Mix

Today people often try and share Spotify playlist with me. I don't contenance Spotify, it's not my inner Ron Swanson but the fact that it's not a business model that rewards almost all the artists who are on it's available catalogue. I suppose the other thing is that as a teenager if I wanted to share music with friends it required recording records in real time, at first recording via microphone and later when I got a job a music centre which recorded directly from the radio.

I didn't realise that the compact cassette first appeared around 1965 (comprehensive Wiki history here) , I thought it was a Sony invention because of the Walkman which allowed music on the move.

To create a cassette you had to record in real time, the playlist was just the initial plan, even when MiniDisk and CD superseded cassette it was still real time although CD recording speeded up significantly but there is still the production and labelling of the CD to do.

In October 2016 when I was 59 I  started the #ALifeInNumbers  which ran into November that year and I've referenced often since I did it. I haven't burnt a CD for ages and am not sure if I can use iTunes to create playlists (I'm sure you can but it's such bloatware that it is more about trying to make me buy things that actually play music), I may try that soon and then I need to print the CD label (as I still have a printer that can do that!).

I have just remembered that I can use Youtube to create playlists such as this two song ska one here , I used to do mixes on Grooveshark but their model wasn't sustainable, but I am going to investigate Youtube further.

I was going to list some significant records for me to pad out this post but here are a few, and maybe I will create a playlist at some point:

• Abba - The Visitors & Happy - The Carpenters , two of my mums favourites that I still love
• Lights Out - Jerry Byrne & Sea Cruise - Frankie Ford , two that remind me of my missed friend Chris who we lost to lung cancer
• Negativeland - Neu! , I was shocked when my dad asked me if I had this record asthis was way out of his comfort zone
• All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix , if I only could have one record this would be it, Hendrix playing , Dylan's words
• Hound Dog - Elvis Presley - apparently the first record I ever liked (aged 3)
• Jig A Jig - East of Eden - The first single I ever bought
• Come On - Chuck Berry - one of the first songs I played and sang live and I would be condent of doing it now
• Egyptian Reggae - Jonathan Richman - The first instrumental cover I played live

I could go on and on but I'll stop and share "Happy" by The Carpenters (incidentally the title of my favourite Rolling Stones song , and they - the Stones - covered Chuck Berry's - Come On).

Enjoy this very rainy Thursday.

Forty Days

It looks like Feedburner has burnt out for the blog , but that's forty days of unexpectedly hitting over a thousand hits per day. It didn't actually bring it much advertising revenue either, but just nice to think a few more people (or a lot of robots) visited.

This has to be extremely short as I need to get to Durham and to attend a course , so we'll go with Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" which is ten days less than the forty days the Feedburner referrals have been upping my visits.

Actually it's been a day strewn with mini disasters, but worked out fine in the end but the visits are back down to 50 a day even though most of those are still from Feedburner.

Come On

This is just a shortish post about an app called "Speechnotes" that I put on my phone (a Google Pixel though I expect to upgrade to a Pixel 3A in the next few months) just to see if it could actually take what I was saying and put it into readable format. This is a first try so it didn't do paragraphs (I don't think) but generally the translation was OK, what I was saying maybe wasn't that good:

This is just a check to see if there's some software actually works could I have suddenly my words write them down and then before me wondering about it for writing my blog and things like that to be actually working in the actually putting most of the word rightly in this in this sir wondering alright basically it's gonna get a slightly funny but it's trying to trying to understand what I actually say which a lot of people can't actually do but that's just the nature of this sort of thing but I'm just wondering whether I can do this instead of typing.

It's it's so far there's a bit of repetition and things like that and obviously I keep saying on and things like that the breaks up my speech sudden it's one of their one of those things you know no I mean one of the things today that came about her I was going to write about something then I forgot about it and this will enable me to capture it assuming that I can talk and people don't think I'm some kind of nutter who just starts talking in the street like you do sudden see so many people having loud conversations on the phone in public and you think who does he think he is you know so that I know everything about what he's actually saying and ways that should be they should make an attempt to privacy but often there for two important to deal with that the obviously.

If you're listening to what they're saying then you're intruding on their privacy which is just get outside just weird anyway I'm just wonder capture this my blog and then see what actually happens paragraph.

Alright I was hoping that it would actually but it's put the word paragraph in just one of those things and today I was in somewhere having something to eat and they played the very first song that I think I played in public where I sang and played guitar on which was the Rolling Stones what's the cover of a Chuck Berry song (Come On) it's got a mouth organ harmonica solo in it and that bit I played on the guitar but that was as a teenager a long long time ago but basically it's a three chord. Chuck Berry song one of my favorites and I will possibly included with this now and we shall see cut this and send it somewhere.

So that is what it did , a lot of mistakes but there is some sense in it, and that's about 400 words or so. I'm just wondering if it gets better the more you use it so I may try this again and see what comes out and also actually make some corrections. On the one hand it may create more work, but it will mean just actually editing so it's probably going to make me a little more involved in what I am writing.

So I will obviously include The Rolling Stones take on Chuck Berry's "Come On" for you.

Smokey Joe's

I was in town and passed Smokey Joe's and thought of the Coasters' (also known as The Robins) "Smokey Joe's Cafe" and when I was looking for the song on youtube found there was a musical of the same name celebrating the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller which I have shared below. Not all the songs are to my taste but it does illustrate their impressive song repertoire. It is just song after song with dance routines and is very slick and impressive.

I really just wanted to include The Coaster's take on "Smokey Joe's Cafe" which was also covered by Buddy Holly for some reason, but that's what happen's with good songs, and Holly also did the definitive version of Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man". Oh and Paolo Nutini does a fairly decent take on it.

See how mind works, it starts with a single idea then I start of picking up other tangents, though getting from The Coasters to Chuck Berry via Buddy Holly is not necessarily that far of a detour and it is definitely a pleasant one.

The video below is playing and I am mightily impressed with the song "Keep On Rollin'" which I have never heard before., then it segue's into "Searchin'" absolute genius.

So I was only going to mention Smokey Joes , but watch the musical, it is mightily impressive.

Numbers and Men In Skirts

As a kid I used to wonder why we had to learn our "times tables". Learning things parrot fashion , is not useful, especially when you are talking mathematics. Fast forwrd to "some time later"  and I find I don't have to look up , work out , or use a calculator to work out this simple multiplications, I just know them. And applying thouse concepts I'm pretty quick on working out the product of any pair of two digit numbers, but up to twelve I just know them, so actually learning the "times tables" benefitted me.

I am learning quite a lot about mathematics and number from my latest book feast, "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg which is just going through the differences between large and small sampling operations which has thown a lot of interesting concepts.

Tomorrow is the last day of the month so this week has been a rest from walking though I have still hit more that 7K each day so I am not being average, and from Tuesday I will attempt to do 340K steps in August and repeat that each month.

The last two days I have felt incredibly drained, and really not up to actually walking , and today I had the added extras of changing the bedding, mowing the lawn , and refilling the bird feeders. Added to that I think my phone is going through one of it's phases of not recording steps (a couple of normally 1K walks clocked at 200 steps), but I still hit 9K today and am 70K over the million for the last quarter.

Yesterday I was totally drained but I got myself over to The Doll at The Black Bull to catch Woment In Revolt (they are the ones in skirts) and you can see the video evidence here from a great night, but I was done by ten o'clock. I came home went to post the video online and managed to screw my computer by plugging in a USB cable. It then took an hour to do a restore, but all is good now and all seems to be working well. I've just had a look at the demographics of my audience for youtube and only 20% are female, I am not sure why that should be, but you could say  "C'est La Vie" as Chuck Berry once said , and we got the Pulp Fiction Twist scene featuring John Travolta and Uma Thurman for you to enjoy.

So the weekend is over and Monday is upon us, I hope to feel a lot more energised tomorrow, so I am going to get some sleep. 

Idiots on Wheels

I went out for a short walk this morning and getting towards the end of the road I saw a car which I thought was turning into my road, so I got on to the grass verge as Yorkshire seems to be very short on footpaths. The car stayed there, then I realised it was positioned to possibly cross the Pickering road, blocking the road, then another car came up behind it. The car blocking the road was a BMW and you start thinking about the stereotype expensive car owners and their habits.

German cars are a beacon of engineering excellence, and that makes drivers feel much safer, and some drivers start to think that they own the road and screw everyone else.

The the passenger got out of the BMW, walked round to the drivers side and open the back door and take out a road map, walk back and get in then they started looking at the map. All the while there is the car behind being blocked in. They then sounded their horn. No reaction from the BMW driver so the car behind was forced to overtake on the wrong side of the road (very dangerous, but the BMW driver was oblivious) and get on their way.

The thing is, if you're lost you find somewhere safe to park up then look at where you are and need to go, but this BMW showed absolute idiocy in what he did and could have caused a serious accident. The Helmsley to Pickering road gets quite busy and the car forced to overtake could have been hit because they couldn't get a good view of the main road, or a car may have tried to turn in off the main road.

I think an appropriate song for this post is one of my favourite car songs from Chuck Berry, the excellent "Maybelline". I need to hit another eight thousand steps so maintain my holiday step average for my Million Step Challenge, which I think should be well within my capability.

Sleep Is Good .. Being Awake Is Better

Although sleep is good, it enables your body and mind to recuperate and repair itself, but I do prefer being awake and able to do things. I know I should be in bed but thought I would just write a short post on this.

In John Cooper Clarke's "Beasley Street" , his very dark masterpiece , he describes sleep as "a sneak preview of death" which is a chilling assessment of what is really a natural function. Some animals sleep all winter, and I am sure some humans would like to do that as well.

Rest is good but activity is better. We do have so many sedentary pastimes such as watching TV or someone else do something. Reading at least exercises the mind as does writing. I am now sitting typing at a keyboard and a lot of my working day is taken up in a similar way. I do get up and walk around so I am not going to atrophy at my desk, but feel that is often frowned on by some people.

Tonight I've just read of Chuck Berry's passing , he was 90 and had a good life although he did some bad things and definitely in the 50s and 60s was royally screwed over by the white establishment. I saw him once at Southport Floral Hall, queued for tickets and found out everyone else in the queue was queuing for Gilbert O' Sullivan tickets. A sad loss from a true American poet, the words to his songs stand on their own.

Anyway that gives me an excuse to include a Chuck Berry song "No Money Down" for your delectation from the film "Hail Hail, Rock'n'Roll" , and now I will go to my bed and sleep. I have fourteen thousand steps to do tomorrow.

Sleep well my wonderful friends.

Sixteen Saltines - #ALifeInNumbers #16

Although I'm not feeling anywhere near 100% (they wouldn't give me a 'flu' jab) before bed I am gonna hit you with Number Sixteen. There are a hell of a lot of "Sixteen" songs from "!6 Candles" by The Crests and "16 Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford, (who I have featured before) to Sam Cooke, Ringo Starr and The Buzzcocks as well as Tom Waits (who is penciled in for number 30. There's also Chuck Berry and Iggy Pop and Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix.

So what do I go for , well what about "Sixteen Saltines" by Jack White. I know it's a bit off the wall but what the hell, it's a great song and worthy of a place in my 59.

Anyway , I am not feeling brilliant but I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Goodnight my lovely friends.

This Is The End ... Beautiful Friend

Today is Slacktonbury at The Schooner with Strange Bruise and Slack Babbath , so looking forward to that and the sun is shining too.


Well it's the last day of June and the final day of my June's Tunes blog project . The obvious song to finish with would be "The End" by The Doors , a great song , but then Chuck Berry's "30 Days" popped into my head so decided to go with that. I've put together a Grooveshark playlist so you can listen to all the songs in one place if you are that way inclined , but it will clock in at around two hours. Maybe I should have been a DJ! Anyway here's the playlist:

And here's Chuck Berry's 30 Days: