Sunday, March 31, 2024

Saving insects is good, as are brunch and painting...

Playlist
Capital Models - 2023-11-19
Cloudland Blue Quartet - 2024-03-28 Covers
Cloudland Blue Quartet - 2024-03-30 Covers
The Prog Collective - Dark Encounters
Corde - Schema
Loane - Jamais Seule
Rasch - Mein Herz brennt
Cloudland Blue Quartet - String Quartet Backing Tracks
Lustmord - Much Unseen Is Also Here
Roxy Music - Roxy Music Live
Loane - Alone
Boris Blank - Resonance
Christian Wittman - The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars
Mark Wingfield - The Gathering
Jogging House - Rendezvous
Ill Considered - Precipice
The Church - Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars
Mark Lockheart - Smiling
James Jamieson & Capital Models - Kind of Live
Capital Models - 2024-03-24
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Dissolution IV
Cloudland Blue Quartet - 2024-03-29 Covers
Pan American & Kramer - Reverberations of Non-Stop Traffic on Redding Road
blanket - Ceremonia
Reichenhall - Café Morgenstern
Kjetil Mulelid - Agoja
Kreidler - Twists (A Visitor Arrives)
Wye Oak, Metropolis Ensemble, Paul Wiancko, William Brittelle - Shriek: Variations
Ride - Interplay
Jeremiah Fraites - Piano Piano 2
Jeremy Pelt - Tomorrow's Another Day
Michiel Stekelenburg - Catharsis
Roedelius & Tim Story - 4 Hands (Special Edition)
Beyoncé - COWBOY CARTER
Eden Har-Gil - Hearts of Palm
Ensemble Mark Rothko - David Fontanesi: Four String Quartets
Marc Mezgolits - Unchanging
Socool & Edward Spark - In Our Dream
Ferry Corsten - Where The Mountains Grow
The Prog Collective - Dark Encounters
Arielle Kasnetz - Electric Dreams and Cosmic Nightmares
The Rolling Stones - On Air
Nancy Sinatra - Themependium
John Cale - Guts
The Lemonheads - Lick
Stereolab - The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music (EP)
Ntombi Zamanje - The Best Of Today's African Folk Music Vol 2
Scary Pockets - Electric Dreams and Cosmic Nightmares
The Prog Collective - Dark Encounters
Billy Sherwood - Citizen: In the Next Life
Kornstad Trio - Future Jazz From Norway
Samira Said - North African Groove
Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing
Lindstrøm - Smalhans
Sebadoh - act surprised
MATTERS UNKNOWN - We Aren't Just
Fennesz - Temporization
A Tonic for the Troops - Realm of Opportunities
Hollywood Vampires - Live In Rio

Last day of March...


..and so we are already a quarter of the way through the 25th year of the century...

Happy Easter!



Sadly, I only had a picture of an Easter Egg as opposed to the real thing...

Got a little caught up in Paris and Frenchness this morning as Jane and Kitty flew there today for a few days' break and I looked back at our last trip there in 2008, prompting me to listen to a couple of records bought there and then to download a pile of stuff by Saint-Georges...

Kitty sent some pics back and Jane posted on Facebook....











Here, an Easter Ladybird was found on the dusty front window...


...and was escorted outside...


Then, round to Anne's mum's, where this, today appropriate painting hangs, by the master Dali - Anne's mum's fave painting...


Off we went to wait outside...


...for Anne's mum's lift to church...


...then the Crispycat Team made its way to the shops...


...and, post shopping, to Polworth for brunch at a place we used to frequent which has since become a branch of our all time fave brunch venue, Patisserie Florentin...


Lovely...


...as were the breakfast rolls...



...and as was the coffee...



Back home, Anne did some gardening while I worked on possible new music, using jazzy drumming, but it came to nothing...


A banana was enjoyed while I worked...


I popped into the attic to retrieve a guitar stand and added to the reasonably recent artistic creation...


...and a wee bit more...


...and found the biggest bee in Christendom, which was captured and put out into the garden (no pics)...

The squirrel was being acrobatic...


...watched by its friend, the big pigeon...


Excellent Mexican tea from Annie...


...was followed by "Astrid" and then the first two episodes of the kind of "Leverage's" spin-off, "Almost Paradise", starring the Elliot character but with a different name - it was like he was having adventures under an alias, between the end of "Leverage" and the start of "Leverage: Redemption" - same production team - two seasons to watch, so all good...

Never got round to recording the podcast but I did listen through the entire content and decided to omit quite a few items on the basis of that listen...

One for tomorrow...

Finished the day by drawing attention to my recommended listening - you can go to the relevant huge list of records by clicking on the pic below...


Lights out on March...

Highlight of the Day : Brunch with Anne and Anne's Mexican cuisine...

Today's New Music:-

Saturday, March 30, 2024

An afternoon spent singing can be good (but possibly not for everyone)...

Playlist
The Lemonheads - Lick
Stereolab - Dots And Loops (Expanded Edition)
Sebadoh - act surprised
Stereolab - The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music (EP)
The Church - Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars
Fennesz - Senzatempo
Deep Purple - Montreux '71 (Live At The Casino, Montreux / 1971)
Deep Purple - Machine Head (Remix 2024 / Remaster 2024)
Ride - Interplay
Beyoncé - COWBOY CARTER
Roedelius & Tim Story - 4 Hands (Special Edition)
Eloy - Visionary
Eloy - The Vision, the Sword and the Pyre, Pt. 1
Eloy - The Vision, the Sword and the Pyre, Pt. 2
Jeremy Pelt - Tomorrow's Another Day
Mark Lockheart - Smiling
Blue Sun Chasing/Edward Spark/Cloudland Blue Quartet - Front Porch
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Front Porch (CBQ Version)
Eloy - Reincarnation on Stage
blanket - Ceremonia
Boris Blank - Resonance
Capital Models - 2024-03-24
Christian Wittman - The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars
The Church - Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars
Cloudland Blue Quartet - 2024-03-29 Covers
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Dissolution IV
Cloudland Blue Quartet - 2024-03-30 Covers

Up just before 6


Easter bunny on the calendar, sort of...


Stuff awaited action...


But, just before 7, I noticed that the collaborative LP I did early last year with Blue Sun Chasing and Edward Spark, "Front Porch", had been removed from Bandcamp by BSC for no apparent reason and without any notification to Sparky or to me...

So the next 90 minutes was spent re-releasing it on Crispycat and, lo, it was good - and acts as a nice precursor to the release later this year of the CBQ version of the piece...

It's all good...


...and, once it was re-released, Mr Blue Sun Chasing left this very nice review on the page...
The skies were also good...


I'm on the search for a new power unit for the headphone mixer - initial research suggests this could be a long laborious task (and that buying one will be around half the cost of just getting a new mixer)...

Hmm...

Note fingertip damage re much recent guitaring...


Post breakfast, at 10, over to Loanhead to pick up my mum's freshly washed clothes and some biscuits to take to the hospital for today's visit...

Easter is coming...


Nothing a gran'ma likes more than an Easter Egg from her grandson (nephew Andy brought this in on Tuesday)...


Mum made the mistake of asking what I'd been up to, so I regaled her with the content of this from when I last saw her on Tuesday up to last night - then we looked at what happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago and 5 years ago...

Here she is 10 years ago today...

Again with chocolate...


Home (via dropping off more washing at Loanhead) for home made soup pre Anne heading off to Tynecasrtle with Jane for a disappointing 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock - meanwhile, in Hamilton, Queens ought to have won (per the QoS Twitter account anyway) but came a way with a 0-0 draw against No 2 in the league...

Reasonable...

Me?

I did not record the podcast - though I did compile the content...

Instead, I sang songs for 3 hours...


...as follows...

On Some Faraway Beach
Pale Blue Eyes
Five Years
Here He Comes
Drive-in Saturday
Chance Meeting
Spider and I
Golden Hours
I Can't Explain
What Goes On
Sweet Jane (the Rock'n'Roll Animal Version)
The Times They Are a Changing
Cindy Tells Me
All I Want Is You
Needle in the Camel's Eye
Street Life
Spinning Away
Julie With...
Rock 'n' Roll
Heroes
Mother of Pearl
St Elmo's Fire
Like a Hurricane
Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 1)
Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 2)
Another Brick in the Wall (Pt 3)
Goodbye Cruel World
Blank Space
Out of the Woods
Come Together
Eleanor Rigby
Leaving on a Jet Plane
The Model
The Number One Song in Heaven
Say Hello Wave Goodbye

...which was fun...

For tea tonight, tasty Chinese fayre from Wong's - ready for collection at the promised time - so, no need for an old man to shout at some clouds...


It was accompanied by the final two episodes of "Leverage: Redemption" - and so, all over - now we wait for season 3 to appear...

Then, 1st in the new series of "Taskmaster" - always better than I think it's going to be...

Football highlights were soundtracked by today's recordings - to which I fell asleep, of course...

To bed at an unheard of 10:45...

Although the clocks might already have gone back...

Highlight of the Day : Singing songs...

Today's New Music:-

Friday, March 29, 2024

Working through the frozen face...

Playlist
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Dissolution IV
Spacelab - Dots and Loops
Spacelab - The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music
Sebadoh - act surprised
The Church - Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers Eno & Roxy Remakes
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers BTs 2024
Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers
Cloudland Blue Quartet - GLAM!
Cloudland Blue Quartet - GLAM! #2

Up just before six and writing this...


The nights are fair drawing out...


...started the day with some "Dissolution IV", then, catching up with the records played last night at Stu's place...

Today was a day for kind of creation...


I had noted five songs I do with Capital Models for which I have no backing tracks of my own to sing along to as CBQ - so, I set about creating them using elements of the original tracks...

By the end of the day, I had created "Here He Comes", "Cindy Tells Me" and "Julie With..." by Brian Eno and "Chance Meeting" and "Mother of Pearl" by Roxy Music...

The Roxy items utilise Bryan Ferry recordings - "Mother of Pearl" being based on the "new " version recently released on the "Mamouna" box set...

 I was particularly pleased with "Chance Meeting" as it combines elements of Ferry's 1976 re-recording along with some from the original Roxy Music recording from 1972...

The exercise also allowed me to discover we've been playing entirely the wrong chord sequences for "Chance Meeting", although it still sounds good...

Hmmm...

As I "worked", the tree man came and took away part of the tree, sadly leaving a wee brown patch at its top...

Oh well...

Maybe it'll grow back...


The third last "Leverage" enjoyed at lunchtime - it was very good indeed - the one about the assistant and the IT guy from the record company kinda becoming Leverage agents without actually knowing it...

Made a nice change...

We have just two episodes left, having now watched 104 episodes across five seasons of "Leverage" and two of "Leverage: Redemption"...

That's 78 hours, with an hour and a half left...

Binge-tastic...

Another hole will be left...

To the dentist this afternoon, two more fillings and a frozen face...

Back home, I decided to redo "Cindy Tells Me", which took an inordinate amount of time but I was pleased with the outcome...

The frozen face made it difficult to eat Anne's tasty omelette based tea but I, of course, struggled on...



As a consequence of all the backing track work today (and the dentist), and then deciding to sing through the five "new" songs this evening for posterity, I didn't get a chance to do anything re the podcast...

Not that anyone's waiting for it really...

To bed with the recordings from yesterday and today...

Highlight of the Day : Backing track creation...

Today's New Music:-