Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Of course in an ideal world, having been in rehab for the requisite length of time, sober and permitted only enough cigarettes to keep her voice at the level of dissolute huskiness that makes it interesting, Amy Winehouse would be dragged into the recording studio and made to rerecord Valerie using The Zutons' original arrangement and backing track.

That would be the ideal.


At the moment the two versions of the song I know are superlative in one part and poor in the other. That is why this spliced version of the song needs to exist.

(Edited to add: The Mark Ronson version featuring Amy Winehouse comes close to being what I had in mind, so perhaps there's no need for a further version - endure the first 45 or so seconds before the song starts:).



I have just spent an hour or so plundering Furtle's CD collection and adding bits and pieces to my Walkman. I still have over 5gB of space on it and pretty much the entirety of my CD collection, less the classical, is already on it. That must be of the order of 700 CDs since the clear out of the extraneous stuff of little consequence. There is still a fair selection of albums that I need to listen to before I decide whether or not to copy them; I'm not sure when I'll ever find the time.

Posted largely for the benefit of immerwahr if he's still reading:

Do You Like Rock Music British Sea Power 3rd album

I daresay that it will make it into my collection, too. Release date 14-01-2008.

When I eventually went to bed last night, my crucifix tried to stab me through the left jugular as the chain got bunched up around my neck. I had just a few minutes earlier spent a happy and unproductive few minutes launching random and largely unprovoked vampire attacks on my Facebook friends, so the irony wasn’t lost on me. Still, I was saved by my cat-like reflexes from having a puncture in my neck reminiscent of a bite from a vampire with dental issues.

Saturday was busy. I skipped the Gridiron Draft in Bristol to accompany Furtle to her best school friend’s wedding just outside Chelmsford. That went as well as could be expected, given that I only knew Furtle of all the people there. The ceremony being civil was mercifully brief at about 15 minutes including the walks in and out. The reception food was good and I got to know some of the other guests tolerably well. It seems that we had been put on the naughty table; ie other than me, they were all Furtle’s old school cronies and other halves. The inevitable speeches were tolerable (the bride’s father had been advised by the mother, “don’t try to be clever or funny; just be yourself”) and not too long. The food was good and the disco afterward refreshingly filled with music from the 60s and 70s, which I didn’t expect, given that the wedding couple and friends were in their early 30s.

Only the two hour plus wait between the ceremony and the reception blighted the day. There must be ways of getting the inevitable photos much quicker; it was hot, boring and at that point, nothing to talk about. This is the second wedding I’ve attended with Furtle and therefore the second that I have been banned from putting a small paperback in my pocket to ease me through those random and extended moments of tedium (the ceremony, the hanging around etc). She says that it shows disrespect; I say that it shows progressive thinking. I doubt we’ll ever see eye to eye on this.

May be this was why my crucifix tried to murder me in my bed last night; I don’t know.

In the meantime, I can't get 10cc's "Somewhere in Hollywood" out of my head.

I had a part in the talkies
When you were a little girl
I've taken Lassie for walkies
When she was the pup that Vaudeville threw up
And destiny lead her
Hand in paw to somewhere
In Hollywood

That's crazy, a dog up in Beverly Hills
Crazy, crazy.

At the request of failing_angel, recommendations in the field of progressive rock.

( Most of you will wish to breeze on by, you curs of little to no musical taste! )
Avoid the Mahavisnu Orchestra. John McCloughlin is a very clever guitarist, but their style isn’t known as “Math Rock” for nothing.

So, has anyone actually listened to the Arcade Fire's new album, Neon Bible and if so, is it any good? (Bearing in mind that I like their début album, Funeral).

I've read a couple of online reviews, but frankly I dread the up-my-own-arse pretention of modern rock critics; they don't tell you anything useful, such as if the music is good or what it sounds like in comparison with other bands, they simply wax lyrical in a sixth former way that leaves you none the wiser.

Surely someone out there must have heard at least the odd track?

A propos nothing, I have decided that just lolling around half awake, listening to the magnificent Steppenwolf is one of the best things I have done recently left to my own devices. They are fantastic and to think I knew little about their music before buying this CD on spec.

Last night I reacquainted myself with the late great Janis Joplin. Why, oh why did I leave it so long to pick up that album? Such talent, such waste. Raw, ragged vocals, strained by smoking and Southern Comfort.

Raw emotion.

And on to the Velvet Underground next...

Shiny, shiny. Shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girl-child in the dark
Clubs and bells, your servant, don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

I say...

It seems that I picked the wrong day to go to the cricket. Friday was a washout and yesterday was a historic, if confusing occasion. In years to come, when the topic of ball tampering allegations arises and people ask what I was doing when Pakistan became the first Test Nation to forfeit a game by refusing to take the field for the final session, I can say “I wasn’t there.”¹

No, yesterday, a great deal of time and energy was expended wandering around the West End making purchases that I didn’t want to make on Saturday². The initial impetus to hit town was to pick up a couple of comics and stuff from Forbidden Planet³ but a side trip into Fopp yielded a number of CDs (It seems that Universal are issuing re-mastered ‘best of’ double CD collections from their many labels, so I acquired one each of Steppenwolf and The Velvet Underground for a fiver each. This not being quite enough to satisfy, I also picked up, after many years’ hemming and hawing, Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits, something by the Chilli Peppers for Elle and another CD that quite remarkably escapes me for the time being. My memory is clearly shot; it’s less than 24 hours ago.

Both Planet and Fopp were excruciatingly warm and it was a very dehydrated pair that wandered into Blackwell’s on an abortive book finding mission.

The bonus, of course, is that once we realised that we were running ahead of time, we wandered off the Marks and Spencer⁴ where I managed to pick up a new and much needed bathrobe amongst other things. This is fantastic – it is a hoodie bathrobe and with very little adjustment could be made to look like a Jedi cloak. Fantastic.

These are not the bath oils you are looking for.

I need a lightsabre.



¹And this remains so true for many historic and potentially historic events. I’m never there.

²The Plutons were in Aquarius and the auguries were all wrong. Plus, I didn’t want to drag purchases round the Barbican during Hayden and Maisie’s reception.

³From whence it is proving impossible to obtain a TARDIS USB hub, a cyberman or even a cyberman keyring. I ask you, what king of Geek Emporium is that?

⁴Dude, am I fashion trend setter or what? Marks and Spencer…!

Has anyone any ideas where I could get one of these from in the UK?.


InstantMusic Cassette & Vinyl Ripper

I have a fair number of cassette tapes with deleted material on them that I'd like in MP3 format, and up in Sunny Shropshire I have a smaller number of vinyl LPs which would benefit from the same treatment.

I have only used thinkgeek once, and got hammered for import charges which meant that my bargain suddenly wasn't. I believe that everything they ship gets similarly hammered, so I don't feel the need to use them again.

Auntie reports that Syd Barrett has died aged 60.

Founding member of the Pink Floyd Sound, Syd Barrett wrote much of the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn before leaving the band, now renamed just Pink Floyd in April 1968 suffering from a mental breakdown.

"See Emily Play"

Emily tries but misunderstands, ah ooh
She often inclined to borrow somebody's dreams till tomorrow
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for may
See Emily play
Soon after dark Emily cries, ah ooh
Gazing through trees in sorrow hardly a sound till tomorrow
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for may
See Emily play
Put on a gown that touches the ground, ah ooh
Float on a river forever and ever, Emily
There is no other day
Let's try it another way
You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for may
See Emily play

Sometime last week, littleonions tagged me for a music meme. I don’t do memes as a rule, though I did have a go at the LJ Dungeon game. Anyway, largely because I am a contrary swine, I am not going to do the meme Ms Onions tagged me for, but I am going to ramble about something similar.

Over the weekend, I dug out and listened to a couple of albums that I rather enjoy but which for one reason or another, I haven’t listened to for ages. This started me thinking about songs, which I always enjoy listening to, but which never pop into my head when I am compiling one of my occasional "favourites of the day" lists, or which haven’t popped up on random play on my network Walkman for as long as I can remember. In no particular order, then:

"Maybe I’m Amazed" – Paul McCartney. From his first solo album, "McCartney" released in 1970. This is the Beatles song that never was, and though recorded solo (Macca played every instrument on the track), it was clearly run past Lennon at some point in its gestation as it shows every sign of the quality control that has often been lacking from McCartney’s solo work.

"And You Need Me" – Sandy Denny and the Strawbs. From the album, "All Our Own Work" (1973) by Sandy Denny and the Strawbs, and itself an edited re-release of an earlier, eponymous LP. In some ways a superior demo version of a track which was to be re-recorded a number of times, notably by Fairport Convention, there is a rawness and clarity about this version sung by a 19 year old Denny that I like, and which never quite comes across in later recordings.

"Year of the Cat" – Al Stewart. From the album of the same name. One of those albums and one of those tracks I have owned on vinyl, cassette tape and CD. A prog pop masterpiece.

"Mr Bojangles" – Sammy Davis Jr. From any number of live compilations. This had passed me by until a couple or three years ago, being a sort of lounge-country-folk-jazz melange. rumfuddle has a copy on a CD he put together for listening to on the road, and we have given this full lung and vocal chord a number of times whilst we got lost driving in Norfolk at the end of a November.

"Stranger on the Shore" – Acker Bilk. The first British recording to reach the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Smooth clarinet piece written for his daughter, I am lead to understand. Always reminds me of Sunday lunchtimes when I was a little kid.

"Wheels On Fire" – Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity. You probably know it best as the theme to Absolutely Fabulous, which is an odd fate for a classic soft jazz treatment of a Bob Dylan song. Not really much to say about the track itself other than I love it, and recommend this version from 1968, not any of those mangled for the TV show at Jennifer Saunders’ instigation.

I seem to have run out of steam on this.

Time to do something else.