Author: Ian

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Blood Sugar Sex Magik – Red Hot Chilli Peppers

I have a feeling the Chilli Peppers along with some other bands mentioned before are somewhat over-rated. I bought the album What Hits? and I really liked it. The songs were fast and raw.

I bought this album. Now, I can recognise it is a good album and I can almost see why people rave about it and the Chillis but they just don’t do it for me and so are over-rated.

“Suck My Kiss” and “Give It Away” are my favourites. The rest don’t bother me. I really disliked the Chillis when they became super popular (it’s in my psyche to dislike popular stuff) and stuff like “Dani California” etc just makes me want to puke.

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Blade Runner – Vangelis

Every now and then you need a bit of chill-out music. Where would someone like me turn for that?

Films.

Most of my classical and easy listening knowledge comes from music in films. Blade Runner is an excellent film made atmospheric by the music contained within.

This is that music. Simple.

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Blackout – Scorpions

In the late 80s those cheeky Scorpions had a massive hit with “Winds Of Change” from the Crazy World album. I bought that album – no bad songs there just classic straight talking rock.

After a while I bought this on music cassette. The cover has a man screaming with his eyes being impaled with eating forks. Just sayin’!

Look, this was released in 1982 and I listen to it still. The songs are really good and catchy. It’s not ground breaking rock, in fact it’s rather derivative, but it is a very well constructed album and brilliant. How many great German bands are there? [quite a few in these pages].

There isn’t a bad song. My personal favourites are:

  • Blackout
  • Can’t Live Without You
  • Now!
  • Arizona
  • China White

There you have it. I’m a fan of the Scorpions. Not enough to have a tattoo but a fan.

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The Blackening – Machine Head

Years ago I bought the Burning Red album by Machine Head and was impressed with the dark sound. I remember I was living in Brentwood at the time so this was 1999 or so. About a year ago I decided to buy another Machine Head album. I got this one. It’s alright. It sounds the same as the first one I got and is good for a run or winter music.

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Black Ice – AC/DC

This album proved to be a return to greatness for the grandfathers of rock. This band have been around for so long and made some less-than-brilliant albums that all hope had been given up. I heard about this album while listening to the Bruce Dickinson rock show on BBC Radio 6 Music. He was raving about how good he thought it was and what a return to form it showed. I was curious. Bruce is a big AC/DC fan and so he couldn’t be wrong.

This is a complete wonder of an album. It doesn’t have the gritty rawness of the Bon Scott albums but it is crafted and written brilliantly. It has everything you could want. Blockbusting riffs, brilliant drums, good lyrics and thundering bass. It’s great.

All the songs are good. Well worth putting on in the car for a summer drive. It’ll cheer you up.

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Black Gives Way to Blue – Alice In Chains

This album was part of the “catch up with what bands I used to like have been doing” phase from about a year ago. I had thought that Alice were dead, much like their singer but then this was released in 2009 with a new singer.

I’m amazed at how good his voice sounds and how much like the original he is. It is very much an “Alice” album. Slow, heavy, melodic and haunting. It’ll freak you out. Well done Mr Alice.

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Bitter Sweet and Twisted – The Quireboys

This album came along with “A Bit Of What You Fancy” when I downloaded it from iTunes. It really bugs me when joint albums are downloaded. I don’t like them being stored on my phone as one album so I mess with the properties to make them into the original versions.

I’ve not listened to this album.

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A Bit of What You Fancy – The Quireboys

At sometime in the sixth form someone saw The Quireboys support another band. That’s all the memory I have about why I would know this band. I bought this album on vinyl and I would classify it as good old fashioned British pub rock and roll. This album is well worth a listen. I like the melodies and the singing. This is definitely a summer album. I can imagine playing this in the garden with the sun glaring down and saturating the whole village in glorious shine.

I listened to this album so much in my formative years that I think all the songs are ingrained. My favourites are:

  • 7 O’clock
  • Sex Party
  • Long Time Comin’

This was a great purchase.

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Up

While on my trip to Washington DC I met someone who asked me for my opinion on a bracelet / wrist band thing they had bought. I was worried at first because these things tend to be utter rubbish, woo if you will. There are many performance bands that are supposed to interact with your body’s vibrations and improve your coordination and these are all fraud. They don’t work and they never will. If someone like Powerbalance can show that their bracelet works then we will have to re-write all of modern physics [similarly if ghosts exists then what are they made of? Get me the proof and we’ll develop new physics].

I had just been introduced to the Up by Jawbone wristband. A movement (not position) tracker. It has a gizmo inside that measures how much you move and then you can upload that data to your iPhone or android device. I was so excited by this that I went and bought one from the Apple shop in Georgetown [DC].

Up By Jawboen

The device is easy to use. You wear it on your wrist and then upload the data to your phone app twice a day. You don’t have to upload the data that often but it seems about right.

I have to say I have been really impressed with the data I can collect. The Up band will time and measure the distance of a run, it’ll buzz me when I’ve been inactive. It can tell what sort of sleep I am having and when I got up to look after my boys.

The big question is how to use the data. It’s all very well collecting this stuff but it’s another knowing what to do with it. I have no idea how to use this data to inform what I should do in the future. The walking and running data is fair enough, I know I can aim to move around more but the sleep data? I can only sleep how I sleep. Perhaps I need to search the interweb thing to see if I can find out how to improve my sleep without having to give up alcohol! I love my wristband. I love the information it collects and the graphics it shows me. I’m just not sure what it tells me!

 

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Biohazard – Biohazard

You go through life aware of some bands who really influenced other bands or perhaps they were there at the beginning. Then, you hear a collaboration song by that artist and think, hey, that’ll be good.

It’s ok. I’ve listened to it twice. Probably won’t listen to it again. Not fussed by it.

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