Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk, Kraftwerk......

Since doing it for the first time in 2009 - The Stupid I-Pod A-Z Idea has stuck with me as something very worthwhile indeed.

Essentially it's a way to free me from the dread feeling of "what the hell do I feel like listening to tonight" if there's nothing on the radio to listen to. Simply start at A and work through.

It's also a good way to keep the i-pod under control. And seeing as I have a 30GB i-pod with 2 GB of space free, I really do need to look at cutting some of the chaff away from the wheat.

Anyway, right now we're up to K. And everyone in Bruton mansions knows what that means.

Oh yes:

Oh yes, it's Kraftwerk time in Bruton mansions. But this time it's Kraftwerk with a difference. Except it's a difference only I can hear. Last time I visited them it was to download and love every album in it's German form as well as the English forms I already owned.

But now it's remasters time. And even better, it's remasters in 320kbps.

I'm not an audio snob, far from it. In fact I maintain that some of my stuff sounds better in it's original hissy, poppy, taped off the radio state. But this is Kraftwerk. Going from 192kbps to 320kbps is just beautiful. Everything's clearer, and the remasters are gorgeous to listen to.

Kraftwerk. Music perfected.

Ipod A-Z - the adventure is over......

Ipod A-Z was an idea I had a long time ago now to listen to every bit of music on my ipod from A to Z. The reasoning behind this was to properly listen to everything I own rather than doing what I all too often do and just go for whatever is currently floating my boat or some old favourites. This way I figured I'd rediscover some old faves I hadn't played for a long time and also discover that there was some stuff on the ipod that I just didn't want anymore.

Well, I started it in August (here) and I've just finished it. 10 months it's taken me. And it's been a massive success. I've listened to loads of stuff that I hadn't played for the longest time, thoroughly enjoyed myself and managed to free up quite a bit of space by cutting out quite a lot of music that I just don't like anymore or by trimming the filler tracks from albums.

The only problem I have now is what I'm going to listen to tomorrow.

Ipod A-Z update and an abiding, but late, appreciation of Tom Waits.

I think Tom Wait's Nighthawks At The Diner may end up being one of my favourite records by the time I'm dead. It's grown and grown in my estimation over the last few years until it holds a place in my heart shared only by certain music by Kraftwerk, The Cure, Cabaret Voltaire, The The, Ultra Vivid Scene, Carter USM, That Petrol Emotion, Propaganda, Duran Duran and The Shamen.

It may well be the most perfect bringing together of music and comedy I'll ever hear. Definitely one to be heard late at night, preferably with a few drinks on board already. But what a glorious experience it is.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, we're onto the Tom Waits part of the Ipod A-Z. This may not have taken that long a few weeks ago, as all the Tom Waits I had was Nighthawks, The Asylum Years and Swordfishtrombones. But I'd always promised myself I'd get some more when I had the time to listen to it. And this seemed the ideal time. Ten extra albums later, many hours of listening later and I'm nearing the end. Nighthawks is on again and no matter how good the other stuff is, there's something about that cabaret style, the conversation with that invited audience, the laughs all around and the whole performance that I can't get enough of. It's a wonderful thing realising that I've discovered something else to join the short list of music I couldn't live without.

After Tom Waits it's a quick blast to the end of the A-Z and then I'm faced with the big question of What Next? I may go back and relisten to all the spoken word and comedy. And after that I may well do some sort of enforced randomiser - maybe do a single letter of the alphabet each week?

Because the one thing that doing this has proven is that there's an awful lot of music on the ipod that just didn't get a fair hearing. Not something I intend to have happen again.

The Stupid Ipod A-Z Idea - update

It's been a long time since I last mentioned anything about the Stupid Ipod A-Z idea. In fact it was in October and I'd gotten all the way to E. Well, amazingly, it's still going on. I'm currently mid way through S and having a bloody great time.

Along the way I've rediscovered a love of REM and had a particularly good time in P; Pixies, Polyphonic Spree, Propaganda. Around Christmas I hit L and downloaded a load of Leonard Cohen so Molly could hear what Hallelujah should really sound like. She preferred the Buckley version, but that was okay, as long as she didn't like the Xfactor abortion of a song.

Now we're onto the Shamen.
I know, I know.
Get the snickering out of the way now.



I heard Something About You, from their first album Drop on Peel or somewhere in 87, making me 16ish. Drop sounds nothing like anything they did subsequently; a mix of 60s psych pop and indie tunes from a 5 piece band. But what really made me sit up and start following them was Christopher Mayhew Says; industrial dance music with extensive samples of Christopher Mayhew on his LSD trip.

A quick trip into dance culture and sampling for In Gorbechev We Trust (1989). Will Sinnott (Will Sin) was on board and it became a bit of a two man operation for the best period of their work. Phorward (1989) got even more dance orientated and EnTact (1990) was where it all went a little more overground and mainstream. Still great, just really tapping into the dance culture at exactly the right time. Of course, it also saw the partial introduction of Mr C.



Disaster followed. Will Sin drowned in 91 just as ProGen was about to become a huge hit the second time round, MrC was all over everything and success just seemed to make it all just that little bit more bland. Boss Drum (1992) was okay at the time but It's almost unlistenable bar three or four tracks now. Ebeneezer Goode purely as stupid nostalgia, but Re-Evolution, the spoken word track from Terrence McKenna is still great. I had the best time watching them play Re-Evolution live at Glastonbury one year. I can't remember the year, in fact I can't remember much about the night apart from the great light and sound show. How much of that was on stage and how much in my own head - I have no idea.



I've not even heard anything after that. And I almost dread to do so. Maybe one day. But in their time, especially during the early years - they were great.

Can't wait for November - Richard's stupid i-pod A-Z idea heads onto E

And that means EMF.
Oh so childish, oh so immature. Oh so bloody wonderful.
Unbelievable on the ipod, ear-splitting volume, wife and child screaming at me to turn it down and stop singing at the top of my voice.
And in November I shall be in Birmingham at the Carter gig where they're the support act. Will be enormous fun, full of just as many smiling middle-aged men as the recent That Petrol Emotion gig.

Back to the Ipod A-Z thing......

Okay, so before we headed to London I'd gotten to the end of the Bs in my Stupid I-pod A-Z thing. But a couple of days before London I broke my rules and went straight to That Petrol Emotion. Once back from London, still fresh from the wonder of seeing the band live once more, it was back on with TPE. (The rules are mine, therefore any and all excuses I make about the rules are allowed. So there.)

But we're back on now. Onwards to C. Which was always going to take an awful long time. The entire works of Cabaret Voltaire, Carter USM and The Cure is going to take me at least all of September I reckon. 619 songs for the three bands. Roughly 10% of my music there in three bands. Wow.

Currently on the really dancy Cabaret Voltaire phase. Friday night party whilst reading up on the LHC and data centres. Oh, I know how to have fun.

Richard's Stupid i-pod A-Z thing update

The stupid I-pod thing continues. After a week we're now halfway through B. Bloody hell, this could take a while. But it's certainly reminding me of some of the music that I never listen to for one reason or another. I've tried doing something like this before but using shuffle it doesn't really work, as shuffle tends to get restarted after a little while and music gets missed.

For example, tonight it's Black Box Recorder, Blake Babies and Blondie. I rarely listen to the Blondie but tonight it's just been marvellous. Little things that amaze me; Rapture and that beautiful two minute lead out at the end with the last 50 seconds an amazing meld of what sounds like a completely new song with Debbie Harry's voice slowly fading away and a guitar solo coming out of nowhere. And after all these years I've finally realised what she's singing at one point: Back to Back, sacroiliac - as in the sacroiliac joint in your spine. Fantastic.

So I think the Stupid Ipod A-Z thing is proving to be a complete success.

The I-Pod, A-Z for the holidays. & A-Ha

According to the I-pod I have 17 + days of listening. This is good. Because I've been having one of those times that I hate, when nothing at all springs to mind when I ask myself the question "what do I want to listen to?".
To battle this horrible condition I have decided that for the foreseeable future I shall be soundtracking my life in a simple, non-descision making manner. I set it off at the first bit of music I had and am going to keep going through the alphabet.

Tonight it was A-Ha, Act, Adam & The Ants, Afrika Bambaata, Algebra Suicide & Anandar Shankar. I took the editorial decision to skip the spoken word stuff as I wanted stuff to work to and spoken word tends to make me listen harder and ruins writing. So no Alan Davies or Alan Moore.

It certainly means I'm going to listen to some stuff I haven't heard for a while. And also points out some of the more embaressing / interesting / insane bits of the collection. Indeed from the artsists above I think you can see the prevalence of 80s acts and electronic pioneers quite well. & don't take the piss out of A-Ha. I've loved them from first hearing Take On Me. Of course, like Duran Duran, I initially dismissed them as far too poppy and light for a serious Cure fan to really love.

But with A-Ha the turning point came, as so many things do when you're a young teen, after being given the tape of Scoundrel Days by a girlfriend. After that we promptly broke up and I spent nights wandering around playing this on the crappy Saisho personal stereo, weeping profusely. Things like that stay with you.

So after that I started paying more attention. There's a couple of duff albums in the band's output (Memorial Beach, Lifelines) , but overall they're a pleasure to come back to.