I Stand Alone- Theophilus London

In case you were wondering I did not watch the Super Bowl last night. I did turn it on once I heard the power went out after Mrs. Jay Z’s performance. I also saw a little bit of that too, not that I care much for Mrs. Jay Z’s music. I didn’t care for the sport, the game and I did not care for the teams. I watched The Simpsons and Bob’s Burgers and then watched a show about Saturday Night Lives’ first five years which did not include Jane Curtin whom I always liked on the show.

Bill came home after taking care of his mother most of the day. He drove to Atlantic City both Friday and Saturday nights and was running on a low flame after only a few hours of sleep. I hope it doesn’t turn out to Bill overworking and then crashing hard enough to be physically ill for a few days. It happens every so often and I am smart enough to see what comes down the line with regards to that. Bill came home and settled in and watched the SNL retrospective. He never saw the word association test skit with Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase before last night.

On Saturday night there was a posting from My Bloody Valentine on Facebook. After 22 years a new record was being released and I got what I thought was an invitation to give it a listen. I followed the link but was unable to get to it since there were probably a couple of thousand fan boys and girls out there all doing the same as me. I posted to my MiMB friends on Facebook and some of them were in the same boat as me, posting about their frustration and eagerness.

After about an hour, My Bloody Valentine unveiled their own website complete with offers to buy the new release on vinyl and download, on CD and download or just a download. After hemming and hawing I decided on just the download. But which download? There were three options and I decided to ask some audio engineer friends of mine. 16 bit or 24 bit WAVE files? What about the 320kpbs MP3 file? My friends chimed in and I followed their advice which was smart but ineffectual once I took their advice to heart, or in this case, to ears.

I got the 24 bit WAVE file which turned out to be a mistake. I guess the engineers that I know have more sophisticated computers and systems than I do. What would have been a walk in the park was a bear for me. They told me it would take longer to download and it did, but I did not think I would have to manually enter each file that was unzipped. It was no big deal, but it was a pain in the tuchis when I wanted to move them to my iPod. I had to burn the files onto a CD then upload them into iTunes.

Yesterday was spent listening to MBV, the new My Bloody Valentine release. It sounds great, picks up where Loveless left off in 1991. I’ve been listening ever since. I saw My Bloody Valentine twice, once in 1991 when they played the Ritz at Studio 54 and then an abbreviated set at All Points West in 2009. 1991 was all I needed to see, a physical element to the sound and I was at the back of the club, sans earplugs for what was probably the loudest show I had ever heard or seen. 2009 was nothing new, having experience it 18 years before, nothing new was going on and it was time to go home. If they come around again, I hope to be there.

And the other night I wrote how the Selecter were returning to the States. I found out their playing the west coast, no east coast dates scheduled and I am not going to Coachella.
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04 To Here Knows When

I Stand Alone

Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody. Well I do got somebody and that would be Bill but of course once again he is off driving to Atlantic City. He came home this morning, slept for a few hours and then after telling me about the general rudeness he gets from certain riders from certain quarters, he was packed up and ready to go. For me it’s been too cold to go out and do anything so I just mainly stayed in, sending out resumes and doing various things. I did go to the supermarket which wasn’t too traumatic like it has been.

It’s February, it’s the day after my brother in law Rex’s birthday as well as my neighbor Christine. On cable there has been a marathon showing of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day so that’s been on. It ends at 8:00 tonight so I guess I would have to find something else on to watch. In between all that there has been the resumes being sent out again and again. I do have a good feeling something good is going to happen so I just have to hang in there. Right now the 2 Tone movie Dance Craze is playing on YouTube.

I saw that at the Eighth Street Cinema back in the day with Jet. I of course was totally enraptured with it. Jet and I both liked it a lot but there was no dancing in the aisles like we had heard and I was too self-conscious to get up and start skanking with Jet. We both agreed that Dave Wakeling from the (English) Beat was very handsome, something I never really thought about with regards to any musician. I have maintained my 2 Tone roots through the years, listening to all that music and culminating in the faux Specials reunion in 2010.

I’m sure I wrote about it before but I remember the day I was in EJ Korvettes I bought the Specials first album, the same day I picked up the first Pretenders LP as well as a Stiff USA compilation of Wreckless Eric. Waiting at the Bergen Mall for the 44 bus to take me back to Lodi I struck a conversation with an elderly woman who inquired about the records I had purchased. She had never heard of any of the bands which came as no surprise. Those 3 records still loom large in my musical history, obviously if I am writing about over 30 years later.

So now Dance Craze is on audio wise and Groundhog Day is on with the volume off. I posted the YouTube Dance Craze linkage on my Facebook page and a few of my MiMB friends have expressed their pleasure with the 2 Tone thing. I can easily trace my later infatuation with reggae in the 1990’s to the 2 Tone days in the late 70’s and early 80’s. I read earlier today that The Selecter will be coming to the US this year and of course I will be there.

I saw an incarnation of The Selecter in the 1990’s but it did not have Pauline Black in their ranks at that time. Now she is back and I will definitely be there this time. Of course I hold out hope that the Specials would tour at the same time, perhaps sharing the bill but that could be too much chalice in the palace on my part if you know what I mean. An aging pseudo rude boy from the wrong side of the pond could dream can’t he?

I doubt if I’ll be wearing the shark skin suit like I did for the Specials reunion in 2010. That was something I had planned on doing since the beginning and having done it once there’s no need to do that again.
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Man At C & A