55 From 55 - 2012

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far.

My self-imposed rules going into this series (I do like a self-imposed rule) were; a) No tunes that have previously graced these pages, b) No appearances from any of my all- time favourite bands, c) One song per artist, d) No photos I've shared before and e) No stories I've told before. As '55 From 55' winds down, I can say in all honesty that while none of the above rules have been badly broken, some of 'em have taken a bit of a bending. We're now into the years where I was really having a proper crack at this blogging lark after initially just playing around with it and therefore I realise that I'm at a greater risk of repeating myself, so these last few posts will be more in the nature of a general rounding-up of present day life in and around Swede Towers.

A while back, I found myself musing (here) on the total number of places I've called home so far in my life. In October 2011, after a few frustrating legal delays, I, along with Mrs S, moved into what I calculate to be my 14th home. We're in a small village, though just a mile across the marsh from the nearest town. Our house used to form part of a much larger one, but the two were divided in a roughly two thirds/one third split. We're in the one third bit and we call next door 'the big house'. In the second half of the 19th Century the building was the village shop and close inspection of the brickwork, internal and external, shows the ghostly outlines of where original configurations of doors and windows once were. This is how the it looked back then.

I'm currently sitting at the window above the lamp, which is presumably positioned to light the shop window. The lamp is long gone, as is the window. Below me now is our street door.

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Baltimore's Lower Dens have just issued their third LP, 'Escape From Evil'. The record is the follow up to 2012's 'Nootropics', which featured the fabulous motorik driven 'Brains'.

The Tracks of My Year

A few weeks ago, I was surprised and honoured to be invited, by the fine folk over at Tune Doctor, to come up with three of my favourite songs of 2012 for inclusion in their year-end round-up. A year of music condensed into three tracks - a tall order? A hellishly difficult task more like. Or, as flycasual wryly noted, a process akin to 'dumping your friends.'

I started with a very long list, whittled away at it until I was left with just 20 titles and from there chopped and changed until eventually settling on my three tunes. Of course, ever since I sent the email listing my final choices, several tracks that I'd overlooked have re-emerged from the cobwebs of my memory, but I'm very happy with the three that made the cut, which you can check-out here.

Thank you again to the Tune Doctor posse for inviting me to contribute.