A year in music: seven random things
Yeah, it's that time of year again - time for the Niluccio random things blog, a blog which sums up yet another 12 months lived in and through music. Here they are, all seven of 'em:
Biggest tech near-miss
No question with this one, it has to be that moment when I unzipped an inner pocket of an unused holdall (which I'd just slung in the washing machine for a quick wash) only to find a years-old iPod "lost" long ago during a trip to Poland. Agggh. And would that iPod prove its worth (and Apple's premium prices) and still be functional after its 30 minutes in the washing machine? No, it would not. Around 15,000 songs wiped in an instant. Oh dear.
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| Spin cycle: a very clean iPod |
... the colour in question being black. Yes, this was a double-black thing which occurred one Sunday afternoon in July. First I picked up this Fashion Fabrique album in a charity shop in Walworth in south London almost entirely because of the lovely inky blackness of the cover. As it happens I find the (Euro-disco?) music fairly so-so, but the cover is great. Then, as I made my way home that day, changing buses (like the high-roller that I am) in Shoreditch, I stumbled across this discarded piece of wood adorned in black spray-paint. I assume it was used as a back board while some street art type did a bit of tagging or whatever (it's that kind of area). So yes, it might be discarded junk, but it's also reclaimed street art (art found in the street). My very own Franz Kline or Frank Stella. Yeah man, it was a double-black afternoon.
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| Black is the colour of my true love's art work propped up in the corridor |
Best lost in music experience
Too many to mention, really, but a pretty good one was playing David Thomas Broughton's It's In There Somewhere album over and over for several days, getting sucked into the whole thing and, in particular, feeling as if I was living inside the track Gracefully silent, its backward slippages seeming to mirror my own increasingly captive mind. On and on, through the snow ...
Best off-the cuff remark made at a gig which came back to bite me
This would be my (not-funny) remark to a friend that the gig (broadly an "indie" show) we were at resembled "an old people's home" because of the number of post-60 types (including myself) in attendance, many of whom were seated rather than standing. Older people like music, shocker! Anyway, two gigs later I actually did find myself in an old people's home (in Italy) where they had a very nice classical music concert for the residents, their relatives and the general public. Some of the residents had special needs of various kinds and the whole thing was very touching. I think that the indie gig remark had sort of come back to bite me, and ... that's fine. Once bitten, twice shy.
Stuff I've enjoyed listening to (in no particular order)
In addition to the above-mentioned DTB album ...
AJ Woods, Hawk is listenin'
999999999, Resident Advisor mix 953
Autocamper, Summertime
Fabric Live 60, Brodinski
Dignan Porch, Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen
Jackie Trash, One Thousand Years In A Dreamscape
The Kills, Keep On Your Mean Side
Strange Devotion, Another Person
JS Bach, Violin Concertos (Moscow Virtuosi)
Neil Young, Harvest
Oort Clod, Cult Value
Kissland, Creme Brulee
ShitNoise, X-Ray Phantom
Publicity Department, Sheltered life
Lee Kirk Fagan, Things Disappear (Shacklewell Arms, London, 18/7/24)
Billiam, Corner Tactics
Fracture, Slow860
Beloved, Hello
The Smashing Times, Mrs Ladyships And The Cleanershouse Boys
Gentilesky, Ways Of Seeing
Hype Williams, King Midas Sound Mixtape
Henrik Appel, Walking Down The Road
Mücha, Hello Caller
Parry, Nightingale
Jacket Burner, Terminal Depression
Dan Sartain, The Dan Sartain Collection 2000-2020
Children Maybe Later, What A Flash Kick!
Georg Philipp Telemann, Chamber Music
These days I virtually live in charity shops, they're a home from home. Yeah, on most days in various parts of London (chiefly) I can be found anxiously scouring rickety charity shop shelves looking for half-decent books (including music books), CDs, DVDs, a few battered old records (sorry, "vinyls"), moth-eaten clothing and ... whatever else looks interesting/cheap. One day I was in one of my regular places when - shock, horror - I was confronted with a row of TDK C90 tapes bearing my own horribly-neat handwriting. Wow, I'm back in the tape-lined corridor of my overcrowded flat! I'd completely forgottten I'd handed over about 30 of these 30/40-year-old tapes to one of the bemused staff a few weeks earlier ("I don't suppose you'll be able to do anything with these, but, anyway, I've had a clear-out ..."). They were all priced at about £3 a go. So you could say my hard work in er, taking tape mountain by strategy ... paid off in the end.
And staying with charity shops, the best charity shop deal award of 2024 will, I think, have to go to this slightly-scuffed-but-still-perfectly-OK copy of Simon Reynolds' Totally Wired: Post Punk Interviews & Overviews. It's the megawork (full interviews etc) to go alongside his famous Rip It Up book, much like Jon Savage's The England's Dreaming Tapes was the companion to England's Dreaming. A cash-in book, if you like, but that's fine by me. And this cash-in book cost me exactly zero pounds because the very nice woman who works at this Hackney charity shop said, "Oh, you can just take it" when I appeared at the counter enquiring about buying it. Seems the shop had suffered a big roof leak and they were hastily getting rid of their stock before having a refit. But hey, that's very charitable! Don't worry, I went back the next day and paid double for a pale-blue t-shirt that had caught my eye - supposedly a child's size but one that fits me fine (seems I'm just a big kid).
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| Totally Wired/Can't you see? |
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