There are some real people in the world, and some who are pretend.

Me

Me
(a long time ago)

Monday, January 21, 2008

Numberplate of the day

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Spotted in Safeways car park today.

Martin and College Radio


We get a public holiday here today in the US. It seems a funny time to have a public holiday, soon after Christmas. But I'm glad we have it if it's for Martin Luther King.

The older get the more shocked I am about how young some people were when they died, did he really achieve so much in 39 years. Wow, I'm 41 and what have I done?

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The photos immediately above was taken on Martin Luther King day 2 years ago, in San Francisco. There are some really nice tributes to him in Yerba Buena Park.

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Silvana also encountered Martin in Newark New Jersey in 1990.



It's only 9.25 AM but I've spent a nice morning so far, listening to my favorite college radio station - Berkeley's KALX. I was so impressed with their programming yesterday that I sent them a donation. Due to the multiple computers we have at home, not being in Berkeley is not a huge issue, as all the big college radio stations now stream live on the internet. This is only a problem in the car, but if you are heading north here, KALX slowly appears out of the static and is only interrupted briefly when a local Christian radio station interferes with it around Daly City - I find this quite disturbing.

I always wonder if KALX is made for current students, or ex-students, as most of the music seems to be programmed to please my generation - Bob Dylan and the Only Ones were played in the same 4 song set yesterday.

To commorate Martin Luther King day today they have been playing songs about him and interspersing this with recordings of his speeches. This seems an unlikely mix, but it worked this morning.

We've just began to tentatively look, but funnily enough, the home of the best radio station in the area may be our home next, as a move to Berkeley is possible. So I can get the live version without internet streaming and cad drive around Berkeley listening to it.



Although, you'd need to have a pretty big aerial in Berkeley, the classic KCRW show, Morning Becomes Eclectic is on just now. They are playing St. Etienne, cool.

It's great to be off work to catch shows I don't hear normally.

Some weblinks, these stations broadcast EVERYWHERE on the internet:

KALX

KCRW

The Wharf with half the Crucified Brains



I met Ian Cargill in the Autumn of 1984, when the original line up of the Crucified Brains was still together, and we have been making music together ever since. Cameron, Ian and I formed a band called the Cassette Tape Trees in early 1985. We were really terrible and I'm grateful we didn't even try to gig, I think we knew at the time we were very dodgy. What did strike me about this band though, was that Cameron and Ian were such a great complement to each other in a band. Cameron was the most solid rhythm guitarist I ever played with and, freed of any obligation to play rhythm guitar, Ian's lead guitar was often amazing.

After the demise of the Cassette Tape Trees, Cameron and Ian never played in the same band again. Having known each other at school, they had been rehearsing, playing in a succession of "bedroom bands"in The St Clair Hall, Balwearie and various bedrooms for many years, so it always seemed a shame to me that they never played live together until........

Fast forward 14 years to 1999, and Ian was in a band called the Cylinders. Cameron had lived through the experience that was Darlingheart in the early '90's and hadn't played with any band since 1992. The Cylinders played the annual Dalmally music festival every year, Cameron came up that year to help out and played with the Cylinders at the end of their set.

So I think this clip is interesting for a number of reasons. Having rehearsed together and played in so many bedroom bands together, this is the only time that the original two guitarists of the Crucified Brains ever played live together. They are actually playing a song called "The Wharf" that was written for one of the bedroom bands they were in and this was the only time it was ever played live. After almost finding fame and fortune with Darlingheart, this was Cameron's last appearance on stage.

So maybe not the Crucified Brains, but interesting all the same. Now, if only we had video cameras back in the '80's......

Sorry for the very poor picture quality, this is not Youtube's fault, the original tape is very bad too.

For anyone interested, here is a link to the Cylinders My Space

And of course, anyone who knows this blog will know that much, much more information is available on the Crucified Brains and other seminal 1980's Kirkcaldy Bands here.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Side Effects

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Ian has been transferring his Kirkcaldy 7 inch singles to MP3. Some are very interesting. I know nothing about this band, but they seem to be very good.

I wonder if I can find out any more about them?

Here is Ian's single, you can click on the links and hear the songs from them -

Side Effects - Little Men

Side Effects - Just like Me

Side Effects - Imagination

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Could this be the worst job in the world?

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I suppose it's a job, but I do feel sorry for these guys.

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Somebody, somewhere must have thought that your rental apartments go if you are attracted by a wiggly sign, and the apartment complexes around here employ people to stand here all day and wiggle a sign around.



I have to admit though, that I first saw the apartments where I am currently living (and where this poor guy is pictured) when I drove past it. I don't recall if the wiggly sign was what attracted me though.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Buckfast

Actually, Buckfast has a jolly good Wikipedia entry that explains all - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine

Although I do find the claim that "In recent times, Buckfast has achieved a surprising level of popularity within working class and bohemian communities in certain parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland." somewhat difficult to believe.

Christmas Movie

OK, so we have just got over the strange annual ritual in the west that is Christmas.

It was even stranger for me this year, as my family decided not to do Christmas any more, so we had a kind of un-Christmas. It did feel good though, not having to push through crowds to buy things that people probably don't want anyway.

I usually enjoy doing these "travelogue blog" entries - but, having done the Scotland - San Francisco trip so often, I didn't feel I had too much of interest to report this time round.

My Christmas movie, which is below, seems to capture quite nicely all the highlights. Having messed about with iMovie for, what is almost certainly too long, I feel that this is quite representative of the trip.

There are probably too many airplanes and Edinburgh bars in this, but my trip was kinda like that. There are some very nice shots of central Edinburgh though, I always feel my former adopted home town looks at it's best in Winter. I also enjoyed finding a bottle of Buckfast in the Pizza Hut toilet. I must google "Buckfast", so see if my non Scottish readers will get the significance of that.

Oh well, looks I'm back to India in mid Feb, that may make for more interesting travel blogging.

The movie had to be split into three parts due to youtube's limitations (I'm not really moaning, I know it's free). A tiny part at the beginning was shot on a Sony Ericsson cameraphone, all the rest was shot on my Leica d-lux 3 compact camera. It's amazing the quality of the video that the camera produces, shame the compression of youtube has reduced the quality a bit - it actually looks great on the big screen.





Saturday, January 12, 2008

This is great - there are people out there!

Having not managed to publish a single post in about three weeks, I have been feeling a little sheepish.

Particularly as my sister recommended this Statcounter service (http://my9.statcounter.com/).

This is great little service and, what it tells me is that there are people that actually read this blog! Wow - I had figured that, if I wasn't getting any comments, I was basically on my own here.

OK admittedly, it's obvious from reading the stats that a lot of people have surfed into it by mistake and have surfed out again, but I do seem to have some returning visitors - pretty good for a blog that hasn't been updated for 3 weeks.

It takes Google a little while to settle down and begin to have our content appear under relevant searches, but now this blog is appearing all over Google. I must remember to tell Daphne that at least two of the Google searches that led to this blog were her name.......

Even better, I've installed this service on www.kirkcaldybands.com

and it's giving me loads of interesting info - makes it all seem worthwhile that people actually view this content. If you google for "bands 80's", Kirkcaldybands is on around the third page of google results, which is a kinda scary thought, hopefully I'm not disappointing too many people who are looking for Kajagoogoo.

So, as both of these websites have attracted more that 100 visits in the last 3 weeks, one of my many new years resolutions is to try to create more content to keep my public interested.
Tom's blog about life in America as a Scottish person, appreciating and making music, politics, travel, my own philosophy and other stuff not easy to categorise.


About Me

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Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
I'm a 40 something Scottish person who lives in the USA. I'm also an aspiring part time musician and songwriter.