New stuff!

Anyone who uses iTunes and the social music site last.fm will need to know that ScrobblePod is my find of the day. At last a replacement for the crashy/CPU looping iScrobbler which was abandoned by the developer.

This reminds me: abandonware on the iTunes Store. Your Articles Today - Daily Google Reader News was a great RSS reader with the most elegant black and white GUI. The latest version I downloaded (before it disappeared from the app Store) no longer links to Safari or Instapaper so I'm thinking about removing it from my iPad. All it will do is pull down new stuff from Google Reader. What to do? The developer is on LinkedIn and Facebook so I could bug the guy but I think not. I've seen many shareware apps abandoned and the fact that I've made a payment has never cut much ice with developers — other projects become more important or they will plead poverty. The only solution I can see is sharing the love: get on the App Store and rate and review the apps that I like, thereby spreading the news and increasing the popularity of the app while it's still supported.

PS I've abandoned the last post (below) about iPod/iPhone apps. There are too many of them now. I must add that the Defender game has now arrived! Defender! is a reasonable copy of the original and Planet Defence is older but looks better.

Owning-Up

Owning-Up
Originally uploaded by jovike

Surrealist and jazzman George Melly’s uncompromising, witty autobiography. He also wrote two other memoirs of his earlier experiences of childhood and the navy: 'Scouse Mouse' and 'Rum, Bum and Concertina' and the trilogy is now a Penguin Classic.

His last biography, about his then approaching 80th birthday 'Slowing Down' is also published by Penguin.

Goodtime George. That's what they called him: Goodtime George. I've been reading his first book of autobiography on and off for a year or so. Great stuff. I nearly saw his last concert but forgot to go. He said it would be his last tour. Sigh.

Temperance Seven member and Jazz Record Restorer John R.T. Davies Dies. In this obituary is quoted a long description of his working methods.

Don Arden - Intimidating rock impresario. His methods were less pleasant.

Bad news from Manchester: Tony Wilson dies of cancer. He always impressed me by being quietly-spoken.

The Sea and Cake have made a 'rock album' - sounds like "krautrock loungecore" Sounds intriguing. Rock Cake I really hope they are as good as they are described.

Rip and Goodbye: "the complete dissolution of my library of compact discs". Many comments.

My All Time Favorite Prog Rock Recordings - chapter 39. Not mine, someone else's.

The shirt that Wreckless Eric wore on the cover of 'Reconnez Cherie' has turned up. His news section is better than most people's blogs.

Fake Steve Jobs on Robin Trower: Today's Music Depresses Me.

British rock fans of a certain age have copies of ZigZag magazine knocking about in their attic. Mine are in what I call our library. They smell great. Since 1996, rocklist.net has been putting old polls from ZigZag online. Essential Rock Albums.

Always sad when someone that everyone has heard of dies in obscurity. It happened to Mike Sammes but luckily Jonny Trunk was on hand to save some of his treasures: Music for Biscuits.

Trunk records are pretty good; also worthy for their excellent and lengthy sleevenotes are those other musical magpies RPM, for instance 'Magpie - 20 Junkshop Pop Ads & Themes' contains Andrew Bown's theme music to 'Ace of Wands'.

I've got some Joe Meek and Pet Clark compilations from RPM. Essential these days to get the dates and cover art for iTunes, so this Petula Clark discography comes in handy. Great graphics and some moody expressions from Pet.

Big Al Davies' Treemo channel.

Kevin Ayers' MySpace page:

This myspace site is presented by Kevin Ayers' management. Kevin is aware of myspace and thinks it is very cool, but he doesn't have a computer let alone an internet connection. He wishes people still sent telegrams. He is very touched by the kind messages left on his page and that there is still space in music collections for his efforts.

Also among my very few friends on MySpace are Foul House because my friend's daughter is the singer. They are great live and should make an album ASAP.

The loudness wars: Why is there so much variation in volume in my music collection?

jTunes "The Insanely Great Songs Apple Won't Let You Hear."

Pitchfork.

The label Repertoire are putting out some nice editions on CD. I just got a triple disc of all the Pretty Things singles.

Vinyl Vulture: Record shops in London. The Digger's Guide to London.

Desmond Briscoe, Radiophonic Workshop founder, 1925-2007. Musique concrète and diegetic sounds.

Making Flippy Floppy - what a silly name for a music blog. How about a sensible name like Wibbly, or monkeyfunk, or Bubblegum Machine, which posts two wacky mp3s each week. Adult material such as emotion can be found in The Lefsetz Letter. Lefsetz also points us to Jeff Beck's 'Led Boots' at http://music.msn.com/crossroads which got me right there.

I don't know why people call Revelations: a musical anthology for Glastonbury Fayre "legendary" because I've got a copy downstairs. It's out on CD now, which is handy but it won't sound as good or have such an elaborate cover and inserts.

In Quest of Absolute Fidelity: The Saga of the Black CD – Finding Black Gold!

Uh-oh - or, as it says here: WOW: CBS Acquires Last.fm for $280 Million which is a shame because I've been on last.fm since it started as Audioscrobbler. You can bet they are going to screw it up somehow, like Yahoo did with LaunchCast and mailing lists and now Flickr.

Suzi Quatro unzipped. I never knew '48 Crash' was about the male menopause.

Music blog by Pliable: On an Overgrown Path. Good for classical music and exposes the fools who think the BBC or the Proms are "brands".

Richard Godwin admits he can't follow opera plots. I like that.

A musical pantheon: The desert island challenge: 24 records.

Great mp3s! The Barry Gray Music Sampler.

Motorhead Blogger.

Back in the groove: young music fans ditch downloads and spark vinyl revival.

Vinyl Vulture.

Hawkwind - Do Not Panic

Hawkwind - Do Not Panic
Originally uploaded by jovike.

Friday - BBC Four.

Only 38 years after the legendary 'Sonic Assassins', aka the 'Psychedelic Warlords' better known as Hawkwind formed, the BBC finally get them in their viewfinders, well, most of them. I think they filmed this documentary a couple of years ago. My mate Al, who performed with Hawkwind on some London gigs, has postponed his holiday to watch it.

Band-leader Dave Brock is not included in the programme; this article by film-maker Tim Cumming explains why: They're Still Feeling Mean (and They're Still Feeling Mean) even after all these years.

Hm, I see all the pages on the Hawkwind website have disappeared. Perhaps I ought to rejoin the BOC-L mailing list to find out what's happening... what people thought of the doco... or shall I just just put some music on and have a sandwich. Yes.

Michael Moorcock and his friends discuss the programme on his Miscellany site, and the programme itself is on YouTube: Do Not Panic.

Hawkwind: Do Not Panic
Told for the first time, the inside story of Hawkwind, one of Britain's wildest acid rock bands. They emerged from the Ladbroke Grove underground at the end of the 1960s, trailing the radicalism of the counter-culture in their wake, and have been a direct influence on punk, metal, dance and rave - as well as pioneering multimedia rock shows with their legendary Space Ritual tour, and leading the free festival scene from its birth to its apogee at the last Stonehenge in 1984.

Unruly, anarchic, and often at war with themselves, Hawkwind are one of the last great outsider bands. Although the testimony of guitarist and founder member Dave Brock isn't present, the film includes interviews with some of the band's enduring legends, including bassist Lemmy, writer Michael Moorcock, founder members Terry Ollis, Nik Turner and Mick Slattery, former managers Doug Smith and Jeff Dexter, leading rock critic Nick Kent and broadcaster and super-fan Matthew Wright. Strong language.

Love is here

Love is here
Originally uploaded by jovike.

All you need is Love, the new Beatles album.

This can't wait. If you have a hi-fi you need Love. Love is all you need. If you have an intimate knowledge of their music you will especially enjoy the mashups and segues.

Rock'n'Reel magazine has been relaunched. As they are giving away 5 CDs with a subscription in Europe, I couldn't resist this as a Christmas present to myself.

And while I'm on the Subject of Music... is by a man with a lot of CDs. And speaking of albums, I've been collecting them since 1974, so it was a big shock for me when Virgin removed its range of vinyl records from the Oxford Street megastore in London. Suddenly I didn't know what was out there anymore, without the browser bins to riffle through. It is as if iTunes were to vanish now. In 1984 the music industry promised us all the titles would come out on CD eventually, but half of them never did. Ah yes, I remember music... in the interests of bringing it back, here is one solution: Lost in Music.

Brian Eno's Neroli album is on iTunes for only £1.49! More low prices like this please.

Arthur Chisnall, Eel Pie Island promoter, 1925-2006. A good read. He also promoted independent thought, shortly to be made illegal.

The Novelty Rock Emporium is one of many blogs who put MP3 files of old records online, often sourcing music from junk stores. I love them. Some other good ones are Boot Sale Sounds currently featuring Michael Bentine and Charlie Drake and mod-ified music from 60s pop Singapore! - both these sites often include the cover art too. The Torture Garden (love it) and Feed me Good Tunes are more contemporary.

Jason Freeman had a problem: "People often ask me what music I listen to, and I find it difficult to describe my enormous music collection in just a few sentences." Luckily he is a programmer. I've given his solution iTunes Signature Maker a spin. This samples and mixes a sound file from segments of your favourite music on your computer. What for?

Maybe it will help you gauge your compatibility with your next blind date: "She seems nice enough, but her iTunes signature is just so atonal! Should I go with my heart or with my ear?" Or maybe an iTunes signature will figure prominently into a political attack ad: "If you're mad at him for raising your taxes, polluting our environment, and cutting the education budget, just wait until you hear the music he listens to…"

Here's mine: short iTunes signature; long iTunes signature. Can you identify the twenty songs? It's the same songs in both samples. (Also in WAV format if you can't do MP4: short iTunes signature; long iTunes signature.)

Scary songs

His Master's Voice
Originally uploaded by jovike.

Huge comment thread on Jarvis Cocker's appeal for memories of unintentionally Scary Songs to which I have contributed Rolf Harris's 'Jake the Peg'. Rolf's performance on Blue Peter with three legs protruding from his long coat greatly alarmed me as a child.

Plastic Fantastic lists the Guardian's Laura Barton's favourite independent record shops; readers supply the rest of the record shops in the UK.

The Stranglers and the Finchley Boys - a three part article - were not as violent as they were often painted! I remember them from the Hope and Anchor in Islington and an Damned/Eater gig at my Finchley school in 1977. The poor old teacher who was supposed to be controlling this event was very circumspect, if not largely absent, during the festivities once this lot turned up mob-handed.

Stylus Magazine all about music, not cuneiform.

Shindig! magazine reviews the four CD boxset of the complete works of Fanny: First Time In A Long Time. I love Fanny - no really, I've got two of their albums on vinyl.

Lemmy is a charming fellow - I've shaken his hand twice at Hawkwind gigs - and he was the son of a vicar, after all. What Lemmy gets up to at home is his own business:

Then my solicitor sent them a letter saying, 'We are appalled by this accusation. Miss Wilson was not tied to the bed: she was hanging from the ceiling.' They didn't reply.

Two years ago Andrew Orlowski wrote about How the music biz can live forever, get even richer, and be loved.

The Perfumed Garden has many John Peel sessions in MP3 form, whereas John Peel Every Day is more keen on BitTorrent.

Funtopia is Mick Farren's weblog.

Greg Shaw obituary. He was a pivotal figure in the US music scene.

The Stop Ashlee Simpson Petition.

Alex Ross: The Rest is Noise is a weblog that mostly covers music.

Wendy James: The Racine World.

PSF is Perfect Sound Forever magazine. The Vinyl Anachronist: Part L: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the iPod.

Mike Patto was in 60s group Timebox.

Freeway Jam is a very cool music weblog. Hope they start updating again. There are also cool musicians who blog, it says here.

Extensive John Cale website: Fear is a Man's Best Friend. You remember - he was the cool one from the Velvet Underground. That's three cools. Some people say Lou Reed was the cool one. Not me.

Similarly extensive is the Kiki Dee Information Bureau - enough to fill a DVD! The timeline is worth exploring for the beautiful images of old fashions and record designs.

Martin Guy's Delia Derbyshire - An audiological chronology.

The Spirit of the Page site devoted to Robert Calvert has been relaunched to better reflect the zeitgeist.

Sean's Alexis Korner Discography. Did Alexis ever make a bad record? If so I haven't heard it.

LOL! Lol Coxhill's site features an interview with Buck Funk.

Julian Cope presents Head Heritage Unsung which reviews forgotten albums. On Julian's features there are MP3 streams too.

Amazing Doctor Who tributes discography - many memories! This is part of a bigger website as is the music from Danger Man, with cover scans and MP3 files.

Bad science: alternative therapy fans are like hi-fi freaks.

Independent music: There's a musical revolution going on.