It really doesn't matter how music is categorised, all that matters is what you think of it...

Playlist

Asia (Featuring John Payne) - Archiva, Vol. 2

Asia (Featuring John Payne) - Arena

Run DMC - Back From Hell

Fleetwood Mac - Behind the Mask

Kronos Quartet - Black Angels

Heart - Brigade

Chris Liebing - Burn Slow

Cheap Trick - Busted

36 & Duenn - Distance As Power

The Fall - Extricate

Yo La Tengo - Fakebook

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet

James - Gold Mother

Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas

Wire - Manscape

KMFDM - Naïve 

The Durutti Column - Obey the Time

Asia - Prog

The Sundays - Reading Writing and Arithmetic

Paul Simon - Rhythm of the Saints

The Brecker Brothers - The Brecker Brothers

John Abercrombie - The ECM Sampler

The House of Love - The House of Love

Everything But the Girl - The Language of Life

Faith No More - The Real Thing

Living Colour - Time's Up

Fish - Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors

The Associates - Wild & Lonely

Propaganda - 1234

Jeff Lynne - Armchair Theatre

Danielle Dax - Blast The Human Flower

Icehouse - Code Blue

Asia - Epic Asia

The Church - Gold Afternoon Fix

Enigma - MCMXC a.d.

Ride - Nowhere

Revenge - One True Passion

Tommy Smith - Peeping Tom

Pat Metheny, Dave Holland & Roy Haynes - Question And Answer

Gianna Nannini - Scandalo

Annette Humpe - Solo

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks OST

Asia (Featuring John Payne) - Aqua

Miles Davis - Bitches Brew

Asia - Gravitas

Asia (Featuring John Payne) - Silent Nation

Jellyfish - Bellybutton

The KLF - Chill Out

Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare

Dio - Lock Up The Wolves

Thomas Köner - Nunatak

Jean-Michel Jarre - Waiting For Cousteau

Adrian Belew - Young Lions

Return To Forever - Light As A Feather

Asia - Omega

Deodato - Prelude

Freddie Hubbard - Red Clay

Brian Eno & John Cale - Wrong Way Up

Asia - Asia

Asia - Astra

Billy Cobham - Spectrum

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds Of Fire

Asia - XXX

November away...

And so, Xmas is coming...

Up...

Ready for action...

Erm...

Action!

The beast, reflected, early...

Own work done and, then, breakfast...

WFH...

Today's early listening included this stellar set from Joe Henderson, recorded on this day in 1964...

Compiled and revealed my 80 nominations for top 5 albums of 1990, following yesterday's download splurge...

Before that, I could only muster 50 selections - not a great year all told - a big difference from 1975's 200 initial nominations...

Still, a few great things in here...

Also today, a question on Twitter as to whether Asia could be deemed "prog"...

The brief answer had to be "no" as thy didn't release any music until 1982...

But, across their discography, I managed to pull together a 4CD set of reasonably "proggy" items...

Kind of....

On telly tonight, "Holby City"...

The final scene at Crispycat today was this...

Lights out...

Highlight of the Day : Compiling...

Looking back and filling gaps....

Playlist

Sparks - Annette OST (Unlimited Edition)

Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour

Beverley Craven - Beverley Craven

Paul Motian - Bill Evans

Iggy Pop - Brick By Brick

Family 5 - Das Blaue vom Himmel

Falco - Data De Groove

Suzanne Vega - Days of Open Hand

Herman Van Veen - Des Bleus Partout

Styx - Edge Of The Century

Queensrÿche - Empire

King Candy - Happy Garden

Sinéad O'Connor - I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got

Phish - Lawn Boy

Duran Duran - Liberty

The Necks - Next

Extreme - Pornograffitti

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Ragged Glory

ZZ Top - Recycler

Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs For Drella

Pheeroen Aklaff - Sonogram

Phil Manzanera - Southern Cross

Hawkwind - Space Bandits

Santana - Spirits Dancing In The Flesh

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Good Son

John McLaughlin - The Mediterranean

Los Lobos - The Neighborhood

AC/DC - The Razors Edge

Horse - The Same Sky

Black Sabbath - Tyr

Depeche Mode - Violator

Another week commences...

Up late...

Things which will not be used today...

...and things that will...

Breakfast...

...was soundtracked by my first album of 2021...

I am set to record my twelfth, with another four projects (End of year comp, Wagner, Lou Reed, Cheeky Girls) also underway...

A day of WFH, while Anne was out and about doing things...

These new roses are good...

Downloaded a lot of LPs from 1990 today re the latest fortnightly countdown to 5 LPs of the year - some I used to have, others, I thought I ought to have...

On telly, just "University Challenge" - second again with 120...

Then, upstairs to listen, read and think...

Highlight of the Day : New music...

Isolating the errors can be revealing...

Playlist

The Tubes - The Tubes

The Tubes - Young and Rich

Slikback - SCXTRX

Emmanuel Jacob - Healing Wave

Chris Liebing - Another Day

Steven Wilson - The Future Bites

Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic

Various - 70s School Days

Capital Models - 2021-11-28

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Rock'n'Roll

...and, before you know it, once again, you are three days behind...

Anyway, up - Sunday - busy day ahead...

The machines await...

First thing, getting this back up to date again - to last night...

The other machines await...

Outside, Xmas is coming...

Inside, it is toasty...

Flying saucer attack?

Toasty!

Final prep of the room, with another smaller desk brought down from the attic to allow me to record bass, guitar and keys without my vocals, my guitar or the rhythm tracks, in the hope that something might be made of today's playing...

We will have a corner each...

Out...

Scenes...

...and over to Straiton to do my mum's shopping and then to her home for a visit, where, after having gotten his up to date this morning, I was able to show her all my riveting stuff from the last seven days!

Home and Fang visited...

Anne set off for Newcastle with Jane to pick up Kitty, whose boyfriend "Channing" lives there while at University...

No trains or some such nonsense necessitated parental driving...

With aunt in tow...

Good times...

Here, I waited for the boys to arrive...

And arrive they did - a corner of the room each...

We sent this to drummer Johnny, ill in bed...

A good run through although the recordings later on showed tons of errors...

Without a huge amount of work the "tapes" will be useless...

But I did put together a version of "Rock'n'Roll" by adding the rhythm track and some judicious reverb to proceeds - so just the trio and the rhythm track - it sounded ok...

Then, I did a cheeky wee CBQ remix version on it by slowing it down and using only the reverb elements plus a different rhythm track and adding first take vocals...

Reasonably successful...

Anne returned unscathed and teas was fetched from the chippie, before "Strictly", "Dr Who" and the finale of 2Show Trial" entertained...

All in all, a very good day...

Highlight of the Day : Playing...

A visit from the boys...

Playlist

Bartók - Concerto For Orchestra, Music For Strings, Percussion & Celeste

Keur Moussa - Sacred Chant & African Rhythms from Senegal

Pixies - Wave Of Mutilation: Best Of Pixies

Various - Lemon Popsicles And Strawberry Milkshakes: Rock 'N' Roll Number 1s

Mungo Jerry - Baby Jump - The Definitive Collection

Various - The Soul Of Lennon & McCartney

Run-D.M.C - Greatest Hits

The Cave Singers - No Witch

Bike For Three! - More Heart Than Brains

Stevie Wonder - The Definitive Collection

Various - Disco Wonderland

Violette - Piano Sonatas 1 & 7

Queen  - Seven Seas of Rhye (Single)

John Coltrane - European Tour 1962

Capital Models - Rhythm Tracks

Right...

Saturday...

Let's go...

Started the day with an old podcast, while the latest uploaded...

Breakfast...

Eggs and mushrooms on toast...

...then, to creating rhythm tracks to be used for the now firmed up rehearsal tomorrow's without drummer Johnny...

Got around an hour's work done before nephew Andy arrived with his three boys...

There was much fun...

... and fascination...

...and cheeky faces...

Lockie...

...and poses...

Dougie...

...and maturity...

Kerr...

Lockie's favourites, at present, are Muto (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) and Mothra (I think) from Godzilla...

The two youngsters are also infatuated with Ghostbusters...

Lockie (3) didn't look to sure when I said I'd shave his head...

Dougie (6 next month) put an end to that nonsense...

A dad and his boys...

I played a Queen record ("Seven Seas of Rhye") for Dougie...

He declared it too loud (it was the first time he'd ever seen a 7" single) but had his pic taken with another Queen item from the collection...

 He likes Queen and the Beatles - we are doomed!

Later Lockie demonstrated the size of the Jobby he just did - much to the shock of his brothers...

They got ready for a portrait...

...which ended up illustrating perfectly the chaos the two young ones brought to the house (and the growth of a young boys exaggeration)...

Was this staged, or is it real?

Time to go and there was much mucking about...

...and cuddles for Auntie Anne...

Later, with the coast clear, and a week since Luna left the house....

Who's this?

It's Fang...

 ...making a welcome, if brief, return...

A rogue, left behind, car was found...

The team had moved on to my mum's house, meeting up with Ali, Julie and wee Harris...

Mum does love a McFlurry (or any ice cream, frankly)...

Then, back to sister Sheila's...

The nephews looking good...

While all this was going on, Anne and her mum were freezing at Tynecastle watching Hearts beat St Mirren 2-0 after a struggle - while Queens, up in Aberdeen for the cup against Cove Rangers, top of the league below the one of which Queens are currently bottom, drew 2-2 - a man sent off late on and losing the second equaliser in the 92nd minute...

Aargh!

The rhythm creation went on...

All told, it took up around 7 hours of my day plus setting up the room for tomorrow and a couple of runs through to test them out...

It's what I do...

Late on, this sent to Andy re its resemblance to his current look...

A couple of episodes re a new thing we're watching "Great News"...

Also, a good film was enjoyed the other night, I've just remembered, starring the Chinese actor from "Space Force", "Love Hard" (a cross between "Love Actually" and "Die Hard", kind of)...

OK that was it and I am up to date...

Onwards!!

Highlight of the Day : A visit from the boys...