Signal to noise...

Playlist
Various – 185 Classic Albums on Shuffleplay

Cheered up this morning – after all, life could absolutely definitely be a lot worse than wasting your Saturday doing nothing of any seeming import...

Absolutely freezing but (subjectively) "Good Music" (rather fittingly, one of the best tracks of the day came from Peter Gabriel's last album, "Up") on the jukebox buoyed me as did a pep talk from the Exec Producer...

Still spent more time today sorting (or trying to sort) the new jukebox – seems it’s got new "firmware" on it (says the seller) which means it only operates with Windows Explorer and doesn’t react to the Creative software – a bit of a pain – I think I now need to overwrite the software in the machine – which will wipe its memory of thousands of songs...

Just as well I have a back up on the hard drive...

Out to my mum’s in the early afternoon (after updating the memory card for her digital picture frame) and we took the opportunity to pop to Ikea for a new supply of their excellent coffee (a kilo for about £4 I think)...

Also bought some strange Swedish chocolate cake/biscuit things, three of which were enjoyed at me mam’s hoose...

She was on good form which is pretty good considering she’s off into hospital in a week or so to have her gall bladder removed...

Apparently we used to need our gall bladders but we don’t now...

Family commitments were rounded off with a visit to Anne’s mum’s where Ollie and kitty were in good spirits, Maureen advised she likes the King Crimson CD I compiled for her (“The Acceptable Face of King Crimson”) and Bobby was very much looking forward to listening to his new 2CD set, “An Introduction to the World of Progressive Rock”...

Back home and back to the PC for more buggering about trying to sort stuff – to no avail though and I caved in at 10pm for “Match of the Day 2”...

Later, wrote up the blog and checked out details for Simple Minds in Glasgow on Thursday, for which your correspondent is on the guest list (accompanied by Mrs Your Correspondent) - we shall do our best not to accrue any more parking tickets...

And so, on the last day of November and the release date of the final volume of my thirty year 10CD anthology, my last recommendation is “The Angel’s Kiss” from last year’s CBQ album, “Ersatzreal”, the second or third last song I wrote before moving onto the current project for 2009...

ANTHOLOGY 2007
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – THE ANGEL’S KISS


Highlight of the Day : Getting up again...

Down, down, deeper and down...

Playlist
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Discography
Creek – 2009 Backing Tracks
Various – Jazz Jukebox
Various – The Real Birth of Fusion
Various – The Real Birth of Fusion Vol 2
Rheostatics - 2067
Yes – Going For the One

Spiralled downward today into a deep depression re wasting my time...

I was up, as usual on a Saturday, extremely early but managed to get nothing done “early doors” as I spent so much time trying to sort out the jazz jukebox – well not so much sort it out as get it to be recognised by the Creative Music Organiser, which I use to move tracks about etc etc...

I had thought I might go uptown, maybe to the music library, but I didn’t...

Anne went off to Tynecastle to watch the glory that was a 2-1 victory over the Huns of Castle Greyskull, erm, I mean Glasgow Rangers - while I went to the attic to continue on “Untitled #9” taking it a little further with the addition of more colour...



...don’t really know where it’s going though...

So, I made a start on “Untitled #10”...



...which bears a passing resemblance to “Untitled #1” (aka “Breathless Burning”) which is in a wine merchant’s personal collection and so to which I no longer have access...

Updated my picture sorter outer, Picasa, which now lets you make wee movies from stills – again wasted some considerable time on a fairly useless project on this...

Responses received from Cobley and Sutherland re the proposed reactivation of Creek – just Brodski to radio in now...

In the evening, I moped around – enjoyed “Merlin” and “Match of the Day” but felt rather guilty about the seeming waste of a perfectly good Saturday...

Today’s two Anthology tracks take us to 2006...

ANTHOLOGY 2005
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – THE CROCODILE SONG


Another of my more “popular” songs, co-written with my nephew, and featured on the album “Deeperdown”...

ANTHOLOGY 2006
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – STARTING TO WORRY


Like “The Crocodile Song”, “Starting to Worry”, which initially surfaced in acoustic format on “The Acoustic Ersatzreal” (the final version appearing a year later on “Ersatzreal”), features lyrics which are darker than they might appear on first listen – a typical trick from your correspondent throughout his so-called “career”...

Highlight of the Day : Hearts 2 Rangers 1

Orchestrations...

Playlist
Joe Henderson – Page One
Joe Henderson – Inner Urge
Joe Henderson – In’n’Out
Joe Henderson – Our Thing
Joe Henderson – Mode For Joe
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Discography

A good night tonight as Anne and I headed down into Leith to meet up with brother-in-law Keith and his wife Maureen for, initially, drinks at a Swedish bar called Sofi’s...



Then over to the Whisky Society...



...where Keith has a membership, for more drinks and some excellent food – your correspondent partaking of the special of the day, beer battered fish and chips with a tasty side portion of mushy peas...

After the meal we went round the corner to Roseleaf...



...another excellent wee Leith bar where we enjoyed more drinks and chat, by this time fuelled somewhat by our alcohol intake...

I was pleased to hear that Keith likes much of the King Crimson music I introduced him to and surprised also that his current listening features the Mahavishnu Orchestra...

I had not previously thought of him as being a “fusion man”...

I recall, well after midnight, extolling the virtues of, amongst others, “Sugar Baby Love” by the Rubettes and “Let Me In” by the Osmonds...

A taxi beckoned as you might imagine and we were home to bed around 1:15 am, me with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the cans...

Very enjoyable indeed...

Rounding off with two more tracks from the anthology...

From 2003 comes “I Re-Arranged the House” from “Anotherhappyday”, one of my most popular songs and, in fact the one I have performed most over the last five years...


ANTHOLOGY 2003
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - I RE-ARRANGED THE HOUSE


...and from 2004 comes a very ambient piece called “After” from that year’s “04 04 04”...


ANTHOLOGY 2004
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - AFTER


Highlight of the Day : Out and about...

Unintended attendance...

Playlist
King Crimson - Islands
King Crimson – Larks’ Tongues in Aspic
King Crimson – Starless and Bible Black
King Crimson - Red

I’d been invited a couple of weeks ago to go along an opening of a new office tonight but hadn’t intended attending...

A call on the mobile at 5:15 changed that as I felt I couldn’t then renege...

And so some early evening champagne was followed by a bus journey home and a walk up the hill to Crispycat Towers for Thursday night staples of “Lead Balloon”, “Question Time” and “This Week”...

Other than that, my day was soundtracked by the mighty Crim as I once again read through the excellent song by song (or piece by piece) descriptions in Sid Smith’s biography of the band...

So much better than the Sci Fi book I was trying my damndest to maintain interest in a few weeks ago – which has now been consigned to the shelf...

Just a few days left now till the release of the final volume of the anthology and so two more tracks today, both instrumentals...

The first is “On A Clear Day” and, upon listening, older readers may recognise the origin of the title...

The backing track was created by Creek’s Craig Sutherland to which the strings were added by your correspondent a couple of years later...

It’s ended up being one of my all time favourite CBQ tracks...

ANTHOLOGY 2001
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – ON A CLEAR DAY


Another track from the 2002 album “Ampersand”, which was my first for three years and was a collection of pieces worked on between 1998 and 2002 with various different collaborators, is the title track, an excerpt from a much longer unreleased piece recorded with old chum Peri Urban and his Tranceport cohort Alan Martin...

Tasty ambience...

ANTHOLOGY 2002
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - AMPERSAND


Highlight of the Day : The mighty Crim on nutphones and in my eyes

Not faulty, not drunk...

Playlist
Various Composers – Classical Jukebox on Shuffleplay
The Stooges – The Stooges
The Stooges – Fun House
MC5 – Kick Out the Jams
MC5 – Back in the USA
Various – Jazz Jukebox on Shuffleplay

At 7:30 I drove to the Postal Depot to pick up the package containing the new jukebox – once filled, it shall be the “Jazz Jukebox”...

To HMV at lunchtime and a purchase made – a rarity it seems this month – up till now just the new Girls Aloud (a present from Anne), a Monkees Anthology, and the two Fripp & Eno re-masters have entered the collection this month, along with a couple of home made discs...

In the 2 for £10 scenario I bought two 2CD sets, one by The Stooges and one by the MC5...

I once owned the Stooges debut on vinyl and the MC5’s first too, the live album “Kick Out the Jams”, given to me around the summer of 1976 by Count Brodski and tracks from which appeared on my “punk rock” tape which, along with such luminaries as the Pistols, the Damned, the Velvets and The Beatles ("Helter Skelter", what else?), graced the prefects’ room cassette player that autumn...

A tasty tea of Anne’s home made Macaroni, tonight with some bacon strips added...

Spent much of the evening listening to the Stooges and the MC5 while I loaded over 2,700 jazz tracks into the new jukebox...

The headphone socket is not faulty...

A double bill of “Big Bang Theory” did its usual Wednesday night job of entertaining...

Two more Anthology tracks, two of my favourite songs of the last ten years...

ANTHOLOGY 1999
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – A NICE JOB IN A SMALL TOWN


From the album “Doveloveshawk”, the lyric is based on a sentence uttered by Brian Eno in an interview with Paul Morley when discussing Eno's dad’s job as a postman...

ANTHOLOGY 2000
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – TWENTY TWENTY VISION


From the album “Ampersand” in 2002 but recorded two years earlier, possibly the only song I wrote in 2000 – a stream of conciousness lyric, influenced perhaps by a memory I have of, as a young boy, seeing my mum tripping on a paving stone and falling over in the street, her shopping going everywhere...

She wasn’t drunk though...

Highlight of the day : A new jukebox that works...

The big money...

Playlist
Various – Rock & Pop Jukebox on Shuffleplay

A dinner tonight at Oloroso saw me home around 11:15 in time to see the highlights of Celtic exiting Europe...

Sad to see they got a goal though, thus equalling Queen of the South’s two, way back in the summer...

No response as yet from my Creek cohorts re the proposed new album but a card through the door signals the arrival of the fourth jukebox...

One factlet from the dinner as to just how bad things are re the current crisis...

Adjusted for inflation, the US Government has now spent more on this in the last few months than it did on World War II and The Korean War and The Vietnam War and The First Gulf War and The Iraq War and The War in Afghanistan and The War on Terror and Putting Men on the Moon COMBINED...

Hmmm...

Four tracks from the Anthology today take us forward to 1998 and the into the third decade...

ANTHOLOGY 1995
SOMBRE REPTILES – ONE MORE CHANCE PT 2


A wee love song from the final Sombre reptiles album “Starcrossfix”...

ANTHOLOGY 1996
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – EVENT ONE


The environment based title track from the first Cloudland Blue Quartet album...

ANTHOLOGY 1997
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – YOU HAUNT ME PT 2


Another love song with a catchy trumpet motif from the 3CD set “Callingstill”...

ANTHOLOGY 1998
CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET – ON THE TARMAC


Another instrumental piece, this time from the album “Semi-Automatic”...

Highlight of the Day : Dinner

Busy doin' nuthin' kind of...

Playlist
Various – Compilations Jukebox on Shuffleplay
Tangerine Dream - White Eagle
Tangerine Dream – Tangents
Klaus Schulze – 1972-1993 Compilation

Some downtime tonight spent leafing through the book which comes with Tangerine Dream's 5CD set “Tangents” whilst listening to the disc of unreleased stuff…

Then a book on Tangerine Dream in general and, finally, re-reading Sid Smith’s King Crimson biography…

No TV apart from football highlights late on…

Have invited my fellow Creekettes to contribute to a new album…

A follow up from this, released 4 years ago this month…



...tracks from which, you can download for free from here...

We’ll see…

Highlight of the Day : Upstairs, back room, coffee, music, reading (with cat)…

Creeking not groaning...

Playlist
King Crimson – Cadence and Cascade (3CD-R)
Andriessen – De Tijd
Andriessen – De Stijl
David Reilly – Anthology
Carter – Piano Concerto
Carter -5th String Quartet
Lucy Kaplansky – Best of (2CD-R)
Creek – 2009 Project

Woke around 5:30 on this, the third anniversary of the great ankle break of 2005, and continued listening to King Crimson – the compilation I made for brother-in-law Keith – declared by his wife to sound “like rubbish” and so for whom I have compiled a further “acceptable” history of the Crimson sound...

The Music of Louis Andriessen followed, as I started yet another project which will not be finished – going through composers A-Z and adding works to the classical jukebox...

Ah yes the jukeboxes...

Bought a fourth a couple of weeks ago for close to £40 – it was to be the “jazz jukebox”...

It arrived last Saturday and I duly provided glowing feedback on e-bay to the seller...

Of course that was before I’d listened to it...

My shopping trip around Glasgow was ruined by the dodgy headphone socket...

The seller’s quote in subsequent e-mail correspondence was:
“I'm really sorry about that, I totally forgot to put that in the item listing"

Kind of makes the sale a bit pointless when the headphones on an MP3 player won’t work...

So yesterday, she acknowledged receipt of the duly returned player (after she’s offered £10 to get it fixed –cost? At least £40) but said I’d enclosed the wrong case and that she wouldn’t refund my return postage...

Of course she had me over a barrel as she now had the machine AND my money...

This morning, after a compromise, the refund arrived (without my extra postage – and I am to send her the original case)...

Glad that’s over but I’m a few quid down on the deal...

And so to e-bay to search for a “new” jazz jukebox, accompanied by the music of Eliot Carter...

Found one and won it by just 3p from a rival bidder – and ended up paying as much less for it as I’ve had to fork out in postage to the girl-who-forgot-about-the-faulty-headphone-socket – result...

Anne went off shopping and I went into the attic to paint, only to find yesterday’s work not yet quite dry and the painting to have lost much of its vibrancy...

Hmmm...

Did some re-arranging in the back room re CDs etc then, on Anne’s return, we watched some stored up TV, “Lead Balloon”, “Have I Got News For You”, “The IT Crowd” and an Eddie Izzard concert from 1998 – all very entertaining...

To the PC, and I stumbled across some old Creek demos from 2007 (and earlier) and decided to fashion them into a possible album backing track – the demos feature our programming wizard Mr Craig Sutherland on his tod...

Some judicious editing and elongating and general mucking about resulted (either side of Anne’s excellent Shepherd’s Pie) in an 80 minute mix which is, dare I say it, tasty...

Now to e-mail the boys and try and galvanise them into some action...

I’m pretty sure this is a 2009 thing though....

Two more tracks from the anthology today, both of which are instrumentals...

The first, from the 1993 album “Cloudland Blue” by The Heavenly Music Corporation, was recorded with my old chum Peri Urban in the driving seat, but was fully improvised using various samples constructed on the night...

ANTHOLOGY 1993
THE HEAVENLY MUSIC CORPORATION – CHURCHYARD GARDEN BROOK


The second is a long orchestral piece created in 1994 for the follow up ambient release, “Windfall Star”...

“Carcrash” is so named as it evokes in my mind footage of a car flying and twisting through the air but slowed down, almost to a standstill....

ANTHOLOGY 1994
THE HEAVENLY MUSIC CORPORATION – CARCRASH


The Sunday staple of “Match of the Day 2” ended an eventful weekend...

Highlight of the Day : "New" Creek...

Order into chaos...

Playlist
Uriah Heep – Wake the Sleeper
Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn
Uriah Heep – Sonic Origami
Crazy Wisdom – Best of the Reptile Tapes
King Crimson – Larks Tongues Compilation
King Crimson – Cadence and Cascade (3CD-R)

A late rise (for me on a Saturday anyway) at around 8:30, and I compiled a new version of Uriah Heeps’s new album for Dr Prog, this time incorporating recently recorded versions of all the old tunes played on Thursday...

Into town and breakfast for Anne and I at Wolfits in Rose St before going our separate ways to shop...

Bought some more paint for my ongoing project on that front, and some plastic covers for CDs...

Also partook of some blank DVDs, now that I have the software to make copies...

We met up again and, back home by 1 pm, we enjoyed some chicken soup before Anne headed to Tynecastle for Hearts v Falkirk - and I headed to the attic to paint...

“Untitled #9”, which was commenced on 26 October and looked like this...



Firstly became this...



Then moved on to become this...



A work in progress which I am liking...

Updated the blog while watching the scores come in – Queen of the South beaten for a fourth week in a row – this time 2-0 at home to bottom of the table Clyde and “we” slipped to fifth – the wheels have, well and truly, come off...

Meanwhile, Hearts came from behind to win 2-1, conversely, their fourth win in a row, consolidating their third place position...

While I waited on Anne returning, I watched the extended interviews on the second DVD of “The Definitive Story of Yes”...

All too soon it was time for “Strictly Come Dancing” – my signal to organise the tea – small pizzas from the local restaurant, accompanied by a nice bottle of Tempranillo from our fortnight-ago-purchased mixed case of reds...

The rest of the night was spent goggleboxing with “Merlin”, 2 x “Harry Hill’s TV Burp”, “Outnumbered”, “Spooks” and “Match of the Day”, the last being soundtracked by some cracking King Crimson on the headphones...

After a break while I calmed down re the perceived persecution of my Anthology project by the IFPI, I’ll be drawing your attention to a couple of tracks a day between now and the end of the month...

We were up to 1990 and so, today a track each from 1991 and 1992...

From 1991 comes the song “The Gift” from the Sombre Reptiles album “Liverysilver” - rather ironic to have this on a retrospective re the chorus of “don’t look back”. By now, I’d reduced the excesses re my programming and tried to move towards a more organic sound...

ANTHOLOGY 1991
SOMBRE REPTILES – THE GIFT


And from 1992, from the Sombre Reptiles album “Angelspeech” comes “The Biggest Fall”, again featuring just vocals and the Roland D20 keyboard...

A love song, which coincidentally uses the original abandoned drum programme from “Regret”, recorded three years previously.

Like “The Gift”, this is another of my favourites from this period and probably the best song on “Angelspeech”...

It quotes from Pachelbel’s Canon in D in the middle section...

ANTHOLOGY 1992
SOMBRE REPTILES – THE BIGGEST FALL


Highlight of the Day : Painting...

Bad day, good day, bad day...

Playlist
Kraftwerk – Rarities 1974-1991
Sombre Reptiles – Songs of the Sombre Reptiles Vol 1
Love Parade – Half the Civilised World
Various – Singles 2008
Crazy Wisdom – Best of the Reptile Tapes
David Reilly - Anthology Vol 5
David Reilly - Anthology Vol 7
Girls Aloud – Mixed Up

Up early and out for breakfast, driving to Café Citron for a bacon roll and an Americano each...

Back home, I whiled the time away, before meeting up with old music buddies Malcolm, Breave and Count Brodski, by burning an old Sombre Reptiles compilation for Malcolm and Kraftwerk and Love Parade discs for the Count...

Midday came around all too soon and I drove down to the zoo, to the pre-arranged meet with Malcolm and Breave, then over to Brodski’s flat to pick him up...

Old stories and catching up was the order of the day as we drove through to Hamilton, for the funeral of our erstwhile colleague Charlie Dootson...

We lost our way a couple of times but managed to arrive at the crematorium in plenty of time, where we met Phil Green, aka “Spooky”...

Potted history time...

Breave, Malcolm and I formed the group Call Me Clive in 1986, using rhythm machines for a year or so until we recruited a very young Phil to play drums – as I recall he was a big fan of Rush’s Neal Peart...

Thereafter we drafted in an even younger keyboard player, Nick Aldridge, who unfortunately couldn’t make it along today due to family commitments...

The quintet was reasonably successful, our highpoint being our tour with Goodbye Mr Mackenzie in the summer of 1988...

I played my last gig with the band in April 1989 - a month or so later I was replaced by Charlie...

Three years later, I met up with Malcolm again, following the demise of Call Me Clive and we started working together as Crazy Wisdom...

After a year or so as a duo, Malcolm drafted in Charlie on guitar and I brought in Count Brodski on keys and that quartet held together for around four years, writing, recording and playing live...

Eventually though, we just kind of drifted apart – Malcolm went off to Holland to live for a while and Brodski and I didn’t really see Charlie, apart from the odd coincidental meet in his favourite bar, The Golden Rule...

However, after Malcolm came back from the continent, a further version of Crazy Wisdom, with Malcolm, Charlie and a couple of others, including Breave, worked and recorded together for a few more years ...

And so, today, the various line ups of Call Me Clive and Crazy Wisdom were briefly reunited to honour Charlie...

Spooky knew Charlie best, having worked with him in the "real" world for a number of years, as well as having been in several bands with him, and he read a superb eulogy to the big man, the superb musician, the lovely guy whom we’d all known and loved...

The picture on the order of service was taken in Bordeaux and reflected Charlie's unconditional love for his adopted home team Heart of Midlothian – though he always kept an allegiance to his childhood heroes of Hamilton Academical too of course...



The T Shirt is from his other favourite bar, The Mish Nish, on Mull, the island where he spent the closing period of his life and which he loved more than anywhere...

We all swapped stories at a nearby hotel later, and it was great to catch up with Spooky and his ongoing musical career...


l-r Breave, Malcolm, Spooky...

Whenever I meet up with my old musical chums, the thought of reforming bands inevitably flits through my head – but only for a moment – I know for sure that the times have been good but, ultimately, they're gone...

There was talk though of a possible couple of numbers by various bands at Spooky's 40th next year - which would be great...

All too soon it was time to go, and we headed on back to Edinburgh...

After dropping the guys off, I made my way home and compiled a 70 minute Best of Crazy Wisdom CD as a kind of memorial to Mr Dootson...

A very sad day indeed...

Meanwhile, Anne had been over in Fife in the afternoon, ten-pin bowling with chum Chris and I'd arranged to meet them tonight for a cheering up session...

I met them in a bar in Dalgety Bay, from where it was a short drive into Dunfermline and an excellent Indian meal at the Royal Bengal – as recently recommended by Mr Sky Clearbrook over at Avenues and Alleyways...



Back to Chris’ flat thereafter and we watched Girls Aloud taking over TMF for the evening and playing their fave videos, before heading back over the bridge and home...

A good evening but, I suppose understandably, my thoughts were still on Charlie and the events earlier in the day...

Lowlight of the Day : Goodbye to an old friend and co-conspirator...

Instant karma...

Playlist
Uriah Heep – Discography on Shuffleplay

Home as early as possible tonight (which turned out to be 6:25pm – thank you Edinburgh’s Trams)....

Dr Prog was already at Crispycat Towers awaiting my arrival...

Off we speed to Glasgow for the Uriah Heep gig...

It was possibly the loudest concert I’ve ever attended – I could feel myself being moved by every beat of the bass drum...

Very enjoyable nonetheless and, true to their word, they did indeed play the whole of their new album “Wake the Sleeper”, interspersed with various classics from the “golden” era of the band, 1970-1973...

Phil (Dr Prog) announced the performance to have been very entertaining indeed and I concurred. He also commented upon the camaraderie amongst the sold-out audience...

We returned to the Cloudland Blue mobile around 10:30pm and celebrated the heavy metal music of The Heep....



Our joy was short-lived however as, as we pulled away to start the journey home, something was flapping from the nearside windscreen wiper – a £30 parking ticket no less – all but erasing our good fortune in having procured complimentary tickets for the gig...

The journey home was spent ruminating about what sort of traffic warden is out and about at 9:45 in the evening...

Highlight of the Day : The mighty Heep...

Beacon...

Playlist
Various Composers - Classical Jukebox on Shuffleplay
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Blend EP Mock Up
Various - Prog Rock on Shuffleplay
Kraftwerk - Minimum Maximum

Tonight a couple of tapes arrived at Crispycat Towers...

They belong to chum Chris' mum and are of sentimental value...

One of them was in a bad way...



Anne and I took it to bits and rewound it again as best we could - transfer to CDs pre-Xmas is the goal...

Scored two free tickets for the Uriah Heep gig tomorrow night in Glasgow and so am going along with Dr Prog - we were going anyway, free tix or no, so, to get in for nothing is indeed a boon...

My second ever concert was the mighty Heep at the Edinburgh Odeon in October 1974...

Tomorrow they will play their latest album, their first for ten years, in its entirety...

Dr Prog set me in the direction of a free download of software called DVDshrink, which allows the copying of DVDs...

I duly downloaded it and, in the course of the evening, was able to make copies of Chris' Kraftwerk DVD - during the replay of which, a call came in from the world's biggest Kraftwerk fan, Count Brodski, as we firmed up arrangements for getting to Charlie's funeral on Friday....



On TV, the return of "Big Bang Theory" shone out like a beacon in the mediocrity which is a Wednesday night schedule...

Highlight of the Day : Tickets for the Heep

Pondering not purchasing...

Playlist
Various - Bob's Prog Collection (2CD-R)
Various Composers - Classical Jukebox on Shuffleplay

Fopp at lunchtime...

Pondering but not purchasing...

In the evening, too much champagne at a wee reception...

I am a rubbish networker - all I managed to do was have my name added to the list of players in a 64 year old's 5-a-side game...

Back home, lovely tea from Anne - chicken casserole...

Wasn't on the computer at all - Meg the Black Cat may well have been though...



On TV - a documentary about a fee paying school near Perth...

£24k pa to send a child there...

I reckon the gross income (for a basic rate tax payer including NIC deductions) required to do that with nothing left over to spend on anything else, would be £40k...

Godson Ansem's birthday today - by the time I got home, it was too late to call - will speak to him at the weekend...

To bed at 11:30...

Highlight of the Day : Free champagne and Exec Producer's culinary arts...

Here's one I made earlier...

Playlist
King Crimson – The Acceptable Face of King Crimson 1969-2003 (CD-R)
Various – A Progressive Rock Sampler

Worked on my two family projects today – the King Crimson disc for sister in law Maureen and the Prog Rock double CD (had to be a double of course) for brother in law Bobby...

Missions accomplished and ready for delivery...

The prog set contains tracks from:-
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here (1975)
ELP – Brain Salad Surgery (1973)
Deep Purple – Machine Head (1972)
Focus – Focus III (1973)
Genesis – Foxtrot (1972)
Gentle Giant – Acquiring the Taste (1971)
Hawkwind – Doremi Fasol Latido (1972)
Golden Earring – Moontan (1973)
King Crimson – Red (1974)
Rainbow – Rainbow Rising (1976)
Jethro Tull – Aqualung (1971)
Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn (1975)
Uriah Heep – Demons and Wizards (1972)
UK – UK (1978)
Yes – Fragile (1971)
Tangerine Dream – Phaedra (1974)
Led Zeppelin – IV (1971)



Other than that, watched a bit of “Corrie”, did the dishes, watched “Spooks”...

Made arrangements for the funeral on Friday...

Highlight of the Day : Compiling and Spooks...

My house could be your home...

Playlist
Fripp & Eno - No Pussyfooting
Fripp & eno - Evening Star
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Five New Songs

Up at 6 again and spent around 90 minutes sorting out the blog and reposting deleted entries...

Soundtracked by the "new" Fripp & Eno discs...

After breakfast, some remixing of the two parts of "The Sound of the Fall", then to work on another new song...

Written and recorded completely from scratch between 10 am and 4 pm, the three minute "My House Could Be Your Home" features possibly too many vocal lines - I may have over-egged the pudding...

I now have five new songs for the 2009 CBQ LP:-
The Sound of the Fall pt 1
Please Stay With Us
Blend
My House Could Be Your Home
The Sound of the Fall pt 2

You might think it's strange to write a song (or even four out of five of these songs) in just a few hours (I spend more time recording these demos than I do writing the songs)...

I very seldom these days re-write lyrics from the first draft or so (although the two songs from last weekend were based on two year old unused lyrics)...

I prefer the meaning (if any) to occur to me upon subsequent listening, or even to be suggested to me by the Exec Producer or other listeners, as they often give a slant I've not thought of myself...

A good family tea at Anne's mum's with Jane, Bobby, Ollie and Kitty and Keith and Maureen...

Two new projects - "The Acceptable Face of King Crimson" for Maureen - who has not been impressed with the 3CD introduction I compiled for Keith - and a "Prog Rock Sampler" for Bobby, who thinks he hates this music but has never actually listened to it...

Back home, for more quick listening and tweaking before uploading today's MP3 - which is available for free via the link to the right (it's in the 2009 demos folder)...

CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - MY HOUSE COULD BE YOUR HOME


"MaAtch of the Day 2" and a taped "Merlin" from last night rounded off the day...

Highlight of the Day : Multi-layered vocal lines...

Fru, fru, fru, fru fru, frustration...

Playlist
Various – Favourite Tracks of 2008
Various – Jazz jukebox on Shuffleplay
Fripp & Eno - Evening Star

What a deeply disappointing day...

I am being targeted by the IFPI who are accusing me of abusing copyright by uploading my OWN SONGS AND INSTRUMENTALS and linking from here to the library to encourage readers to download tracks...

Tracks which are COPYRIGHT ME!!!!

Posts to this blog are being removed without my permission...

It may seem trivial but it’s EXTREMELY ANNOYING to come on here and find my entries have been “disappeared” by the powers that be, because a robot computer is scouring the internet for “keywords” and “thinking” that some of my titles are copyright someone else..

It’s ludicrous....

But, to avoid having to constantly replace posts day after day and generally waste my time - even more than writing this blog or uploading my music already wastes my time - I am capitulating...

I am amending all entries since the end of October to remove the direct links to the Crispycat Music Library – including yesterday’s tribute download to my old chum Charlie Dootson – yes it’s come to that...

Sickening abuse of power by an organisation which is supposed to be protecting copyright owners but, due to their robot processes, is merely punishing an innocent party...

Luckily, following the first four or five occurrences of posts being removed from my blog without my permission, I backed the entries up to my hard drive and so can repost them without having to re-write them...

But it’s an incredible WASTE OF TIME!!!!!!!!!

And HUGELY ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To cap it all, my latest Jukebox appears to have a headphone fault...

And Queen of the South were beaten for the third week in a row – still fourth though (just)...

On the upside – Hearts won 1-0 away at Inverness...

And, this morning, the remasters of the Fripp & Eno albums arrived and, though I’ve not had a chance to listen to the whole of the three discs in question, what I have heard has been a revelation in clarity...

Also this morning, I re-recorded the vocals on new song “Please Stay With Us”...

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - PLEASE STAY WITH US


Mum arrived around 11 while I was recording and Anne was out with sister-in-law Jane...

Upon Anne’s return, we drove to Paisley to visit mum’s old friend Pat – a good time was had by all...

Anne and I spent the afternoon in Glasgow but nothing was purchased other than two lovely coffees at The Tron Theatre...

Other than a new comedy about a family with children, the name of which eludes me, and “Match of the Day”, the rest of my time will be taken up amending the blog to avoid the abuse which is being targeted at both it and the library of MY OWN music...

Highlight of the Day : Revelationary Fripp & Eno...

Rainbow bridge to the clouds...

Playlist
David Reilly – Anthology
Asia - Phoenix
James - Hey Ma
Black Mountain - In the Future
Udo Lindenberg - Stark wie zwei
Sparks - Exotic Creatures of the Deep
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Uriah Heep - Wake the Sleeper
The Violet Archers - Sunshine at Night
Alice Cooper - Along Came a Spider
No-Man - Schoolyard Ghosts
UNKLE - End Titles...Stories For Film
Cloudland Canyon - Lie in Light
Glasvegas - Glasvegas
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Neal Morse - Lifeline
The Bad Plus - For All I Care
Girls Aloud - Out of Control
Crazy Wisdom - We Live the Foreigner's Life

So there I was tonight, compiling a CD of my “best tracks of 2008” after a fairly uneventful day...

I’d watched the first half of “Coronation St” then retired upstairs and played through ten songs on the old guitar...

Whilst surfing the net and reading through my blog links, making a few comments of no great depth or importance on a couple, I’d been galvanised into compiling the new disc I was making, by Impossible Songs’ own take on the best of the year so far...

The phone rang, pretty late...

It was my old musical cohort Mr Malcolm Logan, with whom I’ve served in many bands over the years, having known him since he was just a boy back in 1981...

I’ve not spoken to Malcolm for a couple of years, since he came along to a CBQ performance in September 2006 but, funnily enough, as I walked past Haymarket Station tonight, he’d popped into my head and I’d been thinking back to that night and all the music we’d made together....

Sadly, Malcolm was calling to tell me of the death of our old friend Charlie Dootson...

Of course that will mean nothing to you but Charlie was the guitarist in our group Crazy Wisdom for almost five years, till the band drifted apart following the closure of Reptile Records, which had provided our writing and rehearsal space...

He was an amazing guitarist – Count Brodski (also a Crazy Wisdom member) advised, when I called him to pass on this awful news, that he’d always wondered what a musician of such quality was doing playing in a band with us...

Ironically, Charlie had been my replacement in Malcolm and my’s earlier group, Call Me Clive, when Mr Logan and the other three members decided to fire me...

A few years later the hatchet was buried and Malcolm and I recorded an EP under the name Crazy Wisdom...

When Malcolm brought in Charlie and I brought in Brodski, Charlie brought a musicality to the group and turned us into a real rock band...

He even got us signed to an obscure American record label...

Charlie and I enjoyed working together in Crazy Wisdom and, of course, we both had very different memories of our non-overlapping Call Me Clive days – but he often said how much he’d enjoyed playing my music with the band...

We wrote over fifty songs together as a group but we took over three years to record our only album, “We Live the Foreigner’s Life”, released in the summer of 1998 by which time, we’d kind of run our course...

I’d shut the shop, Malcolm was going off to Holland to live and, while nothing was ever agreed about the future and, indeed Malcolm went to Holland with some new Crazy Wisdom demos in his case, recorded without Charlie though, we had, to all intents and purposes, split up (of course we never admitted that to each other always thinking we’d reconvene at some point)...

In the last ten years, I’ve probably only seen Charlie a couple of times (and for that matter Malcolm too) after spending so much time together in the band, rehearsing and writing and recording every week for a period of years...

By the time we finished, we’d written some excellent songs together and, while we ended up returning to our electronica routes for much of our album, truth be told, the period I enjoyed best was when we were rocking out in the band’s mid period – some of the most exciting tracks I’ve ever played on...

This golden era is covered in the 69 track 4CD set I put together in 2002 – now deleted but perhaps requiring a remaster and release in Charlie’s honour...

And so a sad reunion with my chums from Call Me Clive and Crazy Wisdom is in the diary for next Friday...

Here’s a short track from the Crazy Wisdom album – it’s a solo piece by Charlie that he’d often break into during lulls in our rehearsals....

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

CHARLIE DOOTSON - RAINBOW BRIDGE TO THE CLOUDS



Lowlight of the Day : All too early death of an old sparring partner...

A round tuit...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Ten Songs
Girls Aloud – Out of Control
Alice Cooper – Along Came a Spider
The Violet Archers – Sunshine at Night
Asia – Phoenix
LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver
The Killers – Sawdust
Dream Theater – Sytematic Chaos
No Man – Schoolyard Ghosts
Sparks – Exotic Creatures of the Deep

Kind of accidentally bought two Fripp & Eno CDs on e-bay today – I bid £8 each always thinking someone would come along and outbid me...

No one did...

Ooops...

And, of course I have both of them already but not these new remastered versions – although you may recall I made my own versions of the “No Pussyfooting” extra tracks a few weeks ago...

Anne’s very popular Lamb Casserole for tea – Mmm mmm...

Inspired by last night’s open mic, I didn’t go to Out of the Bedroom but, instead, stayed in and played a few songs In the Bedroom...

Good listening today in the shape of my favourite albums of the months so far this year (other than the two jazz CDs which topped my “charts” in February and October)...

On TV, the welcome return of Jack Dee’s show “Lead Balloon”...

Into the 1990’s re the Anthology with one of my favourite tracks from the Sombre Reptiles album, “Crispysnatch”...

“Regret” features Crispy the Cat on piano in the opening segment...

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

ANTHOLOGY 1990
SOMBRE REPTILES - REGRET



Highlight of the Day : Anne’s Lamb casserole

The boy does nothing...

Playlist
Daugherty – Symphony No 3
Preisner – Silence, Night and Dreams
Brumel – Missa “et ecce terrae motus”
Albinoni – Complete Oboe Concertos

A bit of a packed day today...

Firstly to the Infirmary for a 9:35 appointment with the surgeon who operated on my left shoulder in November 2006 and my right shoulder in October 2007...

A very brief consultation at 10 am resulted in my being sent for fresh X-rays on my right shoulder...

At 10:30 the X-rays were done...

At 11:10 I was back with the great man, for whom I have nothing but respect and thankfulness...

We looked at the new X-rays – the calcium present in August has gone but it’s a mystery therefore as to why the pain in my shoulder and upper arm persists...

And so I am to be called back at some point, around six or seven weeks hence, for an MRI scan...
Caught the bus back into town and met with my very kind hosts for the day at the Radio Forth Awards 2008...

An afternoon of entertainment followed, during which, in a reasonably small and intimate room, I was wined and dined by my hosts and entertained by surpise guest acts Jason Donovan, James Blunt, Leon Jackson, Alesha Dixon, Sharleen Spiteri and the Stereophonics...

Of these, I thought the highlights were, believe it or not, James Blunt (I am a fan of this self effacing, intelligent young man), Alesha Dixon and The Stereophonics playing “Dakota” – the only song of there’s which I know and which I, coincidentally, think is a great wee song...

I was sitting next to a bank manager who was once the guitarist in local punk band Twisted Nerve...

To the after show party at Shanghai for more drinks but I remained reasonably compos mentis and left around 7:30 to make my way to the nearby Voodoo Lounge for the first night of my music chum Ian Sclater’s new event “Playback”, featuring ten acts from various Open Mic clubs around Edinburgh...

Before things got started I spent some time chatting to a German guy, Johannes, who's studying music at Edinburgh University under Simon Frith (who doesn't actually play any musical instruments) and is writing his dissertation on Open Mics...

Could only stay for the first half but what I saw bodes well for the future of the monthly night...

Caught an Airport Bus along to the Zoo where I met up with Anne, who’d been at the Hearts v Hamilton game – 1-0 the JTs, in a win-ugly stylee...

A good day...

Two tracks today from the Anthology to get matters up to date after missing one yesterday...

Firstly, from 1988, a track from the Sombre Reptiles album “Heavenview”...

This is one of my favourite Sombre Reptiles pop songs and, rarely, a happy type song – with some superb guitar from Mr Peri Urban who produced the track...

ANTHOLOGY 1988
SOMBRE REPTILES – DOWN TO THE BEACH


Then, “Like a Sunday” a seven minute instrumental piece from The Heavenly Music Corporation’s “The Squirrel Cage” - another album made on borrowed time....

I had Nick Aldridge from Call Me Clive’s keyboard at my house over a weekend in March 1989 and recorded a full album utilising all the different presets on the machine. This is my favourite track from that LP...

ANTHOLOGY 1989
THE HEAVENLY MUSIC CORPORATION – LIKE A SUNDAY



Highlight of the Day : Radio Forth Awards

Moved...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet – 10 Songs
Girls Aloud – Out of Control
Miles Davis – Big Fun

An interesting meeting first thing re Statistical Arbitrage...

After listening to the three new CBQ songs yesterday on constant repeat, today I dropped the middle one and expanded the playlist into a 15 and then 10 song set...

At home, rewrote as best I could the missing posts from 4th and 5th November and finished copying all jazz tracks from the jukebox to the external hard drive then deleted the tracks on the jukebox (2,793 of them) leaving it as the Classical Jukebox...

I have a plan...

Enjoyed “Big Fun” by Miles Davis, a CD given to me by German chum Jorg in 1998 when I visited him and Yvonne on the occasion of their wedding...

Tonight is the first time I’ve listened to it since just after receiving it, having declared it to be rubbish...

Now of course I love it...

Such is the way with music...

Sometimes you have an album which, in your head is brilliant yet you’ve not listened to it for years – eventually you do and you realise it’s rubbish..

Sometimes you have an album which, in your head is rubbish yet you’ve not listened to it for years – eventually you do and you realise it’s brilliant...

11 November today and, of course I was involved in something at 11am and totally forgot to honour the dead of two World Wars and various other conflicts since 11 November 1920 (the first Remembrance Day)...

However, on “The One Show” of all places, there was a piece on Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” which brought back to me how moving this poem is...

In 6th Year at school, as part of my English SYS exam, I wrote a dissertation entitled “The Changing face of War Poetry Between 1914 and 1918”...

I always meant to get it back one day but just never got round to it...

30 years on, it’ll have been thrown in the bin years ago no doubt...

Anyway, here’s the poem, written in 1917 and published, posthumously, in 1921 - Owen died just seven days before the Armistice, having returned to the front in July that year following a spell recouperating in England in hospital...

He felt it was his duty to return given that his friend and mentor Siegried Sassoon had been invalided out and could no longer write of the horrors, first hand...

His poem remains one of the greatest condemnations of war ever written....

It was originally drafted as a personal letter to the famous pro-war poet Jessie Pope....

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie:

Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Highlight of the Day : Being moved...

Violator...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet – New Songs
2RaumWohnung -36 Grad
The Monkees – The Works

Discovered today rather annoyingly that another track I’d uploaded from The Anthology had been deemed abusive by the IFPI and removed by my host server...

Had it reinstated but, to my dismay, I also discovered that the two posts here relating to the two “abusive” tracks (November 4th and 5th) had mysteriously disappeared from the blog...

At FOPP at lunchtime I found a 3CD set of The Monkees for a mere four squid and in it came...



Possibly better than the Beach Boys?

In the evening, home made soup was enjoyed along with “University Challenge” and “Spooks”...

Started copying all jazz tracks from the Jazz and Classical Jukebox to the external hard drive – a plan has been hatched...

Today we move into the second decade of the Anthology, reaching 1987...

Work began on the follow up to Poppies in September 1986 and, for the first time, I decided to work on no more than one song-based album per year....

The basis for this LP was the drum tracks created at outset, some in a Hi-NRG style...

They lay untouched for almost six months until guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals were added...

I either wrote new music and lyrics for each song, or added material I already had stored up....

This is the opening song from “Smalltalk” which, like all the tracks on this LP featured backing vocals recorded on the Casio SK1 sampler....

A song about radio stations and the city...

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

ANTHOLOGY 1987
SOMBRE REPTILES - TWIST SHOUT JITTERBUG BOOGIE AND DIE



Highlight of the Day : Spooks of course

The sound of the fall...

Playlist
Brian Eno – Remaster Samplers Ambient/Song
Cloudland Blue Quartet – The Sound of the Fall Pts 1 & 2

Up reasonably early after a good long sleep, still ill...

At 9:30 started writing another new song, finishing to my own satisfaction around 2 pm...

Once again the lyric was revised from one which had lain unused for over two years...

We set off for Anne’s mum’s just before 3 to try and fix her TV, adding our old Freeview Box to her set up to try and save her money on her Virgin subscription – all to no avail though as her ariel isn’t up to the job – she’s going to get a booster and we’ll try again...

On the way I’d played Anne the new song and, in her role as Executive Producer she advised the lyrical content to be a tad on the depressing side – which is, more often than not, the usual situation for CBQ – I do, after all, strive to make Joy Division sound like S Club 7...

And so a rewrite was required and, after some delicious Macaroni for dinner....



....I returned to the music room to rewrite the lyrics and re-record the vocals – I ended up carrying out a complete remix too and finally finished around 9:45 – combining the two versions to produce a song with a depressing first half and what is, for me anyway, a bit more of a happy-go-lucky second half...

Consequently it’s over 9 minutes long and may take a bit longer than usual to download...

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - THE SOUND OF THE FALL



“Match of the Day 2” followed, featuring Spurs’ latest comeback, which was enjoyed by Meg the Black cat from the vantage point of the coffee table...



“Graham Norton” ended the day...

The Anthology track is, rather aptly, given it’s Remembrance Sunday, “Poppies” from the 1986 Sombre Reptiles album of the same name...

When, a couple of years after its original release, this song was brought into the repertoire of my then band, Call Me Clive, it quickly became the group’s most popular song. This is the original version....

It's also available via the link to download my music for free...

ANTHOLOGY 1986
SOMBRE REPTILES - POPPIES PT 1



Highlight of the Day : While I enjoyed writing and recording, it has to be Anne's macaroni - another string to her culinary bow...

A room with a view...

Playlist
David Reilly –Anthology
Yes – The Ultimate Yes
Yes – Open Your Eyes
Yes – Magnification
Yes – Fragile
Yes – 1991-1999 Peri Urban Edits
Cloudland Blue – Please Stay With Us

Stayed up virtually all night, going to bed at 1:30 and getting back up again at 3 am due to this new cold scenario...

Initially sat in the backroom – continuing with the Anthology listen through, then some classic Yes tunes...

Drove along to the chiropodist for my 9 am appointment leaving Anne slumbering...

I was back home by 9:15 - £1 per toe/£1 per minute – better than the usual £15...

Went back to bed and slept till midday...

A lovely brunch prepared by Anne, then we drove to The Great Grog and purchased a mixed case of red wine....



Back home spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening (as QoS were thrashed 4-1 at home to Morton and Hearts scraped a 1-0 win away at St Mirren) writing and recording this new song, “Please Stay With Us”...

The vocals are a bit rough due to being choked with the cold...

It's available via the link to download my music for free...

Until I re-record the vocals, then I'll replace it...

CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET - PLEASE STAY WITH US



The lyric is a revised version of one I wrote in 2006 which was never set to music...

Later, “Merlin” was accompanied by a tasty Indian takeaway...

“Have I Got News For You” was followed closely by snoring on the settee and I eventually gave in to the fatigue and headed to bed leaving Anne to enjoy “Match of the Day”...

Track of the day is from 1985 but not from the Anthology – there were no recordings of any new solo material made that year so, instead, here’s a song I wrote and recorded with The Dancers of San Martino, “Finishing Touch”, which relates to selling your soul to the devil but signing the contract with vanishing ink...

ANTHOLOGY 1985
THE DANCERS OF SAN MARTINO - FINISHING TOUCH



In some ways, this represents my closest brush to “mainstream success” in that the group, which featured old chums Peri Urban and Count Brodski, was shortlisted by Virgin A&R who eventually passed us over for The Big Dish and Danny Wilson...

Oh well...

Highlight of the Day : Writing and recording again....