THE GHOST OF ELECTRICITY

Yeah Baby

2012-02-17T17:37:00.004Z

A last minute rally against listlessness then, today - at least on the part of me and the smallest daughter as we pootled up to Notting Hill Gate to rummage about in Portobello Road boxes of trinkets (she) and records (me); we neither of us uncovered any lost gems, but there was fun in the looking and isn't there always? Also we spent the whole way up and back doing our silly voices and Pixar movie quotes to each other and having cuddles, so that was nice.

I'm not sure what else we were looking for, to be honest, but we each felt sure we'd have known it had we seen it.

I suppose I was in the mood for something like this, lost and cheap on a 45, but that doesn't really happen except in dreams does it? And especially not in Notting Hill Gate.

Massive acknowledgements to Mr Rob Ryan via Dusty Sevens who first unearthed it - this isn't his rip, but it's him I owe entirely for hearing it and my only contribution here is finding a versh uploaded a bit louder. And it's for you if you missed it.

I'm kicking Friday off with a Fursty Ferret and it's slipping down quite nicely, ta.

Windy City - 'We Party Heavy Up In Heah' (1975)

Blog

2012-02-16T11:05:00.001Z

Half term and I'm off with the girlies, though its been a funny old week of bugs and sniffles, disturbed nights and general, I'm afraid, listlessness. I've been enjoying Adrian Henri and Roger McGough's late 60s poems performed to Andy Roberts' guitar on the lovely, lost Incredible New Liverpool Scene LP which I managed to get a vinyl rip of from teh internets, and I've been trying to remember all the card games my Mum taught me when I was ten years old - to pass on to the daughters. We've had a rough go at an approximation of Pontoon so far, and last night trialled Newmarket (thanks The Guardian), which I can remember absolutely loving as a kid. Playing for pennies, deeply thrilling. If the eldest ends up a sort of über-sharp, Victoria Coren-style international poker player I wouldn't be in the least surprised.

Sorry not to have been blogging much - some of that listlessness seems to have percolated even this.

The Liverpool Scene - 'Let Me Die A Young Man's Death' (1967)

The Mah Nah Mah Nah Hour

2012-02-10T17:35:00.003Z

The eldest daughter has her best friend round for a sleepover tonight. They want to watch The Blair Witch Project but I have said no because it's a 15, full of swearing, psychologically disturbing and would give her little sister nightmares for months.

Said little sister is 11 on Sunday and wants to go to the cinema to see The Woman In Black. That'll be fine of course, but I seem to be the only person who'd rather watch The Muppets.

I love The Muppets in ways I cannot fully describe.

I once posted this on the collective Fun & Heartbreak blog; still more years on, it has lost none of its charm and allure.

Supermarket curry meal deal and Italia Pinot Grigio; perhaps a London Pride to start.

Blog

2012-02-07T20:54:00.001Z

I'm in the smallroom at the back of the house. I always am when I'm doing this.

When we moved hereit was the 'spare room' although it didn't have a spare bed and it filled up withcrap - it became a sort of Very Big Cupboard, to be honest.

Then the first babycame and it was her room - I painted the walls (badly) and we put up pussycat wallpaperabove the old picture rail, and the cot, and then her sister came and it was TheGirls Room (a most happy room) until they and their stuff over-spilled it and I gotevicted, quite rightly, from the loft and moved in here instead and so it has been - thepink walls still there, grubby now, and the cats still dancing round the friezeabove the old picture rail.

It doesn’t looklike the sort of ‘home office’ you see in Sunday magazines. Then, my lifedoesn't look like the sort of life you see in Sunday magazines.

Does yours?

I’m as cash poor now as I’ve ever been; and cooking chickpea curry tonight with a baked potato was like cooking student food.

Thank you, Colin, for this record - a while ago.

The Twilight Sad - 'The Room (Mogwai remix)' (2010)

It's Friday...Let's Not Dance

2012-02-03T15:48:00.001Z

As temperatures dropped this week I found myself going all glacial with the music - frosty mornings seemed to call for "krautrock".

I got some Cluster from emusic - free, thanks to a 'tempt me back' offer.

Fantastisch.

I don't suppose you'll be able to 'throw any shapes' to this - except in an Eno-esque way, of course.

Cluster - 'Sowiesoso' (1976)

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 8

2012-01-27T10:47:00.000Z

A box of records, earlier

This is my box of records, but it could be anyone's - maybe yours.

It's not all of them of course; there's a load on a shelf in the cupboard upstairs - a load less than there used to be, mind (because children there once was a dark time when it seemed the Silvery Discs had triumphed and the things we also had on LP wouldn't be played, and in that dark time some of us were persuaded - oh fools! - to give 'duplicate' records away....dark days, as I say).

These are the select few, the special ones, these ones in the box; the ones that will come out on a Sunday when the potatoes are roasting and I have cracked a pre-lunch Pride; the ones I'd take with me in the event of the housefire of popular imagining; precious mint things I bought decades ago in Ray's Jazz, the old mono and stereo Sinatras with their wonderful sleeves and even more wonderful sleevenotes ('It had begun like the World Soft Championships...') Glen Campbell's 20 Golden Greats (a Sunday staple) Frankie Laine (ditto - for Mum), La Variete by Weekend, Peggy Lee, a load of old soul, Nuggets, some more recent finds I've written about here.

When I open the box there's a whiff of good plastic. Don't put too many in, that's the key - it'll cramp your flicking; you need space and the little puff of air as one falls forward to another, and to pull one out without squeezing and read something on the back, fascinated, or admire (once more) the front cover and put it back again, with a smile.

And to make your selection - lift the needle, pop it on.

'I am a lineman for the County...'

This is my box of records, but it could be anyone's - maybe yours.

Young Marble Giants - 'Wurlitzer Jukebox!' (1980) [vinyl rip]

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 7

2012-01-23T10:32:00.003Z

Clementines and satsumas.

They arrive in the dead of winter, in the slough of November, when the days are dark and everything's drained of colour, little bright juicy balls of Spanish sunshine, and they get even better as the days get still darker then peak at Christmastime and in early Jan when all the choc and booze and rich food leaves you craving their clean-sweet citrussy tang even more. Super-sealed by Mamma Nature for freshness, handy-sized for lunchboxes, easy peel and easy split, those bijou juice-packed segments. I'm having one right now with my cup of tea and all this blethering, Yum.

Prince Buster - 'Shaking Up Orange Street' (1964)

(Er....I haven't got an mp3 of 'My Darling Clementine').

Etta James (25th Jan 1938 – 20th Jan 2012)

2012-01-22T11:08:00.000Z

I'd already posted when I heard the news on Friday: but in any case this belongs better here today.

What a voice.

RIP.

Etta James - 'A Sunday Kind Of Love' (1961)

The Smiling Hour

2012-01-20T16:32:00.001Z

A smooth little number like this may be all I'm up to ce soir.

I was kindly invited by an old friend to a 'function' last night and am feeling rather delicate today. Also my leg hurts from where I twisted my ankle and knee and fell on the dancefloor, and my pride, from being at one point forcibly ejected from the venue by a very large security man (it was a 'misunderstanding'; he let me back in). I am getting too old for such japery.

Gretchen Parlato is very 'happening' in 'jazz circles' 'Stateside'. I found out about her thanks to NPR Music and their very good list of the best jazz albums of 2011.

I may rouse myself for a Guinness later on.

Gretchen Parlato - 'Skylark' (2005)

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 6

2012-01-17T22:21:00.001Z

In Stargazing Live Brian Cox explains that there are more than 350 billion galaxies in the visible universe. On Radio 4 Extra they're re-running the radio recordings of 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads' from 1975. Since the summer when our dishwasher died Desert Island Disc downloads from a thirty year archive have helped me scrub the pans with brio. Danny Baker has me laughing out loud in the car in a traffic jam on the Upper Richmond Road in the pissing rain, on my own.

Sherlock set Twitter on fire.

And John Peel's in my iTunes (and my head).

My reason to be cheerful # 6 is, gawd bless it, the bloody, bloody beautiful BBC.

Round The Horne - 'Backroom Boys Of The BBC: Personnel' (1965)

The Smiling Hour

2012-01-13T18:01:00.002Z

*tries positive drinking*

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 5

2012-01-12T10:23:00.000Z

We've lived in this house for 17 years now. It's longer than I've lived in any other place. When we moved here we were an unmarried couple with one witch's cat, no kids and no furniture: we spent our first night under a duvet on the floor in an empty bedroom.

Since then we've done the usual things families do - knocked down walls and slapped up paint - but the single best thing we ever did was take the whitewashed brick hole beneath the blocked up old chimney and turn it back into a real fireplace again.

The house came alive.

We had coal fires in our front and back rooms when I was little (and no central heating) - a real coal bunker behind the house that the coalman filled every week, great logs too sometimes that probably came from the woods - I don't remember anyone ever buying them.

The smell of coal-tar on sharp cold days was the scent (with St Bruno ready-rubbed in the old man's pipe) of my childhood.

So the fire here connected Back, but was also about Now and what we were making here: it said This Is Home; and Let's Not Go Out Tonight, There's A Fire; and Pour Yourself A Whisky DavyH And Watch The Flames. Watching the flames dance like I'd do at my grandad's while the grown-ups blethered on about the government and the cost of living and the Capitalists.

Watching our twelve year old daughter lying on her front last week with her head resting in her hands watching the flames dance while the grown-ups blethered on about the government and the cost of living and the Capitalists.

Logs cracking down.

Scott Walker - 'Angels Of Ashes' (1969)

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 4

2012-01-10T17:03:00.000Z

Serendipity.

An example, today:

I hear a terrific (old) record for the first time on an (old) Desert Island Discs from the archive I'm trawling and search the web to see if I can find it.

Excellent! It's been uploaded by a blogger!
Amazing! It's one of us! (and I missed it at the time!)

Even better! It was three years ago, but the file's still live!

*sigh*

The record - Dory Previn's 'The Lady With The Braid'

The Desert Island Discs - Jarvis Cocker's.

The blogger - Beth at Lonesome Music.

Thank you BBC archive, thank you Jarvis, thank you lovely Beth x

Dory Previn - 'The Lady With The Braid' (1971)

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 3

2012-01-09T09:07:00.002Z

Unexpected smiles from strangers. Rare as hens' teeth in a big city, where the default mode is the avoidance of eye contact and intently scrolling your smartphone on the train is the human equivalent of a cat stopping to wash itself in the middle of the room (it makes you look Important and Purposeful when you're really just at a loss for something to do). But, lucky me, last week I received two - one in the supermarket (fruit & veg) and one, even less expectedly, on a busy station platform as the 07:39 disgorged its passengers into the morning rush - and both brightened my day out of all proportion to the simplicity of the act itself.

Did the smile-givers have any inkling of how that bold moment of breaking through the invisible but tacitly consensual wall between us would make me feel better for the rest of day?

Or were they just amused by my funny little face?

Well thank you smile-givers, either way: I promise to be less Britishly buttoned-up and to Give as well as Receive in the dark and drizzly winter weeks ahead.

Dusty Springfield - 'Just One Smile' (1967)

Robert Dickey (2nd Sept 1939 - 29th Dec 2011)

2012-01-06T13:48:00.000Z

Until today when I read the news in, of all places, the freebie newspaper on the train, I honestly couldn't have told you who Robert Lee Dickey was.

But I sure knew 'Bobby Purify' - from wonderful records like 'I'm Your Puppet' and this further, splendid Reason To Be Cheerful...

James & Bobby Purify - 'Shake A Tail Feather' (1967)

A stomper for your Friday.

May he RIP.

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 2

2012-01-05T18:46:00.001Z

Buses. Big red London double-deckers, please. Here's me aged about 3 with one you could literally sit on the top of. You might think it doesn't get much better than that, and you'd be right - it didn't.

I love double-decker buses. I always have. From the green (!) ones I used to get in Devon (aged 6!) from right in front of that house in the picture down the hill to the town and my school, to the ones at college that ferried me to and fro' Saaf East London and The Strand (the last of the real old Routemasters - yellow curvy roofs with the soft tungsten lights and the tartan seats, smoking upstairs and a bubble of chat - '68 bus our battle cry, 68 bus will never die', oh how we laughed) to the n-n-n-n-night buses that got us home from Trafalgar Square or The Goose & Firkin at Elephant And Castle all singing and japery and (sorry) occasionally vomit and the ones now that get me and my girlies to the shops and Portobello and me through town for work whilst crazy people choke on the tube or to my mate's in Wimbledon and back when he says 'Get a cab' and I laugh, laugh, laugh at his folly.

I think that one of the best places in the world you can be is at the very front (left-hand side) at the top of a double decker bus with the world moving past you below and other people's silly, annoying, inconsequential, banal, hilarious, fascinating and quirky chat all around you (no-one talks on the tube) or, if it really is too annoying - or quiet - your iPo on and groovy sounds shuffling a soundtrack.

Here's to buses.

*ting ting*

The Who - 'Magic Bus' (1968)

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 1

2012-01-04T19:44:00.000Z

So, January.

A depressing month, as I'm sure we can all agree. And it's looking especially depressing for me since I am self-employed and have chuff-all work in the diary; this after a December in which paid employ was also, as is traditional in the run-up to Christmas, thin on the ground.

So it was that yesterday, contemplating these and other weighty matters, I fell to making a sandwich using the tiddly bit of leftover cooked salmon I'd salvaged from the girlies' tea the night before and stuck in the fridge

Buttered the bread. Spread - nay flaked - the salmon on top. Ground some pepper.
And then thought - ooh, mayonnaise...

Mayonnaise!

God I love mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise on the sandwich = a transformation effected.

Mayonnaise is A Reason To Be Cheerful.

Mayonnaise is the sort of thing you need to Get You Through Jan.

So - a 'series' ! Oh lawdy!

With music I expect, yes - and lots of other things besides. Probably. I mean, we'll have to see how it goes.

The small things that keep you going.

My 'reality-altering' January thing.

Starting with mayonnaise.

Ian Dury & The Blockheads - 'Reasons To Be Cheerful, Pt.3' (1979)

Diddy's Disco

2011-12-31T12:40:00.001Z

When we were lads, the pub that was the nursery of our drinking, just next to the school, threw a disco every New Year's Eve. The DJ was Diddy Dave the barman, a diminutive Lancastrian who had played the pubs and clubs of the North West in his youth and would consequently sometimes scatter a couple of northern soul classics in amongst the better known Tamla Motowns, Town Called Malices and Come On Eileens of our requesting. The Weather Girls 'It's Raining Men' I recall was a particular favourite of his - and no, 'he never married'. That dance floor in the public bar by the jukebox where the pool table usually sat was truly one of the greatest of my life, all spilt beer and sweat and hormones and cheap perfume on the girls from school done up to their nines. At midnight you were licensed to kiss every single one of them on the lips and they didn't even mind. Never such paradise again.

Now New Year's Eves are, as I have related here before, cosy indoors affairs that came as a mighty relief after so many over-priced nights in chocker London pubs with vomit and violence and hung-upness at best always just round the corner, in our difficult twenties, in our insecure thirties, and not a cab to be found gone midnight.

So - I've done another booze shop. And Mrs H's bezzie is joining us, which'll be nice. And the girlies will want to stay up too, now they're bigger.

Meanwhile Diddy Dave, I'd wager - long-since retired - will be playing cards at Hookhills Community Centre, then home for an early night.

This one's for him.

HNY to you all.

The Weather Girls - 'It's Raining Men' (1982)

Finally, From Clarence

2011-12-24T16:43:00.000Z

No man is a failure who has friends

Merry Christmas, lovely people x

Yeah Baby

2011-12-23T10:50:00.000Z

I'm a bit late, sorry. I've been watching Local Hero on the telly; *sigh* but I love love love that film. Candles lit, feet curled at the foot of the sofa with Mrs H sat at the end; a beer, well, perhaps two. Much needed after a week of spending money I do not have and stoking up debt for a cold January.

Oh lift us 'Retha, lift us, lift us - don't let me be the Grinch.

Traditional Ghost post.

From Ronco - The Perfect Christmas Gift x

Aretha Franklin - 'Kissing By The Mistletoe' (1961)

'Alma'

2011-12-20T14:50:00.000Z

Here's a spooky little tale for Christmas that me and my girlies loved when we first saw it last year.

They're about to make a full length version, but I can't believe it'll top this.

August Christmas

2011-12-16T18:27:00.002Z

Heard this for the first time just three days ago.

Mind, I can't listen to him without thinking of the Radio One Roadshow, Torre Abbey Meadows, Torquay 1982: when Mike Read Mike Read 275-285 opened proceedings with 'Stool Pigeon'.

It's not a very Christmassy memory, I'll grant ye.

I'm stumbling from a pub lunch to a nice-parents-from-the-school Christmas social drinkies tonight, so wish me well - I will almost certainly (inadvertedly) swear and make inappropriate remarks, much to Mrs H's chagrin.

August Darnell - 'Christmas On Riverside Drive' (1981)

Christmas Jones

2011-12-15T11:15:00.001Z

Righteous!

And thanks to Ye Anciente Vinyl District competition and the splendid people at Daptone Records I have this on 7" single.

I must have been a very good boy that year.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - 'Ain't No Chimneys In The Projects' (2009)

Yule Love

2011-12-12T13:41:00.000Z

"He's behind you!"

Those of you who don't 'do' Twitter (and I wish you would, we'd have such fun) may have missed my link to this ace recent interview with Darlene Love.

Meanwhile, written by Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry & Phil Spector here is possibly The Greatest Christmas Pop Record Of All Time...

Darlene Love - 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)' (1963)

The Smiling Hour

2011-12-09T16:57:00.001Z

You know if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime

Mose Allison - 'Your Mind Is On Vacation' (1976)

Dobie Gray (26 July 1940 - 6th December 2011)

2011-12-07T08:47:00.001Z

High Tide

2011-12-02T16:14:00.001Z

Don't ya think the best thing about this is the way it starts just like the original before the stutter-crash! of Portishead's entrance at 0.12?

In a mostly dull week of darkening days that dragged, one of a few get-me-through Radio Moments was hearing this late Wednesday night on Claire Anderson's Late Lounge.

Drink news: I was forced to crack the emergency Guinness before the school quiz last night, so I'm imbibing a London Pride prior to a proper sit down with Senor Pinot in a bit. He sends hugs.

Paul Weller - 'Wild Wood (The Sheared Wood remix)' (1994)

Spread Your Tiny Wings And Fly Away

2011-11-29T09:25:00.000Z

This time last year a great belt of snow was sweeping south across Britain and even London was in for a good dusting. November 2011 it seems will bow out in more traditional drizzle and gloom.

Have your parents musical tastes left a lasting legacy on you? These people think so (thanks Simon for pointing me at the piece). Tim Jonze's bit in particular leapt out at me because I have that very Country Classics record he mentions and I like that he called Anne Murray's 'Snowbird' a 'beautiful song', because it is.

It was written by the Canadian singer-songwriter Gene MacLellan, the rest of whose oeuvre I'm afraid has passed me by.

We shouldn't let its 70s Radio 2 JY Prog playlist associations blind us to its brilliance.

I'd love to hear Richard Hawley have a go at it.

See ya then, November.

Anne Murray - 'Snowbird' (1970)

Equally Cursed And Blessed

2011-11-25T14:15:00.001Z

This is good.

I like it.

Bit frosty.

Swede poppy.

And continued evidence of the all-pervasive influence of 'Be My Baby' by The Ronettes (the unassailably positioned, number one best pop record of all time, ever).

I am grateful to my good friend Dr. Al for bringing it to my attention on a CD he made for me back in April (ah Spring, when hope was ours).

I shall need something warming tonight; that chill's got in me bones.

Lykke Li - 'Sadness Is A Blessing' (2011)

Cute, In A Stupid Ass Way

2011-11-21T10:24:00.001Z

Well look, this has all been very nice but I really must get on.

Here's Jacques Brel (difficult, bohemian, Belgian) via Scott W. fantasising about what it'd be like to be a proper pop star.

English lyrics by Mort Shuman, who knew a thing or two about popular music himself.

Marvellous.

Scott Walker - 'Jackie' (1967)

The 10 Best Pop Records Of All Time

2011-11-18T08:32:00.001Z

The more assiduous amongst you may have noticed the germ of this in comments over at Drew's not long since.

Specifically, a Mr 'JC' asked 'wouldn't it be great to get an old-fashioned arguement going....not on the internet but down the pub.....just what are the ten most perfect pop songs????'

Last night I met, for the first time, a fellow blogger - a person who, until now, I have only known through these internets. The very surface of reality did not, it seems, fracture - though judging by how it feels this morning, my skull possibly did.

We have resolved this burning issue for you.

On a crappy piece of notepaper (see above) from Drew's capacious bag (I do not know what else was in there - maybe JC), the two of us fuelled by the elation of meeting and quite a few pints of London Pride, we agreed The List.

Clearly, there were Guidelines:

1. Pop records - not country, or rock, or soul, or swing or dance or easy listening; Pop (we'll save the debate about what 'Pop' is until next time. Though can I just say? I think we all know)

2. Big and famous and, er, Popular. Pop is not 'obscure'. We all know 'lost pop gems'. For the most part these are adored by a few thousand people. They are wonderful, life-enhancing and special. They are probably some of the best records ever made. They are not in this list.

3. We had to agree. Unless both of us approved a record, it could not make the list.

4. Nothing Scottish (this was just to wind up JC. Only kidding.)

Here, then, are the 10 Best Pop Records Of All Time.

1. The Ronettes - 'Be My Baby'

The unassailably positioned, number one best pop record of all time, ever.

The rest are, as they say, In No Particular Order...

2. The Beach Boys - 'God Only Knows'

OK, it is kind of, to do it an injustice, a 'ballad'. But it must be on this list. You may take it for granted you've heard it so much. Just listen to it again. Loud.

3. Blondie - 'Heart Of Glass'

Some debate over whether this was actually 'disco'. Debate short-lived. Clearly this is pop.

4. The Shangri-Las - 'Leader Of The Pack'

Universally acknowledged by everyone we mentioned it to in the pub (well, Harriet and Tom the nice young couple on the next table anyway).

5. Isley Brothers - 'This Old Heart Of Mine'

6. Dionne Warwick - 'Walk On By'

7. Jackson 5 - 'I Want You Back'

8. The Monkees - 'I'm A Believer'

Neil Diamond!

9. ABBA - 'Waterloo'

We agreed ABBA were the greatest pop group of the 1970s. Some debate over which song to go for. Agreed our favourites were all ballads, therefore inappropriate. Couldn't think of a poppier one than this.

10. The La's - 'There She Goes'

or possibly

10. Madonna - 'Like A Prayer'

I wanted a Beatles song. Or 'Wichita Lineman'. Or Billy Fury. Drew vetoed them. I'm really not sure The La's deserve to be in such illustrious company. Possibly Madonna does. Harriet and Tom on the next table thought we should have 'something more modern'. Maybe number 10 should be left blank 'for your own choices'. Also, by this stage it was Drew's round. Again.

-------

Anyway, I'm sure you're all pleased we've done this because obviously it'll save you ever having to have this discussion again.

You're welcome.

Full Circles

2011-11-15T22:16:00.000Z

I restored this to myself today, an album I borrowed and taped from a ramshackle amateur 'record library' kept in a cupboard in a student hall in an old building in another lifetime, when I was just 18.

Back then I played it to bits; still have the C90 (Billie Holiday on the 'B' side - one sad winter Sunday as she sang 'All of me/Why not have all of me?' I told a girl, smugly, 'Ah, but you can't, can you?'. Sheesh).

Going forward by looking back; and there's sweet old music in other places too that's new to me.

The Jim Hall Trio - 'Circles' (1981).

Royale With Cheese

2011-11-11T17:23:00.001Z

Double O groovy!

Herb Alpert - 'Casino Royale' (1971)

Newport Up

2011-11-08T20:16:00.001Z

That kind of thick drizzle that clings has come in over SW London tonight.

I'm a bit no-time this-time this week: just enough to pop this up for you. From Newport '56 - "the greatest performance of [Ellington's] career... It stood for everything that jazz had been and could be."

A davyh vinyl rip at 320kbps.

Gee baby, ain't I good to you.

Duke Ellington - 'Newport Jazz Festival Suite: Part 2 - Blues To Be There' (1956)

The Smiling Hour

2011-11-04T16:55:00.000Z

Set 'em up pally.

Sammy Davis Jr. - 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head?' (1960)

Bouncing With Bud

2011-11-03T11:18:00.002Z

I've been computerising more vinyl - the sound on this Blue Note LP!

And this track?

Amazing.

Explodes a grey day.

Max Roach on drums.

Bud Powell - 'Un Poco Loco' (1951)

Reel Life (Just Around The Corner)

2011-11-01T10:24:00.003Z

Have you dropped in on Press Play & Record yet? Its kind hearted, pseudonymous, author has been uploading entire NME mail-order cassettes from the 1980s, with full tracklistings and artwork (see above) throughout October.

I've loved being reunited with, amongst many others, The Mighty Reel, Straight No Chaser, Pocket Jukebox and The Tape With No Name all of which at some point I had, or knew, or tape-to-taped, or cribbed tracks from, but have since lost.

I've been reminded of many lost gems, as well as of the wonderful Peel-like eclecticism the magazine embraced in those distant, glory days.

Pay a visit, you must.

---

Inspired by hearing again the speedy alt. version of this* that opens The Mighty Reel, I dug out my LP of Imperial Bedroom for the potato-roasting slot on Sunday; hadn't played it in years.

*Vinyl rip, contains crackles.

[Thanks to ally for the original site tip-off]

Friday Reggae # 31

2011-10-28T17:14:00.002+01:00

Rush I some booze.

Tappa Zukie - 'Rush I Some Dub' (1976)

Blog

2011-10-27T10:28:00.001+01:00

Torquay seafront, Monday

A strange few days of storms and, for the moment, calm; thundering to Devon under vast Constable skies to see my Mum in hospital and look after my Dad, not in the best of mental health and not coping well on his own. Back and forths to the hospital, making sure he ate something, throwing out all the food in the fridge with Best Before dates of faded memory. If you have elderly relatives, you'll know the score. She's home now at least, struggling to navigate a paper bag-full of medication and Doing Too Much given two days ago she had three blood transfusions. It's a worry.

Thank you, Sir Richard, for this one - in the dark last night somewhere on the M4 between Bristol and Reading, me and a service station coffee and the blue light of my dashboard.

Richard Hawley - 'Don't Get Hung Up In Your Soul' (2009)

The Smiling Hour

2011-10-21T17:04:00.003+01:00

From the pen of Tony 'Crossroads Theme' Hatch; Britain's Burt Bacharach, or the 70s Simon Cowell.

A davyh vinyl rip (crackles!) from the original Capitol LP.

Love that cover shot!

What would you say to a little drink?

Peggy Lee - 'Call Me' (1966)

Re-Make/Re-Model

2011-10-19T09:58:00.003+01:00

Mojo Filter writes...

"Just a little tribute to the great electronic adventurer himself. I'm up for trying for those ultra-blue harmonic feedback-type fequencies that seem to come out of the shpeeeker. VEry Bluely in mine eareyes. L.O.V.E, love !!"

Yes.

I L.O.V.E. the way this blisses out/extends the frustratingly short but genius original whilst staying true to its spirit - a fine, fine piece of work that I'm sure Mr Eno likes.

Brian Eno - 'Another Green World (The Blue Realm remix)' (2011)

The Smiling Hour

2011-10-14T17:06:00.000+01:00

Blue-blooded Blue Note, companeros - 100% proof.

I shall require a beverage.

Thelonious Monk - 'Straight, No Chaser' (1951)

Yet Never Blossom

2011-10-13T10:03:00.001+01:00

Here are four minutes in which legendary Young Marble Giant/Weekender Alison Statton, practically a patron saint of these pages, sings a melancholy melody over woozy synth, ambient noise and a plucked lute? uke? from Spike. It's Basil Kirchin's 'I Start Counting' for the Rough Trade generation, probably.

I love it.

Alison Statton & Spike - 'The Seed Remains' (1997)

Nu Jazz Tuesday

2011-10-11T13:09:00.003+01:00

I hadn't heard of Two Banks Of Four until yesterday and hadn't heard their music until today.

'I think this will be right up your street' writes glen grainger, whose splendid musical choices may also be sampled here.

And do you know what, given they're kinda mid-period Working Week meets Koop via St Germain, he's right, so right.

glen, you spoil us - thank you.

Two Banks Of Four - 'One Day' (2003)
Two Banks Of Four - 'Unclaimed' (2003)

[vocalist - Valerie Etienne]

5

2011-10-07T08:57:00.002+01:00

This has been a blog on the internets for five of your Earth years. It's a long time, it's no time at all, it's flown by, it seems like forever.

I'd never have imagined I'd stick with it so long.

I've posted whatever I've been listening to and written about whatever I've been doing, thinking or feeling - most of it stuff of little consequence - and you've kept dropping in, and I'm chuffed. I've said before and still maintain - your comments are the very best thing about this.

And thank you, fellow bloggers, for the music - there's been so much of it.....so many trails you've set me off on, so many previously unheard records I've taken entirely to my heart and now could not live without.

And when I've been blue you've made me laugh and when I've disappeared up my own arse (which I may well be currently doing) you have pulled me out (hmm, attractive image).

That's What - as the very great Burt Bacharach once said, or was it Carole Bayer Sager - Friends Are For.

Thank you.

Lograremos un gran final
No nos moveran
Sabiendo que vamos a vencer
Y venceremos
Y venceremos
Y venceremos...

Working Week - 'Venceremos (We Will Win) (jazz dance special 12" edition)' (1984).

Bert Jansch (3rd Nov 1943 – 5th Oct 2011)

2011-10-05T18:00:00.002+01:00

"Playing with Bert was like a long walk through the woods. Mysterious, ancient & natural. Leaves would fall but the sun could come out too" - Johnny Marr.

Bert Jansch - 'Running From Home' (1965)

Blog

2011-10-04T12:14:00.002+01:00

Looking to avoid the cost of Mr Dyno-Rod, Ispent most of yesterday morning trying to unblock our drain. Unsuccessfully.

I have a bruised and swollen forearm from trying to reachdown the bloody thing and still imagine I can smell its vomity-oily smell,despite the two showers and bath I’ve had since.

Mid-work today I ran out of printer toner and have spent andhour and a half trawling round local shops looking for a replacement. Theyhaven’t got one right now, but they can order one in.

There’s only cheese for lunch.

My life is impossibly glamorous.

This calls for 80s indie.

The Flatmates – ‘Heaven Knows (Tranquiliser Mix)’ (1988)

Yeah Baby

2011-09-30T16:57:00.001+01:00

We bless the weather and we bless it again, companeros - 29C in London today and though we know it won't last, that makes it kinda sweeter, in a way.

Here's something sultry I never thought I'd be posting in the dog-days of September.

I shall require a beverage and I shall require it chilled.

Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes - 'Summer Days' (1974)

Indian Summer

2011-09-29T22:37:00.001+01:00

Dave Brubeck - 'Indian Summer' (2007)

(He'll be 91 this December).

Blue Monday

2011-09-26T09:35:00.000+01:00

They've forecast 'unseasonably mild weather', though this morning's breaking kind of grey.

We'd best let McCoy Tyner's singing lines lift our spirits and lift 'em high on this beautiful, beautiful thing.

McCoy Tyner - 'She's Leaving Home' (1995)

The Smiling Hour

2011-09-23T16:44:00.000+01:00

Let there be you
Let there be me
Let there be oysters
Under the sea

Well, mussels - I'm having mussels again tonight. With big chunks of French bread and frites and cold white wine too, you know me.

This song's been with me all my life - to begin with on this posthumous LP Dad had, with narrated bits by the BBC's Alan Dell between the songs and a big scratch on one side where the three year old me once bumped into the record player.

Battersea-born Shearing's light touch, the lovely lyric and Nat's easy vocal all make this pretty special, I'm sure you'll agree.

Here's to ducking bits off falling satellites.

Chin chin.

Nat 'King' Cole - 'Let There Be Love' (1961)

The Seed And The Sower

2011-09-20T11:36:00.001+01:00

I've been listening to a lot of Grant McLennan/Go-Betweens in the last few days.

It's not the anniversary of his death or anything, though I checked that because so often I find there's a spooky synchronicity in these things; something a little quirky did happen last night, mind.

I was knocking up a davyh tomato pasta and chatting with my lovely eldest daughter about Big Things like Death and God and The Universe (she'd had R.S during the day) when we veered off to the less profound but in my mind no less important subject of tomato soup.

She said she'd really like some more of that posh fresh one with basil in it from Waitrose and I said 'Hang on, we've more ripening tomatoes in this house right now than we know what to do with (see above), so rather than fork out for lar-di-dar stuff we can ill-afford, why don't we make our own?'.

Suddenly Grant, who had until this point been playing largely unheeded on the iPo in the background sang out, clear as a bell

I read about your death in the paper
When I was buying tomato seed

That fair stopped us in our tracks, I can tell you.

Grant McLennan - 'Hot Water' (1995)

The Smiling Hour

2011-09-16T17:37:00.002+01:00

You know, sometimes only Tone will do.

And it's an early Pinot please bartender for I cannot face gin without lime, and dagnabbit we are out.

Tony Bennett - 'The Best Is Yet To Come' (1962)

Ad Lib On Nippon

2011-09-14T21:55:00.000+01:00

It's all turning out a tad frantic this week; no time to breathe, blog or blether on.

I'll tell you what though, this is lovely.

And there's a Japanese connection with the last post too!

It almost looks like I plan this stuff!

Horace Silver - 'Cherry Blossom' (1962)

Yeah Baby

2011-09-09T15:33:00.000+01:00

This came to me kindly from glen grainger, oft to be found in the saloon bar at Dusty Sevens, in return for Weekend services rendered; it is a lush and lovely rare groove classic and a fine thing I think to get our autumn Fridays here on the road.

Cheers glen, and cheers, indeed, to us all.

Yasuko Agawa - 'L.A Nights' (1984)

In Search Of Efmu

2011-09-05T10:42:00.002+01:00

A year or two ago my good friend Dr Al. made a compilation CD for me with this track on it. I love it!

I hadn't heard of Efmu, and that's not unusual, but the frustrating thing has been trying to find out more about them and trying to get hold of more of their music.

They are on MySpace (yikes!) and I even went through the laborious process of signing up to the wretched thing in the hope that I could download the tracks there, but no dice (and sheesh if there's a less user-friendly 'social network' than MySpace then I've yet to hear about it; I cancelled my membership ten mins after setting it up).

They are based in Paris, a French/Latin American (?) duo (sometimes, see pic, trio?) - guitar, percussion/sax; they are unsigned; they seem to have no website of their own; the only links you get by Googling them are to venues they are playing or have played (none in the UK); I am the only listener to their music (this track) on LastFM (!)

And since they describe their musical genre as 'acoustic/fusion/latin' they are right up my musical rue.

Et alors....where can I get Efmu music?

Efmu - are you out there??

Efmu - 'Neva' (2005?)

Postscript: Dr Al. has been in touch. He says 'we stumbled on them in a bar in Paris years ago and liked them so much we bought a CD from them after the show'. But Efmu, do you have new music for us?

Hello, I'm Back

2011-09-03T20:33:00.007+01:00

You Tube user "TheLizzie12" writes - "I so love baddddddd Hollywood musicals of the 1970s, and there were plenty! This has to be one of the worst. In the UK, Coronation Street fans will be thrilled to see little Simon Barlow being picked up by Liv UIlman @ 0.11 and shouting "Whoah!" (ha ha)"

davyh writes - "A terrific Burt Bacharach tune is a terrific Burt Bacharach tune! And this (below) is a vinyl rip from Mrs H's original soundtrack LP! With gatefold sleeve, poster and lyric sheets! (but possibly that's not important right now). It's not Liv Ullman singing, of course. And as I'm sure the 'buffs' amongst you will know, the original Frank Capra movie is very special...".

Diana Lee - 'The World Is A Circle' (1973)

I've been wanting to post this for ages.

It'll get more downloads than anything else I've put here for months, you see.

Gone West

2011-08-25T15:01:00.007+01:00

'In my beginning is my end' wrote T.S Eliot in his Four Quartets poem 'East Coker', and I really don't know about that - but it would be true to say that 'Near East Coker is my holiday destination'.

There will be no jaunt SW France-ward for us this year, austere times and all that, and whilst I will miss the southern sunshine I will not much miss the 14 hour drive; instead tomorrow we pootle westward in England for a quiet week where the zider apples grow and an American poet's ashes rest.

Late Summer, the golden light, lengthening shadows and a decent pint - you know the sort of thing.

Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon

Well, hopefully not that dark T.S - I'm looking for at least one barbecue and some nice sunsets.

Catherine Howe - 'In The Hot Summer' (1971)

Will Tweet anything that grabs me - and see you back here in September x

'French' Connection

2011-08-22T16:14:00.009+01:00

The sample and the sampled...

A Tribe Called Quest - 'Luck Of Lucien' (1990)
Billy Brooks - 'Fourty Days' (1974)

Breaktastic.

L'Heure Souriante

2011-08-19T17:22:00.006+01:00

I am eating moules tonight, with big hunks of French bread.

So Mrs H'll be on the salad*

And yes, I have started on the rosados.

I absolutely bloody love this.

Les Négresses Vertes - 'Face À La Mer (Massive Attack Remix Full Version)' (1993)

*unfortunate food poisoning incident, Ibiza 2002

Oui, C'est Ca

2011-08-18T15:11:00.001+01:00

Françoise Hardy - 'Voilà' (1967)

Will The Doctor See Me Now?

2011-08-16T10:34:00.005+01:00

Last night I had a dream about Nina Simone.

I was at her concert, walking the aisles of a huge arena-type venue.

There were many blocks of seats facing different directions and at least four grand pianos, each a different colour, on separate stages, so you couldn’t tell where she'd perform. This was distressing.

I wandered into a labyrinthine backstage area, blundered into a small room. Standing in it was Nina, waiting to go on stage.

Shocked, I apologised for intruding, told her I was lost. She said 'Think nothing of it'.

She said she’d be performing just out here, and pointed beyond the curtain.

I thanked her, kissed her hand and walked out to a block of seats sunk into a posh restaurant area, waiters in white tuxedos serving tables.

They said this was an exclusive viewing area carrying a $50 supplement. Feeling shabby, and not having $50, I shuffled away. Maybe I’d walk up to the back. A long way away, but at least I’d be facing the stage.

Suddenly Nina appeared. She gave the waiter a note. She said a young (sic) Englishman had come by, lost, and could they seat him in the restaurant area?

Realising it was me, the head waiter beckoned me to a table near the front. Would I like a drink? I ordered a gin and tonic.

The lights dimmed.

Nina’s performance began.

Nina Simone – ‘I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl (live)’ (1974)

[I have just ordered this album on vinyl, using vouchers kindly gifted for my birthday. It's coming from France. I hope it arrives not-too battered].

Yeah Baby

2011-08-12T17:19:00.006+01:00

William De Vaughn - 'Be Thankful For What You've Got' (1974)

[Acknowledgements to Robert Elms, who spun this on BBC Radio London this afternoon].

Nostalgia

2011-08-11T21:14:00.008+01:00

Almost a billion people on Planet Earth have no access to clean drinking water.

Which rather puts the Lack Of Opportunity protestations of those who went 'free shopping' for HD TVs, DVD players and Nike trainers in London this week in perspective, for me.

Also, it appears that for most people at last.fm, Weekend are 'a punk/shoegaze/psychedelic band from San Francisco, CA'. When surely as far as all sensible persons are concerned they are 'a group formed in 1981 by ex-Young Marble Giants’ vocalist Alison Statton, with Simon Booth (guitar) and Spike Williams (guitar & viola)' (I wrote that!).

Truly, the world is a mess.

Weekend - 'Nostalgia (81 demo)' (1981)

Peace Piece

2011-08-09T16:51:00.005+01:00

All I feel like posting today.

Bill Evans - 'Peace Piece' (1958)

Come On And Do The Congas

2011-08-05T16:35:00.003+01:00

From Cuba out of New York City baby - another from an ancient cassette.

No school like the old school, dos cervezas por favor.

Daniel Ponce - 'Oromí ' (1987)

I Dream Of Places Far Beyond...

2011-08-01T09:34:00.002+01:00

Bebel Gilberto - 'August Day Song' (2000)

46

2011-07-31T00:17:00.010+01:00

Officially middle-aged blogger born same day as celebrated billionnaire author (hugs, Jo! Send money!) posts probably favourite ever 45 to commemorate 46th!

World is on holiday!

*Cuddles daughters, goes for curry, drinks gin*

x

Weekend - 'The View From Her Room' * (1982)
Weekend - 'Leaves Of Spring' (1982)

* "It's about a day when the rush hour traffic was going past outside my window and I had to keep the window open and hear it as it was so hot in the middle of last summer. There's an air of escape in it as well I think" - Alison Statton.

Friday Reggae # 30

2011-07-29T16:30:00.002+01:00

I've heard a lot of versions of this song, most of them terrible. But I like the Keyboard King's take very much, especially his rare, raggedy vocal.

And look, Camp Freddy came through with the beach record shack pic too!

Cause for celebration all round I'd say.

Is someone going to the bar?

Jackie Mittoo - 'Summer Breeze' (1974)

An Old Woman Cooking Eggs

2011-07-27T11:49:00.004+01:00

This is a reproduction of Diego Velázquez's painting An Old Woman Cooking Eggs which is in the National Gallery Of Scotland.

In his collection of short prose pieces themed around 'bequests' - from political commitment and atheism, to how to tell a good restaurant and the lost joys of outdoor sex - Where There's A Will (50p last week from my local charity shop) John 'Rumpole Of The Bailey' Mortimer writes so beautifully about it in two pages I found so right that I've had a strong compulsion all week to quote from it at length here, and have now given into it.

-----

"To the proud stones of Greece and poet's imaginings other bequests must be added to make up the superhuman, mirror-resembling dream. I have a gallery of pictures in my head so that, if I went blind, I could still enjoy them. I would direct you to the National Gallery of Scotland, one of the least exhausting, most rewarding collections in the world that, in a few comfortably intimate rooms, contains more masterpieces to the square foot than you have the right to expect. Among the saints and great ladies, the naked beauties and the suffering martyrs, taking her rightful and honourable place is an old woman cooking eggs.

Velázquez went to Madrid in his twenties and very soon became a court painter, truthfully observing pale-lipped kings, overdressed infantas and the sad faces of the palace dwarfs. Before that he served five years apprenticeship to a Sevillian painter whose daughter he married and, taking time off from his religious paintings, looked hard and clearly into the kitchen.

The everyday scene in the Edinburgh gallery is lit in the sort of way the painter learned from Caravaggio, so that the objects in the kitchen achieve an extraordinary significance. The old woman has an aquiline, Sevillian nose, sharp eyes, a firm mouth and grey hair. The white cloth on her head and shoulders falls into soft folds on the coarse material of her dress. She has the suntanned, loose-skinned hands of her age but one of them holds an egg carefully and the other delicately points a small wooden spoon, ready to drip a little oil in which we can see eggs setting, their yolks and whites clear in the pan. An unsmiling peasant boy is carefully dripping in more oil and the old woman watches him anxiously. The miracle of the painting is in the exact and loving re-creation of oil, eggs and earthenware, the shine on the brass pots, the shadow of a knife on a china dish, the feeling of flesh and cloth. Forget all concerns about blessings or terrifying events occurring beyond the grave, this picture celebrates the significant moment when the eggs start cooking and another spoonful of oil has to be dribbled in.

The old woman, or someone very like her, turns up again in another of Velázquez's kitchen scenes, this time in London's National Gallery. Her head is again covered with a white cloth and she is instructing a sulky and unwilling Martha on how to pound garlic and cook some fresh fish and more eggs. In a mirror we can see that Jesus has arrived at the door and is about to engage the no-doubt eager Mary in a conversation about life, death and the miracle of salvation. Far more interesting to the old woman is seeing that the fish is cooked properly, dinner is on the table in time and the garlic is well-pounded.

Velázquez went on to paint grander scenes. Venus, the goddess of Love, lies naked, admiring herself in a mirror held up by Cupid, presenting to us her splendid bottom. He painted kings on prancing horses and military triumphs such as the surrender of Breda and royal persons hunting wild boar. He became famous in Italy for his portait of Pope Innocent X, a merciless military commander. His final act was to decorate the Spanish Pavilion on the Isle of Pheasants for the marriage of the Infanta Maria Theresa.

Through all these great events, wars and festivals, the lives of kings and Popes, the old woman remained busy in the kitchen, dealing with the important things in life, such as the exact amount of olive oil needed to fry eggs."

Take The Box

2011-07-23T18:04:00.002+01:00

Boy, does that title take on a horrible irony now.

What a talent, what a terrible waste.

I maintain this is her finest song.

Sleep soft Amy x

Yeah Baby

2011-07-22T16:20:00.004+01:00

Roebuck "Pop" Staples and his daughters - Mavis, Yvonne and Cleo - had been steadily building a cult following for their gospel and message songs when they teamed up with producer Al Bell and the Muscle Shoals rhythm section in 1970. Within a year they hit the top of the pop charts and their message reached around the world. This record is a chronicle of that amazing breakthrough period.

(original sleeve notes)

I haven't been able to dislodge this from my fuzzy old head since Mondo's lopsided quiz this morning, so it's an inevitable post I'm afraid.

It's hardly rare or unheard, but at least here in a davyh vinyl rip, with that bass-high-up-in-the-mix sound that all Stax LPs seem to have.

School's out for summer!

I shall require a beverage.

The Staple Singers - 'I'll Take You There' (1972)

The Space Shuttle (April 12 1981 - July 21 2011)

2011-07-21T10:38:00.006+01:00

NASA

Yes, I know it cost a fortune when so many people on Earth have little or nothing, but like Bill Hicks once said if we stopped spending all those billions on weapons of mass destruction we could both feed the planet and travel together to the stars, right?

Brian Eno - 'Always Returning' (1983)

[More amazing pictures here]

Touching Heaven

2011-07-18T11:37:00.007+01:00

Somewhere in between dropping the girlies off at Harry Potter 7 and loading up with weekend veggies at the market I managed a return visit to the very splendid Collectors Record Centre in Kingston on Saturday with only ten minutes to go till he closed (continued thanks to Artog for the original recommend). In the briefest of flicks in the 'all LPs £1' crates I turned up a near mint condition copy of this, which was rather nice, and was presented by the proprietor with one of his business cards after asking if he ever had any Lewis Taylor albums in.

All those years of going to Kingston and I never knew about this wonderful place; I hope it doesn't disappear now I've only just found it.

Working Week - 'Touching Heaven' (1986)
Working Week - 'South Africa' (1986)

Friday Reggae # 29

2011-07-15T16:37:00.017+01:00

Here's a song I've had for donkey's on a fantastic tape made off the radio in Jamaica in the late 80s and brought back from his honeymoon by my ancient companero, known here latterly as Camp Freddy. 'Get me some reggae!' I'd said, and when he asked in his hotel where there might be a local record shop, the barman offered to do him a cassette himself. How cool is that? I must upload it in all its genre-spanning lovers to dancehall to ragga with Jamaica FM jingles magnificence sometime.

Truth is, I crazily hadn't labelled this fave as Cool Ruler Gregory Isaacs until Webbie posted it in his excellent Peel Podcast earlier this week.

Things come around, innit.

I'm off to the shop for some lime for the gin.

Gregory Isaacs - 'Mind You Dis (Rude Boy)' (1988)

Stranger Song

2011-07-13T14:36:00.000+01:00

Friday Reggae # 28

2011-07-08T16:37:00.005+01:00

Bit special this one.

Nuff said.

Sugar Minott - 'Jah Jah Children' (1977)

From Darkest Peru

2011-07-07T10:31:00.004+01:00

So. I've been reading A Bear Called Paddington (1958), the first book in the famous children's series by Michael Bond.

I suppose it's an unlikely choice of reading matter for someone who turns 46 in three weeks time but then, to be fair, I have told you I'm a Soft Southern Jessie. I started June with a hardback copy of Tony Blair's A Journey from the library, but after the early chapters on the first few months of power, the Irish peace process and Princess Diana's death, my interest has started to wane a tad. I'm at the stage of it where Iraq is looming like a great toxic cloud and I'm not sure I've got the stomach for it, or the authorial self-justification it'll bring. That the bloody thing weighs a ton and is not easy to lug about on the train, tube and bus hasn't helped either.

The Paddington temptation came my way when the youngest daughter dumped it by the front door it in a pile of books to be donated to the school summer fair. I fished it out, a little piqued, since it was a favourite from when I was her age I'd spun heavily with her hoping she'd love, and harrumphing 'You can't throw that out!', commandeered it.

I thought I'd just read the first page over a cup of tea on Saturday, but of course I got (re)hooked. I'm a pretty miserable bugger at the moment, for a number of reasons to dull to go into here, and to move about again in that cosy late 50s world of hot baths, housekeepers and marmalade sandwiches, grumpy London Underground inspectors and stuffy department store managers (rightful recipients of the Paddington Hard Stare) and convivial cocoas with Mr Gruber in his Portobello Road antique shop was.....therapy. I slept better than I have for months.

Clearly I am a troubled individual retreating into the comforting meta-topography of a retrospectively idealised childhood when I should be squaring up in a manly fashion to the raw challenges of Now.

Or maybe I'm just tired.

Herbert Chappell - 'Paddington Bear (TV Theme)' (1975)

Danday

2011-07-04T12:17:00.004+01:00

Who is the gaucho amigo?
Why is he standing
In your spangled leather poncho
And your elevator shoes?
Bodacious cowboys
Such as your friend
Will never be welcome here
High in the Custerdome

God I love this song.

Steely Dan - 'Gaucho' (1980)

PS: Lots of fun for all the family at the Steely Dan Dictionary.

Attached

2011-07-01T20:28:00.013+01:00

Sorry, bit late tonight: a boozy lunch with ancient friends overspilled into gins in a (shockingly) expensive W1 bar.

But in the end I remembered my responsibilities (and overdraft) and came right on back to you.

Bon weekend x

Orbital - 'Attached' (1994)

A Hold On Me

2011-06-29T09:39:00.008+01:00

After the big storms, the clear air of a perfect June morning somewhere in England.

Dot sounded lovely last night at sundown, so I asked her to pop back today.

Dot Allison - 'Mo' Pop' (1999)

Friday Reggae # 27

2011-06-24T17:00:00.010+01:00

I cannot get enough of this lovely version of a lovely song by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, and neither can the eldest daughter who's been walking to school with it on her iPo these past weeks. She is an eleven and three quarter year old with taste, innit.

Sharon Forrester - 'Silly Wasn't I?' (1973)

Tell you what, I'll throw in the original too.

Heavens, look at the time! It's gin o'clock!

Juvenile Impulses Sway

2011-06-22T10:50:00.007+01:00

The Queen Is Dead was released 25 years ago last week. Such statements are sure to make a person feel old.

For me, back then, our Finals were just done and an early summer not unlike this one was underway. I was looking for a job but couldn't find a job and I even think I asked in Walthamstow McDonalds at one point.

I know.

In the end I couldn't hold on in London, and fell back to Devon. It was a strange, sad time in limbo.

This isn't even from that album. And not from that year, but the one before.

Its insouciance suits my mood today, and the weather.

For me it's forever Sue Gilchrist ironing in the front room in Brixton, at the time of the later riots, and singing along.

The Smiths - 'Stretch Out And Wait' (1985)

(I've posted it before of course. Old people repeat themselves, you'll find)

Get The Funky Drummer In Here

2011-06-17T17:00:00.001+01:00

Clyde Stubblefield

At 5'35 the most sampled break in musical history.

Don't turn it loose cos it's a Mother.

Gin!

James Brown - 'Funky Drummer' (1969)

Bon

2011-06-16T11:47:00.006+01:00

For once a 'promotional film' as beautiful/strange as the record it is made for.

She'll catch her death in that nightie.

Drop

2011-06-15T21:59:00.012+01:00

I think it was the first time I realized that I can change the world, or at least change the way that my sister hit the clock on every tick just to see what happened. The time has really flown by I guess and it's hard to think of the way it might've been, or remember very specifically the words and all the rest of it. I was down, more than I'll ever be probably. That has more to do with it all together, like the orange trees in the backyard and it's Easter and it just won't end. Fucking Phil, he's off on his board somewhere and I'm just sitting here getting more and more lost with everything. And that was the thing about it, it's not as if a cousin had promised something and taken it away; it was like nobody could share my so-called dreams, which really meant none of it was happening. And that reach around midnight left with just about that - nothing. There's not anything particular about it either and I think that the whole thing gets vaguer every second, but I am too, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's even funny when you stop to realize, I'm just nineteen, and how serious can anything be anyway? Not very.

Blog tennis? Drew.

Drop Nineteens - 'Kick The Tragedy' (1992)

Blue Juice

2011-06-13T16:53:00.001+01:00

Some music for the new colour scheme.

Jimmy McGriff - 'Blue Juice' (1968)

Italian Blog

2011-06-10T16:22:00.003+01:00

"Just remember this - in this country they drive on the wrong side of the road".

Salute!

Matt Monro - 'On Days Like These' (1969)

Blog

2011-06-06T10:00:00.001+01:00

Then came the rain, falling steady and soft - and after so long away that the kittens are staring at it baffled, or bursting in through the catflap, grumpy and damp.

The girls are back at school, the house is quiet - it's just me, this keyboard, Astrud....and the rain, falling steady and soft.

*makes tea*

Astrud Gilberto - 'The Gentle Rain' (1965)

Friday Reggae # 26

2011-06-03T16:55:00.005+01:00

Hot, hot, hot here tonight - will be cracking open the rosados for sure.

And Roberta Flack? We'll accept your resignation now.

Marcia Griffiths - 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' (1974)

June Groove

2011-06-02T10:11:00.002+01:00

Is the sun back then? I hope the sun's back. Because then I can post this summery thang and we can all groove along nicely, I expect.

And it's Thursday already and where's half term holiday going, eh?

Donald Byrd - 'Think Twice' (1974)

Gil Scott-Heron (1st April 1949 - 27th May 2011)

2011-05-28T11:04:00.008+01:00

I have made a cup of tea and put on the computer and heard the news.

He was just 62 and, what makes it even sadder, had reached a new creative peak after spending most of the new century in and out of jail.

He was a towering figure in African-American music and it's impossible to overestimate his influence.

I'm New Here is a terrific record, a fine epitaph.

Peace Go With You Brother.

Gil Scott-Heron - 'On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt.1)' (2010)
Gil Scott-Heron - 'On Coming From A Broken Home (Pt.2)' (2010)

Davy H Is A-Wey

2011-05-27T06:50:00.002+01:00

I'm taking a day off today to walk the Wey Navigations in Deepest Surrey. I've strolled little stretches of this before, but this time my mate Robbie and I are looking to do the whole twenty miles in one go, from Godalming to where the river joins the Thames at Weybridge.

I mention this because it's planned that we celebrate with a few pints at the Finish, quite rightly; and this will mean I'm not back at my Blog Station tonight till a tad later than usual.

I'll endeavour to Tweet any significant developments through the day (that box on the right'll have what we should laughingly refer to as 'all the latest').

And I hope my very old and not at all state of the art walking boots hold out (as well as my knees, which could be described similarly).

Laters!

Fats Domino - 'I'm Walkin' ' (1957)

Some Thoughts On Dylan At 70

2011-05-24T09:23:00.007+01:00

Given that this blog got its very name from a Bob Dylan lyric there hasn't been much of him here over the years. This is partly because I figure that like a strong single malt whisky (probably an Islay one) you either love him, in which case you will have a cupboard full of his stuff already - and maybe even a few bootleg distillations besides - or you can't abide him, in which case all the proselytising in the world isn't going to change your mind; it's also partly because Dylan is signed to Sony (once Columbia) and they seem to stamp on any 'unauthorised' use of his music (even things on YouTube) pretty sharply, in what I would argue is a thoroughly unenlighted Old Testament sort of a way, but hey, that's up to them.

The first Bob LP I bought was the old Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, when I was 17 (and he was 42); it was the 'protest' stuff and obvious hits that drew me in. Then I heard Highway 61 Revisited and 'Desolation Row', a whole strange, brilliant Beats world of surrealism opening up, Bringing It All Back Home and a new album Shot Of Love (6th Form), Blood On The Tracks and an even better new one Infidels (University), The Freewheelin', At Budokan, Desire, Street Legal and then the vast back catalogue of unreleased stuff courtesy my small Welsh friend Stevie, who really is a Dylan obsessive.

Now, with me in my mid-late 40s and His Bobness at 70, his 21st century material sounds as good to me, better even, than anything he's done. A grizzled old ex-gunfighter with a burdensome past, 'living on rice and beans', Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven (Western analogies always work with Bob, and for him) looking wrly out (and in) on human fallibility, his recent songs are shot through with heart and warmth and gallows humour and as packed as ever with quotable lines from the best screenplay that never existed, as well as a few that did.

He's the best writer rock's ever produced; he's just 'a song and dance man'.

Bless him.

Happy Birthday Mr Zimmerman.

[No music, for the reasons given. I'm happy to make recommendations if you think you can handle yer liquor x]

Friday Reggae # 25

2011-05-20T16:54:00.002+01:00

To be honest, the Romanian Orphans Charity Shop record bin is not my usual place to uncover rare reggae 45s; it really has rather more to offer the serious Ray Conniff collector.

Imagine my surprise and delight, then, at finding this there today - for 50p.

Produced by the legendary Joe Gibbs, with a riddim not unlike the one on Willie Williams' 'Armagideon Time'.

The 'B' side is a 'Version' of the 'A' - and, hey, we like it that way.

I've had some sort of tummy bug all day but given that the world is ending tomorrow, I might still rally for a drink if someone's going to the bar.

Dennis Brown - 'Stop Your Fussing & Fighting' (1977)
Dennis Brown - 'Together Brothers' (1977)

In Order To Dance

2011-05-19T21:33:00.018+01:00

I could have sworn blind I posted this a few years back but, honestly, it appears not.

What an oversight, since it is bloody marvellous (as I was reminded when it popped up on Shuffle tonight).

They're from Paris you know.

Mais oui.

Tom & Joyce - 'Para Bailar' (2002)

Can't Hide Love

2011-05-17T13:30:00.004+01:00

This weather's confusing me - I'm all black jeans and boots one minute and shorts and sandals the next. Even the reggae's not the same when the temperature drops. I continue to be, nonetheless, in a funky-vibey-jazzy-dubby mood; no not those guitars, they're too noisy and crude.

I've discovered Putney Library, and it's coming up with the goods.

Carmen McRae - 'Can't Hide Love' (1974)

Friday Reggae # 24

2011-05-13T17:54:00.011+01:00

Flippin' 'eck this is a sexy record.

I need a man
You need a woman
Come on get yourself some
Don't refrain

Sorry I'm late. Blogger #fail !

Barbara Jones - 'Come And Get Some' (1975)

Liberdade

2011-05-10T21:38:00.009+01:00

From this compilation, which I bought half my lifetime ago.

A piece of music I've liked so much for so long I can't believe I haven't posted it before.

Existiu
Um el dorado negro no Brasil

Gilberto Gil - 'Quilombo' (1984)

[Based on a true story]

Friday Reggae # 23

2011-05-06T16:48:00.027+01:00

It's much compiled and very pop-famous, so I'm sure you've already got it, but I'm proudly computerising the original 45 here, snapped up just this afternoon from my currently high-yielding local charity shop for 50p.

Mainstream UK radio largely refused to play reggae records in the early 70s, so desperate-for-airplay labels (in)famously put strings on them. These get pretty close to being a bit much for me on the 'B' side, but on the 'A' the strength of the arrangement and loveliness of Mr Holt's vocal more than neutralise their effect, in my humble.

I've started drinking early tonight because of the stress of having two young male pussycats in the house who lost their cojones today.

Hold on in there boys.

John Holt - 'Help Me Make It Through The Night' (1974)
John Holt - 'Tell Me Why' (1974)