Preferring The Dream

Today I didn't want to wake or get up because the dream I was in was actually quite enjoyable and comforting despite being in a spin in a Mercedes the rear ended by a bus, but also being in pleasant surroundings and resetting the heating controls after returning from holiday. I know this makes no sense whatsoever but that is what normally happens with dreams. I suppose the benefit of it is that you wake happy and rested and ready for the day even though it's a Monday.

The sky is full of pink clouds so I am not sure what the weather will bring today.

Recently I have been mightily impressed by the new Gang of Four song "Paper Thin". It reminds me of the best of New Order although with added aggression and sandpaper, well worth adding to your collection in whatever form you decide to take it.

So it's Monday and we are ready to go, I have lots to do and deal with, but if I had nothing to do I would be terribly bored. Maybe if I don't write then it dips my mood so I really have to make sure I actually write something even if I have nothing to write about, although actually you can always find something to write about even if it's the fact that you have nothing to write about.

So get out there and enjoy yourself, it's the best way to go.

Wot?

A weekend where I cannot bring myself to write anything. I feel I should be doing stuff but can't do anything and am feeling bad because I haven't done anything. I am trying to be positive but it is very hard. I keep find faults with things and things that need fixing but don't have the talent to fix them properly so will have to get someone to do it.

I know lots of people have to go through this and do not have the the resources I can call on to get things done but it is still less than ideal.

The other day I sort of dreamed / thought I had dies but like in films and stories the next stage was how to let people know I was OK and the realisation that I didn't have do deal with the drudgeries of everyday life. The thing is I am still here and well aware of all the good things and great people I know in life so I will be coming out of this sometime soon.

I was feeling so lethargic yesterday that I missed the launch of Dog Years' debut "A Flame In Waiting" so the least I can do is share a Dog Years song with you and if you want to buy the album there's a link below. The song "Spookychurch" apart from having a wonderful title (and I do love the mouse on the cover of the album) sounds in the same universe as The Stooges fronted by Howard Devoto, well worth investigating and getting hold of.

I am quite surprised that I have never mentioned The Stooges without Iggy or Howard Devoto without The Buzzcocks or Magazine, but it's always good to learn something about yourself, or something you do.

Also writing this has improved my mood no end so obviously I need to knuckle down and write more, and not be so apathetic and lazy and miss importants gigs by my friends' bands.

I am als so happy that new music is continually being produced and Dog Years is a prome example of that.

Pans and Pots

I haven't a clue what brought this into my head, but why do I think "Pots and Pans" rather than "Pans and Pots"? The logically alphabetical phrase would be "Pans and Pots" but I always think "Pots and Pans" which may hark back to "Shake, Rattle and Roll" by Bill Haley and His Comets.

I'm surprised that Bill Haley has not appeared on any of my previous posts (he mave have done, but he doesn't have a label until now), he was an unlikely figureheahead in the aerly Rock'n'Roll movevent, being a middle aged, balding, Western Swing artist. I must say I am still impressed every time I hear the guitar solo in "Rock Around The Clock" , a song featured in the film "Blackboard Jungle"  which caused teenagers to rip out cinema seats and riot. It was hardly "God Save The Queen" or "White Riot" was it now?

So here's another prime example of me going off on a tangent, start talking about how a phrase is said and finish up with punk and riots, which is no mean feat in around 200 words.

So the obvious song to include is the Bill Haley song that started this , "Shake, Rattle and Roll". I know it's only Thursday but the weather outside is beautiful if cold.

Here Comes Your Man

For some reason The Pixies song "Here Comes Your Man" has been going through my head. I don't know why. It is a great song by a great band and also makes me think of The Velevt Undergoud's "Waiting For The Man" which we played if the Marsall Law / Bok first gig. The demos we senmt to John Peel at the time are here though he rejecte dthem for being too primitive, though when we were taken up by Rabid Records they asked us which studio we had used. We hadn't, they were recorded live to a two track cassette player - which could explain John Peel's rejection.

The gig happened on a Saturday, on the Monday mty friend Andy Marshall was the only one left in Marsall Law , between Tuesday and Friday we wrote, learned and found a pick up drummer and played our first gig. We had to ditch the pick up drummer as either he or we didn't have a clue but we finished the gig and it all went down well.

I took a tip from Ollie Halsall on learning to play , to practice with heavy gauge strings and play live with light gauge strings which was great in practice but in small venues caused my guitar to go out of tune as soon as I touched it, though a couple of people said they were impressed my my retuning as I played technique, little did they know......

Older Than The Internet

Today is the thirtieth anniversary or the World Wide Web as we know it, and it came into my head that my two wonderful daughters are both older than the Internet, which obviously means that I am as well by another twenty five or so years. I was born just as rock and roll really hit with Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.

A  definition of the Internet comes from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

"The World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human knowledge."

Tim Berners-Lee came up with the protocol for accessing the Internet as we do today and can be read about via the W3C link above. This is a development of Arpanet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network developed by the US Defence Department), and had been put forward by many artists and science fiction writers.

The Who's "Lifehouse" project (which was scrapped and salvaged as "Who's Next") posited a population connected by "The Grid" so in some ways this was an inevitable development, and now we are are connected by mobile devices and computers and smart devices.

People install "smart devices" in their home such as Amazon's Alexa , but that is a step too far for me even though I have a Kindle that has Alexa on it, although it has never been able to answer a question that I have asked it and cannot play my music, apparently only able to access Spotify playlists, and I don't touch Spotify.

I wasn't going to write anything until I saw the anniversary on Google, so I am going include a Chuck Berry song performed by Buddy Holly which you can listen to and watch thanks to Tim Berners-Lee's development of the US Defence Department's prototype.

Have a great Tuesday.

#AprilSongs

I've decided that April will be one post a day with obscure songs possibly related to April. The criteria may vary and even disappear altogether but I will hit at least thirty posts in April. Obviously I may reinclude "April Skies" by The Jesus and Mary Chain which I am including here because, like all their stuff, is absolutely brilliant.

I'm still reading Michael Moorcock's "The Skrayling Tree" and discovered another follow up "The White Wolf's Son" so that is going to be ordered on completion of this post As usual he interweaves lots of traditional mythology in with his own although these are set on Earth roughly post World War II although that has very little to do with the story lines, but it provides me with more to read over the coming months.

My walking over the last two days has severely been curtailed, partly due to having to be in work to catch up after the holiday, but again it's something that is not a major problem.

Today has been a beautiful day but very very cold, but I got some great shots of Newcastle and St James' Park framed by blue skies here.

So this evening I will finish "The Martian" which is an excellent film, and that's it for today.

Strange Lethargy

I just feel tired and lethargic, which is strange after a wonderful and relaxing holiday, with Preston beating Blackburn (again) as well, also a couple of things to do , a delay repay claim, and claim for a lost Discogs delivery (Royal Mail can find the USA, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan but not Scotland) and a couple of old phones taken to CEX (A Wiley Fox and a Samsung) , cleared some more CDs to the Charity shops, and basically this afternoon has been spent watching TV  ("The Martian" and "The Lost City of Z" two excellent films) but I have been almost falling asleep.

I did do 21K steps yesterday which is about five miles, and I am ahead of schedule on the walking , and really I have actually done quite a bit without thinking that I have done anything.

Also my writing this year has been very sporadic so I am going to think of a theme for April that will force me to write a bit more often, I'm averaging 1 every two days when I really need to do 3 every four days, but like always, with something that is in my control, I will catch up.

So for absolutely no reason I will play you "Definitive Gaze" by Magazine as  "Real Life" was on the wall in Skipton Sound Bar. Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday. It's work tomorrow!