Head Space Daily Words...

Working from home is a relatively solitary experience. I see no one, except from maybe the post man and I speak to no one - apart from myself. A man could lose his marbles. What keeps me from going insane when I am working upstairs, in my 'office,' is my portable Crosley record player (see today's Daily Image.) God bless it - small but expertly formed. It is the perfect device for breaking the silence and nurturing me through the day. As files download and computery things happen, it is far better to be finger snapping your way through these moments of tedium and downtime. What better opportunity to dig through your own crates and rediscover those hidden gems whilst checking out the new sounds of today!! The deck was a 40th birthday present and I believe it is something which every discerning gent should not be without...

Head Space Daily Image...

Here it is. My own personal sanity saver. Small but perfectly formed - my Crosley portable record player. Sitting on the deck is is one record from a double album called Super Breaks 2. There are some absolute gems on there. (See Head Space Daily Tune.)

Head Space Daily Tune...

24 Carat Black - Ghetto:Misfortune's Wealth

Taken from the album Super Breaks 2, currently spinning on my Crosley turntable, is this little beauty, by 24 Carat Black. Spot the sample…

Head Space Daily Words...

On Saturday evening, Eddie Piller – Acid Jazz co-founder (alongside Gilles Peterson, see Head Space Daily, Saturday November 9th,) stood in for Craig Charles on his 6Music Funk and Soul show. The first three tracks he played were mind blowers – and all feature on today’s Head Space Daily Tune in what can only be described as a soul sensation. Starting with Stevie Wonder’s Golden Lady, he then played Come Get To This by Marvin Gaye and went into Ordinary Joe by Terry Callier. Musical heaven. Three of my all time favourite tracks; a wonderful selection and one that is likely to never be repeated on any other radio station - ever. Terry who passed away just over a year ago is my most watched and one of my best-loved artists of all time. He had an incredible voice and was actually brought to peoples’ attention when Eddie Piller signed him to Acid Jazz in the early 90’s. Hats off to you Mr.Piller...

In other news, the people who live on the road that runs along the top of our street have started to assemble their annual Christmas lights display. We are talking lights all over the front of the house, a Father Christmas face that proudly sits at the point of the roof, which can apparently be seen from the local train station – a fact, which I shall endeavor to verify over the coming weeks. This kind of full frontal Christmas lights house display is something that I generally find a little on the tacky side. Watching this family going about getting it all together though, as we came home from a boys football match at the local park, you just had to appreciate the time and effort that they invest. These lights have become a genuine tradition around our neighbourhood. Without this garish neon, yuletide extravagance, there would be something missing. The display always features a festive scene in the space at the front of their house. This year involves the entire area covered in a white material to act as snow, reindeer figures made out of sticks stand proudly by and a family of penguins, stood at the edge of their pool, stare skywards, their faces fixed with joyful penguin stares. Santa’s house (??!!) rests against the far side of the front yard, and a large tree shaped branch has been covered with that fake snow effect that you buy in aerosol cans. The official turning on of this year’s display will be next weekend. A Head Space Daily Image will follow…

Head Space Daily Image...

A flock of robins descend upon the Carnaby Street area...

Head Space Daily Tune...

It is a Daily Tune bonanza today, with not one but three soulful beauties, as spun by Eddie Piller at the top of Saturday's Craig Charles' Funk and Soul show…



Stevie Wonder - Golden Lady

Marvin Gaye - Come Get To This

Terry Callier - Ordinary Joe

Head Space Daily Words...

A large supermarket brand opened one of its local stores in our neighbourhood not long ago. This is bad for local business, which must be supported but when it comes to buying a chicken to roast for your Sunday lunch, this corporate intruder serves a purpose. The staff who work there, with their permanently fixed grins, are either all on drugs or have been trained to be friendly to such an extreme length that it is beyond annoying. I wish it were the former, because I love the thought of the workers diving into the stock room every half an hour for a quick sniff of poppers. This afternoon was family film time in our house and our youngest son chose Elf because Christmas is not far away. I like the film very much, it is extremely funny and sweet, so I’ve got no problem watching it, plus it’s nice that my boy is excited and looking forward to Christmas – it is a bit early though. As I was going out the door he called after me “can you get some mince pies as well?” For me Christmas doesn’t remotely start until December 1^st and it was a shock to the system today to see how much the shop I went to is already pushing Christmas. Personally I am struggling to inspire any Christmas spirit within myself at this moment in time. They had an offer on the mince pies, so I ended up buying two packets. The girl behind the counter had her poppers face on. She seemed very nice but her first question “so, are you looking forward to Christmas then?” was one that I didn’t want to think about, let alone deal with. All I wanted was a chicken and some mince pies, not to get involved in Christmas small talk. Customer service is important but there needs to be a balance. Friendly, brief and efficient is good. We don’t need to know each other’s life stories. She told me how much she loved eating at Christmas time and that she was lucky because it didn’t affect her figure. I told her it didn’t affect mine either…

Head Space Daily Image...

The first two mince pies have been consumed...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Bonobo - Emkay

I have just been listening to a Boiler Room mix from Bonobo on Soundcloud. It is well worth a listen - link posted below. The track above, is my favourite from the latest Bonobo album The North Borders.

Bonobo Boiler Room Mix

Head Space Daily Words...

You know winter is around the corner when you buy yourself a pair of slippers, which is what I did yesterday. It may be true that you lose 50% of your body heat through your head but having freezing cold feet, like blocks of ice at the end of your legs, is the pits. I went to a well-known fashion store on Oxford Street and asked a girl who worked there if they sold slippers. Her response was to give out a shrill, cackle of embarrassment, in her generic European accent. “No, we don’t sell slippers,” she said. Thinking something may have been lost in translation, I trawled the shop but couldn’t find any. When I think of slippers, my mind casts back to the corduroy little numbers from Marks And Spencer that my dad used to wear when I was a kid. Perhaps the term slippers has been lost in the modern age of txt tlk and abbreviation. Maybe they are now called slers. As I walked back towards Bond Street Station, I popped into a couple more shops but to no avail – no slippers. Next to the station is another branch of the same shop that I tried first of all, so I thought ‘nothing to lose, lets give it another go.’ The young guy I asked was British, which gave him an understanding of the word slippers. He kept a straight face and pointed me in the direction of - the ROOM SHOES. Personally, I am not a fan of this rebrand of the humble slipper. Room shoes sounds too functional, whilst slippers is just a cosy term that gives you a feeling of warmth. Plus, the phrase “pass me my pipe and slippers” doesn’t work as “pass me my pipe and room shoes,” it sounds as if you are going to have a toot on the old pipe, then go for a jog around your front room. Anyway, it doesn’t end there. Next came the small dilemma of sizes. Large covers the UK shoe sizes 7-9, whilst extra large covers 10-12. Being a size 10, I was caught between a rock and a hard place. Do I go for the Large and a potential toe squeezing tighter fit, or do I go for the extra large and risk them being like a pair of canoes? I asked the same guy if he could see if there was an extra large in stock of the colour I was after, so off he sauntered to the stock room. After waiting for over ten minutes, I became concerned and once it clocked fifteen, I reported to one of his colleagues that I feared for the guy’s safety and that alien abduction may have occurred.  Then, as we were considering calling Ghostbusters, he reappeared. “Sorry for the wait dude, the stock room is massive and there was only one Extra Large left.” I couldn’t let him go to all that trouble and not buy the Extra Large, so my size issue was solved. They may be slightly too big, looking like a pair of cushioned kayaks on my feet but you need a bit of room in your slippers, right…

Head Space Daily Image...

My room shoes...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Sugar Pie Desanto - Git Back

I've been spinning a compilation called Bay Area Funk on Luv 'n' Haight records recently and this is the opening track. Go on Sugar Pie…

Head Space Daily Words...

Head Space Daily went past the healthy landmark of ten thousand page views today, which I guess is some kind of achievement. I started HSD to keep myself ticking over when I am not working, by posting some words, an image of interest and a daily tune. My first post was on January 17^th 2013, about the impending snowfall, with an image of a child’s winter hat hanging on the school railings, accompanied by the first tune, which was Get Up Offa That Thing by James Brown. It was all intended as a personal exercise to keep myself busy but Blogger gives you an option to share your blog posts on twitter and why go to the effort of writing and posting, if you are not going to share it. I also began posting my blog on Facebook and before I knew it, people started looking at Head Space Daily and it isn’t just limited to people that I know. Blogger is obviously on the World Wide Web and it gives you viewing stats of numbers of people from a particular country that have visited your blogspot. At the time of writing these words, there have been 6,235 views from the UK, 1,987 from the US, 501 from Russia, 342 from Germany and the maddest of all is the 247 from Indonesia!! Of course, people may well just stumble across this blog without much interest but when I got over 200 hits in one night from Indonesia, I seriously thought something was amiss and I was being cyber stalked from the Far East. It was several weeks ago, on Friday September 27^th, when I blogged after watching a documentary about Northern Soul on BBC 4. I posted words about how Northern Soul (and music in general) makes me feel, an image of the dancefloor at Wigan Casino and Time Will Pass You By from Tobi Legend was the Daily Tune. After a spot of on line research, it turns out that there is a very big mod and Northern scene in Indonesia, where they have a Mayday mod weekend in Jakarta (see link below.) I think it’s amazing that what you can be typing and posting from a room in South East London, can be picked up on by people on the other side of the world, from an entirely different culture and you can be fully linked and connected through music. So, to the mods of Indonesia, I salute you…

Indonesian Mods

Head Space Daily Image...

The Atlas open at Indonesia, where a hot bed of mod culture and Northern Soul thrives...

Head Space Daily Tune...

Frank Wilson - Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)

Going out to the indonesian soul massive, the final tune ever to be played at Wigan Casino…

Head Space Daily Words...

When I was at school I remember one year, everyone buying poppies, then painting them white with Tipp Ex as an expression of peace and an anti-war sentiment. It’s the sort of thing teenagers do, or we did back then. At least we were buying poppies and remembering. I buy my poppy every year and I generally like to do it a couple of weeks out, rather than in the week running up to it. This year I didn’t do that, because I couldn’t find anywhere that was selling poppies on my way to work. Normally, there is someone at my local train station – not this year. There was no one selling them at Shadwell Station, or any of the shops in the area of Docklands that I was working at the time. Last weekend I was in our local supermarket and noticed a box of poppies on the floor behind the cash registers and had to ask one of the shop assistants to pass me one over. She put my money into the poppy box, as there was no collection tin. This week – and it may just be me – but I haven’t seen as many people wearing poppies as I usually do. We can’t get apathetic about this. No matter what your view is about war, the fact that hundreds of thousands of British soldiers blindly lost their lives, in the two World Wars, cannot be forgotten. Not to mention the millions of civilian casualties throughout the world and unimaginable atrocities of genocide. If these soldiers hadn’t fought on our behalves, we would have been in the grip of Nazism. Britain would be a very different place. I would rather see people wearing poppies painted white with Tipp Ex than no poppy at all. It is not a show of apathy but rememberance in a different way…