Sunday At The Village Vanguard (1961)

Bliss

Bill Evans Trio - 'Porgy (I Loves You Porgy)' (1961)

Yeah Baby

I like Twitter.

And I wish some of you who aren't on it, were - we'd have such fun. I look there before I look here most days now - says something, right?

After a few vins blancs on Saturday I blethered on a bit there about playing Mrs H's LP of Intuition by early 80s Brit pop-funkers Linx - had a chat about it with some peops, in fact.

I wrote that Side 1 struck me all these years on as almost synthy proggy - oh my; Side 2, more soully pop like you'd expect if you knew the singles, and bought the album because.

I dropped the stylus on it again last night, and enjoyment once more ensued.

Thought I'd post this.

For Rupert and James.

Linx - 'You're Lying' (1980)

[With thanks to Anthony @735songs]

Friday Reggae # 33

Nickel In The Machine Rob tweeted this week that he was working on a Marley comp for his 14 year old nephew - I hope this is on it.

Late early Wailers: old time vocal group harmonies and Lee Perry producing, irie.

Shall I go t'bar?

Bob Marley & The Wailers - 'Put It On' (1971)

Love Her So

I first heard an Arthur Alexander record thanks to John Peel - it was the original of  'Anna (Go To Him)' which The Beatles covered on Please Please Me. 

Yesterday I was playing Peel's (birthday) Party 40 shows whilst roasting potatoes, and this one just leapt out at me - what a song. Recorded in 1961 and a big US soul/R&B hit, it pretty much kickstarted things at the legendary FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

There's a re-recording on the LP of the same name which is all slowed-up and icky strings, but this is the cracking single version.

Arthur Alexander - 'You Better Move On' (1961)

Friday Reggae # 32

A week off...

Queuing crazy early on a blustery Bank Holiday Monday to get in to the last day of Hockney at the RA.

Sating the curiosity of Mrs H and the girlies re. auctions in West London - a house clearance; diamonds and tut, a little bird singing on a gold music box.

A pub lunch by the squally river.

IKEA (!)

Finding the house in West Ealing where Mrs H was born.

Charity shop noodling (no purchase).

Driving about and listening to Robert Elms - thinking today, as listeners nominated favourite Gregory Isaacs tunes, why is there no reggae on mainstream radio, still?

Posting some from halcyon days - Top Ten singles and the cover of the NME.

Dennis Brown - 'Money In My Pocket' (1979)

Get The Funk 'n' Easter Weekend In Here

Thursday is the new Friday!

Enjoy the "break" - geddit??

Oh, please yourselves.

Mine's a large one, if you're going.

Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - 'Superman Lover' (1976)

Blog

I hate to play the clichéd Brit and blether on about the weather but really - our climate is bonkers. Last week it was 23C in Aberdeen and today most of the North is being scythed by sleet and snow - spare a thought for a brave fellow blogger who even now is holed up in a caravan somewhere on an inclement coast and down to his last beefy Bovril, probably.  Eee.

Meanwhile, I have been distressingly busy with work - in the run up to Easter! It's an outrage!

It'll be rosados all the way come tomorrow night though, and blow winds, I dinnae care.

Jim Noir - 'Turbulent Weather' (2005)

The Smiling Hour

Went westlondoning again today - sporting shorts, shades on, dubby stuff on the iPo; lovely.

It felt like July.

It still does.

Alors will be quaffing discounted rosé and tucking into supermarket curry tonight.

Chin chin.

Weekend - 'Weekend Stroll' (1982)

[a davyh vinyl rip].

[westlondoning is an allyism (c) 2012 all rights reserved, terms & conditions apply]

Blog

No I will not sleepwalk into a pattern of only posting on Fridays.

Although this is hard when I have not much to say.

Still, turned out nice again hasn't it?

Have you ever been to electric ladyland?

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - 'Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)' (1968)

Yeah Baby (BST)

So, British Summer Time eh? Always the way that winter seems darkly unending and then when spring comes it rolls out in a rush and everything goes suddenly bonkers, the cherry blossom, the buds, the honeysuckle, the hedge, and it's headlong to Easter and here we go. They're forecasting 20 degrees for London today.

Might have a rummage; feel like a rummage. Take a day; pop up the market and stock up with veggies for the weekend; all that.

Here's a classic groove/choon/break! I've almost posted on many a Friday, finally posted now.

Keni Burke - 'Risin' To The Top' (1982)

The Smiling Hour

Ladies and gentlemen, the bar is now open.

John Lee Hooker - 'One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer' (1966)

Now The Light Nights Are Here

It's been a Weller week. He's all over the meeja like a rash. He must have a very good PR company, is all.

As I was saying over at Simon's, all this attention, especially the very fine piece on him by Pete Paphides in Mojo, has encouraged me to dig into the recent solo stuff I'd ignored - 22 Dreams and Wake Up The Nation, specifically (thanks library). There are some very good things, as well as some silliness, on both....but I have become obsessed with this, playing it over and over...that Indian vibe (is it a sitar, or a guitar that sounds like a sitar?) and the co-vocal from the shockingly young then-future mother of his (latest) kinder which gives the whole thing an air of this, too.

I've just played it twice on the iPo walking to Sainsbury's and back (London Pride, two for £3.50, and some ginger for a daal).

Come out and play, come out and play....

Paul Weller - 'Light Nights' (2008)

The Smiling Hour

Was that a whiff of spring in the air today, or just my wishful thinking?

There really are tiny buds forming on the magnolia tree along the road.

Well here's something smooth and lovely from a record I've plundered before (it brought us The Smiling Hour, in fact).

Um pouco de Brasil on your March Friday evening.

A drink you say? Oh how kind.

Sarah Vaughan - 'Copacabana' (1979)

"Have You Bought A Porsche Yet?"

'Ere! You kids! Geddahtovit!'

I was amused by this list of 'tell-tale signs of middle age' in Sunday's paper.

Having checked myself against the criteria I can exclusively reveal my responses, viz....

You think it's about time you bought a nasal hair trimmer.
Sweetheart, I've had one for years
You can't sit down or stand up without making an "effort" noise.
Of course not
You write a letter to your council about rubbish collection.
I've written two!
All your friends start buying dogs.
(Thankfully not living in Yorkshire this doesn't apply)
You become a bystander to the latest trends in denim.
I have always been a bystander to the latest trends in denim
You notice your legs are going bald (men).
Wha?
You have a colourist (women).
Wha?
You listen to Radio 1 and don't understand any of it.
I haven't listened to Radio 1 since 1989!
You rely on the kids for IT advice.
Not really, but the eldest is good at PowerPoint
You start flossing.
Naaaah
You wonder if there are cruise holidays not full of senior citizens.
That's a point....
Tanktops, gilets, bodywarmers – sleeveless items of clothing begin to appeal.
No, although I have considered buying a waistcoat. Mind, I was wearing waistcoats at 25.
You know when the Chelsea Flower Show is.
Of course - Mrs H is very keen
You worry about your knees
Constantly.
You don't wear heels in daylight.
Never
The first thing you read in the obituaries column is age of death.
Yep
You start getting your wine delivered.
I would, but I'm too poor
You no longer scan the room for beautiful people at a party. You're looking for a seat.
True
You start each day thinking you should live it like your last. But you don't.
Yep
Your ears get bigger.
Weird that
You know you haven't got a novel in you.
Check
All your favourite TV is on Sunday night.
Is Call The Midwife back soon?

How about you?

What other 'sure-signs' are they missing?

I offer no prize for the best one, but maybe you can reward yourself with a nice hot bath and an early night.

Paul Weller - 'That Dangerous Age' (2012) [sounds like Blur]

Too Busy Singing To Put Anybody Down

I couldn't let the passing of Manchester's Davy Jones - jockey, Monkee and Ena Sharples' grandson - go unnoted here. All of us 60s and 70s kids grew up chortling at The Monkees TV series - they were part of the fabric of our childhoods.

And Davy was Mrs H's favourite (how fitting).

I'm really glad that whole Evil Fake Group thing has been consigned to the dustbin of lazy music crit history and we can just enjoy The Pop.

With Goffin, King, Diamond, Boyce and Hart penning it, what Pop it was.

We'll miss you Mr Jones.

The Monkees - 'Hard To Believe' (1967)

[a davyh vinyl rip - in Mono]

Keep On Marchin'

Posthumous albums, rum affairs: the coughed-up aural fur balls of record company fat cats, mostly.

Since I picked it up gratis a while back I've thought there were two, maybe three, half-decent songs on Dream Of A Lifetime, and one very good one ('Its Madness') but this has got a hold of me in the last few days, multiple 'movements', Lord's Prayer lyrics and all.

Oh, Marvin. 

Marvin Gaye - 'Life's Opera' (written 1972, recorded 1976, released 1985)

[a davyh vinyl rip]

Living Too Late

Sorry to be so tardy.

The trains were terrible, the one way system was a nightmare, the dog ate my homework.

The Fall - 'A Lot Of Wind' (1991)

[a davyh vinyl rip]

Oceans Apart

You start out thinking this is all arch schmaltziness, an Andrews Sisters song from the 30s covered in the year the counter-culture turned toxic, but then you listen to the longing in that voice, remember the unrequited love 'Mama' Cass Elliot, aka Ellen Naomi Cohen, had for 'Papa' Denny Doherty, and it really don't seem so camp at all, no sir.

Mama Cass - 'I Can Dream, Can't I?' (1969)

Yeah Baby

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

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

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

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

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

Then the first baby came and it was her room - I painted the walls (badly) and we put up pussycat wallpaper above the old picture rail, and the cot, and then her sister came and it was The Girls Room (a most happy room) until they and their stuff over-spilled it and I got evicted, quite rightly, from the loft and moved in here instead and so it has been - the pink walls still there, grubby now, and the cats still dancing round the frieze above the old picture rail.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

*tries positive drinking*

Reasons To Be Cheerful - # 5

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)