Sound system

Oops. February already.  Still, finally written the 2014 music post...

No list of all the records enjoyed in the year (and I will still call them records even if they were nearly all CDs or MP3s) but the cloud does cover all the artists I heard a whole album by and represents their frequency of earhole assault. Much of the explanation for this can be found in last year’s post on music so I’m not going to repeat it now. Suffice it to say that the “single CD” quest is about to reach S and I have finally got more CDs by King’s X courtesy of the wonderful “original album series” box set of their first five which I received for Christmas. So expect them to appear at a reasonable size in next year’s cloud!

Other than regular trawls through Amazon, HMV and various charity shops for discs to plug holes in my collection – especially the MIND shop in Ipswich (I still cannot fathom out why people would choose to get rid of some of the CDs that end up in there, and then come home with me) – I have actually gained a bunch of genuinely new tunes this year rather than ones that are merely new to me. So we will start off with yer actual albums of the year, then newly discovered enjoyment before a round-up of old favourites that I just had to listen to.

And to immediately contradict myself, we will start off with not an album at all, but a series of digital singles. Rather than a new album through a Pledge campaign, Ginger Wildheart went for it with his GASS project, releasing three new songs (and a couple of older demos) on to the world every month. We still have a couple of months to go but so far every track has been a winner. They offered three tiers of membership - £30 got all the music in electronic formats plus access to the web site with podcasts, videos, Q&A pages, diaries and other writings and loads of other stuff. £60 added a t-shirt and some other goodies, while £90 enabled meet and greets before shows. I have only gone for the music and definitely feel I have had value for my money. They are planning to keep it all live online after the year is up so anyone interested can still fork out the £30 and get all the music on one go.

Some of the tracks are going to get a CD release as part of his new Pledge offering. This is for a sort of autobiography told through the stories of the songs since the dawn of the Wildhearts along with an acoustic DVD which will do much the same. This could well be a highlight of 2015 for me, but we'll address that later in the year!

Wildhearts sidekick CJ also put out a solo album (Mable) in 2014 and is my favourite release of the year. Some real killer guitarwork, catchy choruses and magical melodies drew me in and won't let me go. If you want to pick it up from his Bandcamp page I can also highly recommend previous album “13” and his work with The Jellys.

Sticking with the extended Wildhearts family, sometime bassist Random Jon Poole (also a feature of Ginger's solo band) and occasional keyboard player Willie Dowling also produced an album as “The Dowling Poole” via Pledge music. Bleak Strategies is fascinating, although I will be the first to admit that I haven't listened to it enough yet to fully appreciate it. As part of the pledge package they also made available Jon Poole's solo and God Damn Whores albums and Willie's Jackdaw 4 discography. Having considered those before but been short of cash I was glad to get them at a good price and have enjoyed them as much as anything else I've heard this year.

Having had two great new albums this way was fab (not to mention the others obtained off the back of them) but part of me wishes CJ and Willie had teamed up for a new Honeycrack opus instead...

Other Pledge campaigns I backed were from Ricky Warwick (two albums – one electric and one acoustic, both enjoyable), Tony Wright (superb acoustic solo debut) and Pop Will Eat Itself (an e.p. rather than a whole album, but hopefully a good taste of what is to come this year when they do release a new full-length platter).

Going down the normal route through shops, I also really rated Mark Chadwick's second solo album Moment. Distinct enough from his day job with the Levellers to make it worth doing. The new Mark Lanegan, Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs and Linkin Park albums entertained in the ways I expected them to, and then there was U2. I've listened to it once so far and am still undecided. Never mind the delivery method, I've liked them for years so was just happy to hear something new. But am not sure if it is any real change over what has come before.

New out in 2014 from bands I adore, but not yet purchased, we have the new AC/DC and Gong albums. Hopefully more to say on those soon!

Not new in 2014 but getting their first listens from me I particularly enjoyed Anthrax's Worship Music, Public Service Broadcasting (thanks to Rigid Digit for the introduction to them) and some stuff I took a punt on from charity shops – Ben And Jason, Detritus and Three Corners.

So this year I am eagerly awaiting the new Thunder, Paul Miro and Prodigy and we will see what other surprises fate brings my way.

Vegas!

I'm sure the writing up of a holiday isn't supposed to take longer than the holiday itself...

Day Six: Flagstaff to Las Vegas

From the relaxed to the frenetic, woodland charm to Sin City and other such clichés.  In some ways this was the part of the trip I was least looking forward to - I'm not a gambler and while I love a fantastic building and a bit of hustle and bustle I'd rather see the real thing than a fake in the desert.  But, it is an experience to see the place and I'm always happy to be proved wrong by such a visit.

To start the day off we called in at Williams, just down the road from Flagstaff and the start of the Grand Canyon Railway.  Not for us to board the train, but to see the short "wild west" show put on before departure.  And for a 20 minute bit of fun it did what it said on the tin, so to speak.  Back in 2006 we had a whole evening at a wild west theme village with a meal, shoot outs in the street and so forth which was several orders of magnitude better than this, but you can't really argue with a bit of free entertainment.  The cowboys then went off to hold up the train on its way to the Canyon while we headed west.

Next stop was Seligman, which unexpectedly turned out to be the most depressing part of the whole trip for me.  When you are in the area you have to do a bit of the Route 66 experience, and this was ours (if you don't count the night before in Flagstaff).  But this part of the route is slowly dying.  I know the whole route has been in decline since the opening of Interstate 40 alongside it, and much of it now survives on the tourist dollar rather than being alongside a major east-west link.  This was certainly the case in Seligman – a few empty buildings but a lot of gift shop junk to replace them.  And cars.  The whole lot centred on a single barber’s chair operated for the last 60 or so years by a guy named Angel Delgadillo.  But what was once a novelty place to get a trim when you were driving the route is now the sole reason for visiting the place, and it just struck me as a grim way of hanging on to the glory days and trying to sell a bit of branded tat to anyone who happens to stop.  And stop they do, I counted at least five coaches arriving and departing in the time we were there which must add up to a hundred or more, so maybe 500 people plus those who arrive under their own steam per day in the peak tourist times.  All buying t-shirts and fridge magnets and getting the occasional trim or burger.  And looking at the cars.

Anyone who has seen the eponymous Disney film and its surrounding details will know the idea came to Pixar head John Lasseter when he took his family on a route 66 road trip.  This was one of the places he stopped, and there is a cartoon he drew on the wall if the gift shop to prove it.  And in the way ideas go full circle, the Seligmanites have taken the Cars concept to heart and filled the place with American classics.  They may have been there before of course (a cursory look on-line has not answered this for me either way) but the majority of the ones parked around the various buildings now have eyes painted on the wind shields and smiles across the radiators to mimic the cartoon versions.  But not particularly well and a few years back and showing signs of decay and neglect already.  Add that to the also faded dummies on top of a road house and a general air of desperation about the place I was left feeling thoroughly downhearted by the time we left.

This was not helped by the lunchtime stop at some outlet malls where I didn't find anything I fancied in the right sizes.  I know, material concerns and all that!  But even though crossing into Nevada brought us up to 7/50 states visited by the time we got to Vegas I was definitely at my lowest point of the entire journey.  This was not helped by Alex having given us a spiel about pickpockets and vice while we were still on the road – not the best way to get people to look forward to seeing the place! 

We spent our two nights at the Tropicana, which is down the southern end of the strip on one side of a crossroads - also home to the MGM Grand, New York New York and Excalibur.  Quite dramatic views from the hotel and helped by us being up on the 11^th floor – our highest room of the stay.  Of course you have to walk through the Casino to get to the rooms, which was further off-putting as they still allow smoking while you fritter your money away on the slots.  But the room was very nice and a chance to relax before heading out again and a quick croissant helped to calm my nerves somewhat.

So that just left the evening tour to round off the day.  This (and indeed a similar evening tour of San Francisco, which we will get to in due course) proved to be another slight bone of contention for some of the company again as they were optional rather than included, meaning an extra charge for something done using the bus, driver and guide we already had with us.  We weren't too fussed as we wanted to see the place for the first time in company anyway…

And what a place!  The sheer over-the-top-ness won me over big time and while I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to go back there I’d not dismiss a return visit out of hand.  Starting right down at the south end of the strip by the famous “welcome” sign we headed up to Fremont Street at the far end and back again.  We only made two stops after the obligatory sign photo-shoot but they were both pretty spectacular.  First the Bellagio for the delightful floral conservatory and fountain show and then the Fremont Street experience.  Click on the links there for a few images that do more justice than I could with words.  Between these we saw most of the big casinos and shops, the wedding chapels, the neon and glitz and most of all the people.  Everywhere the people.  Dressed in all manner of costumes from full on to practically naked and trying to get you to part with a few bucks to have your photo taken with them.  Been a while since I saw so many buttocks in one place!  I would have liked to have seen inside the Venezian, and maybe Paris too but we were out over four hours on the tour as it was.

Holiday Part two

OK, proper holiday days from now on (although some of them will still be mainly getting from A to B).

Day Three - San Diego

A whole day of seeing the sights - and what a beautiful city to see them in.  Early starts (well, earlier than we might have chosen when being on holiday) were to be a feature of the trip, and we were on the bus by 0830 with a local guide in tow as well as Alex for a look around San Diego and over to Coronado where you can look back on the downtown area.  In my mind San Diego is most famous for the Comic Convention which now covers anything Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror not just inky pages, and we did see the Convention Centre but there is a lot more on offer.  For instance I hadn't realised how big a naval presence there was, parts of the historic Downtown are wonderfully Art Deco and the "Old Town" area was gorgeous.  A touch of the Old West (down to a genuine Stagecoach in the Wells Fargo museum and chaps with big fat cigars on the porch of a tobacconist).  We ended that part of the tour there and had lunch at a place called O'Hungry's - good food at excellent prices, and thousands of dollars (and other notes) signed and stuck on the walls.  Given that Alex and Art went straight in there when we reached the Old Town we reckoned it would be reasonable, and thoroughly enjoyed it, as did a few others from our bus.  And especially when an entire coach load of Chinese tourists arrived for their lunch and basically took the joint over.  Luckily we had been served by then...  One of our rules for eating away from home is to try and work out where the locals go, and failing that to at least see what the guide/driver do as they always know good spots.

San Diego as seen from Coronado

When we were looking at things to do on the holiday, we did consider spending the afternoon of this day at the Zoo.  But it would really have needed a full day to even begin to do justice to the amount of things on offer there (Pandas will just have to wait for another time, or a trip to Scotchland) so we took up the optional harbour cruise offer instead.  And were really glad that we did.  Two hours on the water which reinforced the naval presence (the tour guide for that was ex-navy himself and knew every vessel we passed from Aircraft Carriers down to the tiniest of Tugs and Submarines).  We also got to see pelicans in the wild as well as a bunch of sea lions just hanging around the wharves.

The rest of the afternoon we spent hanging about the Embarcadero area, looking in shops, eating ice creams and ship-watching.  I would have liked to visit the USS Midway (aircraft carrier turned museum complete with planes) or the other ships in the maritime museum collection, but there wasn't time and we were all beginning to flag a little from the time difference.  There was a bit of grumbling among the group about having too much time to wait for our transfer back to the hotel, but nobody went as far as to get a bus or taxi earlier.  And actually the enforced hanging around gave us a chance to properly meet folks and get to know each other - which I am sure helped with the overall enjoyment in later days.

For dinner that night Alex arranged to take us up to the Homestyle Buffet restaurant, which did exactly what it said on the door and had a hundred or so dishes to choose from.  All very tasty (Joan adored the coconut cream pie).

Day Four - San Diego to Scottsdale

Time to leave the coast for now and head inland and into the desert.  Our first stop was Palm Springs which, frankly, didn't live up to expectations and was generally regarded by all our fellow travellers as a wasted opportunity.  According to Art it added about an hour and a half of driving rather than taking a more direct line to Scottsdale which, when added to the time spent in Palm Springs would perhaps have been more enjoyable if we had blasted through to Scottsdale and got there three or four hours earlier.

One trouble with an organised tour such as this is not getting long enough in some places.  You are always on a fixed schedule with hotels expecting arrivals at certain times, restrictions on driver hours enforcing breaks and so forth.  So we only had an hour and a half to explore the city and that wasn't enough to give us a particularly good impression.  Certainly I failed to see what has attracted the stars out from LA for all these years.  OK, it is in the desert so nice and warm, but then so are many other places about the same distance away.  The main street was mainly places to eat and souvenir type shops which again didn't inspire us as a destination to linger in.  Again, this could be linked to the short time available as there were a couple of museums and galleries in sight, but no time to appreciate them properly.  If we'd had a full day, or even an afternoon in town we could have had a good look around some of the cultural bits and perhaps got a better impression.  As it was we had a short wander up and down the road, looked at a few t-shirts and then had an early lunch. 

We had hoped to perhaps get a sandwich or something to eat on the coach while the journey continued, giving us more time to look around, but after about 40 minutes we hadn't found a single vendor of takeaway food of any description so plumped for Ruby's Diner and a sit down meal (again Art and Alex had headed in there, so we knew the food would be OK).  And mine certainly was - I'm a sucker for an all-day breakfast anyway, but this one was particularly tasty!  Joan had a veggie sandwich which started out OK, but she wasn't sure on the second half - something tasting old/rotten and so it was left unfinished.  I'm not sure anything was really inedible or if it was just unusual flavours, but there you go.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trundling through the desert, with just a break at a truck stop to break up the monotony.  All of which meant we didn't arrive at Scottsdale until after five, which was a real pity.

We had a couple of nights there back in 2006 and were quite looking forward to revisiting the Old Town.  Especially as this time our hotel was literally across the road from it, rather than needing a bus journey.  However by the time we arrived exhaustion had set in, and by the time we were ready to go out the shops were all shutting.  As a result we just joined a couple of our new friends and ate in the hotel.  Nice food and excellent laughs, but a shame and not what we had wanted from the day.

Day Five – Scottsdale to Flagstaff             

Now that really doesn't do justice to the day as a description!  This was a day re-visiting old haunts for Joan and I and as such was a blast.  The morning stop was spent in Sedona.  We only had an hour and a half or so in town this time around, so no chance to reprise the jeep tour into the desert we took back in 2006, but it is such a lovely little community that being limited to the town centre hardly mattered.  A chance to see the red rocks again was tonic for the soul, and a bit of shopping went down well too.

We had expected a diversion next, as the road through Oak Creek Canyon had suffered a landslide earlier in the year and was closed for repairs.  But much to our joy it had been re-opened the day before our arrival, so we were able to head north that way after all.  It is a lovely drive which we had done southbound previously, so it was nice to see in the other direction.  Beautiful wooded hillsides and some great rock formations.  We then pressed on north, through Flagstaff and various bits of forest (spotting a couple of deer and an Elk as we did so) and on to the Grand Canyon.

Having done the helicopter flight experience last time, we decided to stay on the ground this time, but have more time at the rim to explore and eat ice cream.  It was a glorious afternoon and we had a great time wandering along a bit, looking over the edge and browsing the native artefacts in the Hopi House store.  It is a bit of a cliché, but the place really is staggeringly beautiful and just huge.  I have been to Niagara Falls four or five times now but it still catches the heart and takes the breath away on each visit, and I suspect the Canyon is the same.  I’d love to spend a night or two up there one day, just to see it in the dawn and dusk, and maybe catch a sunset over the edge.  Many photos were taken that day it has to be said (including the Grand Canyon Railway and several buses, but then it wouldn't be me without them).

Canyon, Grand variety

Our hotel in Flagstaff was also somewhere we had stayed before, which was nice.  We had a drink with a couple of ladies from Norwich (and they asked to see my ID, which I decided to take as a compliment at age 43) then went down to the Galaxy Diner for dinner.  OK, so we had done a diner the day before in Palm Springs, but we had enjoyed this one last time and it is ON route 66 so was a bit of an essential visit.  Lovely food to round off a great day (a burger in sourdough toast for me, with proper cherry coke featuring your actual cherries).