Touting for business...

Playlist

Sumner McKane - Select Visual History

February gone...

Meg the Black Cat always finds a place - ok, sometimes with my help...

Out early into a nice day with good skies...

...and down the hill...

...to the zoo...

...and into Princes Street...

...past the building from which fireworks have at times been enjoyed...

In the evening down to Stockbridge...

...to meet up with Capital Model Jamie and tout our wares around a few possible venues in this nice part of town...

Picked up by Annie and home for the new season of "CSI" and the third part of Howard Goodall's History of Music, which gave interesting insights into the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin...

Top stuff...

Highlight of the Day : Touting for business...

A costly number...

Playlist

Various - Potential Covers

Sumner McKane - Select Visual History

Yello - Stella

A misty morning...

A beautiful day later, which was not captured...

This, however, was - Annie's extremely tasty and calorie free (it says here) macaroni cheese...

The fourth Yello disc ordered arrived - i am sure I used to have it but nowhere to be seen in the red book of CDs I own...

 

To the Post Office to collect Mr McKane's new work - much recommended - I also received an extra EP for being an early orderer...

A letter was put together, along with many supporting scans, to be sent to the UK Border Agency...

Unfortunately, Mr McKane is much better at playing the guitar than writing numbers in small boxes, leading HMRC to wrongly assume the value of the package was $50...

Not to worry - as the Exec Producer opined, I pay pennies for most of the CDs I buy...

 

Put together some demo CDs of Capital Models for a marketing drive tomorrow with Jamie - and set up a cheeky wee website too...

Highlight of the day : New McKane music / Annie's macaroni...

Over the odds...

Playlist

Various Composers - The New Anthology of Music

Various - Potential Covers

Meg the Black Cat showed her propensity this morning for always being able to "find a place"...

She likes the new rug in the living room...

..and is looking well, having overcome a recent bout of looking a wee bit scraggy...

She has been on brain medication for over two years now and also takes pills for thyroid problems...

Of late she has, thankfully, started to regain some weight, in contrast to the fatter of her two providers...

Said beast was about its business uptown...

...enjoying some hospitality at one of Edinburgh's top hotels...

...post walking amongst the hoi polloi...

Home late to find HMRC and Royal Mail had mistakenly charged me considerably more for the delivery of my new Sumner McKane CD than I had actually paid for it...

It now has the honour of being "most expensive CD of 2013", so far...

A letter of complaint will wing its way shortly...

Highlight of the Day : Meg the Black cat looking good....

A primary colour reintroduced...

Playlist

Various - Potential Covers

Various Composers - The New Anthology of Music

Yello - Claro Que Si

Yello - One Second

Yello - Baby

Meg the Black Cat was busy this morning...

..while her provider was walking off down to the zoo, getting the steps up...

A bright sunny day...

...on which, upon my return, some packages had arrived, allowing me to rebuild my Yello collection...

One more to come...

I also looked at, but did not listen to, discs borrowed on Saturday from the library...

On telly "Dancing on the Edge" ended satisfactorily, the possible downward spiraling finale did not arrive, which pleased...

Highlight of the Day : Happy ending to Dancing on the Edge...

Listen and learn...

Playlist
Various - Potential Covers
Ola Podrida - Ghosts Go Blind
Various - Blue Bop

A day spent mostly listening to music which might be suitable for covering...

Late morning, watched last night's "Law & Order : Criminal Intent"...

Late afternoon, out to my mum's...

Left Anne watching Scotland, rather surprisingly, beat Ireland at rugby...

An entertaining time at my mum's as I had her tell me of the old days, from leaving school in 1947, giving up work to raise the family from 1955 till 1972 through to her retirement in 1990, when she was just six years older than I am now...

Back home to more music choosing and listening...

"Person of Interest" was the only TV of the night for me and is becoming very good indeed...

Highlight of the Day : Learning a bit more about my mum's life...

Rocking in the free world...

Playlist

Various - Best of 2012

Various - Last 100 Acquisitions

Crawford - String Quartets

Capital Models - Covers EP

Out this morning around 10 to pick up Dr Prog...

....and drive into town for a visit to the library (more classical stuff borrowed - mostly string quartets) and some tasty coffee and toasties at Cafe Lucano - opposite the place on George IV Bridge which is always the source of some annoyance to me whenever I pass it and see it packed and with people outside having their picture taken next to it...

Phil was on good form, demonstrating how a fellow swimmer's arm movements annoy him when he goes to the baths...

Back home, I spent the afternoon (while Anne watched Hearts lose 3-2 at home to Inverness and Queens, almost inevitably, won 3-0 against Albion Rovers) (a) rehearsing for tonight by playing along to previous recordings and (b) re-recording my vocals for the EP and (c) remixing it all...

Prepared (forgetting of course which T Shirt I usually wear) - April/December/February...

At 6:30 I was at the venue and Keith and Jamie soon arrived...

Excellent hospitality from our hosts and we set up in front of the big screen TV which was providing a rerun of "Baywatch"...

In the end we played our full three sets to a very small but appreciative audience, the idea for the gig only having been formulated on Thursday night...

Having not played for eight weeks, some songs were a bit ropey but it wasn't too bad for only our second gig and audience interaction banter was good...

And people were dancing - which was good - especially enjoyed the kind of cross between line-dancing and Riverdance performed by a couple of people...

A leisurely take down as we hung out in the bar with the stragglers and old chum Paul Reynolds - who, at one point, was the only audience member!

He was, in fact, the only audient we knew...

Not much of a birthday party then for Mr Sproule but it turns out his birthday was last week and he only invited a handful of people along in any case...

Back home by twelve and then out again an hour or so later to pick up Anne and Lynn from their own night out for Lynn's sister's birthday which all seemed to have gone very well with much enjoyable dancing having taken place - presumably not line-dancing...

To bed around two - long day...

Highlight of the Day : Keeping on rocking in the free world...

Off and on again...

Playlist
Capital Models - Kind of Live
Maximilian Hecker - Infinite Love Songs
The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Corelli - Concerti Grossi Op 6 Nos 106

The day spent with our covers band on the cans, trying to remember how the bass lines go...

Mid morning it was all off due to a lack of possible bar staff...

A walk down to Stockbridge at lunchtime and two discs purchased from the Shelter shop - the 2009 remaster of "Sgt Pepper" and a delightful disc of 6 Corelli Concerti Grossi...

I have the 1987 CD of the former and a two disc collection of the latter by another band - this is how I waste six quid...

In the afternoon, bar staff secured, the gig was back on and able to be announced...

Back home, the 2001 debut of last Saturday's discovery, Maximilian Hecker arrived via Amazon's marketplace for £0.01 plus £1.26 postage...

How do they make money selling stuff for 1p?  Must be to do with volumes...

A traditional Friday night curry was enjoyed - I am back at my lowest weight since 2004 but still around 5 stones heavier than where I'd like to be and to which I will most probably never get...

Two good programmes on the Tivo entertained tonight, post making known the performance tomorrow night ...

"Dancing on the Edge" seems to be moving towards what would be a sickening conclusion, unless it takes a good natured twist in Monday's finale...

"Howard Goodall's Story of Music" continued to educate and featured a piece which appears on the Corelli disc purchased today...

Ended the day with some Corelli listening and bringing this up to date...

Highlight of the Day :  It was Friday...

Some things to be happy about...

Playlist
Tangerine Dream - Box Set 1970-1980
Capital Models - Rehearsal Recordings

To the dentist first thing...

Tooth which broke (for the third time) last Wednesday, finally fixed...

Back home, was unpacking the bag with the equipment used last Friday at Keith's and noticed a pad from one of the sets of headphones was missing...

Picked up my phone to call him to see if it was in his house and noticed a text had arrived from Jamie...

He was advising we have been invited at extremely short notice to play a couple of covers sets on Saturday night...

We have not played any of the songs (other than the five recorded on Friday) for eight weeks - we have no time to rehearse before Saturday...

I immediately replied with a "yes"...

Contact also made with Keith and, though nervous about it, also responded in the affirmative...

Spent the rest of the evening reacquainting myself with the material...

Sadly, we won't be playing "In the Court of the Crimson King"...

Highlight of the Day : Gig offer...

Manipulation and tix...

Playlist
UK - Night After Night
Arriaga - String Quartets
Andrew Hill - Dusk
Alexisonfire - Old Crows Young Cardinals
Capital Models - Covers
Yello - Pocket Universe
Yello - Zebra
Yello - The Eye
Tangerine Dream - Ultima Thule
Tangerine Dream - Box Set 1970-1980

Meg the Black Cat looked good this morning...

..as did Anne's tulips...

Good sky on the way home...

In the evening, headed to the Post Office Depot to pick up a mystery package which had to be signed for...

When I saw it was just an envelope, I was intrigued...

Turned out it was the tickets for the Cup Final between Queen of the South and Partick Thistle...

Much of the day spent fasting and mixing...

"Law & Order : Criminal Intent" also entertained...

Highlight of the Day :  Cup Final tix arrived...

An encourager of punk rock gone...

Playlist

The Soft Hills - Chromatisms

Capital Models - Five Cover Demo

UK - Night After Night (2012 Setlist)

Remember Remember - The Quickening

The Most Serene Republic - Population

The Moody Blues - In Search of the lost Chord

Yello - Solid Pleasure

The new version of the CMs demo was listened to and thought about today...

Work still to be done on firming up the backing vocals and I may redo my own lead parts - the luxury of recording at home...

Pounds swapped for Euros at lunchtime, in anticipation of a downward turn for Sterling prior to European trips...

Back home to find Annie preparing a superb lamb casserole type thing which, when finally ready, was delicious...

So much so, I didn't take any pics...

Upstairs to bring this up to date...

Listening to Remember Remember and The Most Serene Republic...

...descended again to watch Tuesday night highlights "Death in Paradise" and "Pramface"...

Back upstairs, filled some holes in my Yello collection...

On a sad note, a text came in today from chum Paul R re Mrs Armit, sister Pam's fave primary teacher and encourager of punk rock in Loanhead in the mid to late 70's, mother of Greig aka Dr Photon, who left us in 1981...

Mrs Armit gone now too...

Happy times remembered round her and Mr Armit's house in the old days...

Highlight of the Day : Annie's culinary prowess...

Plumping for a digipak...

Playlist

Mozart - Music for String Quartet and Piano

L Mozart - Baroque Trumpet Concerto

Barber - Capricorn Concerto etc

The Most Serene Republic - Population

Conrad Schnitzler - Consequenz

Conrad Schnitzler - Con 3

Chicago - The Chicago Transit Authority

The Upsetters - The Upsetter

Axis Of - Finding St Kilda

Maximilian Hecker - Mirage of Bliss

The Soft Hills - Chromatisms

Ola Podrida - Ghosts Go Blind

Balanescu Quartet - Possessed

Capital Models - Five Cover Demo

Remember Remember - The Quickening

Soundtracked today by all last week's acquisitions on shuffleplay...

A wee visit to HMV at lunchtime without much hope of finding anything but, lo and behold, the last album by  one of Saturday's entertainers, Remember Remember was languishing in amongst the nonsense for £5 with 25% off...

I swithered re the digipak or the jewel case, eventually plumping for the former - even though these are bigger than normal CD packaging and hence more difficult to store satisfactorily...

A good sky in the early evening...

Anne was out with chum Theresa at BalletBoyz with dinner beforehand, while your correspondent fasted...

Jamie came round about 7:30, prior to which I laid down (man) some attempted backing vocals...

By 8:30 he was off again, having recorded both his two vocals on first take...

Some further tweaking ensued until Anne returned - at which point we proceeded to book seats for a ballet at Saddlers Wells for the evening of our return from France - where we will see pieces by The Hofesh Schechter Company...

A good way to end the day...

Highlight of the Day : More musicking with Jamie...

Homing starlings whose ancestors heard the drone effect...

Playlist

Alice Peacock - Hello Beautiful (Single)

Mozart - Music for String Quartet and Piano

L Mozart - Baroque Trumpet Concerto

Barber - Capricorn Concerto etc

The Most Serene Republic - Population

Conrad Schnitzler - Consequenz

Conrad Schnitzler - Con 3

Chicago - The Chicago Transit Authority

The Upsetters - The Upsetter

Axis Of - Finding St Kilda

Maximilian Hecker - Mirage of Bliss

The Soft Hills - Chromatisms

Ola Podrida - Ghosts Go Blind

Balanescu Quartet - Possessed

Capital Models - Five Cover Demo

A morning spent working on ripping yesterday's purchases and Friday's new arrival and on transferring the recordings from Friday to the hard drive and applying some tweaks etc thereto...

Then, with Anne off out for a walk, some vocalising on the Capital Models backing tracks...

I did not venture forth on this lovely day till almost three...

...at which point we drove over to my mum's for a hot drink, some home baking and a chat...

The starlings continue to return year in, year out...

...to the house I called home for a long time...

Which once resounded to the sound of "The Drone Effect"...

On to Anne's mum's for the family tea and a big turnout enjoyed two of these...

...and other goodies...

Kitty loves Rafa the dog...

Home, almost six hours to the minute from our departure time..

"Person of Interest", then bed...

Highlight of the Day : Working on music...