On my walk on this foggy Sunday I noticed a few cars with a full set of flat tires and two tire outers that had come off something. I would think that if you can't be bothered to keep your tyres up then get rid of the motor rather than sit and let it rot. The cars were all fairly neglected and soften used as a dump for detritus that they had decided not to bin.
Coming to the end of "Coldheart Canyon" and the Devil's Country has served it's purpose and has now unraveled and been taken apart by Lilith and the ghosts and there is still seventy pages left in the book , which has been rather excellent. The Devil's Country is almost a McGuffin as the story could have been told without it, but it's the only part that really stuck in my mind from the first time I read the book.
But the finale now has me wondering what is going to happen next, which is always a good thing when you are reading a book.
So it's a long time since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 , that's not last century, it's the century before last, and I have been enjoying a lot of vinyl over the weekend , and for some reason Cozy Powell's "Fance With The Devil" comes to mind with the riff lifted from "Third Stone From The Sun" which my friend Harry Clark reckoned was lifted from the "Coronation Street" them, listen to them all on the Amazon links below and see what you think.
For the first time in a long time the temperature was negative this morning, according to my Google Pixel -4˚ Centigrade , there was ice on the car windscreens, and it was inviting me to go out for a walk. I did go out tonight and it was 3˚ Centigrade but actually felt quite warm , and it was 7˚ higher than this morning, but we are not in December yet and I'm not sure if Autumn has become Winter yet , although this tells me that the seasons start o, the appropriate Solstice and Equinox days so Winter starts in about three weeks time on the 21st of December.
Normally by this time I am in bed but need to use the alarm on my phone to get me up tomorrow and it was down to 20% so thought thought I would pen a few lines while it charges.I have also watched the second "Borat" movie which is enjoyably subversive and working my way through American Horror Story:Freaks which is excellent but essentially a tragedy about exploitation, when I finish it that will be up to date on all released series of the show.
Some of the music has been rather good although seventies and eighties classics sit oddly with the fifties timeframe of the series, but go well nevertheless.
So musicwise I have been listening to Thin Lizzy , Stats Quo amd Curved Air on vinyl so will go with "The Rocker" by Thin Lizzy which has one of the best blockriffs (that's a riff played with chords rather than notes) you will ever here. Listen and enjoy Thin Lizzy from their Decca years.
Seems like a fair question. I once said that CDs were the McDonaldisation of music, MP3 and digital music even more so. All of a sudden album content became irrelevant. See this post from 2015 for more thoughts.
We see people doing mixtapes and playlists but anyone can list some songs or drag a couple of MP3 and share them , or share a bloody Spotify playlist, but there's hardly any personal investment and the chances are that the person receiving the said item will look at it and not bother listening to it. The iPod generation , or is it iPhone generation often don't even listen to whole songs let alone an album.
I once watche da bit of the X-Factor and the act covered the Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin" (a five minute song) which was cut to ninety seconds for the performance, so I wasn't impressed by that.
Digital media is great for when you are walking and this morning I was listening to the non album disk of "The Thrill of It All" by Roxy Music and "Sultanesque" came on, one of my favourites. It's a Bryan Ferry composition , five minutes of drone sound and was the "B" side of "Love Is The Drug" , and I used to love putting it on pub jukeboxes much to the annoyance of most of the clientele , but it is a great piece of music and a great example of Ferry's adventures in tone and sound, "South Downs" is another similar piece. I am thinking of buying th evinyl single because I like it so much.
So "Why Vinyl?" . Well thanks to the persuasion of my friend Marek at RPM I have a wonderful retro reconditioned record player, and when I listen to an album apart from providing a warm deep bas backbone to the music, there is no skipping or resequencing songs . You listen to the album , well at leas a side of it , and that is twenty minutes or so, which is long enough but not too long.
CDs are up to eighty minutes and digital streams can never end , so vinyl lets you listen in manageable chunks an dthe only choice you have is what to put on.
It is my preferred listening medium these days, although I listen to CDs and digital when I work from home , and digital when I am walking.
So I will share "Sultanesque" with you as the sun goes down on this November Tuesday.
I'm back from and extremely relaxing holiday in Thirsk , on which I did nothing strenuous, didn't walk very far although I maintained more than five miles a day, but I now feel as though I need another week to recover. Maybe I just don't want to resume work, although I set my alarm for 5:45 AM tomorrow morning, and I am sure that I won't want to get up.
I keep thinking I'm not writing as much , because I'm not listening to as much music, although yesterday while posting off some Discogs orders I listened to "Meddle" by Pink Floyd, and "Echoes" is still my favourite Pink Floyd piece, and today I listened to my new vinyl acquisition , a recording of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" , my favourite classical piece.
I've been watching a lot of streaming shows, all excellent , namely "Better Call Saul" (the "Breaking Bad" prequel) , "Disenchantment" , "Cobra Kai" (forty years later follow up to "The Karate Kid") and working through the "American Horror Story" series that I've not seen , starting with "Murder House", and "Silicon Valley".
A strange coincidence is that three of the last books that I have read and revisited have been partially set in Romania , the firs was "The Lost" by Jonathan Aycliffe , "Spear of Destiny" by his alter ego Daniel Easterman and the lastest is "Coldheart Canyon" by Clive Barker, which I had forgotten where it started. It's not surprising with the Romanian connections with Vlad The Impaler and Dracula.
So at least I have written something, So what music should I share. Tom Robinson is playing "Ice Cream For Crow" so I think that is definitely worth a share as we fall into next week.
This is post number 2332 , so a numerical palindrome, there will be a few of these coming up (every 110 posts) and there's also post number 2345 to look forward to before the end of the year hopefully.
I've done virtually no writing or anything really this week. It's been a purely relaxing week, which I travelled by train plus a lift from Northallerton to Thirsk. This week has been lying in , watching TV and walking a reasonable amount of steps each day.
Thirsk is a relaxing place to be with lots of places to eat , drink and also lots of walks , especially along Cod Beck the waterway that runs through the place. I was particularly impressed with The Red Bear (the pigeons seem to love the roof) and Bianco's , a nominally Italian restaurant, but it offers so much more, and there's always about ten other things on their menu that you fancy trying.
Like many other similar places the only places you can buy music is the charity shops and Tesco. Although I think my vinyl collection is complete , I picked up a copy of my favourite classical piece "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff, which I will share with you for this post.
Ray Manzarek of The Doors also made an album of the piece although I have still yet to hear it, but can be listened to here.
As I have said, this week is pure relaxation so the two hundred words in this post will have to do. As I have said, not sure how many people read this these days, as my follower count is just six, but it works for me as a diary.
I am now 63 and will be reminded of that every time I see a Stagecoach 63 bus, which is not something that overly bothers me.
One of my birthday presents was a vinyl copy of Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" mainly for the excellent Jim Fitzpatrick cut out cover, which the reissued version is done as a single sleeve rather than the original gatefold , clevely using the inner sleeve for the band breakout image.
Although most people will pick up on the single "The Boys Are Back In Town" , it is nowhere near the best song on the album, but is a great demonstration of Phil Lynott's talking vocal style , where the vocls seem completely add odds with the music lines , and sing like that while also playing bass shows prodigious talent.
The album crashes in with the title track which does have one of the most faux-pas of an opening line ever:
"Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak,
Somewhere in this town"
Could it be a the jail maybe?
As that screeches to a siren filled finale , we are treated to three quieter but no less impressive songs "Angel From The Coast" , "Running Back" and the gorgeous "Romeo and The Lonely Girl" with stunning guitar work from Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham. The side finishes with the robust "Warriors" , and side two opens with "The Boys Are Back In Town" which is classic Thin Lizzy.
"Fight or Fall" is contemplative but probably the least memorable song on the album , but it is in very impressive company, "Cowboy Song" contains some great lyrics and and a memorable descending riff , just making you want the song to never end.
The finale is "Emerald" taking on Irish mythology and culminating in a stunning guitar duel between Gorham and Robertson underpinned by Lynott's bass and Brian Downey's drums.
The album was probably only beaten by "Live and Dangerous", but for me stands as their greatest studio album, though I also like "Black Rose" very much, and their albums alway produce some stand out songs.
On my recent walks I have been listening to a lot of Roxy Music. Today my music player on my Google Pixel 2XL stopped working so I applied another , it sounded fine but it was listing songs on albums in alphabetical order with the option of shuffling. Songs are meant to be in the album order , but so many apps default to alphabetical order, which is plain stupid. It's ok if you are looking at all the songs on a device but not within an album. There is no option to sort by album song number, but luckily the file date sorted them into the correct order.
Anyway back to the point of the post, I've decided that "For Your Pleasure" is Roxy Music's best album. The have made a lot of great albums, and "Stranded" , "Country Life" and the debut are close behind , plus "Avalon" is an amazing soundscape and the rest of the albums have their highpoints but "For Your Pleasure" everything just falls into place.
The cover features Amanda Lear , a jaguar and Ferry as a chauffeur , Ferry being the only band member to feature on the outer cover although they are all on the inner one.
Originally a vinyl release (which I have as well as the CD) , listening now it's in two distinct parts with the strident opener "Do The Strand" sounding contrived but excellent followed by "Beauty Queen" with the superb instrumental break going into "Strictly Confidential" introverted and sullen, before "Editions of You" closes the first part but not the side.
That falls to "In Every Dreamhome A Heartache" one of the creepiest songs to ever hit the mainstream, and it delivers in spades , close the side with swirling guitars and leaving the listener at least a little unnerved.
Side Two opens with "The Bogus Man" with the band almost in Can / Bertolt Brecht territory , and this was the direction Brian Eno wanted the band to go in , although he acknowledged it was Bryan Ferry's vision and band. This goes into "Grey Lagoons" (also known as "The Bogus Man Part Two") which is grand rock and roll with a stunning Andy Mackay saxophone solo before the grand finale of the title track complete with Eno piano treatment and the hypnotic fade.
Although this is their finest album , their finest song is the wonderful "Mother of Pearl" on "Stranded" the follow up the "For Your Pleasure" with Eno replaced by Eddie Jobson from Curved Air.
So that's two posts today, obviously influenced by my afternoon walk, but what to do about #FruitfulSeptember ? Roxy Music have no fruit related songs, or so I thought. Then I found this:
So we hit Roxy Music's fourth album "Country Life" for "Prairie Rose" , another great song.
Basically their first four studio albums, and the first live album "Viva" are all essential , after that they are a little patchy but with some gems in there. The albums below are the essential ones plus an excellent compilation that contains most of the first four albums plus rarities.
They last few days the weather has been very grey. It's not been the most uplifting. Added to that I thhink I have torn a shoulder muscle or trapped a nerve in my right arm , when you get arm pain's at my age you start thinking heart attack so it's hit the medical box for aspirin. Mt right arm is improving and I haven't lost the use of my hand at all , or been in so much pain that I had to go to casualty. Part of it is that I don't feel like writing or walking, and my monthly target is in danger , but after I post this , I so intend to go out for a walk, maybe up Cow Hill to take some pictures.
Looking out of the window the sky is a uniform grey although it is not as cold as yesterday.
I am thoroughly enjoying "Spear Of Destiny" by Daniel Easterman , which , location wise, has a lot in common with "The Lost" that he wrote as Jonathan Aycliffe. I know that I've read "Spear of Destiny" but I only remember the start of the book, but my rubbish memory means that I can reread books and rewatch films and thoroughly re enjoy them.
While working I am listening to a lot of CDs one of which is the 15 disc Bruce Springsteen Soundstage box. It's only radio broadcast quality but is still a great listen, but just doing one gig at a time , there are five gigs with three discs for each one.
This morning's vinyl was "Who Will Save The World" by The Groundhogs and "Bandstand" by Family both of which I bought for the cover art, but are great albums to listen to in their own right.
So for #FruitfulSeptember I was wondering whether a coconut was a fruit and came upon this vague definition:
"Botanically speaking, a coconut is a fibrous one-seeded drupe, also known as a dry drupe. However, when using loose definitions, the coconut can be all three: a fruit, a nut, and a seed."
So I think I can go with a coconut as a fruit , which means I can go for PM Dawn's excellent "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto: 1999/Once In A Lifetime/Coconut" which has a finale of Harry Nilsson's "Coconut" which has appeared in so many films and a truly great song, and PM Dawn manage to marry it up with Prince and the Talking Heads. The song is on the "Jesus Wept" album which does not seem to be digitally available on Amazon.
September has been my sparsest month so far for posting , although there is still over a week left, so we shall see how much more I write.
Yesterday I went for a walk and managed to sort of get lost, I though I was going to come up where the West Road meets Two Ball Lonnen but the road I was on was taking toward the centre of Newcastle with virtually no useful turn offs. So I wasn't really lost, just going down a road I've never walked down in twenty odd years of living here , alth I must I gone down it on the Number 1 Stagecoach bus. I finally came up to West Road via The Temple of Antenociticus , Roman Ruins , which you can see here on my Instagram channel.
One my walk one the albums I was listening to was "Music From The Body" from the film "The Body" by Ron Geesin and Roger Waters . Geesin had worked with Waters on "Atom Heart Mother" by Pink Floyd , and the album is actually a joy to listen to , with lots of short pieces and songs that hark to "Dark Side of The Moon" Floyd. Well worth a listen although not everyone's cup of tea.
I though I had a complete vinyl collection , although I know there are certain records that I wouldn't say know to you and over the weekend I remebered a couple of comic book covers which I would like. One was "Jailbreak" by Thin Lizzy with the Jom Fitzpatrick "Overlord" open out cut cover.
The other was "Who Will Save The World?" by The Groundhogs where to comic provided teh story for the album. So that is two albums that are now on theire way.
On The Groundhogs' "Split" album was a song called "Cherry Red" and that falls in nicely for the #FruitfulSeptember sequnce. The Groundhogs produced a lot of heay rock abums are are definitely worth investigating, and I do believe they are still performing if you can catch them on the live circuit.
I sometimes find quiet a bit for want of a word "not good" or worrying , and putting on the radio on (this morning 6Music) improves things no end. Similarly sometimes television can have a similar effect.
Yesterday I watch John Carpenter's "They Live" featuring Roddy Piper in the Kurt Russel role , and has been described as the best "B" Movie ever . The production values are minimal, but so was "Assault on Precinct 13" which contains on of , for me, the most shocking scenes ever. The thing was , watching the film, which was made in 1988 , I saw a lot of what is happening today , and while the film was aimed at the Reagan (and therefore Thatcher) regimes , it is even more relevant today. It's available for free on Youtube here at the moment.
Yesterday was also National Record Store Day but I completely ignored it , essentially because I sort of have enough records and don't need any more. To buy a record it has to be something special and barring coloured vinyl and picture discs there seems to be very little inventiveness in album cover production today. I may be wrong but I wish someone could show me an interesting album cover that is worth exploring while you listen.
The "Star Wars" John Williams and Jack White's "Lazaretto" hologram editions are exceptions and they are both in my collection, so there is room to be inventive.
I was also thinking of all the record sellers that have disappeared . In Newcastle there was Hitsville UK , Volume and Spin , plus the national chains Our Price , MVC , Virgin (which briefly became Zavvi) and Boots and Woolworths sold records too.
Luckily in Newcastle we still have a lot of independent in Newcastle which you can see here
#AnimalAugust continues with "Boris The Spider" by The Who and I found a great claymation for it by GawainKnight , though possibly not for extreme arachnophobes.
Working from has got me listening to CDs again. I did start listening digitally , and because my record player is downstairs , vinyl is not an option. I am listening to CDs that I have probablty never played but felt I needed in my collection, so I am slowly working my way through th eBruce Springsteen "Sound Stage" 15 Cds of radio broadcast , plus today there have been a couple of Yes albums and a couple bt Stomu Yamash'ta .
I usually start the day with a bit of 6Music and then drift into the CDs.
I bought a lot of my music because I felyt I should have it and should support the artist , so yesterday I was listening to "Coconut" by The Archie Bronson Outfit. I don't know what possessed me to buy the album , whether it was a recommendation or I had heard something , but it was a great listen, and I also feel good that The Archie Bronson Outfit will have gor a decent chunk of the CD sale rather than the 0.000001p they would have got if I had listened to it on Spotify.
Other art forms require our support as well , however we do it , by either buying the art , paying an entrance fee or donating , or ideally from taxes , so artists don't have to worry when they are next going to eat.
Art can take many forms and all of them need our support, however we can, so buy , support , go and watch. We need art.
Continuing with #AnimalAugust (I am surprised I hav posted 18 times this month already), I am going to go with the beautiful "Beeswing" by Richard Thompson , one of my favourite singers , songwriters and guitarist.
Today I will start the #AnimalAugust sequence , which is basically every post will feature animal related music in band name, song , record label or something else.
Apropos of nothing I was looking at album covers on the internet last night and there are various lists of album covers. Like many things because we are no probably into the seventieth year of album cover design , there are lot of examples good and bad, and was shocked to see glaring omissions and seemingly bland inclusions.
Some of my favourite album covers are a lot more that the front cover (I'm thinking Barney Bubbles and Storm Thorgerson / Hipgnosis ) and sometimes you do get a single striking image but a lot seem to be covers that are just there because the artist is very successful and famous.
I do buy vinyl albums mainly for the covers, or some uniqueness about them, but my preferred vinyl listen is probably reggae , although I also like electro disco , and finally got a copy of "En-Tact" by The Shamen which can be picked up very reasonably on Discogs .
Some of the iconic covers that stand out for me are the first Elvis Presley album which influenced "London Calling" by The Clash , Andy Warhol usually gets two mentions for "The Velvet Underground and Nico" the front cover of which only features Warhol's name, and "Sticky Fingers" by The Rolling Stones , both quite complex designs although deserving of their place in any list.
At the bottom this post will be twelve of my favourite album covers which you can click through to Amazon to check out although it may go through to the digital copy, there should be links to the vinyl copy.
Sometimes Picture discs can look good , I'm thinking the mandala effect on "Air Conditioning" by Curved Air, and there are some with zoetropic designs which look impressive under the right conditions , plus the laser etched 3D holograms which are often impressive, first seen on Jack White's "Lazaretto" I believe.
Then you have the Vertigo Swirl which is simple and hypnotic and worth buying any piece of vinyl so you can sit and watch it.
Vinyl , because it is bigger gives more options for creativity.
If you would prefer to support your local record shop check out these in Newcastle from this post here:
Today is grey so that's why the post title came to mind . I thought Grimalkin was a witch's cat it in "Macbeth" (it was a familiar of the three witches) , but it's also an archaic generic name for a cat. While I like photographing cats I treat them like dogs and children , ok as long as they go back to their owners. I tag my pictures with #CatsInNam and was surprised to find an Instagram Influencer Profile here. I tried searching for #CatInNam on Google but every site that maybe had something then redirected , so you will have to search for yourself on Instagram or Twitter or my tag @mikeydred96 .
My intention today was to listen to "Citizen" by Steely Dan , a great compilation but missing two of my favourite Steely Dan songs "Dallas" and "Sail The Waterway" which the band thought were so bad that they never appeared digitally, but they appear as vinyl rips on Youtube and I recently rebought the 12" vinyl copy from Discogs. So that's why I am sharing "Dallas" with you.
However I picked up on "Babylon's Burning" a rough and ready guide to punk from 1973-1978 and the four CDs while consisting mainly of demos and live takes was very listenable to my ears. I had been thinking of selling the box but it definitely earned it's place in my collection with lots aof great bands on there, and by four thirty with systems not behaving at work I thought it was a good time to wind down.
Steely Dan will be tomorrow, and my box also contains a burned copy of "Can't Buy A Thrill" augmented by the aforementioned favourites , so I have a lot to listen to tomorrow as well.
I often wake and want o find what happens in what I'm dreaming , good or bad. I'm surprised that bits of a dream I woke from a couple of days back have stayed with me. They make little sense although I think where they came from from . Robocop characters working with and attacking a group I was with (probably influenced by the second series of "Altered Carbon" that I finished last week on Netflix , a computer terminal flashing up that I needed to take annual leave (we are getting work reminders about this and I have taken nothing but Bank Holidays this Financial Year, so that is nearly four months without a chosen day's leave) , and I wanted to know if we got out of the "situation" , but I woke fully , so the dream was lost. This does happen to me, and probably everyone quite frequently.
Because I am ahead of the curve on my walking I only have to do 4K steps a day to hit may target for July , which therefore makes me a little lazy, though it means I have more than hit my target this month. I did think that lockdown was going to stop me from doing my million steps every three months but as yet it hasn't. I am lucky that I live in an area with plenty of places to walk.
This week I am continuing with working through my CD box sets and today it's The Velvet Undergound "Peel Slowly And See" , the first CD being demos put together by Lou Reed , John Cale and Sterling Morrison , "Waiting For The Man" being almost Country and Western Swing style and "Venus In Furs" a medieval acoustic work out, these are interesting but not easy listening. At the wekend I was listening to their debut album on vinyl and noticed for the first time that the band's name doesn't appear on the front cover, but Andy Warhol's does.
So we'll go with a take on "All Tomorrows Parties" , I think the drum sound is awesome on this, as I write I'll listening to the first album with the extra takes , but is a definitie experience.
Last week I bought two albums "Two Sevens Clash (40th Anniversary)" by Culture and "Kitchen Sink" by Nadine Shah (oddly being released digitally song by song) and after consideration decided to but just the digital version. I didn't buy the CDs because I thought I would be unlikely to play the CD but have played the albums several times since purchase , plus because of the convenience of my digital apps (BubbleuP'n'P and Windows Media Player) I have played several related albums forsaking my normal work soundtrack of BBC 6Music.
I often reckoned that the introduction of CD was a McDonaldisation of music (see my post of music media history from 2015 here) which essentially allowed you to store more music in a smaller place , skip songs , program the order and lots more and was stored in a digital format which does lose a lot of the original sound by letting only hear what we can / need to hear.
The thing is I think nothing of playing a vinyl album or single but digital discs are are now a chore , you have to find it , open the case open the player and then either play or select what you want to play. We have been conditioned to get want we want with a click or two. When was the last time you played a CD or DVD? We are all part of the "click" generation.
I am not sure it can go much further, ever song I share on this blog is on Youtube or Vimeo , and as I am writing this I have "Two Sevens Clash (40th Anniversary)" playing on Windows Media Player. When I go down I will listen to some vinyl or maybe watch something on my Tivo , Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Looking outside the cloudy sky is looking very ominous, more thunderstorms on the way.
"Two Sevens Clash (40th Anniversary)" by Culture is an absolutely essential reggae album, I think this is going on my phone to listen to when I walk.
I was looking at all the books I have, and was thinking "Will I ever read all of these?" . The same goes for DVDs and CDs . With the digitalisation of music, plus streaming , and the phenomenal fall in price music has become easy to buy without listening to it.
People used to make tapes and that had to be done in real time , but now it's just a playlist and if there is little effort in producing it then there will be little attention payed to it by listener. I see loads of playlists shared each day , but will take more notice of a single song in some format or other.
Digital media is so easy to aquire , put aside for future listening, then never revisit. Books are slightly different in that you may put them aside, but usually you have them displayed in a bookcase or something and always tend to buy them with at least the intention of reading. That is not always the case with digital media, and you can include ebooks with that , so easy to acquire and so easy to forget about.
I have bought very few ebooks but have acquired a lot as many are public domain and available for free or very cheaply.
Back to vinyl , every record I have has been played at least once, and many times more often. Buying vinyl creates a sort of tangible connection with the music, the covers are often an adventure in themselves (thinking Hawkwind's "In Search of Space" and Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" newspaper cover).
I have a few picture discs including Kate Bush's zoetropic picture disc of "Running Up That Hill" and the Star Wars and Jack White " Lazaretto"discs with the etched holograms all of which need lights or strobes to bring out the images, but I can't find the Kate Bush one although I posted it on instagram a few years back, maybe I will try doing it again soon and put it on Youtube.
So what should I share this time, we'll go with "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath because of the Vertigo Swirl which is one of the best simple optical effects I have ever seen , and you don't get that on digital, sometimes it's great to watch the record just play.
