blogs are so 'last year', but then again Fruits de Mer is so last century it's as close to cutting-edge as we're ever likely to get (unless the HRT starts to kick in)...so this is the FdM blog and you're welcome to it.

(it's all supposed to be related to music but sometimes I lose the plot, with typically uninspiring results)

AN UNEXPECTED KOSMISCHE RELEASE

Recorded soon after "Sternenmädchen" Gille Lettmann's 1974 album 'Gilles Zeitschiff, Vol. 1', it has sat in someone's archives until now (makes you wonder what else might be found if there's a surge of interest in 70s German artists) YOU CAN BUY A COPY HERE

TALKING OF BEER

A trip to the Kingston Beer Festival took up most of a day - 70 beers on sale, and most of them bore a close resemblance to what I have called 'beer' for the last 50 years, probably because the festival was run by CAMRA.

I read that they ran out of beer by mid-afternoon on Saturday, so it sounds like it was a success.

STEPPING BACK IN TIME

Meeting up with some (very) old university friends, we gathered at a pub in London I first visited over 45 years ago - The Angel, in St Giles Circus; it became our regular back in the day, a Sam Smiths pub that at the time served decent beer at Northern (rather than London) prices.
I still occasionally call in and, although the prices have moved onwards and upwards, it's still a very decent pint and the pub itself looks EXACTLY the same as I remember it back in 1977 - definitely worth a visit.

CHATTING TO NODDY

found myself having a long conversation with Noddy Holder the other night - lovely bloke, I reminded him of him being caught snogging someone I used to work with, in Bloxwich in the early 70s...oh how we laughed. Then I woke up...yes, it was another example of, 'I Had Too Much Cheese Last Night'

REMEMBER US THIS WAY

OK, so the moment will pass but for a short period in spring 2023, Villa really were on a roll

ANOTHER RSD....

...and not a penny spent - it's moved on from being a matter of principle (I don't count buying the odd record off eBay after the event, but then again I never was very good with principles) and I've moved onto being outraged at how expensive the 2023 releases are - £170 for the Nuggets 5LP set?? I'd love it but it would be a push to justify it at half that price, and I wonder how much of that £170 finds its way to the surviving band members

AS RECOMMENDED BY...

...Pete Bowman, from The Arthur Park!
Many thanks to Pete for a bit of clever photoshopping.

DOING MUCH BETTER

My beloved Aston Villa are something of a roll these days, their latest victory being a 3-0 trouncing of Newcastle. I watched the game in a local pub with some mates and we were so good I couldn't talk about how good we were for fear of welling up...but I can tell you now that I haven't seen us play that well for over a decade (sorry, I must have something in my eye).

MUST DO BETTER

It's been a fairly quiet start to the month, so not a lot to talk about here - even my vinyl buying has been pretty limited, save for a test pressing of a Pete Namlook reissue, which is rather wonderful - but only if you're a Pete Namlook obsessive, like what I am

HOW DARE THEY?

The latest Gala Bingo TV ad uses Todd Rundgren's 'I Saw The Light' as the backing track - sacrilege!

IN NEED OF RETAIL THERAPY

Checking the usual online shops is all well and good, but sometimes you need a good thumb through stacks of records you've already got (possibly) or don't need (almost certainly); not a lot coming up locally in the way of fairs, but Guildford is always worth a brief look in - and there's one due in a couple of weeks' time.

A FLOOD OF FLOYD

There's seems to be a great outpouring of Pink Floyd live albums at the moment - none of them official, but are they legal? I still don't understand the copyright rules - I thought the pre-1963 rule applied, anything before that is fair game but from then on only live recordings that haven't been broadcast or released officially can be put out. Anyway, if you want to investigate the 'new releases' further, www.juno.co.uk is a good place to start.

YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP

Just got back from a quick break in Fuerteventura, including the opening of the annual carnival in Carraleyo - a slightly surreal experience as the only entertainment on the big stage was a very, very long speech by an elderly guy who seemed to be the town's answer to Sadiq Khan, dressed like one of the 'Three Amigos' and was accompanied round the stage by a remote controlled wooden cart, which moved occasionally to the theme tune to 'Knight Rider'.

A couple of days later, we had the Fee Waybill lookalike contest - drag artists in Spain have clearly all been brought up by fans of The Tubes.

SOD THE CATHEDRAL

We managed a flying visit to Winchester, and just had time to call in on The Record Man, who has had a stall on the High Street for years (Thursday to Saturday - mainly second hand, with the occasional new LP) and Elephant Records, which is hidden away down a side street and promotes itself with a very small silhouette of an elephant in a window and nothing else; it looked like it was closed, but wasn't, and any shop with sections headed 'krautrock' and a'ambient' has to be worth a vist.

THE LION KING

Bet you didn't expect that - neither did I, but tickets were a Christmas gift from one of my kids and we had a family outing to experience a musical that's been going longer than FdM.
It was the first musical I'd seen since Spamalot about 15 years ago and a good time was had by all, especially by the prat sitting behind me to laughed louder than a foghorn at any line that didn't involve a lion being killed, maimed or expelled from the pack.

A total prat - but he was about 20 stone and wore a t-shirt that had a print of a bare torso on it, so i decided that he probably wouldn't appreciate me interrupting his fun.

FIRST GIG OF THE YEAR

Another visit to the Prince Albert in Brighton, with one of my kids. I think Sick Days did a good line in grunge, while Let's Swim, Get Swimming were even better - a math rock(?) instrumental duo! I say 'I think' as apparently the Prince Albert was the eighth pub we called in on during the evening so my memory is about as hazy as some of the craft IPA I had to drink

A TRIP TO BEN'S RECORDS, GUILDFORD

visiting Ben's Records in Guildford is always fun, but this week was particularly interesting as there's been quite a clear-out and restocking since I last called in. I came away with more records and less money than I'd planned, including a rather nice Amon Duul live in 1969 LP and a rather odd 'Eliminators' instrumental LP on Pye, consisting mainly of covers - from 'Wipeout' to 'Thunderbirds' to Eleanor Rigby'; a studio project that seems to have been the brainchild of Cyril Stapleton!

A SINKING SHIP?

somebody recently had a go at selling their collection of FdM singles on eBay for £600...

...and failed

HAVE THE RULES CHANGED?

There seem to be an awful lot of (and probably a lot of awful) live recordings from the sixties and seventies surfacing at the moment, available through mainstream mail order services, such as Juno.
I've lost track as to what is and isn't permissable, but it's starting to look like a bit of a free-for-all.

YOU'VE GOT TO LAUGH...

...unless you're a Villa supporter. The only upside being that I wasn't there and the Man City vs Chelsea game was on TV, so I was spared having to sit through it.

HELLO 2023

...seen in through a bit of a blur in an Irish pub, fuelled by Guiness and Bushmills - there are worse ways to start a year

Here are some of our earlier ramblings.... PREVIOUS BLOGGINGS

...and some even earlier ones... PREVIOUS BLOGGINGS

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