White Noise

Occasionally; only very occasionally, my mother will play music that grabs my attention.

An example of which is White Noise.

I was round her house a few weeks ago and she played an album of her teenage years, their debut album which she had to specially order from Fopp, Electric Storm, released on Island Records in 1969. Their myspace tells us:

"the debut White Noise album featured Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson, who had worked for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and David Vorhaus, who had studied classical orchestral bass playing and electronics.
Tne instrumentation consisted of early electronic instruments and a huge amount of tape manipulation, the standard techniques of the Workshop in those days. The album only emerged on CD - in a "matrix mixed" format - as late as 1996, again on Island, but was rapidly deleted. NOW RE-ISSUED BY UNIVERSAL"...

...and it is just incredible really. Each song sounds different to the other and it so enjoyable to sit back and listen to this masterpiece. I strongly recommend the song Here come the Fleas.

The amazing thing is, White Noise is still touring and making albums. They have a forthcoming concert at the London Planetarium. Just wait until I tell my mum, she is going to flip!

Suzi Quatro Unzipped

This is Suzi Quatro's autobiography which is one of my fabulous buys at Fopp. I finished reading it on Thursday and I must say, it has to be up there with my favourite books of all time.

I have to admit, although I have never possessed a record of hers, I have been a fan since I was 9 years old when my mum took me and my sister to see her live at Butlins. She came on at 11PM and I was asleep in my chair! But boy, did her music wake me up!

Okay, she's no Robert Plant. But she has an amazing voice and she has written some wonderful songs.

Her autobiography was definitely written by her, 100%. And the way in which she tells her story is so unique, intimate and honest. I just found the whole thing interesting and I was actually sad when I finished the book!

For those that don't know, she played Leather Tuscerado in Happy Days, she played Annie Oakley in the West End show Annie Get Your Gun. She had major UK hits with "Devil Gate Drive" and "Can the Can" and she can count Elvis Presley as a fan!

Her life has been so interesting but what you get from the book is the soul of a truly inspirational and humble person.





In other news, I have successfully completed my PTLLS!

Youtube

I don't know if everyone is aware of this but Youtube has been stopped from showing music videos whose rights belong to certain record companies. This means that a lot less music videos are available to watch now. I can't find any articles to link to but if you go to Youtube and look for ten random music videos you are pretty much guaranteed to hit a wall with one or two.

So...what do we do? Well, how about making your own music video and putting it on Youtube? It's not as difficult as it sounds. Buy or download your favourite song and get a good camera or better yet, enlist the help of a friend who knows a thing or two about making films and taking good photographs, put your film with the song and voila!

I'm sure I am not the only music lover out there who, when listening to her playlist conjures up their own images in their head. I think it'd be good to turn this into a real art form. You could also use it as an opportunity to advertise a music or a photography website.

In other news, head over to Fopp! It's a brilliant record shop that stocks mainly music by talented artists and interesting books and films. And it's really, really cheap! To find your nearest store go to http://www.foppreturns.com/

I bought Suzi Quatro's autobiography - Unzipped for £4 and Robert Plant and Jimmy Page's album, No Quarter for £3! I can't wait to sink my teeth into these.

I'm still involved with Oxjam and will be keeping you updated with all my activities with them.

Last Thursday I went to the Poetry Cafe at 22 Betterton Street in Convent Garden and picked up a load of Poetry books for free. Unbelievable. They are really good books with not just actual poems but also interviews with poets and interesting articles.