Thursday, October 31, 2013

A day away from the screen...

Playlist
The Hidden Orchestra - Archipelago
Sparks - Two Hands One Mouth
Capital Models - Live at the Dean
Alban Berg Quartett - Teldec Recordings
Kansas - Two For the Show
Various Composers - Lumieres : 18th Century Music
Agnes Obel - Philharmonics
Alban Berg Quartett - Hommage
Alex Machccek - 24 Tales
Thomas Koner - Permafrost

Last day of October - look at this wee cutie....



Another month slips into history...



Good views of the cathedral as I passed this morning...




...and of the trees in its grounds...


Good e-mail exchanges with my old musicking chum Peri Urban...

But I was not on the Crispycat Computer system at all today - which doesn't happen very often...

In the evening, I eschewed a freebie night out at the Indian Cavalry Club for a quiet night in with the family...

We spent the entire evening, noticeably undisturbed by Halloween revellers (the last two 31 of Octobers have been spent in the company of Alice Cooper), watching TV - two old episodes of "Big Bang Theory" plus the first of the new series, two episodes of new comedy "Drifters" and "Person of Interest"...

By which time we were so tired we had to resort to "taping" "Law & Order : Criminal Intent" - the penultimate episode...


To bed with Thomas Koner...

Highlight of the Day : Relaxing...

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Memory loss, pt 756...

Playlist
Alban Berg Quartett - Hommage
Corelli - Concerti Grossi
Klaus Schulze - La Vie Electronique Vol 4
Shawn Colvin - All Fall Down
Ruzicka - String Quartets
Kuhnau - Musik in Alten Statdten und Residenzen : Leipzig
Henze - Symphonies 1-6
Arditti String Quartet - Kurtag Lutoslawski Gubaudulina
Various - Chamber Music from Baroque to Contemporary
Various Composers - Lumieres : 18th Century Music
J S Bach - Cello Suites
Gabrieli - Musik in Alten Statdten und Residenzen : Venedig
Glenn Gould - Mozart Piano Sonatas
Sparks - Two Hands One Mouth
Lassus - Bridges
Steffen Schleiermacher - Piano Music of the Darmstatdt School Vol 1
Gary Husband - Dirty and Beautiful Vol 1

Well now today is one of those days where I just really can't recall (three days later when writing this) what I did...

I know I did not buy any CDs (in a shop anyway)...

I do know what I listened to though...

I don't recall what I might have watched on TV - other than Hearts beating Hibs 1-0 in the quarter final of the League Cup (you'll recall Hearts knocked Queen of the South out in the previous round of this competition, in a penalty shoot out)...

Before I knew it, it was time for bed...


Hmmm...

Highlight of the Day : A win at last for Anne's favourite team...

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Afterlight, faun, undance...

Playlist
Gang of Four - Content
Kiss - Sonic Boom
Kansas - Two For the Show
Depeche Mode - Delta Machine
Thomas Koner - Teimo
King Crimson - The Road to Red
Dar Williams - In the Time of Gods
2raumwohnung - Es Wird Morgen
Laura Pausini - Inedito
Various - Time Machine - A Vertigo Retrospective
DAF - Fur Immer
Herman Van Veen - Elf Lieder
Pink Floyd - A Foot in the Door
Kat McKenzie - Shine On
Maximilian Hecker - Mirage of Bliss
Alexisonfire - Old Crows Young Cardinals
Lee Scratch Perry - The Black Ark Years
Lou Reed - NYC Man
Sparks - Two Hands One Mouth
The Unwinding Hours - Afterlives
Satie - Piano Music
Mozart - Don Giovanni
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings

I wonder if Meg the Black Cat spent the night here?


Out into the morning - not taken this for a while...



In the evening, met up with Anne and chum Theresa at Gordon's Tratoria on the Royal Mile for a bowl of tasty pasta and some excellent chat, before walking up to the Festival Theatre...


...for an evening of entertainment...


...in what used to be the Empire Theatre...


The ladies, ready for some balletic action...


We were here to enjoy three pieces first made famous at Saddler's Wells in London...

"Afterlight", a solo piece featuring the music of Erik Satie...



"Faun", a duet to the music of Claude Debussy interspersed with pieces by Nitin Sawhney...



And, finally, a ten dancer ensemble piece, "Undance", to the music of Mark-Anthony Turnage...



All amazing top stuff...

Our favourite probably the first piece...


Out into the cold and a walk down to Princes St for the bus home...



..where a goodly number of CDs await integration...


...and where some Mozart was listened to re a possible return to the theatre for some operatic entertainment next month...


Highlight of the day : Brilliant dancing...

Monday, October 28, 2013

Right you two, delayed for good reason...

Playlist
Lou Reed - NYC Man
Lou Reed/Metallica - Lulu
Miles Davis - Agharta
Staude - Streichtrio etc
Shawn Colvin - All Fall Down

Listening to Lou during today...

The much reviled "Lulu" was confirmed as being very good indeed...

At Fopp, Miles Davis' remastered double CD of his afternoon concert in Japan on 1 February 1975, "Agharta", picked up for just £4, in their "let's break up a box set" promotion...

I'm not complaining...

Also ordered some 2nd hand CDs to fill some identified holes in the collection...

As if actually need to do that...

A late tasty baked potato tea was good - as was the first in each of the tivo'd series (what's the plural of series?) "Toast" and "By Any Means"...

These broke up the "Agharta" listening session...


...which soundtracked much research on the net as to recent problems re the laptop and disconnecting hard drives safely...

Finally discovered it was my anti-virus software which was causing the problems and so, much to Anne's delight, this was deemed to deserve a very late doors uninstall and dump, with a better product being sourced, downloaded and installed in its place...

All of which slightly delayed the "lights out"/"right you two" scenario...

To bed just after midnight...

Highlight of the Day : Dumping bad software...

Sunday, October 27, 2013

The black angel's death song...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings
Tosca - Odeon
Depeche Mode - Delta Machine
Lou Reed/Metallica - Lulu
Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground - Selection
Lou Reed - NYC Man

Up early and creating new "details" of the twenty two new soundscapes - splitting a further two into two to take me to the required 24...

Meg the Black Cat was helping out...



The details take things down from over fifteen hours to "just" four...

A three CD set, eight pieces on each disc...

Symmetry...

Out to Patisserie Florentin for breakfast and then down to the market...


...for some tasty German bread...


Back home for some listening back and to undertake a quite some time overdue back up of files and programmes...

Out to my mum's for coffee and chat - in good spirits today....

Over to Anne's mum's for the family tea...

As we sat chatting at the table, nephew Olly came through with his dad's phone and said "Uncle David, do you know Lou Reed?  He's dead"...


Dead at 71, complications from a liver transplant carried out in May...

No-one's going to live forever but, when one of your "special ones" departs the planet...

Like most people who'd never heard of the Velvet Underground at the time, I was introduced to Lou Reed by the single "Walk on the Wild Side", in 1972 (the classic "Perfect Day" was "just" the "B" side)...

From there, there was the album from which the track was culled, "Transformer", produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson - which rescued Lou from the dumper...

And he trumped his old mate by thirty years by revamping the "Transformer" cover...


...for his 1982 cracker, "The Blue Mask"...


We listened to "Transformer" recently in the car, coming back from Northumberland...

It's not that great really - apart from those two tracks above and "Satellite of Love" and "Vicious" (which should of course have been the theme for the Jacobi/McKellan vehicle from earlier this year)...

Mind you, four good tracks on any album is pretty good going in anyone's book...

I didn't buy "Berlin" in '73...

In the summer of '74 though, in Berchtesgaden on a school trip, I bought the single "Sweet Jane" from the live album "Rock'n'Roll Animal" and it was one of my all time favourite singles from that point on...

It was this 7" record that really turned me on to Lou Reed...


The album soon followed into the collection, with it's quasi heavy metal renderings of Velvets songs like "Rock'n'Roll", "Heroin" and "White Light/White Heat"...

At the end of the year, the kind of funky single, "Sally Can't Dance" was good but a bit of a disappointment after the brilliance of "Sweet Jane"...

The "B" side of that was "Ennui" - another of my all time Reed faves...

And of course there was the purchase of an old scratched up copy of the Velvet's debut - with the banana peeled off - which I found again in sister Pam's collection last year and rescued - having given it to her on the purchase of a pristine new copy, in the hope that it might somehow lure her away from Paul McCartney, David Essex and the Osmonds (all of whom, in hindsight, have their place in any broad based collection)...



In '75 I finally bought the "Berlin" (probably my favourite Reed album) and "Sally Can't Dance" albums, on the same day - and that started me off on buying every album he did thereafter, while collecting the entire pre solo Velvets back catalogue...

So yes, I am a fan of Lou Reed...

And, without the influence of that first Velvet's album ("if they can do that why can't I?") there'd be no work today on the next (or indeed any before that) CBQ album...

So, so long Lou...

Lights out...

Lowlight of the Day : Lou gone...

Along with the many usual suspects re the Reed/Velvets canon, here are a couple lesser known solo Reed tracks to perhaps seek out...

"Ennui" ("Sally Can't Dance")
"Who Am I" ("The Raven")
"Junior Dad" ("Lulu")
"The Bells" ("The Bells")
"The Blue Mask" ("The Blue Mask")
"Metal Machine Music" ("Metal Machine Music")

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Shiny shiny, shiny coat of leather...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings
Shiver - Shiver #1

Meg was on good form again first thing...



A day spent in the house working on the new CBQ album...

Two further pieces created and two existing pieces amended into four, taking the total up to twenty two of a planned twenty four...


Total time, 15 hours 44 minutes 7 seconds...

Also working on the formatting of the book of paintings...

That took all day from around 6:30 in the morning till around 5 in the afternoon (by which time Queen of the South had beaten Count Brodski's Alloa 3-0 in Alloa and Hearts had lost once again to go 15 points adrift at the bottom of the premiership)...

At five we headed into town by bus to meet up with said Count and Lady Penelope for a night of eating, drinking and carousing...

To The Merlin in Morningside - fine for a pre-meal drink but not the best bar in the world...

Good company though and that's what kind of makes it...

To Nonna's Kitchen for dinner - and a surprise when we were shown to our table - seated alongside us was none other than Capital Model Mr Jamieson Frain and his lovely wife Susie...

What a coincidence - they were off to the cinema this evening...

Tasty food - for your correspondent and the Count smoked haddock and potato soup followed by creamy spicy sausage pasta - mmm, mmm...


A walk down to Tollcross and into The Black Bird Bar...

Tres chic...



Love Parade 2013...





The Black Bird ceiling...


Out onto the street around 1am or so and two young students engaged us in conversation...


Connie and Zack - looking for a some cheap drinks - the Black Bird was probably not the best place for them then...

More walking on down to Princes St and a big moon over the tram wires...


Night bus home noting Alan's splendid Vivienne Westwood leather coat and blue corduroy trousers...

He is a lover of the trendy clothes indeed - looking good...

Lights out feeling a little the worse for wear...

highlight of the Day : Out with chums...

Friday, October 25, 2013

I just don't understand computers...

Playlist
Various - Albums of the Month 2013 So Far
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Twenty Four Paintings (Details)

A day which seemed to contain much waiting around...

Up early to bring this up to date...


...but failed miserably due to laptop problems...

I just don't understand computers...

Eventually, I couldn't even connect to the interweb to try and find out why I couldn't connect to the interweb...

Abandoning the project, uptown - where a nice salad based lunch was enjoyed al fresco with these views...




Of course, when I say "al fresco", I don't mean sitting outside a restaurant overlooking Princes St Gardens - no, I mean standing eating salad from a plastic tray purchased at Morrisons...

Heading home later, after walking my usual walk to the bus stop which is much further away than one which is closer, and having had a few going my way buses sail past as I was between stops, I arrived to find the next going my way bus wasn't for around 25 minutes...

I took the philosophical view that this merely afforded me more time to listen to music...

The iPod is now filled with my top ten albums for each month of 2013 - which should be 100 - but, because of the many multiple CD sets on the list - including 21 from the King Crimson box recently acquired and 29 from the box of 18th Century classical music obtained back in January - there are 222 albums from which to choose...

Back home and the laptop was still playing silly buggers...

Then, all of a sudden, it started working again...

I just don't understand computers...

The final wait of the day was caused by inefficient providers of sustenance...

Having called in an order and being told it would be ready for collection in 30 minutes, I arrived to find the cooking had not yet commenced - then, around 10 minutes later, found only one meal was being cooked...

Tasty nonetheless but consideration being given as to any future return to said establishment...

Some "work" was able to be done late on, interspersed with a particularly weak edition of "Have I Got News" and new fave, "Man Down"...

And so, to close the day, a reminder that Hallowe'en is approaching...


Scary!

To bed with the "details" on the cans...

Highlight of the Day : The laptop starting to work again...

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Put the macrobiotic yoghurt away, there's no need...

Playlist
Various - Albums of the Month Jan-Jul
Alex Machacek - 24 Tales
Lou Reed/Metallica - Lulu

More albums of the month added to the iPod...

Good light this morning...




Less good at lunchtime...


But good again as I made my way home...


...under a plane...


...to find Alex Machacek's album awaiting me...

However, the majority of the evening was spent watching telly...

Including the last of three Michael Mosely vehicles, "Trust Me I'm a Doctor" which, this week, amongst many other interesting articles debunked the massive marketing campaigns which have resulted in idiot Britons spending three quarters of a billion pounds a year on macrobiotic yoghurts...

Apparently, if you want to help the 100 trillion bacteria living in your gut, you're better off eating oats - in any format...

And proof that a row of not very thick silver birch trees outside houses on a main road can cut pollution entering said houses by almost 60%...

Surely the council should be planting trees instead of building tramlines...

Also enjoyed the last in the cancelled "Don't Trust the B", the first in the return of the excellent and very funny at times "Person of Interest" and the continuing final series of "Law & Order Criminal Intent"...

Top telly night...

Highlight of the Day : The return of Person of Interest...