| first and final warning |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|05:20 pm] |
Anyone using the abominable expression "made of x" where x = "win", "fail", "lose" or something equally ungrammatical and tragic will be removed from my flist, mocked and if at all possible tracked down and humiliated in public with large dogs. Starting now. It may have been considered "cute" for a few fractions of a second amongst the easily amused but that time is now well and truly over.
Worse punishment await anyone who expects me to bold, strikethru or italic a list of books that includes the Da Vinci Code and anything containing wizards of any kind.
You have been warned, chums. |
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| fearlessly battling strawmen of the eighties (part 1) |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|04:30 pm] |
Rather late in the day to be catching up on my Afropop, but am currently listening to Kandia Kouyate's M'Bensara (2002). I've had a longtime kneejerk aversion to what was and may still be referred to as "World Music", a term that has so many despicable connotations for me that it's hard to know where to start. Self-righteous, patronizing twits would make extravagant claims for the authenticity and honesty of music made by people whose names they couldn't pronounce and whose homeland they couldn't find on a map, that was probably ripped out of context to fit on a nice, brightly colored CD to be played as a special treat between the other middle-class we're-into-real-music-you-know standards like Van Morrison and the less wacky works of Tom Waits. "So inspiring, so untouched by the crass modern world. Course, if Thatcher has her way we'll all be put in concentration camps for listening to thing like this. Another stuffed mushroom?" Ah, the 80s....
And I'm always reminded of a couple I knew in the late 80s who visited various countries in Africa and came back with a tantalizing if rather drab looking stack of vinyl. "We asked for the real music, the people's music that was recorded there for the people there, the local music, the workers' music, not the anodyne stuff that's being promoted over here." But they couldn't get through the first LP when they got back home to their hi-fi system. It was real and authentic and relevant to the people who made it but it was also badly recorded and very, very dull. It seemed very likely to me that the record shop employees in Kenya or Mali or wherever they had visited had been quick to realize they finally had the chance to shift those crappy old copies of The Local Maize Pickers Union Chorus Sing "Maize, Oh Maize, It's Great" and Other Favorites Volume 7 that weren't selling.
But I digress. The smug voice of old still niggles in the background: ah yes, proper, heartfelt music, not like that Ting Ting and Santogold nonsense young people listen to today. And there's always the fear that Peter Gabriel might put in an unwanted appearance.... |
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| teeth |
[Jun. 28th, 2008|08:55 pm] |
It's good to see Matt Taibbi back on form after "the excruciating Obama-Hillary mess," which seemed to have had a debilitating effect on his writing and humor over the last couple of months. His latest piece in Rolling Stone, "Full Metal McCain" is rollicking stuff:
With his newfound opposition to his own attempts to reform immigration policy and campaign finance, McCain is perhaps the first candidate in history to stump against two bills bearing his own name.
McCain's transformation is so complete that at a recent town-hall meeting in Nashville, when asked to name an author who inspired him, the candidate — who once described televangelists of the Jerry Falwell genus as "agents of intolerance" — put none other than Joel Osteen at the top of his list. "He's inspirational," McCain said.
Standing at the meeting, I didn't write Osteen's name down in my notebook — apparently because my brain refused on some level to accept that McCain had actually said it. Of all the vile, fake, lying-ass, money-grubbing shyster scumbags on the face of this planet, there is perhaps none more loathsome than Osteen, a human haircut with plastic baseball-size teeth who has made a fortune selling the appalling only-in-America idea that terrestrial greed is actually a form of Christian devotion. "God wants us to prosper financially, to have plenty of money, to fulfill the destiny He has laid out for us," Osteen once wrote. This is the revolting, snake-oil-selling dickhead that John McCain actually chose to pimp as number one on his list of inspirational authors. So much for "go, sell everything you have and give to the poor," and all that other hippie crap from the New Testament.
That's how you write bout McCain. Skip the "He's so old" jokes.... |
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| only amazon knows the real me.... |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|11:20 am] |
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| proper shoes |
[Jun. 26th, 2008|10:29 am] |
 My proper shoes are back from being repaired and I feel like an adult again. Actors often say they build a character up from the shoes and I suspect the version of me that can tolerate working in IT needs a classy pair of well-seasoned English brogues. The me in sneakers feels he ought to be running a Web 2.0 startup, working 18 hour days and feels guilty about failing to do so. The me in Cheaney Lamberts is above such feverish nonsense, is content to wallow in the mid-career doldrums in the knowledge that the blustering, ungainly over-achievement of billionaires and tradesmen half his age does not fall within the purview of a true gentleman and is quite frankly the mark of the cad, lout or rascal. I feel more capable of dealing with the mercantile world in proper shoes, or at least treating it with the bemused contempt it deserves.
All I need to do is work on the parts of me above the ankles. |
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| guess i'll have to work forever |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|05:29 pm] |
I really thought those old copies of Love and Rockets I'd carefully packed and brought over from England would comfort me financially in my old age, but they don't exactly seem to be very collectible. 14 mint issues (11, 14-26) going for $1.04? That would make my collection worth about $2.21. Come on, they're over twenty years old! Back in 1984 when I started buying them you wouldn't be able to pick up mint copies of World's Finest from 1960 for that sort of price. Too many collector nerds saving multiple copies in Mylar bags I guess.
Might as well read 'em again and stick 'em in the loft for another 20 years. They might be worth three dollars then, if the rats don't chew 'em up first. |
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| A 26 part meme, obviously... |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|03:59 pm] |
The As on my office PC:
Achim Reichel & Machines, the Advisory Circle, Alan Parker, Alessandra Belloni, Alphataurus, Altered Images*, Amon Duul, Amon Duul II, Andre Kostelanetz and his Orcestra*, Andrew Vinter (Vintage TV and Radio Classics), Animotion*, Anne Briggs, Annexus Quam, Anthony Braxton, Antoine*, Area, Art of Noise, Arvo Part, Ash Ra Tempel, Associates, Augustus Pablo, Aztec Camera* and American Primative, Vol 1 - Raw Pre-War Gospel 1926 - 36.
Updated to include non-album tracks and other bits and pieces.
* Single tracks only by these.
And you have? |
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| futura - 1961 |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|09:56 am] |
There are bargains to be had on eBay. I picked up a VG++ copy of Bernie Green's Futura for $2.99 plus postage last week. The seller had not mentioned that it was a Stereo Action release and the photograph he used was of the inner sleeve, so I was a bit doubtful of what I was actually getting - but at $2.99 it wouldn't have mattered if it had been a reissue or missing the outer sleeve. But it was the real thing. I've seen similar copies listed at $50 dollars. Not the sort of deal that I can retire early on, but a nice surprise.
And the record is even better than I imagined. I've mentioned Futura before and got the concept slightly wrong. It was Green's imagining, in 1960, of how music would sound in 1970. He was a little optimistic - I don't seem to remember hearing many electric vibraphone quartets in the early 70s or songs like "I Love Paris" arranged for seven electric guitars and "animated tape," a sort of magnet tape and scalpel version of the melotron requiring over 700 splices for the trumpet part on a two minute track, didn't catch on. Green was somewhere between Raymond Scott and Esquivel, adding electronics to unusual arrangements, using stereo panning as part of the rhythm as well as for effect. Most of his ideas were so unusual for the time they had to be packaged as "comedy" records, but Futura was his serious album, without having to hide behind funny titles or mad artwork. I think it was also his last album, which suggests even RCA's Stereo Action division wasn't ready for innovations like the "tonalizer".
I also caught the fleshy part of my thumb in a rat trap on Saturday afternoon, which wasn't half as much fun. |
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| other people's nostalgia |
[Jun. 20th, 2008|10:26 am] |
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The Radio Kitchen is essential. The Chef doesn't update very often but there are archives you can lose yourself in if you're interested in what American radio sounded like before it became one big Clear Channel bore. The most recent posts, contained recordings taken from the radio during a road trip from Detroit to New Orleans in 1988 capture the sound of an America that's familiar but already mostly gone and the writing captures the long lost thrill of being in the middle of nowhere at 4am, turning on the radio and hearing Lighting Hopkins on the AM dial.... Lovely stuff. |
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| our business is piling up! |
[Jun. 19th, 2008|05:11 pm] |
Oh yes. Seen on the back of a truck on the way into work this morning.
Don't we all? But some of us just have fancier mission statements. |
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| why am i writing about english food? |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|02:22 pm] |
There was an English food stall at the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, but what they had were Cornish pasties and sausage rolls, which are two things I don't really miss about England. I'd rather have a taco. Maybe if they had been serving the full English breakfast I would have been more interested, although seeing how it was outside and the temperature was already nudging 90, it might have been fatal. The nearest thing to the full English around here would probably be what I normally have when we go to Kerby Lane for brunch on Sundays, although with black beans replacing baked beans, home fries instead of chips, sourdough toast instead of fried bread, all-natural sausage patties instead of "bangers" and a glass of iced tea rather than a chipped mug of industrial-strength Brook Bond it might seem unsettlingly alien to a greasy spoon purist.
Fish and chips is one of the only thing I miss here, foodwise. The last place I lived in Leeds was just up the road from Kirkstall Fisheries, a genuine, hardly-changed-since-the-30s, now-defunct English chippy that met all the criteria for a classic fish 'n' chip shop right down to the customer unfriendly hours and requirement to shout "can you pop a couple of specials in, luv?" when you walked in. If the menu had more than five items on it I can't recall what they were - fish, chips, fishcake, peas and the always regrettable saveloy. You can't get a good fish and chips here though. Even the best attempts are like they've had it described to them secondhand without being allowed to see, let alone taste the real thing. You know you're in for a travesty when you see the tartar sauce and lemon wedge (which is usually true back in England too, of course). Most things can be found or replicated at home, but I've given up trying to get a decent portion of fish and chips.
Now sticky toffee pudding.... that's another matter. |
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| sensible children - I have no power over them.... |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|12:42 pm] |
Why yes, I have been listening to the Advisory Circle's Other Channels.
I'll be back-k-k-k-k-k-k.... |
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| muxtape one - would you, could you, with a fox? |
[Jun. 18th, 2008|07:44 am] |
Okay, muxtape seems to be accepting all my files now, so here you go, some spaceage pop offerings, all from out-of-print vinyl. This first consists of odds and ends that were already on my laptop from back when I went on a vinyl-to-mp3 frenzy late last year. Nothing too scary -- except maybe the last Dick Hyman track, which is sort of a bonus for you if you want something more freaky than bongo-infested cover versions. Have fun.
muxtape one (link fixed)
01. stompin' at the savoy - dick hyman (electrodynamics, 1963)
02. birth of the blues - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
03. my buddy - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
04. me and my shadow - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
05. out of this world - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
06. no blues at all - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
07. love for sale - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
08. caravan - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
09. ritual fire dance - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
10. whispering shadow - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
11. the moon was yellow - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
12. the topless dancers of corfu - dick hyman (moog: the electric eclectics of dick hyman, 1969) |
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| muxtape one - the repost |
[Jun. 17th, 2008|07:58 am] |
Okay, muxtape seems to be accepting all my files now, so here you go, some spaceage pop offerings, all from out-of-print vinyl. This first consists of odds and ends that were already on my laptop from back when I went on a vinyl-to-mp3 frenzy late last year. Nothing too scary -- except maybe the last Dick Hyman track, which is sort of a bonus for you if you want something more freaky than bongo-infested cover versions. Have fun.
muxtape one (link fixed)
01. stompin' at the savoy - dick hyman (electrodynamics, 1963)
02. birth of the blues - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
03. my buddy - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
04. me and my shadow - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
05. out of this world - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
06. no blues at all - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
07. love for sale - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
08. caravan - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
09. ritual fire dance - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
10. whispering shadow - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
11. the moon was yellow - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
12. the topless dancers of corfu - dick hyman (moog: the electric eclectics of dick hyman, 1969) |
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| muxtape one - full version |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|11:14 am] |
Okay, muxtape seems to be accepting all my files now, so here you go, some spaceage pop offerings, all from out-of-print vinyl. This first consists of odds and ends that were already on my laptop from back when I went on a vinyl-to-mp3 frenzy late last year. Nothing to be scared of -- except maybe the last Dick Hyman track, which is sort of a bonus for you if you want something more freeky than bongo-infested cover versions. Have fun.
muxtape one (link fixed)
01. stompin' at the savoy - dick hyman (electrodynamics, 1963)
02. birth of the blues - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
03. my buddy - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
04. me and my shadow - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
05. out of this world - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
06. no blues at all - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
07. love for sale - dick schory (running wild, 1961)
08. caravan - los admiradores (flutes, bongos, guitars, 1960)
09. ritual fire dance - les baxter (les baxter's wild guitars, 1957)
10. whispering shadow - the three suns (one enchanted evening, 1964)
11. the moon was yellow - ferrante and teicher (heavenly sounds, 1957)
12. the topless dancers of corfu - dick hyman (moog: the electric eclectics of dick hyman, 1969)
(For those who have yet to try muxtape, you just click on the link and click on the track. No registering, downloads, unzipping or any of the stuff that has scared you away from listening to anything I've put up before.) |
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| friday afternoon random dozen |
[Jun. 13th, 2008|05:15 pm] |
...or not so random as WinAmp seems to have a thing about blind blues singers and Sarah Nixey (currently adding not much to a Francoise Hardy classic here) right now....
living in the sunshine - caedmon
julian h. cope - julian cope
because - the bird and the bee
love you - the free design
french rock 'n' roll - black box recorder
moments in love - art of noise
night bus - burial
been listening all the day - blind joe taggart
asforteri - caravan
the school song - black box recorder
honey in the rock - blind mamie forehand
songs for europe - half man half biscuit |
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| ??? |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|01:39 pm] |
Many factors may impact your decision to install a solar system.
- Austin Energy's warning to would-be deities. |
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| book ummmm.... of 50 |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|10:32 am] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | ladytron - velocifero | ] |
Reading H. R. Wakefield's The Clock Strikes Twelve from 1946. I'm sure true collectors would react in horror to me reading a 62 year old Arkham House first edition on the bus, but the (VG+) dust jacket is safely stashed elsewhere. And it's not that rare. It's an odd but enjoyable book, very much of its time and type, where characters tend to be minor aristocrats, dress for dinner, spend most of their time at their club and the only women are housekeepers. Charabancs and the wireless are spoken of with wonder and distrust. The Golden Bough and An Experiment with Time are bedside books. The writing is simultaniously archaic and mid-century upper-class slangy, which adds much to the strangeness of the stories. Nothing quite as wonderfully bonkers as his earlier story "Old Man's Hair" but "In Collaboration" and "A Stitch in Time" help you understand why John Betjamin thought he was second to only M.R. James. |
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