Yello - The Race I love a bit of ultra-produced pop. Yello were the weirdest of things... Dieter Meier, a millionaire Swiss industrialist, and his sidekick Boris Blank. Looking like a European Terry Thomas, I can envisage Meier holed up in his depths-of-a-mountain lair, surrounded by Fairlight CMI music computers and over-fluffy cats, plotting to … Continue reading 1988
Category: Projects
New Order - True Faith My favourite song. Ever. True Faith is special to me in so many ways. New Order were a musical bridge for me, taking me from hip hop and electronica into the world of guitars, indie and later grunge. The video a kaleidoscope of colour, oversized dogs, and face slapping. And … Continue reading 1987
Day two of Atmosphere was a slightly more involved event for me, as I ran a couple of workshop sessions on how we went about delivering Google Apps into Imagination. I was preceded by a demo of ChromeOS. Joking before with Xen (product demonstrator and stuntman), it promised to be the most uninteresting demonstration in … Continue reading Travelblog 3.2 – Google Atmosphere
I spent a great day today at the Atmosphere event today, with a mix of speakers who opened up some interesting lines of discussion. Above everything, I think that the recurring theme was that the challenges that the Cloud poses for organisations today is in the way in which the "democratising" effects of web-based services … Continue reading Travelblog 3.1 – Google Atmosphere
A mini-travelblog for the Google Atmosphere event taking place just outside Chantilly. Arrived, after a bit of an expedition involving three trains, a bit of a wait, a realisation that cabs are probably unlikely in a Parisian suburb on a Sunday, and a madcap dash in a Renault Clio driven by a bloke from a … Continue reading Travelblog 3.0 – Google Atmosphere
Run DMC - My Adidas So back to the hip hop for a short while. Run DMC's My Adidas is an important song for me in two ways: firstly, for the adoration of the sports brand which still is my preferred choice of trainer; and secondly for a bit of a muso reason. Adidas are … Continue reading 1986
The Waterboys - The Whole of the Moon This is the last song on this list that I got into at a date later than when it was released. I was introduced to The Waterboys when I met (a now long-standing friend) Becky back in 1987. The album that this came from, This is the … Continue reading 1985
Chaka Khan - I feel for you In my early teens I was into hip hop. The Street Sounds electro series of albums provided a slice of East Coast/West Coast urban culture to the mean streets of South West Hertfordshire. Once a week I'd join a bunch of assorted misfits at a church hall in … Continue reading 1984
The The - Uncertain Smile The The are a band that I came to in the late 1980s, with the wonderful album Mindbomb, but (because of the glut of wonderful memories from the late 80s) it's a track from their first proper album that makes this list. Uncertain Smile has the best piano solo on … Continue reading 1983
Joe Jackson - Steppin Out I don't know why this song has stuck with me over the years, but it has. Something about it takes me back to the early eighties. 1982 saw the beginning of the football season that would nurture the affection for Watford that has stayed with me ever since. Starting with … Continue reading 1982
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