Pop Literature

I Was reading an old Observer Music magazine and came across "Top 100 Music Books". It was an interesting list and made me want to immediately read several of them, but after searching on ebay and Amazon I was only able to locate a few of them. I was surprised though to see that there were no books about David Bowie on the list. You would have thought that if they were including works such as Jenny Fabian's "Groupie" that they might have also included Angie Bowie's "Backstage Passes". Sting's recent autobiography did not make their list either, although Robbie Williams biog made number three - now that can't be right!

Ah well I am looking forward to getting my paws on a copy of Brian Eno's "A Year With Swollen Appendices" which sounds both entertaining and weird in equal measure! Watch this space for furthur updates.

Thirteen Albums I would love to get on CD 1…. Sheer Heart Attack - Queen I have owned several copies of this over the years but never on cd. 2....Live and Direct - Aswad I used to love this album, but it seems very hard to find on CD. 3....Pure - The Lightning Seeds another one that is hard to come by. I still have my pre-recorded tape! 4....Machine Head - Deep Purple I watched Classic Albums last night and it reminded me what an excellent one this was! 5....Dreamboat Annie - Heart just for a bit of nostalgia! I liked this a lot when I was in my early 20s. 6....Dub Side of the Moon - Easy Star All Stars I only discovered this recently and have the track money. Brilliant! 7....Heavy Horses/Aqualung - Jethro Tull couldn't choose between these two - they are quite different to one another, Aqualung is more of a concept album and is slightly darker, whilst Heavy Horses has a lot of feel good tracks and somehow seems very English (songs about woodland and the countryside). 8....Into the Music/Hard Nose the Highway - Van Morrison ok so maybe it's cheating slightly to have two but there are more Van Morrison albums than this that I could have listed! I used to have Into the Music on pre-recorde tape when I was a teenager and have never got round to replacing it. Just recently however, I have found myself wanting to hear it again. Check out "And the Healing has Begun". 9....Transformer - Lou Reed another one I just never got round to updating. I recently bought a cd copy of Coney Island Baby, which is excellent. This is a classic and I should be ashamed of myself for not upgrading! 10....Led Zeppelin I I have an extremely knackered vinyl version of this, probably too knackered to play! 11....Dreams - Grace Slick another album that I used to have on vinyl. Not many people have heard of this one. I also had one called "Sunfighter" by Grace Slick and Paul Kanter that was really good. 12....Quark, Strangeness and Charm - Hawkwind a real blast from my past but stands up surprisingly well against the tests of time. Even though this was always my absolute favourite Hawkwind album I never have owned my own copy (shame on me!). Listened to some of it recently and it sounds very fresh, unlike a lot of their other stuff. 13....Folkjkeopus/The Unknown Soldier - Roy Harper both excellent albums that I had on vinyl. Completely different to one another. Folkjkeopus is folky, acoustic, hippy songs whereas The Unknown Soldier is electric, more rocky and features artists like David Gilmour and Kate Bush. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!1. Susan 2. Carmen 3. armywife 4. Lil Duck Duck 5. Red

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Wordless Wednesday

The Song of The Seed
Originally uploaded by pupski.

Sudden Urge

What is it that makes a person suddenly want to hear a song that they haven't heard for years? Sometimes it can be triggered by something someone says, something you see or aplace you go to. But other times it is just a mystery. A song you haven't heard for years just pops into your head and you know you have to find it and hear it or else. This has happened to me a lot recently. Travelling to Mytelini airport on the journey home from Lesvos I got an overwheming desire to listen to Tenement Funster by Queen from the album Sheer Heart Attack and then at the weekend I kept thinking of the track "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel.

Now the Queen one has a tentative connection I suppose, we were driving along in a car at the time and there is a line in the song that goes "or give me an open car" so that kind of makes sense. but the Peter Gabriel is a complete mystery, I only had the song on tape and that was years ago as I am generally not a great Peter Gabriel fan. But suddenly I just had to hear that track. It's all very mysterious.

Back from Hols Playlist

1) In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
2) Tenement Funster - Queen
3) Do it Again - Smash Mouth (a brilliant cover of the Steely Dan song that I heard at little bar in Greece - it took me ages to find out who did it!)
4) Money - Easy Star All Stars (a dub version of the classic Pink Floyd Track - comes from an album called Dub Side of the Moon)
5) And the Healing Has Begun - Van Morrison (sublime!)
6) 36D - the Beautiful South
7) Rock and Roll - Led Zeppelin
8) Any Other Name - Thomas Newman
9) Journey Between - Baka Beyond
10) Epoca - Gotan Project
11) For No One - The Beatles
12) Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush
13) Adiemus - Vangelis

Polluted Planet

It's taking me a bit of time to adjust to being back in the UK. The first thing that really hit me was the amount of traffic there is on the roads and how polluted the air seems after the clean fresh air of Lesvos. Second is how stressed out and aggressive people seem. It must be to do with our life styles. In the taxi coming back to Norwich I was struck by how ironic it is that we just keep building roads whilst oil is fast running out.

Years ago I had a dream that I woke up one day and the whole of the country was just one big sheet of tarmac. Sometimes I think that that dream might just come true - a land made of tarmac but nothing left to drive!

I always find a trip on the motorway stressful and I am bemused as to why the government keep pouring money into making new roads and not into public transport. It is obvious to any fool that a major way to reduce air pollution, conserve fuel etc is for more people to use public transport. And why not, statistically it is safer, less stressful, more relaxing and yopu can reador work at the same time. The most prohibitive factor for most people that I know is the cost. From Norwich it is cheaper to fly to Edinburgh than go by train, to visit my mum 200 miles away costs £70, more at peak times. It's no wonder that the roads are full of single occupant cars - it's cheaper. In Norwich it is cheaper for a family to park in the city centre than to travel in by bus. Now that can't be right.....

No tide in the Mediterranian?

I had always known that there is virtually no tide in the Mediterranean sea, but this week I found myself wondering why. The reason apparently, is that the Med is more like a big lake than an ocean as it is virtually landlocked. The pull of the moon's gravity causes tides in water - the more water, the greater the tide - so the med has less of a tide as it has less water than the Atlantic or the Pacific. It does have a small tide though - that's why there are waves.

Town Dog or Country Dog?

I am coming to realise that despite the fact that I live in a city that I am becoming more and more of a country dog. I crave quiet and to be away from the hustle and bustle of town life. I long to be away from traffic and crowds. Places that I loved a few years ago now just seem to busy for me. Maybe it's getting old, maybe it's just that when you have a lot going on in your life you need quiet space to reflect and recover. Or maybe life is just too noisy and hectic these days.