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Yet more Beatles Kindle stuff

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Amazon are running an Autumn Sale on kindle ebooks.

Included are:

– ‘Paul McCartney’ by Philip Norman (the most recent favourably reviewed biography) – The John Lennon Letters’ collected and edited by Hunter Davies – ‘The Beatles Lyrics: The Unseen Story Behind Their Music’ by Hunter Davies

All 99p each

Hemispheres

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The mighty Rush are to release a 3 disc set to mark the 40th anniversary of one of their finest – includes the album in 5.1 plus a live show from 1979 – bring it on!

7Digital

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The website doesn’t appear to have changed for 3 weeks unless there’s a problem at my end. Anyone else still got the Jungle and Paul Weller albums at the top?

Was wondering if this is a technical issue or a company problem?

ATM – Iberian airlines excess baggage

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In Marrakech and have a flight to Madrid on Sat. We get 23 kg on Iberian but 30kg from Madrid to Oz on Etihad. DHL quoted 800 euro to send 8.5 kgs from here to oz. I could buy the bag a flight and strap it in at that price. So we are anticipating forking out for excess baggage. I’m told you can book online at. 30% discount. Is this true? Also read that working out the cost is like getting a rubiks cube done.

I asked a Spanish mate andall he said was Iberian suck. Rude and lousy service. Err thanks Miguel.

Any tips ??

Gimme gimme gimme a plan after midnight

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I had difficulty believing my eyes when I walked in on the SVT evening news yesterday evening and saw Prime Minister May doing a little dance to one of ABBA’s greatest hits. To say I cringed, does not do justice to my enormous embarrassment.

And to make matters worse, she took the wrong tune. With all the double-dealing, disloyalty and deviousness going on in the back alleys and dark bars of Birmingham, she would have been far better served by Magazine’s Shot by both sides or, perhaps even better, this magnificent floorfiller from the O Jays.

Unless of course, you have any other better ideas…..

The last thing we want to see is bopping politicians, but if Putin, Corbyn, Merkel, Boris etc are to hit the dancefloor, which particular bangers would serve them best?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6h1BV7FZqs

Geoff Emerick Remaking Sgt Pepper BBC doc

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BBC doc from 2007 in which the late Geoff Emerick (along with also Fabs recording assistant Richard Lush) guides various suspects (inc Kaiser Chiefs, Magic Numbers and Stereophonics) through a track each from Sgt Pepper, recording each on vintage Abbey Road kit.

There are a few revealing moments and along the way Geoff shares a few good Beatles stories. It’s not the whole album and the doc was made very quickly. I know as I directed it: we shot by day and edited by night for two weeks solid – but enough of that.

In my brief experience Geoff was a lovely chap. Off camera told me the detail about George’s chocolate biscuits – Yoko had three of them just under her blanket which she pulled up over her mouth to enable nibbling. He also spoke of how, before quitting during the White album, on one bad Beatle tempered evening he and a colleague hid in a store room to make the Fabs think they’d gone home, creeping out to clock off when their shift was actually over. Not that one would know this kind of thing from recent 50th Anniversary box set publicity…

During filming with Travis » Continue Reading.

Beggar’s Banquet 50th anniversary

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While the other lot go hell for leather, with their 50th anniversary bonanzas this November, a much more minimal remastered new package is on the way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beggars Banquet. Includes a mono mix of ‘Sympathy’ and a recording of a phoner with Lord Beezlebub. Also coming up, rerelease of One Plus One and next year a reissue of RocknRoll Circus with a few more bits and bobs

Rolling Stones to Release Deluxe Reissues of ‘Beggars Banquet,’ ‘Rock and Roll Circus’ (EXCLUSIVE)

ave vale atque – Kenneth Roy

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Who, you are asking, the hell is Kenneth Roy.

He is – or, rather, was – the editor of the Scottish Review. What, you are asking….It’s a weekly online publication. Been around 24 years and publishes all sorts of stuff. Weekly diaries, Lockerbie investigations, quality investigative journalism akin to PEye at its best, some humor and some idiosyncratic columns. It’s a gem of quality journalism in a low quality world. I look forward to Wednesday morning immensely knowing I can read it over breakfast.

This week’s edition was the announcement that Roy was stepping aside due to a terminal diagnosis. My heart give a little lurch.

I’ve never met Roy, although I have written a couple of acerbic letters to the SR. But he’s long been seen by me as a bastion of decency in journalism. The quality of his writing is excellent, with nary a wasted word or idea. But the causes he’s pursued are the ones that no-one else is touching – unexplained deaths that have been mishandled, serial failures of the legal agencies, jabbing elbows at the Establishment.

There was never a cult of celebrity, just about the story. He always struck me as being a classic » Continue Reading.

Amazon Kindle Alert: David Sedaris new one 99p

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Amazon are currently offering the new David Sedaris volume ‘Theft By Finding’ (his collected diaries) for 99p.

This was a Daily Deal special on 30th Sept. So they may have inadvertently left the uber cheap price for the kindle version up in error. I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s a brand new release.

ATM: Dental as anything – any tooth experts here?

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Quick version – after a bad bout of toothache following a big filling last week, I’m booked to have the whole tooth out tomorrow (Thursday), but in the time since booking the op, it’s, er, got better, could the filling have just taken a long while to “bed in”, or should I just go ahead and have it out?

Long version – one of my wisdom teeth has a huge filling in it (“more filling than tooth” my dentist says) and was refilled last week after a bit dropped out. It felt uncomfortable straight away, but got more & more painful as the week went on, peaking at the weekend, when I accidentally bit down hard on it and almost passed out when a bolt of pain went right through me… I went back to the dentist ASAP who said she was afraid this might happen with the size of filling, the only real solution is to have it out, and booked me in for tomorrow accordingly. Since then though, it’s gotten better & better every day, to the point where it genuinely almost feels back to normal. I have been on antibiotics for a few days, so maybe that’s » Continue Reading.

Gordon Jackson – psychedelic musician

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I’ve been listening to the magnificent Chris Wood box set Evening Blue, which covers Chris’s career including, naturally, Traffic, unreleased solo work and sessions he did for various bands and artists, some well known (Free, John Martyn and Nick Drake) and others not so well known. One of the lesser known artists is someone called Gordon Jackson. Not the actor from Upstairs Downstairs, The Professionals and The Great Escape (the dumb ass, falling for “the oldest trick in the book”) but a guy who was apparently well regarded in the Midlands’ music scene at the end of the 60s. Until listening to this collection I’d never heard of him before (or if I had, I’d totally forgotten about him). He seems to have produced one album only Thinking Back, and then disappeared. There are three tracks on Evening Blue which feature all of Traffic. Other musicians involved were Jim King and Pole Palmer of Family and Julie Driscoll. It’s all very much of its time, but I rather like the tracks I’ve heard. I’ve posted a link to Song For Freedom. He was still living a couple of years ago, because there is a YouTube film of hm talking about » Continue Reading.

Video soundtracks for diving

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Does anyone have any suggestions for soundtracks to put to diving videos? Here’s one I prepared earlier… something chilled for the little tiddlers, mantas etc. and something a bit more beefy for the bad boys. Either separate tracks or (like this one) a combo. One I have in mind is Chicago by Groove Armada. Anything in the past twenty years will have largely passed me by.

Thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVw2jAyve-0

Geoff Emerick has died

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Another direct link to the creation of the Beatles’ classic albums is no more. RIP Geoff. Let’s recall one of his choicest anecdotes from the Beatles sessions, the legendary Digestive biscuit incident.

He also worked on Elvis’s Imperial Bedroom and All This Useless Beauty albums, and was involved with Badfinger, Jeff Beck, Supertramp, Robin Trower, Split Enz, Big Country, Gentle Giant, Mahavishnu Orchestra and Ultravox.

Feel free to share your thoughts and memories of this influential studio engineer.

The greatest lyrics in a song EVER is here

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OK, I do think that the death of Charles Aznavour warranted more comment than none at all. But seriously, has anyone here ever heard “I Drink”? It has the best lyrics I think I have ever heard in my life. He rhymes “cirrhosis” with “roses” for crying out loud…

Anyway, I am placing the lyrics here and actually challenging you all… FIND ME BETTER LYRICS. Now I am going to spell out what this means; clever rhymes, a story, sense (no pseudo poetic fluff, I want clear as a bell meaning here), some surprise. I want to be caught out. In this song, he rhymes cirrhosis with roses. Did you see that coming? NO YOU DID NOT.

I drink to drive away all the years I have hated The ambitions frustrated that no longer survive I drink day after day to the chaos behind me Yes, I drink to remind me that still I’m alive

So I give you a toast to the endless confusions To the lies and delusions that have swallowed my life Yes, I give you a toast to the wine and the roses To the deadly cirrhosis that can cut like a knife

I drink to » Continue Reading.

Bands you liked and then didn’t

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Intrigued by the riff to “Keep yourself alive” (I still think it’s a corker), I bought the first three Queen albums before deciding it wasn’t really my kind of thing.

I owned several albums by the reggae band Third World. I went off them quite quickly.

I bought Moondog Serenade by Cashman and West and it only took a few days before I said to myself “What was I thinking?”

Any bands that you all liked and then didn’t?

https://img.discogs.com/yiL38nYyjor8qz6AAYXmX6HtliU=/fit-in/600×601/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1836613-1374757761-2714.jpeg.jpg