Last day of year 16, fraught...

Playlist

The Danish String Quartet - From Bach

Fehlfarben - Glut Und Asche

The Tubes - Remote Control

Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Eno, Nico - June 1, 1974

Various - New Reaction

Udo Lindenberg - Galaxo-Gang

The Tubes - The Tubes

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Schonberg Webern Berg

A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Atomos

Peter Gregson - Boundless

Isaac Hayes - Juicy Fruit

Iván Ferreiro - Val Miñor - Madrid: Historía y cronología del mundo

Earth Wind & Fire - The Need of Love

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Disquietsongs

When I opened the curtains this morning, this was the sight that met me...

In came Fang...

...and enjoyed some Dreamies while I recorded the morning views...

He was about to leave but then decided to find a spot on the back of the settee...

...checked it was ok to do so...

...got himself comfy...

...and settled down for a while...

He was still there as a pleasant surprise when the EP emerged from her slumber...

First thing, wrote up the sleeve notes for tomorrow's release of the new album...

Then, the start to a fraught day, when an email from BT alerted me to the fact that the new package I have said yes to with Talk Talk re our broadband, without prior advisement, takes in our landline and BT are saying they are sad to see us go...

The first call lasts an hour and a half before I am mysteriously cut off as "Kieran" goes to ask hi manager if Talk Talk can replicate the service BT offered us to stop me cancelling the deal...

The second call takes around 30 minutes and "Lori" advises the systems have just gone down and she will call me back - we agree she will call 90 minutes later with an update whether the systems are back up or not...

Needless to say it's now tomorrow morning and no call ever came...

Fucksake...

Anyway, I also played some records today while I WdFH...

Fehlfarben's most successful record, chart-wise, was this from 1983...

...dance oriented and with the band reduced to a trio comprising two original members and a third stalwart of the Neue Deutsche Welle szene...

I still enjoy this one, even though, of the main discography, it's the least Fehlfarben-esque of all their LPs...

Bought on its release on a trip to Germany...

Then, another bought on its release...

The Tubes' "Remote Control", produced, rather slickly, by Todd Rundgren, was probably their most successful for A&M...

...but the follow up was rejected and they were let go - only to come back with their most successful period, via Capital (till they got Todd to produce them again)...

This LP soundtracked quite a bit of my time in Munich in the summer of 1979...

Having seen them in Edinburgh before I went to live in Munich, I also caught them at the Circus Krone there, where they played a few extra songs, including an excellent rendition of the Mamas & Papas' "California Dreaming", along with "The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance"...

Then, not my favourite Eno related LP but...

...on listening...

..I found it to be better than I remembered...

I suppose it's not may fave as there's not enough Eno and too much Kevin Ayers - though I suppose it was his concert...

Next, an LP which includes "Hour Happiness Land" by Call Me Clive, in which I played bass, sang some of the songs, did most of the arrangements and wrote quite a lot of the music, till I was kicked out because I "lacked commitment" given I had a mortgage..

It was hard to take at the time but, you know, these things happen...

Anyway, we got the opportunity to put a track on this LP - if we made our own way to Leeds to record it and paid the record company an inordinate sum of money to be on the record...

Our drummer, Spooky Green, refused to partake so, when we arrived at the stately home in which we recorded the track, I had to learn how to work the studio's drum machine and painstakingly programme Spooky's part, beat for beat from a cassette of a rehearsal recording of the track, which I'd brought along...

Surprisingly, it holds up well and, of course, for me, it's the best of the 16 tracks on the record...

To be fair thiugh, I think today was the first time I've ever played any of the tracks on it apart from ours...

Fourth LP of the day bringing the "Random LP a Day" project up to date, was this from Udo Lindenberg...

It contains what I think is the first Udo song I ever heard...

"Radio Song", the final track on side one - about a song writer writing a song for his girlfriend and trying to convince the record company it should be released so she will hear it on the radio...

I coincidentally heard it on the radio in the lodgings I was in in Munich and, shortly afterwards, bought the double live LP "Unhaftig", which was the first of, now, very probably, far too many Udo Lindenberg recordings I own...

Baked potatoes for tea, followed by a 2 hour and very enjoyable "McDonald and Dodds"...

...and downloading as many Isaac Hayes LPs I didn't already have that I could find - just one now eludes me...

Then, finalising the new CBQ album for tomorrow's release...

...while Anne painted...

...before hitting the sack with an older CBQ LP on the cans...

Highlight of the Day : Last day of year 16 of the blog...