With National Record Shop Day approaching I wandered down Northumberland to check out HMV, until recently your only source of music on the high street unless theres a Tesco , or you go for the rack in the Pound Shops that are proliferating in in our relatively affluent society. Time was when WH Smith and Boots has a sizeable music section but that's no more . HMV themselves are losing their identity with football shirts , Apple Product displays and DVDs and games taking a huge part of the display despite the fact that streaming media is negating the need for recorded films. How man do you watch more than once.
I Shrewsbury I found an HMV buried deep in a shopping centre. The shop was quite big , but the only new music was the new Madonna album and the metal section consisted of multiple copes of Black Sabbath Volume IV , Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and something by Avenged Sevenfold. Newcastle store is over three floors but the music side seems to be contracting by the second,
A surprise and welcome addition to the high street is the Thats Entertainment shops , outlets for Music Magpie. Their music is arranged by price and I picked up several limited editions (Crowded House Recurring Dream and Annie Lennox Medusa) for a couple of quid each. Second hand but excellent condition and the staff are helpful. I was suuprised to see a fair few Shirehorses albums which I thought were hard to get , well Fat Harry White is , so you you can pick up some decent stuff and they have more new stock than the Shrewsbury HMV!!
The Independents are doing well , there'll be queues outside from midnight on Friday but it's good to see there is now a choice of music on the high street.
Though of course you can always go to your local independent record shop !!
.. and then three come along at once. Well it's not quite that but nearly. Last year on World Book Night I gave away my books on the Tyneside Metro , if you click on the labels below you will see what happened then.
Initially this year I was going to do the same thing with Bill Bryson's "Notes From A Small Island", but this year World Book Night is on the 21st of April which is coincidentally National Record Shop Day as well as being the first High Bridge Quarter Festival.
So the idea is that I'm going to join in the festivities at High Bridge concentrating on RPM records and giving away my books at the festival . I've been joining in National Record Shop Day for the last couple of years and had a great time seeing some great bands , getting ice cream great food and meeting great people.
This year looks like it's going to be the best ever and if you catch me you might get a copy of the book. Check out the High Bridge Festival site by clicking on the poster.
Reflex in Nunn Street and Beatdown up near The Five Swans will also be having lots of events and special stuff for sale so get yourself down and have a wonderful day. Great music , great company , great books , great food all guaranteed!!
Not long ago I thingk it was Talk Talk who won a case allowing them to advertise ridiculously low ceilings as "unlimited" . More and more companies are offering seemingly unlimited all inclusive packages. Oftenthese are based on two year contracts , with a "free" phone that of course just carries a one year guarantee. To protect this you have to take out a care package that will cost at least £150 for the duration of the contract.
O2's Best Ever Contract
Today I saw O2's latest foray into the arena. O2 are a market leader and have their "On and On" Best Ever Tariff that offers a "massive" 1Gb a month data, from £36 a month . This also doesnt include picture messaging and lets face it everyone picture messages so that could add a tidy sum to your all inclusive rates . 1 Gb is about a weeks normal web browsing with no downloads of MP3s or films. A single DIVX movie will be almost a Gb , and when you that that watching Youtube , streaming radio as data , you could use up that "massive" 1 Gb in a couple of days. T-Mobile used to have an excellent Flext plan that included everything with a limit where you started paying but everything came out of the same pot. It annoys me that so many companies hide behingd the small print almost getting like insurance!
I have my Mobile Wifi with 3 , who charge me £15 for 5 Gb on a monthly rolling contract which is more than adequate . I seldom come anywhere near that but its a good data package. Another company offers unlimited data on a similar rolling contract except in the small print is capped at 1 Gb per month.
So when you are taking out a new contract ensure you check the small print. Probably one of the most honest I've encoutered is Orange and as I say 3 offer excellent value for money , but a lot of companies are still trying to take you for a ride . Be wary!!
The other day I saw an advertisement for a new musical called East End Babylon with the tag line "There are Three ways out of the East End - Football, Boxing and Rock and Roll" , like the East End of London is a bad place to be. Worse still it's the story of the Cockney Rejects - what next JLS , One Direction , Simon Cowell , Patrick Fitxgerald? But a musical ... no way , a film documentary I can live with:
Then I heard there's on about Susan Boyle, again Susan Boyle is a fine singer , but a musical about her life - surely not. Maybe she's had her fifteen minutes of fame , but I hope not.
Then we have Green Day's American Idiot . If I want to see Green Day I want to see Green Day , not a musical based on their songs. We have had the potential abberation of Queen being fronted by an American Idol contestant . That is not the way to honour Mr Bulsara's memory .. and of course the blockbusting Ben Elton scripted horror that is "We Will Rock You".
I don't mind concept album's finding their way on to celluloid , Tommy and Quadrophenia are excellent albums transformed into excellent films - and Tommy was transferred to an all star stage show.
When your heroes end up as musicals they are sanitised fro mass consumption , the danger and outrage is removed like when Biffy Clyro's "Many A Horror" was renamed "When We Collide" for it's X-Factor cover release.
I bet you won't get a musical about the life of Rage Against The Machine!!
Apparently instigated by a bra manufacturer such as Playtex or Wonderbra , denigrated by women's groups , embraced by both men and women as fun, is this much different to Guinness appropriating St. Patrick's Day?
You could say that it objectifies women , but women are attractive to men . That's genetic. I wouldnt want any woman to feel threatened by this but really it's a bit of fun intended to seel underwear , in particular bras . If more are sold then that helps the economy , and I'd rather women were having fun that preparing the Sunday lunch in the kitchen .
More fizz , more wine , more bacchanalian fun , and if you wish to display your cleavage feel fee to do so,
Not sure which day it is , whether it was yesterday today or tomorrow, but I don't thingk it does any harm.
I visited HMV in Shrewsbury yesterday . I've pointed out about the drought of record shops in Salop , but found HMV in a shopping centre. I also managed to buy six CDs and Trojan Mento compilatopn , a Carribean Compilations and Terry Hall Retrospective , and The Stereophonics singles and something else.
Anyway the HMV seemed to be mainly selling DVDs and Blu-Rays along with a big section for Apple i-Things . The CD section was miniscule , the only contempory CD on display was Madonna's new album . No Black Keys El Camino or Jack White Bluderbuss. No singles , no chart display, and certainly no vinyl. I may have missed something but they had quite a lot of floor space and very little devoted to music.
HMV's looking like it hasn't a clue what it's doing . It's logo is a dog listening to a record player. It's looking like the only appropriate part of that is the dog!
For the past couple of days I have been pottering about in Shropshire and Powys , mainly in Ludlow and Shrewsbury and Knighton. The buildings are interesting and very old , people are friendly and the weather is wonderful but that's by the by.
I was slightly disappointed to find no record shops in Ludlow ,unless you want to buy from Tesco or Oxfam. But barring Tesco and a new WH Smith being put together there are no chains in Ludlow and the Park and Ride is remarkable good value for money.
Worse still Shrewsbury is a much bigger town and still no record shop , barring Oxfam. There may be an HMV but that doesnt really count as they will sell anything, the record space in most HMV stops decreases by the second.
We have World Record Shop Day which coincides with Newcastles High Bridge Festival and World Book Night on the 21st April , so that is a plus to look forward to. If you go here you can download iPhone and Android Apps to find your way around,
In Salop we'll make do do with the nice weather , historic buildings , Aardvark Books and Thion at Leitwardine!!
I'm slightly amazed that I've only made two posts this months . Is this because nothing has happened or because I've been so busy with stuff I've not had time to post? Probably a bit of both...
I'm just recovered from an approximately 40 hour bout of 'flu which completely laid me out , not very nice at all . Just slept through while my Rumanian cleaners did their excellent stuff as usual . If you live in Newcastle and need cleaners I can recommend APM Cleaners unreservedly. Anyway now fully recovered and ready to go.
Preston North End have managed to stop conceding and start scoring again . The play offs are out of our reach but the club is on a more stable footing and there are some excellent young players gaining experience and Thorsten Stuckman is a great name for a goalkeeper . Pity we lost Neil Mellor to injury but the club has been stripped bare , but hopefully will become a lean mean fighting machine.
The lawn is looking like it needs mowing but another week wont hurt.
Looking forward to lots of music at the Doll @ The Black Bull , The central Bar , Trillians as well as the Mouth of Tyne Festival and Evolution (Jumping Hot Stage) where last year I discovered Mama Rosin (they're Swiss ya know) , as well as seeing The Buzzcocks , Neville Staples , CW Stoneking , Bellowhead , Billy Bragg a bit of Iggy Pop and more . Anyway that's it for now - enjoy the vids
In 1976 Andy Marshall had a gig to fulfil with his band Marshall Law. Unfortunately the band left before the gig took place so after a a phone call or two The Bok (singular of Box) was formed . Simon Clinic (aka Tony Eyre) original vocalist left before the first rehearsal, but in true punk fashion we wrote songs for the gig as well as a few covers to spread out the set. All gigs were in and around Preston in carious clubs , pubs and halls. The band consisted:
Andy Marshall - Guitar - Vox - Songs
Mike Singleton - Guitar - Vox - Songs
The Hippy Mark Lester - Bass
any drummer we could find but mainly Dave Topping
Songs were chosen for lack of chords and ease of playing and obvious influences were Velvet Underground , The Damned , Jonathan Richman. Covers we did included:
Waiting For The Man
Psycho Killer
Rue Courier (Roadrunner - in French)
Shot By Both Sides
The Passenger
Gloria
Egyptian Reggae
Songs titles I remember apart for the demo list were:
Sick of Beer
Tennis
Rant and Rave
Accident
Magic Eye
We had a gig in the basement of a pub in Preston. I had been using Ollie Halsall's trick of practising with heavy guage strings and playing with light gauge strings. This meant you could play very bendy sols and chords , but also in the hot sweaty confines of the pub basement the guitar needed continuous retuning as I played . Guy came up to me at the end and send he loved my inplay tuning , didnt have the heart to tell him it wasnt planned. The DJ didnt like us and when we launched into Magazine's "Shot By Both Sides" he started playing the record as loud as he could, The crowd took umbrage and trashed his decks - nice show of appreciation! Anyway .......
........Basically the idea was to choose some songs record them and despatch to people who mattered in music. John Peel tahanked us but said we were too primitive! Stiff Records apologised that they sent us a pre printed rejection letter , but Rabid Records of Manchester wanted to record us and put out a double "A" side single of "Mystery Band" / "Happy Birthday" , with an accompanying video involving pies , bikes and aqualungs!! . We went to Rabid's headquarters in Manchester but everyone had buggered ogff to the CBS launch of John Cooper-Clarke's Disguise In Love. Graham Fellows aka Jilted John aka John Shuttleworth dropped for rehearsals for the Jilted John album . He reckoned we looked like students. Also Martin Hannett did a lot of work with Rabid artists!!
An unexpected side effect was that a lot of girls stopped talking to me because they thought we were going to be on Top of the Pops!! Never could work that one out , the only time being in a band had an adverse social effect!!
After cups of tea and making plans the guy asked us what studio we had used . Studio? We hadn't a clue but the reason for John Peel's dismissal may have become apparent. Anyway Rabid records went bust fairly quickly after that and the band sort of didnt go any further though things could have been different.....
From an early age I learned to hate classical music. Music lessons at school consisted of a teacher putting on an album , flipping half way through , then nipping out for a fag leaving us to suffer the noise that we didnt want to listen to . But classical music was and still is deemed to be respectable , while everything else is for the uneducated proles.
Then there were great plays like Abigail's party in which Mantovani was presented as the height of sohistication , and the truly attrocious "Classic Rock" series , attempting to make rock respectable by having the melodies played by an orchestra , finally resulting in the even more attrocious "Hooked On Classics" series , classical music , with a disco beat "Stars On 45" style.
My reintroduction to classical music came through Alan Freeman playing "Mars" from Gustav Holst's Planets Suite on his Saturday Rock Show. Mars with its threatening martial rhythm is a superb piece , and prompted me to buy the album. A couple of listens and "Jupiter" is still my favourite instrumental piece from any genre.
Around this time John Peel started playing music by the Portsmouth Sinfonia and energetic Orchestra who basically couldnt play their instruments but tried , a bit. They backed Brian Eno on "Put A Straw Under Baby" from "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" and are rumoured to be making a comeback. They had at least one album and a single "Classical Muddly" . Whatever "Hooked on Classics" could do , the Portsmouth Sinfonia could realy screw up and manage to entertain in the process.
Now we have stuff like Classic FM which just presents classical music as stuff to fall asleep to . This si not so , you have Stravinsky , Wagner and lost of challenging stuff , for fun the light opera of Gilbert & Sullivan . If you were to tell me that Beethoven's 9th or something by Mozart was the greatest piece of music ever written , I wouldnt argue. My own personal favourite complete suite is Carl Orff's Carmina Burana . In "O Fortuna" it displays on of the main problems with classical music , going from quiet below human hearing level to earsplitting crescendo in a minute or so. Sound systems cant really cope. Anyway below should be a playlist of the album for you to listen to. Just because a lot of it is bland , boring , long , in a foreign language , doesnt mean it isnt worth the effort. It is , but you do have to be selective!!
I often listen to Brian Matthews' Sounds of the Sixties and love the fact that the only criteria is that it was a hit or released in the sixties, meaning you can get the sublime such as Jimi Hendrix , Led Zeppelin , The Beatles or Beach Boys , to some absolute rubbish which has been erased from my mind. But listen to the show and you will hear what I mean.
One of my bugbears is certain peopel who will write in and say something loke could you play "Step Inside Love" by Cilla Black , it's my favourite ever record and my copy melted when left on a windowsill in the sun and I've never heard it since !! Brian now sends such ignoramuses a CD copy of their favourite record (which no doubt they'll microwave as soon as they get it) , but most of the time records are readily available in one form another if these people can be bothered to leave their front room or phone their local HMV. The apathy and lethargy of some people amazes me.
Then I noticed this for a review of a CD on Amazon:
"I was hoping this would transport me back to the 70's, but many of the
songs I remember from the seventies, were not on this album, I was a
little disappointed. Sorry to say it's put away in a drawer!"
The album has a tracklisting , didn't they bother to look before they ordered?
Mike Ashley is percieved by man as a fat arrogant cockney git who knows nothing about about football and is the worst think to happen to Newcastle since the architectural abberations of T-Dan Smith in the 1960s. Ashley with able help from Derek Lambias certainly manages to continually shoot himself in the foot while it's still in his mouth , and look at what has happened since he came:
Sacking of a perfectly good manager in Sam Allardyce
Bringing back Keegan , and having Dennis Wise as director of football , a great player but a rubbish manager (Leeds , Millwall etc)
The debacle of trying find a manager after Keegan , resulting in JFK (Joe 'king Kinnear) and Alan Shearer
Relegation
The attempted sale of the club , that no one wanted to buy because of the mess Ashley had made of the place
Chris Hughton's appointment because no one wantted the job
The sales of Andy Carroll , Jose Enrique , Kevin Nolan , sacking Joey Barton who they could have sold for a decent return , if not a profit
The sacking of Chris Hughton and replacement by Mike Ashley's cockney casino buddy Alan Pardew
The attempted commercial rebranding of St James' Park - yeah the Sportsdirect Arena sounds cheap , charver and nasty
So basically with this catalogue of horrors everyone in Newcastle is wondering what the hell is coming next , after all this . I mean look at Portsmouth, Hearts and Rangers , is Ashley any better than these owners deemed fit and proper by the English and Scottish Football Associatians?
Well really you have to look at where the club is now . Mike Ashley expressed a desire to make the club like Arsenal , to bring players through without spending a fortune and make the club a viable financial proposition. On thing Ashley can do is make money , look at Sports Direct. So where is the club now?
After relegation , the club won the Championship under the leadership of Chris Hughton at a canter.
In their first season in the Premiership things were going OK until the sacking of Hughton and appointment of Pardew
This coincided with an influx of French unknowns and the sale of Andy Carrol for £35 million on the final day of the transfer window last January. Pardew was promised the money but it never seemed to materialise
Apparently it has been invested in undersoil heating at the training ground. Have you noticed that under Ashley's stewardship Newcastle's only injuries happen on the playing field.
The team have taken 4 points off Manchester United , and lie a comfortable fifth in the Premiership
Demba Ba a free transfer replacement for Andy Carroll - well compare the scoring records
Papiss Demba Cisse the biggest buy under Pardew at £10 million scored the winner on his home debut
Hatem Ben Arfa , Yohan Cabaye, Tim Krul have all progressed under Ashley's overall stewardship
Apparently the naming rights for the stadium would pay for Cisse , whether that's right or wrong is another question
Basically the thing is the club is in an apparently better state under Asley that I can ever remember . John Hall's stewardship with hindsight could only ever have been temporary , but if at the start of the season you'd have said Newcastle could have a good shot at European football next season , I think you would have got a few laughs.
Basically Ashley is doing more right than wrong , and expect more gaffes , but beware of getting rid because there's not that many decent club owners out there
Last night I got my email confirming me as a World Book Night Giver for 2012 , The book I've chosen is "Notes From A Small Island" by Bill Bryson , and it will be great to try and get people to read this book. Like last year I'm going to base it around Newcastle and Tyne and Wear's Metro system and hope we dont get hit by the fact that there were no flights in or out of Newcastle Airport and the stretch between Tynemouth and Byker being clsed , meaning I couldnt do Wallsend, with it's Latin signs!!
The date is April 23rd.
Most people are enthusiastic , but a lot of people get very suspicious of anyone offering something for nothing , especially if they are alone on the Metro despit , there being other passengers in the vicinity. Last year Stephen Fry gave his away in Trafalgar Square , but mine will be much lower key. But it is a great initiative to be involved with m, and now need to recruit a few helpers ......
I do find it amazing the number of people who refuse to acknowledge birthdays , or the fact they are getting older . Surely a birthday is an excuse for a celebration . And its funny when I was young people wee old after thirty , had grey hair , smoked pipes , wored cardigans , slippers and cords, and sat in a chair to await their inevitable demise.
These days if you take reasonable care of yourself you can go on for a very , very long time and have great fun doing it. Itook delivery of the first Hall & Oates CD this week and compared the pics of these two with the latest of their CDs that I have "Do It For Love" , on the first CD Daryl Hall looks like an androgenous afghan hound hybrid , with John Oates looking similarly bestial , but this was the seventies and that got the girls and helped sell the records . I wish that I looked like that in the seventies , I might have even got a girl!! . On the more recent CD the guys look very good and this is 35 years or so after the first photographs were taken , so while we'd all like to be younger I think we'd rather go for the current look.
This then led me to the discovery of the excellent Live From Daryl Hall's House site , so the guys are obviously enjoying life , and having a good time. A definite lesson for us all , always look for the good things , and be positive , and generally life will be better and make it easier to deal with the dross and crap that comes our way!!
Sad to hear of the demise of Whitney Houston , a more than capable singer that inspired a million wobbly lipped X-Factor imitators . It's not waht she was , but what she caused that annoyed me , a diva of the first degree and lot's of aspirant imitators thought the behavious was OK without the talent to back it up . At least Whitney could sing and control her voice.
Which brings me to my second gripe , I have neevr owned , and never will own a Whitney Houston album , I don't find her music particularly engrossing , but due to compilations like the Now series , and various soundtracks and what have you I have the odd Whitney Houston track corrupting my collection. Still you knew she'd made it when she was name checked by Half Man Half Biscuit in "Everything's AOR" -
"Mary oh Mary Quite ordinary Tell me how does your CD collection grow With Sade and Whitney Vandross and T’Pau Everything’s AOR"
Saw this Daily Mail headline in the newsagents this morning. I thougt , has David Cameron done a Henry VIII and annexed the priories again , after he does need to fund his mates bonus payments. But no , it it's usual disregard for actual factual reporting , the Daily Mail was screaming about these two incidents:
The council at Bideford have been stopped from saying Christian prayers at Council meetings, something that has gone on since the middle ages !! Well pardon me , what have Christian prayers to do with council business? And just because something has been going on for a long time does not make it sacrosanct. I would be very uncomfortable if I had to say prayers in a meeting at work , unless I were working for an eclesiastical organisation. This is not an attack on Christianity , but a reflection of our multi cultural society and the separation of religion and government , nothing more than that.
Secondly a Christian B&B owning couple have lost their case to discriminate against gay couples by not allowing them to use their B&B. This not anti Christian but anti bigotry . Simple as that.
The Daily Mail again shows blatant disregard for facts in search of a headline.
While a great deal of music and now books are downloaded and in e-format , I still like to have something I can hold in my hand. Also by getting a physical item it's probable that you have paid for it and the artist will get their rightful royalties . One of the issues I have withillegal downloading is that children are brought up believing they don't have to pay for music.
Anyway I'm getting sidetracked . The display above has loads of recent , box sets of CDs which are available for under twenty pounds , in some cases under ten , meaning that the individual CDs working out around £2 each and you have a beautiful package as well . Leonard Cohen and The Kinks have had decent retrospective reissues out recently , and not forgetting Chris Rea's superb Santo Spirito Blues 3 CDs and 2DVDs for £15 !! In the display above are loads of great value boxes that should keep you occupied for a long time
These are the sort of reasons why I will always by music that has a physical presence. I'm not against downloads , and infact downloads are a great way of getting music out to people , like Amazon Free MP3 section and iTune's single of the week.
Included a video of Emerson Lake & Palmer's Hoedown , just noticed it when searching for something else , a brilliant deconstruction / reconstruction of a classical piece , wish every ELP song was as good as this!!
So much for the snow , blizzard , sub zero temperatures forecast in the Mail and Express,. In Fenham it was cold but we got but a dusting of sleet . On the plus side Newcastle's Senegalese strike force returned with a brace of goals , and on Friday The Stand served us well as a town centre watering hole , with one of the best outdoor smoking areas in town.
This is my fourteenth post of the year , and as soon as I'd written my thirteenth I thought I best write another one quickly , then couldnt think of anything to write about . I still can't but obviously started thinking about how society conditions us to be superstitious even though usually there's no basis to do whatever you need to do to cure it.
Take the number thirteen , various reasons for this one being that there were thirteen people at the the last supper and the thirteenth person was either Jesus (who got crucified) or Judas (who betrayed Jesus) , but surely all the others could have been the thirteenth person , then what about the people serving etcetera.
Also you get thirteen loaves or cakes in a bakers dozen , in case one is not up to standard. Most of the time all thirteen will be up to standard so in this case thirteen is a very lucky number.
Then there's don't walk under ladders , well that's surely rooted in common sense as ladders aren't exactly stable and if someone's up there they could drop something on you , got that from an argument between Batman and Robin in the sixties TV series where Robin comes up with various superstitions and Batman explains how they may actually have some foundation.
Then there the magpie rhyme , lets face if you see a single magpie , anything that happens like missing a bus , or the lights changing to red could be interpreted as sorrow , similar to horoscopes. Incidentally , apparently astrolgy apps are very big on smart phones , although that's not surprising given the sort of people I've seen with smartphones. Anyway I've now done fourteen posts this year so it won't bother me til this time next year.
On Monday (30th January 2012) Leonard Cohen released his new LP "Old Ideas" .. Leonard Cohen is 80 and just about to take up smoking again , really he can do what he wants . The voice is getting deeper , and often the songs are almost spoken , but he's well aware of his vocal limitions , skitting them in one of his compositions "The Man With The Golden Voice". BBC6 Radio 6 made it album of the week last week , and I'm just wondering how far it will permeate into the mainstream with most people's exposure to the man limited to Alexandra Burke's wobbly lipped bleating of "Hallelujah".
Thi sgot me to thinking of some signs of age , we only get old when we give up enjoying life and having fun , but certain things happen which shouldnt happen in your 20s:
That lovely young thing at the bar is your friend's offspring
You go into a record shop and you think you have everything worth buying
If you hurt yourself it takes longer to heal
Your children's friends have children
You know the speed a record plays at
I'm going to add to this list , but while my years are increasing I still act and feel as though I'm 15! I've just remembered this appropriate Neil Young song!
Just currently reading "The Olivetti Chronicles" a compilation of John Peel's articles over the years and came across on from 1975 . In it Paul Simon just makes up the numbers in a very bland American Top Ten , Bruce Springteen , is reponsible for some jolly type rock , but nothing to get excited ablout , Patti Smith is a pretentious poseuse (well she still is , but that has resulted in some cracking albums and music).
He also hopes that Queen , Thin Lizzy and Be Bop Deluxe will make stratospheric breakthoughs , and he couldnt have foreseen how successful Queen would go on to be , Thin Lizzy rock legends , and Be Bop Deluxe have left a respectable legacy with Bill Nelson still plying his trade.
I recommend the book to anyone who can read and has even the most cursory interest in music!!
I was reading Mojo this morning and came across an article detailing an app for iPhone or Android that will give you the address of your local vinyl retailers (records not wallpapers) in the UK , Europe and the USA , apparently in has about 600 outlets listed. You can track down the app on your phone market place and there's more information on their website here.
Now an app for vinyl is to me about as innaproppriate as a chciken
omelette (which I wouldn't turn down) , because your average person who
listens to music on their phone doesnt even know what they are listening
to , because it's on shuffle or it's a Spotify or Last.fm mix channel ,
but it will be useful to people who DO use their phones and are trying
to track down that rare Erasure 12" or Rosebud's 1970s album of Pink
Floyd covered for the disco!!
Never been to Harrogate before and the first thing you realise (if you go by car) is that there is too much traffic for the roads . The white line down the middle is merely a guideline to centre your car on . You cannot hesitate or you will cause a traffic jam (calls to mind the great Bill Hicks sketch). Once you get there park up , then walk or taxi everywhere. The photo gallery from the weekend is here.
Bay Tree Guest Housr
Based at the Baytree guest house means that you are within walking distance of the town centre, although if it's raining taxis are always an option. But the walk is well worth it to take in the magnificent houses
Harrogate is expensive , but theres obvious big money about, and it is chock full of great restaurants, most of which you need to book at . We passed the Imperial Chinese and it looked basic to say the l;east but it was rammed with people .
Visited Jinnah Indian Restaurant on the first night and the Chicken Chaat starter was a meal in itself. We booked , went for a drink to Bed (see below) , and when we came back Jinnah was rammed . they were catering a 16th birthday party as well as numerous other gatherings. It's also loacated in an old church making it a very impressive place to eat.
Then had an excellent meal at Graveleys fish and chip eaterie during Saturday , followed up with vegetarian "Magic Mushrooms" at Bed (Burnsey Eat & Drink) on the night. The staff at Bed are really friendly and the food is excellent . While waiting for food we were treated to Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album which shows they also have excellent taste in music.
Sunday was the last day and we ate our mid day meal at William and Victorias , which provided huge amounts of excellent food and very reasonable prices , then finishing up at Betty's which is very expensive , but it has to be done and the staff and surroundings were perfect.
The Montpelier Quarter of Harrogate is worth exploring from a point of seeing the buildings and being home to the excellent Montpelier pub.
On the saturday sayw this guy busking outside Hoopers , he is awesome:
I've forgotten loads but will be back there again, later this year.
This is a very short rant as I have just priced a train journey to Epsom from Newcastle , Epsom being effectively London . The cheapest price is £124 though a normal return is £250 . The trip is a 500 mile round trip.
Waiting for a train at Newcastle
A 100 mile round trip to Darlington costs me £12 return . If I apply this rate to Epsom I should pay about £60 return , instead I have to 100% to 200% premium. Is it any wonder that people think they have to travel by car?
I was shocked to discover I have NO Black Sabbath Studio CDs in my collection . I have two compilations , the live "Reunion" and that's it, admittedly six CDs of Sabbath . But I was surprised . As a teenager I remember having "Master of Reality" , "Volume 4" , "Sabbath, Bloody, Sabbath" and "Sabotage" on vinyl and was sure I had "Never Say Die" on CD whoich I bought for the excellent "Hard Road" track.
Here's the dilemma , I can buy the CDs and rip them and listen to them on my MP3 player or my network , but I can also listen via the excellent Grooveshark , which costs me nothing. I have though about it and decided I will buy the CDs as that gives me lots more options what to do , but below is a Grooveshark Black Sabbath Playlist , enjoy !!
I was quite surprised to see that the most tagged thing on my blog is the word Apple. A lot of people are under the impression that I am anti Apple , because I don't own any Apple products . Never had or wanted an iPod or and iPhone but was tempted by an iPad. My own website integrates with iTunes so thats the nearest I get to endorsing Apple.
Apple are great at appropriating other people's ideas , and produce some of the most desirable products on the market . so desireable that people oftemn don't even know why they want an Apple product , they just do , which is great for Apple.
The other thing to remember is that Apple was the label set up by the Beatles to distribute their records and anyone else they signed, resulting in some minor litigation between the two. So another case of Apple nicking someone elses idea , they couldn't even come up with an original name (Steve Job's Apple as opposed to the Beatles' Apple).
In the team of six I work with four people have iPhones , one has a Blackberry and I have an Android device , I wonder how long before I just go with the flow and get one , but then again the new Samsung Galazy looks very nice!!
It amazes me how in modern life , things like service provision take a back seat . There's a saying that the customer is always right , but not apparently when dealing with government or IT Support. The pretext is that these organisations are her to serve us , but so often just try to stop us from actually doing anything constructive by laying down impossible to follow conditions , just so they can get away with not actually do anything.
I recently received a letter from the DVLA saying that I wont get a refund from the tax disc I sent them when I scrapped the car because I hadnt told them why I wanted a refund , despite sending me a separate letter saying that they had received confirmation of the transfer of ownership for scrapping the car.
When you work somewhere you build up a history of rights and privileges required to do your job . These should be cetrally recorded to be checked and cross checked when required , but it seems that they can disappear in an instant when departments decide not to bother with keeping records.
I've come up against many IT support departments who's attitude is that their life would be ideal if it were'nt for those pesky users . And amazingly a lot of them get away with it!!
The only way round this is to take your own copies of any document that gives you rights , and just hope you can get backing when you need to go up against the bully boys.
Ithe book Inferno by Larry Niven (his take on Dante's Inferno) , one of the levels of hel requires the hero to fill in forms in triplicate on tissue paper with a blunt pencil. This is how I feel sometimes going against the faceless foe.
Terry Gilliam's Brazil is another example where Jonathan Pryce has to continually form fill to get the slightest thing done . Maybe one day things will click into place and the world will run smoothly , but I think there a lot of people who will do anything to make sure that doesnt happen!
It's funny how our magpie like society convinces us that we need to have things . I can't remember why but while perusing Amazon I became aware of a book called "The Olivetti Chronicles" which I thought was about John Peel , for some reason I assumed someone had written another book about him , which is notunexpected given the importance of the guy to modern music.
Today , three months after receiving it as a birthday present I finally started to read the said book , and discovered thatit is actually a collection of John Peel's writings for many publications , unearthed by his family when they finished "Margrave of the Marshes" , the man's autobigraphy.
The title alloudes to the Olivetti typewriter that John produced his articles on , despite the difficulties in procuring ink to allow him to type , , but still his wife Sheila and son William have brought together over four hunderd pages of delightful and insightful prose , including stuff on his beloved Liverpool Football Club , and of course lot's of music .
His son Tom Ravenscroft presents a show on Radio 6 and sounds incredibly like his dad in his manner and taste in music , and sense of humour.
So that's my reading sorted for the next week or two!!
This week was the first time that my main web site has been hacked , possibly by Islamic Propagandists or just jokers who replaced the home page with a fetching Islamic Jihad flag animation on a black background. No hardm was done as the bulk of site visits go drect to information pages , although anyone then visiting the home pages may have got a surprise to say the least.
I dont go security mad , but it is amazing the legths people will go to , just to prove they can beak something.
Just a very short post . Yesterday we were and a works sales conference. Tables were named after iconic figures such as Mother Theresa and , our table, Queen Elizabeth The first. Somehow Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had slipped in there , although they feature heavily in the film "The Iron Lady" just on national release.
All tables were given a pound as an illustration of a point one of the speakers was making . What can you do with a pound . As the team leader for the table of ten I appropriated the coin with everyones agreement and put the following numbers on the lottery for tonight , 11th of January 2012. Below is the ticket , and above is an illustration of a good use of web slide controls when trying to sell products. Anyway the numbers are 32 , 33 , 34 , 36 , 38 , 39.
If you want to play yourself follow the link below!!
A week into the New Year , and finally had a good night's sleep . I've visited the Valley Junction in Corbridge for the first , time an absolutely stunning restaurant with food to match and it's own curry train that runs for Newcastle or Carlisle!!
The Christmas decorations are packed away , and work has restarted , looking forward to lots of events and festivals this year , hopin Evolution get their act together , and glad for dicovering the wonderful Lord Rochester over the Christmas break. at The wonderful Central Bar in Gateshead , and having the good fortune to watch Newcastle beat Manchester United starting with Demba Ba's wonder goal.
Am planning my first ever visit to the Star and Shadow Cinema , oh and Sherlock series 2 started on BBC after Benedict Cumberbatch , Martin Freeman were given time off from the Hobbit by Peter Jackson!
One thing that 2012 promises not to be and that's boring
This is probably the earliest blog post I've done in a year . We're 75 minutes into 2012 , I've made the same resolution I always do and I'm going to stick to it , which is:
"to make myself as happy as possible and try and spread that to my friends and family"
I hope your year improves beyond belief , and 2012 is filled with happiness for you.
Just realised this takes the blog into it's sixth year now , six years writing about not much and still havent come up with an idea for my book , and no excuse now as you can easily self publis on Amazon
