Buick Smokestack

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy your Thursday evening my friends.

Walking The Mean Eyed Cat

I woke up this morning actually wanting a lie in. It's been a busy weekend. We're over half way through April and I am only just keeping up my steps for my rolling three month Million Steps Challenge. This is something I took one my self that was inspired by the Diabetes.org challenge last year, but I've kept it going. The thing is with a challenge like this you may hit your day's steps but the following day you have to start again, but if you don't hit your target one day they you have to do more the next day if you want to make it up, so to take the pressure off I try to so more steps than neccessary each day so there is no pressure ti hit the daily steps as my target is 340K a month. The thing is this month I keep really slipping off teh pace for one reason or another, it started with bad weather at the start of the month then yesterday I went to Dunblane and back and as a result only did 6K steps, and am about 1K ahead of my required steps.

At the weekend Preston North End came back again to win after being behind against a Queens Park Rangers team who are on fire at home. Preston have won more points from losing positions this season that any other team, but of they reach the play offs it will be akin to a miracle but it still could happen given the final three weekes of matches in the Championship.  I feel my walking this month is like that, but I am determined to hit the 340K.

Last night I watched the Tom Cruise film "Oblivion" which was quite good, but unusual in that you never actually get to see an alien in the film and is clever in making you think that humans are aliens, it is worth a watch.

So today the weather is good and I intend to hit my step target.

Mean Eyed Cat Food

On Friday I had a Tortilla and Empanada at The Mean Eyed Cat which was rather excellent and I will be doing that again (you can see it on my Instagram Channel here) , and Fiona had said she thought it was a Johnny Cash song. I thought it was Billy Le Riley, but Fiona was right so that's the song I will leave you with. Some details here. While looking for the song on youtube I found this great cover by The Johnny Trouble Trio which I can't embed but you can watch here. Don't you love what you can find on the internet.






Have a good Monday.

Sale of The Centipedes

I took the title from a line from "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End" the Vivian Stanshall film and monologue that first appeared as a John Peel sessions, well following the initial outing on The Bonzo Dog Band's "Let's Make Up And Be Friendly". It is full of very evocative images and lines and well worth delving into for fans of eccentric English Comedy and ebullient wordsmithery.

I've recently been having to go to bed as early as eight o'clock because I am feeling absolutely drained, I've no idea why and have als been soffering from intermittent back ache. A lot may be old age, but I do have a doctor's appontment scheduled in a week or so to maybe find out if anything is not completely in order.

Although I could include a litlle Vivian Stanshall there are links below to his work, so you can check him out there.

I've litsened to a couple of Oysterband compilation albums "Little Rock To Leipzig" and "Granite Years" and they are a band that revisit and rework their own songs as well as others, and I've often discovered other people's songs for the first time through The Oysterband. One such example is the achingly beautiful "Love Vigilantes" which is the opening New Order song from Low-Life. Both songs are great but I will just leave you with The Oysterband verson as you may already have heard The New Order one.

The chorus always gives me goosebumps, it's that affecting a song for me.

Sleep well.

Kerb Crawler

I've been listening to a couple of albums, one of which is Hawkwind's "Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music". "Kerb Crawler" was the lead single if I remember rightly and it's a great song song taking on creeps with their state of the art "extensions" cruising to pick up "ladies". It has some great sax playing but dates badly  as it lists ultra modern accessories such as FM Radio and 8-Track Stereo. Also the "stylish" white walled tyres sort of singled out the occupation of the vehicle's owner, not the sort of person you would want to spend time with.

It's strage that while Hawkwind's song emphasises the seedy side of cars , Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch" from "The River"is a full blown nostalgia trip and the images brought up by the lines

"El Dorado Fins, Baby

White Walls and Skirts

Rides Just Like A

Little Bit of Heaven

Here On Earth"

are just fine by me. There's no doubt the Springsteen song is a nailed on classic, while the Hawkwind one is just a fun work out.

Going back to 8-Tracks, while they were sort of state of of the art I was unaware of actual recorders. It was great that they played on a continuous loop and if I remember there were sort of four "sides" on the wide tape, the playing head jumping to the next section at the appropriate juncture , each "side" having two channels hence the 8-Track.

OK it's time for bed now , sleep well.

Librarinth

Librarinth, a word that appeared in "The Liar", the debut novel by  by Stephen Fry (which I bought second hand years ago, but have never read) in a scene where a a course leader is semi admonishishing a student for plagiarism and effectively titling him with "The Liar" of the title. I don't knwo if Mt Fry made the word up or stole it from someone else, probably the latter, but it does completely describe how a lot of people's homes I know could end up , when the shelves are filled with books and then the books end up in piles spreading throughout the room, leaving the only way to traverse it and the corridors between the book built walls of the librarinth.

This week is looking incredibly packed and the wonderful song "Not So Manic Now" by Dubstar is just being played by John Hillcock on 6Music and that would be a good mantra for my week. Need to remember you can only do what can be done and then everything will get done. Though my first dilemma is do I walk into work or do I get the bus.? We shall see.

Anyway I will run off now and start my work week.

Syrup

Mick Jagger playing guitar walking out of a tunnel into a  five foot deep sunken channel filled chest high with dark syrup (not treacle). That is the only detail I remember from a dream I had last night.

This morning there is no sign of snow or rain, though there is no cloud either so it's likely to be cold. A few cars look to be iced up.

Last night I was still tired but managed to finish watching "Ron Burgundy:Anchorman"  which I was ambivalent about as it demonstrated the total sexism of the past, but the sexists still came out of it fine. I also watched a short documentary on Ben Wheatley's "Free Fire" (which I have ready to watch) which stylishly is another seventies throwback with lots of guns, so looking forward to that.

My last post was about Big In Japan who are virtually impossible to find on digital media unless you are very rich though you can find their sparse vinyl ouput on Discogs here, but this are a band who's output needs resurrecting and reissuing properly similar to the recent Yachts  box set which incidentally features "Do The Chud" by The Chuddy Nuddies which was the other band and song on the Big In Japan eponymous initial single. There is always a connection.

The sun is up and will hopefully melt some of the ic.

So without more ado I will share another Yachts songthe excellent "Mantovani's Hits".

Have a most excellent Thursday everyone.

Big In Japan

The weather has been awful for walking, wind , rainy and cold meaning that an umbrella is not really a viable option. While April Fool's Day was fine, Monday and Tuesday were really not good, last night I ended up in bed at eight thirty and went straight to sleep.

However in my walking I have been listening to a hardly pristine bootleg called "Caged En Italia" by Big In Japan the Liverpool supergroup reading like a who's who of musical subversity including Bill Drummond, Budgie , Holly Johnson and lots more. My favourite song is from a John Peel session in 1979 called "Don't Bomb China Now" but I love the instrumental "Match of the Day" and it's vocal genesis "Space Walk" though a lot of this stuff is difficult to track down and sounds like a forth generation cassette recording, but I personally find it very enjoyable.

There is some of their stuff available digitally on various Liverpool based compilations and they are worth tracking down.

One of the problems is when you search you get handed teh songs by Alphaville and Guano Apes, that is not what you are looking for.

I've found the full Peel session for you to get some idea of what they were about.

Stay dry and enjoy.