Just before Christmas, I travelled to Australia to attend my niece’s wedding. I was there for five days. I travelled for a total of sixty seven hours including stopovers etc. that’s nearly three days in old money. I am extremely lucky and privileged to be able to do this, although my bank manager may disagree about the reality of “being able to do this”. I felt particularly lucky when looking at the flight map knowing I was over the Middle East, Afghanistan, Myanmar and more. It is extraordinary that we live in a world where holidaymakers blithely fly over the locations of unfolding tragedy. I tried not to think about it. Not that successfully tbh. To distract me I had compiled a huge playlist of old and new to soothe the weary traveller’s breast and, to be fair, one of the attractions of spending such a long time travelling on my own was the undisturbed time to listen to lots of stuff. Forget the films, the music is where it’s at!
My first leg involved making sure the prerecorded top forty-five tracks of the year from the Sounds from beyond the Shed Mixcloud sounded just right. And I’m pleased to say, puffs chest out, the two shows sounded great, however, you be the judge the links are below. There then followed a smorgasbord of artists some new to me King Hannah, Lila Forde, The Main Ingredient, Rising Appalachia and some very old Harper, Drake, Hawkwind, Martyn, Marillion, Chapin, some I’d missed Sofia Tavik, Robbie Cavanagh and many that I love love love Young, Wilco etc etc.
Each flight was a delight – poetry!
And no jet lag – that’s the power of music. As I landed in Sydney I played Perry Keyes to get in the mood and as I journeyed into the dark heart a bit of classic America came to mind. There are four radio shows below. The top forty-five songs as previously mentioned and two shows that straddled New Year. Lots of homework y’all. As ever take what you want or need….
