SoCal in the spring...........

we've decided to head down to Palm Springs in March for a week

never been to that part of the world & the aim is to book into a small, independant hotel - ( tho' it looks like it'll be a bit tough finding a child friendly one) - from where we can do our own thing

a lot of the hotel's have a fifties vibe about them which fits perfectly with a bit of a B-Movie phase I have been going through - Invasion of The Body Snatchers rules!!!

now the radio blog is up again i can share some tracks from bands i have been listening to

So Far Gone (also a terrific Teenage Fanclub track) is from the latest album by The Early Years - they are a London band, much akin to the likes of Spacemen 3, Sonic Boom & Spiritualised all of whom i saw, loved & adored in equal measure in my indie-kid days

actually on reflecton i think i am still in my indie-kid days

surely by now is houlda developed an affection for Simply Red, Michael Bolton & Keane?!?!

The Music Machine Returns.............

after much fiddlin' about - it's back & i can share some favourite tunes

i love this version of Blues Run The Game by obscure 60's US folkie Jackson C Frank

and of course you can't go wrong with Donovan

more to come, but don't fret it ain't all folk

so cold it hurts.......

by jove it's cold

cold as in i think my eyeball's might be freezing

cold as in getting into the warm, from being outside, really hurts

cold as in don't touch any bare metal with ungloved hands or else

it's -35C to be precise, in reality it's only -25 - but the wind chill man, the wind chill

so all this lovely talcum powder like snow that is falling is going to waste as only the extremely brave & the foolish are venturing outside let alone up a ski hill

and there's more to come, a whole weeks worth of bone chillin' cold

those warm summer's evenings are a mere dream, now we are in the depths of winter

brown water....

it's terrible

i haven't written anything here for aeons - it's not like i'm always crazy busy - i just forget

i am in Vancouver, heavy, heavy storms have turned the water in the reservoirs a murky shade of brown & a murky shade of brown is what you get when you turn the taps on

the city is without clean drinking water & subsequently sales of bottled water are at an all time high - it's all a bit surreal & makes you realise just how precious the stuff is & how much we take it for granted

the ironic thing of course is that this, being Vancouver, is accompanied by an almost constant downpour of fresh water from the leaden skies

it's all too much & i look forward to getting back to Calgary & Canmore tomorrow where life in the deep freeze is much more straightforward

i urge you to listen to John The Wolfking of LA by John Phillips - it's just been reissued, i have been a fan for years of this early 70's masterpiece - now it's back for all to hear

a talented guy who waste a lot of his life on drugs but was also married to one of the most beautiful women in the history of popular music in my humblest of humble opinions