Badly Drawn Boy - Hour of the Bewilderbeast
My favourite album of the last decade was glaringly missing from all the 'best albums of the decade' yawn fests that I had scanned over toward the end of 2009. It is the Hour of the Bewilderbeast by Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough). Winner of the mercury music prize in ...
Bruce Springsteen and the E street Band - Live 1975 to 1985
It's a little strange that the first Springsteen album I bought was a second hand 3 cassette live box set in about 1987. I wasn't really drawn to him as I was currently only interested in heavy metal and what I had heard was his mid eighties Born in the ...
Embryonic
Flaming lips - Embryonic was released late last year and was as far removed from the critically acclaimed albums of soft bulletin and Yoshimi battles the pink robots as they were from the early lips albums. The guardian ran an article asking if the lips had released a career killing album? It is ...
The Beta Band - The three EP's
The three Ep's does exactly what it says on the tin. Released in 1998 it collection the the first 3 Ep's by the Beta Band, these being Champion Versions, The Patty Patty Sound and Los Amigos del Beta Bandidos. Each EP has quite a distinctive sound but together delivers one ...
Voice of the Seven Thunders - Voice of the Seven Thunders
Rick Tomlinson's previous incarnation Voice of the Seven Woods is regularly played in our house so when I found out about this new project release earlier in the year the expectation was pretty high. It doesn't disappoint, the eastern influenced acoustic tones of seven woods are cranked up to 11 ...
The birth of Surf - Various Artists (Ace records)
Ace records do a fantastic job of collecting the best of instrumental surf classics. If you know nothing of the genre then this is the place to start. My first brush with reverb soaked surf classics was when Quentin Tarantino laced his Pulp Fiction (arguably one of the best films ...
Neil Young - Trans
There is a lot said about Neil Young's 1982 experimental album Trans, some good, some bad. I can imagine his fans taking the record home one sunny day in 1982 putting it on and thinking "what the fuck is this?". The electronic theme of the album is carried through with synthesizers and ...
The Joy Formidable - A balloon called moaning
Technically a mini album with eight tracks self released from their website through Pure Groove records the Joy Formidable are building up quite a following with their amazing live performances. A new album is due out this year but in the mean time get your hands on this independent classic ...
Eels - End Times
Everything was beautiful and free...in the beginning End Times is the 8th Studio album from the Eels and the second release in 12 months as Mark Everett AKA E goes through a creative lo fi high point. The latest offering charts the breakdown of his marraige and is a deeply personal ...
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space
The first thing that strikes you about the 1997 masterpiece that is Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space is the package it is delivered in. Packaged in a pill box and boasting a prescription sticker, the cd itself in a plastic pill blister to be popped open ...
Wall of Sound
A recent sort out and retreaval of my CD collection from the loft has brought with a reappraisal of my music collection. I have been sifting and sorting, selling and trimming, relistening and reloving. I have collected music since 1986 in all various formats over the years, records, tapes, minidiscs, ...Shh
September 7th, 2010
We were at the eels gig on Saturday night at the Manchester academy. A fine gig I might add with E and the band in fine form. We did however, experience one of the many things that irritate me at gigs. There are a lot of things that irritate at gigs and I assume these are general gripes such as tall people standing in front of you, sweaty people touching you, over priced band merchandise and Scandinavian prices for beer. These are part and parcel of the gig going experience.
One thing that is getting more irritating as I get older though is talking at gigs. I don’t mean shouting in-between songs or even saying something to your mates. I mean stood there chatting like you’re in the pub completely oblivious to the fact there is a hush over the crowd as a softly played song is performed. If your disinterested in the artist then fuck off to the bar.
Seriously, it’s not cheap to see a band live these days and that is one of the consequences of downloading music, legal or otherwise. In the twenty first century it is the touring which makes the artist the money and I accept that.
Eels tickets were I think £20 each plus booking fee(another rant for another day) so almost £50 for the two of us. That’s a lot of money. If you paid that to go to the theatre you wouldn’t stand some fucking moron behind you talking throughout. So why do we put up with it at gigs. Who are these people?
Maybe I’m noticing it more as I’m getting older and the bands I am going to see are quieter. In 1992 I saw napalm death, in 2010 I saw the low anthem, who it has to be said had an impeccably behaved crowd. You could hear a pin drop. There isn’t this problem at classical concerts. You have paid to hear someone perform, let them perform and listen to the music. I’m pretty sure Damien Rice stopped a gig once because people were talking. Now I’m not a big fan of his music but I can understand his frustration, he pays a lot of attention to detail and his songs are quite emotional. If all he can hear is some berk going on about the mpg of his new Beemer you’d get frustrated.
I recently got the new big star box set and on the last disc there is a live concert recorded from around 1974/5 in the background you can hear people talking. All the way through, completely disinterested in this legendary band performing. So it’s not a new thing, just something I don’t think we need to put up with.
Eels last Saturday night, I didn’t film this by the way.
The Unwanted
July 17th, 2010
Thought that I would point everyone in the direction of a piece by Joe Sacco in todays Guardian. A tale of African refugees in Malta, a frank and honest piece. I love Joe Sacco’s work, my favourite is Palestine which I thought was fantastic. Have read of his latest and then search out more:
Joe Sacco
Ghostly toilet
July 7th, 2010
Hipstamatic and creepy buildings are a good match.
The long road
July 5th, 2010
I took this on the way home yesterday with the hipstamatic app on the iPhone. It’s a little addictive.
Calendar
July 2nd, 2010
Just found a room in the back with a nineteen year old calendar on the wall! Obviously somebodies hidey hole at some point.
May 1991
Computer age
July 2nd, 2010
I have inherited an iPhone 3G after Shelley obtained the fried gold which is the iPhone 4 this week. I can even post to my blog via my phone which is a vast technological leap forward for me as up to recently my phone was over 4 years old. Testing out the blogging app by uploading a pic of me this week as I inadvertently took a White shirt and red tie to work. It took me ages to realise I looked like Shaun from shaun o the dead. I didn’t however have red on me.
Unbelievable
June 1st, 2010
The World Cup is almost upon us and although I have let the football bug slip for the last few years mainly due to a disgust about the amount of money involved I am looking forward to watching the tournament. There always seems to be an increase in nationalism and patriotism when the world cup is on, an exaggerated sense of rivalry that is all part of the tournament. This year however there seems to be more than the average xenophobia kicking in and plain outright racism through the media and facebook groups. I’d been struck recently by the amount of acquaintances on facebook who had been inviting me to such groups like “they don’t like our flags but they like our benefits”. First I was struck by the fact that they had invited me to an “I’m not racist but…” group that they probably didn’t know me very well and that I really need to distance myself from some people. I never really thought much else about it until I spotted this in the paper.
Driver orders toddler off bus for wearing ‘offensive’ England football shirt
This story struck me last week. It was in the Daily Mail although I’ll admit to not reading it there but repeated in the equally awful Metro paper which was sitting in the canteen. I read the piece about a woman and her Toddler wearing an England shirt who was accosted by the bus driver with an Eastern European accent who said he found the shirt offensive. Apparently his exact words were “I find that really offensive. You should dress your family in less offensive clothes.” Because that’s how evil Eastern European bus drivers speak. I read it and thought, that didn’t happen, she has just made that up, I genuinely couldn’t believe that they had printed that as a story. Today I found the investigation by the bus company and they have released a statement:
It didn’t happen! When I read it I knew it didn’t happen but thick fucks will read that and believe it as can be seen by the comments on the piece. The worst that could have happened is that the evil Eastern European bus driver made a joke that was lost on its recipient(not sure how that could happen she looks pretty sharp). What galls me is the media is actively encouraging hatred towards immigrants and is in reality inciting racial hatred. Why is it they can get away with printing this shit and not have to prove the story was true.
There is no ban on England flags to get all riled up about, call it a hoax campaign or even moral panic if you like, created by the right wing media to promote the sale of papers and to incite hatred in order to sell more papers with stories that incite hatred, and so on and so on. Also I spent a long time watching football and in all the home games and away games I went to in 15 years I was never allowed to wear a football shirt in a pub and that wasn’t the fault of evil Eastern European Bus drivers. It was because of all the fighting between rival supporters.
View from a Hill
May 17th, 2010
I was riding home the long way through Broadbottom and Charlesworth which is mostly up hill but on a day like this was worth the extra effort. I was just cruising down past Hargate Hill when I thought that days like these made it worth it. Worth riding in the rain, sleet and hail. Worth all the drivers who try and intentionally kill you and the negligent motorway maintenance trucks that always misjudge the size of the wagons and clip your elbow as they pass you. The kids that throw bricks, sticks and spit at you. Its all worth it on a day like today, the sun shining, nice breeze as you pass through the Glossop countryside heading home on May day.
Then some knobhead flew out of the Gamesley estate in his Fiesta beeped at his mate in the pub and nearly knocked me off. Back to reality.
Its a war out there and the idiots are winning.
I took this after I’d calmed down.
Manchester Music Mania vote
May 17th, 2010
An email from my Mum at Chethams School of music has pointed me in the direction of this poll to find out Manchesters favourite song of the last 5o years. The winning song will be put in a time capsule on the new building. Unfortunately I couldn’t get any one to guarantee that if I voted for the M people that all copies of the song would be buried in the ground never to be heard again so I voted for Joy Division.
New Layout
May 17th, 2010
A big thanks to Shelley for the new layout. She is Awsome.
