Playing Scrabble with Augustus John

The day the music died....

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the crash that killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Richie Valens and piot Roger Petersen. I mention this, because I pretty much had this event drummed into me in childhood, because my father was mad about Buddy Holly. I mean MAD about Buddy Holly. When Paul McCartney sold his rights to the Beatles back catalogue so he could own the rights to Buddy Holly's, the world gave a confused shake of the head. Not my dad though, who nodded approvingly - one of the few people around, who "got" what Mad Macca was doing.

If you go through my dad's collection of records, you will find numerous singles and EPs (extended players for anyone under thirty out there) by Buddy Holly and it does hit you how productive the guy was and how much of an effect he had on the music scene in the fifties and sixties, all the way to the present day. For someone who died at the age of 22 to do what he achieved in such a short space of time was nothing short of incredible. Dad used to say that he thought Holly would be bigger than Elvis and when you look at this, it's hard to argue. Dad was properly gutted about the plane crash, even many, many years later, about what he felt the world has lost. Fifty years on, it's hard to argue, as the popularity of this bespectacled singer who was only active in the industry for sixteen months, seems to increase year on year.

New Year

I'm not the biggest fan of this time of year. After the excesses and hype around Christmas, January isn't so much a "chill out" room to December's "rave", rather a bucket load of Mogadon with some cold weather thrown in. Anyway, at this time of the year I always like to see which bands may be the ones to watch. This young lady may seem slightly odd, but given how much I like Devendra Banhart, Joanne Newsom and their like, I think her album, when released, would fit right in with those.

On a roll...

Two posts in two days - wow!

I've spent at least half of today playing Eve Online. For those in the know, I'm playing a Minmatar character. The new PC really handles all the graphics and such, plus email and all the usual stuff I have running in the background without even climbing out of bed. Will I be playing it tonight with the lack of Bridge going on? Quite probably. Anyway, I had a wildlife moment this evening. Out with the dog in the fading light and murk, there were at least half a dozen bats going about their batty business; flying only a couple of feet from my head on occasion - quite special it was. There aren't any pictures though - you know with it being dark, bats being pretty quick and the camera being at home and all.

Finally, I'm really getting into the new Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan offering. I wanted to get a live performance from the album to post here, but the best I could do was an audio stream. If you haven't heard - please feel free :)

Bernard Matthews beware.....

Apologies for the lack of posting. Just of late, the amount of time spent Huckleberrying, along the usual daily pressures has left me short of things to say. Well, at least this Sunday marks the first day where H can meet the great outdoors. Sure, he's been in the back garden before now, enjoying chasing and eating leaves as you do, as an eleven and half week old puppy would. He still hasn't got the hang of performing his elimination tasks outdoors, but we'll get there. He's booked in for puppy classes with Gemma the Puppy Guru, so I expect him to be doing the housework and at least able to knock up a decent Spag Bol by the time he finishes his course in April.

Elsewhere, as in much of the rest of the country & Amsterdam apparently (watch what you're smoking lads), I experienced the earthquake that registered "slightly vibrating a tea-cup" on the Richter scale. I was woken by what I thought to be the sound of a WWII bomber flying over at low altitude. Given I have a friend who fixes Spitfires for a living (how cool is that for a job?) I figured later on that taking a Lancaster out for a quick spin at 1am probably wasn't that clever and would probably violate the pilot's no-claims. As it turned it, it was merely the vibrating of the wooden window frames. Huckleberry hardly bothered, so any of that stuff people tell you about the intuitive nature of pets, is obviously utter tosh.

Lastly (for now - I promise I'll be back soon) the UK choose their entry for the  Eurovision Song contest tomorrow. Since the introduction of former Soviet republics and Balkan states to the contest, the block voting that has always been a symptom of the contest for as long as I can remember, has become more prevalent. As a consequence, we have as much chance of winning the contest, as a club-footed myopian troglodyte has of winning Wimbledon.  I feel that despite the number of former talent show failures and ex-soap stars we throw at it, we just don't have the slightest chance. If there is a chance of anyone from the traditional Western European entrants winning the contest, we need to get behind something quirky. My money's on a Turkey puppet from Ireland. It's such a piss-take that former Irish winner Dana has pleaded for Ireland to withdraw from the contest. Anything that annoys Dana, is good by me.

Vote for the turkey:

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone who stops by these pages. As per usual, my New Year routine featured copious amounts of alcohol mixed with Jools' Hootenanny. This year featured the wonderful Mika and Kate Nash as well as Seasick Steve, Eddie Floyd, Duffy and some bloke who married a one legged pirate. The music as always was top notch, dulled only by the usual plethora of drunken celebrities (Lenny Henry and Arthur Smith take note) trying to take centre stage.

Anyway I've made no New Year resolutions, but hopefully the next few weeks of removing some of the assembled crap gathered over the last twelve years of living here (in preparation for the puppy); should make things feel like a new start.

Anyway, as I've no doubt mentioned before, one of the best ways of being exposed to good new music is to watch Jools Hollands biannual series of programmes. Following this piece are two performances from this year's series, including Duffy and a performance from my most recent bought album (that I missed) by Beirut. What does my taste in music say about me?

OK I gave in.

I went to the the bottle bank in the dark. I needed to get some bread rolls and something for my packed lunch tomorrow. The only problem is that I can't tell the difference between green and brown bottles in the dark. I hope the recycling gods don't strike me down for accidentally mucking up their system.

Anyway, I got an album yesterday: "White Chalk" by P.J. Harvey, which has made it straight on to the iPod. It's rather marvellous and to sign off from my second post of the day (before my keyboard and TypePad's servers melt from the strain) here's a recent performance of "Silence" from said album.....