Never Been To Everville

I'm halfway through Clive Barker's "Everville" and now know I've never read it. It is still a big surprise that this has happened , the book has been in my possession for over ten years and I never thought I hadn't read it. I am glad I finally picked it up , but then you start wondering if there are any more like that, though I look at the books and usually something comes to me.

Yesterday I had my annual diabetic review and booked the time off work , prepared to leave the house , picked up the reminder letter and halfway down  were the words "THIS HAS BEEN REARRANGED AS A TELEPHONE APPOINTMENT" , and I was looking forward to the walk to the hospital. So I could continue working but had to appear as out of office as I didn't know when I would get the call, but it did come and all was well, with a face to face call being arranged around December.

This week I haven't once hit my 11K steps target and am not sure if that's affecting me, I'm still up on the month and certainly had much worse weeks but did 6K steps this morning , so I should be able to hit my target today  , but will see what I feel like after work.

The music I have gone with is "Checkin' It Out" (because of my letter, it's always good to check things) by Van Morrison from the excellent "Wavelength" album, Van Morrison is responsible for some amazing albums "Astral Weeks" and "Moondance" being a pair of his finest.

"Astral Weeks" has been described as one of the finest rock albums ever , unusual in that all the instrumentation is acoustic, and "Moondance" is reckoned to be even better. They are both on my permanent playlist.

Missing ... Not Missing

This morning I switched on 6Music and an excellent take on Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" was playing. I was surprised because it was on Lauren Laverne's show and she is usually techno heavy, so I assumed it must be a modern song, but no, it was by Them and I had recognised the voice of Van Morrison.

So what am I really missing from Facebook? Playing Scrabble, seeing what friends are up to photowise (but I do catch a lot on Instagram) and posts from God (but again I catch a lot on Instagram)., also there's a few pages / groups that I share and update but a thirty day rest won't harm them.

I have a feeling the Feedburner effect is tailing of a little but I am still getting 1,300 hits a day so I thing that June should see me hit  40K in June which is fairly startling as I haven't really done anything different.

Today is meant to be grey and showery although it did start off very sunny, and , as yet, there's been no rain so fingers crossed.

So I will leave yo with the piece that I first heard this morning, "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" by Them. Have a good Tuesday everybody.

The Best Record Ever?

We are always seeing polls about the greatest record, album , song , gig ever and people often ask me what was my favourite bit of some performance. My answer is almost always that I can't give an answer. I have a lot of  artists that I like and a lot of albums that I enjoy listening to over and over again but I am always open to new ideas. Having said that if you were to posit that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was the finest piece every written I wouldn't argue against that.

I'm a great fan of Bob Dylan , Van Morrison , Tom Waits , Nick Drake and then I like Yes , Pink Floyd , Pop Will Eat Itself and Genesis . The list is very very long. I love Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" but while probably "1983" is my favourite song , his take on "All Along The Watchtower" would be my favourite single of choice because it combines Hendrix's voice and playing with some excellent Dylan lyrics. The thing is "Elect Ladyland"'s predecessors are both amazing albums as well.

So I've hardly started and there is so much I could say. My favourite album of all time is Spirit's "Future Games" followed by "El Dorado" by the Electric Light Orchestra. "Future" Games" also contains a Spirit take on "All Along The Watchtower".

Going back to Dylan maybe "Lily,Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts" is by favourite song and is from "Blood on the Tracks" but then songs like "Desolation Row" and "Tempest" are wonderful (and long) songs.

I am also a fan of keeping it simple, and while it's amazing to play a million notes a second, if you can make one note interesting, then that is true genius. The Coasters' "I'm A Hog For You Baby" and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash both contain one note guitar solos. Added to this songs that just contain one or two chords mean that anyone can play them m Van Morrison wrote "Gloria" and Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" gets away with two chords.

I was writing this as an excuse to share The Avalanches "Frontier Psychiatrist" a totally dumbfounding patchwork of samples that solicitors gave up trying to sue for. Is is comedy ? Is it pop? I haven't a clue but it sounds amazing and the video is wonderful too, another example of musical genius and while it is a favourite of mine I really still can't tell you what my favourite is.

May Is Finished ......

...... June is here and we are one day away from the weekend and a week off work for me.

This is the hundredth post this year so averaging 20 a month or two every three days.

Tonight I went for a walk over the estate bordered by Two Ball Lonnen and Fenham Hall Drive and it was great weather and the were a lot of loud raucous families as I walked along Cypress Avenue.

The thing is while they were good natured and having fun , it made me feel all "Eden Lake" , no horror film has had such an effect on me.  It is Ballardian in it's turning of the normal into horrific and threatening, only Ballard could make a book that featured the bomb at Hiroshima feel mainstream.

Anyway we are into June and I think as I mentioned "Cypress Avenue"  (Cyprus Avenue  on the link)I will choose that song from Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" , once included in every rock top ten list, which was very unusual in that there are no electric instruments on the album. The people who rated "Astral Weeks" so highly rated "Moondance" even higher, quite rightly so, and if this has got you thinking just buy both these albums, they should be in everbody's collection.

Anyway it's time for bed, so enjoy some Van Morrison before you hit the sack.

The Price Of A Van

I was just checking through my music that I had ripped to my network drive and was suprised to find that apparently I've never owned a Motorhead album (I know I've had a few compilations) , and also had ripped any David Bowie or Van Morrison barring a few recent aquisitions.

I noticed a few Van Morrison gaps in my collection such as Beautiful Vison , Poetic Champions Compose and St Dominic's Preview. Now Van Morrison is a major artist , and I was surprised to see that a lot of his music is no longer available on CD or , if it it is , it is ranging fromexpensive to exhorbitant (£200 for "One Night In San Francisco") . I had a similar problem with Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart , which I though I would pick up for a tenner for a Christmas present , but could not find it under a £35 at the time which came as a slight shock.

I thought I'd put them on a carousel so you can check them out for yourself. I'm just wondering if anything from these artists will appear on National Record Shop Day. It looks like in the digital streamimg , age that tangible media is being edged out and therefore actually becoming more valuable and a better investment.

You can still get you Robbie Williams and Take That complete back catalogues for untder a tenner from That's Entertainmant , but that's just the nature of the beast .....