A-Z Ash tour - With Map!

Posted after CMU and DiS, this hardly seems worth a mention, but I've picked up a couple for one of their London dates, an impulse buy that I'm already regretting, and that will probably have to be sold on in due course. Should I be unable to eke out a small profit from that, well, I'll just have to go to the show. It's in the Irish pub they used to film the pub scenes in Spaced, anyway. That place must be some kind of late 1990's geek Mecca. The odd messageboard naysayer has been knocking the tour as a gimmick, one that the band and their tour bus will live to regret. While is is a bit of a gimmick, a closer look at the route shows it to be a very well mapped jaunt, some of the big jumps are done over two days, and it runs to something around 4,100 miles (wouldn't let me have the Z on the Google map. Sorry). It's the sort of tour that reminds me of the old days, when bands weren't afraid to hit the road hard to support a product. None of that two hip London instores and a six week break here. This is solid graft. Shame their last free single 'Return of the White Rabbit' was a half-hearted mish mash then. Let's hope the rest are stronger.

Ongoing vinyl sale

It feels weird, not posting a review, just posting ebay stuff

Steely Dan Pretzel Logic in great shape
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220470019729&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

John Lennon Mind Games Apple 1st Edition
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220470008240&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Benny Hill (Not Kidding!)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220469998314&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

There's plenty more besides. Have a look!

P.s. The Pearl Jam review was just : Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Great show! Might have more on it for the end of year stuff.

It's raining today - The Big For Sale List

I'm going to be selling a LOT of records soon.

I've estimated it as about 150 CD albums and the same again in CD singles.

Here's the list (so far), if you want to put a bid in for anything, let me know. Most albums are £2-3 unless double disc sets which are £3-4, with rare (as priced), slipcase, magazine promos and card sleeves are £1, and are three for two. Singles are £1, double sets £2, one track promos are 50p, or again, rare as priced. Group purchases will give you a bit of leeway to negotiate price (Ex: £10+ = a free single, £15+ = a free album, etc)

Outkast - If U didn't know, you do now (Promo hits comp, commercially unavailable, £5)
The Postal Service - Give Up (£2)
Jet Johnson - Micropolitan (£2)
Joel RL Phelps and the Downer Trio - Customs (w/Bonus disc)
Beach Boys - Endless Sumer (Marked sleeve £1.50)
R.E.M - Out of Time (£2)
Massive Attack - Karma Coma 2CD single set (£2)
Zwan - Mary Star of the Sea (CD/DVD set) (£4)
Tomahawk - Anonymous (£3)
Monster Magnet - Tab/25 (£3)
Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw (£3)
Bailter Space - Wammo (£3)
Pacific Ocean Fire - Strangers and deranged patients (£2)
Polysics - Polysics or Die!!! (£3)
Sparta - Wiretap Scars (£3)
Xiu Xiu - Chapel of the chimes (£3)
John Coltrane - Ultimate Jazz and Blues (£2)
Ennio Morricone - Very Best of (£2)
Counting Crows - August and Everything After (£2)
Geraldine Fibbers - Lost Somewhere between the Earth and my home (£2)
The Clientele - The Violet Hour (£3)
King Creosote - King Creosote Rules OK (£1.50)
Mogwai - Young Team (original) (£2)
Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows (£2)
Dark Side of the 80's - Compilation (poor condition double set *FREE*)
Madeleine Peyroux - Careless Love (£3)
AC/DC - For those about to rock (£2)
NME Kurts Choice sampler
The Fall - Grotesque (£2)
Aerosmith - Greatest Hits (£1)
Finch - Say Hello to the Sunshine (£2)
Harry Pussy - You'll never play this town again (£2)
Liars - They were wrong, so we drowned (£1.50 Library stock)
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Morrissey - Welcome to the west end (bootleg £4)
Wild Cool and Swingin Lounge Comp
Harkonen / These arms are snakes Like A Virgin split single (£2)
Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene (£2)
Puressence - Planet Helpless (£1.50 library)
Peter Wyngarde - When sex leers it's inquistive head (£3)
This is cult fiction comp (£2)
Hood - Cold House (promo)(£3)
Six by Seven - All My new best friends single
Querelle mini LP (£1)
Sub Pop 200 (£2)
Monster Magnet - Powertrip single
The Jayhawks - Blue
Future Sound of London - Far out son of Lung... single
Future Sound of London - My Kingdom single
Weezer - Beverly Hills single
The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea (£2)
Murder by Death - Red in Tooth and Claw (£2)
Joanna Newsom - Ys (£2 - no card outer)
Kiss - Greatest Hits (£2)
Smog - Suffer (Library £1.50)
Sons and daughters - The Repulsion box (library £1.50)
Pole - 90/90 pt 2 maxi ep (£2.50 as new)
Soundgarden - Blow up the outside world disc 2
DJ Shadow - High Noon
Canada - This Cursed House (£2)
Sea of Love OST (£2)
S*M*A*S*H - (I want to) kill somebody
Nice and Easy comp
4AD sampler
Columbia Jazz sampler 1 and 2
Yegevny Sudbin - Tchaikovsky ~ Medtner (SACD £4)
Joe Farrell - Moon Germs (£4)
Classic Female vocalists of the 1930's - Falling in Love Again (£2)
Dmitri from Paris - A night at the Playboy mansion (£2)
The Fall - Dragnet (£2)
Ash - Orpheus single
Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with Butterfly wings (single)
R.E.M - At my most beautiful single
Turin Brakes - Fight or Flight (promo with insert £3)
Rocket Girl compilation 2CD set (£3)
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Sleepless Nights (£3)
Fuzz Townsend - Hello Darlin' ( 1 track promo *please take this away from my house*)
The Who - Then and Now (£3)
Spiritualized - Amazing Grace (£2)
The Breeders - Last Splash (£2)
The Jayhawks - Hollywood Town Hall (£3)
Lemonheads - Creator (£3)
John Parsh and PJ Harvey - That was my veil single (£1.50)
PJ Harvey - To bring you my love (32)
Very nice french magazine compilation Les Inrocktibles 1988 (£3)
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic (£2)
Symphonic Elvis (£2)

and

and

and

lots more CD singles and magazine comps that would take a very long time to list including the likes of Seafood, Von Bondies, Mojave 3, tricky, Pearl Jam, Kinky Machine, Suede, Grant Lee Buffalo, Backwater, Belle and Sebastian, Whistler, Interpol, Mudhoney, Menswear, Kula Shaker... OK. Let's just stop there.

And finally on the CD front, I'm NOT announcing the super rare stuff yet.

I'm welcoming all enquiries on those I've already posted.
In addition to this, I'm putting up some music books as pictured, and a lot more books. They'll all be at charity shop prices, with the exception of a couple of out of print rarities.

Sweet baby Jesus, I've just got a ticket for Pearl Jam at Shepherd's Bush!

My friend Nigel and I were desperately trying to get a pair of tickets for Pearl Jam's not-so-secret Shepherd's Bush Empire show on the 11th of August. They were playing the Enormodome (to which I will NEVER return*), and neither of us got one in two presales, or the sale proper. He went through a booking system crash once, and I got frozen out by the internet twice. It was tough luck, or so I thought.

Thanks to that system crash, Nigel was sent a link for the last few seats. By the time he got to book it, there was one left (unreserved nosebleeds), and he didn't have a card. So he made the ultimate sacrifice, and I booked the ticket. How do you repay that level of friendship?

Anyways, the review will be coming for that. Bet your life on it!

(*Unless my mum wants to go and see Aerosmith)

Blur at Hyde Park 3rd July

A fun link. If only someone had an audioripper, eh?

Unnecessary competition

This is a one time deal. I've made a compilation CD, and am putting her up for a competition prize. As long as you aren't related to me in any way, and haven't received a comp from me in the last 6 months, then this exciting mix can be yours. Note hand crafted sleeve, pencilling, and messed up handwriting and sweet tracklist.

The comptition has one question: In the bottom picture, in the top right hand side, there's a picture postcard. Who painted the picture?
Answers to comments, first correct answer wins.

Or you could just hit up the shorter Spotify version. Interesting test for Spotify actually, of 21 randomly chosen tracks it had 15. Not bad, but no gold star.

John & Jehn - Cinema Lumiere Sunday 21st

"...and what did you do then, Uncle Tom"

"Well, I hung around outside the French Institute and tried not to look like a pervert who was there solely to check out Gallic girls who I was old enough (theoretically) to be teaching.

Eurodisco pounded in the background as the sun went down, and tanned youngsters who were loitering around, taking long drags of cigarettes with exotic names. Gauloise, Gitanes.
The air grew colder as I watched the record store man pack up.

A barbeque pitched up white grey smoke into the pink sky, as the throng milled and dissipated around it. Overall, the event had the feeling of a casual society mixer, or maybe a very laid back, slightly-cool-but-not-too-cool upper sixth form disco. It would have been insufferable if there wasn't a thick line of people snaking up the marble stairwell, past a looming nude statue. Knowing the line was there, and what the line led to, was the reason we were here in the first place. John & Jehn were on tonight. Each slow step upwards, as security let ten people at a time into the cinema, was a step forwards, towards righteous excitement.

Or at least I thought it was. The event was running seriously late, and instead of John and Jehn, I got the second act on the bill, Krystle Warren. And she was good value, with just an acoustic guitar she tore through a set. Obvious lazy comparisons to Ani DiFranco's guitar style and easy charm onstage will abound with her, I'm sure. But there are worse people to be compared to, worse things to do than own a cinema of people with a perfect ease and mellow charm. Her story songs were a suprise treat, and the crowd were very receptive. Later on, I was to find out just how receptive a crowd could be.

A word on the venue, quickly. If you have a carpeted cinema, in the warm summer months, and stage lights that the air conditioning weren't designed to cope with, and a full house, you're going to have a lot of heat. It's the sort of thing planners of events inadvertently overlook in preference to the solid logistics. That was the case as John and Jehn took the stage. And if you add heat to students... well, strange things are afoot in the circle K.

"This song is about anal sex. It's called Black Train".

That's a hell of a way to introduce yourself onstage, isn't it? From the lips of a beautiful, tall French woman wearing a short shift dress, I could almost hear the sound of denim tightening across the auditorium as the words were uttered.

The heat was getting intense now, the kids had gotten up from their stuffy seats and were dancing in the aisle. It was very 1950's, with a tang of retro rebellion to it. Jehn urged them forward to get a better view, and suddenly the front of the venue packed out tight with a swinging international audience of beautiful young things shaking their stuff. It got hot, damn hot. John rolled up his sleeves and wiped his brow. Jehn's hair stuck to the side of her face when she switched to from keys to rocking out with a bass. And the band played hard and fast, driving the kids wild. As a London show, some might say this would rate as a one of a kind event.

But all good things come to an end, and after a barn storming Make your mother proud, they vanished into the night. The crowd spilled out into the bar, into the cool night air, to a DJ downstairs. The techno made more sense now. And we drank, and we danced, and we talked, and we all went home."