Survivor...

Playlist
Rheostatics - Best of (2xCD-R)
Various - Blue Movies:Scoring for the Studios
Rheostatics - Best of (Single CD-R)
Billy Cobham/Nordic - Off Colour

A day off and Anne was out tonight, so I could have quite legitimately continued working on the new album but, to be brutally honest, I just could not be bothered...

An avalanche of parcels (ok, three) came through the door today - containing three of the four CDS I've been waiting on from e-bay...

I listened to the first, a compilation of music from films, played by various Blue Note artists...

If I'm honest (hey, can you feel the honesty in the room?) it was pretty disappointing, with the exceptions of Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew" (the theme from "Film 2007" etc), Willie Bobo's "Kojak", Wilton Felder's "Bullit", Bobby Hutcherson's "Blow Up" and Billy May's "Mission Impossible"...

OK not too bad then, 5 out of 17 tracks and probably worth the couple of quid outlay...

Instead of working on the new music, I spent much of the evening reading articles on the net about the demise of my favourite Canadian band, Rheostatics, who played their last ever show on 30 March at Toronto's Massey Hall...

That, in turn, led me to burn a one disc best of (I'd been listening to my two disc best of during the day today before coming home to parcels of jazz)....

Rheostatics had an influence on Canadian independent music far beyond what might be expected in relation to their own commercial success...

They are talked about in the Canadian press as the Canadian Velvet Underground - they don't sound anything like the Velvets of course....

You can read about their final days here - the article contains various links to more mainstream takes on the end of the band...

So, I'd just finished burning the disc and downloading a bootleg (provided by a band-endorsed site) of their last gig, when Anne phoned looking for a lift home...

So into town to pick up Anne and her chum Michelle...

Now, you know how, sometimes something happens which makes you think "If only I'd done such and such, something which I witnessed or which happened to me, I wouldn't have been witness to or it might not have happened"?

Well, as I drove into town, a little white and brown cat came careering out of a side street and tried to run across the road...

It got caught under the car in front of me and I thought it was run over for certain - but it rolled out the other side and ran in front of the lane of traffic coming towards me, made it to the pavement and then ran off into another side street - I hope the wee beastie will be okay....

If I hadn't waited the few minutes for the Rheostatics CD to finish burning so that I could listen to it in the car, I wouldn't have witnessed the cat incident....

Anyway, gave Michelle a lift home to South Queensferry and then drove home with Anne....

And in the cans tonight, Mr Billy Cobham - one of the world's best drummers, on the second of the three CDs which arrived today, a disc by his Norwegian band, Nordic...

Here he is in his Mahavishnu Orchestra days back circa 1973...



Some man...

Highlight of the Day : Listening to and reading about Rheostatics