Precipitate

Unexpectedly (for me) it's raining. I was out at dinner time and was wondering whether to buy an umbrella or to plan a route back to work as much undercover as I could find. I plumped for the latter as I didn't see any umbrellas on sale.

The rain seems to have stoped so there may be a chance of mowing the lawn tomorrow, as it does look quite green and lush now.

I've noticed that when I type I often capitalise my second letters, maybe doing it too fast and another thing is splitting the last "e" of a word and starting a word with that "e". It's always the letter "e". Then sometimes I notice an oddly used word, and I am sure it's caused by some rogue autocorrect as I would have no reason to make such ludicrous errors, but go back through my posts and you will find them.

Today I moved on from the Velvet Undergound demos to the actual first album, and love it, although what I assumed was a guitar riff on "Waiting For The Man is actually a piano riff. While the demos are interesting this is the real stuff.

So I will include (once more) "All Tomorrow's Parties" with that awesome drum and Nico's gothic magisterial vocal lines carrying all before it.

It's almost the weekend so enjoy.

Noise Is Good

Well sometimes. Sometimes you want quiet but someimesnoise lets you know that there is someone or something else there, be it a radio, tv, someone else in the house or whatever.

I was just in the shower and could hear something that sounded like the "Theme From The X-Files" and realisedit seemed to be coming through either the shower drain or the shower head. Totally weird but I wonder if that is where Mark Snow got the idea from. Who knows?

Quiet is also good at times, sometimes it's just good to lie on the bed with an eye mask in a dark room and complete quiet and empty your mind. A great form of relaxation, and after it I then want NOISE.

I love playing stuff on vinyl because there's no remote, so no skipping and you can actually sit and enjoy the music.

When I walk  I have a decent set of headphones so the phone / headphone combination allows me to listen to whatever I want (as long as it's on the phone). I don't use music streaming services because I think they're unworkable business model for artists (unless you're Ed Sheeran) but I still have a huge selection on there. Although in this creeping inherent tech induced laziness, transferring music to my phone is a bit of a chore. The thing is when we used to make mix tapes for friends we had to choose albums and tracks and do it in real time, so a ninety minute tape would take you well over two hours make, whereas these days people just want to share a spotifyplaylist.

I find the same with DVDs, I find getting up getting the DVD out, opeing the player drawer and then pressing play a chore. And I always forget about the theft warnings before the video starts. Like is many walks of the life it's the people who keep to the rules who are targetted, not the ones who break the rules. 

Demos

Today on my walk into work I decided to listen to the demos for the first Velvet Underground album from their "Peel Slowly And See" box set. I was surprised to see there are only six songs which I thought would be a waste of a CD , but the opener "Venus In Furs" last fifteen minutes with four takes. on acoustic guitar possibly sung by John Cale.

"Prominent Men" is almost Woody Guthrie-esque and "Heroin" is another acoustic demo reminded me how I'd introduce my new songs to bands I was playing with.

The problem with The Velvet Underground is that often some of their finshed product sounds like demo quality, but they are so vibrant that they are essential listening ranging from noise terrorism to gentle love songs to gothic menace. I still find the bass drum sound on "All Tomorrow's Parties" awesome and the menacing violin / cello backing Lou Reed's living dead vocals on "Venus in Furs" nerve tingling.

It's almost strage that the demos seem to be an almost country and western group, but they are completely transformed for the debut album release. I never saw "Waiting For The Man" as a country song.

While initially the album did not sell, it showed bands what could be done without going high tech. I've always gone for originality over technical ability and the ideal is both, but technical ability without originalty leaves me cold, Toto were prime examples of that scenario, which I think Boston and Rush were two examples of technique and originality.

The thing is the Velvet Underground showed YOU could do it. "Waiting For The Man" was one of the staples of The Bok's live set and we possibly sounded less together than the Velvet Underground but I love the main riff which was also appropriated for The Jam's "In The City" and The Sex Pistols' "Holidays In The Sun".

So that's what I've been listening to this morning and maybe will spin th evinyl tonight.

War Children

A bit colder  this morning 13º according to my phone although the radio is forecasting 23º to 25º later today, and I'm listening to 6 Music and "3AM Eternal" by KLF has just come on the radio and that immediately reminded me of their contribution to the "HELP" album for War Child, "The Magnificent" by them disguised as The One World Orchestra taking on Elmer Bernstein's "Theme From The Magnificent Seven".

War Child is still going today ,because our governments supply and profit from weapons and bombs, an have to care for the resukts by charity contributions. They still need our help.

The album was released in 1995 and has since spawned a series of creditable compilations, featuring some excellent covers and original songs, one of my faves was "Tom Petty Loves Veruca Salt" by Terrorvision, but you also find a Paul Weller / Paul McCartney collaboration in there as well as Blur, Radiohead and Suede.

I wasn't intending to write anything this morning but it's funny how a random thing can then inspire you to actually write something. I am surprised I've not wrote about this before, but I haven't and now I have so there.

I have all these albums (and more) in my collection barring the impressive vinyl singles collection. I may actually do a post about other charity compilations.

Anyway it's time to get going , so enjoy your Thursday.

Back To Bowie

I had a dream last night but all I can remember i smy contact lens fluid being contaminated by coffee. I wrote about some absolutely awful coffee in my last post , but it turns out that I should have checked the milk I was using, as I tried it on some cereal and it was not good. At first I thought my sense of taste had taken some mad turn and now I couldn't drink milk, I smelt the bottle and it was truly awful. I was half expecting a replacement bottle to be the same but it was fine.

Basically if something is wrong you need to check all the components, not just a single one.

On the walks I've skipped back to seventies Bowie in "The Man Who Sold The World"  and "Hunky Dory". Even though they are forty years old they still sound fresh and challenging and always get my thinking on how songs are constructed. While the music is important it can be minimal when driven by vocal melody. Song structures vary from acounstic to rock to orchestral some with dense almost indecipherable lyrics which still drag you in to the experience ("The Bewlay Brothers").

While "Hunky Dory" is vaguely poppier but not without it's barbs ("Queen Bitch", "Quicksand"), I still prefer the darkness of "The Man Who Sold The World" with th esinister "All The Madmen" and "After All" complemented by monolithicly relentless "Supermen", thefractured "Width of a Circle" and stright rock of "Running Gun Blues" and "Black Country Rock".

So that's what I've been up to.......

Is It Too Darn Hot?

Yesterday I was in Edinburgh and at times in was so hot that had to dive in to shade to get a little relief. While I am not a hot sun person, I definitely prefer the weather sunny that to grey dark skies. I alsthink of the walks to work with the wind is so cold that it's almost trying to burn your face off. We've also not had much rain, last year was almost perfect, sunny during the day raining at night. It is great wehn you don't really need an umbrella.

Today it's so hot in th ehouse that even a nightgown is uncomfortably superfluous, but luckily I have a couple of old Preston North End replica shirt that hide my body from the public while keeping me cool, after all in our Daily Mail / Dail Express / Sun dominated nation we don't want any bare flesh unless it's some photo shopped female in one of those rags do we. Some people are only happy when they have something to be offended by.

I finally cut ties with someone on Facebook when he tweeted that there was no need to demonstrate against Donald Trump and everyone should just chill, which in my opinion is there a backing for racism, misogyny, bullying (fill in your list), this comes on the back of him trivialising my friends and continually criticising while excusing Tory misogyny and racism.

Anyway today France play Croatia in the World Cup final, and I have just had the most awful cup of instant coffee, and it's L'Or and it is truly bitter and awful , the jar is going in the bin when I get down. I have had their stuff before and it was fine, this is disgusting. God I am sounding like a Daily Mail reader. I AM NOT.

Anyway I am now going to have a coldish shower, and go out and get the papers. Today is a day when I am expending no effort whatsoever. I wasn't even going to write this, but I already have done. Two songs have been going through my mind "Too Darn Hot" by Ann Miller from Cole Porter's musical "Kiss Me Kate" for obvious reasons and "Too Much Ain't Enough" by Tom Petty, because even though I've said I'm going to do nothing, I will do somethingand I probably will overdo it and at the end of the day think there is something else I should have done.

So you get both songs and now it's shower time.

How Long Would It Take This Blog To Die?

Pretty depressing title, and I am so glad when people read my posts but if I don't keep posting then readers just disappear. I am as guilty as anybody, I have several friends who run blogs that I don't really follow, just dip into them now and then. Sometimes I will post something that catches people's eyes for some reason  and they will get a couple of hundred views.

If I don't post on Facebook then I get very little interaction, and hate relying so much on Facebook, but maybe I am just not a very interesting or even adequate writer, and unless I am writing about something that people are interested in then no one will read it, I wouldn't.

The reality is I will keep writing because I have some great friends who read and like what I put down in words, and also, as I have said before, this is a sort of diary whee I can store things that I may want to revisit in th efuture.

This week I have been feeling lethargic and as though my mind and body are wading through treacle. My walking has really dropped off, although I am still hitting my targets, just. Work is remarkably difficult, it's not that I can't do it, it's just that the simplest of tasks seem to became incredibly cumbersome. I have managed to get through a decent amount of work though I feel it's still a fight.

I am suffering from hay fever symptoms and life seems to be continually draining limbs, making walking  a chore.

The very fact that I have managed to write this shows that I am dealing with things but I probably just need a day in bed. I will keep posting but sorry this is not overly optimisticbut I am sure that I will feel much better soon.

I think Disturbed's take on Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" is appropriate for my current mood, or my mood as was. Even writing this has lifted me although I still feel very tired, but it may also be this oppressive weather that has a lot to do with it.

Find something that puts a smile on your face and do that. It is a good thing to do.