Magic...

Playlist
Alice Cooper - Various Tracks
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Potential Songs for Performance
Craig Armstrong - Memory takes a Hand
Huelgas ensemble - In Quinta Essentia
Various - Extended Seventies
Barenaked Ladies - Everything to Everyone
Josh Rouse - The Best of the Ryko Years
Low - Drums and Guns
Red House Painters - Old Ramon
The Whitest Boy Alive - Rules

A varied day...

Awoke at 5am and arose as sleep didn't seem an option - it only is on early awakening when not enjoying a weekend or a holiday...

I'm sure I was planning to do something but, instead got caught up in the online world of Alice Cooper and, amongst other things, his new ad for Sony Bravia TVs...

Before I knew it, Anne was up too and it was 9 am...

Where does the time go?

After I investigated and solved some very inconsiderate parking by what turned out to be a visitor to one of our neighbours, Anne drove to the podiatrist and gave me a lift - from there it was a quick bus-hop to the centre...

Having not purchased any CDs now for two weeks, it was kind of inevitable I'd go a bit off the rails today...

Firstly, at HMV, I bought two CDs - a disc I've had my eye on for nearly a year, Craig Armstrong's classical disc "Memory Takes a Hand", featuring his first Violin Concerto - all very tuneful and emotional stuff - tasty...

The second is a disc of three masses illustrating the dominant styles of the Renaissance - the Roman (Lassus), Franco-Flemish polyphony (Palestrina) and English Late Gothic (Ashewell) - another disc of beautiful music...

It's by Paul van Nevel and the Huelgas Ensemble, a band I discovered around 20 years ago when I used to frequent the classical department in Tower Records in Glasgow and by whom I already have a goodly number of albums...

In the fullness of time, tracks from these will turn up in one of my podcasts-of-music-I've-bought....

Then of course, it was on to FOPP with a spring in my step having forked out for 2 CDs it might be said that I actually wanted to hear, bought for more than the now standard outlay of £3-£5...

Once in FOPP though, I couldn't resist several of their latest £3 offers...

A three Cd box of mixes which first appeared as 12" singles in the seventies, a disc by Canadian intelligent power-poppers Barenaked Ladies, a 2CD collection from superb singer-songwriter Josh Rouse, a disc by slow rockers Low and some back catalogue from the Red House Painters...

Upstairs in the DVD department a New Order collection and three foreign films to watch "sometime" set me back another £17 and, finally, on my way to the counter, I picked up the latest from The Whitest Boy Alive for a fiver...

Oh dear...



Made my way home after an accidental detour down into the New Town caused in the main by receipt of a text from Count Brodski - I was busy texting back - it takes me an age - and, as I looked up out of the bus window, I realised I was on the wrong bus heading in the wrong direction...

Oh how I laughed...

Back home and some listening ensued...

All purchases confirmed as VG...

Then I unpacked the Cloudland Blue guitar and played it for the first time in almost three months...

It's a bit sore on the arm but it was good to play through a few of my songs again...



"Total Wipeout" with its big rubber balls, entertained early evening, before we headed uptown around 9 pm to meet up with Brodski, Penny and Dr Prog in Thomson's Bar for a few drinks followed by James Hessler's, or rather James James, The Tartan Trickster's magic show...



Great stuff and he had a good crowd in - you can see him performing daily at the moment on the Royal Mile by St Giles Cathedral...

More drinks over in Carter's before Brodski very kindly gave us a lift home around 1:30 am to a suspicously acting Meg the Black Cat...

Highlight of the Day : Out again with chums...