This Is Downright Awful

Finding New Music

Space bar sometimes plays up so when i think i have made a space i haven't and the words getallbunchedup.

I am often editing when i see what bloopers i have made.  Happens in comments too , where a  "p" should have been placed instead of an "o" or any combination of letters.

Anyway,i digress, as always.

It was fascinating to read what kishenehn said about finding music. In the 70's my main source if alternatives to the generally boring mainstream was radio shows such as John Peel's program on BBC Radio 1. His music selection was eclectic , and often quite surprising. Other sources were dedicated genre specific magazines or fanzines. Then Wire Magazine came along in  the eighties, which albeitly started as a jazz and new music magazine but soon expanded to cover almost everything from avant garde to field recordings,electronica to jazz and improv, techno to ambient, exotica to grime,modern claasical to folk,and all other undercurrents you could mention. The internet has expanded that world beyond all measures, and whilst chocies now seem to be narrowing due to corporate greed there are still pockets of resistance to the normative hegemony. Bandcamp, as an example, is one such site that lets all the proceeds godirectly to teh artists themselves. Johnny Trunk allows downloads of esoteria on his website for a mere fifty pence each Friday and it is one i higly recommend if you are looking for old weird stuff.

It is through bandcamp that i found artists such as Klein and Kemper Norton, but i only knew of the site by way of the excellent Wire magazine. No other music journal comes close to its breadth and analysis. Perhaps Pitchfork comes the nearest to that august bibleof the new and transgressive.

So,i suppose i better do a music post and the reason now for doing such a post is that i needed a pee in the night and finding that i am wide awake again.

I also bought the June  Wire whilst i was in Brighton and Hove recently.



I was also tempted to open my bag of goodies from my bro - but have not as yet.

Wired For Sound

So dear readers,music to expand your mind -

Carl Stone - Shing Kee

I find his music fascinating - this is an amazing progressing sample-editing by Carl Stone.
Even more amazing when you realise it's been composed in 1986!
Taken from the cd Mom's (New Albion Records 1992).

( More Wired Sounds )

Enjoy.

Shannen

Shannen Doherty is having reconstruction surgery so wish her luck and recovery.

Good Morning

Order of the Day

This is the plan -

Coffee first
Open brother's bag  of goodies
Shower,select gear to wear
Grab bus into town with two packages sold on Ebay
Visit post office
Visit library
Have lunch at the Leading Light pub  -Steak Club day.
Do some sunbathing
Relax

Book 33 - Anita Brookner "Incidents In The Rue Laugier"

Anita Brookner -"Incidents In The Rue Laugier" (Penguin)




This is a fine beautifully written novella. She weaves wonderfully between the perceptions of self versus how we are perceived and the gaps and the traps that exist on both levels. She shows, again in this book, that there are no straight lines in life. One can have a vision and determination, but always along the way there will be circumstances and decisions and new channels in personal relationships, beliefs, attitudes, ways of living that could not have been foreseen or fixed.

ncidents in the Rue Laugier involves family conflicts and class differences, a doomed love affair, and a marriage that ultimately was, in its own crabbed way, successful. But Anita Brookner presents more than an interesting story – she examines the nature of marriage and the struggle to build a joint life using limited individual resources.

I love the way she creates the sense of missed opportunities because of misunderstanding and miscommunication, sometimes intentional, sometimes not, but all building the walls that separate, that define a life, and become too high to scale, or become so much of the fabric of life and perception that they are not even seen as walls.

A book of quiet reflections on life.

What Was In The Bag Dave?

So what was in the  bag?



A Timex watch
Cambridge Audio in-ear headphones.
Parker Pen

All quality items but then from my brother it is.

Crate Digging

Another way to discover new music or in this olsmusic that soundsnewbecause you have never heard it before is the old DJ habit of crate digging. This is something that even ididwhen i had regualr DH spots at either the Northern Lights,The Hampton Arms and The Quadrant.
The process was looking for old vinyl that had a funky groove or beat no matter what the genre was ,or sections that could be sampled into a continuos groove mix.

Genres i looked for was the obvious ones of jazz,soul and funk but also library music,soundtrack albums, Xian shit and other slabs of esoteria.

Through sites like Verygoodplus other diggers got to know each other and to learn from each other.

I even DJ-ed over a weekend on a bank holiday May years back in the Newcastle enclave of Byker -the VG+guys called it the Weekend Byjer Groove.

Yeah - those were the days.

Lunch Today

The lunch was delicious.I had a succulent Aberdeen Angus steak. The mushroom was huge as well. It was the best rump i have had for awhile.



Washed down with two pints of Hopdaemon Green Daemon (5.0 % ABV).

I then left the pub and sat outside the libary where there is seating that is a nice little suntrap and id acouple of hours sunbathing.

Tomooroe backtowork. A busy day too. I shall be heading off to Maidstone frst,and then back to Canterbury , then Ramsgate and finally Westgate On Sea to see the latest movoe - Deadpool 2. The others being a couple of mobile phone shops and a charity shop.

Then Thursday i will be in Ashford for the shopping mall visit and a supermarket. Then seeing Phil at the Faversham Spoons in the evening.

Friday is my monthly London trip with five visits lined up and thus an early start - since i have Woolwich,Fulham, West Hampstead and West Ealing ro cover plus my visit to Music and Video Exchange in Notting Hill.

Saturday Spoons visit in Rochester and Sunday in Sittingboune.

The week following will be dead quiet except for Monday.

Book 34 - David Seabrook "All The Devils Are Here"

David Seabrook "All The Devils Are Here" (Granta Editions)




The blurb for this book indicated that it was about East Kent, an area I am interested in. It focusses mainly on some of the many 'characters' that have resided there and is an eclectic collection of what are extended anecdotes about them.

Hard to categorize it and yet is hard to forget, combining a dark account of the history of Kent and its inhabitants, and supernatural vignettes of his physical and mental journey onhis travels.

I thoroughly enjoyed these vignettes of the seamier side of life,and in particular, Charles Hawtrey (one of the more famous characters from the Carry On films). Very debauched .. need i say more.

Charles Hawtrey

So after reading the book by David Seabrook -All the Devils Are Here - i thought i dig around some archives.

For those readers who do not know who Charles Hawtrey was, here are a monatge of clips from his heyday in the Carry On Films.

This is a rare interview with him in 1984 and very much the worse for wear.

Chuff Chuff

Do you like train travel?

What is the longest journey by train you have been on?

Have you ever boarded a steam engine train?