...that Kraftwerk got to No. 1 in the UK with The Model and I have been spending a lot of time listening to a huge pile of 6 Music shows celebrating this.

The various shows feature and endless parade of music people like Daniel Miller, Andy McCluskey, Afrika Bambaata or Stephen Morris sharing stories about how they first heard das fab fier and how they are the most influential band ever. It all sounded very hyperbolic but after having heard so many tracks in such a short time I can't really disagree.

I've got all the CD albums, the concert DVD, some of the remix singles, used to have some of it on vinyl and count myself privileged to have seen them play but even so I had forgotten just how bloody good they are.

The only low point was hearing a track from one of the early albums, loving it, and finding out that you just can't get them on CD or even stream them on Spotify.

So is all the Kraftwerk hype really justified? Surely it is worth a celebration anyway.

Thre were ructions when Yes replaced their unwell singer with the frontman from a Yes tribute band, Close To The Edge.

I thought Benoit David was having a decent enough stab at a thankless task, but now he has gone above and beyond the call of duty by falling ill just as the band are about embark on the Asia-Pacific leg of their tour and the singer from Roundabout has been recruited to fill in for him.

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/transaction-report-yes-replaces...

The only think that would make it better is if Roundabout were not a Yes tribute band but a Close To The Edge tribute band.

The singer from Fragile must be making sure his diary is clear just in case...

Since loads of us have Kindles and everybody else has an opinion on them I thought I would share this link http://www.bigmouthstrikesagain.com/

It is the blog of a writer who writes very honestly about the economics of the book he published electronically. He talks about exactly how many copies he is selling, for how much, and how much he gets for it. Also he shares his thoughts about pricing and his experiments with different pricing.

The most interesting thought, and scary for those of us who have already forked out £90 on a Kindle, is the idea that one day the readers could be given away free - the Jan 10th entry. As he says, we are used to getting £400 phones free if we sign up for a contract so why not get a free Kindle if you sign up for a 2-year subscription to the Word in electronic form?

By the way, I have read his book Coffin Dodgers and really enjoyed it http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00538TRQC especially considering that it only cost 99p. Thoroughly recommend it.

Similarly, Richard Herring has self-published some old stuff of his on Kindle and is describing on his blog how the process worked for him, but not in as much detail.

I was just looking at the Wilko Johnson tour dates here (http://www.noblepr.co.uk/Press_Releases/wilkojohnson/uk-tour.htm)

A bit disappointed to see him coming nowhere near Crawley, but cheered up by this prospect:

"In April 2012, EMI will release a boxed set of three CDs and DVD. The CDs will include a mix of the first four Dr. Feelgood albums, and previously unreleased material."

Roll on April. Any other impending releases to look forward to this year?

Back in January last year Jonathan from Brighton decided to write and record a new song every week for all of 2011. He has finally reached the finish line and here are all 52 2011 songs in one Youtube playlist.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL74F60235C8703E97

I have a soft spot for number 31, which was the week of the London riots and one of the few topical songs.

Watching the 1976 TOTP xmas special (as it looks like everybody else was) I was struck by how short the Laurel & Hardy song was.

It got me wondering how much shorter a chart single has gotten. It turns out that Stan and Ollie's masterpiece is actually a couple of seconds longer than Blur's Song 2 and the shortest chart single (not counting download-only songs) was a Duane Eddy single from 1959 - 1'17" in the US version (1'58" in the UK version) Imagine taking your pocket money down the shop and coming back with something that is over before it has even started...

Anyway, loads more stuff like that at http://www.everyhit.com/record7.html Surely a boon for sadistic pub quiz setters.

I was looking at some Genesis back catalogue on Amazon tonight.

...and then there were three... cost a whopping £9.50. Even the mp3 download is £7.50. On iTunes it is £7.99. For a 33-year-old album!

I had been expecting to pick up that + Abacab + Invisible Touch for about a tenner for the lot. Or maybe £12. Download or CD I don't care.

The annoying thing is that better Genesis albums, ones I already have *are* a lot cheaper.

Maybe I should fill in the gaps in my Yes collection first - Drama and CTTE are less than a fiver.

Any more great xmas anti-bargains out there?

I was just looking at the track list on the Cure's new live album (Bestival Live 2011 - on Spotify now) and notice that the set finishes with two of their oldest songs; 10:15 Saturday Night and Killing an Arab, except... it is now called Killing Another.

When did that happen? I'm a bit out of touch with the Cure, haven't bought anything of theirs since the 1990 Mixed Up album and haven't seen them live since 1979 so maybe this is something they have been doing for ages and I can see why they might have changed it to something less fatwah-inducing.

Have any other artists been forced to do re-writes of old hits (apart from Reg and his Diana song)?

A famous musician, arguably the most famous in the country has decided to "free himself of all artistic commitments" by Jan 2nd so he can enter the political arena - not in the UK buit in Senegal

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/nov/28/youssou-ndour-politics-seneg...

At least he won't get ruled out as Wyclef Jean was. I think he could make a go of it. Like Baaba Maal or Angelique Kidjo he has gravitas as well as tunes. I reckon Fela Kuti could have been a force in politics as well.

Do we have any musicians who could be credible politicians? (Or any we would be happy to see give up the music for it?)

Would we want another ex-musician in politics after that bloke from Ugly Rumours?

Does anybody know what music is used in this clip? It sounds a bit RHCP to me.

NSFW but you can probably guess that from the title of the clip.

I can't remember if anybody has mentioned this one before. I can remember the Sleeveface thing but this is slightly different

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/10/06/fun-with-album-covers/?pid=5700

It is our boss's 40th birthday this month and everybody in the department has been invited along to his party at his local community centre.

We are racking our brains about what to get him.

Anything too risque is out: it will be a family event.

Anything extravagantly expensive could be seen as a bit toady-ish (and outside our means in these times of economic misery)
Anything too cheap is just, well, cheap.
A walking stick is too cliched.
We know he golfs a lot but that probably means he has everything golf-related that he needs.
Otherwise we just know he is a big fan of football/Spurs and Top Gear

Any suggestions welcome.

I was watching this weeks Later... tonight and I was wondering if it would have been so successful with a different presenter.

I remember seeing Squeeze back in about 1979 and Jools stood out as a bit of a character but I wouldn't have believed he would go on to present a respected music show for nearly 20 years. Fast-forward a little bit and after seeing the first episode of the Tube it would have seemed even less likely.

The thing is, with hindsight, he is exactly the right person for it. He seems to have the respect of other musicians, having been there and done it himself, and seems to have a genuine appreciation of the music. When he has some legend on the show that everybody had previously assumed to be dead he never seems to be condescending or ironic as a hipper presenter might be.

It helps a lot that he can join in or accompany guests and has his own band so that he can enlist Gilson Lavis and others to accompany artists who have left their band at home.

His deliberately shamboolic informal style means that he can always press on where a perfectionist would get flustered in the live broadcasts.

So, who else could the BBC have got to do it instead of him 20 years ago? Would they have made it as successful?

Also, if Jools decided to call it a day who would be suited to fill those shoes? I fear that in such a case the BBC would do something stupid and put someone like John Bishop in the job.

I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for 29th September today as part of the Skuds birthday celebrations (yes we know how to party here in Crawley!) to see who I share it with.

What a mixed bunch. Some really big names like Cervantes, Caravaggio and Nelson. Some personal favourites like Les Claypool, Jean-Luc Ponty and Antonioni. Quite a few heads of state/government like Wim Kok, Rhodri Morgan, Julia Gillard, the president of Chile and a former president of Iran.

No less than three Nobel winners - Fermi, Lech Walesa and James Watson Cronin.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Alan McGee, Brett Anderson and the Bros twins (although they are twins only one is listed on the 29/9 births, but I'm assuming the other was born the same day, what with them being twins and all that)

Some other recognisable names like Ian McShane, Colin Dexter, Robert Webb, Seb Coe, Andriy Shevchenko, Mackenzie Crook, Anita Ekberg and Trevor Howard, plus Laszlo Biro, inventor of the ballpoint pen.

There are a couple of black sheep too: Silvio Berlusconi and Fred West

I have celebrated by getting myself the new Primus album, featuring Mr Claypool who is exactly one year younger than me.

Other than Berlusconi & West I'm quite pleased with that lot. Does anybody else have a set of birthday-sharers they are particularly chuffed with?

For anybody who is not overloaded with civil disorder-related matters, here is a nice little song, from the heart:

Jonathan has been writing one song a week for the last 31 weeks, aiming to reach the end of the year with 52 of them. Anybody not holding out for the box set can find the collection of them at http://assistantblog.co.uk/52songs/

I'm kind of hoping this one will go at least a bit viral and plant some positive images into the collective memory of August 20111 to drive out the images of flames and breaking glass.