Cardiff Half-Marathon update

 The Cardiff Half-Marathon took place on Sunday, with an estimated 29,000 participants. My wife and I stayed overnight so as to make our morning as stress-free as possible, but even so, we were caught out by the crowds around the start area, and it was a bit of a struggle to get to the right position for my allocated start time. All came good in the end, though, and I was able to settle down and enjoy the extremely positive and welcoming atmosphere generated by the other runners and their supporters.

Here's me with Graham, who was running his fourth half-marathon, and also running in aid of Alzheimer's UK. Graham got a big shout-out over the loudspeaker, and I believe it mentioned that he was 70. Well done, Graham, and good luck with future runs.

Two nice ladies, one from the Midlands (in yellow) and the other from the Netherlands, so I got to practise my terrible rusty Dutch on the poor lady. She took it very well. Hope the run was a success, both.

With Lillie Mai, who chatted kindly to my wife while I was off dealing with some left property. Hope you had a great one, Lillie Mai!

Next to me, a couple of friendly runners from my neck of the woods in the Valleys. The one in white said he might be up for parkrun! Come on, you know you want to. Hope the run went well, both.

The Cardiff half-marathon course takes you on a nice tour of the bay and the city:

My wife was stationed at around the 7 mile mark so caught this photo of me as I passed our hotel:

By this point it was clear that the forecast rain was going to hold off so I gladly disposed of my cap for the rest of the run. I was feeling pretty good and managed to keep myself hydrated thanks to the water stations every 3 miles. There were also lots of people handing out sweets and drinks and so on along the route, so it was easy to keep your energy levels up. A big shout-out to all these kind people, including the members of the general public who just turned up with boxes of mars bars, etc.

I crossed the finish line just over 2 and a half hours after I started:

For which I was pretty pleased. I definitely found this run somewhat easier than the three unofficial halfs I did for myself during the year. I think that was a combination of a nice smooth running surface, not too many up and down bits, the ability to keep hydrated, and the great encouraging atmosphere of the other runners and supporters.

Here's me at the Alzheimer's UK stand at the completion of the event:

I felt very pleased and relieved that the whole thing had gone well. As we headed back to our car, the heavens opened, so we were rather fortunate that the rain had held off until then. The cool conditions, with just a light breeze, were pretty ideal for running. It would have been so much harder on a warm, sunny day.

Many of you have supported my run via the Alzheimer's UK fundraising page, for which I'm very grateful. I'll post a final link to the page now as it is still possible to tip some funds into it, should you so wish. Thank you all (and my wife for her amazing support, too).

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Galactic Vinyl Memories #10

 From Yes, with more than a little predictability, we pivot to reasonably unloved 80s supergroup Asia, featuring Yes's Steve Howe on guitar. Here's their second album, Alpha, which I bought in the heat of the moment in 1983.

I'm not going to claim this is any lost classic of 80s MOR, but it's perfectly pleasant and listenable within its own soft-rock microcosm and the Roger Dean cover art is lovely. My copy came from Bridgend and still looks near-mint and plays just fine. I'm fond of it because of the associations I have with that time in my life when I first played the record, rather than any intrinsic quality of the music itself.

We're edging super-close to 1500 pounds on my Justgiving page for Alzheimer's UK, which is brilliant. I'm grateful for the donations to date but want to keep pushing between now and the half-marathon:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Galactic Vinyl Memories #9

The trouble with Genesis is that they are/were always quite an insular band - other than Earth, Wind & Fire's horn section, you'd be hard-pressed to find any contributing musicians on any of the albums. There are the solo records, of course, and Collins and (especially) Gabriel have collaborated with many other artists. Gabriel's records easily link into post-punk and world music - Paul Weller is on his third album, for instance - but I thought I'd stick with Genesis for now, and make use of the fact that the brilliant drummer Bill Bruford plays on Seconds Out. I don't think he's on much of it - maybe just the live version of Cinema Show - but he was definitely part of the touring line-up before Chester Thompson took the main role of drummer.

From Bill Bruford we could go to King Crimson, but we've done them already (I'm not saying they won't come up again, though) so why not a bit of Yes, by way of their seminal 1972 album Close to the Edge:

Look, I've heard all the arguments. I know this stuff is supposed to be atrocious, self-indulgent crap. And maybe some of Yes's other stuff leaned somewhat in that direction. But this album is just the dog's bollocks. A friend of mine first played me part of it in 1982, then later made me a C90 tape. I bought my own vinyl copy, which I still play nearly every week, in 1983. There are three songs on it: one on side one, two on the other. I have never tired of listening to any single second of any of them. The record still fills me with joy and excitement. I love a lot of stuff by Yes but this is the one I'd grab if the house was on fire and I would set wizards on any man who stood in my way.

I'm wearing my Alzheimer's Uk running top in the photo. If you've not checked out my justgiving page for the Cardiff Half Marathon, here's the link. Sincere thanks to all of you who have contributed.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Galactic Vinyl Memories # 8

 Just back from a jaunt to Sweden for the Gothenburg Book Fair, where I was looked after very well by both the fair and my friends from SF Bokhandlen, where I also stopped off in Stockholm to do a joint event with Peter Hamilton. Old pals Paul McAuley and Ken MacLeod also joined us in Gothenburg for many panels and discussion events, and a great time was had by all.

Here's Ken up on the impressive space-themed stage being interviewed by Glenn Petersen of the SF Bokhandeln. It was lovely to see Ken:

While in Stockholm I took an hour or so to visit to the ABBA museum:

Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I've got a few more pics but I'll save them for another post.

Back to my vinyl connections theme. I mentioned Weather Report last time, so now let's jump to Genesis and their 1977 double live album, Seconds Out:

I bought this in 1983. It was the second Genesis live album: there'd been one earlier one during the Peter Gabriel years, but this was the first double-live record. It's one of my favorites because it captures Genesis at an interesting point, between the departure of Gabriel and before the first of the mega hits. Unless you're a fan of the band, there won't be any hugely familiar tracks on this album except for the minor chart entry "I know what I like". Phil Collins had become the main singer by 1977 and so Chester Thompson (Weather Report, Frank Zappa) was brought in to play drums when the band were on the road. Chester Thompson was a great fit for the band and continued to play with them until at least the last time I saw Genesis, in 2007.

Despite already being considered obsolete prog-rock dinosaurs by this point, the core members of Genesis were no older than 27 when they made this record! Times have changed.

The opening song is Squonk, off their 1976 album "A Trick of the Tail".

I can only think of one other song that references the word "Squonk" and that is "Any Major Dude" by Steely Dan, which appeared on Pretzel Logic, already mentioned a few posts ago. 

How's that for circularity?

According to Wikipedia: "The squonk is a mythical creature that is reputed to live in the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania in the United States."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squonk

Both songs reference the tears of the Squonk.

Speaking of tears, it's now less than a week until my Cardiff Half-marathon run in aid of Alzheimer's UK. I've had many generous donations, but if you haven't donated yet and might want to, hop on over to my justgiving page. Every amount makes a difference, and will motivate me on the day come what may.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Ta,

Al

Galactic Vinyl Memories #7

 It's a short detour from Joni Mitchell to Weather Report, thanks to WR's Jaco Pastorius providing bass on Hejira! 

I bought this 1979 double live album (entitled 8:30) in 1985. Not sure why. I'd seen a TV documentary about Weather Report (the South Bank Show, 1984) and thought they might be up my street, but I was a bit confounded by the music when I actually listened to it properly. I'd obviously heard a bit of their music on the doco and knew it was "jazz/fusion" (whatever that is) but I think I was expecting something a bit more proggy/keyboardy than what I actually got. As weird as it sounds now, in those days it was normal to take a punt on a record even when you had no more than a vague idea of what it might sound like, or even just because you liked the artwork or the band name or song titles. There was no world-wide web and no reliable way of checking out records beforehand. (As an aside, when I moved to the Netherlands, I found out that many Dutch record shops still had listening booths where you could check out a CD prior to purchase but I don't remember this being an option in the UK, at least not with vinyl). I bought a ton of records this way and was rarely disappointed!

Despite my initial reservations, I did end up quite enjoying this record, and eventually acquired a few more Weather Report albums, although this remains my only vinyl purchase. It's in superb condition and still plays perfectly. I particularly like "A Remark You Made", which is a Zawinul composition, which is a really beautiful, slow, evocative jazz piece. The cover on this record is a gorgeous piece of artwork.

Hmm... where do we go from here? Well, a certain Chester Thompson played drums in Weather Report so perhaps there's a clue that we may be drifting back into the arena of prog.

Hope you're enjoying these posts, and please check out my fundraising page for the Cardiff Half-Marathon, in just over a week:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Galactic Vinyl Memories #6

 Keeping with the monochrome theme (why not), here's Joni Mitchell's magnificent 1976 album Hejira. This is a little different than the preceding records, in that my vinyl copy is a recent pressing. I only came to Joni Mitchell late in my listening, by way of budget box-set of her albums through the late 60s to the late 70s. Prior to that, I'd not given her a lot a of time, being only familiar with the big, early hits, which I could take or leave. Then, I heard a live recording of one of her tracks on the radio, and it blew me away. I can't even say what that song was now: it might have been "Help me", "Free Man in Paris" or possibly "Coyote", the opening track on Hejira. It doesn't matter, it was just the key that unlocked her music for me and turned me into an avid fan. I've now got a few of her records on vinyl, purely because, why not?

Mitchell had a run of amazing records from 1974 to 1976, beginning with Court and Spark, continuing with The Hissing of Summer Lawns, and ending with Hejira. Larry Carlton's jazzy playing is all over this trio, none more so than on Hejira which is PHENOMENAL. It's such a modern-sounding record that it's hard to grasp that it'll soon be 50 years old. I think my favorite song on it is probably the nearly 9-minute long "Song for Sharon" with its haunting, repeating bassline. Needless to say, the lyrics are the stuff of poetry and the playing and singing throughout the record is outstanding. How wonderful that Joni Mitchell is still performing now!

Here's a link to my Cardiff Half-marathon fundraiser for Alzheimer's UK:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

Galactic Vinyl Memories #5

 With a certain inevitability we come to Steely Dan itself, via their 1974 third album, Pretzel Logic:

It's a monochrome album cover, so I went with a monochrome shot. There's nothing about this record I don't love. I bought it in Bridgend over Christmas 1985, along with The Royal Scam and The Nightfly. My journey down the Steely Dan rabbit hole had begun a few months earlier, when I bought a double cassette of their first album, Can't Buy a Thrill (1972), paired with their sixth, Aja (1977). It's a really weird pairing that ought not to work - the two records really don't sound that much alike - but perhaps it was that odd juxtaposition that worked for me. CBAT has a couple of familiar hits on it, but while the playing is great and the lyrics super-cynical, it's closer to a laid-back Eagles or Doobie Brothers kind of sound than the ice-cool jazz-rock of their late-70s records such as Aja. Pretzel Logic is somewhere in the middle, with the jazz stuff starting to peak through but not yet becoming the dominant sound. The title track is a monumental slow blues that might be about time travel (or something). Most SD albums had a nod to science fiction somewhere or other - Fagen & Becker were big SF-heads.

I love all their 70s records unreservedly. I think I skew a little bit toward liking the later albums - Royal Scam, Aja and Gaucho - very slightly more than their predecessors (it might have something to do with Larry Carlton's quicksilver guitar work figuring on those later records) but I would never want to be without any of the records. Through thick and thin, through deviations into prog, punk, post-punk, goth, grunge, metal and just about any sub-genre of rock you care to name, I've never stopped loving Steely Dan. You either got them or you didn't. The only problem was - as of the point I discovered them - their body of work was small, and you could burn through it in a morning. I was conscious of this as I worked through their back catalogue, and by the time I got to Gaucho (1980), which I delayed buying as long as possible, I knew there could be no more Steely Dan. Well, there was, eventually, but for me the two albums they did after 2000 stand apart from the great run of their first seven records.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990