Owning-Up
Friday, July 27, 2007
Surrealist and jazzman George Melly’s uncompromising, witty autobiography. He also wrote two other memoirs of his earlier experiences of childhood and the navy: 'Scouse Mouse' and 'Rum, Bum and Concertina' and the trilogy is now a Penguin Classic.
His last biography, about his then approaching 80th birthday - Slowing Down - is also published by Penguin.
Goodtime George. That's what they called him: Goodtime George. I've been reading his first book of autobiography on and off for a year or so. Great stuff. I nearly saw his last concert but forgot to go. He said it would be his last tour. Sigh.
Temperance Seven member and Jazz Record Restorer John R.T. Davies Dies. In this obituary is quoted a long description of his working methods.
Don Arden - Intimidating rock impresario. His methods were less pleasant.
Bad news from Manchester: Tony Wilson dies of cancer. He always impressed me by being quietly-spoken.
The Sea and Cake have made a 'rock album' - sounds like "krautrock loungecore" Sounds intriguing. Rock Cake I really hope they are as good as they are described.
Rip and Goodbye: "the complete dissolution of my library of compact discs". Many comments.
My All Time Favorite Prog Rock Recordings - chapter 39. Not mine, someone else's.
The shirt that Wreckless Eric wore on the cover of 'Reconnez Cherie' has turned up. His news section is better than most people's blogs.
Fake Steve Jobs on Robin Trower: Today's Music Depresses Me.
British rock fans of a certain age have copies of ZigZag magazine knocking about in their attic. Mine are in we what I call our library. Essential Rock Albums. They smell great. Since 1996, rocklist.net has been putting these old polls online.
Always sad when someone that everyone has heard of dies in obscurity. It happened to Mike Sammes but luckily Jonny Trunk was on hand to save some of his treasures: Music for Biscuits.
Trunk records are pretty good; also worthy for their excellent and lengthy sleevenotes are those other musical magpies RPM, for instance 'Magpie - 20 Junkshop Pop Ads & Themes' contains Andrew Bown's theme music to 'Ace of Wands'.
I've got some Joe Meek and Pet Clark compilations from RPM. Essential these days to get the dates and cover art for iTunes, so this Petula Clark discography comes in handy. Great graphics and some moody expressions from Pet.
Big Al Davies' Treemo channel.
Kevin Ayers' MySpace page:
This myspace site is presented by Kevin Ayers' management. Kevin is aware of myspace and thinks it is very cool, but he doesn't have a computer let alone an internet connection. He wishes people still sent telegrams. He is very touched by the kind messages left on his page and that there is still space in music collections for his efforts.Also among my very few friends on MySpace are Foul House because my friend's daughter is the singer. They are great live and should make an album ASAP.
The loudness wars: Why is there so much variation in volume in my music collection?
jTunes "The Insanely Great Songs Apple Won't Let You Hear."
Pitchfork.
The label Repertoire are putting out some nice editions on CD. I just got a triple disc of all the Pretty Things singles.
Vinyl Vulture: Record shops in London. The Digger's Guide to London.
Desmond Briscoe, Radiophonic Workshop founder, 1925-2007. Musique concrète and diegetic sounds.
Making Flippy Floppy - what a silly name for a music blog. How about a sensible name like Wibbly, or monkeyfunk, or Bubblegum Machine, which posts two wacky mp3s each week. Adult material such as emotion can be found in The Lefsetz Letter. Lefsetz also points us to Jeff Beck's 'Led Boots' at http://music.msn.com/crossroads which got me right there.
I don't know why people call Revelations: a musical anthology for Glastonbury Fayre "legendary" because I've got a copy downstairs. It's out on CD now, which is handy but it won't sound as good or have such an elaborate cover and inserts.
In Quest of Absolute Fidelity: The Saga of the Black CD – Finding Black Gold!
Uh-oh - or, as it says here: WOW: CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million which is a shame because I've been on last.fm since it started as Audioscrobbler. You can bet they are going to screw it up somehow, like Yahoo did with LaunchCast and mailing lists and now Flickr.
Suzi Quatro unzipped. I never knew '48 Crash' was about the male menopause.
Music blog by Pliable: On an Overgrown Path. Good for classical music and exposes the fools who think the BBC or the Proms are "brands".
Richard Godwin admits he can't follow opera plots. I like that.
A musical pantheon: The desert island challenge: 24 records.
Great mp3s! The Barry Gray Music Sampler.
Motorhead Blogger.
Back in the groove: young music fans ditch downloads and spark vinyl revival.
Vinyl Vulture.
Playlist for those agonizing over their iTunes playlists - like me. ω 10:46:00 PM.
lit. links (revised)
Sunday, July 08, 2007
A short story by Herman Melville: Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street - is it simply absurd? Wikipedia describes the plot, so better read the thing first: the story can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
Henry James: The Lesson of the Master. Short but massive.Guardian Unlimited Books of the Year 2006 chosen by various critics and writers like Billy Bragg and Simon Callow.
Acquired: The London Collection. Packed with facts. Good fun. Keep in the loo to weigh down those old copies of Fortean Times and keep the splashes off your Schulz and Schott's.
Joanne Harris has written a childrens' book called Runemarks about "Norse gods at the end of the world".
Nigel Hamilton in his Biography: A Brief History calls Woolf's 'Orlando' "a spoof biography of Vita Sackville-West", which it is.
Still available: The Planet Suite by my old school chum Allen Ashley. Also don't miss his 'Urban Fantastic' and 'Somnambulists'. OhMyNews recently published an interview with Allen: Writing, Perseverance and Shaggy Dog Stories.
Mike Moorcock has a story in Kiss the Sky: Fiction & Poetry Starring Jimi Hendrix edited by Richard Peabody. I think the story was in a Hawkwind tour programme thirty years ago.
The music of science is Michael Moorcock's review of graphic novel 'Horace Dorlan' which, unlike its two predecessors, has some text. It sounds remarkable. Watchman meets Kafka.
'Nova Swing' by M John Harrison; Gollancz, £16.99, reviewed by Brian McCluskey.
Design: Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte. 3D into 2D.
Vampires meet modern TV: Fangland by John Marks.
In the Spectator, Matthew d'Ancona suggests that Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new book Courage: Eight Portraits is a suitable "page-turner" for the beach on your holiday. Not me, I'm going to Iceland. He also says the book provides a ninth portrait of Gordon himself. Sounds interesting.
The Open Library aims to include every book "our planet’s cultural legacy" and make them all available on the interwebnet.
SciFaiku, er, science fiction haikus.
NPR: Under the Radar: Books Not to Miss.
The official blog of Penguin Books UK: The Penguin Blog.
At last! Leading from the front page - six feminist magazines launch in the UK.
...when they launched their first issue last summer she had become particularly aware of a "massive wave of crap women's magazines. We thought we probably had something more interesting to say." Although the magazine didn't start out as a feminist project, it quickly became one - a natural result of trying to create a publication for women that didn't follow the usual mould.
Geek to Live: Turn your blog into a book, part II.
Something for all bloggers to aspire to, ha ha The world's longest diary.
The Biggest Geek and the SF List is one reader's list of significant genre novels. I disagree with most of it but the comments below are interesting.
English lessons via podcast from the Grammar Girl "a quick and dirty success". Librarian chic.
Guardian Unlimited Books. Book blogs at The Guardian.
Free books! Digital ones. eBooks from Adobe. They seem to be quite legible on-screen.
Semantic Soup is a Flickr group devoted to recording misuse of the English language. ω 3:50:00 PM.
Comments by: YACCS.
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