Forty Years Since Joy Division Gave Us Unknown Pleasures

Peter Saville Pulsar

It's forty years since Joy Division released their debut "Unknown Pleasures" which has been as influential in sound and design as the first Velvet Underground album.

The cover while being deceptively simple based on Pulsayr waves visualised by Peter Saville. There is further expansion here. Peter was themain Factory Records album cover designer and examples of his work can be found here

The album itself  was a Factory release produced by Martin Hannett and sounds as doomily fresh today as when it came out although then and now it still stands out as being like no other.

All the songs are being reimagined as videos for the fortirth anniversay and will appear on the Joy Division Youtube video channel , and start with "I Remember Nothing" ,

Full Credits here

Forty Years.

Fantastic Day

That was the record playing on the Chris Hawkins show when I switched on 6Music this morning. The rain has stopped and it's a Friday so that is a great initial start today and it's up to me to enjoy it and make it better.

I must have used that song before, but remember hearing "Favourite Shirts" by Haircut 100 and thinking it was extremely similar to "I Zimbra" by the Talking Heads. Haircut 100 were never one of my favourite bands but they and Nick Heyward came up with a few cracking songs which prompted me to buy a combined best of.

That is one of the issues with CDs is that they became so cheap that you end up buying a double CD (possibly over two hours of music for a three minute song) , I have been guilty of that many times. I wouldn't have bought it on vinyl, although my vinyl collection is a bit like a beard, it grows slowly but does need trimming to keep it in tip top condition. You should always be able to quickly find what you want to play.

My walking recently has been fragmented, partly due to the weather, but I am still keeping up with my rolling million steps every three months, and it is startling how many people seem surprised by it. Though Matt Haig made me laugh when he said "I used to just go for a walk, now I get worried if I don't hit my 10K steps a day".

So that's a few snippets to think about as you enjoy your Friday.

Coming Up

I wasn't going to post today, I'm not sure it the increase in visits has sort of addicted me to writing posts, although professional writers write a hell of a lot more than I do so maybe it isn't an issue. This is post 1951 so my target for this year is to hit 2000, and at this rate that will happen next month, not sometime in December as I originally hoped to do.

The thing is my writing here is not subject to editorial scrutiny aor targetted an a particular audience in order to become an influencer or to sell products, so I can post when and what I want. Also I have no deadlines to meet apart from self imposed ones.

I'm enjoying "Notes on A Nervous Planet" by Matt Haig and am coming to the conclusion that it's essentially a manual for surviving the modern world illustrated by his observations and experiences. It's not as uplifting as "Reasons To Stay Alive" but that's because it's more Haynes Manual than Harry Potter, it is still very good and you should get your own copy  (both books) and read and enjoy them.

I'm just reading how the consumerist world wants us to be unhappy so it can SELL us things to make us feel better. It is partly the reason I have 5K CDs and 400 DVDs because I have bought things because I thought I should have them, and then not watched or listened to. To address this a lot of CDs and DVDs have gone to the Westgate Ark Cat Shelter charity and I have a pile of 170 CDs that are listed on Discogs here.

I titled this because all of a sudden the 2000 target is coming up and it's also the title of a Paul McCartney song that I really like (The opener from McCartney II) so I will share that with you on this wet Thursday.

Low Flying Cloud

Today has not really been raining but it's wet. It's like it's just very low cloud. I don't know if it will finally blow over but today has been a perfect example of dreek. The sky is grey the windows are wet and it's cold.

It's almost a month since the blog visits went from fifty a day to fifty an hour, starting with sharing on Twitter then being picked up buy Feedburner and since the 17th of May daily visits have not dropped below 1,100 and today is already up to 1,200 and I think it's based on the New York date line so there's still about five hours to go.

I do need to give it a day's rest but I keep thinking another post will fuel the visits, but I do need to try and have a day without posting, I've already posted sixteen times this month that is four posts every the three days.

The rain / mist is running down the window pane as I write this and to quote the cheesiest of lines it is a cold, dark, rainy night, not dark and stormy , just dreek.

I was surprised to be followed on Instagram by Louise Distras (her web page is here) who I saw, and was impressed with and chatted with at The Cluny where she was supporting The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. She is an excellent artist and a really nice girl to chat with. My review of the gig is here. and that reminded me of the new video that Jordan Reyne has released for "They Came For You" from "Bardo" which is appropriate for this troubling times.

So it is time for bed, but it is worth checking out all these albums when you get the chance.

Let It Rain

The sky is grey and it's raining. I normally like rain but at the moment it's a threat because I have an intermittent roof leak  that I have been waiting three weeks for the roofer to sort out. He's an OK guy but  not as quick to deal with this as I'd like.

I'm reading Matt Haig's book and one of the things we should listen to to relax and unwind is rain and waves, things that you hear but are constant but don't grab your attention but give your mind a relaxing bed to sleep on, it's a good idea. Youtube has some sequence of up to twelve hours of natural sounds (waves, rain etc) that you can put on and fall asleep to, check here.

When  I was starting to write this Chris Hawkins played "Sometimes" by James which brings up rain and waves and water in its lyrics and I will share that with you this morning.

I often go to sleep listening to lots of music, Brian Eno's "Thursday Afternoon" is wonderful because like natural sound there is nothing that grabs your attention. The night before last I listened to Alice Cooper's "Killer" and I got through most of that. Last night I put on three Weather Report albums  ("Heavy Weather", "I Sing The Body Electric" and "Mysterious Traveller")which is excellent jazz instrumental but fell asleep before the first piece had finished. I got up three times to go for a wee (I am old and diabetic and it was one of those nights but that is life) but each time chose a different Weather Report album and went straight back to sleep.

I think I will also include "Birdland" which was going to be my original piece for this, but we can have both.

Sleep Now

A lot of this is coming from Matt Haig's book "Notes on a Nervous Planet" and it is so good that I am about to order "How To Stop Time" which I think was inspired from a page in "Reasons To Stay Alive" which is another of his excellent books. I have read others, my introduction to him was "Humans" which I gave away on  World Book Night before it degenerated into commercialisation. The thing is I'm not sure if I have read and bought "How To Stop Time" because it is a paperback book and my real books are not stored digitally although Amazon will tell me if I've bought it before, then I just have to find it.

Anyway one section I have come to is a short section on sleep and the fact that generally we don't get enough. We need seven to nine hours per night and lack of sleep does cause problems. The odd night or two is fine especially if you are interacting withe real people of real things. The problem is that people use what should be sleep time to bings watch TV, be on their electronic device, with phones replacing alarm clocks and therefore living on people's bedsides. This si not a good idea.

The CEO of Netflix said that their biggest enemy was sleep and it was a huge area to increase consumption of their product. I have not yet taken out a subscription to Netflix, because by TIVO Box is filling up from my Virgin subscription, I also have access to Amazon Prime, and NowTV which I can stop and start when I want it. I worked out that it will take six hours to illegally download a TV series or film yet for £8 you get a month of Netflix or NowTV, a far better use of my time to pay that rather than steal, though we have been conditioned to think we shouldn't have to pay for digital content.

When we sleep we cannot be consumers so the whole commercial world hates us because we are not buying, but to buy we need money, but we are always having credit pushed at use rather than being paid enough to actually buy without going into debt.

Another point that Matt Haig makes is to turn off notifications on your phone to give yourself control, and that is something I have always done as I can't deal with things popping up all the time.

So it's gotta be "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" by the sadly missed Warren Zevon as the music to accompany today's post.

Walk or Write?

Just wondering, and I have chosen write. It's the first day back at work, and a wonderful day outside so the natural choice should be walk, but as you can see I am writing this post. Due to the way the month has started I have a hell of a lot of catch up to do when I get to work but that does make the day fly by, I am thinking how the hell will I do this, but at 4:30 I will know how I did it.

So yesterday I finished Westworld on Now TV and as I said previously peer downloading takes a couple of hours for a series and then you aren't sure if it'll work, but Netflix or Now TV Entertainment is about £8 a month , in which time you could watch the whole of several box sets. I have Fortitude , Chernobyl and others to catch up on and it the two months that I have had NowTV this time I have seen Game of Thrones, Tin Star series 2, and Westworld Series 2, think how much they would be to buy. SO basically the TV streaming services( Now TV,Netflix,Amazon Prime plus BBC iPlayer and commercial hubs) generally provide value for money.

So I suppose the only song has to be "TV is King" by The Tubes.

Enjoy Your Monday.