Monday 24 December 2012

all gold


wishing you the very bestestest festives sweet dears... here it'll be rainy beaches with pudding as the tide comes in and whatever brilliant oddity of italian seventies cinema the missus has dug up next with a bag of pic'n'mix. be good now

jill scott - golden

x

Wednesday 19 December 2012

blue tones


festive bewildered here there and heaven knows where despite a yesterday of top drawer seasiding... bellow along you rowdy types

ikettes - i'm blue

x

Monday 17 December 2012

a riot of colour


on one of those glaring blinding beautiful days last week that make winter sneak into my favourite bits of the year i trained past the old kodak factory crumbling and shoddy and blew it a kiss of thanks for all that film that caught days just like this and sobbed at the horrid loss of elitechrome slide film most especially my very bestest camera pal... so let's have a week of colour

blossom dearie - long daddy green

x


Wednesday 5 December 2012

wordless wednesday


ooooooooohhh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh oooooooooohhh

swing out sister - the kaleidoscope affair

x

for corinne drewery turning 99p soul into the new chinawhite

more kaleidoscope world here

Tuesday 4 December 2012

torment tuesday


it's an endless tea drop of brandy wallow in newley kind of day... one lump or two my dear?

anthony newley - love is a now and then thing

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Friday 30 November 2012

toggle up



oooh it's bitter out... bitter missus... you wrap up warm sweet dears and do remember that unless you are a very small child or a sticky peruvian bear your duffle should be large your toggles wooden and your loops ropey. there are no exceptions i'm afraid. strict i know but it's for your own good.


dinah washington - cold cold heart

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Friday 23 November 2012

storytime



i do love ol' flannery's stories and hearing her reading one her very self in that voice i'll always read all her stories in from now on is an astounding wonder. treat yourselves sweetpeas...

flannery o'conner reads a good man is hard to find (1959)

much more at the indispenable open culture

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Tuesday 20 November 2012

dancing



more treats for your hearts and feet... miraculously we've managed to cobble together the records emma played at october's 99p hoohah and my they sound fine. i hope we see you down the stairs on the 1st dear pals









you can even download as a one big thing just here




x

Friday 16 November 2012

book learning


round about january or so most years i'm determindly not making resolutions not drinking less or running about more pretty darned sure there'll be let up in the putting off mooching about atery and brain thickening but i'm think this time or perhaps the time before i may've mummbled something about animal facts. i was going to learn some animal facts. possibly even learn some things aboout other things too but that seems insanely overenthusiastic. i have learned some animal facts too. well i've read a book and i thought it'd be nice to share the highlights. well done the observer's book of wild animals of the british isles. every home should have one.

"in kensington gardens and other parks in the london district a light grey squirrel may be seen, and thought to be a colour variartion of our native species. it is really an american visitor, distinct in colour and without tufts to the ears. some years ago the caged specimens in the zoological gardens, regent's park, had become so numerous that some of them were given their liberty. their numbers increased among the trees of the gardens, and they overflowed into the park, where they became so familiar as to accept food from the hands of delighted children. gradually, some of them developed exploring tendancies and made their way to the wooded grounds of suburban residences. british naturalists of a not-distant future will probably have to include two species of squirrels in their lists."

if you're good there'll be more top animal facts in the weeks to come

alton ellis - live and learn

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Monday 12 November 2012

doubledecker


i think we need something extra glorious to fill our hearts this morning dears something to sustain us... hold on tight...

dion - loving you is sweeter than ever

four tops - loving you is sweeter than ever

x

Friday 9 November 2012

outing


it's the 99p soul winter fete. well it's not really a fete it's some dancing in a small basement but all that overly jaunty flyer thingy has gone and got me carried away. it'd be lovely to see you if you're about.

lovely rob has done another of his mixcloud whatsits... it's his 99p soul top twenty and it's just as bloody marvelous as you'd expect. very obviously...


x

Thursday 8 November 2012

shopping



sister ray garage girl group soul 45 anyone? how could you ever resist?

we had the flip side somewhere roundabout a time back i'm sure but record recordingless like i am just at the mo it's taken a while to track down a way to play this and send you scurrying off scrunched fiver gripped tight ...



available on a record from honest jons

x

ps
a soul-source ad for the original..
Softiques - Two Kinds Of Boys/Bashful - Sheldon (Audition Record) Excellent minus condition a few very light sleeve marks visible under light. One of rarest Chicago girl records, two great sides Minimum bid £1500

Thursday 1 November 2012

horrorshow



so this was supposed to be a halloween doohickey but heavens i'd all but worn my poor old self out mischief nighting knock a door running hedge jumping gate meddling ooooh untold milk bottle related catastrophing and hanging around outside the chipshop so yesterday was mainly first aid vitamins and timothy spall being scared of the sea. i did manage a pop down the co-op for sweets but the local youth were clearly too pampered to brave the rain and gales so now i'm lumbered with treat sized bags of buttons and no one to frighten right back with terrifying noise... happy november

cabaret voltaire - a thousand ways

x

ps
the first gggrrrrmmfffffmmnnn of this and it's thirty years ago in a teenage bedroom. in the dark. and there are few scarier places than that.
x

Friday 26 October 2012

folky friday


it's feeling wooly and wrapped up all of a sudden out there and these nights closing in send me even soppier ... this popped up the other day and i'm sure it must've come via one of you lovely people but quite who and when i really haven't a clue. the lonesome musicers is my guess what with it being just their sort of beautiful. keep warm dear hearts...

linda perhacs - hey, who really cares

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Thursday 25 October 2012

thelonious thursday


t. monk's advice. hell yes. i'm also keen on "talking about music is like dancing about architecture"

thelonious monk - ruby my dear

x

ps 
carmen mcrae - dear ruby

pps
he could sure wear a hat and liked a little dance. my kind of gent



x

Monday 22 October 2012

modal monday





i do so love a drop of the old modal... waltz with me now darlings

duke pearson - the fakir

x

buy duke pearson's prairie dog at sounds of the universe

Wednesday 17 October 2012

saved for the nation


heavens to betsey they've only gone and listed the forton services tower. i know. i never thought english heritage had it in them. well done you. really. even the list entry is full of glories...

"distinguished by its unique landmark 22 m tower with cantilevered restaurant and sun deck... a new popularist architecture ideally suited to the democratic new aesthetic of the motorway, the Pennine Tower Restaurant acting both as a beacon to attract the passing motorists and as a glamorous vantage point from which they were able to enjoy spectacular prospects of the motorway below and more extensively over the miles of surrounding countryside through which they passing... evoking the modern glamour of 1960s air travel and also drawing on the progressive urban movement of this period of constructing towers with restaurants and observation platforms"
  
it's a top class bit of motorway too that bit of m6 between preston and lancaster. nice bridges. and don't give me any of that madison county nonesense neither. full of spikey youth squashed into all parts of pete's just about motor to chinatown and diner and breathless and all those picture house reels of wonder and orange juice at the sugarhouse memories teas and bensons and penine towers

now please save preston bus station 

the pharoahs - freedom road 


 ps
the full english heritage listing is here

pps
more forton ...fortonservices.webs.com/

Tuesday 9 October 2012

torment tuesday



my but it's been slack round here of late hasn't it. i'm awful sorry. just not really been with it at all. much more hoovery and armchairing and vaguery. young gladys at her most desperatest has stirred things somewhere so here we go again...

gladys knight & the pips - giving up

x

Tuesday 18 September 2012

joy





super rob ryan has mixclouded a pile of records to send you swooning and swinging. where he finds them no one knows...




x

Monday 17 September 2012

diamond lil


oh you know we love odyssey round here sweethearts so raise a glass high to the glorious lillian lopez and sing through the tears

odyssey - inside out

x

Monday 3 September 2012

fontabulosa




sorry it's been such a while honeypies but oh you know what with the rain and the wind and mopping the mrs's brow through the endless terror of windows 7 installation and all it's accompanying me moaning i couldn't work/find anything anymore and the sunny day grabbing and the not having a thing to wear no no what this old thing... and then the font madness the mad obbsessing the trawling through thousands and thousands of fonts fonts fonts only for it to be clarendon lt std bold all along. lovely lovely clarendon lt std bold. there are days i wish i'd tried to do cutting out and sticking on and moving that just the teensiest bit that way a whole lot better. you know with teachers and books and those funny pens that always block up and propelling pencils. oh propelling pencils. perhaps in my impending dotage. anyway all that fonting got me nowhere real slow for a while there and i gave up ever pinching an idea off of franko grignani and reached  for the glorious sleeve of the tamba trio tempo lp the soul jazzers have just reissued and pinched a bit of that instead only to finally hit clarendon lt std bold just as the last bit of helvetica neue lt std went on all squidged close and unreadable just the way i like it so now we have two adverts for the next 99per and your thoughts on which we should go with would be a very helpful thing. very. things are swinging towards the one that tells you stuff and may possibly be legible when it's printed badly but i do like that little windmill really i do. it might just have to get saved for another day though. sorry to go on

the free design - now is the time

x

Sunday 19 August 2012

a gift for you




for everyone who couldn't make last saturday here's the free gift you missed... see you next time sweethearts

99psoul#1

x

and now on mixcloud too

Thursday 9 August 2012

to the soul




let's put on our classics and have a little dance...

see you saturday 99pers and here's to you kitchen swingers

i shall be playing this...

jackson 5 - lookin through the windows

x

Monday 6 August 2012

doubledecker


oh you know i love a bossa but heavens there's such a super double plus to knowing the words... all those songs i know i'm missing a mammoth amount of... thankyou blossom (for everything)

sylvia telles - dindi

blossom dearie - dindi

x

Friday 3 August 2012

wide awake



covers thrown shower blasted muesli stuffed tea drenched heart exploding with jazz... i shall be requiring a drink


pharoah sanders - you got to have freedom

x

Tuesday 31 July 2012

wake up call



heavens but it's vague as all anything around this poor noggin right now bath chaired and tartan blanketed gin in the afternooned orchid drowsed like some chandler dodderer like some pier sheltered dearie like how old mal plays this...

mal waldren - warm canto

x

maybe baby





please please please be right little weather forecaster please please just this once this damp and gloom is kinda getting in these poor old bones and my it'd be grand to see the sun again some stars too and moonlight hey remember that lovers... in thanks and hope we offer you great wonder... rocksteady murder ballad mariachi horns and a spit in the jones's eye

sing it horace

horace andy - delilah

x

Wednesday 18 July 2012

dancing date



my but it comes round quick doesn't it... every other month and i can barely keep up. shocking really it is. in a very encouraging sort of way this plonked through the letterbox this morning and i shall now be spending the next three weeks perfecting my moves. i do hope you can join me

the softiques - two kinds of boys*

x

*get yours from the lovely people at honest jon's


Friday 13 July 2012

highbrow



oh for sweeping arches razor angles bus seat slashes...

here it's a wretched battle with untamable brutes... psychotic twins desperate for their individuality...

blossom dearie - the shape of things (live at ronnie scott's)

x

buy blossom at honest jon's. they've still got that 45 of i like london in the rain too

Friday 29 June 2012

keep on learning


this week has been try to get a grip on the beach boys week courtesy of an all bases covered selection flung this way with the all the aplomb we've come to expect from the very davy his lovely self. i wish i could say i was any grippier but still all i hear are those too tight trouser notes and all too perfect harmonising and occasional funny looking gent in a swimming pool bananasnesses. i nearly get it nearly nearly but can't quite find the wobbliness that always takes me or hits the part where the tears well. maybe it's just that when don't worry baby plays there should always be castanets...

ronnie spector - don't worry baby

x

now buy ronnie

Monday 25 June 2012

scrubber


i like washing up. there. now you know. i've just finished the pots and pans and plates and knives forks and spoons and the lemon squeezer and colander and chopping board and mugs and glasses. come to think of it there weren't any pots. just pans. anyway i like washing up. in the sink with a co-op foam scourer. a dishwasher here would be given the mrs doyle teamaster treatment merciless and ruthless. this stillness and sunshine must have thrown me mind you cos as a rule it's an in the morning thing radio four nattering or the windows wide to the tweety birds almost certainly the only thing all day i'll start and finish. i think that's why i like it. the ah yes that's all done then thing. the last teaspoon clanking into the rack. that and the splashing about obviously

lonnie smith - move your hand

x

Friday 15 June 2012

in & out


oh i know i rattling on about 99p soul again but oh you know i just can't help myself. i blame the four tops obviously. i'm afraid i do so like the idea that it's something for all the indoor far away past my bedtimers just as much as the troll along the farringdon roaders and that there can be record playing and hip swinging and very possibly old fashioned swilling for all of us.

to give you a sneak peek at the goings on i'd be awfully suprised if some of this sort of loveliness didn't fill the saturday night air...

carmel will be playing this
jackie wilson - try it again

rob will be playing this
willie gresham and the free food ticket - i cried boo hoo

mick will wish he could be playing this
young ladies - i'm tired of running around

and the mrs will  be playing phyllis while i drink too much and dance appallingly
phyllis dillon - leave it in the hands of love

have an absolutely darling evening where ever you are dear things

x

Tuesday 12 June 2012

smoochers





so come saturday night sunday morning just around about closing time there'll be needle dropping and girl holding and hip swaying and room sighing...

smooch along sweethearts

barbara mason- if you knew him like i do

x

Friday 8 June 2012

shoo bop shoo bop



99p soul next saturday dear hearts and i've been having a small rummage...

oh you know barbara sings this number true but here's a version for the dancers well at least the early arrivers the foot tappers the hip swingers... i do so hope we see you there my sweets

the capitols - hello stranger

x

Tuesday 5 June 2012

outings





the very first tinkle of a note of this and it's a cold dark rainy monday night up the rickety stairs of the bass clef red stripe norman jay's original rare groove warm up hours ready for the lights to dim and aretha's rocksteady the leather boys hot pants and brollies and the london apprentice cream cheese beigels endless night bus waitings but it's just the thing for bank holidays too day out wishing and tea drinking with nothing to see here and willing another sunny day

donald byrd and the blackbyrds - places and spaces

x