To Infinity and Beyond

Today is Good Friday and it was a pleasantly good Friday (apart from Preston getting trashed 4-1 by Sheffield Wednesday) but wandering around the Clayton Street / West Road Intersection I noticed what looked like a Vinyl display in what was Blue Moon. I wasn't mistaken, and it turnes out there is a new vinyl emporium in town called Beyond Vinyl.

Essentially it's a Vinyl shop which will do coffee , cake and paninis and will have a performance space as well, plud of course a lot of class vinyl.

I spoke with the guys in there and touched on the laser etched holograms on the Star Wars soundtrack (which you can see here) and they told me the first laser etched hologram was on a White Stripes album.

Actually it was Jack White's "Lazaretto" and you can see the Angel hologram here but it still bends my mind to think how you could possibly even think about putting that into play let alone actually doing it. Added to that the vinyl album has some weird hidden tracks built in that play at 33rpm , 45 rpm and 78 rpm, but even though I have ordered a copy it's just for the hologram as I alread have the CD of the album. You can see the effect here.

Beyond Vinyl is a new brilliant space for music in Newcastle as well as meeting up . It is similar in concept to the absolutely excellent Long Play Cafe in The Grainger Market (and Quayside) and Pop Recs in Sunderland and I am looking forward to dropping in quite a lot as it is round the corned from where I work and close to Kazbat's Den if you fancy extending your wardrobe.

I've found an excellent live take of "Just One Drink" from "Lazaretto"  to share with you as you read. Sleep well.

Ten Tonnes Raining Down In The Autumn Quiet - #ALifeInNumbers #10

Today has seemed incredibly quiet, like the sound of traffic and everyday life has been muffled. And no I am not going deaf, it's just the heavy grey skies and falling leaves are the definite harbingers of autumn, and precursors to winter.

Anyway there were again a few contenders for Number Ten , such as Bruce Springsteen's "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and Kingmaker's "Ten Years Asleep" , and I got to thinking about songs I had missed that have now gone past such as Tom Robinson's "2-4-6-8 Motorway" and Van Der Graaf Generator. Mentioning Springsteen reminded me he's a shoe in for number 57 and I would like to include some Thousand Yard Stare if I can, but can only think of "0-0 AET" as one of their number songs.

Anyway I have chosen the awesome Royal Blood's "Ten Tonne Skeleton", one of those amazing series of two piece bands along with Black Keys, White Stripes and Gallery Circus, and I am sure there are many more, but not in my head at the moment.

Anyway it's time for bed unless you are staying up to watch the Grand Prix or you are in another part of the world, but I will say my goodnight my wonderful friends.

Gravity Clones and Seven Nation Armies

One of those phrases that just came to mind for no apparent reason . Clone can be a noun or a verb in this context and Gravity can be a noun or an adjective. Again this could be used as a band name , like Beach Canaries that I used earlier on in the month.

I am thinking of posting a series of songs on here that for me just don't fit into what we expect. Captain Beefheart made me realise that technical ability was subservient to actual ideas. An idea put into practice is far better that the musical ability to play all the notes perfectly , though maybe I am saying that because I can't really play any instrument. The sort of artists that spring to mind are David Bowie , Beefheart , Zappa, PJ Harvey and Siouxsie & the Banshees and that's just a start.

We're coming to the end of July and next week we hit August , the days are getting shorter and soon people will be complaining that we haven't had a summer despite the current heatwave.

Remind You of Anything?

Yesterday I too a photograph in the stairway at work and a friend of mine remarked it reminded him of Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes which is a possibility of a cover for the band I am practicing with although they will be leaning towards the Postmodern Jukebox version so I've included both for you delectation. And that is another coincidence.

So it's a lovely day so enjoy it , it's turning out to be a great week