Labour of love...

Playlist
Various – The Definitive Story of CBGB
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers – Works of Art
Various – The Trojan Jamaican Box Set
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Ersatzreal

One of the reasons I get up early is that, once awake, stupid ideas spin around in my head and I need to get up and carry them out. This morning it was to create a chronological grid of all studio albums by (probably) my top five artists...

And so it was that I now have an excel spreadsheet showing the output of David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Brian Eno, King Crimson and Yes over the period 1967-2007 (the Coop has a new album due in the summer)...

A total of 102 albums, 26 by Bowie (including Tin Machine), 25 by Cooper (including his as yet unreleased 2007 album “Along Came A Spider”), 19 each by Eno and Yes and a meagre 13 by King Crimson (though some might say this shows the band’s concern for quality over quantity)...

Over the last 41years, only in 1968, 1988, 1998, 2004 and 2006 were there no releases from any of the five...

So that wasted an hour or so of my life...

Whilst listening to Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers I got to wondering about who all had ever been a “jazz messenger”, which lead me to an interesting “Family Tree” site...

Then, as I did some research on Amazon on the albums I bought yesterday, I worked out how much I’d saved had I ever thought about buying them all because I wanted them rather than because I stumbled across them at a good price...

As I made notes for yesterday’s blog entry I listened to the whole of the CBGB double CD and the Art Blakey 2CD set and two of the reggae albums...

All really good stuff – and worth every penny (I convinced myself)...

Then back to work on the new album after a couple of days off – working up one of the remaining acoustic songs into a full band scenario...

Three hours later, time for a walk up Corstorphine Hill with Anne. This month marks the 20th anniversary of our moving to Crispycat Towers and we estimated that, in that time, despite its beauty on our doorstep, this was only our fifth trip up the hill – but we do hope to up the average as soon as possible, Jim...



Back home and, as Anne went off to Tynecastle (1-0 versus Kilmarnock), I continued working while keeping an eye out for any goals in the six pointer between Queen of the South and Partick Thistle – in the end, a 0-0 draw gave Queens their 11th consecutive unbeaten league game – if only they could’ve done that at the start of the season...

In the evening I left the studio after a good day’s input and watched a great episode of “Dr Who” (the Shakespeare one), the hilarious “Harry Hill’s TV Burp”, and our Saturday Night staples, “CSI : New York” and “Law & Order”....

Finally to bed with the latest mock up of the CBQ album on the cans – it’s changing daily...

Highlight of the Day : Working on my music again after a couple of days’ break...