Tag Archive for 'rem'

ten artists: rem;

Published on July 29, 2009 in music. 8 Comments Tags: , .
This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series ten artists

Time for a new series, this one involving actual writing and inspired by two of my favourite music boys. Scott, whose Wack Beats ruminations on music and film are frequently more entertaining than the subject matter, has been working on a list he’s calling The Forty Artists That Shaped Me. While I don’t have as many as forty (that I love, sure, but that changed my life?), I really liked the idea… and then Steve pointed out that I never followed up on his Ten Albums To Tell Someone Who You Are.

So here’s my compromise: ten artists that shaped me, and quite possibly the albums they did it with.

Those of my kind are usually able to point to one artist, one song, one incident, which changed them from somebody who likes music to somebody who likes music, you know, obsesses over every lyric, collects the bootlegs and the ticket stubs, chases bands across the country and can born their friends rigid with a not-always-appropriate reference for every occasion. For me, that song was “Country Feedback” and that band were REM.

Let me set the scene: in 1998 I was studying for my Standard Grades and sleeping on the sofa in the front room at my dad’s old flat; dividing my waking hours between past papers and episodes of Star Trek: Voyager, and investigating the piles of shiny, alphabetised CDs in the black lacquer cabinet by my makeshift bed. It’s easiest to describe my dad’s tastes as “eclectic”, and although he has his favourites he’s usually happy to give anything a listen: unfortunately this means that he came back from Las Vegas a few weeks ago singing the praises of The Fucking Killers, but in the late 90s I was happy to discover several artists who would later go on to become staples of my music collection. The hi-fi was conveniently positioned by the sofa and he had a pair of those huge, cushioned headphones that make you feel like a DJ; and once he’d gone to bed I’d often hit the “play” button and let Leonard Cohen or somebody sing me to sleep.

He’s a “song” man rather than an “album” man, my dad, and one of the favourites which always cropped up on those mixtapes of his I’ve written about before was “Losing My Religion” from REM’s Out Of Time album (a song that would later become a harmonised karaoke standard for myself and my brother as well as convincing him to buy a mandolin, but I digress). I’d run my finger over the smooth, even spines of the discs and select study music based on a vague familiarity with the names and contents within. I smiled along to “Radio Song” with its KRS-One rap intro, and to “Shiny Happy People”, but the sheer depth and melancholy beauty of “Country Feedback” floored me. I hadn’t yet realised that music didn’t just soundtrack or entertain, but that it could swell up inside you and bring involuntary tears.

REM were the first band I “collected” the way I used to collect badges or trolls. As I started to grow my own music collection, I wanted every album. I spent my holiday money on special editions of Dead Letter Office and Document that I found in a shopping centre in Malaga, and my first boyfriend bought me Life’s Rich Pageant for my eighteenth birthday. I wore out my cassette tape copy of my favourite album, the hugely underrated Life’s Rich Pageant, and replaced it for £3 from Fopp on Byres Road the day I found out that I had aced my Highers and, by extension, had a place at law school. I spent the rest of the summer listening to the album on an ancient tape deck at my Grandad’s, memorising every word.

As the years have passed I’ve moved away from listening to their albums regularly (a quick check shows I currently have 76 of their songs in my iTunes library) but it hardly seems to matter. I’ve seen them live three times now, the most recently being at last summer’s T in the Park, and every time I see Michael Stipe in his makeup or Peter Buck’s solid presence my heart skips like it did when I was a teenager and I remember why it was that for years I breathlessly called them my favourite band. The post-Bill Berry material might not excite me as much as the scratchy, mumbled lyrics of their early records, but the albums are there to be revisited whenever I need them.

And here’s a spectacular live version of the song that started it all.

DOWNLOAD: REM – Country Feedback [YSI]
BUY: Out of Time
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
In Time: The Best of REM 1988 – 2003 at Amazon.co.uk

[lyg 10] and i would walk five hundred miles;

Published on July 10, 2009 in [lyg10] and music. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

September this year marks ten years since I made my first, tentative and over-sharey, foray into blogging. I hope you’ll forgive a little self-indulgence on my part, but I’d like to do something to celebrate a pretty significant milestone. I’ve hit upon the idea of publishing some selected takes from my archives – there’s a little bit of poetic license required here, as some of the proper cringeworthy teenage stuff is (thankfully) lost in the mists and pixels of cyberspace, but what I’ll publish every Friday from here until the end of the year is culled from the LiveJournal years, 2003-2006.

With T in the Park this weekend, this post about my first year at the festival seems timely. And it means Ross has been gone for six years.

14th July 2003
I’m just back from Ross’s funeral but I don’t think I need to talk about it; only to say how on earth is a twenty-minute service in a conveyor belt crematorium, in one door and out the other while the next set of identikit mourners file in, supposed to give you any sense of closure? I can’t say it-was-a-lovely-service because it’s too easy to get the impression the minister is reading out directly, changing only names and the occasional “her” to “him”.

I had been there before but it’s still the opposite of what I’m used to and I don’t ever want to get used to it.

I only cried, privately, when I realised how many people I didn’t know had heard my name.

I suppose you could say the thought overshadowed my weekend, not in a bad way or to detract that I have had the BEST FUCKING WEEKEND OF MY LIFE (TM), but of course you can’t just forget. Ross was there when Feeder dedicated “Just The Way I’m Feeling” to their drummer who committed suicide a few years back, he was there during “Everybody Hurts” – but he was always going to be.

But the Best Weekend of my Life – a weekend of meeting new people (new person who will be at the Manics signing tomorrow and who has been promised bootlegged Ryan Adams, if I remember correctly, damn the wine that tasted cheap and yet wasn’t), learning new lessons (how to put up get someone else to put up a tent for you, that by the time you get to the end of the queue you will wonder what all of the fuss is about and, most importantly, that it is in fact possible not to go to the toilet in twenty-four hours), spending way too much money on stuff that seemed like a good idea at the time and probably even more over-using my mobile, oh and apparently there were a few bands playing too. It’s over (until next year – definitely an annual event in the Pixie Calendar) and I’ve nothing to show for it bar the sunburn from hell and an REM setlist saved into my phone pending being turned into a mix CD. And some cute beads. And a belt. And a Ryan Adams bootleg. And a hat, which for some reason seemed to be a target for evil boys to steal.

REM as an experience was nothing short of spiritual – as close to the front as two little girls who were only half an hour early can be, Patricia (who shared the obsession with me in high school) and I held hands throughout and sang every word. I emerged from the crowd, tears streaming down my cheeks, realising nothing has or will ever come close to the way I was feeling at that very moment.

Other highlights then. The Flaming Lips – ample substitutes for the White Stripes and an amazing show. I stand converted. Idlewild – a couple in their forties jumping around with myself and Patricia’s friend Joanne as no-one else in our bit of the crowd was quite as mad as we were, and sticking my phone in the air to send good vibes and song snippets to the other side of the world. The Raveonettes with Steve on Sunday morning, as he’s right about bands eightyninemillion times out of eightyninemillionandTWO (now I realise who The Coral are and it hits me they were already on my shit list). Everyone going mad when Supergrass played “Alright” – their set seemed almost like the Proclaimers, play what you like but there’s only one song everybody wants to hear and they won’t be happy until they get it.

We got a relatively early bus home, the bus so obviously full of people who have “overdone it” as my mother says, either in the sun or with drugs (to employ an overused cliche if I never smell hash again it will be too soon, I just don’t see what the attraction is). My brother had sunstroke and what was there to stay for anyway, fucking Coldplay?! So i watched the highlights on TV when I got home, and giggled and chattered to my mum.

I feel as if I could sleep for a week, but every time I try to lie down I find something else that hurts.

(don’t go back to) rockville;

Published on July 15, 2008 in music. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

this time it even looks like rem!
Photo courtesy of my freakishly tall sister!

I was going to open this post by saying that Sunday marked, if not the end of an era, then at least the end of my long-term love affair with Scotland’s most famous outdoor piss-up what has bands at it. But now that a day’s gone by and my mid-morning crankiness, if not my epic sunburn, has faded from memory, I know that as long as my legs don’t get any worse I’ll find a way to get up there next year.

You see, T in the Park has a brilliant atmosphere that you just don’t find anywhere else. I hear and understand the complaints: that it’s full of neds, that it’s just too big, that the line-up is generic and predicatable. It’s true that you can’t walk by anything resembling a wall without finding a young gentleman relieving himself against it (up to and including the back of the ice cream vans), but the banter and randomness quotient – whether the girl with no teeth dancing in her bikini first thing in the morning, or our new friend who dropped his burger – is legendary. As for the line-up… well, with seven or eight tents and stages of varying sizes these days I challenge you to be stuck for something to do for longer than about an hour. Blows the line-up for ths year’s Connect out of the water, anyway. Sure I’ve always liked the sound of ATP, and I drooled at the prospect of End of the Road until my upcoming Australian adventure put paid to that plan both time-wise and financially, but quite frankly the thought of ten hours on a bus smelling like a campsite has never really filled me with the thrill of anticipation.

Saying that, it doesn’t matter how meticulously you timetable your must-see bands at a festival: your best-laid plans will be waylaid by feuding friends, toilet queues, full tents and unpublicised rescheduling. That’s all part of the fun though. Although I caught a bit of the Two Amys (McDonald and Winehouse) on the main stage, I didn’t see a band properly til The Xcerts took to the Relentless Energy Drink Super Douper Mega Stage at some point in the mid afternoon. Before that, I was so despondent about my sister’s questionable mobile phone reception that I spent half an hour talking to someone from the Samaritans! (As well as clapping along in the ceilidh tent for a bit, and spending disproportionate amounts of money on manky pick ‘n’ mix, and dresses that wouldn’t fit.)

So who did you actually see?
Seasick Steve was probably my unexpected highlight of the festival. While I liked last year’s Dog House Music, he’s somebody I’ve never got around to seeing live and so I was pleased to catch the end of his set in the Pet Sounds Arena when I arrived early for the National. The tent was packed, and it was one of the most enthusiastic punch-the-air receptions I’ve ever seen for somebody you wouldn’t consider a typical showman.

And what was even better was that the tent practically emptied once he’d finished, so with a bit of deft manoevering I found myself front and centre for the National. There’s something about the festival setting that kills the usual music snob attitude that has a tendency to emerge in me at gigs, so I could’ve hugged the guy next to me who screamed for “Mr November” in the gap between each song when he wasn’t reassuring the band that they were his favourite. While the fans went wild below, the band were as quietly explosive as they were in the autumn whether Matt Berninger was screaming “Abel” or delivering a devastating “Slow Show”.

I saw Vampire Weekend as well and they were good fun, although the acoustics (and my awkward position under a speaker) in the King Tut’s Tent meant that every time a bass note sounded my eardrums threatened to burst. A text from my old schoolfriend and “REM soul sister” Patricia seemed like a good enough reason to exit when they started playing that piss-annoying song about Oxford Fucking Commas.

As for REM themselves, what can I say? Good timing and determination got my party to pretty close to the front, which was a sea of randomness none of which I could blog about in a way that would amuse anybody but myself. Although quite heavy on tracks from new album Accellerate, their set was like the last decade of my life never happened (not least because Michael Stipe looks as timeless as my old favourites sounded). Hearing “Fall on Me” and “Begin The Begin”, and a sweet acoustic “Let Me In”, was as amazing as yelling along to “Losing My Religion” or discovering I still remembered all the words to “It’s The End of the World As We Know It”. Needless to say, I’ll be having a rummage through the rest of my CD collection when I’m at my mum’s tonight, looking to rescue a few forgotten gems.

Oh, and the traditionally grim festival loos weren’t a problem either – my top tip for next year, if you’re going? Stop by the sexual health tent for a free chlamydia test – you don’t find out the result on the day, so it won’t spoil your weekend, but you get to use a proper toilet with running water and a flush. As one of the many people to whom I relayed this little piece of information to commented: “And if you’ve got it, you should find out about it anyway – it’s a win-win!”

The 2009 rumours have started already – maybe see you there?

PS New Jenny Lewis album details! Also really looking forward to the new Okkervil River, after a day revisting The Stage Names. 2008 gets better and better.

footnotes and endy-bits;

Published on July 11, 2008 in legalese and music. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

eesmee & chacha
Vintage Eesmee and Chacha, to balance out the Dom-love in my last post!

I have to confess to a bit of a pang as I watched the campers make their wide-eyed way to the bus station on this grey and dismal Glasgow morning. Am I really too old, too used to home comforts, for the T in the Park campsite now? And then I thought about it: the mud, the rain, the neds, no Fraser this time around to come save me from the first three; to say nothing of the extra expense and the fact that I haven’t yet signed off the magazine. Worth it for a mere half an hour of The Hold Steady? It’s not like it’ll be as good as last year, she says defensively.

My sister is on her way up at the moment, and has promised me that she will go see my band and tell them that their Scottish stalker misses them and forgives them for trying to sue her. She says she may as well since the only band she likes this year is REM, so she’s only going for the booze. Which is a shame, because the idea of my tiny sister harbouring a secret desire to mosh to Saturday night headliners Rage Against The Machine makes for a tremendously entertaining mental image.

Saturday’s line-up is perhaps more inspiring overall, but Sunday was worth the money just for the prospect of seeing REM in a festival setting again for the first time since Balloch in 2005. Last night, in a fit of nostalgia, I left a message on Bebo for my high school best friend who’s so intrinsically connected with my old favourite band, and she says she’ll see me down the front. I am SO EXCITED, and that’s before you even consider that The National are playing as well!

I’ll maybe plan to catch a bit of Vampire Weekend, Seasick Steve, Frightened Rabbit and My Morning Jacket as well – if you’ve got any tips please let me know!

Oh, a thought: I noticed yesterday the European Parliament regulation which will ban misleading air fare adverts – you know, the ones where Ryanair claim you can fly for 99p, and then you go in and discover that you’ve to pay £20 in charges and then another £7 to be allowed to check in at the airport, with or without a bag (this latter part is actually true – paying for bags on budget airlines has become commonplace, but airport check-in?). I wonder by what stretch of the imagination you could apply a similar law to tickets for gigs where you are forced to pay the “unavoidable cost” of a service charge of as much as £8, in the case of my T in the Park ticket. My little law geek brain is ticking…

living well’s the best revenge;

Published on March 25, 2008 in a little more personal and music. 18 Comments Tags: , , .

There are many reasons why I would make a crap mp3 blogger. Laziness, apathy and a refusal to trawl torrent sites for illegal album leaks are pretty obvious ones, as is my occasional reluctance to listen to nothing recorded after 1976 unless it was written and performed by bands from Minneapolis or alt.country enfants terribles. Right up there though is my lack of patience for streaming audio: I sit in front of a computer all day at work, rarely do I have the desire to come home and spend my evenings on Myspace pages. Throw in an oft-dodgy connection and the hiccups it brings, and you’re hardly likely to find me snapping up pre-release album streams.

However, I have an open mind should my circumstances ever change. I am now, as I am sure you are aware, running a Macbook which is much less temperamental when it comes to staying connected than my doddery old laptop was. Having spent the majority of the four-day Easter weekend with a computer running, and spotting that the legendary REM were previewing their fifteenth studio album on iLike, I figured I might as well give it a go.

REM, as regular readers of this blog will be aware, is the reason that I became one of those terrible bores who don’t just like music but Like Music, obsess over every detail and love certain bands and artists more than family. I was fifteen years old when I had my awakening, on study leave from high school and living on the sofa in my dad’s front room, sandwiched between his big shiny stereo hi-fi and the perfectly rectangular, alphabetised CD rack. My dad also owned one of those perfect, big sets of headphones with soft leather earpieces that cushioned you from the outisde world. I spent my afternoons camped on the living room floor with my Standard Grade Chemistry past papers, selecting CDs based on vague familiarities with the bands contained within each crystal case. My dad is a big fan of the band’s 1991 album Out of Time, particularly “Losing My Religion”. But it was the song “Country Feedback” that moved me the most. By the time I finished listening to it I knew my life would never be the same again.

And it wasn’t, and it’s made me the person I am today. That and the New Adventures in Hi-Fi cassette tape I wore out the summer before starting university, and the tears I shed on the two occasions I saw them live. The first was at T in the Park, in 2003 I believe. REM are the perfect festival band; the only way to experience “Everybody Hurts”, their most famous song, is in a crowd of ten thousand people who are holding you and telling you that you’re not alone. I don’t ever listen to the album version, as beautiful as it is.

Like many REM fans, I’ve grown increasingly disenchanted with their work since drummer Bill Berry left. For my part I just moved on to other things: rougher voices, more countrified sounds. I still have all those old albums though, and I feel comforted to know I can revisit them whenever I like.

Accelerate, which is released at the end of this month, is being hailed by many as a return to form. I don’t necessarily think REM lost their form (Reveal certainly wasn’t as dire as everybody seems to claim it is, although I never really took to Around the Sun), but it’s a decent album if a little cheesy in places. Opener “Living Well is the Best Revenge” is fantastic; the rest less memorable but I reckon will stand up well to repeated listenings.

I find it interesting that REM seem to grow poppier, and Michael Stipe more showmanlike and eccentric, with age – a career trajectory that seems the complete opposite of the UK’s most respected musical export, the insufferable Radiowank. Accelerate deserves its place of right in my extensive collection of REM CDs. Have a listen yourself, and see what you think.

the insurgency began and you missed it;

Published on March 13, 2007 in music and technology. 11 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Yesterday’s exciting lunchtime meeting resulted in a little bit of paid journalism work for somebody I’m equally as excited about. I’m sure I’m mad taking on yet another commitment, but the nature of this industry is when the opportunities arise you have to take them. And sleep when you’re dead.

Today I’m going to take advantage of my little soapbox in order to ask you guys, many of whom I know are much more competent in this particular area than I, for a little bit of advice. Since I’ve moaned about it often enough, my laptop is pretty much on its last legs. Even after moving about 15gb of music that should never have been there in the first place onto an external hard drive, it takes about half an hour to load up and ready itself for use after switching it on. And as for trying to play music while surfing the net for information for an article that you’re typing up in Microsoft Word… forget it.

I don’t really have a lot of money right now, but as a journalist who often has to work from home (and I don’t even mean the freelance or “fun” stuff – whenever a new magazine is due I’m often found typing up interviews I should have done weeks before into the wee small hours) a reliable laptop is a necessity. I had wanted to treat myself to a MacBook because I’ve heard so many good things about them and, well, because they’re so gosh-darn pretty, but as I’m not some yuppie “creative” type living in an apartment in Shoreditch my parents paid for because they still haven’t given up on me maybe one day getting a real job I’ll probably have to give up on that dream. Macs are priced far too prohibitively for the demographic they pride themselves on targeting.

My problem with PCs running on Windows operating systems is the way in which the software is bundled. I don’t use Internet Explorer, much as I doubt anybody in their right mind does (I used to hate the look of Firefox, but got over it pretty quickly the first time I ran a spyware scan after switching), and as an iPod user I have no need for Media Player either. I was having a chat with David about how easily one can strip a laptop of those aspects it programming one has no need for and it sounds like far too complicated a procedure for somebody whose technical knowledge is average at best (something which also precludes me buying an “empty” laptop and loading it up with open-source software of my choosing).

Of course it’s possible to leave the unnecessary bits alone, but it feels rather untidy. And anyway, before a couple of weeks ago I was having to plough through the add/remove programmes bit of my Control Panel on a nightly basis looking for things I could get rid of in order to free up enough space to shove files onto a CD-ROM for storage. It’s taught me to be fairly economical.

Basically, this is what I’m looking for. I hope the experts out there will be able to give me some advice as to where to look and what to ask for. I should point out that although my budget is limited, if it turns out that a MacBook or a similarly-priced Windows-based option is the best thing for me I will work something out: I need this for my livelihood and there’s no point buying something oan the cheap I’ll need to replace in six months.

- It has to be a laptop, not a desktop computer although I know those are cheaper. It has to be something of my very own. It has to be lightweight enough that I can take it to meetings/trips (at the risk of sounding a little too girlie I’m not able to carry much weight and my current laptop is a little too heavy to go anywhere with me bar the sofa). And yes, I’d like it to be alright-looking. Not necessarily stunning, but not like a relic from Stalinist Russia either.
- I need Microsoft Word. I’m sure it’s not the best word processing programme in the world but it’s what I use at the office, and I do quite often take stuff home.
- Other programmes I use on a regular basis: iTunes (non-negotiable), Firefox (although I’d be fine using another browser which complies with web standards and doesn’t come with a big “kick me” sign on its arse), Kodak Easyshare software. I use MSN and AOL instant messengers, although not at the moment as if I get a message it crashes my laptop for ten minutes. I also use Yahoo IM to keep track of new emails.
- Speaking of which, I use web-based programmes to keep track of things like email, calendar, RSS feeds so I can easily switch between home and work computers and keep things in one place (saving bookmarks I can later use in the magazine for example) and I don’t really see that changing.
- As far as RAM/hard disk size is concerned, I’m not really bothered having “top of the range” because it’s never top of the range for long, but I would like something that will conceivably last me another four years.
- Oh, and wireless internet access. Because I’m sick of sitting hooked up to wires on the sofa while Stringer gets to blog in the bath. But I think that’s a given these days, innit?

Recommend away :)

In other news: congratulations to that old favourite band of mine on their induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, although you’ll pardon my blood running cold at the thought of Bloc Party’s producer taking on the new album. And look at the geekish treat I couldn’t hold back on buying myself! It’ll look ridiculous on me since they only had a small left, but, yeah. Damn that dollar exchange rate, and Mary for pointing it out.

mp3 wednesdays: songs my father taught me;

Published on December 6, 2006 in a little more personal and music. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

This post was partly inspired by Kat at Keep The Coffee Coming. Her music picks are heavily country/folk orientated, but even if that’s not your cup of tea her blog is well worth a read for its beautifully-written prose and always lovely, appropriate picture selections.

A couple of days ago, Kat posted Nanci Griffith’s cover of Dylan’s “Boots of Spanish Leather”, from her first covers album Other Voices/Other Rooms. It’s a beautiful reworking of one of my all-time favourite songs, and one that I haven’t heard in years because that album’s on a dirty cassette tape somewhere in the loft.

The thing is, for a while Nanci’s version was actually my definitive version of that song. It takes a lot of people by surprise, but it’s only relatively recently that I’ve started to give a damn about music. Anything I love that was released before I turned eighteen is only in my heart due to some furious back-pedalling on my account.

Here’s a story I’ve told often I’m sure: I’m fifteen years old and studying for my Standard Grades in the living room of my dad’s old flat, surrounded by the piles of CDs he used to get through the post from the Brittania Music Club. I picked a couple to accompany my studies and discovered a world I never knew existed.

And so to the theme of this post: songs from my past, songs that have meant a lot to me through my musical upbringing. Not necessarily connected to my dad, but certainly to that living room floor and the day my life changed.

[A NOTE ON THE TEXT: Songs My Father Taught Me was the name of a mix CD I made back in 2004, if you're interested in such things.]

Nanci Griffith: Boots of Spanish Leather
You know, if I’m lying, Nanci Griffith at the Royal Concert Hall was the first gig/concert I ever attended. Probably best that we leave it that way.

REM: Leave
I discovered I had passed my Highers – and by extension been accepted for my law degree – on a sunny day in August, 1999. I was seventeen years old and attending pre-university Summer School, slowly getting to know the West End streets that would soon become my universe for four years. That day I bought a copy of New Adventures in Hi-Fi for £3 in Fopp on Byres Road, and spent much of the rest of the summer listening to it on an ancient tape deck at my Grandad’s flat.

Joni Mitchell: A Case of You
After some high school Christmas concert or other, back when I used to sing, my dad told me I had a voice like Joni Mitchell’s. Years later, on my eighteenth birthday, my bezzer wrote the lyrics to what had become “our” song inside a giant card there was no room for on the mantlepiece. I can’t remember whether she or my boyfriend Alex won the “giant card battle” that year…

Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat
I remember snuggling up under a blanket on my dad’s sofa, his soft, giant headphones clamped over my ears, listening to this song in the dark. Who says misery can’t be beautiful?

Fleetwood Mac: Landslide
So I was in the toilets at the cinema on Saturday night, and playing over their internal music system (speaking of songs I haven’t heard for a million years) was “Storm” by Fleetwood Mac – which is just incredible. Sadly as I don’t have it, and neither does iTunes – but do you? Send it to lisamarie at pixlet dot net and receiving my undying love and gratitude thanks Jules!! – you get “Landslide”, and the accompanying sob story. It was Christmas 2003, and I had come back from Edinburgh to spend it with my family. Because of the way the holidays had fallen though, at 6 o’clock on Boxing Day evening, my mum had to pick me up from my dad’s and run me into Glasgow in time for the last bus as I was working in the morning. I curled up on my bed, the only inhabitant in an entire building of student flats, played this on repeat and cried.

Bob Dylan: Mr Tambourine Man
The man himself couldn’t have not made an appearance in this post. This song reminds me of sitting on my dad’s knee in an overcrowded car on the way back from my cousin’s wedding reception, the both of us singing along.

This’ll probably be the last “mp3 wednesdays” post this year as it’s about time I put some effort into drawing up this year’s official mix CDs. As Largehearted Boy reminds me every day the year-end lists have begun in earnest – a timely reminder of how much work I have to do before I can approach the looming Christmas break with any enthusiasm. NME’s Albums of the Year is a surprisingly good read – if you ignore #1, and a high ranking for (I’m sorry Bobby) a rather mediocre Strokes album. I’m also falling behind with my New York posts, aren’t I? Just a bit…

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a sickly Stringer to attend to. He’s still adjusting to the Scottish climate, bless.

(Oh, forgot to say, don’t scaff music, buy albums, blah. You know the drill.)

jar! of! dirt!;

Published on September 19, 2006 in aff the telly, current affairs, mmm... food and music. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Ahhh. You know a place has become home when you’ve finally got the setting on the toaster just the way you want it.

Today in bullet points:

- It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day, that annual excuse for bloggers everywhere to commit grammatical atrocities in the name of some semblance of humour. I should probaby confess that I originally intended to write this entry in pirate-speak, but it just looked a bit ridiculous. Somebody should really come up with some kind of generator or something.

Ah. (Or should that be “arrrr!”)

This one is better, anyway.

- After what I said yesterday about not watching much TV I’m quite looking forward to Stephen Fry’s Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on BBC2 tonight.

- I’ve started watching the news while eating breakfast and waiting for my bath to run in the mornings (I miss having a shower!) which is proving a nightmare for my blood pressure. Did you see that more than half of 10-year-olds now own their own mobile phone? Which begs the question I’ve yet to see asked: who’s paying for their phone bills? Obviously there’s a safety argument in giving your kids a mobile, but at ten years old they shouldn’t be hanging about on street corners without access to a friend’s landline or a payphone anyway, and being realistic – they’re all going to use them to text their pals! I’ve heard it said that mine is the spoiled generation, but it appears the one following us is even worse, and it disgusts me.

- Also in the news today: you can now pay for postage and print off a label online rather than going to the Post Office (or, more likely, buying a book of stamps in Asda). The Daily Mail are up in arms at the news as these internet stamps won’t feature the Queen’s face (no really, it’s front pge news – let’s hope they bring it up at the UN assembly, eh?). 76 comments at last count by loyal Mail readers will make for entertaining reading if you’re bored at work.

- On a happier note: the four original members of R.E.M. were reunited for the band’s Georgia Music Hall of Fame induction on Saturday. The band’s three-song set is of course on YouTube (via Stereogum).

Now, if somebody would care to explain to me why Our Nicky and myself are discussing dairy-free sanitary products via email I’d be grateful, cheers.

*edit* Big congrats to Amy, newly-proud mother of a 9lb 4oz baby boy!!!

PS New Ryan Adams interview courtesy of NPR. He’s also in this week’s Big Issue in Scotland, although there’s a rant in that. Friday is gunna be the Best. Day. Ever.

PPS Pics from Thursday night are up on flickr, for those of you who have an account and are nosey! Or alternatively (and see the comments to my previous entry):

our love is like a powderkeg in the corner of an empty warehouse;

Published on March 3, 2006 in music and quizzes/memes. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Fi’s photos from New Rhodes are up. Oh the pretteh.

I found out yesterday that John Vanderslice is supporting Death Cab For Cutie tomorrow night; and it’s making me smile and remember a particular brand of, well, Transatlanticism – sitting up until four in the morning then getting up at eight to continue instant messenger conversations in my pyjamas and sleepy voices on the telephone.

Teh Intarnets is full of ghosts these days.

This in one of the Guardian blogs made me laugh.

By the way, a certain person’s birthday mix CD is a work of art, even if my head is so obviously full of something or somebody else.

Last.fm meme as pinched from Rob.

Name your top 10 most played bands on Last.fm

1) Ryan Adams
2) Elliott Smith
3) Sleater-Kinney
4) Death Cab For Cutie
5) Rilo Kiley
6) Whiskeytown
7) REM
8) The Mountain Goats
9) Bright Eyes
10) Bob Dylan

Continue reading ‘our love is like a powderkeg in the corner of an empty warehouse;’