THINGS I PUT ON THE INTERNET
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Tweets
- What does a job title like that do to a person's outlook? Ticket inspector was better, at least.
- The train conductor is now called Revenue Protection.
- Oof. Capello. See you, shitbag.Feb 08, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Lovely monk, @SimonJenkins has started The Language Of Football looking at British football's international tongue » http://t.co/1oyqRReaFeb 08, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Failing to think of something brilliant to put on the Mill stereo. Put on Dyslexic Heart. I'm a pure winner.Feb 08, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Being trolled by @sorrell claiming I'm trolling.Feb 08, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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- Jan 11, 12
Have today experimented with using the iPad as a pseudo-gallery installation, showing Gummo and Trash Humpers as I worked. An interesting experience — and certainly a good way to go with Korine. The glanceable screen doesn’t have to be about conveying information.
via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/gQUNl/ January 11, 2012 at 05:24PM
Tagged: images, instagram, noticings, photos - Dec 29, 11
King scallop, belly pork, crackling, apple puree.
via Instagram http://instagr.am/p/cqwzm/ December 29, 2011 at 07:10PMIt may not look much for over a day’s effort (curing the pork/crackling yesterday), but this is the first time I’ve cooked any of it. Until this year, I’ve always sworn off seafood, so cooking scallop is a big deal for me.
I followed the instructions of how to prepare and roast the pork from David Chang and got an excellent caramelised top and close to pulled pork consistency of meat. The scallop, I pretty much went on my own after a trial cooking yesterday. Probably browned the butter a touch, but I can live with that. #mountanalogue
Tagged: images, instagram, noticings, photos - Nov 14, 11
I was invited to give a short provocation/inspiration talk at Culture Hack North. CHN is part of the wider Culture Hack programme bringing developers, arts organisations and creatives together to think about how to use technology differently, and develop prototypes for New Things. It seemed to be a very successful weekend and you can see some of the hacks that were made.
There were plenty of good people talking, including the always excellent Matt Edgar (his notes), Frankie Roberto (talking about embracing ambiguous data through the Open Plaques project) and the new-to-me but very interesting Natasha Carolan (her write-up).
I’m not a seasoned speaker, so thanks to Rachel for twisting my arm and making me go to Leeds. The images I used to represent my points and the words I tried to say are below.
This is the title of the talk, it’s probably misleading to what I’m about to say. Look at the wonderful illustration of a forest troll by Theodor Kittelsen.Here, I introduce myself, how I work at Mudlark where we make interactive experiences — games, web apps, and try to tell stories in interesting ways.My background is in theatre and metacriticism: the practice of reviewing reviews of reviews of events of pretend performances. This means I spend a lot of my time imagining how things are.I see the value of stories as ways to explore the world and everything it contains. It’s a bit broad, but I don’t have much time to be specific here. I have a frustration with the ambition in the way stories are told currently, given the huge amount of different tools available, they’re not being used in a way that is engaging, meaningful or particularly natural.That’s the provocation: to expose the stories around us without forcing unnatural means upon audiences/people.This is an example of a story well-told. I’m a sucker for stationery at the best of times. When it comes with a story I am even happier. This is the recent Fire Spotter edition of the Field Notes brand of notepads. It’s a 48-page notepad with dotted graph paper. It’s pocket-sized and made for writing in, doodling, that kind of thing.This is a better notepad because of its story: a tribute to the firespotters who sit 93-feet up a tower watching out over the forests of Wisconsin for fires. If they see one, it’s called in, they make a note of it and the forests remain.The notepad is better because it contains context, history, value and meaning. When I write in it, I am more mindful of its origins. It also affords me some time to pretend. When I make a banal note in this notepad, I can pretend it’s the forest-saving banal note of a Fire Spotter.This is an example of stories told badly. Museums and galleries are the largest, visitable public resources for stories available (I exclude libraries and the internet, of course). All the items in the collections, on display, have masses of stories in and behind them, but they’re told through rubbish signs.A sign that says: title, year, artist, materials.The sign doesn’t tell anyone the importance of the piece, why it’s there, why it’s worth experiencing and what you can get from it. That’s not enough.So we end up with QR codes. QR codes are useful for certain things, as we scrabble for the ‘hyperlink of the real world’, but they’re nothing more than a redirection to a sign on a different medium. A sign on a screen, instead of a sign on a wall or plinth.They simply serve to exacerbate the partial attention problem of trying tell stories or convey information through separate forms. They’re a compromise of attention, a compromise of observation.I made a slide of lazy sloganeering, because that’s quite good for cutting to the core of a point.This section is about how Augmented Reality is very vogueish, but still very poorly thought out. There is a desire on many people’s behalf, including cultural institutions, to throw notes, data, infographics, additional images and location information on top of the things we’re supposed to be experiencing.What this does is make it noisy. It makes it harder to experience the thing you’re supposed to be experiencing. It detracts from the experience as it redirects your attention. AR is not ‘better’, it’s just more.This is what AR-enabled experiences are like. It’s smart, and it’s potentially valuable, but it’s obscuring the work. You know there are people behind the records, but you can’t see them. The thing in front of the people has come to be more important.AR is the act of putting something in between you and the thing you’re supposed to be experiencing.Which is:(with apologies to Ian Stevenson)Kevin Slavin said this earlier in the year, and it really sticks. It’s not just the eyes that need to be preserved, it is all the senses. It is important to not put things in between us and the experience. If we are to improve the experience, or add to it, it must be done in a way that is sympathetic to the thing that is to be experienced. Don’t let technology distort what you see.The challenge is to find ways of improving the experience without disrupting it.Getting back to what I said I was going to say, is this. This is from the Hello Little Fella Flickr group started by Matt Jones of Berg many moons ago. It’s about a cognitive function that ensures our brains recognise faces first, above all else. Some people are aware that they do it, others are not. As soon as you are aware of it, you start seeing – and looking for – faces in everything around you.This tidbit of knowledge, leading to a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, has affected how people see the world in profound ways. It changes people’s behaviour, it affects the way they look at things, simply by using the tool of story in a simple, natural way. It is more important to change how people see things, not changing how things are seen by putting something in the way.Rather than lay stories and experiences on top of people’s lives, we’re looking at ways to seamlessly slot into them. There are a couple of ways in which we’re trying to tell stories in ways which are already natural to people include Chromaroma and Derby 2061.
Chromaroma is ostensibly a ‘slow game’ played on the London Underground, but we like to imagine it’s a means of slow, pervasive publishing. It is something we can leak stories out into, through missions or collections, or straight up story publishing to users. It doesn’t disrupt a player’s life, it slots into it. It adds to it without demanding much of the user. You can pick up bits of stories about places you go every day, without changing what you do.
Derby 2061 is much more of a tangible story. Again, the aim is to do an ambient form of publishing; to dot 50 parts of the story at fictional venues around Derby City Centre.
The story is accessible on foursquare, as venues and tips. If you check into a nearby venue, you may be prompted with a ‘tip’ from Derby 2061, but they are parts of the story. The story slots into existing behaviours of foursquare. It’s not demanding, it’s just… there. You can engage or not.
The point of it is to provide a future-based story that would encourage general foursquare users to consider their environment, and what it will look like or be in 50 years time. It’s a gentle goad wrapped in a story.
It’s a way of looking again at the world around you, and considering it anew.
This is the end. That’s the Black Death. Thank you.
- Aug 07, 11
On occasion, it is good to recall this tale told by Nagg in Beckett’s Endgame:
An Englishman, needing a pair of striped trousers in a hurry for the New Year festivities, goes to his tailor who takes his measurements.
“That’s the lot, come back in four days, I’ll have it ready.”
Good. Four days later.
“So sorry, come back in a week, I’ve made a mess of the seat.”
Good, that’s all right, a neat seat can be very ticklish. A week later.
“Frightfully sorry, come back in ten days, I’ve made a hash of the crotch.”
Good, can’t be helped, a snug crotch is always a teaser. Ten days later.
“Dreadfully sorry, come back in a fortnight, I’ve made a balls of the fly.”
Good, at a pinch, a smart fly is a stiff proposition.
To make it short, the bluebells are blowing and he bollockses the buttonholes.
“God damn you to hell, Sir, no, it’s indecent, there are limits! In six days, do you hear me, six days, God made the world. Yes Sir, no less Sir, the WORLD! And you are not bloody well capable of making me a pair of trousers in three months!”
“But my dear Sir, my dear Sir, look—
—at the world—
and look—
—at my TROUSERS!”
Tagged: beckett, behaviour, culture, endgame, human, theatre, writing - Jun 21, 11
Since October last year, Instagram has ruled my photograph taking. It’s done what Flickr should have done and what twitpic, yfrog and the like thought they were doing — a simple, single-purpose photo sharing mobile app.
It gets a lot of flak from people moaning about the use of filters, but that misses the point of what it really is. Like criticising twitter for people’s spellings. As a social space, it’s probably my favourite at the moment. It reminds me of the early days of twitter – the days when you followed a fairly small, but diverse, group of people. When you shared ideas – occasionally what was for lunch – and didn’t have to worry about blocking all the SEO spammers or niche retail outlets from Kentucky, or people shouting for attention.
Instagram is a more curated space. It’s a space dominated by real people and what they see. You may follow annoying, dull people on twitter who will occasionally post something interesting or relevant, but there is no value in following them on Instagram. Similarly, Made By Many’s Hollergram bugged me a bit, because it made Instagram spammy and a marketing platform, rather than a photo-sharing space. It’s the same with brands; it’s relatively hard for them to find a way in to people’s feeds, and that helps keep it clean. Of course, there are exceptions and the success of feeds like Playboy, NPR and Threadless show that it is possible to be a brand in this space, without being spammy and crass. Offering quality content is still the best way to market.
Unlike other social networks where there is some level of peer pressure to be friends with X, or follow Y, Instagram is liberating in that I only follow people who have an eye for an interesting image. It is about following people because you want to see what they see, how they see it.* Whilst I was writing this post, Ben Terrett posted this and asked for comments. You could probably stop reading now.
It’s that, I think, that I meant to write about. One of the best things – again this goes back to ‘early twitter’ – is the small memes. None of the awful #replacelovewithbanal word games, but ‘memes without a tag’. Behaviour that goes unannounced, but catches on, influences others, develops beyond the original insight or in-joke. The best bits of Herd mentality. It’s enjoyable watching the images that people collect, or make an effort to photograph: Marcus greets a statue of Otto von Bismarck every morning on his way to Booming, Emily hunts for lost gloves, Toby led a brief glitched photo meme, AceJet records the planes above, and everyone – everyone – shares Brutalist buildings, excellent coffees, typography and their feet.
My personal ambient collection is of Other People’s Shopping Lists. I’ve been aware of doing this since January or so, and I’ve collected twenty-eight since (with some help). It’s a casual thing, to keep an eye out for things people have left behind after shopping. I’m interested in them for several reasons: straight-up nosiness, as data trails, documents of human behaviour & intentions, and the stories you can tell from them – or at least imagine.
Each shopping list is different; from its items, to the handwriting (one typed), the choice of material (Post It notes, back of birthday cards) and the way items are listed (aisle-by-aisle, recipes, days etc). They’re a fascinating snapshot of a person you don’t know, but probably feel you could. Every time I find one, I speculate on the person writing it. How old are they, what is their background, what are they doing? What kind of person uses a birthday card for a shopping list? Is the person that writes ‘pork’ different to the person that writes ‘meat’?
They give me a way to indulge natural tendencies: creating back-stories for things, applying the meaning layer to nothingnesses.
That’s what Instagram is for.
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* Again, this is why filters are acceptable. The complaints that they obscure the subject of the photograph or add in a patina that doesn’t exist are valid, but facile. Every decision made about the image is made by the person taking it. If their choice is to present it in a washed-out greyscale, or a high-contrast lomo filter, then that is part of the composition. It is them presenting their version of an image; isn’t that what photography is about?
Tagged: ambient, behaviour, culture, digital, instagram, iphone, iphoneography, marketing, memes, social media, tumblr, twitter - Jun 12, 11
After visiting Northcote, I convinced the other half to go to Preston. Last time we took a detour home via a North West town, we ended up in the Magical Moomin Valley, so I have form in delivering quality experiences.
The reason I wanted to go was to see, first hand, the marvel that is Preston Bus Station and car park. Preston Bus Station is a Brutalist masterpiece, a structure built to last, to provide a public service through pure form and design.
Unlike Park Hill flats, it had an application to become a Listed Building rejected some time ago. Unlike Park Hill flats, it is impossible to gentrify something that runs a working class service. Unlike Park Hill flats, it is the town’s favourite building. Unlike Park Hill flats, the council want to demolish it.
Demolish it.
The arguments for this is that it doesn’t get great numbers, that more people get buses from streets in the city, rather than the terminus. That demolishing it would provide a large area of land for Preston City Council to redevelop, put a mall or an array of chain shops, a John Lewis, M&S and Cineworld. Perhaps they could put some aspirational flats to leave rotting until the recession picks up. The replacement would cost more than refurbishment, and might not even happen at all.
As I’ve written before, I’m quite distressed at the historical myopia of town planners and councils. The desire to demolish the recent past and build inferior buildings, at a great cost — both economically and culturally — to the public.
Here are some photographs (passed through Instagram) from our wander around PBS:
Preston Bus Station feels stuck in time, generally. The corporate signage is all in the Helvetica of its time, and there are a lot of informal, more hand-type style signs. Most of them have been there since its opening in 1969, and nothing much has been updated.
Far from being a relic or stamping its own demolition papers, it acts as a record of its inception, a moment of hope, pride and of making a public statement.
I’ll be upset if it is torn down, but not surprised. You can do your part by signing this petition, then go and visit it on bus and spend a shitload of money on eggs, bacon, chips and beans in the café.
Tagged: achitecture, brutalism, listed buildings, modernism, park hill, preston, preston bus station - Jun 12, 11
I grew up eating cucumber sandwiches, macaroni cheese and toast. That was all I liked. Occasionally, green pepper; then I hated them and preferred red. That passed when I preferred yellow best of all. I liked croquettes until my grandad called them potato croquettes and I remembered how I hated potato. My parents suffered endlessly, but kept trying. Many times I ended up with aborted meals on my head; notably, spaghetti hoops and pizza.
My uncle Paul, at pains to change me and broaden my plates’ futures, once paid me £5 to eat a small cube of a seared beef steak. My mother paid a further £1 for photographic proof of the moment. A quality racket to run. The meat was fine, but I still preferred the white sauce and pasta.
“One day, you will eat everything. You’ll look back and laugh,” Paul said more than once.
I entered student years armed with the finest 29p noodle soups and pasta sauces, but somewhere down the line something changed. I don’t know what it was, or even when, but I am an adventurer now. Not so much at home, apart from with vegetables and spices, but when at a restaurant, all my guards are dropped. Paul is responsible for this, by and large, for constant nudging and encouragement. For making me feel daft, letting me try interesting food in his restaurant, making me understand the theatre and joy around dining.
When my girlfriend and I decided to visit Copenhagen in 2009, we tried to get into noma and were lucky, so very very lucky. This experience blew my mind, and forced me into eating things that I swore would never pass my lips (cod roe, raw razor clam in its own juices). The relaxed atmosphere, and knowing that a complete genius was at work, made me lose any inhibitions that I had. Everything was an incredible piece of art designed with absolute understanding of its place in culture behind it. Most of all, it was designed for eating, laughing, enjoying.
From then, we’ve tried to recreate our own bits of noma at home, and stretch ourselves when dining out. Last year, we went to Purnell’s, which was stunning in its exploration of West Midlands flavours, Asian spices and British produce. The duck with licorice ash and the amuse bouche of cucumber sorbet, ras el hanout and black rice particularly incredible.
This weekend, we took a trip to the North West to Nigel Haworth’s Northcote Manor. Lisa Allen was running the kitchen, and the confidence, calmness and beauty of the food in front again pushed me to go beyond my own limitations. Scallop carpaccio, oyster and my first tastes of lobster are still making me laugh.
Click to view slideshow.Brilliant.
nb. The vegetarian experience is over here.
Tagged: cuisine, fine dining, glynn purnell, lisa allen, london carriage works, michelin, nigel haworth, noma, northcote, paul askew, purnell's, rene redzepi - Jun 03, 11
I’m not a massive Kickstarter user, I don’t trawl it looking for interesting things to put money into; the only thing I’ve backed before was for one of my favourite bands to record with my favourite producer.
Sometimes, though, an idea is just so stupidly good it needs to be made. This is where Brendan Dawes (of magneticNorth) and his newly-founded physical objects imprint, Beep Industries come in. Despite being a web/interaction design agency, mN have made a couple of nice physical things over the years — the Mixa USB c90 and MoviePeg — so to move those things over into a new company is logical.
The thing that makes it perfect is their latest product prototype, Red Pop. Red Pop is a physical camera trigger for the iPhone. More than anything, it’s a BIG RED BUTTON for the iPhone. It is this kind of stripped down and fun thinking that Brendan brings to everything (even if he does indulge in being grumpy from time to time).
Watch:
Now go and back it. With 40% pledged in just over a day, I am looking forward to this being available in all the best places.
Tagged: design, digital, iphone, iphoneography, objects, technology - May 01, 11
I downloaded the iPhone app Weddar yesterday.
It’s a cute application that seeks to crowdsource the weather in the area that you’re in. It’s not about meteorological fact (22°C, 6mph Westerly wind, 78% humidity etc), but about how the weather is perceived.
I’m struck by the simplicity of its question, and the basic idea behind it: reporting on how it ‘feels’ is quietly brilliant.
For me, this is what the web does best: interpretation. Facts, it’s not so good at. Yes, you can get information from anywhere, on anything — and we’ve all used Wikipedia as a source — but unless it’s experienced or printed on paper, it doesn’t feel quite real. This is possibly because of the endlessly shifting sands of the internet, a fact changes regularly online; in print, it’s every few years or so, e.g. “the most recent study (2003) suggested that…”.
The web is empirical. It is full of alternative versions, experiences, perceptions and theories about the same events. That’s how it has naturally developed, and clearly how people want it to be. Whilst there has been a recent fetishisation of data visualisation and infographics, this is again down to interpretation of information. They may be displaying facts, but they’re doing so in a representational manner.
"Most Ambitious Cooking Experiment" (Feltron report 2008)
"Six Editions" (Stefanie Posavec)
The web is increasingly being designed around glanceable information and dashboards, about receiving and understanding information quickly. Most of this is around statistical truth and data veracity, but that’s not the most important thing. In his TED talk about Behavioural Economics (ack), Rory Sutherland talks about online banking interfaces. To paraphrase, nobody wants the truth about their bank balance, they want a representation of it. e.g. if you’ve got £x left for the month, which is more than normal (or linked to a personal target), then a simple visual indication of that is more important than the pounds and pence.
Very little is designing for impressions or perception. BERG’s Schooloscope is a fairly recent piece of information design that offers an honest representation of data collected around school reports:
It also offers a summary ‘feeling’ of the institution:
That’s good and fine, but most parents would dig deeper into their children’s future school choice than a glanceable website. It does point towards things we should be developing around and designing for. ’Feeling’ should be a central design conceit: designing for the elicitation and engagement around it. To provoke interpretations, alternative versions and develop a rounded perception.
Perception is all about storytelling. By piecing different perspectives, interpretations, experiences together — you can create a ‘multilayered empiricism’:
Advertising seems to get this more than most. Market research is leading in sentiment analysis of how brands are perceived, experiential marketing is attempting to craft relationships between consumers and product, and there is a rise in corporate transmedia seeking to tell engaging/convincing stories. Perception, relationships, and experiences.
All of these add up to measuring and owning how consumers ‘feel’ about a product, service or brand. If you can build things for people to have distributed feelings around, and engage with feelings around those things, then you’re onto a winner.
Tagged: advertising, behaviour, design, human, marketing, social media, strategy, web - Apr 21, 11
Last month, I went to Bangkok with Toby.
It was my first full week at Mudlark, and a pretty strange experience — Bangkok is a full-on city where the volume for all the senses seems to be stuck on eleven.
We spent the time walking around, setting up remote offices in the TCDC or hotel bar, looking at everything, and even squeezed in a screening of Sucker Punch. (I need to see it again because it was either brilliant or the worst film of the year. I’m siding with brilliant for the moment.)
Here is an impressionistic post I wrote for the Mudlark blog detailing our minds being stretched a bit. In comic book style, words: me; pictures: Toby.
Enjoy.
Tagged: Bangkok, cities, exploration, the city, travel, walkshop
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Info
- SummaryFreelance copywriter and producer, mostly involved with digital.
I'm pretty damn good at it.Specialties: social media, online content, problem solving, planning, event production, transmediaExperience- Feb 2011 - PresentProducer / Mudlark Production CompanyProducing new projects and events. Work in progress.
- Jun 2010 - PresentFreelance copywriter / producer / Mount AnalogueSpecialising in online content and social media.
- Oct 2010 - Mar 2011Conference Programme Project Manager / FutureEverythingProject managing the 2011 FutureEverything conference (including programme design, content and speakers).
- Apr 2010 - Nov 2010Producer / Interesting NorthPlanning, developing and designing Interesting North in collaboration.
Key tasks:
design management, online engagement, marketing, copywriting, production. - Oct 2010 - Oct 2010Copywriter / games writer / Rattle- Copywriting for in-game interactions, including theming, language guide, and key phrases.
- Initial review, input into early stages of game design. - Aug 2010 - Oct 2010Copywriter / FolksyWriting interaction copy for the folksy website. It's a good website.
- Apr 2007 - Jul 2010Creative Editor / Just-b. ProductionsDevise and implementation of marketing and community building strategies, including the creation, maintenance and dissemination of online & offline content.
Managing relationships with clients, stakeholders, communities and partners.
Devising project proposals and pitches with CEO.
Developing and co-ordinating a delivery schedule for each project. Liaising with internal team members and clients to ensure all objectives are met on time and to an exceptional standard.
Design and brand management, inc. ensuring all out-bound content is correctly branded, liaison with graphic designer, overall responsibility for print & marketing collateral.
Developing funding applications, completion of bids, proposals and tenders.
Event production, including liaison with webcast team, technical director, production manager; stage management and speaker contact.
Web management, inc. ensuring platforms are delivered to brief & on time, liaison with web developers, maintenance of content and online community. - Mar 2010 - Mar 2010Copywriter for real-time narrative / RattleFreelance copywriter.
I was brought in to design and deliver a week-long real-time narrative as part of Rattle's "My Life As An Object" project.
This involved researching, audience engagement and developing a narrative as a Raleigh Chopper bicycle, told through the medium of twitter. I used twitter and laterbro.com to mix pre-written narrative elements with live, real-time follower interaction.
The project was a great success.
Read more here: http://mountanalogue.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/my-life-as-a-chopper/
and here: http://www.rattlecentral.com/blog/2010/03/week-1256 - 2006 - 2006Festival Assistant / Doc/Fest
Education-
2005 - 2006The University of SheffieldMA in English Literature (Theatre)
Additional Information-
Websites:
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Honors:Top Fife (2007)
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Interests:social media, digital media, online content, advertising, design, games, gaming, writing, graphic novels, comics.
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Posts
This is the previously-unavailable music video for “Bass Drum Dream” by the Microphones. Feast your eyes and ears.
This video is one of many gems in Calvin Johnson’s VHS collection, which is currently in the midst of being digitized and uploaded to the Pink Elephant’s Graveyard on the new K website.
What a waste.
Just got really excited to see James Stirling’s 1976, Southgate Estate, Runcorn, North West England. Tore down in the 90s. Very upset.
“From an unknown location, I break into IKEA’s computer server. In this nerve centre, the CAD files for every IKEA product are stored and are downloaded worldwide. By infecting the CAD files with the ‘Elephantiasis virus’ I have just designed, I can hack the entire range of products. The virus causes random deformities, like lumps, cracks and humps, which only show up when the customer prints his product at home with his 3D printer.”
MERRICK by Daan van den Berg is a digital file infected with an elephantiasis simulation and then converted into tangible products using a 3D printer. Every lamp that is printed will therefore be different.
“I did this one. Whew, what a turd, but I’ve done much worse. The Lazy Cowgirls were GREAT that night.”
DAS OATH, Leeds, ‘04
I was at this show and it was bloody marvellous. Incredibly snarling and snotty performance, pissed loads of skinny jeans posers off
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- An imagined conversation between an astronaut and the person they've left behind, from @sleepyem » http://t.co/ZYV5vyCF
- Watching The Sky With Our Hands In Our Pockets by Emma Lannie http://t.co/ebPbfwoc
- We have @jemstone telling us some stories of long ago, of a front room in the '70s, teenage tristes and lasting love » http://t.co/MCUHp5FY
- Fred and Janet by Jem Stone http://t.co/4kH08oMF
- May need a back-up. Toot if you're interested.
- This week @Will_Humphrey & 'Wistful Kitten' invite you to indulge in some lonely hearts love songs http://t.co/3PzetsPyJan 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Lonely Hearts Love Songs by Will Humphrey http://t.co/0Ui96IKG
- But its okay as long as we all agree to not tell @topfife then he'll never know. Ssshhhhhhh.Jan 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Soooo, looks like someone forgot it was Wednesday yesterday. Therefore a belated PC will appear today insteadJan 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- This week sees @nachimir putting together good songs from bad albums (and a couple of generally bad bands). » http://t.co/n7J5HPiT
- Things I like From Things I Don't by David Hayward http://t.co/n7J5HPiT
- The temperature drops & frost appears across the country, it's an ideal time to spin the icy gloom of @snve's Svartsyn: http://t.co/sz23swBI
- Handy background reading » http://t.co/GomhpT1N
- A short journey in a culture of gloom, folk ballads from the Middle Ages, fiddling & True Norwegian Black Metal » http://t.co/sz23swBI
- We return with @snve's exploration of gloom from the outskirts Norway. Over mountains, tales of torture & killer birds» http://t.co/sz23swBI
- Svartsyn by Einar Sneve Martinussen. http://t.co/sz23swBI
- Playlist Club still has its out of office on & will be back next Wednesday after its brief Winterval vacation.Jan 04, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- ... @benburry @duncangeere @mday @anjali28 @blowupchurch @myyada (apologies if we've forgotten anyone!)Dec 21, 11 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- brought to you by @doougle @nachimir @topfife @CJ_Parker @topfife @tigershungry @minkette @infovore ...Dec 21, 11 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
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Posts
- Feb 08, 12
Watching The Sky With Our Hands In Our Pockets [Spotify]
Yo La Tengo - Nowhere Near
Hum - Apollo
Death Cab For Cutie - A Lack of Color
Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide
Great Lake Swimmers - Moving Pictures Silent Films
The Weakerthans - Sounds Familiar
Nada Surf - If You Leave
Peggy Lee - Where Or WhenSteve Albini once said, "Punk rockers can do anything. If punk rockers were running NASA, we'd be drinking tea on the moon by now."
So this playlist is an imagined conversation between an astronaut and the person they've left behind. Part break-up, part hello, with interruptions and transmission failures and all the ups and downs of being together and being apart.
About Playlist Club-er: Emma Lannie (@sleepyem)
Emma Lannie writes stories, organises literature events, makes books with Time Travel Opps and blogs sporadically here.
- Feb 01, 12
Fred and Janet [spotify]
Marty Wilde — Abergavenny
Soft Cell - Where The Heart Is
Jackie Lee - The Town I Live In
Morecambe & Wise - Positive Thinking
Those Dancing Days - I'll Be Yours
Sister Sledge - Thinking of You
Cliff Richard & The Shadows - In The Past
The Pale Fountains - Thank YouThis is mostly about a yearning for the past. I still bore my wife bringing up stories of how we first met and then unmet and my kids patiently listen to tales of when I was a kid a long time ago. Thank you kids for your patience.
So this is a healthy stab of teen family melodrama (Soft Cell, Jackie Lee), out and out kitsch nostalgia (Marty Wilde) and straightforward romance (Cliff, Sister Sledge). Even the newest track from These Dancing Days reminds me of love affairs and indiepop from 25 years ago not 2 years ago.
And Eric & Ernie (it would have been Roy Castle if i could have found it) prompt me of where I was happiest. In my front room in the 70s. Lying on the floor in front of the TV with the two people who I've named the list after.
About Playlist Club-er: Jem Stone (@jemstone)
Jem is a father of three from mid Sussex, works for a large broadcasting company and is waiting for Bobby Gillespie to give him back that biography of Joe Meek that he lent him 22 years ago. He owns the entire Sarah Records back catalogue.
- Jan 26, 12
Lonely Hearts Love Songs [Spotify]Lonely Hearts Love Songs by Will Humphrey
No Pussy Blues - Grinderman
I Don't Want Love - Antlers
Challengers - The New Pornographers
Come On, Let's Talk About Our Feelings - Fight Like Apes
Indiscriminate Act of Kindness - Foy Vance
Sweet Little Mystery - John Martyn
Lucky You - The National
The Shadowlands - Ryan AdamsI've always been interested in love songs (or sad songs, depending on how you're taken by 'em) that play with the idea of wistfulness - the idea that things could have somehow turned out differently if you'd have put more (or less) effort in.
I don't find any of these songs depressing or uplifting, really. They're more musings on what's happening to you right now, whether it's Nick Cave's blood and thunder wit upon ageing on the Grinderman track, Foy Vance's charity storytelling or Ryan Adams's extended refrain at the end of The Shadowlands. What's more, no matter who I talk to - everyone views these tracks in different ways, depending on their mood. That, I think, is the power of wistful songs. Also, there's a few shouty little numbers in there too..it's not all maudlin.About Playlist Club-er: Will Humphrey
Will Humphrey is a tall, cheerfully cynical planner type. He's a mildly obsessive Stoke City fan that spends most of his free time trying to hit small round balls into bigger holes with curious implements. He can be found here on t'terwebs. - Jan 18, 12
Things I Like From Things I Don't [Spotify]
Errors - Supertribe
Duchess Says - Tenen Non Neu
Boom Bip - Manabozh
Ane Brun - Do You Remember?
Lambchop - The New Cobweb Summer
Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
Greenskeepers - Vagabond
The Horrors - Whole New WayIt's a bit of a grab bag, but specifically made of songs I like from things I don't. Mostly, albums, but in a few cases entire bands that I think are shit. Usually these songs were the first thing from them I heard, and nothing else in their work or that album quite lived up to the promise. Waifs like these tracks are easy to forget about in the midst of Spotify and gigabytes of MP3s.
About Playlist Club-er: David Hayward (aka @Nachimir)
David Hayward is a videogames odd-job man and professional bad example. He produces a bunch of UK games events such as upcoming A Bit of Alright on Feb 3rd.image c/o David Hayward
- Jan 11, 12Lena Slettemoen - Liti Kari (about torture and ravens from hell)Hallvard and Torleiv H. Bjørgum - Domedagslåtten (a tune about doomsday)Jøren Skjæveland - Margit Hjukse (about a girl abducted by trolls and eternal subterranean darkness)Rønnaug Vangen - Rett Nå Så Kjøm Ein Bukk (A fierce ram leaps out of a mountain and there is no more tobacco)Slinkombas - Kråkevisa (a farmer, firewood and a giant murderous crow)Darkthrone - Over Fjell Og Gjennom Torner ('Over Mountains And Through Thornes')Mayhem - Pagan Fears (summarizing all of the above)Okkultokrati - Hail the Black Dawn (a refreshing new band continuing 1000 years of Norwegian blackness)I'm from Kirkenes, a mining town in the northernmost corner of Norway. During the winter the sun does not rise, there are metres of snow, and cold winds come down from the frozen Arctic sea. It is months of cold, bleak darkness. This Christmas I went back north for a week of reindeer meat and photon deprivation. This brief visit reminded me of how much I actually appreciate daylight, but also made me think about the heritage of gloom in much of the Norwegian music that I enjoy. There seems to be an undercurrent of darkness running through Norwegian musical history that I believe might be where the 'black'-part of True Norwegian Black Metal comes from. This is not related to the sentimental melancholy found in other Northern European traditions (i.e. the wonderful sadness of the Finns). This is the pure matte blackness of frozen fjords and hostile mountains. And isn't it wonderful?
About Playlist Club-er: Einar Sneve Martinussen (@snve)
Einar is a designer and researcher working at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. He is also a part of the design studio Voy that specializes in woodworking and electronics. Einar lives in a forest by the fjord and travels by ferry.P.S. 'Svartsyn' can be translated to 'black-sight' and describes an extreme pessimism.image: 31 December, 13.39, 2011 by Einar. - Dec 21, 11
Shhh Secret Santa [Spotify]
Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad
The Waitresses – Christmas Wrapping
The Handsome Family – Stupid Bells
Brenda Lee – Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree
Lilian Briggs – Rock N' Roll Polly Santa Claus
MC Lars – Gary The Green Nosed Reindeer
Tom Jones – Baby It's Cold Outside
Eels – Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
The Fall – No Xmas For John Quays (Peel Session)
Pet Shop Boys – All over the world
The Aislers Set – Christmas Song
Frankie Goes To Hollywood – The Power Of Love
Sufjan Stevens – That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!Its A Playlist Club Secret Santa. This week we've asked some of our Playlist Club chums to generously donate one whole festive track to our Secret Musical Santa's Sack. As its secret we're not telling you who inflicted what onto the playlist so you can love/ despise or pity them all in equal measure. People good with numbers might also note that this weeks playlist is shockingly >8 songs long. Just this once we've decided to break one of the golden rules (its a Christmas Miracle!) after all we think its what baby Jesus would have wanted.
Enjoy...
Brought to you by
Tigershungry, Topfife, Minkette, Nachimir, Benburry, Infovore, Myyada, Blowupchurch, Duncangeere, Mday, Anjali28, Doougle, CJ_ParkerOh yes & a special mention for this track which was suggested but sadly an ask too far for Spotify.
- Dec 14, 11
Smithery - Working Songs [Spotify]
Carter Burwell — The Wicked Flee
British Sea Power — It Comes Back Again
Hans Zimmer — Radical Notion
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis — Song For Bob
Hanz Zimmer & James Newton Howard — A Dark Knight
Nine Inch Nails — Right Where It Belongs
Ennio Morricone — L'estasi dell'oro (The Ecstasy of Gold)
Clint Mansell — We're Going HomeMusic is an important part of the rhythm of work. Where once there were drum beats propelling ships across oceans, and workers songs propelling mean and women across fields, there are now stereos playing eighties classics radio in offices, and rows of headphone-clad desk jockeys.
This is a playlist for the knowledge-reaper, the concept-wrangler, the strategy-smith. A concentrated soundtrack to your own daily heroic battle. Refrains and themes, jeopardy and hazard, contemplation and doubt, belief and purpose. Cue the strings, and get things done.
About Playlist Club-er: John Willshire (@willsh)
Marketing, Economics, Making, Stories, Art, Music, Analogies & Puns.
Founder of Smithery: 'Make Things People Want' rather than 'Make People Want Things'. - Dec 07, 11
Clear Light [Spotify]Health – Tabloid Sores (Nosajthing Rmx)
Com Truise – Cathode Girls
Pictureplane – Real is a Feeling
Lunice – Hitmanes Anthem
Zackey Force Funk – Noizeinbrain (feat. Kutmah)
Hudson Mohawke – Thunder Bay
Rustie – City Star
Kingdom – DreamaClear Light is a playlist. It's not about anything really.
About Playlist Club-er: Christoffer Hedborg (aka @c_hedborg)
During the day Christoffer makes games at his desk at Might and Delight. During the night he makes them in his bed, unless he's busy exhibiting indie games at various clubs in Stockholm with f/. - Nov 30, 11
Good Evening Mr Brown [8tracks]
1: Shake Aletti — Inside Out (Toy Tigers Remix)
2: SSion from the album BENT — PSY-CHIC
3: Of Montreal — Gallery Piece Stems (Minitel Rose Remix)
4: Phil RetroSpector — Dont Mo (Yazoo VS Four Tops)
5: DJ Lobsterdust — Stayin' Hot (Nelly vs. Bee Gees)
6: The KDMS — Tonight (Box Codax Remix)
7: Telonius, Prince Albert — Last Night (Extended Club Mix)
8: PULL UP TO THE BUMPER PHASE5 MOOMBAHTON REWORKLove songs that contain a lot of lust. Because there's nothing hotter than the real deal.
About Playlist Club-er: Åsk Dabitch (@dabitch)
Dabitch hates to write about herself in third person but loves to use the royal we.
Image credits: Dabitch, Cannes, France summer 2011
- Nov 23, 11
War Breaks Out [youtube]
SISTERS OF MERCY — TEMPLE OF LOVE (12'' Version)
Sigue Sigue Sputnik — Love Missile F1 11 (Bancock Remix)
MARRS — Pump Up The Volume (UK 12" Remix)
Falco — Rock Me Amadeus (Solieri/Extended Version)
Blancmange — Dont Tell Me (12" Version)
Yazoo — Situation (12" Version)
Bronski Beat — Smalltown Boy (12" Version)
Frankie Goes To Hollywood — Two Tribes (Annihilation Mix)This playlist is a memory of the eighties; of naughty cigarettes, staypress trousers, “Frankie says” T-Shirts and a holiday in Blackpool. That’s it.
About Playlist Club-er: Marcus Brown (@MarcusJHBrown)
I am Marcus. I smoked cigarettes in the 80’s.
- Nov 16, 11
Rap from the Cloud [8 Tracks]- Asap Rocky- Wassup
- Tyler Gary- She's Hot
- Dirty Paraffin- Download This On Mp3
- Earl Sweatshirt- Earl
- Madvillain-Papermill
- Death grips- Guilotine
- Lil B- Pretty Boy Muzik
- Tyler Gary- Violins
Playlist Club-ber: Scott James (aka @rinzence)
All the tracks in this playlist are from albums that were released in the last couple of years for no pounds and nothing pence. It only lasts about 20 minutes but they're all tracks that still make me want to be a rapper. Click the download button on each track to be taken to the relevant artist's site for the full free releases.
I'm Scott James and I have twitter, tumblr, facebook, google plus, ALL of them! I even have a my very own website too?!
I love footwork and garage.
I love video games. - Nov 09, 11
Jumping and Pecking [8tracks]
- Jumping And Pecking - Ivor Cutler
- The Shape Of Things - Blossom Dearie
- The Neighbours - Jonathan Richman
- You Gotta Be a Hustler if you Want to Get On - Sue Wilkinson
- The Little Black Foal - Jake Thackray
- Treachery - Kirsty MacColl
- The Girls From the Streets - Scott Walker
- Downtown - Petula Clark
A playlist of wonky pop and folk music made by solo artists before 1990.
Playlist Club-ber: Ricky Haggett (aka @kommanderklobb)
Ricky makes videogames. He is a co-founder of independent developer Honeyslug, and is currently working on Frobisher Says, Hohokum, Wild Rumpus. He once saw Ivor Cutler in Kentish Town.
http://klobb.posterous.com - Nov 02, 11
Cold in Scandinavia [Spotify]
- The Knife – Silent Shout
- Ólafur Arnalds – Fok
- Röyksopp – What Else Is There?
- Björk – Heirloom
- Johann Johannsson – The Rocket Builder (Io Pan!)
- Fever Ray – Keep The Streets Empty For Me
- Message To Bears – Hope
- Mew – Am I Wry? No
I've been noticing how much of the new music I'm listening to is coming out of Scandinavia. There are some possibly obvious reasons why of course, with a turn to the melancholy and a belief in recommendation engines being two likely culprits.
Anyway, the plan was to put together a list of new, entirely-Scandinavian music I've been enjoying. What we've ended up with is not entirely new, not entirely Scandinavian, with three tracks from the same vocalist and a bit of a mishmash of styles. I think I'm still safe in the claim of melancholy, though. Hope there's something you haven't heard before. Hope there's
something you like.Playlist Club-ber: Ben Burry (aka @benburry)
Ben works as a site reliability engineer, wrangling monsters in Shoreditch. He spends a lot of time at the BFI, a lot of time listening to glitchy electronica and not enough time tinkering with hardware. He is older than he feels. - Oct 27, 11
True NWOBHM [YouTube]
- Jaguar - Dutch Connection
- Marseille - Rock you Tonight
- Tokyo Blade - Night of the Blade
- Raven - Don't Need Your Money
- Trespass - One of These Days
- Tyrant - Hold Back the Lightning
- Iron Maiden - Prowler (soundhouse tapes version)
- Bitches Sin - Down the Road
Get out yer cardboard guitar and enjoy!
Playlist Club-er: Mark MagillMagill is a true punk who's been putting out records forever. Mark has released records with Grampus 8 (pop punk), Meow Meow! (indie pop), Down & Outs (street punk) and currently SSS (crossover thrash) - Oct 19, 11
Brickbats and Brimstone [spotify]
Solomon Linda's Original Evening Birds — Mbube
Elvis Presley — Blue Moon
The Velvet Underground — Pale Blue Eyes
Arvo Pärt — Summa
Gram Parsons — Hickory Wind
Blur — No Distance Left To Run
Donovan — Turquoise
Suede — The Next Life"Often, now that the dog days have passed and the evenings blur with a greenish glow at twilight, I'll think of crooked sand tracks through the pine plantation, the buckled asphalt on the long, east roads and the fields of husk and dirt surrounding the Beet factory chimneys that burnt the air of my youth. And, in early October, uncertain how to proceed, I'll listen to this soft, low music again."
About Playlist Club-er: Andrew Pendrick (@andrewpendrick)
Andrew Pendrick is minor folk hero in his native Nova Zembla for his role as Chief of Propaganda in the Student Uprising of 1996. His portrait of the American poet William Fort-Dene (a distant cousin) hangs in the only Moldovan restaurant in London and his play, "A Gorilla In The Roses" remains unperfomed. He currently lives incognito in the west of Sheffield, England, spending the last two years attempting to resolve his 'Solus Rex' chess problem.
Image by Andrew.
- Oct 12, 11
Go Back. What Was Must Never Be. [spotify]
Nic Jones — The Little Pot Stove
Dan Deacon — Wet Wings
Davy Graham — She Move Through The Fair
Gorodisch — Moth To The Flame
The Watersons — The North Country Maid
Directing Hand — Down In Yon Forest
Iva Bittová — Ne Nehledj
Laurie Anderson — Same Time Tomorrow (live)The title of my list is taken from the first line of Alan Garner’s novel Thursbitch. Garner, in turn, borrowed it from Jean Cocteau’s film Orphée. I first thought I was compiling a celebration of Folk Music, the songs which my parents passed on to me as a child. But as I listened for suitable songs, I was haunted by Thursbitch's tale: an 18th century Cheshire salt-trader's shepherding of the Earth using ancient ritual, broken by the planting of a Christian Church. I dreamed folk memories of the Pennines, bleeding into visions of Albion. I thought of the trade and hunting routes which brought hominids from the East, crossing the sunken kingdom of Doggerland. I wrote an essay on the subject, and then crossed it out. I felt the pain of the incorrigible nostalgic when I realised that a map is not the same as the thing mapped. So... the playlist begins with a song that took roost in my head during a childhood narrow-boat holiday, (back when Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin's "It's My Party" was Number One). It finishes with a song I heard recorded, from the gods at Saddler's Wells Theatre, with my new girlfriend, who eventually gave birth to our two kids and then became my wife. It is an incomplete, inaccurate, incomprehensible and intimate map of (English?) history. Io! Euoi!
About Playlist Club-er: Dan Sumption (@dansumption)
Dan Sumption set up the web agency Hard Media in 1995 and, three years later, sold it to Leo Burnett's, where he rode the dot com boom. After several more years of freelancing and working for private clients, he wound up at the BBC building the iPlayer, and now works for YouView creating the interface for the next generation of connected TV. Most people, however, know him as the guy who totes a camera around Sheffield at night, posting the resulting pictures on Facebook and at danshotme.com. He also blogs, less freely and less often than he used to, at www.sumption.org. In his spare time, he fosters children and dreams of owning goats, growing walking-stick kale, and building a masonry stove covered in fancy ceramic tiles. Possibly green ones.
Image: Lady Canning's Plantation at night by "Dan Sumption"
- Oct 05, 11
Music as Medicine [spotify]
The Mountain Goats — Half Dead
The Smiths — Still Ill
Rocky Votolato — Suicide Medicine
Leftover Crack — With The Sickness
NOFX — Take two placebos and call me lame
Health — Glitter pills
Friendly Fires — Lovesick
Phoenix — If I ever feel betterThe idea for this Playlist Club mix saved me from the tail-end boredom of recovery as I was finishing off two duvet days spent sick from work. When in good health, everyone wishes that they could spend the odd extra day in bed after the weekends. But when you're forced to spend a day in bed, it rarely comes with that soothing feeling of rest and relaxation and the welcome sigh of relief at not being a slave to the alarm never arrives. No, instead those anticipated feelings of deliciously taking a day off whilst the whole world works takes the form of cold bathroom tiles on hot knees and hours spent twisting and turning to keep your head afloat in a turbulent sea of bedsheets. These songs have all ended up coming from artists that I've had brief, intense love affairs with over the years (some more than others) and maybe the intensity and frequency with which I listened to these bands somehow reflects the brevity of the bug I had, turning my world upside down for a couple of days then leaving me feeling slightly worn-out and ready to get back to normal. When illness strikes, any good doctor would prescribe lots of rest and plenty of medicine. I'm sure that, had I not been advised to never darken the doors of the GP's surgery for fear I would strike down the whole of West Leeds with my illness, my doctor would have provided me with a 'script for these eight tracks as a cure. About Playlist Club-er: Gemma Critchley (@GemStGem)Gemma works in advertising by day and writes stories by night. When she's not doing that, she tinkers around with digital bits and bobs, writes her blog for the one a day project or drinks tea whilst daydreaming of adventures far away from Leeds.Image: Potions and Lotions by Kath Harding at Behance Network - Sep 28, 11
The Number 91 [spotify]
Sonic Youth — Teen Age Riot
Bruce Springsteen — Darkness On The Edge of Town
Chef Raekwon — Knuckleheadz
Roy Orbison — In Dreams
The Fall — Hotel Bloedel
Letta Mbulu — What's Wrong With Groovin'
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity — Season Of The Witch
The Beach Boys — God Only KnowsThe Number 91. From a bus route I used to take from Crouch End to the Aldwych. The journey in was always upbeat. The journey back usually more melancholic and wistful.
This playlist is culled from my most popular tracks on iTunes and lives on from when I used to work in London and take the number 91 bus to work (when it was too wet to cycle). It's in that well trodden crypto-fascist-hippy genre, in literature terms somewhere between Laurie Lee, Joseph Heller and Bret Easton Ellis. I'd like to think most people inhabit that spectrum of emotions somewhere in their day, oscillating between light and dark. It's interesting to me because of what it excludes as much as what it contains. I wanted to include Claro Intelecto recent stuff and Boo Williams' early work, but neither live on Spotify. Their music manages to be both simultaneously. Crystal Castles were too bleak for me today but I do love them for a descent into dark. And Katell Kleineg's last album At The Mermaid Parade has a few wonderful tracks that could have replaced the Beach Boys. Again, not on spotify but always in my head. Thank you.
About Playlist Club-er: James Boardwell (@jamesb)
I'm James Boardwell. I blog at Technogoggles and am a Director of Folksy.
- Sep 21, 11
Sunday Dad [Spotify] (bonus youtube playlist link)
- Cat Stevens – Wild World
- Bob Marley & The Wailers – Redemption Song
- Lou Reed – Vicious
- Nico – Venus In Furs
- David Bowie – The Jean Genie
- Thin Lizzy – Whiskey In The Jar - Full Length Version
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Purple Haze
- The Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil
When I was young the house was always filled with music on a Sunday. If Mum was in charge then it would be great female vocalists of the 50/60s such as Nina Simone and Diana Ross or just some classic Motown. More often than not it would be Dad's music playing as he did some DIY round the house or slept off his afternoon visit to 'Church' and the Sunday dinner. This playlist is about the Sunday music of my Dad. The photo shows the classic music centre used to spin the long players, you can just about make out the cover of Aladdin Sane and you can clearly make out my Dad's mullet and 'tache circa 1984.
About Playlist Club-ber: Aden Davies (aka @aden_76)Aden Davies is an Innovation Technician for HSBC Bank. This means he researches new technologies and trends to see if they can be implemented into one of the most conservative industries in the world. He fails a lot. - Sep 14, 11
Lady Killers [spotify]Iron Maiden — KillersJimmy McNulty as Fred West, weird. This is my playlist of songs about bad men, of which there are absolutely tons. These songs are all about killing women, or those that have. Sly. About Playlist Club-er: Matthew Smith (@volumefour)
Pentangle — Omie Wise
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (ft. Kylie Minogue) — Where The Wild Roses Grow
The Rolling Stones — Midnight Rambler
Two Gallants — Steady Rollin'
Ry Cooder — Goodnight Irene
Misfits — Die, Die, My Darling
Kingston Trio — Tom DooleySome lad.
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Posts
- Jan 11, 11
10", grey vinyl.
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Tweets
- Tune into Channel 4 now to watch The Secret Millionaire in Sheffield, featuring the Cathedral Archer Project.
- The Archer Project homeless charity that we worked with in 2010 is featured on Channel 4's Secret Millionaire this week http://t.co/v3eNNqld
- North West or Yorkshire arty and tech people! RT @culturehackday: Don't forget to send in proposals for @culturehack_n: http://t.co/EnjmU5is
- @TEDxSheffield @chrisdymond there was some channelling that went no. We've been deeply moved by the whole experience.
- @TEDxSheffield the spirit of both.
- (and if you have received an erroneous reminder about IntNorth this weekend. Please ignore it. We are not doing a stealth event. Sadly)
- Looking forward to @TEDxSheffield next week. Still a handful of tickets left. Get one. » http://t.co/mAFuQ8lJ
- @armitage__ oh, sorry friend. We pulled the plug on this year's event. It was a sad decision, but we hope to be back next year.
- Thanks for all the well-wishes and sorry for the sadfaces. We hope to be back. I guess you've got a year or so to think up some ace talks.
- @iamjamesward thanks, Mr Ward. Hope you have better luck with Boring 2011. (& hope we can actually make it this year)
- @andrewcrawshaw we will need you to! Thanks for the support.
- @mrdanielweir yes, I think we forgot how much time these things take and got stuck into Real Jobs and the like. Here's to 2012.
- Some sad news from us — http://t.co/x1Vbib6
- Some excellent work on the Northern Art Prize longlist this year — http://t.co/cg030Eg (via @mday)
- @Ben_Nuttall @erica_jane_mp nah, where we're going, we don't need roads.
- @Ben_Nuttall @erica_jane_mp yeah, but we're travelling in time etc.
- Interesting News from Interesting North - http://eepurl.com/d-SYr
- Read all about it! Interesting News from Interesting North! http://eepurl.com/d-SYr
- Picnic Schmicnic.
- BONUS: everybody who buys a ticket before next Friday will enter the raffle to win a lovely print from http://www.welivehere.co.uk #IntNorth
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Videos
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Posts
- The End.
That’s that then. It was a good exercise, and I enjoyed most of it. I think there could have been some better questions, certainly there were some I didn’t feel too excited to answer. If you’d like to suggest any questions to answer, I’ll have a go.
I have a massive amount of thanks for my dad for letting me pick and choose from his music collection as a kid and for not trying to force anything upon me. That’s given me the freedom and licence to try out different things.
To conclude, here are a couple of playlists that can work as an incomplete archive of sorts: Spotify / YouTube.
If you’d like a physical compilation of all the tracks, drop me a line below and I will sort it out for you.
Say hello on last.fm, add me on Spotify and follow on twitter.
My main blog is over here.
Thanks for reading, this has been fun.
- 30: Your Favourite Song At This Time Last Year.
No Rain, Blind Melon (Blind Melon, Capitol; 1992)
In my previous job, my co-workers and I collaborated on a lot of things; mostly Spotify compilations.
The playlists started as just songs that we wanted to hear, liked or whatever and ended up being pretty stupid themed playlists taking in weather, food, clothing, colour, etc. A mix of forgotten gems, new pearls and awful dross, as is the nature. There was also plenty of Chief Kooffreh.
Blind Melon’s No Rain featured on every single one. It started out as a lovely slice of teenage nostalgia, of sitting in fields with crappy portable stereos drinking cheap warm booze. By the end, it was the unofficial anthem bonding together the workforce. A sing-a-long for the post-Generation X (apart from one, who was Generation X) working the nine-to-five but dreaming of freedoms outside. Finger-clicking, brushed drums, sickly sweet guitar and a pretty fey vocal took us out of the office and into parks with friends, beer and maybe a frisbee.
It became a running in-joke (not a particularly brilliant one) that a playlist wasn’t a playlist without it.
I’m sticking to that tradition.
LISTEN: Album recording.
WATCH: Commercial video.
- 29: A Song From Your Childhood.
Reward, The Teardop Explodes (Single, Mercury; 1981)
Of the few CDs we had in the house, there were a couple that I was particularly drawn to: Staring At The Sea (The Cure singles compilation, 1986) and a Punk & Disorderly compilation of New Wave.
I loved the cover of The Cure compilation because I liked the man’s face. Faces are very important for kids. The Punk & Disorderly compilation had that classic punk design, all torn paper, safety pins and bodged together typography. As a child, I didn’t know anything about design and just liked how messy it was. I listened to both endlessly, along with my Madness cassette and a couple of mixtapes my dad made me.
The P&D compilation was/is amazing, all sorts of acts were on it: Bow Wow Wow, Blondie, Subway Sect, Department S, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Tenpole Tudor. A real mix of some brilliant punk/post-punk songs. All I knew is that they were great songs. My favourite track on the compilation was Reward by The Teardrop Explodes.
It is superb. All driving drums, parping trumpets, simple keyboard line and Julian Cope. Ah, Julian Cope. Such a way with words and melodies. Then, as now, the opening line “bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news” tickles me. My dad got annoyed with me playing the one song over and over and over again, so put Floored Genius (Best Of) onto a cassette for me. I was the coolest eight-year old around, striding around listening to The Teardrop Explodes on my walkman.
LISTEN: Single recording.
WATCH: Commercial video.
- 28: A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty.
Down In It, Ning Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine, TVT/Island; 1989)
Do things. Always try to be good. Sometimes you can’t. Maybe you get too tired, maybe you’re not happy, maybe you just lose will-power. I was young and liked doing things, trying to be good. Sometimes failed.
Did things with someone I shouldn’t have. It was a naughty thing to do. It makes for good tales, really, but it’s not something I’m particularly proud of. I happened to be listening to this around that time. It’s associative, it soundtracked a period of not being the best person.
It’s still a great song, even if it is drenched in angst and youthful wrongs.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Soundcloud link]
WATCH: “Commercial video” / Live, Woodstock ‘94
- 27: A Song That You Wish You Could Play
Angel of Death, Slayer (Reign In Blood, American Recordings; 1986)
I’ve tried. I have. As mentioned yesterday, I’ve picked up instruments. I’ve put them down. In between, I tried to play them. It wasn’t successful. I have made some music, though. Mostly on synthesizer, as navel-gazing ambient drone music. It’s pretty bad.[1] I was also part of a pretty manly noise-jam trio that made ugly noise-jams. I’m quite proud of some of it.[2]
The thing that links the two outputs: there’s no songs, really. Just jams, free-form workouts and ideas being hashed out. I’ve never been comfortable writing lyrics in earnest. I think it’s the cheat’s way of writing poetry, and I don’t write poetry.
There’s plenty of music I wish I’d written — particularly the electro-acoustic pearl of C-Schulz & Hajsch, the incredible Pet Sounds, Rumours, or even just the simple concept of B Flat — but if it comes down to a song I wish I could play, it would always end up being a thrash song. It would always end up being Angel of Death.
As a boy growing up with an aggressive punk and metal streak, hearing Angel of Death was jaw-dropping. Genuinely, punch-in-the-stomach, slackjawed awe. It is fast, technical and hard as anything. The production is punchy where most ’80s thrash is thin on depth. There’s nothing I can say about Angel of Death that hasn’t been said a thousand times: the riffs, the scream, the solos, the drumming, the risqué lyrical content, the tempo-shifts & breakdowns — all perfect.
I’d love to be able to turn around to my twelve-year-old self and say: yes, I can play that. I’d blow my own mind. It’s better than gash ambient and jerk-off noise.
LISTEN: Album recording. / Live (Decade of Aggression)
WATCH: Live, 1986
[1] I dumped most of it on bandcamp just to purge it. Feel free to listen, and criticise. It’s all in mono (left) for some arsehole reason.
[2] There’s loads more, and this isn’t the best stuff. I need a twitter hashtag campaign to encourage uploading.
- 26: A Song That You Can Play On An Instrument.
4’33”, John Cage (1952)
None. That’s simple. I’ll dallied with trying to play instruments off and on over the course of my life. The list of instruments I have picked up and put down include piano, clarinet, guitar, bass, organ, synthesizer, Jew’s harp. I keep coming back to keyboard-based instruments because I understand playing that more than I do guitars.
I can play 4’33” because anyone can, on any instrument. When I play, I lift the lid on my Yamaha electric organ and turn the power on. The next four and a half minutes are a unique composition of dirty contacts inside the organ, creaking stool, breathing and cars going by outside.
It’s pretty good. You should give it a go.
- 25: A Song That Makes You Laugh.
Have I The Right, The Honeycombs (Have I The Right, RGM Sound; 1964)
A real gem of the 1960s pop-scene, produced by Joe Meek. It came towards the end of maverick producer Joe Meek’s chart-topping reign (having scored hits with Telstar and Johnny Remember Me).
Meek pioneered production techniques that resulted in unique sound effects and recordings. His production methodology and recording style were the result of being tone deaf, his experience of working as a radio production engineer, and being a paranoid obsessive. Meek was so paranoid, he felt Phil Spector had stolen his sound for his own “Wall of Sound”.[1]
Towards the mid-sixties, the growing popularity of Merseybeat bands signalled a shift in the sound of the UK Top 40. Meek decided to beat them at their own game and record a song with the biggest beat. Have I The Right is that song.
It’s a pretty standard jangly Beat song, all drums, chiming chords and English accent in the verse. The chorus is what makes me laugh. Meek couldn’t get a huge beat sound no matter how he recorded the drums, or how he set the microphones up. He felt that to make the biggest beat, he would have to do it differently.
To achieve the sound he wanted, he hooked five microphones up to the wooden stairs of his studio and had The Honeycombs stamp their feet. He then hit a tambourine directly onto a microphone. The result is a multi-tracked stomp that hit the top of the charts and delivered one of the finest musical jokes of his era.
LISTEN: Single recording. [Spotify link]
WATCH: Live video, 1964.
[1] To the extent that when Phil Spector phoned Meek to praise him, he simply told him to fuck off and hung up.
- 24: A Song You Would To Have Played At Your Funeral.
Happy Trails, Jim O’Rourke (Bad Timing, Drag City; 1997)
Your exerience, and memory of an experience, is all about punctuation. Your funeral is the end of your statement, and a last chance to influence people’s memory of you. Jim O’Rourke understands punctuation more than most.
This song fulfils two parts of O’Rourke’s musical angles: drone and John Fahey. It opens with a simultaneous open stringed guitar strum and overdriven drone. Both are given equal weight, both share space and overlap.
The drone flares and retreats as the guitar is casually played. Nothing much happens for three and a half minutes. The drone disappears to be replaced with mid-period Fahey acoustic playing. Bottom-string notes resonate as chiming top strings are gently plucked. It’s sweet, charming, occasionally dissonant, warm.
A tune is gradually worked out, rhythm and momentum grows slowly. You can hear the strings on the neck as they’re played.
Then the punctuation. A brass section, drumming, lap-steel, synthesizer, buried melodies appear. It is joyful, incredulous and can’t fail to make you smile. It’s over as quickly as it began, a maudlin strum taking over for the final ninety seconds, with a gentle flute, trombone and synthesizer coda.
Ten minutes, and you’ll remember the burst of brass more than anything. That will make you smile. You’ll leave feeling sad, but you’ll remember feeling happy.
Far too few funerals allow the happiness, that punctuation of joy, to come through. Hopefully mine will.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Soundcloud link]
- 23: A Song You Want To Play At Your Wedding.
Give Him A Great Big Kiss, The Shangri-Las (Give Him A Great Big Kiss, Red Bird;1965)
“When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love — L.U.V.”
One of the greatest opening lines to any song[1], and what better way to start a wedding reception?
Handclaps, tambourines, trombones, drums with background ooh and ahhs — there’s no flourishes. It’s a simple, perfect song. A song of swooning love with all the attitude that made The Shangri-Las the best girl group: finger-clicking cool, sexually aggressive and honey sweet.
It mixes brilliant, reverb-drenched melodies with the conversational asides they made popular on Leader Of The Pack.
What colour are his eyes? / I dunno, he’s always wearing shades.
Give Him A Great Big Kiss is one of The Shangri-Las’ few “successful love” songs[2]. It has all the swagger, verve and joy of freshly minted love. The kind of love that makes you skip, talk endlessly about the object of your desire, and kiss in public. The kind of blushing love that makes you insufferable to be around if you are displaying it. Apart from on your wedding day, when it is applauded with John Lewis appliances and book tokens.
I’d want to play this at my wedding so my wife would remember how awesome I am.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Spotify link]
WATCH: Live, 1965.
[1] So good Nation of Ullysses & New York Dolls both borrowed it.
[2] they wrote a lot of Teenage Tragedy songs (Leader Of The Pack, Give Us Your Blessings)
- 22: A Song That You Listen To When Sad.
To Be Of Use, Smog (Red Apple Falls, Drag City; 1997)
This sort of repeats on the ground covered over here. I would have put Great Ghosts by Mount Eerie as my answer if I hadn’t already. I’m not one, it turns out, to try to “turn that frown upside down” by listening to music anthithetical to my mood. I match it. Not wallow, or indulge, but ‘allow’ my mood.
I was re-introduced to Smog by a good friend several years ago, and marvelled particularly at Red Apple Falls. I was going through a Jim O’Rourke phase at the time, so absorbed anything he was involved in. His production of Red Apple Falls is flawless. Every guitar string, every horn, every snare and every word that Bill Callahan sings sounds immaculate.
There’s much to love on the album, so many songs to really lose yourself in: the upbeat Ex-Con, steel guitar-led I Was A Stranger and The Morning Paper with its dawn horns. Every song is perfect.
To Be Of Use nestles right in the middle of the album and is one of the sparser, more melancholic songs. A mournful guitar with the occasional flourish of lap-steel leaves Bill Callahan’s voice to fill the rest of the space. Forthright but gentle. The song easily mixes sexual selflessness with great feelings of (non-sexual) impotence, fantasies bleed with simple realities. It is of being, and not being.
That’s why I listen to it when sad. I am good at many many things, all valuable, yet I cannot pin down the one perfect product to be. I do not have the “hard, simple, undeniable use” that Callahan pines for in the song.
I think, ultimately, everyone pines for that. That’s sad.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Soundcloud link]
WATCH Live, 2003.
- 21: A Song You Listen To When Happy.
Songs For David, Honey Shop Screamers (Going Out Dancing, Do The Dog; 2002)
Happiness is the simplest emotion, yet it’s the hardest one to get right. When I’m happy I like to listen to simple music that will keep it going, stuff that can’t spoil. Ska and pop-punk tends to work for me.
Honey Shop Screamers came out of the North West pop-punk and ska-punk scene of the late ’90s. They were a classic ska/2-tone band in the vein of The Selecter, The Beat or The Specials, playing organ-driven, brass-filled upbeat catchy songs. There’s no I and I patois, or false American accents. It’s the voice of semi-rural North West England. A total anomaly in the era of bands wanting to sound like Pennywise, NOFX, Less Than Jake or Snuff.
Songs For David features everything that is great about HSS — choruses that stick in your head for weeks, great synthesiser/organ playing, well arranged brass sections, group vocals and superb lyrics.
It captures the sound of small-town living, finding things to do to pass the time. Getting up to mischief with your best mates, breaking stuff, writing on walls and ending up in places with people you shouldn’t. Real simple pleasures that you can’t really do as a grown-up.
Honey Shop Screamers are also the start point for the equally excellent (but different) Victor FME, Vegetables, National School, and Hot Club De Paris.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Soundcloud link]
- 20: A Song That You Listen To When Angry.
Luau, Drive Like Jehu (Yank Crime, Interscope; 1994)
Drive Like Jehu are another band that is the centre point of many other brilliant bands: Pitchfork, Hot Snakes, Rocket From The Crypt, Obits, The Sultans, The Night Marchers.
With Drive Like Jehu, Rick Froberg and John Reis (Speedo) laid down the template for post-hardcore/emo that sadly few have followed up. There are exceptions for the likes of Antioch Arrow, Swing Kids, Planes Mistaken for Stars, Das Oath, but it’s strained. Drive Like Jehu are technical but not too complex, full of riffs without being metal, mid-tempo without being ‘mosh’ heavy and carry a large amount of a tune in their shouting.
They’re the sweet-spot of emo. When emo was emotional hardcore, not crying about late developing pubic hair or being out of Coke Zero. Anger raging alongside introspection, self-analysis and personal politics.
I guess that is why if I’m forced to select a song for when I’m angry, I would reach for Drive Like Jehu. Whenever you’re angry, it’s not always outside causes. There’s a great deal of personal responsibility for it. You have to question why you’re angry, and what you’ve done to encourage that. I used to be angry a lot, but I’m more measured now.
I first heard Luau on a Lord Clothing skate video (VHS), the same place I first heard Texas Is The Reason. Lord skate videos were aggressive, really earnest and full of great songs.
Luau captures that brilliant point between control and anger, of containment and release. It’s all over the place. It starts with a guitar strum, drums and bass hold down a tight rhythm. Rick Froberg’s vocals and guitar cut in and it gets messy. Notes, riffs, drum fills fire off in all directions. It’s chaos, before a calm, brilliantly stripped down middle-section.
What more could you want?
LISTEN: Album recording. [Spotify link]
WATCH: Hot Snakes live cover, 2005.
- 19: A Song From Your Favourite Album.
Anyone Can Have A Good Time, Owls (Owls, Jade Tree; 2001)
Owls are one of the pearls along the Joan of Arc continuum. It was the first time that the core of Cap’n Jazz got together to record new material. Not as Cap’n Jazz, but a totally new band.
Owls is stripped of the “studio-as-instrument” concept that led 1997-2001 Joan of Arc, and is a more matured version of Cap’n Jazz’s youthful exhuberance. It’s tempered, clean and pure, clocking in at a perfect thirty-five minutes. It sounds totally different, but with echoes.
Anyone Can Have A Good Time distills all that is excellent on this album. There’s smart-alec wordplay, in-jokes and obscure cultural references. Words become an instrument in themselves, providing rhythms, unexpected notes, slipping in and out of the real instruments. Musically, it is full of glistening arpeggios, blunt bass, powerful drumming with delicate fills. Time signatures are well off the beaten track. Kinsella’s broken vocals manage to carry an unconventional/off-tune brilliantly. It walks the line between overwrought and smirking, pretentious and earnestness.
Language jokes abound on the album, but there are the occasional couplets that genuinely inspire emotions and shivers, especially on “Anyone Can…”. The outro features the Kinsella brothers sharing lyrics — “we fall into patterns quickly / we fall in patterns too quickly” — before a trademark Tim Kinsella howl of “unname everything, unname everyone” repeats until close. That’s lovely.
The album is just superb. There’s lot to take in over the thirty-five minutes. It demands repeated listens.
After nearly ten years of playing it, I’m still overawed by so much in it.
LISTEN: Album recording.
WATCH: Live, circa 2001. [Enjoy Tim’s unique style of dancing]
- 18: A Song That You Wish You Heard On The Radio.
Sever, Karate (Unsolved, Southern; 2000)
This was going to be “Age of Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (Medley)” by Fifth Dimension, but I actually heard it on the radio two days ago. It was as good as I thought that would be. Joyous.
In lieu of that brilliant slice of Christ-filled love, I offer Sever by Karate. Karate were an American band that fit somewhere in a Venn diagram between jazz, indie and late-’80s SST Records bands like fIREHOSE and Slovenly.
Sever is one of the more ‘indie rock’ songs on an otherwise jazzy guitar record. It’s a throwback to a time that never really was: the golden age of beret, polo necks and Gitane. It starts off with a swerving Yacht Rock guitar line underpinned by the tightest rhythm section, strutting with an effortlessly cool hipster vibe. Geoff Farina’s vocals fall somewhere between library assistant and beatnik loner. There are various breaks, jazz and blues, adding space between the rock sections and verses.
Written down, it’s awful. Recorded, it’s incredibly special.
The reason I’d like to hear this on a radio is that it immediately makes me feel more cocksure, it ups my gait to a determined stride and transplants me from wherever I am to an infinitely more happening scene. Man.
LISTEN: Album recording. / Live, 595. [Spotify links]
- 17: A Song That You Often Hear On The Radio.
Legs, ZZ Top (Eliminator, Warner Bros; 1983)
I don’t really listen to the radio. It’s not because it generally lacks music that I like, but because I can’t stand radio DJs. Their jobs are 40% playing music, 60% wasting time with inane comments, phone-ins or booth sound-effects. Aggravating.
When I do come to listen to the radio, I end up going for a non-DJ station. “All music, no talk.” It’s the best possible way. There’s nobody talking over the intro or outro of songs. Key, as well, there is nobody telling you what the song is. It turns listening to the radio into a bit of a game, guessing the song, getting it first. Competitive listening is fun.
My partner and I tend to listen to The Arrow on digital when we’re doing Spring cleaning, or having a massive household chore-drive. It plays the songs that were on cassettes in your dad’s car: Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Eric Clapton, Free, Rolling Stones, Status Quo.
Doesn’t sound too appealing, but it is “all rock classics,” and that means smiling and singing along without prejudice. The song that I tend to hear, and absolutely bloody love, is Legs by ZZ Top. ZZ Top have always seemed like Americana interpreted by Japanese people: absolutely drenched in US symbolism, blues simulacra and metonyms.[1] They’re pretty incredible.
Legs is a great song. It’s arpeggiated synth-blues, with classic electric blues guitars on top and great melodies. Legs came out a year before Van Halen’s synth-metal landmark Jump and should be just as big in ironic, retro clubs and sincere record-collectors homes.
LISTEN: Album recording.
WATCH: Great video.
[1] They also make me think of Blues Hammer in Ghost World, too.
- 16: A Song That You Used To Love, But Now Hate.
Blind, Korn (Blind, Immortal/Epic; 1994)
I’m in a rut here. I’ve not been happy with my answers to the last couple of questions, I’m not going to be happy with this one. I am blaming the question; it is not sufficient, or understanding.
Every song I’ve ever loved can be justified (in some way, through different means). I don’t love them all any more, but they still retain a special piece of my life in them. I will drop an ex-love on a mixtape for the knowing laugh of the listener. A song by Stone Temple Pilots, Cecil, Mad Caddies, Rachel Stamp or any number of shockingly bad detuned metal bands that soundtracked my growing hair in unusual places.
I am however, embarrassed by a hell of a lot of these songs. I can laugh about it now, but having taken Korn’s Blind seriously makes me cringe.
It’s a great song, it heralded a new era of metal (nü), and gave a whole generation of tit-biscuit metallers something annoying to shout in people’s faces (“are you ready?”). Jesus, though, it’s awful.
I stand by liking it when I was 11—13, that’s prime pubescent rage period, but it doesn’t half make my skin crawl that I did.
LISTEN: Album recording. / Possibly the worst version of anything, ever.
WATCH: Commercial video.
- 15: A Song That Describes You.
(You) [I] Can Not See (You) [Me] As (I) [You] Can, Joan of Arc (The Gap, Jade Tree; 2000)
I’m stumped. Thoroughly stumped. I couldn’t answer this when I started, and I can’t answer it now. Pretty sure I can’t. I don’t want to ascribe a set of lyrics that really “define who I am”. That’s very teenage, and I’ve long since passed those years.
I was trying to find a song that has the textures that represent the horribly contradictory things I am. I’m going to be semi-obvious, and go for Joan of Arc’s (You) [I] Can Not See (You) [Me] As (I) [You] Can. I can’t reconcile what I am with what I am seen as being. I’m not a cunt, but often thought to be one.
Simple enough strummed guitar. Wavering, off-key vocals fractured by turning microphone off and on. There’s a warm synthesiser underneath, a field recording of people in the background. It swells to a blissful vocal, synth and feedback drone at the end. There’s lots going on, but only the awkward stuff sticks.
How that is me, if I’m to explain myself: it’s pretty arsey, quite obtuse, it’s definitely seen as pretentious. In reality, it’s someone working through ideas, seeing if they work, having a bit of fun with them. There’s a good dose of titting about with grammatical syntax and wordplay. There’s also a surprising amount of warmth underneath.
There’s a distinct likelihood that a lot of people won’t like it, some will like it and not know why, and some will just get it and love it.
I can’t say this is 100% descriptive of me, but find me a song that does and I’ll buy you dinner.
LISTEN: Album recording / Live in Muenster, 2003
- 14: A Song That No One Would Expect You To Love.
Goodbye Horses, Q Lazzarus (Married To The Mob OST, Reprise; 1988)
I struggled with this one and needed outside perspective. I didn’t really get any that was particularly helpful. Suggestions included The Wombles, Band Aid, The Smiths, Sugababes, The Wonderstuff and Coheed & Cambria. I don’t like any of them, which is no surprise.
The only useful answers were: “Anything that more than 100 people might like, or something that they play on the wireless.” or “Anything good with a decent tune.”
A pop song, then. I thought I’d demonstrated that with Madness, Springsteen and Wings.
Fine. Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus. You may not know the song, but you’ll recognise it from the Buffalo Bill “tucking” scene in Silence Of The Lambs.[1]
It’s a perfect fit for that: unsettling, odd, and just a little bit androgynous. The main synthesiser sounds a half-note out of tune. The drums seem recorded in a reverb chamber. The vocals are borderline drag-act.
Nothing much happens in it, it leaves a slightly empty, unfulfilled feeling at the end. It’s a haunting song and one that I can play on repeat.
LISTEN: Single version. [Soundcloud link]
WATCH: Buffalo Bill, dubbed in French
[1] It was originally on the Married To The Mob soundtrack, and has also featured on the GTA IV and Skate 3 in-game soundtracks.
- 13: A Song That Is A Guilty Pleasure.
Band On The Run, Paul McCartney & Wings (Band On The Run, Apple; 1973)
There’s no good reason that this song should fall into the “guilty pleasure” category. It’s a great song. It was a commercial and critical success at the time of its release, it has aged remarkably well.
Paul McCartney gets an undue amount of stick for his post-Beatles career. Mainly because he’s alive. He’s not the gentle soul of George Harrison. He’s not the politicised artist of John Lennon. He’s not even laughable enough to be Ringo. Unfortunately for Paul McCartney, he’s just the one who kept writing good songs, didn’t die, didn’t marry an avant garde Japanese artist or voice a tank engine.
John Lennon’s solo output is almost unlistenable, self-reflective, arrogant bullshit masquerading as art. George Harrison’s solo stuff is fine, but really went too far down the Hare Krishna route.
No matter. The words “Paul McCartney and Wings” just inspire dread, revulsion and possibly flashes of Alan Partridge when heard. I find that sad. “Oh, I hate Mull of Kintyre.” Despite widely held prejudices, everyone loves Live And Let Die. That is almost the best post-Beatles song, but it’s not.
Band On The Run is.
Band On The Run is so deceptively amazing as to confuse people into thinking it’s terrible. Most people think they know the song because they can belt out the title-chorus at the end. Think about how it starts, though. That’s odd. Intertwined, shimmering guitars, a lovely synthesizer, great simple bassline. Slightly nasal McCartney trademark melodies drop in. Wonderful.
Ninety seconds in, all the instruments become harder. The bass is more powerful. The rhythm guitar picks up more of a riff, lead guitar plays some pretty obtuse stuff and the synth is right up front. Darker melodies. Barely forty seconds later and there’s another brilliant section: a grand semi-orchestral break, a shift to upbeat acoustic song belting out Band On The Run.
There are three distinct, cleanly connected sections in the song. It’s a real journey, they all hang together perfectly. There’s no showing off, bleating about being avant-garde, but this is a masterful, odd song that should not be considered guilty.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Soundcloud link]
WATCH: Live, Seattle, 1976.
- 12: A Song From A Band You Hate.
America, Razorlight (Razorlight, Mercury; 2006)
Without integrity and authenticity, music is nothing. You can make good songs by following a formula (hello, Stock, Aitken and Waterman), but if they haven’t got a soul behind them, they count for shit.
My background is in the “often” elitist scenes of indie and punk. They’re both awful. Scenes are, they breed standardisation and formula. There is a lot of authentic, sincere bands that get lost because more cynical bands write songs that aim for the record labels, and the charts.
If your band has a five-year plan, you’re probably a massive prick.
Razorlight are that band. Not happy with describing himself as “better than Dylan” and “the greatest songwriter of [his] generation” in a skin-crawling attempt to get press coverage (NME, happily, lap it up), Johnny Borrell also writes horrendous songs. Not just horrendous songs, but vile, cynical songs that aim directly at the naïve, emotionally-stunted freshman dancefloor. He affects the troubled artist that is so romantic to the white-tights and dolly shoe brigade.
After effectively hoodwinking a generation of clueless British indie-kids, Razorlight set their sights on the Big Market. America is their barely concealed plea to be taken in to the hearts of US corporate indie, joining The Killers, Kings of Leon, John Mayer and all the other soulless bastards on the cunt-carousel.
It’s not even a “good song.” It’s a mawkish, overly sentimental song with pathetic lyrics and ‘sombre’ guitar lines. Tortured artist shows himself again, having trouble sleeping and sad that there’s nothing on television he can relate to.
It’s a meaningless, awful song and it hurts to hear it.
LISTEN: Album recording. [Spotify link]
UPDATE: I’ve been informed that this song was written by the drummer. That makes it even worse.
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Posts
- Aug 12, 10
They’re what I think about when I get up, the birds. They don’t ask much of me, a few crumbs, a finger to sit on. It’s simpler than it’s ever been. I don’t know their names, I don’t want to. I just let them come and go, the birds.
He died, my husband. He didn’t leave me much, a sunken armchair and dirty bootprints in the kitchen. I did care for him, though. Every Friday evening after the Legion, he’d bring lamb chops home. He knew a man and that’s all I knew. I’d cook them and serve with mint sauce. Sundays I roasted a chicken. A turkey was too much for the two of us. Always a pint of brown over mild on the side. He never complained. I never complained. He died.
I don’t eat a lot these days. I buy too much bread. That’s why I come here. I bring what’s left over. I should only get half-loaves, but I keep getting a full-tin loaf. Habit I suppose. Won’t change it now. I don’t eat a lot these days. The birds like it, though, so it’s not wasted.
—
Photo: The Pigeon Lady by Feggy Art.
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- Dec 01, 10
You will need:
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
8 good quality sausages
2 red apples
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 chicken stock cube crumbled
1 dsp tomato chutney
salt and pepper
a little hot water
a few slices of grilled halloumi cheese Heat the oil in a flame proof casserole dish and, over a medium heat, cook the onion until soft. Then add the sausages and cook until slightly browned. Slice & core the apple then add to the pan with all the vegetables, and finally the rest of the ingredients. Add a dash of hot water. Stir well, bring to a simmer, put the lid on and cook for an hour or so. Check regularly that the food isn't sticking. Add more water if you need to. Serve with a couple of slices of grilled halloumi on top, a few rocket leaves and some good bread. @mrsemilybarnes - Aug 28, 10In Wales last week we came across Caerau Uchaf Gardens (www.summersgardens.co.uk/caerau-uchaf-gardens.php) not far from where we stayed on Lake Bala. The owners have opened their beautiful private gardens up to the public and from an outhouse in the grounds they serve great homemade food from produce grown on their land.It was here we discovered Welsh cakes; a tea time snack somewhere between a scone and a biscuit. Served straight off the griddle and lathered in enough butter to give you a mild coronary they are pretty special! The first thing I did this morning (after 6 loads of washing and a quick go on Words With Friends....) was dig out a recipe and get baking (we've just polished off all 20.....)YOU WILL NEED:125g cold unsalted butter, diced
250g self-raising flour
75g caster sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
100g sultanas
1 large egg, beaten7 1/2cm crinkled round cutter
griddle or cast-iron frying panRub the butter into the flour until crumb-like, then stir in the sugar, spice and sultanas. Add the egg to make a soft dough. Cover in cling film and leave in the fridge for a minimum of 20 minutes.Roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of about 3/4cm and cut your cakes. Preheat your unoiled griddle (not too hot) and cook the cakes on each side for about 3 minutes until browning slightly. Remove, sprinkle in caster sugar or slap on some butter and eat warm.I would strongly recommend you have a pot of tea on the go too!@mrsemilybarnes - Aug 19, 10
Like the best foods, this cake is full of memories for me. My lovely mum used to make her sultana cake almost every Wednesday when I was young. We'd smear on some real butter and chomp it down with a mug of hot tea. It's the perfect antidote to the sugary, American style cakes that seem to be fashionable right now.
A lot of sultana cake recipes call for soaking or adding ground almonds, but I prefer this one - it has a clean taste and can be made with store cupboard ingredients on days when it's too rainy to go to the shops.
I use imperial measurements for this one - but there's a good conversion guide here.
8 oz sultanas
4 oz butter
6 oz sugar
6 oz self raising flour
2 medium eggs- Pre-heat your oven to 180C/Gas mark 4 and grease and flour a deep cake tin.
- As with most cakes, cream the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, dust the sultanas with some extra self raising flour. This will stop them sinking.
- Add and mix in the beaten eggs bit-by-bit. If the mixture starts to separate, add it in a little of the flour.
- Tip in your floured sultanas and fold until thoroughly mixed. Then fold in your flour ounce by ounce with a metal spoon.
- Tip your mixture into your tin and bake for 30-40mins on a middle shelf or until the middle it cooked. It takes 40mins in my oven, but I think that's because it's old and a bit rubbish.
This mixture works for fairy cakes too - which are just lovely.
NB. The cake pictured only has 6oz of sultanas in, as @topfife is a fussy eater.
Posted by @blowupchurch
- Aug 12, 10
After discovering coconut flour in a supermarket recently, I've started using it in a few baking experiments. I know that many people aren't fans of coconut, but the flour shouldn't be confused with the desiccated variety. It's less sugary, so the delicious coconut flavour really comes through.
Makes 4 portionsFilling500g ripe purple plums, quartered, but not skinnedTopping100g coconut flour
65g butter
50g sugar- Put the quartered plums in the bottom of a medium-sized oven-proof dish. If your plums aren't completely ripe, sprinkle with a little sugar.
- Put the coconut flour, butter and sugar in a bowl. With your fingers, massage the ingedients together until they are the texture of breadcrumbs.
- Sprinkle the breadcrumb mixture on top of the plums and bake at 180 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
— Posted by @downatheel
- Aug 12, 10
This recipe is worth growing red cabbage for alone. It's amazing hot with steak, jacket potatoes, fish cakes, anything. But can also be kept in the fridge and is good cold, as a side salad.
You will need: a knob of butter
225g/8oz red cabbage, shredded
1 small red onion
1 tart apple, peeled and diced (I've just used wind fall apples from the garden)
2 tbsp's light muscovada sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
120ml/4fl oz red wine
juice of 1 orange Melt the butter in a wok or frying pan, stir fry the cabbage on a high heat for 1-2 minutes. Add the red onion and apple and cook for a further 1-2 minutes. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon and cook, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Add the wine and orange juice and simmer gently for a further 10 minutes until tender. Serve immediately or leave to cool and store in the fridge.@mrsemilybarnes
- Aug 11, 10
This time of year I tend to do a lot of soups using the veg we grow in our garden, I freeze them and they last us through the winter. Today I've made a simple leek and potato soup from The Good Granny Cookbook.
You'll need: 450g/1lb potatoes, peeled and diced (though I tend to just scrub and dice them, it's a shame to loose the skins on homegrown tatties)
2 large leeks, washed and thinly sliced
40g/1 1/2oz butter
1litre/1 3/4pints water (I sometimes use stock)
1 teaspoon sugar
salt and pepper
cream
chopped parsley, chervil or chives Melt the butter and stir in the leeks. When they are beginning to soften but not brown, add the potatoes, the water (or stock), sugar and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 25 mins or until the potatoes and leeks are soft. Liquidize the soup and adjust the seasoning. When it's hot, pour the soup into bowls and add a swirl of cream and scattering of herbs to each. Can also be eaten cold (if you're 'fancy' like that) but allow to cool before adding the cream.@mrsemilybarnes
- Aug 08, 10
It is ideal as a starter to a full Thai meal, or mixed through rice noodles as a main.
It doesn't take long to prepare, but lasts a while on your tongue.
THE SALAD:
You will need:
- A cucumber (I used a ridge cucumber as it's more flavoursome, and adds extra bitterness)
- A whole carrot, grated (you can get away with less than a whole carrot, which can make it too wet)
- A bag of cashews (not salted)
- Half of a red bell pepper.
- Two spring onions.
Take all the ingredients — grate, cut, chop them and chuck them in a salad bowl of your choice (medium size)
THE DRESSING:
Most of the dressing ingredients can vary above or below the quantity, depending on how you like your mouth to feel.
Necessary goods:
- 3/4 juice of a lime.
- Same quantity of soy sauce (maybe a dash more)
- Same quantity of rice vinegar (you can use fish sauce, I believe but I don't know about that)
- Two big cloves of garlic, minced and chopped.
- One large red chilli, deseeded and chopped finely.
- A teaspoon of white wine vinegar
- Two teaspoons of white sugar, or a dollop of clear honey.
- Some white pepper, a pinch or two.
Mix it all together in a jug, keep tasting it until you're happy.
When you are satisfied it that it contains all the key Oriental flavour groups (hot, sour, sweet, and salty), stir it through your salad.
Garnish with some coriander and serve it to excited faces.
- Jul 24, 10The difference between a cookie and a biscuit is that a cookie is soft and gooey in consistency, whereas a biscuit is crispy, firm in texture, and will withstand brief immersion in a cup of tea. (US definitions be damned!) This basic recipe is for a Speculaas biscuit (a kind of Xmassy Euro-biscuit), but is generic enough to survive most kinds of creative tinkering.Ingredients (work out your own Imperial conversions here)100g plain flour (wholemeal doesn't really work)1 tsp cinnamon*1/2 tsp ground ginger*1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg*1/2 tsp baking powder1/2 tsp salt50g soft brown muscovado sugar1 tbsp milk75g unsalted butterPlus optional extras:2 tsp candied peel ORflaked almonds ORchocolate chips ORfinely chopped walnuts ORfinely chopped sour cherries ORfinely chopped whatever-else-you-fancy.* - essential for Speculaas, but remove these and replace with something more fitting if you're freestyling: a pinch of chilli powder if you're using chocolate, perhaps.Method1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.2. Measure out the flour, baking powder, and salt, adding the cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger if using, or more appropriate flavourings if not. Sift together into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar. If your muscovado has turned to a brick in the cupboard like mine always does, it's worth crumbling it a bit with your fingers before adding it into the flour mix.3. Add the butter to the flour, and using your fingers, rub it into the flour mix until it becomes breadcrumby in texture. This is a bit like making other sorts of pastry, and it's an excellent toning exercise for your forearms.4. This is the point where you add any optional extras such as flaked almonds, choc chips and so on. Next, add the milk and bring the mix together with a spoon until it forms a smooth dough.5. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to around 0.5cm in thickness, or slightly thinner. You'll realise if you've overdone the milk if your dough is sticky and difficult to roll. Just liberally flour your surface and your rolling pin and all will probably be well.6. Using a cookie cutter (if you're showing the biscuits to people) or a knife (if they're just for you), cut out shapes or circles and place them onto the lined baking tray. Make sure you cut them to the size you want them, as they don't change size much during cooking. You could decorate the tops of the biscuits with almonds, or bits of walnut, or other frippery, if you wanted to at this stage.7. Transfer to the oven and bake for 15–18 minutes, or until golden brown. They're better slightly overcooked than undercooked, so err on the side of crispiness. Let them cool on a wire rack, and serve with your choice of hot beverage. Eat them all at once, if you like. (I won't tell anyone.)– posted by Michael Day
- Jul 05, 10
Most people think this is an odd one but it's very similar to carrot cake so don't be put off. If you're growing your own this year it's perfect when you start to get bored of cooking courgettes for dinner!
Courgette Cake: 60g raisins (plump up in warm water)
250g courgette (weighed before grating, it's usually 2)
2 large eggs
125ml veg oil
150g caster sugar
225g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp baking powder 2 x 21cm sandwich tins greased and lined. I usually use Lemon Curd for the filling but I sometimes make my own Lime curd which I can post the recipe for one day soon. Icing: 200g cream cheese
100g icing sugar
juice of 1 lime
2-3 tblsp pistachio nuts Preheat oven to 180oC/gas mark 4 Grate the courgettes (not too fine). Leave them in a sieve to drain excess liquid. Put the eggs, oil and sugar in a bowl and beat until creamy. Sieve in the flour, bicarb soda and baking powder and continue to beat until well combined. Stir in the grated courgette and drained raisins. Pour the mixture into the tins and bake for 30 mins until slightly browned and firm to touch. Leave in their tins for 5-10 mins then turn out and cool on a wire rack. For the icing, beat the cream cheese until smooth add the sieved icing sugar and the lime juice to taste. I usually put this back into the fridge for a few minutes to stiffen it slightly. Spread the lemon curd filling onto one cake and sandwich together. Spread the cream cheese icing on top and just before serving sprinkle on the pistachios. (They go soft if on the icing for too long). The good thing about this cake is that it's delicious with or without the icing, with or without the pistachios or with a simple butter icing filling instead of the curd filling - very versatile! Enjoy— by Emily Barnes
- Jun 22, 10
Ok, let's kick this off with something simple. This is the best biscuit recipe I have come across and if you bake you'll probably always have the ingredients in your cupboard. Not only is this seriously simple, it's also brilliantly versatile because you can add pretty much any flavour at Step 2 - chocolate chips, coconut, cinnamon, raisins, cocoa powder....
Ingredients for 24 biscuits 300g (12oz) plain flour
100g (4oz) caster sugar
200g (8oz) butter (room temp) 1. Put all the ingredients into a bowl
2. Rub it together between your fingers till it becomes crumb like (add your chosen flavour at the stage)
3. Squeeze it into a ball, keep working it till it sticks together quite well, this will make a nicer biscuit because it won't be too crumbly
4. Pinch off little lumps and squash them between your palms to make something that resembles a biscuit shape
5. Bake them on a very slightly greased baking sheet for 15 - 20 mins 170oC/325F/Gas Mark 3 (16 mins in my fan oven makes the perfect biscuit) I always leave them on the baking tray for around 3-5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before filling my biscuit jar.
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