Going to get on up and fly away

John Martyn's music was our soundtrack to so many good times - summer sipping in the garden, late night drinks, holidays, our wedding (May You Never) and honeymoon (Bless The Weather) and my inspiration for buying a Martin acoustic. Five years on from discovering John Martyn through Solid Air, an album of instant simpatico and like discovering a long lost relative, I'm still getting my fingers in a reef knot trying to stumble and fumble through May You Never, it wasn't always this way though

I was a Johnny come lately to Johnny Too Bad. Beardy faced acoustic based singer song writers had little appeal and minimal interest for me. John martyn was the bloke who wrote 'May You Never' on Clapton's deeply dreary album 'Slowhand', and one of the performers I skipped through on the marvelous Old Grey Whistle Test DVDs.

I was always thought Nick Drake would be my token folky concession. So I bought all the albums, played all the albums, but found him a bit like Scandinavia - isolated , icy, prone to extended periods of darkness - and not some where I wanted to spend much time.

Ironically it was a song about Nick Drake 'Solid Air' that drew me into the world of John Martyn. This was a much broader musical geography, the folky trappings of 'Over The Hill', the smoky trimmings of 'Don't Want To Know' gave it the weight and warmth of a late night Jazz club or intimate acoustic performance. All perfectly underpinned by Danny Thompson's gliding bass lines, and the echoplex reverb adding an almost dubbish depth to the folk funk of 'Dreams By The Sea'.

Solid Air the album is as rich, plummy and fruity as a bottle of vintage red wine, each note plucked drops glossily from the guitar, and leaks from the speakers on all tracks but particularly on the understated eroticism of 'Go Down Easy' and gentle lullaby of 'May You Never'.

May you never lay your head down
Without a hand to hold
May you never make your bed out in the cold.

Davey Graham, Bert jansch and Nick Drake are are all genius acoustic technicians, but none of them have John Martyn's intuitive touch and feel for stroking out the full flavour of a song.

I still don't have much interest in beardy-faced acoustic-based singer song writers - but 'Solid Air', John Martyn (the heavyweight Marlon Brando to Nick Drake's whispy James Dean) and his 70s albums are a joy. I don't skip John Martyn any more instead I sit and study his tone and technique.

So this weekend I'll be raising a glass and spinning some tunes like these to John Martyn another legend lost.

'May You Never'.



It may be morose, but that's the mood of the moment - I'm planning to have Small Hours as my funeral music...



JOhn Martyn : September 11th 1948 - January 29th 2009

Spreading The Happiness

I quite enjoy most eighties Rock Monsters (but Poodle Bands - Nah!), and for a while in the middle of the metal-mad-eighties, was a strictly happy amateur gigging guitarist (there's more on that here and here)..

But towards the tail end of that decade, Rock (read:M.E.T.A.L) went to College, and bands like Kings X, Masters of Reality and Tad were rockers just as comfy browsing in a bookshop as boozing in bar, and swerved away from Meringue Mullets of Metal

Top of the form were The Pursuit Of Happiness who triple distilled Aimee Mann, Andy Partridge and Axel Rose into intelli-metal tunes, with more hooks than a velcro factory - and what's not to like about that...

The Pursuit of Happiness - I'm an Adult Now


The Pursuit of Happiness - Hard To Laugh


There's another TPOH track here if you fancy one more...

Who's The Heavy-Hitting Celeb?

Any ideas?

Couple 'o' clues - it's not..

Elton John
Ronnie Corbett
Any of The Ramones or Slade...

Clear The Decks - Rockadoodledoo

Well I'm breaking my blog embargo to sling out something swinging for New Year's Eve - 'Rockadoodledoo' a bespoke mix brimming and bubbling with hipshakers, footstompers and knee tremblers. But, grab it while you can it's only up for a limited period only ...

T- list is in the comments

Rockadoodledoo*download is offline - for now*

Clocking Off For Christmas..

Well that's it from me for this year - I'm putting the holiday handbrake on, and my clogs up for Christmas..A big thank you goes out to all all those on the blogroll, the stoppers off, chippers in and commenters on my cyberspace scrapbook (and those shy, silent types too)

So I'll leave you with a couple of seasonal scraps before I pop off..

'Jingle Bell Beat' - a tune that has bleary-eyed, sore-headed memories for me. After going to a neighbours cocktail party a couple of years back, which kicked off with homemade cocktails at fourish, followed by a non-stop medley of mixed drinks. The last thing I remember from this shinding, is double-focus, wobble-vision while waffling at some random stranger, but, have absolutely no recall of getting home or into bed...On coming round the next morning, my brain's internal audio device repeat played the 12 second intro motif of 'Jingle Bell Beat' over,over, and over again - looping all morning, like a gaggle of giddy-eyed tweety birds circling all around my hat head ...

Up With The People - Jingle Bell Beat



(Jingle Bell Beat is featured as part of my winter mixture here if you fancy a festive earful)

And the truly magical production of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer from Rankin and Bass - a pure joy and gem from start to finish...

Rudolph Trailer...


Or for Grown Ups only

Joan Collins in Tales From The Crypt's - All Through The House


So - have yourselves a very merry Rexmas, and see you in 2009...

A brassy old birthday

What with Christmas just around the corner, and it being my birthday today, I'm allowing myself a repost of something that gets the anonobods and browsers dropping in almost all year long.. it was originally posted on the other side anyway, so it's not like a complete cop-out is it?

In the early 90's I was afflicted by a buzz for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, brought on by tracks like 'Spanish Flea', 'Tijuana taxi', 'A Taste of Honey' and 'Bean Bag'(used as the theme from It's a knockout) - each one a piece of polite but punchy trumpet pop. The snappy arrangements, the swishy album artwork and being cheap as chips at charity shops made these dusty Mexican nuggets perfect for collecting. But it was almost impossible to find the Holy Grail of Herb albums 'The Christmas Album'*(with H looking bored in his beard and as convincing as as in store Santa) amongst the Stereo Impact, James Last and TV Theme Tune vinyl - how many versions of Onedin Line - Theme from Spartacus and Owen MD (whatever that was) can you possibly need?

*The Herb Christmas album was eventually released on CD, but didn't live up to the expectation.

As an interim I decided to make do with the CD of 'Tijuana Christmas' by the Torero Band/Sound of Brass being sold at Woolworths. What an absolute winner it turned out to be, with the Toreros coming across as the most swingingest Salvation Army band EVER and starring the hardest working bass man at EMI. Using the textbook formula of cheeky key change after every verse, the uptempo thumpers could be themes for Carry On Christmas Specials, the mellow moments are like seasonal instrumental beds for Generation Game 'Potters wheel' sequences and as tight and sprightly as anything by Ronnie hazlehust.

Even now, every Christmas this is the first CD out of the Santa sack and onto the stereo at Cloudbase Mondo - 'Tijuana Christmas' is now deleted, so why not treat yourself to some of these Mexi-Christmas classics.

Good King Wenceslas.mp3


God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.mp3


Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.mp3


O Come All Ye Faithful.mp3


Recommended reading for more Christmas Kitch n' Campery

checkthecoolwax - sack loads of goodies including the artwork for 'Christmas with Colonel Sanders'

Jeffco Productions - includes the the complete Tijuana Christmas album for download.

Ho-Ho-Ho, Little Boy! Have I Got A Surprise For You!

Well the Christmas deco's still aren't up on Cloudbase Mondo yet - perhaps this coming weekend. My preference is for a discreet touch of Christmas trim, I can't be doing with the invasive tackery of outside ornamentation - reindeers, sleighs and Santas dangling - why would anyone choose to live in a festive ferris wheel? However there's a couple close-at-hand clockwork critters, that help kick off the seasonal cheer round here..

Our neighbour's clockwork guitar playing robo-pixie, which sits and strums his guitar, while tinsel tunes play away. But, oh dear - the guitar went missing some years ago, and now seen from behind with his clenched fist and steady strumming motion seems forever lost on his own little 'solitaire' session (cue 'are you a goblin jokes?')

My mum's battery Santa - which should draw in the kiddies with encouraging nods and shakes of his head. Unfortunately he's suffered some sort of mechanical agg' leaving him with rotating a bonce which completes a full 360 degree turn. Permanently! Look away little'un's, it's like Linda Blair in The Excorcist.

If only I knew how to get these things on to youtube..

And should you fancy few seasonal tunes - that aren't the usual Christmas perma-plays, why not hop on over to the other side to see what's a'popping on this year's Countdown To Christmas

What are you still doing here? A fistful of bits that really have no place in the 21st Century

Picture found at http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/

Milk Floats
Lovely, quaint ol' cosymobiles from the days when anything was deliverable by a specialist van or lorry ? Corona drinks, coal, eggs and potatoes - not only are they still with us - but space age style iFloats are doing the rounds. Literally..

Launderettes
Radio Rentals, Granada and other goods-for-hire outfits all folded with the availabilty of affordable electrical items So why are these rent-a-rinses still with us, and still doing brisk business? My local Launderettes are perma-populated with lonely looking basket holders - shouldn't these sud-u-like's have gone out with char ladies in floral print pinnies, tea trolleys, milk carton machines and wall mounted can-openers?

Iceland Selling Fridge Freezers
Has anyone ever shopping at Iceland really, stopped, snapped their fingers and shouted, "Yes. I will have me one of those fancy freezers". At £400 a shout white goods are rarely an impulse purchase, and on my last visit to the Kingdom of Katona (for Yorkshire Pudd's) it was all young credit-crunch couples scraping by on own brand econo-burgers, so who in the name of prawn rings buys these things?

Rag and Bone Men
Still a'clanging and a'crawling Steptoe style around the suburbs. Like 'taking it to the tip' and recycling never happened

Ceefax
A bottomless barrel of available browsing to be had, although only ever useful for cheapo holidays, TV and weather. But amazingly, like the Queen and Christmas Cards remains unchanged or untroubled by the internet or digital age - who are the mysterious anono-boffins still working this ZX Spectrum style aggregator

Stress Down Friday - Apple Turnovers

I'm having a Beatleg remix special on the PM blog today, so it seems a perfect time to drop these two lovelies in as part of the occasional 'Stress Down Friday' series..

Mark Vidler works his mix-magic by morphing The Beach Boys and Beatles into an almost CSN (Our House) sounding gentle melter.

Go Home Productions - Sloop For No One



While Soundhog's pop fusion of The Beatles, Mogwai and Kid Loco becomes an ambient after hours rumbler

Soundhog - A Day In Tracy's Life



And should you fancy a few more tunes that help you more breeze more easily - why not grab my Lazy Sunday mix which features 'A Day In Tracy's Life' tagged at the tail end..

eBay listings

eBay now cobblers - it's official (well according to the comments in the last 'bay related post) - but when the online auction house was worth pitching in and listing on, real deals could be easily had, and without tooting my own bugle too much - I managed a quite lively run on the 'bay.Here's a few of my greatest hits and some bits still waiting in the wings...

Best sales

A set of 11 Guns 'n' Roses records
I deliberately listed these on the very same weekend that G n'R's Greatest Hits album was released. All that free publicity, promotion and renewed interest sent the sale price sky high - including £250 for one import that cost me £5.99.

BOY 1981 Catalogue
Even now almost anything interesting from the original punk period will get you top price (it wasn't merchandised like other youth cults, the gear wasn't made/expected to last and the best of it is now locked away in private collections) - paid (I think a fiver in '81), and sold for £150 in 2004. - you can see a few pics here.



Too Many Remixes volumes 1 - 8
When bootleg remixes first exploded onto the scene in 2002, I collected and compiled the best booties from the net (pre-broadband too), burnt them to CD and listed them eBay as 'Too Many Remixes' - riding on the back of Soulwax's 'Too Many DJ's' album title. Caused a fuss on a few forums, but stayed a regular seller for some months.

David Bowie - Midnight Special 1980 Floor Show
A still unreleased Bowie show from 1974 and the final Ziggy appearance with the Spiders, I downloaded a copy via WINMX for myself, but soon realised if I wanted a copy - other Bowie fans probably would - made it a double VCD with other rare TV appearances and included period pic's on the sleeve. A bread a butter 'buy now' seller which shifted a healthy amount copies every week.

On the sub's bench - bits to be sold

Starlust - Fred and Judy Vermorel (1st edition)
For some unexplained reason this collection of genuine fan letters to Bowie, Robert Plant and I think Shakin Stevens, edited by the Vermorels (who a have a Pistols/McLaren connection) and has become highly desirable. I bought my copy (first edition) for 50p back in the eighties from a Charing Cross Road overstocks shop.

Up They Rise - Jamie Reid (1st edition)
Another Charing Cross bargain book shop bonus, paid 99p for it in the early ninties and goes for over £100 now.

John Lennon Ltd Edt print
Framed extremely limited edition print approved by the Lennon estate and signed by Yoko with COA (only available in the US, but I had it shipped over).

Burns Flyte bass guitar
Only a handful of these concorde inspired guitars are in circulation Gaye Advert played one and Marc Bolan had a 6 string version - I picked it up for a snip at the Bass Centre, but doubt that I'd actually ever sell this piece of rocking retromania....



Marc Bolan - London Boys, Marc and his Burns Flyte(I find it eye-watering to watch the moment at 02:05 where he launches the guitar from the podium)

Never Mind The Pollocks

my first attempt at a have-a-go-Jacko

I've just been mailed this via Facebook 'create your own Jackson Pollock' - one of the best time wasters I've come across..

Here if you fancy a go

www.jacksonpollock.org

eBore

Is it just me or has eBay really become as dull and dreary as ready-to-drop donkey? Rewind just a few years and the 'Bay was an online goldmine. A twenty-four hour rolling cyber bootsale of bargains and 'Buy Nows' (to the point of a groaning postie moaning at me "not you again") perhaps the greatest golden nuggets were the 'not strictly legit' ones - live recordings of fave bands, and not officially endorsed DVDs (or VCDs) of long deleted films - but the clampdown on cheeky treats like these is one reason why eBay has become as stale and stodgy as cold old porridge. And how do the auction house action force manage to monitor for cyber scammers and schemers so thoroughly with the heavy level turnover of items listed at any given moment?

Now there's only ever a handful of bits on my watch list, even less on my win list and none of these have that last minute 'must-have, pulse-pumping, countdown (like the Sex Pistols box set I unwittingly outbid Piley on after employing one of his last minute bid tips - whoops!)

There is an interesting bidder beware spin-off though. Reflector Porn, a stealthy way for show offs to literally put the goods on the barrow and parade their wares - Piley's got a great piece on it here..

And don't even start me on selling - I haven't listed in over a year.
Listed below are my five last buys - but what where your last or best bargains bagged via the 'Bay?

Mock Tiger Fur Guitar Strap

2x Witches Hat guitar knobs (volume & tone)

Leather Guitar Strap Splattered Union Jack

Ukulele cowgirl / Record Girl Pinup Pin up guitar decals

Epiphone Les Paul Custom

That's three of my last five buys right there....

Whaddya mean mid-life crisis? Just because I'm trying to clone my own Steve Jones Sex Pistols guitar

1 across and 3 down?

Click on the pic' to enlarge

I’ve been doing a spot of loft bothering lately. Digging through boxfuls of vintage goodies and golden oldies – annuals, sticker books, scrapbooks - but more importantly a mighty stash of music mags Smash Hits, Flexipop and assorted oddities like Zig Zag (with a fab feature on Soft Cell’s pervy ol’ Sex Dwarf video) and Noise. It’s an almost sequential run that starts around ’79 and fizzles out around ’84 ish…

The issue below contains a cracker of a nugget – a guide to the Sheffield scene written by Martyn Ware of The Human League, at the time of publication the League have recently signed to Virgin, ABC are still known as Vice Versa and Def Leppard have just been picked up by Phonogram.

I'll scan it in at some point, but until then, any ideas about the incomplete crossword ? No hurry I’m only 29 years past the deadline to win that fab cassette recorder…

Cover Date - August 23rd - September 5th 1979

Report To Sick Bay

I'm feeling properly grot 'n' grog - so it's bugs, bed and books for a few days.
*sniffs then sneezes*

Course You Can Malcom

Stress Down Friday - The Chilling Tunes of Choppers and Wolfmen

why not spirit yourself of to P-Mondo for a brand new monster mix of spooky tunesMondo Mania

I'd been planning to wrap up the 'see something scary' Halloween run with the trailer for this and this - my two personal favourite Amicus productions, but I actually fancy a tune or two instead.

Perhaps the moonlit crooning of Dennishopperchoppers (a one man band who plays all the instruments at the same time)? If the dark, rich resonance of Nick Cave's or Julian Cope's vocals ring your bell. DHC's album 'Chop' should be right up your shadowy alley. For a couple of other nuggets and links to his websites dig in here.

I Was Born



Don't Run From Me

'Don't Run From' me is more of a waltz-in-black type anthem, than Chop's typical late night Lynch-scapes and skeletal western soundtracking.



And it just wouldn't be Halloween with a prowl around from The Wolfmen would it? So how about the slinky lunar-tune glide of 'Je T'Aime Madame' - a grower which for me has become one the strongest songs in the Wolfmen's lair..

The Wolfmen - Je T'Aime Madame

Do you want to see something really scary ? # 5 Don't Go Near the Water

Cashing in on the cinematic splash made by Jaws (which I became obsessed with and saw at least five times at the pictures) filmmakers chunked out a mad amount of 'When Animals Attack' movies at the tail end of the seventies, pointing a potentially-hostile-to-humans finger at such unlikely aggressors as bats, worms and whales.

Tentacles
I actually paid good coin to see this Flop-O-Matic movie. Have a peep at the trailer, you will not believe the Hollywood heavy-hitters that got on board on for this titanic wet fish of a film.



Pirhana
The novelisation of Pirhana was the first adult fiction book I read (aged 12). Published by New English Library, with, I think those oddly yellow edged pages - saw this one with Carrie (so much better) as the B-movie.



The Incredible Melting Man was another horrorshow seen around this period, although I seem to be the only person that remembers it.

The Incredible Melting Man - trailer

The Beach Boys - Don't Go Near the Water (in which the BB's appear to be doing a day trip to Southend)

A drunken interlude

Here's a first - my very first drunken post and bollox to the typos

Having been walloped with a DMCA fizzer this week - here's my thoughts on it -

Fuck'em the money grubbing bastards!!!

If these sleazy weasels are more interested in casting a sly eye over real music fans excited jabber about the music they love, rather than than working out why their shitty-no-hope-identikit-every bands have tanked in the traps - they deserve to sucked into the gunk and grime of their own sleazy, scabrous doings the penny pinching pricks.

When was the last time you read any band's biog' that mentioned how great the label or publishers were?Never that's when.

Read any musicians story and it's always the same story of early doors scams, stitch ups and record label rip offs. These are the same sort of crafty bastards that would willingly charge £100 for a boxed set of previously released material that included only one albums worth of goodies not good enough to release when the band were at there hottest.

Yet these same frozone-hearted Rushmore-faced fakers are happy to hound tune-atics for any spare penny they can squeeze and start acting the bully boy tough nut over some silly odd song business

Never mind The Bullies - I'll keep on posting unil the buggers pull the plug..

Do you want to see something really scary ? # 4 Big Blogger Is Watching You

I wouldn’t normally double up or duplicate post an item – but having received a blogger takedown notification from the good people at Blogpspot - and seemingly fingers being wagged at other bloggers on the same day - thought it would be worth loading up something I posted on The Word website here as a cautionary measure for any occasional embedders or music based bloggers…..

I don't know many many of the contributors and chippers-in to The Word website are music bloggers or blog-browsers themselves - but if you qualify for either category, I have some disturbing news for you.

I run a small piece of music based puffery , a strictly happy amateur affair in some small corner of cyberspace - so a surprise yesterday then to be on the wrong end of a DMCA copyright violation warning. It concerned a post (made several months ago) featuring a 30 minute home-made mix. Fair enough really, as the mix featured a run of high profile performers like Ian Brown, Prince, Talking Heads plus Blondie and Kylie bootleg remixes. There was no clearance, permission or official endorsement for any tune used - so I can see why the plug was pulled, and have no beef about this.

But here's my concern, this particular mix was posted around Christmas/New Year 2007, as a sort of 'end of term' piece when the hits were low and the blogs weren't busy. It's rarely been a point of entry on my blog, and never been a particularly popular page according to my stats. So how did it get spotted? By a belligerent blogger or perhaps some stealthy spy-eyed software?

Through a Facebook contact I heard of another blogger also receiving a similar DMCA warning shot yesterday. I haven't checked any forums or message boards yet, but wouldn't be surprised should reports of taps on the shoulders of music bloggers and downloaders become an increasingly common occurrence.

It seems the internet traffic police have shifted gear and raised their game. If non-leaguers like me are appearing on a radar at DMCA HQ and being trawled for copyright compliance, heavy hitting blogs and sites like Hype Machine, could well be going the way of Kazaa, Winmx and Napster.

If this is the case, fill your boots where you can, while you can.

Do you want to see something really scary ? # 3 Going Underground

I’ve always enjoyed the classic seventies run of Dr Who (John Pertwee/Tom Baker), but I’m not an anorak by any stretch of the space time continuum

So surprising then really, that the band of baddies who prompted the most frightmares and stealthy footed sprints to the door are a lower league outfit of dark menacers known as The Ogrons

Yes, the Daleks were scary in a screechy neurotic Nazi-livery-talking-mobility-scooter way, the Sea Devils lumbering around in string vests/fisherman’s nets were politely frightening – but The Ogrons, a morbid mash-up of the Planet of The Apes Gorilla soldiers, cross bred with The Klingons were the most blood chilling of all the intergalactic bad guys.

I only saw them in just one series (where I think they lived under a bridge, by a canal) – but their fang baring, cadaverous leathery faces, twisted psycho-killer grin and sly eyed silence have stayed with me ever since.

When shooting for the new series of Dr Who gets underway (and why not have Jim Dale as a new Doctor), hopefully The Ogrons will be high on the list of re-animated enemies.

And if you fancy putting the self-inflicted frighteners on yourself why not have a day trip to Chislehurst Caves ( used as a location for a Pertwee period Dr Who series) over 20 miles of man made caverns and passageways, dug over a period of 8000 years. Used as a former WW2 air raid shelter and sixties music venue, but with no electric light after the entrance and large looming tunnels around every corner - you can be sure of short night's sleep after your visit..

The Haunted Chamber at Chislehurst Caves - could you take up the long running challenge to spend a night here?

Do you want to see something really scary ? # 2 Terror TV

I'm a terror for a Public Information Film, and this seasonally shadowy short film applies the classic codes and conventions of any Hammer or Amicus production....

A Donald Pleasance voice over.

Set dressed with convincing contemporary costumes (for the time) and locations.

An other-worldy, wraith-in-rags visitor - death in the form of 'The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water' (a proto Dark Rider) tempting you to tumble.

A fist-shaking 'I'll be back' coda.

They really don't make 'em like this anymore.

Dark And Lonely Water


Also well worth a watch are almost any of Brian Clemens 'Thriller' series (with it's spooky tooting flute theme), almost all episodes have the intimacy of a radio play or theatrical performance - with the close crop shots and stripping out of any unnecessary incidental music all adding to the in-the-room experience

'Possesion', 'I'm The Girl He Wants To Kill' and 'One Deadly Owner' are must see All Hallows TV

'One Deadly Owner' intro


And I think my MP3 player may be psychic. Literally, as soon as I'd thought I really must find some spooky tunes this, this and Marsh Hunt's - '(Oh, No! Not) The Beast Day' popped into play.

Brrrrr..