Sounds Familiar

What, where did the time go?  For now let us just say that the depression came back and hit me like a hammer, to the point of having to take time off work to change medication and generally get back to reality (hello side effects, hello fresh scars from a spot of self-harming, hello therapy once more).  I might write more about that another time, but let's think of better things for now and look back at my top tunes of last year.

Here's the obligatory word cloud:

I don't suppose there will be many surprises in there for people who have read these posts before but some favourite releases and old favourites to note...

Of albums released during 2016, I can't speak highly enough of Iron Maiden's Book Of Souls, Public Service Broadcasting's The Race For Space and Anti-Nasty League from Pop Will Eat Itself.  About as different from each other as any three random discs could be but all played multiple times and loved equally.  And the second tier of newness belongs to Motorhead (RIP Lemmy), The Darkness Slayer, Thunder and Kim Boekbinder.

I also went to my first gig in far too many years when we went to see Ginger Wildheart on his Songs & Words tour.  OK, so that was a mix of spoken word and acoustic excerpts rather than the full-on rawk experience but it was still a damn good night out and I am so looking forward to the accompanying book and DVD which will hopefully be with us soon.

Being a fan of the comedy song, we also went to see Richard Digance at the newly re-opened Spa Pavilion here in Felixstowe.  We've seen him several times over the years, but this time he brought a support act - local lads the Broadside Boys.  Suffolk-centred folk and a real joy to encounter.  I'm looking forward to catching them again somewhere in the county this year.

If I had managed to stay at work for November and December I would have finally finished the epic in-car listening through of all CDs by artists I only have one disc by.  Not driving to work every day rather put paid to that, but only a few left to go before I dig into discs by artists I own two albums on CD by!

The amount of listening I did in the first month when I was off can be counted on the fingers of one hand.  Losing the will to stick an album on (and indeed the ability to stay focussed long enough to listen to a whole disc) was possibly the hardest thing for me to get through - music is such an integral part of my life.  I'm back with tunes all the time now, and it is such a relief.

Looking forward to 2016 we have new albums from the Wonder Stuff, CJ Wildheart, Love Zombies and the Dowling Poole already pre-ordered with Hey! Hello! Too and Megadeth also on the way.  Hopefully it is going to be another corker of newness and we will see if I can find some new to me oldies as well.