Monday 7 September 2020

Monday Long Song


One of the fringe benefits of staying with a relative whilst on holiday, is that one doesn't have to cart unnecessary luggage halfway around the world. There was never any need to pack excess clothing when visiting my cousin and her family in New York, as her washing machine was always available to us and, by the time of our last trip in 2010 with three young kids in the apartment, that washing machine was invariably going morning, noon and night.

So our cases were half empty and we travelled light, at least on the way out to the US. On the way back however, we usually travelled very heavily indeed, our cases full to bursting. The reason? We spent much of our time between the going away and the coming home trawling through the myriad CD shops that were still to be found scattered around the Five Boroughs back then, most of which had dusty bargain bins crammed with interesting looking nuggets, often retailing at less than a dollar a pop. Throughout the noughties we bought home copious amounts of these cheap CDs from our NYC trips, really ridiculous amounts. Some were already on our shopping list, but many were spontaneous purchases, interesting looking oddities. Needless to say  a fair few of these CDs ended up in UK charity shops once we'd checked them out, the interesting covers being the extent of their attraction. Others led us to a fuller appreciation of the artists in question and on to further, full price, purchases, Ohio band The Six Parts Seven being a case in point. Best described as melodic instrumental post-rock, though with none of the bombast or tricky time signatures often associated with the genre, we eventually ended up with a clutch of their albums on our shelves after initially plucking 'Silence Magnifies Sound' from the bottom of a grubby cardboard box in a dimly lit corner of an East Village CD store in 2004, for the grand sum of 87 cents.

(This is my first attempt at using the new Blogger format. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but I think I've managed to stumble my way through the process without incident. The only thing I've so far not figured out is how to actually save the set date and time option - is anyone able to help a guy out?)

The Six Parts Seven - Changing the Name of October

5 comments:

C said...

That's lovely, very sparse and atmospheric and shimmering. I love your tales of NY too, and hope you'll get to go back there again soon, we need these things to look forward to!
Re. setting time and date for publishing a post, seems you click on the list on the right hand bar where it says Published On (and shows the current date and time), this brings up a calendar, select the date you want, then there's the current time above (next to the date above that calendar), click on that and you get a drop down menu of hours, select your choice and it should set it.... I think/hope!

Charity Chic said...

As C said
A bit counter intuitive clicking where it says publish but it brings up the calander

The Swede said...

Thanks C and CC, I got that far, but can't work how to actually save the settings once I've selected the time and date. Am I missing something?

C said...

When I tried it, I just went back to where you edit the post afterwards and it had saved the date and time I wanted where it says 'Published On' while the post was still in draft mode. But as it happens I changed my mind and published it without scheduling after all so I don't know for sure if it would have worked, hence my thinking/hoping! Hope it works for you!

Brian said...

Shopping for CDs is exactly how I spent many days in New York in the middle and late 90s. I was living in Washington, DC, at the time, and I would drive up, park the car in a garage and then hit my list of shops. I think just about all of them are gone now. My favorite was this little hole in the wall called Midnight Records that had the most extensive collection of bootlegs I had ever seen. I would go to the counter and say, "Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys boots, please," for example. The guy would disappear for a moment and come back with a big box to rummage through. Carefree times, my friend.

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