It is the first Friday of the month.

So, ladies and gentlemen of The Massive, please gather round and share, what have you heard, read, and seen this month, and is there anything else you'd like to tell us about ?

It is the first Friday of the month.

So, ladies and gentlemen of The Massive, please gather round and share, what have you heard, read, and seen this month, and is there anything else you'd like to tell us about ?

I would like to start by wishing everyone the very best for 2012 - I find that a recommendation from someone here is far more likely to make me go and check out a book or an album than a good review!

Welcome back to the Aspidistra & Hatstand, one and all. It's Christmas time and we've not been open for a while. (A little local difficulty over us not being licensed, technically).

Our Artistic Director, Mr James Blast has designed and developed our beautiful sign:

The main bar is open now, serving a range of Real Ales and some Imaginary ones too. Through in the Cocktail Lounge we have Mojitos and many other drinks on offer. I will also be manning the Gaggia so that those who prefer a coffee can join in the fun.

I'm starting the night with a glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (it's the family wine) and I'm putting the Beat Poets on the jukebox.

So please, come away in - what festive tune will you put on the jukebox and what are you having to drink ?

It is (very nearly) the first Friday of the month.

So, ladies and gentlemen of The Massive, please gather round and share, what have you heard, read, and seen this month, and is there anything else you'd like to tell us about ?

Remember those NME Cover Cassettes ? I have fond memories of Little Imp, in particular

Some kind soul has digitised them all.

http://pressplayandrecord.wordpress.com/

I remember stimpy of this parish was looking for one.

It'll be fun to hear them again!

As it is the first Friday of the month, it is time to ask the traditional question : "what have you heard, read and seen this month ?" And also - "is there anything else that you've been doing that you'd like to share?"

As it is the first Friday of the month, it is time to ask the traditional question : "what have you heard, read and seen this month ?" And also - "is there anything else that you've been doing that you'd like to share?"

I have spent most of the last 10 years working in England through much of the week and going back home to Scotland at weekends. I've met lots of lovely people, made some very good friends, and had to deal with national stereotypes regularly.

This working pattern has given me lots of time with cartoon chippy Jocks, who will ask me, conspiratorially, "How do you cope with them?" - the kind of Scottish people who live in England but maintain their national pride by bigging up Scotland at every opportunity, and by seething at their English Oppressors. The zenith of this was a friend who needed no encouragement to reel off the many great Scottish inventions (tarmacadam, penicillin, television, logarithms, the United States of America, etc) and had been wound up to do so at the Xmas party which led to him fairly quickly being ushered out, shouting "STEAM! We invented steam as well, ya ..." In my opinion, it is a stretch too far to claim that James Watt actually invented steam.

I also met a number of English people who would ask, in a vague way, "and do you have the internet when you get back home?" or similar - their vision of modern-day Scotland was the film Highlander. No indoors.

This led me sometimes to test my plausibility by telling the occasional Tall Tale. There is one chap in Birmingham to whom I really should apologise. It started one night in the pub when he was surprised to find out that Scotland had Universities. (He was 35-ish, lived in England all his life). I resisted the foaming-mouthed leap. Later on, when he asked about what the monetary system is in Scotland what language do we speak there, I explained that money's the same as in Birmingham, and told him that the first time I heard English spoken was my first day at Primary School. (this is not actually true). I also told him later that evening that there were differences in the educational system in Scotland and that I had left Primary School and gone straight into Ravenscraig Steelworks, because you could do that if you had a job lined up in the seventies in Scotland. ( This isn't true either). He revelled in having this inside knowledge and told several colleagues both stories.

My favourite was telling people that Jenga was invented by Scottish engineers. "It's from the gaelic for shortbread ...."

This led to my brother (a mechanical engineer) demonstrating Shortbread Jenga ("the traditional game") at an oil dinner in Aberdeen.

So, Massive - are there are tall tales you would like to own up to ? Or have you ever been in the position of my poor colleague where someone has spun you a yarn that has later made you think "wait a minute, that can't be right"?

Welcome back to the Aspidistra & Hatstand, one and all. We are re-opening to celebrate the return of stimpy, one of our Tribal Elders.

Our Artistic Director, Mr James Blast has designed and developed our beautiful sign:

The main bar is open now, serving a range of Real Ales and some Imaginary ones too. Through in the Cocktail Lounge we have Mojitos and many other drinks on offer.

One of the areas of music I had ignored until I spent time here was the Grateful Dead. stimpy helped nudge me in their direction, so in his honour, here they are with Touch of Grey

I think I’ll start the afternoon with gin & tonic - I'll be enjoying the Islay gin, The Botanist.

Would anyone like to come along?

If so, what will you put on the jukebox and what would you like to drink?

As it is the first Friday of the month, it is time to ask the traditional question : "what have you heard, read and seen this month ?" And also - "is there anything else that you've been doing that you'd like to share?"

From the splendid Dangerous Minds website-

Seldom-seen footage of the short-lived Krautrock “power trio” iteration of Kraftwerk consisting of Florian Schneider, Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger that existed ONLY briefly when Ralf Hütter left the group to study architecture in 1971.

Full thing here :

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/incredible_early_kraftwerk_footag...

I have some complicated work travel which has ended up with the likelihood that I will have a weekend in Amsterdam in September.

As The Massive are well-informed on pretty much everything, can anyone advise on good places for me to potter around on my own ?

Any recommended hotels,art galleries, record shops, bars, restaurants - or anything else that I should see while I'm there - all advice gratefully received.

As it is the first Friday of the month, it is time to ask the traditional question : "what have you heard, read and seen this month ?" And also - "is there anything else that you've been doing that you'd like to share?"

This looks like an interesting book - Carolyn Rose (the author) describes it as

like Nick Hornby - for girls.

This book is for you if you…

ever made a cassette with the same song for the entire side
waited in line to buy a record the minute it came out
got asked “so are you a groupie?” when you explained this was the third (eighth, tenth, twentieth) show you’d seen on this tour
spent your lunch money on music or concert tickets
been told you “sure know a lot about music for a girl”
bought multiple copies of a record because you wore it out
Bought multiple copies of a cd so you could have one for the work, one for the car, and one for home
check someone’s lastfm feed before accepting a date with them
would pull out white light, white heat at someone’s house to see if it had ever been played (thank you, Lester)
can quote stage patter, interview quotes, or random lines in album reviews
refer to band members by their first names so often your friends would start to raise their eyebrows
[insert your own obsessive trait here]
It doesn’t matter if you love the Beatles, the Ramones, or even (yes!) Dave Matthews. If you love music, this is for you.

Based on her love of Joey Ramone, I've bought it already - I thought it looked of interest to others here too.

EDIT - updated link for more info http://bsidesandbrokenhearts.com/

As it is (very nearly) the first Friday of the month, it is time to ask the traditional question : "what have you heard, read and seen this month ?" And also - "is there anything else that you've been doing that you'd like to share?"