It was a warm October night at 7.30 PM and it felt like an English summer in the seventies. You can see why there are lots of tourists here post-holidays, pre-Christmas, it’s simply likely that it will be nice here whatever the month. Even when it rains, it’s still kind of warmish, especially by Northern European standards. I’d met Vítor from the music store in the record store, he was coming out as I was going in, he’d bought vinyl – Siouxsie and the Banshees – The Rapture (1995), and the Beastie Boys – Licensed To Ill (1986). When I left, I walked past Garage & Stage on the next corner, Carlos was in there stringing a small left-handed Guild acoustic. He asked me which record out of all the records in the world I would get if there was only one, instead of responding with the standard ‘impossible to say’ answer, I just said Matching Mole’s first record, so Vítor put O Caroline on, perfect.

The surprise of the day likely comes from the record store, because that’s what it’s all about here in music land, either making music, helping people make music, or buying people’s music. Today at Tubitek I picked up Tricky’s debut Maxinquaye (1995/2023) on triple vinyl – try finding that in the future, it’s now or never. I didn’t know it was coming, so that was nice to find. I’ve always been a trip-hop fan if not a hip-hop fan, that warm mood, and groove.

Olivia went on a bus journey to see the lady who was selling some Mexican artefacts for very cheap prices, she already bought three cats and now she was buying a skeleton and a mask (La Llorona). The bus was apparently very slow (it’s a loop) and she had the choice of catching the bus back that had left before the one she took, she was most certainly travelling in time. Mamma sent a text saying she had arrived back in Germany, quicker than getting across Porto.

I had two seshes today, one with Bob in Boston, the other with Artoush in Austin, I also spoke to Sarah in Sallas. Sarah and I had a long talk about future projects and how to enact them. How does a new songwriter or musician plan the future? In the good old days, you could find your way through because there were many different ways to generate income, including record sales, you could climb, it wasn’t easy, but you could see a route, now it’s a greased pole from the start.

Music today has been Tricky’s debut album, a triple rerelease of Maxinquaye (1995/2023) featuring Martina Topley-Bird as the main singer. I’m a fan, I have all her solo records. Alison Goldfrapp also appears, as does The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart (1960-2023).

Music Of The Daze