TimBlog

Kaput!

2008-09-09T18:12:00.003+03:00

So, after three years my laptop seems finally to have bitten the dust. It's bad timing, what with my having only just started this blog, but it's going to be hard to keep it up from an internet cafe.

Jonathan Rosen from America is sitting beside me and talking loudly to his doctor, having spent the last ten minutes showing off the menorah he bought for his mother from the Carmel Market. There's another Yank a few seats away, who is apparently in Israel on Prayer Watch, and is describing having walked through a red-light district somewhere and having seen a manifestation of evil adumbrating a transexual she was saving or stalking.

What I'm saying is that the conditions aren't conducive to the flow of my creative juices, and besides, I can't listen to the mixtapes here as I'm writing about them. I did manage previously to upload a few of them to Rapidshare, so I may write some short posts with links, but you'll have to listen to the music without the benefit of my thoughts, if you can imagine such a thing.

Hopefully I'll be back soon.

A Short Post

2008-09-01T20:00:00.004+03:00

As Steve pointed out that I wrote very long posts, I thought I'd try a shorter one.

Cool Out! II

2008-09-01T14:09:00.015+03:00

John's in a band called The Aliens. They're great, and he's a lovely fellow too. I'm sure you'd like him. I first met him when he was in The Beta Band, as we had some friends and eventually a manager in common. Still, I didn’t get to know him until some of my pals in London’s Irish Mafia started to manage The Aliens. Conor was deliberating over whether to take them on, and played their first EP, ‘Alienoid Starmonica’, to anyone who’d listen, to see if they’d think it as good as he did. It was. It is. And consequently John and his equally lovely girlfriend, Helena, made a welcome entry into our social circle.

John was probably the first person to make me a mixtape in maybe ten years, when he handed me a CD of some of his favourite tunes. I don’t think I’ve got it with me, but I’ll have to dig it out next time I’m in London, and maybe post it here, with his permission. I’ve had a couple of others since then, but I don’t know why I get so few. Perhaps my friends imagine they have better things to do with their lives. In response to his wonderfully esoteric selection it became incumbent on me to establish my own muso credentials to him; so I made him a two-parter, of which this is the second. Maybe it’s stating the obvious to acknowledge that there’s an element of trying to look cool involved in putting a mixtape together. I mean, I’m sure that the first tapes I ever compiled were for the express purpose of getting a snog with girls in my school, using the only weapon in my arsenal – a semi-autistic dependence on music. Just as inside every rock ‘n’ roll star is a spotty 15-year-old who worried he’d never get laid, I’m sure that every mixtaper is secretly amazed that no one notices the obvious: that compiling a mixtape is about as nerdish an activity as exists, and yet somehow it’s still imbued with a certain sense of cool.

With that in mind when I started to listen to this again - given that the compilation was for someone who was in possibly the greatest band of the 90’s, and certainly the coolest insofar as everybody nicked their sound - I was half-expecting that the emphasis would be more on proving what I hepcat I am, than on bringing good tunes to a great man. Well, dear reader, you’ll be relieved to learn that there is no compromise to cool on ‘Cool Out! II”. Of course, “Cool Out! II” is inherently cool all the same – a collection of wondrous songs in the one place is always going to be – but what I’m trying to say is that it’s not self-consciously so. If there’s one overwhelming, exculpating piece of evidence for that, it’s that I chose to conclude the selection with Ray Stevens’ ‘Everything is Beautiful’, a hopelessly optimistic track that opens with a St. Winifred’s type school choir opining:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

This is no guilty pleasure – it’s proud and shameless.

‘Cool Out! II opens with a couple of Tropicalian nuggets: the lead track from Os Mutantes’ 1968 debut; and another featuring them as backing musicians from Gilberto Gil’s eponymous album of that same year. Whilst both these songs are of a type, Tropicalia’s fusion of Latin and psychedelic elements sounds like nothing else on earth, and Os Mutantes and Gilberto Gil were the masters of this short–lived musical revolution.

Big Star’s ‘Another Time, Another Place and You’ is an unreleased instrumental track from Memphis’s finest. I’m not sure if it was intended to eventually include vocals, but it doesn’t need them. It’s a little piece of psychedelic whimsy that’s never been officially released, and even most Big Star fans are unaware of its existence.

Four Krautrockers follow, including a very early Kraftwerk performance that’s never been available officially on CD, from the period when their main instrument was the flute rather than the synth. After that there’s The Human League’s debut single which owes a huge debt to later Kraftwerk, and The Normal’s ‘Warm Leatherette’, made famous in Grace Jones’s rendition.

The Clash’s ‘The Call Up’ is reworked as a dub known as ‘Cool Out’, which, of course, lent its name to this mix. I’ve vague memories of a disco hit from the seventies that utilises the exact same riff, but I can’t put my finger on it. Any ideas?

I don’t know whether Roky Erickson really did ‘walk with a zombie’ but he makes a convincing case. That the song is on this compilation primarily because his backing band shared its name with John’s, shouldn’t detract from the undeniable greatness of this song itself. It’s up there with anything he did in his earlier band, The 13th Floor Elevators.

Inner Circle’s ‘Mary Mary’ comes from a period where Jacob Miller’s band had really got shit. If you can, pick up the 7” of this, as there’s not another good track on the album from which it’s lifted, ‘Everything is Great’. A disco reggae selection that shamelessly rips off The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ sounds like a terrible idea, but as it turns out it’s an inspired one.

‘Can I Change My Mind?’ is now probably the song I’ve listened to most in my life. Almost every day in the last six months I’ve played Tyrone Davis’s version as well as Alton Ellis’s at least twice a day each, having incorporated them into my exercise regime. It is a testimony to that track that I’ve yet to tire of it.

James Carr was a tragic figure, whose demons prevented him from having the sort of success that he should have. People who know about such things put him up there with Otis Redding. This is a plaintive and practically unrecognisable cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring of Fire’. I attempted to sing this version at my friends, Athol and Ais’s wedding around a year ago, but I choked and haven’t gone near a stage since.

John Schroeder’s ‘Witchi Tai To’ reminds me of when I first heard it at Alex and Esther’s flat in Glasgow at about 7am on a Sunday morning, dancing with the other goon–faced dregs of a big night out. I eventually found and preferred the Harpers Bizarre version, but this one is still quite gorgeous.

Ennio Morricone’s ‘Mon Nom est Personne’ is the title track to the film, but is probably better known to British listeners as the theme tune to Julia Davis’s black comedy, ‘Nighty Night’.

For some reason, I always thought John ‘The Mamas & The Papas’ Phillips’s ‘Let it Bleed, Genevieve’ was about a serial killer, but I’ve been told it’s actually about a miscarriage. I should take a closer listen. Candi Staton’s ‘In the Ghetto’, frankly, walks all over the Elvis version, and I love the Elvis version. This is some deep soul from before she was filling thousands of dancefloors with ‘Young Hearts Run Free’.

That leads us back to Ray Stevens once again, so... Turn on! Lie back! Cool out!

The Aliens' new album, Luna, is released on 29th September, on Pet Rock Records.

1. Os Mutantes - Panis et Circenses
2. Gilberto Gil - Coragem Pra Suportar
3. Big Star - Another Time, Another Place and You [unreleased]
4. Cluster - Sowiesoso [edit]
5. Kraftwerk - Ruckzuck [edit]
6. Faust - Jennifer
7. Can - Mushroom
8. The Human League - Being Boiled [Fast Product version]
9. The Normal - Warm Leatherette
10. The Clash - The Cool Out
11. Roky Erickson & The Aliens - I Walked With a Zombie
12. Inner Circle - Mary Mary
13. Clancy Eccles - The Revenge
14. Tyrone Davis - Can I Change My Mind?
15. Harry J - Every Dub Is a Star
16. James Carr - Ring of Fire
17. John Schroeder - Witchi Tai To
18. Ennio Morricone - Mon Nom Est Personne
19. The Left Banke - Dark Is the Bark
20. The Sir Douglas Quintet - Mendocino
21. John Phillips - Let it Bleed, Genevieve
22. Candi Staton - In the Ghetto
23. Ray Stevens - Everything Is Beautiful

Download!

Bashing My Brains In

2008-08-26T23:33:00.010+03:00

Recently, I went out for a night-time cycle with my Australian Pal, Kimmy. We meandered around the south of Tel Aviv city centre, before going for a burger at the top of Nachalat Binyamin. Although neither of us bothered decorating our bikes with lights or reflectors, in a nod to road-safety, Kimmy did sport a crash helmet; and I couldn't help noticing how silly she looked. I mean, it's obviously perfectly sensible to wear a helmet in a country with ridiculously high incidences of road death and injury, it's just that hardly anyone bothers, and so when someone does, they couldn't look odder if they were using stabilisers whilst decked out like an ice hockey goalkeeper. Health and safety just isn't part of the national culture here, and you'll see ten cyclists dodging pedestrians on the pavement and talking on their mobile phones whilst listening to their iPods with the spare ear - all at the same time - before you see one wearing a helmet.

With that in mind, perhaps you'll be a little more sympathetic with regard to the following incident. I cycled down to Yafo on my own this Friday evening past, because Tel Aviv's essentially a dead zone on the Sabbath, on account of low-level theocracy that forbids businesses to open for half of the weekend. I figured that Yafo might be a little more lively because the population is predominantly Arab, but it was pretty quiet too. All the same, my protest against this infringement of my rights took the form of a decent lamb shwarma in lafa bread, which would have been nigh on impossible in other parts of Tel Aviv of a Friday night. Having made a provisional arrangement to go out with Lisa later that night, I headed back along the promenade that follows Tel Aviv's Mediterranean coastline. A few metres outside of the Yafo suburb there was a small patch of land next to a car park, where a large group of Arabs had gathered for barbecue and chat, so I cycled into their area and had a gander. There's nothing intrinsically interesting about watching other peoples' barbecues, so moments later I headed back out. There was a bridge traversing either an inlet or outlet from or to the sea, but it was closed off, so I cycled off towards the car park exit.

Without warning, I found myself flying across the handlebars and onto the ground below. I don't know whether it was luck or what I like to imagine is my lightning-fast reactions, but I landed nicely and relatively unscathed.

The next thing I remember was waking up on the gravel as people were coming towards me, with the intention of helping me, although that wasn't entirely clear to me both because they were talking in Hebrew and because of my confused state. I assured them in English that I was perfectly okay, but there being a bike lying on of my head - and that I showed no inclination to change the situation - belied the fact that I'd actually bashed my brains in. Their having seen the bike cartwheel after me and land on my head, of which I was quite oblivious at this point, meant that they were probably better judges of whether I needed any assistance. An elderly Arab guy came along and gave me some water, and when I picked myself up, a young Jewish couple guided me to a nearby rock which I sat on whilst I collected myself. It was heart-warming to see Jew and Arab united in this small small endeavour, as elective victims of my stupidity.

It turned out that in the darkness I hadn't noticed the little canal curve round, and had cycled into it, my front wheel hitting the far side causing the bike to somersault. I've had a few scrapes like this in the past, on and off the bike, and it amazes me that my initial reaction is invariably one of acute embarrassment. Have I lived in England too long? I once landed on the tarmac on Baker Street, near the station, and had a conversation with my putative helper that ended with me telling him, "No, I'm fine mate; I think it's just a broken arm." He knew he ought to help and I knew I needed help, but somehow, through my pain - it was a broken arm - I managed to find just the right words to get us both off the hook and out of this awkwardness, and to let me get on with the business of working out how to make it to the Royal Free Hospital with a bust arm and mangled bike, and to manage my shame alone.

So it was again, that my first reaction once I had some idea what had happened to me, was to apologise for all the fuss. I apologised for the blood that I was shocked to discover was pouring from my head. I apologised for being such a foolish cyclist, and I apologised for wasting everybody's time. As the Jewish couple took control of the situation, my Arab helper headed off to do something that was almost certainly more worthwhile, and the couple insisted on calling an ambulance. I took my white t-shirt off to stem the blood flow. The ambulance was remarkably quick, and Lisa reckons she heard it tearing down HaYarkon, a couple of miles up the road. I got into the ambulance, and the very fact that I was able to walk myself to it made me feel like a total fraud. After cleaning me up and giving me an antiseptic bandage to substitute the now blood-soaked t-shirt I was using, the paramedic asked me whether I wanted to go to the hospital. That she even asked the question was as good as the all-clear to me, and as it did seem a bit unfair to leave two complete strangers holding onto my bike indefinitely - "Sure! I'll find you on Facebook!" - I jumped out of the ambulance, though not before saying sorry to the paramedic, the driver, and to the queue of traffic that had formed behind us.

The couple, Cobi and his wife or girlfriend (I think she's called Ranit, but under the circumstances I think I can be forgiven for forgetting) were waiting for me. I found out he's in a band called Porcupine Apple ("like Porcupine Tree, but Apple"), and I promised to go and see them next time they play Tel Aviv. After ascertaining that I was well enough to walk home, they left me. Unfortunately, they went in the same direction, and so there was more awkwardness as I walked a few paces behind them planning my next move. I had every intention of cycling home, against their advice, so I pretended to use my phone until they were far enough away for me to speed off undetected. Actually, I went quite a bit slower on this last leg of my journey. Rude reminders of one's own mortality can have a habit of making you modify your behaviour for a couple of minutes at least.

I knew that going out with Lisa wasn't an option anymore, as my head was still bleeding, and I really had no idea what sort of damage I'd done; so I reconciled myself to a quiet night in, facilitated by a trip to AM/PM for a couple of beers and a tub of Ben & Jerry's chocolate. However, by this point I'd had to put the t-shirt back on, as the alternative was cycling topless through Tel Aviv at night. I suppose I could have gone home to change, but I shouldn't have even been on the bike, never mind building in extra journeys. I wasn't sure exactly how I appeared at this point, but the reaction from AM/PM staff and customers made it clear that, to all intents and purposes, I looked as though I'd just bludgeoned my mother to death. If I'm being honest, I think I was starting to enjoy the attention.

Well, four days later and I've showed no signs of concussion, and it's not even sore to touch anymore. I've got a full head of hair to cover what damage there is, so I'll just have to wait a couple of weeks before I get it cut, and I'll bring my helmet back with me when I'm in London next month, just in case I should feel the urge.

Pop a Top

2008-08-11T19:50:00.006+03:00

I put this mix together for Jamie at the beginning of this year. Michelle had asked me to do one for her, and so I did, but after I had it occurred to me that there were a number of other friends for whom I'd been meaning to compile mixtapes, and not wanting to be unfair, and also realising that once I left for Israel I'd be unable to do more, I set off in a frenzy of mixtapery. Jamie was one of several beneficiaries of my borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder, and this is the resultant compilation.

Jamie's the funniest person I know, and I'm lucky to know a few. The first compilation I made for him was when he split up with Shanit, his first serious girlfriend. It was called 'The tracks of My Tears' and was intended to compound his pain in order to fast-track him to the 'being over it' stage, otherwise known as the 'stop going on about it' stage. It's a pity that there was only one cassette copy of it and that the fucker lost it, because God knows I could have done with it over the years.

This belated follow-up starts with Andy Capp's eponymous 'Pop a Top', a marvellously bizarre and incoherent ska tune whose only intelligible lyric is "the monkey speaks his mind", presumably a reference to Dave Bartholomew's creationist classic 'The Monkey' (which I'll eventually upload as part of another mix I did). Jamie originally turned me on to 'Pop a Top', as he'd heard it on a documentary about John Peel's fabled box of 7" records. It's a hopelessly obscure track, and so as a demonstration of the wonders of file-sharing I downloaded it and sent it to him within about ten minutes of our conversation.

There's also The Partridge Family's 'I Think I Love You' which I originally heard via Voice of the Beehive's cover version. I'm not a particularly big fan of bubblegum kitsch, but it's an undeniably infectious tune. Gary Glitter's 'I Love You Love Me Love' is one of the first songs I remember, and my brother Greg used to sing it as a kid. Whatever his crimes (Gary's, not Greg's), it would be a pity if they completely overshadowed his pop genius.

Vigrass & Osborne's 'Forever Autumn' is the original of the Justin Heyward contribution to 'War of the Worlds' soundtrack, and possibly the precursor to that project. I liked the song as a kid, and was shocked to discover that it was about being abducted by aliens or something, rather than about lost love as I had presumed. Over the years I learnt to despise it and adopted the possession of the 'War of the Worlds' soundtrack as a universal gauge of shite music taste when browsing others' record collections, so I was surprised to rediscover and enjoy this song it in its' radically different, psych-tinged origins.

Nico's joyous rendering of Gordon Lightfoot's 'I'm Not Sayin'' is a pre-Velvet Underground slice of folk-psych that she recorded for Stones manager, Andrew 'Loog' Oldham's Immediate label, completely unlike the miserablism that was to become her later trademark. I believe that you can hear Jimmy Page on 12-string guitar. Given the Stones connection, perhaps it's not coincidental that this is stylistically reminiscent of early Marianne Faithfull.

When I was about ten there was a book sale at Glasgow's Mitchell library, and I picked up a copy of 'The Perfect Record Collection', which was my first encounter with critics' lists. It contained more than two hundred titles that comprised said collection, up to around 1982, and I spent the next ten years trying to acquire them all. Whilst this is an embarrassing admission, without any other outside guidance it proved an invaluable introduction to some pretty arcane and esoteric music, and ensured that by the age of 15 I was familiar with 'What's Goin' On', 'Forever Changes', 'Pet Sounds' (not universally regarded as classics at the time) and a whole host of strange and beautiful sounds from the dawn of rock 'n' roll onwards, like Alex 'Skip' Spence's 'Oar' and The Mighty Diamonds' 'Right Time'. There were some pretty awful selections too (Iron Butterfly's '(In a Gadda Da Vida, for fuck's sake!), but it set me on a path of discovery from which I've yet to return.

As the recommendations got closer to the publication date, 'The Perfect Record Collection's' authority looked more and more dubious, and although I don't have it to hand, I'm pretty sure that many of the later titles haven't stood the test of time. All the same, I'm glad that they included Lee Fardon's 1982 LP, 'The God Given Right', whose title track is included here. If you're lucky enough to find this album, which has never had a CD release, you're likely to get change from a shiny £1 coin. Buy it! He sounds like he should have become as big as Springsteen, but as far as I know soon afterwards disappeared back to whatever obscurity he came from.

Alex Chilton's 'Every Day as We Grow Closer' is one of the best tracks he recorded between the demise of The Box Tops and the founding of Big Star, and the Klaatu tune is the (inferior) original of the Carpenters' classic; but you've know and love The Carpenters' recording, so check out this one which is certainly not without its charm. Likewise, Jacques Brel's 'Le Moribond' is the unrecognisable seed of Terry Jacks' 'Seasons in the Sun'. I can't speak French, but it sounds like the unsentimental suicide note as which the song was originally conceived, unlike Jacks' saccharin rendition. The Beach Boys also recorded a version, and though more in the Terry Jacks vein, it's well worth hearing if you can find it, if only because it is The Beach Boys (whose gorgeous tribute to fatherhood - featuring Dennis Wilson on lead vocals - 'I Wanna Pick You', is also on this mix).

I imagine I included Little Anthony & The Imperial's soulful take on the theme from 'Exodus' as a nod to my imminent departure to Israel, although I much prefer Jimmy Scott's haunting interpretation. I expect I'll upload that one too, soon.

When you're passionate about so much music it's best to avoid hyperbole, because if you've just described one song as the greatest ever recorded you'll invariably hear another one minutes later that seems even more worthy of the epithet. However, Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come' would definitely be a contender. It's possibly the most important soul record and was something of an anthem in the American civil rights movement of the sixties, and if you can think of a greater soul record, I'd love to hear it. In the meantime, if you haven't heard it, you need to.

I wasn't able to hand the CD to Jamie in person before I hot-footed it eastside, and apparently he never received it through the designated third party (if you're reading this, Annalise, that's you!), so harnessing the magic of the international super interweb, I present 'Pop a Top' for you, Jamie, and for the world.

1. Andy Capp - Pop a Top
2. Count Machuki - Call 1143
3. Sir Lord Comic - Wha'pen
4. The Supersonics - Ballistic Queen
5. Fats Waller & His Rhythm - I Ain't Got Nobody (And Nobody Cares for Me)
6. Huey 'Piano' Smith - Don't You Just Know It
7. Pilgrim Travelers - Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bom
8. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates - Shakin' All Over
9. Chuck Berry - Brown Eyed Handsome Man
10. Gary Glitter - I Love You Love Me Love
11. The Partridge Family - I Think I Love You
12. Vigrass & Osborne - Forever Autumn
13. Zager & Evans - In The Year 2525
14. Pearls Before Swine - Suzanne
15. The Association - On a Quiet Night
16. Nico - I'm Not Sayin'
17. Lee Fardon - The God Given Right
18. The Beach Boys - I Wanna Pick You Up
19. Alex Chilton - Every Day as We Grow Closer
20. Klaatu - Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
21. The Motors - Airport
22. Chet Baker - My Funny Valentine
23. Jacques Brel - Le Moribond
24. Little Anthony & The Imperials - Exodus
25. Sam Cooke - A Change Is Gonna Come
26. unknown - The Internationale

Download!

Conor's Tape #4

2008-08-02T16:16:00.009+03:00

Conor's a very good friend of mine, and has been an incredibly good friend to me. Unfortunately it hasn't always been reciprocated, and this mix was intended as something of an apology for when I was remiss in my friendship. Conor is also the single greatest recipient of my mixtape largesse, having received at least eight compilations from me over the years, including the seven that comprise this occasional series, entitled (unimaginatively and erroneously) "Conor's Tape". This is number four.

In my role as mixtaper, Conor is my favourite mixtapee. He has a childlike enthusiasm for new (to him) music, and, being someone who lacks the time to attend to even the most basic of bodily functions, is disproportionately grateful for anything or to anyone that saves him time or makes his life any more convenient, so I've done what I can to save him the unnecessary effort involved in developing his own taste in music. When I compile music for him, I'm pretty much unrestrained by most of the normal considerations you would have when tailoring a tracklist for someone, and as a result, his are among my favourites of the mixtapes I've compiled. Just as importantly for the mixtaper, Conor always gives meaningful feedback, including detailing the songs that he doesn't like. That he's invariably wrong in his negative judgments matters less than that he's obviously listening.

The reason I chose to start with this one is because wanted to pass it along to a new friend, the delightful David T from the estimable Harry's Place. I had gathered that David was in Israel for the recent Morrissey gig, and emailed him to see if he fancied hooking up. He did, and so I met him (and his two friends) for the first time at Tel Aviv's most under-stocked restaurant (I can't remember the name, but it's a Heimeshe place on the corner of Dizengoff and Arlozorov). After negotiating with the waiter for half and hour, only to have him return from the kitchen to report that everything that had been ordered was in fact off the menu, David cut short any further fannying-about by asking him, succinctly, "What do you have?" I had to leave at this point, but was later informed that the answer was "goulash and chicken soup".

Later that evening I realised that I had run off without contributing to the bill, and so I guess this post is a by way of apology to David too. See, David has a yen for ropey old hippy folk music, and there are a few tracks towards the end of this tape that broadly fit into that category. It also happens that his iPod and hard drive backup both died within a week of each other, and consequently he is without music. So, I hope that this mix goes some way towards filling that void.

I don't want to write too much about the compilation itself because that would be about as interesting as listening to a mother explaining how intelligent or handsome her own child is. Yes, these mixtapes are my babies. Maybe I will make the effort with later posts to give a track by track breakdown. All I'll say for this one is that, in terms of genre, it's quite a mixed bag, taking in glam rock, no wave, soul, psychedelia, R'n'B, country and folk music, and that if you've got an iota of taste, you'll love it.

1. David Essex - Rock On
2. Gary Glitter - Rock and Roll (Part 2)
3. ESG - You're No Good
4. Dee Dee Warwick - You're No Good
5. 101 Strings - Karma Sitar
6. Ananda Shankar - Snow Flowers
7. The Fentones - Simla Beat Theme
8. The Zombies - Tell Her No
9. The Bees - Chicken Payback
10. Jimmy Liggins & His 3-D Music - Drunk
11. The Valentinos - It's All Over Now
12. Lee Dorsey - Occapella
13. Allen Toussaint - Southern Nights
14. Mouse & The Traps - Sometimes You Just Can't Win
15. John Phillips - Let it Bleed, Genevieve
16. Sir Douglas Quintet - Mendocino (Spanish version)
17. Gram Parsons - A Song for You
18. Kris Kristofferson - The Silver Tongued Devil and I
19. Bobbie Gentry - Courtyard
20. Bridget St. John - Lazarus
21. Fairport Convention - Come All Ye
22. Bert Jansch - Life Depends on Love
23. Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks - Philly Rag
24. Vashti Bunyan - Diamond Day
25. Damon - Poor Poor Genie
26. Phil Cordell - Red Lady
27. Tractor - Marie

Download!

Hi! How the hell are you?

2008-08-02T15:10:00.005+03:00

I moved to Tel Aviv from London a few months ago, and shortly afterwards received an email from my friend, Natasha, asking about a compilation I'd made for a mutual friend who had played it to her. I consider the compiling of music as something of an art-form in itself, and, having spent the best part of a lifetime at it, in my more self-indulgent moments consider myself something of an artist in the field. Mixtapes: that's my thing.

Since my mixtapes went digital some years ago, the mass redundancy of digital storage has made it possible that these compilations would no longer need be condemned to corrode in the attic of the parents of every ex-girlfriend I ever knew. Nope, these labours of love lost and testimonies to ephemeral passions (for both the recipients and for the songs themselves) were destined for a kind of immortality, because since I bought my first CD recorder around six years ago I took the precaution of making a backup of pretty much every mix that I made. And there are now around 70 of them.

Having arrived in Israel without my music collection, I'm no longer in a position to make the kind of compilations I'd like, but what I can do is to disseminate the fruits of earlier efforts and make sure that they're (hopefully) enjoyed by more people than just the original recipients. I began this task a few months back by uploading a couple of mixes to Rapidshare and sending out a link on a group email, but I never got around to following it up. When I went to download them the other day I discovered that they'd been deleted due to inactivity.

That's when I hit on the idea of starting this blog. Hopefully, by opening things up to outside of my own friends, my scribblings will pique the interest of a few more souls in these little musical excursions, and maybe they'll live a little longer. Perhaps I'll find some other things to write about too, seeing as I'm already here, and sometimes stuff happens to me, like. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the tunes.

So, hi! How the hell are you? And feel free to let me know what you think, in the comments boxes.