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Week from Monday 27th October 2025 - Having once again become the proud owner of a decent tape deck, I've taken the opportunity to revisit the GRIDLING cassette archives, to see if there's anything there worth preserving! Today, I've dug out a couple of tapes (from 1996) of mostly my own electronic noodling. There's actually some rather tasty stuff - quite 'krautrock' in nature - but (typically!) a lot of it outstays its welcome! I did have a tendency to GO ON A BIT, didn't I? But I've digitised it onto the hard drive in it's entirety, with the aim of doing some judicious editing (using the trusty AUDACITY) and maybe reassembling it into something INTERESTING.
I don't know if anyone ELSE will ever want to hear it, but still... Once I've done it, it goes without saying that I probably won't listen to it myself for a while! I often wait months (even years!) before I listen to my own stuff "TO SEE IF I STILL LIKE IT". I find I can only be OBJECTIVE about it, if I distance myself from it to the extent that it is almost like listening to SOMEONE ELSE's music. TOTAL DETACHMENT. Ideally, I will play something back and I can't even remember how it was done or who was involved!
I paid another visit to the PHLEBO at HAEMO/ONCO. It seems appropriate that someone should suck my blood on HALLOWE'EN! I then took a bus down to the city centre for a walkabout...
🎵 The wheels on the bus go ROUND and ROUND, all day long!
The driver of the bus goes BEEP BEEP BEEP, all day long!
The floor of the bus, it stinks of piss... 🎵
It being HALLOWE'EN, I'm (TRICKing or) TREATing myself with a dip into a couple of FRANK ZAPPA shows from this day in history. I played most of the "Halloween 1977" 3CD set and then YouTube-streamed the 'new' "Halloween 1978" box. The majority of the long show from the 30th October is already familiar from previous releases, but the early show from the 27th was new to me... so that was fun...
Week from Monday 3rd November 2025 - On Tuesday, I had my telephone natter with Dr.D, who more or less confirmed everything that I'd discussed with THE KIDNEY PEOPLE. "STABLE"! Then on Wednesday, I concluded my obligations with THE EXPENSIVE TEETH PEOPLE, where they fixed a broken filling. Dentally fulfilled, with paperwork to show for it, I can now resume that all-important Saturday DRIPPING at the end of the month.
My APPOINTMENTS schedule now runs into the New Year (up to APRIL!), so it's time to open a new "DAY-A-PAGE" DIARY. While I was in town to visit the dentist, I availed myself of one from the Calendar Shop.
"Business" out of the way for a while, I treated myself to a ride to SOUTHAMPTON. I acquired the new ROBERT PLANT album from HMV. It's a splendid musical document, saturated with harmonised folksy vocs and wooden instrumentation, which is almost certain to feature in my PICK O'THE YEAR list. Needless to say, I also hit the OXFAM BOOKS & MUSIC across the road, where I got a 'more-up-to-date-than-the-one-I-already-have' edition of Cook and Morton's "PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD", a massive tome that added a substantial weight to my shoulder bag. A couple of One-Ninety-Nine CDs were also gleaned, enhancing my ECM and REALWORLD collections. Sore feet were had afterwards.
🎵 'Tis the season to be...
finding all adverts to be even more annoying than they are the rest of the year.
Fa la la la, la la la la! 🎵
Week from Monday 10th November 2025 - I've got into the routine of doing the New York Times' "STRANDS" puzzle every morning, a sort of WORDSEARCH with a difference. Once I crack the code, I can usually finish it with a "PERFECT" score (i.e. one requiring no prompts). But there was one from a couple of months ago that I just couldn't find 'a way in' and it stared at me blankly on a piece of scrap paper on my desk. So once I'd solved today's puzzle, I've CHEATED at the older one by googling for the linking "SPANGRAM" phrase. Once I'd done that, the rest of the elusive puzzle was able to make sense. The clue was "BETTER THAN GOOD"...
Google announced that they are using AI to 'upsample' older YouTube clips that pre-date "HD", so I was curious to see what they done to some of my crappy efforts from a couple of decades ago. At first glance, they appear to have artificially upped the FRAME RATE, so that things look a bit more stable... so that's good for the audience's eyes! (Not that I even have an 'audience' for this stuff!)
I took a look at the two earliest videos I still have, dating from my MySpace collaborations with Scandi-chums JOxFIELD PROJEx. Both pieces are fairly abstract and aimlessly swirly in nature. One in particular has now become, um... INTERESTING. What was frankly a pixilated low-rez mess has somehow acquired FACES! The kaleidoscopic blocky mush has been "hallucinated" with what look like stock shots of crowds at a festival. There's also a tuba player who pops up now and again! The AI bots have 'read' some of the shapeless smudges and tried to make sense of them, with HI-larious results. I recognise some of the same elements as appearing in other people's "psychedelic" videos, so it's clear where they come from.
No pressing engagements on the cards this week, so I can go back to some sort of 'ROUTINE' - Monday Doing Monday Stuff, Tuesday Doing Tuesday Stuff, etc., that sort of thing! I did take a trip down to GOZZY to visit the PRINTERS (Another bunch of CD COVERS to be manufactured!), and afterwards hit a couple of new (well, new to me anyway!) CHARITY SHOPS. I picked up a handful of FIFTYPENN'ORTH musical items (Antonio Forcione, Procol Harum, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Holly Johnson and Jonny Greenwood) and saw a rather nice winter jacket that'll have to wait until next time.
I don't know if anyone ELSE will ever want to hear it, but still... Once I've done it, it goes without saying that I probably won't listen to it myself for a while! I often wait months (even years!) before I listen to my own stuff "TO SEE IF I STILL LIKE IT". I find I can only be OBJECTIVE about it, if I distance myself from it to the extent that it is almost like listening to SOMEONE ELSE's music. TOTAL DETACHMENT. Ideally, I will play something back and I can't even remember how it was done or who was involved!
I paid another visit to the PHLEBO at HAEMO/ONCO. It seems appropriate that someone should suck my blood on HALLOWE'EN! I then took a bus down to the city centre for a walkabout...
🎵 The wheels on the bus go ROUND and ROUND, all day long!
The driver of the bus goes BEEP BEEP BEEP, all day long!
The floor of the bus, it stinks of piss... 🎵
It being HALLOWE'EN, I'm (TRICKing or) TREATing myself with a dip into a couple of FRANK ZAPPA shows from this day in history. I played most of the "Halloween 1977" 3CD set and then YouTube-streamed the 'new' "Halloween 1978" box. The majority of the long show from the 30th October is already familiar from previous releases, but the early show from the 27th was new to me... so that was fun...
Week from Monday 3rd November 2025 - On Tuesday, I had my telephone natter with Dr.D, who more or less confirmed everything that I'd discussed with THE KIDNEY PEOPLE. "STABLE"! Then on Wednesday, I concluded my obligations with THE EXPENSIVE TEETH PEOPLE, where they fixed a broken filling. Dentally fulfilled, with paperwork to show for it, I can now resume that all-important Saturday DRIPPING at the end of the month.
My APPOINTMENTS schedule now runs into the New Year (up to APRIL!), so it's time to open a new "DAY-A-PAGE" DIARY. While I was in town to visit the dentist, I availed myself of one from the Calendar Shop.
"Business" out of the way for a while, I treated myself to a ride to SOUTHAMPTON. I acquired the new ROBERT PLANT album from HMV. It's a splendid musical document, saturated with harmonised folksy vocs and wooden instrumentation, which is almost certain to feature in my PICK O'THE YEAR list. Needless to say, I also hit the OXFAM BOOKS & MUSIC across the road, where I got a 'more-up-to-date-than-the-one-I-already-have' edition of Cook and Morton's "PENGUIN GUIDE TO JAZZ ON CD", a massive tome that added a substantial weight to my shoulder bag. A couple of One-Ninety-Nine CDs were also gleaned, enhancing my ECM and REALWORLD collections. Sore feet were had afterwards.
🎵 'Tis the season to be...
finding all adverts to be even more annoying than they are the rest of the year.
Fa la la la, la la la la! 🎵
Week from Monday 10th November 2025 - I've got into the routine of doing the New York Times' "STRANDS" puzzle every morning, a sort of WORDSEARCH with a difference. Once I crack the code, I can usually finish it with a "PERFECT" score (i.e. one requiring no prompts). But there was one from a couple of months ago that I just couldn't find 'a way in' and it stared at me blankly on a piece of scrap paper on my desk. So once I'd solved today's puzzle, I've CHEATED at the older one by googling for the linking "SPANGRAM" phrase. Once I'd done that, the rest of the elusive puzzle was able to make sense. The clue was "BETTER THAN GOOD"...
T H E S T A
E P Y N U E
X E R L K S
T C E G A S
A T S R M D
I O N E I N
S P L A E P
N I A T S A
E P Y N U E
X E R L K S
T C E G A S
A T S R M D
I O N E I N
S P L A E P
N I A T S A
Google announced that they are using AI to 'upsample' older YouTube clips that pre-date "HD", so I was curious to see what they done to some of my crappy efforts from a couple of decades ago. At first glance, they appear to have artificially upped the FRAME RATE, so that things look a bit more stable... so that's good for the audience's eyes! (Not that I even have an 'audience' for this stuff!)
I took a look at the two earliest videos I still have, dating from my MySpace collaborations with Scandi-chums JOxFIELD PROJEx. Both pieces are fairly abstract and aimlessly swirly in nature. One in particular has now become, um... INTERESTING. What was frankly a pixilated low-rez mess has somehow acquired FACES! The kaleidoscopic blocky mush has been "hallucinated" with what look like stock shots of crowds at a festival. There's also a tuba player who pops up now and again! The AI bots have 'read' some of the shapeless smudges and tried to make sense of them, with HI-larious results. I recognise some of the same elements as appearing in other people's "psychedelic" videos, so it's clear where they come from.
No pressing engagements on the cards this week, so I can go back to some sort of 'ROUTINE' - Monday Doing Monday Stuff, Tuesday Doing Tuesday Stuff, etc., that sort of thing! I did take a trip down to GOZZY to visit the PRINTERS (Another bunch of CD COVERS to be manufactured!), and afterwards hit a couple of new (well, new to me anyway!) CHARITY SHOPS. I picked up a handful of FIFTYPENN'ORTH musical items (Antonio Forcione, Procol Harum, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Holly Johnson and Jonny Greenwood) and saw a rather nice winter jacket that'll have to wait until next time.
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