TOP OF THE STAIRS MUSIC

Working at home today so managed to listen to a short [30 mins] profile of the founder of the marvellously unique Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Simon Jeffes. Firstly well done to R4 for still doing this type of stuff. I stumbled across the Orchestra when watching one of my all time fave movies Malcolm [if anyone knows where I can get a copy of this on DVD please let me know], one of the dryest and funniest films ever. I was so intrigued by the music that I bought their album Broadcasting From Home.

The music is like no other but very easy to listen to especially as they conjure a sound with a smooth and playful rhthym which just picks you up and you cannot not go along with it. It does have it's melancholy moments but most of the time it's fun. The uniqueness comes in via the variety of instruments they use: harmonium, cello, mandolin, ukele, penny whistles & guitars. It's a heady mix.

The whole orchestra came into being through a very weird dream/illusion which founder Jeffes experienced through a bout of food poisioning. It's worth reading about so check onto their website [with a very cute and simple opening logo] www.penguincafe.com

I had no idea until I went onto it that they have such a huge back catalogue, so guess I'll be stocking shortly as I only have 2 of their albums, the other being When In Rome which I am currently playing. Defy anyone to put this on and listen to the first track, air a danser, and not feel good!

Just got back from my annual business trip to New York which, as ever, was exciting but very exhausting. The city itself has so much energy that it exhausts you just being there but the business stuff was exhasusting as well.
Didn't get to the theatre this time but the BIG hit on Broadway at the moment is The Boys, which is the story of Frankie Valle [is that the correct spelling I wonder]. I didn't even get to the Virgin store on Broadway as I was busy clothes shopping due to the dollar exchage at the moment.

My best treat was going into the Apple store at the top of 5th Avenue which is a glass square just mounted on the pavement, you then go down a set of glass stairs and under the pavement is the store. What an exciting way to shop - anything you are thinking of buying is there for you to play with. Laptops, ipods, headphones everything is laid out on tables for you to try. I bought a pair of Bose noise reduction headphones and saved myself over £100 buying them in the US. It's disgraceful how countries mark up so high when selling their stuff over here. They are every bit as good as the advert says cutting out about 80% of background noise and the bass is excellent. I watched a movie on the way home wearing them and it sounded very good. So my beloved ipod now has a Bose accessory!

Talking of planes and as I blog not only the positive about music but the abuse of it also, is it my imagination but are planes now playing more music more often? It use to be playing when you got off and when you got on the plane, now it seems to be in between at certain points as well! And the mix is so weird. On Continental it was a right pot pourri, Madonna, Sinatra etc. Plus I really did not appreciate it as I was flying on the red eye flight and so was feeling pretty delicate by the time we landed at Birmingham.

Sounds strange eh?, but this guy is so raw and so of his own music that it's undeniably brilliant. I got his 2nd CD today called Cheap. I have been playing track six over and over, it's Love Thang - and you can really get down to it.
He's a true hobo, knows a thing or 2 about being on the road and is not really sure of the talent he has, but we do - the UK - as his current tour is sold out and damn I missed it. Would have loved to have seen him.

He is an aquired taste I grant you, sounding more like a blurred LP being played backward but it's just so real.

Check him out on www.seasicksteve.com

You can also download some free music from his site and if you don't want to, then check out below which is also on the site:-

What you really have here is Seasick Steve himself; a real American, trainhopping, jailbirding, cowboying, carnival working, migrant farm picking, occassional tramping, near-fatal heart attack surviving old hobo. The real deal. Steve was invited to leave his home before his 14th birthday. (nuff said!) Having spent many hours listening to stories from the hobos, tramps, and bums who would come by his childhood home asking for work or just a handout; he reckoned he was ready for a life on the rails. So making up a “bindle” (sleeping roll and some clothes, etc.) and not forgetting his guitar, he headed off into the sunset. Sound romantic? For the most part it was not! Sleeping ruff. Going hungry. Working for handouts. Eating at the missions. Riding the rails. Playing on street corners, for your small change and MANY a free stay in the county jails of America…and this is the “G” rated version!!! But then there was those moments...stories told and heard in the “jungle camps”; scraps of old songs picked up. Food for song? You bet! Seasick Steve’s music is so out of it and old fashioned that it somehow arrives at modern. His audiences have been mainly younger people who are into the Fat Possum sounds of R.L. Burnside or bands like the White Strips. While doing shows with R.L. Burnside, Steve saw how young audiences went crazy for what he was doing. After playing the kids would come and ask, “what kind of music is this?” Steve replied, “well it’s kinda low down blues and such.” Their response was, “we hate blues… but man we love what you do!” This is what got Seasick Steve out again and doing what he does best – being the pied piper of the low down hobo blues. (And wait till you see and hear the 3-string trance guitar!!!!)
Charlie Gillett, legendary BBC radio DJ and author of what has become the bible on black music in america, Sound of the City, says Seasick Steve has brought him back to the blues and is the “first blues artist in 20 years to really move him.”
Seasick has been a guest on Charlie’s BBC show an amazing 5 times!
He has also been championed by another legend at the BBC, Andy Kershaw and has played live on his show also.

I have grown up with Victoria Wood, seen everything she has done on TV, gone to her shows etc. She IS a national treasure - so why oh why has the BBC all but trashed a really good series of programmes called Victoria's Empire with a music score which sets the whole thing back 30 years PLUS is so invasive it distracts from the tremendous research she has done for the 3 shows?

The music plodded along as if we were watching a vacucous daytime TV serial, none of it inspirational enough to capture the fantastic scenery, Victoria's quick and sublime quips or the big question of it all, did we improve any of the countries we 'took over'?

Who ever plinky plonked their way through composing and playing this dreadful score wants throwing off Victoria Falls. I kept ranting about it and my beloved just said 'don't take any notice of it, just watch.' To my music-reflex ears, I am afraid this is totally impossible.

Oh well, Rufus Wainwrights new CD out today!

Feel weird today, not sleeping too well, have a heavy workload and so feeling a little 'disconnected' A sure sustained and loud blaring of my Dusty Springfield CDS's will help dispel the mood so I plan to crack on with this after blogging.

I had read Patrick Suskinds book Perfume some time ago and read it very quickly as it was a truly unique story and so well written you could almost smell the perfume ingredients. I, like many others, could not imagine it made into a film so I was quite excited to watch it as I did this weekend on DVD.

They stayed pretty much to the story and except for how he 'dissapeared', which may be confusing to non readers, it was a true and fine adaption of the book. I thought it was excellent but I know I am in a minority. It has a very short cinema release, as far as I can remember was not given or nominated for any awards even though the production was one of the most expensive ever and it showed. Mark Kermode thought it was 'up it's own bum', well it was but in a spectacular fashion which made a really unbelievable story very believable.

Principle player Ben Wishaw as the murderer was captivating, he had very little dialogue but his body language spoke it all for him, a performance as powerful physically as David Threfall's as Smike. Also good supports from Dustin Hoffman [who was very quietly funny] and Alan Rickman.

The soundtrack is very good, have ordered from Amazon and will give you a review when it arrives.

Check it all out on: www.perfumemovie.com

My audio diet has been mainly podcasts over the last couple of weeks - down to being on the road with my job, staple diet of Audio Dharma, Coverville, Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode and lots of tat.

Just off to get my Dusty CD's .......

Saw a rather weird film called Where The Truth Lies. I say weird as it stars Colin Firth and kevin Bacon as a kind of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis duo, they are both absurdly miscast. I write of this as the score was very good, very lush BUT there was absolutely no credit showing who the composer was. There was arrangers and music organisers etc., but not composer. How unfair is that.

Then went onto see Basic Instinct 2 which was dismal. They simply replaced the detective [Michael Douglas] with an analyst [David Morissey sporting an awful 1950's hair cut]. It's a shame as the Sharon Stone character is a classic movie character, a great mind in a great body who finds everyones weaknesses and plans her life around them. The great bit about this film was that they used part of the original score by Jerry Goldsmith which I have on CD, one of his best - intense and very evocative of the weaving state of extremes the lead characters unstable mind goes through.

Been out on the road a bit with my job so loading my ipod with loads of podcast to listen to in the car:

Tips From the Top Floor - listened to this over the last 18 months or so, tips on digital photography - very friendly and charming presenters: Christ Marquant.

Coverville - covers of well known tracks.

Mark Kermodes film reviews with Simon Mayo on Radio 5 Live - Took me a while to get use to his brash and somewhat abrasive style but once you do you realise that what could be heard as arrongance is really pure passion for all things filmic.

Audio Dharme and Quiet Mind - to keep my self in check with my Buddhist teachings.

New ones loaded but not yet listened to:
Downing Street Podcast [out of curiosity more than anything]
Great Speeches in History
On Air Podcast - to keep up to date with what other hospital radio stations are doing.
The Daily Mayo - becauseb Simon Mayo is a superb foil for Kermode.
The Philosophy Podcast
UK DVD Review - Been listening to this for a while but the last couple have been weird, as if presenter William Gallagher has lost the plot and run out of steam.

What would I save in the event of a fire: My banjo, ipod oh, and my cats!