If you can find it, the “ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas” documentary is worth a watch. I’m sure it was on BBC iplayer a while back.
I loved their early blues and also the mtv era, well because I was a teenager and the videos were awesome!
It’s on Netflix now and is very entertaining… Frank Beard’s description on what he spent his first big cheque that he earned from touring (c. $72000 in 1975) is amusing.
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Wow! I never thought I would see Webern mentioned in an amateur radio forum! Takes me back to A-level music days….
My tastes are very wide ranging - I do actually enjoy music from the Second Viennese School and love that tiny symphony! Let’s give radio amateurs credit for appreciation of all types of music.
OK, let’s broaden the tone now. On this date in 1971, Dmitri Shostakovich completed his final symphony, No. 15 in A maj opus 141. I don’t know whether Andy ever heard it, but in all honesty its premier performance in this country hit me like a sock full of wet sand, and it is still my favourite amongst his works.
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RIP Dusty Hill - you were an icon
Hear, hear! It’s rather refreshing! Were you in the audience for the UK premiere of the Shostakovich?
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Regrettably, no, but the good old Beeb broadcast it.
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Really sad to hear Charlie Watts has shuffled off 
A gentleman amidst a band of hooligans :-s
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That’s rather sad. I think your description of him is excellent. He was always able to produce plenty of drumming with a small kit.
I was never a huge fan but I shall away and listen to what I think is my favourite Stones track. More of an example of Billy Preston’s keyboards than Charlie’s drumming but I like it.
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I was 13 when Apollo 11 happened. I remember thinking at the time that Mr. Collins was the bravest – and certainly the loneliest man – on Earth. Well, actually NOT on Earth, but you know what I mean. It must’ve been a formidable experience to orbit through the radio blackout by himself, more isolated than any single human had ever been.
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I’m pretty sure that was Rocky Horror Picture Show.
I am only now finding out what a decent person he was. Probably because, while I didn’t dislike the Rolling Stones at all, I was never really into them like I was other bands.
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That is exactly what I would say. OK, I don’t get to walk on the moon, but the experience would still be mind blowing and a huge honor.
A few of these all at the same time, bit like London buses all coming at once.
Sir Clive Sinclair 16/sep/2021 aged 81. I share a surname with the man which was fun when you develop an interest in electronics as a child and see your name in the adverts in Practical Wireless and Practical Electronics. And a pain in the bum as people blamed me as if I was related or involved in his company as often his products had “issues”!
An enigma was our Clive. He did produce all sorts of neat stuff and lots of poorly produced / manufactured junk too. He was quite an astute business man buying out of spec transistors by the pound weight not by value in the 60s to use in his products. He had a range of Hifi which were not very Hifi. His tiny radio which sort of worked. Two miniature TVs, I have one with a 1in CRT tube in it. Calculators that were a fraction of the price of many on the market at the time. Computers, MK14 (I fixed plenty of these in my Saturday job), ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum (and derivatives). I became oh so familiar with how to produce a viable bulk mastering tape for cassette duplication with the Spectrum as part of my 1st job out of University… Then there was the QL which really was junk TBH. That’s the 1st time I met the man… we were contracted to produce some games for it and I met him when we went to get 8 pre-production QLs from Cambridge. The C5, less said the better. His Z88 notepad computer was quite good though.
Many of his products were clever but just unreliable in use / ownership. The design over function was high so he made tiny calculators that ate through batteries quickly. Or microdrives which would be the last thing I’d commit important date to!
In later years he married a rather pretty dancer from a night club who was less than half his age. The pointed jokes of the time going like “Tell me what first attracted you to the bald, ginger, 70 year old
multi-multi-millionaire Clive Sinclair?”
Still his computers kickstarted untold numbers of people in to a tech career so he gets a 
from me.
Alan Lancaster, 72, bass player from Status Quo in the 60s-80s. I’m not a big Quo fan, they have quite a few decent songs and a lot of so-so dross. I did see them play Edinburgh around 2011 which was thoroughly enjoyable concert but Alan had left when they had an less than amicable split in the 80s. Alan and the drummer John Coghlan were “let go”. So I saw their replacements. They did a reunion tour in 2013 which patched up some of the differences.
Quo, however, was about the only music that wasn’t crass disco pish or awful pop or bloody ABBA that was played on UK TV and radio when I was a teenager. Bit of a Hobson’s choice. However, the Quo did release Caroline in 1973 which is as simple as rock songs go but probably one of the best songs of all time. Yes, it really is. So here is the original from 48 years ago. Still sounds as fresh as when I first heard it.
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Loved Status Quo. Saw them live in Melbourne VK3 
cheers Geoff vk3sq
My first introduction to a computer was when our primary school teacher brought his ZX81 into the class room. Within a couple of years, just about everyone had a ZX Spectrum. We couldn’t afford one, so I had a second hand VIC20.
We saw Quo live around 2015. An outdoor gig at Falkirk football stadium. They were excellent live but their support act 10cc were equally as good. (Two bands who were in their hey-day before my time.)
Won tickets to see them again at Ingleston a year or two later. By now Rick was missing due to illness. Not the same without him really…
Great music to jump around to at a gig!
Shame you missed Rick at your gig, the interplay between him and Francis Rossi was great when I saw them. It was in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh ISTR. There’s little on street parking round there so I thought as it was a special day I’d break open my wallet and pay for the nearby multi-storey car park ( i.e. very pricey ). Sadly when we came to leave there was an almost entire car park (hundreds of cars) trying to leave so it was slow, then the barriers broke. After a 30min wait when nobody could leave the car park staff manually opened the barriers and let everyone out for free saving me about £12. Result!
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My first computer was an MK14. I was supposed to get it for Christmas 1978 but the kit didn’t arrive until the following spring. It didn’t work after I built it so we had to send it back. Many weeks later I got it back - the fault was the wrong value of reset resistor. That was pretty typical of the quality of Sinclair’s service and products.
I was at Warwick University in the mid 80s - the C5 was developed on the Science Park. One bank holiday there was a fundraiser where students got to ride a C5 on the campus for a quid. It was great fun but why Sinclair thought one of those on the road with cars and lorries was a good idea I don’t know.
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ISTR there was a capacitor that used to fail on them all the time. But it was a long time back now. I used to have to fix MK14, Nascom II kits and Acorn System 1 kits along with ready built machines. Never had to fix a Sharp MZ80K but I did upgrade well over 100 from 8k RAM to 48k RAM. (Remove 16 4k x 1chips and fit 24 16kx1 chips). Nascom II were a nightmare making the extension memory board work. Lots of “voodoo” involving plastering power rails with 100uF and 0.01uf caps and running extra low impedance power rails from 16SWG copper wire on the underside of the board. Happy days!
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My next computer was a Compukit UK101. Someone sold a memory expansion card for it but they claimed that it’s special PCB layout meant it didn’t need decoupling caps. Of course that was total BS and it was very unreliable.
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