Different from last year...

Playlist
Blue Note Albums on Shuffleplay
Various – Evenin’ Blue

Inspired by my three new Blue Note purchases yesterday, today’s soundtrack was 100% Blue Note – I must have over 200 titles now on that label…

Tonight I wandered down Leith Walk to the Meridian Bar for Jim Park’s show “No Comedy For Old Men” and can heartily recommend it…

Four comedians in a 50 minute free show, with four varied styles of delivery and material…

I will be returning later in the festival with Anne to view them again, along with former Out of the Bedroom colleague Tommy Mackay who has a show at the same venue…

Of course, this time last year, I was embarking on what turned out to be a five week period of non-stop nightly entertainment and really made the most of the festival, taking in classical, film, jazz, comedy and theatre along the way…

This year I have absolutely nothing booked, not even my perennial favourites Stewart Lee and Richard Herring…



And I’m not performing anywhere myself either this year after managing gigs in each of the last five years of fests…

Anyhoo – bussed it back home through the pouring rain and revamped the opening sequence for the show, adding some gaps for spontaneous audience applause after each comedian’s introduction and elongating the music track to reflect said spaces…

Anne was out on the ran-dan with bestest chum Lynn and I was on taxi duty, driving into the Doric Bar to pick them up…

I took the opportunity to pop Jim’s new intro CDs through his door on the way past…

A reasonable day all in all…

Highlight of the Day : No Comedy for Old Men

The breast of God...

Playlist
Asia – Phoenix
James - Hey Ma
Black Mountain - In the Future
Neal Morse - Sola Scriptura
Udo Lindenberg - Stark wie zwei
Sparks - Exotic Creatures of the Deep
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Uriah Heep - Wake the Sleeper
The Violet Archers - Sunshine at Night
Alice Cooper - Along Came a Spider
Paul Chambers – Bass on Top
Art Taylor – AT’s Delight
Kenny Drew - Undercurrent

Ok, so here we are at Wednesday and, so far this week, I have bought nine CDs (and still have two on their way via e-bay) as, today, I purchased yet another three Blue Note titles in FOPP’s £4 campaign...

How can I go wrong – apart from running out of cash at some point of course...

Paul Chambers and Art Taylor accompany each other on bass and drums respectively as they each lead their bands through some top class blowing on their respective discs...

The Kenny Drew disc features two of my favourites, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and Hank Mobley on tenor sax...

Other featured players over the discs are Kenny Burrell on guitar, Hank Jones, Wynton Kelly and, of course, Kenny Drew on piano, Dave Burns on trumpet, Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax, Carlos Valdes on congas, Sam Jones on bass and Louis Hayes on drums...

Three tasty discs...



Also bought a collection of Alistair Cooke’s essays in "Letter from America", transcripts of his excellent 15 minute radio broadcasts, which were aired from the 1940’s through until his death in 2004 – should make for some interesting reading...

Back to the footie tonight and, having the lay off last night helped a wee bit I think...

Miraculously, our team won yet again 6-2 at 8:30 but we played on for twenty minutes and still won 6-4...

Our goals included a controversial one by your correspondent where it was alleged I controlled a cross ball with my upper arm before blasting it into the net...

The bruising on my right breast testifies to the fact that the goal quite rightly stood...

The Breast of God as it were...

Back home, and I had the house to myself for some jazz listening as Anne was out with chum Michelle to see the latest chick flick smash hit, “Mamma Mia”...

Highlight of the Day : Has to be the footie again...

Hippo-critic...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – Along Came a Spider
Mogwai – Government Commissions
Aqualung – Memory Man
Lindisfarne – Fog on the Tyne
Isaac Hayes – The Isaac Hayes Movement
Dio - intermission

To Zavvi at lunchtime and a £3 purchase of “The Isaac Hayes Movement” by, erm, Isaac Hayes – containing excellent covers of Dusty Springfield and The Beatles on “side two”...



Back home, Dio’s “Intermission” (disappointing in comparison to my memories of this on vinyl from the mid 80’s) had arrived from e-bay...

Lovely dinner from the Exec Producer yet again, with fillet steak and mash, onions, mushrooms and a wee bit of left over chorizo from last night...

Tasty indeed...

Did a couple more mixes of Jim Park’s intro piece for his Fringe Show and drove round with two more discs – collecting a large bag of rhubarb grown in his back garden in return...

Two episodes of a programme examining the workings of the reproductive organs of, firstly, the male of the species and then, the female – fascinating stuff...

I refused to watch Gordon Ramsay’s F Word as he “sky-fished” for puffins and killed and cooked them...

Of course, after eating a fillet steak this was hugely hypocritical of me...

Instead I surfed the net, updated my albums of the month and albums of the year blogs and read the blogs to which I link and listened to my new CDs...

Started a list of my favourite film of each year of my life, inspired by the “Punch It Chewie” blog in my links...

Highlight of the Day : Anne’s cooking once again – she’s good

No comedy for old men...

Playlist
Various – Jazz & Classical Jukebox Shuffleplay
Teresa Salgueiro/Septeto de Joao Cristal – Voce e Eu
Various – Blue Note Plays Gershwin
Various - Blue Bossa
Alice Cooper – Along Came a Spider
Mogwai – Government Commissions
Aqualung – Memory Man
Lindisfarne – Fog on the Tyne

A trip to FOPP today to, of course, purchase the new Alice Cooper album…

But I also purchased the Aqualung CD I’d put back a couple of weeks ago (£2), Lindisfarne’s classic “Fog on the Tyne” (£3), which contains, as bonus tracks, the two “B” Sides of “Meet Me on the Corner”, one of the first singles I ever bought...

Mogwai’s BBC Sessions disc, “Government Commissions” (£3), completed the quartet of quality…

Back home and old buddy and renowned ankle breaker of the parish, Mr Jim Park arrived for a wee recording session…



His annual Fringe Show is this year entitled “No Comedy For Old Men” (flyer above) and he was recording the intro “tape” for the show – a ninety second spoken word piece which was then laid over a cracking brazilian beat from a Blue Note compilation ("Homenagem a Mongo" by Som Tres from the album "Blue Bossa")…

Once we’d got the spoken piece down we had dinner prepared by Anne – her signature dish of salmon fillets on a bed of chorizo, onion and cherry tomatoes accompanied by asparagus and roast potatoes…

A slight modification tonight though in that the chorizo used was not the usual cured version but freshly made and cooked on the night…

Tasty…

An hour later and we finished off the track and burned three different mixes to CD so the best can be used at the shows depending on the PA system and the hall itself…

Took Jim into The Stand Comedy Club - as two of his cohorts from the upcoming Fringe show were appearing – then sped back home…

Watched “Numb3rs” half heartedly – it’s rubbish - before uploading my new CDs to the Jukebox…

Highlight of the Day : Recording again

The real deal...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – Along Came a Spider
Grand Funk Railroad – What’s Funk Live 1983
Grand Funk Railroad – LA Forum 1974
Haydn – London Symphonies
Beethoven – Complete String Quartets
Mozart – Complete String Quartets
J S Bach – The Six Suites for Solo Cello

Up at eight and finished my marathon Alice Cooper listen with the new album, then felt compelled to write the piece below...

Cleansed my palette with some live Grand Funk Railroad before moving from the ridiculous to the sublime in the form of symphonies by Haydn and quartets from Beethoven and Mozart...

I’ve not been mentioning it here but I have been playing the old geetar regularly recently, working on a set of around 10 or so songs which I should be able to play unassisted – to what end, I have no idea...

It was a scorcher today and Anne took advantage in the garden (where a further three courgettes are on their way, our eighth, ninth and tenth from the same plant) while I stayed indoors editing track details on the Jazz & Classical Jukebox, to make locating specific classical albums and composers easier whenever I’m out and about...

Noted that half my set of complete Mozart Quartets was missing, so I rectified that before heading to Anne’s mum’s for the fortnightly family tea...

Second curry in two days – just as well all we’d had to eat prior to that today was a bowl of cereal each...

Back home I finished off the Mozart quartet project whilst listening to some gorgeous Bach – making it a classical quartet for the day...



Tasty...

Ended the day with "Muriel's Wedding" - an excellent 90's Aussie film...

Highlight of the Day : Heavenly Music

Along came Alice...

Alice Cooper
Pretties For You (3/10)
Easy Action (4/10)
Love it to Death (8/10)
Killer (9/10)
School’s Out (7/10)
Billion Dollar Babies (10/10)
Muscle of Love (6/10)
Welcome to My Nightmare (8/10)
Alice Cooper Goes to Hell (5/10)
Lace and Whiskey (4/10)
From the Inside (7/10)
Flush the Fashion (4/10)
Special Forces (2/10)
Zipper Catches Skin (5/10)
DaDa (6/10)
Constrictor (4/10)
Raise Your Fist and Yell (7/10)
Trash (4/10)
Hey Stoopid (6/10)
The Last Temptation (7/10)
Brutal Planet (8/10)
Dragontown (7/10)
The Eyes of Alice Cooper (6/10)
Dirty Diamonds (7/10)
Along Came a Spider (8/10)



Alice Cooper is about to release his 25th album in 40 years (“Along Came a Spider”)...

When I first discovered the music of the Alice Cooper Group in July 1972, they looked like this...



And I looked like this...



Thirty six years later, Alice Cooper looks like this....



...and I look like this...



But no matter...

Over the past week, I’ve been listening through his back catalogue, starting with the Frank Zappa produced “Pretties For You” from 1969 with its equally weird follow up, “Easy Action”...





Then, on into the glory years when the original Alice Cooper Group was the biggest draw on the planet with “Love it to Death”, “Killer”, “School’s Out”, “Billion Dollar Babies” and “Muscle of Love”...











In 1975, he released what was to be his first solo album while the group took a break - the TV Movie soundtrack “Welcome to My Nightmare”...



As time went on, it became apparent the group was finished and Alice took on the name, performing tours with more and more theatricals and the backing musicians pushed further and further into the background...

 

“Alice Cooper Goes to Hell” was a poorer version of the very successful nightmare album and, by the time “Lace and Whiskey” surfaced in 1977 and he toured with dancing chickens wielding machine guns (which produced one of the least representative live albums by any major act ever, the dreadful “Alice Cooper Show” - my major Christmas present that year) he was an alcoholic drunken mess about to crash and burn in the wake of punk rock – even I had already started viewing the Sex Pistols as the new Alice Cooper Group...



After a period in rehab, he re-emerged with a comeback of sorts in the form of the autobiographical “From the Inside” – a vast improvement on his previous two outings...



Then it all went wrong again as he slipped back into alcoholism and fought the new wave with a trilogy of albums (“Flush the Fashion”, “Special Forces” and “Zipper Catches Skin”) which barely hinted at the brilliance of which he’d shown himself to be capable in the past. The highlights from these are few and far between...







On his 1983 swansong for Warner Brothers, “DaDa”, he was reunited with his most successful (post the real band) writers and collaborators Dick Wagner and Bob Ezrin and the results showed quite a bit of promise – although apparently Warners weren’t expecting them to actually record and release an album, they thought they’d just take the money as fulfilment of the contract and leave...



Cooper was now at his lowest ebb – no record deal and too ill to tour due to his alcoholism...

It took three years to get to the point where he was ready to return and, while the album ”Constrictor” with it’s OTT heavy metal guitar and drum-machine based material was still nowhere near what fans knew he was capable of, at least he was back...



The real killer blow by Alice though was his return to the stage, producing a show which gave the public everything they’d ever heard about the Coop – the snakes, the killings, the gallows, the beheading and, of course, the brilliant tunes...

He consolidated his successful return with the excellent Big Hair Shock Rock Heavy Metal of “Raise Your Fist and Yell”, then reached his commercial zenith with the worldwide success of “Poison” from his best selling album “Trash” and its star-studded follow up, “Hey Stoopid”....







However, by the time his last major label release, the excellent “The Last Temptation” hit the shops, he was already away from Sony - who'd engineered his worldwide comeback through the success of "Poison" and "Trash"....



But by now he was fully re-established as a household name and, for six years, he toured every year, selling out venues all over the world... But what we really wanted, was new material...

Finally, in 2000/01, he re-emerged with his heaviest work ever on the quick-fire brace of “Brutal Planet” and “Dragontown” and the accompanying shows...





He surprised everyone again by then taking a back to basics garage-band approach for his next two albums and accompanying tours with 2003’s “The Eyes of Alice Cooper” and “Dirty Diamonds” in 2005....





And so, it’s been what in the 70’s would have been an eternity (three years) till this new album...

“Along Came a Spider” is a glorious combination of all of his best periods – the story telling of “Welcome to My Nightmare” and “From the Inside”, the killer pop tunes of the original band and the heavy (yet strangely commercial) sound of “Trash” crossed with “Brutal Planet”...

So, what I’m really trying to say is, go out and buy his new album...



...and make a couple of old men happy...

Quintet...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – Raise Your Fist and Yell
Alice Cooper – Trash
Alice Cooper – Hey Stoopid
Alice Cooper – The Last Temptation
Alice Cooper – Brutal Planet
Alice Cooper – Dragontown
Alice Cooper – The Eyes of Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper – Dirty Diamonds
Alice Cooper - 25 (2CD-R)

Up early – couldn’t sleep...

Compiled a 2CD set of my favourite song from each Alice Cooper album...

Generally mucked about doing nothing...

Before I knew it, it was 11am and Anne wasn’t even up yet...

We were to pick my mum’s old chum Pat at Waverley Station – her train was due in at 11:50...

So we quickly got ready and drove into town and were at the platform with just a couple of minutes to spare when she arrived...

Twenty minutes later and the old ladies were reunited for an afternoon of fun – but one we were to miss as we were off to Berwick Upon Tweed to see Queen of the South’s first competitive match since the cup final in May...

First though, some sustenance and we had the best ever sausages on a roll scenario at The Munch Box in Loanhead’s High Street – where I used to by my 7” singles in the early 70’s...

Then off via the A1 for 90 minutes, arriving in Berwick with an hour till kick off – just as well as it took us much driving around and asking for directions before we found the ground – including a man with one of those artificial voice box thingies once lampooned so well in “Chewin’ the Fat”...



Queens never looked troubled and were 2-0 up at half time. Even though Berwick pulled one back just after the restart (when the ball bobbled over our keeper’s outstretched hands), three further goals put the Doonhamers through to the second round of the Challenge Cup with ease...

First time I’ve seen them score five goals in one game...

Then into Berwick town and a wander about...

Found a great wee bar called The Barrel Alehouse and partook of some local tasty cask brewed “lager” – though it didn’t taste anything like lager...



We stumbled across the award winning Magna Tandoori just along the road from the bar and couldn’t resist its lure – so in we went for a very enjoyable curry...



Back to the car and up the road to Edinburgh again in good time – home just after 8pm...

“Mock the Week” entertained followed by a quirky film “Blast from the Past” which took us to midnight and bed...



A good day...

Highlight of the Day : Queens netting five times

Vino collapso...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – Special Forces
Alice Cooper – Zipper Catches Skin
Alice Cooper – DaDa
Alice Cooper – Constrictor

Met up with Anne in town tonight and we enjoyed a beer and a coffee at The Great Grog in Rose Street before walking to Cockburn Street and Ecco Vino, a great wee Wine Bar, where we met up with chums Ken and Rose...



Then off up to Victoria Street to Howie’s for an excellent meal with plenty more wine...



We dodged the emerging Girls Aloud fans (I’ll wait for the DVD) exiting Edinburgh Castle as we made our back to Waverley Station and saw Ken and Rose off...

Airport Bus and No 26 back to Crispycat Towers where Anne watched the final of “Masterchef” while I snored on the settee...

Highlight of the Day : A good night out with old chums

Swingin'...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – From the Inside
Alice Cooper – Flush the Fashion
Alice Cooper – Special Forces
Polytechnic - Down Til Dawn
Alice Cooper – Along came a Spider
Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth
Various – MC 70s Reggae
David Bowie - David Live
David Bowie - Stage
Vivaldi - La Folia and Other Sonatas
Matthew Locke - The Broken Consort
Duffy - RockferryStars – In Our Bedroom After the War
Secret Machines – Now Here is Nowhere
The Divine Comedy – Victory For the Comic Muse
Acoustic Ladyland – Skinny Grin
John Tomlinson – Great Scenes and Arias
Dio - Sacred Heart
Murray Perahia – Perahia Plays Schumann

A night off from footballing etc and I mainly just listened to some music, collecting up the CDs I’ve bought thus far in July and giving them a spin…

Watched a bit of the Glasgow East By-Election coverage but went to bed before the result (SNP took the seat from Labour with a 20% swing – great stuff – nothing better than Labour losing and Gordon Brown’s woes being added to)…



Lights Out…

Highlight of the Day : Democracy in action

Take 'em back down again old man...

Playlist
Alice Cooper - Welcome to my Nightmare
Alice Cooper - Alice Cooper Goes to Hell
Alice Cooper - Lace and Whiskey
Alice Cooper - From the Inside
Alice Cooper - 25 (CD-R)
Polytechnic - Down Til Dawn
Dio - Sacred Heart

The Zavvi sale threw up a CD on which three of the five members of the band are cited as playing mellotron (along with various other instruments) - and so it was that Polytechnic made their way into the Crispycat Library...

Back home and the first CD from e-bay in a long time had arrived - following Sunday's trawl for Dio related product, the classic 1985 album "Sacred Heart" emerged from the jiffy bag and hits such as "Hungry for Heaven" entertained...



The Coop also entertained via his (non-music playing, merely chatting) appearance on "The One Show"...

Back to football tonight and it was supposed to be a "strong" six versus a "weaker" seven (my team) - but two of the weaklings failed to appear, so it was six v five and I was in the underdog team...

Amazingly, we went 4-1 up, but, eventually, our heroic defending collapsed and it went to 4-4 before we were given one of the opposition's players...

Soon it was 8-4, our fifth and sixth coming courtesy of the very boots I was thinking of hanging up yesterday...

Of course I also missed three other "one on ones" with opposing keepers including Mr Jim Park (although I did put the ball through his legs for my second goal)...

And I am still trying to get the horrible aroma of the insides of our "goalie gloves" off of my hands!!

Highlight of the Day : Not such a bad effort at the old footie....

Hang 'em up old man....

Playlist
Alice Cooper - School's Out
Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar babies
Alice Cooper - Muscle of Love
Alice Cooper - Welcome to my Nightmare
Alice Cooper - 25 (CD-R)
David Reilly - Anthology 1977-2007 Vols 1-10 (Shuffleplay)

Remember last Tuesday when I said I was dreadful at football?

Well, this week's Tuesday night game (a nine a side affair but still nowhere to hide for yours truly) was my nadir...

I can't remember ever having played so badly...

I contributed nothing...

I was shite...

So, here I am...

In harness to The Man - which I must admit allows me to fund a pretty reasonable life - but my muse is on vacation and my footballing has hit an all time low - probably worse than it should be even for a fat, unfit 49 year old...

Other than that, the Coop marathon continues and he's on "The One Show " tomorrow night so at least I have something to look forward to...

Oh, and another game of footie too...



Time to hang 'em up?

Highlight of the Day : Taking my trainers off...

Zipper grabs skin...

Playlist
Alice Cooper – Pretties For You
Alice Cooper – Easy Action
Alice Cooper – Love It To Death
Alice Cooper – Killer
Alice Cooper – School’s Out
Donald Byrd – Fuego
Françoise Hardy – Tant des Belles Choses
Dio – Master of the Moon
Alice Cooper – Along came a Spider

A day of early Alice Cooper – amazing to think they released their quartet of classic albums, “Love it to Death”, “Killer”, “School’s Out” and “Billion Dollar Babies” within the space of just 21 months...

In the evening, how’s about this this for excitement?

An episode of “Coronation St”...

“Tonight” on mortgage woes...

Washing the dishes to the sounds of Donald Byrd...

“Would I Lie to You”...

“Numb3rs”...

Then, off to bed with the Coop’s soon to be released album on the cans...

Number 25 in a series (so far) of 25...



It’s a wonderful life...

Highlight of the Day : The Alice Cooper Group...

That obscure object named desire...

Playlist
Dio – Discography
Black Sabbath – Albums with RJD singing
Rainbow - Ditto
Alice Cooper – Along Came a Spider (CD-R)
Alice Cooper – 25 (CD-R)
Alice Cooper – Discography on Shuffleplay
Françoise Hardy – Messages Personnels
Françoise Hardy – Discography

Started the day looking for any albums featuring Ronnie James Dio which I don’t have – consequently a couple of auctions on e-bay are being watched...

Discovered the new Alice Cooper album is up for streaming on his Myspace site so I recorded that and burnt it to a CD...

Here's his brain as depicted in 3D by Salvador Dali in 1973...



I will of course buy the album on its release on 29 July...



We drove down The Shore Bar in Leith (soundtracked by the Coop) and lunched at the bar where we enjoyed brother-in-law Keith’s wedding seven weeks ago (already – jeez time flies when you’re busy doing nothing of any consequence)...



Walked around the area before returning home to a sunny garden...



Inside, I compiled a “one track from each of his 25 CDs” disc by Alice Cooper then worked out that his entire studio output lasts for 17 hours 40 minutes and 35 seconds and comprises 258 songs...

In my schooldays, I’d occasionally spend a day listening to the Alice Cooper Group’s entire output chronologically in one day – of course at that point there were only 7 albums rather than 25...

To do it now you’d need to start at five thirty in the morning and listen till around midnight...

I’ll keep you posted...

Also today I sorted out my Jazz and Classical CDS and my various artist compilations – so the CD library is now in good order again...

No dinner today following our big lunch and, in the evening I remembered I’d laid out my Françoise Hardy box set yesterday to upload to the Jukebox – so I did this and found this great site which enabled me to compile a fanboy collection into a playlist...



Of the 96 tracks, I am missing 22 despite having hundreds of her songs on CD - so more trawling on e-bay for these obscure rarites...



An old episode of “CSI” entertained before returning to the Françoise Hardy project to round off the day...



She's 64 now and, while still atractive, she was especially so in her youth...



...feted as she was in the 1960's by the likes Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Peter Sellars and Peter O'Toole....



Lovely...

Highlight of the Day : Lunch at The Shore...