Cooker #28

Just back from a rather smashing slightly-less-than-a-fortnight French holiday. You'll have to look elsewhere for further information about that smashingness.

You are here, of course, solely to finger your mouse, tap your touch pad or screen or maybe even massage your mobile and gain access to the latest offering of sounds which scientific research agrees can improve your cooking skills.

So, with a gentle reminder to always be on guard for spurious claims in the culinary world, I leave you to explore number twenty-eight.

Cooker #23

I really have little idea why Theresa May chose to steal my thunder by making her snap election announcement just before this release of Cooker #23. I suppose it must be put down to deliberate spite or her insane jealousy of my extra five years on this planet, which gives me an unassailable lead over her in the fashion stakes.

I leave you to join me in making other malicious inferences until we are corrected by an apology from Downing Street.

While you and I wait for that let's skip back to something more reliable... this here April Cooker.

A father and son Dury duo was bound to appear eventually. Here it is among some not very oft-listened to musicians. Don't put Courteeners in that category. They are here at the request of a former pupil. Thank you for your good taste in music, Kerri... I'm sure I would have discovered them in time.

A demanding track winds up proceedings. How do we enjoy the loveliest of love songs when we know the pain of the person who wrote it?

I'll drag myself back to less complicated things by sending a reminder to our PM to hasten that apology.

Thank you once again for your ears. And do please remember... look both ways before you listen.

Cooker #13

It's a Monday. It's a Bank Holiday. But it's not that one where you have to stay up and watch the end of the snooker final.

Whatever you're doing, whatever you've done (today, I mean... I'm not here to talk about your entire lifespan, you know) here is a cheeky addition to the #Cookers collective. Cheeky for the reason that it is rather close upon the heels of Cooker #12. Please, just go with my generous flow and enjoy a holiday selection with which I am finding it hugely difficult to find fault. Think of this as Cheoff's 'Baker's Dozen'... one more for insurance purposes.

Whether it be a three minute track or an eight minute behemoth from those Madchester men celebrating the Easter story, I am confident that you have here an untarnished cluster of silvery sounds to flap in the face of those final few hours before the return to work in the morning. As an indication of my own enjoyment, allow me to tell you that I have derived as much pleasure from this selection as the successful squeezing of eleven ripe blackheads one after the other. 

Not much left of the long weekend now... I'd best publish this and be damned.

Oh, if you are going back to work in the morning, please message me and remind me what it's like. Being retired for almost five years now means I really miss that feeling! :p

Cooker #12

Here you have the dozenth of my hearing tests. 

A seventeen minute track included, and still I can't offer a whole hour of audio. That does give you the chance to maintain focus on my selection and to give the music a chance to elicit something explicit.

At the very least, I recommend you allow the vestibulocochlear nerve in your inner ear to transmit information to the temporal lobe of your brain.

It was rather lovely to be nudged into releasing this particular episode by the horribly young, handsome and hip Matthew Moore. I freely confess that his Spotify play history provides a few pointers for my own choices. Hey, rush over and find out what he's putting on his intricately tuned turntable... not before you've hit my Cooker #12 link, of course!

Thank you for listening.

Overcooked #1

Occasionally I put together a rather unwieldy set list which demands more time and attention than the average cooking session allows. These usually follow some theme or a particular strand that has been prompted by a tweet, an internet discovery or even a real nudge from a real person who has just found out I've never listened to their particular favourite and is demanding I explore further. I've already posted one behemoth of Sixties/Seventies pop in its pomp. From now on, I'll prepare you for these lengthier aural treats under the 'Overcooked' banner.

Here is an extended bit of listening which came out of reading this Gigwise article rating Mercury Prize winners. I won't bother reacting to the judgements made. The nature of the prize means that there is an annual  outcry, with the protests over snubs given to much more deserving works equivalent to the number of amateur and professional critics who exist at the time (minus those who favour the winner, of course)... lots of fallout. 

So here is the roster of winners with the 'also-rans' conveniently excised for you. All I've bothered to do is assemble and order the music from an already contentious list on your behalf. I still haven't given it my own fullest attention. Why not follow my example and dip in to whatever takes your fancy. Remind yourself of the ones you cheered along and shake your head in dismay as the undeserving efforts rear their horrible heads again.

Actually, in fairness, let us do the right thing and congratulate all the nominees before listening.

Ah, yes, I've added Benjamin Clementine who won in 2015, after the article went out. October and November this year will see the nominations and another winner declared.

Cooker #8

It's no good. I have tried very hard to dislike at least one of these offerings. Failed completely. So... here you are.

(If you repeat this one nine times you'll have as much listening as last time's Cooker!)

Cooker #7

This playlist is built, chopped and changed regularly. It’s pretty much for my personal enjoyment so I make no apologies for some very obvious choices or for the staggering omissions. It might never have seen the light of day except that I caught the Steve Lamacq 6 Music show on the Friday before Christmas. Noel Gallagher was in the studio to help pick tracks for a ‘Christmas Party’. No real Christmas music whatsoever on their playlist but much enthused chatter about the wealth of quality offerings from the Sixties. I’m sure I once heard that Noel plays ‘The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society’ every day. No-one could possibly censure him for that. The programme and Mr. Gallagher in particular stiffened my resolve to go public with the selections here.

The first pop LP (no albums back then!) to appear in our house was ‘With the Beatles’. Neither brother Paul nor I can lay claim to spending pocket money on it. Just after my twelfth birthday Mum brought home and continually played this vinyl. Yes, she loved the music… But I think most of all she had fallen for John Lennon and his “lovely set of teeth”. Mum had high standards when it came to long-haired popsters!

So, I was privileged to enter teenage years with no barriers to enjoying the outpouring of a stunning flood of music. Luxembourg, pirate radio, Radio 1 and the listening booth at Rhythm Records in Church Street, Reigate, all pumped fabulous sounds into my very receptive ears.

Cliff Michelmore lived in the centre of our town and his wife, Jean (Metcalfe), appeared at church fetes selling signed photos of Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury who were riding on the back of what had happened in America. I’d missed the first-hand excitement of Fifties’ Rock ‘n’ Roll but the Sixties was a hell of a starting point for my introduction to the music-driven popular culture of Britain at the time.

I know some of you will find it tough getting past a Leonard Cohen opener. Please persevere. If you like, you could discard a few (not too many, please!) and add your own tunes. If you do, please let me know. I’ll very likely edit the listing - so watch out for my changes.

The music here has stood the test of my critical faculties and continues to be an important part of my life. It was the very insistent background to my youth and has, for the most part, aged better than I have.

I really can’t pick a favourite but if you get all the way through to my final track you will hear Lou bringing me into the Seventies. The fact that he accompanied just about my every last disco dance with a rather special lady at the time is good enough reason for inclusion. The fact that Jan is still with me means I now have the best music and the finest wife. I've done nowhere near enough to deserve either… But I’d struggle horribly to live without them.

Cooker #6

Much as I loved bringing you a bellyful of blues last time I feel a more mixed medley of music should make an appearance. But I commence with a quick comparative argument as to whether Blue men can sing the Whites (the blood-spitting Sonny Boy does it every time for me) There follows a definite nod to my recent, hugely enjoyable holiday in France. Saian Supa Crew were sought out in a Fnac outlet by my sons on a visit many moons ago. Francoise Hardy has been ever so slightly sexy since well before rap was invented and I can't resist the delivery of the other ladies here present. Your 'cool-down' takes the form of a bit of blissed-out burbling from Roger Waters with his song in praise of the British countryside.

Cooker #5

Thorough self-indulgence this week... a whole hour of it! I'm on holiday in France as this goes out. There's a lot of love for this music here as well.

Since my iPad skills are so deficient, I can only give you this link to Cooker #5 - no Spotify graphic this week!

My introduction to Blues coincided with Sixties Britain in which the music's producers and audiences were changing from black to white. I never fully embraced any idea of new ownership. For me Blues remains in the possession of the men and women of the Mississippi Delta and those who travelled North to seek work in the cities. Clapton, Mayall, Winter and other 'Palefaces' are just fine. But the enjoyment I get from them is put into stark perspective when I feel the ancient tremor of a deep cry against enslavement at the sound of a guitar attack from Freddie King or the voice of Johnny Shines.

I don't need to go to the crossroads... I sold my soul to Robert Johnson long ago!

I hope you all listen to these... and that some of you enjoy them as much as I do.

Cooker #4

IT'S FRIDAAAAAY! (12th of June, if you're interested)
This is the first time I've scheduled a post. I'm assuming the worst and am fully expecting this to disappear and re-surface in another time zone. If it's all present and correct on the blog around early evening on my chosen day I'm seriously thinking of awarding myself a Gold Star!

Cooker #3

It's F-R-I-D-A-Y!!!

I'm sorry if that doesn't signal the 'weekend' for some of you but it is a feeling well known to me from my pre-retirement existence.

There are so many positives to being in work that I won't  list them here - well, a regular income and the security which that brings is the one I will reference. Having the wherewithal to enjoy family and friends within a secure financial environment is a huge privilege and I'm perfectly aware that I share this blog with much less fortunate people than me and that I can't even speak to some through these channels since the Blairite 'Computer in every home' is still not a reality.

It would be a terribly smug thing to remind you that, in retirement, I no longer have the weekend to look forward to but there it is... I've just reminded you!

That's enough of gritty realism and self-satisfied crowing! For those of you still at this assembly, may I offer this, my third musical musing, for your weekend delectation.

If the weekend is a fairly meaningless entity to you then please just allow the music to work its magic - it can do so in the depths of midweek despair, at the beginning or at the end of days, and at just about any time in between.

I also hereby give notice that these, my new 'Cooker' selections, will be shared with you each Friday for the foreseeable future. I'm giving a nod to my dimly-remembered wickedness of weekends while I can! :) 
 

Yeah, yeah - it's a longer set this week... I did warn you! ;)

Cooker #2

I said there would be more!

It's a few days since the last fruit dropped from the tree so here is another simply bursting with a  juicy mix of nostalgia (for me!), ancient classics, almost up-to-date stuff... and a little bed-time story to round things off.

Yeah, I know that's TEN tracks - you just know I'm going to push these lists into three hour indulgences before the year is out! ;)

COOKER #2