It's that time of year to follow the migration patterns of gnarly hippies and frazzled rockers through the ages - and go green and escape to the country..
After a last minute spin to cobbled and cosy Medieval Rye last summer, we're itching for a revisit to sunny Stow on the Wold. Our 12th visit, has been booked, and we'll be rolling around the wolds for a while. Albums packed in the holiday hamper include newbies from Sharon Jones, the Len Price 3 and Beck
But before we pack up and ping off - I'll be spinning in a few tunes at The Railway tonight, around Oil City Rollers - Bif Bam Pow booming out their Thames Delta R 'n B and Estuary boogie...
Expect this freshly pressed retro-groover from the House of Blow Up to make an appearance during the wing-ding..
While I'm away - I'll re-plant a spring mix from backawhiles..
View from the New England Coffee House, Digbeth Street
So where have I been for the last couple o' weeks then? Rolling around the Cotswolds and marching around The Marches mostly.
Parked up in Stow-on-the-Wold for the first week - (our 11th visit since 2003) and red-ringing a list of trips and visits that gathered together: the Wychwood Brewery, Gloucester Cathedral, Sudeley Castle, a ramble-around the footpaths passing Quarwood - a country bundle that was home to John Entwistle until his death in 2002. Evenings were generally spent scanning the Olympics - (the women's shotput turned out to be our new fave spectator sport - mostly because of those blood-bubbling yells) or a soothing wander to our favourite Stow local the Queen's Head - and one of finest pints you'll ever taste, Donnington's BB.
When the light was good - what appeared to be a mirage in the distance, turned out to be Birmingham - ho hum!
Then away to Church Stretton for a few days hoofing up, up and away around the Shropshire Hills: Hazler, Three Fingers Rock and Caradoc. Squeezing in an Ironbridge run and a one day dip into Wales (Newtown and it's W H Smith museum. Knighton and the Offa's Dyke centre)..
Finally, topping off the break with a couple of days at home, cycling to see the Olympic Mountain Bike circuit fitted around my old stomping ground of Hadleigh Castle. And to wrap up - on Sunday, a run to the Leigh Fishing Festival and a chance to step a leg onto one of Leigh's Dunkirk little ships - The Endeavour..
Of all the albums repeat played on our outings - Fay Hallam and The Bongolian, The Pierces - it was the Duckworth Lewis Method that turned out to be the songbook lodging itself in our noggins. Particularly...
We didn't get to the Bronx, but Battery Park, yes - on our last full day in New York, passing through on route to the Staten Island Ferry for a sail-by sighting of the Statue of Liberty.
So what was New York like? Everything we'd hoped for at twice the scale. An all-absorbing, truly incredible metropolis - a clean, friendly and super-safe city (we were strolling around the back streets at 11 pm, riding the subways and mooching Central Park as dusk turned to dark – and felt perfectly fine and unrattled). Instantly familiar from films, TV (and comics) we were immediately installed, settled and at home from the first footsteps into Fifth Avenue.
At last: the lengthy wait since Record Breakers is over
So what sights were seen - Harlem and Spanish Harlem (by night), Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building, New York Public Library, the Dakota Building, Central Park, the Chelsea Hotel, the Flat Iron building, West Village, Greenwich Village, SoHo, Times Square, Union Square, Washington Square, Brooklyn (both DUMBO and Williamsburg by way of two visits), a panoramic spread from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building (with 25 miles visibility).
86 floors straight down
And take note any future trip-takers some of the finest views to be had came from: the East River Ferry and its skyline commuter cruise - followed by the hair-tingling walk back across Brooklyn Bridge, the High Line and its newly-landscaped elevated railway aspect and finally gliding/hovering across East River riding the Roosevelt Island Tramway.
Roosevelt Island Tramway (as seen in Spider-Man 1) - yes we did brave a ride
For eats Sarge’s Deli is the place to park up (where I had my first Reuben) and my recommendation for a chow down – 24 hour service, on the premises prepared meats and home-made corn beef without any of the rush and bustle of Carnegie Deli or the NY's higher profile eateries - and is almost exclusively non-touristy. For shops J J’s Hat Centre will fit all your get ahead needs.
I've never returned from any holiday - anywhere! unable to shake off the sparkle of a visit like our trip to New York.
Grand Central Station and the Chrysler Building
Central Park and city
If you do get the chance to go - jump at it! I'm already prepping a tick-list for round two... while listening to New York's finest jazz station WBGO, which has given jazz a new and panoramic extra dimension after hearing it soundtracking the city of hootin'-tootin' cabs, steaming manholes and endlessly stretching skyscrapers
Looking south Brooklyn on the left and New Jersey on the right - Flat Iron in the middle
Should you fancy a squint at the full set of New York Pics have a peep hereabouts.
Only a couple of trips to record shops: Rebel Rebel in Greenwich Village where a Fania comp and Joe Batann were bagged, and Earwax in Brooklyn for DJ Shadow and Sharon Jones...
Perhaps it sounds daft - but, I've been on an electrical nutty buzz for New York ever since seeing Roy Castle trumpeting a Record Breakers New York special - (around 74-ish) which, fanfared it's arrival by way of the Bernstein tune below. The scale, the scope and giddy-swirl of this sparkling zippy city, beamed mid-week(probably halfday closing too) into a compressed Essex maisonette, birthed a nutty buzz that became compounded by Kojak's opening titles, the Batman TV series, endless re-reads of Spider-Man/Marvel ..and of course Taxi Driver, Saturday Night Fever, Bowery-based punk and on and on and on.
A List/itinerary has been heavily prepared for our trip. It includes Top of the Rock (photo above), Empire State, Grand Central Station, SoHo, West Village, the Highline, Central Park, Brooklyn and, an infinite list of deli's, bagel bars and pizza places...
So, I'll see you in seven days or thereabouts and leave you with last Tuesday's Podrophenia, featuring a live acoustic session from special guest and former The Shopkeeper Appeared artist - Andy J Gallagher..
Photo by Markus Reeves who's down with us this weekend and will be in session
between 1 and 2 on Saturday here...
I'm on my hol's this week - at home. Well, half term innit? so not much time for
the usual bloggings and banterings.
Being in lazy blogger mode, I'm going to play the occasional Re-up card and pitch in
a couple o' home-made comps you may have missed. Two acoustic autumnal mixes of slow burning smokey smoulderers..
It's back to all the regulation rattling and rambling next week
Being parked up in Sandbanks for seven days.... what was meant to be a week of Purbeck bumbles, stumbles and strolls, turned out to be mostly a run of beach-bumming: crabbing (blennies and Crabzilla vs Mega-shrimp), boat trips or just splashing about a bit.
Although it's all gone super swanky since the last time we were down that way.
Sandbanks and it's surrounding suburbs seem to have been rebuilt with Jetsons-go-Graceland mansions - swank-pad second homes for the multi-minted set apparently. Average price - four mill'! New builds badged and branded with futurist titles: Bowie, Moonraker and Thunderbird (below)..
Then there's your eye-boggling Sunseeker yachts for the ultra-loaded (think Bond villain chic) pulling out of Poole harbour. Handily we were pitched up just literally 2 mins from the beach, ye olde chain ferry and the site of Mimi Lennons former house. Perhaps why Liam Gallagher was spotted there in May then..
In keeping with the Tracy Island scenery, while we were buzzing or bumming about the 'Monte Carlo of the UK' the Album of the outing turned out to be Devo's Something For Everybody - the infectious rising intro riff of Don't Shoot hooking its way into all our heads (see also March On)
And worra contrast! One evening - chips on Bournemouth prom and the most sky-blazing sunset ever seen, followed by driving through door-high flash floods the next morning...
After a week on the lounge-a-bout at home, we're down to Dorset for a few days, on the Purbeck peninsula above to be exact. Brownsea Island, Dancing ledge, Studland Bay are all on the
to do list - but any holiday hints and tips (or pubs) are aways welcome..
While we're zipping around and about doing The Only Way is Wessex, this online
musical allotment breaks the four year blog-barrier..so to celebrate I've laid on a
couple of musical buffets..Summer Shakedown volumes 1 and 2..(3 and 4 are here and
here).
So, I'll see you for more of the usual in a week and bit. Or thereabouts..
Cotswold visit the tenth saw us revisiting a few old favourite paths and places and ticking off some new to-do locations: Oxford, Snowshill Manor, the Hook Norton Brewery
It really is the perfect place to spend a spring break - the space, the silence, the green lanes and lack of traffic, spotting frisky-legged lambs a'leaping and fidgeting themselves about the fields or having yourself a lazy bumble around the daffodil and limestone landscapes.
On a musical motif, two local-to-Stow ledge's include bass players - Alex James, whose farm is just a couple of villages up the road and John 'The Ox' Entwhistle, whose Quarwood Mansion can be seen here..
Although a pint in Keith Moon's pub that-was in Chipping Norton still remains on the next time tick-list. On the subject of pubs, if you ever find yourself in Stow The Queen's Head is a must visit - Donnington Brewery's BB is the fruitiest pint I've tasted since this.
Rounding off the run was a long weekend in sunny Shropshire, where spin-outs included a white-knuckle drive/crawl across The Long Mynd, nipping into Wales (Powis Castle and Rhayader). Getting back to bassics, our Shropshire accom' was pitched just a short hop from Fishpool Farm - Ronnie Lane's post Faces home.
Plonk Update: Even though the cottage I've snapped is signed 'Fishpool Farm' on the gate - digging about the net since, I think Ronnie's may have been the next one up. I'll clarify when we revisit
Unusually we hadn't included any of Plonk's output in the albums packed, but fave tunes soundtracking the trip turned out to be some XTC outtakes from the Fuzzy Warbles volumes..
Well boys, girls bloggers and blogettes we're away for a week and bit. Rolling round the Cotswolds and revisiting sunny Stow and its surrounding areas. Already I'm mentally stretching out at the very thought of doing a smart right into Burford 'Gateway to the Cotswolds' and leaving all the usual fuss and faffery over the hills far way.
Although, one event that could have kept me anchored back in Southend happens this coming Sunday, when, local keyboard whiz kid and compositional pixie David Woodcock unwraps his third album Splinters at The Railway Hotel..
Splinters will be showcased with an afternoon of live music where Dave will be joined by the album's collaborators for live run throughs of his 15 newly minted tunes. I'm unable to get Splinters in my mitts until we're back, but both of Dave's previous outings Homemade and kitchen Sink will be packed in the holiday napsack.
So while we're away from home and way out west - I'll leave you with you a song about our home town - a sort of Blur, Kinks and Madness stomper framed around an actual Southend street.
And yes all David Woodcock songs really are this good..
After chowing down a minimum of two Dad's Army episodes per night, how could we not detour off to Walmington on Sea Thetford on the way home from our north Norfolk jaunt. So what's to spot...
Nether Row (renamed Percy Street in the show): pops up frequently in Walmington street shots, including the corking but rarely repeated missing-knickers episode Man Hunt.
Three raw recruits raring to sign up for the Walmington Home Guard
Thetford Guildhall (Walmington Town Hall): the Time on My Hands episode (or The German Pilot Trapped on the Clock Tower One to give it it's full title) is centred almost entirely on the 19th century clocktower..
You'll also find Mill Lane, perhaps Thetford's most viewed road seen during the closing moments of The Deadly Attachment (or The 'Don't tell him, Pike!'One to give it it's full title), The Bell Inn - lodgings for the cast during location work, also used for the opening shots of the debut episode. All these, the Dad's Army Museum and plenty more Walmington backdrops are all doable and viewable within a one hour wander..
We would have factored in a trip to the Bressingham Steam Museum if we'd known of the gold contained therein. But that's another trip for another time...
Barton Turf: whistling distance from our holiday digs...
We're off for a few days much needed breather and break next week. To Walmington-on-Sea in fact, well not yer actual Kent/Sussex village, but nipping about some parts of Norfolk occasionally spottable in Dad's Army location scenes - it's the flint walls that give it away. Cromer crab, Roys of Wroxham a trip to Narge and boating on the broads are all possibilities at the mo'.
In other news: I only realised a few days after last Sunday had passed, this place had clocked up three years on the blog-o-meter. I had been planning a third anniversary jamboree of sorts - but it's all slipped sideways over the summer. Luckily, those jolly ol' rockers The Wolfmen have allowed me to give an exclusive debut airing to their flute-tootin remix of the latest single July 20. It's the sort of Hanna-Barbera bouncer perfect for lolloping off on your hol's.
So I'll see you in a week or there abouts my booties. And perhaps we'll catch up on the missing Dear Diary posts when I'm back.
What a week *sighs* of lazy loafing and sunny strolls around Stow-on-the-Wold. Where, bolt-holed away from the usual rush and bustle, a seven day stretch-out feels more like a fortnight. Highlights of this trip (our 9th now) include.
A cross-country ramble to Chastleton House. Sold by Robert Catesby (mastermind of Gunpowder/Parliment plot) to fund Guy Fawkes fireworks.
Following a week of local based bumbling: pubs, beaches and bikes - for the next week it's Southwold here we come (isn't that a Smiths album?)
If you've never visited, the highlights include: Suffolk's tea colured sea, the Adnams brewery, Aspall's Suffolk Cyder, the Southwold Picture Palace, the pier, crabbing in Walberswick, one of the UK's finest chippies rated Number One (here) just a nip away in Aldeburgh, - and Southwold's high street lighthouse. But like Mrs PM says - why the high street? Aren't lighthouses meant to be on a rocky outcrop, spit or somesuch - not plonked next to the pub and brewery surely?
If you've never visited why not take a taste test here - Southwold tour
PSWe're not leaving until tomorrow - but I'm bored of usual holiday tunes (XTC, Beatles, Monty Python albums) having played them too many times - so any recommendations for must have holiday listens would be appreciated..
So, I'll leave you with Two summer soundalikes that were on my subs bench for the last Podrophenia..
Hurrah, back at last - after a week spent sampling several nuggets of 'Northerness'
Chips and Gravy (eaten by the Huddersfield canal, and in sight of a Victorian factory chimney - while drinking Dandelion and Burdock) Yorkshire curd and Yorkshire pud' with sausages and onion gravy (curd and pud not eaten not at the same time) A canal boat trip into the Stanedge Tunnel A bacon butty at Sid's Cafe The Bronte Museum Getting to the summit of West Nabb A windy drive across a blindingly misty Saddlworth Moor Real Bakewell pudding
Two tunes that turned out to be all-round family favourites, amongst the noshing, sipping and bumbling about were...
PS - the ticklist for another Great North Run may include... Trying a Spam Fritter Having a portion of Pie and Peas A revisit to the Riverhead Brewery Tap - with it's luscious beer brewed at the pub
I'm on something of a Beatles buzz at the mo' - The White Album, Love and a self compiled CD being the most played albums on our recent Cotswolds run. The Fab's catalogue is something I occasionally drift away from distracted by other old stuff, odd stuff and new stuff but will always loop back to The Beatles at some point.
So what a result then, while bumbling around Broadway last week swerving the squall, to find that sixties scene snapper Tom Murray was in town to talk and chat about his set of previously unseen photos from the Beatles 1968 'Mad Day Out' (now being sold as limited run of signed prints), well we had to hoof along and lend an ear didn't we? You can see all 23 shots here - which look stunning blown up and framed (I bought 'Coming Apart' shown below) - but why just 23? Tom only got a last minute invite from Don McCullin (the centrefold photo on the Red and Blue greatest hits albums is one of Don's 'Mad Day Out' shots) to join a 'pop group' photo shoot, but wasn't told which 'pop group' - so only grabbed one camera and two rolls of film.
So, how about a barometric anthem for this summer - which ironically never popped into play on last week's roll around the Cotswolds. 'Rain' seems to be the tipping point as the Fabs go from loveable moptops to furry freak beaters. Points to check out are..
Maccas chipped tooth and puffy lip (the result of Scooter accident while on his hol's - and a reason for his 'Pepper' period 'tache).
