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bbc news 24.
read, read, read...
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'last one on drugs is a queer!' yells portillo.
michael portillo slams gordon brown.
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bright eyes- double album release.
When writing about Conor Oberst, the singer/songwriter who records with an ever-changing group of musicians under the name Bright Eyes, it is customary to state his age within the first few sentences of the piece. It is also not uncommon to read comparisons between this Nebraskan singer/songwriter and Bob Dylan, the best-known singer/songwriter to hail from the Midwest. This serves a specific purpose to establish a context for Oberst's songwriting, to imply that he's some kind of "genius," not in the least for writing and recording albums at such a young age, particularly since he's been recording since the age of 13. 'digital ash in a digital urn' and 'im wide awake its morning' (pictured) are his two new albums. although 'im wide awake...' is the more 'country' album, 'digital ash...' is in no way a disappointment for those buying the albums for the sole reason of oberst's 'new dylan' tag (inc. me). the crowning achievement of this double release is clearly the song 'road to joy' on 'im wide awake...', lifting its melody from the classical piece 'ode to joy', oberst sums up america's political and social climate in a way no other artist has managed to achieve: 'cause when you're asked to fight a war thats over nothing, its best to choose the side thats going to win, and noone's sure how all of this got started, but we're gonna make them goddamned certain how its gonna end'. these two albums are the records of the year by far... for now.
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bush in orphan mockery!
in this shocking photogram, we can clearly see president george W bush laughing and pointing at orphans in the street. what a tosser.
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classical radiohead?
Last week, as radiohead fans settled into the London's royal festival hall, thom yorke and johnny greenwood took another step down their long, amazingly creative road. Teaming up with the London sinfonietta and members of the nazareth orchestra. greenwood, although choosing classical pieces also included his own compositions piano for children and smear. the evening was also used to further his mission to introduce one of the strangest instruments used in modern music, the ondes martenot (which he has used since radiohead's 2000 album kid a). thom yorke closed the show, in his usual manner, all shakes, twitches and jitters, in an adaptation of a radiohead song never before heard, arpeggi, and the excellent where bluebirds fly (which can be found on 2004's japan only ep, COM LAG:2plus2isfive). although both greenwood and yorke are in no way strangers to playing huge venues, the whistling and stamping ovation they received, may have brought back memories of their 1997 glastonbury performance. they continue to break down musical barriers, crossing genres effortlessly, and as work begins on radiohead's new album, what we can expect from its release in early 2006, we can only guess. more please.
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glen's indecent proposal.
it should be noted that this is a genuine conversation i had with our sister site's creator, glen smith on that marvel of social interaction, MSN messenger: what's that floatin' in the water? says: hey man. 2005: a face odyssey. says: hows life? what's that floatin' in the water? says: quite good at the moment, a guy in his 40s approached me and asked if i wanted to have sex with him in the cafe today. you? 2005: a face odyssey. says:
well, i would like to tell you something that interesting happened to me today, but sadly, no. please elaborate?
what's that floatin' in the water? says:
well, i was giving 'seargent pepper's' a listen, and there were two guys accross the cafe. one of them was staring at me. for ages. so i asked him if he wanted anything and he beckoned me over. he spoke so fucking quietly. then he asked me if i was a student, what i was studying and what not. then i went back, and he started staring again. then he performed an array of little gestures i couldn't
what's that floatin' in the water? says:
read, so he got up and came over. then said 'tu haces 'fucking'?'
what's that floatin' in the water? says:
then i felt a disgusting sensation in my bowels, and told him i had to go.
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ZAPPA.
this is the first of what will hopefully become several little annoying paragraphs about some of the artists that clutter up a significant proportion of my record collection. so first up, frank zappa. first album was recorded with the mothers of invention, which included Don Van Vliet (we call him captain beefheart). this album was called 'freak out!' its a legendary debut. features silly stuff, but is in my opinion, the most accessible of the mothers discography. includes 'trouble every day', 'wowie zowie', 'you didnt try to call me' and 'help, im a rock'. other albums with the mothers include 'absoloutely free' and 'we're only in it for the money'. a challenge to listen to the first time round, but undoubtedly amazing. this would be the point where you'd expect me to go and talk about the rest of the records right? well, having released over 60 albums, that will not be going down im afraid. so what ive done is made a list of some of my favourite albums. but this only scratches the surface. theres much more i dont own. this can be a starter.
'we're only in it for the money' 1968- rolling stone said it was 'perhaps the most mercilessly derisive raspberry ever flung at the rock scene by an actual participant therein'. includes 'mother people', whats the ugliest part of your body' and 'the idiot bastard son'.
'lumpy gravy' 1968- zappa's first orchestral composition album. zappa, a 50 piece orchestra and a few stray mothers. the birthplace of conceptual continuity. (google it).
'joe's garage' 1979- this is a musical saga in which the government censors music completely. 3lps on two cds. it is awesome. if you have the time to scrutinise it in its entirety.
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EDIE SEDGWICK
this was going to be about bob dylan. unfortunately, ive decided that not many people care. so instead, ive written some things about edie sedgwick, whose 2005 album her love is real... but she is not nobody knows about. i bought this on a whim, mainly because i was interested to know what a transvestite making musuc sounded like. fortunately, this is one of the best albums of 2005 so far. for an album seemingly built on a fairly boring concept (that all the tracks on the album are named after movie stars), this is amazing. at only 35 mins. long, her love is real... sounds like the liars' they were wrong, so we drowned but with more bite, and a little intellect. oh, and its not about witches. and with a 'is that a man or woman singing?' feel. particular note should go to track 1, (martin sheen) for combining the 'west wing' with 'apocalypse now' and 'full metal jacket' lyrically and in a two minute long trash punk track. 'i love livin in the usa- when martin sheen is president...'
www.ediesedgwick.biz
tracklisting-
01 martin sheen
02 christian slater
03 sigourney weaver
04 robert downey jr.
05 lucy liu
06 molly ringwald
07 michael j. fox
08 arnold schwarzenegger II
09 tim robbins
10 harrison ford
11 tom hanks II
12 sally field
13 arnold schwarzenegger I
14 haley joel osment
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calum vs glen on ipod shuffles. (this is a monster, but well worth it. calum- 'bandages...' glen- 'gorgoroth')
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says: when i listen to it, i always miss when one track ends and another starts, it all seems to merge together- this is my problem with ipod shuffle. gorgoroth says:
hey! i'm getting that!
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
why the fuck are you getting an ipod shuffle?
gorgoroth says:
out of all the little ipod gigdets. but you can turn the fade effect off you know. anyway, dali's car stands out for me, it's super atmospheric.
gorgoroth says:
why the fuck not?
gorgoroth says:
em, really, i want one. why would i not want one?
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
well- what sort of stuff do you plan to put on it?
gorgoroth says:
i don't see where you're going. it's just a small, cheap i-pod with no screen and less memory.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
if you were going to put on beefheart or zappa or something like that then buy a fucking mp3 player instead.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
imagine listening to one track off of 'trout mask', 'kid a' or 'frances' or something like that- it wouldnt be the same song youd hear if you listened to the whole album- plus, it just chooses tracks at random, which could be very cool but not with the vast majority of music which you and i listen to. imagine listening to 'tombstone blues' one minute, then going to aphex twin, then bert jansch,
gorgoroth says:
well, it's only called a shuffle because it has no screen, you can turn the shuffle function off.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
then suddenly listening to like, 'motion picture soundtrack'. not one of the songs would be bad, but it would be hell listening to them in that order.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
so why not just buy a normal mp3 player- or does the ipod brand hold a certain aesthetic value?
gorgoroth says:
the amazon review is hilarious, it says something like "morning gridlock seems less mundane when you don't know what song will play next"
gorgoroth says:
well, it is very pretty, and small, and 70 pounds.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
because youll be on tenterhooks just waiting to hear what song will come up? id rather choose what i hear.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
this would be a good argument for your website.
gorgoroth says:
well, the fact is you can choose what you hear.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
then why is it called an ipod shuffle?
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
it has no screen! how can you choose?
gorgoroth says:
it's called i-pod shuffle because it has no screen and they needed some gimmick for a name - the shuffle feature in this case. as you said earlier, put whole albums on, and you know what you're going to hear next.
gorgoroth says:
they can't put a screen on something that small, there are dozens of mp3 players with no screens, they just aren't called 'shuffle'.
gorgoroth says:
"Prepare to make friends and influence people when you wear it biking, hiking, snowboarding, dog-walking and anywhere else that could use a great soundtrack."
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
and that doesnt put you off buying it?
gorgoroth says:
haha, no, i'll keep it in my pocket and use normal earphones.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
and what about my questions? you havent answered one of them.
gorgoroth says:
okay. i'm getting an i-pod shuffle because i'm the sort who wants to listen to whole albums instead of selecting track by track - hence not paying double just for a screen. i don't plan to put any kind of music in particular on it. yes, the ipod brand holds aesthetic value, but it's also what i want. it's called i-pod shuffle because of the shuffle feature.
gorgoroth says:
you can choose by selecting the order before you put the tracks on.
gorgoroth says:
however, i remembering answering all of those questions, maybe this webmessenger fucks up, it does weird things with kevin.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
so you have to skip constantly till you find what you want as it has no screen to tell you, you are not buying it to do the thing it is designed to do (play at random) when you could buy an mp3 player for like £30 more which has a screen. and is so small that you could lose it under a napkin.
gorgoroth says:
"so you have to skip constantly till you find what you want as it has no screen to tell you" no, i'll put the tracks in an order i want originally.
"you are not buying it to do the thing it is designed to do" it's designed to play music - all ipods have shuffle. it's called 'shuffle' because apple needed something to sell it by.
gorgoroth says:
and the size is one of the things that attracts me to it.
bandages on my legs and my arms for you says:
"it's called 'shuffle' because apple needed something to sell it by."
it is called shuffle because that is its point. if to shuffle wasnt the point of an ipod shuffle, it would just be a smaller, screenless, cheaper ipod with a smaller memory- it would be called something along those lines. the original ipod wasnt called 'ipod (it plays music in a straight line but also shuffles by the way)'.
gorgoroth says:
ok you're right there, the point is to shuffle.
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