A good Friday...

Playlist
Thad Jones – Detroit New York Junction
Rheostatics – Best of (1xCD-R)
Judy Collins – Wildflowers
Judy Collins – Where Does the Time Go
John Coltrane – Soultrane
Various – The Definitive Story of CBGB

Up at 6:30 – Good Friday and another day off from musicking as we were driving to Glasgow for the day...

Spent a couple of hours listening to all my Rheostatics albums to discern what really are my favourite tracks...

Anne finally got up and we had a quick, small slice of toast before leaving...

As usual when we go to Glasgow, we parked off Byres Road at the West End, where we went to Little Italy for a lovely coffee and a cake...

A stroll up Byres Road followed and, after a detour down Ruthven Lane, we ended up at Fopp, where I made my first purchases of the day – a compilation of US Punk Rock, two 2CD sets of jazz, Art Blakey and Stan Getz and a 9 disc box set of Jamaican reggae on the Trojan label...

Then we took the subway into the city centre and alighted at Buchanan Galleries and walked down Buchanan Street to the market which is currently in situ outside the St Enoch Centre...

We had a quick look round taking in the sites sounds and, indeed, delicious aromas of the foreign foods on sale and then went shopping, Anne for stuff she likes – me to the bigger branch of FOPP...

I made my second purchase of the day – Dio’s 2002 album “Killing the Dragon”, Billy Cobham’s “Shabazz”, a live album from 1974, Judy Collins“Wildflowers” and “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” (2 albums on 1 Disc), the former including her hit cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and the latter her version of “Hello Hooray” which predated Alice Cooper’s hit by five years – oh, and another 9CD box of Reggae...

Then round the corner and under the bridge at Central Statio to Missing, where I found a cache of jazz discs, purchasing a couple by Stanley Turrentine “Never Let Me Go” form 1963 and, from a year earlier, “That’s Where It’s At”. I also picked up Bud Powell’s “Time Waits”, Horace Silver’s “The Stylings of” and John Coltrane’s “Soultrane”, all of which were recorded before even I was born....

Oh dear – CD frenzy – 32 individual discs for £42 – 13 titles in all, which, if I’d bought from Amazon, would’ve cost me around £80 more – not that I would have of course. The reasons I bought these particular discs were : (a) I was reasonably interested in hearing the music and (b) they were incredibly cheap....

We met up again back at the market, Anne having bought a few tasty items to her liking and expressing a certain amount of scepticism regarding the need for me to have increased my CD collection so sharply...

A walk along the banks of the Clyde to Glasgow Green followed – the park reminded me of the one in Amsterdam near the Van Gogh museum...

We walked to the People’s Palace and stopped in for a coffee, a sit down and a heat, then back into town and up to Buchanan Street again for the Subway back to the West End, by which time it was around 5pm, so we made our way to Ashton Lane for a pre-dinner drink in the Brel Belgian Beer Bar...

As we walked down to the end of Byres Road, heading for our current favourite Glasgow Indian, the snappily named West End Balti & Dosa House, another of those synchronistic scenarios took place...

Who should we almost bump into but Mr Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile as he stood at the cashline machine obtaining some of his hard-earned song writing royalties from the wall – I didn’t intrude on his afternoon but perhaps I should’ve asked him if there were any more gigs in the pipeline...

In the Dosa House I’d just been saying to Anne how weird it must be to be approached by people you don’t know but who know who you are...

....and then, as we waited for our bill, one of the guys at the next table came over and said “It’s CBQ isn’t it?” and shook my hand...

Spooky....

We walked back to the car along some of the West End back streets, meeting a wee cat on the way...

Anne picked Judy Collins to listen to in the car on the way home but, after a few songs, gave her up as too hippy-dippy and I recommended John Coltrane’s “Soultrane”...

Back home, yet another CD added to the collection as my awaited John Gorka disc had arrived in the mail...

We ended the day with “Ugly Betty”, “Law & Order : Criminal Intent” and “Coronation Street” – truly we are creatures of habit...

A good day...

Highlight of the Day : CD Frenzy..