This blog is no longer 'a going concern'. 

Sorry about that.

On the plus side, there is a six year archive of blether here, so feel free to pad about in it, if you're so inclined.

These days I can mostly be found on that Twitter Bluesky

I did that Mixcloud thingy up there for Cooking Up A Quiet Storm 

- there is a lot of groovy music over there from lots of nice people: you should pop in and say hello x

I'm taking a break from blogging.

I appear to have lost my Ghost mojo.

I'll see you I hope on Twitter and Soundcloud and This Is My Jam - and in that chair in the corner of the Snug.

Happy New Year companeros x

Have Yourselves A Merry Little Christmas

Merry Christmas lovelies - and thanks for your company again this year.

You made this a very happy place x

Merry Christmas Baby

I'd forgotten all about iTunes Protected AAC Files (R.I.P.) until I realised ye olde download I have of this is one.

So here's a Soundcloud thingy instead - of 'Take 1' as you can see, a slightly different version to the one we all know and love (which is 'Take' what, I wonder?).



I'd offer you an egg nog if I knew what one was.

Gee Whiz

Banish those bad Christmas music blues - let Carla show you how.

Carla Thomas - 'Gee Whiz, It's Christmas' (1962)

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18th July 1918 - 5th December 2013)

 

'For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others'

Miles Davis - 'Amandla' (1989)
Letta Mbulu - 'Amakhamandela (Not Yet Uhuru)' (1991)
Ladysmith Black Mambazo - 'Long Walk To Freedom (Halala South Africa)' (2006)

Through His Eyes, Awkwardly

I've got this on Tamla Motown's 20 Mod Classics and I'd upload it for you were it not for that pesky box.net bandwidth issue.  Also, today I picked up my new varifocal lenses and I'm feeling woozy with them - this before I've touched a drop, too.

Onward, awkwardly onward, to the corner shop for Guinness.

Big Deal

You'll have heard this if you're a regular BBC6Music listener, they're playing it a lot.

I really like its slow dragging shoegaze-whoozy MBV fuzz and XX-style m/f vocals.

The song title's not for your Nan, I'll concede, but the choon'll sure heat up your frosty Friday.



Those big Damon radio files I posted and other fab grooves you've been giving some lurve to mean I bust my box.net download limit this month.

What should I do till it tops up again in December? Post some favourite recipes? Bugger off for a bit?
 
Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Yeah Baby

Let's get the funkin' weekend in heah.

Charles Earland - 'Coming To You Live' (1980)

Sir John Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013)

John Tavener - 'The Protecting Veil: I. The Protecting Veil' (1992)

[London Symphony Orchestra (conductor: Gennady Rozhdestvensky); Steven Isserlis (cello)]

Gloria's Choice

I said to him, 'You need some decent bloody music round here and a bit less of all this Damian Albran crap and the reggy' (not that I mind a bit of reggy now and then if it has a good beat but I will NOT tolerate the funny cigarettes, not after the business with our Darren who's even now never off his arse and that bloody gameboy, the useless sod) and what does Mr High And Mighty say but "Alright then Glo, YOU choose the music for Friday" like he's doing me a big bloody favour all of a sudden, so here I go. And you can spare us your sarky backchat Van Dyke, I knew your mother when she'd nobbut two bob to rub together for a pair of bloody knickers.

This is for my Norman, God rest his soul.

Les Paul & Mary Ford - 'Goodnight Irene' (1965) 

Capital Radio Two

I don't listen to Radio 2 so I missed this at the time, but it made it into that wonderful repository-of-all-things-groovy that is Soundcloud recently and I liked it so much I thought I'd share it here.

In a two hour show 'standing on his head for' Dermot O'Leary, Damon and co-host Paul Simonon (yes, that one) talk Blur, The Clash, English music hall and North Korea, interview Ken Dodd and Idris Elba and play Johnny Cash singing in German and the theme from 'Are You Being Served?'. Simonon also reveals that Joe Strummer was troubled by the startling resemblance of the 'Spanish Guns' melody to another 70s TV theme...

If you've some ironing, washing up, train travel or DIY to do this week, this'll oil your wheels nicely.

Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 1 (2013)
Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 2 (2013)
Damon Albarn on BBC Radio 2 - Part 3 (2013)

[Tracklistings in the Lyrics tab when played in iTunes. First broadcast Saturday 5th October 2013]

Magic And Loss

We'd been remembering John, and I was remembering Dad, who died in May and would have been 90 yesterday; all these years and I never realised he shared a birthday with Roy Lichtenstein (to the day), Sylvia Plath and Dylan Thomas. Many thoughts of not going gentle into that good night, therefore. And then I wake from a post-lunch snooze and turn on the internets and hear about Lou.

Well, that was one I didn't expect. It always seemed like Lou would outlive us all.

And we've probably all got an opinion on him, and he hated to be pinned down. He was a curmudgeonly misanthrope, he was a romantic; he was a dark literato, he was a waspish doo-wop fan; he was an ex pop hack, he was an avant gardeist; he was New York City tough, he was a fucked up nice Jewish boy from the suburbs; he was a conceptualist, he was a three chord guitar player with his bullshit detector tuned.

He was REAL (maaan); he invented himself (in true Warhol style).

You pass through arrogance, you pass through hurt
You pass through an ever present past
And it's best not to wait for luck to save you
Pass through the fire to the light

He was Lou.

There's a bit of magic in everything
And then some loss to even things out

Lou Reed - 'Magic And Loss - The Summation' (1992)

Friday Reggae # 40 (Keeping It Peel)

Thanks for everything John, but especially the reggae x

Steel Pulse - 'Drug Squad' (Peel session) (1980)

Steel Pulse - 'Sunshine And Shining' (Peel session) (1980)

Steel Pulse - 'Nyabinghi' (Peel session) (1980)

[respect to the original taper]

Friday Reggae # 39

Why aren't there groups with ace names like Tommy McCook & The Supersonics any more? Eh?

The Jamaicans - 'Ba Ba Boom' (1967)

Yeah Baby

Make mine a large one, fnarr.

This is a groove.


Lou Donaldson - 'Who's Making Love?' (1969)

Notes & Tones

Miles Davis - 'Moon Dreams' (1950)

a davyh vinyl rip, with crackles.

This blog is now seven years old.

'Thanks for dropping by, it'd be stupidly lonely here without you' x

Hats Off

As if seeing Young Marble Giants after a mere 33 years on Sunday were not enough, I am off to catch Roy Harper at the Royal Festival Hall later this month courtesy my good friend Dr.Al, who was nifty in picking up tickets as soon as they went on sale. All the reviews I have read of his new album (and all the things I have heard from it) have been very, very good indeed, so I'm looking forward to it mucho.

Incidentally, so taken was I by the Union Chapel on Sunday (my first visit...I tried to see Goldfrapp there a few years back but it was several times over sold-out) that I looked up a bit about its history. According to Wikipedia, past church organists there have included John Henry Gauntlett, Ebenezer Prout, Fountain Meen and John Hooker.

That is the finest list of fantastic names I have seen in a good while.

Here's some (new) Roy.

Roy Harper - 'Time Is Temporary' (2013)

Yeah Baby

I've heard this a few times in the past week because of the Sound Of Cinema malarkey on the BBC.

And so have been reminded of its greatness.

'Look at me, what do ya see? You see a bad Mother'

James Brown - 'The Boss' (1973)

[There's a 'blaxploitation' soundtrack special on the Huey Show this Sunday].

A Foggy Day

We woke in a real pea-souper today, so this was the first thing that came to mind.

In the time it's taken me to get the software working and the vinyl computerised, the sun's come out, but that's OK because it does musically too, a minute in, thanks to Jimmy Rowles (piano) and Barney Kessel (guitar).

Incidentally, if you fancy hearing a version of this classic George & Ira Gershwin song 'narrated' by Dirk Bogarde (and why wouldn't you?) you can do so on Andy Weatherall's 'Selector After Dark' mix for the British Council (thanks Swiss Adam), which contains many other splendid things besides.

Billie Holiday - 'A Foggy Day' (1957)

a davyh vinyl rip