Friday 9 January 2009

Last train to iPodville



Count yourself lucky, I was going to subject you to a blow by blow account of every track that shuffled through my earphones today, but as it happens my wife, Mrs.K, has spared you that excruciating experience. But you don't get away with it that easily, for I have an obsessive need to share with you some of my ipod's personal picks for 09/01/2009. Working through one of our long herbaceous beds, cutting back Asters in a thick mist and a finger biting haw frost I had the likes of The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, The Doors, Nick Drake, Tom Petty&The Heartbreakers and The Monkees for company. I was in Fopp, the local record store yesterday afternoon browsing through the cheap cd's. I love this store, it's got temptation galore written all over it. It actually nearly closed it's doors for good last year when the company went bust, due to online competition and having too many stores Nationwide. I think HMV bought the Cambridge branch, please correct me if I am wrong. Anyway, the cheap cd's were £5, then they became £3, now they are having a clearout sale starting at £2! I hope this isn't a case of store closing mark II. I bought three Frank Sinatra albums for £5, I was tempted to buy more cd's but stopped myself, pointless really because I will be back in there this weekend.




Already uploaded into the bright beating heart of my pod, they take their chance in the shuffle function lottery. At the moment my pod is going through a Nick Drake phase, playing the tracks from his 'Bryter Later' album, this will go on for atleast the next couple of months until it gets tired of him. I often think of Nick, a favourite late night listening choice in bedsit land, the tortured soul of Folk who took his own life at a very young age. He was a student of Fitzwilliam College, the college next door to ours.




The Monkees gleefully bounced their way through 'Don't Listen To Linda' from the album 'More of The Monkees', the perfect antidote to todays freezing conditions. I am constantly surprised by how fantastic and probably overlooked The Monkees are. In my childhood I used to watch the super saturated reruns of the 60's Monkees TV show, a kind of American version of our very own 'The Goodies'. I had freaky experience outside Sainbury's Supermarket in town a few years back when I spotted Mickey Dolenz walking down the street with a small group of people, he was really tall and I came over all weird, I stood on the pavement with a carrier bag of food, unable to connect with reality, it was a classic goldfish moment, I was dumb and slack jawed and I silently mouthed his name to myself as he disappeared from view. I can still remember snapping out of the spell and looking around to see if I was the only one who had noticed him, I have a spooky memory for faces and his is unmistakable. The Doors snaked their way through 'Riders on the Storm', I had the urge to skip this one, but after about a minute in I had fallen victim to the slinking organ and the moody delivery of the 'Lizard King'. What must it have been like to have seen The Doors 'live'? You can breath out now, it's almost 12.30am on the 10/01/2009, another day of music in the gardens and another 86 tracks behind me, now you can see what Mrs.K saved you from. As I write this the late night Jazz master, Thelonius Monk is bringing precedings to a close. Good night everyone.

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