I’m listening to some pastoral German ‘rock’ music from Amon Düül and the inescapable feeling it provokes is of floating in the vacuum of space. Goodness me, they must have had a lot of ‘help’ in making this record.
As you will have noticed, if you’ve been paying any attention (and I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t) my Janathon efforts, which were tokenistic at their peak, fizzled out completely into a complete ignominious defeat. My catalogue of excuses are here for all to see, so I won’t repeat myself. It’s all too much.
I an attempt at recovering my self-respect, I’ve allowed myself to be talked into counting each and every calorie that I take on board to see if I can produce a reduction in weight. I will have to align that with some semblance of exercise too, of course, and have loaded my iPhone down with a selection of apps that, if they don’t bring the thing grinding to a halt, might allow me to monitor cause and effect. I’ve cut out booze for the time being, and am feeling reasonably well motivated to sort myself out, but, as always, time will tell. I’m sure my commitment will prove to be time limited. Sigh…
Today’s soundtrack is provided by Popol Vuh at the moment. A very spiritual backdrop to a rainy Sunday afternoon.
And Spiral/Engrenages is back on BBC4. I know it’s middle class and everything, but I do love my dose of Saturday evening European subtitled crime drama! I’m sure many Guardian readers feel the same.
Sometimes, a day just defies description or summary. Today was one of those days…
Conscious that my blog posts are plumbing the depths of mundanity, and setting records for brevity, I’ll leave it there.
It’s raining… So I’ve got all cosy and listening to the sublime folk sounds of Rick Redbeard, and his album No Selfish Heart. Rick is a member of The Phantom Band, who kick up a right kerfuffle at the drop of a hat. This solo album, though, is very pastoral and loaded with forest cabin feel.
Put another log on the fire…
Another day with the bike. Just checking in, cos them’s the rules…
Hey! The bike’s back! Tyres inflated, chain oiled, thick layer of mud removed; good as new!!!
A couple of miles done today. Watch this space for more tomorrow…
I don’t think I’ve posted this video here, so now is the time. Les Rallizes Denudes could easily change your life if you’d let them. Japanese psychedelic rock music reaches the greatest extremes, and none more so than these people. They barely ever visited a recording studio, but have produced an ever-expanding collection of intense live recordings. Their career was fatally damaged by the Japanese Red Army’s hijacking of Japan Airlines flight 351 on 31st March 1970, which involved their bass player, Moriaki Wakabayashi.
Les Rallizes Denudes carried on in one form or another until 1996, but they were never likely to be accepted by Japanese society. Their extraordinary music deserved better.
