Tuesday 29 April 2014

Mount Zion



In amazes me when there's certain music streaming services advertising the fact that they have 25 million songs you can listen to. I don't subscribe to any because I prefer radio which means generally the artists gets a reasonable amount per play rather than the 0.00007p or whatever they pay for each play on Spotify. I don't know what the answer is because a pay per play means that the model has to be financially sustainable. Anyway, as usual , I'm straying from the point.

Jah Wobble's Umbra Sumnus
I buy albums, usually in CD format with the odd download so the artist has been paid for every song I have of theirs in my collection. I then put a selection on my player (in this case a Samsung Note) which I select at random (I select it, not the player). Yesterday I saw Mount Zion by Jah Wobble a single from the album Umbra Sumnus. This is one of the most wonderful things I've heard in years despite having it in my collection for years. I was hoping to find a copy on YouTube but there isn't so I will put one up. If you click through on the song title you can listen to a sample. The song reminds vaguely of the euphoria generated by The Shamen's Destination Eschaton which I will include as a video here.





Have a great day everyone, it looks foggy but I'm sure it will improve

Sunday 27 April 2014

Orphan Black and Gilbert and Sullivan and Todd Rundgren



After the excitement of last week, this weekend has been fairly quiet, which is nice for a change, though I've still had plenty to do, but most of it has been very mundane.

I'm reading The Humans by Matt Haig and thoroughly enjoying it. I hope everyone I've given it to enjoys it as much, and I am listening to lots of music as usual but haven't done much composing recently, reminds of a quip by WS Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) when a lady asked him a question:

                           Lady: Is Bach still composing?
                           Gilbert: No Madam, He's Decomposing!



Always makes me chuckle.

Orphan Black ... so many

There's a lot of local festivals coming up so I will publish a list on the Spoongig site. Also TV seems to be rammed with brilliant TV series such as The Blacklist, Orphan Black is returning so how Tatiana Maslany remembers who she is or is playing I haven't a clue, but I am so looking forward to that.

Next week is another Bank Holiday, I could easily get used to a four day week.

Sports wise today Liverpool play Chelsea in what could be the Premier League Title decider, If Liverpool win then need another point to guarantee the title , and given their final game of the season is against Newcastle I think that wold be nailed on.

So anyway I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday, but I've included a live recording of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song" from Iolanthe, which I first heard on his album Todd in the seventies. Rundgren is one of the most amazing musicians ever managing to include in his canon almost every strand of worthy popular music.I could do a blog post on him , maybe I will this week.

Friday 25 April 2014

World Book Night 2014

The Humans - Matt Haig
My World Book Night was fairly low key. I did;t connect until this year that it falls on Shakespeare's birthday. Although some friends reserved copies of The Humans by Matt Haig, I gave away copies to people I sat next to on trains and buses and station platforms. Evey one was extremely pleasant and engaging, as well as being thankful and interested in the book and World Book Night. No one had heard of World Book Night but a few were aware of World Book Day.

Anyway I've started reading the book and it's a vaguely misanthropic view of the human race, and shows Douglas Adams influences, so to me it's very enjoyable.




Anyway this is just a short post, as I'm off to work soon, so hope you all have a great day, and I would suggest you grab your own copy of The Humans, you may enjoy it more than a little.

Monday 21 April 2014

White Heat


When I was having my second lot of blood taken at the hospital a nurse told me she's been looking for a CD copies of a Newcastle Band called White Heat, I'd never heard of them but said that most things could be found. Anyway there's a few things on youtube (see them performing their debut single above) and this is what you get on Amazon. Discogs is also a good place to look here.

There's info about Bob Smeaton their lead singer here.  There's more stuff here. Their stuff was released on the Valium label , not Virgin as she thought. You can get the album on CD here though from Retro Records who do classic vinyl on CD.

Unfortunately I think there are also some poodle rockers who get in the search mix, but this post is for that nurse who took a lot of blood without causing too much discomfort.

This has been a public service announcement.

Decking Painting Virtually Complete

Decking Left
Yesterday I started painting the decking, I'd cleaned it off with a combination jetwash and decking treatment, and was looking at my fence I painted ten years back and which still looks in fine fettle and thought maybe I'll use fence stain / paint rather than decking  stain / paint. Decking stuff is about five times as expensive. My reasoning is that if using the fence stuff doesn't work and can redo with the proper stuff. So I got some stuff from Wilkinsons.....






Decking Right
.... £7.50 for five litres or ten pound for two tubs.  So got two tubs. I was putting off doing it yesterday as I only had a two inch brush , but it turns out that I ended up doing the lot and using up the five litres of stuff. There's a few patched that need touching up which I can do today but it looks like it's all done for Easter Monday. I was a bit worried as Wilkinson's Country Brown looked more like Dayglo Orange, but remember that these things sink in, and looks to have taken very well.





The Monolith Reappears
So today will be a little touching up but mostly enjoying myself and relaxing, and hopefully the sun will return.

A bit of cutting back, means we can see our monolith water feature once more.

I hope you all have a fantastic day, I know that I intend to. Enjoy your Eggs



Sunday 20 April 2014

Good National Record Store Day





Buy More Records
Well although I didn't see anyone I knew apart from the guys at Reflex and RPM,yesterday was an excellent day. I'm writing this at 3 am just because I was awake and it's the middle of the Easter break which means I can actually lie in today.

Although later on I may be painting decking, depending on the weather. I hope it last a bit longer than in previous years when I finally do it , though I will publish photographs (of the said decking!)

I remember selling my EMI version of Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols for £30 then buying the album on Virgin for £3 , the import single for £1.50 and still having £20 to spend! which brings me on to ....





Stranglers
....I got a copy of Peaches by  The Stranglers from Reflex which was doing some extremely brisk trade, and just wish that certain shops to adapt the speed and courtesy of the guys there, they also had free sweets and chocolate which I forgot to partake of, but they had lots of excellent stuff. I see a lot of copies of the disc were on ebay going for a fortune but you can get their first six albums plus a disc of rarities for under fifteen pounds here. While it's nice to have limited editions, for me it's always been about the music.









Cake at RPM
RPM was rammed as they had cake, DJs and and bands in the courtyard next door, and at certain points the shop was in a one in one out situation. I browsed their second hand vinyl, and saw a second hand copy of the second Roxy Music album "For Your Pleasure". I have the CD, but was thinking about it while I looked round the delights in the  and listening to the rockabilly from the in shop DJ, I went back and it had gone , c'est la vie.

Still it was a great atmosphere and I could have spent a lot of money, which I will do when it's a little quieter.






Good Turnout
Anyway had a nice meal at the Stand , just missed my friend Jon and his daughter Aoife, though he sent me a lovely picture of her, face painted as a lion enjoying orange juice,

Came home and cleaned the decking again so it should be ready for painting today or tomorrow. So after this I am going back to my bed, and going to have a bit more sleep.

Saturday 19 April 2014

I Saw A Magpie




A Magpie
... on the way to pick my books up for World Book Night. When I got there they were nowhere to be found. One for sorrow! Although it's a superstitions and whether you get one for sorrow or two for joy you can always find something to fit in with the interpretation. On the plus side the giving day

Anyway it's National Record Store Day , and I need to go and get a record for a neighbour and maybe buy one myself. The weather is wonderful,  so it's likely to be an excellent day for everyone.





It's also an excuse to post the "Magpie" theme tune from the 1970's performed by the Spencer Davis Group (who used to feature Stevie Winwood) under the pseudonym of The Murgatroyd Band. The cool kids watched Magpie and the boring kinds preferred Blue Peter. It's ironic that the latter program is still with us.