The Soundtrack To My Life. 15/04/2012.

“A Night To Remember” (Audio Book). (2010).
Artist: Written by Walter Lord. Read by Martin Jarvis.
Why You Should Get It: This is a complete and compelling moment by moment account of The RMS Titanic disaster as told by the survivors themselves.

I bust my audio book cherry with “A Night To Remember” last week and it has left me completely stunned.
Highly recommended!

“Cape Fear” (Original Score). (1991).
Artist: Bernard Herrmann & Elmer Bernstein.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

Ah, Bernard Herrmann. I’ve listened to his work every week ever since I got the “Taxi Driver” soundtrack last year! Did Herrmann ever write something that wasn’t completely brilliant? I can’t find any evidence if he did.

This is of course the soundtrack to the 1991 Martin Scorsese film “Cape Fear” and not the original 1961 film of the same name and so, what we have here is Bernard Herrmann’s original score adapted and arranged by Elmer Bernstein.

And it works!
It’s gloriously ominous.

“Left My Blues In San Francisco”. (1967).
Artist: Buddy Guy.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

“A Wasteland Companion”. (2012).
Artist: M. Ward.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

I had to get M. Ward’s “A Wasteland Companion” because last month he supported the brilliant Leslie Feist in Glasgow all by himself and I thought he carried it all off well. When he opened for Feist, Ward only used an acoustic guitar and (I think) a loop pedal and it was really great y’know? He’s a magical guitar player with really interesting and unusual chord patterns.

“A Wasteland Companion” is a very nice album but it’s mostly full-on band material instead of the stripped down bare bones I saw at the Feist gig. It’s probably one of those albums which I’ll listen to a few times before forgetting BUT!
– As I was typing this, I asked my pal Sean if he’d ever heard M. Ward’s material and he said that he has his first two albums which are bare and stripped down so maybe I should go and dig those up before I go any further with M. Ward.

“Grinderman”. (2007).
Artist: “Grinderman”.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

I like Grinderman much more than I like Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and despite what everybody I know told me, I thought that “Murder Ballads” was a fucking terrible album.
SO THERE YOU GO!

“Romeo And Juliet”. (2001).
Artist: Sergei Prokofiev.
Why You Should Get It: Just click HERE.

“Deja Vu”. (1970).
Artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

“Deja Vu” (or as I’ve come to call it, “Davie Who?”) is a complete classic of an album and I guess now is as good a time as any to explain how I have an almost mint condition vinyl copy in my house.
Basically, I stole it.

Way back in the mid 1990’s my girlfriend’s Dad had “Deja Vu”  on vinyl and he never played it. It was such a hard to find album back then and I could not wait to hear it. I couldn’t even believe that he had a copy nevermind a mint conditioned vinyl copy.

I constantly asked him for a loan of the album or if he could even see his way to playing the album for me. Just once. It wasn’t a lot to ask but he wouldn’t do it so one day I just removed it from his house and moved it into mine. I still have it and I play it all the time but I am sorry that I stole it.
No really, I am!

“The SInking Of The Titanic / Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”. (1975).
Artist: Gavin Bryars.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

I don’t really have any words to describe how great and profound this music is. If I think of any, I’ll come back and write them down.

“The Godfather PART II” (Original Score & Soundtrack). (1974).
Artist: Nino Rota.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

“L.A. Woman” (40th Anniversary Edition). (2012).
Artist: The Doors.
Why You Should Get It: Click HERE.

I’ve always loved the “L.A. Woman” album and I’ve always loved The Doors. I think every single song on the album is a belter and the remastered 40th Anniversary version sounds AMAZINGLY clear.

Jim Morrison recorded his vocals for this album in a bathroom and you can really hear it in this version. Matter of fact, unless you have “L.A. Woman” on vinyl, you should pick up a copy of the 40th Anniversary Edition.

– But make sure you get the correct edition because strangely, this is the second 40th Anniversary Mix of this album. It was first remixed, remastered and released in 2007. Weird eh? I really don’t know why that was.

The version I’m recommending to you contains 2 discs and was released in 2012.

You May Also Be Interested In:

The Soundtrack To My Life. 13/03/2012.
The Soundtrack To My Life. 04/02/2012.
Balls & Noise.

New York Diary: Part I.

This is the first part of the scribbly writings I kept last month in New York.
It’s pretty much:
“Here’s What I Did On My Holidays”.

New York Diary: Part I.
A Voyeur In Manhattan.

It hadn’t quite sunk in.
Here was me up at 4am today, trying to shave – getting ready to go to New York City!

Me and my Family, heading for The Big Apple to celebrate my Mum’s 50th Birthday which was in January and my 30th which arrives this November.
Pretty good!

The last minute case packing,
The staring at the paperwork,
The drive to the airport,
The check-in and still it hadn’t sunk in for me yet.

It’s 8am now and the four of us are half awake in some bar in Glasgow Airport.
My folks buy me a pint of John Smith.
8am and here we all are drinking in a bar.
Now it sinks in.

The flight to London, Heathrow went pretty well.
Only took about an hour.
I listened to Buddy Guy and stared out at the clouds the whole way.

I’m usually pretty bad on planes.
I always think of crashing and landing in the sea in pitch black and if I’m not thinking about that, It’s a fair bet that I’m imagining what it’s like to be engulfed in burning jet fuel as our plane goes into the side of a mountain like a dart.
I wish I could stop thinking about these things but what can you do.
I asked my Sister if she had only 2 choices, burning up or dropping out of the sky into the sea, which would she prefer.
She said “The sea” and I agreed.

After bumming around Heathrow airport for a few hours we’re finally on the plane bound for JFK Airport in New York.
British Airways treat cattle class like us pretty well!
Each seat has an individual TV screen but I decide to read my book for a while.
I decided weeks ago to read Piers Paul Read’s “Alive” on the plane because I knew I’d think about crashing and death and my thinking was that if I read “Alive” then whatever happened couldn’t be as bad as what happened to those people.
It worked.

After a few hours I checked out the in-flight movie choices.
Last time I visited New York, the in-flight movie was “The Day After Tomorrow”.
Probably one of the worst movies to watch on a New York bound plane!
Anyways, the choice of flicks this time around were pretty decent.
“True Grit”, “127 Hours”, “Black Swan”, “The Social Network” etc…
I heard good things about “True Grit” and I really want to see it but I decide to hold off until I can watch it on a big screen.
Besides, at the bottom of the list I clock “The Godfather: Part II”.
Planes always seem to have that film.
It’s one of my favourites and although I’ve probably seen it 199 times, I watch it for the 200th time along with a Jack Daniels & Coke.
I still can’t believe Michael would whack out his own Brother like that!

After the film I turn on the in-flight progress map and notice that we’re flying over the spot of the Atlantic where The Titanic went down.
That calls for another Jack Daniels.
I can’t sleep on planes.
Unlike my Sister…

We make it to JFK and pretty much waltz right through airport security.
This marks the 3rd time I’ve been to New York.

The taxi ride into Manhattan is great and already I never want to go home.
The driver is a fucking maniac and that’s fine by me!
He uses two things only.
The gas pedal and the horn.

We’re staying at The New Yorker Hotel on 34th and 8th.
Cases dumped, we head out into the town.

I stop for a second to light a smoke and right away some guy gets in my face barking “Two Fifty! Two Fifty!”
I don’t know what he means and just as I’m about to tell him to get the fuck out of my face I notice he has about 100 boxes of Marlboro lights strapped around his waist.
Ah, New York!

We’re all completely beat and we decide to get some sleep about 11pm.
I can’t sleep when there’s so much out there so I head out again.

I wandered around Midtown Manhattan for 4 hours before I went back to the hotel.
I took pictures and looked at people and buildings and wandered up and down dark alleys in search of the kind of New York you see in Martin Scorsese films.
I checked out a couple of bars and cafes, got talking to a few people and had one of the best nights of my life.

A voyeur in Manhattan.