life worth living

sometimes i am so glad that i live in this city...

met up with felinity to go check out possible venues for her 30th

it will be taking place 2 days before her birthday in a secret location...

there will probably be a facebook event relating to it for those of you interested in coming...

so anyway, we started in angel, got a bus down to holborn,

popped into conway hall where an old fashioned dance was taking place...

we crept into the balcony and looked down on the dancing partners...

stopped in on G, out drinking in the place where it will be taking place... as it happens...

then got another bus down to the southbank... sat in the royal festival hall for a couple of cups of tea... dropped her off @ waterloo,

lovely to spend time with her, nothing quite like being with someone you've known since you were 7...

she got on her train, i was about to go down to the tube...

but something in me wanted to walk for awhile...

so i popped on my comedy over sized headphones, listened to julian joseph's version of "the other side of the tracks" for the 7th, or 8th time today (loving that tune) in fact you can find out exactly how many times i've listened to that tune today over on my lastfm...

should you want to...

then just south of the river i started listening to my lovely herbie hancock playlist..

butterfly,
sun touched,
bubbles,
people music,
gentle thoughts,

it carried me over the north hungerford bridge, up passed charing cross, passed trafalgar square,

walking up charing cross road...

down onto the picadilly line @ leicester square...

& in fact it carried me all the way out to turnpike lane, starting to repeat the 1st tune again as i arrived at my door...

lovely to walk in london, over the river...

inspiration

i didn't notice back in february but teo died,

he of in a silent way, bitches brew fame...

only fairly recently did i discover that both these wonderful miles davis albums had been made by Teo Macero stitching together 50 minutes / 100 minutes from all kinds of hours of miles davis taping everything...

i've been listening to some herbie hancock 70's albums after talking about them in last week's spanner jazz punks rehearsal, also a couple of talk talk albums that yimkin put me onto, their last 2,

then i was reading about in a silent way and i found out teo was gone so i find a teo interview... he raves about all these crazy audio machines he had the technicians @ columbia make for him, this being the 50's and 60's and they didn't have what we have now...

he describes putting "he loved him madly" (a miles tune on get up with it for duke ellington, who died in 1974 when the album was made) through one such machine and suddenly it sounded like it was duke ellington's band, and teo mixed duke ellington so he should know...

in the meantime i've got hold of chillout by the KLF, probably because bill drumond came to a bookshop in woodgreen last week, although i couldn't go because of said SJP rehearsal...

this 1991 album strangely intertwined in my head with the talk talk stuff, different worlds, but overlapping none-the-less...

then in another moment i read that spirit of eden (the 1st of the last 2 talk talk albums - 1988) is partly inspired by the miles tune - he loved him madly...

linking in these worlds as well...

i don't have he loved him madly in digital form, but i've got it on vinyl and i listened to it this afternoon with a crafty smoke, and it is heaven on a stick...

listening to it made me want to plug the NORD (which is leaving me sometime soon, back to it's original owner, lack of funds) into the effect loop of the rhodes to take advantage of the vibrato...

so i did and i've been making some great music with it x