Royal Oak

So, you're in Manchester then?

We'll be talking about the Summer of 1976 before long. Another utterly glorious day in Manchester today

I am exercising my right, as a British person, to talk about the weather. Here in the UK, we are officially experiencing a heatwave. There does seem to have been an extraordinary amount of sunshine over the last two months, certainly in Manchester. My garden soil, a usually waterlogged heavy clay, is now dry as a bone, with large cracks appearing on the surface. I haven't seen those for several years. Weeds are unable to cope, which is a pleasant side-effect, and I appear to be in line for a nice crop of tomatoes, which as often as not rot and blight in the damp conditions. The lawn is growing slower than usual, and is getting a bit brown in places. It will recover, I'm sure. Work is a bit uncomfortable, but I'll take it over grey, muggy conditions any day.

I see Rene Higuita and Carlos Valderrama are still sporting exactly the same haircuts as they did in 1994

I've never seen that album before, looks a nice line up

Bit of an impulse buy for £3, as the cover looked interesting! Listening for the first time earlier this evening, I experienced quite the feeling of deja entendu. Perhaps not the actual compositions, but certainly the vibe of the music. I googled Gerhard and see he worked for the BBC a lot, so I guess it's snatches of TV from childhood. Quite evocative.

How do you feel it's aged? I really didn't like the first track (son said it sounded like the soundtrack to a Wii game), though I quite liked the album as a whole, by the end of it. I'm not sure it will get much action however

6 games watched so far this weekend, with one more yet to come. Looking forward to the country grinding to a halt tomorrow after work.

Great is probably a bit strong. It's the most 1980s-sounding thing imaginable, with that nasty electronic drum beat. The inner sleeve is a reproduction of part of a comic strip drawn by Wayne in 1949. Still, it's Wayne Shorter, for £1

Sorry to derail your thread somewhat, Steve.

"Jazz mags" - fnarr fnarr (UK members only reference)

A slightly rough original copy. The stuff you find at car boot sales

Watermelon is a fairly recent visitor to British shores, I think, unless we just never had it in the house when I was a kid. When I first tried it, I found it a little tasteless, compared to the Honeydew or Canary melon I was used to. I prefer Watermelon now, the other stuff is too sweet. I wouldn't dream of salting it, however. JSngry talks about adding sugar to berries - we used to do that with strawberries all the time in my choldhood. Seems a bit vulgar now

Hadn't seen this until just now, sad news. I discovered him completely by accident, when I picked up "Bonfire" from a charity shop, as it had a cool cover. It had quite the profound effect on me, though that may have had something to do with the way I was feeling at the time.

I can't say I disagree actually.

Interesting read, thanks

^ Cheers both. Yes, a few stories online about it closing down last year. The sticker doesn't even have the shop's STD code with the phone number, a real sign of the times.

Didn't Chewy find a load of money inside an LP once? Or have I made that up?

Archie Shepp at a car boot sale. If you lived in England, you'd know just what a strange find this would be. The sticker on the back is from "Rare & Racy - books, records, maps and prints" in Sheffield. Bill F / Sidewinder - ever heard of this?

I renounced indie rock for jazz in the mid-1990s. I sold all my vinyl for peanuts, to buy jazz CDs. One particularly bad trade I made was to swop "Screamadelica" and "Nevermind" on original vinyl, for Sonny Clark's "Cool Struttin'" on CD. In my defence, you couldn't buy Cool Struttin' in those days in England. That CD would probably cost you £3 new today, whereas those two albums would cost £100 between them. I don't even like Cool Struttin' that much either. There were so many more - all the Smiths albums and singles, flogged for pennies. I once inherited around 40 Zappa LPs. Because I'd ditched the turntable by then, I gave them to my sister.....

Cannon & Ball Little & Large The Grumbleweeds

Mine's a reissue.