Tag: music

Project365 #83

~ Phil Lengthorn ~ Leave a comment

Today you are in for a treat. Not only do you get another daily picture that shows what an exciting life I lead, but you also get to listen to me waffle on about music.

What's brought this on I hear you say. Well actually it was a spam email. Let me explain…

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a company called Vinyl Me, Please who were inviting me to subscribe to their service. It turns out their service is rather interesting: limited edition LP, original artwork print plus a custom cocktail recipe (not quite sure about the cocktail recipe). You have no idea what the LP will be; it could be anything from rap to jazz to country to funk. The price you pay for the subscription? $38 per month. Yep, you're right, USA only – unless you want to whack another $20 for delivery.

Now, I like a bit of vinyl, it's not the only form of music I buy, far from it – I love a CD, download through iTunes, streaming through Spotify, I've even got bloody cassettes – but like I said, I like a bit of vinyl, so I was interested.

So I googled it, well to be precise, I googled 'vinyl subscription uk'. What did the mighty Google come up with? Well a few bits and pieces. But this company caught my eye: Wax & Stamp.

Now may be a good time to insert today's Project365. Just going off on a tangent: 83 days into 2015 already?!…

So what is Wax & Stamp all about? Well it is a vinyl subscription service based in the UK. For £26 per month you get a couple of LPs (or a LP and an EP) – one chosen by the company, one chosen by some guest selector. You have no control over what is sent – all you know is that it will be a new release – but it could be pretty much anything.

Sounds interesting – but I'm still undecided.

 

Frank Hamilton at Junction 2

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Sunday saw a visit to Junction 2 in Cambridge to see the fabulous Frank Hamilton. Now I’ve been to the bigger brother, The Junction, a few times but this is a first for Junction 2. A cool little venue, about 200ish capacity, very swish, comfy seats and it’s even got its own little balcony level.

Frank was, as is usual, very good. Great set list of all the favourites including an impromptu visit to the balcony to play ‘Thinking Back’ unplugged. I’ve seen Frank a few times and every time it gets better and better, it sounded great on Sunday. On the back of #onesongaweek he seems to be catching the eye of a few people, new EP ‘Summer’ out soon and in the midst of another succesful tour. All seems good in the world of Frank Hamilton; long may it continue.

 

Tedious links….

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In my last blog post I decided that my mantra for my Half-marathon PB Challenge would simply be 'Get Better' and then posted the video from Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip of the track 'Get Better' (see what I'd done there?). Now I'm not normally a fan of electro hip-hop rap, but Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip have written some fabulous stuff, and lyrically they are very good.

It was listening to the lyrics of 'Get Better' that got me thinking and ultimately the reason why I am blogging today. The lyrics include these lines:

“Like Billy says, whether you have or you not have wealth, the system might fail you so don't fail yourself”

This is a reference to the mighty Billy Bragg and the track 'To Have And To Have Not' from the album Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy. In the past this would have caused me to dig out the CD and whack it on the stereo, although nowadays a quick search on YouTube is all you need to do to. So here you have it, a classic track from the Bard of Barking circa 1985…..

As if that link wasn't tedious enough, I recalled another recent artist who mention the mighty Bragg: Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. The track is 'Hand Me Downs' from the album Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly and includes the lines:

“I'd learnt more from transit vans and Bragg, than I'd ever learnt in class, a lifelong education, from punk rock 101”

So, may I present the fabulous Sam Duckworth in the guise of GCWCF, although no video of 'Hand Me Downs' (sometimes it is possible that youtube can let you down), instead 'Find The Time'…..

To complete a trio of videos today, and a link so tedious it barely actually exists, we have Mumford & Sons. I came across this fantastic video today whilst reading some blogs, that is the link, I saw it on a blog! First time I've seen this video, not sure how I've missed it up to this point. 'Hopeless Wanderer'….absolutely brilliant…..

Cushty!

 

Day 13 #juneathon ….but why?

~ Phil Lengthorn ~ 9 Comments

Come September, and the start of the new academic year, our school is changing the structure of the school day. We have new start and finish times, longer lessons and Wednesday afternoon students will be able to choose an 'elective'. As well as a couple of other things I decided to offer a running club.

The students are in the process of choosing 'electives' for next year. Today, one of my Y9s was asking me for details of the running club, I couldn't really help with any details because I don't actually know them myself. But whilst chatting the conversation turned to our experiences of running. This lad is very keen on running and whilst talking, the topic of Juneathon came up. When I explained to him what Juneathon is all about he looked slightly surprised and said, “What? You actually run every day of the month?” I tried to explain to him that I do and he seemed reasonably happy with my answer. However, a bit later in the lesson, the subject had obviously been playing on his mind, he said, “You run every day? Isn't that bad for you? Shouldn't you give your body a chance to recover?” I tried to explain to him that some runs are short, some runs are long, some fast and some slow, and that as long as you listen to your body it should all be ok.

Which brings me to the purpose of tonight's post….why am I actually taking part in Juneathon?

  • Exercise. Seems obvious I know, I do plenty of running without Juneathon, or Janathon for that matter, but I suppose by taking part in these activities it actual forces me to keep exercising throughout the year.
  • Challenge. I like a challenge: 2012 was proof of that, setting myself something different to do every month; before that in 2011 it was project365; even this year I am taking part in '1 second every day'. I like the challenge of completing something, Juneathon is great for that, because when you get 25 days into the month it all starts to become a bit of a struggle.
  • Music. I love listening to all kinds of music. Juneathon gives me the chance to download some tracks onto the phone, get out of the house, and enjoy an hour or so of listening to everything and anything with no distractions.
  • Thinking. It gives you a chance to just think….and I think we all need that.
  • Blogging. I've been blogging since December 2010 – so Juneathon is just an excuse to do more of that.

Today's mileage = 6.29

Total Juneathon mileage = 65.44

Mojo level = very high

 

Day 9 #juneathon

~ Phil Lengthorn ~ 1 Comment

The day after a late night at Long Division Festival. Saw some great bands: a first sight of Allo Darlin'; a fantastic The Wave Pictures, a slightly strange Dead Flowers; and a very funny Mark Wynn. As well a few rather dubious ones. I think a post solely related to the festival may soon appear later in the week.

Today's run was a steady short run under a rather cloudy sky. Without the dog, who is in the proverbial dog house after yesterday's shenanigans. After the unplanned long run yesterday, today was always going to be a short one. Felt good once I began but still decided to take it easy.

Today's mileage = 3.56 (at a steady 8 min/mile pace)

Total Juneathon mileage = 45.75

Mojo level = high

 

Juneathon Day 3 plus Billy Bragg

~ Phil Lengthorn ~ 3 Comments

Last night….

The fantastic Billy Bragg, The Bard of Barking, at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Great gig, great venue…overall a great night. I did manage to take a few pictures before the grumpy old bag told me not to – apparently pictures are not allowed in the home of Shakespeare. I'm not entirely sure what they thought I was going to do with pictures….sell them for £millions?

NB. The empty seats you can see behind Billy were the only empty seats in the theatre.

Today….

Day 3 of Juneathon. This was intended to be a nice gentle couple of miles around the woods with the dog, but because of this…..

….it ended up as over 5 miles because a run to the ponds was required to let the boy wash himself off.

Today's mileage = 5.24

Total Juneathon mileage = 14.05

Mojo level = very high (still?)