More lists and tidying...

I'm beginning to worry about the ankle again as it is becoming extremely painful during the night and certainly doesn't feel as if it's healing...

Putting that to one side and continuing with the keeping the leg up for periods and applying the icepack, I went to the computer for the usual day of surfing when I should be working on my music...

Had a discussion with John and Ali on Saturday night about what an opportunity this is for me to write and record new music but, to be honest, I just am not inspired to pick up the guitar - in fact I haven't played the guitar since my cover of "Louie Louie" at John's 50th back in October, nearly three months ago - although in the intervening period, I have recorded a new album, "Sospiri", the orchestral collages disc, with which I am rather pleased - you can check out an excerpt over on "Mr Quartet's Music Site" in the links...

There is a cupboard in the computer room which contains loads of videos and what's left of my vinyl collection - a couple of shelves of LPs and 12" singles (probably around 800 in total) and several boxes of 7" singles - the majority of my collection went into stock at Reptile Records when we opened back in 1991...

I opened the door for some reason which escapes me now and Meg the Black Cat, in normal cat-like fashion, jumped in and buried herself amongst the rubbish which also inhabits the cupboard....

In trying to get her back out, much of the rubbish ended up on the floor and so I resolved to give it a bit of a tidy up..

I found boxes for various things, some of which we no longer own, for example:-

2 Creative Jukeboxes
A Very Expensive Pair of Grado Headphones
A Portable Panasonic MP3 CD Player
A Transistor Radio
A Mobile Phone
A set of Home Phones
A Filter Coffee Maker
A Coffee Percolator
A Lean Mean Grilling Machine
A Set of Bathroom Scales

It was like the conveyor belt on the Generation Game...

So those are for the bin...

Also clogging up the cupboard was my entire stash of CD mailers which I tidied up...

A big GAP cardboard carrier bag full of other, smaller carrier bags (this is no doubt Anne's collection of you-never-know-they-may-well-come-in-handy-again things) and numerous black cloth and other material bags, sort of record bag type bags were also clogging up matters - so I fitted most of these inside each other and returned them to the cupboard

There was now room to tidy away two big plastic boxes of "stuff" into the cupboard...

So, in the end, although I have not created any room in the cupboard it certainly looks a lot tidier and the floor of the room is now minus two large plastic crates of "stuff"...

Here are me and Meg looking smug after our work in the cupboard (in the background are some of the boxes to be discarded)...



Although no more empty, it is now easier to access the hundreds of old videos in there and I dug out a couple and watched them, a very funny one of me rehearsing a proposed live set in the shop back in 1993, which also contained a dreadful recording from the radio made by my dad in the same year of me being interviewed on a local station...

I was asked what the difference was between my ambient music and lift muzak...

I declared that my music was "better" - ha ha ha - I've never been the greatest at talking up my work...

I also re-watched Channel Four's Top Ten of Prog Rock, which provided a strange result for anyone who is familiar with the genre, but the skewd result stemmed not from the subjective value of the music (e.g. no Gentle Giant) but from being based on 1 point per week spent on the albums chart, 10 points for each top ten album and 10 points for each top ten single - thus the inappropriate high placing for The Moody Blues and Camel....

The rundown was:-

10 Camel
9 King Crimson
8 Hawkwind
7 Rush
6 Emerson Lake and Palmer
5 Yes
4 Jethro Tull
3 The Moody Blues
2 Genesis
1 Pink Floyd

This prompted me to listen to some Moody Blues and, you know, I really quite enjoyed that...

In the afternoon, another call from Mr Jim Park. He is coming to visit me tomorrow around 4pm so I'm looking forward to that - although he's one of my oldest friends (I've known him for over 25 years) I don't think he's ever been to Crispycat Towers...

In the evening we watched part two of "In Search of Mozart" which prompted me to listen to Vol 1 of his Complete Symphonies (1764-1768) - written between the ages of 8 and 12 - quite astounding...

Then I scoured the "what's on" pages for Edinburgh and Glasgow and compiled a list of upcoming concerts I'd like to see:-

January
18/1 Dar Williams – Glasgow (This is tomorrow and a rare chance to see one of my favourite singer-songwriters but I will miss this as I'm not really able to travel to Glasgow at present due to the leg problem - for some reason it's more difficult than it was when I had a plaster)
19/1 SCO Rameauu/Mozart/Haydn/St George – Edinburgh (Maybe??)
26/1 SCO Prokofiev/Mozart – Edinburgh (Hopefully!)

February
01/02 Clogs and The Books – Glasgow
5/2 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Edinburgh
9/2 John Scofield/Turnage - Edinburgh
12/2 Sparks – Glasgow
13/2 Laura Viers – Edinburgh
15/2 Orch of Sc Opera Arensky/Elgar/Bach/Mozart – Edinburgh
20/2 Maggini String Quartet Mozart/Bridge/Beethoven – Edinburgh
23/2 SCO Stravinsky/Mozart – Edinburgh

March
10/3 John Wetton/Geoff Downes – Glasgow
11/3 Cara Dillon – Edinburgh
15/3 Orch of Sc Opera Mozart/Berg/Dvorak – Edinburgh
16/3 SCO Haydn/Beethoven/Mozart - Edinburgh
25/3 SCO Cutler/Ligeti/Lutoslawski/Bartok - Edinburgh
29/3 Jane Siberry –Edinburgh

April
6/4 SCO Stravinsky/Mozart - Edinburgh
7/4 Genesis In the Cage – Glasgow
22/4 SCO Lindberg/Abrahamsen/Aho/Valen/Vasks – Edinburgh
22/4 Gidon Kremer ShostakovichMozart - Edinburgh
27/4 Mogwai – Edinburgh
28/4 Scottish Ensemble Sibelius/Rautavaara/Bartok - Edinburgh
29/4 SCO Mendelssohn/Mozart – Edinburgh

May
3/5 ECAT Ensemble Rihm/Janacek -Edinburgh

June
24/6 Scottish Opera Mozart – Edinburgh (or 14, 16, 22/6)

Quite a lot of Mozart there but 27 January is the 250th Anniversary of his birth...

Finally, an e-mail arrives from the Committee at Out of the Bedroom...

They're asking me if I'd like to produce their 4th compilation CD (I produced the 2nd and 3rd)...

I said the only downside I can think of at present is my immobility due to the ankle and asked for more details re timescales and participants...but something else to look forward to perhaps?

Highlight of the Day : The Genius of Mozart