Blog Is Not A Four-Letter Word

Over And Out!

2011-12-21T12:51:00.014Z

12.19.18.17.16 (Long Count) - Haab: 4 Kankin, Tzolkin: 4 Cib

Well, peeps - it seems about that time, to hang the keyboard up on "Blog Is Not...". Between Facebook, Twitter and the podcast, I just don't have the time to devote to a solo blog. This will be my final post here, but I'll leave it floating around in cyberspace, if anyone wants to check the archives.

I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by and read a post or two - but especially the regular readers...all three of you! (heh heh)

It's been a wild five years and six months - although I suppose the past five months don't count, 'cos I haven't posted anything. Thanks out to my pal Singing Bear for all his quality music reviews and intelligence and poetry. I couldn't have kept this blog alive for so long without him. Thanks also to Flaming Pixie for the support and humour over the years. To Mr. McGinnis...stay silent, bro - it's been a blast!

Gregorian year 2011 seemed a pretty wacky one. "Extreme weather", the return of people-power and economic fuck-ups - and that's just about half of it!

I wish I had a "Top Ten" list for music and films for this year - but to be honest, I didn't buy enough new albums and see enough films to compile one. I even missed the final Harry Potter film in the cinema - I know, for shame. I did watch The Inbetweeners film as a DVD rental - my short review is: Not as funny as the first two teevee series, but better than I thought it would be. You're welcome. We did rent loads of Tee Vee series and films, but I can't list them all. I liked the concepts found in Inception and Source Code, but I wouldn't call either a 'classic'. I watched Senna as well, despite being berated by Pixie for not knowing who he was (sorry F1 fans).

For music - I mainly bought re-issues (as per usual) and loads of vintage LPs from eBay. I found this site as well - which carries lots of rare psych and prog records! I purchased a copy of Dantalian's Chariot's Madman Running Through The Fields 7" single and a copy of the Gentle Giant The Power & The Glory LP from the site. I found the service excellent and they even sent me an e-mail, letting me know the G.G. LP has some background noise and chopped £10 off of the price. Very cool - I'd recommend them.

Pixie and I started listening to Marc Riley's BBC6 show, which is on Monday through Thursdays from 7 to 9 p.m. Riley's hipped me to some cool new UK bands, like Dutch Uncles and Pete & The Pirates. I'm still listening to Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone as well, still on Sunday nights from 6 to 8 p.m. - but I've missed it occasionally when my yoga sessions over-run. Ah well, thankfully, it's on the iPlayer and the tracklists are always up, too. The only live show I saw the entire year was Wire (with support from Talk Normal). Kinda gutted that Bruce Gilbert left the ranks in 2008, but the other three still make a hell of a racket. Colin Newman read the lyrics off of his iPad, but so what - the guy is in his late 50s now. Talk Normal were o.k. - the drummer's pretty impressive, but the lyrics were drowned in the mix and sounded like a gutteral alien tongue.

Got a tiny bit of cul'cha in 2011 - saw the National Theatre production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, with Rebecca Hall, Simon Callow, Simon Paisley Day and the wonderful Amanda Drew, amongst others, in the cast. I saw it on a cold January evening and I enjoyed it, but some of the crits didn't like the pacing of the play, or a few of the performances. Pixie and I then saw the revival of Simon Gray's Butley, at the Duchess Theatre in London, in mid-July. This time the cast featured Dominic West, Amanda (again!), Paul McGann and Pennie Downey. Again, I enjoyed it quite a bit. West's characterisation was shouty, but possibly the role called for it. The people at the theatre were nice as well, and upgraded our seats, as the show that night hadn't sold out. We also attended an outdoor production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, put on by the Oxford Shakespeare Company, in late August. It was held on the quad of one of the colleges, so very minimal set dressing. The performances were excellent, particularly the actor who played Algernon Moncrieff. A really enjoyable show that wasn't even dampened by a couple of light rainfalls.

I think that's about all - aside from the mundane details of life - which won't really interest any of you. Singing Bear and I are considering starting up another team blog...but it's only in the planning stages at the moment. In any case, take care of yourselves and make the most of Gregorian year 2012!!

It's Reality, But Not As We Know It

2011-07-12T13:27:00.004+01:00

21 Asadha - Year 1933

Here's a blog I discovered through a Facebook friend. If you dig crop circles and alternate-reality topics, I'd suggest having a look here:

Psychedelic Adventure

Enjoy!

Been a while....

2011-06-03T08:54:00.007+01:00

3 Pepper - Year 44 p.r.S.P.

Well, well, well...that was a longer break than I originally intended. I'm the 'Rip Van Winkle' of blogging, I suppose.

What's been happening? World-wise, too much! Let's see...apparently a 'royal wedding' took place...everyone went "ooh" and "ahh" and dug out their Union flags and the BBC turned into "The Wedding Channel" for the day. Oh yeah, and the police arrested possible demonstrators for "pre-crime". That's right - it was like a shit version of Minority Report. Ah well, the young'uns got hitched and we're all the better for it....or something.

Osama bin Laden....remember that guy? You do? Cool, well, get this...he wasn't hiding in caves on the Afghan/Pakistan border at all. Yep, turns out he was living in Pakistan, right near a military compound. Who'd a thunk it?? So the U.S special forces saddled up and popped a cap in his ass...or that's what we were told, anyway. Alternate theories sprung up like weeds in an abandoned garden...he really died in 2002, the guy they got wasn't bin Laden..and on and on. While it's tempting to believe those theories as "The Truth" (tm), or even Barack's version--I remain agnostic as possible. With gubberment activities even more shrouded than in the late 1960s/early 1970s, who can honestly say what went down. All I know is, that now there'll be closure to the Sept. 11th attacks....AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Right...

The civil war in Libya continues on, as nutjob Gaddafi refuses to step down. Like any power-hungry jackal, he thinks it's somehow his right to torture and kill the people he 'leads'. NATO stepped in a couple of months ago and have been bombing the shit out of Tripoli and other Gaddafi strongholds...but the guy's still there. Wily as a cockroach and with as much personality, ol' Muammar has gathered his willing 'human shields' around him and is thumbing his nose at "The West" and the Arab League. Now there's talk of a ground offensive. Hmmm...seems risky to me - but hey, when there's oil to be had...well, what's another fuckload of civilian deaths matter, eh boys? Meanwhile, the arms industry is licking it's slimy chops, ready to dish out it's death machinery to anyone and everyone in the conflict. Scruples, we hardly knew ye...

Bankers remain the scourge of mostly everyone, 'cept maybe other bankers. These lads like to work hard, so y'know, they like to play hard, too. I don't know about you - but I'm so tired of these scumbags and their bailouts and scandals and their being coddled, I'm having visions of them hanging by their balls from lamp-posts. No, really. Please, please, please someone come up with alternate currencies, so these callous dickheads will be out of jobs and will have to do something useful for a change, like re-pave roads, or plant trees, or look after the elderly. I hope people finally wake up, shut the Federal Reserve and the Bank Of England and end the madness! Kudos to the chamber-maids who pressed charges on their attackers...right on, sisters!

Personal-wise, I've gone whole-hog ('scuse the phrase) and went full vegetarian. I watched the Earthlings documentary and was so sickened by what I saw, that I couldn't continue to eat animal flesh with a clear conscience. If I may say, I've been considering going veggie for some time now and "Earthlings" helped me decide. It's going well, though I keep forgetting to take vitamins in the morning, but I don't feel run-down or anything. If anything, I feel better for not eating meat. I hope I can keep going and not succumb to the temptation to eat animal flesh...it's better for me and it's better for the animals. My pal Toby Philpott made an astute observation that anyone who eats meat and doesn't kill the animal themselves can be considered a scavenger, picking carrion from a corpse like a vulture.

Had a holiday in the Lake District last month and I had a great time! Wonderful scenery and lots and lots to do. We stayed in Ambleside, a lovely village on the shore of Lake Windermere. From there, we journeyed around that bit of the District. We climbed Catbells, a large-ish fell which has a spectacular view of Derwent Water. We also visited Beatrix Potter's cottage, called Hill Top, which is near Sawrey and checked out a couple of stone circles, too. One was located on a farm which is very out-of-the-way. It's called Swinside and it's worth visiting, if you can brave the long-ish walk to get to it and the cows usually huddled around the track that leads to the circle. The other circle is Castlerigg and it's pretty amazing - it's set in a field which appears to be walled-in by the surrounding fields. The circle may be smaller that you've expecting, but the setting more than makes up for that. A trip to the Pencil Museum in Keswick was in order and it was far more interesting than I thought it would be. They've got the world's largest coloured pencil there (it's a yellow one, in case you were wondering) and a fascinating look at how pencils were developed over the years. Amongst the sight-seeing, I got to sneak in a bit of vinyl-hunting in charity shops - with the Oxfam in Keswick proving to have the best stash. I bought a copy of the UK first-press of Chicago's second album on LP, along with Steely Dan's The Royal Scam and another one I can't recall at the moment. I found some other goodies at a few other charity shops. Good times - must make another trip up there!

Update: I've nearly finished this post - the solstice has come and gone. It's summertime, not that you'd know it. There have been a couple of scorching days here, thanks to a band of warm air making it's way from Spain and Portugal. We acutally had to get the fan out one night!

New Kaleidophonic Stroboscope episode!

2011-02-17T13:23:00.003Z

28 Magha - Year 1932

That's right! February's show is now live and running!

Check it out here - it's quite good, even if it's me saying it.

That is all.

Obligatory Monthly Post #14

2011-02-10T13:00:00.010Z

6 Rabi al-Awwal - Year 1432

Mid-February...how have you all been? What's happening in teh blogosphere? I've been up to my usual - wage-slavery, listening to music, reading, occasionally going to the gym (very occasionally at the moment).

I did go to that London at the end of January to see Twelfth Night (the Shakespeare play, not the 1980s neo-prog band). The National Theatre has a production on in the Cottesloe Auditorium until 3rd March. The entire run sold out before public tickets went on sale, due to Sir Peter Hall directing his fourth version of the play and Simon Callow being in the cast. I was able to get tickets through Amanda Drew, who plays 'Olivia' in this production. I headed to the Big Smoke in early afternoon--after stopping by the open market in Oxford. A bloke had a table full of LPs and I couldn't resist. I ended up buying an upgrade of my copy of The Moody Blues' In Search Of The Lost Chord album. Once I was in London, I headed to Soho to check out a couple of record shops, Reckless Records and Sister Ray. Both had so much great stuff, that it was really tough to make a decision. The time passed and I really had to get heading to the theatre (with a bite to eat on the way). I bought a battered original pressing of Cream's Disraeli Gears LP (it plays alright, actually!), a near-mint copy of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (3rd pressing), a decent copy of Kate Bush's Never For Ever, Alan Parsons Project's I Robot and Steve Hillage's Motivation Radio at Reckless. I bought a re-issue LP of Van Der Graaf Generator's debut, The Aerosol Grey Machine and the Carlos Santana/John McLaughlin early 70s collab., Love Devotion Surrender, at Sister Ray.

A short tube journey later, I wolfed down a margharita pizza at the Azzuro restaurant near to the National. By the time I'd finished - there was about an hour to the start of the play. Finty Williams, Judi Dench's daughter and part of the cast, met a couple of her friends in the lobby, near where I was sitting, and they all jumped around excitedly for a few moments. That was entertaining. The play started at around 7:30 p.m. and I quite enjoyed it. Some of the crits have panned the pacing of the play and a few of the performances, but I had no such problem. I thought it was quite good, though not having a previous viewing to compare it with maybe leaves me ignorant. No matter, I enjoyed it and my first time at The National. A while later and I was back on the coach to Oxford. Good times!

It looks as if things are afoot in the Middle East and North Africa! The Egyptian people, after 30 years of living under a tyrant's rule, booted out Hosni Mubarak after days and days of activism and protest. It seems amazing to me, and I'm not sure why that kind of thing doesn't happen in the UK and why it didn't happen in the U.S. during eight years of George W. Idiot! The military have taken over in Egypt and I hope the people don't allow a junta of generals to go for permanent rule - keep the pressure on 'em, please! Now it looks like Algeria may be following suit and there have been rumblings about Syria, too. Hmmm...what's going on? There have been reports about C.I.A. involvement in these pro-democracy movements. I'd like to hope that the U.S. secret goons don't have their hands in the protests, but they've been known to stage all sorts of things in the past. Still, it beats The Smirking Chimp's and Tony 'Bliar's strategy of invasion and occupy for 90 billion years. These certainly are interesting days to be on this backward, superstitious planet. A co-worker leant me his copy of Joe Sacco's Palestine. If you haven't read it - it's 'comics-journalism' - the stories are very real, but presented in graphic-novel form. It certainly educated me on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I highly recommend it, if you can get a copy.

I've finshed the February edition of The Kaleidophonic Stroboscope. I'll add a link in a new post. It's the usual round-up of tunes and the "Vinyl Vault" LP selection is Kate Bush's The Kick Inside. Intrigued? Of course you are!

Other than that....hmmm, well, I've decided to sell off some of my music collection. I'm not sure what to sell yet - but we're running out of space and I've gotta clear room for new tunage. I've also decided to start putting my CDs into those "CD wallet" cases, which will make them more portable and free up space in the spare room. Not sure why I hadn't prior to this.......must've just wanted to keep the jewel cases intact.

That's about all for this post - I shall be back soon with more! Adios!

Happy (Gregorian) New Year!

2011-01-05T16:55:00.006Z

Seasonal Greetings - Winter 2010

2010-12-16T13:19:00.008Z

3 December, 2010 (Julian calendar)

The solstice is nearly here...and oh yeah, that holiday with the jolly fat man is next week, too. As per the past decade (or even longer)--this Gregorian calendar year has slipped by, leaving me in a whirlwind of thought and memories of holidays (vacations), birthdays and change. Two weeks remain of 2010 and I'm not even sure how to sum it all up.

I suppose I could go and have a look at my posts for the previous months and base a round-up of the time on that. I could do an off-the-cuff 'review', as it were, as well. I just don't know.

Change seems to be happening quite quickly now, almost in accordance with Robert Anton Wilson's "Jumping Jesus" theory of time and the acceleration of knowledge. On a more personal level, I changed jobs in the summer. What I do now isn't all that dis-similar to my previous gig...but it has been a change nonetheless. I actually welcomed it, as I was starting to become very bored at my last one.

Meanwhile, there's been massive protets (and some rioting) in London and other large cities over the gubberment's plan to charge students higher university fees. The Liberal Democrats, who pledged not to raise fees before the election - suddenly did an about-face and are declaring the fees 'necessary'. Typical politician behaviour, really. I can't believe how blatant they were about it, though. Bald-faced liars! I hope the protests continue.

We lost a few greats lately, too. Peter Christopherson, of Coil and Throbbing Gristle, passed away a few weeks ago. His partner in Coil (and in life), Jhonn Balance, died a few years ago--so both halves of Coil have now left the planet. 'Sleazy', as he was known, was also part of the very influential Hipgnosis design collective. Leslie Nielsen, the Canadian comic actor, also passed on. His performance in Airplane! and the early 1980s TV series Police Squad! were enough to cement his legend, but a couple of the Naked Gun films had some laughs (though they did seem to get progressively weaker as they went along - like a lot of film series). Finally, just last week, we lost the good Captain Beefheart (or Don Van Vliet, if you prefer).

The man responsible for the original 'must-have-weird-album-in-your-collection', Trout Mask Replica, has left the planet. One of the most original performers to come from the late-60's L.A. scene--Beefheart combined the blues, psychedelia, jazz and Dada into a fusion that would become a blueprint for many an outsider weirdo's band (Robyn Hitchcock and Julian Cope come to mind). He was also a talented painter and gave up a largely indifferent music 'industry' in the early 80s to concentrate solely on his art. Farewell to one of the few U.S. national treasures left.

Hey! The U.K. is now covered in snow - for those who like to live in a greeting-card world of having a 'white X-Mas'. It's the most snow I've seen since moving here almost seven years ago. Looks like we really are in for a cooooooold one.

I've not got much else to say - thanks to everyone who's read this over the past year and everyone I've interacted with, too. The M.L.A. meet-up in July was a blast, as was the boating holiday in June. Cheers to Singing Bear for his continued support and I wish him a better 2011, he really deserves it. A shout-out to my Facebook pals and fellow bloggers, too.

Happy Holidays, All and all the best to you for the next (Gregorian) revolution around the sun!

On The Verge Of Winter

2010-11-17T13:36:00.013Z

10 Kislev - Year 5771

Another month has passed! I apologise to the very few who still read this blog regularly...what can I say? Been busy, sorta.

Journeyed to "The Big Smoke" to see House Of Games at the Almeida Theatre in Islington a few weeks ago. My pal Will and I got the "Oxford Tube" (the Oxford Tube is a coach which you can get from Gloucester Green in the town centre), which dropped us off at Marble Arch. We then got the tube to Islington and found the theatre, just to be sure where it was. There was plenty of time before the show started, so we grabbed a pint at the King's Head pub and some lunch at Strada. I looked on-line and saw that there are a few record shops in Islington, so after much trekking about, we found Flashback Records. After rummaging through the outside racks of used CDs and vinyl (I found a beat-up, but playable LP copy of The Moody Blues' Seventh Sojourn) - we checked out the downstairs bit, where the rest of the records are. I found copies of Soft Machine's Third and Ananda Shankar's self-titled LP...along with a great copy of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters LP and a decent copy of Led Zep's IV record...the first-press edition with the error on the label ("Misty Mountain Hop" is called "Misty Mountain Top").

The play was excellent - I was going to post a complete review of it, but just ran out of time. The cast interaction was great and the dialogue, adapted from David Mamet's screenplay for the 1987 film, was hilarious in spots. Probably not to see if you don't like 'blue' language - but I enjoyed it. As I've said, I didn't remember the film all that much, so a couple of plot twists were new to me - I was actually quite shocked at one of them. I was able to meet with Amanda Drew afterward, too. She's quite lovely and was very gracious in hanging out for a few minutes - even though she was meeting with family for dinner. I was exhausted on the coach back to Oxford. All in all, a really really brill day out in London. Must do it again sometime!

The October episode of the Kaleidophonic Stroboscope was posted a few weeks ago. It's a tribute to little Gryphon, our cat who was killed early in October. Hope you like it - I've started on the newest episode and that will be posted when it's ready.

The goodwyf and I had a holiday in Cornwall last week. It was a nice break and we revisited places like Polzeath Beach and Padstow, where TV chef Rick Stein has a lot of establishments. I had some posh fish-n-chips (fish goujons, actually, don't you know) and we walked around the village and took lots of photos. We also ventured to Newquay and the Eden Project. I really liked The Eden Project - the 'biomes' are amazing and I was fascinated with a metal sculpture depicting the Dionysian Rites. The sculpture is by Tim Shaw, who is based in Cornwall. Amazing stuff! It's a really good job we didn't go the week after - that would not have been a good holiday.

Looks like it may be another cold winter approaching - there's already snow falling up Nawth. The storms may hit here later today or tomorrow....Yay.

Ah well, better wrap up warm and wrap up this post. More soon....I hope.

Random update #683

2010-10-13T13:24:00.006+01:00

Haab: 13 Yax - Tzolkin: 10 Ahau/Long Count: 12.19.17.14.0

I've had a lot to blog about lately, but just not the time or the inclination to do so. I meant to do a full review of the brill Chris Addison gig at the Oxford Playhouse about a week and half ago--but didn't get around to it. Along with a bunch of other stuff--so here's a brief round-up:

So yeah, Chris was hilarious. I'd never been to a gig at the Playhouse, but it's a nice intimate hall. I liked that he sorta tailored his set to give it a 'local' flavour...name-dropping Oxford University and Oxford Brookes and mentioning that some consider it an honour that O-Town was slated to be Hitler's British capitol, had he won the war. Apparently, that's why it wasn't heavily bombed in air raids...or so 'they' say. As I'd never seen him before - most of his material was new to me, though a few of the topics may have been familiar (the inability of the English middle-class to cope with snow, the trials of a skinny guy going to the gym), he stamped his own take on them quite well. During the encore/Q&A bit - he despatched a woman who disapproved of his saluting the crowd by calling her a "Guardian reader" and telling her not to choke on her lentils.

The Chilean miners are now being freed. I don't think many critters can possibly have any idea what it's like to be trapped underground for quite that amount of time. It does seem ironic that on Margaret Thatcher's birthday - the news is dominated by press coverage of miners. Ah well - I hope they're all to adjust to surface life. Perhaps in some ways, they were better off down there - they sure did miss a lot of shit TV and lame 'celebrity gossip'...and crap radio, too. As much as I dig the fact it's a 'feel-good' story...I can't help but think "What's happened to all of the victims of the Pakistan floods and the Haitian earthquake?" There doesn't seem to be much coverage of them anymore.

On a bit of a down-note...one of our cats, Gryphon, was killed by a car last Friday morning. I had already left for work when it happened. Pixie was alerted by some kind people who found him. Her father showed up to help and he was bundled into her father's car and brought to the vet's. I'm told that it happened instantly and that he didn't suffer, which is a small condolence. I'll miss him lots - he was a happy-go-lucky little guy and always made me laugh, even though he scratched the spines of some of my LPs. I hope he's having a good time, wherever he may be. Such a devastating loss for us.

We're off to that London next week, to see House Of Games at the Almeida Theatre. It's a play written by David Mamet and was made into a film in 1987. I recall seeing the film, but it was ages ago and I don't really remember the plot. One of my fave actresses, Amanda Drew, is part of the cast at the Almeida--so it will be a treat to see. I might even be able to get a little record-shopping in, while I'm there. If I've got time, I'll write up a review of the play.

In case you missed it - the newest Kaleidophonic Stroboscope episode was posted about two weeks ago. I've started on the latest one - which I hope to have ready in a week or so. Enjoy! Thanks to those who have been listening and supporting the show - especially my pal Singing Bear! Sorry I haven't been at the message board much, mate - I'll stop in there soon.

That's it - that's my update. I'll blog some more when I get a chance. Peace!

That Ol' Time Relijun... - Part XIV

2010-09-17T13:20:00.008+01:00

9 Tishri - Year 5771

Seems that a lot of column inches and on-line chats have been dedicated to the Islam/Christianity divide lately. What's been happening, you ask?

Well.....first, there was a whole lotta kerfuffle in New York City. A local imam was planning on setting up an Islamic cultural centre a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. A bunch of right-wing dunderheads seized upon the plan to spew more of their paranoid drivel. I watched one 'Merican senator, or pundit, or whatever he "is" on NewsNight, actually say that the five or six blocks surrounding where the towers collapsed is 'sacred ground'. Nothing like a little hyperbole to churn up the emotions, eh? Me, I don't really care about a mosque being housed in a run-down building in New York. I'm not going to be visiting it, or donating to it. It seems some Americans can't get enough of religion, as long as it's not one practised by brown people. Nevermind that people of many different nationalities and religious choices died in the explosions in 2001....it's those brown people that shouldn't have religious freedom in America of 2010. I'm generalising, of course - but I don't think I'm too far off on this one.

Then...in Florida (of course), a pastor called Terry Jones (no, not the bloke out of Monty Python) decided that to commemorate September 11th--he would be burning copies of the Qu'ran. Yep, you read that right. He runs a very small church, with maybe fifty parishoners. What a tolerant Christian! Now, I know that an argument based on numbers doesn't mean that the side of the mob "is" correct...but sometimes I think that the popular opinion does have some merit. Jones refused to back down - until his demand that the N.Y. mosque plan be stopped. He flew to New York to meet the imam...and I'm not sure what went down, but suddenly, he called off the burning. Having played the media like a Stradovarius, he's back to obscurity. I suspect the heads of Fox (Faux) News were creaming themselves during the whole thing.

If that weren't enough, ol' Pope Ratzo is in the midst of his first visit to the UK. It's being called a 'state visit', but if I recall--the Vatican 'isn't' really a state. Maybe I'm wrong - but then, I don't have 'papal infallibility'. The other thing that's sticking in my craw is that taxpayer money is being used to fund this fiasco. He's schlepping around in his 'Popemobile' and the media are in fawning mode. I was hoping for huge prostests - but it looks like only Londoners got in the spirit with a large-ish one. He even apologised for the sexual abuse and other crimes of the church...awww, isn't that nice? Any word on prosecutions...helping the authorities catch the errant priests? No? Thanks, your Popiness--off you trot, back to Catholic Cuckoo Land.

The Bible in E-Prime!

2010-08-19T13:55:00.005+01:00

9 Elul - Year 5770

Someone (well, Dr. David F. Maas, actually) finally got round to translating the 'good book' into E-Prime.

For those who've never heard of E-Prime, it "is" essentially a form of English where the verb 'to be' (is, was, etc.) gets eliminated, in favour of verbs which relate to the speaker's point of view and not necessarily a concrete fact.

An example: "John is a real jerk." This implies that everyone sees John as a real jerk. One of his friends may disagree and an argument will ensue. If I state that in E-Prime...it becomes "John seems like a jerk, to me." Now, his friend may still argue - but the E-Prime statement becomes one of subjective content, not of 'objective fact'. Some (but not all) critters will hopefully begin to see that they state most things as if everyone shares the same reality-tunnel, which doesn't seem to be the case, to me. I'd like to say most critters would, but sadly, human evolution doesn't appear to be moving as quickly as I would like it to.

You can read more about E-Prime here and here. Those serve as better 'primers' (pardon the pun) than my little intro.

The E-Prime version of the Bible can be found here.

And finally, a Robert Anton Wilson vid all about E-Prime:

Thanks to Mindy J. for posting the Bible link over at Only Maybe.

Greying Boomers...or my mom is 70!

2010-08-11T12:46:00.005+01:00

29 July, 2010 (Julian calendar)

It was my mother's birthday yesterday. I think she's 70 now....I know, how utterly bizarre. She tried to hide her birth year from us, but my older sister and I once found what we thought was a birth certificate. It had '1940' written on it.

I'm reminded of that Simon and Garfunkel lyric: "How very strange, to be seventy." I suppose it's not just my mom, though - it's that whole boomer generation growing old. I like a lot of the 1960s and 70s bands and artists and we're all watching them go grey and leave the planet. In the next ten years, most of them will probably be gone. The rest of that generation will be retiring--it'll be a greying planet. Even us "Gen X-ers" (or whatever we're called now) are aging fast.

The boomers had a chance to really change the planet for better. Did they succeed? Yes and no. Many of them sold out their youthful ideals for the comfy life, making money and carrying on exactly as their parents had - only with much more convenience and better health. Some of them remained faithful, but seem a bit backward-looking by not completely changing with the times. Still, some great things coalesced from the turmoil of the 1960s and early 1970s: the ecology movement, the potential of psychedelics for healing, mis-trust of most authority figures, the women's, civil and gay rights movements...and some amazing music!

One wonders how the world would differ from now, if they had kept striving and didn't give up at the end of the 1970s...when the tide turned against them. Did they 'allow' Reagan and Thatcher to gain power...or would that have happened anyway?

Most of the well-known boomer icons have gone now: Lennon, Jones, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Harrison, Barrett, Leary (o.k., he wasn't of their generation - but a boomer icon none the less), Hoffman, the Kennedys, Garcia...and on and on. I suppose most of the 'magic' left with them and the centre couldn't hold.

Anyway, here's to them - some of them may be self-induglent and egomaniacal about their contributions to this boondocks planet, but for a time, they didn't march to the tune of monotonous 'society'. Oh..and "Happy Birthday, Mom!"

Maybe Logic Academy Meet-Up Diary, Oxford - July 2010

2010-07-27T15:13:00.014+01:00

Pungenday, Confusion 62 - Year Of Our lady Of Discord 3176

Some (but not all) of the European members of the Maybe Logic Academy have been meeting up around the 'dog days' in summertime, for the past six years. The date was set to the 23rd of July because that was the day in 1973 that Robert Anton Wilson had a strange experience and thought he was receiving communication from an intelligence in the Sirius ("The Dog Star") system. He remained agnostic, as always, and later chalked it up to his right brain communicating with his left brain.

Past meet-ups were held in Milton Keynes, Berlin, Bruges, Amsterdam & Dublin. Berlin was an early candidate for the 2010 meet-up. I had been invited to the past few, but couldn't attend, due to not enough 'coin of the realm' in my account. Someone (Fuzzbuddy?) mentioned another UK location, which I was jazzed about, because for one: my passport had expired and I hadn't got round to having it renewed..and two: less kish-kash to spend on travel. The decision to hold number 6 in Oxford totally clinched it for me...I would finally be able to hang out with critters that I had communicated with on-line.

Here's how it went down - from my reality-tunnel..

Day One (Thursday, 22nd July) - Chris M. and Bogus Magus are due in at the train station at 1:15 p.m. I grab a bus to the city centre. When the bus just about reaches town, the sky opens and a downpour drenches the streets. It doesn't last long and soon the sun clears the clouds. I meet Fuzzbuddy at the station and soon Chris and Bogus join us. First stop is the backpacker's hostel where most of the crew will be staying. Chris had booked a room in a hotel down the road and he left to stow his gear there. Once the four of us are ready to hit the streets, it's nearly time for Tons, Borsky and Non-Prophet to arrive in town. They have ridden in via The Oxford Tube and are let off on the High Street. After introductions and greetings--it was back to the hostel. Bogus brought a stash of books for anyone to take. I chose a cool collection of Terry Southern's writings, called Now Dig This! . Fuzz brought copies of the 23 film (the cool German one, in which RAW has a cameo appearance - not the shit Jim Carrey 'thriller'), a DVD of lectures on James Joyce's Ulysses and a CD chock full of RAW audio, for everyone. Borsky also handed out a DVD-R with literally one hundred books on metaphysical, occult and esoteric matters--plus, official meet-up T-shirts. What treats!! I was stunned at their generosity! After a time, it's decided that food and drink are in order. Fly Agaric 23 and Diclonius still haven't arrived, but we all reckon they'll contact us when they do. The rest of us troop down to Broad Street, then on to the famous Turf Tavern. One of the beers on tap is Stonehenge Ale's Eye Opener, whose logo looks very familiar. I had to have a pint, natch! I bought one for Bogus, too. Turns out that the barrel emptied right after ours were poured--cheers to the Pookah for that! Much great conversation followed---on into the early evening. We then had a little reconnoiter around the area--before heading back to the 'Turf. Fly and Diclonius had arrived at this point and met us down there. More pints were downed, then it was almost closing time. Those who had gone without dinner grabbed some...er....food, at a roadside kebab van. I did as well, though I did come to regret that late-night cheeseburger the next morning. I bid my fellow MLA-ers adieu, as they were heading back to the hostel and I was catching the late bus home.

Day Two (Friday, 23rd July) - The time for me to meet the rest was given as 10:30 a.m., so I did my best to be up and ready. Owing to the somewhat late night - I was nearly late...but I managed to get to the others by the appointed time. Our first destination is the Pitt-Rivers Museum, full of interesting anthropological artifacts and even some dinosaur skeletons. N.P. and I were fascinated by the collection of weaponry, remarking on Bucky Fuller's aphorism, "developing ways to cover vaster and vaster distance and kill larger and larger amounts of people"..I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Once we left the Pitt-Rivers, it was getting close to the luncheon hour. It was back to the 'Turf, but to our collective chagrin--the pub was full-up, this being optimum tourist season and all. We all squeezed into one of the side chambers of the King's Arms and enjoyed a half-decent lunch, for the money we paid. Oxford can be over-priced and is not immune from a bit of the ol' 'fleece-the-tourists' action. The plan was to head to the Bodleian Library and try and have a look at some of the old manuscripts and books. Not having been there before, I wasn't sure if one were allowed to just walk in. We found out that you need to take a tour, which costs about £3.50. After milling around the lobby for a bit, the B.L. idea was scrapped, in favour of punting. As there were nine of us, or eight at that point, we had to hire two punts. Diclonius, Tons, Fly and I were in one..and Fuzz, Borsky, Chris and Bogus the other. I found punting not as easy as it looks, but I suppose you can pick up the technique after a while. We all had turns in piloting the punt - Tons and Fly were especially good. Along the canal, a scene from the German version of Miss Marple was being filmed--so the camera crew kept stopping punts for a time, then letting them continue on. A joke started about a film-bloke, who had a walkie-talkie and an earpiece, saying "4 to 5 minutes..." to everyone, then remarking about how "some fruity chap has just fallen in the water." We all headed back to the hostel for a chill-out on the open terrace, with more discussion and Diclonius's amusing LSD-party anecdote. Once again, dinner plans were brought up and everyone wanted to stay close to the hostel. We decided to eat at Al Salam, a Lebanese restaurant just down the street. I quite enjoyed the meal and the waitcritter even obliged in taking a group photo of us. Once we finished eating - I thought it a good time to break for the night, so off I went to the bus stop. I heard that Fly, Borsky and Fuzz adjourned to a club, to sip a little absinthe. I am sorry I missed that.

Day Three (Saturday, 24th July) - I stuck to the 10:30 meet-up time and round about 11 a.m., everyone seemed ready to go. Well, mostly everybody - Fly and Diclonius elected to catch us up a bit later. Today, the Botanical Gardens was deemed to be the initial port of call. Again, a fee was required - which put most of us off the idea - so we had a stroll around the Christ Church college grounds and watched the punts go by. The Ashmolean Museum was the next stop. N.P. had some urgent business and headed back to the hostel. The museum had been re-furbished in the past year, so there was plenty to see. We had a good investigation of the ancient Egypt section, as well as the Cretan and Greek displays. Since we didn't have too much time to explore, we headed up to the Chinese and Japanese sections. Borsky, Fuzz, Bogus and I had a look round the gift shop--but walked away with no treasures. A stop at a cafe was in order, caffeine for most of the crew and fruit juice for me. We ambled back to the hostel (after another round at the 'Turf, natch!) for another chill-out sesh...and then it was time for Bill Spectre's Oxford Ghost Trail. Bill himself seems an amiable bloke and he gets points from me for being a King Crimson fan (he noticed my T-shirt when we were purchasing our places on the trail). Bill has a great theatrical style and also makes use of props (a book that bursts into flame, a key that emits electrical sparks, etc.). He led us around various spots in Broad Street and the High Street, detailing strange and often macabre events that happened there. Once Bill's tour ended, I was starving. We couldn't all agree on one place to get food, so Chris and I decamped to the Cafe Coco Restaurant. I had a scrumptious mushroom pizza and Chris ordered a massive canole. We discussed various things and then it was back to the hostel, for an experimental virtual meeting via Skype. N.P. managed to get B. Kane on the video link, all the way from Norway. There were really funny moments, like B.'s game of "Book Bingo" and the misapprehension of a cigarette-holder that once belonged to Errol Flynn. A bit later, Bobby Campbell was on-line and though we couldn't have a split-screen convo with both of them, everyone could still hear each other. Bobby let us know that he's developing new artwork for re-prints of two Tim Leary books that have been long out-of-print. Huzzah! I can't wait to buy those! It was a remarkable ending to a brilliant day. Once the lap-tops were put away, we all trooped down to the street for some air...and I said "good night" to the crew and once again ambled on toward the bus stop. I was given a plague mask by Fuzzbuddy, as he had extras--and I was tempted to wear it back to the bus stop, but I feared it would have been wrecked by one of the drunken revelers spilling out of the pubs.

Day Four (Sunday, 25th July) - Feeling a bit washed-out from the previous three day's adventures, I made the journey into town. I arrived at the hostel as the rest of the crew were preparing to leave--lots of packing and tidying the room. We made our way to George Street, which is dotted with coffee bars and little eateries. We stopped at one, so everyone could get their caffeine fix and some breakfast. Borsky needed to get back to London fairly early, so after a few photos - he and Tons and N.P. headed for the bus station, with the rest of us in tow. Good-byes and well-wishes all around and then the three boarded the coach bound for The Big Smoke. Fly, Fuzz, Bogus and I walked down to Great Clarendon Street and found the Jude The Obscure pub. I hadn't been there in ages and I had forgotten how much I liked it. We had a couple of rounds. Fly mentioned he was going to see Inception at the cinema later in the afternoon. A bit of time passed and it was decided we should move on. I parted from the rest at around 3 p.m., as I had to buy a few gifts for the goodwyf. I finally arrived home at 4:30 p.m. and was quite exhausted.

Such a lovely time - I hope to be able to participate in next year's gathering. All Hail Eris! All Hail Pope Bob!

New Kaleidophonic Stroboscope Episode!

2010-07-05T09:51:00.002+01:00

14 Asadha - Year 1932

Hellooooooo critters!

A brand-new K.S. show is now live - er...has been for about a week now. I didn't have time to post about it here until today.

Anyway - check it out here.

The next one will be on the way soon...Enjoy!

Out Of Work

2010-06-30T12:05:00.007+01:00

9 Tir - Year 1389

It's my last day at my current wage-slave gig--I'm seemingly the victim of "down-sizing, off-shoring and out-sourcing". The entire staff of the department was summoned back in March for a 'company strategy' meeting. It was announced that six full-time staff members would be made redundant by September. The following couple of weeks, interviews were held about everyone's prospective plans. In mine, I did mention that I was thinking of leaving the department by the end of the year. I had also applied for a couple of in-house roles, which I subsequently wasn't chosen for. I know--probably not the best time to do so--but I didn't want to put my plans on hold.

When the announcements were made in early May, about who was on the chopping block, it wasn't much of a surprise that my name was among them. Each employee was 'rated' by their team manager, as far as following e-mail guidelines and a few other criteria (surprisingly, not productivity, though). My ratings were mysteriously low, considering that only a month or two before - my performance was roundly praised. Hmmmm...

I was told that my last working day would be September 30th - or as they put it, could be. That was probably important to remember, because last week--I had my 'final consultation' meeting with H.R. and the senior manager of the department. In the meeting, I was told that actually, my leaving day was suddenly moved to 30th June, not 30th September. Uh......Okayyyyy. Apparently, my team is 'over-staffed' by 1.9 critters. How they worked that out, I'll never know. I was told that I still get my full severance pay and I get my salary paid through July. As The Dead said once, "Set up, like a bowling pin/Knocked down, it gets to wearing thin.."

I have a feeling that the whole "over-staffed" thing was just a ruse to cover for the fact that the powers-that-be wanted me out before September. Maybe they think that my 'work-standards' have dropped (which they really haven't) or that I may be a 'disruptive presence'. I couldn't really say. That whole corporate/office politics thing bores me to tears, so I'm glad to be moving on now.

As I say, I've wanted to leave for a while now. I've been here for four years now and, as far as the context of the job I have, I've accomplished everything I can. Maybe it's my attention span, but I get really bored of jobs after a couple of years. I remember a statement of Robert Anton Wilson's, which said (I'm paraphrasing): "No matter how much you love your job, you should take a leap and try something different every five years, otherwise you become a zombie." I realise that not all have the luxury of leaving their jobs - but that definitely seems like sound advice to me.

From what I hear on the grapevine - there's more changes coming and more culling of the staff. Even if I had 'passed' this time, I might not have been so lucky next time. Ah well, so it goes in the world of wage-slavery. Perhaps this time, I can secure a gig where there's less of the politics and more enjoyment in 'work'. Heh heh....I can dream, can't I?

Time to get the CV updated and hit the pavment. Wish me luck!

The Boat Trip

2010-06-21T13:13:00.007+01:00

31 Jyaistha - Year 1932

Back from our holidays now - as I suspected, they flew by. In fact, I've already been back at work for a week (grumble..grumble..).

Pixie and I hired a narrowboat, in which we planned to head up to Chester and back. The marina we hired the boat from is located in Shropshire. The company is Maestermyn and their prices seem fairly reasonable. The boat we hired is called "Rhonwen" and is a 35-footer...small-ish compared to most of the boats on the canals now.

When we picked Rhonwen up from the marina, we were given a checklist of how to use the cooker, the lights, etc. He asked where we were planning on going...I answered "Chester." He replied with "You won't make to Chester and back in a week...it takes nearly a week to get there." D'oh! So, with a change in plan, we aimed toward Llangollen, in Wales, which was a much shorter distance to traverse. I nearly hit a couple of boats moored up in the marina as we left...such is the sensitivity of the rudder. It took me a couple of hours to really get used to piloting...by which time I had hit the canal bank at least once, along with the sides of bridge through-ways.

We made our way through to Chirk, which seems to be on the border of Wales. Between the over-night mooring spot and the village itself...there's a weird bit of 'no man's land' along the road. The sign stating "Welcome To Wales" is at the end of the road into the village..and at the top of the road is a "Shropshire" sign. I wish I'd taken a photo of it. There's also a huge tunnel to pass through. It felt a bit surreal piloting the boat through there. The light on the front of the boat worked well enough, but unlike the headlights on a car, it looks very dim when you're standing at the back. The ceiling of the tunnel was sliding over my head, but I couldn't really see it. It almost seems like you're not moving at all. We were quite lucky as well because sometimes the canal traffic gets heavy and the tunnel can only accomodate boats travelling in one direction. If that's the case, you have to wait along the canal bank until you are safe to go through...and if it's raining, it becomes a bit of a drag.

The other bit that can be hairy (if you don't like heights) is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, near Llangollen. It has a walkway on one side and the canal bit for the boats on the other. The walkway has a railing--the boat side, however, does not. There's about 12 inches of raised metal to keep the boats from going over the edge..and that's it. The aqueduct is about 120 feet above ground. I mainly just looked ahead of me and tried not to look down over the side...not so easy to do. Luckily, time-wise, it's not too far to go and soon you get into the twisty canal route to the town itself. We moored up and went to have a look around. It's a small, but picturesque place. I found a huge used book-shop and scoured the charity shops for LPs. I ended up buying two Thomas Hardy novels (Tess Of The D'Urbervilles & Return Of The Native) and a Mick Farren sci-fi novel called The Last Stand Of The DNA Cowboys. Looking forward to reading that! We stayed there over-night, which meant getting dinner in town. A pizza restaurant located near the centre of town fit the bill and we enjoyed some yummy grub and a couple of Italian beers, too.

Our plan was to go back toward the marina, then bypass it for a day to trek to Ellesmere. We made decent time back to the aqueduct and Chirk. Past that, though, we underestimated the canal traffic at one of the two locks, which we had passed through so easily just a few days previously. About twelve boats were lined up, waiting to pass through the lock. We held Rhonwen to the side of the canal by mooring ropes, for three hours in the pouring rain. Ugh! Ah well, I suppose that's to be expected. While piloting back from Llangollen, Pixie noticed that the electrics were hardly charging, though we were running the engine constantly. A stop at the marina and a check by an engineer showed that the alternator was kaput. He changed the alternator and chucked a new battery in, in just over an hour.

Ellesmere itself is pleasant enough. The wharf area is under development at the moment and the sight of a massive Tesco, when walking from the mooring spot into the village doesn't make for pleasant scenery. We ambled around for a while, checking out a wooded park area and trying to locate the 'Castle Mound' (possibly the site of a Saxon fortress) among a bunch of small hills. There aren't many shops, so we quickly looked in the more interesting ones. Dinner was at a local pub/restaurant and we shot a couple of games of pool, too.

The next morning marked the end of our journey. We duly dropped Rhonwen back at the marina, loaded up the car and before getting on the road back to Oxford, stopped by Whittington Castle for a bit. The grounds are relatively small and you really only need about an hour to see everything. Pixie suggested we also stop in Shrewsbury for lunch and brief shopping excursion. I found a Manitas De Plata LP in one charity shop and a Gordon Giltrap LP in another. We arrived home in the late afternoon, then picked up the cats from the cattery. For a few days afterward, I still felt as if I were swaying back and forth just a little. I didn't realise you had to get 'land legs' after being on a boat for a week.

Slouching Toward Middle-Age

2010-06-02T12:29:00.004+01:00

2 Pepper - Year 43 p.r.S.P.

Jaysus! June already - sorry I only managed a couple of posts in May. So much for my plan to blog more than I did last year. I still blame Facebook and eBay...been spending far too much time at both.

So...what's new, you ask? Not a lot. Still on the chopping block at work and still not really fussed by that fact. I've applied for a couple of gigs, but was turned down. Ah well, still a few months to go before I'm officially unemployed. Plenty of time..plenty of time..

I completed the second anniversary show of the Kaleidophonic Stroboscope podcast. Really weird that it's been two years since I started it up. Thanks to all who've listened and to those who made requests for the anniversary show. I hope to start the new episode when Pixie and I are back from holiday.

Yep - we're away to Shropshire in a few days. We've hired a narrow-boat and will be afloat on the canal for a week. Muggins here gets to do the piloting. It'll be an adventure, anyway--trying not to collide with the banks of the canal or other craft. You can only go about 4 m.p.h., top speed, so I don't foresee any serious accidents.

Monday (7th June) marks the 40th year I've been on this backward, superstitious planet. I honestly don't know how I've survived for so long--I suspect a combination of luck and genetics and sheer will (sometimes). It seems strange to me, becoming "middle-aged", whatever that means these days. Critters are living longer, at least it appears that way to me. I remember when reaching 100 years was a feat of incredible doing. Now, it's almost expected that most humans (at least in 'The West') will live well into their 90s. I do hope I stick around a little while longer, but one never knows. I think it takes a lot of hubris to state how long your life will last...and I've got no idea. Still, I've had a pretty good run so far and I can look back on it and be fairly satisfied on how it's turned out. Maybe in about twenty years (if I'm still here)...I'll jot down my memoirs on some sort of holographic recording machine...or to a robot who will file my memories away on whatever replaces DVDs. Maybe.

Hoffman and Bucky - watch and listen!

2010-05-13T12:43:00.003+01:00

29 Jumada I-Ula - Year 1431

I meant to post these a few weeks ago. Thanks to Singing Bear and my pal Fuzzbuddy (whom I met via the Maybe Logic Academy) for sending me these docu clips.

The Albert Hoffman one is titled Hoffman's Potion and is, as you may have guessed, about LSD and the psychedelic experience in the West. You can check it out here.

The Bucky Fuller docu is actually a BBC Radio 4 programme about Bucky. Listen to it here (I'm not sure how long it will be around--so you may want to listen soon).

Enjoy!

Redundant Man Walking

2010-05-11T12:41:00.005+01:00

28 April - Year 2010 (Julian calendar)

I haven't had much time for posting, despite my resolution to do so more this year. There hasn't been much going on..well, except one thing. I don't usually discuss my job here, as you never know who's going to read my musings. I suppose I can this time, however.

As of the past couple of weeks, my job is officially "at risk of redundancy"--so I've been notified. The company I work for (not to be named) did the same thing last year, but I made it through the minefield. I wasn't so lucky this time around. I suppose it's to be expected, what with a lot of places "off-shoring" and "out-sourcing". There was a sort-of 'scoring' system for all the drones..and I was marked at the low end. Was there favouritism and deliberate manipulation of the scores involved? I strongly suspect it. I was offered a small period of time to challenge the decision, but, to be honest, I couldn't be bothered. I welcome the change.

I've been where I am for nearly four years...the longest I've stayed at one job. My previous record is 3-1/2 years, at an architecture firm in Conn., right before I moved to the UK. I've no idea why I stayed there so long - probably the money and the fact I could go on-line a lot and chat with friends at the Flaming Lips site.

It feels a bit weird, though. Every other time I've been made redundant (or 'laid off', as us Yanks would say)--I've had a week's notice...a couple of times it was the same day. I've got another 3-1/2 months to go before I'm pitched outta here. During that time, I'm supposed to remain committed to my job. That's a challenge for me, resisting the temptation to super-slack and let things slide a lot. I suppose I need to keep up appearances for the time being, as I'm only at risk, so I can still be sacked. They've still got me yoked for the moment. It's strange, too, getting the sympathetic looks and hushed-tone condolences--but not leaving yet. Definitely all new to me.

Ah well....time to start really perusing the job ads and sites. If I time it right, I get my pay-out and a new gig. See you at the interview room.

Springtime Update

2010-04-28T11:55:00.006+01:00

8 Vaisakha - Year 1932

Hey now! The end of April is here. Sorry I haven't posted much - I've been creating a podcast episode, tidying up the house (with the goodwyf) and celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary. I know, I couldn't fathom it either.

You can listen to the new podcast episode here. No theme again - just a collection of freeky tunes to swirl around in your mind. Next month marks the 2nd anniversary of the debut episode of the 'Stroboscope. I'm making it an all-request one. If you're on Facebook, you can submit a request there...or add one in the comments section here. I will try to add as many in the show as I can.

'Election Fever' seems to be everywhere at the moment. It was nice to see Nick Clegg trounce Posh-boy Cameron and dour Brown in the (U.S. stylee, natch) debates, but unfortunately, I don't really see the Lib Dems seizing power from the 'two-party-that's-actually-a single-party' stranglehold. Which probably means that the dreaded Tories may win. To me, it doesn't really matter--as some clever critter said once: "No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in." Amen. Still, if I were allowed to vote, it'd be for The Monster Raving Loony Party, seeing as there's probably no UK equivalent to the Guns And Dope Party. Pragmatically speaking, I suppose I'd vote Lib Dem or Greens. We'll all have to wait and see what happens next week.

The goodwyf and I travelled to Bournemouth over the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. We stayed at the same hotel we'd booked into last year. The weather was excellent--sunny skies and a bit of a breeze. We walked along West Cliff beach, had lunch at Subway and then went for a swim, suana, steam & jacuzzi at the hotel's indoor pool. Dinner was at the local Wagamama, where they serve some delicious food. The next day we got the ferry from Poole to Brownsea Island, most famous for being the starting point for the Boy Scouts, founded by Robert Baden-Powell. I really enjoyed walking around the island. It seemed very peaceful and relaxing--no plane noise and no traffic noise either. We even saw a couple of red squirrels (the island is a sanctuary for them, as they are endangered now).

After we arrived back in Poole, we had a bit of time before heading back home. I scoured a few charity shops for vinyl, but no luck. Right at the end of the high street, I saw a sign for a used record shop. Jackpot! The shop is tiny, but has a decent, though small, LP section. I picked up a pretty good copy of Gryphon's Raindance and a really beat-up (jacket-wise) copy of Focus's Hamburger Concerto. I was tempted by a copy of The Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request (with 3-D cover!)--but I couldn't afford the £40 asking price. Ah well, another time.

UPDATE: Oop..seems as if Gordon Brown's in trouble again over calling an old woman a 'bigot'. I've watched the footage and while she doesn't come across as a raging BNP supporter--her comment about "all these Eastern Europeans" does seem a bit bigoted to me. I'm not a big supporter of Brown or Labour, but I dunno..it seems like he made a pretty good call on that one.

R.A.W. on Cybernetics

2010-04-08T12:34:00.010+01:00

8 Phoebus - Year 89 p.s.U.

Steve 'Fly Agaric' Pratt, whom I met through the Maybe Logic Academy a few years ago, posted this article at Facebook this week. It was written by Robert Anton Wilson for The Realist magazine in 1966. As is my own view on Bob's stuff, this 'is' brilliant as always. Sadly, and I suspect Bob would mostly agree, the principles outlined in the article 'are' still relevant today. I suspect when he wrote it in '66, Bob thought the cybernetic utopia would have unfolded by now. I hope the scenario doesn't end in a Rand or Goldwater way, but things do seem to be heading in that direction at the moment. I'd like to think that sometime, everyone will be a "Person Who Matters". You can check more of Bob's writing here.

THE CYBERNETIC REVOLUTION by Robert Anton Wilson - published in 'The Realist' (1966)

Paul Revere 1976: two hundred years after the original, will be a guy galloping through every middlesex, village and farm, yelling: "Grab your guns, boys, the machines is a-coming!"The Triple Revolution Manifesto got a great deal of gassy publicity a few years ago. There is no need to reiterate the obvious here. The reader has already heard of translating machines, song-writing machines, chess-playing machines and totally automated factories.The labor dispute that almost put New York's newspapers out of business last year was provoked by fear of automation, and the same fear has inspired most of the recent waterfront troubles.The Negro riots of summer 1964 are attributed, by some sociologists, to the accelerating unemployment rate of urban Negroes. One statistic suggests the whole picture: in 1963 there were exactly 500,000 – one half a million – less mine workers employed than in 1945, and in 1964 there were again 125,000 less than in 1963.

At The Realist's expense I attended the 3-day Conference on the Cybercultural Revolution held at the Hotel Americana in New York. The panelists were all well qualified engineers, managers, sociologists, etc. – Ph.D.'s were as thick in the crowd as sailors in the balcony of a 42nd Street tit movie-and they all seemed in basic agreement with the Triple Revolution Manifesto's projection of massive unemployment directly ahead of us: massive unemployment utterly unlike the Depression of the '30s, because there will be no "cure" for it. It will be permanent. And it is not merely the "proletariat" who are threatened. I, for one, came out of the conference seriously wondering how soon Paul Krassner was going to replace me with a Bad-Joke-and-Radical-Propaganda machine. Among the many possibilities seriously discussed by the conferences - this is straight reporting, not a Realist satire, was a gizmo called the "Friend-o-Mat", with a voice programmed to sound human and mellow, which would dispense Freudian, Adlerian, Jungian or any other kind of therapy to several patients at a time. All that remains is the deathless dream of an immortal limerick:

There was a young man from Racine/who built a screwing machine

Concave and convex

It would suit either sex

And jacked itself off in between.

But even that machine is probably possible, with the new mathematics and sophisticated hardware of cybernetics. Cybernetics is, basically; an exquisitely subtle mathematical theory describing self-organizing and self-regulating systems "biological or mechanical".The theory is applicable to any form of self-correcting behavior, in the electro-colloidal system known as an animal, and shows how to duplicate that behavior in an electronic-metallic system known as a machine.The irony of the cybercultural revolution is that this state of affairs is what we have always dreamed of. "Machinery is the moral substitute for slavery", somebody wrote a long time ago; we have always thought that super-machinery would mean man's liberation from toil and the freeing of his energies for "higher" artistic or scientific activities. Now that the super-machinery is at our door, we begin to realize that it might bring, not liberation, but stagnation or starvation. The latter alternative is, indeed, the ultimate implication of cybernetics, if we return to the philosophy of classical capitalism as espoused by Barry Goldwater or Ayn Rand.

Capitalism has inherited from Feudalism – and from the earlier theocracies, slave, states and sultanates – a certain idea which is completely incompatible with cybernetic technology. I will try to state that idea as baldly as possible. This is it: The human race is divided into two groups – the People Who Matter and the People Who Don't Matter.The PWM are those who own the planet earth. Their ownership is a "legal fact," although not an existential fact, and is demonstrated by land-titles, franchises, bank charters, stocks, bonds or other documents, certified by the king or the congress, indicating the exact dimensions of their share of ownership. The PWM have an absolute right to exist, symbolized by these documents and guaranteed by the State.The PWDM, on the other hand, do not own any part of the earth, and, therefore, do not have any absolute right to exist. They may obtain a relative right to exist, however, by finding (or being found by) masters among the PWM who will employ them to toil, and compensate them by food and lodging, under slavery, or by wages, under capitalism. Note that it is the State which decides who are the PWM and who are the PWDM.

Under Feudalism, and earlier systems, the PWM consisted only of the relatives of the king, and, since production was mainly agricultural, the principle form of ownership of the planet was through land-titles. Thus, the "nobility" became lords-of-the-land, landlords, and levied a tax upon those who actually worked the land, the tax being known as "rent."The franchises, bank charters, stocks, etc., owned by the modern nobility are the same type of tax placed upon the productive process; capital interest 'is' the "rent" of capital. A man born into the PWM has his right to exist guaranteed by the State due to his inheritance of these certificates of ownership. A man born into the PWDM, on the other hand, has no accepted worth in and of himself and obtains the right to exist only when a PWM will employ him.This age-old class division is the idea mentioned above which is completely incompatible with cybernetics, and I trust that I have stated it baldly enough. Before Cybernation, the authoritarian structure had at least one slight protection built into it for the PWDM, which is that they are needed: the PWM cannot survive without the millions of PWDM grubbing and toiling away to produce the commodities of the nation. For this reason, the PWM have never allowed all of the PWDM to starve completely.This is exactly where the nightmare of cybercultural revolution begins, for, in a cybernated age, the PWDM are no longer necessary. The PWM could let them all starve and be served forever after by machines. The fellow who called machinery "the moral alternative to slavery" never thought of this.

And among the PWDM are a class whom the participants at the Cybercultural Conference jocularly called "the noodles." The noodles think of themselves as being among the PWM, but by our definition, since they do not own any inherited franchises or charters of ownership over the planet, they are actually among the PWDM. . .the noodles, you see, are the non-technical managerial and administrative groups. (The technical managers and administrators, although also – by our definition – PWDM, cannot be allowed to starve by the PWM). What will happen to the noodles, briefly, is that they will be in exactly the same leaky boat as the "gooks," "niggers," "errand boys" and other proletarians. Although their higher salaries have allowed them to rub elbows and socialize (somewhat) with the PWM – and although they have, because of this, built up the delusion that they are among the PWM – the noodles will soon have their noses rubbed vigorously in the messy fact that they are, and always have been, PWDM. (It couldn't happen to nicer guys, could it?)

But we are exaggerating (I hope). Our PWM aren't like the kings and sultans of olde. During the last great depression, without having to shoot or exile any of them, Roosevelt managed to get them to cough up may be $1 out of every million to go into a government dole, to keep them PWDM from starving.*And Lyndon Johnson has read the Triple Revolution manifesto, or at least had one of his secretaries write to the Triple Revolution Committee and tell them that he had read it. So, let's all relax, fellows; we can be sure that as cybernetic unemployment spreads, the dole will gradually expand to make up the difference, and nobody really will starve. It seems to be this elevated level of utopian optimism that the Triple Revolution Committee would peddle to us. The picture I get is a 4-decker society in which:

(a) The PWM retain their ownership of the planet through their land-titles, franchises, stocks, bonds, etc., and continue to rake off interest, or usury, on every productive process, while:

(b) A technological elite actually runs things, and:

(c) The governing class, at gun-point – all taxes are collected at gun-point, let's keep our eye on the ball here and not forget an unpleasant truth even if it is people like Goldwater who nowadays remind us of this particular truth – holds up the PWM and the technological elite to collect just enough from them to distribute a permanent dole to:

(d) Millions of bored and unemployed ex-workers and ex-noodles (who, presumably, will have lots of movies and TV to fill the long hours when they are too tired to fornicate any more).

By and large, the best brains of the Cybercultural Conference seemed to go along with this Triple Revolution formula, although I can't imagine why. To me, it sounds like hell on earth. The best thing that can be said for it is that it is better than sticking to the old PWM mystique in the pure form of feudalism and classical capitalism.The Triple Revolution formula is something that could arise only in America. It is a pure product of our national muddle-headedness and our refusal, ever, to ask fundamental questions and re-think fundamental assumptions. Capitalism is under suspicion all over the world, except here. Here it is not an economic system but a revealed religion. Questioning it is a sign of eccentricity, if not depravity.The Triple Revolution is not a revolution at all, being neither original nor radical (most of its ideas were long ago hashed out in the Social Credit and Technocracy movements).**

The whole Triple Revolution is nothing more than Hopalong FDR Rides Again – Capitalism plus the dole, period. The irony of the Triple Revolution program is that it is based on ignoring the fundamental principle of cybernetics itself. The Triple Revolution program is an adaptation of cybernetics to our local (capitalist) authoritarianism (just as the ultimate Soviet program for cybernetics will be an adaptation to their own Statist authoritarianism). But cybernetics itself is profoundly anti-authoritarian, and if we merely followed the logic of cybernetics to its ultimate conclusion we would easily find the solution to the problems created by cybernetics. All of these problems, it will turn out, are the result of not following cybernetics logically; they are the result of trying to dilute cybernetics with the logic of earlier systems. Consider for a moment, not the hardware, but the essence of cybernetics. Cybernetics is a mathematical theory describing self-regulating' or self-organizing systems. The general theory 'is' applicable to mechanical, biological and social systems.The material of the system doesn't matter – you can be dealing with transistors and electric circuits; or with the nervous system of a cat or a man, or with a herd of cows or a tribe or nation of men – what makes a system cybernetic, or non-cybernetic, is the structure of the materials. If the structure allows for feedback from the environment and alteration of behavior in accordance with the feedback, you have a cybernetic system.

The essence of cybernetics is just that: an information flow that allows for self-correction.'This information flow is only possible where there is a structure to transmit and receive the information. It is perhaps necessary to point out that "structure" and "information" are very high order abstractions in cybernetic theory. The governor of a generator will illustrate this. The first generators had a nasty habit of accelerating until they tore themselves apart (no feedback). The governor was then invented. This is a pair of balls on a pair of flexible arms, attached to opposite sides of the generator. When the speed exceeds a certain point, the balls are thrown out by centrifugal force, creating a drag in the air. This slows the rotary velocity, until the balls fall back into place, the drag ends, and the machine starts accelerating again. In this way, the speed is kept oscillating in the vicinity of a safe point where the generator will not tear itself apart. A thermostat controls a furnace in the same way. The balls of the governor, as much as the temperature-reading of the thermostat, are said to feed back "information" in cybernetic terminology. They "inform" the generator about its speed, just as the thermostat "informs" the furnace about the amount of heat it is generating. There is an old Navy tradition that the steersman always repeats an order to the captain before executing it. If the captain says, "Sixty knots," and the steersman replies, “Fifty knots, sir," it is obvious that he has mis-heard and the captain can correct him. This is another example of a feedback, or self-correcting, system.

Feedback can be very "smooth" and continuous. When I reach for a bottle of water, the eye feeds back to the brain information about how far my hand has moved, and how far it still must move, and the feedback occurs continuously, every micro-second, until I reach the bottle. If it is a bottle of bourbon I am reaching for, and I have already reached for more than I should have, the feedbacks in my nervous' system work less "smoothly," more "jerkily," and I may even land on my nose in the middle of the floor. The first cybernetic anti-aircraft guns had just that jerky kind of motion. There is also a condition of too much feedback. In human beings, this takes on the form of the Hamlet kind of neurosis – self-checking carried to the point of indecision, and paralysis. This also has its mechanical analogy. An early model cybernetic anti-aircraft gun was built with so much feedback that it kept correcting its direction of fire and never did fire. A mechanical system is said to have "redundance of control" when it has optimum feedback – not too much and not too little. In redundance of control, every part of the system feeds back information to every other part, and the system as a whole is self-regulating. An automated factory works on this principle.

Democracy, from the point of view of cybernetics, is an attempt to introduce redundance of control to the social organism. Note that every step forward in democracy – limited suffrage, universal suffrage, the referendum, the recall, division' of powers, etc. – has increased the feedback in the system. It can be argued that democracy as we know it does not yet contain optimum feedback, but for the moment we will accept the democratic State as a model of sufficient feedback and self-correction. Let us, from this perspective, contemplate for a moment the "economic States" which divide the control of this country with the political State – let us, that is, contemplate the Corporations. How much feedback do they possess?A long time ago, I decided that the corporations possess very little feedback and are, from a cybernetic point of view, unstable and primitive systems. At that time, I made myself a bet: nobody employed by a university, I bet myself, would ever announce this discovery in public, although it is a very simple application of cybernetic principles.To my astonishment, on the second day of the Cybercultural Conference, Professor William Perk of the University of Southern Illinois, criticized the corporations on exactly these grounds, pointing out in detail how the basic feedbacks of the democratic State are completely lacking in the modern corporation. Professor Perk went further and remarked that the citizen, spending most of his life as the servant of an authoritarian corporation, is conditioned to submission and obedience and is gradually made psychologically incapable of participating fully in the freedom of the democratic State.

An anecdote, once told to me by Tobey McCarroll of the Humanists is very apropos here. Mr. McCarroll, as a lawyer, was representing some Indians in their perennial fight against the Grand Land Thief, or the U.S. Government as we prefer to call it. While he was conferring with the chiefs of the tribe, an archeologist appeared and requested permission to dig for relics in certain mounds, which he believed were graves. The chiefs soberly gave permission, although they knew that the mounds were actually cesspools. The savant dug his way down into the dung, without a single Indian speaking up to warn him. The folklore of all repressed peoples is full of such crude jokes. The Indians, like all repressed groups, had long been forced to realize that they are not information-channels or feedback-channels in the major society. What they see, hear, smell, deduce, know or suppose is of no interest to the control centers of the society. Having this realization beaten into them for several centuries, they are not about to start volunteering information now. (The legendary poker-facedness of both Indians and Negroes, in the old days, frequently was a mask for this type of hostility, but always expressed in a context of doing what the master class demanded: communicating). Every authoritarian society creates this type of voluntary "stupidity." The employee of every corporation practices it most of the time, although not as much as the Indians. Any system lacking feedback encourages this species of sabotage.(The Italian anarchist labor unions once tied up the railroads, not by striking; but merely by obeying all the laws on the books. Because there had never been enough feedback, the law-makers had never discovered how absurd and impractical most of their laws were – until the workers started obeying them).

The PWDM are always in the position of non-feedback senders to the PWM. This is the very definition of an authoritarian society. The PWM make the decisions, and the PWDM merely obey them. Any cybernetics engineer knows that no mechanical system can imitate human intelligence if it has this non-feedback structure. Only the fact that capitalism has become a revealed religion keeps people from realizing the simple truth enunciated by Professor Perk: the Corporations, lacking feedback, lack human intelligence. As a whole, every Corporation behaves ten times more stupidly than any particular member of it. Cynics have puzzled for a long time to explain the "hydrostatic principle of organization," as Oliver Wendell Holmes called it; that is: the principle by which an organization, like water seeking its own level, sinks to the intelligence level of its stupidest member. This is that principle in a nut-shell. It is not a law of organizations at all, but just a law of organizations without feedback. And this is why America is a schizophrenic and uncomfortable civilization. The political unit is, at least partly, democratic; the economic unit – the Corporation – is more authoritarian and centralized than any sultanate of old. The citizen is told to be an individual, to be responsible, to think globally, to participate in the world's activity - and, once in four years, he gets a chance to make a mark on a piece of paper.The rest of the time, he lives as a medieval serf, within an organization that is exquisitely totalitarian.

And these "private States," make no mistake about it, dominate not only the time of the citizen, but all of the other dimensions of "his" life as well, much more than the public State does. The owners of the corporations, under capitalism, are the PWM, just as the owners of the land were, under feudalism. You might almost say, from the point of view of this kind of radical cybernetics, that capitalism is the continuation of feudalism by other means. I think that the tendency of this argument should be obvious to the reader by now. Either the PWM and their Corporations have a true title by ownership of the planet, or they do not. If they do, Ayn Rand is right and the State has no justification for coming along with a gun and robbing them to feed the PWDM. If, on the other hand, the whole PWM mystique is just the modern form of "the divine right of kings," if it has no basis in justice, then it is time we had as much balls as our ancestors had when they hauled Charlie Stuart I up before the court and stripped him of his powers. It is time, in short; that the corporation go the way of the monarchy, and be replaced by democratic self-regulating institutions; institutions that would belong, not to a few of the people, but to all of the people. If the people really do own the planet, then there need be no State dole: they will merely receive dividends from their joint-stock companies which will run their machinery for them, and they will have to take on the responsibility of making the decisions for these companies.

If the people are too stupid to run their own companies, then, by God, the old authoritarian system is justified, and the earth does belong to a minority. In that case, I see no reason why the talented minority should be robbed to feed the incompetent. This, really, is the choice that cybernetics sets before us: do we believe in man, or do we believe in an elite of super-men? The Triple Revolution is merely another American muddle, a refusal to face the issues, and an attempt to have one foot in each boat, while the boats are obviously going in opposite directions. Far be it from me to condemn stupidity utterly. It's been around so long that I'm sure it must have some use. It does appear, though, that in facing the particular challenge of cybernetics, intelligence may be of more use than stupidity. In that case, we will have to define the issues crisply and make a definitive choice. Either we can trust the people, or we must trust an elite. It would be melodramatic, corny and inaccurate to state this choice as Socialism or Fascism, because most forms of socialism 'are' fascism. Whatever you want to call it, however, the choice remains. God knows, I wouldn't attempt to influence such a conglomeration of heretics as the Realist readership, on how this choice should be decided. The choice is probably out of our hands, anyway; the corporations own 98% of the wealth. I'll see you on the unemployment line. . . .

* Corporation taxes are higher than that, of course – as conservative readers will quickly write to tell me. Very true, but I still remain dubious about how much of corporation taxes goes into the various doles and how much goes into warfare and cold warfare to protect the corporations from rebellion on the part of their foreign serfs.

** And Ezra Pound went to the jail and the bughouse for insisting on precisely these ideas over Rome Radio, 20 or so years ago. Remember?

10 Years In The Blogosphere

2010-03-30T12:33:00.008+01:00

10 Hamal - Year 1389

That's right - I've been blogging for 10 years now, pretty much non-stop. Back in 2000, I had never heard of 'blogs'. A few of my old high school friends that I had kept in touch with throughout the 1990s were more clued-in to cyber-stuff than I was. They started up a weblog where we could stay in touch and post about topics that interested ourselves. They invited me to join in January or February, but I wasn't sure about the blogging thing and delayed for a little while. I finally joined up in March 2000--mainly just commenting on what the others had posted.

The page they created was called Triptych Cryptic and it's still going, albeit with only C-Dog and Bone Daddy at the helm. I think there were seven of us posting there at T.C.'s peak. I really enjoyed being there for a while--it was our own little corner of t'internet. Most of us started up our own solo blogs as well. It was C-Dog who encouraged me to 'start a blog about prog-rock'..and so, in September 2000, with his help, I came up with 21st Century Schizoid Man, dedicated to all things music and most things prog-rock. C-Dog and I scanned in some great album covers and he pasted them together to make a groovy backdrop. He also put together a great banner and added both into the blog template. It looked brill, until he was moving and packed up his PC. I didn't have a copy of the jpegs and they disappeared. I joked for a while that it was the big, bad record companies keeping a striving prog-geek under their collective thumb, but no, it was much more mundane than that.

I kept "Schizoid Man" going for four years, while also posting at "Triptych..". When I moved to England in 2004--I found I had less time to post and to be honest, I was starting to grow a bit tired of "Schizoid Man"s format, even though I had changed the template a couple of times. Over at T.C., there were some personality clashes, which seem inevitable in any group effort (bands, casts of films and plays, etc.) and it soured the mood a bit. I decided to stop "Schizoid Man" in May 2004 and I left the T.C. fold shortly after. I whittled down the "Schizoid Man" posts to roughly 50 and let it float around in the aether. You can still find it, if you're looking for it. Not to be confused with a newer blog by another 'Merican ex-pat, who seems to be of a conservative, right-wing slant and enjoys writing screeds about Obama's health-care plan. I suppose Crimso fans appear in all stripes. Hey-ho. I also changed my nom d'internet from "Mo" (short for 'Molasses', my T.C. nick-name) to Sly Stoner, an hommage to psychedelic soul genius Sylvester "Sly Stone" Stewart...and also 'cos Bone Daddy said I had a sly sense of humour.

I thought about stopping blogging altogether, but I still liked the idea of a group blog. With that in mind, I invited Pixie, my mate Singing Bear and a few others I met during my time at the Flaming Lips BBS. Only Pixie and Bear signed on for definite and Pond Of Tunes was born! I initially wanted to name it Ocean Of Sound, after David Toop's book about ambient music, but I found another blog had already used that title. P.O.T. lasted for about two years and it was a lot of fun--the highlight being our spamming a spam-bot called 'Vicky', who kept leaving irritating comments about real estate. We found her site and counter-spammed. That was hilarious...she even started up an 'anti-Pond of Tunes' blog. The ultimate flattery. Our collective interest began to wane and I ended up deleting P.O.T. early in 2006, while Bear started up his own blog.

Once again, I thought about packing it in, but I thought I'd have another go at a group blog and so "Blog Is Not.." was created, with Pixie supplying the excellent title (referencing Andy Votel's Folk Is Not A Four-Letter Word collection), as well as my new-new handle, The Purple Gooroo. Bear was back on board and I invited my brother, the illustrious Aloicious P. McGinnis, who then joined up and has yet to post. I think of him as a 'silent partner'. We started up in June 2006 and we're still here....well, with a few changes. Bear decided to strike out on his own pretty much permanently in 2008 and he's had a series of blogs, the latest being the great Grown Up Backwards. This blog has essentially become a one-critter operation..so in ten years I've sorta come full circle. I reckon I'll continue for another two years, 'till 2012, then call it a day...as I've got the podcast to do. Facebook and Twitter eat up a lot of my time now as well. One never knows, though--I may change my mind and keep on bloggin'.

Acid Spooks En Francais

2010-03-19T12:43:00.007Z

3 Rabi`ath-Thani - Year 1431

I saw this story linked to at Facebook the other day. It's being reported by several newspapers, most notably by the Torygraph...er, I mean Telegraph, in the UK. Back in 1951, the residents of a French village started going really loopy. A few critters died and some were confined to institutions. The big mystery over the years has been why the folks of Pont-Saint-Esprit suddenly experienced nightmarish hallucinations and began to behave in highly 'unorthodox' ways.

It was initially thought that the local baker had unwittingly baked some ergot-infected wheat into bread, which was consumed by the locals. The villagers would then have been victims of ergot poisoning, or St. Anthony's Fire--a very not-pleasant combination of hallucinations and convulsions. In extreme cases, gangrene in the limbs develops and death can occur.

New evidence has allegedly come to light now, whereby it's being claimed that there's documentation to show that CIA agents, working in conjunction with some scientists at the Sandoz Laboratories (where LSD was first synthesized), conspired with a few French 'plants' to essentially dose the population with LSD and observe the results. What swell critters, eh?

It definitely seems plausible, given the agency's track record with other experiments of a similar nature. What amazes me is how long it took for the original files to be made public. I suppose it shows a sliver of progress that the Iran-Contra affair was exposed after only a few years of being in operation. Same old CIA. Robert Anton Wilson once quipped that if the gubberment were really fighting a 'war on terror', they would carpet-bomb Langley, Virginia. But of course, like the 'Drug War', it's only a war on some terrorists (mostly brown ones, with funny names, who don't worship the X-tian 'God').

Now, if I lived in a paranoid reality-tunnel most of the time - I'd ask why the Pont-Saint-Esprit story is surfacing now. I'd think that maybe it's another scare-story about psychedelics, to try and put the kibosh on any legitimate research. The Beckley Foundation is starting a research project on LSD and I suspect that M.A.P.S. will be soon, too. Ah well, hopefully humans have learned more and got a bit smarter since psychedelics were demonised by the mainstream press in the 1960s. I say hopefully....

Here's a great little film showing LSD experiments with British soldiers in the early 1960s:

R.I.P. Mark Linkous

2010-03-08T18:24:00.002Z

Jour du Octid 8 - Mois du Ventose - Annee de la Republique 218

Save 6Music!

2010-03-05T12:33:00.005Z

14 Esfand - Year 1388

The BBC's director general Mark Thompson has announced cuts to the programming line-up, mainly that 6Music and the Asian Network will be axed and cease broadcasting by the end of 2011. I had got used to some decent stuff being on the radio, especially Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone--the only show I listen to regularly. There's other good stuff, too. Marc Riley, former Fall guitarist and part of the awesome Mark and Lard duo, has his own show, as do Adam and Joe, the two guys who created the hilarious 90s comedy telly programme.

Sure, there's other stuff that's not so great - I rarely listen to Lauren Laverne's programme, or Dave Pearce's Dance Anthems show (which is on right after the 'Freak Zone'). Shaun Keaveny's morning spot can be funny at times, but I don't listen to him much either. Despite that, though - at least it's an attempt to spotlight some non-mainstream stuff from a major corporation. If 6Music does go under, I suspect the 'Freak Zone' or Marc Riley won't be transferred to BBC2 or any of the other remaining stations.

There's already been a massive backlash and plenty of grass-roots protests, including a Facebook group and lots of articles and 'sleb' input. David Bowie and Charlie Brooker have both issued statements criticising the proposed cuts. I signed a petition which will be sent to the BBC Trust and to Thompson. Sign it if you can - or find another website with a petition. Pixie found one and posted her view. She was rankled by the BBC referring to 6Music as a 'pop station'. Heh heh.

I hope the Beeb reverses it's decision and keeps 6Music going..or failing that, someone else snaps it up to keep it alive. Please don't leave us with Radio 1 and 2. Chris Evans seems just alright to me, but he does my head in after a while. Don't even get me started on Chris Moyles...

New Kaleidophonic Stroboscope episode!

2010-03-01T12:36:00.004Z

10 Phalguna - Year 1931

I completed the latest K.S. show about two weeks ago. It's been live for over a week now - so go check it out, if you haven't already. It's my tribute to the cold season, which will be fading away soon. You can listen to the episode here.

Oh yeah, The 'Stroboscope also got a mention in the newest Shindig! magazine!! Thanks to my mates over at Sonic Tonic, who were interviewed by Richard Jones about S.T. in a sidebar column. Thorax The Thurd and Silent Monkey named the K.S. as an influence. How cool is that? Cheers, lads!

If you haven't caught any of the 'Sonic Tonic' episodes yet - seriously, get over there and have a listen. Those guys mix the choons up like nobody's business and their banter is far more entertaining than mine. Another great podcast mentioned in the same article is Harold's Attic Radio, which I've linked to at the Stroboscope's page. The latest 'Harold's.." has a fine selection of soul, soundtrack stuff, rock & dance. Those boys have a top-notch collection at their disposal.

That should keep you busy for a little while - and go buy a copy of "Shindig!", too!

John Lennon - Spinning In Grave

2010-02-22T12:40:00.005Z

8 Adar - Year 5770

I don't know how many of you have seen this. Pixie and I were watching TV the other night. Well, she was watching, I was reading Vico's "The New Science". Suddenly, this is shown:

Yes, that's a film of John Lennon (it looks like it was filmed in 1968, around the time of the White Album sessions). No, it's not actually him speaking, but a Scouser impressionist. This seems to be so cringingly bad on so many levels to me, that it nearly hurts. Firstly, even if Lennon (hypothetically) would have those 'anti-retro' views, I strongly suspect he wouldn't have used them to sell cars. Personally, I suspect he would've enjoyed new bands using elements of 60s and 70s music in their own creations. But I don't know that, and neither do the ad-makers know if he would say "Do your own thing." Secondly, why didn't they just get an actor who looks like Lennon did in 1979, instead of using a clip from '68--it just makes the spoken-word part seem even more incongruous. Lennon may have been ahead of his time, but admonishing critters for 'being nostalgic for the 60s and 70s' in a film from 1968 just looks stupid. Not that most advertisers 'are' the sharpest knives in the drawer, mind.

Yep, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for counter-culture icons being used to sell crap...this happens. I still can't get over Led Zeppelin's Rock And Roll used in a Range Rover ad, as was The Who's Baba O'Riley. Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze was used in a Pepsi ad...and I suspect that Janis Joplin's Piece Of My Heart has been used in an ad at some point. I also remember the 80s, when Budweiser sponsored tours by Eric Clapton and Genesis, among others. The early 1990s Nick Drake Volkswagen ad made me uneasy, too. I recall supporters of the ad saying "Nick would've liked it - he wanted to get his music out to as many people as possible." Really? In 1972, when he recorded Pink Moon, Nick Drake was so depressed, he could barely talk. I strongly suspect he wasn't concerned with selling cars through a commercial.

There was considerable outrage when Nike tried using The Fabs' Revolution in a commercial in 1988. It'll be interesting to see if the Citroen one gets the same reaction, or if using classic rock songs to push products has become so commonplace that no-one even notices. If Johnny Rotten can appear in butter ads and Iggy Pop is hawking car insurance, I suppose doctoring a clip of Lennon to sell cars 'is' just everyday stuff now.

Pop Video Observations

2010-02-10T12:41:00.009Z

Sweetmorn, Chaos 41, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3176

So I've been going to the gym since November (shock, horror!). I know, I know - it's only once a week, though. I'm still practising yoga three times a week. The gym we go to (yep, Pixie's going as well) is in the local sports centre. All around the upper walls are a bunch of TeeVees. Some show Sky News or one of the BBC stations. A few of them are tuned to videos of the latest pop hits, on channels like Viva TV or E4.

Now, given the fast-buck, sleb-creating style of many of the tunes--you'd expect the videos would be roughly the same. You'd be correct. I suppose I finally am getting old, but viewing some of this stuff seems like a train-wreck to me. I probably could avoid watching them, but I can't help it..they're so bad, they're..well, not good, but curious. I'm not intending this as a sort-of "back in my day.." spiel...as anyone who watched a lot of phlegM-TeeVee in the early 80s will attest to the volume of sheer crap that was broadcast. Still, most of the UK 'Top-Twenty' clips that I've watched lately seem to have been directed by the same team of fashion-school drop-outs. There's certain elements present in them: 1) The band or singer is in a large room, either brightly lit or dimly lit 2) The 'outrageous' costuming, meant to seem futuristic or S&M (I can't decide) 3) Lots and lots of slow motion 4) Katy Perry is 'featured'

Here's one - it's for Alexandra Burke's 'girl-power' anthem, Broken Heels:

Can someone tell me why they're posing as an American football team (as Burke is a British singer)? I mean, the whole gist of the lyrics seem to be about how girls can do anything boys can--but no joke, I think if Alex and her dancers were to play those dudes in football, there'd be a lot of stretchers involved. You're saying "But P.G., you're taking this way too seriously." That may be - but these videos puzzle me. I'm only trying to get some answers.

Here's another one - by the not-so-cleverly monikered 3Oh!3. The tune is called Starstrukk (yes, they're actually spelling it that way):

I couldn't embed the video - so you have to click here.

Notice the ubiqitous slow-motion and hey look, it's Katy Perry! I'm not sure why it's become de rigeur to have her in one's video--she had one crappy hit about three years ago (the faux-raunchy I Kissed A Girl--which shares a title with Jill Sobule's (admittedly coy) much more subtle 90s tune) and suddenly, she's friggin' everywhere. I'm not sure why the various ladies are charging at the two twats in the band--at first, I thought it was to hit them for crimes against music.

Lady GaGa, another culprit, 'gives' us her latest opus, Bad Romance:

I admit I have no fucking clue what is happening in that video. What are the white, spike-topped PVC costumes about? Same with the dudes sitting around in a circle with bits of Roman centurion helmets attached to their faces. It's like a 12-step meeting out of Blade Runner. It's got the large room and the bright lighting covered--the goofy clothes, too. Shame Katy didn't show up--they would've had everything in there. I don't know what the video has to do with bad romance, but there you go.

Here's Cheryl Cole, the Geordie one out of Girls Aloud. I think she's stolen a pair of MC Hammer's pyjamas and a Canadian border-guard uniform. Are the blood-red ink splatters supposed to be 'edgy', or a sly hommage to Ralph Steadman? I'm lost with this video as well. At least it's set in a big room with bright lighting--still no Katy Perry...I may have to re-think that part of my hypothesis.

Here's the video - I couldn't embed this one either.

And finally - it's Rihanna, with Hard:

I sorta get that she's equating being hard (which is 'tough' in UK slang) with soldiers and guns, but what's with the black spikey suit? Did a Marvel superhero have a garage sale? I dunno, I suppose this video will appeal to armchair generals, chickenhawks and Guns And Ammo enthusiasts. This one's set outside - so it does blow my "large room" theory a bit. It does have the outrageous clothes and some slow-mo, too, so I'm not way-off in my assessment.

Try to watch these without sound, as the tunes seem fairly crap to me. The Cheryl Cole one's kinda catchy, so be warned, it will get stuck in your head. You'll then have to spend the next few days listening to the Butthole Surfers or early Black Sabbath to erase your brain. As I say, I think I'm finally getting old.

Oh Noes!

2010-02-04T12:27:00.005Z

19 Safar - Year 1431

If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie can't keep it together, what hope do the rest of us mere mortals have???!!???!!

(paraphrased off of a quote by Janeane Garofalo, from one of her comedy shows I watched on the telly ages ago)

Erasing The Borders...

2010-01-26T12:42:00.019Z

6 Magha - Year 1931 (Saka Era)

It was big news in the UK over the X-Mas shopping period last year. Borders UK, the chain of bookstores spun off of the parent corporation in the U.S., was in administration. Competition with on-line retailers, poor management and expensive high-street rents led to it's demise. A couple of weeks after the administration announcement, a further statement was issued, saying that all of the UK shops would close, following a 'shut-down' mega-sale. Now it's being revealed that Borders U.S. will be closing a further 200 stores this year. In the U.K. and the U.S., it looks as if the shopping centers and high streets just got a bit more homogenous, with just Waterstones and Blackwell (in the UK) to choose from (if you get a choice, as Blackwell don't have that many shops).

It strikes me as a bit sad, as Borders (at least in the beginning) tried to be a sort-of 'mom and pop' chain (I know, an oxymoronic assertion). I had never heard of Borders Books & Music before a store opened in Manchester, Conn. in 1994. I did apply to be part of the original crew, when the store was setting up, but I didn't make the cut (I can't imagine how many applications they had, but I suspect it was a lot). I started shopping there regularly, as their CD selection back then seemed truly astounding. There was an 'Out-To-Lunch' section with stuff from Art Zoyd, The Residents, Lard Free and tons of other bands I'd never heard of. Now, I realise that was the work of a clued-in staff, but it's also the result of a laid-back policy in which the staff could order that music for stock. Pretty amazing, for a chain.

I finally got my chance to join up in 1996. I had an interview and an author and music test...no really, I did, for 'product knowledge'. I scored poorly on the author bit, but fairly well on the music. I was assigned to the music dept. (natch!). Disaster nearly struck, when I was offered a full-time job in an architecture firm the same week. As I have a degree in architecture and had never worked in the field, I thought I should take the firm's offer (even though it was only a courier position--gotta start somehwere..). Borders hired me for a full-time job as well..but in another cool concession on their part, agreed to keep me on as a part-timer, helping on weekends. I ended up staying for seven years--mostly part-time, but I did a full-time stretch for a year, when the aforementioned firm made me redundant in 1999. I found a job at another firm in 2000 and changed my hours back to part-time, then cut them back even more to just a contingent (for when regulars called out sick and they needed cover for the evening shift). By then, however, most of the really cool critters that I started with in '96 were long-gone and the company itself slid into corporate doldrums - even toying with the idea of employee uniforms, which I despised from my days at Strawberries and Sears in the early 90s.

I finally handed in my notice in January 2004 - a month before I moved to the UK. I discovered the Borders in Oxford in summer 2003, when visting Pixie for the first time. After the move, I thought "well, if I can't find a job - I could try there." That's pretty much what happened. I temped for a short while and (in a bit of desperation after walking out of my temp gig at Oxfam) applied there in July 2004. I got the job, but couldn't start until September. I stayed for a year, until a 'disagreement' between myself and the general manager forced me to leave in October 2005. While the Oxford store was much more corporatized than even the Conn. store (time-keeping was especially enforced), I still worked with some great people. I continued shopping there every so often and would chat with some of the critters I knew, who were still working in the shop.

Now, as anyone who's worked in retail will know, it's not all a barrel of laughs. Dealing with John and Jane Q. Public for 40 hours per week can be a strain on the calmest, most jovial critters. Some clowns, repeating that "Customer Is Always Right" mantra, used it as a get-out clause to excuse their childish and boorish behaviour. We all had run-ins with difficult customers...I did more than a few times and it would just ruin your day. The pay was crap and Borders also wouldn't allow employees to unionize. As I've mentioned, the corporate symptoms worsened year after year, until the only difference between them and other chain shops was the decor..oh and you could still wear T-shirts and jeans to work--but even that stopped when they brought in red polo shirts for everyone to wear, in the last few years.

For all that, though, there were moments of transcendence. Sometimes, especially in the Manchester store, the whole crew would be firing on all cylinders with jokes, or making insanely great in-store CD mixes or even just getting the mundane work finshed. The shifts seemed to fly by and it made work seem like fun. I strongly suspect almost everyone's had moments like that at a job. I had as well--but at Borders, especially the first couple of years I was there, I never had so many. There was a short while when Jimmy C. and I worked the Friday night shift. We used to have a blast goofing on weird customers, putting together killer in-store mixes and crafting bizarre in-jokes. I swear, there were times when I almost couldn't wait to get there, because it was such a good time. In a sense, we were being paid to listen to music and goof around...in between the mundane stuff, of course--shelving CDs and tidying the department. I used to think "this is what work should be like". For that reason, I will miss working at Borders.

As a wrap-up, here are my Top Ten favourite moments from my time at Borders (both U.S. and UK)...the ones I can remember, anyway. In no particular order:

1. "The Nutter Status Quo Fan" (UK): The Oxford store used to get some fairly high-profile critters for in-store signings (as England is a smaller place and because Manchester, Conn. can't complete with Boston and NYC for the big names..). The Quo's book, XS All Areas, had just been published--so Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi were at the Oxford store for a book signing. Despite numerous placards stating that they would only sign copies of the book...people showed up with CDs, LPs and posters and other memorabilia. One bloke was standing in the queue mumbling to himself and acting a bit agitated. I approached him to let him know that they wouldn't be signing his VHS tape and ticket stubs--he lashed out with "You're not Quo, mate! They'll sign this--you don't know!" and some other related babble. I let the security guys know about him and he was eventually removed from the queue, as he was starting to disturb others, and ejected from the shop. He later destroyed some terra cotta plant pots outside of a restaurant down the street. I guess he really wanted that videotape signed. Oh yeah, Parfitt and Rossi signed the booklet of my copy of the Matchstick Men CD.

2. "Jimmy C. skools Matt D." (U.S.): When I first started at the Manchester store, I was pretty intimidated by the music crew. They were very knowledgeable about lots of crazy obscure music and there was lots of snobbery about. This one guy, Matt, was very into funk and soul. He was cool enough, but he was constantly going on about how prog-rock didn't groove, which I was a bit rankled by. One day, he was talking about the Ohio Players and said "Bill Bruford just can't hit a groove" and prog can't swing, etc. Jimmy goes over to the CD racks, brings back Gong's You and pops it in the disc player. He cues up You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever and lets the intro play. For those who haven't heard it, it has a real funky intro with nice interplay between the bass and drums. Jimmy then starts naming out the time signatures. "5/4"....7/4..." Matt didn't admit that he'd been schooled, but he didn't much of a come-back either, as I recall.

3. "The Righteous Moss" (UK): I made some friends at the UK store, but a few of them were real muso-pals. One of them, Mark P., is defintely a rawker...besides being a funny bloke and all-around freakball. One day, after he had grown his hair out, someone said his hair looked like a big moss. He riffed on that and came up with 'Righteous Moss'. I said that sounded like a great band name. We starting toying around with a goof band concept, where everything would be hooked up to a wah-wah pedal, even sitars and didgeridoos, kinda like Miles Davis's early 70s groups. A Welsh girl called Dominique, who also worked at Borders, volunteered to be a Stacia for the band, plus play Stylophone (hooked up to a wah-wah, natch!). Sadly, we never got it together enough to even have a jam session...but the legend of the Moss looms large.

4. "Promos!" (U.S.): O.K., this one's more of a bunch of moments than one single moment. When the Manchester store first opened, digital listening stations hadn't been perfected yet, so the stations were a carousel-tray CD player hooked up to a set of headphones. Each genre of music had roughly 10 different stations. The labels would send promo discs out to the shops for all of the featured albums every month. Once the month finished and a new bunch arrived - the crew were allowed to take them home. Man, that was brilliant. I beefed up my collection with tons of discs. Good stuff, too...not just the latest crap records that no-one would remember in two years. I got the deluxe editions of The Who's Live At Leeds and Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On, to name just a couple. I was gutted when I started in the Oxford store and found out the listening stations were digital...so no promos. Actually, I did get a promo of Richard Hawley's Coles Corner, but that was it.

5. "The Sunday Night Jam" (U.S.): I can't remember who finagled permission from the general manager, but one Sunday night, after the store had closed, some of us musos brought in our guitars and had a jam in the music section. Zack S. even hauled in his drum kit. I think there were 3 or 4 of us with guitars, 1 with a bass and Zack's kit. Most of it was a sloppy, loose jam. I remember this one guy, Cory, a neo-Dead/Phish-head, started up a three or four chord vamp. I was trying to find different chords in key with his, just to make it a bit more interesting..but he showed me what he was playing, as if to say "this is what you're supposed to be doing", which put me off his jam. Four guitars chugging the same chords in unison sounds very boring to me. I also remember trying to start up an impromptu version of Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive, but my skillz aren't good enough to keep it all together and it floundered after we all finished the main riff. A fun night, though. The Sunday night sessions were supposed to become a regular thing, but as far as my memory serves me, that was the only one.

6. "Brushes With 'Slebs'" (U.K.): As I've mentioned, the Oxford store had quite a few high-profile in-store events. While I was there, there were signings from the Little Britain duo, Michael Palin, the aforementoned Quo duo, Rory Bremner, Clive Woodward (the 2003 England rugby team coach), Ray Mears (the survival bloke off the TV), Jon Ronson, Will Self and a bunch of others. The store also attracted some famous critters as well--I wasn't there when ol' Billy Boy Clinton stopped in...but I did ring up Thom Yorke's purchases a couple of times. I found the Scene-It DVD game for Gaz Coombes of Supergrass (really nice bloke, by the way) and had a long-ish chat with Bruce Johnston, of The Beach Boys, but to be honest, he seemed a bit of a tit to me. I think I also rang up a purchase by Mick Quinn of Supergrass and saw Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead perusing the jazz CDs one day. I did leave them alone and didn't get all 'fanboy' on them...it seemed to be the best thing to do.

7. "Guys, Guys...The Supa-Jam!" (U.S.): Ian S. and I would talk from time to time about getting jam sessions together outside of work. A few times, we actually did manage to get the crew over to Joel B's place for a jam and recorded the results. Joel lived a ways away from me, so I didn't get to join as much as I would've liked. Anyway, Ian and I started jokingly referring to the sessions as the "Super Jam". One Saturday shift, we were talking about it, when Zack came running out of the stock-room with a large arm-full of CDs in their theft-proof 'keepers'. He yells out in a really nerdy voice "Guys! guys! The Supa-jam, the Supa-jam!!", then does a crazy prat-fall. The CDs went flying about three feet in front of him and crashed to the floor. There were some customers around and they just stared at him. I seriously nearly pissed myself, I was laughing so much. I suppose you had to be there--but that still makes me smile when I think about it.

8. "The Bluegrass Band" (U.S.): Sometimes on a Friday night, live music would be featured in the department. One night, a bluegrass band played with a girl singer. I can't remember what they were called. They were decent musicians and the woman's voice was alright. I'm not a huge bluegrass fan and while I can appreciate the musicianship involved, it does seem to start sounding the same after a while. They finished their sets and as was Jimmy's and my custom, we heralded the closing of the store by putting Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting in the disc player. As The Heavenly Music Corporation started, we watched them pack up their gear and make little asides about the long drones in the music. Eventually, one of them, the mandolin-player (a short, scraggly-looking dude with greasy hair and beard) sidled up to the information desk and asked what we were playing. Jimmy told him and (according to Jimmy - I wasn't at the desk at that moment) he suddenly said in a hushed, conspiriatorial tone, "Those long drones...that's what they used in Waco, man." I'm not sure what Jimmy's response was to that. Hey, just 'cause you're paranoid...

9. "The Local Freaks" (U.S.): I strongly suspect that every Borders store had it's own collection of local weirdos who would practically move into the place. They'd be there every day, or at least every weekend--grabbing a magazine or newspaper off of the racks, plopping themselves in one of the chairs scattered around and well, staying...all day, sometimes into the evening as well. Some would wander around the store, pestering other punters and eventually get thrown out--only to return the next day..or week..or month. I'm not just talking about the garden-variety lechers who show up and ogle the young female staff members--I'm talking about the hardcore nutjobs. The Manchester, Conn. store had some right legends. There was "11-Digit Boy" (I can't remember how he got that name), "Creepy Laughing Guy", who had quit his medication and used to draw in a notebook and emit shrill laughs to himself, "Tweedle-Dee And Tweedle-Dum", a rare double-act--this short fat older guy and a short fat younger guy who used to sit in the chairs all day reading newspapers. There was also "Anti-Claus", an old smelly guy with a huge white beard and glasses. He was eventually barred from the store for weeing all over the floor in the gents. I suspect there were a few more that I'm missing off of this list. The Oxford store had a few, too - like "The Romance Beast" and "The Polish Newspaper Guy"--but nothing on the calibre of Store 60.

10. "Jimmy's Announcement" (U.S.): Another classic moment in the Manchester store. A local jam-ish rock band was playing one night in the music department. Whenever there's an event in-store, the staff has to announce it over the P.A. every so often to remind the punters what time it will be starting and that. Jimmy was given the task of making the announcements for this particular gig. I'm not sure how he got through it without laughing, but he gave the gig time and the usual spiel, then he said at the end of it: "So if rock and roll is on your agenda for this evening, head to the music department." Almost pissed myself again when I heard it and it still makes me laugh now.

15 Years On: P.M. Dawn - Jesus Wept

2010-01-15T12:33:00.033Z

25 Dey - Year 1388

I can hardly believe it's been nearly 15 years since this album was released. I can already hear the derisive snickers from the 'real' hip-hop crowd, but hear me out, O.K.? I know, P.M. Dawn 'are' a joke to most hip-hoppers and possibly always 'were'. Unlike the Beastie Boys, who managed to claw back their cred after Check Your Head was released in 1992, the Dawn never returned to the dizzy chart heights they scaled with their first full-length, Of The Heart, Of The Soul, Of The Cross..., released in 1991.

After their string of hit singles and then a much-publicised (at the time) beef with KRS-One, the Dawn's second full-length, The Bliss Album?, was released. While most of the tracks continue "Of The Heart"s spacey R&B/hip-hop hybrid, a couple of them show the duo in a near defensive mode after the KRS-One bust-up. Plastic sneers at thug-rap poseurs (remember, this was 1993 and the West Coast 'gangsta rap' phenomenon was all the rage, following Dr. Dre's The Chronic record)--with a dig at KRS-One in the breakdown. "Think I don't know about hip-hop", Prince Be spits, "well what's this..", as DJ Minutemix scratches different tempos. The Nocturnal Is In The House also presents a harder edge (for the Dawn) and a bit of a cynical look at the group's fame: "The ego, the frame, remain unemployed/But they screamin' at me, they wanna be my freakazoid" and "I'm burnin' up son, I think I got the fever/Don't believe the hype 'cause if you do it might deceive ya", attest to the pressure of maintaining their sanity in the "Yo Mtv Raps!" sphere and maintaining their cool in the face of the beefs and some rather homophobic rants.

So they disappeared for a while - aside from a one-off cover of Jimi Hendrix's You Got Me Floatin', which was released on the tribute album called Stone Free in 1993. They returned in October 1995 with Jesus Wept (named after the shortest psalm in the Bible).

The title seems to sum up the contents of the record. Gone are the playfulness of the first album and the occasional anger of the second. In their place is a meditative questing and a sort-of soulful angst. Be's Chrisitianity was hinted at on the first two, but reaches full-flower on "Jesus Wept". Not to worry, though. He doesn't Bible-bash or holy roll--in fact, almost the opposite...he's as unsure of 'God' as a lot of critters, but he wants to believe (like in that X-Files UFO poster). In the intro. to the album, a sample taken from It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown states "...even if you are a fake, don't tell me..I don't want to know." Downtown Venus, the second track and first single, sets up the psychedelic feel of the rest of the record perfectly--making excellent use of a sample from Deep Purple's cover of Hush. You can watch the original video here (though you have to sit through an advert first).

My Own Personal Gravity has a hazy, mellow feel that channels Hendrix, except for the lack a flash guitar solo. Instead, it has a backward-guitar figure that could be right off of The Beatles' I'm Only Sleeping. It could almost be an out-take from Electric Ladyland. Forever Damaged (The 96th) samples Joni Mitchell's Don't Interrupt The Sorrow (from her most experimental record, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns) and contains a tasteful steel drum solo--yes, a steel drum. The track mutates into a kind of down-tempo Caribbean folk-rock. The Puppet Show comes off as a trippy Motown tune, that wouldn't be out of place on The Temptations' Puzzle People. The 9:45 Wake-Up Dream continues the inner-space journey, with a funky organ riff and some nice acid-guitar runs.

Elsewhere on the album are gentle acoustic moments. Sonchyenne, a Joycean pun on the word sunshine, evoking both Jesus (as the alleged 'Son of God') and the Native American Cheyenne tribe. A Lifetime's lyrics of "What's a human/what's a lifetime?" remind me of Robert Heinlein's quote about what a human should be able to do. The weakest tracks, it seems to me, 'are' Miles From Anything and I'll Be Waiting For You. Both seem to be typical Dawn 'smoove' ballads and don't really innovate their sound at all. Having said that, they're probably on par with any of the decent R&B tunes of that year. I do like the way the lyrics can be construed as multi-level, much like Richard Thompson's mid-70s 'love' songs. 'Are' they about a woman, or a deity, or Be's 'higher self' (what Aleister Crowley referred to as "The Holy Guardian Angel")..or all three?

Then there's the final track - which really shows the ambition of the group. Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto is a suite of three covers, and not slavish ones, either. 1999 sees Prince's glam-funk party call-to-arms stripped to just a piano and acoustic guitar. Be sings it in a world-weary fashion, even singing "Tonight I'm gonna cry like it's 1999" at the end of the last chorus. A piano figure lifted from the 1970s Schoolhouse Rock animated short Rufus Xavier Sarsparilla announces Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. It's funked up good, even more than the Heads' early 80s experiments. It's almost as if Al Green is repaying them for their version of Take Me To The River. Coconut uses a Three Dog Night (from Mama Told Me Not To Come) sample and even a snippet of The Fabs' Flying for a woozy cover of the Harry Nilsson tune. It's probably the most 'faithful' of all three, but it maximizes the trippy aspect of the song. Brilliant.

The Dawn had a top-notch band for the sessions, but an MVP citation must go to guitarist Cameron Greider for the nice, jazzy solos and folkie strumming. Despite the record being a spiritual heir to the Native Tongues posse's output (if not musically), it was largely ignored. "Downtown Venus" had a very modest showing on the singles chart, but '95 was the year that Trent Reznor wanted to shag everyone like an animal, while wearing his crown of shit, upon his liar's chair. Smashing Pumpkins sang about bullets with butterfly wings and Rage Against The Machine were raging against machines. Gangsta rap was still flourishing and no-one wanted to listen to Be's questing gnosticism. The Dawn were in the company of The Orb and Spiritualized, whose '95 albums also received low-key praise (at least in the States).

P.M. Dawn disappeared again (aside from another one-off--the single Gotta Be..Movin' On Up) and surfaced in 1998 with Dearest Christian, I'm So Very Sorry I Brought You Here, Love Dad, their entry in the awkward long album title stakes. The tone went from sombre to near-despair and the music veered even further away from orthodox hip-hop. The hipster mafia 'were' probably correct...it's not necessarily hip-hop, but a trippy hybrid of R&B, psychedelia and ambient--in "Jesus Wept"'s style. They were quiet throughout the Noughties, with just the obligatory record-company stop-gap, The Best Of P.M. Dawn, released in 2000. A follow-up album, reportedly called P.M. Dawn Loves You, has yet to be released. Prince Be suffered a massive stroke in 2005, but still managed to appear on the U.S. teevee talent show, Hit Me Baby One More Time (which the Dawn won) and a tour of small clubs in 2006. Minutemix left the group after the TV show and their cousin, Dr. Giggles, joined up for the '06 tour. At the moment, Doc G. is the only active member of the group.

So while I wait for "P.M. Dawn Loves You", which may turn out to be another Smile or Get Back..or the follow-up to Loveless, I'll spin "Jesus Wept". It seems to be one of the definitive psychedelic hip-hop records to me..even if it 'is not' really that to others.

Never Liked Him That Much Anyway..

2010-01-12T12:49:00.005Z

Mois de Nivose - Annee de la Republique 218

I suppose it must be me, 'cos thousands of critters really like the bloke, but I never really enjoyed Garrison Keillor's Prarie Home Companion radio show. I watched about an hour of the film (directed by Robert Altman!??!) one late night for about an hour, before I realised that I didn't give a shit about what was happening in it - I was that bored.

I never really liked that 'aw shucks/down-home' Midwest humour. I guess I appear to be a coastal-interlectural-snawb, but what can I say. If I don't find it funny, I don't find it funny...or endearing...or whatever. Sorry, hordes of Keillor-ites.

This op-ed piece* in a Baltimore (figures...) newspaper's website really made me cringe. I couldn't get my head around whether ol' Garry was joking, with a serious undertone--or if he actually meant the whole thing! Maybe both? The lame quips about Harvard 'geeks' and digs at Unitarians aside, what the fuck was that line referencing Jews writing X-Mas songs about?? I don't mean I don't literally know the meaning of it - I gather that Jewish song-writers have penned well-known Christmas tunes. I mean, was the guy joking, or does he seriously have a beef with Jews for 'messing about' with his sacred 'Christian' holiday (which, incidentally, was brought in by The Church to cover up all those narsty pagan solstice celebrations--it seems to me, anyway). Maybe Keillor should grow a small mustache and start goose-stepping around? O.K., that was harsh--but it seems to me he needs to lighten up. I don't want to think of him as a crypto-fascist, even though I'm not a fan of his.

So, I'm left with....Garrison Keillor: uber-twat? I'll leave it for you to ponder.

*Cheers to C-Dog for linking to the article at his blog.

Happy Bob-Mas!

2010-01-11T12:32:00.002Z

21 Pausa - Year 1931

Three years already, since the great man headed off into the bardos and beyond - leaving his meat-suit behind. Hopefully, his fans will celebrate in some fashion. I'm stuck at my wage-slave confinement today, otherwise I would fire up my Maybe Logic DVD and soak up Bob's woids yet again.

Here's a (still relevant, unfortunately) thought from his website:

WAR AGAINST SOME TERRORISTS
7 Ways of Looking at a Monkey-House

September 29, 2001 e.v.

Just as the War Against Drugs would make some kind of sense if they honestly called it a War Against Some Drugs, I regard Dubya's current Kampf as a War Against Some Terrorists. I may remain wed to that horrid heresy until he bombs CIA headquarters in Langley.

I turned on CNN a few days ago and a White House robot announced that the rebels in Chechnya "were" no longer freedom fighters but "are" now terrorists with "clear" links to Osama bin Laden.

CNN provided no details about whether the transformation occured in a sudden miraculous flash like the transubstantiation of the host in a Catholic mass, or happened slowly and gradually like Darwinian evolution.

In a related bulletin, Russia pledged its support in the 'War Against Some Terrorists', and will presumably start with those bastards in Chechnya.

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR MIND: IT IS REALITY THAT IS MALFUNCTIONING

The plight of Bill Maher reminds me of something Ezra Pound wrote about London in 1919: "A single intelligent remark can destroy a man's entire career."

A friend in Israel just sent me an email quoting George Bush saying we should all go to Disneyland. It didn't surprise me. I kind of suspect George lives in Disneyland all the time, with Mickey and Goofy and Osama bin Laden and all the "faith-based organizations" in the world. As Voltaire said, "The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity."

Pfui.

Cold Snap - January 2010

2010-01-08T12:20:00.004Z

Pungenday, Chaos 8, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3176

The Noughties Fade Away

2009-12-29T12:31:00.016Z

29 Zeus - Year 88 p.s.U.

The first decade of the Gregorian millennium is wrapping up. It seems unreal...what's that line from the Floyd?: "And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you/No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun..."

Ten years ago I was sitting in a somewhat modest apartment in Manchester, CT. It was New Year's Eve and I was hoping that 'Y2K' bug would manifest itself in some form. The girl I was kinda/sorta seeing at the time had gone home and I sat in the darkness near midnght, looking out of the living room window--waiting for something to happen. Even just the streetlights shutting down for a few minutes. Nope. Nothing. So much for the big scare. That's how 2000 started for me...I didn't even party like it was 1999.

What's happened in the last ten years, in my view? I'll try to write a short summary...

September 11, 2001/The War On Terror: It'll be a cultural touchstone for ages. Where were you when the planes hit the Trade Center? It also gave King George II carte-blanche to start a never-ending war...on terrorism. That's right--he actually thought he was going to 'git all them tererists'. Starting with that known Islamic fundamentalist, Saddam Hussein...leader of a secular Middle East gubberment. Now, I'm not saying Hussein was an innocent..far from it--but it seemed his ties to al-Qeada (who became the new threat--like the Russians were in the 1950s and early '60s) were fairly faint. That didn't stop ol' George and his cronies. It worked really well, too--as Iraq is now a peaceful, democratic place, full of contented citizens all praising the U.S. for their action. Soon, Afghanistan will be doing the same. That "War On Terror" was a great idea. Feel the sarcasm, George & Karl & Rummy & Dick & Condie & on and on...

The Rise of "Z-lebrities": I'm not sure when this all started. Maybe it had it's seeds in the 70s or 80s. All I can observe is that one day, critters like Paris Hilton and Jodie Marsh were being feted for....well, not doing much at all. They were given television shows, perfume contracts, film roles, music deals, etc. Most of them seemed to have no particular talent, even when various secret (or not-so-secret) sex-tapes surfaced. I suspect maybe Charlie Brooker or Stewart Lee has already taken this topic on with more finesse, but hey, I can have a bash as well. I'm hoping most of them go away in the next ten years...or at the very least, get off of my Tee Vee and computer screens.

Reality Shows: Urgh! They started out innocently enough, I suppose. Survivor...Big Brother. Then they were all over the shop--tons of 'em. I think some channels in the UK were nothing but 'reality programming'. The worst side-effect, to me anyway, were that these shows became breeding grounds for Z-lebrities, whose 'careers' were fed by magazines like Heat and Hello!. There seems to be hope, however, as the UK "Big Brother" may be cancelled, given that the last run had the lowest ratings for any of the series. I've definitely had all the 'reality-TV' I can take.
The X-Factorisation Of Pop Music/Talent Shows: Yes, I know - the pop charts have always been a place where a slick producer with access to studio musicians and a gullible moppet can make a quick fortune off of a hit record. The past ten years, though, have been a boon to the charlatans (no, I don't mean the 60s psych band or the Madchester outfit). Simon Cowell has made more than a fortune with Pop Idol and it's more famous off-shoot, The X-Factor. He brought it to the States as American Idol and so on and so on. I realise I come off as a snob and I also realise there is a market for slickly-produced love songs for the teenage set--but really, some of this stuff just seems like dreck to me. A treadmill of one-hit wonders and disposable singers. It shows no signs of slowing, as Willy Wonka would say. Oh dear. Some bright spark also thought it would be nifty to have an 'X-Factor'-type show, but open it up to all kinds of fame-hungry critters with various talents..and so Britian's Got Talent was splattered all over the toob. Great--thanks for that.
Global Warming: The bugbear that's divided critters of all stripes. Me, I don't know if it's really happening...but something seems to be happening. 'Is' it man-made, or the natural cycle of the planet? I don't know and I strongly suspect nobody else really does either. I try to ignore the zealots on either side of the debate and work out what I can from the information available. As my man Robert Anton Wilson used to say: "Don't trust your own belief-system 100% and don't trust anyone else's B.S. 100% either." I suspect more will be revealed in the next couple of years.
2012 Theories: As that year now looms on the horizon--the theories are heating up. Some bleak, death-trip scenarios about the Earth snuffing out humankind are abounding. Those seem to be mostly the domain of religious types and misanthropic cranks. Terence McKenna thought it would be an immense enlightenment, a massive concresence of 'novelty' bringing about an evolved humanity. I lean more toward McKenna's view, but again, I don't know what will happen. I try to remain as agnostic as possible about what may take place in December 2012.

But hey now - it's not all war and death and famine and AIDS. It seemed to me there were some good things in the past ten years, too:

Music Files/Blogs: Don't ask me who it was (I can't be bothered to look it up), but some critter figured out how to turn music tracks into files. Not only could someone copy a CD (blank recordable CDs were a cool thing, too), but they could post it up on a page for others to download. Then Napster came along and headed up the whole 'peer-to-peer' network movement. The creators were forced to go legit and charge for tracks after a big court battle--but others sprung up in it's place. Another groovy development was the rise of music blogs, which showcase a lot of obscure, long out-of-print albums. Most of the albums were copied from LPs onto hard-drives, then converted to files. The only problem with that is, now there's almost too much music to listen to. I suppose some of those records are unknown precisely because they weren't good enough to make the wider muso conciousness. Still, if you want to hear some Hungarian progressive rock or Japanese art-punk, there's a blog out there for your perusal. Now, I don't condone down-loading albums that are still available or 'leaked' copies of new albums. I mainly stick to bootlegs and out-of-print stuff...support the artists when you can by actually buying the CD or files, especially directly from the artists's website.
The Internet: Yep. That collection of servers, computers and satellite connections that lets me type this post out and you to read it. Pretty fascinating. Just over 10 years ago, I was pretty much an internet virgin. I had sent a few e-mails through a work e-mail address and checked a few sites out. Since then, I've posted on 4 blogs, I've got two personal e-mail addresses, signed up on several sites to purchase music and other stuff, and on and on. I mean, yeah, it seems the Internet has gobbled up a lot of my spare time, but I still wouldn't trade it in. I've been able to catch up with old school friends and read about subjects that would've taken me ages to track down in a library. No, this isn't an ad for anything - it just seemed to me that the Internet definitely changed a lot of the way critters view their worlds in the past decade.
Humanity Gets Smarter: Er...actually, maybe I'll hold off on this one....

Heroes Who Checked Out: Robert Anton Wilson, George Harrison, Rick Wright, Syd Barrett, Arthur Lee, Paul Newman, George Carlin, Terence McKenna, Michael English, Alton Kelley, Joe Zawinul, Hugh Hopper, Philip Jose Farmer, Stanley Kubrick, Kirsty MacColl, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer...and to any others I may have forgotten, rest in peace!

The Solstice Arrives!

2009-12-21T12:02:00.005Z

Kull-i-Shay 1 - 9 Vahid - Year Vahhab

Another winter has officially started--it definitely feels like it in Britain. The weathercritters predicted snowfall..and lo!...snow fell. We didn't get much, in our little area of the country. We did get plenty of ice on the pavements and frost on the grass.

Apparently, Rage Against The Machine have 'won' the..ahem..'coveted' No. 1 X-Mas spot on the UK charts, over yet another fresh-faced, scrubbed-down X-Factor winner. This year, it's a Geordie called Joe McElderry and his single is The Climb, a syrupy cover of a syrupy original, sung by the annoying Miley Cyrus (I watched her interview on Alan Carr's Chatty Man show--she does seem to be one of the most irritating critters I've witnessed in a long time...it does make me thankful I don't have children, so I don't have to watch her programme or listen to her music). A more-or-less 'grass roots' campaign started to knock McElderry out of the top spot by buying Rage's Killing In The Name (famous for it's "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" lyric), first released in 1994. This critter has some compelling arguments about why the Rage campaign seems an ultimate failure. While it would please me to see "X-Factor" mastermind Simon Cowell upset that his latest pop-by-numbers ballad hasn't dominated the charts, I strongly suspect he's not really bothered at all. The latest run of the show was the most popular by far and I doubt ITV will let it's main cash-cow disappear, despite Cowell's intimations that he may end it for good. A lot of folks have also remarked on RATM's contract with Sony Music, one of the corporate music giants. Ah the irony, fighting the corporatising of music by buying a song released by a corporate giant. "Killing In The Name" seems dated to me now - it's only known for the "Fuck You.." bit. The tune itself seems like generic 90s skate-metal - couldn't anyone have picked a better tune? I thought maybe Pink Floyd's Welcome To The Machine, which describes McElderry's fate almost perfectly, would be a better choice - but then EMI, another corporate giant, would get the money. Oh, I don't know - I don't really give a shit about the charts, so I'm going to stop thinking about it now.

It's also nearly X-Mas...thankfully! X-Mas season seems to go on too long now, especially since some retailers insist on getting the seasonal clobber out in the third week of October! I suppose I'm becoming more of a Scrooge as I grow older. I really can't stand most of the standard tunes (Walkin' In A Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bell Rock, Let It Snow (though I have to admire it's coy 'bad weather = seduction' ploy), etc, etc, ad infinitum..). I'm even tiring of some of the tunes I still kinda enjoy - like Wizzard's I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day and Slade's So Here It Is (Merry Christmas). I did make my own holiday mix a couple of years ago, entitled Have Yourself A Psychedelic Christmas...And A Progressive New Year, as an alternate to all the old warhorses. I think I might give it a spin. See, I'm not a complete Grinch. Remember, war is over....if you want it.

To my regular readers - I apologise for the lack of content this past Gregorian year. I blame Facebook, eBay, Amazon.co.uk and getting out of the house for actual activity. O.K., so the last one seems good to me...otherwise my eyes would've morphed into mini-computer monitors. The others have sucked away a lot of my 'free' time--though I did get some nifty stuff and got back in touch with a lot of old friends, so it appears not to be a total loss. I will attempt to do a bit more blogging in the new year, but I can't promise anything. Thanks for your visits, even if it was just once in a while, or maybe just once.

I'll close this post with some more greatness from Cassetteboy. This time he's taking on the putrid and repulsive Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP. Cassetteboy does a killer splice-n-dice job with Griffin's appearance on Question Time a couple of months back. It's not as belly-laugh funny as the Alan Sugar Apprentice remix, but it does what it's supposed to do--lampoon a racist twat. Check out Cassetteboy's blog, too. Enjoy.

The Beatles Never Broke Up!

2009-12-01T12:51:00.009Z

10 Agrahayana - Year 1931

David Jay Brown posted a link to a site on Facebook a couple of days ago. The site's owner claims to have a 'lost' Beatles album in his possession. Not only that--he's claiming the cassette that the music is recorded on comes from a parallel universe, where the Fabs never broke up! Far out, you say? Too much, you say? Well, read the story...

A bloke calling himself 'James Richards' has set up a whole page relating to the story of how he acquired this tape...it seems that on September 9th, 2009 (the very day of the Beatles CD re-issues and Rock Band video game release), he tripped (hmmm...) in a 'rabbit hole' while chasing after his dog in the desert and was knocked unconcious. When he awoke, he was in a strange house and somehow could tell he was in a populated area when, before his fall, he was in an empty desert. A guy named 'Jonas' explained that he had saved James by opening a 'portal' near to where he fell...and grabbed his dog, too. They talked for a while, including about music. James noticed that Jonas had some Beatles albums..well, mostly on cassette. Jonas played him some Fabs stuff that James had never heard. James told Jonas how (in our universe) they had split in 1969. Jonas replied that they stayed together and continued to release albums in the 1970s and 80s. No word on whether they're still around in the parallel universe, however.

James asked Jonas to make him a copy of one of the albums, but Jonas adamantly refuses, stating that James cannot return to this universe with anything, including a cassette. Luckily, Jonas gets distracted by another visitor to his house, and James grabs one of the cassettes, called Everyday Chemistry. He shuffles the other tapes around, so Jonas won't cotton on that one of them is missing...for a little while, anyway. Enough time for he and his dog to be transported back by Jonas. James states that he's in fear of Jonas coming back for him, because of the blatant disregard of the warning James was given.

That's pretty much it--James goes into more detail on the site. Phew! Now, in my current mix of education and ignorance - James's story seems about 20% 'true' to me. I strongly suspect it's a really clever viral marketing campaign for one bloke's re-mixes-n-mash-ups of Fabs out-takes, band and solo. I haven't heard every Beatles out-take...hell, I've only heard maybe 10% of the 1969 Get Back sessions. I've listened to Over The Ocean so far (you can down-load individual tracks or the entire 'album' on the page) and while it does sound 'new' to me - honestly, it's a bit light on the lyrics..something that the three songwriters in the group never skimped on..at least in this universe.

I also wonder why James never bothered asking about Jimi Hendrix, or Jim Morrison, or Brian Jones or Janis Joplin...John Bonham...or Marc Bolan. Maybe they weren't fortunate in that parallel universe either.

Ah well, it seems to be akin to a UFO abduction story...guy alone in the desert has a mysterious experience which, with a lack of witnesses, no-one can fully prove or refute. I'll let you reach your own conclusions as to the veracity, or lack, of the story. James is happy to answer questions about the experience, as shown on the FAQ portion on the page--though I do notice that he kinda-sorta dodges direct queries about the tunes being re-mixes. At the very least, it shows that the Fabs' legend continues, even if their physical form disappeared, in the space-time we're accustomed to.

Return Of The Pot-Head Pixies - Gong: O2 Academy, Oxford - November 28, 2009

2009-11-29T14:09:00.009Z

12.19.16.16.2 - Haab: 0 Mac/Tzolkin: 4 lk

Having not been to a live gig (not counting the Cropredy festival) in two years, I probably couldn't have picked a better one to attend than the re-formed Gong. That's right, the Alien Australian and most of the 'classic' line-up are back spreading the P.H.P. gospel, including Gilli Smyth, now 76! Amazing. Steve Hillage and his longtime partner Miquette Giraudy have re-joined the fold, as has Mike Howlett, who played bass on the awesome Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy albums. At the moment, Didier Malherbe has decided not to tour (though he does guest on the latest studio album, 2032), and Tim Blake, Gong's early-70s keyboard-player has also declined to join the latest incarnation. It still promised to be a great concert.

Pixie, myself and my muso-mate Will arrived at the O2, after dinner at Subway and a pre-show pint at the Cape Of Good Hope, with enough time to grab a beer at the bar and for Pixie to grab a Camembert Electrique T-shirt for me , as an X-Mas gift, before The Steve Hillage Band took the stage. I was surprised that there weren't any dedicated tour T-shirts, but never mind. Hillage was assisted by Giraudy, Howlett, Chris Taylor on drums and Theo Travis on sax and flute. They ran through a selection of tunes from Steve's 70s solo albums and a few instrumentals. Hillage proved he can still act the guitar hero and work the fret magic, even when playing one of those ugly Steinberger guitars. Giraudy churned out the spacey synth drones and Howlett and Taylor make a tight rhythm section. We were a bit back in the crowd, so we were able to watch both the band and the psychedelic graphics that were shown on the video screens behind the soundboard. The highlights of the set were a nice Hurdy Gurdy Man, covered on the 1976 album L and Salmon Song, from Hillage's solo debut, Fish Rising. They wound up their slot with a funky jam and came back out for a short encore.

After about a half-hour, the Radio Gnome intro. spilled out of the speakers, and the 2009 model Gong hit the stage. Hillage and crew started up a signature Gong-type riff and then Daevid Allen walked out, dressed as a wizard, to loud cheers. The beginning instrumental finished and they tore into an energized You Can't Kill Me. Gilli Smyth took to the stage during the tune, to more applause, and joined in with her patented 'space whisper' vocals. Digital Girl, from the "2032" album, followed...leading into Dynamite/I Am Your Animal, another rave-up from the group. Yoni Poem, a Smyth 'solo spot' followed, which led into Zero The Hero & The Witch's Spell (also known as Tic-Toc). Allen surprised me with his energy - he would swoop all over the stage, raise his arms in mystic gestures and occasionally grab a guitar and play some rhythm under Hillage's psychedelic lead riffs. Malherbe was missed, but Travis ably filled his shoes on a great version of Flute Salad/Oily Way (from the classic Angel's Egg record). Other peaks for me were a very trippy and very rockin' Master Builder, toward the end of the gig, which started with a slow version of the chant on the You album. They also played Wacky Baccy Banker, off of the new album - it's a kind of update on Kevin Ayers' Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes - I couldn't really hear the lyrics because of the muddy mix for the mics.

They played for two hours, including the encore--though Allen and especially Smyth, had to take a few breaks in the set--but hey, I hope I have as much life in me when I'm in my 70s. The encore was a sort-of improvised chant of "I Am You, You Are Me", while Hillage, Giraudy, Taylor and Travis played a spacey tune. The lights came on and the space dust settled. I had a great time and despite a few..erm...'over-enthusiastic' fans (read: nutters) weaving around the crowd, doing the tai-chi hippie dance and singing lyrics in punter's faces, it seemed to be an excellent gig to me. That's the thing with a band like Gong, though, you really have to expect a few nutters in the crowd. Ah well, they looked like they were enjoying themselves, so more power to 'em. If you get the chance to see the band on this tour, I would recommend you do so. In my view, they still manage to out-psychedelic a lot of the younger bands practising the genre. If you want to see the real deal before it's gone...get yer pointy hat on and get glidding!

Setlist (as much as I can remember):

The Steve Hillage Band:

Instrumental (?)

Hurdy Gurdy Man

Instrumental (?)

Hello Dawn

Aftaglid

Sea Nature

Salmon Song

encore:

Instrumental (?)

Gong:

Radio Gnome intro.

Portal

You Can't Kill Me

Digital Girl

Dynamite/I Am Your Animal

Witch Poem/Zero The Hero & The Witch's Spell

I Never Glid Before

Flute Solo/Flute Salad/Oily Way

Yoni Poem/Dance With The Pixies

Wacky Baccy Banker

IAO Chant/Master Builder

Guitar Zero/Jam/Selene

encore:

I Am You, You Are Me chant

Cinema Corner #309

2009-11-12T12:50:00.012Z

25 Heshvn - Year 5770

Time for some thoughts on a couple of films:

The Boat That Rocked - I really really wanted to like this, despite it being directed by Richard Curtis, of such rom-com fare as Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill. You can see why I had some trepidations. But hey, Nick Frost is in the cast, and that won me over. Turns out it's not that great, though the film premise, based on one of the English 'pirate radio' ships in the 1960s, is an interesting one. I should say very loosely based, because there are lots of historical inaccuracies. At one point, Chris O'Dowd's character tells the main character, played by Charlie Rowe, to "think outside the box..pretend the box isn't there." Hmmm...now, I wasn't on the planet during the 60s, but I strongly suspect that counter-culture types weren't using lame late-1990s corporate-speak. In another scene, one of the DJs plays The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash, to herald the return of another jockey who left the ship to 'find fame in the U.S.' I think the year the film was supposed to be set in was 1967 and seeing as "J.J.F." wasn't released until 1968 makes that another glaring error. The plot, such as it is, involves Rowe being invited to the boat by his godfather, played with his usual posh-ness by Bill Nighy. Apparently, Rowe's a bit of a wayward child, though he looks like a massive, soppy bookworm. Nighy's character has supposedly invited him aboard to keep him out of trouble...riiiiiiight. On a boat filled with proto-hippies with sex and drugs and rock-n-roll all over the shop. Of course, you never see any of that - well, a little bit of sex, but certainly no drugs. It transpires that Rowe has heard that his estranged father is on the boat and is looking to reunite with him. There's also a tired 'coming-of-age' story about him falling in love with Marianne, another godchild of Nighy's, but then her breaking his heart by shagging Nick Frost's character (they actually play Leonard Cohen's So Long, Marianne during the scene where he's all lovelorn - how cheesy is that?)--don't worry, true believers...they get back together at the end.

There's also "The Count", an American DJ, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (as usual, doing his best with a so-so script) and Gavin Cavanaugh, played by Rhys Ifans as a sort-of psychedelic Howard Stern, another anomaly for the 60s, who's keen to freak out the squares. Kenneth Brannagh plays a drab, humourless government official who's determined to shut down the pirates...with Jack Davenport playing "Mr. Twatt", his assistant. Yes, that gag does get old after about the fifth time Brannagh refers to him by his surname. Curtis does the good/evil thing to death - with the pirate DJs engaging in wacky antics and having colourful Hapshash posters tacked up all over the boat--while the government offices seem cold and grey and all the button-down officials dressed in black or grey all the time. I dunno, maybe London in the late 60s 'was' that polarised, but I suspect things weren't so much. Anyway, the posh kid finds his dad, gets the girl and they all live happily ever after...in the 60s created in Richard Curtis's mind. Oh yeah..the boat sinks. Oop, that's a big spoiler. Ah well, you weren't going to watch it, were you? Good.

2012 - You may have seen this in the past couple of weeks:

That's right. It's the new 'blockbuster' action/disaster film from the guy who directed Independence Day and some other CGI'd crapola. For those who have been following the 2012 meme for a while, you'll know that Terence McKenna had been talking about the 2012 phenomenon since the mid-1970s and even wrote a book about his "Timewave Zero" software and the Mayan calendar called The Invisible Landscape. He posited that 'novelty', or advancement in human critters' thinking would be so fast by December 2012 that a 'new age' would dawn. It would be the 'end of the world', but not really in a literal sense, more of a metaphysical one. James Joyce referred to it as "waking from the nightmare of history".

It seems that the meme was hijacked by various other groups, including some Christian eschatologists. They are taking the more literal translation - that there will be super-storms, floods, earthquakes and on and on. According to them, the world will end in December 2012. They use global warming and the various wars and unrest around the globe to lend credence to their theory. Enter Roland Emmerich and his film. Playing on these fears, he's concocted yet another 'the-humans-are-doomed-but-there's-a-glimmer-of-hope' scenario. He and his cronies started a viral marketing campaign with fake websites and teaser clips. One of the websites offered a lottery system, so visitors could win a place in the remainder of humanity, after the shit hit the fan. Nice way to stoke the hysteria.

I haven't seen the film, nor do I intend to. I actually sat through that Day After Tomorrow fiasco--not in the cinema, mind - just on the toob. I seriously wanted the two hours of my life back after it finished. I also sat through a rental of Deep Impact and wasn't impressed with that either. Sure, "2012" looks nice, with it's CGI depictions of Vatican domes collapsing and highways crumbling....hundred-foot high tsunamis crashing into beachfronts and skyscrapers being snapped like kindling. Mainly, it just seems like a monument to fatalistic thinking and the co-opting of yet another counter-culture meme by greed-heads. If you've seen it, I hope you had your money's worth. If you haven't - try not to give your money to these cretins. Fuck Roland Emmerich and his death-trip vision. As McKenna said: "I don't know what's going to happen..it may be that people just get a little smarter and legalise marijuana or something similar."

Edward Woodward: Sadly, the man has passed away. Aside from his brief stint on East Enders earlier this year, the last thing I saw him in is the hilarious Hot Fuzz. He was also in the decent 80s TV show The Equalizer and of course, the awesome Wicker Man....the original, not the shit re-make with Nicolas Cage. I also remember watching Breaker Morant on cable in the early 80s. I didn't understand the complexities of the Boer conflict, but I did think Woodward was brilliant. R.I.P. Edward - the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance won't be the same without you.

Kaleidophonic Stroboscope 2.0

2009-11-03T12:35:00.002Z

12 Aban - Year 1388

I was recently checking out another podcast site--Harold's Attic Radio, in fact - and I was impressed by their site layout. They were set up on My Podcast and maybe became tired of M.P.'s limitations. I must say that their new set-up looks much better and with a lot more options.

I liked it so much that I decided to give it a go myself. H.A.R.'s main page uses WordPress - so I headed there to find out how to set a site up. W.P. advises getting a web host, but you don't really have to - you can set up a blog on it's own. I thought it would be kinda cool to have a domain name for the podcast. I chose the web host that W.P. recommends, BlueHost. It's fairly cheap for a year's cost (well, if you break it down monthly - though you have to pay for a year in advance). You get all kinds of features - the ones I might use would be the FTP and "Web Disk" storage feature.

I set up a page using WordPress and chose a groovy template (much, much more choice than My yPodcast offers..). I hit a massive snag, though...in that I couldn't figure out how to load my shows through W.P. The memory allowance is quite small and the allowance through BlueHost isn't much better, which seems annoying to me--especially after forking over some coin of the realm for the host priviledges. I was about the ask the H.A.R. crew how they got around that...when I found Podcast Machine. You can upload your episodes there - then just copy the HTML code for their player and add that to your post in WordPress...fairly painless. You do have to do that for each episode you create, but it does only take a minute.

For all that, I give you the new (and hopefully improved) version of The Kaleidophonic Stroboscope! I'm adding the remaining epsiodes from the MyPodcast site in the next couple of weeks and then I'll work on a brand-new one. I'm going to try and tweak the template a bit, too, as well as add a few more widgets. Let me know what you think.

Season Sickness/Visually Enhanced

2009-10-20T12:15:00.011+01:00

28 Asvina - Year 1931 (Saka Era)

Urgh. My first cold of the year. I've been really good the past 10 months avoiding various flus and bugs. I suppose I had to ingest at least one airborne virus sooner or later. I ended up calling out of work for three days last week. It's one of those head colds...plugged-up sinuses, mild fever and achy muscles. I feel a bit better now, but I'm still not fully recovered. I did manage to drag myself back to work this week, like the good little wage-slave that I am. Ah well, hopefully this means that I've paid my illness dues for another year.

I was trawling eBay looking for LPs, when I thought I would check for some vintage psychedelic posters from the late 60s. I was specifically looking for art from the UK psych scene, particularly from Hapshash and The Coloured Coat and Martin Sharp. To my amazement, there are some available - though mostly cheaper reprints of the 60s originals. I tried a Google search and found a few independent art dealers with small stocks of 1st printings. I warn you, though, if you're in the market for a copy, they're not cheap. A first printing of Hapshash's Pink Floyd/CIA v UFO poster in excellent condition will cost you about £300 and a near-mint copy of Sharp's Donovan metallic poster are going for around the £400/£500 mark. The rarer Hapshash posters, like the one for the Fifth Dimension club in Leicester, or the UFO Coming poster, may go for even more dosh now. Hapshash also created a couple of posters for OZ Magazine - one called Catherine and The Wheel Of Fire (pictured above) and one called Position 69. I managed to get my hands on a copy of the "Catherine.." poster by buying (not cheaply) an original OZ issue off of eBay. It's in good shape...a bit creased here and there, but the colour is still intact. I'm going to have it archive-framed at some point.

I only just discovered now that Michael English, half of Hapshash, passed away on 25th September of cancer--a loss of a great artist. A website is dedicated to his artwork over the years - though, curiously, it doesn't mention his death. You can purchase his 1970s posters, usually mundane objects air-brushed in amazing detail, for fairly decent prices on eBay and elsewhere on the web. I've ordered used copies of both of English's books, 3-D Eye and Anatomy Of Illusion. His partner in the collective, Nigel Waymouth, is still on the planet and also has a site. Waymouth is selling reprints of the more famous Hapshash posters, but I haven't e-mailed him to ask about prices.

Besides Hapshash and Sharp - the Dutch collective The Fool were psychedelicizing art in the UK in the late 60s. They were responsible for the (in)famous mural on the exterior of The Beatles' Apple boutique in London - as well as Eric Clapton's trippy Gibson SG guitar (he played it while a member of Cream) and Procol Harum's 1967 stage clothes. They also designed part of the set of Wonderwall, Joe Massot's groovy 'Swingin' 60s' film, starring Jane Birkin and featuring a soundtrack by George Harrison--and even appeared in a party scene. The Fool weren't quite as prolific as the others in poster creation, but the few they did publish seem to be quite excellent to me. The A Is For Apple poster is probably the most well-known. You can buy a reprint from the official Beatles on-line shop for a modest price (originals fetch about £250-£300 now). I bought one and it's quite good. It's a digital scan, so the colours probably aren't quite as bright as on a vintage '67 printing. They're printed on heavier card stock, rather than thin poster paper, so they're sturdy.

When The Fool split in 1970, Barry Finch and Josje Leeger moved to Amsterdam and are still together, though I don't know if they still create artwork. Marijke Koger, one of the original members (Barry and Josje joined after the others moved to London), moved to America, got hitched and still creates paintings and prints. She too has her own website, where you can buy original paintings (pretty costly) or reprints of some of her 60s poster designs. The reprints are giclees, but the quality seems to be good. I can't give a first-hand assessment, because I haven't purchased any at the moment. Simon Posthuma, also one of the Fool founders, moved back to Holland and also has a site, but there doesn't appear to be anything for sale.

There's a few other notables from the English psychedelic art scene. Alan Aldridge, who created drawings for The Beatles and illustrations for various magazines. Mike McInnerney, the cover artist for The Who's Tommy album (see the link for the details of his "Tommy" artwork) and several Oz and International Times issues. He doesn't have a website or even a Wikipedia page, so I'm not sure what he's up to these days--keeping a low profile, certainly. John Hurford also contributed to Oz and created a few gig posters, of which originals are pretty much impossible to find now. There is a book available covering most of his late 60s and early 70s work, as well as his creations to the present.

American psychedelic posters seem to be all the rage at the moment, too. I'll cover the U.S. scene in another post. If you've got any Hapshash or Sharp art you want to sell, give me a shout.

The Reign Of The Crimson King

2009-10-01T12:11:00.010+01:00

13 Tishri - Year 5770

Along with other many other landmark albums reaching their 40th anniversaries this year (Abbey Road, Let It Bleed & Aoxomoxoa, to name just a few), is King Crimson's debut. In The Court Of The Crimson King is often called the first true expression of the genre that would subsequently be called "progressive rock" or "art-rock". Prog-rock, which started as a mainly English phenomenon, was melded together from psychedelia, European classical strains and even a bit of outre jazz. The idea was to subvert the usual three-minute constraints of a pop chart single, which had already been stretched and even broken by psychedelic music - but progressive bands continued the experimentation. Adding in virtuoso performances, themed poetic/fantasy lyrics and multi-part suites (that sometimes took up entire album sides)..prog-rockers hoped to make rock-and-roll as legitimate an art form as jazz, classical..or even folk and blues. They seemed to see Blonde On Blonde, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn as standard-bearers for a new kind of rock, only one that didn't really have a name at the time.

The band that recorded "In The Court..." consisted of a few chancers from the Bournemouth area, a woodwind player they met, and a good-looking young bass player from Poole. Most of them were barely out of their teens. Robert Fripp, the guitar player, Michael Giles, the drummer and Peter Giles, bassist - had recorded one album as Giles, Giles & Fripp, which was released to some underground acclaim in 1968. Peter was replaced by Greg Lake (out of psych outfit The Gods) and Ian McDonald joined the band, playing keyboards and wind instruments. They practised hard and gigged for six months, then entered Wessex Sound Studios for about ten days between June and August 1969. They were originally to be produced by Tony Clarke, who had guided The Moody Blues through their psychedelic excursions on In Search Of The Lost Chord and On The Threshold Of A Dream. The sessions with Clarke broke down and the boys were essentially left alone to produce themselves (rumour has it that Lake did most of the production work himself).

A friend of Fripp's, Barry Godber, painted the striking images that would become the album artwork. Sadly, he passed away some months after the album's release. The screaming face on the front is said to be "The 21st Century Schizoid Man" and the smiling face on the inside of the gatefold sleeve is either referred to as "The Wizard" or "The Crimson King". Gatefold sleeves became de rigeur after "Sgt. Pepper.." and especially for progressive rock albums after "In The Court.." was released.

The band had already previewed the material in their live sets. They had a short residency at the Marquee Club in London and they had also been one of the support acts for The Rolling Stones' free concert at Hyde Park in July 1969 (along with Third Ear Band, Family, Battered Ornaments and a few others). Their set was fairly short, but they managed to wow the crowd with their alchemic blend of styles. "In The Court.." was released by Island Records in October 1969. The band began to fragment soon after an American tour, which soured McDonald and Giles on the prospect of long-term touring. The original line-up split at the end of 1969, leaving Fripp to continue on with the K.C. name. He offered to leave, instead of Giles and McDonald, but they both agreed the group was "more his than theirs". Lake also left, to join The Nice keyboardist Keith Emerson and Crazy World Of Arthur Brown/Atomic Rooster drummer Carl Palmer to form prog 'supergroup' Emerson, Lake & Palmer, in 1970. He did agree to help out on the follow-up to "In The Court..", In The Wake Of Poseidon.

The music? If you've never heard the album..the tunes range from the near-heavy rock of 21st Century Schizoid Man to the gentle balladry of I Talk To The Wind to the kitchen-sink prog of the title track. The important thing to remember about this record, it seems to me, is that it's a true band effort--contrary to the belief that Crimso was Fripp's band from the very start. Lake's vocals, McDonald's exemplary flute and sax-playing and Giles's almost martial drumming all contribute to the tunes. Peter Sinfield, the band's lyricist and light-show operator, provided some complimentary baroque and mock-profound words for Lake to sing. Fripp himself proved a wonder, if a little unsteady, on his trusty Gibson six-string. He became a new sort of guitar-hero - the understated egghead. Contrast him with Jimmy Page, Alvin Lee, Hendrix, etc. and his unwillingness to strut and act the showman is miles away from the others. His playing relies little on the blues roots of most other rock guitarists of the day and even when he attempts some jazzy noodling in the center section of Moonchild, it doesn't sound like what one would expect as 'jazz'.

In a live setting, the band were even more of a monster, with "21st Century Schizoid Man" sounding ever more sinister than the studio version..and yes, they were able to do all of the stop/start rhythms. If you haven't heard any of the shows from 1969, check out the Epitaph set, released in the late 90s. There's also a Collector's Club disc, which features one of their Marquee sets from July 1969.

After "In The Wake..", Fripp really did become Crimson's guiding force, with an ever-changing line-up helping him to release records at the vanguard of prog-rock. The 1973-1974 line-up of Fripp, Bill Bruford (ex-Yes), John Wetton (ex-Family and Mogul Thrash) and David Cross nearly matched the 1969 roster for brilliance, especially on the Larks Tongues In Aspic album. Fripp finally split Crimson for good early in 1975 and went into session work for the likes of David Bowie and Brian Eno. He reformed Crimson in the early 1980s and then again in the mid-1990s, while balancing those incarnations of the band with a solo career. The future of King Crimson is unknown, but there may be one more reformation. I don't think it will be of the 1969 vintage, though. That one's left to the recordings and the memories of the band members and the audiences who were lucky enough to be there.

Discipline Global Mobile, Fripp's label that he set up in the early 1990s, are commemerating "In The Court.."s anniversary with a 2-CD set, a CD & DVD-A set and a massive boxed set, with 5 CDs and a DVD-A. The boxed set is rumoured to be packaged in a 12"X12" case...pretty much LP-sized--like Mike Oldfield's Ultimate Tubular Bells set, released earlier this year. You can find the details of the various versions here. I think I'm going to go for the box, myself. Steven Wilson, of Porcupine Tree, helped R.F. with the re-mixing. There's also re-issues of Red and Lizard soon to be available..and the rest of the 70s Crimson albums should be re-issued in the coming months. Summon back the firewitch, it's time to hang out in the court of the Crimson King again!

Happy Autumn, All!

2009-09-21T12:10:00.004+01:00

1 Shawwal - Year 1430

Wogan Walks/Ursa Psychedelica

2009-09-09T12:42:00.008+01:00

18 Shahrviar - Year 1388

The morning impresario of Radio 2, Sir Terry Wogan, is hanging up his mic soon. Radio 2 has reported that Chris Evans will be taking his morning-show spot. Evans does annoy me a bit - I dunno, maybe he tries too hard to be "zany". I will kinda miss hearing Wogan waffle on about TV shows and performing those horrible skits with the rest of his crew. In honour of 'Sir Terry', here's a vid of the excellent Peter Serafinowicz parodying Wogan and portraying him as a mellow stoner. If only...

I've started reading The Brotherhood Of Eternal Love, by Stewart Tendler. The Brotherhood were a cabal of psychedelics dealers whose idealistic (if somewhat naive) goal was to turn on as many critters as possible. In their view, the more folks who had been 'experienced', the more peaceful the planet would become. The book seems pretty good to me so far--it's quite a task to try and weave all of the various threads of the story together.

One of the main protagonists in the first half of the book is none other than the chief 'Acid Chemist' himself, Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Owsley's name was synonymous with good-quality LSD in the late 60s. He made a lot of money cooking up batches of psychedelics, of which a lot was spent supporting The Grateful Dead and other projects throughout California. Stanley's nickname was (is) "The Bear" and his acid-operation was called Bear Research Group. He made many recordings of The Dead, amongst other S.F. psych bands. Some were even released as legitimate albums, the most famous being Bear's Choice. I especially like the 'three-eyed bear' graphic on the back cover of the LP (er..at least that's what it looks like to me). I hadn't heard anything about ol' Owsley lately and I thought maybe he wasn't on the planet anymore. I did a search and yep, he's still around. He's even got his own website, where he sells his art pieces. The site's pretty low-tech, but he explains why on the face page. Apparently, he moved to Australia in the early 80s and pretty much stayed there. He does make occasional visits to the U.S., as shown in this 2007 article.

He's survived throat cancer and most of his 60s contemporaries...Leary, Kesey, Garcia..the list goes on. He even survived most of his 'enemies', too..Nixon, Reagan..maybe even ol' Neal Purcell, the Laguna Beach cop who busted Leary in 1968, which led to Tim's conviction and prison sentence. At 74, "Bear" is alive and fairly well and still convinced that psychedelics can benefit the human species. More power to him, I say.

Now back to the book...

September un-Furls

2009-09-02T12:24:00.009+01:00

13 Elul - Year 5769

"Summer was gone and the heat died down...and Autumn reached for her golden
crown" --Nick Drake

The ninth month of Gregorian calendar year 2009 has arrived. Another British summertime has passed. Ah well, it was a bit nicer than last year. We had a good camping trip in Dorset and a decent Cropredy. We had less rain this summer, or maybe it just seemed that way.

Pixie and I spent the August Bank Holiday taking walks, looking after Smudge, a silver Siberian cat who belongs to a co-worker. He was staying with us for the past couple of weeks, while she and her family were on holiday. We also visited Slimbridge, a wetlands preserve featuring many species of waterfoul and even an indoor display of amphibians. The entrance fee seems a bit pricey, but the place is quite large, so you do get your money's worth. The park is set up by areas of the world and you walk down the path and observe the birds. Photos are allowed and some of the birds are tame enough to approach the path.

I never realised how many different species of duck exist, having only seen mallards. I attempted to hand-feed some geese--I succeeded with one and was bitten by another..ah well. There are three types of flamingo at the park and they are the major attraction. It's interesting to know that their colouring derives from the food they eat, not from any natural pigmentation. That nice man Stephen Fry said so on QI and that's good enough for me.

Pixie's parents held a barbeque at their place on Bank Holiday Monday. At first it seemed like it would be an indoor affair, as dark clouds were overhead most of the day. The sun finally managed to burn through in the late afternoon, so we all basked for awhile, full of good food and lager (well, I was full of lager anyway). The neices are all growing so fast - soon they'll be taller than I am. Two of them decided it would be fun to round up the caterpillars who're munching on the brussels sprout plants. They loaded up five or six plastic cups full of the critters. Their intention of keeping the caterpillars at their house was kiboshed, so Pixie and I led an expedition to a nearby field to let the crawlies go.

We had both booked Tuesday off, for an extra long weekend. We didn't do much, other than clean the house (and vacuum up all the cat fur). I did buy an original stereo pressing of The Fab's Sgt Pepper LP off of eBay. It weren't cheap, but it does have The Fool's groovy red-and-white inner sleeve (which was short-listed for the album cover at one point) and the "Pepper" cut-outs. I seriously am turning into a bit of a vinyl snob. I'm looking for original pressings or specific labels (Island's pink "i" label, "Deramic Sound System", Vertigo "swirl", etc.) and for the record to be in fairly good condition. I did make an exception for a copy of Van Der Graaf Generator's The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other. The record isn't in great shape - but the label is the original Charisma pink scroll design, so I can live with it.

Speaking of the Fabs, the re-issues are due out next week! I've pre-ordered Revolver, "Sgt. Pepper.." & Abbey Road - my three faves. I'll order The White Album and Rubber Soul next--then get the rest eventually. I've avoided the box sets - though I might splash out for the mono set at some point.

Here we go....easing into Autumn.

Cropredy Capers 2009

2009-08-18T17:13:00.016+01:00

27 Sravana - Year 1931

It can't be the 18th of August already?? What have I been doing? Well, last weekend, Pixie and I were at the Cropredy Festival. Since we missed it last year, we thought we'd amble on down there (plus, Green Man seemed too expensive and too far of a drive - it's boasting an incredible line-up, though). Here's my breakdown, day by day:

Thursday, 13th August - We decided to leave extra early this year, as Fairport had asked festival-goers to travel via the M40, instead of driving through the village, to ease congestion. We were also hoping to be placed in a field closer to the stage. We arrived at 10:30 a.m. to find that all the fields were filled, except for the ones we've usually camped in. WTF??! It took about an hour and a half to set up the tent and move our gear from the car to inside the tent. After that, we had a quick stroll around the village. I found a bloke selling vinyl near the SPAR shop, so I had a quick look-see. Talking Elephant Records had their usual stall set up as well, though it was much smaller this year. The wristband marquee had virtually no queue (one of the advantages of arriving so early), so we exchanged our tickets for 'bands and entered the stage area. Starting off the afternoon was Harlequinn, a local girl-band - a proper one though, not a Girls Aloud/Sugababes clone. They were O.K., a bit emo for my liking. They played well and did a decent cover of Michael Jackson's Beat It (minus the Eddie Van Halen pyrotechnic git-tar solo). We missed some of 4Square's set - I thought they were alright as well...good players, but sorta kinda 'heard-it-before'. Still, they were reprazentin' da folk yoof. Ken Nicol (of Steeleye Span--no relation to Fairport's Simon Nicol) and Phil Cool (old comedian-type bloke) were up after and while Nicol is a good guitarist, his songs seemed kinda average to me. Cool does a decent job mimicking Rolf Harris, Paul McCartney and a few others - but to me, their set was the low point of the day. Buzzcocks stormed on-stage with Pete Shelley shouting "Let's get some punk rock in this fuckin' place!" and they tore through their set, no pauses, no banter, no nothin'. Shelley and Steve Diggle had more energy than Pixie and I did. Pretty good for a couple of grizzled 50-something punk-rockers. I suppose it helps having a younger rhythm section to keep them on pace. They played nearly all the "hits" (What Do I Get?, Orgasm Addict, Ever Fallen In Love..., etc.) and a few of off their newest record. Steve Winwood headlined and while it was good to see a legend still treading the boards...the pacing of his set could've used a little oomph. Winwood opened with a decent I'm A Man, but then it went sorta languid and mellow. He and the band ran through a few off of the Nine Lives album and a slowed-down Can't Find My Way Home (the Blind Faith 'hit'). Carefully avoiding his 1980s chart-fodder albums, ol' Stevie cranked out Traffic classics like Pearly Queen and Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys. The inevitable closers Dear Mr. Fantasy and Gimme Some Lovin' had the crowd going, but I was slightly disappointed by his set overall. Back to the tent and a night of rough sleep, only to find we had been invaded by these aphid-looking brown insects. Spent about a half-hour clearing out as many as possible.

Friday, 14th August - We decided to head into the village after breakfast, for a bit of shopping and supply-gathering (bug spray, etc.). I bought a couple of LPs off of the bloke by the SPAR shop (Gordon Giltrap's Visionary and Neil's Heavy Concept Album (a.k.a. Nigel Planer - who played hippie Neil on The Young Ones)). A shower was in order after clearing the tent of insects (again!) - this year, we had a shower block in the field where we pitched, which was very convenient. By the time we reached the stage area, ColvinQuarmby had finished, so I can't give you a review of their set. I did hear a couple of songs by Megan & Joe Henwood. Megan has a nice voice, but the songs I heard were just alright - maybe I wasn't listening close enough (I was wending my way through the crowd to get to the T-shirt tent). They did have an all-star backing band, though, including Barriemore Barlow (from the classic 70s line-up of Jethro Tull). 'New folkie-songwriter sensation' Scott Matthews followed. I dunno, maybe his slot wasn't the best for his sound, but I didn't really get into his tunes. Too melancholy for the afternoon in an outdoor setting, or summat. I mostly tried to doze during his set. Adrian Edmondson (speaking of "Young Ones" alumni) took the stage with his Bad Shepherds band-mates (including another old Tull-ster, Maartin Allcock). They play trad/Celtic folk versions of 70s punk & post-punk tunes. It sounds kinda naff on paper, but live it sounds pretty good. We were treated to covers of Down In The Tube Station At Midnight, I Fought The Law, Kraftwerk's The Model and The Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime. They also sang an acapella cover of the English folk tune, famously recorded by Steeleye Span, All Around My Hat. They added a 'punk rock' change in the lyrics. You can see it here. I really enjoyed their set. Up next was The Dodge Brothers, featuring an American guy who looks a bit like Hunter S. Thompson and the quiffed doofus from the Culture Show, Mark Kermode. They play skiffle and sorta jump blues-y stuff. I have to hand it to Kermode--he's actually a decent upright bass-player and he's not too shabby on harmonica, either. The band are O.K., but there's only so much skiffle I can dig before it all starts sounding alike. We headed back to the tent for more lager and our camping chairs and by the time we returned, the John Jorgensen Band were into their set. Jorgensen's a flash guitarist from the ol' skool, so there was plenty of high-speed soloing (including the obligatory finger-tapping). He's a technically gifted player and he wrangled some interesting sounds out of his axe--but again, I couldn't help thinking that I'd heard it all before. His tunes seemed run-of-the-mill blooz-rockers to me and the instrumentals weren't really enough to keep my attention focused. Richard Thompson bounded out on-stage after Jorgensen..and really, what can I say. The man was up to his usual excellence. The surprises in the set were a nice Genesis Hall, which RT dedicated to Sandy Denny. He also played The Sun Never Shines On The Poor, from the Hokey Pokey album. The closers were, of course, Wall Of Death and A Heart Needs A Home, sung with female accompaniment. I didn't catch the singer's name, though - but most of the time - they'll make me miss Linda Thompson's vocals. Back to the tent again...but less insects to shoo away this time.

Saturday, 15th August - We both slept a bit better than the previous night, though the sky looked fairly ominous, with dark clouds approaching fast, when we woke up. Pixie suggested we pack up early, as she wanted to get home that night, which meant missing out on Fairport's set. I wasn't that bothered, having seen them a few other times at Cropredy. The only highlight this year was that Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) would be joining them on-stage for a mini-set...and RT would probably join up for a few tunes as well. We're cat-sitting for a co-worker this week and it would've been too hectic to get home Sunday morning, un-pack everything and tidy up the house for our guest. We ate, then got everything together fairly quickly. There was a car boot sale at the Cropredy F.C. ground and I was hoping to score some good (and hopefully cheap-ish) LPs. I wasn't disappointed (only by the lack of cash to buy more..heh heh). I found a couple of Steve Miller LPs for a couple of pounds each. Another table had some excellent stuff, though a bit pricey (between £7 and £10 per record) - I ended up buying Quintessence's first album, In Blissful Company, Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting and the Philips issue of Van Der Graaf Generator's H To He, Who Am The Only One. Nice! I also found a beat-up copy of the Hair original stage show LP, ELP's Tarkus and a near-mint copy of Tangerine Dream's Force Majeure--plus, an original In Search Of The Lost Chord by The Moody Blues. A very good haul, I'd say. Back at the stage field, Richard Digance was on--luckily, he was nearly done with his set. He seems a bit too trad and jokey-but-not-funny, to me. The Churchfitters were on after and while they were lively, the stock Irish rhythms they played got same-y toward the end of their appearance. Pixie wanted to watch Feast Of Fiddles and I quite like them myself. I was wandering around the field, looking for a T-shirt stall--where I spotted a groovy 'Green Man' tie-dye, so I wasn't paying rapt attention--but I do remember them playing a fine Battle Of The Somme. Always good to see Fairport veteran Dave Mattacks on the drum stool, too. Dreadzone were up next. I had only vaguely heard of them and had never seen them live. To me, they played one of the better sets of the entire festival. Their mixture of sampling, dub, techno & reggae got the crowd moving, even in the intense heat. The folk purists probably turned their noses up, but I really enjoyed it. I'm thinking on buying a few of their albums. We had to leave just then, but we did stay for a tiny bit of Nik Kershaw's set. Yep, the 80s-popster played a half-acoustic/half-electric show. Chris Leslie of Fairport has confessed to being a fan of Kershaw's. The stuff we heard was just O.K., but then I was never really into his music. I give him credit for showing up and not being overly embarrassed by his back catalogue. We made our way to the car, stowed our camping chairs and the rest of the things we had with us and made our way home.

Afterward: By all accounts, Fairport played a blinder and the mini-set featuring Yusuf was excellent. D'oh. Ah well, what can you do? There were reports of trouble in Fields 1 and 2 over the weekend...mostly groups of drunken teenagers. We didn't see any of that and all was relatively quiet in our field. All in all, another enjoyable Cropredy. If we don't end up trying our hands at Green Man next year, I'm sure we'll be back there.

The 'Stroboscope Gets A Shout-Out!

2009-08-07T16:40:00.003+01:00

Prickle-Prickle, Confusion 73, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3175

A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to Stuart Maconie, presenter of quite possibly the best show on radio (at the very least on the BBC) at the moment, the Freak Zone. For the uninitiated, 'The Zone' is a 2-1/2 hour broadcast featuring psychedelic rock, prog-rock and other left-field sounds. There's usually an interview section somewhere in the middle of the show, past luminaries have included Irmin Schmidt of Can and Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator and solo). There's also a cat called Professor Justin Spear, who brings in crazy obscure stuff...Italian sound-track LPs from the 60s, Polish jazz, etc. Toward the end of each programme, there'll be a "live freaks" bit - which could be a past BBC session, or a couple of tracks from a live record.

I was listening to last Sunday's show (2nd August), after Pixie and I had returned from camping. Suddenly, Stuart starting reading some of the e-mail I had sent. He mentioned the bit where I complimented him for being brave enough to play prog-rock on a major radio show. He responded with "That's us...utterly courageous" He read my moniker out and then mentioned the 'Stroboscope! I had sent him the link to it and asked him if he would check it out sometime. So, a big cheers to Mr. Maconie for the plug!

If you want to listen to the latest "Freak Zone" show, check it out here. I'm working on a new 'Stroboscope episode and I hope to finish it in the next few days.

Out In The Country, Living In A Tent

2009-08-04T12:52:00.011+01:00

4 Hestia - Year 88 p.s.U.

Pixie and I spent last weekend camping in Dorset. Pixie had booked a pitch at a site that her parents recommended, called Wareham Forest Tourist Park. The facilities are quite nice there and the pitches allow for plenty of space. We set up the tent, packed our supplies inside and then headed off to Studland Beach. Pixie's parents joined us, as they had driven their camper-van to the Park.

By the time we were back at the site, the sky had clouded over. We stopped over in Wareham, met up with Pixie's brother, his wife and the neices and bought some food. A plan was made to meet at the camper-van for dinner. Dinner was relaxing, but cut short by the inevitable rain.

Saturday was mostly rainy, which made a lot of outdoor activity choices tough. We decided on Monkey World, a primate sanctuary near Wareham. Luckily, most of the rain had stopped, as the sanctuary is mainly outside. There are footpaths that take you around the various enclosures and you are allowed to take photos of the critters. My favourite ones were the Capuchins and the Chimpanzees. There are quite a few Capuchins at the sanctuary, in three different enclosures. They're quite lively and some of them definitely enjoy having an audience. Some were rescued from a lab in South America. The Chimps were fascinating as well. Some must have been at Monkey World for quite a while, as they didn't seem fazed by the groups of humans peering into their indoor homes.

We also saw a few Orang-utans and Gorillas. The Squirrel Monkeys may have been in hiding, because we didn't spot any as we walked by their enclosure. We did get to see a baby Yellow-Cheeked Gibbon. I think the one shown in the photo at left is of the baby we saw. I'm guessing she's slightly older now. She swung around on one of the bars for a bit before cuddling again with her mother.

The Lemurs are kept in their own gated-in area. It seemed as if the weather had got to them as well, because we only saw a couple of pairs, huddled together on a tree branch and on the roof of their shelter.

Pixie had a text message from her brother. They had gone to Chesil Beach and wanted to know if we would like to meet up in Weymouth. We arrived before they did, so we grabbed some lunch from a stand on the seaside promenade. While waiting some more, we walked around the high street. I found a charity shop, but unfortunately, no vinyl goodies to be had. Lots of easy listening LPs and what seemed to be a complete Cleo Laine catalogue (O.K., I'm exaggerating...). We finally met up with the others and strolled around the promenade. Then it was time to go to the arcade for some lightweight gambling and after, the girls went on a few of the rides. We left Weymouth and travelled to the Black Dog pub, about 10 minutes away from the town centre. The food was decent and a pint of Foster's tasted nice after all the walking. The sun finally appeared on the drive back to the campsite and Saturday night was dry--much to our relief.

We decided to head back home on Sunday, instead of staying 'till Monday, which was the original plan. The tent was packed up fairly quickly, in just under an hour (not bad for our first time using the tent 'in the field'). Pixie suggested we drive through the New Forest on our way back and I agreed, as it's a lovely route. We stopped off in Burley, a little village where Pixie and I honeymooned nearly five years ago. Lunch was at The Old Farmhouse restaurant, then Pixie bought some cider from the local wine shop. I bought a Pink Floyd Dark Side Of The Moon mug at a shop called Face The Music and a purple velvet bag for my Celtic Tarot cards, which didn't have a proper storage container. Pixie bought a funny witch sign for her work desk and a witch mug, from the same shop I bought the tarot cards bag.

We left Burley and made the journey home. After unpacking the gear and leftover food, we settled in to a good night's sleep. Roll on, Cropredy!

Cosmic Jazz

2009-07-28T12:32:00.004+01:00

1 Kull-i-Shay, 9 Vahid - Year Vahhab

I've been listening to some of Pharoah Sanders' early 70s records lately. Sanders guested on a lot of John Coltrane's later albums and continued 'Trane's forays into Afro-centric psychedelic jazz, much like Alice Coltrane, John's widow.

Sanders recorded the seminal Karma album in 1969. It wasn't his debut, but it was a much of a style-changer as Bitches Brew was to Miles Davis. He followed "Karma" up with a string of records, released on the Impulse label, though the early to mid 70s. The tunes would be lengthy jams, featuring African percussion and Sanders' soulful vocals. At times, he would warble and ululate, almost yodelling. Sanders would fire off sheets of sax notes, much like Coltrane's playing on Om or Sun Ship. His band would compliment the melodies - all of them seeming to operate, like most exceptional groups, on a 'wavelength' of collective thought. Cecil McBee's deft double-bass playing keeping a steady groove and Roy Haynes' drumming adding detailed flourishes to the mix.

Here is a home-made vid for Astral Traveling, from the Thembi album, released in 1971. It's a sweet, mellow instrumental that kicks off the record. I like the way that the critter who made the vid left the vinyl crackles in.

Lonnie Liston Smith, who played keyboards in Pharoah's band, left in 1972 to form his own group, The Cosmic Echoes. Their debut, Astral Traveling (familiar title there), was released in 1973. Smith also recorded several mellow/cosmic jazz albums throughout the 70s.

Here is a vid for I Mani (Faith) from the "Astral Traveling" record. It's very close, style-wise, to 'Trane/Pharoah's sound:

Both Sanders and Smith are still around and still playing. I haven't heard any of their newer offerings, so I can't give an accurate description. I'd like to think that they're still creating cosmic grooves for us to enjoy.

1,2,3,4 - What Are We Fighting For?

2009-07-14T12:39:00.009+01:00

22 Tammuz - Year 5769

Have you heard the news, young critters? It's now your patriotic duty to go and fight in Afghanistan, so says Gordon Brown. The casualties have been mounting, but the U.S. and UK armed forces are 'committed' to fighting the Taliban and are in it for the 'long haul'.

According to G.B., the war in Afghanistan is blocking a chain of terror (nooooooooo! not the chain of terror...I mean, I could accept a rope of terror..) from causing havoc in the UK. I don't have all of the facts, but are a lot of hard-core Taliban-types really looking to invade Britain? You would think that it's not really their kinda scene, what with women allowed to step outside, not wearing full burkhas. There's also films and music readily available and even small Buddha statues being sold in some shops.

What was that Hermann Goering quote again? :

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

You'd think that the above has been passed around enough times that political speeches would at least try a different tack to keep support for a war alive. Nope - it seems that advances in politics take hundreds of years to happen.

Barack Obama is increasing U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan, with a plan to drive the Taliban back to the border of Pakistan. And all the chicken-hawks thought he was a leftie-softie. Nope, he ain't called "Bad Ass Barack" for nothin'. O.K., I made that last bit up--but it seems he's still under this "War On Terror" spell. And how long will the troops be there? No-one seems to know - there's vague rumblings about 'a long time'.

Let's see the track record for armies invading Afghanistan in the last 200 years. The British-Indian forces driven out after three wars. The Soviets invaded in 1979 and over 10 years fought a losing occupation war, eventually retreating with a battered army and thousands of casualties. Incidentally, the U.S. support for the mujahedeen fighters provided training for Osama bin Laden and other future al-Qeada leaders. The U.S.-led 2001 invasion may have suffered less military casualties, but the number of Afghan civilian losses definitely appears to be much more. Brown's speechwriters may want to proclaim that "we're winning and the sacrifices are worth it", but they seem to be struggling to hold on to Helmand province.

Don't worry, though - this 'liberation' of Afghanistan will go as well as the one in Iraq did. If you want to find out what's really going on in Iraq, check the blogs, like Last Of Iraqis. It don't seem to be too hunky-dory to me. But hey, c'mon kids, as Country Joe MacDonald said once: "Put down your books and pick up a gun, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun." Your country needs your healthy limbs to be ground up in their war machine to make hero hamburger. Don't you want your coffin draped with a flag?

New podcast episode!

2009-07-01T12:14:00.003+01:00

10 Tir - Year 1388

That's right, kids! I've finally got round to creating a new episode, after all of my previous shows were wiped by MyPodcast (accidentally, of course..of course). It took a bit of time, as we had computer troubles and then program installations to get through. After all that, though, it's finally ready...so get over there and have a listen.

The Kaleidophonic Stroboscope Switches On...Again!

...and for a little bit extra, here's a vid of the Sunroof remix of Can's Oh Yeah track. "Oh Yeah" was first released on the Tago Mago album in 1971. Sunroof were (are?) Mute label boss Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones. Their remix was released on the Sacrilege double-disc set in 1997. "Sacrilege" was a collection of Can re-workings by the likes of Brian Eno, The Orb and Sonic Youth. I suspect it's still available. If not, try and score a used copy. The Sunroof track is my favourite on the whole collection. Enjoy!

L'Ete De Mort

2009-06-26T12:22:00.007+01:00

5 Asadha - Year 1931

Summer's barely a week old and the casualties are mounting, at least from the 'sleb' world. it seems 'Mistah Death' has been busy the past 6 days. Farrah Fawcett, one of the original Charlie's Angels, succumbed to cancer a few days ago. She was pretty much a 70s icon, at least in the U.S. Everyone knew someone who had that red bathing suit poster on their wall. She dropped off the radar in the 80s, but made a few appearances in TV and films in the late 90s and early Noughties. The last thing I watched with her in was Robert Altman's not-so-great Dr. T. And The Women. Farrah turned in a decent performance as the Dr.'s wife, who suffers a nervous breakdown.

Sky Saxon, leader of the seminal California psychedelic garage band The Seeds, also passed away this week. They're probably best known for their 'hit', Pushin' Too Hard, which featured on every cheapo 60s/psychedelic compilation ever made--plus some good ones, like Nuggets. Sky continued on through the decades, long after the original Seeds split. With a garage punk revival happening lately, Sky's work has been re-examined and found to be quite worthy by the youngsters (perhaps after reading some Lester Bangs columns). He was touring again and was going to present a package tour, featuring The Seeds and other psych/garage/punk bands from the 60s.

Another 'underground' figure who left the planet in the past few days was Steven Wells, or "Swells", as he was called. He started out as a sort-of 'punk comedian' in the late 70s, then moved on to writing for the NME. To my estimation, he was a bit like an English Lester Bangs, skewering sacred cows with doses of funny profanity and dry wit. He would've hated my record collection and I strongly suspect if I had read a lot of his reviews in the 90s, I would've found him quite irritating. He emigrated to the U.S. and wrote for the Philadelphia Weekly. I've since read some of his columns for the P.W. and while I don't agree with everything he wrote, I can see the talent in his choice of words. Still, he was a scribe who wasn't in the pocket of the major labels and that's something to be commended.

Andy Hughes, sometime Orb collaborator, also died a couple of weeks ago. He appeared on The Orb's mid-90s albums - Orbus Terrarum through to Cydonia (2001). His biggest contributions were to the excellent Orblivion record, released in 1997. He left the band during the "Cydonia" sessions and some of the music was re-worked after his departure. He gave The Orb their final truly great period of creativity and while new albums have been dropped into the shops, their quality doesn't match that of the Hughes era (in my opinion, anyway).

...and, of course, the self-proclaimed "King Of Pop", Michael Jackson, passed away earlier this week (I'm writing this on 29th June). There'll be hundreds, if not thousands, of tributes and essays and eulogies. The tribute albums will flow like rivers after too much rainfall. Concerts will be staged and the tabloids will have fodder for the next months...and beyond. The man did achieve a level of fame in the 20th Century only equalled by The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Unfortunately, this led to a constant media-circus, especially where his private life was concerned. The excesses of fame seemed to drive him into a sensationalist existence and deprived him of being 'himself' (whomever that was).

Me, I just remember in the summer of 1983, being on vacation in Maine. Wanna Be Startin' Something was still going strong and it was on heavy rotation on the radio...and I mean heavy. It was being played literally every hour. My parents had gone out for the night and my older sister and I used to sing along with it, just belt it out--that was fun. I also remember being a tiny bit creeped out by the Thriller video. When I first heard Billie Jean on the radio in my father's car in 1982, I thought it was a female singer. I liked the funkiness of the tune. It may have been one my first exposures to R&B or 'soul music' or whatever you want to label it as (though I may have heard some Motown stuff when I was very young). I lost interest in M.J.'s stuff shortly after Bad was released. The music seemed to get blander as his personal life got weirder, though I do like Smooth Criminal and even Black Or White seems pretty catchy. There'll be conspiracy theories and debates about what actually killed him, or who and why. File it under another Kennedy assassination, 9/11, Area 51 and all that. No-one will ever find out the whole truth. There's no denying that MJ was an 80s icon. It seems a shame that he slipped so far down the tabloid route.

A Belated Bloomsday Greeting

2009-06-17T12:34:00.002+01:00

17 Juno - Year 88 p.s.U.

I missed posting this yesterday - Happy Belated Bloomsday, All!

R.I.P. Hugh Hopper

2009-06-12T16:40:00.003+01:00

Hugh Hopper, bass-player with Soft Machine and many other projects after he left the Softs, passed away on my birthday (June 7th). He was an essential part of the 'Canterbury Scene' and quite an eclectic musician. Check out his work on the Soft Machine - Vol. 2 album (1969), Soft Machine's Third (1970) and (one of my personal faves) Six (1973). His first solo record, 1984, released in 1973, is also worth a listen.

June's In Bloom

2009-06-09T12:37:00.004+01:00

20 Jyaistha - Year 1931

The solstice is nearly here again - another summer beckons. As usual, the English weather fluctuates quite a bit. Last week, Pixie and I donned shorts for our Sunday walk, this week I had to break out the hoodie, as the air was cool and the sky overcast. Predictions are for a hot summertime...we'll see.

We finally were able to haul the old CDs and LPs and that to the Kassam boot sale. Inexplicably, a lot of the prog-rock stuff is what sold. The dealer bloke who bought a box of discs off me at the last sale (2 years ago), bought another box for £80. I had brought some of my Japanese mini-LPs to sell off, as I've replaced them with SACD versions. The dealer tried sneaking a few into his £80 box, but I quickly grabbed them back and he went on his way. Another guy spotted our table, got on his mobile and started making a pile of discs - Can, VdGG, Moody Blues, Genesis and on and on. He bought about 70 CDs total, for the guy he was on the phone with. I imagine they're eBay sellers - but I couldn't be bothered to check if any of my discs were on auction later in the week. I also sold a few odds and ends - some band badges that I've had since the 80s (I've still got a bunch left over), a few bootleg cassettes and my Wonderwall DVD (I've got the deluxe edition, so I didn't need the regular one anymore). Pixie sold off a few cookery books that she didn't want as well. The LPs I brought didn't sell that well - I only managed to sell a copy of Pink Floyd's Meddle that I bought in the mid-80s. I found a copy at the Record Fair with the textured cover, so I sold off the 80s re-issue. Admittedly, the rest of the vinyl I was selling was very 'Murican stuff like The Cars, Van Halen & 'Weird Al' Yankovic, so I only half-expected any real interest in it. They've now gone to the local charity shop. All told, though - a pretty tidy profit for a few hours' work. We may be there again, at least once before the summer ends - I think I can get enough CDs together to spark up some interest.

Speaking of eBay...I've been on there hunting down prog and psych LPs quite a bit lately. I'm kicking myself for not buying this stuff 8 years ago, when interest in it was fairly low. It was all about CDs then--but vinyl's making a comeback and the collectors are out in force. Copies of the first couple of Island Records pressings of King Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King are going for between £40 and £50. Some of the more rare editions of albums get up into the £100 range! I nearly lucked out with a fairly good copy of Third Ear Band's Alchemy for £5 - but I was pipped at the last minute. D'oh! Ah well, I'm sure there's plenty more copies around. I did get a copy of TEB's second (self-titled) LP, released in 1970, from a record shop in Germany. It's in excellent condition, with only a small punch-hole in the top right corner of the gatefold sleeve. Nice! I've also bought copies of Klaus Schulze's Blackdance and The Grateful Dead's Anthem Of The Sun (still waiting for that to arrive from the States). I'm eyeing a copy of Gryphon's Red Queen To Gryphon Three and the Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (which I used to own, 'till I lent it to someone ages ago and never got it back). So many LPs, so little cash...

Pixie and I had our birthdays this past week - another year lost to the maw of time. Ah well, I had a quiet day. I finally got round to watching my Beatles Help! DVD that I bought last X-Mas and a copy of the Bob Dylan '66 tour film Eat The Document that my mate Singing Bear burned for me last year. The best scene (it seemed to me) was Zimmy being driven around London, with John Lennon beside him in the car. The two (then) titans of rock meet in 1966, possibly one of the best years for the genre...and is it a summit on philosophy and revolution? Nope, Zimmy natters on about mundane topics, zonked out of his head on speed, booze and wracked nerves. Lennon, who may or may not be on an acid trip, tries to provide a comic foil, but sounds increasingly deadpan--even when Dylan wretches near the end of the car journey. The concert footage is great, though, especially the full version of Ballad Of A Thin Man, which is shown toward the end of the film. Riveting stuff.

Our computer problems have been sorted and I've replaced my old Magix Audio Cleaning Lab, with the brand new version. It's installed and ready to rock. I'll (finally) start on a new podcast episode in the next few days. Stay tuned.

The funniest thing I've seen in a while

2009-05-31T09:52:00.005+01:00

May 18, 2009 (Julian calendar)

For the last day of May, an hilarious video 'remix' of Sir Alan Sugar on The Apprentice by Cassetteboy. If you haven't heard of Cassetteboy, check out his site. I was laughing so hard at one point, I thought I was going to literally collapse. NSFW, though, and probably not a good idea to listen with little critters about.

Thanks to Speak You're Branes for the link.

May Holiday/Acers High!

2009-05-21T12:10:00.009+01:00

12.19.16.6.8 (Mayan Long Count)

Pixie and I had our spring holiday last week and it was decided that we head to the Peak District this year. I could ramble on about the holiday in my usual way, but I think it may be better to quote Pixie's succinct style (taken from a thread at The Bear Pit). My comments are in italics.

"Here's a run down on all the places we visited:

Haddon Hall - interesting (especially the Elizabethan musicians playing authentic replica instruments in the main hall). Expensive though to get in. The band were called Piva, they even dressed in the medieval gear. The chapel had bats nesting in it and you could hear them chattering. Definitely a worthwhile visit.

Bakewell - a charming little place with massive fish in the river. Nice village - the river promenade is a groovy chill-out spot. Cool indie book/music shop called 'Bakewell Books' in the centre of town. Fairly pricey, but some excellent finds there.

Ashford in the Water - pretty little village. Very small, but you can gawp at the expensive country houses and have a walk up above the village on a steep hill path.

Eyam - the "plague" village. Interesting but creepy. It sorta looks like any number of small English villages, 'till you notice the plaques outside some of the cottages letting you know how many members of a particular family died there. There's a very old stone Saxon cross in the church graveyard. We had lunch at a tiny roadside cafe, I can't recall the name of it now--decent sarnies there.

Hathersage - where we stayed. Not much there but a good base for our holiday. We meant to go see Little John's grave, which is supposedly there. I recommend the Little John pub--it's a bit tourist-y, but cozy and the Bosley Cloud beer is quite nice.

Sheffield - by accident when we were looking for a supermarket. We passed through a few funky neighborhoods with lots of mom-n-pop/indie shops, but didn't have time to stop, as we were on a mission for grub. We shopped at the Waitrose by a few massive tower blocks--there's a newer glass-facade one that's being finished at the moment. I will say that Sheffield didn't look as bad as I expected it to.

Blue John Cavern - very interesting but expensive shop (the jewellery in the shop was beautiful but way out of my price range). The cavern tour was pretty amazing. You end up around 300 feet below the surface. Gigantic 'rooms' carved out of the rock by water and the stone walls looking ribbed by the same effect seemed incredible to me. Our guide was coughing throughout most of the journey and joked about having swine flu. He's an older bloke and I was relieved when he completed the tour--really, he's fitter than we are. Well, he is in traversing the cavern, anyway.

Glossop - looking for Hadfield but couldn't spot any League of Gentlemen places. Portions of the show were allegedly filmed in the small town of Hadfield, but we couldn't find a high street (the most likely place for filming), or even anywhere to park. We stopped in Glossop and had a little wander around. I found some great LPs in the Oxfam shop there, including a near-mint copy of Tangerine Dream's 'Rubycon' and a decent copy of Yes' 'Relayer', at good prices. Nice!

Longshaw Estate (national trust) - went for a walk around the grounds and then by a pretty stream. The weather was lovely that day, I think we even got a bit of a sunburn. Longshaw is recommended for a good walk. The day we visited, the crowds were at a minimum and it was quite serene. Very enjoyable.

Buxton - nice little place with a Subway. I liked Buxton, even though it was an overcast day. There's some interesting architecture and a huge green area to walk around. The high street is packed with charity shops, which may contain vinyl goodies. I found a couple of Sky LPs and a Wurzels album too. The find of the day was a copy of Camel's 'Mirage', including the photo insert. Lunch was at Subway - you just can't go wrong with a tasty sammich from there.

Monsal Head - we went for a walk on the old railway. Beautiful views. We attempted a 10-mile circular walk, but couldn't find a landmark (stated in the guidebook we were using) about halfway through and decided to turn back. It was a prescient choice, because we were knackered by the time we were back at the car. Another great place to explore.

Ilam & Dovedale - my favourite place I think. We went for a 4.5 hour walk there. Pretty spectacular scenery, especially on the walk we took. There's one bit where you venture through a small 'valley' between two steep hills...it seems almost prehistoric. Until a plane flies over, that is. There's another part of the walk beside the Dove River that's quite beautiful. We crossed the famous "Stepping Stones" as well. I tried to feed a few pieces of ice cream cone to a lamb, but I don't think he was having it.

Hardwick Hall - another National trust place. Interesting (but it poured with rain and we got soaked going round the Herb garden). This was a 'stop-on-the-way-home' visit. The house has some fascinating artifacts...old carved-wood tables and faded silk tapestries. The grounds are probably well-kept and worth a walkabout - we didn't bother due to the rain."

That's your lot - there are photos, but I haven't down-loaded them off of the camera yet. Maybe I'll show some off in a later post.

Our old Compaq Presario was starting to drag a bit. It is 6 years old and had to be re-booted a couple of times, due to viruses. Pixie and I have been talking about buying a new system for about a year now. We bit the bullet and purchased an Acer M464 a few weeks ago off of a local computer dealer. On the few sites I looked at - it received decent reviews. The bloke stopped by yesterday and installed it, plus copied all of mine and the goodwyf's files off of the Compaq. It was up and running in a couple of hours...and man, it is fast! I tested out the CD/DVD burner and it zapped a disc out in 1 minute (using Magix's Audio Cleaning Lab program) and the copy was good (it was Rotary Connection's self-titled debut, for those who may be interested). I found out the computer bloke likes Tangerine Dream, becuase I was spinning Ricochet and my newly-acquired "Rubycon" LP while he was setting the system up and he told me he used to listen to them back in the 70s. He remarked that he was an apprentice at the BBC's Radio and Television workshop, so I turned him on to The White Noise...he kinda dug it. It's nice to have a computer that doesn't take ages to load up more than one intrawebnet page or finish a virus scan. I have to admit I like having a new toy every so often.

Cyber-meetings with Unremarkable Critters

2009-05-06T12:58:00.011+01:00

11 Jumada I-Ula - Year 1430

I'm at my Facebook account some time ago...say around six months or so. I was going through various bands, writers, etc. and 'becoming a fan' of them (basically pressing a button which adds your avatar onto the page created for the writer, musician, etc.). I searched for G.I. Gurdjieff and found a page dedicated to him. I thought "Yeah, all right - I like what I've read of his philosophy, mostly through Robert Anton Wilson and I'm reading Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson at the moment.." (I'm still reading it - but it's a large book and not the easist to get through--'cos of G.I.'s 'patterned language'). So I clicked the 'become a fan' button.

A few days later, I get a friend request from a critter who sent a message saying "Hello Gurdjieff fan". Cool, this guy seems alright...I accepted. He then sent an invitation to a group called "Views From The Fourth Way", for Gurdjieffians involved in The Work (those involved in it tend to capitalise it, because it's considered very important to do so). I joined up, even though I'm not doing "The Work" at the moment. I may start sometime, just as a cursory exploration - but after I've read a few more books. I didn't post anything at the group board for that reason...I didn't think I had anything substantial to add. The group was 'invite-only', unlike a lot of groups on FB. He had to personally invite you - you couldn't just find the group and join up. Hmmmm..

I started to notice other things about this critter--he seemed a bit grumpy. He would exhort his FB 'friends' to not send him any quizzes or cartoons or anything, really. It seemed weird to me, because FB 'is' a 'social network' site, by it's own definition. To my observation, his behaviour seemed sort-of elitist, as if he were above all of that. Still, I thought, that's his right to request his friends not to send him stuff. He didn't post much of anything, except news stories about the financial collapse, global warming, articles with a vague anti-science bias...topics that were important to him, I suppose. I should point out that he's probably in his 50s or 60s, going by his profile photo anyway. Old enough to fit into a curmudgeon's shoes. Again....fair enough, he can do what he wants with his FB account.

Occasionally, I would comment on one of the news stories he would post. He sent me an invite for another group, something about "Fighting the New World Order". I didn't join that one, because I'm not convinced there "is" a New World Order organisation to fight. That seems like the 'one over-arching conspiracy' stuff, which is a hoot to read about...but not something I believe in. He then started sending out messages saying he was going to kick people out of his "Fourth Way" group if they didn't start participating. I told him if he wanted to boot me, in favour of someone else, that I was O.K. with it, as I hadn't participated at all. He told me not "to be silly" - erm..I didn't think it was a silly statement, but a practical, thoughtful one.

Last week, he posted a column from Stanley Fish, though I can't remember if it was this one. It was basically lambasting atheists, especially scientific ones (Dawkins, et al.), though in a gentle manner. I posted (or made the mistake of posting) a comment to the effect of "Sombunall atheists seem as blinkered as fundie religionists to me." He replied "I believe in levels of religion". I had no clue what he meant by that - but I also didn't realise it was a reference to Gurdjieffian philosophy. I then posted a response, thinking he meant sects within major religions, stating that I like Sufis, Hasidic Jews & Quakers, etc. Uh oh....

He immediately sent a message to me, saying "I thought you were a Gurdjieff fan, but you don't seem to know about the levels of religion" Yep--I was in the principal's office. I wrote back stating "I am a Gurdjieff fan, but I'm still learning. I'm reading "Beelzebub's Tales.." and I like what I've read about him, various quotes and things. What are the levels of religion?" I was told that I had to read Ouspensky's (a student of G.I.'s) Psychology Of Man's Possible Evolution now and that life's too short not to start 'The Work'. I said, "O.K. thanks for the tip. I'll read the book. I'll talk with you later." Meaning, "Thanks, I'm done with this conversation now." Nope--he came back with some smug statement about how I 'just might learn something because he's been doing the Work for forty years and he knows'...he knows. Uh huh. So I looked up these 'levels' - and I found things similar to this. Now, as anyone who's checked out any RAW, Timothy Leary or Antero Alli can tell you - that seems very similar to the 8-circuit brain model, or at least, partially similar. I pointed that out to this critter and he said "No. There is nothing like the levels." That's how would type as well - just these near mono-syllabic one-or-two sentence ripostes. I'd wager that Wilson and Leary's model was partially inspired by Gurdjieff, but I strongly suspect he wouldn't be having any of that.

I began to feel a tiny bit insulted, as if he were trying to lord it over me with his superior knowledge of Gurdjieff's philosophy. The thing is, while I appreciate the man's writings and ideas--he's not the be-all-and-end-all to me. To this critter, though, he seems to be everything. So I asked him how he discovered Gurdjieff and how he came to decide that G.I.'s philosophy seemed better than any other system. I told him how I discovered Gurdjieff through RAW and a Kate Bush (sorry for the pop-ups) song, Them Heavy People. He answered with "I am in The Work. When you know what that means, I may answer your questions." What a pompous, over-serious, frickin', rackin'...*Mumbly muttering* That answer made me laugh, it seemed so self-important and cliched, that I responded with "Ha Ha Ha Ha - you crack me up, ____". I think I touched a nerve. He replied with a mini-rant about how he 'takes the Work very seriously and would never laugh at it' and how there's plenty of resources at the Gurdjieff fan page but how I never seemed to have made an effort to look at them. He asked if I even knew what The Work meant and told me that it had not diminished his 'sense of humor' (bearing in mind that I had never seen any evidence of this alleged sense of humor). He then wound down with "Why do I make you laugh? What on Earth do you mean?"

Now, the temptation to send him that 'restaurant scene' from Goodfellas was almost too great, but in the end, I settled for "I am a Discordian Pope. When you find out what that means, I may answer your questions." Then I told him I'd see him around, sent it off and promptly removed him from my friends list. I guess these critters are everywhere, in every sect of esoteric knowledge...Thelemites, UFO-logists, even Discordians. Ultra-serious and keen to demonstrate how much they're in the know and you're not. C'mon, how can you not take the piss out of them? I try to show most critters tolerance and some respect. I don't like being hectored and preached at, though..and asked to prove my allegiance to a philosophy or idea. I guess, to this critter, being a "fan" of G.I. Gurdjieff means devoting most of your time to the study and practice of his ideas. To me, 'fandom' is a lot less rigourous. I really like RAW, but I'm not about to go around and harangue everyone who even has a casual interest in his ideas and ask them why they haven't read all of his books and why they don't watch the "Maybe Logic" DVD every day.

The whole situation reminds me of an old Dennis Miller routine, back when he was still funny and not a Bush family crony and apologist. He said something like "I don't mind doing drugs. It's not the drugs that mess you up, it's usually the people you have to do them with." Then he went on to talk about how he had smoked some powerful weed and is spaced out when some berk asks him "Waitaminute, waitaminute....how do I know the color blue is the same to you as it is to me?" "I don't know", Miller answers, "Go look at the crayon box - what do I look like, fuckin' "Nova"*?" Sometimes, it's not the philosophy that does your head in, but those who espouse it far too seriously.

*Nova is a show on PBS in the States, which I thought had been cancelled, but looks like it's still going strong. It was (or is) a sort-of science/investigative program.

Back From Bournemouth

2009-04-30T12:35:00.004+01:00

6 Iyyar - Year 5769

Pixie and I travelled to Bournemouth over the weekend to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary - yep, 5 years, peeps. Seems like a few weeks ago. Time seems funny like that.

We stayed at the Connaught Hotel in the west end of the city. After a bit of trouble actually locating it, we checked in and headed down to the beach for a stroll. Thankfully, the weather was quite sunny and only a tiny bit breezy. The forecast called for rain and strong winds.

Back at the hotel, we went for a swim in the indoor (heated pool), used the steam room and sauna, swam again, then chilled out in the jacuzzi. Ah, now that's the life. Pixie also paid for a massage for me. No, not that kind, ya filthy oiks--just a back, neck & shoulders one. I felt very relaxed afterwards...must get another one sometime. Dinner was at Zizzi, which was appropriate as our first official 'date' was at the Zizzi in Oxford. The food was excellent and the Peronis I drank were too.

We ate breakfast at the hotel (quite a nice spread it was), then checked out. The weather was pretty nasty, with strong winds and rain. Pixie wanted to go to Hengistbury Head and walk around. We had been there last about three years ago and found it to be an enjoyable visit. The weather dampened (literally) the walk this time, though we explored more of the surrounding area, not just the main hill, as we had done before. When we arrived back at the car, we were so drenched that we each needed a change of clothes.

It was then decided we would visit Christchurch, which is near to Hengistbury Head. We had also been there before and had already seen the cathedral and most of the other sights, so this visit was mainly a shopping trip. I tried to find a funky little record or book shop, but couldn't locate one anywhere near the high street. Instead, a checked a few charity shops and found Sky's (the classical/prog band featuring guitarist John Williams) Sky 2 on LP and Macca's 3-LP live set Wings Over America. The sleeve of the Macca set's pretty battered, but the records seem to be in decent shape. The Sky set is near mint, including the sleeve. Not bad for £5.

We grabbed some lunch at a small cafe and then made the journey home. It took a few minutes to unpack and then it was time to settle into the routine again. It's alright, though, we'll be going to the Peak District for a holiday in two weeks' time.

Happy Bicycle Day!

2009-04-22T12:44:00.004+01:00

Boomtime, Discord 39 - Year of Our Lady of Discord 3175

I missed posting this on the actual day, but 66 years ago this month, Dr. Albert Hofmann had arguably the most famous bicycle rides in the 20th century. The first, on April 16th 1943, from his laboratory at the Sandoz (now Novartis) company to his home, after accidentally absorbing a tiny bit of LSD-25 into the skin of his hand. He wondered at the curious effects of the drug and decided to experiment with a deliberate dose three days later.

He ingested quite a large dose (not realising that LSD should be measured in micrograms, not milligrams) and experienced a full-blown "trip", which lasted several hours. When the drug first affected Dr. Hofmann, he felt the need to go home and again (this time with a lab assistant) rode his bike. He later stated that he seemed to be barely moving, while his assistant told him they had been cycling at a fast speed. When he arrived home, he felt panicky and had a few frightening hallucinations. Later, he was able to relax more and eventually returned to 'everyday' conciousness. With that, what later came to be known as "The Sixties" was effectively in motion.

Here's a video created by David Normal (heh heh - great surname). It's an animated feature depicted Hofmann's first LSD trips. The music is from Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother Suite:

For an added bit of fun - here's Tomorrow's My White Bicycle, one of the pinnacles of English psychedelia. Rumoured to be inspired by Hofmann's experiments, I think it's actually more about the Dutch Provo movement. Could be either, but still a great song and perfect for 'Bicycle Day':

..and coming back to the mighty Floyd, here's a vid of Bike, Syd Barrett's closer to their first full-length, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. The photos were taken for a Belgian TV show in February 1968. The sound quality's not the best, but you get the idea. It's been said that the coda represents Syd's increasing 'madness', due to the over-use of psychedelics, but no-one can say for sure.

Albert Hofmann's notes about his experiments can be found here. The great cosmic bike ride continues....

R.I.P. J.G. Ballard

2009-04-21T09:04:00.002+01:00

1 Ordibehesht - Year 1388

Obituary at the BBC website.

All You Need Is Cash

2009-04-20T12:36:00.008+01:00

31 Farvardin - Year 1388

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that The Beatles' original catalogue has been re-mastered again and will be re-issued on September 9th of this year. I'm not sure why they chose that date - though it is a month before John Lennon's birthday, so I suspect that was a factor in it. For most of the albums, this will be the first re-release since the Capitol/EMI CD editions in the late 1980s (there was a special-edition mini-LP version of "The White Album" released to coincide with it's 30-year anniversary in 1998).

There's a little montage at the official website, showing the new packaging and a bit of the deluxe booklets, as well as the description in the 'news' section (that I linked to - you have to scroll down a bit). It appears one can buy them all at once, as a boxed set, or individually (you can pre-order them on Amazon now). The CDs are all in stereo, including the first three or four albums--which were issued only in mono on vinyl. There will be a separate "Beatles In Mono" boxed set as well. The two Past Masters CDs, first released in 1988, have been combined into a 2-disc'er - and the songs with mono mixes will be included in the boxed set, as a bonus.

There have been some complaints about EMI not including the mono mixes on the stereo discs (as there's enough room on a standard length CD). That seems a fair complaint to me. Other fans thought there should be out-takes as bonus tracks. It'd be nice, but the bootleggers have already sorted all those - check the Purple Chick releases. In my estimation, the PC versions are some of the best Fabs boots around now. Sure, EMI are grabbing the dosh from one of their most lucrative acts (along with Pink Floyd and Queen), but I can cut 'em a bit of slack for only re-issuing this stuff once so far - unlike the Floyd back catalogue, which is on it's third re-issue now. Virgin, MCA/Universal and Atlantic do the same, so it's not just one major label's habit.

Will I buy 'em? Yep. What can I say, I'm a sucker for re-issues, especially if it's the good stuff - and this, my friends, is the good stuff. I don't know if I'll go all out and buy the mono boxed set--I could ask for it as an X-Mas gift. If anyone's looking for some of the 80s Beatles CD re-masters, I'll be at the Kassam boot sale next month.

Long Weekend

2009-04-11T14:23:00.004+01:00

Jour du Duodi, Mois de Germinal - Annee 217 de la Republique

Hello again - I haven't had much to post lately, so I apologise for the lack of content. My mate Singing Bear sent me a load of musical goodies, which I am currently listening to quite a bit. He sent two of the Esoteric Recordings Man re-issues I don't own--the 3-CD Back Into The Future album and the double-disc Rhinos, Winos & Lunatics. Both sound excellent and "Back Into.." includes an entire live set from the Roundhouse in London in June 1973, spread over two discs. The Harvest Records anthology A Breath Of Fresh Air was included. It's a 3-CD set of tracks spanning the label's heyday from 1969 to 1974. All the big names are there..Deep Purple, Kevin Ayers, Barclay James Harvest and, of course, the Floyd. There's also some obscuro-treats from Shirley & Dolly Collins, Pete Brown (in various combos) and Tea & Symphony. Well worth owning! I also got a copy of the Rhino re-issue of Yes' second full-length, Time And A Word. I used to have it on cassette a long time ago, but Rhino's remaster contains a few great bonus tracks, like the 1970 single Dear Father. The rest of the shipment was a copy of Uriah Heep's 1971 album Salisbury (the deluxe Sanctuary re-issue from 2006) and The Wailing Souls' At Channel One, which has some quality dub cuts. Phew - that's a lotta listening. Cheers, Bear! I'll have some stuff heading your way soon.

I bought a few more discs from Amazon as well--the Mark Hollis solo album, first released in 1998, Peter Hammill's A Black Box (the Virgin/Charisma re-issue from 2006) and The Moody Blues' 1970 Isle Of Wight set (released at the end of last year on Eagle Records). All seem excellent to me, but I'm especially liking the quiet textures of the Hollis record. It's almost a continuation of the softer bits on the last two Talk Talk albums, except the arrangements are very sparse. It turned out to be a fitting swansong, as Hollis has not released anything since. Pixie bought the new Doves CD, Kingdom Of Rust, last week and we've been spinning that lots too. My own verdict is that it's pretty good - some of it stretches back to their electro-incarnation as Sub Sub, the rest seems to be 'classic' Doves--ethereal but stepping up to the rock plate when needed. One of the best I've heard so far this year.

This month marks Pixie's and mine 5th wedding anniversary. Seems like only yesterday.... I want to thank her for agreeing to be my goodwyf and staying with me through the tough times and setbacks, as well as the during the fun and upswings. We'll be heading to Bournemouth on our anniversary day for a small getaway. It promises to be a lovely time.

I've held off on starting a new podcast episode 'till after we get a new PC. Yep, we've decided that the ol' Compaq is a bit knackered now--being 6 years old. I've been in touch with a consultant and he's going to try and put together a custom jobbie for us. The main things I wanted were a bunch more memory, a CD and DVD burner and an updated Photoshop program. Pixie wanted Microsoft Word and Excel. We've also entered the 'wireless' age and upgraded our broadband package to include a wireless modem. The intrawebnet does seem a tiny bit faster now--but I have a feeling we'll see a big change after we've got the new PC. We're looking to buy it in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

That's my report on this extended holiday weekend--my mind is a bit scrambled from trying to remember what day it is. Hope you're enjoying yourselves...get out and enjoy the weather if it's nice.

Springtime again!

2009-03-23T12:37:00.006Z

2 Caitra - Year 1931

Happy Spring, all! Yep, the equinox happened and winter has ended once again. Pixie and I were out in the garden this weekend, cutting the grass and generally tidying up. We also went for a nice Indian meal at the local tandoori restaurant..yum yum! The weather was beautiful all weekend and it was good to be able to have the windows in the house opened. Now it's Monday, though, the wind and clouds have returned.

I've become fairly addicted to reading the posts (and comments) over at spEak You're bRanes, a site that weeds through various threads at the BBC's Have Your Say forum and other sites, and posts the most...erm...'delectable' comments. These comments are then ripped into with humourous barbs. It makes me laugh anyway--as well as feel somewhat pessimistic about human critters in general, like reading FreeRepublic, or 'Creation science' threads or watching Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. I'm not sure how some of the HYS commenters actually managed to switch their computers on and log on to the interwebs--going by what they post. Thanks to David Mitchell's on-line Guardian column for hipping me to the site.

I checked in over at My Podcast to find that all of my episodes have disappeared! Apparently, the My Podcast admins did a server switcheroo (that's a techie term, by the way) and lots n' lots of critter's files were lost...including all of mine. Would've been nice to receive an e-mail stating as much. Aaaarrgh! Ah well, this just means a new beginning for the 'Stroboscope - not that it will be much different, mind. Sorry to anyone who wanted to head over there and listen - I shall try and have a brand-new episode done soon. If anyone down-loaded any of the old ones and wants to send me a disc with them on, I'll appreciate it and post the episodes back at My Podcast as soon as possible. 'Till then, dear friends...

Record Fayre Round-Up #289

2009-03-18T09:00:00.009Z

Solar Moon Day 12 - Year Of The Blue Electric Storm

It's been quite a while since I was down at the Oxford Town Hall for the monthly Record Fair. Pixie checked our finances and gave me the green-light for the March fair. Woo hoo!

I planned to meet Pixie's bro there and when I arrived at the Town Hall - I found I was a bit early, so I bought my ticket and had a quick look at the tables near the entrance. CD bootlegs and some vinyl were the order of the day at those. Some interesting stuff, but nothing really essential.

Pixie's bro finally showed up and we started making the rounds. I by-passed a lot of the boots at first, because I was hoping to pick up some good LPs. I found some excellent items: Van Der Graaf Generator's Aerosol Grey Machine (at £20!--oof) and Camel's Mirage (at £18--mmm, maybe another time). I was hoping to score Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here on LP (to replace my copy that I bought in the 80s, lent to someone and never saw again)--which I figured would be a relatively easy find. I checked all the tables and no luck. Maybe next time. I circled around the floor a few times, trying to make the crucial decisions. I found Ekseption's fifth album, startlingly titled "5". As I don't own any of their records and the LP was going for £8, I nabbed it. While the jacket isn't exactly in great condition, the disc itself is in pretty good shape, just a bit of dust in the grooves. The music seems decent - keyboard-led jazz-prog...if you like Hammonds and tricky time signatures, this'll be your bag. I didn't find "W.Y.W.H.", but I did find the EMI/Fame LP re-issue of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn going for £12. I figured, what the hell, I always wanted it on record too, and forked over the cash.

We were supposed to meet with Rich's wife and the neices for lunch - so I was told that time was running low. Aaaaaargh - I needed to get cracking on some purchases. I had another look at one of the LP tables and found VdGG's Pawn Hearts (at £10, too! No fabled lyric sheet, though - that would've been the find of the day if it had), Gryphon's first album (in good shape - well, a bit of wear & tear on the outer sleeve), Hawkwind's Warrior At The Edge Of Time (the edition with the fold-out Celtic shield inside the sleeve...nice!). The Hawkwind record still hasn't been officially released on CD. The folks at Atomhenge are supposedly in negotiation for the original tapes, but it may be a while. I haven't listened to it yet - I have heard a few of the tunes from a bootleg I've got, a show from Newcastle in December 1973. I also bought Richie Havens' Stonehenge, as a last-minute find. It's been out-of-print on CD for a while now, so it's nice to have a copy of it on LP, to make my own CD from.

I had a little dosh left, so I wandered over to a bootleg CD table. I tried avoiding buying from this seller. The last time I did, the King Crimson disc was an entirely different show from the one shown on the cover art (the artwork was for the "Cosmic Muir" Highland boot - which is allegedly from Portsmouth in December 1972, the show I actually bought was the Oxford concert in November 1972), the Amon Duul II boot was of really poor quality and the Steve Miller Band 2-disc'er had incorrect title info. on the tray liner. I managed to somewhat salvage the Amon Duul II show, though the quality has only slightly improved. I created all new artwork for the Steve Miller and Crimso boots. To be sorta fair, the VdGG 2-disc set and the Mars Volta set I bought from him are decent and the Steve Hackett 2-disc set only needed a bit of tweaking to make it sound a lot better. With that in mind, I had a quick look over his stock. A Steve Hilllage 2-CD show from the Rainbow Theatre, London in 1977 seemed really cool and I honestly couldn't pass it up. D'oh! I then spotted another VdGG set - this one from the Weeley Festival in 1971. Oh dear....I added that in as well. The final strike was a Yes boot, called Swirling Wind, from Maryland in 1972. Nooooooooooooo! Yep, I handed over the cash.

He done got me again - as the Yes show is definitely not from a 1972 tour, but is, as far as my t'internet research tells me, the Wembley show in 1978 (the giveaway is a couple of tracks off the Tormato album, released that year). Maybe the guy's stoned when he's printing the artwork off or something. I think I'll send this one to Singing Bear - if'n he wants it. I've got another copy of this show somewhere. Luckily, the Hillage boot seems pretty good to my ears - good sound quality and setlist and the VdGG seems O.K. as well, for a recording from an outdoor festival in 1971. I may tweak it a bit and then copy another one for the Bear! As for official discs - I did buy the 2-disc Dawn Anthology set - another of those progressive-rock label compilations. It doesn't seem to contain quite as many gems as the Decca ones, or the Harvest Breath Of Fresh Air comp., and as such is probably only for prog-rock completists.

A pretty good haul, I'd say. Now, I've gotta get round to listening to it all :)

Home Alone

2009-03-02T12:40:00.008Z

5 Rabi al-Awwal - Year 1430

Pixie's been in Amsterdam for the past week on a business trip and she's not back in England until Friday. She's enjoyed some of it, despised other bits. I'll let her post the details, if she wants to. It's been strange, staying in the house with no other critters about. I haven't lived alone for longer than a week since 2001. It's been a good exercise, having to cook meals, do the laundry, etc. When I was single, I mainly ate ready-meals for dinner and fast food for lunch--I know, not an exemplary diet. I wondered why I felt sluggish all the time. I feel much healthier now and hey, I've even heated up some fresh vegetables this week, which I bought myself. That seems like progress to me, in some sense. Now, if I can only learn to cook something from scratch--that'll be an accomplishment.

I watched Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain this week. I was able to choose one of 'my' films from the rental list in Pixie's absence. Originally released in 1973, it never achieved a proper showing, other than at a few film festivals. It was reissued on DVD in 2007, along with his other cult film El Topo--both distrubuted by Allen Klein's ABKCO label. It's mainly about the spiritual journey of a man only identified as "The Fool" or "The Thief". He looks a lot like the West's image of Jesus (or a typical hippie, circa 1973). You can read the plot summary on the Wiki page. Apparently, the film is partly based on Rene Daumal's Mount Analogue novel. The film is very much 'of it's time', especially the psychedelic colours and camera angles in the "Tower" scenes--but the quest it portrays certainly seems timeless to me, that for immortality and rising above the earthbound nature. It's not an easy viewing and if copious nudity, Peckinpah-like violence and little dialogue aren't your bag--you'll probably want to avoid it. There's also a bit where "The Alchemist" (played by Jodorowsky) transforms the Thief's...erm...excrement into gold. I happened to be eating crisps during that moment--luckily I've got a fairly strong stomach. Overall, I enjoyed the film and while maybe some of the symbolism was a bit obvious, "The Holy Mountain" still seems a unique experience and one that still has me thinking about it over a week later. The photography seems very visceral and Jodorwosky captures the dusty towns and windswept fields so well that you can almost smell the dirty streets and feel the tall grasses. They definitely don't make 'em like this anymore.

Esoteric Recordings are on a roll with great re-issues! Following on from their excellent Man and Supersister near-complete back-cat re-releases, they've gone and tackled Fruupp's 4 studio records. Previously only available on expensive Japanese import editions and a 2-disc anthology--these CDs are definitely welcome. Finally, all four separate albums have been given a domestic release. The booklets have detailed notes about the band's history and each album and the Prince Of Heaven's Eyes booklet includes the original story, by Paul Harvey, which the album was based on. The story booklet was only available with the first pressings of the LP when it was released in 1974. Esoteric have also announced that they'll be re-issuing The Deviants' 3 1960s records and lead singer/provocateur Mick Farren's Mona--The Carnivourous Circus (his debut solo album) next month. Those are definitely on the purchase list!

Anyway, I'm off to tidy up the house before Pixie gets home!

Dilemmas #64

2009-02-12T11:21:00.006Z

Pungenday, Chaos 43 - Year of Our Lady of Discord 3175

I read on the intrawebs that the Amorphous Androgynous are going to be remixing the latest Oasis single, Falling Down. Apparently, Noel Gallagher has given Gaz, Brian and the rest of the A.A. crew 'carte blanche to do whatever the fuck we want' (quote from Gaz). I think the initial idea is to create a 22-minute psychedelic free-for-all...sitars, mellotrons, the lot.

Noel seems to have been very impressed with the 2-disc Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble mix, released toward the end of '08. M.P.B. began life as a 2-hour ISDN broadcast back in 1997, when the boys were still in their full-time guise as The Future Sound Of London. Back then, they were tiring of their persona as doyens of forward-thinking electronica..cutting-edge and looking to obliterate the past through technology. They created M.P.B. as a sort-of hommage to their rummages through LP boxes in market stalls and tiny record shops in London. I think the inital reaction to it was confusion amongst F.S.O.L.'s fan-base. As one reviewer put it, suddenly they were the "Antiquated Sound Of Pink Floyd". I would've have been shocked by it, as in the summer of '97, I was buying the We Have Explosive EP and listening to Fat Of The Land by The Prodigy and Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers. As much as I love psychedelia, I wouldn't have grasped what F.S.O.L. were up to. I finally got to hear the original M.P.B. mix in 2004, as a bootleg, and I was blown away by it. For those interested in hearing those original radio mixes, they are available at FSOL's official site, in The Pod Room. The downloads are fairly cheap and you get a (somewhat small) cover art jpeg. I hope they continue creating them--they're up to volume 7 in the series so far. Gaz has indicated that another 2-disc official set will be released at some point...he's still trying to get clearance to use some of the tracks.

Which brings me to my dilemma...I want to hear A.A.'s remix of Oasis' track, but that may mean actually purchasing an Oasis single. I don't know if I'm up for that task. When you really consider it, Oasis haven't made a decent record since 1995. That's quite a long time making middling to mediocre albums. Sure, there were a few catchy tracks off of Don't Believe The Truth--but to my ears, that was only because they stopped ripping off The Beatles so much and ripped off The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground instead. It seems a shame, because Noel Gallagher seems like a pretty cool bloke (plus, he owns a mellotron--that definitely takes him up a few notches in my estimation)--it's too bad he can't raise his game with the band, beyond the plodding, 4/4 rhythms and anthemic choruses they trot out every couple of years. Maybe the A.A. remix will make an Oasis track...well, interesting.

It was the same a few years ago when Stereophonics released the Dakota single. It was damn catchy, but I couldn't help thinking "it's the Stereophonics, but it's a good tune". That sort of dilemma. Speaking of Stereophonics, do you remember in 2007 when the BBC2 decided to 'celebrate' the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper's with a re-recording, featuring the most un-psychedelic bands they could gather? Travis, Razorlight & Kaiser Chiefs...urgh! I guess Spiritualized, Acid Mothers Temple and even Amorphous Androgynous were busy that week...shit, they could've even got The Verve in there. Would've been a lot more of a real tribute than having James Morrison show up with his faux-soul warblings. My mate Axl posted about cover versions and he makes a very good point about not whinging over bad cover versions of really good (and classic) songs. But dig this, I was watching a film that was made to coincide with the re-recording of "Pepper". Pretty cringe-worthy in itself...but then they get to the bit with Stereophonics. Now, the tune that they were to cover from the album was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise). When they arrive at the studio, Kelly Jones actually says to Geoff Emerick (who was the recording engineer for the original "Pepper" and was producing the new sessions), that they "don't know that one". Oh dear....D'ya think maybe you could've coughed up enough bread for a copy of the album and listened to it all the way through at least once? I suspect that they were told which track they would be covering before they agreed to take part...and even if it was sprung on them the day of recording, you'd think they would've done a little bit of homework. I realise there's an opinion that holds the Stereophonics were being 'rock-n-roll' about the situation, but to me, it just seems like boneheaded ignorance.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to buy the Oasis single....

I been Holy Modalled, I been Quetzlcoatl'd

2009-01-27T12:58:00.009Z

8 Bahman - Year 1387

I wanted to like this book a lot, I really did. I enjoyed Pinchbeck's first book, Breaking Open The Head, aside from the couple of tedious Burning Man chapters. It seemed to be an honest exploration of psychedelic states of being by a confused, if well-meaning, Manhattan literary party-boy.

I was excited when I first heard that "2012" was being published. I thought it would be a fresh perspective on the whole "end-of-the-Mayan-calendar"/"herald-of-a-new-age" scenario that was first brought to my attention by Terence McKenna and his TimeWave Zero theory. It seemed as if Pinchbeck were stepping up to the plate and was going to pick up where McKenna left off, after McKenna's passing in 2000.

I skimmed some reviews of "2012 - The Return Of Quetzlcoatl" (as the first edition was called)...and many were middling. Undaunted, I thought it was just the cynical contingent of the mainstream press. I checked some reviews over at GoodReads and it seemed to be the same. Hmmm.... Now I realise that anything with "prophecy" in the title (as stated in the edition I have) has the fundamentalist materialists and dogmatic rationalists reaching for their revolvers, but I thought there would be a lot more praise for the book. I decided to finally give it a go.

In "2012", Pinchbeck has devoted his energies to studying the prophecy that a new age will emerge in December 2012, which the Mayan calendar shows as the end of the world, or just the end of the current age, depending on your view. He jets off to Oregon to hang out with Jose Arguelles, who's created a new calendar based on the original Mayan dates. He visits England several times, specifically the Glastonbury area, to study the crop circle phenomenon. Mexico becomes a destination, so Dan can view the Mayan architecture. He goes to Burning Man again (urgh!), but this time the festival isn't so groovy, man--and finally he journeys to the Amazon rain forest, to learn about Santo Daime, a local religion which grafts the disparate strains of old tribal customs and Romish Catholicism into a peculiar ritual. The participants swallow cupfuls of ayahuasca, then sing and do a two-step dance for up to 6 hours.

All the while, he's having relationship problems with his 'partner'. She's never given a name, she's just his partner--though she is described as 'beautiful and svelte' (Pinchbeck wants you to know he's no chubby-chaser). The couple have a child together, which seems ill-advised, as he relates that their union was a bit unstable from the outset. These bits were really where Pinchbeck lost me. In an afterword to the paperback edition, he states how he included all this personal detail to 'invoke a deep enough response in readers that if might incite a shift in perspective'. Erm..that didn't happen for me, mate. It just seemed a bit voyeuristic to me, his tendency to let his audience in on his somewhat private soap-opera, involving his 'partner', another woman he meets at a psychedelic retreat in Hawaii, whom he insists on referring to as "first priestess" (she doesn't have a name either, apparently) and his little girl (again, no name). One chapter is devoted to the partner's father, for no other apparent reason than to compare him to Pinchbeck's own father. He also can't seem to stop exploiting his connection to the Beats (his mother dated Jack Kerouac at the height of his fame), as if that somehow lends him some extra credibility.

In spite of the more frustrating aspects of Pinchbeck's narrative, I did enjoy parts of the book. I really liked the crop circle bits, though I've never really given much thought to the phenomenon, putting down most (if not all) of the designs down to hoaxers. I found myself looking up the various formations Pinchbeck discusses to get a better idea of what he is describing. He didn't convince me with his various theories, but I did think that maybe hoaxers weren't responsible for all of the circles. Some of the Arguelles chapters had interesting segments - but then Pinchbeck inserts some caustic New Yawk intellectual screed, completely dismissing Aleister Crowley, but he buys most of Arguelles' Mayan reincarnation schtick. His visit to the Hopi reservation seems a bit of an anti-climax, but the words of the tribal chief almost redeem the plodding structure of the chapter. The book ends with an eco-warrior message about humanity's destruction of the environment and a possible redemption in the next 6 years (well, it's down to 3 now). Pinchbeck doesn't seem concerned that all of his jetting about might've added to all that pollution....'cos it was like, for the book, man.

So, for all that, you get a somewhat middling book about 2012 and what may happen. For me, it seems a bit of a wasted opportunity--too much about the author, not enough about the actual phenomenon. When he's not talking about his own foibles, he's borrowing ideas from McKenna, Arguelles, Robert Anton Wilson, crop circle devotees and a host of others. It seems that maybe Pinchbeck started believing his own press and yeah, that Rolling Stone article didn't really help things. It appears that he wants to join the psychedelic pantheon and have his name amongst the greats (Wilson, Leary, Huxley, McKenna, Kesey, etc.)--but I just don't know if he makes the cut. Going by "2012", I think he's got a ways to go.

Out, Demon, Out!

2009-01-19T11:19:00.007Z

30 Dey - Year 1387

It's finally time for the T.S.O.G. to step down and hand over the keys to President Obama. Despite all of the mud-slinging and 'Fox-ifying', Barack triumphed over the McCain/Palin ticket. If Bush supporters are wondering why that happened...it seems fairly obvious to me.

~ The 2000 election was decided under quite sketchy circumstances--lots of voting discrepancies and Bush's brother 'Jeb' presiding over the whole thing.

~ He vetoed the proposal for stem-cell research, in August 2001, raising the ire of many, including Nancy Ray-gun, who said it could have been used to help Ronnie's Alzheimer's condition.

~ Bush squandered all of the global goodwill toward the U.S. in the wake of the September 11th attacks with the illegal war on Iraq, started in 2003 and rattling the sabres at North Korea and Iran. Not to mention Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghirab and the "rendition" policies. Torture tactics codified into the 'law'.

~ The economic meltdown happened on his watch. Maybe it wasn't entirely his fault, but it didn't put a lot of hope into Republican economic ideas.

~ His contempt for ecological policies, especially his snubbing of the Tokyo Agreement and denial of possible global warming caused by greenhouse gases. He finally admitted in 2007 that he may have been wrong in his denial--but too little, too late.

~ Osama bin Laden, who was declared "Public Enemy No. 1" after September 11th, still hasn't been caught. Bush announced he would 'find bin Laden and bring him to justice'. Where's the beef, George? Instead, he targeted Saddam Hussein. Admittedly, Hussein's dictatorship was appalling, but it was also secular and not tied in with bin Laden's Islamic fundies. That didn't stop Bush, though. The one time I've ever agreed with Pat Robertson was when Robertson suggested assassination of Hussein instead of an all-out war, to avoid the slaughter of civilians and damage to infrastructure that followed. Of course, the reason Bush gave for the invasion was for "freedom and democracy". Hmmm, last time I checked, Robert Mugabe is still in power and the Darfur crisis continues. Where are the forces for freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe and Sudan? I'll admit, though, the last thing the citizens of either country need is the kind of "freedom and democracy" that follows in Bush's wake.

~ The pitiful response by Bush's administration to Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans. The television news was filled with images of hundreds of people crammed into school gymnasiums and sports arena grounds, many of them African-Americans. Those images weren't forgotten by the public. The city still hasn't been completely rebuilt yet--in the richest nation on the planet.

~ The thinning line between church and state that he wanted to make even thinner, by overt support for 'faith-based' organizations and his 'god-talk' in speeches. His AIDS-initiative in Africa reportedly favoured preaching abstinance over providing condoms and sex education.

The list goes on and on and on. I reckon he'll be remembered as one of the worst, if not the worst, presidents in American history. With that sort of albatross hanging around his neck, it's no wonder John McCain had no chance. Not that McCain seems like a wholly virtuous character to me either. He's shot himself in the foot plenty of times and there's no need to even extrapolate on why Sarah Palin shouldn't be allowed near a nuclear arsenal.

I agree with the optimism surrounding Obama, but I'm not sure how much he'll accomplish in his term--he's got a lot of work cut out for him. I don't like his continuing of the Afghanistan quagmire, committing more troops and resources to a silly conquest. He has intimated that he will close Guantanamo Bay--but will it just be re-located within the continental U.S.? I remember when Clinton ran as a progressive in '92--against King George I's 80s style conservatism and the bonkers Ross Perot campaign. As soon as Billy-Boy made it in, he did a 180-degree turn on most of his pledges. I'm hoping Obama doesn't do the same and it turns into "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" scenario. It'll be an interesting ride. At least Bush's foul stench will be removed from the White House.

Here's the Edgar Broughton Band to perform the exorcism--take it away, lads:

BBC4 Goes Prog-Rock!

2009-01-06T16:17:00.007Z

12.19.15.17.15 (Mayan Long Count)

My first post of the new Gregorian calendar year. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday season. I've got lots of stuff to get to. First, though, my mate Singing Bear hipped me to the scene over on BBC4. Seems there's a week-long celebration of UK progressive rock, which started last Friday night.

The main docu, called Prog Rock Britannia - An Observation In Three Parts (how's that for a title?!), runs about an hour and a half and contains some great footage and interviews. My only (slight) complaints would be that the focus was too much on 'The Big 4' (Yes, Genesis, ELP & King Crimson) and the last section, which purports to cover from 1978 through to 2008, just peters out after the punk explosion. There's a bit of footage of 80s Yes and some mentions of Genesis' transformation into chart-toppers, but that's it. As far as prog's 70s heyday, Henry Cow and the 'RIO' scene don't get a look-in, neither does the medieval-folk prog of Gryphon, nor Third Ear Band's acoustic drone-prog. Perhaps the latter two didn't 'rock' enough for the docu-maker's tastes..but the Cow definitely did a bit of rockin', i.m.h.o. The 80s prog-rock scene of Marillion, IQ, It Bites, Twelfth Night & Pendragon aren't given any air time and the 90s are equally ignored (leaving out Ultramarine's prog-rock techno experiments with Robert Wyatt & Kevin Ayers seems a shame). Wyatt features in some of the most entertaining interviews, though Richard Coughlan, drummer of Caravan, has a great moment lamenting that Caravan's audience were "all chaps". Robert Fripp is once again conspicuous in his absence, but he's never made any secret of his disdain for the term 'progressive rock' and never liked seeing Crimso lumped in with the other prog-rock bands. Despite the 'skimming the surface' nature of "Prog Rock Britannia", it's still worth checking out. You can watch it here, but only for the next three days (unless the BBC release a DVD version, or you've got a DVD recorder).

There was also a one-hour prog special on Time Shift (unfortunately not available to view on the iPlayer). It covers a lot of the same ground as "Prog Rock Britannia", only it has interviews with members of Gentle Giant and Steve Hackett (of Genesis)..along with 'music-journo-talking-head-for-rent' Charles Shaar Murray and 'Whispering' Bob Harris, host of The Old Grey Whistle Test. Decent viewing, but not really essential, especially when Murray trotted out the tired story about Greg Lake's Persian carpet as an example of prog's excess...oh yeah, that and Rick Wakeman's "King Arthur On Ice" show. I'm surprised no-one ever mentions Mike Oldfield's decision to employ 30 nubile young women as a choir on his 1979 tour, but I guess that reeks of sex and so doesn't fit in with the media's image of progressive rock. Stuart Maconie, host of the excellent Freak Zone radio show on BBC6 Music, was also on-hand to half-heartedly defend prog's virtues--as a sort-of counter-balance to Murray's smarmy commentary. The night I tuned in, the 'Time Shift' episode was followed by an 'Old Grey Whistle Test' programme from 1973, showing a film of ELP's European tour of that year.

BBC4 are broadcasting one-off specials during the week as well. They've showed a docu about Genesis' 2007 reunion tour and an interview with Phil Collins (I skipped those), a docu about Pink Floyd called Which One's Pink? (available for the next week on the iPlayer) and a collection of live clips entitled Prog On The BBC. I've watched a bit of "Prog On The BBC" and it looks pretty good--I've seen The Nice playing America (a black and white clip from 1968) and The Moody Blues playing Question (in colour from 1970). Just tonight was a 1974 film of Oldfield's Tubular Bells being played live in the studio. Hopefully that will be made available as well.

There you have it--soak it up while you may. I'm not sure when this will happen again. I hope this doesn't mean prog is becoming fashionable. I doubt it, though I did read that one of the characters on the deplorable Sex & The City was wearing a Yes T-shirt in one of the episodes. For the love of all that is good...

Happy Chrimbo, All

2008-12-24T16:26:00.002Z

Sadly, this song is still quite relevant..I wish it weren't. Happy Christmas, All. Let's stop all the fights.

Autumn-End Stew

2008-12-09T15:57:00.006Z

Jour du Nonidi - Decade II - Annee de la Republique 217

Nearly mid-December now and time for an update. We haven't been doing a whole lot lately, aside from the Cornwall holiday last month.

We did go see Frankie Boyle at the New Theatre in Oxford about a week ago. We stopped off at The Mission, the Mexican food place on St. Michael Street, before the show. I ordered two massive chicken burritos--finished the first and and barely made it through half of the second. Pretty tasty and fairly cheap..I'd recommend trying there if you're in town. The support act was Martin 'Bigpig' Mor, hailing from Northern Ireland. Most of his set was of the 'point-out-people-in-the-audience-and-tease-them' variety. He did generate some laughs, but for us in the upper deck, it wore thin from not being able to see the people he was hurling his barbs at. Frankie took the stage and performed a set that was just over an hour. Most of his material came from the stuff he's used on Mock The Week, but there were bits I hadn't heard. He riffed on some 'behind-the-scenes' aspects of M.T.W. as well, like jokes he'd had to leave out of the show. One of the "Scenes We'd Like To See" segments involved "Things To Kill The Mood At A Dinner Party" and Boyle said "If we're all at this dinner party, who's watching Madeleine?" He also joked that the cast are very close and often have group sex before filming an episode--he said he gets there late and it's like a 'fleshy jigsaw puzzle'. Needless to say, Boyle doesn't have much time for being P.C. He riffed on the Shannon Matthews trial, saying "That three weeks was probably the best time of her life...have you seen her mother?!!" There was the oblilgatory "point-out-people-in-the-audience..." portion of the act as well, but Frankie made it a lot more entertaining than Mor had. A guy in the audience said that he's studying music and Boyle asked him if he's going to get a band together. The bloke replied 'Yes' and Frankie came back with "I hope you enjoy working in that call-centre a year from now." A heckler tried his best with 'When are you getting The Proclaimers back together?' and Boyle unleashed a torrent of insults nearly comparable with Bill Hicks' Rush Limbaugh poem. In fact, Boyle admitted at the show that Hicks is a big influence on his comedy. Of course, Boyle doesn't seem to be a slavish Hicks imitator to me--his Scots humour is far too upfront for that. I kinda wish he had tried out some new material, instead of using a lot of the "Mock The Week" stuff--but all in all, I'm glad we caught him on the crest of his popularity. You know how fickle John and Jane Q Public are. He could be playing The Old Fire Station next year.

I've been on a bit of a 'prog-lite' (or radio-friendly prog) kick lately. Listening to some Kansas and Alan Parsons Project records. I know - I don't really know why either. I did see the re-issued A.P.P. discs on Amazon and purchased the first few (Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, I Robot & Pyramid). At the same time, I bought the re-issued self-titled Kansas album and the 2002 re-issue of Point Of Know Return (which I thought I owned already, but when I checked the collection, found I didn't at all). Both bands remind me of the early 80s, when Dust In The Wind was making the regular rounds on the AOR stations (soon to be christened 'classic rock' stations) and the A.P.P. had the biggest hit of it's existence with Eye In The Sky. Thing is, I'm enjoying the music. Trying my best to remove the albums from the influence of my memory and any sort of 'coolness' criteria, I've found that, despite the (sometimes) over-produced sheen and blatant attempts at chart-bothering, there are great moments on the albums. Parsons, of course, was the tape-op on the last few Beatles records and the producer of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon. The A.P.P. albums, bearing his name, would naturally be worked and re-worked to his specs. The band, made up of session musicians, deliver that kind of polite, late 70s rock--but it's a bit weirder than Chicago or Fleetwood Mac. Kansas were fans of Genesis, Gentle Giant and Yes and tried to create an American version of UK progressive rock. They nearly succeed in some of their tunes, though they lack the whimsical, humourous aspect of Genesis' and especially Gentle Giant's music. I'd recommend each group's 70s out-put. Kansas seemed to stray far from their prog roots after their 1979 release Monolith and the A.P.P. had already started with "Eye In The Sky", released in 1982. Both groups finally called it a day in the late 80s...though Kansas have re-formed with different line-ups since. They've released a few records of slightly dubious quality as well.

Speaking of polishing turds...oh we weren't? My mistake. We will now. The big X-Factor finale is tonight..yippee. I haven't watched any of it since the mass auditions at the beginning of the series. I know it's cruel watching deluded no-talents butchering R&B and soul tunes in front of a panel of industry hacks, but I do find some of it very funny. Don't bother telling me who "wins" tonight--I dont really care.

Lastly, I apologise for the lack of a new podcast episode. I meant to have one ready a few weeks ago--but I've been rather busy. I'm aiming to have one finished before X-Mas, but it may have to wait until January.

Lennon: 1 - Catholic Church: 0

2008-11-30T15:52:00.006Z

Prickle-Prickle, The Aftermath 42, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3174

As a follow-up to my 'White Album' tribute, I thought I would post a recent news story. The always-timely Vatican have seen fit to forgive John Lennon for Lennon's remark, spoken in interview in 1966, that "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus"--28 years after his death! Man, those Romish cult leaders really have their collective finger on the pulse of stuff. Apparently, according to the Church, he "was dealing with sudden fame" and it all went to his head. Well, that was swell of them to drop the matter then. Except, er...he had been internationally famous for roughly two years by then. Still, if that's what all those pointy-hat guys want to believe... Personally, it doesn't really matter if he was forgiven or not--I mean, who really cared in the first place? Apart from 'that old queen in Rome' and some rubes and sheet-wearing bigots in the American South. Anything that annoys them is quite all right with me.

I suppose it'll be another 30 years before Lennon is forgiven for the Two Virgins LP cover photo (I seem to recall that really stuck in the craw of Al Capp) and the lyrics to Imagine, especially the line "And no religion, too". It's O.K., though, Catholics still can't support Amnesty International and the Church is still against sex education in schools. Nice to know some things don't seem to change.

Has anyone checked out Victoria Jackson's website lately? For those not in the know, Jackson used to be part of the Saturday Night Live cast in the late 80s/early 90s, where she gained some notoriety by being type-cast as 'the ditzy blonde' in the sketches she appeared in. She also appeared in a couple of crap films around the same time (Casual Sex? & 'Weird Al' Yankovic's lame UHF)--and then...well, she all but disappeared. This past year, though, she's been making inflammatory statements at her site about the Obama campaign--everything from "he's a Communist" (with a captial 'c') to "he has traits of the Anti-Christ". I'm not making this stuff up--read it here. She also believes the Bible is "fact" and seems to be a fervent 'end-times' X-tian. She claims that FOX News is the 'only channel that resembles journalism' and shares far-right paranoia, with the twin bugaboos of Socialism and Communism destroying America. Now, I can read her bile with enough Buddhist detachment to last me a couple of paragraphs before I start picturing her computer exploding in her smug face. I'm not even the biggest Obama fan--but sheezus...the Anti-christ? I never thought she was that funny anyway--but if I were a fan of hers, I would really have to try hard to ignore her goofy politics and still like her. See, I can do that with Miles Davis--he seemed to be a notorious race-baiter and was a complete bastard to the women in his life--but damn did he make great music. Someone let me know when Victoria Jackson makes a better record than Bitches Brew and I might be willing to overlook her nutjob-ness and dogma addiction.

As an added bonus, here's a clip of Victoria on The O'Reilly Factor. The intellectual power on that broadcast must've been through the roof!

Thanks to Cheek for the Jackson website link.

Blackbirds, Piggies & Mother Nature's Sons - 40 Years Of The White Album

2008-11-18T12:10:00.011Z

28 Aban - Year 1387

1968 turned out to be a completely different year from the previous one. The "peace, acid & love" vibe of the 1967 counter-culture was drowned in the wake of police crackdowns, continued carnage in Vietnam and 'harder' drugs flooding hippie enclaves. The mood turned uglier with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Students and laborers, despite their mutual suspicions, banded together in France and effectively brought the nation to a standstill for a few weeks. Students in the UK and especially in the U.S. were becoming more radicalized as they watched their peers being sent to an unjust war at the whim of some old men in Washington. The music world responded to these changes in kind.

Bob Dylan weighed in early on with John Wesley Harding, released at the end of December '67. It was his first full-length after his 1966 masterstroke, Blonde On Blonde. The general reaction was bewilderment--as the stripped-down folk and country-ish tunes were almost completely at odds with the expected psychedelic sounds of the time. The Rolling Stones, still getting over their perceived disappointment with their 'acid' LP, Their Satanic Majesties Request, returned with the Jumpin' Jack Flash single in March 1968, a straight-ahead rocker, lean and mean. They would release the Beggars Banquet LP later in the year, which ditched the psychedelic whimsy for blues-and-rock riffing (aside from Factory Girl, a gentler folky track). Even Cream rocked out harder on their double-LP set, Wheels Of Fire, while keeping a few of the trippy touches of it's predecessor, Disraeli Gears. And what was the biggest band in the world up to?

The Fabs were also getting over a disappointment--the poor ratings for their self-produced film, Magical Mystery Tour, shown in black-and-white and then again in colour on the BBC. 1967 had been a momentous and trying year for them. They rode the crest of the hippie wave with their Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band LP and their All You Need Is Love single, with the television broadcast of the song being one of the first ever worldwide satellite link-ups. In the same few months, though--their manager Brian Epstein died of a drugs overdose and they started to pull in different directions. Paul McCartney appeared to try and step into the gap and lead the band, causing resentment in John Lennon and George Harrison. In August '67, they attended a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Bangor, Wales--before filming for "Magical Mystery.." started. The Maharishi would have a large impact on the creation of the only double-album they ever recorded, simply titled The Beatles (also known as 'The White Album').

At the start of 1968, they released the jazzy pop single, Lady Madonna--written by McCartney, featuring a sax solo by English jazz legend, Ronnie Scott. The single was backed with The Inner Light, another Harrison Indian-inflected song. It was decided that the band would go to the Maharishi's ashram for training in trancendental meditation. The ashram was located in Rishikesh, India. The Fabs were joined by Donovan and Mike Love, of The Beach Boys...along with actress Mia Farrow and her sister, Prudence. They stayed for a couple of months, well, except Ringo Starr, who left after a couple of weeks. He was quoted as saying the ashram was "like Butlins" and reportedly brought tins of beans with him, in case he didn't like the Indian veggie food. The rest attended meditation sessions, walked around the compound and got the acoustic guitars out for jams with Donovan and Mike. Don apparently showed Lennon and McCartney his finger-picking style and a couple of the tunes that ended up on The White Album show this to be true. The remaining three wrote a lot of songs while in Rishikesh.

After a time, though, rumours started up about the Maharishi's more earthbound desires, particularly for Prudence. She became withdrawn and the others were concerned for her. Lennon wrote a melody for her, called Dear Prudence--which would appear on the completed album. Lennon and McCartney felt they had enough of the ashram and headed back to England while Harrison stayed on for another month. They re-convened to record the Hey Jude single (McCartney's ode to Lennon's son Julian when learning of John's split with his first wife Cynthia), which was backed with Lennon's Revolution, a scathing aside to would-be violent radicals. "Hey Jude" made the chart history books as the longest single to top the charts, clocking in at 7+ minutes, thanks to it's sing-along coda. In late spring 1968, the boys gathered at Harrison's Esher bungalow and recorded some acoustic demos of the various tunes they had written while in India. Soon after that, they returned to Abbey Road Studios to start the proper sessions.

The sessions were frought with tensions and Starr even left the band a couple of times, only to be cajoled back by the others. Yoko Ono, John's new paramour, was also present at the studio, all the time--Lennon insisted upon it. This caused McCartney and Harrison some unease, as they were used to recording with only the four of themselves and the production team. Some of the sessions also had a shambolic nature. George Martin, the Fabs usual producer, was away for the night the band recorded Macca's 'rock-and-roll-cacophony', Helter Skelter. With engineer Geoff Emerick and tape-op Ken Thomas at the board, the session lasted most of a night. McCartney would be screaming into a mic while Harrison ran around the studio with an ashtray, it's contents on fire, held over his head in an ad-hoc impression of Arthur Brown. Lennon would be so exhausted (or stoned) sometimes, that when it came time for his vocals, he would lie on the floor of the studio. The fractious nature of the group was exposed and at times, only two band members would be in the studio. It was almost as if they were acting as a backing group for whomever's song was being worked on. For Lennon (and Yoko's) Stockhausen-influenced tape collage, Revolution No. 9, only Harrison helped out with the many tape loops required for the finished piece. Recording was finally completed in October 1968. They had so many songs that a one-record track list couldn't be agreed-upon, so they decided on a double-album. A plain white sleeve was commissioned, in sharp contrast to "Pepper" and the colourful "Magical Mystery Tour" LP jacket. A poster was included in the initial pressings, along with four large photos of each Fab. A number was also stamped on the lower right hand corner of the front cover, with "The Beatles" embossed a bit above it.

The music itself was the most eclectic that the group ever produced. Forays into faux-30s jazz, proto-hard rock, quasi-folk..even an attempt at honky-tonk (albeit through a Liverpudlian filter), with the Ringo-sung Don't Pass Me By. The individual facets of each band member are far more pronounced. McCartney the tunesmith, with his melodic sensibilities..as in the folky Mother Nature's Son and Blackbird (rumoured to be a 'coded' message of support for the Black Power movement). Harrison the introspective one, with While My Guitar Gently Weeps (featuring his friend Eric Clapton on a nice solo) and Long Long Long. Lennon's acerbic wit on Happiness Is A Warm Gun (a "3-songs-in-one" medley which would inspire the side-long medley on the Abbey Road album and Radiohead's Paranoid Android, nearly 30 years later), The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill (a swipe at alpha-male 'Saxon mother's sons' that he perceived to be the source of most wars) and Sexy Sadie (allegedly written about the Maharishi's foibles). Ringo, ever the droll clown, had "Don't Pass.." and the treacly Goodnight, which closes the second record in the set. For all that, though, it still seemed difficult to completely pin them down. Lennon gets sensitive on "Dear Prudence", featuring that Donovan-picking and on Julia, an ode to his late mother. Macca rocks out on Why Don't We Do It In The Road? and "Helter Skelter". Harrison lets his hair down on Savoy Truffle, another track with Clapton and even written about Eric's sugar jones.

There are some "full band" moments scattered throughout, in case anyone thought the group had completely fragmented. Back In The U.S.S.R., which opens Side 1 of the first LP, is a Chuck Berry-esque rocker which also manages to be a Beach Boys hommage/piss-take. Birthday, a light, fun ditty, also sounds like the four mucked in together to complete it. Revolution No. 1, a slowed-down version of Lennon's B-side, has a 'band feel' to it as well...especially with it's false start. The underpinning blues riff sounds off on an acoustic guitar and then stops. Macca says "Take two" and Lennon responds with "O.K." and the riff starts the tune proper. Then there are the oddities. Wild Honey Pie (covered by The Pixies in the late 80s) sounds like an Appalachian hoedown on Saturn. Harrison's Piggies couches cynical, almost insurrectionary lyrics into a sprightly melody, featuring harpsichord as a lead instrument. And then, of course, "Revolution No. 9"--a tape collage by turns unsettling and remarkable. Whatever you think of it, it was certainly a bold move to include it on the album at all. I suspect it bewildered even those fans who'd stuck with the Fabs through all of the changes in 1966 and '67.

The record set, as with every new Beatles album, received a warm response upon it's release in November 1968. Unfortunately, in 1969, it became forever associated with the murder of Sharon Tate and others by Charles Manson's 'family' of hippie runaway delinquents. Manson was convinced that the Beatles were communicating with him through the music, especially "Helter Skelter", "Piggies" and "Revolution No. 9". He thought a race war was imminent and used the murders to try and foment the war. His plan was to hide out in the Mojave desert until the war was over, then make his way back and take over as supreme leader over the African-Americans, whom he figured would win. The band themselves distanced themselves from the tragedy and those songs weren't performed for a long time by any of the members, even during their solo years. When the 'White Album' was released on CD in 1987, American comedian Sam Kinison had a routine about having faulty speaker wire, because he couldn't hear The Beatles talking to him. He would launch into a tirade, shouting "MANSON...IT WAS JUST A FUCKING ALBUM..YOU WERE ON ACID!" U2 covered "Helter Skelter" on their 1987 tour and Bono would announce, before starting, "This is a song Charles Manson stole from The Beatles, we're stealing it back". Harrison did perform "Piggies" again on his 1991 tour and McCartney has recently been performing "Helter Skelter"--as in his Glastonbury set a couple of years ago.

The group were back in the studio in January 1969 for the ill-fated "Get Back" sessions. It was clear by that time that they were moving in separate directions, as foreshadowed during the recording of the 'White Album'. They would rally one final time for the recording of "Abbey Road" in the summer of 1969 and then, in August 1969, they quietly split, though the noisy legal battles would commence soon after. A post-split LP, Let It Be, pieced together from the "Get Back" sessions, was released in 1970, along with an official announcement that the band had broken up.

There are still debates about whether the sprawling double-album could've been whittled down to a very stellar single LP. In the 1995 Anthology TV special, George Martin is shown as saying just that...that he wanted to edit it down to a single record. Macca is shown just after, saying "I never agreed with all that, well...it should've been a single album...it's The Beatles, it's the White Album...shut up." To me, it shows the biggest band in the world willing to go out on a limb, even if it means alienating some of their die-hard audience. Maybe it was out of necessity...perhaps they had to record the songs they did for no other reason than to assert themselves as individuals in this thing beyond their control called The Beatles. It's still one of the best double-albums in the history of popular recorded music, well, to me anyway.

Trip to Cornwall / Saying Goodbye to Herbie

2008-11-15T17:17:00.002Z

We spent last week in Cornwall as it was Herbie's favourite holiday destination and we'd decided to scatter his ashes on his favourite part of Bodmin Moor (Rough Tor - a bleak and desolate place in November).

We set off on Monday morning in torrential rain - it was so bad that on the motorway I couldn't see a thing due to the spray from the lorries. We got there and were in the cottage in 5.5 hours, which isn't bad considering. We stayed in a little cottage in Port Gaverne - 1/4 of a mile down the coast from Port Isaac (as seen in Doc Martin and Saving Grace). Port Gaverne is a tiny little cove filled with holiday cottages and one pub. My family first came to know if in the 70's (I think) when my mothers cousin Gary worked in the pub/hotel. At the time it was owned by an eccentric old Biddie who we think has now died - her apartment was empty and being refurbished. She owned both the hotel/pub and also a set of old fisherman's cottages opposite. We used to take Herbie down there and stay in a cottage called Marigold - right opposite the pub. This time though we stayed in the one called Jasmin as Marigold held too many memories for me.

When we got there we went for a walk in the mud over the headland but soon turned back as it was so wet. We walked up to Port Isaac and strolled round the quaint old streets, looking in some of the shops. There were a few other people about but not many. On the way back we managed to befriend a little cat which we christened Bertie. He followed us for so long I thought he was going to come all the way back with us (he actually turned up one night just outside our cottage !). We went for a drink in the pub that night and both had Doom Bar - a local beer brewed in Rock and named after a sandbank between Rock and Padstow. It's a really good beer but tastes much better from the tap in an authentic Cornish pub, with a roaring fire.

The next day we set off for Rough Tor to scatter Herb's ashes. We got there early and were the only people there - which added to the bleakness. It came back to me why Herb had liked it so much - he wasn't friendly with other dogs and this place was so huge and lonely that the chances of him seeing another dog were slim so he could enjoy his walk without any anxiety. We set off, over the stream at the bottom and then made our way to the left and then up. We got to the top and started looking for a suitable place - finally deciding on the 2nd of the 3 "peaks", mainly due to the fact that it was a very windy day and it was slightly more sheltered. We scattered his ashes, including some dried daffodils we'd picked in April from the little patch over the road (he used to go berserk sniffing them for some reason !) and then carried on with our walk - around the final peak and back down to the car. It was a lovely walk and a very sad moment. I think he's happy there though as it truly was his favourite place.

After we'd eaten our lunch we set off for Polzeath Beach - another of his favourite haunts. The tide was coming in (or going out) so most of the beach was under water but the sea was rough and we had a potter round, fascinated by the waves and movement of the sea. We watched some idiots - I mean Surfers - including one with no wet suit. We left there and had a quick visit to Rock and then back to the cottage before it got dark (I refuse to drive in the dark - especially along those Cornish roads). We went out for dinner that night and ended up in a place called The Crows Nest - it was nice, the food was good. The only other pub in Port Isaac didn't have any vegetarian options but it had a nice Beer brewed by St Austell's called HSD.

The next day we completed our Herb tribute with a trip to Lanhydrock - a National Trust property just outside of Bodmin Moor. It sort of reminds me of a smaller Blenheim Palace, with a hugely impressive house and nice circular walk. We walked Herb's usual route but unfortunately strayed off it into a field for a few minutes. This seemed to anger the field's owner for some reason and she shouted at us to "get out of her field". Pure comedy ! We did, but were still looking for the path in the next field along and she seemed to disaprove of this too, and came up to us still shouting to get out. TPG decided to shout back but I told him to shh and pretend we were lost. When she realised this she reluctantly said she'd show us where the path was - I played dumb (not difficult) and made her take us all the way back to the turning we should have taken. If she'd been politer I wouldn't have done it but screw her !

After Lanhydrock we took a trip to Padstow. I'd never been there before and was very impressed. It's a largish harbour and very touristy, mainly thanks to TV Chef Rick Stein who owns restaurant/cafes/ a Deli/ a hotel/ a fish and chip shop etc etc there. As TV Chef's go I really like Stein - although he cooks a lot of fish dishes I always try to watch him as he's very unassuming and nice. We had a wander round the harbour, took a walk nearly to the beach, bought authentic Cornish Pasties (well, a Cheese & Onion and Chicken and Stuffing) for dinner that night and then visited Stein's Deli. We had a list of stuff for a work colleague and also picked up some Chutney for my parents and some chocolate cookies for ourselves. It wasn't cheap but the quality is good.

The next day - Thursday - we decided to visit The lost gardens of Heligan. It was raining really hard and the drive took 90 minutes ! When we got there the rain didn't show any signs of stopping but we bravely spend 3 hours wandering round, fascinated by it. My favourite bits were the bird hide, the Italian Garden and the Vegetable Garden. After 3 hours we were soaked and freezing so we went to the cafe and had a hot drink - my hands were so cold I wrapped them round the mug and couldn't feel a thing. After we'd warmed up a bit we set off for St Austell - with the main intention of finding the Brewery. We walked round the centre but didn't see it anywhere so left - 0n the way back we saw signs for it though so followed them and found it ! We bought some beer and cider and then set off for the cottage.

That night we ate in the Port Gaverne pub - a Cheddar Ploughmans for me and Fish for TPG. Also more Doom Bar. There were a very annoying couple in that night - the woman was possibly the most irritating person in the world. She obviously wasn't happy with just her Husbands company because she kept leaving her table to go and talk to the Barman and the regulars (who were from London and Manchester !). She tried to drag us into conversation a few times but we didn't get sucked in - instead concentrating on our food and beer. There were a couple of cute dogs in that night - a spaniel called Indie and a black lab called Freddie. We spent most of our time watching him and commenting on how good he was !

Friday we had to leave - unfortunately. We stopped in Tintagel for a bit and walked around the shops and up the the castle. We bought a few cheap souvenirs from a bookshop and then set off for home. The drive home was uneventful - but quicker than the journey there. We got home late yesterday but both wish we were there still. Maybe we'll go back next year with the whole family for Christmas.

Horrortrip From The 'Stroboscope/Off To Cornwall

2008-11-09T14:46:00.006Z

Hello regular readers and visitors.

A small post to mention the Halloween episode of The Kaleidophonic Stroboscope is now live (well, it's been live for about a week). I know, the holiday is over--but you can still savour the scary sounds, especially on a rainy and cold day like this. Listen to the episode here. The artwork still isn't loading at MyPodcast, so I've posted it here instead.

Pixie and I are heading to Cornwall on holiday this week. We're staying in Port Isaac and we'll be going to visit Herb's old haunts and scatter his ashes on Bodmin Moor, one of his favourite 'walkie' spots. We've rented a cottage near where Pixie's family used to stay on holiday, so it shall be nostalgic for her and a whole new experince for me. This will be my first visit to the west Cornish coast. I'm taking my hiking boots and plenty of warm clothes.

Be back in a week...see you then!

Eno rockin' Question Time!

2008-11-07T09:53:00.004Z

16 Kartika- Year 1930 (Saka Era)

Anyone else see Brian Eno on Question Time last night? Pixie and I tuned in for a bit, when suddenly ol' Dimbers fielded a question to the Liberal Democrats' "Youth Advisor"....Eno!

I only watched a bit of the programme, but just enough to see Eno dis Jack Straw over the "dodgy dossier" used to instigate the war with Iraq. How cool was that?

Personally, I think Brian should form his own anarcho-libertarian party..or join The Monster Raving Loonies (the only respectable active political party--aside from the Guns And Dope Party). I'd vote for him. Imagine that...Prime Minister Eno.

You can watch the "Question Time" programme on the BBC iPlayer here (for the next week only - then it's gone).