45RPM

So why write a blog? That's probably the question that gets asked the most about blogs right? What have I got to say that could be remotely interesting or that hasn't already been said? Well this is personal, it's about me and my (mild) obsession with music and vinyl and how I grew up with it and what I bought and why ... maybe. Recently I bought a few books about the music that was happening around the time I was growing up.

Yeah Yeah Yeah - The Story Of Modern Pop (Bob Stanley)

Obviously we're talking about a specific period here, but this book covers much more. So to hone in on the relevant time frame, after wading through this, I moved on to















Rip It Up And Start Again (Simon Reynolds)

A great read talking about all the stuff I vaguely knew about, to the stuff that I really did know about! This also mentioned a few other books, a couple of which are mentioned below.















Sex Pistols: The Inside Story (Fred and Judy Vermorel)

I was interested in the Sex Pistols just because to me I knew the music and the Great Rock n Roll Swindle film, but that was about it. Even though they are seen as this hugely important band they only lasted about a year. So I wanted to find out more. This accompanied me on a trip to Sardinia and is a pretty quick but interesting read.












Making Tracks: The Rise Of Blondie (Harry, Stein, Bockris)

I've always liked Blondie, well OK the popular singles. But Debbie Harry was absolutely gorgeous and anyway this was reckoned to be a good book, so I thought I'd give it a go. As with the Pistols book this was prohibitively expensive new, but I got a second hand copy, albeit with a big crease on the cover, but it has been a great read. It ties in nicely with the various film books I've read that talk about New York at that time as basically a sewer. Some of the stories mentioned in the book are amazing. Some great pictures too.








Anyway coming back to the question raised at the beginning. I recently took it upon myself to write my own music application. Been thinking about it for ages off and on, and while my girlfriend was writing her dissertation and my work was boring, I though I'd give it a go. The idea being to create a web based application to play my MP3s. Yes that's right, creating a shit version of Google Play :) There were some other reasons behind this. I wanted to learn something new and keep my hand in with "web stuff" so I thought this would give me an opportunity to learn some new things. Plus, recently I have taken an interest in my old records. I've been buying the odd new bit of vinyl now and again for a while, but I realised I had some stuff that I don't have on CD and started working through my vinyl, recording it to CD and making MP3s out of it. This is all about the stars aligning. I finally gave in and treated myself to a new turntable. I got some software (Vinyl Studio) to help me fix the vinly recodings. So now I am creating virtual singles using my USB turntable, scans of the records and having great fun.

This first entry is all a bit of a splurge. But I hope to concentrate more on specific things over my next postings. But you know what it's like, this could be the first and last post :)