Opinionated, Coke addled, Music Addicted, Re-Recording Fool....

The car is due to be fixed on Thursday – no more about that now. Uptown I meet up with Dr Prog, Mr Phil Weizen, at the music library.

Amongst other items, he hires box sets of 30 Trojan compilation CDs of reggae music and of the complete works of The Grateful Dead, 1967-1973 – supposedly their best period. He opines that he’s heard great things about this band but has not been overly impressed by what he’s heard thus far via downloads. I advise him that, in my opinion, they are in fact a vastly over-rated boogie band who struck it lucky by being in the right place at the right time.

This leads me to another subject which has raised its head today. On the message board at Out of the Bedroom, I have made some derogatory remarks about “The Blues”. I have been castigated re this. So I borrow some “Blues” from the library, and my previous opinion of them is verified by a listening session – the same chord sequence over and over and over again, song after song. It’s ok for one or two tracks, but how can anyone listen to this music for any length of time and still profess to enjoy it – unless they really have no knowledge of what else is out there?

In addition to the Blues, I borrow Iannis Xenakis’ “Chamber Music 1955-1990”, which includes all the pieces Phil and I heard in March at the Queen’s Hall. Along with this, I have taken a Stockhausen disc, “Tierkreis” (“Zodiac”) and Volume 2 of Morton Subotnick’s Electronic Works, “Sidewinder/Until Spring”. Bringing up the rear, an ECM disc of Schumann string quartets by the Zehetmair Quartet, a great CD by The Album Leaf called “In A Safe Place” and a Tangerine Dream collection called “Dream Sequence” which is no longer available.

Sadly, disc one of this is quite badly damaged – Phil and I wonder why it is that so many of the discs at the library are in such bad condition – I mean, who borrows Xenakis and chucks it about their house like a Frisbee, scratching it to smithereens??

Purchases today are Brad Mehldau’s “Art of the Trio Vol 1”, Martin Gore of Depeche Mode’s covers album “Counterfeit 2” (which includes exceptional takes on tracks by the likes of Brian Eno, Lou Reed, Led Zeppelin and David Essex), “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” an ambient conception of Jazz by the Swiss Alto-Sax player, Christoph Merki and “Town Hall Concert” by Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson and Tony Williams – a recording of the concert which took place in New York in 1985 to mark the relaunch of the Blue Note label.

This afternoon I purposefully reassemble the Crispycat Studio and proceed to start writing and rehearsing synth and electric guitar parts for CBQ’s “Deeperdown”, vowing to work on it seriously this week after almost five months of procrastination.

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy playing the electric guitar, and a good three hours is spent jamming along to existing demo backing tracks. I think though that I’m going to have to start the album from scratch so don’t hold your breath for a release date!

In the evening we head to Armadale to where Julia, ex-mother of Meg the Black Cat, has invited us for dinner. Once again we get lost on the way – merely by following the signs for Armadale – but arrive around 10 minutes later than planned – which is better than the hour or so’s delay on our last visit.

Julia’s in good form, knocking together the meal before our very eyes – a tasty starter salad of grated celeriac with tomato, olives and spring onion on a bed of chicory leaves, with her own home made dressing comprising orange and lemon juice with virgin olive oil, a touch of honey, grated ginger and some mustard.

The main course is home made enchiladas with exactly the right amount of hot chillis included. Julia and Anne down copious amounts of wine while I partake in a couple of bottles of full-fat Coca-Cola. Julia’s assertion that the savouring of CC is best done from the original bottles, is surprisingly borne out by my experience….

After the usual drunken setting of the world to rights, including Julia’s theory that the people who culled the population at age 30 in “Logan’s Run” were getting it right, we leave for home around 11:30 as we need to get up early tomorrow to travel to Glasgow, hopefully to witness Hearts dumping Celtic out of the Scottish Cup – it’s a 12:15 kick off…..