pieces were concieved , to be played and listened to in their entirety.

This thing is at the time there were C90 cassettes and 8-Track tapes (the later just effectively played in an everlasting circle) so there was a way to listen to it. CD and Digital obviously made this a reality for the new format.

When they started although a rock group, guitars were way down the instrumentation list which was odd for such an aggressive sound but it was dominated by keyboards, brass , woodwind and bass pedals.

Godbluff is a very dark sounding album, almost threatening conjuring up images of dark threats in blasted landscapes and is still a regular listen for me. It is remakably coherent and often I get the songs mixed up as they are so similar in form without being boring, you just accept it for what it is.

I love most of their stuff but this along with "Pawn Hearts" are two of my most played of their albums. I found a live performance of the album so if you have forty or so minutes to spare you can see what I mean about the album.

More Words

This is my fourth blog post today. I did my first gig review of the year on Spoongig here for the Shambolic KO afternoon , plus two entries in the #TenAlbumsInTenDays that I am doing , which will stretching to twenty days as I have received a second invite, so today I have actually written, for me, a lot of words.

Luckily yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time this year, so I have probably incurred the ire and wrath of my male neighbours who live within earshot, as it may be pointed out that their lawns need mowing too.

Yesterday was Record Store Day 2018 but I just ended up getting a Sha Na Na LP on vinyl, "Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay" from Beyond Vinyl, but the rest of the shops in Newcastle were queued out the door so I thought I would catch up at those shops next week, though thatks to Mark and Kirsty they put me on to a new Vinyl Shop in Newcastle Vinyl Guru on the West Road. I also dropped by Empire Records the new branding of Long Play Cafe's vinyl sales and discussed among other things the Vertigo Swirl.

So I will leave you with some Sha Na Na from the album I bought yesterday, mainly for it's brilliant cover and the fact it was on the Kama Sutra label.

Sleep well and have a wonderful Monday.
 

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #5 - The Race For Space - Public Service Broadcasting

This was the first coherently themed Public Service Broadcasting album, they had put out "The War Room" EP, and this was their second album. "Inform, Educate, Entertain" is a mission statement for the band and you will probably learn something by listening to enything by this band.

There pasting of dialogue from films, and documentaries is similar to what happened in Spirit's "Future Games" and early Big Audio Dynamite albums although without the dialogue the e songs are just driving instrumentals (and rather excellent at that).

"The Race For Space" revisits both the Russian and American sides of the race that started in the 1950s, with dialogue from John F Kennedy and The Apollo program.

The band are probably one of the finest live experirences you can see today, and I amazed at J. Willgoose Esq.'s ability to tee up the sound samples wile playing guitar. Even the crowd banter is done via keyboard.

I have seen this band three times though they now tend to sell out gigs immediately so I am not sure if I will see them in a live situation again, but you never know. I've included a live take of "Go" at one of the gigs I saw the at , the 6Music Festival at The Sage in 2015, and I am somewhere in that crowd mass. An absolutely brilliant gig and part of a brilliant festival.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #4 - The Book of Invasions - Horslips

I'd got into Horslips through "The Tain" an album based on a story from Irish mythology which Michael Moorcock had lifted from for his Corum section of the Eternal Champion series (which I must attempt to re read).

"The Book of Invasions" got a five start NME review but I was at the record shop on it's day of release and got it home and put it on. This had never happened before but that album was the only thing that was on my record player for two weeks.

There were flashes onf Thin Lizzy (who also were lovers of Irish Mythology) in there, as well as the Irish folk tunes mixed in with the mythology, maybe it just hit me at the right time, but it is on the player as I am writing this, and maybe it's a little under produced but every song that comes on you love listening too and also can't wait for the next one.

Like a good book or film , you don't want it to end. Almost every song is like that and definitely the album makes you feel like that.

It's an album where every song flows into the next one , the same as say "Dark Side of The Moon" by Pink Floyd, you don't skip songs on this.

I found a slideshow for the album which clocks in at forty minutes but it is difficult to choose one song from this essential part of the music I love

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - Future Games (A Magical Kahauna Dream) - Spirit

Before the internet and email and mobil phones the was CB , Citizen's Band Radio. I'm not exactly sure what the attraction of this was for the average person but I know a few people who had CB Radio set ups.I could see a use for it for long distance lorry drivers and this was documented in the CW McCall song "Convoy".

This album opens with a track called "CB Talk" with Randy California descring the Spirit album. I had been majorly impressed by  "Spirit of '76" but this album took things to another level for me. The songs are excellent but are spliced with soundbites from Star Trek (this was just pre Star Wars), Science Fiction "B" Movies and The Muppet Show. There are a lot of interjections from "Jack Bond" the drummer Ed Cassidy's creation (he was also Randy California's father in law!)

It was like a movie for the ears, carried along by the excellent songs. California was favouribly compared with Jimi Hendrix but he was definitely his own man, but they still tackle Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" and deliver a creditable take although no one has ever touched the Hendrix version.

The songs are California sun influenced as well as being touched by certain other substances. THis album is my favourite all time album and when I first got it I was working shifts so would often drift off listening to this during the day.

Like all good albums you listen to it as a whole and ideally it should just be continously played, non stop.

I'm not sure if this was the first album where not musical dialogue was used an intefral part of the album,a concept later embraced by, among others, Big Audio Dynamite and Public Service Broadcasting.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #2 - Eldorado - A Symphony By The Electric Light Orchestra

When Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood were in The Move they wanted to start a project that contined where The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" had left off. That project became The Electric Light Orchestra and their early albums contained some amazing musical detours, but with a heavy reliance on the string section hence the "Orchestra".

Some of the early singles showed their versatility none more striking than the all out orchestral rock and roll arrangement of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" being followed up by the perfect Philadelphia soul sound of "Showdown".

A switch of label from EMI's progressive arm Harvest to Warner Brothers (now Sony) for "On The Third Day" and then my second favourite album of all time "Eldorado".

I was a fan of the band an bought the single from the album the gorgeous "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" but was blown away by the full on string backed rock and roll of the 'B' Side "Illusions in 'G' Minor". That persuaded me to invest in the album with it's "Wizard of Oz" cover and it has remained a favourite ever since. The use of strings and choir organ / vox humana make for a most impressive sound for Jeff Lynne's excellent songs.

The string arrangements throughout the album are amazing particularly on "Poor Boy" but almost every song is a gem , and it is an album that you happily play from start to end. THis was followed by "Face The Music" before they finally hit paydirt with "A New World Record", but in my opinion this is their finest forty minutes and I still play this frequently.

#TenAlbumsInTenDays #1 - Man In The Hills - Burning Spear

I'm quite surprised this is the first time I have mentioned Burning Spear on this blog.

My friend Denis Jackman nominated me to post #TenAlbumsInTenDays on Facebook. This is just ten albums that you still play, and to be quite honest good music should stay with you. Since starting walking and and especially since getting my Emopeak headphones I have been listening to a hell of a lot of music as it usually takes me forty minutes to an hour to walk to work which is time to listen to an album.

I'm not sure when I picked up on this, it was definitely early eighties and I think I got it from Rumbelows near Matthew Street in Liverpool when I was working an Littlewood. I may have heard him on John Peel or may have just liked the cover of the album, I was already into reggae from the sixties skinhead ska and then Bob Marley and Lee Perry, but when I put this album on it grabbed me from the first song (which is the title song).

The thing is if you buy the CD  you can get one that has "Dry and Heavy" also included, but I do enjoy playing ska and reggae on vinyl with the bass turned up. One you put a vinyl album on you tend to enjoy it more because the inherent push button laziness in us all makes us listen to the whole side before we turn the thing over or switch it off.

Tomorrow is Record Store Day so I will be out in Newcastle seeing what is available and seeing bands an whatever. Given the good weather it looks like a good weekend.

Have a great one

Buick Smokestack

So we now have sun, is Spring really here? My day was immensely brightened up by unexpectedly meeting my friend Julie in reception today, so that was a big plus.

My walking has still been hit and miss but I am just about ahead of the game.

Recently I've revistited Bob Dylan's excellent "Highway 61 Revisited" and it is full af brilliant songs, but I was struck by the riff that drives "From A Buick Six" which reminded a hell of a lot of the riff behind Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'". Bob Dylan is remakably scan on Youtube for older stuff so I settled on an excellent cover by Gary US Bonds, so you can listen and compare the two.

One thing I find strange is that the MP3 version of "Higway 61" in £7.99 but the CD (with free MP3 download) is £5.99! Work that one out, check the link below. Amazon's pricing is weird at times. The Howlin' Wolf MP3 is double the price of the CD.

I've also been nowminated for one of these ten albums in ten days on Facebook and I may actually do a post about each album tomorrow though by then I will be three days into it.

Anyway this is just a very very short post as I need to go and make my tea.

Enjoy your Thursday evening my friends.