Soft drivin', slow and mad, like some new language (The Doors)

A.R.T. is coming along well. Painting is all finished and the furniture is arranged; sound systems all connected and Beatle decorations nearly complete.

Pretty cool huh. Just need some carpet and the gear to arrive from the sandpit (cross trainer, TV, DVD player, CDs, books, DVDs) and it will be complete.

Freshest vinyl to get an outing: Guess Who's American Woman (from the Canadian Pop/Rock section).

This is a great album that I picked up from Marbeck's Records when working there in the early 1980s. Roger had begun getting a lot of imports from America (especially RCA stuff) and they were all put underneath the Queen's Arcade Classics store. Yes underneath!! It was a big area but with really low head room so you had to bend over and kind of crawl around the record racks to sort them out and bring fresh stock up to the store. I loved going down there and fossocking around.

The American Woman album is a classic. The first (and last) track is the awesome title song but it also has No Time, Talisman and No Sugar Tonight on the first side!!!

Side two has less well known material but this was obviously a period of great quality for the band and I love the variety of the songs over the second side: the bluesy instrumental 969 (The Oldest Man) that comes complete with a flute solo, the light as air pop of When Friends Fall Out, the Who like 8.15 (was Pete listening?), proto Led Zep stomp of Proper Stranger, the heavy blues wig out that is Humpty's Blues and then the return of the title song.

My favourite song on the set is No Time.

Introducing A.R.T.

It's been a while since my last confession. The time has largely been spent readjusting to life in New Zealand and getting A.R.T. sorted.

A.R.T. stands for Abbey Road Two (I rejected Abbey Road South early on for obvious reasons). It's my music centre: a place to store all my records, C.D.s, videos, tapes, 45s, music books, D.V.D.s, posters and my guitar. It's somewhere I will be able to use as an office as well. And it's all mine!!!

When we bought the property in Otane there was a state of the art stable for horses, 12 acres of land, a lovely house and a three bay shed with work room attached. Most of that fulfilled Jacky's dreams, but there was no area for all my stuff.

There was however a huge double garage that was all lined and ready for a conversion programme. So that's what we've been doing.

A.R.T. is still a work in progress. The builder (Cliff) has removed the garage door, put in a sliding door and windows, removed some interior walls and put in other walls so that the laundry and toilet area is separate. He's gib stopped the walls and now I have to redecorate.

All my stuff has been unpacked and is sitting in a pile in the middle of the room so that I can paint.

It feels great to have my vinyl now in my purpose built space. It's always been in cupboard areas away from sight. First record played was Frank Zappa's 200 Motels which I brought home from the UK via the UAE.

The next few entries will focus on the A.R.T. progress and my rediscoveries in the collection.