Setting standards...

Playlist
Tracks from....
Return to Forever – Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy
Bozzio Levin Stevens – Situation Dangerous
Shadow Gallery – Room V
Porcupine Tree – Deadwing
Susumo Yokota – Grinning Cat
Rick Altizer – Blue Plate Special
Flower Kings – Paradox Hotel
OSI – Free
Phil Manzanera – 6pm
Halloween Alaska – Too Tal to Hide
Halloween Alaska – Halloween Alaska (rather aptly)
Tool – 10,000 Days
Conspiracy – The Unknown
Marillion – Marbles
Kino - Picture
Sigur Ros –Tak
Sparks – Hello Young Lovers
Brad Mehldau Trio – Progression
Albinoni – Complete Oboe Concertos
Mozart – Dissonance String Quartet
Various – Trojan Dub Rarities
Mott the Hoople _ All the Young Dudes
Various – Super 70’s Rock

I’m trying to maintain a standard re new CD purchases by saying to myself, if I buy it, it must be good enough to make it into my 100 favourites...

This is working...

Last night I bought the latest 3CD Live Set by Dream Theater and await its arrival from e-bay...

Today I visited Virgin and FOPP without making a purchase...

In the evening, some lovely pasta from Anne was accompanied by a nice Chianti and “CSI : New York” on video...

I typed up the track lists for the three CDs I compiled for Julia (ex-mum of Meg the Black Cat) and e-mailed them to her....

I watched a bit of Barcelona v Chelsea – it’s depressing the number of cheating players there are at what’s supposed to be the very pinnacle of the game...

And it’s also depressing how biased the commentators are in favour of the team from the UK...

Then “CSI : Miami” “live” and back to the computer to end off the night....

Eddie Jobson is pleased that John Wetton has apologised to him...

Highlight of the Day : Anne’s lovely pasta....

Pilloried - but water off a hippo's back...

Playlist
Sarah McLachlan - Afterglow
Van der Graaf Generator – Present
Nine Horses – Snow Borne Sorrow
Jason Falkner – Bliss Descending
Pet Shop Boys – Fundamental
Bozzio Levin Stevens – Situation Dangerous
Shadow Gallery – Room V
Tuner – Totem
Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor
Wetton Downes – Icon
Porcupine Tree – Deadwing
Return to Forever – Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy

Hmm – after what I thought was my diplomatic and mediatory triumph yesterday, I’ve been criticised on both boards by “fans” of the two “mega-stars” for forcing them to bury the hatchet...

So now I’m actively seeking out the message boards of Roger Waters and David Gilmour...

My latest acquisition arrived today – a stonker of a jazz fusion album, a veritable classic – Return to Forever’s “Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy”...

Tasty...

Other than that, Anne made some lovely soup and we watched two episodes of “Coronation St” and another exceptional episode of “Spooks” – except it can’t really be described as such as every episode so far has been of such high quality...

Finally, I compiled and burned ex-mum of Meg the black cat, Julia’s last two of the three compilation CDs I was to do for her in the style of the soundtrack albums (1 & 2) from the film “Grosse Point Blank”...

Highlight of the Day : Spooks (yet again)...

I am the mediator...

Playlist

Various – My latest top 40 recent releases (Jukebox Shuffleplay)

UK – UK

UK – Danger Money

UK – Lost in Contemplation (Bootleg)

Family – Bandstand

Allan Holdsworth – Jukebox Shuffleplay (12 CDs)

Return to Forever – Light as a Feather

Up later than normal, even with the clocks back, after last night’s fairly pointless stint at the computer til 4am...

Amended the selection of CDs on the shelf in the living room to reflect my current favourite100:-

Recent albums (40)

Re-Issues (20)

Single Artist Compilations (5)

Live Albums (5)

Various Artist Compilations (5)

Jazz (20)

Classical (5)

Spent some considerable time ripping those from this 100 (mainly the live, various and classical CDs) which aren't already in the jukebox, into MP3 format to load up....

But of course before they can go over, I need to delete some albums from the jukebox – and I can’t just delete them, I need to save them back to the computer and then save them onto a DVD so I don’t need to rip them again if I want to put them back on the jukebox....

Such is my pathetic life...

Went outside, for the only time over the weekend, to shop with Anne at Tesco...

There was a strange cloud formation overhead...

Came home and back to the computer to find that John Wetton had posted an apology on his message board to Eddie Jobson thanks to me posting Eddie’s remarks there...

So I then registered for Eddie’s board and posted John’s statement there, thus hopefully healing a long–term rift between two musicians who played together in two of my all time favourite bands, UK and Roxy Music – not to mention the fact that Eddie overdubbed some violin solos on King Crimson's posthumous live album (if there can be such a thing) “USA”...

In the evening we watched “Coronation Street”, I watched a programme on “High St Scams” re credit cads and dodgy waiters and, later on we enjoyed “Arrested Development” and a bit of “Match of the Day 2”...

...and "Torchwood". "Torchwood"?? More like "Torture". It really is terrible....

Highlight of the Day : Healing a rift between John Wetton and Eddie Jobson, hopefully...

Not winless...

Playlist
Various – My latest top 40 recent releases (Jukebox Shuffleplay)

A Saturday and I did not venture outside once today...

I got up late (for me anyway) and sat watching the telly with the sound down, having made breakfast...

It was a cookery show and was quite entertaining. I like watching the TV without sound as it allows you still to chat about stuff – which is what Anne and I did...

In the afternoon, Anne went to watch Hearts v Dunfermline while I spent some time on the computer....

I recompiled my top CDs of the moment and saved new playlists to the Jukebox...

I also visited the website of Mr John Wetton, one of my all time favourite musicians and a bass-player and song-writer of some considerable note. Over the years, he’s featured in Mogul Thrash, Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, UK and Asia...

UK’s debut album is one of my favourite albums of all time. John’s cohorts in the original line up were drummer Bill Bruford (from Yes and King Crimson), keyboard and violin wizard, Eddie Jobson (from Curved Air and Roxy Music) and, quite possibly the greatest guitarist in the world, Allan Holdsworth (from Tony Williams’ Lifetime and Soft Machine)...

What a band...

I made a few comments on the site after registering and was surprised to find that JW was online himself and answered one of my points...

Extraordinary...

In the footie, Hearts could only draw 1-1 with owly Dunfermline while Queen of the South actually won, 2-0 against Livingston – their first win of the season, and their first league goals of the season scored at home...

In the evening watched “Robin Hood” and “Match of the Day” then, as I’d risen late, I stayed up late – mostly on YouTube watching, amongst others, Sarah McLachlan, Laura Pausini, Pet Shop Boys, Girls Aloud, Marillion, Sparks, Porcupine Tree, U2/Green Day, The Skids, The Revillos, Udo Lindenberg, Michael Rother, and the first line-up of Kraftwerk (Schneider/Rother/Klinger)...

Superb stuff...

I thought I was going to bed at 3am. But the computer had automatically put its clock back and so I tumbled into bed at 4am with the Jukebox on shuffleplay as it had been all day...

Highlight of the Day : Interacting with a musical hero

Winless...

Playlist
Miles Davis – Live at Filmore East (7/3/70)
Various – My Own Current Top 50 Albums (Jukebox Shuffleplay)
Vivaldi/Tartini/CPE Bach – Cello Concertos

Anne spirals ever deeper into the doldrums as, day after day, the world of Hearts FC becomes more and more strange...

Today, three of their top players made a statement seemingly against the club’s owner (no names were mentioned)...

Hmm. Try being "the only winless team in Scotland" and routed to the bottom of your league with only two points from ten games. Hearts have played all eleven of the other teams in their league and are lying second...

Elsewhere, a call from James Jamieson today keeps him in touch and he advises he might call round tonight – but, as is the case in every household with young children, plans can change minute by minute and he fails to appear...

Nothing much on the agenda for me today and the evening was spent watching “Coronation St”, “The Simpsons”, “Have I Got News For You”, “Not Going Out” and two editions of “QI”...

Highlight of the Day : Some lovely cello concertos

Celebration...

Playlist
Halloween Alaska - Too Tall to Hide
Paul McCartney - Ram
Paul McCartney - Singles 1970-75
Paul McCartney - Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
Barclay James Harvest - Another Arable Parable
Various – My Own Current Top 50 Albums (Jukebox Shuffleplay)

The weather in Edinburgh recently has been pretty dismal - today it was raining most of the time and very windy - here are two pictures taken seconds apart to try and show the fast moving low clouds sweeping across the sky...





To add to the weather misery, we've had a couple of power cuts recently in the area around Crispycat Towers - the latest happening last night in the middle of the night at some point - meaning the alarm didn't go off this morning...

And so I was running late but just made it, after three bus journeys, to the funeral of one of the dads who lived in the street where my mum still lives...

I used to spend all summer playing there with the kids (when I was a kid too of course) and there was a real sense of community in the street...

If you are of a certain age, you will be familiar with the scenario re the funeral for one of your parents' friends - you see all the remaining "grown ups" from when you were young, and meet up with the "children" - at first trying to place the faces, remember the names and then, before you know it, you're laughing and joking about the old days....

It was Jimmy Kirkwood's funeral today. My one big memory of Jimmy was one winter's night back in what must have been the late 60's/early 70's - we'd had a particularly deep fall of snow and all the kids came out onto the street for a snowball fight. Jimmy came out too and pelted us all with snowballs - without any malice of course, he was just having a good time with his two boys, Colin and Kenneth and their friends....

Jimmy was 72. My dad was 73 when he died three years ago and, on that day, Jimmy's wife Sheila and his son Colin were the first people to come round, within hours of my dad's death, to offer their condolences and help in any way they could...

My dad and Jimmy were good friends and founded the local branch of the Rotary Club together and were both Elders in the Church - when talking with Colin and Kenneth today, we realised there were a great deal of similarities in our fathers' lives...

When we had the snowball fight, Jimmy must only have been in his mid thirties - over ten years younger than I am now - but to us he was one of the dads in the street - and now, one more dad is gone...

A funeral ought to be a celebration of life and that's surely not seventy years summed up in 30 minutes at the crematorium. The true legacy is the memories left behind with those whose lives have been touched - like the children in the snow that cold night all those years ago, laughing as another snowball met its target...

Highlight of the Day : Celebrating a life...

Contentious...

Playlist
Various – Total Jukebox Shuffleplay
Paul McCartney - McCartney
Ornette Coleman – Tomorrow Is The Question
Various – Julia’s 1st CD

I’m afraid some may find this post rather contentious and possibly think less of me after reading it...

This evening, after a delightful evening meal and a nice episode of “Coronation St”, I suddenly found myself watching “What Not to Wear” but without Trinny and Susannah, who have apparently moved to ITV...

Tonight’s episode was on what “the mother of the bride” ought not to wear...

As they say on almost all TV programmes at one point or another these days –

"Oh"

"My"

"God"

Having always been of the opinion that too many people who are on TV are only on TV because they are attractive (men or women), I suddenly realised whlst watching this programme, how good it actually is to have attractive people on TV for most of the time....

Here was a bunch of some of the most deeply physically unattractive ladies I’ve seen collected together in one space....

No offence, but, as their ages were reeled off, I found myself thinking, “she's younger than me yet she looks old enough to be my mother”...

Not content with being quite horrible to look at, they also seemed to be rather stupid....

One was spending £23,000 – yes that’s TWENTY THREE THOUSAND POUNDS – on her daughter’s wedding...

I had to retire upstairs, where, after reading an excellent piece at "The Bad Plus - Do The Math" on Ornette Coleman, I consoled myself with some spiffing Free Jazz from his 1959 album “Tomorrow is the Question”....

Nice...

Later I gave the first compilation CD for ex-mum of Meg the Black Cat, Julia, a spin and noted down the track-list, in preparation for presenting it to her “in the very near future” – she keeps telling me how excited she is about what’s going to be on it...

Hmm...if only she knew...

Highlight of the Day : Ornette Coleman....

Junk...

Playlist
Various – My Own Current Top 50 Albums (Jukebox Shuffleplay)
Paul McCartney - McCartney
Paul McCartney - Ram
Return to Forever - Light as a Feather
Sarah McLachlan - Afterglow

Having lost out recently on e-bay whilst bidding for more CDs from Paul McCartney’s back catalogue, I popped into HMV and picked up his debut solo album for a fiver and then next door to Virgin where I secured a copy of the follow up, “Ram” for £4.99…

Back home, the last of the currently expected parcels arrived (I’m sure Anne is becoming exasperated that a new package seems to arrive every day) - today it’s Return to Forever’s “Light as a Feather”…

In the evening, Anne was struck down by a particularly bad headache and ended up retiring around 10pm straight after “CSI : Miami”...

For my sins I ended the day by sitting up until 1:40 reading stuff on the net and listening to the new CDs...

“Light as a Feather” is excellent, though I could have done without the vocals. Whilst in this case they are not too distracting, I’ve said it before and no doubt will say so again – there is NO place in jazz for vocals...

As for McCartney’s eponymous debut from 1970, I’ve read a few reviews and can’t believe this sold in the hundreds of thousands upon release – unless of course the purchasers bought it without having heard any of it – it really is pretty terrible amateurish rubbish – apart perhaps from “Maybe I’m Amazed” but there’s a far better version of that on “Wings Over America”...

By comparison, “Ram” is light years ahead - but, do you know, I think "McCartney" may well grow on me if I give it a chance....

Now I’m looking for “Wildlife” and I’ll have everything from 1970-75...

Whilst loading the new discs into the Jukebox, I ran out of space on the 60GB hard drive and so had to delete some stuff to make room...

I’d reached a new record of 13,161 tracks.....

Highlight of the Day : Staying up into the middle of the night

Strange music, beautiful music...

Playlist
Various – My Own Current Top 50 Albums (Jukebox Shuffleplay)
Weather Report – Mysterious Traveller
Sarah McLachlan – Afterglow
Van der Graaf Generator – Present
Ligeti – String Quartet No 2

With Anne out tonight at keep fit, I just sat in the living room listening to one of the two new CDs which came into my possession today, Sarah McLachlan’s “Afterglow”. Very good it is too and this Canadian singer makes it easily into my pantheon of “girl singers I like”…

Bought “Present”, the re-union CD by Van der Graaf Generator today at FOPP and started listening to this whilst doing the dishes (ah the rock’n’roll lifestyle indeed). Peter Hammill’s voice is probably the one thing that’s always put me off of VdGG over the years and immediately did so again tonight. But I’ve found, if I stick with it, I get to like it as I become used to his rather affected style of singing…

Upstairs and I read through the blogs of those people I read on a daily basis. One of my favourites recently has been “Do the Math”, the blog of jazz trio, The Bad Plus…

Today, it led me to give a listen to Ligeti’s 2nd String Quartet – a strange 20 minute piece which, it turns out, I have on two separate Ligeti discs, both performed by the Arditti String Quartet…

Then downstairs again for the evening meal, cod mornay, mashed potatoes, mange tout, carrots and cauliflower, followed by a tasty apple, while watching University Challenge (featuring a team from Cambridge which scored just 45 points – dreadful)…

Then three episodes of “Coronation St” which Anne had taped while she was out and, finally, next week’s episode of “Spooks” which we watched in advance on BBC3. Great stuff…

Highlight of the Day : Has to be “Spooks” yet again

Return of the coop...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – The Eyes of Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper – Dirty Diamonds
Eels – Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
The Bad Plus – Suspicious Activity
Neal Morse - ?
Nine Horses – Snow Borne Sorrow
Peter Gabriel – Hit
Dream Theater – Octavarium
Jon Anderson – Olias of Sunhillow
Chris Squire – Fish Out of Water

Up late for me, around 9:30 and listened to Alice Cooper’s last two albums, burning the best of them to one CD (managed to get everything bar two tracks, one from each album, on to the new disc)…

Whilst doing this I noted on the web that this year’s Alice Cooper’s Xmas Pudding (an annual charity event in Phoenix which he organises) will feature four of the five original members of the Alice Cooper Group – Alice, Mike Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith. Glen Buxton, the fifth member died a few years back….

They’re only playing a quick 30 minute greatest hits set but what an event for any self respecting fan of the original band…

Pity it’s in Phoenix, Arizona…

Now, what Alice ought to do, is keep the band together, add veteran guitarist, Dick Wagner to replace Buxton (after all, Dick played on sessions for both “School’s Out” and “Billion Dollar Babies”) and record a new album. Hell, Alice has been trying with the last two albums to recapture that original sound, so why not use the original players (and indeed writers)?

For some lovely breakfast ingredients, I did something I’ve not done in the nineteen and a half years I’ve lived at Crispycat Towers – I walked to the shops! 14 minutes there, 10 minutes shopping and 14 minutes back…

After breakfast, I set about transferring The Bad Plus’ album “Suspicious Activity” to the jukebox. Since Sony encoded it with a programme which stops it from playing on a PC, I had to “play” it into the PC by connecting my CD Walkman, and record it onto, rather ironically, the Sony Acid programme I use for mastering CDs…

Aftre lunch I did some surfing (not literally of course) while Anne listened to Rangers defeating my adopted home town team, St Mirren (I lived in Paisley from 1960-1966)…

Then to Anne’s Mum’s for tea where we were joined by just brother in law Keith and his partner Maureen today. Without the kids and Jane & Bobby, it was a lot quieter and less hectic than usual. Even nephew Craig didn’t turn up as he was suffering from a stonker of a hangover after a 20th birthday party last night…

There was, of course, much footie talk…

Back home and two episodes of the new Dr Who spinoff “Torchwood”. After all the hype, it was a little disappointing, though still quite good. Frankly – too many welsh people in it and hard to believe that such a supposedly important operation would have only a handful of members and be based solely in Cardiff…

Finished the day with the end of “Match of the Day 2”

Highlight of the Day : The Alice Cooper Group, back together for 30 minutes…

Charts and stats....

Playlist
The Rheostatics – The Best of the Rheostatics (Disc 2)
Various – Atlantic Waves 2006 : The Wire Sampler
Various – Download MP3s from www.thewire.co.uk
Weather Report – Mysterious Traveller
Various No 1 Singles I Bought When They Came Out
Weather Report - Black Market
Cloudland Blue Quartet – The Acoustic Deeperdown
Various Composers – Adagio (Disc 1)
Neal Morse - ?

Up at 4:40 this morning after around four hours’ sleep and sat in the back room with Meg the Black cat listening to the second disc of my home-made compilation, “The Best of the Rheostatics” and reading this month’s “The Wire”...

Then, around 7, to the computer where I listened to disc one of this month’s free CD from the magazine. I went on to their website and downloaded over 100 tracks of weird and wonderful music – all in all nearly 600 minutes of music (I might be pushing it a bit to call some of it that)...

Two Weather Report albums arrived in the mail, “Mysterious Traveller” and “Black Market” and, as I listened to the first of these, just after I’d finished off all the downloading from The Wire, the power for the whole street went off...

So we drove to Patisserie Florentine for a lovely breakfast – bacon roll for me, croissant for Anne – with latte and white coffee respectively, which was accompanied by the very loud talking of some girl who seemed to work for a theatre company - maybe she was deaf and didn’t realise just how loudly she was talking – but it was certainly very annoying yet somehow, entertaining too...

We returned straight home to find the power reinstated....

We watched the two episodes of “Coronation Street” taped from last night and I called my mum to invite her over while Anne was out at the football this afternoon – oh dear Hearts thrashed 2-0 at home by Kilmarnock – mind you “the only winless side in Scotland”, Queen of the South, lost 5-0 away at St Johnstone and had a man sent off too...

Maybe their fifth year in the second top flight, where they are now the only part time team in the division, is a season too far for the Doonhamers and finally, they are out of their depth – I look at the other nine teams in the league and can see only one from whom we might have a chance of taking a point...

The last five years for Queen of the South:-

2001/02 – Champions of Division 2
2002/03 - 5th
2003/04 – 5th
2004/05 – 4th
2005/06 – 8th

My mum came round and we looked through the photos of the Italian trip and listened to a disc of the “Adagios” box set I bought in Bellagio – we recognised quite a few tracks as having been some of my dad’s favourites...

In the evening I watched “Robin Hood” and Anne watched “Strictly Come Dancing” and “Holby” each of us occupying the computer seat while the other enjoyed some light entertainment...

I compiled a list of my current 50 favourite “recently released” albums with a view to reinstigating the personal “Charts” I’ve been keeping on and off since January 1973...

No various artist compilations or live albums are allowed...

Current Top 50 recent Albums
Neal Morse - ?
Dream Theaer - Octavarium
Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
The Flower Kings - Paradox Hotel
Pet Shop Boys - Fundamental
Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity
Peter Gabriel - Hit
Sparks - Hello Young Lovers
Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
Frost* - Milliontown
Allan Holdsworth - Against the Clock
Brad Mehldau Trio - House on Hill
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Marillion - Marbles
Wetton/Downes - Icon
Fountains of Wayne - Out of State Plates
Crimson Jazz Trio - King Crimson Songbook Vol 1
Laura Pausini - Escucha
Violet Archers - The End of Part One
Robert Fripp - Love Cannot Bear
Susumo Yokota - Grinning Cat
The Tangent - A Place In The Queue
Alice Peacock - Who I Am
David Gilmour - On An Island
Tom McRae - All Maps Welcome
Reid Anderson - The Vastness Of Space
Adrian Belew - Side Two
Adrian Belew - Side One
Tool - 10,000 Days
Magic Pie - Motions of Desire
Kino - Picture
Brad Mehldau Trio - Day is Done
Shadow Gallery - Room V
Dar Williams - My Better Self
Girls Aloud - Chemistry
Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine
Sigur Ros - Takk
OK Go - Oh No
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - The Quality of Mercy
Enchant - Tug of War
The Church - Uninvited Like the Clouds
Suzanne Vega - Retrospective
Brad Mehldau Trio - Anything Goes
Soft Machine - Out-Bloody-Rageous
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Mathilde Santing - Under Your Charms
Paul McCartney - Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard
OSI - Free
Rick Altizer - Blue Plate Special

We finished the evening with “Match of the Day...

Highlight of the Day : A visit from my mum – certainly not the footie results anyway!

Reacquainting...

Playlist
Haydn - Complete String Quartets (Disc 1/21)
Various - Best of 2006 (Jukebox Playlist)
Various - Top Ten Albums of 2003 (Jukebox Playlist)
Various - Top Ten Albums of 2004 (Jukebox Playlist)
Haydn - Compete String Quartets (Disc 2/21)

No delivery of any goodies today so I set out on a journey through Mr Joseph Haydn's String Quartets, very kindly loaned to me by Dr Prog...

Lovely...

Elsewhere, we took the train to Linlithgow (after a couple of drinks in town with chums Kris, Tracey, Claire and Michelle) to meet up with Ken and Rose, friends who, it turns out, we had not seen since 2002....

I worked with Ken in the early 80's, while Rose is the twin sister of my old chum Alan Brodie's ex-wife Carmen (she's remarried and lives in Perth Australia with new husband and kids)...

Rose and Ken met at a party one night back in 1984 in Marchmont, the student quarter of Edinburgh, when Alan and I, in our then incarnation of Love Parade, were playing a gig in the flat of a couple of other work coleagues, Dave Wilkinson and Andy Spencely...

I think it may have been the last performance by Love Parade - we used backing tapes, slides and super 8 film and played some nice poppy tunes - a bit like what the Pet Shop Boys did a few years later on a rather grander scale...

We played almost our entire set as the soundcheck and everything was fine - but when it came to the performance, the flat was so crowded with revellers, we had to open the windows...

Two songs in, the police arrived and shut us down....

Anyway, back to the present and it was great to catch up with Ken and Rose again. They have their own business which is doing well and two kids, 19 and 16 who we both remember vaguely as babies and then young teenagers last time we met....

Time flies - especially re kids growing up - I don't know where the years went as my nephews, Andy, Alastair and Craig grew up...

What with the drugs'n'all, and the couple of pints beforehand, I'm afraid to say I was rather the worse for wear by the time we caught the train back to town and then a bus to Crispycat Towers....

A very enjoyable evening nonetheless and we agreed to meet up again at Xmas..

Highlight of the Day : Meeting up with old friends

Memory loss...

Playlist
Various - Best of 2006 (Jukebox Playlist)
Paul McCartney - Flaming Pie

Another slow day...

Offered more gigs at the Beanscene but declined on accountof the iminent shoulder op. In reality I don't think I'll play again...

For the fourth day in a row, an arrival from the internet - Paul McCartney's 1997 album, "Flaming Pie"...

Quite good - and a few tracks in a classic McCartney vein. He was always my favourite Beatle...

Indian takeaway - Vegetable Dansak and Boiled Rice...

Watched a little of Livorno v Glasgow Rangers (ended 2-3) before the last programmes of three series...

"Extras" (all in all the series started well but dropped away badly)
"That Mitchell and Web Look" (my second taste of this, better than last week but still pretty much hit and miss)
"Mock the Week" (passed the time for 30 minutes)

....then "Question Time" and off to bed...

Is it just me or is my life getting more boring than usual this week?

Highlight of the Day : Another Paul McCartney album (which, actually, I think I used to have but sold...)

Scraping the barrel for highlights...

Playlist
Various – Recent Singles (Jukebox Playlist)
Allan Holdsworth – Road Games
Paul McCartney & Wings - Red Rose Speedway
Madonna – Confessions on a Dancefloor
Brad Mehldau Trio – Progression : Art of the Trio Vol 5

Allan Holdsworth is the ultimate “guitarist’s guitarist” – virtually unknown to the masses in a world where Beck, Van Halen, Satriani or Vai are hailed – while he is hailed in turn by those guitar platyers...

Anyway, enough of that hyperbole – today from e-bay came a 25 minute disc recorded back in 1983 and re-released a couple of years ago...

Tasty stuff...

More Wings today and a little bit of Madonna...

Other than that – I compiled a list of my “best” albums of 2006 so far (not LPs released in 2006 but acquired in 2006) for a new Jukebox playlist...

So far this year I have increased my collection by 228, of which, 117 made the cut – which is not bad going –but would suggest I could throw away half my CD collection and be no worse off from a “music I actually like” point of view...

Went mad on e-bay and bought two Weather Report albums, a Return to Forever album and one by Sarah McLachlan...

Sole viewing of the evening was “Coronation Street”...

Highlight of the Day : Compiling a list of CDs (that’s a wee bit pathetic...)

You need wings...

Playlist
Various – Atlantic Waves 2006 : The Wire Sampler
Various – Recent Singles (Jukebox Playlist)
Paul McCartney & Wings – Red Rose Speedway
Paul McCartney – Press to Play
The Brad Mehldau Trio – Progression : Art of the Trio Vol 5

Took back the disappointing “Three Colours” Box set to the library without copying it….

Resisted the temptation to hire anything else – in my sights were two Tortoise albums and “Drift” by Scott Walker…

At home, another e-bay purchase – Paul McCartney and Wings’ 1973 album “Red Rose Speedway” which, while not an acknowledged classic like its follow up, “Band on the Run”, still has its moments…

Listening to it set me off on an internet trawl re McCartney’s post Beatles career and I ended up locating and playing “Press to Play” from the mid 80’s. It has that mid 80’s feel to it and is vastly over produced – as many albums were around that time….

I was a fan of McCartney in the early 70’s until around 1976 when my sister Pam became besotted with him and so it was time for me to move on. Silly Love Songs was, for me, the last in a long line of excellent singles (its follow up, “Let ‘em In” was an embarrassment – even “Mull of Kintyre” is head and shoulders above it)…

I watched part of the first half of the Celtic v Benfica game – it seemed fairly even. Later Anne advised the ‘tic had won 3-0. Good on them, even though I don’t like them. They are easily the best team in Scotland at present and their success can only be good for all Scottish clubs and indeed the national team….

On the net I watched a few things on YouTube and listened to a few tracks from a new download only live CD by Rheostatics (my favourite Canadian band) and also came across some material by Sarah McLachlan. I found her last studio album on e-bay and made a bid….

At present I have small bids in for eight items, with two past purchases still to arrive - so there’s likely to be little let up in the daily parcels behind the door….

Finished off the day with a taped episode of “CSI : Miami” followed by some jazz from Brad Mehldau…

Highlight of the Day : E-bay bidding like an idiot

CCTV required...

Playlist
Wayne Shorter – Adam’s Apple
Various – Recent Singles Playlist
The Brad Mehldau Trio - Progression : The Art of the Trio Vol 5
Various – Atlantic Waves 2006 : The Wire 2CD Sampler

Up early today and fired up the computer and the jukebox with the intention of creating a new playlist entitled “Recent Singles”…

This was inspired by my having updated for the last year or so, my matrix of single releases which I have in my collection…

So that made some nice listening for the start of the day…

Later on, I almost bought a re-mastered-with-15-extra-tracks copy of Talking Heads’ live album “This is Talking Heads” for a fiver in FOPP along with a Nonesuch records sampler – but didn’t…

However, my attempts not to gain any more CDs today were in vain as, behind the door at home, were a new double disc live set from The Brad Mehldau Trio, “Progression : The Art of the Trio Vol 5” and the latest edition of The Wire, which included a two disc set of Contemporary Portuguese Music which will be featured in next months “Atlantic Waves” festival in London…

So, the early part of the evening was spent in the company of Mr Mehldau and his cohorts with some absolutely top notch playing. They must have made a conscious decision to keep the entire show for the CD release as, halfway through one particularly quiet track, I could distinctly hear someone’s mobile phone ringing in the background…

Later on, as I spent some time at the computer, I listened to disc one of the Portuguese set, which is choc full of interesting stuff from people I’ve never heard of before…

Mid-evening, Anne heard a crash from the kitchen and went through to find that Meg the Black Cat had managed to smash one quite squat and sturdy glass which had been sitting on the worktop amongst some other mainly squat and sturdy glasses….

We have no idea what happened (really must get round to getting CCTV installed around the house) but Meg the Black Cat was, thankfully, unscathed…

The latter part of the evening was spent in front of the goggle box as I watch the second of tonight’s two episodes of “Coronation Street”, followed by “Spooks” which was the first of a two parter….

Luckily, I was able to convince Anne to record the football (my argument being that she’d already watched the whole of the only game she wanted to see) and we switched to BBC3 to watch the second part of “Spooks” immediately…

Another great story – “Spooks” is one of those shows I could watch 24 hours a day…

Ended the evening with the second half of Hibs v Hearts and listened to disc 2 of the Portuguese stuff, which started off with a track which seemed to be the sound of someone hitting a chain link fence???

Great stuff…

Highlight of the Day : Spooks (again)

Waste management..

Playlist
Yes – Best of (Jukebox Playlist)
Muse - Black Holes and Revelations
Various – Three Minutes or so (Jukebox Playlist)
Various – Songs selected from the CD collection

Read this and see if you think I wasted a day of my life today...

Spent around three hours maintaining this diary, compiling a new Yes playlist which would make a fine 3CD set, compiling and burning the first of a couple of various artist CDs for Meg the Black Cat’s ex-mum, Julia, and generally surfing around the net...

Made breakfast of coffee and toast...

Spent more time on the computer, ripping recent CDs to MP3s and transferring them to the jukebox, and generally surfing around the net...

While Anne was out at the Golf Club near her mum’s house watching the Hibs v Hearts game (Hearts scraped a 2-2 draw), I spent more time generally surfing around the net, brought my matrix of singles I’ve liked up to date (over the last year or so) by consulting websites which list weekly new releases and then watched the first two episodes of the new BBC 1 Saturday Night series, “Robin Hood” which was quite entertaining...

On Anne’s return, we watched two episodes of “Arrested Development” taped last Sunday (with two more to follow “live” later)...

During this glotzfest, we ordered, received and devoured a Chinese meal....

So that’s Indian takeaway on Friday night, French restaurant on Saturday night and Chinese takeaway on Sunday night – no wonder I look the way I do in this photo – but how come Anne retains her looks and figure...

Curse you God for making me this way (as Richard Herring might say)...

While Anne checked the various Hearts websites before tonight’s episode of “Coronation Street”, I caught some of a programme on Channel Four about the ideas behind the book “The Da Vinci Code” re the supposed conspiracy to remove the influence of women from all the great religions of the world. If nothing else, the documentary explained what all the fuss was surrounding Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”...

After “Corrie”, Anne spent an hour on the web re Hearts again, while I chose a selection of CD tracks to entertain us...

Then, while Anne watched Jane Eyre I returned to the “Three Minutes or so” playlist I compiled today (by merely selecting all the tracks on the Jukebox which time at between 2:55 and 3:05 – 863 in total) and wrote this...

Later we’ll watch “Match of the Day 2” and more “Arrested Development”

So, is that a waste of a day?

Highlight of the Day : probably Robin Hood – though I’m not fully ensnared just yet

Topaz...

Playlist
Helene Grimaud – Chopin/Rachmaninov Piano Sonatas etc
The Yardbirds – Heart Full of Soul
The John Scofield Band – Up All Night
Weather Report – I Sing the Body Electric
Weather Report – Live in Tokyo
Yes – Tales From Topographic Oceans
Various – The Real Birth of Fusion Vol 2
Vertu – Vertu
Miles Davis – Best of the Miles Davis Quartet 1965-68
Glenn Gould - Images (Disc 2 - Glenn Gould Plays Not Bach)
Petula Clark - Downtown (Single)
David Bowie - Drive-in Saturday (Single)

Up 6:40 and to the shops at 7 as this is our 23rd Wedding Anniversary and I wanted get Anne some flowers...

I returned around 7:40 with flowers, a Cadbury’s Twirl and the latest edition of Planet Hearts (a local weekly newspaper about Hearts FC Anne’s favourite football team)...

Romance is not dead...



I also bought lottery tickets giving three chances to win tonight (our usual numbers, six picked at random by me and a Lucky Dip - update - two numbers out of eighteen) and two more CDs – a collection by the Yardbirds and an album by jazz guitarist John Scofield from a couple of years ago. They were sitting on a shelf at 97p each and I couldn’t resist...

I sat in the back room with Meg the Black Cat listening to the Yardbirds and reading about them in the Great Rock Discography...



And of course Yes is close to Yardbirds in there, so I made a list of the “contemporary commerciality” of Yes albums through the years (i.e. their highest chart placings)...

Hard to believe that, in 1973, a double album with just four 20 minute tracks on it went to No 1 in the charts...

We went to Vittoria's in Brunswick St off Leith Walk for breakfast – it’s where we had breakfast on 15 October 1983 before we jetted off to Salzburg for our honeymoon...



This beat last week at Valvona and Crolla hands down. And the latte may even have surpassed the best Patisserie Florentin has to offer...

On the way across town, we listened to Weather Report’s “I Sing the Body Electric” in the car, as it arrived in the mail just before we left the house...

Anne reckoned the first track, “Unknown Soldier”, is to music what darts is to sport. Later on though she was caught tapping her foot to one of the other tracks on the album...

After breakfast we took an amble down Leith Walk. We came across at least two Polish Delicatessens – it seems there’s a growing Polish population in Edinburgh. It can only add to the diversity of the place (and brighten up Leith)...

In a small hi-fi repair shop I found a lead I’ve been looking for to reposition the speakers at the computer – which was nice...

We drove home and Anne listened to the radio (Dundee Utd 1 Celtic 4) while I surfed YouTube and found videos of, amongst others, Alice Peacock, Dar Williams, early ELO, Wizzard and the pariah, Gary Glitter...

Then Anne checked out Jambos Kickback (Hearts Hibs Derby tomorrow) while I listened to some more tracks in the back room...

We watched the football results come in while I enjoyed the bottle of Erdinger Weissbier Anne had bought me as an anniversary treat – when I lived in Munich in 1979, I worked in a factory a short S-Bahn trip outside the city – I used to get on the train every day in the direction of Erding...



We finally visited the town during our Great Alpine Tour of 2003....

Goddammit Queens lost again and, to make matters worse, our closest rivals, Airdrie Utd won – we’re routed to the bottom of the league and are even worse than last year if that was possible (it is)...

However, by all accounts QoS could’ve won, and their first win can’t be far away (needs to be soon!!)Good news for Anne though as Rangers are beaten at home by Inverness – so Hearts must beat Hibs tomorrow to widen the gap...

It’s annoying when the pundits talk about Celtic, saying they’re now ten points ahead of Rangers – without bothering to mention that Hearts are between them just six points behind Celtic but with a game in hand....

In the early evening, as Anne watched "Strictly Come Dancing", I listened to some Glenn Gould whilst reading "The Glenn Gould Reader", a collection of articles, essays and liner notes by the great man, including one on why Petula Clark is better than the Beatles...

Then, we scrubbed up and walked down for a bus into town for our anniversary meal...

We had drinks beforehand in a nice little bar called Halo then on to French restaurant La P’tite Folie. A lovely bottle of French red accompanied our meal for which we, quite aptly after 23 years, chose exactly the same things:-

Parcels of Parma ham with Emmental cheese, slices of boiled potato, tomatoes and dressed salad
Sirloin steak with potatoes dauphinoise and fresh vegetables
Sticky toffee pudding (we were both going to have crème brulee but by the time we got round to the sweet there was none left)...

We caught the bus back home while Anne developed what seemed to be incurable hiccups – which stopped as soon as we got back into the house...

A good day...

Highlight of the Day : 23rd Anniversary Dinner

Mostly comedy...

Playlist
Preisner – Three Colours Blue OST
Various - Jukebox Shuffleplay 10 Min+ Tracks
Muse – Black Holes and Revelations
Helene Grimaud – Chopin/Rachmaninov Piano Sonatas etc
Brad Mehldau Trio – House on Hill

This morning I listened to the first of the three “Three Colours” soundtracks – a little disappointing somehow but I will persevere...

Then the jukebox on the Playlist I created to listen to at the gym a few months ago – featuring all tracks of around 10-11 minutes in length...

An unplanned and late invite appeared around 11am today for a “Sportsman’s Lunch” at the Roxburgh Hotel featuring guest speakers Frank McAvennie and John Gahagan (both ex footballers) in the company of Mr John Yuille, the man who ordered 80 copies of my last album, “Deeperdown”, for a charity golf match earlier this year...

What a tasteful chap...

Very entertaining indeed, especially Mr Gahagen, who was almost literally a laugh-a-minute...

On the way home I stopped in at HMV and bought another Helen Grimaud CD in their sale. I also had four other CDs in my hand but, after carrying them round the shop for a while, I put them back...

Back home there was a parcel behind the door. The long lost Russian CDs have finally arrived. The new Muse album and the latest from Brad Mehldau. What an unexpected delight and I immediately e-mailed the sender and cancelled my complaint with Paypal against him – it’s almost two months since I made the order and these came completely out of the blue...

The Muse album hit the deck first and, on first listening, it’s really quite a bit simplistic for what’s being touted in some quarters as “new prog” – but good nonetheless...

An Indian tonight for the first time in around three weeks I think, which must be a bit of a record for us, and we watched “Coronation St” while enjoying the delights of “Eastern Spices”...

A half hour break during which I watched clips of Mahavisshnu Orchestra, Return to Forever and Weather Report on YouTube and then The Simpsons – another great episode – the one where Homer gets his jaw wired up...

A quick blast of some Chopin from Ms Grimaud and then “Have I Got News For You” and “Not Going Out” – both very funny...

Upstairs to the computer to listen to Brad Mehldau – probably my favourite of the three discs added to the collection today – based purely on a first listen of course...

Highlight of the Day : Unexpected arrivals from the East...

Uncivilised...

Playlist
Uriah Heep - Jukebox Best of
Various - Jukebox Shuffleplay Songs of 10 Mins plus

To the library today in search of more Weather Report - remembering they used to have the whole catalogue ....

Today though, just "Heavy Weather" which I already have...

Rather than leave empty handed, I hire a 3CD set of the soundtracks, by Zbigniew Preisner, of the films "Three Colours Blue", "Three Colours White" and "Three Colours Red"...

An early evening drink does for me. Two pints mixed with my drugs leave me feeling not too bad at the time...

Back home, and after some lovely soup and a generous portion of Anne's Tuna Pasta Bake, "Extras" was probably the weakest so far and the series is still ranking below Jack Dee's "Lead Balloon", the second of which I watched last night...

"That Webb and something or other Look" is a bit lame in my eyes...

By this time I was much the worse for wear and a snoring on the settee scenario ensued...

I woke up to see buffoon, Tommy Sheridan on Question Time, which was recorded in Glasgow tonight...

The panel was pathetic, as were the questions - possibly the worst edition of this show I've ever seen...

Mind you, I was out of my face on booze and drugs...

Highlight of the Day : Anne's Tuna Pasta Bake

Fusion, confirmation and seeding...

Playlist
Weather Report – Weather Report
Weather Report – Best Of
Return to Forever – This is Jazz
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Birds of Fire
Larry Coryell - Space
Various Composers – Apex Sampler
Uriah Heep – Jukebox Playlist
Weather Report – Sweetnighter
Various - The Real Birth of Fusion Vol 1
Various - The Real Birth of Fusion Vol 2

A bit of a jazz fusion day today, inspired by my purchase of Weather Report’s debut album yesterday...

Listened to a shuffleplay playlist of Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever and compiled a list of all releases by the three bands...

I found Weather Report’s 1973 album, ”Sweetnighter”, lurking on the hard drive. It’s been there for almost a year – I borrowed it from the library last October but never got round to burning it...

Till tonight – and I also bought their second album “I Sing the Body Electric” from 1972 via e-bay...

So now I have nine Weather Report albums, two Return to Forever and seven Mahavishnu Orchestra (plus quite a few of John McLaughlin’s solo albums)...

Now about to look out two old CDs released around 10 years ago by Sony/CBS called “The Real Birth of Fusion”, volumes one and two to give them a spin...

In the post today, confirmation my shoulder operation will take place on Saturday 4 November - I am to report to the hospital at 7:30 am...

So that’s something to look forward to (kind of)....

In football, after Saturday’s heroics against the French, Scotland lost to Ukraine 2-0, though Shevchenko really is a bit of a professional faller-over. Pressley sent off and Nielson adjudged to have conceded a penalty – both incidents involving the diving millionaire...

Elsewhere, England are also beaten 2-0 by a superior Croatian team. Don’t know what’s going wrong with England – they have so many really good players yet can’t seem to play as a team. Very unfortunate second goal too as Neville’s backpass bobbled over Robinson’s foot and trickled into the empty net...

I get the feeling if Scotland and England were to swap groups, the Scots might just qualify while England, up against France, Italy and Ukraine, would be shown up for the underachievers they really are. As it is, I have no doubt they’ll put tonight (or rather this week – one point from six) behind them, and still qualify...

Scotland will be lucky to come fourth in their group...

That’s seeding for you...

Highlight of the Day : Operation Confirmed

Play loud...

Playlist
King Crimson – Singles (Disc 1) (CD-R)
Various (Shuffleplay) – Early 70’s Faves
Weather Report – Best of
Magic Pie - Motions of Desire
The Tangent – A Place in the Queue
Crimson Jazz Trio - King Crimson Songbook Vol 1
OSI – Free
Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow
Mogwai - Mr Beast
Brad Mehldau Trio - Anything Goes
Yellow Matter Custard – One Night in New York
Reid Anderson – The Vastness of Space
Magellan – Misanthrope
The Bad Plus - Suspicious Activity
Neal Morse - ?
Tool – 10,000 Days
Shadow Gallery - Room V
Glenn Gould – The Alchemist (DVD)
Weather Report – Weather Report

Two CDs bought today – Weather Report’s debut from 1971 and a classical sampler for Warners’ budget label Apex (an impulse buy at the counter for a quid)...

Reading up about Weather Report on the web, the general consensus seems to be that their first three or four albums are their halcyon period and this first album certainly seems to continue the type of stuff main men Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vitous were doing with Miles Davis immediately prior to forming the band, which, along with Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, spearheaded the Jazz Fusion movement of the early to mid 70’s...

Purchases concluded, back home it was more chicken for tea then a visit from Dr Prog, bearing the 21 disc Haydn box set as promised and also Steve Hackett’s new album...

Anne was off out to the cinema with her friend Michelle (“The Devil Wears Prada”) but, while she waited for Michelle to arrive, the prog started. Anne asked if the music needed to be so loud....

The answer was “yes, I’m afraid it does”...

As Anne left we set out on a journey through some highlights of the best albums I’ve bought out of the last 100 which sit on a shelf in the living room...

The good doctor was impressed with Magic Pie, The Tangent, Crimson Jazz Trio, Nine Horses, Mogwai, Reid Anderson (whom he saw during the recent Edinburgh Jazz Festival), Tool, Shadow Gallery and Neal Morse (whose music he has hitherto avoided due to its God-bothering aspect, despite being a big fan of Spock’s Beard)..

He already had the albums I offered by Brad Mehldau and The Bad Plus...

He was most taken though with the Yellow Matter Custard album – the aforementioned Neal Morse along with a band which includes Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater on drums – paying a two disc set of Beatles covers live in a New York club....

Dr Prog borrowed the DVD....

He was a big hit with Meg the Black Cat, who spent some considerable time sitting on the Prog man’s lap, no doubt enjoying the music of the evening...

He also demonstrated exactly how to view the 3D sleeve of Tool's "10,000 Days" album...



Then we watched the Glenn Gould DVD which I bought at the fair on Saturday but forgot to mention, “The Alchemist”...

It contains some wonderful performances as well as some very enlightening interviews...

Gould was a world famous pianist who abandoned the concert stage at the age of 32 to concentrate on working in the studio...

His reasons for doing so were illuminating and certainly resonated with me. He found playing live to be a discomfort to him and, basically, that it was a waste of time. It was impossible in a live situation to reach every member of his audience in the way in which a recording could...

From then on (around 1964) he concentrated on working in the studio, meticulously producing the best possible recordings he could of a very varied repertoire, by editing and splicing and joining takes – work which he personally oversaw...

The DVD gives a fascinating insight into his working methods...

One of my heroes...

Anne arrived home around 11 and, shortly afterwards, Phil (Dr Prog) decided he’d best get back home...

We wished him a happy holiday and he went on his way, while Meg the Black Cat escaped out the back door to explore the neighbourhood, before returning home around half an hour later none the worse for wear...

Highlight of the Day : A visit from Dr Prog

Google are tubes...

Playlist
Yes – Fans’ 2007 Setlist
Yes – Open Your Eyes
Yes - The Ladder

Monday night is aerobics night. Not for me though, for Anne – surely some mistake?

Tonight we cooked a chicken while Anne was out (she gave me precise instructions) and it turned out right – seems to be a question of getting the oven hot, putting the chicken in, opening the oven 30 minutes later, spooning the fat, which has seeped out of the unfortunate bird, back over it, closing the oven door and then waiting for Anne to come home and finish it off, cook some broccoli and potatoes and serve, while I buy stuff from e-bay...

In Anne’s absence, Dr Prog called. Today he was in M&S buying some Euros for a trip to Majorca this weekend and who should he bump into but Mr Jon Anderson of Yes waiting for his wife to come back from buying some stuff...

Clearly the good doctor was still in shock – either from meeting one his all time heroes, or from the fact that said all-time hero was frequenting Marks and Spencers...

He’s coming round tomorrow night to lend me a 21 CD box of Haydn’s complete string quartets...

Yummy...

That's Dr Prog who's coming round tomorrow by the way, not Jon Anderson...

Elsewhere, rather amazingly, Google has today agreed to by Youtube for $1.6 Billion....

Expect a feeding frenzy anytime soon from all the copyright holders of stuff illegally posted on the Youtube site which, let’s face it, is a damn site more interesting than most of the embarrassing pish on there from people using it for what it was designed for – posting up embarrassing, pish, home made videos...

Spooks was good again and once more a major character appears to have left the show...

Highlight of the Day : Spooks (again)

Seen and heard, unfortunately...

Playlist
David Gates & Bread - Essentials
Various Composers - The Glory of the Baroque (2CD)
Blancmange - Best of
Roberta Flack - Softly With These Songs
Spiritualised - Amazing Grace

Must’ve been zonked after yesterday’s eventful day as I didn’t waken until 9:45 – possibly a recent times record (excluding times when I’ve gotten up and then returned to bed)...

After a homemade breakfast, while Anne surfed the net re football, I joined the Yes site, Yesnet and posted the setlist and a review of the Anderson Wakeman gig – along the same lines as I wrote here yesterday...

Other than that? Just buggered about all day on the computer doing nothing in particular apart from transferring all the new discs to the Jukebox...

Out of ten, I’d rate them as follows:-

Susumu Yokota – Grinning Cat 8/10
Various Composers - The Glory of the Baroque 8/10
Blancmange - Best of 7/10
Gallagher and Lyle – Breakaway 6/10
Kronos Quartet – Nuevo 4/10
David Gates & Bread – Essentials 3/10
Roberta Flack - Softly With These Songs 2/10
Spiritualised - Amazing Grace 1/10

I’d forgotten how good Blancmange were...

In the afternoon, round to Anne’s mum’s....

Both sister-in-law Jane and partner-not-in-law Maureen celebrate their birthdays this Tuesday so it was a birthday tea. As usual, the kids got to blow out the candles. Niece Kitty and nephew Ollie were particularly badly behaved today but that’s just kids I suppose...

Now, back in my day...seen and not heard and all that...

Anyway, back home I found a poll on the Yes website re tracks fans would like to hear played live were there to be a tour in 2007 – which I’m pretty sure there won’t be...

The top 15 songs (in reverse order) are currently as follows:-

Homeworld from The Ladder
Siberian Khatru from Close to the Edge
Perpetual Change from The Yes Album
Starship Trooper from The Yes Album
Machine Messiah from Drama
South Side of the Sky from Fragile
The Gates of Delirium from Relayer
Sound Chaser from Relayer
And You And I from Close to the Edge
Parallels from Going for the One
Heart of the Sunrise from Fragile
Awaken from Going for the One
On the Silent Wings of Freedom from Tormato
Close to the Edge from Close to the Edge
To Be Over from Relayer

So that set includes all of both "Close to the Edge" and "Relayer" – two great albums which you should all buy at the next opportunity – they have them both in FOPP right now for a fiver each...

...and it’d make a good setlist so I ended the day by programming it into the Jukebox...

Highlight of the Day : A birthday tea

Give love each day...

Playlist
Allan Holdsworth – Against the Clock (Disc 2)
The Beatles – Solo Singles 1969-75 (Disc 1)
Various – Super 70’s Rock (Disc 1)
Gallagher and Lyle - Breakaway

A packed day today so a long post...

Got home fine by midnight last night having collected Anne and met all her work chums. There’s something weird about being the only sober person in a stowed out pub full of dancing drunk people on a Friday night....

Up at 6 and listened to solo singles by the four Beatles, recorded from 1969-1975. I wonder why EMI haven’t had this idea yet – there are some great tracks there and the juxtaposition of styles carries on from the type of thing you had with the White album – although the standard of song-writing is slightly better since these are all hit singles...

Some lovely coffee and to the computer to compile a compilation for Meg the Black Cat’s ex-mum, Julia (I wasn’t married to Julia, she just used to have Meg the Black Cat as her pet)...

Whist doing this I updated my “Monthly Top Albums” blog, closing off September and starting October...

Julia wants something reminiscent of the music used on the soundtrack of the film “Grosse Point Blank”, which seems to be a late 70’s early 80’s mix of punky stuff, new wave stuff, poppy stuff and disco-ey stuff...

My first ports of call were my self made compilations “Now That’s What I Call Music” which trace my favourite music from 1959 to 2003 (hmm, need to update that soon...)

Then to my trusty box sets, “Best of the Seventies” and “Best of the Eighties”, then those four 4CD Sunday Times box sets I bought for £2 each a few months ago at a record fair...

Part of the remit is also to use tracks which Julia won’t necessarily know, so I also looked to the “Trojan UK Hit Singles” reggae box set...

Before I knew it, I had a “Shortlist” of over 80 tracks and almost 5 hours...

I’ll come back to that project...

Left the house at 9:45 and drove to Valvona & Crolla (Est 1934) for breakfast...



Anne had the largest bacon roll I’ve seen in a long time, which went someway to combating her hangover, while I partook of a roll with some country sausage which was red, hot and very tasty indeed...

Despite the bill being around double what we normally pay at Pattisserie Florentin, it made a pleasant change...

We’d parked in Montgomery Street, where we lived in this flat from 1983-87...



After breakfast we walked the length of our old street to Easter Road and to the Lothian Cat Rescue shop where I’d seen the Ikea CD holder on Thursday...

They were reluctant to part with it as it was an integral part of their window display but I told them it was a “name your price” scenario. I offered £10. They said that’d be great. So I upped the price to £12 (for the cats) and also bought two CDs at a stupid price of just 50p each – “The Best of Roberta Flack” and “The Best of Blancmange”....

Then back to the car and dropped the CD holder and CDs into the boot and walked uptown. We met Anne’s brother Keith and his partner Maureen on the way and we walked together to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery - a rather impressive building...



Anne and I went in and visited the current exhibition – a retrospective of the photojournalism of Harry Benson

It’s not art of course, just photos of famous people, which is what makes it really – it’s like a large room version of Hello magazine featuring US Presidents and their wives and film and music stars of days gone by...

Ordinary photos of extraordinary people...

To FOPP and, despite having been in yesterday, I bought Spiritualised’s “Amazing Grace” for just three squid....

Almost bought Elbow’s last album but remembered I have the one before that which I’ve never really listened to properly – also toyed with a couple of jazz discs and a book on the making of the Beatles’ “White Album” but stopped myself from buying...

I’d arranged to meet Phil (Dr Prog) at the record fair at 2 and went in half an hour early as Anne went off to shop for “stuff she likes”...

Bert Muirhead, one of Edinburgh’s longest standing record dealers had a stall and it was good to see him again, as I’ve not spoken to him for years and had heard he’d had a stroke. He seemed in fine fettle and certainly not as grumpy as his old reputation would have painted him (a deserved reputation it must be said!)..

Between us, Dr Prog and I bought 5 discs from Bert – I added “The Glory of the Baroque”, a compilation by the band Bread (I love their track “The Guitar Man”) and “Breakaway” by Gallagher and Lyle – a guilty favourite for me from the late seventies – to my collection...

Dr Prog progged out on two Pallas discs...

After the fair we met up with Anne and walked down to Leith Walk to find a pub in which to watch the Scotland v France game. We caught most of the Wales v Slovakia game which the Welsh lost 5-1, the score line didn’t reflect the play though but that’s football...

The first half of the Scotland game saw the home team defending stoutly but having trouble keeping the ball for any length of time. The French had the ball in the net twice, both goals being correctly chalked off for off side...

In the second half the Scots opened up the game a little and, with around twenty five minutes or so to go, managed a goal from a corner - here's rather a blurry picture of the celebrations, you can see goalscorer, Gary Caldwell's number 8 on the TV screen.......



Amazing stuff. We counted down the minutes to the final whistle and endured three minutes of injury time, during which we were sure the French would equalise – but they didn’t...

And to add to the jubilation, England, who have probably the easiest group in the competition could only draw 0-0 at home to the mighty Macedonia!! Oh dear...

By comparison, we have both this year’s World Cup finalists in our group – indeed in the last 18 months we’ve drawn with champions, Italy and now we’ve beaten runners up, France...

What a glorious day for Scotland...

By now Dr Prog’s brother, John had joined us and we walked back up the road and said goodbye to Anne who took the car home while the three musketeers headed for a Thai buffet restaurant over the road from the Playhouse where we were off to see Yes alumni Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman in an acoustic setting...

The meal was very tasty though Dr Prog was getting a bit agitated as we paid the bill and headed over to the theatre as it was getting close to 8pm, the start time...

The concert was very enjoyable indeed, with both players seeming very relaxed in this setting. Anderson sang and played occasional guitar and, as a longstanding Yes fan, it was fascinating to see him play what ultimately became complex songs in the hands of the whole band, in the way in which he must first have presented them to the group...

It must be said, re his guitar skills, that he makes a little go a very long way (to his credit though, he did play some piano too during his solo spot....



Wakeman’s piano skills on the other hand are almost without equal in the prog rock world of course and they were absolutely to the fore tonight as the music provision fell squarely upon his ample shoulders...



Tonight was the first night of their UK tour, and it showed, but, despite a few fluffed lines and miscues, the duo carried off the show in style, laughing and joking between themselves and with the audience and, unlike the non-prog rock world impression of serious earnest, now not so young, man practising their craft, they were definitely not taking themselves too seriously...

The set included three new songs and at least three further excerpts from new pieces each of which melded into more familiar material early in the evening...

Highlight for me though, was to hear Jon Anderson sing “Give Love Each Day”, my favourite song from the last Yes album, 2001’s “Magnification”, with just his own guitar accompaniment. Sublime...

During the interval, I met up with old friends Paul Reynolds, home on leave (he’s a marine engineer) and Martin Lennon (better known as Edinburgh Evening News reviewer Martin Lenon – he was at the gig on business but a big Yes fan nonetheless)...

Despite my still iffy ankle, I actually ran for a bus to take me home and was back at Crispycat Towers by 11:15 for the football highlights...

A very long, but very enjoyable, day...

Highlight of the Day : Scotland 1 France 0 / Anderson Wakeman

Grinning cat...

Playlist
UK – The Best of UK (CD-R)
Bruford – One of a Kind
Kronos Quartet – Nuevo
Susumu Yokota – Grinning Cat

OK today I had good intentions...

They came to nothing...

Anne was out tonight and I could’ve done some worthwhile stuff...

Instead I watched a bit of TV - “The Money Programme” re the ever-increasing dependence in the UK on convenience foods....

I prefer it when there’s some cooking being done but of course there is always the lure of the 2 minutes in the microwave scenario...

Recent culinary highlights at Crispycat Towers have been Anne’s Spaghetti Bolognese earlier this week and the home made lasagne she prepared for her mum’s visit a couple of weeks back (and which she cooked again for the two of us a few days later). Mmm mmmm....

I was going to watch a couple of programmes on Jake Thakery on BBC4 but missed them...

Had a telephone conversation with Dr Prog re arrangements for tomorrow...

I also listened to two new CDs purchased today at FOPP....

The Kronos Quartet’s “Nuevo” which mashes up some fine string playing with some Latin American goings on, to fine effect...



...and Susumu Yokota’s “Grinning Cat” (above) which, despite what the sticker on the sleeve says, is definitely NOT ambient. It is however, very good indeed and is reminiscent of Four Tet....

Now I’m off to continue compiling my top 1,000 CDs and later, I will venture forth in the car in order to ferry Anne home to safety after her night out on the town, only able to drive due to my use of drowsiness inducing painkillers...

Wish me luck...

Highlight of the Day : Susumu Yokota’s “Grinning Cat”

Notes to return...

Playlist
Dream Theater – Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence
Dream Theater – A Change of Seasons
Dream Theater – Awake
Dream Theater – Falling Into Infinity
Dream Theater – Images and Words
Asia – Asia
UK – The Best of UK (CD-R)

To the dentist this morning and I now have my second gold tooth....

The fitting was quick and painless and my toothline now feels back to normal...

Close by the surgery is The Lothian Cat Rescue shop and, in the window I noticed they’re using an Ikea CD storage box as a display for little ornaments. Ikea no longer sells these 108 CD holding gems. I have 35 but need more. I made a note to return and make them an offer they can’t refuse...

From the bus to town I noticed a grocer selling Polish beers, including one called “Zwiec”. When Anne and I were in Krakow a couple of years back, we frequented a great little bar there and I drank this particular brand of beer, ordering it night after night as “Tsveek”. On the fourth night, the barmaid finally had had enough of my rubbish Polish and advised the correct pronunciation as being “Zivy-etch”...

Whatever it’s called, it’s tasty and I made a note to return there too...

James Jamieson called today to enquire whether I was up for Out of the Bedroom (OOTB) tonight. I wasn’t, but suggested he pop by and we do a swap of the acoustic bass for his drum machine – I can’t play guitars at present, but I can still press buttons...

This evening, I embarked upon the task of determining my top 1,000 albums (original studio albums only, no live or compilations) to ensure they're all on the Jukebox. And so it was that I was in the middle of this, enjoying the sounds of Asia's debut album, when Mr J arrived around 8:30 – without the drum machine....

We sat in the living room for a good couple of hours the three of us, discussing:-

Football - Jamie coaches his son Conrad for local boys team Hutchie Vale and of course like Anne he’s a Hearts season ticket holder...

Politics – we all agreed that if people don’t like living in the UK they could always go elsewhere which has a system they do like and...

Music – again we all agreed that OOTB just doesn’t seem to be as good as it used to be - the new venue needs some work to make it as conducive to the intimacy required for this type of evening and the standard of many of the current crop of performers leaves something to be desired – and the chat levels during performances have become very annoying indeed...

Then, around eleven, while transferring "Now 64" onto Conrad's MP3 player, I introduced Jamie to YouTube and he was delighted to be able to see his hero Billy Mackenzie of The Associates (subject of Jamie's song "Why Billy Why") in action - coincidentaly, one of the songs Jamie chose to watch, was a live rendition of "Kites" from French TV. This was a hit for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound in 1968. They went on to become....Gentle Giant - small world...



Along with Billy, we watched some long lost footage of another of JAmie's favourites, Gene Pitney – I get the feeling he’ll be signing up soon...

Watching all these old videos is great – though of course there’s a huge question mark hanging over this site re copyright infringement...

My intro of Jamie to it followed on from our chat re OOTB and I reckoned the way forward for budding songwriters isn’t to get up on stage in front of a few of their peers every week but to put up home made videos on the net...

My old chum Peri Urban has given up his blog and gone over to YouTube big style, garnering thousands of views of each of the nice little acoustic songs he’s posted up and has now recorded an acoustic album on the back of this which he’s selling as a Zip File for $10 a throw to anyone who’s interested...

At 12:30 Anne calls time on the two children hunched round the computer screen and Jamie heads off home (without the bass)...

A good day....

Highlight of the Day : A visit from James Jamieson

Theater of dreams...

Playlist
Gentle Giant – Playing the Fool
Gentle Giant - Interview
Gentle Giant – The Missing Piece
Gentle Giant – Gentle Giant
Gentle Giant – Acquiring the Taste
Liam Frost – Show Me How the Spectres Dance
Gentle Giant – Three Friends
Dream Theater – Train of Thought
Dream Theater - Octavarium
Dream Theater - Dark Side of the Moon (Live)

A Gentle Giant day today (mostly), then, an e-mail from chum Craig from Macclesfield lead me to Liam Frost’s website for a listen to a few impressive tracks...

After that brief trip into singersongwritery, it was back for more Gentle Giant, and then on to some Dream Theater...

Then to YouTube again – it’s like your own personal MTV. I watched some videos based around footage of the lovely Shiri Appleby from “Roswell” including Dido’s wonderful track “Here With Me” which was, of course, the theme tune to this excellent turn of the century (20th to 21st that is) sci fi series...

That lead me to Dido performing “White Flag”, another great song, live on MTV – then back into the archives and some Uriah Heep and, for the first time ever, I saw footage of one of my all time favourite bands, UK (John Wetton, Bill Bruford, Eddie Jobson and Allan Holdsworth), playing live...

This lead me to Asia’s reunion tour of the USA which is currently underway, and their versions of old King Crimson, Buggles and Yes songs. Dr Prog and I are going to see them in Glasgow next month...

Earlier tonight, while listening to Dream Theater, Dr Prog called to make arrangements for Saturday night when we’re off to see Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman at the Edinburgh Playhouse. During the course of our call, he coincidentally mentioned how good the latest 2DVD live set by the Dream Theater is...

And so, back on YouTube, I found Dream Theater’s live version of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety, featuring Roger Waters’ sax player...

Amazing. This band must be one of the most talented around – they regularly do concerts where they play whole albums by bands who’ve had an influence on them...

Recommended listening...

Finished off the evening with some Psychedelic Furs as suggested by Lodger Low from over on “Always Crashing in the Same Car”...

Just one thing watched on the TV tonight, and the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages. Jack Dee’s new comedy “Lead Balloon” which, like Ricky Gervais’ “Extras” is filmed without an audience...

I will be watching every episode of this series on BBC4...

Highlight of the Day : UK, Dream Theater and Jack Dee

Gentle giant...

Playlist
Mahavishnu Orchestra – The Lost Trident Tapes
Rick Altizer – Blue Plate Special
Office of Strategic Influence – Free
Eels – Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Fountains of Wayne – Out of State Plates
Television – Marquee Moon
Brad Mehldau – Anything Goes
Ramones – Mania
Halloween Alaska – Too Tall to Hide
Billy Cobham – Many Years BC
Art Blakey – Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonius Monk
Miles Davis – The Best of Seven Steps

Another fairly uneventful day...

The pain in my arm now seems to be under control though I was given a sharp reminder tonight that it’s anything but healed and that the drugs merely mask the problem...

Whilst putting on my jacket, I was distracted by something and forgot to use what must be the rather amusing to watch method I’ve developed over the last year or so to carry out this normal exercise...

Instead, I stuck my left arm up in the air to get it into the sleeve...

The pain sent a shock through my body and I almost collapsed onto the floor – it took a good five minutes to regain my composure....

Luckily there was no-one else around to witness this rather embarrassing event (yes, that’s why I’m now publishing a description of it here!!)

Back home, nothing on the telly all night apart from a four way clash at 9pm – we end up watching “CSI : Miami”...

Oh dear – spent some more time tonight watching rubbish on Youtube but not just rubbish – I came across some footage of the MIGHTY Gentle Giant, live in the USA in 1974...

I saw them once at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh in May 1976 - the picture below is them a few days later in Paris...

What a great band...



Highlight of the Day : Gentle Giant

Cheeky Mexican monkey...

Playlist
Pat Metheny – Works
Rick Altizer – Blue Plate Special
Magic Pie - Motions of Desire
The Tangent - A Place in the Queue
The Crimson Jazz Trio – King Crimson Songbook Vol 1
Laura Pausini – Escucha
ZZ Top – Greatest Hits
Steppenwolf – 16 Greatest Hits
To Rococco Rot - Kolner Brett
Mott the Hoople – All the Young Dudes
Grand Funk Railroad – 30 Years of Funk
Phil Manzanera – 6pm
Peter Gabriel – Hit
Television – Marquee Moon
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Best of 1990-1995
Mogwai – Mr Beast
Cloudland Blue Quartet –The Acoustic Ersatzreal
Ramones – Mania
James Jamieson – 13 Songs
Hafter Medboe – In Perpetuity
Hayley Hutchinson – Independently Blue

Did nothing much today....

While Anne was at aerobics I lay slumped on the settee watching anything that was on the TV – turned out to be a programme called “In the Steps of Winston Churchill” – discovered he was once MP for Dundee but became so hated, he was voted out, coming fourth behind a prohibitionist...

Later watched “Spooks”. Seemed to be going nowhere then kick started into action half way through to turn out to be another good episode...

Recently received a cheeky e-mail from a guy in Mexico who must have googled the album “Kolner Brett” by To Rococco Rot and came across it in one of my playlists...

He wanted to know if I might possibly rip it and upload it so he could have a copy as he couldn’t find it anywhere in Mexico...

So I’m doing that gradually over the next week or so...

You’d think he’d never heard of e-bay....

Highlight of the Day : Spooks

Goldberg variations...

Playlist
Schumann - String Quartets Nos 1 & 3
Schubert String Quartet No 13
Alice Cooper - Best of 1965-72 (CD-R)
Various - Jukebox Shuffleplay
Glenn Gould - Images (Disc One - Plays Bach)

Feeling much better this morning as the drugs and the pain are under control...

Up early and raring to go...

Unfortunately, at 7:15 I sign into You Tube...

Man, it really sucks you in - everything you find makes you think of something else - before I know it, it's nearly 10 am and I've done nothing...

Since I can't drive, Anne goes for some provisions and we breakfast when she returns...

While she's out I phone my mum and arrange for her and sister Sheila to pop round. Around 11, Sheila and mum arrive along with Sheila's husband Andrew and their grandson Kerr - aaarrrggghhh!!! My grand-nephew. I am old....

But he is young (21 months)...



I am always nervous about children in the house - not in case they fall and hurt themselves or something - rather, in case they damage any of my stuff....

For example, they might very well pull these shelves down...



Today however, it goes no further than a few crumbs and some sticky finger marks...

In the afternoon, Anne is out at Hearts v Dundee Utd - 4-0 but both Rangers and Celtic manage lucky 1-0 wins, each scoring in the last few minutes - a good result for the Jam Tarts nonetheless...

I spend (waste) more time watching videos on You Tube, even finding a couple by Rheostatics...

In the evening, we light some candles in the living room and enjoy Anne's home made Tuna Pasta Bake with fresh parmesan topping....



After "Coronation St", while Anne now trawls the web, I watch the first hour of an excellent new film about pianist Glenn Gould on BBC4 (Dr Prog calls to ensure I'm not missing it)...

One of his most famous recordings is his 1955 rendition of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" - I once worked in a department store in Edinburgh called Goldbergs...

I have 21 CDs of recordings of Glenn Gould - he is my favourite male pianist...



I'm recording it too to watch again later as am missing the last half hour due to a clash with Anne's "Jane Eyre", which I forego...

"Match of the Day 2" follows and then two more episodes of US sit com "Arrested Development" and once again the weekend draws to a close....

Highlight of the Day : Glenn Gould