Unknown song

I really don’t know much about this song, though I did actually buy it, or at least the magazine it was given away on. It came part of a free tape on the front of a music magazine from around 1989, possibly 1990. I can tell you I bought it from King Oswy shops, the original tape was black, and came in a slipcase. It may have featured “Inner City Mama” by Nenah Cherry on the tape too.

Not that it helps much.

Unfortunately, the original tape came from a manufacturer who made tapes that didn’t agree with my tape deck, and it probably got chewed up and binned. I certainly don’t have it anymore.

With the borrowment of Andrew’s cassette deck, I’ve been able to source one of my old C90s which had a copy of this song on it. Unfortunately, it was copied in high-speed mode, meaning the above track sounds tinny as hell. Just for old times sake, I’d like to know who it is and who by. Don’t bother googling the “lyrics”. “Blip Blipiddy Blop Bleep” doesn’t bring up any usefull results.

Feel free to comment / email. If it sounds familar, that’s great, but unless you’ve got a *really* good idea of who it is, then don’t! Also ,comments about my questionable taste in music, then, you know that already.

2010-05-18 11:34:10: Started walk

After going to bed at 7, and waking up at 9:30, thanks to Daddykins on his rig, and me not turning my speakers off, I thought I’d get up and make use of the day. I demolished some oven chips whilst watching Homes Under the Hammer. The sun was cracking the pavements, so I thought I’d walk off the chips, along with the night before’s kebab wrap.

As you can probably gather, I left the house at that time, and headed along the coast road and up “Hart Road” towards Hart Village.

2010-05-18 12:09:10: Mmm, farmy

This tweet referred to the overpowering stench of shit that filled the patch between Clavering and Hart Village. It was a hot spring day, and the smell of some nearby horses wafted around the place.

Oddly, this was my last tweet of the walk. Instead, I had to work out where I was going to go once I’d reached Hart Village. I could head home, or I could risk crossing three lanes of traffic, and head off to photograph the nearby turbines. Despite them being there for many years now, I’d never actually been near them.

Thanks to Google Streetview, I knew that the journey would be pretty uneventful, except for the afore-mentioned road crossing. I headed up the road that would take me towards the turbine, only to be infiltrated by the locals….

Next stop was the road I feared. I almost felt like King Canute, as when I got to the road, it was entirely empty, and I could quite happily stroll across the carriageway without fear of getting squashed.

I was happy to find that when I got there, the field the turbine was in, was growing oil seed rape, meaning that it gave everything a lovely yellow colour…

The walk back seemed to take for ever. I’d slightly misjudged just how far it was from Mercuryvapour Towers. Turns out, it’s a 5-mile round trip. I think I can safely say I neutralised those chips.

The rest of the day was spent in bed after watching some telly. Daddykins commented about repairing “the door”. For anyone lucky enough to have received a guided tour around Mercuryvapour Towers, you’ll know that the “games room” has had its back door hanging off for several years after a storm snapped it in half. I’d be interested to see if this would come to fruition.

2010-05-19 09:06:28: Off to the flea market. There is a strong smell of rapeseed in the air.

Well, I can’t keep away from the flea market, as much as I try. After waking up stupidly early on Wednesday (5AM), I headed off to the market of fleas. I’d spent the previoous hours changing the music on my phone. I realised, mere minutes into the walk, however, that I should have avoided “Now 40″, as my ears bled along to the sound of Steps.

The walk took me along the scenic vistas of Raby Road, along York Road, and then to the flea market. CDs were purchased, so were records. I couldn’t help myself. I have bought some cheese in the past, but this is pure, ripe Stilton of the highest order…

It cost me 50p, and to be honest, after playing it, I like it a lot more than I thought I was going to. Clare Torry is (only) known for Pink Floyd’s track “Great Gig in the Sky”. Apparently, everyone who purchased her album from Amazon bought it on the strength of that Pink Floyd track.

2010-05-19 09:48:51: On bus home. Flea market poor

On the way home, Daddykins texted me asking if I had my keys. Without a single hint of sarcasm (that was sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell), I replied “Yes. Let me know if you still want to attempt door this afternoon”. Imagine my shock and horror as, at 1PM, we actually went on the search for some wood. Or, at least, some material that a door could be constructed of.

Imagine my horror when these materials were actually purchased…

We were about to attempt DIY on a scale never attemped before in the ground of Mercuryvapour Towers…

EDIT: Fixed webcam photo as it was broked.

I do like the Scarface soundtrack, and it’s so long since I’ve played it. On it goes.

In other news, at 16:29 today, the Revo Dalek which had been salvaged from Lancaster Road, received its first power in its new home, with help from a gear tray supplied by Andy The Iridium Fan. This is also the first time in my entire life that I’d lit a SOX (low pressure sodium) lantern. I took a photo at the immediate time of switch-on, but the floor in the living room was a mess so none of you will ever get to see it. To me, however, it was a groundbreaking moment.

Anyway, I have been, and still am, incredibly busy with stuff, which is one of the reasons I’ve not been updating this, plus I’ve had writers block up to the eyeballs. My “drafts” folder is, as usual, full of little snippets of posts I started, then never finished.

Music is one of the things which has been seriously influencing the past couple of months, especially an 8-second clip of a Kraftwerk song.

I was at work about six months ago. Ian, who sits behind me, had a bit of a “Kraftwek” night, and was playing some of their tunes. An 8 second piece of music got stuck in my head. It had been used as a sample in another song, and could I hell remember which song it was. I later found that the song he was playing was “The Robots”, but even after an extensive interwebs search, I couldn’t find out where else I’d heard it. I knew it was in a song from the 1990s.

Off to #speccy, nope, nobody had heard it there, not even Marko who is normally good at this type of stuff. I uploaded it to my phone, and played it to everyone I knew, in the vain hope that it would jog the memory. I even set it as my ringtone, thinking that if someone rang me, and I heard it out of the blue, I’d pick up on it straight away.

Sadly not. I joked to Chris (who also didn’t know it) about me hearing it when I least expect it, totally out of the blue.

That was months ago, fast forward to yesterday. After looking for a few things, I happened to spy my old video recorder in a box. It hadn’t been used for about 6 years, not since my TV card died. I hooked it up to the telly downstairs, and played some old tapes with the intention of transferring them to DVD. There was one particular tape I was after saving. A non-descript looking tape, with a ripped label. Amongst hours of me playing in the garden as a kid, with our old black and white camera, was the very last edition of “Northern Life”. Halfway through, they had an “outtake reel”, with music dubbed over it.

The track was a song I liked, instantly recognisable to me anyway. All of a sudden, 32 seconds into it, there it was. THAT BLOODY KRAFTWERK SAMPLE! I was delighted. And unsurprised that my prediction was right.

The Kraftwerk tune was “The Robots, and the sing I remembered was “I Can’t Stand It by Twenty 4 Seven. Chris shuld be bitterly disappointed that he didn’t get it, but then he doesn’t read here anymore!

Speaking of which, it was Wayne’s 30th the other day. I sent him an email, but it looks as if he’s gone AWOL again.

And, there really aren’t that many. Maybe it’s due to me getting old. I don’t know. Either way.

1. Hockey – A Song Away

Embedding’s disabled, so you’ll need to click here to hear it.

“I wanna write a truthful song over an 80s groove”. And you do it very well too, whoever you are. The whole song reminds me of the Travelling Wilburys. First heard somewhere on the outskirts of Harrogate, on Radio 2.

2. Frankmusik – Confusion Girl

Wahey, I can embed this one…

A great song. Bonus points for the inclusion of…. erm, that ‘bewer’ whose name escapes me, the 80s style mobile phone, pink wheely bins (!) and infinitely shite “special effects”. The guy singing it looks like a pigeon.

Unfortunately, the first time I heard this song, I was in the less glamorous location of the Asda car park. This was obviously before the incident.

3. David Guetta / Kelly Rowland – When Love Takes Over

I like it, even though it has a very Coldplay-esque intro.

I’m now going to sit in a darkened room for the next three hours, and see if I can actually think of any others that entice my ageing eardrums like the afore mentioned trio. Probably not.

EDIT: Video deleted. Bloody Youtube.

10 points for naming the game this music comes from. Infinity points if you manage to purge the tune from your mind within 3 days.

EDIT: Right continent, wrong location.

Andy the Iridium Fan will be photographig the event.

It all started back in 1983, possibly 1984. Too young to remember. An hour-long television show named “Auf Wiedersehen Pet” made its way onto our television screens. In 1986, a second series was aired. In 1988, both series were repeated, albeit in half-hour chunks. At this point, I was old enough to recognise and enjoy its distinctive theme tunes, and I would often sit next to the TV with a cassette recorder, recording the theme tunes.

In the summer of 1988, just before I headed off on my holibobs to Sandy Bay, one of my friends, a lad called Darren, announced that he had the full soundtrack. Yes, it had actually been released on LP, around the time the second series had aired, and that if I gave Darren a cassette, he’d record it for me.

A few days later, (if I remember correctly, it was a Friday, the night before we went away) I was presented with a freshly recorded tape, laden with 18 minutes and 29 seconds of music. Hurrah!

That tape went everywhere with me. Every time we went on holiday, so did this tape, and I’d play it in the car, whenever we went anywhere, much to the annoyance of my parents who must have been sick to death of hearing it.

My love for the soundtrack never really went away, and as each repetition of Auf Weidersehen Pet came on TV, I would once again dig out the tape and play it. Obviously, at some point, I went through and picked up vinyl copies of the singles, though the condition of them wasn’t terribly good.

In roughly 2003, I found that the soundtrack had been released on CD, through a company named “Prestige”. To my slight disappointment, when I played it, the tracks weren’t totally original… “That’s Livin’ Alright” had every second vocal line re-recorded, “Breaking Away”, “Get It Right”, and “The Seven Again”, all faded out early, “Tonight’s The Night” was cut to shreds, knocking an entire verse out of the song, and a minute off its overall running time. The only track to survive intact was “Back With The Boys Again”.

So, it was clear that the only way to get what I wanted, was to find a copy of the 1986 LP. Unsurprisingly, this version has not been issued on CD. Ebay was the site of choice, when it comes to finding it, though it seemed to go for silly money.

Since then, that Auf Weidersehen tape has never really “gone missing”. Although I haven’t played a tape in years, it’s always seemed to have been “about”, if you know what I mean.

Chris came over the other night, and we were discussing when we were kids, and some of the old recordings I had of me as a kid. Though, 22 years on, they’re incredibly embarrassing, I still played them, and let him have a listen to what I sounded like when I was 8. Naturally, this tape was one of the ones I’d played, as the B side consists entirely of me shouting stuff into the tape recorder, you know, as kids do.

This got me itching to hear the soundtrack as it was meant to be played. I flipped the tape over, and played a few seconds. All of those memories of past summers and childish laughter came rushing back. Over the years, the tape has degraded, and although it still plays, the sound quality was hardly up to scratch. It may also have had something to do with the hi-fi I was playing it on. Either way, I wanted to listen to it properly.

Off to the afore-metioned auction site, where I picked up the following…

Yes, a gleaming copy of the LP. I didn’t know what to expect when I got it. I actually dreamt that I received it, and it was in appaling condition. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case, and it is in perfect condition. Needless to say, I have recorded it, and it’ll soon be part of my MP3 collection to treasure for another 20 years.

You may remember back in September 2008, I came across an idea where I’d review an album, picked by random, out of the weeks’ Top 40. Sounded like a pretty good idea at the time. However, obtaining the record legally wouldn’t really be cost effective, and although I could probably dispose ofthe CD on ebay if I really didn’t like it, it wouldn’t have been worth the chew.

But, that was September 2008. We’re all a year older. Unfortunately, I’ve picked a bad couple of weeks to start this again. The charts are still dominated by Michael Jackson. Sigh. You’d think he’d died or something.

Therefore, I’ll start this whole debacle with a “randomly” picked album. I say randomly, I actually mean “I wanted to see if all of the tracks are similar to the first. For you see, the album in question is…

La Roux – La Roux

Great. Nothing like a self-titled album to get us underway. I wonder if they named themselves after the late Danny La Roux? (You know that’s not how you spell his/her name – Ed) Oh, shut up…

(presses play)

01. In For the Kill

Played heavily on the radio. I never listen to the radio for more than 15 minutes per day, so if I think it’s heavily played, I can’t begin to imagine how many other times it’s played. I quite like this one, and it’s the only one of theirs I know. The vocals are particularly annoying, but distinctive. The “OoooooOoooooooooOOooOOOOooOoo” bit near the end has just made my ears bleed.

02. Tigerlily

The vocals aren’t as annoying as the first song, I’ll give it that. Near the end, there’ some bloke who sounds like the bloke out of “Barbie Girl” by Aqua.

03. Quicksand

I’ve decided that, even after 2 songs that I’m not going to be overly keen on this album. I’m sure I knocked up something similar to this track back when I was 15 on OctaMED. Actually, I didn’t think this track was too bad until the OoooooooOOoooooooOoo’s kicked in again.

04. Bulletproof

Intro reminds me of “Breath of Life” by Erasure. Chorus reminds of the same song. And it’s not bad. I’d probably play that one again.

05. Colourless Colour

According to Wikipedia, the singer is the daughter of that woman off The Bill, Trudie Goodwin. You know the one. The one that was in it for ever. Oh, right, back to the song. Er, I’m not overly keen on this one. Next!

06. I’m not your Toy

Oh, now I definitely did the introduction for this one in OctaMED. Actually, on closer inspection, it sounds more like SID music, something a C64 would produce. According to Wikipedia again, this is going to be the next song from the album.

07. Cover Your Eyes

The longest song on the album, and the slowest so far. Reminds me of something that Yazoo would have done back in the day. this is definitely on the “Play again” list. I’ve noticed that the majority of the songs have poor endings. And, although I quite liked this one, the ending suffered the same fate.

08. As If By Magic

Once again, a very 80s sound. Sounds a bit like a song I can’t think of. Possibly “King in a Catholic Style” by China Crisis. I’ve just head a line that would have made me laugh beer though my nose, assuming I was drinking beer at the time… “It’s not so tragic if I don’t look down”. Story of my life, that.

09. Fascination

That intro couldn’t be any more Erasure if it tried. A bit repetitive, but at least it (sort of) finished properly.

10. Reflections Are Protection

Remember “The Lowdown”, some type of documentary show for kids that was on the telly as I was growing up? No? well, you probably won’t care that this song reminds me of the theme tune from that. Slightly. It’s certainly “heavier” than the rest of them.

11. Armour Love

Hmm. Another slowish one, but not in a good way. This one is particularly dire, and certainly the weakest one on the album. It’s a bit of a crap way to end an otherwise acceptable collection of songs. Oh, and the ending on this one is diabolical. It sounds as if they just press stop on the synths, but keep one going for just a few seconds longer after that. A poor end.

And that’s your lot, minus the bonus tracks which I can’t be arsed playing. Overall, it’s not bad. Couple of good tracks, plenty of tracks which would set the “meh” meter off, and one stinker. I’d much rather just stick the radio on and listen to the good tracks which have all been released as singles anyway.

I headed off to the Marina, slightly annoyed at losing one of the rubber earbuds for my phone’s headpiece. That wasn’t a good start to the day. It meant that on my strut from Mercuryvapour Towers, to the afore-mentioned Marina was spent only half-listening to the music. The other half was spent trying to keep the earpiece in without having my head tilted to one side. Grrr.

Eventually, I arrived, and had planned to meet Andrew there. I phoned his mobile to see where he was.

I rang…

“It’s me, where are you at?”

I got some crypic reply back, along the lines of “If you’re calling for my brother, he’s out”.

Eh?

Eventually, the call fizzled out. I must have been in a position where he couldn’t understand me, or didn’t think it was me. I moved location and rang back…

“It’s Jamie, I know you’re out, you asked me to ring you when… oh.”

It had currently dawned on me that instead of ringing Andrew’s mobile, I’d rang his house phone. It was indeed his brother that answered, who must sound very similar to him on the phone, which means that Andrew’s brother’s brother was indeed out, and awaiting a call on his mobile instead of the house phone, as he was not in, as described in the initial call answered by Andrew’s brother’s brother’s brother. If you see what I mean.

So, I eventually get in contact with Andrew, and we meet up at the Wingfield Castle. He had his camcorder, needless to say, I took my camera.

The first “treat” of the day was the “Community Cavalcade” Now, I didn’t really know what to expect from this. Turns out, I should have expected very little. Best way to describe it was a town-wide school play, with kids singing in between. Of course, I didn’t realise this, and thought it was the opening ceremony. WROOOONG.

I could have cried. We started queuing at 11:30, didn’t get in there until 12:21. For the 51 minutes, we were in the blazing sunshine. My sunburn is back with a vengence. I wish I’d actually read what it is we were queuing up to watch.

I only took interest in part of it, and that part was when the music CD malfunctioned.

Despite the relaxing shade of the large entertainment tent, we abandoned the “cavalcade”, and by chance happened tofind one piece of “street entertainment” from a guy called Turbo Jonez. As you can guess by my “heartening” description of the cavalcade, it should now be clear that I don’t have a cynical bone in my body, in the same way that I don’t have a sarcastic one.

OK, I’m sarcastic and cynical, but when I say that this guy was one of the best street acts I’ve ever seen in my numerous years visiting these “maritime festivals”, I really mean it…

It takes a lot for me to laugh at stuff like that, but this guy was awesome. After his show had finished, I even went up and shook his hand, and had a quick discussion about the records and equipment used in his act. An all round nice guy.

There was a performance immediately after, next to the Wingfield Castle, about punishment in the middle ages…

I think there’s one of those every week. At this point, one of Andrew’s camera batteries had died, so he headed off to a top-secret location to put the battery on charge. While he did that, I took some photoes of the Thundercats…

OK, I could have said speedboat, but I didn’t.

We walked back in the general direction of the tents, and happened to stumble across the “FoodFest” tent.

As well as containing an oven, this place also behaved like an oven. I was dismayed to find that the recipe he was cooking contained smoked fish. Ugh. Oddly, I stayed in my seat, without running out of the place like a screaming girl. Turns out all of the savoury dishes being prepared over the weekend actually contain fish.

The guy running the workshop also had to teach this recipe to a bunch of children at the same time, something which he CLEARLY had never had any experience with.

COnsider the following paragraph as “Citation needed”, as I can’t remember the exact order of events, but one of the little kiddywinks, asks if the thing he is cooking it on is “hot”. The chef replies “Yes, that’s why it says ‘Caution Hot Surface’, pointing to a sign laid flat on the table in front of the hotplates. Slight issue with that, is that the child was too small to see any sign laid flat on the table, or understand the words, and was only asking the question because the chef turned over something in the pan with his fingers. Oh, man. I hope Andrew got it on tape, but I doubt he did, so I may have made the entire last paragraph up.

We walked out of the cookery class, and decided that refreshments were in order. I ended up paying £1 for a bottle of water, followed by £2.50 for a tray of curry and chips.

We then watched a juggler with the worst sound system known to man, and then decided to head off to Navigation Point. This was to be my place of departure, as I wanted to go home for a bit or a rest before the music section started good and proper.

Daddykins picked me up, and I did certain tasks as take plenty of fluid on board, and examine my fucking sunburn in greater detail. Why is it, now, that when I was a kid, I could be out in the sun all hours of the day (well, yes, up until 6PM, Chad.), yet these days, my skin incinerates the second a bit of sun hits it? If that’s not evidence of a depleting ozone layer, I don’t know what is, or we may have just had shit summers in my childhood.

OK, back on topic.

I had arranged to meet Andrew again after I’d returned. By this time the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Cloud had spilled in from all directions, and by complete coincidence, Daddykins was heading off to the Marina by means of a taxi. I asked if I could jump in too. He answered affirmatively, and I’m glad he did, as the heavens opened whilst on the way there.

I got dropped off, and attempted to reach Andrew via the mobile airwaves. His phone was switched off. Bugger. Oh well, I was on my own for the night. No matter, but it would have been nice to not look like a Billy-no-mates all night.

The first couple of bands came on, and they were both… erm, “not my scene”, despite the fact I’d made my way to the front of the audience area, and now only had a 4-fit railing between me and whowever was performing. It was then, I came across a fear of dread, or maybe it was dehydration. I’d realised that if I was at the front, I’d be there for the long term. One of the bands finished, and the crowd dispersed slightly. I had to do it. I had to head to the bar. There were several reasons I was putting it off. Mainly the price. A “pint” of lager for £3.50

Of course, the reason why they charge through the nose for your beer, despite the fact you’ve been queuing up for 25 minutes before eventually receiving a plastic glass full of luke-warm piss, is that you’re receiving top-notch entertainment for nothing. If you’re thirsty, pay for it, like the freeloading whore that you are.

After queuing for 25 minutes before eventually receiving a plastic glass full of luke-warm piss, I head back to the front of the stage. Phew. There was still a little space. At this point, Andrew texted me saying that he also returned home for a bit, and will be there shortly.

He turned up in time to see the John Power Band. Now, I’d personally never heard of them. For some reason, I was expecting some type of large brass band number, thinking it would be a bit odd to but them on before the Lightining Seeds. Turns out, they weren’t. In fact they were another normal band. SOmething, somewhere mentioned that he was the lead singer out of “Cast”. My word, that was blast from the past, in a way.

It started off with several new tracks, or songs that were John Power Band only. Although enjoyable, it wasn’t something I was familiar with, or could enjoy, despite certain members of the female audience attempting to force themselves next to my perfectly reserved spot. Note to females, should you attempt to push your 4’10″ frame into a space occupied by a 5′x” fat c*nt, you’re not going to succeed. It is likely that person will class it as the biggest sexual encounter he’s had for several months.

Something awesome happened during this. John Power announced that he was going to play some of his old stuff for the first time in years. Yes, all of the old Cast hits came out, including “Walkaway”… a song that is hard for me to explain. It’s one if the songs that made sense while I was going through puberty, but for no explicable reason, took no notice of it after that period.

I still knew every word, sang at the top of my voice, and for a short time, after the song finished, stood there shaking, as if some type of chemical bubble had burst in my brain… I’d never expected that I’d be singing that song, mere feet away from the person who brought it into my life in the first place.

Next up were The Lightning Seeds. Had my life been reaching up to this beautiful climax? You may remember my (clearly drunken) analysis of the song in 2004. I couldn’t imagine how good it would sound live.

Apparently, Hartlepool was their first gig for 10 years. They must have read my blog, and made sure they played on one of the nights I was off work. Thanks guys. Unfortunately, you might want to stop reading here…

… I thought it was, on the whole, awful. They really sounded like a band who had not practised together for 10 years, never mind just played a gig together

Technical difficulties marred everything they did, from squealing feedback, to whole guitars cutting out for no apparent reason, to the point where Ian Broudie closed his eyes and just realised that nothing was going his way. Many vocals were out of key.

If it really WAS ten years since the band last played together at a gig, I’m sure that the last thing they’d want to hear is constant chants of “It’s coming home, it’s coming home, football’s coming home” every time there’s a break between songs. Unfortunately, that particular fact wasn’t relayed to the audience by the “Real Radio” DJ who encouraged the audience to “ask” them for the song.

After several poor efforts by The “Seeds” to get audience participation, the finale was about to come. “The Life of Riley” was first. Unfortunately, this caused a crowd surge that caused anyone in the very front row (i.e. me) to be bounced around like a turd in one of those choppy up things for when you don’t have a real sewer line thing…

The finale, an all acoustic version of “Three Lions”, went down an absolute storm. As the crowd dispersed, the chant of “It’s coming home, it’s coming home, football’s coming home” grew ever more quieter. It’s one of those odd moments, like when the band James used to close their gigs to the chorus of “Sit Down”.

Unfortunately, after getting the front row, I realised (long after it was possible to make any difference) I have been included in many, many photos. Some I posed for, some I didn’t. No doubt I’ll be in the mail again. Whooppee…

Following on from the earlier post today, I have returned back from the flea market, with plenty of records and CDs. Unfortunately, it is a bittersweet moment.

My first stop was to buy some singles from a stall I’d previously visited several weeks ago, and picked up a shit-load of really good singles (or, as most other people who know my music taste would put it, a good load of really shit singles). I was hoping that this time I’d be able to repeat this.

Indeed, he had a couple of boxes of singles on display. Some older ones, which appeared in good condition. Hurrah!

I’d picked up 8 for the measly sum of £2, and headed off in the general direction of Eric’s stall. Whilst flipping through the CDs, some stranger asks me a question, after noticing the wad of singles in my hand…

“Did you get those from that stall over there?”, he says, pointing in the direction of the stall over yonder…
I answered affirmatively.
“Oh, because when I looked at them, every single one had a great big gouge in them…”
My heart sank.
“Oh, well there ones ‘looked’ OK”, I replied, whilst contemplating the fact that I could very well have 8 pieces of completely worthless plastic in my grubby little mitts.

I purchased a couple of CDs from Eric’s stall. For those who care, they were “Set The Mood” by David Jordan, “Unplugged” by The Corrs, and “Purple Rain” by Prince.

At this point, I went to check my vinyl. Indeed, my vinyl was ruined. In fact, this one was so deeply sctarched that it actually cracked the record…

So, I’m a bit gutted at the minute. Every single one had some type of purposely made scratch. I’m more gutted at the fact that someone purposely destroyed a whole collection of records for no logical reason. I could have taken them back, but for £2, it wasn’t worth the hassle, and I probably should have looked a bit more clearly than what I did.

Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and I suppose I could use the sleeves (which, were all, except one, generic or company sleeves) to replace some of the more “crumbling” sleeves which house some of my records.

So, with that disappointment confirmed, I headed off to what looked like a new stall. Some guy who I hadn’t seen there before had several large boxes of CDs. Now, on initial inspection, the CDs were garbage. Hundreds of worthless CD-ROMs. My favourite had to be the “interactive guide to weeding”. However, underneath the crust were some actual music CDs, and some good ones at that.

Now, you may remember, that back in September last year, I mentioned that if I was ever listening to a song on my phone (which I do every time I’m at the flea market), and it appeared in the collection of records / CDs I was browsing at the time, then I’d buy it. In fact, that was an almost exact copy and paste from that posting).

This time, I just happened to be listening to “You Got It” by Roy Orbison. One of the first CDs I picked up just happened to have this track on it. The album was “Smash Hits Party ’89″. It suddenly occured to me that I actually have this album on cassette. It was given to me by Narbi Price when we were mere children. I still have those tapes, though no longer have any method of playing them, so it was nice to be able to upgrade them to a format I can still play.

Also “upgraded” was my copy of “Chorus” by Erasure. A song that will always remind me of our annual holidays to Sandy Bay, a little caravan site just south of Newbiggin-By-The-Sea. Chad used to call it “Sandroid Bay”. Overall I paid £3 for 9 CDs, and I even managed to sneak a Michael Bolton one in there, because I do, unfortunately like one of his songs. ONE of his songs. Just one. Uno. Ein. I hope I can’t make that any more clearer. Well, OK, I like two of them, but that’s as far as I’m going.

Moving on very swiftly, before I admit to liking three Michael Bolton songs, I’ll just recap on something I talked about the other day. Sunburn. Yes, after last Wednesday’s day out, I ended up with severe sunburn, which caused much amusement “in the office”. Unfortunatelt, it did leave me looking like some type of alien creature for a few days this week…

The satisfaction of being able to peel great big chunks of skin from my forehead has thankfully allowed me to look a little more human. Now, I have to get a few hours sleep before I return to hell…

Thanks to the wonderment of modern technology, I have the whole program on disk, ready for me to play and endure, therefore, 2 days late, I give you my own personal review….

So, all I have to do now is hit play…. I have a habit of going off on a tangent, so I’ll try and keep as close to the subject as I can. Fat chance of that happening, but meh….

01. Lithuania

Well, Lithuania’s entry was garbage. Seemed to be the same note over and over again. Considering they did the “utterly brilliant” track called “Wolves Of The Sea” from last years’ contest, this has been a total disappointment.

02. Israel

Vast over-use of the words “there must be another way”. That’s the name of the song, unsurprisingly.

03. France…

Patricia Kaas sings something in French. She sounds and looks as if she’s spent a little too long in the cemetary. This song really isn’t going to get going. By the way, I have no idea who she is. The song ended with a poor dance move. Didn’t like this one at all.

04. Sweden

Sweden’s usually a good song. Operatic vocals meets upbeat backing track. This one’s not bad. Unfortunately, the microphone doesn’t seem to be able to handle the vocal. I liked it though. Not as much as I liked Carola’s “Invincible” from several years ago.

05. Croatia

Unfortunately, I don’t have several hours to type out the name of it, or the artist. A slow, dreary thing that sort of just… stopped.

06. Portugal

“Flor-De-Lis / Todas As Ruas Do Amor”. Guess who just remembered he can pause so he can get the titles correct? Ahaha. Graham “Not Wogan” Norton describes this as a “happy song”…. Riiight. *presses play*

I like this. Accordian-tastic. Bit of flute. Heard worse.

07. Iceland

“Yohanna / Is it true?”. I can’t decide whether I like this one or not. Ah, a key change. Yes, I do like this. Well, I did until the end, it just sort of fizzled out at the end.

08. Greece

“Sakis Kouvas / This is our Night”. God, this almost belongs in a 1980s bargain bin. Another predictable, yet nicely executed key change. Definitely got better as the song went on.

09. Armenia

“Inga & Anush / Jan Jan”. 1 point for the silly song name. 1 point for the catchy tune. -2 points for the key change that could be spotted from space, which appeared to be stuck in there just to make the song that little bit longer.

10. Russia

“Anastasia Prikhodko / Mamo”. The host country’s song. This will probably be awful. The LED screens around the set show her in a prerecorded sequence. Very reminiscent (video-wise) of “Nothing Compares 2 U” except she seems to get older as the song goes on. Of course, the afore mentioned song was written about drugs (according to a taxi driver I spoke to once), while “Mamo” appears to be a song about a well established arcade emulat…. oh, wait, that’s Mame, isn’t it?

11. Azerbj… Azurgib…. over there… *points east*

“Aysel & Arash / Always”. A team of writers appears underneath the title of the track, and it’s a mile long. This had better be good, otherwise quite a few people have wasted their time….

I must admit, that this song starts off with a woman with very bendy legs. I’m sure, if you pause it at just the right second, you get a good glimpse of vag. All of a sudden, I don’t want to press play. I’ll write the timestamp down and examine it later. Ahem.

Ok, so the woman singing sounds a little like Shakira. the guy looks like he’s painted his hair on, and… oh no, he’s fallen into the “Let’s pretend to play a weird looking instrument, even though the instrument tune is clearly coming from a backing track”. Here comes the key change… trust me, it’s coming…. oh, fuck, it didn’t.

12. Bosnia & Herzegovina

“Regina / Bistra Voda”. Oddly, I have usually liked B+H’s songs over the previous years. This one’s not bad. Catchy tune. Didn’t like it as muchas their earlier effords. I’d give it a C+

A “commercial break”, which is prompty fast-fordwarded. We, here in Blighty, don’t have commercial breaks, so therefore we are shown a film of policemen singing, or something. Don’t know, fast-forwarded it.

13. Moldova

“Nelly Ciobanu / Hora Din Moldova”. I really am not expecting a lot from this one, going by the title. Oh god, she looks like Rene’s wife off “Allo, Allo”.

OK, scrap the previous remark. This one’s my favourite so far. Upbeat, catchy, liked it a lot. May consider rewinding it and playing it again.

14. Malta

“Chiara / What if we”. Hmm, starts off with the classic 1990s pan-pipe sample. Not a good start. It’s only getting worse. I put my laptop down for a few seconds while this song was on. That was by far the worst so far.

15. Estonia

“Urban Symphony / Randajad”. Instant thoughts when this song started… “Sounds like Cyndi Lauper’s version of “I Drove all Night’ “. The singer is clutching a violin. I hope she doesn’t fall into the same trap as #11 did…. oh. She did. The rest of the track consists of her wailing down the microphone. Not much of a song, then, is it?

16. Denmark

“Brinck / Believe Again”.

OK, what the hell is this? A song written by Ronan Keating, and the singer pretending to be Ronan Keating? Why not get Ronan Keating to sing the song and represent Ireland? I don’t get it… Apart from the obvious RK rip-off, sounds a bit like New Order

17. Germany

“Alex Swings Oscar Sings / Miss Kiss Kiss Bang”. Flashback to 1990. Almost total rip-off of Madonna’s “Hanky Panky”. For once in my life, I actually agreed with Graham “Still Not Wogan” Norton with this comment “Well, that’s the low point over”.

18. Turkey

“Hadise / Dum Tek Tek”. Nah, don’t like it. I wonder how many countries are in this bollocks? (Aw, getting tired and grumpy, are we? – Ed) Fuck you.

19. Albania

“Kejsi Tola / Carry Me In your Dreams”… You know, these are all starting to sound the same. Another pointless key change just to pad out an otherwise very weak song.

20. Norway

“Alexander Rybak / Fairytale”. Christ almighty, what have I said about the singers playing an instrument? This guy flings a violin about randomly, not once but twice. Oh, wait, three times. His head looks like a cube.

21. Ukraine

“Svetlana Loboda / Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl)” Well, with a title like that, you’d expect this to be amazing. And, with only three songs to go after this one, I’ve perked up a little. And, once again, the singer plays an instrument, this time the drums. It’s not as bad as the previous incarnations, however.

22. Romania

“Elena / The Balkan Girls”. Oooooh, the Romanians have found an interesting loophole in the rules. The singer shown with the microphone isn’t actually singing the song. There’s a woman to the far right of the stage singing.

23. United Kingdom

“Jade Ewen / It’s My Time”. Words cannot express how much I detest this, but it’s just given me the best laughof the “show” so far. Some guy plaing the violin… she walks down the stairs and right into his arm.

24. Finland

“Waldo’s People / Lose Control”. Well, I think I’m totally Eurovisioned out. I think “our entry” has disappointed me to the point of submission.

25. Spain

“Soryaya Arnelas / La Noche Es Para mi”…..

Aparrently, at that point, I fell asleep, because I woke up near the end of the results. Well, what can I say? We have comfy furniture. I didn’t even bother seeing the end of the results, as I have since found out that Norway won. Remember Cube-head? Yes, him. Sigh.

This has been a terrible post, but am I fuck going to waste 3 hours of typing. Roll on Eurovision 2010!

Right, your honour, what happened was…

There I was, sat in my comfy chair at work, munching a madras, which I really wasn’t enjoying, thanks to stuffing myself like an idiot for most of the night. I happened to be viewing some RSS feeds, and one on Techcrunch (I think) irked me somewhat, about last.fm “giving” users’ data to the RIAA. Therefore, I deleted my account. This was simply because I hated what the site had become. I was a great fan and supporter of the site when it was ran by “the little man”, but then I found out it was now ran by CBS, and that it served absolutely no purpose for me any more. It was no longer the quirky little site with useful, original features.

I have a screenshot of when it switched from audioscrobbler to last.fm. there was an advert on there for some indie band thing (I presume), with “I LIKED YOU BETTER BEFORE YOU SOLD OUT” written on it. It can’t have been more apt.

Anyway, I voiced my opinion on there, and “pingbacked” to the original article on Techcrunch. Within minutes, the hits went through the roof, and I started to get comments such as this, all from the same IP address, and all within the space of a minute. Initially, I marked them as spam, but eventually allowed them onto the site, after all, they weren’t hurting anybody, and I quickly filtered the IP address. Oddly, it was from a UK IP address. I’d have expected a lot more civilty, and much better contruction of sentences from a fellow Brit. They certainly weren’t as imaginitive as Chad’s eminently cutting and hurtful comments (only joking), but I guess that’s what the anonymity of the interwebs brings…

I think I was mainly upset about the fact that JT, someone who I have worked with, and got to know as a good friend since I started at Employment Palace back in 2001, has moved onto the “other rotation”, which means he will work the days I’m off, and vice versa, and I will never work with him again.

Over the years, he has introduced me to some songs which have became my favourites. Songs which I will never have heard, if it wasn’t for his MP3 CD player being brought in every day, and the collection of obscure Finnish Gypsy Punk stuff he used to bring in. I’m thinking stuff such as the truly awesome “Pellonpekko” by Korpklaani I never thought I’d like a song that even subtly makes use of one of those twangy mouth-harp things.

And if it wasn’t for him, I would have never heard of the Dropkick Murphy’s, and I certainly wouldn’t have learned every single word to The Spicy McHaggis Jig

Um. Anyway, that’s what drove me to writing that depressing post.

Moving on, I’ve been keeping myself busy. You should all know that I’m a really anal bastard when it comes to backing up data. I can’t sleep at night if I know there’s a partition of my hard drive not backed up in some way. Lots of sleep has been lost due to the fact that I have NOT been able to do a backup of my C drive in full. That was, until I found Clonezilla.

On Friday morning, I did a blog post about it while I backed up my hard drive, but I never finished it it. So, in order to make this particular post look bigger than it really is, here it is. Beware of the sudden ending though… If backing up your hard drive isn’t really important, or you’re not interested, then just scroll past the italic. I know it’s badly written, I just don’t like to see big blocks of my text be discarded.

Hello. You join me at the beginning of another one of my “live” experiments, where I do something computery and then blog about it, in the vain hope that it sparks the interest of someone reading it, though that is of course, unlikely.

Now, in my situation, I know the disk was bad. The old power supply murdered it, so it was no surprise when I got bright-red errors from

Yes, folks.

That’s where it ended, but WHY did it end so abruptly?

It’s because I’d successfully backed up my C drive AND restored it to a new hard drive without ANY trouble at all, and all I wanted to do was play with it. Therefore, I shall have to give Clonezilla the highest possible “Meh, it worked for me” seal of approval. And for those of you who (wisely) skipped the text, welcome back to today.

If you live in the UK, you can’t have failed to notice that we actually received some snow. The slightest hint at the white stuff, and the whole bloody country goes into turmoil, even to the point where some memory sticks I’d ordered had been delayed. No, seriously.

[quote]
As a valued customer we are e-mailing you today to notify you that your recently placed order may be delayed due to the adverse weather conditions that are being experienced in most parts of the UK.
[/quote]

It did, however, allow me to take some purdy pictures…

In other news, the bathroom scales are fixed. I weighed less than the last time I checked, which is a bonus I suppose.

My “disks” database has grown in size since I last mentioned it. It has expanded onto its 8th folder, and currently contains information on 1,191 disks. I am shocked, that me, the master of mess, has been able to organize something something that just simply WORKS. It would be nice to get a simple search option for it, but that’s not a high priority, as it currently works perfectly.

Well , as I’ve typed this after coming off a nightshift, it’s safe to assume I’ll be in bed shortly.

It all goes back to the heady days of the late 1980s, and of course, Chad “And you wear your Z-Fronts in bed every night, and you know you do” Phillips.

During the summery days of this period of my life, when the streets were lit with mercury vapour, and every garden in the cul de sac had a tree or bush of some description. Chad was my main musical source. He had the ability to tape songs off the radio, copy cassettes, and other shennanegans I would have never thought possible as a wee child.

In one of his occiasional tape clearouts, I bought a (literal) copy of “Bridge of Spies” by T’Pau. I loved the album, but found that it actually fitted on just one side of a C90 tape. The reverse of this tape was either blank, or filled with music of no interest to me at the time.

Up steps another one of his collection. This one was a C120 tape, with a collection of songs recorded from the radio. They certainly weren’t the best quality, but when you’re 8, it didn’t really matter what they sounded like. He offered to do me a copy of some of the songs on there and the B side of my old T’Pau tape. Of course, I accepted, and one afternoon, while I wa doing something else, he copied the tape.

Halfway through the copying, I finished what I was doing, and went back ho to his house. During the recording of “Respectable” by Mel + Kim, I interrupted the recording by flicking the record mode from “Copy Tape” to “Microphone”, meaning that part of the way through the recording, you hear me go “Laaa la la laaaaaaa”, clearing my throat, then Chad explaining to me that he’d written the track listing on a piece of paper, and that I shouldn’t lose it, otherwise I wouldn’t know what was on that cassette.

I never saw that piece of paper again.

It’s a bit of a weird tape, as some of my best childhood memories can be linked to it. Going down to Roker lights with William or “Willy”, who I no longer have any contact with, and returning, only to play the tape a few days later, only to find that the A side (Bridge of Spies) no longer played correctly, presumably thanks to some magnetic damage after it was left on top of my dad’s removeable car stereo. Ironically, the last few seconds of the tape, includes the opening bars of the “Ferry Aid” remake of Let It Be, which was done by Mark Knopfler. The tape ends with me switching the recording back to microphone, and the exact last words on the tape are spoken by Chad, whilst discussing what he put on the tape for me. Ironically, and coincidentally, the last words you hear him say are “the tape ran out”.

Other memories include playing on my C16, coincidentally purchased from Chad’s parents when my ZX Spectrum went pop.

But the reason why I remember all of this? Well, it’s nothing special at all, but I’ve slowly been trying to collect as many records from that particular tape as I can find, and today is the latest one to be scratched off the list. But what record am I talking about that just so happened to be on this hallowed tape? Why, it’s the 1985 Everton football team’s rendition of “Here We Go”.

No, seriously. OK, I accidentally bought it off ebay. I was going to bid, but accidently “Buy it Now’d”. But the cassette tape in the picture is the one I’m talking about, and is the one I’ve owned for what must be at least 20 years now.

I believe this is the penultimate record which I don’t own from that very tape. It saddens me to say that at this point in time, the tape is unplayable, so I can’t check for sure. Unfortunately, it looks as if it’s had something spilt on it. I attempted to move the spools a few moments ago, and it appeared that the tape had bonded with the cassette housing, so it’s ripped a large section of the magnetic oxide off. Also, the spools aren’t moving, it seems as if it’s just stretching the tape. This will have to be fixed. I can’t lose this tape.

The only other song from it which I don’t have in a solid format (CD/Vinyl) is “I Surrender (To The Spirit of the night) by Samantha “Yes, *the* Sam Fox” Fox. Her musical career was abysmal. but I really liked that song, and to try and cover my back, I had no idea it was Sam Fox singing until many years later, and yes, I do remember a little bit of sick rising up when I found out.

At this point in time, I’m about to listen to the record. It’s a bit of a strange moment. It’s like I’m expecting a rapturous, deeply orchestrated version of Sousa/Offenbach’s classic work, yet I know that all I’m going to hear is a synthesised chorus of arse.

For the record, Everton lost 1-0 in that particular final, meaning that the lines “Getting stronger every day, we are winners all the way”. Clearly they forgot to include May 18th 1985 in that particular equation”. Incidentally, accodring to Wikipedia, the source for 100% factual information [citation needed], this was the first match that a player received a red card.

OK,. so here goes.. Needle’s on the record. It’s… awful. I must admit, it did sound a hell of a lot better with the flatness of an age-old cassette tape, radio broadcasting, and duplication onto another equally old cassette. I’t s not aged well. It’s the first time I’ve actually played a record, and it’s sounded considerably worse as an original than as a copy.

I’ll have to see if I can flog it to some one who had a record player, and an interest in Everton. I guess I’m keeping hold of this one then.

On a slightly different subject, and seeing as Chad hopefully made his way down this, the challenges aren’t going well so far! I realised, at some point tonight, that when I’d written the original “Before I’m 30″, I’d subconsciously slipped into some kind of depression, and posted things that were a little more deep than I’d originally intended. I was hoping, when I’d originally set out to post the page, I’d imagined something a little more challenging, and obtainable, and a little bit of humorous stuff I could blog about.

It may require a rewrite.