Terrible noise...

Playlist
Pergolesi - Symphonies
Dittersdorf - Symphonies
Manfredini – Concerti Grossi
Cloudland Blue Quartet – Souvenir XVI Erstazreal Live
Gary Numan – Premier Hits
Robert Wyatt – Comicopera
Wizzard - Wizzard's Brew
Al Stewart – Orange
Various – The Hits of 1972 Vols 1-3 (CD-Rs)

Up around 6am and, as usual, I was tying to work on something or other but was way-laid by interesting things on the internet – like excerpts from the upcoming Asia album “Phoenix”, their follow up to 1983’s “Alpha”...



...and like trying to download the first three parts of a nine disc box set of Rheostatics, created with the permission of the band by the guy who runs the Rheostatics live website (see links)...

I need to try that again as the download timed out...

An early morning e-mail from Dr Prog advised he couldn’t meet up today due to a collapsed shelf situation, involving, not as you might expect, CDs, but wayward Cookery Books...

The Doctor is innocent (assuming he doesn’t cook – which I don’t think he does)...

As I wrote up the last couple of days of this diary, I remembered I’d concocted a cover for the new CBQ Souvenir and I revisited that and changed it completely, while copying the discs I was to take back to the library today...

I did some final work on the proposed CBQ release by adding in a recording of “Skylines Full of Cranes” featuring Jamie, so both he and my nephew Andy will appear on the recording itself rather than just in the thanks column...

And so, around 10, breakfast time – toast and coffee...

Then, off out to the Saturday place and a walk over to the library to hand back the discs...

I toyed with the idea of hiring out every disc they had of Haydn’s symphonies but, eventually, I put them all back...

Had a wander round town and stopped in at what was once our second record store but is now a coffee shop, having been another CD store and a hairdresser in between times...



A long time before it was our record shop, it was the first ever Avalanche Record Store...

Coincidentally both Avalanche and the hairdresser subsequently moved a few doors along the street to this shop...



I managed not to buy any CDs today, maintaining my CD celibacy into its seventh day....

Back home, further discipline was demonstrated by running through the set for a week on Wednesday, followed by my tidying away all the mess that’d gathered in the music room and all my guitars from the computer room...

I tidy rarely but, when I do, it’s a purge – today also involved taking all the books and magazines and stuff I had lying around in the living room away...

Pasta for a late lunch as we were off out tonight...

Football-wise, Hearts won 1-0 away at Motherwell, thanks to an own goal, while Queens took their current unbeaten run to ten games with a goalless draw at Partick Thistle, after having their captain, rather harshly by all accounts, sent off in the 33rd minute...

I started a compilation of all the UK Top 20 hit singles from 1972 which I liked (and which I have somewhere or other in my collection of course)...

1972 was the year I became really interested in music but, as well as being the year in which my all time fave rave Alice Cooper came to prominence and the year in which more men made it onto the moon, it was also a time when the USA continued the war in Vietnam following the landslide re-election of Richard Nixon...



During the campaign, he was able to shrug off the low key references to a botched break in at the Watergate building...

I read Nixon's memoirs in the eighties and would recommend anyone wiling to write him off on the basis of the watergate scandal to do the same for some first hand insight into what made the man tick...

I'd say he was probably a better president than Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Snr, Clinton or Bush Jnr - i.e the best there's been in my lifetime...

Anyhow, my 3CD compilation will feature (in chronological order) music by T Rex, Isaac Hayes, The Congregation, Slade, Deep Purple, Melanie, America, The Faces, Bread, Chicory Tip, Don McLean, Nilsson, The Sweet, Lindisfarne, Wings, Argent, Neil Young, Ringo Starr, Jo Jo Gunne, Elton John, Procol Harum, The Moody Blues, The Move, Free, Gary Glitter, Elvis Presley, Dr Hook & the Medicine Show, The Who, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, Hawkwind, Electric Light Orchestra, Rod Stewart, Mott the Hoople, Derek and the Dominoes, Blackfoot Sue, Roxy Music, 10cc, The Carpenters, Family, The Shangris Las, The Osmonds, Jeff Beck, The Jackson Five, Strawbs and John Lennon...

Those of you around my age can probably name most of the tracks...

After another enjoyable episode of Harry Hill’s “TV Burp”, we headed over to Fife for a night of something called “SingStar” which involves downloading songs (with their videos) and singing along with them in a karaoke fashion...

You sing in a duet against your opponent and points are awarded based the number of notes you hit correctly and for the correct length of time...

It’s definitely not as easy as it sounds....

Suffice to say, I now know I have no idea of either the words or the tune to Britney Spears’ “Toxic”!!

I managed Pet Shop Boys’ “Always On My Mind” and Duran Duran’s “Hungry like the Wolf” but failed at least three times to master Aha’s “Take on Me”....

I also realised how out of touch I am with what passes for popular music these days, having never heard many of the songs which the rest of the gathered ensemble could sing along to with ease...

Best singer of the night had to be the other Dave, followed closely by Graham....

Host Chris-with-a-Ch, who spent most of the night singing Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" against anyone who'd challenge him, was a game contestant...

Graham's girlfriend, Dawn, also banged out a few tunes, once her alcohol intake had removed her natural shyness – a factor which Anne never overcame, being the only member of the group not to take the mic....

Last, but not least, Ferret was pretty bad (and that's putting it kindly)...

God knows what Chris’ neighbours must’ve thought about the Ferret’s appalling rendition of some Kasabian song or other at two in the morning...


L-R : Dawn, Ferret, Chris, Anne, Dave - not shown Graham and your correspondent...

A good night though and we finally got back to Crispycat Towers around 3...

Highlight of the Day : The music of 1972 – good; the music of 2008, sung by drunken amateurs – bad – but good...