Spare Bedroom

Those who have been lucky enough to have been our guests in Morton will know that the spare bedroom needed some serious cosmetic attention. Well, its been redecorated as of this weekend, in a lovely friendly shade of gentle lilac, with bright n breezy cream curtains. So. How do ya like them apples. Hmm?

Bolgg Stopopop

What is it about Blogspot's spell check that means it arbitarily re arranges letters in words, tacks the middle of a word onto the end and pushes sentences together with no spaces?

GGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Lunchtime Aspergers - Part 1

Friday lunchtime, I'm bored and I have no currency to use in trade at the local hostelry. Therefore, I decided to let my mild apsergers reign supreme for a moment, and tell you my favourite 50 albums of all time!! Woo - Yeah!! So, in no particular order (of course), here's part 1 of a semi regular feature....

1. Kate Bush - The Kick Inside
I spent my formative years in the late seventies looking over the sleeve to this album, fixated, but not sure why. Of course, 10 years later and the onset of puberty and it became totally apparent why, but that's a different story all together. Just remember that in those days album covers were 12 inches wide and quite detailed. I'm told that I had 3 imaginary friends at that stage of my life; Butterfly, Bear and kate Bush. Gods knows what we used to get upto, but that's by the by. What of the music? Well - its her first and for me her best album. 2 or 3 albums later and she's messing around with a Fairlight CMI and making allsorts of wonderful noises - oddly, this makes her later efforts more likely candidates for my affections, but no. This is the one, its haunting, mournful, sad and genuinely moving - just Kate, a piano and the guy from Pink Floyd. Did you know she wrote Wuthering Heights at 13...?

2. Future Sound of London - Lifeforms
I have Rich to thank for introducing me to Future Sound of London, which makes up for the attempted bumrape at 19. I could've gone to the police, it was my debt to him in the shape of this album and his assurances that it wouldn't happen again as he'd 'seen the goods now and had gone off the idea', which stopped me. In fairness to him, it hasn't happened again, but then to the best of my knowledgege, no one has a cock that reaches across the Atlantic. This album is genius, surely one of the most important electronic albums of all time? Even now I don't think there's anything that sounds like it. Not a note or sound is predictable, its full of sparkling imagination, amazing rhythm's and tunes. Fantastic.

3. Black Dog - Spanners
Probably mildly better than Bytes, its predessor - again there's nowt like it. The 90's really were a good time for electronica. They lost it when they split up and became Plaid if you ask me. Here, the beats were so different to anything that was happening elsewhere. Other folks were churning out 4 to the floor 'bum'tish' beats and that same old James Brown loop sped up. These guys were doing polyrythms, phasing in and out of each other in a middle eastern kinda way. Over the top of this they put mystical melodies, non western pipes, unnknown foreign string instruments and discordantant vocal mashups. It sounds like something discovered at the bottom of Cheops pyramid. This album has stood the test of time, because it sounds like nothing else on earth.

4. Radiohead - Kid A
Received wisdom will have it that OK Computer or The Bends is Radiohead's best album. The musical press will have it that this was Radiohead making an Autechre album. Just goes to show what cretins the journo's at NME are really, not that I needed to be reminded. All this proves is that they have never heard an Autechre album and wouldn't know the next big thing unless it sounded lime the last big thing, 30 years ago. Fools.

5. Ry Cooder - Paris Texas
Soundtrack to the film of the same name. Slide guitar, in that same mournful riff over and over, beautiful and reminiscent of a part of the world I have never visited. Full of the sadness of love gone wrong. Brilliant. This is one of those soundtracks that defines a film, like the iconic music of Jaws, The Exorcist or Close Encounters.

6 & 7. Tangerine Dream - Phaedre & Rubycon
I've lumped these two together, because in my mind they will always be linked, and to be honest, they do share a huge amount in common. Both of these albums have a huge personal meaning to me. Dad had both of these on vinyl, in the days before he owned a 'music centre', with cassette and radio. They are the records, along with Jean Michelle Jarre's Oxygene and Hawkwind which got me into 'electronic music' and ambient - they're both bleak and lush at the same time, awash with phased synths and those rhythmical, repeticious bass lines. TD famously had sequencers invented for them so they could write these albums, that's another 'thanks' to them (but we digress). For years after, as I entered early adulthood and started buying music for myself, Dad could be heard to utter the now immortal and entirely derogatory phrase 'sounds like Tangerine Dream'. He meant it was a rip off. Tragedy was, he wasn't entirely wrong, except tracks like The Orb's A Huge Ever Growing Brain that Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld or Global Communication's 9.25 were paying homage, not ripping off. Just as we entered the early 90's and 'ambient' (a wonderful genre definition not invented until 20 years in retrospect) made a come back, we all realised that these albums hadn't aged at all. These 2 albums were the soundtrack to my childhood and have remained with me ever since, driving me to try and recreate that sense of being on a different planet or dream realm in my own music and seek it out in others work. For all I know, it contributed to my love of surrealist art and mood film too. Who knows. Listen to them now and tell me they sound like they came from the 70's. You'd be hard pushed.

Meta-blog

Thanks to Ted aka Dad for this article from the Times:

Times' blog article

Children In Need - Who special

Billed as the highlight of the evening, the BBC's charity night Children in Need telethon just gave us a 3.5 minute prelude to the new Who series, starting this Xmas day with 'The Christmas Invasion'. It was halfway between a self contained episode, a bridge between seasons and a trailer!

It also gave us a first glimpse of David Tennant as the 10th Doctor - albeit a Doc who is still unstable and unwell from his regeneration. If you didn't catch it, or live outside of the UK, watch it here:

Who CIN Special

And whilst your at it, why not donate a squid or 3 to a very worthy cause or 10.

UPDATE 1: So far Children in Need has raised £17,235,256

UPDATE 2: My season 1 boxset arrived this morning.

Brown Harvest

There was a light frost this morning, not a full on winter frost, but crispy enough for my purposes. For some people, a cold, icy morning would be regarded as a problem, not for me - I welcomed its arrival as a positive boon. You see, I own a dog, a dog that defecates quite a lot. I hadn't managed to get out in the garden for a few weekends, due to heavy rain - something that always makes the 'log run' as a I affectionately call it, troublesome, not to mention downright unpleasant. Have you ever tried to bag up a soaking wet poo? I have, its revolting and full retrieval is made impossible without pulling up mounds of turf. So, outside of baking sunshine, frost is the log harvesters best friend, this morning was no exception and quick work was made of a usually time consuming task before I left for work.

Admittedly, there wasn't loads of the stuff in the garden, Mindy's preferred toilet of choice these days, is our kitchen.

Golden Oldies

I uploaded some of my old tracks to Rich last week, circa mid to late 90's. Stuff that I always liked, but never thought was well produced enough to send out as demos. Well, he emailed me back telling me how much he enjoyed hearing them again (some of them I wrote when we lived together), and how I shouldn't give it up just yet. Although, to date I haven't started to create anything new, I did remaster these tracks, and I've now uploaded them to TuneTribe for your delectation. I'm sorry to say, if interested, you will have to stump up 50p per track, but for this sort of quality, well....where else could you get a track with Pat Juggins on the dijeridoo or my Grans rambling answer phone messages on the same album?

Strange Matters Volume 1

Just a slight word of warning, anyone expecting gentle ambience along the lines of my more recent works may be slightly dissapointed. Whilst here is a certain amount of mood music, there is also much which is fast, noisy, frenetic and downright mentalist, which, to be fair, is entirely in keeping with the works of an angrier younger man.

My favourite Doctor Who story - ever.

...plopped through my letter box today. Actually, that's not quite true, the Postie rang the bell and handed it to me, but we digress. Yes, The City of Death DVD, which was supposed to be out on Monday, finally turned up this morning.

This story is my favourite Doctor Who ever - it just has all the elements. Let me elaborate - oh go on, please:

The Script - rewritten by Douglas Adams in one night after being 'hosed down' by producer Graham Williams with gallons of whiskey and black coffee. This has Adams written all over it, the story is full of backflips and somersaults, the dialogue is the funniest you've ever seen before in Doctor Who, maybe not suprising and the 'big ideas' from Adams' imagination are brilliant. Who would have thought of an alien, splintered through time by an enormous explosion, using Leonardo DeVinci to paint several Mona Lisa's so he could steal the original in the Louvre and sell it 10 times over to fund his time travel in order to prevent his own splintering! PHEW!

The Lines Have I said I loved the dialogue? My favourite line:
Dugan (thick private eye): Do you know what I don't understand?
Romana: I expect so...

Tom & Lalla - both leads are on form here, the chemistry between them is buzzing as they fire lines back and forth like some sort of Time Lord double act. I always liked Romana, it seemed right the Doctor should travel with one of his own race. Tom here is at the height of his powers, he's having a whale of a time giving it large, really doing amazing justice to the script.

THAT cameo - John Cleese and Eleanor Bron's totally unexpected and entirely superfluous comedy moment in the art gallery, mistaking the TARDIS as an art installation. Genius.

The Location Work Who's first ever location filming abroad, in Paris. Sometimes its a little overworked, but most of the time it looks glossier than it ever did.

The Cast I've mentioned Tom Baker and Lalla Ward, but the supporting cast without exception are brilliant, particularly Julian Glover (of James Bond fame) and Catherine Schell.

The Ratings - Actually this isn't one of my favourite elements, its just an 'interesting' fact that this is the highest rated Who story of all time, ever, at 16.5million viewers.

If anyone out there would like to give 'Classic' Who a go, and are not sure where to start, they can do a lot worse than this.

How to devalue a piece of plastic in 1 easy move

Up until last Monday, I had a piece of plastic on my shelves, 12" in diameter, that was worth something in the region of £150 - £200. Now I don't. No it hasn't been stolen, its all thanks to Warp Records.

The piece of plastic in question was a 12" EP by Aphex Twin called Hangable Autobulb, limited in number to 1000 pressings, this slice of quality and genre shifting electronica was released in 1995 and 1/1000th of it, was purchased by me.

It was a ground breaking record. Jungle was at the height of its powers, and Aphex, at the height of his, released a record. This and its follow up, the imaginatively titled Hangable Autobulb 2, were the first releases that marked Aphex's experimentation with the dynamics, speed and programming that had evolved through the UK jungle scene morphing it into something entirely unique, something entirely Aphex Twin.

So as I was saying, Warp, in their infinite wisdom (my favourite label you know - f*ckers never signed me...) decided to release both EP's on a single CD. Of course, I had to get it, subscribing at once to my own financial doom, both by splashing hard earned on something I already owned, and by justifying Warp's petty minded release schedule.

I love these tracks, not only are they evocative for me of bachelor days walking to work listening to the walkman, but of a time when electronica was electronica, not trying to up its worth by pretending to be psychedelia, or jazz or even (uurgh - its happening you know) folk music. They are what you would expect from Aphex too, in the days when an Aphex release was something to get very excited about, aside from the noted drum and percussion programming, which frankly, is still mentalist, the quirky samples and lovely Aphex melodies stand up to a decades worth of repeated listening. Notables being Laughable Butane Bob, a track which suits itself to driving up the A15 at 8am in the morning, and Children Talking, which features a child being questioned on his least favourite food, to which he replies 'Mashed Potatoes..' You don't get that sort of quality on CD-Cocking-UK.

I maybe £150 down, but I'm probably a little bit richer..... I expect.

Societies a funny old thing...

From todays Mirror - does anyone find this funny?

TROUBLE 'N STRIFE FOR EASTENDERS HARDMEN

BISH! EastEnders' Ross' wife calls 999 after he 'splits her lip' BASH! Five cops arrive and take him to the station at 4am BOSH! Hours later TVs McFadden punches ex in face.

SMACK! Sun editor Rebekah Wade was belted by Eastenders hardman Ross Kemp who plays leather-jacketed Grant Mitchell, giving her a split lip.

She called police, who arrested Kemp for alleged assault, and was later sent home from filming because she was so "distressed".

BANG! Angela Bostock, was punched in the faceby her former boyfriend Steve McFadden, who plays Kemp's screen bruv Phil in a slanging match in front of police outside the home they used to share.

McFadden, 37 - father of Bostock's two children - was arrested and cautioned.

The dramas came a week after the brothers returned to the soap with the immortal greeting to their mother Peggy, "Hello mum".

But yesterday there was no Peggy loyally to take their side. Instead the girls were ridiculed for making a mockery of their screen image.

A senior soap scriptwriter said: "If we wrote this story people would laugh at us."

Five officers dashed to 27-year-old Wade's home in Battersea, South West London, after she called them at about 4am.

They found her sporting a cut lip which she said was caused by her husband. Kemp 37, was driven to Wandsworth police station where he was held for eight hours before being released. No further action will be taken.

Earlier, it is believed, he met disgraced former Cabinet minister David Blunkett - who resigned as Work and Pensions Secretary - for a couple of drinks. He then attended a vodka and caviar party hosted by PR guru Matthew Freud before dinner at a fashionable London restaurant.

After being freed from police custody yesterday he failed to attend a Man of the Year lunch at London's Guildhall.

In August Steve was arrested after allegedly burgling Bostockss flat and stealing a TV and video. The case was dropped."

Etc etc....

Can anyone seewhat I've done here...?

Mindy's Diary - Update

Thursday: Lulled them into a false sense of security by giving them a day off, they probably thought the show was over - gullible fools, I was saving my best till last!

Friday: Got Poppa up at 4.30am - he thought I was asking to be let out to do poos and wees, little did he know I was taking him down to see what I'd already done! Boy was he in for a suprise when he saw the spread I'd laid on in the kitchen!

Campfire Headphase Re-review

I said this might happen, I was right.

There's a lesson here, don't review an album within 3 or 4 days of buying it, I'll remember this for next time.

For the record, the Boards of Canada album Campfire Headphase is excellent, I was too quick to dismiss it. The problem was, it has a very accessible sound, verging on mainstream (by their standards) but actually, despite first impressions, it has real hidden depths.

If you want a really chilled, winter album this is it, it has mood in buckets and some really nice melodies to boot - something I didn't recognise in my first review. Sure, its maybe not as cutting edge as previous albums, but this ones all about the choons.

Excellent - 4/5

Mindy's diary for this week so far

Monday: Pissed on the lounge carpet in full view of Pappa. Oh how he laughed!

Tuesday: Pissed and shat all over the kitchen floor, just for Moma. I managed a real load.

Wednesday: Just a piss in the kitchen today, but I brought the kitchen bin down and scattered the contents through the puddles, and then had a go at the bin bags too. A busy morning all in.

Who knows what the rest of the week holds? Exciting times - can't wait to test their patience even further!