"can't take the smell, can't take the noise..."

has that been two weeks already? i was going to do something last week but the mum of mrs s came to stay. pipe down at the back, it wasn't all that bad. she's alright actually and i think she appreciates that i'm myself when she's around. i burp, fart and swear in her company and she doesn't seem to mind. mrs s, however, is mortified by my behaviour. ah well, that's life. i cooked a few meals during her stay (i do ALL the cooking at smackhead towers, and i ain't bad either. yes i can do roast potatoes and make my own bread). on saturday night we went out for dinner to a little place mrs s had been to a few weeks earlier with her pals.

http://www.barley-mow.com/

the place was criminally empty, a result of the recent economic downturn according to the manager. what a shame. great food (i had duck) and some great real ales on draught (london pride and black sheep...mmmmmmm). anyway, if you're ever in the area drop in. i might make my eating out recommendations a regular part of cdwd, and then you too can have a gut as big as mine! talking of economic slowdowns, i hope all your jobs are safe. these are worrying times. i work in the construction industry and a few weeks ago we were scratching our arses. luckily this week a load of stuff has come through from our contract work. so fingers crossed, happy days.

the u.s. elections are finally over, thank god! i could never see why the british media thought it so important to give me eleven months of election coverage. i'm interested in the result but not the bullshit that precedes it. i'd love to say the best man won but only history will tell. the poor bastard inherits two wars and a fucking huge economy in trouble.

"3, 2, 1...and you're back in the room."

jeez, where the hell have i been? here, there and everywhere (probably). well i'm back whether you like it or not. finally got myself a digital camera and a soundcard (all i need now are some leads). so on with the show...

i had a family bereavement earlier in the year and then i moved house and then my broadband connection was all fucked up, so that's where i've been. since then i'm enjoying life in a bigger house with a garden (hurrah). the tunes are still coming into smackhead towers at a decent rate so don't fret. most of the stuff i've been buying has been 2nd hand. any new stuff is mostly re-issues/bootlegs or edits. i've kept all the new stuff in a separate box to make the end of year chart easier to compile. it'll be dead easy because i've bought fuck all new stuff!

it comes down to economics and common sense. gone are the days when i would journey into town to check all the new releases and spend a chunk of change on records. over the following months i would listen to a few and forget about the rest. after a few years those forgotten records build up and before you know it your mates have a house and a nice car and you don't! so now i buy quality not quantity, and it's not as though i play out any more (i used to dj at a local nightspot in my home town, but that's another post for the future). so looking in my box for this year there can't be more than 30 records. in the past i'd have that in a fortnight. by the year end i don't expect to have more than 50. the box was a bargain though, it's one of those pro box copies and i got it for a fiver. only trouble is it has curved edges and bends your records. can't believe they were so popular some years back.

if i take a step back and look at the wider world a couple of bent records is nothing compared to the problems some are having. credit crunch this, credit crunch that. war. genocide. zimbabwe. then last night a family of six, including four children, killed in an accident on the M6. sad times all round...

"no way to control it..."

so all the old prog tracks have been sorted. now i'm going through the rest of my stuff. there's all manner of shit to be slung out. madonna 12"s (not the good ones), "best of..." compilations and shite house records i should never have bought. it's all starting to pile up now and is sitting in the garage ready to be shifted. it was all going to the 2nd hand shop but some of the stuff is worth a little bit of money so i may have a dabble on discogs/e-bay. i wasn't arsed at first but what the hell? if it doesn't shift after a few weeks it'll be back to the original idea. but enough of my hair brained get rich quick schemes (as if) and on with the show.

i was in reading today. she got a sat nav the other week and i told her it was bluetooth compatible. it wasn't, cue a bollocking for me. funniest thing was that she didn't realise her cigarette lighter didn't work and the thing ran out of power on her first journey (to somewhere she'd never been before. so confident was she of it's skills that she left her road atlas at home). heh, heh. so today we went back and swapped it for a hands free bluetooth version. sorted. say what you like about john lewis (a chain of huge department stores in the u.k., for the benefit of my foreign fans) but they are the shit. they've got everything and customer service is second to none. recently voted the nation's favourite retailer. FACT. but... reading has got fuck all else to shout about. it's the same old shopping experience as most other large towns (or is it a city?). if anyone knows of a decent 2nd hand record shop (or new for that matter) in reading please tell me.

"dee, dah, dah, dah, dee, dah, dah, dah, dar...etc"

3 weeks! so where have i been? in the spare room sorting through loads of boring 90's prog records (well someone had to do it). they weren't going to sort themselves, and my dad wasn't going to do it. if i had the money again i could have had a nice car by now. 500 x £5-7 could have got me something better than the n-reg golf i'm currently driving. mind you i nearly didn't have it or my life this afternoon. if you were driving towards hindhead on the A30 about 3.45 this afternoon and saw a red car coming in the opposite direction (going too fast) going around THAT bend and losing it...it was me. luckily there was no-one behind or to the side of me so i was lucky not to injure anyone else. it sure beats any fairground ride i've been on! the side of the car is fucked (thank god for the central reservation barrier) and only my pride is hurt. surely the signs saying "SLOW DOWN" and "35 MPH" and the big black & white arrows should have given it away. stupid thing is, i drove up the road in the morning and said to myself "ivan, you need to remember that on the way back". prick.

so where were we? ah, yes. clearing stuff out has been quite therapeutic for my soul. getting rid of the shite music demons that once clouded my judgement. i went through all my old vhs cassettes too (remember them kids ?), loads of absolute bollocks in there too (breakdance, predator 2, mall rats, to name but three...). so i've got loads of space now to buy them again on dvd! (probably)
i was in a charity shop t'other day and i swear someone had broken into my house and ran up the street and dumped the records i was getting rid of in the shop. there were 3 boxes on the floor and assorted plebs going through the tunes. one guy was after "prog breaks" and some woman (who stank of ale) was after "funky house". i told both of them that i had a shit load of the stuff to collect at my house and they weren't interested! probably thought i was some sort of weirdo who hung around charity shops winding people up.

"deep, deep inside, deep, deep down inside..."

the last couple of days have seen me going through piles of records i no longer want. stuff i bought between the late 90's and early 00's. i used to buy a lot of progressive house and (ssssh, don't tell anyone...trance). i'd always bought (what i considered) great house/techno/hip-hop but with the drugs available at the time prog/trance just seemed to sound great. totally buzzing my nut off to these tracks just seemed to make sense. we'd go out to a club, come back and carry on taking pills whilst playing these tracks in the background. one of the lad's used to throw great parties and him, me and another lad would play the tunes. fucking great times ! it's all in the past now and i know it'll never be like that again. we're either married, got kids, moved away or just don't fancy drugs anymore...

so now i'm left with all these records i don't like. i must have liked them at the time but listening to some of them now, 12, 10, 8, 6 years later some of them are complete and utter garbage. ah well, i suppose it'll leave me more room for some great new records ! by the time i've finished the clearout i reckon i'll be taking about five hundred shit records to the second hand shop. i've talked to the bloke at the shop and explained i don't want any money, i just want rid. he's happy to oblige. best of all my dad's happy after i cleared a load from his house, "that ceiling's going to come through one day" he used to say. mrs smackhead is also happy, the guest room has been my record room for too long (apparently). problem is, as soon as i'm clearing stuff out i'm getting new stuff in. i was down the second hand shop the other day and some fella dumped an ace disco collection, whilst another brought in his old house stuff. what is a record junkie to do ? you guessed it...

will smith can fuck off !

2008 ! let's go...every blogger and his dog has done a chart so here's mine (all be it a little late, but who cares ?). okay, track wise my faves were:

1. still going - theme

2. unique 3 - theme (autechre remix)

3. whitest boy alive - 24k

4. holy ghost - hold on

5. gino soccio - love is (prince language re-edit)

most stuff at the cinema was shit, so let's not go there (ditto TV).

blog wise, american athlete was a worthy runner-up. the winner by a mile was the red room. i'm telling you, the guy knows his shit. links to both on the right. there are more good people who i must bring to your attention, so i'll be adding them to the joe bloggers list over the next week or so. i'm just gonna keep on doing what i'm doing - a picture, a track and some bollocks. you love it though don't you ? why else are you here ? certainly not for the latest tracks at 320kps that's for sure. if i was one of those blogs i'd be giving you hot chip's latest single ready for the floor. i've had it for a few months now but the guy who looks like brains from thunderbirds needs to eat. it's catchy as fuck by the way and is out in the u.k. on 28th january.

i had two weeks off over christmas and really chilled out. got pissed a few times but luckily stayed off the chocs and cake and lost half a stone (seven pounds to my american chums). i went home to see my parents and catch up with some old pals. it's weird, i spend all my time wanting to go back to my roots...but when i get there i realise i want to get away. it's not that i don't like my family and friends, more that it's never going to be how i remember it as a kid. ah well, i suppose my life isn't all bad. especially when you see the dreadful scenes occuring in kenya at the moment.