(Another) Another Train

A couple of years ago I was corresponding with Pete Paphides for a piece he was writing on obscure record shops, and I did a mixtape for him. He said that half way thro' listening to it he'd logged onto CD Baby (other online stores are available) and was buying up most of the stuff off it! Including Another Tain by Pete Morton. He'd never heard it before, loved it and commented that it was 'just the right side of soppy.'

I wonder if Pete P's heard Pete M's reworked version of the song he did with with Full House?

Pete Morton & Full House: Another Train mp3

We fill our heads with the craziest things that only break our hearts

Sock drawer. May contain memories

New socks. Old socks; some with holes in. Ticket stubs. Receipts. Cuff links. Photographs. Diaries. Birthday cards. Postcards. More photographs. Phone numbers. Guitar picks. Pens. More photographs. Keys. Invitations. Elastic bands. Unchecked lottery ticket. Spanish phrase book. Loose change. Map of New York. Oyster card. Book marks. Theatre programmes. More bloody photographs. Memories; a ton of memories.

And that's just my real sock drawer; don't get me started on my digital sock drawer. Or the one that lives in my head. What was it Ben Watt said, 'You can push things to the back of your mind, but you can never forget.'

The deeply unfashionable Alan Parsons may or may not have been talking about sock drawers back in 1982, but he too was plowing a similar furrow.

The Alan Parsons Project: Old & Wise

Radio Times

It's a well known fact that the seventies were brought to you by the colour brown - cars, wallpaper, furniture, clothes. In fact, flossy, pictured above on the sleeve of Your One Hundred Best Tunes (a Decca release, which tied in with the Light Programme radio show of the same name), is a perfect case in point.
I don't know how she's done it, but, as a result of some seventies related condition, she's managed to morph into her brown armchair and appears to be reaching out to her brown transistor radio in a vain attempt to reverse the procedure.
And all the while a well thumbed copy of the Radio Times clings to her cold, lifeless hands.

How can he be sure?

David Cassidy has just announced his retirement. During a recent live show he forgot the words to a number of his hit records and at one point tumbled off the stage; he hadn't fallen off the wagon, as some initially thought, but instead has been diagnosed with dementia.
The former pop idol has not had much in the way of luck lately. Rehab clinics, courtrooms and the back of police vehicles have been his backdrop for the last few years; the days when he could sell out venues faster than the Beatles are long gone. Ditto his poster boy image.
For anyone interested in where it all started to go wrong - after a handful of years where it was all going so incredibly right - I seriously recommend his self-penned memoir 'Could it be Forever?'
And if you fancy some tasty reworkings of his old 45s, look no further than his rather excellent 1998 album Old Trick, New Dog.

David Cassidy - How Can I Be Sure?

"Please yourself"

Peter Skellern (1947 - 2017)

I was saddened to hear yesterday of Peter Skellern's passing. The obituaries in today's papers and online all seem to be cut & pasted from the same handful of facts some rookie journalist has cobbled together from Wikipedia: born in Bury, could play the piano a bit, had a hit in the early seventies, and became a priest not long before pegging it aged 69.

Not that I can add much more to the plaudits bestowed on him by his family, friends and fans. Other than to say I will always remember him as Carter Brandon in the radio adaptation of Uncle Mort's North Country by Peter Tinniswood. Skellern's monosyllabic one liners teed up his laconic uncle's withering monologues perfectly.

  They gave Carter Brandon a week off work, so he thought he'd spend the time taking day trips in his car. He took his Uncle Mort with him.
  It was an ancient Ford Zodiac with sad headlamps and limp seat belts.

'Shall I sit in the front seat, Carter?'

'Please yourself.'