This Is Not A Music Blog

Quotation Of The Day -- Ringo Starr: I don't dwell in the past and I try not to live in the future. And I try not to live in my head!

This is not a music blog, although as music is a huge part of my life, i do write (or blather) about it quite a lot.  But rarely have i ever posted links to music downloads. I'm going to change that.

One of my favourite singers is Kate Bush, and in 1979, she embarked on her one and only tour.  Very few bootlegs have ever emerged from that tour, and they have been poor-quality audience recordings.  But her April 10 performance at the Manchester Apollo was recorded by Granada Television for a film called "On The Road." The film was never broadcast, but the audio portion recently surfaced on the Internet -- the first-ever soundboard recording of Kate in concert. I have it, and now, so can you.

 

Now, most music bloggers would have zipped the file(s) before uploading to their favourite file-sharing site, so that anyone interested could download the whole concert with only two clicks (disc one and disc two, natch).  But i like to be difficult tra la.  I've uploaded each number individually, so there'll be a lot of clicking required.  A pain in the arse, i know, but "paininthearse" is my middle name. (Ha, and you thought it was Elmer.) (Actually, there was a very good reason i did it this way but i won't burden you with the details.)

So, here ya go: Kate Bush, live at the Manchester Apollo, disc one: 

Track 1: Intro With Backstage Chat And Warm-Up Vocals
Track 2: Moving
Track 3: Saxophone Song
Track 4: Room For The Life
Track 5: Them Heavy People
Track 6: The Man With The Child In His Eyes
Track 7: Egypt
Track 8: L'Amour Looks Something Like You
Track 9: Violin
Track 10: The Kick Inside
Track 11: In The Warm Room
Track 12: Fullhouse
Track 13: Strange Phenomena
Track 14: Hammer Horror

And here's disc two:

Track 1: Kashka From Baghdad
Track 2: Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake
Track 3: Act III Intro
Track 4: Wow
Track 5: Coffee Homeground
Track 6: In Search Of Peter Pan
Track 7: Symphony In Blue
Track 8: Feel It
Track 9: Kite
Track 10: James And The Cold Gun
Track 11: Oh England My Lionheart
Track 12: Wuthering Heights
Track 13: Curtain Call And Speech

Enjoy!

Day Off! And A Rave

Quotation Of The Day:  Frank Zappa: Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, in order to provide articles for people who can't read.

Hi, everyone, it's a while since i posted but the last time, i had a rant, now i have a rave. I was bewailing the fact that i couldn't get my paws on a couple of CDs (new albums by Kate Bush and Rory Gallagher).  I could have ordered them through amazon.com or some other corporate elephant, but i prefer to go through my friendly local independent dealer, Video + Books And CDs (http://www.videoplusbooks.ca/)  They do a super job of finding stuff for me, but it must be frustrating for them, too, when an album is advertised for release at a certain date, and then isn't.

But!  I've got them now, hurrah!


And, another victory for the independents:  Graeme Thomson's biography of Kate, "Under The Ivy," came out in England last year.  When i went to my favourite local book shop, Fanfare Books, to order a copy, i was told that its Canadian distributor had gone out of business.  Well, there was much gnashing of what remains of my teeth when i learned that, i can tell ya.

But! again:  Fanfare called me last week.  The book had a new distributor here in the frozen north, and they had a copy for me.  I picked it up on Saturday.

It's been a good week (the trials and tribulations of work notwithstanding).  A little expensive, though (but heck, what the hell else do i have to with my hard-earned?).

But then, now, i have to add, today is a sad day here at Spriggs Towers:  on this day in 1995, Rory died, of complications following a liver transplant, and in 2009 my beloved cat Watson succumbed, to liver disease.  (Amazing, really -- i drink too much and the cat gets liver disease, sigh.)


On a happier note, it's also my sister's birthday today (she'd kill me if i told you how old she is).  Rest assured that, although i am in fact drinking to her health today, that's not the only reason....

Ozzy Vs Slash

What have Ozzy Osbourne and Slash in common?

Well, they're both nut cases, for one, but beyond that they both have new singles out.  Ozzy's is "Let Me Hear You Scream," and Slash's is "By The Sword."  Both are in heavy rotation on my radio station (www.therock.fm)

Let's compare them.

Ozzy's comes from the kitchen-sink school of production: throw everything in, add a ridiculous (but fast!) guitar solo, and sell a million copies to deluded listeners who think that fast = good.

I wish i were a better journalist, and then i could better explain why Slash's record is so much better.  He has complete mastery of his instrument, the vocal (by Andrew Stockdale) is full of subtleties and Slash himself doesn't try to overwhelm with semi-hemi-demi-quavers -- although he is well capable of them.

I may buy Slash's album....

I Am Such A Nice Guy

I rinse out my beer cans before i take them back to the store for the refund.

Oh, and i just got the album "Lungs" by Florence & The Machine --- and it's super! If you like Kate Bush you'll love Florence :o)

Ding! Ding! Hello!

Quote du jour of the day: Arthur C. Clarke: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Yes, well, this is Canada, a bilingual country. We don't have Stop signs here, we have Stop Arret signs. Nor do we have No Smoking signs, instead we have No Smoking Defense De Fumer signs. So i can have a quote du jour of the day.

Has it really been two weeks since i wrote on this blog? What have i been doing?

Well (as you asked) i've been getting depressed ('tis the season to be grumpy, fa-la-la), drinking too much, hating my job more and more by the day to the point where i have made my first New Year's Resolution for 2010: to paraphrase The Animals, i gotta get out of that place.

In fact i just updated my resume, and even that was depressing: i haven't accomplished anything (career-wise and self-actualisation-wise) in over a year, not since i took my First Aid / CPU refresher course. (Although i am trying to learn HTML, as i may have mentioned.... But finding it rather difficult, like trying to learn Mandarin.)

Anyway, here's a picture of Kate Bush -- brightens up my day even if it does nothing for you

Kate Bush

Ohh, this is so tasty!