Day 1805: Happy Christmas to all our reader

So with the yule log season upon us once again it falls on my humble hands to provide the official 2008 Christmas message and final quarter summary.

I'll do my scientific best........to look like Alice Glass

This year in the lead up to Christmas I have been mostly playing:
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (Crystalcastlitious)
Kate Bush - Aerial (Warblitious)
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi (Boardering on the Georgous)
Snow Patrol - Final Staw (Terminalitious)
Kent - Tillbaka Till Samtiden (Bra musik)
Joanna Newsom - Ys (My picture window produced a half-word)


Boosh Boosh, stronger than a moose

At the beginning of December I went to see The Mighty Boosh. I had bought 2 tickets when they went on sale a year earlier and as December drew close I was feeling confident that I would be able to find a like minded soul to go along with to it with.

Still, it was nice having an empty seat next to me to put my coat and computer bag on. And the show was even funnier than I thought it was going to be.


The wrong type of snow

Hope you have a nice Christmas and New Year!

Dag 1687: A day in the life of an explorer

I decided to spend this Bank Holiday monday doing a bit of exploring. Specifically I decided it would be a good idea to try an find a new species of caterpiller.

So, after many hours of dedicated exploring in extremely difficult and dangerous terrain, I finally came upon that elusive new species I had been dedicating my whole life to finding.

I had brought my collection of scientific instruments with me so I was able to photograph and take full measurments of the specimin I had tracked down. As can be seen, this is, to date, the largest caterpiller ever found.

The specimum is over 6 and a half inches long

As I journeyed further into the wilderness I found an even larger one eating a small tree.

I had to move on quickly after taking this in case I was attacked!

Based on my calculations this caterpiller will most likely turn into a new giant species of butterfly with a wingspan of at least 3 feet. It will feed on medium sized mammals, such as dogs and cats, and it will also be poisonous. In fact the entire nation could well be wiped out before the end of the year.

So be afraid, be very afraid.

But don't have nightmares.

Dag 1640: I've seen things that you'll never see

A quick music update:

I've spent a fair bit of the last year working towards a show called Carnival Of Legends that was put on at the, newly refurbished, Royal Hall in Harrogate on Saturday 5th July 2008. The show was performed by a local Youth Theatre Group called Theatre Box and it was written specially for them by Terry Deary (author of the Horrible Histories amongst others).

I was initially involved in preparing the music scores for some of the songs, but once I found out that Crazy Horses was in the show I thought it really needed a synth part in it, so I offered up my services as synth player and managed to worm my way into the heart if the crowd (I mean band).

By the time we had the dress and technical rehersal in the hall the night before, things seemed to be falling into place and the 2 performances on the Saturday went really well. The cast contained around 180 children and teenagers aged between 4 and 19 and all proceeds went to Martin House Hospice.

The show itself was fantastic and would, I feel, rival many professional shows.

The band consisted mainly of music teachers but the guitarist is also in a band called The Birdman Rallies so when I found they were playing at The Blues Bar in Harrogate the week after the show I decided I would try and go along and see them. I didn't manage to russell up any friends to go with so ended up going on my own, but the place was pretty busy so I didn't end up feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb, despite the fact that I had a sore thumb.

Some Birdmen Rallying at The Blues Bar

The gig was great, with the singer/guitarist doing a short improvisational solo set first followed the band playing tracks from their self titled CD.

This year looks like it might end up being one of my busiest for gigs for a while. It started off pretty quietly with me ending up not being able to see The Cure at Wembley, but I shall be seeing a number of bands (including Golfrapp and Sigur Ros) at the Hydro Connect Festival in Scotland, Sigur Ros again in Blackpool and The Mighty Boosh in December. I will hopefully get chance to see Ashley Reaks at the Blues Bar in October aswell.

Then to cap it all off I have just heard that Magazine will be playing some gigs in February 2009. I have been hoping for some years that they might get together for a few gigs and it has finally happened. Of all the groups that have reformed recently this is, without doubt, the one I would see above all others. The last time I saw them was in 1979 at Leeds University and I can still remember how good it was.

I have also heard uncomfirmed rumours that Strange Devotion may also be cashing in on the reunion band wagon and playing a few gigs at some point in the future. No doubt they want to earn a few million before retiring.

Remember you read it here first folks.

Dag 1637: It's That Time Of Year Again

Yes that's right, it is the season where most (if not all) of the British Minimal Synth Societies have their annual conferences and social get togethers.

So last Wedneasday members of the Harrogate Outlying Villages Minimal Synth Society descended on Blackpool for a short meeting followed by the rest of the afternoon free at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.



Yet again, we had a 100% member turnout, which was fantastic to see and just goes to show how populer this musical genre is becoming in the UK.

Dag 1589: The Missing Boy

Some time in the 1970s

As had happened on so many recent occasions he found his morning car journey to the train station was taking too long and he was in danger of missing the train. He had only missed it once in the last few weeks, resulting in an hour wait for the next one, but if it had been on time every day he would have missed it more often than he made it.

The journey was generally mostly free flowing but there were 2 potential bottlenecks that would determine whether his stress levels were going to rise or whether it would just be a forgetful journey where he could think of other things.

The first was a set of traffic lights near the start of the journey. Some days they would be on green when he arrived and he would sail through, other days the queue would be so long that it would take up to five sets of green lights before he got through and he would need to really put his foot down to get to the next one.

The second was a set of traffic lights near the station and, again, some days the queue of traffic here was as minimal as good synth music and on others it wasn't. The big stress inducer at this set of lights was the fact that if the driver looked back over his right shoulder he could see the railway track gently curving round on the magnificent viaduct. If the train should appear on this bridge he knew he had about 5 minutes to get through the lights, park the car and get onto the platform.

Viaduct obscured by taps - 1982

The journey on this particular morning started badly as the queue at the first set of traffic lights was longer than it had been for a long time. When he finally got through it was twenty past eight, which meant he had 18 minutes to get to the station. If there was no queue at the last set of lights he might just make it, but he didn't feel hopeful. The only hope was that the train would be late again.

He drove flat out and arrived at the back of the queue at the final lights with 5 minutes to spare. The queue was longer than it had been for a while, but there was no sign of the train so it looked like it was late and he had a chance.

Each time the lights changed about 4 or 5 cars got though and he inched closer to the front of the queue. By the time he got to the front the train still hadn't appeared on the viaduct and he could relax a bit as he knew he would make it. He switched from listening to Radio 4 to the cd player and listened to the track he was currently trying to write some lyrics for. He had recorded the basic backing tack and need to finish making up some lyrics for it. The song had originally been called On The Other Side, but once the chorus lyrics had been written it had to be renamed Half Life. All that was left to write was the second verse, but this was proving stubborn so this track was getting played alot during the daily car journeys.

As he drove into the car park his mind was still a blank and as he walked down the path to the platform he was relieved to see a fair number of people waiting so he knew the train had not managed to sneak across the viaduct when he had been looking the other way.

Most people on the platform seemed to congregate around the shelter in the middle of the platform so the extremities were usually empty. His habit had always been to walk to the far end of the platform and enter the train at the door nearest the front. He was usually the only person entering through this door and would usually find a free seat with ease, though lately the train had been more full and he more often found himself having to share a seat.

The day before he had entered through this door as usual and as he walked down the carriage he saw that there was not a single free seat. He had walked through the next, and only other, carriage and found it had many free seats so he had picked one and wondered if he would have been better getting in through the back door of the train in future.

So this morning when he noticed to his surprise that there was quite a crown of people at the far end of the platform he remembered what had happened the day before and decided to wait at the other end of the platform.

After a few minutes wait he entered through the back door of the train and was the only passenger to do so. He looked up the length of the carriage but didn't see any free double seats. He walked slowly up the carriage trying to scan for a free seat while also trying to think which of the partially occupied seats he would take. He stopped by a group of 4 seats facing a table on his right, noticing that the seat facing backwards nearest the window was taken but the other free were empty so he could take the one facing forwards nearest the central aisle without having to jockey for foot space with anybody else. He almost sat straight down, but instead spent some further moments standing by the seat while looking to see if there was a better seat further down the carriage.

He didn't see one and as his eyes worked their way back over the seats he suddenly realised he was looking at someone from his past sitting in the group of 4 seats on the left side of the carriage. She was sitting in the seat facing backwards by the window and was looking down into a book.

A ghost from 1982?

He realised that he wasn't sure what to do next. As he had been standing by that seat for so long a) she must have noticed him and b) it would look a bit strange if he suddenly walked off to find another seat. So he sat down in the seat he had been standing next to and took out his iPod, while deciding what, if anything, he should do next. It took him a lot longer than usual to decide what he was going to listen to. He knew he wanted to listen to something from that era, but he also wanted it to be something that reflected how he felt at this moment. He chose The Durutti Column live in Bruxelles and as the journey progressed and the music flowed into his ears it exactly complimented the way he felt at that time.

He then took out his PSP so he had something to focus on and played that while making sure that the only time he looked up was to look out of the window on his left side.

As the live version of The Missing Boy flowed into his mind the train began slowing down as it approached Leeds station and the sun suddenly broke through the clouds. A feelling came over him that at that moment all was right with the world.

As the train had filled up, as it stopped at each of the stations on its way to Leeds, he had needed to move to the window seat to make room for someone to sit next to him and when it finally stopped it was completely full of passengers.

He decided to wait until everyone else from his immediate area had left before he stood up and as he walked down the passageway towards the exit he got the impression someone was standing on the platform by the door as if waiting for somebody to the get off. He hurried a bit as he went, but then he came to a bottleneck of passengers. Someone was struggling to get an over sized suitcase down from the rack and it had become jammed. After a few agonisingly slow moments the suitcase became free and the passengers began moving again.

He was the last one to get off the train and as he turned his head and looked to the left and save for the people who had just got off the train in front of him, the platform was empty.

The end of the line

He wondered if she had any idea that a band she had once played with had released their debut single a few days earlier or that is was available for sale here.

Dag 1577: Mauerstadtmusik proudly presents STRANGE DEVOTION!!!

Recorded April 1982


7" Strange Devotion - Again the new formation MM 05

Releasedate: 16th May 2008

It can be purchased from Anna Logue Records.

Dag 1508: No cure for me

I am currently sitting at my desk with 2 tickets to see The Cure at Wembley tonight.

That may sound like an enviable position to be in, but there are two very slight downsides and they are:

1) I am unable to go
2) It is far too late to be able to sell them (or even give them) to anyone as the tickets are in Leeds and anyone going would need to have left for London already.

Could this have been the Three Ringed Surgery?

Perhaps we'll never know.

Dag 1467: Memory gongs

I heard a couple of interesting things on radio 4 recently which follow on from my last post (in some respects) and are both related to memory. So it makes sense to make them the subject of my first post of 2008.

chair with cushion - early 1980s

The first of these was the revelation that everybody’s memory is not as good as we may think. An experiment was undertaken by a university professor following the terrorist attack on the twin towers in 2000. The day after the attack he asked his students to write down exactly what they were doing when they heard about it. Some time later (between 6 months and a year) he asked them the same question again. The vast majority of his students wrote down something completely different to what they had originally written. The professor then showed the students, who had put something different down, their original responses and asked them to think about it and then say which of the 2 versions was actually the correct one. Every single student said that his or her more recent account was the correct one.

So that means that there are some things that we will all fundamentally believe happened at a certain time in a certain way, but in reality that may not be the case at all and therefore we just don't know what we can trust in our own memories.

In my previous post there is a photograph of an unfinished painting I painted in the early 1980s. Although I ended up doing more to it after the photo was taken I never actually finished it. I kept it for many years and through many house moves, but I finally took it to the tip about 5 years ago (and yes you are right, I do regret it).

The Cabaret Voltaire fans amongst you will probably recognise the phrase in the speech bubble as coming from one of their songs. It was one that I particularly liked and, although I disposed of all my Cabaret Voltaire records and tapes around 20 years ago (along with most of my record collection - and yes that is another thing I regret) whenever I saw that painting it reminded me of that song. Over the years I forgot the title of the song and occasionally tried to think what it might be. I cam to the conclusion that although I couldn't remember the song title I at least remembered that it came from the Red Mecca album (that I was sure about). I remembered that Red Mecca was the last Cabaret Voltaire album I ever bought as I felt they went downhill after that (or to be precise during that album). I remember buying it from a record shop in Bath. I really liked some of he tracks and didn't like others at all, but I knew that the tracks with the spoken phrase "The third part of your brain, do you know where it is?" was without doubt the best track on the album.

A few years ago I went onto iTunes, out of curiosity, to see if I could identify which track from Red Mecca contained the phrase, but it wasn't in any of the available 30 second clips.

Since then I hadn't given Cabaret Voltaire much more thought until I discovered discogs (see previous post). Since then I have started buying many of the records I used to own (though in CD format this time). When I looked up Cabaret Voltaire I realised I had owned pretty much everything they released in the UK up to and including Red Mecca including their first 7" entitled Extended Play. (In fact it is a shame there isn't an "I used to own this" button in discogs.

But I digress, My first recent Cabs purchase was the box set Conform to Deform. This is from the period just after Red Mecca was made, but I thought I would give it a try and see if I liked it more now than I did at the time. If they had had the other box set Methodology '74 / '78 - The Attic Tapes in HMV Leeds I would have got that instead, but they didn't have much choice so Conform to Deform it had to be. I listened to it a few times and liked some of the tracks, but not others. So I decided I'd start to get some of the good old CV stuff I used to like.

I started off with Mix-Up and enjoyed it very much - I was amazed that I remembered all the songs on it when I first played it. I then wondered what to get next. I knew I had liked Voice of America when I had it on record but I also fancied getting to the bottom of the riddle of which track on Red Mecca contained the phrase I had used in my painting. I ended up getting Voice of America just before Christmas and put in onto my iPod ready for my commute into work the next day. As with Mix-Up it all came flooding back to me on first listening and I remembered just how much I used to like his album.

I was getting close to the end of my train journey when a song started with a loose jangley sort of guitar part that I remembered as being one of the highlights of the album and then to my astonishment I heard the phrase "The third part of your brain, do you know where it is?". I was dumbfounded, how could it be that I had got this so wrong? If someone had tried to have a bet with me over which album contained that phrase I would have staked everything on it being Red Mecca as my memory was 100% sure that it came from that album.

It was only when I listened to the piece on Radio 4 some weeks later that I realised how it had happened, but that made me wonder what other things I feel 100% sure about are also wrong. It is quite possible that I went somewhere with someone back in the early 1980s and my memory of it is completely different to the person who I went with. We might both feel that we were 100% right and therefore the other must be wrong. All sorts of arguments might ensue, but without some third party reference it would be impossible to come to the real truth.

So from now on I can no longer know for sure of anything that happened in the past.

A sponsored walk in the early 1980s - or was it?

The other interesting item I heard on Radio 4 was about split personalities. The thing being proposed was that most people have some form of split personality and there is a scale that runs from people who have only a single personality at one end to people who have a very pronounce split personality at the other. The people at this end are those who are likely to be receiving some sort of mental health treatment.

So most people are somewhere between these 2 extremes and will have two personalities that they switch between from time to time. you might think that for this to be the case everyone would have realised they had these two personalities, but the reason this is not the case is that each person is unaware that this is happening and while they are in one personality they can only access the memory banks associated with that personality so they will have no knowledge whatsoever about the other one. It is only possible for other people to spot this and they would need to be specifically looking for it over some time to have any chance of actually spotting it. However, it was discovered that when someone brain is monitored when the move from one personality to another different areas of the brain start functioning so it can be detected in that way. Most people would probably not have much of a difference between their personalities, which would also make it hard to spot without actually monitoring the brain.

I thought it was interesting anyway.


And to end on another musical topic:

Minimal Synth fans may be interested to hear that the debut single by Strange Devotion will be released shortly on the Berlin based label, Mauerstadtmusik.

It will be a very special limited edition 7" vinyl pressing containing the tracks "Again the new formation" b/w "Danger Line" which have never been released before.