Now that's what i call"ed" music



As promised i have uploaded a mix of 80's stuff. I have tried to do it with a few weird rules that only make sense to me. things like: must be on vinyl and original; must be synth pop; must be 80s; can't be "too" obvious etc etc Anyway i broke that rule with some slightly off message tracks but so good they need to be heard. One fave is the often forgotten and overlooked "Radio Africa". Top of the tree for me is Depeche Mode. It was one of the first records i ever bought (the album Construction Time Again) and i remember listening to it over and over again so i could write and learn the lyrics. Genius stuff. Anyway, enjoy and if you have trouble downloading (sorry still only available for 7 days) or run out of time to get it then send me an email or post a comment. Have fun

Pablo - Now that's what i called music Click here to download

Alphaville – Big in japan (extended remix)
Me without hats – safety dance
Visage – Fade to grey
Yazoo – Situation (Dub)
Kraftwerk – The Model
Japan – Life in Tokyo (Extended remix)
Miami Sound Machine – Dr. Beat
Depeche Mode – Everything counts
Oran “Juice” Jones – The rain
Human League – Don’t you want me
Trans X – Living in video
Rock Steady Crew – Hey you (Rock Steady Crew)
The Police – Voices in my head (Superministry 8 AM ‘Rulin’ mix)
Latin Quarter – Radio Africa

Missing in … Somerset

It is amazing how life can suddenly take over and you find all your time has gone. Hence, no posts for a couple of weeks. Tres poor show! But in these weeks my mind has been distracted by: a new bike; possible beaver introduction in Devon; deer issues in Dorset; our lovely upland areas being in a state of cash crisis; how our fair countryside is being polluted (or not); Rugby; making tunes; the decline in our bee populations; and, just general stuff. So…






Did you see the programme the other night about Andrew McAuley solo adventurer who tried to kayak across the Tasman sea? If you did then you might, like me, be having recurring horrors about it and if you didn’t watch it you missed out on one of the best documentaries/ snuff movies produced.

If you want to watch the documentary then you can here

It all got me to thinking. A few years back I tried to cycle round the world. Having made it across Europe I realised that :
• I am not best with my own company
• I would go mad left alone for too long
The people who do this kind of thing are quite likely already a tad mad
• I am not keen to try such silly nonsense on my own again. Best to go down with someone else (excuse the potential phnar!)



Looking at the picture I can’t help but get a tad whimsical about what it WAS to have HAIR.

I guess with the current recession then there might well be an increase in the amount of people off adventuring. I guess this shows
a) People have the money to take time out
b) There will be less competition for jobs over here
c) There will be more space to go around
d) There will be more people going “oh India is just sooo amazing in June. You really must go”.

May hap as long as people don’t try kayaking across the Tasman sea then all will be good.

And so a bit of music. First off is to make sure you have the new tune from my favourite band "A mountain of one" on your radar. This has just been released on their label and is solid spaced out Balearic business called "Incident of joy". You can have a listen on their myspace and buy it from here.

For a bit of nostalgia then look no further than this. We are hoping to spend a weekend raving. Well more older person raving where the emphasis is more on making sure there is somewhere nice to sleep and we have ear plugs to drown out all the noise. bless. Anyway this tune from the Ragga Twins has one of the slickest beats and funny sireny kind of sounds. i heard this (20 years ago!!!!!) and haven't stopped dancing.



And to top it all is a sneak preview of the tune i have been working on. It has some "borrowed" samples and is getting there. any thoughts welcomed. this is up for 7 days from ... NOW. i will change the system soon so they stay there forever and ever :-)

Pablo - Aha-a-hite

I will post an 80s mix over the weekend.

have fun

Nostalgia gets better with time

All the recent musical flashbacks to the 80s, along with a few "snowdays" and a good bit of industrial action is getting me all excited about the things i did and didn't do "back in the day". I have general obsession with music from the 80s (OK to be fair the 70s and 90s get a pretty good look in too) and it is great to find things that were once loved and bring them back into my life. One such instance is a favoured tune from Alphaville. Big in Japan is hardly likely to win awards for innovation or technical mastery but they did capture the zeitgeist (look at me with words beginning with z :-) ) of the era. I foolishly had a read of the lyrics and figured that some things are best left alone. "Big in Japan, be tight ..." i mean really.



I have picked out the bits of vinyl that are required and will be posting an 80s mix in the next couple of weeks. I will try and sidestep the likes of Wham and Duran Duran to give you the electro-synth pop vibe that has stuck with me all my life.

One good thing about looking back is the chance to adopt something you never watched or knew about but on finding it wish like mad you could have been a fan of at the time. This exulted position this week rests with "Shark Hunter". With lead man Franco Nero and classic Italian electronica Shark Hunter is "doing alright". The only difficulty was trying to choose which clips to post.





Where i didn't watch Shark Hunter i did watch Man from Atlantis. Admittedly i watched in a French and never understood a word of what was said but ... it did mean that i still have an affectation for making a crazy underwater swimming motion. To this day i will still swear i swim faster using this technique which is now excuse for looking like an utter prat.



To round off nostalgia Sunday is a clip from my all time favourite cartoon, "Battle of the Planets". I am embarrassed to say that my first ever crush was for some pencil drawn girl coming from the mind of a geeky cartoonist. But hey, to this day Princess is still hot.



Have fun

And they’re are under starters orders


2009 is going to be fun. Already it has started for us at eye watering speed and in three weeks has had a couple of heart breaks, a smattering of good times and a win at the horses. All I ask of my time is that it is packed full of interest and so far we are on target for a supreme year. To hell with the last few years of excess, boom and bloody misery. I am looking forward to times of less, bust and good times. Did anyone hear radio 4 trying to get Gordon Brown to admit to the fact that we are living out a boom and bust? What a very silly person!!! I mean honestly, do these people really think we are that stupid or that they are being so very clever by reading how we would react to their errors and consider them to be failures? There are some basic rules in life and you can’t circumnavigate them through dint of power or arrogance. We are not that stupid.


So we will now have endless months of negative analysis trying to bring down our psyche to believe the end is nigh and the debts of the sins of our fathers is just about to be paid in full. This morning the news started by saying this is the most depressing set of Sunday papers to date. I bet there must be so many reporters and editors thinking what a shame that will be for them and sorting out the next days content. Bill Hicks had it right by saying that to stop Ted Turner constantly reading gloomy news that Jane Fonda should “fxck” him so we could for once have some good news. Perhaps some generous person out there might consider fxcking Robert Peston. Actually John Humphries and the rest of the BBC Today news team could do with visiting a local brothel. It could be something we all pay for through our taxes to try and guarantee some good news. I am sure that a total of less than 1p each a year it would represent one of our wisest investments?? J

I have also been trying to think back to the 80s and exactly what that recession was like. Other than remember endless school strikes (genius), pickets and trucks and buses being pelted with stones (genius), Grange Hill, Atari games computers the rest was a blank to me. And I was having a ball. So I fall flat when I try to advise myself of the possible next steps.

Tunage: I have listened to countless reissues, reedits and rereremixes of 80s tunes and mostly they have missed the stuff I truly loved. So for one week only (and longer if you request) I am uploading a few favoured tunes for the more indie minded. Not one bit of disco in sight J

Click Here to Download (available until the 1st Feb) : Lest we forget

Track Listing

New Order:Everything’s Gone Green
Primal Scream: Don’t fight it, feel it
Happy Mondays: Hallelujah (Club mix)
Moonflowers: Get Higher
Ride: Drive Blind
My Bloody Valentine: Slow
Swervedriver: Rave down
The Wonder Stuff: It’s yer money I’m after, baby
The Cure:: A Forest
Pixies: Where is my mind
Spiritualised: Anyway that you want me (ext.)
New Order: Every little counts

Arthur lovely Arthur some times I think you’re a dream


There are some people who I really think had a serious passion and served that passion with all the energy it deserved. And so it is with Charles Arthur Russell Jr. or to all of us Arthur Russell. To his Mum and Dad he was just plain old Charlie.

I am not quite sure how I came across him. A friend Duncan used to run a night in London called “pop your funk” after one of Russell’s tunes, so maybe it was from there? Maybe it was from classic disco tune “is it all over my face” which I am sure I would have heard ages back but… to be straight it was probably only in the last three years I found Arthur through the myriad of reissues of his work.

Arthur Russell: That's Us/ Wild Combination


Like all good artists he played under lots of different names and in lots of different bands, giving him the opprtunity to play around with a crazy amount of different styles. So... you might know him as: Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean, Killer Whale, Bright & Early, Dinosaur, Felix, Flying Hearts, The, Lola, Loose Joints, Necessaries, Turbo Sporty… The final name is my fave.

I seem to have spent the last few years buying reissues and wondering at the breadth of his talent and the seemingly endless supply of energy he has in his songs and his prodigious output. If you want a flavour of his output and an insight into his world then please watch “Wild Combination”. I have watched that many boring and pointless music documentaries that this one stands out by mile. It combines an eye-watering amount of his material with great interviews with his parents, partner and key friends and collaborators. Plus. It is named after my favourite song of his.

Wild Combination: Movie Trailer


Honestly fancy being that talented? Imagine being a cellist, composer and singer and then as you traipse through life you find yourself in New York and become one of the leading lights in the whole nascent disco scene. And then, just because you can, you find yourself playing with the likes of Philip Glass to David Byrne (Talking Heads) to Nicky Siano. Cool n’est pas?

His sound ranges from the most abstract classical through to new wave, country and of le disco.

As i love this fella so much and also love to join tunes together in a semi seamless way, i have posted links below to two mixes. The first (Arthur) was made very recently and is more ... modern. The second is a couple of years old but is very of the time being mostly 70s and 80s disco. Sort of. It has a track called Springfield which was a reworking/ finishing of a tune by Arthur by the DFA peeps i.e. Tim Goldsworthy and James Murphy (both from LCD Soundsystem) which has beats and rhytmn that are to die for.

Arthur

Poshlust

Arthur died on April 4, 1992, at the age of 40. The obituary for him in the Village Voice wrote: "his songs were so personal that it seems as though he simply vanished into his music." Mayhap, we can all visit him there?

Christmas Favourite


I have drafted a few posts over the Christmas period and they all seem to be the same kind of thing. World is facing doom. World needs to act now. Blah. Blah. Mayhap I will pop one of these up in the next few days but until then something a little more upbeat.

Did you get a favourite Christmas present? I did. I love it but then again I had no surprises as it is something I asked for and people duly (and very kindly) obliged and purchased said object for me. As it stands it is pretty useless and very much the kind of thing where the owner would also say “I like to drive model steam engines at the weekend”.

So the toy in question is… a Stirling Engine. Phew. I guess everyone knows what one of these things is and I have no need to explain it? Perhaps not? Full details can be found by Googling
In short it:

• Is a heat engine
• Can create power
• Has the potential to achieve the highest efficiency of any heat engine
• Has been used to power outdoor (Coleman) fridges and is used in submarines

To me it not only looks very pretty and kind of primitively industrial, it also sits on my laptop and using just the heat from the can start spinning away. And spinning away. And spinning away. And spinning away. And spinning away. And looking pretty. And spinning away. And spinning away.

Video Clip Interlude: This is taken from You Tube. I could have videoed mine but figured it would look the same anyway so hey. Anyway, it is not a patch on the real thing but gets the old grey cells firing away.



So now what? Having had a look at an Anaerobic digestor recently click here for a definition
I thought that the waste hot air being pumped into the atmosphere was just that, a waste. Why not strap a stirling engine into the path of the air and soak up some more energy to be converted into electricity. What with there being only about a dozen or so AD plants in the UK I figure there is a bit of opportunity to develop this technology given ambitions like the National Farmers Unions for having 1000 of them by 2020. This might seem like a big number but given the fact that Germany has over 3000 it is surely something we can go for. Even getting a 50% result would be a positive step. So what for the applications of the Stirling? Well a quick bit of research shows there are some bits of kit out there but nothing being used at present to generate some extra power. Anyone with any examples?

So from this kind of thinking I moved into the whole world of decentralised power. This has the power (no pun intended but obviously now sitting there) to change the way we use and generate electric. The World Alliance for Decentralized Energy (I am always a littler more inclined to trust a source that sounds like a spin off Star Wars unit) described the approach as:

"Electricity production at or near the point of use, irrespective of size, technology or fuel used - both off-grid and on-grid."

So what? Well. So perhaps we all produce our electric as we move around going about our daily lives. Perhaps we lose the worries of energy security and energy production down to the level of if you have no electric then it is because YOU forgot to sort it out. Not because SOCIETY failed to plan ahead.


So… Could the future be where we all walk around with little gadgets in our bags picking up on the motion we create whilst moving and turning this in to electric to be used there and then or stored for later use? Could we have a myriad of little machines strapped to anything with heat (or cold)? Can we go off grid and live truly localized lives? My feeling is that there is some mileage in this and that it creates to the perfect antidote to a globalised society?

Music Interlude: The link below is for snippet taken from Cosmo Galactic Prism Mixed By Prins Thomas. It is available for 7 days. I have a copy of the 10” and think it is a great anytime bit of happy music.

Sing (Unabombers Electric North Remix) - The Electric South Feat Bob Lind

Have fun

And should we put the rubbish out before we go to bed?


I have had a long running obsession with wanting things (unspecified actions/ activities and produce) to be tidy. This would seem utterly ironic for someone that cannot get it together to clean the house or even empty my computer trash can but something very appropriate for someone working in public policy and seeing all the waste and lack of joinedupness" involved in the delivery (or not) of essential societal services.

I have thought that we could flow chart all topics and show the interconnectedness of life the universe and everything (now check Douglas Adams and Fritjof Capra in equal doses). I still think this is a worthwhile activity but now think it might be a nice exercise which solves some problems and creates some new ones.

Movie Break: This you tube film shows Mr Capra discussing how different systems interact and describes a sustainable system for the future):

So what am i driving at? You can't make the world into an ordered structure in which all things are planned and working as you would hope. It is cockup and not conspiracy and there is likely to be no way round this. At the moment. Life is way to complicated and to think one could work it all out and then at the end of the week provide your boss with a report that says "well on Monday if we do this and then do that then we are all going to be just dandy".

But then maybe not. Perhaps we are developing the skills/ maturity/ necessity/ technology/ knowledge/ interconnectedness by which we can develop a more wholisitc and integrated approach to life. The question then becomes more one of " what is it that we require in order to make it such that a connected or systems approach can be viable?" Perhaps the conditions include:

• Break down of civil society (look at the news for Greece today)
• Break down of our fundamental management systems (look at the news on our economic systems today)
• Break down of delivery of interrelated policies (look at the BBC news on how to manage the display of tobacco in consideration of its addictive drug nature)
• Break down of the environment (look at BBC news on EU climate deadlock

Far from all of this being depressing i would suggest that it is a catalyst and lovely bringing together of factors that enables us to make subtle and worthwhile improvement. I am refraining from saying "making things different" as i feel that the aim should be to improve the quality of our existence and not to change that existence. In a nit picky way i think that change will come naturally from choosing to make things better. Perhaps i will elucidate on this in a further post?

Music Break: A Mountain of One - Ride (live version)

You would not believe the amount of love we have for this band. Often described as sounding like Santana and Fleetwood Mac had they found a real stash of sweeties, i think this band usher in a new era. Not sure what era they usher in but hey... They have had a number of 12"s out and have a CD that came out last year. New stuff is promised in 2009. Early 2009. So they say.






Have fun :-)

What is this blog about?



I hope it to be a thought provoking and interesting place. I will add posts on a regular(ish) basis on everything from politics and philosophy through to philosophy and politics :-) All of this will be smattered with stories, video and music.

Have fun