Preparation through compilation...

Playlist

Yo Yo Ma - Vivaldi's Cello

Sor - Guitar Duets, Vol. 1

Eric Carmen - All By Myself

Asia/Boston - Winning Combinations

Sarah MacDougall - Across the Atlantic

Various - Dub

The Tragically Hip - The Tragically Hip

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Leonard Cohen EP

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Dakota Starman EP

Alice Cooper - Hollywood Vampires

Various - October Hit Singles

Good skies this morning...

...and a new baby, chum Paula's, was introduced to the Billion Dollar Baby's head...

A fruitless, apart from the exercise, walk to Fopp at lunchtime...

In the afternoon, the feeding station was being enjoyed by a squirrel and observed by the Exec Producer...

  

In the evening, after some tasty chicken with roast potatoes and excellent shredded cabbage (I do like excellent shredded cabbage), I had planned some possible portions of these...

  

However, correspondence with brother-in-law Bobby...

 ...re the weekend's celebrations re sister-in-law Jane's birthday tomorrow, prepped for today by Olly and Kitty...

...led to your correspondent setting about compiling a playlist of 51 October hit singles, from Ken Dodd's "Tears", number one on 10/10/65, through to Demi Lovato's "Cool For The Summer", a current hit apparently, which features in Kitty's present top ten...

Here's the full list of artists featured...

You might like to work out who had an October hit in which year...

Abba

Bryan Adams

Adele

Alice Cooper

Bay City Rollers

The Beach Boys

David Bowie

The Buggles

Cars

Cheryl

Coldplay

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Dido

Ken Dodd

Duran Duran

Electric Light Orchestra

The Emotions

David Essex

Erasure

Aretha Franklin

Dario G

Girls Aloud

Heart

The Jam

Japan

Elton John

Kiss

Avril Lavigne

Huey Lewis & The News

Demi Lovato

Madonna

Maria McKee

Kylie Minogue

James Morrison

The Move

Freda Payne

Katy Perry

Pet Shop Boys

Eric Prydz

Psy

The Rembrandts

Scissor Sisters

Snap!

Spice Girls

Rod Stewart

Sweet

Meghan Trainor

Shania Twain

Tears For Fears

Robbie Williams

Amy Winehouse

...then again, you might not...

Other than that, a new drama was introduced - "Unforgiven" - very promising...

Lights out with a history of pop music in the cans...

Highlight of the Day : Compiling...

Faraway, so close...

Playlist

Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets

Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain

Vivaldi - Bassoon Concertos Vol 1

Rheostatics - AGO First Thursdays Sept 3 2015

Sarah MacDougall - Across the Atlantic

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Leonard Cohen EP

Max Richter - From Sleep

Mick Flannery - Red to Blue

John Lewis - Jazz Abstractions

Yo Yo Ma - Vivaldi's Cello

Glen Campbell - The Glen Campbell Collection

King Crimson - The Elements 2015 Tourbox

Drumheller - Wives

Jackie McLean - Fire & Love

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Dakota Starman EP

Various - Sid Smith's Podcast From the Yellow Room

Richard Pinhas & Yoshida Tatsuya - Welcome to the Void

Richie Havens - Richard P Havens 1983

Rick Wakeman - recollections Best of 1973-79

Brian Eno - For All Mankind OST

Brian Eno - Biography Soundtrack
Glenn Gould - Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 24; Schoenberg: Piano Concerto, Op. 42

The views from the office this morning - were good...

...featuring one of the Canadian coasters...

This evening, the sun was out on the way home...

...as were these wee beasties...

...and the view from the office this evening was also good...

Superb pork casserole from the Exec Producer post my enjoyment of the latest podcast from chum Sid Smith over at www.progzilla.com...

Pottered about with a few chord sequences, maybe I'll write some new songs soon - only written one in the last three years...

In football, Scotland came from behind to lead Poland 2-1 at Hampden...

Then, in the 94th minute, an equaliser for Poland...

 And, with Ireland somehow managing to beat Germany 1-0 in Dublin, it seems, it's all over for another two years...

Luckily though, it's only a game...

Highlight of the Day : Anne's pork casserole...

Reacquainting...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers 2015

Vivaldi - Bassoon Concertos Vol 1

Alice Cooper Group - Dallas Texas 06/10/15

Brian Eno - Textures

Brian Eno - Music for Airplay

Brian Eno - Pellisero Wine Promo CD

Brian Eno - 77 Million Paintings

Brian Eno - On Some Faraway Beach - Solo Recordings 1974-1997

Brian Eno - Empty Landscapes

To HMV at lunchtime and a Vivaldi bassoon concertos CD found...

Looked it up on Amazon, as you do, to find many a customer review giving it one star and advising the bassoon playing was dreadful, out of tune, missed notes etc etc...

Played it back home and it did sound pretty rubbish...

Then I looked it up in the Penguin guide and they were praising it...

All of a sudden it sounded good...

Yep, that's how easy it is to influence me...

The evening was mostly spent ripping previously missed Eno albums, including various old home made compilations, into my iTunes...

...when I really ought to have been working on many other equally pointless projects like practising my singing and guitaring...

But very nice to listen to these influential tracks again...

Meanwhile, last night, (l-r) Michael Bruce, Vincent Furnier, Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway - the four remaining members of the original Alice Cooper Group (RIP Glen Buxton) reunited for an 8 song set in a bookshop in Dallas, re a signing session for Mr Dunaway's new book on the band's glory days...

(Pic by Mark Bowman)

Now that's a show I'd have loved to have been at...

Review here...

Setlist...

Here's "School's Out" - current guitarist Ryan Roxie filled in for Glen Buxton and current bassist Chuck Garric added some harmonica...



Compare that to the Coop's full solo show in Dallas back in February - the guys on stage at the record store wrote these songs ("Ballad of Dwight Fry"/"Killer"/"I Love the Dead")...



A combination of the two is what those who were fans back in the early days would love to see, before it's too late...

Don't think it''ll happen though...

 Lights out...

Highlight of the Day : Old Cooper and Eno stuff...

Renewing...

Playlist

Roxy Music - Country Life

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers 2015
Various Composers - Chamber Music from Baroque to Contemporary
Glen Campbell - The Glen Campbell Collection

Roxy Music - Siren

This evening, a goodly amount of time was spent changing strings on guitars....

...the results of which were top notch...

A few songs were sung...

Elsewhere, time was taken up with the last ever "New Tricks" - end of an era - while "Holby" continues to, inexplicably, entertain...

It's a soap don't you know - the only one your correspondent follows...

Meanwhile, in Manchester, this will happen on Thursday...

Right you two...

Highlight of the Day : Renewing...

Murph away...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers 2015

Barenaked Ladies - Everything to Everyone

Mahler - Symphony No 2

David Gilmour - Rattle That Lock

Steven Wilson - Transience

An early morning tidy...

Work on the covers thing during the day - in the form, mainly, of listening...

And, this evening, a run through a set...

Meanwhile the currently unheard by anyone "Early Morning Coffee Pot" piece will be involved in this on Thursday in Manchester...

It may make its way onto a release at some point...

Also this evening, very sad news from sister Pam's chum Debs down in Hemel - her wee black cat, Murphy, was run over and killed by a car this morning...

Always so hard to lose a beloved animal but all the worse in such circumstances, rather than a more natural end to a life...

Here he is when we visited in December 2010, at the start of Pam's illness, just after her first brain op (hence the lack of hair) and the night before the awful news of just how bad things were going to be for my so much missed wee sis..

...and now this wee monkey's gone too...

Such is life and such is death...

Lights out...

Lowlight of the Day : Demise of a well loved wee beastie...

Life is short and cake is good...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Dakota Starman EP

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers 2015

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Leonard Cohen EP

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Four Last Things

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Bitter Sweet Covers

Catherine MacLellan - Church Bell Blues

Jean-Michel Jarre  - Oxygene

Up at 5:15 and making the final push to get this up to date post the Canadian trip - in all 22 days worth of entries were posted today and now I'm finally back up to date after being three weeks behind for too long...

Out for brunch just before 11, to Jacob at Haymarket - a very tasty time indeed...

On the way home, a stop off at Jane and Bobby's - Anne's mum's TV seems to be on the blink so an old one from their cellar was to be resurrected...

Back home and more work...

Then, around 2:30, out - noting some lovely late blooms in the back garden...

To my mum's - here she is in full swing, eating a cake as usual...

Life is short and cake is good...

I think that's her motto anyway - just as well she doesn't have internet access...

Then, to Anne's mum's and a TV swap done...

Mary has started her latest painting - stripey deckchairs...

I suspect it will be good...

Home and working on the covers project, editing the long tapes into individual songs for easier analysis re possible recordings a la "Starman" and "Dakota" yesterday...

Mid work, a call from Anne's mum - the replacement telly has gone down...

Another hour and half round there for me, trying to solve the problem, ended with the previous telly replacing the replacement, the latter seemingly unable to be roused from standby...

Plugs were switched about and leads were changed and fingers were crossed as I drove back home...

Finished the editing work, then quickly recorded the seven missing/botched up songs from the previous sessions...

It's all good...

Weekend over...

Highlight of the Day : Finally getting this back up to date...

Cloudland Blue Quartet Dakota Starman EP

Spent the majority of yesterday recording this...

 

The Dakota Starman EP by Cloudland Blue Quartet on Mixcloud

A look behind the scenes...

Playlist

Deep Purple - Made In Japan

Die Ärzte - Planet Punk

Xenakis - Complete String Quartets

Brother Jack McDuff - Droppin` Science

Jewel Akens - Hotdogs, Hits & Happy Days

Spocks Beard - Epic Spocks Beard

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Dakota Starman EP

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Leonard Cohen EP

Not really been mentioning it but it has taken a enormous amount of time to put together the entries for the Canada trip but, with this post that's things back up to date...

Up early and working on today's project...

Which was two covers from our Capital Models sets using drum tracks sourced and worked on over the last few days...

What's the method Dave?  I hear absolutely no-one at all asking...

Well, since you asked (eh?)...

1. Ascertain the beats per minute (bpm) of the song in question

2. Create a drum track at that bpm for the length of the song in question

3. Transfer that to the ipod/phone

4 Retire to CD room with iPod/phone and memory card for recorder

5 Play along to drum track by using 2 sets of headphones, one in ear re backing track and one over ear re what's being recorded on memory card (i.e. that's not the backing track)

6 Take memory card with newly recorded part from recorder back to laptop room

7 Load track into studio

8 Rough mix it to previous tracks (initially drums)

9 Repeat for everything you're doing, bass, each guitar, each vocal, anything else

10 Treat as necessary and mix

11 Do this all day for hours and hours on end

12 end up with nine minutes of music after eight hours' work

Here's what I did today - dedicated to my much missed old chum, musical sparring partner and general covers mentor (without him I'd never have thought of playing any Johnny Cash or Jam or a host of others' songs), Mr Jamie Frain...

The Dakota Starman EP by Cloudland Blue Quartet on Mixcloud

Of course, amongst all this work (which I'm sure most people wouldn't actually call work), there was the occasional break to see how the feeding station was doing...

But never mind all that musicking nonsense, what was the Exec Producer doing, I hear absolutely no-one at all asking...

Well, since you asked (eh?)...

She was out all day from around 12 celebrating sister in law Jane's upcoming 50th with a tasty Indian meal for 24 and all the wine a lady can drink (and more)...

Relaxed in the evening with "Strictly" (eh? part 3)

Taxi duties around nine and "Dr Who" on our return...

Another kind of good Saturday although it's frustrating it all takes so long...

Highlight of the Day : Recording...

A couple of glens...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers 2015

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Leonard Cohen EP

Glen Campbell - The Glen Campbell Collection

Glenn Gould - Sonatas Fantasies Variations

A walk to the Grassmarket today to do some music related research...

Back through a picturesque Princes St Gardens...

...to HMV where, just as my not quite as good as Glen Campbell's version of "Rhinestone Cowboy" teed itself up on the old iPod, what should I spot for £2 but this little beauty...

...which was enjoyed tonight along with doing more prep work for possible recording tomorrow...

Lights out...

Highlight of the Day : Working on music...

Mindslip pt 386...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Covers Sets 2015

Into October...

 ...and soundtracked today, all day, by my recordings from last night - the first set was missing due to my not having pressed record when I started - and there are a few false starts re realising half way through I was in a key which is far too high for me - but only one song had to be re-done due to, what we in the "music business" term "not really knowing the song properly"...

The lovely, if not too warm, weather continued...

I ought to have been off to Glasgow to see Spock's Beard - to be honest, I forgot...

Other people in the audience would probably just have annoyed me though...

Anne was out at a late zumba class tonight - I re-played and, this time, recorded the first set of covers from last night - however, a couple of songs remain unrecorded due to an un-notice battery outage...

Even later on though, "Question Time" - Charlotte Church blamed the Syria conflict on so-called "Global Warming"...

Don't really see the point of "celebrities" being on the panel unless it's perhaps to pander to that "man in the street who knows fuckall about anything" demographic...

Followed by "This Week", which was up to the usual standards - good to see Portillo back - as entertaining as Jacob Rees-Mogg was last week, he's not Portillo...

Highlight of the Day : Listening...