Saturday, October 21, 2006

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!

6 comments:

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Inchronological order I have:-

"Conception" (Compilation of tracks from "Sing Songs EP"(1), "The Church"(5) and "The Blurred Crusade"(4)
"The Blurred Crusade"
"Seance"
"Remote Luxury"
"Heyday"
"Starfish"
"Gold Afternon Fix"
"A Quick Smoke at Spots" (Archives 1986-1990)
"Priest = Aura"
"Sometime Anywhere"
"Magician Among the Spirits"
"Hologram of Baal"
"A Box of Birds"
"After Everything Now This"
"Parallel Universe" (alternates and out-takes from "After Everything")
"Forget Yourself"
"Uninvited Like the Clouds"

Sid Smith said...

Mysterious Traveller is a beautiful album. I love the opening atmospherics of the title track, the piano chords that stab for attention and the soaring solo by Shorter. The masterstroke for me is the way the atmospherics gather back underneath the track eventually coming to the foreground. I read somewhere that MT was the first WR record that was recorded like a rock album, lots of overdubs attention to colour and shade, and it shows. Any of the tracks from this album would be worthy of your attention; the joyous bombast of Nubian Sundance, the playful introspection of Blackthorn Rose, Scarlet Woman is a masterclass in tension and release, whilst Jungle Book (complete with the sounds of Zawinul's children in the background) is about as uplifting as anything you're liable to hear. If you like this album then make sure you get Tale Spinnin' - more of the same but with a harder edge.

impossible songs said...

God more lists! Thanks for the birthday reminder. Can you shed any light on the "Worm Song" lyrical correctness thingy??? (Must be on some list somewhere!)

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

I found four versions

Version I:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Version II
Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms
Long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones
See how they wriggle and squirm

I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice
And throw the skins away
Nobody knows how fat I grow
On worms three times a day
Ohh...nobody loves me.
Version III:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Think I'll go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm.

Chomp off their heads and squeeze out the juice
And throw their tails away
Nobody knows how I survive
On worms three times a day.
Version IV:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me
I'm goin' down the garden to eat worms
Long thin slimy ones, short fat fuzzy ones
Ooey gooey, ooey gooey worms

Long thin slimy ones slip down easily
Short fat fuzzy ones don't
Short fat fuzzy ones stick to your teeth
And the juice goes slurpin' (slurping noise) down your throat

Version V:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
think I'll go eat worms...
big fat juicy ones, little slimy skinny ones,
hope they don't have germs!"

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

I found four versions

Version I:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Version II
Nobody loves me, everybody hates me
Think I'll go and eat worms
Long ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones
See how they wriggle and squirm

I bite off the heads, and suck out the juice
And throw the skins away
Nobody knows how fat I grow
On worms three times a day
Ohh...nobody loves me.
Version III:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Think I'll go eat worms.
Big fat juicy ones, Eensie weensy squeensy ones,
See how they wiggle and squirm.

Chomp off their heads and squeeze out the juice
And throw their tails away
Nobody knows how I survive
On worms three times a day.
Version IV:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me
I'm goin' down the garden to eat worms
Long thin slimy ones, short fat fuzzy ones
Ooey gooey, ooey gooey worms

Long thin slimy ones slip down easily
Short fat fuzzy ones don't
Short fat fuzzy ones stick to your teeth
And the juice goes slurpin' (slurping noise) down your throat

Version V:
Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
think I'll go eat worms...
big fat juicy ones, little slimy skinny ones,
hope they don't have germs!"

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Sorry, that's five of course. I always sing my own version which is a combination:-

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Think I'll go and eat some worms,

Big fat juicy ones, wee skinny skooshy ones
See how they wriggle and squirm

I bite of their heads and schloop up the juice and throw the skins away

Nobody knows how I survive
On worms three times a day...


Mmm tasty...