Fades in Slowly

I’ve been off on my internet travels again and this time I’ve put myself into the mindset of the megarich superstar rock legend. Indulge me, if you will. OK, OK, I know that people don’t necessarily have to be rock stars to fall foul of the booze and drugs, but I guess having made it big before sliding down the slippery slope might have its advantages. I remember going to see Crosby, Stills and Nash a few years back (sadly without Young) and one of the most moving moments was Crosby’s solo rendition of ‘Almost cut my hair‘ prior to which he described going through a police initiated drug rehab program which basically involved cops laughing at him while he writhed around on the floor in agony. Well, only himself to blame, some would say. I bet he wishes he’d had somewhere like this place to go and clean up his act.

Seriously, though, if you’re going to clean up your act then bloody well do it in style, that,’s what I say. This place is the Cliffside Malibu, and be sure it’ll be where I’ll head next time I’m a rich and famous rock star in need of a drug treatment center. Time for me to get working on this year’s festive fifty entry.

If I’m ever in need of addiction treatment, I have to say I couldn’t imagine a better place to get it than in the hills of Malibu, overlooking the Pacific.

I love messing around on the internet as much as the next man but when someone suggests to me that there’s a new and better way to search for information, I’m usually sceptical without reason. I’ve tended to stick to that reasonably popular search engine that begins with a g and ends in oogle, although I can’t help but notice that you end up more often than not with a list of sites that have paid to be at the top of the search list.

So it was then, with reluctance, that I took a look at the highly recommended (by my brother) RankNoodle.com. My initial caution seemed well-founded as I looked through the ‘top 100 Searches‘ that greet you as you enter the site, with such gems as ‘men forced to wear a bra‘ and ‘thug gangsta poems and rhymes‘. Although I don’t consider myself that much of a thug gangsta, nor have I ever been forced to wear a bra (always totally of my own free will I should mention), I persisted and was pleasantly surprised at the atypical layout of the search results.

Given my recent salivating over the new Verve album, I thought it only wise to enter ‘the new verve album‘ as my search engine criteria. What I was greeted with was the page you can see above: a short description of the band and the album, a list of common FAQs related to my search query, selected pics of the band and the album, as well as the traditional search engine results section. To be honest, I just really like the way it’s set out and thought I’d share it with you.

As some of you know, I’m something of an amateur muso myself, I stress the word amateur! However, I do dream from time to time of being able to devote time, energy and resources to doing something more than twiddling with samples. One day, after the lottery win, I’d love to invest in a live sound mixing console such as the one’s I found over at the Hi-tech Audio website. I know some of you out there are into this side of the ‘business’ so ı thought I’d divert a little from the norm – bear with me! Hi-Tech Audio is a dealer for what they consider to be the top three manufacturers of digital audio consoles in the world – Yamaha, Digico and Digidesign.

If you’re thinking of making the jump and investing in something like a yamaha pro audio console setup, you’ll want to make sure that you’re going to be getting the best service you can. In my investigations on the net I came across Hi-Tech Audio and their reputation seems to precede them, not just in selling mixing consoles but also in used pro audio equipment. For the moment, my dream of ever moving into live sound audio remains just that, but I guess if I ever abandon the day job this website is where I’ll start looking.

Thanks to all those who’ve visited the blog while I’ve been away. Normal service will resume now that my blog is no longer being considered as spam and I’m once again allowed to offer you more great music.

Lots going on over at the Teenage Kicks blog while I’ve been away. Some great posts and fabulous mp3s to download. I love this site and only hope we get to read the entire history of the Festive 50 as time goes on!

Here are some of the latest posts:

Joy Division: Don’t walk away in silence

Led Zeppelin: The stores are all closed

Veruca Salt: Anger management


 

It’s nice to return from my brief hiatus (my second son was born last weekend!) with some updates from the World of Peel blogs.

First up is the continually excellent Kat’s Karavan, who has been kind enough to post some stuff that I myself don’t have. For starters, there’s some great Top Gear era files on offer, I’ve blatantly cut and pasted this extract from the mighty blog:


Probably the post of the year on the peel group was from user hills1902, who announced a couple of months back:

I have some old 7 inch reel-to-reel tapes of eight Top Gear
programmes that I recorded in 1969 and 1970, with sessions from the following bands:

26 Apr 69 – Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Eclection, Family
11 May 69? – Fleetwood Mac, King Crimson, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Bonzo Dog Band
Date unknown – Pentangle, Blodwyn Pig, Mandrake Paddle Steamer, John Dummer Blues Band
Date unknown – Ten Years After, Roy Harper, Third Ear Band
29 Jun 69 – Led Zeppelin, Pentangle, Idle Race,
6 Jul 69 – John Dummer Blues Band, Colosseum, Pretty Things, Imrat Khan
4 Jul 70 – Country Joe Macdonald, Fotheringay, Cochise
11 Jul 70? – Kevin Ayres, East of Eden, Son House

Well, the tapes have now been encoded and properly dated, and they’re absolute gems, giving a real flavour of the Top Gear experience for those of us too young to have been there (well, I was technically ‘there’, but at, 8½, hardly ‘hip and happening’ enough to set the dial for this). So over the next 8 weeks I’ll be uploading these classic shows to the Karavan, starting with this one, which features sessions from, as stated above, Principal Edward’s Magic Theatre, Eclection and (The) Family. There’s only a slight glitch in Mr. Apollo, as indicated below, but otherwise this is a full two-hour show in very reasonable nick for its age. Manna for Peeliacs.


I’ve been using the term ‘Peelian’, although I have to admit I quite like this whole ‘Peeliac’ thingy. There are some great downloads available, with more promised soon.

I’ve been trying to upload this for a while without success, let’s hope I can manage today.



Mills’ set is mentioned lovingly in Margrave of the Marshes, Peel apparently naively suggesting that the 50 records Mills had brought with him would be far too many for the half-hour slot that he was allowed, only to stand back in awe as he proceeded to play every vinyl he’d brought.

Actually, friends, I need some help with this one (for a change). The file is labelled as being from 22nd May, 2002, but the only reference to Mills on the Peel show are for 22nd May, 2003. Indeed, the streaming audo of the 2003 set, which you can listen to on the Peel BBC website is different from the set you’re about to download.

Apparently, if you click on the little button above my profile, it will let you subscribe to my RSS feed, which tells you every time I update my blog.

Go on, give it a go.