The Numbers Game

I've just realised that this is already my second highest posting year ever (2013 was the highest with 244) so given that I am three and a half months away from th eend of the year there is just a possibility that this will be my highest posting years ever. The last two Octobers I have themed a post a day and I may do that again this year as it's my birthday month. Again, going back to the point I made in my last post but one, when you don't think about what you are doing, it makes it a lot easier to succeed.

It's ten of the clock and this is my third post today, and I am looking forward to a good night;s sleep and an extremely relaxed weekend with a little catch up to TV and maybe even not doing a huge amount of walking. It is a long time since I had a real lie in, so long that I have actually forgotten.

I am quite pleased that my Discogs store is going well with another four gone today, I'm not looking to start a business just to trim my collection slightly. This reminded me of  "Rock and Roll Records" by JJ Cale which is so laid back it's almost comatose, but a good record anyway. It is time for my bed now, who's coming?

Just noticed Amazon says:

Includes FREE MP3 version of this album. 

It's not Free, you have to buy the album first to get a copy, and you could rip it yourself anyway without the tags that Amazon include.


Goodnight my friends


See you when daylight hits.

Afternoon Light

Today we have had dark clouds a smattering of rain and I have the light on because it's dark out side. It's not three o' clock yet. I can see a touch of blue sky in the distance, so no doubt in quarter o fan hour it'll be a bright summers day , and right enough it is, so I can switch my light out.

I've succumbed and had a smart meter fitted so my power supplier, OVO, know what I am using every minute of the day.

My DNLA server has been playing up a bit, but it's now finally working. I'm not sure what the problem is as I think Window 10 is deleting applications at random, so the music was just not moving but maybe it was taking it's time to find the actual file even though it had the file name indexed.

I actually wanted Pink Floyd's "Atom Heart Mother", but I've made do with my favourite ABBA song "The Visitors", and wonderful driving piece of dark paranoia, and you can dance to it (if you can dance and feel so inclined, I can't and don't).

So anyway this is just a very very short post about what you manage to do while having a Smart Meter fitted. I was shocked about how much they had to put in a replace to get it working, although the gas meter was obviously a bit complex.

Anyway I now have "Atom Heart Mother" playing on the sound system, so my Kindle Fire and Soundbar set up is now working which is a good thing. I love the sound of Roger Waters' bass on the introduction to the 23 minute incredible piece influenced by Scot Ron Geesin with full brass band and choir, and rather than share the Floyd version with you I'll share a live cover version by some French musicians that is quite amazing, it's at the Théâtre du Chateletand features Ron Geesin on keyboards.Ron did a film soundratck for a film called "The Body" with Roger Waters.

Enjoy this sunny afternoon my friends... the weekend is almost here.

Looping About Ed Sheeran

The Graph of Ed Sheeran

Last night I caught a chunk of The Mercury Music Prize won by Sampha which seemed to me functional but bland. There was a recorded performance of Ed Sheeran performing "The Shape of You" on Jools Hollands' Later, and what struck me was that here is a guy who is clever at what he does, putting songs together from basic recorded loops, but unfortunaelely what came out for me was just like any other radio filler and will probably be an X-Factor staple in years to come.

Ed Sheeran is a really nice guy, though , gave a great message from Miami. Basically I like Ed Sheeran a lot but find his music bland and boring hence the graph on the right.

He was followed by Kate Tempest performing the apocalyptic "Don't Fall In" who, in my opinion, musically blew him away.





The first time I saw a loop being used in a live situation was John Martyn performing "Big Muff" on Rock Goes To College in the seventies. He just had this acoustic guitar and a few effects and a tape loop box which allowed him to build up his rhythm to amazing effect, that stayed with me, well today, you can see that below.

The a couple of years ago I walked into Think Tank? saw a girl wearing horns on stage who started with some wordless vocals to provide her backing for "The Shadow Line". That girl was Jordan Reyne. I was truly blown away and she is still the moriginal artist I have heard over the last couple of years. Maybe it was the combination of walking in to wait for the main band, The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing (who were excellent by the way, thanks for the recommendation Gillian F) , therefore not expecting anything to be blown away by her solo set. I bought three of her CDs so at the top is "The Shadow Line". The official video for it is here, but I wanted to show what she can do live

Have a brilliant Friday everybody.

The Art Of Not Trying

Last month I wanted to hit fifty posts but failed miserably, only managing thirty. This month I haven't tried , but less than half way through the month (tomorrow is half way)  I have already done twenty five posts. It's like riding a bike or playing live, as soon as you start thinking about it you fall off or forget what you are doing because you are thinking about what you think you should be doing instead of actually doing.

So I know this is hardluy a substantial post (though it's a lot more substantial tah twhen I first started writing), my posts would be lucky to hit a hundred words. These days I probably average 25-300 words. So if I stopped writing now this would be the lot of what you would get from me , maybe with a couple of pictures.

I suppose these days I look for some kind of thread to keep my posts going, like the walking and the fact I joined Newcastle CAN today on the recommendation of my doctor, and had good news from my optician that everything seems stable on the optical front.

Anyway, as I said , this is just a very short post so I will leave you with "Donna" by theBard of Salford and The Head Ex Strangler, because the CD is on top of my playpile. Sleep well my friends.

On Writing

The thing is, like anything you do, writing is easier the more often you do it. I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but the numer of hits per post have also actually gone up. The "Coincidentally Opencast" post is still the most read one currently and that is getting a lot of hits despite being more about the Happy Mondays and their John Kongos covers and the fact that John Kongos was the first person to use a recorded sample in the single "He's Gonna Step On You Again" . Follow the OpenCast link for video and download links.

I've now started reading Alexei Sayle's "The Weeping Women Hotel" and after the Jordan Ellenberg book I was struck that the pages will be solid text, no diagrams and graphs breaking it up every few pages, but words have the ability to stimulate the imagination, though for some reason I found it a bit odd about about a man writing about a woman's experiences. I'm only ten pages and it has my attention so I am looking forward to enjoying it.

So it's time for another walk to work, it's a couple of weeks since I bought a weekly bus ticket now (and they are good value for money), but if I don't have a ticket I will walk and I get to listen to lots of music.

I now look at people at bus stops and think, "You could probably walk to where you are going".  It's true we have inbuilt laziness programmed into us. Twice in recent weeks I've seen people panic because they have missed their floor by ONE floor, as they press the button then go up to the 7th floor before (I assume returning to the second or third, when it would take them a minute to WALK DOWN to their floor)

I've been selling a few CDs that I don't really listen to on Discogs. The pile I had would probably bring me in fifteen pounds from CEX or a bit more for one of Newcastle's second hand record shops. Amazon wouldn't let me sell CDs but the four I have sold on Discogs have brought in £50 so it's been a success. My store is here.

Given how I have been critical of people not walking , I found some film of Deep Purple performing "Lazy" in 1972 for you to enjoy.


Anyway I'm going to set off again so enjoy your Thursday.

Crown of Creation

On the walk in I listened to "The Use Of Ashes"  by Pearls Before Swine and it was as good as I remember , slightly off kilter and dark, and the only vague complaint for me is the sixties production.
 The title comes from a line in the opening track "The Jeweller", and I was struck by the dark lyrics of the song "Rocket Man" which made me think of the illogical tenets of controlling religion.

That was half an hour of strange sixties Americana, and I followed it up with Jefferson Airplane's "Crown of Creation". The music is similar to the songs off "The Use Of Ashes" , and I almost expected Tom Rapp's voice to drift in, but I got Grace Slick and (possibly) Paul Kantner.

"Lather" is lyrically pretty awful but still listenable, and "Triad" is still excellent. The title track is excellent and the album is still enjoyable, and it came to me as one of the albums in the Rhino five disc pack, which are five albums in replica card sleeves, which when first released were around a tenner.

I found this abrasive live take from 1968 on The Smothers Brothers Show, still love this, like you would ever see this on mainstream TV these days.

Enjoy your Wednesday night everybody.

Coincidence, Marxism and Roald Dahl

I have finished the Jordan Ellenberg book , and it was worth reading although hard going for the second half. It seems that maths encompasses a lot more than just addition , subtraction, multiplication and division. Although these are the basics and starting points there is a whole world of concepts out there that are beyond my limited intellect, but I do now know about all these things.

I've now picked up Alexei Sayle's "The Weeping Women Hotel", which is the first novel I've picked up in a long time (I've been reading mostly factual stuff), and Alexei Sayle is an intelligent person, a great comedian and a Marxist (see the last but one post). It's funny how you get these unusual and unexpected connections in writing.

The weird thing about this blog is that you go to log in , then you are presented with a screen inviting you to start a new blog, even though you are logging in to update your blog. It's just a slight annoyance, probably caused by the fact I clear out cookies on a regular basis.

Today is wet and grey but brightening up. I am hoping to listen to "The Use Of Ashes" by Pearls Before Swine (see last post if you want to listen) on the walk to work although if it raining I may have to take the bus then I will dig out a TED talk.

It is the 13th today and I have written about the number 13 several times, and everyone has their own opinions , but 13 being unlucky belongs in the realms of astrology and superstition. It is a prime number so does not fit into many boxes, but that's about it. And remeber a Baker's Dozen where you would can an extra loaf or cake just in case one wasn't up to scratch so that is a case of 13 being lucky for the recipient an dgenerating good will for the supplier.

And today is apparently Roald Dahl day, an author who my girls always loved and wrote some wonderfully subversive children;'s books as well as a lot of great adult books too. If you haven't read any, do something abit it NOW.

I think a sensible music choice would be Terrorvision's "Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt" and you know why that is ......

....have a brilliant Wednesday

I was just mentioning the 13 wasn't unlucky and my internet went down so I couldn't publish this. So I've just taken this draft and published it on a public computer. C'est La Vie.