The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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My new Pencilsqueezer

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I hope the dodgy Imgur link works, because I have taken delivery of my very own Pencilsqueezer artwork, entitled Red Planet. Apologies for the reflections in the photo – I’m still moving it around the house to find a final hanging place, which will show it off to best advantage.

Have to say, I’m very happy with it – it looked good on Pencil’s website, but orders of magnitude better in real life.

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Snow

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I’m sitting, looking out the window at the snow swirling out of a steel-grey sky – and I’m assailed with a very northern sense of wintery melancholy…time to feed it some Sibelius…

Van der Graaf Generator

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Prompted by fentonsteve’s recent posts, can I draw you attention to a few VdGGdates coming up in April/May 2021, rescheduled from November 2020. Tickets for the November shows are still valid, and so I will be going to the Manchester show. Like fentonsteve, I fully expect that these shows will be further postponed. Hey- ho…hopefully the boys in the band will be fit to tour later in the year, or early in 2022. Hold on to those tickets, fans!!

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Egg meat

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For many years, I had a copy of this on cassette, taped from the John Peel show by holding the condenser mike in the player near the wireless….

Whimsical…..but sinister……

Choons as ringtones

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I spotted this a few days ago…

Tiggerlion: “My ringtone is Black Satin from On The Corner. At least it was until I got a new phone a few months ago.”

I currently have Peter Gabriel’s Intruder as a ringtone – those drums cut through traffic noise, crowded shop noise, etc – doesn’t seem to work if the tune is too bassy (I tried the bass solo from Quiet Sun’s rongwrong – couldn’t here the phone ringing above the cat snoring…).

Anybody else got an interesting / bizarre ringtone? When your phone rings in public, do people look askance at you as if to say “what the hell was that?”

Do share…

Alice Coltrane – your recommendations?

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I found myself with two boat trips in two days (to and from Liverpool) and downloaded a number of podcasts for the journey…..including the Coltranecast! To my enduring shame, I had never listened to it.

Now I find that @el-hombre-malo recommended further listening to Alice Coltrane – so I’m asking the rank badjin himself, and anyone else with a view to share – where does a novice begin with Alice Coltrane?

Thanks in advance….

ATM: music players for flac

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Hi-de-ho! I have a new Android phone, and I’m looking at player apps, preferably compatible with flac files. MusicBee, BlackPlayer, Media Monkey….lots of ’em out there, many free – any personal recommendations?

Might also be an opportunity to upgrade the desk player from WinAmp (no longer supported, I believe) to something better/more seamless. At the moment, all the mp3s are in iTunes and the flac files (all cd and lp rips at the moment) just sit in a folder – nice to have something which consolidates and lets me play both.

All suggestion gratefully received….many thanks in advance.

Duke Ellington – beginners’ guide?

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Any Ellingtonians out there? I’m looking for a way in (hundreds of recordings, multiple eras, multiple band formats, etc) – the extent of my current knowledge is the Dan’s recording of East St. Louis Toodle-oo…..

I’m familiar with the usual suspects in 50s and 60s bebop and postbop (Monk, Miles’ quintets, Charlie Parker) but I’ve managed to bypass Duke Ellington completely.

Any help gratefully received…..

This is beautiful….

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I’ve been listening to this, this morning – while having my morning coffee & gazing out at the wind & rain – very soothing….

But it’s not a sound palette that I associate with Shostakovich in the 1950s – sounds more like Rachmaninov, soothing, romantic, mildly melancholic…

I know Shostakovich mostly through the quartets, and some of the symphonies – the slow movements have a tension to them. At the risk of cliché, there is sometimes a feeling of stillness, waiting for the knock at the door (not an accident that the eighth quartet was used to soundtrack Radio 4’s version of Smiley’s People).

Any love for this out there? Anyone care to share a favourite slow movement, to soundtrack being inside on a wild day?