CDVSDJ

When I work in the office I do not listen to music or podcasts because I think it's courteous to be available to my work colleagues. At home it's different, I always have noise on which falls into the following groups:

• CDs - Currently working my way through my box sets
• 6Music - My goto radio station
• BBC Sounds - For Sound Mixes , Programs I've missed and podcasts

Each one has it's own benefits and drawbacks . When you listen to your own music collection you have the choice of what is played , with options to repeat or skip.

BBC Sounds is slightly similar in that you can stop and fast forward, switch and pause, although you do need to be able to stream or download what you need to listen to.

Radio is similar to sounds except that it's live and with both you can discover new music (this happens a lot to me as I subscribe to the 95% is rubbish so look to find the 5% and there is always great music being produced).

So today I am currently listening to 6Music but will soon switch to may latest box , "Citizen" by Steely Dan which I didn't get round to yesterday, and will be fine for this sunny Friday , so I will share "Sail The Waterway" the other Steely Dan song that is not officially available in any digital format, apart from Youtube.

I have decided to go with #AnimalAugust in which every song I post this august will be in some way animal related , either in th eband name , the song name or something closely related like the record label. I should be able to do that.

Grimalkin

Today is grey so that's why the post title came to mind . I thought Grimalkin was a witch's cat it in "Macbeth" (it was a familiar of the three witches) , but it's also an archaic generic name for a cat. While I like photographing cats I treat them like dogs and children , ok as long as they go back to their owners. I tag my pictures with #CatsInNam and was surprised to find an Instagram Influencer Profile here.  I tried searching for #CatInNam on Google but every site that maybe had something then redirected , so you will have to search for yourself on Instagram or Twitter or my tag @mikeydred96 .

My intention today was to listen to "Citizen" by Steely Dan , a great compilation but missing two of my favourite Steely Dan songs "Dallas" and "Sail The Waterway" which the band thought were so bad that they never appeared digitally, but they appear as vinyl rips on Youtube and I recently rebought the 12" vinyl copy from Discogs. So that's why I am sharing "Dallas" with you.

However I picked up on "Babylon's Burning" a rough and ready guide to punk from 1973-1978 and the four CDs while consisting mainly of demos and live takes was very listenable to my ears. I had been thinking of selling the box but it definitely earned it's place in my collection with lots aof great bands on there, and by four thirty with systems not behaving at work I thought it was a good time to wind down.

Steely Dan will be tomorrow, and my box also contains a burned copy of  "Can't Buy A Thrill" augmented by the aforementioned favourites , so I have a lot to listen to tomorrow as well.

Postless

This is my lowest posting month since January 2017 which was a sort of aim this year, so that is good, although I now have an idea for a pig posting next month, sharing songs which feature an animal, which should be fairly easy to maintain, but we shall see what I feel like on Saturday. It is easier to write if you give yourself a theme or thread to follow,

I suppose it's similar when you write a story or a book , you need something to hook the reader , and ideally keep them involved. I'm currently watching "Tales From The Loop" on Amazon Prime and finding it a little depressing, but some of the sets are great , looking like a vaguely alternate 1950's close to dustbowl America. The thing is you are captured because you want to know what The Loop is and does , featuring time slips , stopping and starting time , and conspiracy. It's only eight episodes but if there is a series two I probably won't continue with it , but need to hit the end of series one, so it has me in it's clutches.

I use Google Sheets to track my steps and noticed there was a discrepancy is the running total and the summed total , this meant checking earlier sheets , they all balanced, so I individually checked the daily totals and found one in error which I corrected. It was a really odd error but must have happened when copying cells. It's fixed now.

I have two CDs to listen to in the Velvet Underground "Peel Slowly and See" box , then it's going to be Public Image Limited's "Metal Box" and then maybe "Plastic Box" which should keep me going for the rest of this week (probably ten hours of listening.So I'm going to go with "Fishing" for it's awesome looping guitar riff which I first heard on "Plastic Box" by is from "Album"

Dream Fragments

I often wake and want o find what happens in what I'm dreaming , good or bad. I'm surprised that bits of a dream I woke from a couple of days back have stayed with me. They make little sense although I think where they came from from . Robocop characters working with and attacking a group I was with (probably influenced by the second series of "Altered Carbon" that I finished last week on Netflix , a computer terminal flashing up that I needed to take annual leave (we are getting work reminders about this and I have taken nothing but Bank Holidays this Financial Year, so that is nearly four months without a chosen day's leave) , and I wanted to know if we got out of the "situation" , but I woke fully , so the dream was lost. This does happen to me, and probably everyone quite frequently.

Because I am ahead of the curve on my walking I only have to do 4K steps a day to hit may target for July , which therefore makes me a little lazy, though it means I have more than hit my target this month. I did think that lockdown was going to stop me from doing my million steps every three months but as yet it hasn't. I am lucky that I live in an area with plenty of places to walk.

This week I am continuing with working through my CD box sets and today it's The Velvet Undergound "Peel Slowly And See" , the first CD being demos put together by Lou Reed , John Cale and Sterling Morrison , "Waiting For The Man" being almost Country and Western Swing style and "Venus In Furs" a medieval acoustic work out, these are interesting but not easy listening. At the wekend I was listening to their debut album on vinyl and noticed for the first time that the band's name doesn't appear on the front cover, but Andy Warhol's does.

So we'll go with a take on "All Tomorrows Parties" , I think the drum sound is awesome on this, as I write I'll listening to the first album with the extra takes , but is a definitie experience.

A Cautionary Covid-19 Tale (That Has Nothing To Do With Covid-19)

Today I have been remarkably tired , although I've been out a bit and done more than my normal 11K step target. This morning I fixed a picture that had been disconnected from it's frame (a little sellotape fixed that) , and posted a CD off to the USA, so it's not as though I have been doing a lot or a little, but on the way back from town had an idea for a short story, which may not be to everyone's taste but every story needs an idea, and this is just a straight draft , no editing , just coming out of my mind.

So a 300 word black humoured short story (probably influenced by Roald Dahl)  for you

All my posts these days have an accompanying video, I think "Free" by VAST is sort of suitable.

A Cautionary Covid-19 Tale

The takeaway had a sign in the window (which was fully covered in advertisements and the takeaway menu) , "only one customer in the shop at any one time, wait til the ENTER sign lights". The ENTER sign was lit so he opened the door went in and checked the menu on the wall.

After perusing the menu he placed his order and pulled out his card.

"Cash Only , we don't take cards, there is a cash machine next door"

He checked his wallet and had enough to pay for his meal, so handed over the notes and took the change.

"Thanks it'll be about twenty minutes, are you OK waiting"

"Yeah , no problem"

There were a few magazines on a small table in the seating area, mostly supermarket periodicals advertising food and meals to make, but he decided to see what was happening on his phone, the internet and news sites held a little more interest than the magazines.

He heard a noise but didn't take any notice, the BBC site had an article on Liverpool's lifting of the Premiership , and that now had all his attention.

The person who had served him had disappeared in the back, presumably getting his order together.

There were some more noises, like something scurrying on the floor and behind the seating .

"Maybe it's the heating"

His phone had his attention.

Then there was a bite on his ankle,  it felt like a bite , he grabbed his ankle (he had come into the shop wearing a T-shirt , tracksuit bottoms and slippers , nothing else...

There was blood on his hands .

"What the .... "

He didn't finish the sentence .........

The server came back behind the counter, with the owner and looked at what was left of their customer.

"Are they all back in the box?"

"Yes"

"Well that looks look like enough mince to keep us going for the next fortnight......."

The End ..... Or 

A Box of Pearls and Earth, Wind and Fire

Yesterday I put my contact lens in and one popped out onto the floor. I spent an age to no avail looking for it. I then looked at something and realised that the vision in the eye where I thought I'd lost the lens was fine, the lens obviously hadn't dropped out although I thought it had.

Today is very grey and quiet and I feel I am getting hit with SAD but that will pass , though it does make me worry for people who feel like this all the time. I am glad that the first link that came up was an NHS one rather than Wikipedia.

Anyway to the point of the post, since my return to listening CDs I have been working my way through various box set and yesterday I finished Janis Joplin's (with Big Brother & The Holding Company) set "Box of Pearls" which is 5CDs but are quite short , from 20 minutes for the five song rarities to sixty minutes for the "Kozmic Blues" album. All high quality blues and soul with some extras. Some of the brass arrangements are really good , and Janis' voice , is well , you know what it is. we will use "Piece of My Heart" as the song for this post , but there could have been so many more.

The next box was "The Eternal Dance" by Earth, Wind and Fire , which is , like the "Box of Pearls" , a beautiful Sony Legacy box set , and while Earth, Wind and Fire are great musicians and very impressive on stage, most of the music is bland faceless soul in my book , with the odd decent song , but the live cuts get an amazing response. It may be a while before I hit this three disc set again, but for fans it should be a must have.

Today I dug out "Irish Ways" by Ron Kavana , and this is the first time I have listened to this , and it is an eductional history of Ireland with dialogue , song , poetry and music, almost a five hour documentary to listen to while I work. I would highly recommend it to anyone if you have the time to take it all in. I discovered a hell of a lot I didn't know about Ireland.

I still have many boxes to go through so expect more similar posts while I am working from home.

Apple Venus

Although I am doing a minor cull of my CD collection on my Discogs Store over the last week , while working from home , I have started playing CDs again. Part of the reason is that 6Music during the day is ranging from bland to techno with not much in between. Playing CDs means that I can choose what I want to play.

The main criteria in that the CD is to hand.

This morning I kicked off with "On The Beach" by Neil Young , then 40 minutes later I picked up "The Apple Box" by XTC . This is a box and booklet with the albums "Apple Venus" and "Wasp Star" with accompanying demos albums "Homespun" and "Homegrown" . I wasn't sure that four CDs was a listening option , but I listened all the way through , the albums then the demos , and basically that was an excellent day's listening.

I will share "Stupidly Happy" from "Wasp Star" with you , like many XTC songs , it is highly infectious and uplifting.

Having easily listened through this , I am now eying my other boxes for my music while I work this week such as Public Image's "Metal Box" , "Box of Pearls" by Janis Joplin and "Anthologia" by John Cooper Clarke , this week will be a personal treasure rediscovery.