Town Trip Part II: Upstairs, Downstairs

So, after picking The Killers shirt and briefly flirting with the idea of getting a Velvet Underground one (which I didn't in the end) it was time to see what records to buy. This was when my plans sort of went out the window. I wanted to get Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails. Did they have it? Not at all - in fact they had no Nine Inch Nails records whatsoever. Great.. Hm, what to buy? I checked the DVD section for Simon & Garfunkel's Central Park show - no luck. So I just went with the CD version of the concert. Decided to look for Fleetwood Mac's The Dance live album. Gone (although stupidly enough, they had put it by the till. I only found it once I had paid). What a stupid display move that was. Then I remembered I had spied Route 19 Revisited, which was a book about the making of London Calling. Was it in still in the display where I found it? Nope! So, back downstairs I went to the book section. Found it, along with two other Clash books. Joe Strummer & The Legend of The Clash and The Clash Talking to were the titles. I've been considering purchasing the latter, but I've never seen the former in town before though I knew of it. Stupidly I forgot to look inside Joe Strummer &The Legend of The Clash although it has good reviews. As for The Clash talking it was a stupidly dear price - £12 if I remember - for a rather short book that is just a compilation of quotes. I want it, but £12 just seemed excessive, I can get it online much cheaper. Anyway, back upstairs and I still wanted more records. Then I remembered I had liked Vampire Weekend's new album. They didn't have that either. Honestly I think they were in the midst of doing a display revamp or something. Then I remembered Disclosure's debut. Surprisingly I found the deluxe edition of that for a decent price, so I snapped it up. Then I spotted The Essential Paul Simon. I have Songwriter ripped to my hard-drive because I bought it for my Dad for Father's Day, but this collection had a lot of songs on it absent from Songwriter. I only have Graceland & The Rhythm of The Saints on CD myself. By this point, I had about enough money left for two postcards, and to my surprise they had a new Clash one in. Ironically, the first Clash item I ever got was a postcard from HMV. The only other one that caught my interest was the Nevermind cover. After that - I just wanted to get out. HMV can be very draining. I do love what I got (I always do), even if it was a slightly unexpected batch though!

Good news and Graceland arrives.

Afternoon all - just a brief post which I had actually forgotten to do from last night (I was exceptionally tired). Before we get to that though I have two good pieces of news. Firstly, the iPad should be fixed by this time next week, as long as it's repairable (which I'm fairly confident it is.) Secondly, Sky Arts 1 are showing the Strummerville documentary today at 15:30. As you could imagine it's all about the Strummerville charity. I had been trying to find it to watch for a few weeks with no such luck. Needless to say I cannot wait to see it - I'll watch it on Sunday with my brother.

Anyhow, as you can tell yesterday my copy of the 25th Anniversary edition of Paul Simon's Graceland album arrived from Amazon. I was originally going to order the 40th anniversary edition of David Bowie's Aladdin Sane along with it too but ultimately after the awful run of luck I've had with electrical appliances at the moment I had to order a new wireless mouse and a flash drive instead. It's going to be the last CD I order prior to the release of Sound System .As for Graceland though I've been after this for ages. It was the first Paul Simon album I ever heard and it remains my favourite (Rhythm of The Saints would be second). To be honest I have to credit this album for opening my mind more to African music and world music at large. It's an amazing album and I cannot wait to also watch the accompanying documentary, Under African Skies too!

Good news and a brief update

Evening all, just a brief post for today. I come with excellent news: the spare power lead was brought over today. As it turns out - it was just a power issue (what we were hoping for). Now, the hardrive is absolutely fine again and totally in working order. All files are present and correct. I cannot tell you the relief that brings. I have 600GB of music, movies, TV shows, concerts and documentaries on that thing. Needless to say, I'm delighted that it's back.

The real core of this post though is what I've spent the last hour or so doing. I was having a much needed catch up session with Mario Kart DS (I think I'll upgrade to 3DS later in the year). Whilst doing it though, I was listening to Paul Simon's Songwriter compilation. It's his own personal selection of what he feels is his best work. So it leans towards lesser known album tracks and the like. Consequently there's no You Can Call Me Al or 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover. For me I really liked that though. Truthfully I know none of his albums after The Rhythm Of The Saints really, which made the majority of disc two especially interesting. I have to say I loved it as a compilation -  it was just as varied as I would expect from Paul Simon. My new found favourites being Quality, Train In The Distance, Hearts and Bones and Look At That. Honestly - I can see myself becoming more of a fan of his 80s/90s/00's albums than his 70s ones. I mean I still really like his 70s solo material - it's just I love the eclectism of that second disc especially. We shall see though.