On Friends, Coffee, Poetry, Music, & A Day Well Spent

Spent indeed! There has been a wonderful outbreak of $10 cd shops around Sydney over the last few years. I love $10 cd shops. In fact, I have become so spoilt by the proliferation of these treasure troves that I refuse to spend more than $10 on a cd anymore. The only trouble with a rule such as that is I probably end up spending more money on cds because they are so wonderfully cheap. Yesterday is a case in point.

Yesterday, I had some business to do about town so I planned the path of my journey around the location of these shops. I found some real treasures at these shops; for remarkably, I bumped into a good friend at each one! The guys I bumped into were all musicians, some were guys I used to be in bands with. It was so amazing (on second thoughts, maybe it isn’t that amazing to bump into musicians in music stores; however, as I hadn’t seen each of them for sometime I’m calling it amazing). It was so nice to see each of them - even if they did catch me dancing in the aisles to daggy music - and chat about bands and our longing for good music and the need to satisfy this deep craving we all have for great cds, and good musicians to play with, even if you do sometimes need to keep a mouse near by to eat the cheese.* We also bought cds.

Here are some gems that I found:

Charlie Mingus, Tijuana Moods



Mingus is one of my favourite Double Bassists. I love him! This cd is jazz with a latino feel. Nice. Of this album, Mingus says, “This is the best record I ever made.” Charles Mingus, 1962.


CoreaHancock, is the next album I bought. This album is “the second album from the heralded Chick Corea-Herbie Hancock concert series of 1978.” If you like jazz piano you have to listen to this cd! It is awesome!



And don't they look pleased with themselves!


Of this album, Tony Cohan states, “Art, and jazz especially, has always held the promis of the spontaneous, the unexpected, the transcendent, the spirit of play. Chick and Herbie take us once again, in a whole new way to that magical place.”


Lastly, I bought The Best of Carly Simon. I bought one of these for my mum too. ‘You’re So Vain’ is such a good song!


I also bought another book of Milton’s poetry. I am dying to read ‘Comus.’

After all my running around I was in dire need of a good coffee and no one makes good coffee like a friend of mine who has just opened up his own Café, Luxe, in Bondi Junction. If you ever find yourself in Sydney, you simply have to visit Luxe...

...grab a table outdoors, and have a coffee and a bite to eat there. The menu is great:

The coffee is the best. I had a day well $pent!


*One of the guys I bumped into was the drummer in a band I was in. Together we used to try to turn every song into a funk song – we were the renegade rhythm section. Sadly, it is sometimes not appropriate to make every song a funk song. We were forced at times to play cheesy music. It was torture! Luckily, this clever drummer had thought of a way to combat this terrible evil: he kept a stuffed toy mouse on his kit – to eat the cheese.