TOP OF THE STAIRS MUSIC

Lazy Sunday of sorts, breakfast in Costa, visit to mum then a bit of hospital radio work. So my playlist today has been Michael Parkinson on BBC2 then went into comfort land playing a CD version of a vinyl LP I played to death when I was young, FELICIANO!
Released in 1968 on the RCA label, it's a 'must have' in my collection. 11 flawless tracks showing his vocal, arrangement and fabulous guitar playing skills. My absolute fave tracks are:

California Dreamin'
Light My fire
And I Love Her
Sunny

Perfect anytime but especially on a Sunday.

Went to dinner at my sis' last night so between the fivesome there the playlist was real mixed. The evening gave us Ry Cooder, Amy Whinehouse, John Smith and Diane Krall! And of course got to see my beloved string babies, Banjo, Mandolin and Guitar whom my sis is house sitting whilst our house is torn to pieces having a loft converted. Of course, they are all hopelessly out of tune. The sis kept throwing out threats about her getting some great bids on ebay for them - hah hah NOT!

I have just put on 'Expresso Expresso' subtitle: 'A lightly Latin Brazilian blend'....another Sunday lift!

Have a couple of blogs on John Smith, up and coming Nu-Folk guy with a riveting way of playing the guitar. This is called Winter and he is doing everything, singing, playing the guitar and percussion also on his guitar!
ENJOY

Being in the eye of the rain hurricane - the Midlands - the true scale of this freak weather came to me last week when the toen next to mine, Leamington Spa, headlined on Shy News as the river Leam had burst it's banks. We're lucky, we live on a hill and so are not suffering like some of our surrounding counties.

Today it's pouring, not stopped since 9ish and very cold and all I can hear in my head is Jose Feliciano singing Rain; 'Listen to the pouring rain, listen to it fall and with every drop you know I love you more'...... just can't get it out of my head.

So it bought me to rain songs and I have got as far as the following:
Singing In the Rain
After The Rain
Black Rain
Blame It On the Rain
The Day That the Rains Came
Don't Rain On My Parade
A Hard Rains a-Gonna Fall
Here Comes The Rain Again
Here's That Rainy Day
I can't Stand the Rain
I Made It Through the Rain
It's Raining Men
It Never Rains in Southern California
Laughter In the Rain
Let It Rain
Rain On Me

...that's it for now - do have to earn a crust.

Any additions anybody?

Oh,am I a smug bunny! Just months after buying a radio transmitter so I can use my ipod in the car - I gets meself a fab JVC car radio which is 'ipod ready'! The transmitters are OK but if you have a good car radio there is very little 'no signal' static to tune into plus when you have found some you would drive happily for about 20 miles and then have to find another space.
So I did some homework and happy with the JVC player I already had in the car, popped into Halfords yesterday and bought an upgraded JVC and they fitted it there and then. It's plays both mp3 and WMA files but the coolest thing is that it has an Aux In and so you put a jack plug cable into this and then into your ipod and hey presto, you have crystal clear ipod stuff playing in your car. Mainly got it so I can keep up with my podcasts.

Oh happy is me!

You always know that Bjork's latest album is going to be a head trip. Always worthy of a listen and some applause for her sheer uniqueness but there is confusion - is it good or just different?

The title came ffrom her interest in the word Voltage [see, you have this for starters - she's interested in a word!] and there is plnty of sharp jolts in this avant garde offering.
The most electricity is charged in the pulse of DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDANCE. In fact there is a propogandist feel to the whole album, highly punctuated by some of the track titles. This is a messianic piece telling you that you should 'raise your flag higher, higher'. Another tells that the EARTH INTRUDERS are already here creating 'turmoil carnage'. Other flash messages include that she's 'giving urban a farewwll' and 'you can trust [the world] if you breathe it bravely'. The CD has many messages surrounding many moods and settings.

There are little audio snips of water, ships,morse code and SFX - all desinged to displace you as soon as the next track starts. On one track she sings through a voxbox which produces so much distortion I thought my stereo had broken.

The most accessible track is EARTH INTRUDERS which is about a poppy as the album gets. DULL FLAME OF PASSION is a 17th century poem with the heartache of a voice from Anthony Hegarty. As for the voice of Bjork is it more noticable than ever that she mostly sings in one speed no matter what the temp or beat of the track is and it's this which grated a little. T8 has a credit to the toumini diabate????? PNEUMONIA is a lyric in search of a song, in search of a tune. Other lyrics are not at all surreal, quite simplistic and beautiful. INNOCENCE has a back beat which sounds as if a guy is being beaten to a pulp and I SEE YOU is truly enchanting.

Good or just different, well the latter definately. I don't think i can judge if it's good as I just don't understand her music but I do like it bit what exactly do you do with a Bjork CD in your collection? It's like housing a small sound museum which you know has some merit but will you actually play it again?

This is Bjork, not me:

when i once was
untouchable
innocence roared
still amazes
when i once was innocent
it's still here
but in different places

Innocence - Volta

Change is the name of the game. Scaffolded is enveloping my house as we speak as stage one starts of an 8 week build for our loft conversion. Scary and exciting all at the same time.

Sis rings yesterday to say that the farmhouse she has been waiting to move into will be ready by the end of next month. Go visit my mum last night who tells me she's been offered a ground floor flat where she currently lives.

Also made the decision to move from PC to Mac next year, fed up of glitches, maintenance and spedning money on updates all the while.

Then come the the blog to write and the look of it has changed.

Maybe I should have read my stars at the weekend, they could have warned me.

Oh, and my cat is still depressed. he's a sun worshipper and not use to wearing a watch, he guages time by the seasons and he knows that he should be bathing in the rays at the moment and so all this rain is making him look very pathetic, as we all do I guess.

OK, I am now despairing of any summer happening whatsoever plus one of my cats is desperately depressed. Am I the only one with a ginger tom who suffers from SAD syndrome?

Last night went over to Coventry with my sis to see John Smith at the Taylor John House in Coventry, an old coal vault and a fabulous live music venue, the people are just so friendly and the atmosphere full of musical kindred spirits. They have another small live venue also in Coventry called The Tin Angel. Can't recommend enough:
http://www.thetinangel.co.uk/

Also can't recommend John Smith enough, check my archives for my inital blog on him when he supported John Martyn at Birmingham Symphony Hall. He's nu-folk technically but I think he's more than that. He has a gravelly yet somehow tender voice which reaches for notes with such sensitivity which makes his rendering of not only his own beautifully constructed songs but 16th century ballads, totally transfixing. And if his voice does not appeal then his acoustic guitar palying is something to behold. I knew what was coming as I had seen him before but many in the audience didn't and so when he turned his guitar over and laid it across his knees and started tapping on it as if it was a drum kit AND still playing the strings, the silence was accompanied by a tangible awe as he strummed and played through his own composition Winter.

As he was a supporting player he did about 6 songs and he had everyone hooked. Being in such an intimate venue I caught the nuances of his voice and together with his phrasing and use of loud then soft he has a commanding quality. I got to talk with him after his 'turn' and said I hope he can headline soon instead of supported and he said that his first tour was this coming November and that he would be performing at Taylor John again, so that's another night out for me!

You can get his album The Fox & The Monk at: http://store.cmplive.com/product_info.php?products_id=32

Here's what others say:

"He possesses a common name but a rare talent" - The Independent

"The playing style he adopts may cause your jaw to hit the floor...a bit of a live showstopper." - Word Magazine

"An object lesson in how taste and imagination always outweigh mere musical virtuosity...unexpected and daring" - The Sunday Times

"John Smith continually swoons audiences with his own strain of nu-folk. It is only a matter of time before he is enormous." - NME

"A singular talent" - The Times

Where else could you find songs by Cy Coleman,Leiber & Stoller, Michael Bolton,Gilbert Becaud, Lionel Richie and Leslie Bricusse? On this new album by Dame Shirley Bassey. Apart from the song writing credits and the sheer nerve of it as an album, there is one over riding fact that just cannot be denied, Dame Bassey is 70 years of age and has not lost a single note of her singing range. The Welsh vocals are as strong and pitch perfect now as they were when she started out. Sinatra lost it toward his singing career as do many others. They are OK to listen to and even good enough to keep on recording but you know when you do listen that they are just not 'reaching it' as they use. Well on Get The Party Started, she does not fail once.

This is more Revisited than Remastered. A lot of Remix albums are just that, remixed backing to the same voice tracks. Not this one, it has some courageous mixing and brand new Bassey vocals and for the most part, it works.

Radio 2 have been drumming up the album by playing the title track, Pink's Get The Party Started with is luscious opening and it's this track which got me interested. It's a fab opening and sucks you in totally.

The reworking of Big Spender has a daring thumping bass complete with a Spanish trumpet mid section which does no harm to Massey's famous anthemic original recording. One of my favourite tracks and in retrospect a typical Bassey song which she should have attacked sooner, Slave To the Rhythym has a trumpet homage to the 007 theme sneaking in the intro. The 2 girl producers really know how to do the Bassy thing, What Now My Love went for a Bolera style backing which should have worked but didn't quite get there. Where the master mixing really comes into it's own is on Kiss Me Honey Honey. It's sung in a real slow tempo and sounds like a brand new song. My big dissapointment is the Barry track You Only Live Twice which is a song with all the elements right there in front of you and with the Bassey/Bond connection should have been a highlight of the album, but here it is reduced to an easy listening tune. Allowed some self indulgence, the producers Catherine Fenney and Niki Lamborn's own song The Living Tree makes an appearance and this in itself could have been a Bond theme song. I Will Survive has been covered a million times but is well worth a track listing here.

The success of this CD is not just the inspired track listing tailored for the singer but the fact that most remix albums are so heavily produced with over bearing backing music in which the very essence of a song can get lost in a pretentious cleverness of trying to make it sound like 'today' - but not here. The lavish orchestrations and the sheer power house volume of Bassey meet just at the right point to make this a fun album which you could wop on the player at any time.

In true diva style Bassey writes on her cover notes: "A special thank you to everyone who helps with the ups and downs, joys and frustrations in the day of a Dame ..."

If there is one gripe it't the packaging - an 8 page booklet with card covers which is squeezed into the front of the CD case so tight that you have to have to lever it out without tearing it.

FAVE TRACKS:
Get The Party Started
Slave To the Rhythym
Kiss Me Honey Honey
The Living Tree

Even less choice for the music buyer and more importantly even less influence. Fopp has gone bust. They purchased the Music Zone stores which saddened me as I liked the fact they were not everywhere like Virgin or HMV, but then business seems to all about aquisitions rather than offering top rate service and choice to the customer by investing in what you already have rather than what you have not.
Apart from the great price points, they also had most of the recommended new releases rated by Mojo magazine and not just the obivous big artists. It was a great reason to go into town, start the day with a Starbucks then wander round Fopp.
So now we are left with HMV & Virgin, standardised displays and music so lound you want to get out of the store the minute you walk in. Staff with all the knowledge of the latest album charts and nothing else. A global identifcation tag of mediocrity so that you feel safe buying your music even if the store is in Singapore, 'you know where you are' because they are all the same. Thing is I like to feel lost because then I explore and that's when I dsicover.

On days like today I feel like becoming a professional hermit and living off the internet. Making a living from ebay, ordering my shopping from TescoDirect and downloading all my musical wants.

Today's playlist: Aerial by Kate Bush thorugh my Itunes. Wanted some comfort and her voice gives it.She is so brave and barmy at the same time. Rolf Harris, laughing maniacally,imitating bird songs, singing a love song to your washing machine ... it's all there and it all works. I feel better already.

Congratulations to bluesman Seasick Steve who has won the Breakthrough Act in the recent Mojo Awards. In his speech he said; "I've been breaking through for 45 years, so I've got some more breaking to do." A raw and deserving talent. Check him out at www.seasicksteve.com - as soon as you click you'll hear his music. I can highly recommend his CD Dog House Music. I voted for him so I am well chuffed.