Had a pleasant surprise in Waterstones.  They had a copy of a new Robert Rankin book called Necrophenia which slipped under my radar when it came out at the end of last year.  Sounds as mad as his other books.  From the synopsis on Amazon:

Back in 1960s London, wannabe rock star and gumshoe Tyler, beguiled by Captain Lynch’s stories of fabled Begrem, city of gold, forms a ukulele band, the Sumerian Kynges, only to get upstaged at his high-school concert by the Rolling Stones.

Lazlo Woodbine, the Ministry of Serendipity and Elvis all turn up somewhere and I fully expect sprouts and stout sticks to be involved.  I should try to be disciplined and get through The Time-Traveller’s Wife, Dawn of the Dumb and The Olivetti Chronicles first, but it is hard.   Hopefully the new reading glasses will make me inclined to read more.

I did look through other shops, picking up some much-needed new shoes for myself and some pink steel toe-cap boots for the Mrs. (Twenty quid from Shoe Zone. Bargain!)

After doing all that I browsed a bit in HMV.  It is so much worse than it used to be for music.  The proportion of the shop given over to DVDs, games and iPod accessories just keeps growing and the music selection gets poorer and poorer with some of the niche areas like world music and folk getting so small as to be almost pointless.

I was in the sort of mood where I would have snapped up an Argent, Wishbone Ash or Egg album if they had anything at all by any of them.  I fancied the Odessy & Oracle re-release but its very expensive for a very old album.   In the end I did get tempted, but by the (also very small) classical section.

I picked up three CDs for £15  – one Bizet and two Bach.  I now have all six Brandenburg concertos and the complete L’Arlesienne and Carmen suites.  Even better, the Bachs are the Deutsche Grammophon versions conducted by Trevor Pinnock on original instruments.  I had these on cassette and since I lost the capability to play tapes in the car and living room they got consigned to the loft.  It will be good to hear them again.   The Carment and L’Arlesienne suites I had on vinyl, also now in the loft.

Trivia fans will remember the L’Arlesienne suite as the piece of music featured in one episode of The Prisoner, when Patrick McGoohan insisted on playing the first few notes of every copy in the shop to make the authorities think there was a coded message in there for him.

To complement them I also got something new to me, although it is (scary to think) more than 30 years old now: Horses by Patti Smith.  I just finished reading about it in a book I got for Christmas and realised that I had never actually heard this album that is supposed to be so influential.

Actually that is only part true.  I do remember somebody putting the record on once, but it was when a gang of us went back to somebody’s houseboat after a long session in a folk club.  With the amount of beer involved, the levels of conversation and the slight thrill of being on a houseboat I don’t think it counts as having really heard it.

Anyway, it’s not a good sign for the modern music scene if I can spend thirty minutes in HMV and only get tempted by a 32-year-old album and  22-year-old recording of some 300-year-old tunes!   I really should have come out laden with MGMT, Glasvegas, Elbow and Amadou & Mariam but I just wasn’t in that sort of mood.

Punk rock (often referred to simply as punk) is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, Bahrain, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock.

Bahrain??  I’ve taken that out – I’m pretty sure that there was not a thriving punk scene in Bahrain in the 1970′s.

Here is a list of all the “I wanna”s, along with a few “I don’t wanna”‘s:

• I wanna be your boyfriend
• Now I wanna sniff some glue
• I don’t wanna go down to the basement
• I don’t wanna walk around with you
• I don’t wanna be learned/I don’t wanna be tamed
• Now I wanna be a good boy
• I wanna be well
• I just want to have something to do
• I don’t want you
• I wanna be sedated
• I want you around
• I wanna live
• I don’t want to grow up

The Green Man Festival¹ is running a competition, well a couple of competitions really. They are letting bands who are not on the bill register on the site so that Joe Public can vote for them. The band who gets the most votes gets invited along to open the festival. The second competition is that anyone who votes gets a chance to win a pair of tickets for the festival.

I can thoroughly recommend voting for Spizzenergi! I would love to see them rocking a field in Wales…

So -any other 40-somethings out there who remember Spizzenergi with fond nostalgia know what they have to do:

• Vote for Spizzenergi
• Pass the word around
• If you have your own blog encourage your readers to vote
• If you have a Facebook or Myspace account you can add a ‘vote Spizzenergi’ widget to it.
• Go to Wales and hear ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ at full volume

The code for the blog advert and widgets is here and below is a little video clip of Spizzenergi back in the day when they were called (probably) The Spizzles.

1. a great web site design – check it out

I don’t think I will be able to make it, but I am going to try because it is billed as being the full band live. At Filty McNastys… I thought there was some legal restriction which prevented them having full bands there, and if not there is certainly a bit of a space restriction, what with there being no stage or anything, so I had assumed the show was going to have to be singer plus backing tapes, or maybe singer, guitarist and backing tapes at a pinch. Having a full band play is a crazy thing to do, and therefore an appealing prospect.

Rather than turning off security for a while I though I would just paste his comment here from the e-mail. 

A NIGHT ON THE PISTOLS SEX PISTOLS BRIXTON 12.11.2007

I am a "the glass half full not half empty" kinda guy and so I tried to get the word out that SPIZZENERGI were willing to support the SEX PISTOLS when their one-off gig in Brixton was announced. I even started a campaign via a forum on Gigwise.com where 84% of those who responded the wanted SPIZZENERGI on the bill.

I then received an email from a Pistol "Spizz, Not down to me mate… All the best, Glen" I resigned myself to not going as tickets sold out in a flash then I got a call from a mate called Dave who happens to worship at the altar of The Small Faces (so much so he co-compiled the definitive book about them called Nice One). Due to work commitments he and his partner Carol could not go and did I want to go instead.

Arrangements were made and permission asked to transfer guest status to me and Will. Will knows Dave because his son goes to the same school as Dave's boy.

As I emerge from Brixton tube I run into Phil who does the Pistols website the thefilthandthefury fancy seeing you here "what are the chances" we joke. Last time we met we were attendees of the Timeslip convention back in May which was a hilarious alternative to the Chelsea v Man Utd FA Cup final which I won money off Coral the bookmakers as I had Chelsea to win on Penalties.

I meet Will and have the first of two beers in The Prince pub in Cold Harbour Lane, Brixton. An incoherent Glaswegan in his late fifties invites himself onto our table and blabs on about pick pockets and real anarchy so we finish the second pint quickly and head for the Academy.

Arriving at the entrance we announce we are on the guest list only to be asked "which guest list?" A quick call to Carol and we drop the name and we are directed to the stage door because we are on the promoters guest list. We get our tickets and VIP wristbands this is more than I expected! Well we go straight to the VIP bar and I get the first round in, shocking as people who know me will now be picking themselves up off the floor. So was the cost. We chat with Eric Idle lookalike Mark who has been to all the Pistols gigs as Glen's PA. X-Ray Spex girl Poly Styrene strolls by and Mark gets the next round as there are 17 minutes to go.

We guzzle the Grolsch down and make our way to the right hand side at the back and the full house is chanting abuse at Goldie – well since when has playing records constituted a support act? Vera Lynn's 'There'll always be an England" and the band stroll on. Lydon lets us in on his glee that Maclaren has left I'm a Celebrity Jungle show. Pretty Vacant sounds great and a couple of songs later I want to take a closer look as anyone who has been to see Mick Jones's brilliant new band Carbon Silicon knows I am always right at the front.

So I ease my way near the front and I can't help myself I'm in the mosh pit! Big grown men of all ages and even some punkettes of a slighter build are hurling themselves at each other and its like being in a huge human cement mixer. I start to laugh as we all buffet around and some very scary men push the bounderies of friendly violence. When 'Holidays In The Sun' starts it really goes mental and I'm loving it, laughing uncontrollably. It's very hot and smelly some BO whiffs are revolting.

There's a big sign saying no crowd surfing (y'know cos it's dangerous), but someone is riding the crowds every other chorus. Well I'm glad I've got my Matrix boots on but after five songs I return to where I left Will and blimey he has got a pint waiting for me just what you want after some loony moshing. Show over back Will had to go catch a bus so upstairs to the VIP and Mark is getting the beers in and Kirk Brandon and I have a chat and Scottish Jenny's daughter from the days when I used hang out on Portobello Road Saturday market exclaims in a loud voice "Spizz!" and we chat – nice.

Moving through the bar some big bloke says something manacing I turn around its big Steve English who spent most of his life looking after Pistols or The Clash's on stage security. Some more old days remembered and banter exchanged say hi to Buzzcock Tony Barber, then another "Spizz!" shout and its Maggi Ronson and she's with Ian Hunter's daughter Tracie!

What an evening, we hug and I sit and we chat and I start looking at my watch fretting about catching the last tube. Maggi says she can give me a lift and so time for another beer! Finally after bumping into Phil (Pistols site) at the tube station we meet up again just as Glen and Paul Cook emerge from their dressing room and scoop a few of us back for some drinks and more comfortable surroundings.

Glen says help yourself to a drink and before he can finish the sentence I've opened a 500ml can of Red Stripe. I get asked what is happening on the Spizz gig front and I whip out my flyers for the gig at Filthy MacNasty's on Saturday 15th December all of which this talking makes me thirsty and another can of Red Stripe opens taking the evening up to seven pints. Cooky prepares to leave and throws me a T-Shirt with Sid Vicious on it. A limited edition by some artist called Paul Broderick I don't think he's impressed by it and leaves to grab a cab and Glen packs up and we're all set to leave.

I grab a couple of beers to take home well someone has to it is a punk gig and Tracie says take the vodka too. So clinking through the empty centre of Brixton a tramp begs for money so I give him the vodka his face lights up for him Christmas has come early! Into Maggi's sporty BMW and head for Tower Bridge where they drop me off.

The Pistols were awesome what an evening.

Let's start a campaign to get name-dropping included as a sport for the 2012 Olympics – I think we have a candidate for a medal here

Sounds like a good night out though, I didn't fancy forking out £37 for it so didn't even try to get tickets.  And in case anyone missed the shameless plug in the middle: December 15th at Filthy McNasty's – an evening with Spizz

And talking of energy…

There are even rumours that Spizzenergi will be supporting them, although it should be noted that the rumours were started by Spizzenergi. Spizz reckons the only thing stopping him playing there is that they haven’t asked. Yet…

Not too sure about the Brian May guitar bit at the beginning and end, but on the whole I like it.  Its very nearly as good as “E For England”.

I will have to see about getting up to the 100 Club to see it played live next Wednesday.

If I want to get some more of my vinyl on there, or buy anything new, I will have to start deleting stuff, because my budget doesn’t stretch to getting a 40Gb model just yet. I already had to ditch the JS Bach.

This is probably as good a time as any to see what is actually on the machine. I have not been entirely strict about tagging all the tracks with genre information, so some of this is a bit approximate.

In total I have 8946 tracks there, which would last me 24 days, 10 hours and 27 minutes if I played the whole lot from beginning to end.

There is music by hundreds and hundreds of artists – quite a few have only one song on there – but 25 artists account for about a quarter of the diskspace.

In terms of the number of tracks, the top artists are Genesis(155), Yes(149), Pink Floyd(121), Crowded House(117), Les Negresses Vertes(108) and Jean-Michel Jarre(103).

In terms of the number of minutes of music, the top artists are Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Jean-Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk.

I guess I am really showing my age there – 5% of the music on my iRiver is either Genesis or Yes! (I was lumping Roger Waters in with Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett in with Genesis. Crowded House includes all the Neil Finn and Finn Brothers albums too)

But although there is a lot of normal ‘dad rock’ on there I also found that there are 603 punk tracks, 544 reggae tracks, 458 rap tracks, 351 by French artists, 300 by African artists, 167 by Arabic artists, and a frankly surprising 125 German tracks (and that doesn’t include Kraftwerk!) as well as 226 blues songs.

The real surprise was finding in that list of the 25 most-represented artists such names as The Levellers, Joachim Witt, Angelique Kidjo, The Shamen and Ozric Tentacles, alongside the usual suspects like Radiohead, REM, Stevie Wonder, Metallica and Megadeth.

The other side of the coin is finding out who I don’t have much stuff by. There is not a single Beatles song (Just one Paul McCartney and two Lennon solo songs), only three Elvis Presley songs (compared to 36 Elvis Costello), only 4 Beach Boys songs.

So does this mean that, for example, the Newtown Neurotics (2 songs), Salt N Pepa (2 songs) and United Balls (4 songs) are more important to me than the Beatles?