I'm ready, ready as anybody can be (Muddy Waters)

Yes I'm ready!

I'm heading away from my collection again for a lengthy period (a year at least) so I've loaded up the purdy-pod with all the stuff brought back from the years spent in the Middle East. As this involved a few trips to the UK as well (Fopp) it meant a lot of stuff.

This has joined the music I put on this amazing device before heading overseas in 2009 so that there are now over 22,000 songs on the thing.

I haven't downloaded a song from the internet in my life so these songs have all come from my CD collection. Sadly my records remain outside the p-pod at this point. I'm wishing I'd bought the record to CD converter I spied at the Virgin Mega Sore at the Dubai Mall before we came home but I had no plans to leave my collection so soon and besides, I'm sure I'll be able to find something similar in China.

Jade thinks I'm mad having so much stuff on the ipod but it's a huge comfort to knowing that I can play The Stooges No Fun, George Harrison's Brainwashed or Dream Evil's Dragonslayer if the mood should take me.

Having that many songs also makes the shuffle mode a continual exercise in discovery of the weird corners of my collection.

Like Blue Oyster Cult's great Burnin' For You frinstance (you have the studio version or a stormin' live from 1981 version to choose from).

My wave length (Patti Smith)

The Patti Smith hold is still pretty tight. I am now reunited with my records and books and so a Patti-a-thon was a natural place to go.

Wave is maybe the forgotten child in the canon but for me it's a joy from start to finish. The affect it has on me is very similar to Jefferson Starship's Earth album. They make me feel great.

Frederick immediately puts a smile on my face with its bouncy pop-a-rama. It was released as a single, at the time, backed by a weird version of Fire Of Unknown Origin.

Fire... started out as a poem in her Seventh Heaven Collection:

A fire of unknown origin
took my baby away
swept her up and off
my wave length
swallowed her up like the ocean
in a fire thick and grey.

Blue Oyster Cult took the lyrics (but nothing from Patti's B side song) and ran with it on their album of the same name. They know quality when they see it.