When do the tributes stop, and originality start?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
new Daniel Johnston album!
His first in six years, due in October. And if this doesn't spur me into finishing my book on him, then little will...
Friday, August 28, 2009
Ukraine's Got Talent
Damn, but I really don't know what to say about this. Tug of the ET beard to Mr Eddie Campbell for linking to this. Absolutely spell-binding. What follows is the art of Kseniya Simonova, the 24-year-old winner of Ukraine's Got Talent. 13 million people watched the finale.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Ellie Greenwich R.I.P.
Ellie Greenwich passed away on Wednesday 26 August in New York City. The world seems a little dimmer for her passing.
F_ck You And Your Underground.
Thought I'd share this with you, from the first wave of Riot Grrrl (UK). Classic stuff, classic. Tip of the ET glasses and cane to Ms Tobi Vail for re-stoking the fire.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
ET Recommends – 22: Super Wild Horses
By Bangs, there's so much great stuff out there waiting to be unearthed.
My Last FM Top 20 (week 3)
This chart is pretty funny. Who knows what demons I exorcise in the wee hours of the morning when I can't sleep, alone with my headphones? You can probably guess which albums I purchased and which came free, unasked-for. Still. I like it. These, according to Last FM, which frankly ain't so reliable, are my 20 Most Listened to Artists, Last Week.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Pitchfork "Top" 500 of the 00s
Everything that's wrong with music is contained within the following list.
This week's Top 10
Man, it's hot here all of a sudden. 30 degrees in winter time. We're not in Kansas anymore, Isaac. Not many female artists this week. Odd.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Greatest Review Ever of the Most Overhyped Indie Album of the Past Two Decades and That Includes Even Oasis' Second
I like this album just fine. Wouldn't listen to it these days, of course - but equally, if a track came on my iTunes, I'd be chuffed. I still reckon Neil Kulkarni's nailed it, but entirely, here. I'm also in agreement that their second is superior. Here's an excerpt from his Quietus review. (A wiggle of the ET country shorts to Stevie Chick for hipping me to this article.)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Defending the indefensible - 9: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
So when does a pallid copy of the past cease to be a pallid copy of the past? It is simply when enough time has gone by, that everyone has forgotten how rush-of-blood energising this music can be?
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Legend! fanzine
This singer dude just scanned in an entire issue of The Legend! fanzine from 1986 or thereabouts. And some other dude is threatening to release the entire run of Legend!s as a (necessarily limited edition) book! Life suddenly feels fab again! Don't believe me? Look, here's a page or two!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
ET Recommends - 20: Irmin Schmidt
This is what I listen to when I want to relax. Blank out the sound of the Roald Dahl audio-cassettes, the butcher birds circling and perching perilously close on our deck, the occasional rush of helicopter wind, Isaac complaining because he's been sitting still too long. One of the applications on my iPod Touch that I downloaded purports to be white noise but while consistency of tone and technique is something I'm always on the look out for, particularly when it comes to blocking out the commonplace or annoying, I require subtlety also.
I don't want my microcosmic music to be too placid, though. There needs to be movement, constant movement. There needs to be motifs threading and counter-threading through the wash of sound. The odd jazz-inflicted brass break. Timpani doing what timpani must. And vocals - as Steve Severin told me recently on a film music panel - are just plain distracting when you're trying to block out, switch off, relax.
Ways Of Seeing
This art theory book, based on the BBC televison series hosted by John Berger, was a major influence on my formative self. It was pretty much my introduction to post-structuralism and neo-Marxism in criticism: and it still reads very powerfully, several decades on. It was originally published in 1972, but I'm in slight shock over that because it so reads like a book of the Sixties. Guess the mainstream always takes a few years to catch up.
I so wanted to write a book about music entitled Ways Of Hearing - but Ben Thompson went and beat me to it several years back. (Good book, too.) Anyway, I love the following passage (loosely based on an essay by German philosopher Walter Benjamin)...
The Quietus
I'd just like to big up this noted music (and film) site, if you don't mind. Long overdue. Intelligent, wry and filled to brimming with the sort of articulate, witty opinion that folk have long since claimed is NOT the province of the Internet. Guess these folk beg to differ. Sure, many of you who travel here will already be familiar - but for those of you who aren't? Treat yourselves. The reason I've never volunteered to write there myself is I can't help feeling it makes me totally redundant, and so I carry on - adrift in my splendid isolation. Sigh. One day I will find another boat in this wide, wide, lonely ocean. Man alive, what a party I'll have then.
My Last FM Top 20 (week 2)
This isn't exactly a fair indication of what I listen to - most of that takes place on my iPod Touch on the way to, and at, college - but it does give a fair indication of what I listen to in the presence of other people. Or, alternately, on my headphones when I can't sleep at 4.50am.
I'll change the way this is compiled next week.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Great trainwrecks of our time - 4: Matthew Sweet meets Susanna Hoffs
On the way into college I was listening to the new Susanna Hoffs/Matthew Sweet album of cover versions, Under The Covers Vol. 2. Oh, those bastards.
Skrewdriver (a cautionary tale)
Thought I'd repost this from the Comments section on my recent 50 Bands I Have Seen post. Apologies to anyone offended by the crapness of the logo above.
50 bands I have seen
Inspired by the current Facebook thread - here are 50 bands I've been fortunate enough to see live in concert. If a number is listed in brackets, that's the number of times I can remember seeing them - but it's probably more. Indeed, I've seen most of these bands/artists on multiple occasions.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Billie Holiday
I downloaded the new Bob Dylan Theme Time Radio Hour Vol 2 compilation earlier, courtesy of Shock here in Australia.
Monday, August 17, 2009
This week's Top 10
These are songs that have been randomly played on my iWhatever-the-fuck-they-call-it today. It's a fair indication of what I listen to walking from Waterworks Rd to campus in the morning - glorious sunshine always, a slight breeze, the city inviting and near like Seattle remains in my dreams - except that usually it involves a load more Jam.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
ET Recommends - 19: Lady GaGa
I want to be explicit here. No less an authority than Simon Price thinks she's brilliant. And I've got to agree. She's this generation's Prince. And I couldn't give a crap about her sexuality. Indeed, I rather appreciate the manipulated confusion.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sub Pop: The True Story
Just been interviewed for a forthcoming oral history of grunge, and it reminded me I've been meaning to post this up on my blog for quite a while.
Everett True vs The Go-Betweens
Although this conversation took place on Facebook it could easily have happened on Twitter. And I'm wondering. Perhaps that guy was right after all. Perhaps you can (quite easily) review bands via brief sentences of 140 characters of less.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The problem with free speech
This post is dedicated to those tireless champions of free speech on the Drowned In Sound message boards who see nothing wrong with using an offensive word or phrase as long as everyone else does.
Presumably, next week we'll see them using the word "nigger" everywhere - unless, of course, not enough people use that word as an insult anymore.
the myth of Daniel Johnston
Interesting article from David McNamee about DJ on The Guardian's website.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Radiohead - no more albums
Thom Yorke has announced that he can't bear the thought of Radiohead making another album.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Harry Potter and the Tribute Bands
Damn it all. Saw a fairly terrible documentary last night, We Are Wizards, detailing obsessed Harry Potter nerds who, in some way or other, interact "creatively" with the franchise.
Nick Cave
I kinda feel that this news story is neither here nor there, but it does allow me to tell my (most recent) Nick Cave anecdote.
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