Plastic pollution with Richard Thompson.
Whatever next? Geneome decoding with Taylor Swift?
Musings on the byways of popular culture
Plastic pollution with Richard Thompson.
Whatever next? Geneome decoding with Taylor Swift?
In case you missed it, the Grace Jones doc (half brilliant gig, half bonkers portrait) was on late the other night and is now on iPlayer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00068py/grace-jones-bloodlight-and-bami
Are you a hipster? Are cassettes no longer wanky enough for you?
Mark Ronson’s latest is available on Minidisc.
Whatever next? Digital Audio Tape or Digital Compact Cassette?
https://store.markronson.co.uk/products/late-night-feelings-mini-disc
Megadeth’s music does nothing for me, but throat cancer doesn’t sound like much fun.
Venue:
Portland Arms, Cambridge
Date: 14/06/2019
Fonda 500 had a few years off recording before last year’s ‘I Heart Fonda 500’ album and hadn’t visited Cambridge for ten years. Anyhow, here we were on a Friday night for a run through their 20 years of metronomic hits. Lead keyboard mangler Simon still wears his woolly hat (“it smells like a horse”) pulled down to his eyes to attack his Casiotone MT-65, ladybassist Bod still makes grown men swoon, guitarist Nicholas and Jonee flank either side of the stage, and drummer Ian hides behind his kit except for his brief lead vocal during ‘I.a.m.a.d.r.u.m.m.e.r.’ A set drawn mostly from the last two albums kicked off with I Love Stereo ‘Cos Stereo’s Good For Me, The Sounds Sound Warmer when the Sound is Shared With You, Je m’appelle Stereo got the audience dancing, Jenny #1, both Golden Digits of Devilry and Mathematiques from last year’s album, early single Computer Freaks of the Galaxy, and we all threw caution to the wind during set finisher Electronique Bee 101. Between songs, Simon cracked jokes, threw sequins into the crowd, blew up and let off balloons, and sent up the serious muso stereotype.
Please, Sir. I don’t like to snitch, but Twang’s made us go all italic, Sir.
I work 10 miles from Duxford IWM. On Monday, as I left the office, a squadron of C-47 Dakotas in formation flew overhead at 500 feet. It was awe-inspiring.
They were practising for yesterday’s flight to Normandy when two veterans – Harry Read, 95, and John Hutton, 94, – parachuted back into Normandy, 75 years after their first landing.
My father-in-law and brother-in-law both spent their careers with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. B-I-L is involved in building the new memorial at Gold Beach where the names of the 22,442 members of the British armed forces who died will be listed.
Be thankful we can sit in safety and type rubbish at strangers.
I appear to have something in my eye.
Moby wrote in his autobiography of dating actress Natalie Portman. She disagreed with his memory of events.
“Eazy-E seaside memorial bench in Newhaven unveiled”
I am at work, and now have tea coming out of my nostrils.
30/06/2019
Queen’s Greatest Hits (the UK’s best-selling album) played from half-speed mastered vinyl on a top-flight hi-fi in the Courtyard Café, Papworth Everard.
Home-roasted coffee, loose-leaf tea, locally-sourced cakes, full bar including microbrewery ales.
2:30-4:30pm, free entry. Well-behaved kids and dogs welcome.
I know we’ve had similar threads, but not for a while and technology moves quickly.
Daughter has a birthday in a couple of weeks. She listens to music on a Sandisk sports player, her Moto phone, an Android tablet, a Windows laptop, probably soon a Fiio X1. She has an ability to trash wired earbuds, we’re lucky if a pair lasts more than 3 or 4 weeks.
What’s the verdict on Bluetooth in-ears, and what do you suggest? Budget up to about £100.
Cardiff-based Morrissey fans need to find a new music shop following Mozzer’s support of For Britain.
SDE reports a 2CD or 3LP live album taken from the 2017 Manchester International Festival, snappily entitled ∑(No,12k,Lg,17Mif) New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes…
In the absence of Hooky, I wouldn’t normally be interested, but this was great on the idiot latern with tuness majorily reworked for 12 keyboard players.
Out 12th July.
This in my inbox. So they’re not going bust! Yet…
Dear customers of the 7digital download store,
We are getting in touch to inform you that the store at www.7digital.com is moving to uk.7digital.com on Friday May 17th. Please update any bookmarks you may have saved.
7digital would like to thank you for your custom and look forward to welcoming you to the store’s new location.
Your 7digital account will remain active and you will continue to be able to access our services. Should you have any further questions please contact our Customer Services team.
26/05/2019
OMD’s Architecture & Morality, The Human League’s Dare, Soft Cell’s Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go 12″ and a handful of other 1981 pop singles played from vinyl on a top-flight hi-fi in the Courtyard Café, Papworth Everard.
Home-roasted coffee, loose-leaf tea, locally-sourced cakes, full bar including microbrewery ales.
2:30-4:30pm, free entry. Well-behaved kids and dogs welcome.
Closing at the end of August.
I haven’t been for several years (due to ill health) and very nearly went last week (James Grant).
An update from Liam Frost – no buyers found for the failing business.
https://www.liamfrost.co.uk/news/2019/5/9/the-problem-with-pledgemusic
I find myself travelling from Cambridge to Wolverhampton tomorrow for A Certain Ratio’s gig at the Newhampton Arts Centre. I should be arriving mid-afternoon, subject to the A14 & M6, which will give me a couple of hours to kill. What’s a music fan to do?
Google suggests Vinyl & Vintage and Oldies Unlimited. Does the Massive have any better advice?
What does it sound like?:
Any overview of ACR’s 4-year career has to cover several phases and, potentially, hundreds of tracks.
This 4-CD box set collects up the singles left off last year’s single-CD “best of”, ACR:Set, and their reissued albums, along with selected b-sides, and demo recordings. There are enough previously-released tracks and mixes in the can for another four CDs.
The majority of the tracks on the first two CDs have been previously released on CD reissues from the LTM and Soul Jazz labels, but all here have been freshly remastered by the band from master tapes at Abbey Road for enhanced sound. Given Factory’s financial problems and closure, possibly not from original master tapes.
Their most famous releases were on Manchester’s Factory Records, the label run by their manager Tony Wilson. Their first single was Factory’s first single-artist release, after the Factory Sample split 7″, and before labelmates Joy Division’s more famous debut album.
The tracklisting is chronological, so begins with debut single All Night Party b/w The Thin Boys – droney dirges which do sound like Joy Division out-takes. Within months, funky drummer Donald Johnson had joined and things really took off.
Both tracks from next » Continue Reading.
SDE (I won’t post a link to avoid AW technical grief) has details of Traffic: The Studio Albums 1967-1974 vinyl box set.
6 albums (no Last Exit), out 17th May.
That’s another 120 notes gone…
Following the installation of a £2M speaker system, the sound is now equal wherever you are seated.
My one and only experience of amplified music in the RAH was the Human League years ago and the sound was awful. I hope it has improved since.
28/04/2019
Are You Experienced, Electric Ladyland and Jimi Plays Monterey played from vinyl on a top-flight hi-fi in the Courtyard Café, Papworth Everard. Guest speaker (and Hendrix expert) Chris the Brewer.
Home-roasted coffee, loose-leaf tea, locally-sourced cakes, full bar including microbrewery ales.
2:30-4:30pm, free entry. Well-behaved kids and dogs welcome.
Not an April Fool apparently: listening to Skillrex could protect against mosquito bites.
I caught Series 2 Episode 1 (1930-1939) on my way to work on Wednesday, excellent stuff.
All of series 1 available as well. Well worth get_iplayering.
31/03/2019
Two hours of 1972-era David Bowie and related – Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Lou Reed’s Transformer, Mott The Hoople’ All The Young Dudes, Lulu, possibly the Stooges’ Raw Power if there’s time. Played from vinyl on a top-flight hi-fi in the Courtyard Café, Papworth Everard.
Home-roasted coffee, loose-leaf tea, locally-sourced cakes, full bar including microbrewery ales.
2:30-4:30pm, free entry. Well-behaved kids and dogs welcome.