Saturday 8 January 2011

Is This It ?



Across the Kitchen Table is two today.

You may have noticed or you may not have that there haven't been that many posts over the last week and you may also be aware that the quality has somewhat diminished over the past few weeks, not that it was that great to begin with mind you.

I have been been aware that the tracks aren't getting downloaded in the numbers they once were and can only put this down to the fact that the music I'm posting isn't that interesting anymore. This is not me feeling sorry for myself or anything. The blog may just have run it's course. Maybe there is only so long that you can bang on about records before you become irrelevant.


For the past few weeks I have found it difficult to find tracks to put on here that are not knowingly obscure  but that are not that well known that everybody will already have them downloaded. This is my biggest problem it would be easy to just post tracks that everybody already new and loved but what is the point of that anyway?  You can do the odd track like that now and again but that kind of thing was never my intention. Sure I probably still have hundreds of obscure northern soul tracks which people may like but it would get rather boring just sticking to the one genre.

I'm really not that sure what to do. I think that I may have to sit here contemplating my navel for a wee while longer.

Enough of my self indulgent tosh. Here is the 7" version of the best single produced in 1985, you may think differently but you would be wrong, it is also the song which lends it's title to this blog.

The Pale Fountains - . . . From Across The Kitchen Table.

26 comments:

adam said...

I've come and gone from my own place from time to time and I've deleted a few years of stuff in the past too, but I've always come back to it. I know there isn't 'an' answer that fits everything and everyone but I think one answer is just not to force it but to see what happens - I find that eventually something comes and nags at me and I start to write something and it goes from there...

I'm not good at downloading songs from anybody these days but it still matters to me that they're there - I always come and read you even if I don't always listen and, strange though it may sound, I like to read about music I don't know anything much about even if I don't always then listen.

You're a blogger and you always will be and you're just going to have to live with that :)

Happy birthday!
x

(word veri is 'heboy' which sounds like a very specialist interest indeed, somehow.)

chocolategirl64 said...

I don't often download from anyone either:
if I like what I hear {and I love the fact that now I can listen before I decide} then I head off and research:
if I still like ~ I click 'buy':

you iz blogger: take a break: come back fresh with new things for us: ☯

{bought a Meursault cd as a gift and it was v well received: where else am I going to get such fine recoms eh?}

davyh said...

Don't push it, let it fall.

And didn't your mother tell you to leave your navel alone?

Happy B-Birthday.

Love ya x

e.f. bartlam said...

Yeah take a week or two off.

I for one am always happy with Northern Soul...if you just feel like you have to post something.

swiss adam said...

Stick with it Drew, you'll come up with something. Have a break. Perhaps just try to post less regularly. Do the download numbers matter that much? It's the writing and the comments that are important in the long run I think. Some tracks I love have only been dl-ed a few times but maybe that doesn't matter. It's always good just coming here to read what you write.

George said...

Drew, I've really enjoyed reading your blog and downloading tracks from time to time. I like what you say, espcially the comments about the Fall. I've discovered some great music e.g. MIA. It's difficult to find new music today I might like, and I suspect I'm not the only one, given John peel's death meant we have not had on regular slot to tune into. So don't give up. But if you do, well, thanks for the stuff. Between you and the Vinyl Villain plus a couple of others, I've created compilation cds of "downloads", which has led to me buying "new stuff" i'd never have heard.
All the best.

Simon said...

When my mum died I was all set to give up writing. Adam's reopening of his blog a while back was a bit of inspiration, not so much what he was writing but how he was doing, small bitesize blog chunks, sometimes several in a day. So when I feel myself running out of steam I think back to that.

Be a shame not to have you around though mate, there's not enough of the music bloggers running regular these days.

Happy 2 anyway!

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday to one of my favourite blogs! I have to admit that I don't always download, not everything's to my taste, but I always enjoy reading your posts and actively look forward to the Friday dance ones.

You'll be missed if you go!

Cheers!

Andrew

Scott said...

Happy 2nd birthday Drew. I agree with most of the other comments, for me it's the writing and comments that matter the most. Yours is still one of the best blogs out there and certainly one of the first I look at most days. Would be a real shame if you decided not to continue with it. May be a good idea to post less regularly and not to feel the need to post every day...
Certainly hope the blog continues in one way or another...

Anonymous said...

I am fairly new to reading your blog Happy 2nd Birthday. I can appreciate how hard it must be to keep it going. You and your fellow bloggers are an inspiration. Besides the variety of music it's the sharing knowledge, views and opinions of yourself and the comments of others which makes blogs like your interesting, informative and enjoyable to read.

I hope you do decide to carry on, don't underestimate the power and importance to others of your blog. Even if like myself who doesn't download the music as I am yet to learn how to do it, it's listening and discovering other's tastes in music which is facinating.

Whatever you decide to do thanks and good luck.

XX

dickvandyke said...

Go on, clear off, see if I care.

You, and yer tales .. of Airport Departure Lounges and Lancashire motorways and Skids b sides and Irn Bru and 'It's Friday, Let's Dance' and jaunty jangly guitars and Luton baggage retrieval systems and post-pub Hendrix and Spy movie soundtracks and Peel and Pope dodging and Rebel Soul and random rants and Vespa and sweet soul music and Choice Ronettes and Swedie Indiepop and lovely long-suffrin' L and Saab breakdown tears and blog rockin beats and piano smashing outrage and play off woes and Easyjet love/hate and sadsacks and Sugababes and .. and .. I for one won't miss any of it!

Anonymous said...

Like the very knowledgeable gentleman before me tactfully put it 'Go on then bog off it dunt matter'!

X

Ctelblog said...

Reflect by all means but ensure you return. Like others, I may not always download but I do always read.

Artog said...

Steady on Drew. It's not just the downloads - it's the way you tell 'em. And as for not posting tracks that are too obscure? If they're any good then it's your moral duty to post them!

Dubrobots said...

I can only re-iterate what everyone else has said, you'llbe sadly missed if you go.

Oh, and happy birthday!

Anonymous said...

Drew happy blog birthday and don't stop like all before I enjoy your posts especially when it involves your favourite airline!
Keep posting what you like since when have you worried about what others think of your music anyway (if downloads are the measure). Remember when you were in the woodpecker and always played what you wanted to there so the blog should be the same.
All the best
Jimmy

PS go listen to weekender again!!

Anonymous said...

Many Happy Returns to Across the Kitchen Table!

Drew, yours is the first blog I look at and even if it's a tune I already know I love reading your take on it. After all it's not just about the music but our emotional and intellectual engagement with it. I think it's great that you share your thoughts with the blogosphere. It's like those day when you look through your own record collection and can't find anything to listen to and other days you're spoilt for choice. I guess you're having a bit of the former....

As the mighty Redskins once said: Keep on Keepin' on ('till the fight is won!) Plenty of fight left in you yet ol' boy!

g.
howdoesthatonegoagain

Anonymous said...

I pretty much ditto the comments above - and you know, I don't tend to download the songs because they already exist in my head but your words remind me that they are there and so give me a day or two to mull over them. That make sense?

Have a break - some of the best blogs around do that, and they bounce back, in time.
x

TH said...

Just take a few days off and the inspiration will return. January is a shit month and it's easy to get ground down by it's bleak, dark, cold ways.
I love the northern soul tracks by the way.

I always read what you write even if I don't like the song/band or download it.

Phil Spector said...

What they said above

Happy Birthday!
I go through phases of cannae-be-arsedness, then something pops up on the iPod on the way to work or on the radio and my creative juices start flowing again.

Onec a blogger, always a blogger.
Stick at it when the muse strikes. When it doesn't, don't fret.

Anonymous said...

Would miss the blog. It's one of my favourites, especially on Fridays.

Ever thought of maybe just a post a week to keep things fresh?

Anonymous said...

By the very notion you have posted suggesting you are unsure to carry on proves you are - If you had truly had enough you would have made a last post and said righto, that's your lot. Read the comments, stroke your ego and carry on, or not...It's up to you.

Unknown said...

In common with your good self and many others who have commented above, the number of downloads and indeed visitors to TVV has decreased in recent months.

I reckon this is partly down to there being many hundreds and probably in fact thousands more similarly-minded music blogs to the likes of ours out there meaning folk now have more of a choice and dont visit as often as they used to.

I'm another who doesnt download anything like as much as I used to. This is mainly to do with not having as much time as I used to have to listen to music....I've already got loads of CDs dating back months that I havent properly listened to far less any interesting sounding tracks from ATKT and other great places out there.

As I've alluded to elsewhere, time has also been a factor trying to keep my own blog going far less visit my favourite other places.

Please dont think something is wrong with ATKT on the basis of less readers and/or less downloads. I think those of us who follow blogs on a regular basis are changing how we 'consume' things (I know that's an awful way of putting it....but its the best I can think of. This really is a discussion we should be having over a beer!!!)

Oh and another thing.....you've probably got a loy more different readers than you had 2 years ago, so dont be worried at all about re-posting some of the older material that they might have missed out on. Its something I do at TVV quite a bit, and its interesting to see that repeated tracks do still get loads of downloads.

But when it all comes down to it Drew, its whether or not you feel you've something to say or a there's a bit of great music you want to share with friends that will keep this great wee corner of cyberspace going.

There isnt a single blogger out there who hasnt wanted to pack it all in at some point in time and feels its all a bit of a chore and not a pleasure.

I hope you keep ATKT going. But if you don't, then I'll be the first to offer you a space at TVV any time you wanted......

Belated Happy Birthday amigo.

Steve Benton said...

What they said. And it was definitely the best single of 1985.

Anonymous said...

drew i had the pleasure of meeting you last summer @ BRB you really came across as a nice guy with a genuine passion for music i agree with almost all of the comments it would be a big miss if you go whilst like most others i dont regularly download but i read you on a daily basis whilst not agreeing with your musings all the time they at least create a reaction which is what it is all about and please on your return keep up the travel whingeing as it is perhaps my fav bit of your blog (only joking)
good luck with what you decide and thanks for what you have provided thus far.

son of the rock.

fontilan said...

Congratulations on your 2nd birthday!

I enjoy reading your blog and that link with the Pale Fountains makes it all the more special.

Keep on keeping on.