Leaning Towards Madness - in a Musical Sense

Over the next few weeks I will be leaning towards madness! No I'm not going loopy or off my trolley but reading about some very strange rock stars. I have lined-up three books that deal with the subject of rock music and madness and the first is a biography of Phil Spector. I will follow this with a biography of Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett and then complete the trio with a new book entitled "All the Madmen".

I have this morbid kind of fascination with the subject of rock stars off the rails. Perhaps Spector is the most excessive of these. You only have to look at the wig he was wearing for his murder trial to realise that something isn't or wasn't quite right in the land of Phil.

I get frustrated when I watch so called travel programmes on television. What I want to see are the towns, the cities and the countryside and what we usually get are ego-tripping presenters taking to hot air balloons or joining in with some ancient cult. The programmes all too often become vehicles for the so called celebrities rather than about the places. I actually avoided watching one on Yorkshire last night when I read that one presenter was taking to the skies and the other was trying his hand at something else (the subject of which escapes me). I have the same problem with celebrity DJs. I want DJs who love their music and want to share their knowledge of it and what do we get? Too many Paul O'Gradys and Graham Nortons who just seem to want to talk about themselves. Thank goodness that Brian Matthews is still going on a Saturday mornings.

That's why I was really excited to hear that John Peel's record collection is going to be put on the internet. Now here was a man who lived for his music (although some might say much of what he played was certainly not music). Not quite sure yet what format the web site will take and whether it will be possible to listen to the albums but at least we know that Peel's main reason for being a DJ was to bring music to the world and not self obsession.

Love and congrats to our eldest son Chris who is 30 years of age today. Have a good one.