I've just been looking at Amazon and top of the New For You offerings is a Little Feat album titled American Cutie (yeuchh!). It's out at the end of February.

The notes say it was recorded at Ebbets Field on July 19th 1973 and is an FM recording. It's the second of two shows performed that day, with the bonus of three tracks from the earlier show that didn't feature in the later one. It's for sale for an apparently reasonable £7:86 + p&p. The label is Left Field Media, which is one I've never heard of so I suspect it is one of those quasi bootleg albums that is slipping through from which the band will make either nothing or not very much.

However you can get it for free because it's already available now on the Internet Audio Archive. Indeed you can get both shows in their entirety. The files are in both flac and mp3 format. So unless you're desperate for some not particularly inspired cover art, I say don't bother. There is artwork for the late show in the files on the archive anyway.

Both shows:

http://www.archive.org/details/lf1973-07-19.flacf

Late show plus extra tracks:

http://www.archive.org/details/lf1973-07-19.LateNightTruckStop.flac16

I came across this video,which is a computer animation of construction followed by a fly-through of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural masterpiece.

It was built for a family known as the Kaufmans in the late 1930s, but since 1963 it's been a museum. It is somewhere on my list of places I must see, but isn't too near any other places I'm likely to want to visit.

Any members of the Massive been there and like to share their impressions?

http://vimeo.com/802540

There's a rumour just posted on the No Depression website that Robert Plant and Patty Griffin have got married. Does anyone here have access to any information source that can confirm whether or not this is true?

If it is true, best wishes to the happy couple.

However would this scotch the chances of another Robert Plant / Alison Krauss album or can we anticipate a a Plant / Griffin / Krauss album? Sounds good to me.

There is a piece in The Guardian that runs under the above title.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/08/pathetic-female-film...

However the oldest film listed is Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, released in 1984. Which means the list ignores about 3/4 of the history of cinema.

Would anyone care to nominate any pre-1984 characters?

At the moment I'm struggling to think of any really pathetic characters, but off the top of my head I'll suggest two Katherine Ross roles - Elaine in The Graduate and Etta Place in Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

Although the end of this year is still a fortnight away, it looks like 2012 is going to be great year for gigs (and an expensive one) with plenty of artists planning to come over from the States for those of us who like music with country, blues, folk, gospel and other rootsy roots.

So far we have tours scheduled for Josh Rouse, Ron Sexsmith, Zoe Muth, Shelby Lynne (only two UK dates in Liverpool & London), Tom Russell, Rosanne Cash, Todd Snider (only two UK dates in Belfast & London), Kathleen Edwards, Chris Smither, Gretchen Peters, Lambchop, The Jayhawks now with the added bonus of Chuck Prophet as support, Rachel Harrington, The Civil Wars and The Felice Brothers.

That just takes us up to the end of March. I hope we don’t get hit by a drought after all that.

Bob's thread about opening a cafe / deli just put me in mind of the last winners of Raymond Blanc's competition The Restaurant.

For those who didn't see it, the third and final series was won by a couple of, I can only describe them as, dickheads, against all expectations. They certainly didn't appear to have much cooking / front of house ability, unlike others, and their expertise lay in making cocktails. Perhaps they slipped Raymond and his sidekicks a Micky Finn.

Has anyone, anywhere in the country spotted this pair and their restaurant, or did Raymond decide that opening a restaurant with them was going to be as much use as a bonfire of £20 notes?

Good heavens, have you only been listening to The Archers for the last couple of weeks, thus forming the impression that Helen & John Archer are the worst, most tiresome characters?

No, No. The worst characters are William Grundy - whiny monotone voice, humourless git, moaning about pretty much everything saving most venom for brother Ed and not a single saving grace and Ruth Archer - near adulteress who finds so much to laugh about, but whose scenes with Usha which are so, so, so very funny she that she can't stop laughing, but for the rest of the world are the most excruciating thing heard on the radio since the crucifixion scene in the Oberammergau Passion Play.

As for the best characters; how has the blessed Eddie Yates been forgotten? Binman, boozer, wishful wide boy, comedian, petty criminal, golden hearted, Stanley to Stan Ogden's Ollie (or maybe the other way round).

There was an exhibition of Storm Thorgerson's album art a couple of years ago.

Now he's got a second one. It opens next Friday, October 21st and only runs until November 13th. Sadly for those interested, who live outside London and the South East, it is again a London exhibition.

http://gallery.ideageneration.co.uk/blogs/773/view

I hadn't heard anything about Dr Rob Buckman for years, he gets a passing mention in the instrumental thread last week and today I read he's died:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/12/rob-buckman?INTCMP=SRCH

He's had a bad time with illnesses over the years. He was a part of my late teenage years. I can't really say he'll be missed, because he's hardly been a presence in our lives for many years, but it is sad to see someone, not particularly old pass away.

Due to a lack of coordination with a friend we have both gone and bought tickets for GW's gig at Hammersmith on Wednesday November 23rd.

Consequently I now have 2 circle tickets spare, which if there is anyone interested I'll sell at face value.

If you'd like to see the queen of murder, rape, drinking, addiction, trains and lost love ballads please PM me and we can make arrangements off board.

I am from time to time perplexed and / or amused by the things that Amazon recommends to me, because I have bought or rated something else.

I thought that recommending a Kanye West album because I'd rated Bridge Over Troubled Water was a stretch, but tonight I've found that I've been recommended "The Holy Bible (The Definitive Revised (Kindle Edition)) by God" because I've previously rated Joe Boyd's White Bicycles.

I was perplexed by this for a moment, but in a Word inspired flash of inspiration I understood the connection.

It is of course that for some people (but not for me) Richard Thompson is god, hence the connection.

Anyone else care to share bizarre recommendations?

I'd also like to be the first to recommend as the new godhead, Mr Chuck Prophet (nice biblical allusion in the name too).

I found this video fascinating, but also slightly disconcerting.

I hope it does something for you.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/08/time-lapse-tuesday-human-...

I was watching A Hard Day's Night on DVD and found myself slightly puzzled by an unnecessary edit.

Back in 1964 my friends and I were all highly amused by George's response to the groundsman who turfs them off his field at the end of the Can't Buy Me Love sequence. The man says "I suppose you realise this is private property" and George said in the original "We're sorry we hurt your fieldings".

I remember this because we were so impressed by this line that it was regularly employed over the the next few months anytime anyone got in the slightest way annoyed. And we laughed every time.

However on the DVD this line has been edited and changed to "We're sorry we hurt your field, mister". Why was the original line changed?

A small point and a minor puzzle. Does anyone have any inside information on this?

Another legend bites the dust. The Greyfriars Bobby story was just a yarn to pull the tourists in. That heartwarming tale from my childhood was naught but a myth. O me misererum.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/04/greyfriars-bobby-story-scam-lur...

Are there any legends left that don't have feet of clay?

This is for sports' fans obviously.

There's a fascinating piece here in Sports Illustrated, written by Joe Posnanski about Mike Powell, Carl Lewis, Bob Beamon and the 30 foot jump.

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/08/02/the-30-foot-jump/

I've never heard about this jump before. Persevere (well I say persevere, but I thought this is a riveting piece of writing, very easy to read to get to it), through the story of the three athletes.

While I recall Mike Powell breaking the world record (a few weeks short of 20 years ago, can you believe?) I didn't realise how intense the competition was on the day between him and Lewis. It wasn't televised, but even if it was, taking place in Tokyo meant it would have been on at the wrong time of day. Whatever, when the news of the world record came over, I don't recall anything about this brilliant competition between the two men.

But the bit about the 30 foot jump is, as I say, completely new to me.
What a thought, living with the knowledge you'd done it, but it's not recognised.