It's been a difficult week, as a bit of insomnia has returned, with its resulting feeling of fogginess, and distraction. Just what you do not need when you've got a long list of things to be working on. Chiefly - a huge pile of albums, to approve. I've got white labels for everything we ever did, plus a couple of *ahem* secret projects. Very cool. Just wait until you see the artwork.
So, to keep my head on my shoulders, it's back onto the turbo trainer. The Felt frameset works brilliantly, and so does the Ultegra R8000. A compact crankset is a boon, too - as the hills seem more intense when momentum doesn't really exist to carry you up those early slopes.
I do need to think about changing the saddle though. I've got a Seele San Marco Mantra Superleggera on the Giant, but that's overkill. I Will investigate the same size and shape, but a heavier model. Need that saddle profile, as I'm starting to miss it.
I like it when little obsessions raise their head, and I'm in the throes of one at the moment. My mission? revisit the albums of my youth. I have a turntable in the kitchen (Well, two to be more accurate - a pair of 1210's).
So, I can play vinyl, and frequently do. Though I've got itunes match and spotify up the wazoo, there's something great about vinyl. However, this is where I deviate slightly from the purists. I like to play it. A lot. That means a pile of albums, next to the deck, getting a little dog-eared. Slap the album on, play it, throw it back in its sleeve. There's certainly no blind reverence for the format, no mention of "oh, it just sounds so much....warmer, you know?" I just like being surrounded by the totems of my youth, the stepping stones towards my musical awakening. So far, the pile includes "Dawn Of The Dickies" (I'm waiting for a copy of "The incredible Shrinking Dickies), at least four Floyd albums (including "Atom Heart Mother"), both Gloria Mundi albums, early Ultravox!, and The first Clash album. That last one was my first ever album, and is still the copy I bought over thirty five years ago. The rest? I'm collection copes off ebay, where needed. They have to be the original issues (so they look and feel the same way they always did), but I'm not fussed about overall condition - after all, I'm normally replacing worn-out copies, and I just want them to be playable. So far - it's been a 99p mission - that seems to be the going rate for a lot of the albums I need. What a bargain. Right, I'm off to listen to "Secondhand Daylight".
Really sunny, crisp, fresh and beautiful. The blossom is out on the trees, the daffodils and crocuses are in bloom, the air smells sweet and clean. I walked through the streets to the north of Golborne Road, dropped down along the Portobello Road, then cut through Pembridge Crescent to Notting Hill Gate, to meet Jeff for a Sunday Lunch, then a leisurely exploration of the bargain basements of the Record & Tape branches, seeking out weird and wonderful vinyl. We had a pint in the Castle, flicked through the racks of sevens in Rough Trade, and checked out Intoxica. I came back with a Stupids album,and a repress of the first ever Studio One album. As soon as I got back home, this was on the stereo:
It's been a weekend of cooking too - vegetable soup, meatballs in tomato sauce, home-made bread - I've been slaving over a hot stove, and I've loved every second.
Despite the wind, rain, and high tides. At the present time, we seem to be in the eye of the storm, and there's a strangely serene, calm feeling to the day. As the drops of rain run down the window over my shoulder, and a small patch of blue sky peeks through the clouds, this song popped up onto the ipod: it seems rather fitting, despite it's seasonal references. The Durutti Column "A Sketch For Summer" FYI: the album from which this track came: "The Return Of The Durutti Column", originally came in a sleeve made of Sandpaper. It was a typical Factory Wheeze, supposedly to reflect the clash of textural sounds within the grooves, but more than likely Tony Wilson's astute ability to be able to mix marketing and style. Also typical of Tony Wilson was his penchant for saving the pennies here and there: he couldn't find anyone brave enough to fold up the abrasive sleeves, so asked one of his other Factory bands if they'd like to earn a few quid by assembling some sleeves. Reluctantly, they agreed. The band in question? Joy Division. Legend has it then, that as all the sleeves were hand-folded by Joy Division, some of their skin was left on the sandpaper, and thus all the sleeves contain tiny fragments of Joy Division DNA. it's probably wishful thinking, but it's a cute tale, nonetheless.
Well, I do :) Went to the record fair in Brighton yesterday; there's truly no more restful and cathartic way to spend your Sunday morning than flicking through piles of old vinyl.... So what did I buy? Well, a trio of singles for a pound a pop. Firstly, the true punk/pop GENIUS that is "Animal World" by The Last Words. Australia's first real slice of Independent Punk, it came out on a small label in Oz in 1978, and was re-released on Rough Trade here in 1979. Check the video, this is one of those lost Punk classics that EVERYONE should own..... If you need a copy on CD, it's on this compilation, which has loads more Aussie Punk and Post-Punk gems on it...... But for me, it's the joy of getting old Rough Trade singles that puts the icing on the cake: as a record collector, they're just....amazing. I love the light green labels, the over sized grooves, the "Porky's" scrawl in the run-out...and the actual vinyl always seemed to be somehow more substantial than other indie labels... With Rough Trade as well, you were buying things from a label which continually confused and amazed you, with it's breadth of styles and statements. Within just a year or so of releasing "Animal World", Rough Trade were releasing the next one of the singles which i bought yesterday: "Are You Glad To Be In America?" by James "Blood" Ulmer. From DIY garage punk to...well, to a slice of No-wave industrial alt-jazz - there's change for you. I can just imagine Nigel in the Rough Trade Shop, back in 1981, slipping copies of this into customer's bags, with a cheery recommendation of "you'll love this, it's great!" and then when they got home, those self-same customers would have one of those "WTF?" moments, and send the single off to the Record+Tape... Well, the joke's on them; because, you know what? It turns out Nigel was right all along- it is a great record. Ulmers vocals have this ghost-like, haunting bluesy wail, that suits the dense concrete-jazz stew behind him perfectly...it's a record that could only have emerged at the turn of the 80's when the experimental approach of people like The Red Crayola's Mayo Thompson (who produced the single) was at it's peak. It's a record that is defiantly of its time, and all the better for it. Last of the three singles was a copy of "Life's A Gamble" by Penetration. I know I've blogged about my love for this record in the past, and it seems my love affair with it continues unabated, as this was a "double"....I've already got it on 5 separate compilation Cd's, the CD of "Moving Targets" , FOUR copies of it on the Luminous vinyl album issue of "Moving Targets", and I've already got a copy on 7". But this one had a Picture sleeve, so it was time for yet another copy. Will I ever learn? I sincerely hope not. The rest of my haul? A bunch of cheap 12"s, Baby Ford "Oochy Koochy (because it was the Remix), some old Woodentops stuff, a Blancmange single (no, i'm not sure why either) and a picture disc of "So Hot" by the Haines Gang. I'll say it again, I LOVE record fairs :)
Every now and again, I go through my record collection, sorting out what should stay and what should go. I've been doing it tonight, looking for stuff to post up on the mp3 blog. Well, I found a copy of the "Live At The Soul All Dayer Of the Century" LP, pretty legendary LP, it was sampled heavily by lots of Old-School Hardcore artists (the most obvious one: "North London Posse in the place!" taken from Kaotic Chemistry's "Drum Trip") Turns out it's a little more valuable than I'd thought. :) Reading the small print, it would appear that 12 copies reached the public. just to make you even more pissed off, I've got TWO of those twelve copies. One sold on eBay recently for 650 quid. Jeebus!!! There's more info here: one of the people on the forum reckons there's only five copies worldwide. Cripes!
Everyone kind of expected vinyl to take its rightful place at the head of the vast panoply of musical formats to emerge over the last 100 years: it's the fetishistic nature of the plastic, the smell of it, the feeling of sliding a mint condition album out of its poly-lined inner sleeve for the first time, the unexpected buzz of peeking inside the sleeve of a seven inch single to find a coloured vinyl treasure inside.... All of that makes perfect sense doesn't it? So how come there's still so much interest in the humble cassette tape? It's rather odd, but I guess it's all tied up with the fact that it was THE mass-market format of the 80's, and would have been most people's first encounter with organising, saving and treasuring their first batch of musical memories. Hence, the affection that people feel for the humble cassette. I'd like to see the same thing happen with CDR's and mini discs in 10 years time, I bet it wont :)
