Just like the old days ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

This weekend I did something I've not done in a long time. I unwrapped the cellophane from around a new CD ..

(I almost feel that, at this point, I should explain to younger readers exactly what a CD is!)

How exciting it was to open up that clear little box and listen to versions of songs I've never heard before. It brought it all back. All that rushing to record shops to buy the new Blondie single, and waiting outside HMV for The Smiths latest album. I can even remember when CDs came into my life, picking them up second-hand in America and then having to buy a CD player when I got back to the UK ..

My friend says I'm stuck in the past when it comes to my taste in music but I try, I really try, to listen to new stuff that I might like. The trouble is, I don't like it. Music really was better in my day (© My Dad, circa 1978)

So yes, it's been a long time since I bought a new CD. The irony is, it was a CD of Manchester band The Diagram Brothers 'Peel Sessions' recordings, which came out in 1980 ..

Ooops ..  

A day without music ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's not a lot of moshing going on at the moment, is there? Not that I go gigging very much these days, but it's a shame for 'the kids', who are being deprived of a very vital part of their lives. I couldn't have lived without bands and music when I was in my twenties ..

As if to illustrate the point, I happened upon my diary for February 1981. It tells me that, this exact week forty years ago, I went to see Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Bad Manners and the UK Subs, and also that The Spliff Radio Show were on the Old Grey Whistle Test and there was a new single from a band with the very apt name of The Photos ..

Just to show that's not a fluke, the next week I went to see The Drones, the Expressos, U2 and The Freshies, and the week after that I saw Duran Duran, Discharge and The Revillos ..

Out of all those I can only remember the U2 gig, which was at Manchester Poly, where there was a big painting of Dennis the Menace on the wall. Gives a bit more meaning to their song 'A day without me' ..

It's a long road ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking of having my yacht re-sprayed. It looks so boring in white ..

Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. When I get a yacht I will no doubt, at some stage, have it re-painted. I will have bought a yacht because the film rights to a book I've written will get taken up by a big Hollywood studio and I'll be assigned the role of artistic director to oversee accurately creative filming. The film rights will have been bought after an unsightly mega-tussle because my book will be such a massive best-seller that all the studios will want to get it to the big screen. The book will have been so successful because nine publishers all wanted to get their hands on it and the highest bidder paid out big styley. The publishers went crazy for the book because seven separate literary agents all wanted to represent me ..

And this is where I wake up again. At the 'literary agent' bit. Yes, I'm having a bit of trouble with that bit. 

Like a zillion other 'writers', I don't seem to be able to get anyone interested in taking it on. By sheer coincidence, I got yet another rejection email this morning but an email from one agent described perfectly to me how hard it is to get selected. She receives, she tells me, five manuscripts every .. what? Every week? Every day? Folks, she receives five manuscripts an HOUR!

So, the yacht, the respray, the mega-tussles .. it'll all have to wait. I've got a long road ahead of me ..