163 days of music?

I am still spotting some errors in Amazon's MP3 data. The "longest"
track I have found so far is the following.



That's over 163 days long! Not bad for 79p :)

Spoonerism

I accidentally spoonerated the other day, and from now on a particular food stuff will always be called something else in our household.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce you to the delights of ...

Dalek Go Balls!

They exterminate your breath.

A'm a Amazon Man

Horrah! for Amazon finally letting us UK citizens get our paws on their huge supply of MP3s. There are some great bargains to be had like Laurie Anderson's United States Live boxed set for £9.99.

I've noticed a few errors however, check out the following.


That second track is rather long. And the album is available on CD! So that's a 30 inch diameter CD I guess.

Also there is some rather expensive applause.



I think that it should be a free download, but here they are charging you £9.49 for under a minute of applause!

Anyhow, getting the likes of Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" for under £3 shows that despite some of the more expensive choices, there are plenty of great downloads to find.

PS. Any ideas why my images are appearing fuzzy?? (OK when you click on 'em!)
PPS. Sorted!!

Eggstremely quick?

A quick round-up.

On the 2nd January 2009 I saw Easter Eggs for sale in two separate supermarkets.
Next month it will be Halloween stuff, but be quick to buy, they need the space for Xmas 2009.

My eyesight is rather swiftly failing. I now have a pair of glasses for seeing things sharply over four feet away, like the back of lorries.

The drugs don't work. After being stuck on a variety of Prozak over Yule, I found it disrupted my sleep so much I ended up being a zombie. So bang goes that idea. I'll stick to plenty of water as it seems to be a great way to stay healthy.

I found a great source of music - WM Recordings
I am enjoying the Meanwhileproject.ltd album "Today Is Sunday" at the moment. It is described as "An electronic-organic-independent-pop-alternative-folk-ambient album, not more or less" and I have to agree, but delightful with it.

Top 10 - 2008!

I am decidedly average when it comes to writing, and my musical skills are zero. Even my triangle playing is out of tune, so I am hardly qualified to do album reviews. Way back in 1997 when I first had internet access and found that you could get free webspace at Geocities, I grabbed a bit of webspace and since I couldn't think what else to use it for, I started reviewing my album collection. Trouble is a few weeks and several reviews later the local Geocities leader (which they seemed to have) started emailing me demanding to know why I wasn't updating my site regularly (gee! I hadn't updated it for a whole week! Sorry Herr Kommandant, I wasn't glued to my computer.). I eventually told him to stick something somewhere and closed my Geocities account.
In 2001 having finally got a computer at home (my inner Luddite screamed) I resurrected my little review site and added smiley and growly faces and other "let's play around with HTML" things. I never got very far and eventually found George Starostin's great review site which made me think, what's the point in trying to compete with that!
So bang went my site again.

However having this blog has fired up my "I've just heard this album and want to say something about it" juices. Hence the odd album review that has appeared. So I am rather pleased that Susan Matthew liked my wee review of Hope-Bound enough to stick it in her review section. Encouragement! So even though I agree with that quote, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture", I will continue to endeavour to convert my strange blobby non-wordy thoughts about the music I hear into words, even if they do end up in a strange order and have little to do with the actual music.

Anyway, here is my top ten list of favourite albums that I heard for the first time in 2008. (As opposed to albums actually released in 2008 - I can't be arsed to check the year of release and anyway, this is my list). In no particular order . . .

Susan Matthews - Hope-Bound
Also enjoyed Axis Vein and bruiser a lot, plus the 40 minute radio mix
"Dreamscapes", but this remains my favourite. See review here.

Julian Cope - Black Sheep
His best so far this century. See what I said about it in September.

Camel - Mirage
An oldie but goodie.

Caravan - If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You
Another oldie and more good stuff.

The Pineapple Thief - Tightly Unwound
Bang up to date, and a really great hook-laden album. A bit
early-Radiohead-lite, but in a good way.

Ayreon - 01011001
Let's take a bunch of music critics who hate Prog Rock and get them to
list all that is bad about it.
Now make an album based on that list and stick a flake in it. This is
the result. Consistently entertaining.

The Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
The best album inspired by fruit preserve ever.

Sunn O))) - White 2
The sound of that earthquake we had earlier in the year.

M83 - Saturdays = Youth
The joyous sound of being young, carefree and gazing at your shoes.

Espers - II
The gloomy sound of being young, carefree and gazing at your impending doom.


Bought to late to be included but it might have been:
Sigur Rós : Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Best album that I already have but updated to CD this year:
Jethro Tull : Thick As A Brick

Track I think should be next years Eurovision Song Contest entry, but won't be:
Susan Matthews : Splinters

That's all for now.
Time to avoid that annoying time of year.

The 10 Minute Prog Rock Jelly Post

seem to be doing short snappy posts just lately, so let's expand a little
on that last post. . .

I was searching for reviews of the new Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard album
Farscape when I came across a list of Fran Keylard's Rogues'
Gallery podcasts. And oh look, he played a track on this show here so
lets download it and have a listen. What, 4 hours long! Phew. I wonder what
these bands sound like . . .

Now I have to admit that modern prog rock has largely passed me by. I
enjoyed chunks of the genre from the 1970s, but I was a bit picky. For
instance when it comes to ELP's Tarkus, I actually prefer the likes of
Jeremy Bender to most of the title track. Stop mucking around lads
and play something decent! (OK the last quarter of side one is good; after
15 minutes of practise it should be.) But give me The Lamb Lies Down On
Broadway or Thick As A Brick any day. I kind of gave up on the
genre back in the 80s when the likes of Genesis and Jethro Tull were past
their best. (Ok, the synth-pop version of Genesis did knock out a few
great songs, but you need a bit of Gabs and Hackett to make the neck hairs
stand on end). I did try the first two Marillion albums but soon got bored
of them (both the band and Fish solo are still going and sound rather
decent from what I've heard so far). Krautrock and experimental music were
my in-thing by the 1990s, but I did note the general avoidance of the term
"prog rock" by bands who were actually progressive and quite definitely
"rock". The term did seem to have a bad smell, associated with half-hour
tracks about elves eating magic jelly, concept albums about aliens
invading Earth and turning humans into jelly or short tracks played in
13/pi time with impossible chords, usually played on instruments made of
jelly.

OK, so the jelly part is probably untrue, I'm suddenly fancying a nice bowl
of the wibbly-wobbly stuff. There is something about jelly that brings joy
to the dinner table and makes people like me digress. So get back on topic
Boolbar, or no jelly for you!

When it comes to music I don't care much for labels, apart from the labels
"I like this" and "I don't like that". Admittedly genres can help point me
in the right direction. For example the likes of R'n'B or modern Heavy
Metal tend to leave me cold so I may avoid music labelled as such, but even
so I can see that the best of those genres is still great music. It seems
now that the label "prog rock" means it sounds like it should be prog rock
even if it isn't actually progressive but it is just using familiar proggy
sounds and structures. Fair dos. I mean an oil painting is hardly
progressive art nowadays, but if it looks great then I'll hang it on my
wall.

So back to the podcast (show #256 if you are wondering) and initially it
dribbled in the background with the sort of heavier poppy rock that has
been around for a couple of decades now, but suddenly it caught my
attention with a bit of live Spock's Beard, continued to intrigue with
DeeExpus Project and kept me entertained until the end. Now I'm not saying
it's so good, I must rush out and buy lots of albums, but it was great
accompaniment to four hours of working at home. And the excellent new Elbow
material that was played has banished the rather piss-poor live performance
I saw them do 5 years ago. The Klaus Schulze & Lisa Gerrard new 30 minute
epic track that was played was typical modern Schulze, pretty and hypnotic
but kind of pointless, with typical Lisa Gerrard's wonderful wordless
warbling. (She might be singing about jelly I suppose, which would make it
wonderful wordless wibbly-wobbly warbling.) I'm not sure about it being
worthy of buying, from the reviews I have read the album has over two hours
of the duo doing much the same. Then again I wasn't too sure about the
earlier The Crime Of Suspense at first with Julia Messenger's
wonderful meaningless warbling over Schulze's pretty and hypnotic
keyboards, but I now enjoy its relaxing meanderings.


I have since downloaded a few other shows and some bands are definitely
worthy of attention like Von Hertzen Brothers, The Pineapple Thief and
Days Between Stations as well as the aforementioned Spock's Beard and
DeeExpus Project. With the likes of Radiohead, Muse, Elbow and (blimey!)
Kate Bush also appearing on the playlist I think I might be listening in
again.

As for The Pineapple Thief's track Different World, this is just the
sort of lengthy track I like. A bit of hardness, a bit of softness,
emotive vocals, folky elements, chunks of guitar, pounding drums, tweeting birds, strings and
memorable tunes. Great stuff! If I had a list of my favourite tracks of
around 10 minutes length then I'm sure it would get in.

Hmmm... lists... go on then, off the top of my head...

Genesis - The Musical Box
Current 93 - All The Stars Are Dead Now
Julian Cope - Safesurfer
Renaissance - A Trip To The Fair
Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Wildlife
Can - Future Days
Nurse With Wound - Nil By Mouth

.. oooh, I can feel a whole new post coming on. Meanwhile back to the jelly.

The Dividing Line.

I've been listening to some of the podcasts of The Rogues' Gallery on The Dividing Line. Lots of prog rock and modern "prog" rock. Great for use in the gym.
You can download podcasts here.

I am particulary fond of The Pineapple Thief's "Different World" at the moment. A really great track.