Neglect

Since I started writing on Vocal , that has become my main creative focus. It has a slightly easier interface but posts need approval and have to be between 600 and 5000 words long. There are other caveats such as no religion and quite a few others. So I have a feeling that this year this blog will not be hitting anything like a post a day , although I will be beating my first few years posts.

This is just my second post this month and 85th this year and we are almost half way through 2021, but I have 40 posts on Vocal which you can see and read here.

I feel that a lot of my creativity has gone into the Vocal posts leaving nothing for here.

I also have not listened to 6Music for absolute ages, preferring random choices from my collection and my Discogs store. It is a Record Store Day , but I feel my vinyl collection has as much as I need. I've stated that often the idea of making a record special is coloured vinyl or a picture disc maybe featuring the band. That doesn't cut it for me.

I have a great vintage record player I got from RPM and that makes the vinyl sound awesome, and often it's the reggae that has the best sound, although everything sounds good , and yes there may be some surface noise but as the great John Peel said "Life has Surface Noise Mate!!"

So I will leave you with "Boops" by Sly & Robbie , a song I have digitally on CD and on a 12" vinyl single purchased from Stay Free records in Newcastle. Enjoy my friends.

Stay Free

I don't need any more vinyl, bet deciding on coffee at Meli Cafe near Haymarket, I had to drop into Stay Free Records. I had no intention of buying anything, but Tony is a really canny guy who knows his stuff and we chatted about general stuff , the price of music and what have for what seemed like a very short time but I thought it was later than it was but it wasn't.

Anyway I looked At what was around and there was a Queen flexi disk which I thought my friend Jim may want, the a copy of Al Stewart's "Past Present and Future" for £4 . If there is one Al Stewart album I would have bought on vinyl it would be this. I had also been considering buying "All The World's A Stage" by Rush, and he had a copy of that for £8 . So it was a total foregone conclusion, two vinyl albums on three discs (or is it disks?) both of which were stuff I wanted.

I've also ordered 12" vinyl copies of Television's "Marquee Moon" and "Prove It" from Discogs and think I will ask my daughters to get the album for my Christmas present as I have been considering that.

I need to trim my vinyl collection and Tony has told me to bring some stuff in, so I may do that over the next week of two, but I have plenty to play at the moment so will enjoy my new additions tomorrow morning. So what to share, we had Television the last post, so I thing I will go for Al Stewart's "Nostradamus", one of the reasons I love this is that it is relatively easy to play (or seemed so when I was a teenager, and I reckon I could give it a good stab now if I could remember all the lyrics), I've shared a recent live take but every recorded version is worth listening to.

Meli Fluence

It's wonderful how one unrelated thing can lead to another giving causality to discovering things that you didn't know were there and generally enhancing your quality of life. On Staurday I visited Kazbat's Den where someone told me about Stay Free Records which I hadn't heard of, and when I got there I saw signs for Meli Cafe on the third floor, which I hadn't heard of, but is where Whistler's Cafe used to be.

I had a quick nip in and spoke with the manager who was very welcoming and told me what they were up to with lots of vegetarian and vegan options, as well as great views over Northumberland Street, This is an excellent selling point of the place which has a lovely light and airy feel to the place and is worth visiting for the views alone.

On Sunday I returned and this time tried a cafe latte and some lemon / coconut came which was lovely, and I manged to scam the best seat in the place after a couple cvacated it. The guy said people always try and gram that seat. My instagram images of my visit can be viewed here and their cups don't have handles but still look cool.

Look Mum No Handles

So definitley get yourself down there to enjoy this wonderful place, It's above the antique centre in the Alley opposite Haymarket Metro next to boots and near Sergeant Pepper's.

In other news I finished "Fermat's Last Theorem" by Simon Singh and while I had been reading it ten or twenty pages at a time, at the end I couldn't put the the thing down so that last fifty pages done in one sitting. This is a book about a mathematical theorem that is actually exciting, not the theorem , the book.

Next up is Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" which should keep me occupied for a while thanks to my friend Lyndsey and that has started very well, although I have seen the TV series so I have some idea of what might be coming.

I was trying to think of some Greek Music and basically was stumped , I suppose I could have gone for Aphrodite's Child, Vangelis, Yanni, Demis Rousos or Nana Miskouri but decided on the fictional Greek island of Navarone immortalised by The Skatalites.

Stay Free

I thought Iknew Newcastle, well the record shops in Newcastle. Today I was in Kazbat's Den talking Donna Summer, Giorhio Moroder, Human League , Black Sabbath and the las who was in tere said his favourite record shop in Newcastle was Stay Free. I'd just been to Beyond Vinyla and this week I discovered 586.

"Where's Stay Free"?" Quoth I
"Opposite Haymarket Metro, down the alley next to Boots, in The Antique Centre" Quoth He (Roughly)

So I wandered off across down before it got swamped with Blaydon Racers and Ed Sheeran fans. (I love Ed Sheeran as a person but find his music leaves me unmoved)

Anyway I tracked down Stay Free and wandered upstairs , also seeing signs for Meli Cafe which I visited briefly, and was well impressed with the warm welcome, interesting Greek Menu and incredible vies of Northumberland Street. I will be revisiting soon.

Then I wandered into the Antiques Centre and straight into Stay Free which has a great selection of Vinyl , so great wall displays and is most reasonably priced. A record shop is good if you walk in and can immediately find somthing to buy, I managed to get two items . A 12" single of "Boops" by Sly and Robbie and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash backed by "Rush" by Big Audio Dynamite II.

Tony the owner is great to talk to, and knows his stuff and is very helpful and the couple of customers who dropped in liked it too. This is another gem of a record shop I have found so below is my up to date list of record shops in Newcastle:

• RPM
• Reflex
• Beatdown
• Long Play Cafe / Empire Records
• Beyond Vinyl
• Vinyl Guru
• 586
• Stay Free

plus spectial mention to Oxfam at Jesmond ( I used to work there briefly and the manager Katie knows her stuff , Pop Recs in Sunderlan and there are record shops in Durham, Hexham and Gosforth,  and if you are pushed HMV is not bad for a high street shop.

Please comment with any I've missed.

So really there's only one song isn't there?