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It’s modern mastering techniques, apparently. Overall loudness, via compression rules, clipping (distortion) is omnipresent, and music becomes tiring to listen to. This was why I had to stop listening to Springsteen’s ‘Magic’, which has some great songs, but the worst overall sound of any Bruce album. And he has never been produced properly, in my…

It was the Northmavine Up Helly Aa on Friday night, our local viking conflagration. Not on the same scale as the internationally-famed Lerwick festival, but less precious and a lot more (in my opinion) fun. And indeed, the galley is not burned in a playpark, but out there on the water – the only Up…

For reasons entirely professional, I have been listening to old vinyl LPs a lot recently, mostly by the marvellous (and tragic) Irish guitarist Rory Gallagher. Then, this morning, I decided to put on my old Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock’n’Roll! compilation. Fresh as paint, they sound, all those familiar classics: Sweet Little Sixteen, Maybelline and…

Digital Audio Broadcasting – DAB – is dead technology, and the first nail in its blond-wood coffin was not the statement yesterday by the beleaguered head of commercial broadcaster GCAP (closing two digital ‘stations’ and selling its stake in one of the main DAB broadcasting thingies), and not even David Hepworth’s article in last month’s…

One packet is open, the other is sealed. I am securely supplied for at least the next week, assuming I behave in a moderate and controlled fashion. With Carr’s Cheese melts, this is not easy. They are the most ferociously addictive savoury biscuits I have ever encountered. In fact, they are beyond savoury. They are…

As they say in the posher parts of Dundee, ‘Oor Wullie needs a cushion, else he’ll get piles fae sitting on yon bouquet…’

Left Glasgow at 8.30 this morning on a Megabus packed with unhappy people. Well, they looked unhappy. Read most of James Lee Burke’s Pegasus Descending, picked up in a charity shop and a recent addition to his fantastic Dave Robicheaux series, set in Louisiana. The Mississippi delta made a nice contrast to the windy, chilly…

But it is. Heavily and, I hope, temporarily in Aberdeen. Tonight I’m getting the Megabus down to Glasgow to see Magnus and some movies. Why not the train, you may well ask? Well, because the only way I can get back to Aberdeen on Sunday in time to catch the infamous 305 bus service to…

Up with the…well, not the lark. Starling, maybe, or stray pigeon, as I was in the centre of Glasgow. In a hotel, I might add, not in a shop doorway. Thence to Queen Street Station for the train back to Aberdeen, having hotfooted it last night down to the Dear Green Place for urgent consultations…

In Aberdeen, after a hectic day which began with a strange train to Keith. It pulled out of Aberdeen station at 08.22, full, and then after Dyce I was the only person on board. Train I ride, goes to God knows where….I don’t know and I don’t care…or perhaps it was a Mystery Train…anyway. It…