#AprilSongs #3 - Wednesday Week

I'm under a three day Facebook ban for posting an Instagram shot of the art on the wall at No 28 (here and you can see it on the site link), this is following a ban a couple of months ago when I shared a link from IMDB for the Peter Greenaway film "Drowning By Numbers" (you can see the image I was banned for on the link) , this is because of the pathetic fact that some people can find offense at absolutely anything and while male bodies are OK, females are totally out of bounds and must be fully covered, how ridiculously puritan. So I can't link this post to Facebook til they let me on.

Also Google+ has been withdrawn with no alternative that I can see so I can't actually share this post with any social media platform, so this may be my first post that doesn't get read by anybody, because even if you follow the blog you don't get notified of updates.

I've woken up to snow, which is just what I want when I found that my roof is leaking.

But to the main point of the post the #AprilSongs and today is the excellent "Wednesday Week" by The Undertones, and while I thought they were a more than decent band (and John Peel had "Teenage Kicks" as his all time Number One record) that's all they were to me with the odd song that raised them above the norm and Wednesday Week was one of the songs that did that.

#AprilSongs #2 - Tuesday Afternoon

This is possibly not good, I'm using a song that should be a last resort on my second post, although it is from a fairly "important" album, "Days of Future Past" by The Moody Blues where they collaborated with Peter Knight with full orchestral backing on their first concept album based on  #ADayInThe Life transitioning from a rhythm and blues group (gotta say that because some people see R'n'B as the bland Rhythm and Beat string of Soul / Dance rather than the rawer rockier Rhythm and Blues of Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters , Bo Diddley and the like). I wrote a comparison here.

Actually "Tuesday Afternoon" is a decent record with the mand heavy on the mellotron, though for this album everything get's overshadowed by the classic "Nights In White Satin" (though I'm always tempted to write it as "Knights in White Satin". Parts of the album suffer from some awful sixties pretentious spoken word sequences, and although they carried this into further concept albums they managed to hone it into acceptability.

So on this rainy April Tuesday I will leave you to enjoy The Moody Blues "Tuesday Afternoon"

#AprilSongs #1 - Stormy Monday Blues

This morning I woke, opened the curtains and was surprised to see icy rooves on cars and houses, it really doesn't feel that cold although I am in a centrally heated house. The #AprilSongs sequence needs me to share 30 day related songs over the month (5 Mondays and Tuesdays, and 4 for the other days) as well as actually posting everyday, because it doesn't seem right posting a Tuesday song on Wednesday or Thursday.

It's April Fools Day and I am starting my #AprilSongs project with "Stormy Monday" by T-Bone Walker. While I was thinking of using "Blue Monday" by |New Order toi kick this off, this came to mind remembering the Tyneside based film of the same name.

"Stormy Monday" is variously titles as "Call It Stormy Monday" and "Stormy Monday Blues" and has been covered by so many people is the blues, rhythm and blues , rock and jazz genres from Albert King through Linda Hopkins to The Allman Brothers and a myriad others.

The film is a violent gangster movie featuring Tommy Lee Jones, Sting and Sean Bean and is worth watching to get some idea of Newcastle in the late eighties when I came up here. It is entirely coincidental that this film was made then.

So this is a bit of classic blues to kick off the week, the month and the 'AprilSongs sequence

An Interlude With Bobzilla

Today while have a wander round the Tyne Bridge and High Level Bridge with Scott we dropped into Arch 16 and we were well impressed by the latest avian based artwork on display. You can see it here on my Instagram feed , I also had to use the loo and was very impressed with the repurposed vinyl single display on the wall (see here).

We had a cafe latte and the guy serving us told us this was all his work and he goes under the name Bobzilla, and apart from being a talented artist (you can see more by visiting his "I Am Bobzilla" site) , he makes a great cup of coffee and is remarkably engaging to talk too. Among other things he is also a DJ and had some excellent sounds playing while we were these. It was so pleasant we had another coffee before departing back across the High Level Bridge to Newcastle.

So you get art , cake , coffee , tea , good sounds and good vibes, a thoroughly excellent half an hour, worth visiting for a coll and chilled atmosphere in which to eat cake and drink coffee.

So it's the day before April Fool's day but it has been a most excellent final day of March , chatting with Bobzilla and enjoying his art and sounds, so continuing with the art theme I've included my slideshow of the Armageddon themes paintings of the North East's greatest artist John Martin. I've just found that the book of his work I have is going for up to £200 on Amazon, like my Handy Wah! compilation on the last post but one.

Anyway hope you have a wonderful week.

Awake

It's eleven o'clock Saturday Night, although you could say it's really midnight as the clocks go forward for Daylight Saving rubbish, I've been out with Maureen and Scott and Fiona and eaten some of the best burgers in Newcastle at Meat Stack at The Dog and Parrot, then tonight eaten at Rajnagar for the first time (had lots of takeaways) but had one of my best Indian meals ever (and that was everyone's opinion) , although one has to wonder what happens when you get used to perfection.

The thing is I am now feeling wide awake. Obviously the sugar from that excellent food has obviously stimulated me to whatever. Everyone else was asleep two hours ago after watching an episode of Timewasters and Black Books, both class comedy, if you click on the links you should be able to watch for free.

So I thought I'd just do this post, which is really just a diary entry to remember what I have done today , I think I have managed to put all the analogue clocks and watched forward, and I suppose an appropriate record to share would be Bryan Ferry's "This is Tomorrow" because it sort of is, all my analogue timepieces say it's Sunday but all my digital timepieces say it's Saturday. So I will see you tomorrow, or is it today? Who know?

Dream Complex

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

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

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

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

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

Today Is So Gorgeous ...

...that I went out in the garden and refilled the bird feeders before seven am. When I first started blogging that would have been enough for a post, and as it's more like a diary than anything else, it should really be enough for a post now, but although my posts are still bite sized, one sentence is never enough.

Lots of friends start blogs and come in with a big excellent piece and then that's it. On the one hand they may think that's enough or they may just realise what they have let themselves in for. Here's a few:

• The Ape of Wrath
• Peas on Earth
• Grumpy Geordie
• Little Wittering
• Dust on the Stylus
• Molecules of Madness
• Soul and Tonic
• Thumbrella
• Tea on The Tyne

These are just a few that seem to have been abandoned, but what they contain is still worth taking time to read and enjoy.

So yes a very short post and I'll leave you with "Eye Know" by De La Soul  because it just came on 6Music and sort of goes with the mood.

Have a great Friday everybody we aren't leaving the EU today and hopefully the whole Brexit thing will crawl away into a corner and die.