Gone fishin'

Numberplate of the week

Driving from Canberra to Geelong, we came up behind a car bearing what looked from a distance to be a customised numberplate that said "FUN BOY". The car being a Rav-4-type "recreational vehicle" driven by "young people", and me being a Cranky Old Geezer, my instant reaction was, "Meh". However, on slightly closer inspection, it appeared to read "PUN BOY", a different thing entirely, and for some reason bringing to mind Ian Penman. Then, on even closer inspection, it revealed itself as "PUN 80Y", an apparently authentic New South Wales off-the-rack numberplate. The lucky bugger.

2007 (4)

So, where does all of this leave us? Looking back, as The Idolator would say, on a year in which two records stood head and shoulders above all others:

1. "Sky Blue Sky", by Wilco. From the cover photo inwards, a simply beautiful record. As Churchill almost said, never before has so little been made by so many using so much. You have three guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, frequently all happening at once, and still this music breathes. But its real power is in the songs. Tweedy himself says, on the accompanying DVD, "just play some fuckin' songs, man". And they did.

2. "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", by Spoon, which also takes sparseness to new levels. There is frequently almost nothing there, but what there is kicks in a way that music hasn't kicked for a long time.

Both, in many ways, traditional. But when it comes to a contest between quality and originality (which is NOT to concede any lack of originality in either case), quality sometimes just might win.

2007 (3)

2007 was the year in which I experienced something for, I think, the first time: use of the wrong word in a song lyric.

"The Bird And The Bee", by The Bird And The Bee, was one of my very favourite records of the year (notwithstanding its non-appearance in almost all year-end lists that I have seen - never trust a critic - one exception being Marcello Carlin). But my enjoyment of it is, I am afraid, tainted by a big howler: on the song "Because", Inara George sings "I'm lying prostate on the ground". Now, the old prostate/prostrate dichotomy is fun when (mis)applied by football commentators, but its appearance in one of the crucial (and clearest, and oft-repeated) lines in a song poses a problem: what does one do when singing along? Correct the mistake? But then one is not actually singing the song as written (and sung), but one's own, edited, version of same, and what business do I have in interfering with somebody else's song? And I've tried it: I feel like a schoolteacher. (And where would that end: "No, I'm not going to work on Maggie's farm any more"?) Perpetuate the mistake? Well, naturally I'm not comfortable with that. Not sing along at all? (Many would be grateful.) Press the "skip" button? I really don't know. It's vexing.

(Curiously, and somewhat tangentially, for some reason multiple copies of this CD appeared mid-year in Canberra's main second-hand CD shop. This could not be explained by natural attrition; I suppose they could have been review copies, but there is nothing marked on them to suggest that; could they have been hot? (But where would they have been nicked from in the first place? I don't think I've actually seen it for sale new anywhere, and you can't imagine too many shops ordering in more than one or two.) Strange. Canberra is full of little mysteries like this.)

2007 (2)

During the year I bought one of those pairs of in-your-ear headphones that Bose has latterly taken to advertising on every second Web site. They are very good headphones: the sound is clear, a lot of extraneous outside noise is filtered out, and they are comfortable. They are way better than the equivalents offered by Apple (and obviously not even comparable with the horrible phones that come with an iPod). (My only criticism is that you have to be careful not to lose the little silicone bits that stick in your ear, they are not affixed as well as they might be.)

Listening to Burial's "Untrue" through these headphones is a revelation. All the nooks and crannies of the sound are there, the bass is wicked, and generally the sound is just huge. I have no background in dubstep, and have only spent an hour or so of my life in Sarf London, so there is the sense, as with crucial seventies dub reggae (a not coincidental comparison), of surreptitiously listening in on something to which I was not invited. Plus, we are out on the cutting edge of music here. Nevertheless, if you found somebody who listened to all the right music from 1979 to 1983 and who then stopped listening to music altogether, they would experience a strong sense of continuity here. Really, only the beats have changed. Certainly, I can see why Mark K-Punk would like this: there is a lot of John Foxx in those synths.

In 12 months time I may or may not be as obsessed with this record as I am right now, but for the time being I am drawn back to it at least as strongly as I was drawn back to The Field's "From Here We Go Sublime" a few months ago. It's nice to think that from my jaded and cynical standpoint I can still fall for something as simple (and complex) as a piece of music.

Will the real Raymond Carver please stand up?

This is a fascinating document.

Somewhere there is a line between editing and re-writing. (Yes, I have my own Red Pen Of Death, but it is necessarily reserved for the clearly wrong; everything else is marked in pencil for further discussion.) Wherever that line is, Gordon Lish seems to have crossed it. The story, as published, should really have been credited to "Gordon Lish writing as 'Raymond Carver'". What effect revelations like this have on Carver's reputation remain to be seen. For me, he remains in the pantheon, but nevertheless it will be difficult to re-read those early stories with the same sense of unalloyed pleasure. A seed of doubt has been sown. (Do we know who was responsible for the name change? "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love", as a title, seemed to express Carver's writing in a nutshell. To find out it's not Carver at all would make for a very bad day.)

2007 (Part 1)

Two of my favourite records from this year (although not "My two favourite records from this year") were Studio's "West Coast" and A Mountain Of One's "Collected Works". Both pull off the neat trick of coming across as new by sounding old, but with the old nestled comfortably inside heavy quotation marks. Hence, what they make is "songs", not songs. (And perhaps you could argue that listening to both is "fun", not fun. But I wouldn't agree with you.)

The difficulty with this approach is that one senses that both bands are travelling at speed down a very short cul de sac. (But then, I thought the same about LCD Soundsystem, who managed to come back with an album that majestically bolstered LCD Soundsystem's undeniable Style with unexpected Substance.) (But then, I also thought the same about Dungen's "Ta Det Lugnt", and this year's "Tio Bitar" hasn't, at least for me, added much to the sum of human knowledge.) So who knows where the future lies? For now, it might be best just to enjoy the present.

Song of the day

"Turn To Earth", by Al Stewart. The drum sound on this song has been borrowed, at some point, by Broadcast.

YouTube of the day

In which Kermit The Frog gets it soooo right. Even down to the I'm Cutting My Arm Off In Little Thin Slices bit.

YouTube of the day

And also song of the day: many many days.

Song of the day

"Gila", by Beach House. New! Improved! (Maybe.) Certainly, it's been on high rotation, as would be expected for new material from Beach House, whose first, self-titled, album has been on the highest of high rotations throughout 2007. This new song features the most gorgeous of big, echoey guitars, blending in nicely with the drum machine, bass guitar and organ, and of course that voice. Sweet.

Song of the day

"Teach me how to fight", by the Junior Boys.

Two of the best albums that I bought this year and which bear the copyright date "2007" were not in fact recorded in 2007. The first of them, which should come as no surprise to regular reader(s), is Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall 1971", the missing link to beat all missing links (although, at least theoretically, "Chrome Dreams" would give it a run for its money). It's difficult to begrudge "Harvest" its massive success over the decades, but really, it's such a (typical) stylistic muddle that that success remains just a little startling. The Massey Hall recording, which sounds so good it could have been made yesterday, is, on the other hand, a Unified Theory Of Neil Young, circa 1971. Young as much as admits his mistake, in putting out "Harvest" instead of this, on the "removable" (don't try it) cover sticker.

The other one is the 2007 reissue - a whole three years after its original release! - of the Junior Boys' "Last Exit". Bart once explained to me the difference between the first two Mazzy Star albums by saying that "She Hangs Brightly" has the higher highlights but that "So Tonight That I Might See" is the consistently better record. Whilst one might disagree with the example given (personally, I have such a soft spot for "She Hangs Brightly" that I cannot listen to it objectively, but I think I know what he is getting at), one can use the description as a way to compare the two Junior Boys albums. There are four songs on "Last Exit" that cannot fail to make you go weak at the knees. "Teach me how to fight" is perhaps the most affecting of those; that recurring synth line hits me like it's 1981. (Or 2.) The second album, on the other hand (and this is where the Mazzy Star analogy entirely falls apart because one half of the JBs left between the first and second albums), doesn't reach the heights of unreleased tension that are so brilliantly employed on the debut, and yet it is a delight to listen to from one end to the other. (One might question where the music industry is headed - hey, there's a new idea - with seemingly instant repackaging of still-warm music (Boards of Canada's "Music Has A Right To Children", Fennesz's "Endless Summer") but (naughty) I didn't own "Last Exit" until I found this 2007 reissue second-hand a couple of weeks ago, AND it contains remixes by Fennesz and Manitoba, so at least in my case it serves several purposes at once. If you already owned the original album I don't know that you would be shelling out again.)

Baby's got a blog

Pinakothek.

Who knows what evil lies in the hearts of men?

The Shadow knows.

Song of the year?

In a year which didn't contain a song as instantly captivating as "1 Thing" or "Crazy", we are forced to fall back on the old rule that a song that compels you to turn it up the second it starts, no matter how many times you have heard it, is a Good Song. This year, that song has been "Atlas" by Battles, with its insistent drum beat, crispness of sound, and just-in-time-for-the-movie Alvin and the Chipmunks vocals. For probably the first time since early REM it is possible to love a song without having a clue what they are singing about. (The singer is hooked? The kitchen is cooked?) Oh, and it looks good, too.

Best of Both Worlds

Two songs thrown up in succession by the sh-sh-shuffle perhaps encapsulate the two extremes of what I am looking for in a song. Okay, it's just two songs at random, and any other two songs chosen at random might be able to be analysed in the same way, but there you are. First we have the Marine Girls' version of "Fever": charm; brevity; a kind of goodnatured naivete; taking a good song and making something new out of it; Tracey Thorn's voice. Then we get "Halleluwah", by Can: strength through repetition; experimentation; length; a sense of the unknown; Jaki Leibezeit's drumming.

And all things in between, obviously.

The funny thing was, the very next song to shuffle up was Talking Heads' "Electric Guitar", from "Fear of Music". I don't recall ever having connected Talking Heads and Can before. But knock me down with a feather, the two songs have an almost identical rhythm. (And it's not the kind of rhythm you have ever really heard anywhere else. If I didn't already over-use the word "counterintuitive" I would be using it again here.) Who knew?

"Ways to skin a hepcat"

The above phrase, the context of which we shall get to, is by Mark Sinker, semi-dormant link at right, one-time writer for the NME, one-time writer for and editor of The Wire, writer for Sight and Sound, of latter years appearing less frequently than we would like, a writer we always looked up to, someone who may be considered a more-low-than-highbrow but equally articulate English Adam Gopnik, someone who is able to draw together threads you had never thought of, and who regularly sends you off in directions you never expected to go, lover of Moomins, someone about whom Mark E Smith either did or did not write a song ("Mark'll Sink Us"), now masquerading around Freaky Trigger, The Poptimists, ILM and the like under the moniker P^nk Lord Sukrat Cunctor (go figure).

But why is he here? Because you can now read a piece of long-form writing by him responding to the death of Richard Cook, one-time writer for the NME, one-time writer for and editor of The Wire, whom I also, for many years, looked upon with awe and for crucial guidance (when I wasn't silently cursing his contrarian ways, viz. glowing reviews of The P*l*ce, of David Bowie's "Let's Dance"; it was so typical of him to take over The Wire and put Michael Jackson on the cover). Sinker writes typically astutely and candidly here of the nature of music, of writing about music, and of the perils of magazine editing. If you have ever been of the view that music criticism needs to be more than just a consumer guide, you would do well to go across and read it (hint: scroll down).

Election night special

Let me see now, where were we? Oh, yes, the election.

About 25 years ago - March 1983 to be precise, the start of my second year at University - a bunch of like-minded individuals gathered together around a television set to cheer in the election from opposition of a Labor government for the first time since 1972, when we were too young to know much at all but from which we remembered the words "It's time".

Now, a generation later, another bunch of equally fresh-faced individuals were, presumably, gathered around a television somewhere doing the same. On Saturday night I felt happy for them.

Twenty-five years seems like a long electoral full-circle, but there you go. I wonder how many of those 1983 revellers, well into careers as doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants or merchant bankers, are still fighting the good fight.

Oh. And I am no longer named after the only sitting Prime Minister to lose his seat at a general election. "John Howard Emmerson" will have to wait for the next generation.

Bad politics, baby

Tomorrow we vote.

Twice in the months before the start of the election campaign I had the feeling that we were about to witness the unedifying spectacle of a government falling apart before our very eyes.

It was not to be, and the government has actually run a pretty credible campaign, given the limitations that were imposed on it, or which it imposed on itself.

Nevertheless, in a country where the prime minister (a) largely sets the agenda as to the direction the country is to head in and yet (b) is not elected, but rather is chosen by the party which holds the majority of seats in the lower house, and in accordance with whatever obscure and arcane rules that party follows in making that choice, it seems to me an insurmountable leap of faith to ask voters to choose a party whose leader has made it a campaign platform that he won't in fact be the leader "at some point" during the next term. In other words, we are being asked to put the future direction of the country in the hands of, well, nobody can say for certain, or at all, effusive praise (in some quarters) for the incumbent treasurer notwithstanding.

And in any event, as you know, I am rigid with fear over the issue of climate change, and neither of the major parties has really come to grips with the magnitude of the problems facing us all. Hence, although I have never entertained the idea of voting for a single-issue party (what if everybody did that?), the single issue this time around so far outweighs everything else (i.e., if we don't sort out climate change it doesn't really matter what your mortgage interest rate is) that the Greens must come into contention. (I quite like their "two Bobs' worth" television ad, too, for what that's worth. I had no idea Bob Brown had a sense of humour.) Tomorrow night, all will be revealed.

Meanwhile, on with the show.

Song of the day

Pelle Carlberg, "Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls". As compensation for the longer than usual wait between Belle and Sebastian albums, may I recommend this jaunty slice of sunshine pop.

Local content

I like how the Canberra Times is always keen to put a local slant on the stories of the day. (A friend once described the ideal Canberra Times headline for us: "Grass grew on the Tuggeranong Parkway".)

For example, today's Ben Cousins Story is along the lines that whilst it is highly unlikely that Ben Cousins will play in the local australian rules competition next year, it would provide the kind of low-key playing environment that just might do him the world of good. And they may just be right (on both counts).

Echoes of Frozen Faces

The first, self-titled album by Neu!, from 1971, has influenced so much of what has come after it that making a list is futile if not impossible. But, M Ward? How, you might say, could there be any possible connection between him and them? And yet it's there. I swear. Take a listen to the final track, "Lieber Honig", and imagine you are listening to something from "Transfiguration of Vincent". And you could be. It's kind of like staring into one of those magic eye pictures. (Well, not at all like that, really.)

"We're a service industry" of the day

We thought we should stop for coffee before I went in to work today. We stopped. We ordered. We waited. No coffee came. Those who arrived after us were enjoying their coffee. I could wait no longer. I had to get to work. I went to the counter and said: "I'm sorry; our coffees haven't come and I have to get to work. Can you scratch them off the list?" The person behind the counter (who was also the person who took our order; we are regulars there, "the usual" is a known quantity) said: "Okay, no problem." We left.

It only struck me later that this was a slightly odd response. The problem was wholly ours: loss of half an hour's work time for no coffee is no quid pro quo. I will see what kind of belated apology I get tomorrow. As Dick Cheney would say, all options are on the table.

Film review

Saw "Michael Clayton". Liked it.

It's Only Words

Those who know me would be aware of my unhealthy obsession with bad translations of foreign material, with a particular interest in instructions for electronic products. This now ties in nicely with my equally unhealthy obsession with the New Yorker, from the 16 November 1940 issue of which comes this extract from the preface for a book published in China entitled "Correctly English in Hundred Days". If they typed it correctly, and I have re-typed it correctly, it is all "sic".

This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wished to served for the foreign firms. It divided nearly hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language. This book is clearly, easily, to the Chinese young man or scholar. If it is quite understood, that will be satisfaction.

Indeed it will.

Memo to Weird Al Yankovic

We have discovered that you can sing "I'm feeling queasy" to the tune of "Crazy", by Gnarls Barkley. We will not be pursuing this idea any further. It's yours if you want it.

What did you do on the weekend?

1. We got a lot done in the garden. Two and a half rows of carrots planted; tomato plants transferred from pots into beds; planted two new jasmine bushes to replace the dead and/or dying stumps that have languished by the side fence for several years; contemplated replacing the back lawn with paving, fruit trees, and a bigger veggie patch; harvested a couple of bowls of strawberries. Mmmm. Gardening really is the new rock and roll.

2. I re-read the two volumes of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", in anticipation of the release (finally!) - possibly as early as tomorrow - of, not Volume III, which is slated for publication in three parts in 2008 (as if), but something called "The Black Dossier", which, well, I'm sure we'll know it when we see it. (Moore has a unique ability to drag out the publication of his most important works, beyond the patience of most ordinary mortals. Does anybody else remember the interminable waits for the last couple of issues of "Watchmen", back when it was first coming out in "monthly" parts? "From Hell", too, limped out in fits and starts over a very long period of time - and bounced from publisher to publisher, just like "League". And then there's "Big Numbers", which remains stalled on issue 2, and has been for, what, almost 20 years. We live in hope.)

3. We had a nice walk along the lake.

4. We checked out the John Brack exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Brack is a stunning artist, formidably skilled and with a great vision. (Perhaps I like him because of the natural affinity I see that he has with the comic book artists I most like (see: the Raw artists; Daniel Clowes - who, if you haven't been keeping up with his New York Times serialised strip, well, you're a fool, because it started off pretty good and just keeps getting better); in fact, some of the people in Brack's portraits wouldn't at all look out of place in a Clowes strip.)

5. I listened to Masada's "Live in Sevilla 2000". One of my many regrets in life, but one of the bigger ones, is never getting the chance to see Masada play live. (We did attempt to see Greg Gohen's own group at an afternoon show at the Knitting Factory in NYC back in 1996, but it was cancelled. On the other hand, we were introduced to the joy of vodka and cranberry juice: it's an ill wind etc.) Anyone who feels obliged to perpetuate the canard that Zorn cannot, like, "play" the saxophone, man, should listen to the first four minutes of the final piece on this disc, "Bith Aneth".

6. And, like, family stuff, y'know.

The "d" of "th"

Regarding yesterday's entry: I may have been a little harsh in one aspect of my criticism. I now see that yesterday's Melbourne Age refers to Murali as "Muralidaran". Cricinfo, however, has "Muralitharan", which is how it has traditionally appeared. I wonder if Murali is having an identity crisis. (This reminds me, very slightly, of the "Ejaz F" brouhaha from some years ago. The "F" being short for "Faqih", which was apparently more than some sensitive Channel Nine viewers could take.)

[Meanwhile, speaking of yesterday's Age, Tim Lane has an excellent piece highlighting the AFL's hypocrisy regarding (a) Ben Cousins and (b) Richard Pratt.]

The curse of modernity, part 193

Today being Saturday, I took the opportunity to watch a few overs of the first cricket Test between Australia and Sri Lanka. But what kind of cut-rate third-world coverage is Channel Nine offering this year? The modern trend is to cover the screen in "useful" facts and figures (we get it in the AFL coverage, too, with regular updates as to who has, for example, "gone missing"), but it is probably worth ensuring that the person responsible for same has some basic literacy skills. In the short time that I was watching, I saw three mis-spelled Sri Lankan players' names: "Muralidaran" (phonetically not far off); and (on the one screen) "Jayawardena" and "Jayawardane" (presumably to help viewers distinguish between two players inconveniently born with the same surname, Jayawardene). Plus one gratuitous typo, "comparsion". Sigh, give me Kerry O'Keeffe any day.

Last Thoughts on Neil Young

1. I don't think I want to listen to Neil Young again for a little while. But I probably will.

2. How is it that, when Neil is singing in that wobbly high-pitched voice he often uses, I could swear I was listening to Thurston Moore?

3. If the word "shambolic" has any reason for existing, it is to describe Neil Young in the 1970s.

4. I would sure like to hear Crazy Horse let loose in a live situation on "Danger Bird", breaking through the frustrating fade-out on the "Zuma" version, and working it to its logical conclusion some, say, 15 minutes further on.

5. Could somebody please explain the song "After The Gold Rush"?

Listen Now

This just in:

David Kilgour live on Minnesota Public Radio. Enjoy.

(link courtesy largehearted boy)

Life During Wartime

Of the many time-wasting activities in my personal canon, the one that is most interesting, if useless, at the moment, is my ongoing project of reading, in "real time", the New Yorker as it appeared throughout the years of the Second World War. Right now we are in late October 1940, in other words the middle of the Blitz. Each week Mollie Panter-Downes files a short but mesmerising report on how London is coping with life in what can only be described as a Living Hell. Reading history is one thing; reading contemporary accounts, from people who (obviously!) don't know what's going to happen, is both fascinating and inexplicably exciting (i.e. I know what happens, and yet I can still see it through the eyes of those who don't). A couple of weeks ago her report didn't appear in the magazine; and I spent the next seven days anxious for her safety (even though, as I know, she continued to write for the magazine for many more years).

And then when I've done that, there is Test Cricket to be followed. Never a dull moment.

Song of the day

Every so often the International Man Of Crate-Digging Mystery who is bumrocks.com uncovers a track that lifts you out of your shoes and attaches electrodes to your head. He (or she) has done it again, with "Desintegracion", by Tabaco, an awesome slice of hard-edged psychedelic rock. Googling around reveals that it is from an album of the same name, from 1971, and that Tabaco hailed from Spain. Unsurprisingly, Tabaco otherwise remain somewhat obscure. (There appears to have been a two-CD reissue of this a few years back; the danger, I have found, with such surprising one-off tracks is that the rest of the associated album doesn't have what it takes. See, for example, "Edge Of Time" by Dom.)

And if you're verra verra quick, you can click across and download this little beauty for yourself.

Song of the day

"Shake It Off", by Wilco. I still have no idea what lay behind the negative response across the Internet to Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky". As the year has gone on, my love for it has only grown stronger, to the point where I now have my very own copy. (!) (It even comes with a "bonus" DVD, which I will, in accordance with normal practice, assume - at least until I watch it - to be entirely useless.) Perhaps you have to be as old as, or older than, Jeff Tweedy to really appreciate where this album is coming from. Perhaps you need to be well versed in Television's "Marquee Moon" and other records of that era and ilk. Perhaps it just wasn't "experimental" enough for some people's liking. (Whatever that might mean. To my ears at least, the album is anything but straight four on the floor.) Perhaps end-of-year results will show that it has been a "grower".

Anyway, "Shake It Off" just jumped into my head, so it must be the song of the day.

Song of the day

"The World May Never Know", by Dr Dog. Aside from the nice mental image conjured up by the band name, I like this song for the pleasant early-70s vibe it gives off. I have heard other stuff by Dr Dog which I have liked a lot, and yet other stuff I haven't liked at all. That gives you a lot of useful information, doesn't it?

Halloween has its uses

(photo found on drawn and quarterly's website's blog)

And speaking of same, the second Moomin comic strip collection is now "in stores", and I am hoping mine is flying its way to Australia as we speak.

Halloween video of the day

Here.

Hacienda, Manchester, 1982. Link via idolator.com.

I used to think that if Halloween existed in our country (it now does, and I wish it didn't - a licence for kids to essentially come and knock on your door and say "give me some lollies" (like, someone thought this was a Good Idea?) - last night one of our neighbours did just that, and didn't even go through the least motions of dressing up) it would be totally scary just to dress up as Nick Cave. (Now he has that facial-hair thing happening it would be, if anything, even more scary.) I actually still own one of the original "Eeeek!" t-shirts put out by Philip Brophy and Bruce Milne, notionally a graphic representation of the lead character in the original version of "The Fly", but actually, I suspect, a photograph of Nick Cave with a giant fly head superimposed on top.

Song of the day

"A Little Lost", by Jens Lekman. One thing about eMusic is that it is inclined to hide its leading lights under a bushel. An example is "Four Songs By Arthur Russell", a self-explanatory offering collated by our hero of the moment, Jens Lekman, and featuring one song by Jens himself. One tackles an Arthur Russell song at one's own peril, Russell himself being such a singular artist, but Jens is up to the challenge. In fact, the entire record (or digital equivalent) is highly worthy of your attention.

Song of the day

Three songs actually: "What A Day That Was", "Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open)" and "Light Bath", by David Byrne. I had forgotten that not that long ago I picked up for very little money the complete David Byrne score for the Twyla Tharp dancepiece "The Catherine Wheel". Heard in its entirety it is even more impressive than the original vinyl release (even if its highlights are the same highlights) and proves that Byrne didn't need Brian Eno to prop him up. (The music throughout, perhaps unsurprisingly, sits somewhere between "Remain In Light" and "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts", particularly "Mountain Of Needles" from the latter.) The three songs listed above comprise the final ten minutes of the score, and are, in a word, thrilling.

Song of the day

"Black Crow", by Linda Hoyle. With thanks to the always interesting Art Decade. Art Decade claims to specialise in the music of the "long seventies", which I would put as the years 1966 to 1983, wherein, of course, can be found most of the best music ever made. (I could mount, I think, a compelling argument that one build a near-perfect music collection drawing only on this range of years. Obviously significant musical markers would be missed, but, as I have recently discovered (more later), you can't listen to everything or you'll likely go mad.)

Anyway, speaking of levels of obsessiveness (we have and we will be), in tracking down information on this wonderful piece of piano-and-guitar-driven, what, psych-folk-rock?, female Todd Rundgren?, proto-Quatro?, I fell upon a seemingly bottomless website entirely devoted to records bearing the Vertigo "swirl", with a depth of detail and, I suppose, "scholarship" that defies belief. Seriously, I am not worthy. Take a look for yourself, and get lost. (Literally.) Sample: "6360 061
not released in Britain, BUT IT WAS RELEASED IN PERU!
please refer to the Peru page." It is sentences like those that make life worth living.

YouTube of the day

Here.

Best line: "You can be a coffee achiever."

Neil Young: Reprise

If one good thing has come out of the release by Neil Young of an album entitled "Chrome Dreams II", it is the appearance, in various corners of the Internet, of diverse collections of songs claiming to be a digital simulacrum of the original "Chrome Dreams", which was scheduled for release in 1978 but shelved in favour of one of his lesser regarded efforts, "American Stars 'n' Bars". What you hear may not be as Neil intended, but it certainly fits in with the overall character of his 1970s oeuvre. Which is to say, it's all over the place, but frequently in a good way.

And, if you pick up your copy from Aquarium Drunkard, be sure to also acquire what must be a world first: a bonus disc of "extra tracks" - for a bootleg release of an "album" that may never have even existed. What will they think of next?

Stylus quote of the week

From Andrew Iliff's otherwise over-my-head (and ultimately futile) Roxy Music career overview (there was never just one "Roxy Music", lending itself to a career trajectory as such; there were three distinct, and entirely separate, "Roxy Musics"), this quote stands out as a beautiful summation of Brian Eno's involvement with two bands, a decade apart:

If there is a Roxy/U2 succession - from one doubtfully coiffed anthemic narcissist in the service of Brian Eno's closeted rock star animus to the next ...

Krautrock artifact of the day

This looks interesting.

Bumper sticker of the week

Hello to the Canberra driver whose car bears the message "Republicans For Voldemort". (And good luck in next year's presidential election.)

Song of the day

"My Soul, My Soul", by Richard Thompson. I borrowed a couple of recent Richard Thompson CDs from the local library. RT as an album artist is a difficult proposition. In fact, Fairport Convention aside, there is only really one individual RT album that bears the designation "instant classic": you know which one (it's actually Richard and Linda together, not incidentally). Otherwise, his albums are a bit all over the place. Which makes the standout nature of the three-disc compilation "Watching The Dark" such a surprise. Although perhaps it shouldn't be. The signal achievement of RT is his guitar playing. Whether or not it is matched to compatible songwriting, it is never less than excellent on its own terms. But it's not always so matched. "Front Parlour Ballads", from which this song comes, is as good a case in point as any. There are a few quite good songs; a few that just drift by; a few that just seem to have dropped off the conveyor belt, having bypassed quality control. (Oh, I really do hate it when I have to say negative things about my heroes.) But stunning playing all through. (I can also listen to his voice irrespective of context, but that's not for everybody.) Nevertheless, you are hardly going to reach for this disc off the shelf in preference to any of your otherwise favourite records (RT or otherwise).

Still, "My Soul, My Soul" would fit readily onto any RT collection. It comes from what I consider to be the Fairport Convention end of his various song "types". Which is a good place for a Richard Thompson song to reside.

Song of the day

"It Happened", by Dirty Three. Because it was the first song I heard this morning after an extended stop-off at the National Library's cafe, in order to finish the third book of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass". There were silent tears. I stepped out into the light.

This song, like life itself, is fleetingly beautiful.

Song of the day

"The Nurse", by The White Stripes. To me, this sounds like Hot Chip trying to lay down one of their smooth indie pop grooves in the studio, with Animal from the Muppets crashing the party in his own inimitable style. Plus, as the boys pointed out, the start of the song is identical to the Rugrats theme music.

Also, I must have heard the song "My Doorbell" a couple of hundred times, without for a minute suspecting it was by White Stripes. Actually, I don't know if I ever really thought about who it was by, but I had in mind someone like Amerie or someone of that ilk. Which, I hope, is some kind of a compliment to their being able to pull off what I think they were trying to do.

I still the internet

Even though I can't be in New York , I can, thanks to modern technology, sit back comfortably to watch this public fireside chat between New Yorker editor David Remnick and prized investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. It is a fascinating evening's entertainment, not only for the typically incisive and frightening things Hersh has to say about the present administration, but also for giving a rare insight into the relationship between writer and editor, a relationship which sits somewhere between that of employer and employee on the one hand, and husband and wife on the other.

If it's done right. And the New Yorker has always done it right. You can also see glimpses here of why David Remnick was the right person to be handed the baton. Five editors in 82 years: that's a weighty ball to drop (I would argue, in the minority, that Tina Brown didn't drop it at all, but rather reinflated it and kept it in play), and Remnick looks to have what it takes. Which, exactly, I have no idea what that is. But Remnick himself writes, he digs for stories, so he understands, and relates well with, a guy like Hersh. Anyway, watch the video.

Song of the day

"Down by the River", by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. The deeper I descend into this perilous Neil Young phase of mine, the more I get the feeling that Young, like Dylan, is not an artist who can, or even wants to, be defined in terms of individual albums. Rather, he puts out albums as occasional collections of Songs Wot I Wrote. In this respect, "Decade" works for Young as "Biograph" worked for Dylan (and as the new "Dylan" set doesn't), as a much better summary of (one part of) a career. Note the extensive inclusion, in both cases, of non-album and even unreleased tracks, not the usual fare for retrospectives of Big Name Artists.

Anyway, of Neil Young's "major" albums, "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" comes perhaps closest to embodying a unified aesthetic vision. It may well be a mess, but it is a mess that is all of one type. And it is frequently a glorious mess. Nowhere more so than "Down by the River", 11 minutes of twin-guitar grind. Back in the late 1970s, when I used to read Rolling Stone from cover to cover, someone once wrote, I think in relation to "Rust Never Sleeps", that Crazy Horse are a band that manage to sound fast by playing slow. Or something like that. (The particular reference may have been to "Welfare Mothers".) I think this song also gives an clue as to what that writer was getting at; and that he or she (most likely he) wasn't far from the mark, notwithstanding how ridiculous it seemed to me when I read it.

Song of the day

"Words of Wisdom", by Cedric Im Brooks & The Light of Saba. From the album "Cedric Im Brooks & The Light of Saba", which is one of a long list of albums that have long been known to me by reputation alone. Well, this one at least I have now heard, and it proves to be a joyful amalgam of musical styles ranging from ska, reggae and 1970s soul to African music (in some places the Africa of Fela Kuti, in others that of Mulatu Astatke, whom Jim Jarmusch brought to some degree of notice by way of his underrated most recent film, "Broken Flowers"). This particular song is at the soulful roots reggae end of the spectrum, and is distinguished, as is the entire album, by some really lovely horn work.

Presumably "The Light of Saba" does not refer to a furniture showroom that existed in Melbourne in the early 1980s.

By Chance

1. "Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey: Uncle Gabby"

It was a slow library day, so on spec I borrowed the above, being a short graphic novel / sequential pictorial narrative story / comic book written and drawn by Tony Millionaire (coloured by someone else, and colour is an important part of its charm, but still). I had seen Millionaire's name around the traps, but if he is also millionaire by nature it is no thanks to me. Well, I read it and was staggered. It is really, really good. Most solo graphic novelists work in a kind of alchemy which allows them to offer a finished product that is greater than you would expect from considering just their individual story-writing and drawing skills. Adrian Tomine, for example, as much as I like his stuff, still has a way to go as a writer. But it is good enough to allow him to become a fine graphic novelist and not just a purveyor of gorgeous New Yorker covers. Seth, of course, is a genius at both drawing and writing; so is Kevin Huizenga; but such is rare. Even Dan Clowes and Chris Ware, wonderful though they both are, would perhaps seem less than that if their writing and their drawing both had to stand up on their own. (None of this is meant as individual criticism. Those of us who can neither write nor draw can only look on in awe at these freaks of nature.) But this simple little book, about the adventures of a few old stuffed toys, demonstrates real talent in both the writing and drawing departments. Being the good scientist, I tested my theory. It was a delight to look at. It was a pleasure to read. Together, hey, it was unstoppable. I need to dig further.

2. Gillian Welch

Yesterday I fluked upon an iTunes-only live EP by Gillian Welch, released early 2006, about which I previously knew nothing. $5.07 (Australian) later, it was on my hard drive. And was money well spent, not only but including because it reminded me of the hauntingly perfect show they put on in Canberra a couple of years back. Their version of "Pocahontas" is a beautiful take on a beautiful song, and ties in scarily well with my current Neil Young obsession. (Presumably I wasn't the only obsessive to be eluded by this: it isn't mentioned in Stylus's extraordinarily thorough runthrough of Neil Young covers.)

3. Life Without Buildings

Straight to the top of bands I can't believe I never knew existed. Their sole studio album, "Any Other City", comes at me from the place where all the great albums come from. Which, I'm not sure exactly where that place is, but to be simplistic about it (if only because this record gets me in a way that is too personal for words), they sound not unlike if you combined, say, Television and The Feelies, and threw a female Mark E Smith in front (in that the singer declaims rather than sings, and seems as interested, in a lovely way, with the sounds words make as with the words themselves), if Mark E Smith were ever to sing about matters of the heart. None of which does this magnificent record justice. And to think, if they hadn't released a posthumous live album called, I think, "Live at the Annandale Hotel", and if the Annandale Hotel, in Sydney, wasn't a name I associate with another group that still mean more to me than I can put into words, The Cannanes, then I probably wouldn't have given Life Without Buildings a second thought other than to note that their name sounds like a couple of Talking Heads songs mashed in a blender.

Song of the day

"Christmas", by Beat Happening. Which appears on the CD version of their first, self-titled LP. And in which Calvin, in the lowest of lo-fi surroundings, succinctly and accurately defines the human condition: "Disappointment. Heartache. Pain."

YouTubes of the day

One

Two

Three

The hypothetical mixtape series: September 2007

It's still October, so it can't possibly be time for the September hypothetical mixtape. And yet.

The Notekillers, "Clock Wise". A few years ago, I did some volunteer work with Melbourne radio station 3PBS (if WFMU did not exist, PBS might lay some claim to being the best radio station in the world; seriously). Anyway, one of the presenters was a mild-mannered bank manager, always neat and tidy, dressed in suit and tie. The only hint that something was amiss was a pair of razor-sharp sideburns. This guy, it turns out, was the presenter of a heavy metal show called something like "The Red Stink of Metal". Who knew? But a couple of years prior to this, I might have been that guy. There I was, living in a country town, working as a solicitor, suit and tie, etc, going home at night to a diet of loud, heavy guitars. Big Black. Husker Du. Feedtime. Sonic Youth. Band of Susans. Ut. Dinosaur Jr. Minutemen. And if it wasn't guitars it was industrial noise. Einsturzende Neubauten, for example. Or John Zorn's headkicking Ornette Coleman "tribute" "Spy Vs Spy". Yes, that was me. (One of the highlights of those years was finding on the doorstep a parcel of records airmailed from a certain Doctor Jim, who was then on a world tour and, I suppose, figured that someone might as well be listening to his stash while he remained o/s.) Again, who knew? (Before long, Adrienne was quick to disabuse me of the notion that music had to be in some way unpleasant or "difficult" to be worthy of attention; one only of the many things for which I am eterally grateful to her.) Point? Oh yes, The Notekillers, of whom I had no knowledge at all until a couple of tracks appeared on the wonderful Art Decade, would have fitted perfectly into my listening schedule. So perfectly that I feel I owe them an apology: where was I when they needed me?

Junior Senior, "Move Your Feet". The moral of that story being, I can now happily jump around the house to songs like this. I think that makes me a better, more well-rounded person. Or a sad, pathetic sell-out.

Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66, "Scarborough Fair". And yet, even through those dark and twisted days, the magic of op-shop records was always there. This version of a song I have long deemed unlistenable is gorgeous, up there with their version of "My Favourite Things", which Adrienne says outdoes even Coltrane, and in my weaker moments I can almost agree.

Cibo Matto, "Sugar Water (Acoustic)". To paraphrase the very wise Roy Slaven and H G Nelson, too many versions of this song are barely enough.

Milton Nascimento and Lo Borges, "Tudo Que Voce Podia Ser". It must be time for a Brazilian. Or two.

Gimmicks, "California My Way". Perfect for the approaching antipodean summer, which looks like being long and hot.

Reigning Sound, "When You Touch Me". Loud fast rules.

The Come Ons, "Keep The Change". I love (a) the organ and (b) the album title ("Hip Check") and (c) the album cover. Oh, and the guitar. Plus the fact that they have put out a seven-inch single entitled "Play Selections From The Françoise Hardy Songbook".

The Professionals, "Theme From The Godfather". This may be the greatest four minutes of music I have ever heard. And (obviously) I am not even exaggerating.

Belbury Poly, "Tangled Beams". So this is Hauntology? It reminds me of Broadcast, actually. They probably frequent the same library.

Hanne Hukkelberg, "Do Not As I Do". It wouldn't be a hypothetical mixtape without some warm and friendly Scandinavian pop.

Rheingold, "DreiKlangsDimensionen". Not exactly krautrock, but not exactly not krautrock, I am guessing this is of the genre known as NDV. It must be from the end of the seventies. But I don't know and I don't really care. It's stunning.

Seelenluft, "Horse With No Name". Ooh look, another song that by rights should have gone to the knackers' yard long ago. But here it is, stripped of its America(n)ness, and I could happily listen to it all day. The guy who wrote this song was on Spicks and Specks not so long ago. He seemed like a nice chap.

The Memory Band, "This Is How We Walk On The Moon". It's an Arthur Russell song. Do I need to say anything more? I suppose, if you needed a reference point, you might think Four Tet plus a violin. If you had to.

Amorphous Androgynous, "Go Tell It To The Trees Egghead". This is what "Astral Weeks" might have sounded like if it didn't have Van Morrison wailing away over the top of it and generally getting in the way. (Obviously, I don't mean that at all.) Curiously, Amorphous Androgynous is actually Future Sound Of London, whom I have long felt I should get to know a bit better.

Mouse On Mars, "Schnick-schnack". And a little voice said, "That sounds like her from Stereolab". And so it came to pass, presumably done as a payback for the work MOM did with Stereolab on "Dots and Loops", still I think my favourite Stereolab record, even in the face of fierce competition from almost any other Stereolab record.

Beck, "Cellphone's Dead (Villalobos Entlebuch Remix)". Ricardo Villalobos does this interesting trick with time. Take this song. At around the five minute mark you start to think, Okay, I'm about done with this. And then, before you know it, 12 minutes have passed, and you find that you have gone to another place and back again. Without even noticing. And it happens every time. I don't know how he does it.

Song of the day

"Yea! Heavy and a Bottle of Bread", by Bob Dylan, with The Band, from "The Basement Tapes". I have no idea why. It is completely silly, disarmingly so (hence its charm?), but the music offers the best kind of understated but definitely forward momentum.

Song of the day

"Drowning In You", by Pluramon. This is brand new Pluramon, allegedly from a forthcoming LP. I find it difficult to "read" individual Pluramon songs absent any kind of context; a bit like looking at a panoramic view through a keyhole. But this one sounds pretty nice, and bodes well for the new record.

Anyway, new Pluramon songs don't come around all that often, so a week that starts with one must surely be going to be a good week.

Your bad

More on climate change. You can't really argue with this. At least, you shouldn't be able to. But somebody will. And that somebody will have much more power and influence than you.

Song of the day

"Walk On", by Neil Young. I am heavily into a big Neil Young phase at the moment (it was bound to happen sooner or later). I am being guided primarily by Woebot's recommendations. I last followed Neil Young back in 1979, when I was 15, with "Rust Never Sleeps". Now I am going backwards, not forwards. You never know what you are going to find. "Walk On", the opening song from "On The Beach" (1974), brings to mind nothing so much as De La Soul; it carries a particular lilt that they would have been proud of. Other parts of "On The Beach" bring to mind (for a brief fragment) Marine Girls and (first minute of "Ambulance Blues") Robert Forster. Neil Young predicts the future. It is perhaps no wonder the album didn't find its place in the world until 29 years after it was first released.

Things I learned today

That Sputnik was no bigger than a basketball. I had never really thought about this before. I don't know how big I would have thought it would have been, but I would have thought it would have been, you know, big.

That before they put those guys on the moon no human being had ever seen Earth from space. Again, I had never really thought about it. But it is pretty amazing, isn't it? I wonder what we thought it would look like. And how it made people feel to actually see where we sit in the bigger picture. It might have stopped people from starting wars, for instance. Except it didn't. Now we have Google Earth allowing us to sit at our desks spinning that little ball all day, like the gods we are. Or something.

Song of the day

"Impossible (Possible remake by Studio)", by the Shout Out Louds. About the Shout Out Louds I know less than nothing. But this song will stay on repeat until the end of time. Its blend of Cure and New Order early-80s old (not New) romanticism sends my mind drifting back to a time when everything was good, and the world was indeed a World of Possibility. I haven't heard the original song, if indeed there is one, but to me this sounds more Studio than Shout Out Louds. Apologies to the latter if I am wrong in this.

If not I'll just die

I created a YSI link for The Reels' take on "This Guy's In Love (With You)", from the K-Tel "Beautiful" album, for the comments box of Marcello's new venture. If anyone else is interested in hearing this fine Australian cover version, all you have to do is go here. Don't thank me, thank Dave Mason. And buy "Reelsville", his new album wherein he "covers" his own songs (including "covers" of his own previous covers of other people's songs: hey, kids, post-modernism).

Song of the day

"A Sad Lament", by Orange Juice. "Texas Fever", although it contains only six songs, has always been my Orange Juice of choice. I thought it came closest to Edwyn Collins' presumed vision of a merger of Motown with the Velvet Underground, and with a minimum of (a) outside interference and (b) delusions of stardom. Pure speculation on my part admittedly. If the final 75 seconds of "A Sad Lament" have a fault, it is simply that they are only 75 seconds, and not the five minutes or so that are clearly warranted. Well, that's what the rewind button is for, I guess. (The what?)

GDMFiTunes

Okay, so Wes Anderson's short film "Hotel Chevalier" is available for download, free, from iTunes. Except, as punishment for living in Australia, my iTunes account won't let me download it, because I have no US dollar credit card. Even though it's free. And it's not available in the Australian iTunes store. What's with all that?

Somebody. Gotta. Help. Me. Please. I'm desperate.

One day in September

This year I will be watching the AFL Grand Final on television at home, with my family, as nature intended. That way I can take part in the traditional Half Time Mowing Of The Lawns ceremony.

(And we will be barracking for Geelong.)

Song of the day

"The Song Remains The Same", by Led Zeppelin. When this comes on, and at first you don't know what it is, and your brain is attempting to put all the pieces in place, you will be convinced, for the first ten seconds or so, that what you are listening to is The Clean, or to be precise David Kilgour. Does this mean that Kilgour is a closet Rock God, or just that he and Jimmy Page use the same guitar?

Song of the day

"Bone", by Map of Africa. There appears to be rather a lot of Internet hate for the Map of Africa album. I can't see why that should be the case. Maybe it was made by the wrong people. Maybe the right people made the wrong record. Maybe the methodology was suspect. For myself, and possibly this is an age thing, I have no problem with somebody creating a seventies vibe using 21C technology, especially when (based on the three tracks I have heard) it's done this well.

Stickin' it to the man

This blog would like to express its support for the poor, oppressed monks and everyday people in Burma as they do the collective equivalent of throwing open the window and screaming "We're not going to take it any more".

We might then make a few comments about the usual fate of such "uprisings", and how and why they occur, but as usual George Packer says it all much better than we ever could.

"Imagine that"

The scene: listening, at a good volume, to "Heavy Denim" by Stereolab.

Dad: This song sounds to me like riding down a hill very fast on a bicycle with no brakes and hoping you aren't going to crash into anything.

Seven-year-old: It sounds like a rock song.

Song of the day (mine, not his)

"Lady Bug (Larry Levan Mix)" by Bumblebee Unlimited. What this is, is, a novelty record pure and simple, and yet one that transcends its novelty status by reason of its containing absolutely everything you could hope to find in a ten-minute disco "epic". Respect.

Song of the day (his, not mine)

Marcello Carlin's new (perhaps temporary, but let's hope not) venture is definitely worthy of your time. Oh, and look, he's linked to me. I'm blushing. Again.

I wonder if his picks are genuine inspirations "as of today" (as it says on the tin) or whether he is making a list (and checking it twice). Not that it matters.

Gimme Indie Rock

SFJ recently wrote some kind words about Elvis Costello's "Trust". At least I think they were kind words; with SFJ it's not always easy to tell. The funny thing is, around the same time I found myself listening to it as well, something I haven't done for a number of years (it's easy, but wrong, to allow the bad memory of later Elvis's frequently misguided projects to obscure the fact that with "Get Happy!!", "Trust", "Almost Blue" and "Imperial Bedroom" he was responsible for possibly the strongest four-album run we've ever seen; and the three albums he put out before those were no slouches either).

Coincidence? Or something else? What drew me back to "Trust" was a solid stint of listening to "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" [do you know how hard that is to type?], the new album by Spoon, which clearly, although exactly why I'm not sure, puts me in mind of Elvis's golden era. SFJ in his New Yorker column recently wrote about that album. Was he hearing what I was hearing? I guess we will never know.

But what I do know is that even though it's still September (and yes I know there's a new Manu Chao [put away for Adrienne's birthday] and shortly a new Jens Lekman) I am prepared to say that I do not expect to hear a better album this year than "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga". And I also know that a year that produces "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga", and Wilco's "Sky Blue Sky", cannot be a Bad Year For Music.

Oh crap, part the third

Am I too pessimistic? Well, when it comes to climate change, I don't think one can ever be too pessimistic. Nevertheless, this article (which should be read with, and preferably after, the two I previously blogged) suggests that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, if only we can persuade the leaders of the governments of the high-pollutin' countries of the world to enter that tunnel. Or, more accurately, to acknowledge that we are all already in the tunnel whether they or their constituents like it or not.

Oh crap part 2

And then you read this, which basically confirms a lot of my longstanding worries as to the difference little people like us can make (such as not putting in air conditioning, making us possibly the last house in our street without it). (Short answer: no difference at all. Which is not to say we shouldn't keep doing those little things we can do.)

Act locally = good.

Think globally = depressing.

It seems to me that all we can do now is put our faith in scientists and entrepreneurs to come up with a sudden, dramatic solution comparable to putting a man on the moon. Oh. We did that.

[p.s. I don't really like Tom Friedman's tone, for some reason that I can't put a finger on, but I have always known more after reading his column than I knew before, and it is kind of the New York Times to once again make his stuff available to concerned cheapskates like me.]

Oh crap

Read this and weep.

I have been in a state of moral and existential panic over global warming for two and a bit years now, and I'm not looking like coming to terms with it any time soon. But articles like this are (a) not helping and (b) probably not far from the mark. Remember the story about the frog sitting in the pan of water on the stove?

"Let's go shopping!"

For better or worse, I have decided to give eMusic a go. Fifty downloads a month for not too much money. It's a lot cheaper than iTunes, that's for sure. The quality is no worse, and there are no copy restrictions. It doesn't cover much in the way of major labels or classical, but a lot of what I'm interested in hearing is there, and if I want a classical recording I'm not going below audio CDs anyway.

So my first purchase (after using up the 25 initial free downloads on, finally, David Kilgour's "The Far Now" and a few other bits and pieces) has been made: "West Coast" by Studio. Swedish laid-back post-post-punk/balearic/yacht-rock music loosely comparable, I suppose, to Lindstrom and Prins Thomas although with less of the disco/Moroder. I think. Anyway I was playing it this morning at home for the first time and, on hearing a fragment of track 4, "Origin", Carl instantly said "I like this song, can I have a copy of it?"

I don't understand how Carl's mind works at the best of times, but in terms of music it seems that he catches a fragment of something, once, and it sticks. For example, he took a liking to "Hell Yes" by Beck, from "The Information", which is not what I would have described as the most kiddie-friendly song on the album. We have listened to it constantly now for a number of weeks with no sign of letting up. (I must admit it has also grown on me in the process.) I wonder what he is hearing. As Christopher Robin says, You Never Can Tell.

(Meanwhile, he and his little brother, and a couple of compatriots, have put together a Boy Band for today's school talent quest. They have stumped up the dollar fifty entry fee, and have even written a song. Of sorts. I hope they do well, but we have been trying our best to get them to keep a lid on it. Presumably the word "talent" appears in the phrase "talent quest" for a reason.)

Song of the day

"Disney's Dream Debased", by The Fall. I have always underrated "The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall". I know I have been wrong to do so, and each time I listen to it I am forced to bludgeon myself for my stupidity. "Disney's Dream Debased" is the closest The Fall have ever come to attracting the word "gorgeous", but gorgeous is what it is, proving that what Brix brought to Brix-era Fall was not all bad. (Although I will always hold the view, again likely misguided, that The Fall immediately pre-Brix were the greatest rock band in the history of the world, and that her arrival took them in a different direction such that we will never know how great they could have been. But then, The Fall have always been, and continue to be, heading in a different direction.)

[Editors' note: for further proof of the heft of The Fall circa 1982, head over to Kiwi Tapes and download the live "Fall In a Hole" double-CD.]

Space Is The Place

We give our thanks to the Dream Chimney kids for putting us on to this link, which will send you to possibly the greatest record ever made, "Moog!", by Claude Denjean, recorded for the masterful Phase 4 Stereo series in about 1970. (The whole site is well worth exploring, actually, although it is so full of widgets and gewgaws that it tends to crash my long-suffering laptop.) We have heard bits of this album before, but never the full experience. It is well worth grabbing and savouring. (And at the site you will find the niftiest download facilitation methodology known to man: so simple even I could use it.) Hear why Tim Gane owns three mini-moogs. (Bart, you need this.)

And my eyes fell out of their sockets

New work by Daniel Gillespie Clowes comes around about as often as Halley's Comet, so you would be a dang fool if it took you more than a few seconds to click away from here to here and thusly to his new weekly strip. And you don't even have to pay for it.

Come on baby, light my fire

Just what the world needs at this moment in history: a failed state with nuclear weapons.

A curious thing

In case you were wondering what I look like, the person on the left is me. Except, it's not me. It's Seth, who happens to be one of my favourite comic book artists. But it's my hat; it's one of my overcoats; it's my (says Adrienne) "sensibility". (It's not my satchel, but I wish it was.) The glasses and haircut are very much mine, too.

By an even stranger coincidence, the chap in the middle is Peter from The Beguiling, from whom I buy all my comics. (The guy on the right I know nothing about.)

[Photograph found on the Drawn and Quarterly website.]

When I See The Towers Fall

It still seems like yesterday; the images are still burned in; but it was almost six years ago that the planes hit the towers. It made no sense as it was happening. It still makes no sense really. Conspiracy theorists could insist that it never happened at all, and, from this distance, it is almost a case that could be made. Because how could it have possibly happened? But then you read Don DeLillo's "Falling Man", and you are right there in the centre of it, and in the aftermath of it, and in the ensuing years of increasing distance and increasing displacement. And it can only have been real.

Plenty of novels came out of the second world war. At least two draw on the Kennedy assassination (one by DeLillo himself). There have not yet been many Nine Eleven books. But there will surely be more. Many more. It's interesting that they are taking a while to come. William Gibson's new novel, unsurprisingly [not a criticism], mines the territory. Martin Amis had an early go, was hammered for it, and seemingly got cold feet (come back and have another go, Martin; I still have confidence in you). But I find it hard to imagine anybody besting DeLillo. It is so clearly his territory: heck, he even, arguably, predicted it, having already written one novel dealing with the psychic ramifications of an "airborne toxic event".

"Falling Man", then, if you ask me, is a novel that is almost beyond criticism. In its perfection it is, um, perfect.

And the perfect musical accompaniment must be Ricardo Villalobos's remix of Shackleton's "Blood On My Hands", with its incessant sense of dread, spread over 18 minutes, comprising little more than an understated (but not necessarily "simple") rhythm track, and some screwed-down vocals that convey a very disturbing sense of lurking dread. It is, if you (don't) like, the audio equivalent of those images: you cannot listen, but you cannot not listen.

The King is dead ... Long live the King

So, Mark Vidler, undisputed master of the mash-up, has decided to call it a day. I suppose now is as good a time as any; the genre has fallen into a kind of gimmicky disrepair of late - often the best thing about a mash-up is its name (e.g. "Hey African Ladies"). Perhaps all the good ideas have been had.

Anyway, for now, he has made available a CD-length best-of for download, and you could do far worse than head over to the Go Home Productions headquarters and pull it down. If you haven't yet heard "Ray of Gob" for the first time, I envy you.

Seven-year-old wisdom

"I know how to play James Bond.

...

Jump off things."

For The Record

I have, in fact, continued putting together hypothetical mixtapes, but somehow got bogged down with them to the extent that I couldn't bear listening to them again in order to write about them in any meaningful (or otherwise) way.

And so I list them, without comment, for anyone who's interested. As usual, all material could have been downloaded from the usual places.

January 2007 mixtape:

The Peanut, "Roman Rain"
DSK, "Winter Lane"
Barbara Morgenstern, "The Operator (Piano Version)"
El Perro Del Mar, "I Can't Talk About It"
Marit Larsen, "The Sinking Game"
Charlotte Hatherley, "Behave"
The Yardbirds, "Happenings 10 Years Time Ago"
The Everly Brothers, "Lord of the Manor"
The Hudson Brothers, "With Somebody Else"
Robert Wyatt, "I'm A Believer"
Galt MacDermot, "Ripped Open by Metal Explosions"
Felix, "Tiger Stripes"
Prinzhorn Dance School, "You Are the Space Invader"
Escort, "Starlight (vocal)"
Sinoia Caves, "Naro Way"
Electrique, "La Presse People"
Professor Genius, "A Jean Giraud 4"
Sachiko Kenonobu, "Look Up, The Sky Is Beautiful"
Skyhooks, "Love's Not Good Enough"

March 2007 mixtape:

Love, "Seven & Seven Is"
The Seeds, "Nobody Spoil My Fun"
Minimum Chips, "Know You Too Well"
Other People's Children, "On A Clear Day"
Drop Nineteens, "Kick The Tragedy"
The Houston Outlaws, "Soul Power"
Airliner, "Nostalgia"
McNeal & Niles, "Quiet Isle"
Queen v Sly & The Family Stone, "We Will Rock You"
Brian Eno and Robert Wyatt, "Flies (The Plague of Flies)"
Perrey & Kingsley, "Toy Balloons"
Future World Orchestra, "Just A Matter of Time"
Reverso 68, "Tokyo Disco (Part One)"
Mark-Almond, "City"
Jacques Dutronc, "Hippie, Hippie, Hourrah"
The Guess Who, "Undun"
Stereo Total, "Get Down Tonight" [a must: KC & The Sunshine Band rendered in the style of the Velvet Underground]
Graham Bond Organisation, "Wade In The Water"

May 2007 mixtape:

Backini, "Company B-Boy"
The Primitives, "Crash"
Silicon Teens, "Memphis, Tennessee"
James Brown, "Call Me Superbad (Cornelius Rework)"
Eddie Maelov and Sunshine Patterson, "Lines"
Sen Kumpa, "Niawal"
Miami Horror, "Don't Be On With Her"
Dave Pike Set, "Mathar"
The Professionals, "Theme from The Godfather"
Annabee-Nox, "Always On My Mind"
The Runaways, "Cherry Bomb"
Quarks, "Wiederkomm"
The Alessi Brothers, "Seabird"
Robert Palmer, "Johnny and Mary"
Glass Candy, "Miss Broadway"
Ada, "Maps (Mayer & Thomas Remix)"
Copeland Davis, "Morning Spring"

and, to bring us right up to date:

July 2007 mixtape:

Vallerenga Blues and Disko Combo, "Ballerina"
Datashat, "Stop The Message"
Hilary Duff, "Danger"
Glass Candy, "The Chameleon (Acapella)"
Shanghai Au Go Go, "I Cried All Winter"
The Seeds, "Can't Seem To Make You Mine"
Junior Senior, "Move Your Feet"
Junior Parker, "Taxman"
J-Walk, "French Letter"
Scott Walker, "Maria Bethania"
Manu Chao, "Rainin' In Paradize"
Zalatnay Sarolta, "Egyszer ..."
Lez Dantz & His Orchestra, "Louie Louie"
The Honeymoon Killers, "Histoire A Suivre"
A Mountain of One, "Innocent Reprise"
Liechtenstein, "Stalking Skills"
The Come Ons, "Hip Check!"
Ricardo Villalobos, "Baila Sin Petit"

Song of the day

Beck, "Soldier Jane". Wouldn't it be nice to be Beck? To be able to take your shopping trolley along the endless aisles of the music supermarket, pulling off the shelves a bit of this, a bit of that, and, when you get home, throwing them into a big pot, adding some dada poetry, and hey presto, it's another album of Beck songs. An ingredient I didn't expect to see him using, however, was Simple Minds' "New Gold Dream '81-'84". But that's exactly what he employs on "Soldier Jane" from his most recent album, "The Information", in the process creating a song that, unusually for Beck, has a bit of emotional heft. Only a bit, admittedly, but at least that's a start.

This goes with this goes with this

Of the many descriptors I have used for Stereolab over the years, I don't recall Giorgio Moroder coming into the frame. But there I was, casually listening to Sparks' "No 1 In Heaven" album, when "My Other Voice" started up. Clearly, there was the rhythm track from "Contronatura", the last song on "Dots And Loops", and one of three on that album produced with Mouse On Mars, with all of its walking-on-a-bed-of-snails crunchiness, waiting to get out.

And then I was compelled to listen to "Familj" from the new Dungen album "Tio Bitar" (which is not the instant classic that "Ta Det Lugnt" was, but is rewarding further, and deeper, listening), and there it was again. I swear.

Giorgio Who?

No, it's not Armani. No, it's not Moroder (although he will be mentioned here anon, if I can only find the time to do a little listening/research). Yes, it's de Chirico.

I used my lunch break to wander across to the NGA to take a gander at its new baby. Very nice it is, too. There may not be any trains, children rolling hoops, or shadowed piazzas, but there is quite a lot going on in such a small square of canvas. The colours are intense, especially the central orange and that big blob of green in the top right. And in spite of the lack of obvious visual signposts, it is still very much a de Chirico.

Disappointingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, I had the painting to myself for as long as I wanted to look at it. Send in the crowds.

A Handful Of Dust

Seems like we only fire up this blog when someone dies.

Today's unlucky winner:

Max

Roach

drummer.

Against Nature

There is a God. I thought I had called His bluff. Then when I wasn't looking He turned around and bit me on the bum.

Meanwhile, what is the song of the day? It is either "Boobs A Lot", by The Fugs, or "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart", by Julee Cruise, depending on when exactly you catch me.

Song of the (Sun)day

"Si Mi Caballero", by Françoise Hardy. The perfect song for a day when, to paraphrase the oracles (Roy and HG), too much melancholy is barely enough.

Dead Souls

This just in.

People seem to have either loved or hated Tony Wilson. Or both. But try to imagine a world in which he had never existed.

Surprise song of the day

"Cardboard" by The Cannanes. Unheard for probably 15 years, this popped into my head in the shower this morning, a song from the best years of my life, when the McCartin Street / Simon's Lane axis was in full effect, the seven-inch single was king, and songs like this could be heard on South Gippsland community radio (even if that was only because we played them). The Cannanes summed it up best: "1988 - Celebrate Everything Else."

Song of the day

"Girl", by Beck. "Guero" is an album which has been unfairly slept on around here (c.f. "The Information", which has only just now been acquired, second-hand, with a bonus DVD of unknown content, but with NO STICKERS - well, except the one on the CD case that says it comes with stickers: how's that for a paradox, it's messin' with me 'ead). However, given how easily its standout tracks have slipped back into my head, it must have gained some traction at the time, which is funny, because I can't actually remember the physical act of playing the damn thing (perhaps it was on an extended rotation in the car).

"Girl" is a fantastic song; Beck in full-on summer pop mode. What ices it is the way he sings the "Heeeey" in the chorus as if he were Hank Kingsley in "The Larry Sanders Show", the most lovably pathetic sidekick in the history of television comedy. (Somebody please go to Jeffrey Tambor's Wikipedia entry and get his psychopathic star turn in "Muppets From Space" on there.)

Say it ain't so

Well, we knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier when you see it in black and white:

Mr Hazlewood, he gone.

Still, if you're going to die, you might as well die in Vegas.

Song of the day

"Vamp", by Trentemøller, from "The Last Resort". The cover of this album, by the way, is a thing of great beauty. 2007 must be the year of the bass guitar. What with the Shit Robot remix of Dondolo's "Dragon" (technically 2006), Prinzhorn Dance School, and now this fabulous track: there is nothing like some heartfelt thunking on the bass strings to get the hips moving.

July in August

I just read a couple of Miranda July pieces in the New Yorker, which I really enjoyed, and now I stumble upon a link (thanks SFJ) to the website for her new book. This, I think, is my second-favourite use of the Internet of all time, after Richard McGuire's beautiful Willing To Try (hint for that one: you have to allow pop-up screens)

But back to Miranda July: click on this link and keep clicking the right arrow (itself a beautiful object) at the bottom of the screen. And enjoy.

3.32pm update

Closely followed by Debra Dejean's [who?] version of "Time Of The Season", from 1981, which contains a lovely little echo of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, for them what are listening.

Song of the (bad) day

"Für Alle, Die" by Klee. In the middle of the most stressful work day of the past 8.5 years, this is the perfect antidote. The fact that I have no idea what she is singing matters not.

Song of the day

"Shut Up And Drive" by Rihanna, because of the way it takes "Blue Monday" to places New Order could never have imagined.

Nouvelle Vague / New Wave

Someone had an idea: get a band that has made a career of doing cover versions of songs from (loosely) the New Wave era and have them curate a two-disc selection of (loosely) New Wave-era bands doing covers of songs from earlier times.

The result can be viewed here.

As you can see, they have done a pretty good job of it. Nice to see the Silicon Teens given top billing: they are one group that seems to have completely fallen through the cracks of the space-time continuum, sadly. Also full marks for avoiding "Money" by the Flying Lizards: "Move On Up" will do nicely (although the Jam also covered that, perhaps a little bit too reverentially for it to have been included on this comp, but that would have allowed in turn for the inclusion of the FLizards' fine version of "Summertime Blues"). And Magazine's Barry Adamson-led assault on Sly Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)" should have been squeezed in.

Whatever. As things stand, this collection still manages to include three of my all-time favourite songs, covers or no: Snakefinger winding his way around Kraftwerk's "The Model", Devo's extraordinary version of "Satisfaction (I Can't Get Me No)", which I think I have mentioned before around here, and (ditto) The Slits definitively spoiling Marvin's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" for anyone who may later have had a notion to record it, in the same way that Hendrix appropriated Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower" in an earlier era, making the song all but untouchable from then on (heck, even Dylan himself took to playing the "Hendrix version" in concert).

(There's probably a thesis in there somewhere, along the lines of why is it that someone's own song always seems like fair game for other artists, whereas a cover version of someone else's song can become an unimpeachable standard. But I'm not going to write it.)

George W Bush and the Deathly Hallows

Those of you with a morbid interest in following what must surely be the death throes of the American adventure in Iraq might spend the necessary few minutes reading Peter Galbraith's latest trawl through the tea leaves. He offers at least two jaw-dropping moments: one, at the start of the piece, which is of the blackest black humour (if it wasn't so damned tragic); another, further on, of pure horror. (Also a seemingly bad apostrophe, which can be a cause of distress to some of us; we have never before seen a bad apostrophe in the NYRB.

Not so sure about his proposed exit strategy, however: withdrawal to Kurdish territory, whilst it might provide some comfort to the poor old Kurds, who have been perhaps America's staunchest, or only, allies, and who otherwise would appear poised for instant annihilation, surrounded as they are by large numbers of people who hate them, can surely only bring with it the same problems as have beset the Americans ever since they set foot in Iraq, only with a reduced footprint. Although, to be fair, one gets the impression he is proposing this not so much as a "good" solution as one that is marginally less fucked than all the others he can think of. Which may be all anybody can hope for.

Song of the day

"Things You'll Keep" by the Apartments. Possibly the quintessential Australian song of melancholy hue. Sends me to the brink every time. With the ending of the Go-Betweens, it is timely indeed that Peter Milton Walsh has now brought the Apartments out of mothballs. More power to him; it would be nice to think that the Apartments could have a second coming, like that of the Go-Betweens, where recognition spread beyond the writers and readers of music magazines. All together now: "AS IF!"

Song of the day

"Another Station" by Lindstrom. I have been so hung up on "I Feel Space" that I hadn't been able to make room for this, what I think is the follow-up although Lindstrom and his pal Prins Thomas are so prolific it's hard to tell. It has everything "I Feel Space" has, and doesn't deserve to be lost in its shadow. I particularly like the high-pitched, whining synth line that has been pulled straight from Pink Floyd's "Animals", an album which I loved to bits as a 13-year-old but which I can't quite bring myself to listen to now for fear of disappointment.

Song of the day

"Torch (Extended Version)" by Soft Cell. "Torch" was always my second-favourite Soft Cell song (although I have always had a soft spot for the grubby, sleazy synths of "Sex Dwarf"). And yet I now know, thanks (as so often) to Mr Carlin, that I have only been listening to a mere fragment of the actual song, like walking in in the middle of a one-act play and walking out a few minutes later and thinking you have seen the whole thing. This version should really have been called "Torch" and the 7-inch (and album) version "Torch (Severely Truncated Version)". But that may not have been a strong selling point.

And speaking of iTunes (...) the rapidly ascending Australian dollar has brought about a serious pricing anomaly. We Australians are paying $1.69 for something holders of an American credit card can buy for 99 US cents, which is presently the equivalent of around $1.13 Australian. Doesn't seem quite fair to me. The Economist might think about publishing an iTunes Index to complement its Big Mac Index.

Song of the day (2)

"You Can't Please Everybody" by The Aints. Ed Kuepper's riff-o-rama anti-Saints project from the days when he was putting out three or four records a year. The rhythmic structure of this song bears a faint resemblance to "Wild Thing".

Song of the day (1)

Iron & Wine, "Peace Beneath The City". We recently, uh, "found" a copy of what purports to be the new album by Iron & Wine which someone had carelessly left unattended. In the nature of reclusive and introspective boys with guitars, Sam Beam has now chosen to expand his sound palette considerably. Such a move always takes some getting used to. (Paging Bob Dylan.) We will need to listen more closely to this album, but for now we would just like to say that "Peace Beneath The City" is as good a song as we have heard this year; it looks as if Sam has been listening to Brightblack Morning Light, which is not a bad thing to have been listening to.

Song of the (yester)day

Amerie, "Gotta Work": because I've just had a week off and now, well, I've "Gotta Work". I only wish I could be as enthusiastic about it as Amerie obviously is about her own "work". (It would also be nice to have a pair of legs like hers, but as a 43-year-old man I don't imagine they would do me much good.)

Song of the day

"Stay Away From Robert Mitchum", by April March. First, because it's a great pop song. Secondly, because when heard from the next room it sounds like they are singing "Stay away from rubber chickens", which, to a longtime Melburnian, brings to mind one thing and one thing only: Rod Quantock.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Oi! Oi! Oi!

It ain't what you do it's the way that you do it

Because you love lists, here is a list. Three albums which, according to computer matching techniques, I should be totally digging but which, like, I just can't seem to "get".

Battles, "Atlas": billed as the new thing to beat all new things; main dude's father is the actual Anthony Braxton; they have the chops, they have the technology. But (a) The Shower Scene From Psycho were doing silly helium voices possibly before Battles were even born; and (b) didn't Talking Heads and Brian Eno write the book on blending organic sounds and rhythms with electrickery on the "More Songs About Buildings And Food"/"Fear Of Music"/"Remain In Light" trilogy?

Tracey Thorn, "Out Of The Woods": as much as I worship at the feet of the Marine Girls and "A Distant Shore", I always found Everything But The Girl a bit too safe, a bit too supermarket-friendly, for my liking (first album "Eden" honourably excepted: "Crabwalk" was just the breath of fresh air a moribund 1984 needed). Sadly I can't seem to get out of my head the awful feeling that "Out Of The Woods" is cut from the same cloth as EBTG rather than, as hoped for, a Kate Bush-style long-delayed follow-up to "A Distant Shore".

Air, "Pocket Symphony": has the look and feel of having been brought into existence because it was time for another Air record rather than because they had to make it; a real letdown after the life-changing/affirming "Talkie Walkie". Where is the heart and soul? Notable for the most grievous misuse of Jarvis Cocker known to man. And the world didn't need another Air record anyway: we're still absorbing the quite wonderful "5:55", an Air record in all but name.

In case you were thinking I never heard a record I didn't like.

Alan freed, man

The only problem with this great piece of news is that (a) it had to happen at all (ie, the kidnapping) and (b) it took so damn long (ie, the release).

Song of the day

"Cowgirl In The Sand" by Neil Young, from "Decade". Because some days you need a 10-minute guitar rave-up to get you kick-started.

Song of the day

"Star Witness", by Neko Case, from the album "Fox Confessor Brings The Flood". Which has been around for a while, but for unexplainable reasons achieved maximum impact as it shuffled to the top of the iPod pack, while I was travelling home on the bus, in the dark, with the lights of Canberra appearing and disappearing around me. Neko Case may not have the most mellifluous voice going, but it is perfectly suited to the kind of country slant she gives the songs on this album. It is the kind of voice that picks you up and pins you to the wall. In a good way.

(There is another song on the album called "Margaret vs Pauline" which reminds me of work, where Margaret and Pauline have adjoining offices, although I have never seen any evidence of the use of "vs".)

Headline of the week

From the New Yorker.

The piece is worth reading, too.

Song of the day (slight return)

"My Uncle" by the Flying Burrito Brothers.

(On finding seven-year-old peering intently into laptop screen.)

"Were you listening to that song?"

"Yes."

"Did you like it?"

"It's funny."

"That's country music." (Dads always like to educate.)

"No, it's funny music."

"Okay, it's funny country music."

"Dad, it's funtry music."

And thus was a new genre born.

Lost on the freeway again

Sorry. I've been sick. And just when that "Song of the Day" thing was going so well. Well, I thought so. Mystery virus, unstoppable dry cough combined with fevers and drenching sweats. I save my antibiotic intake for events like this, so had no hesitation when Doctor Steve wrote the prescription. The cough is hanging on, but much less pervasive. Temperature normal, fitness levels critically low. Hanging in there.

Hell, I even had to miss an episode of "Life On Mars".

Normal transmission will resume. Some time.

Ridiculous photo caption of the week

From an article on the BBC website about the mayor of an American town banning a certain type of clothing:

"Low-slung trousers are fashionable among some young people"

Cool!

Whereas, what I really wanted to know was what exactly is going on in the Gaza Strip right about now, and, parenthetically, what it might mean for the fate of the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston.

Song of the day

"Smoking Her Wings" by The Bats. If "Pink Frost" wasn't so darned perfect in every way, this would be a strong candidate for Greatest Song Of All Time To Have Come Out Of Dunedin. Which, contrary to what you may think, is not an insignificant achievement.

Song of the day

"Rainin Paradize" by Manu Chao. It's hard to believe that it's six years since "Clandestino" knocked me sideways on first listen. It's impossible now to recreate the sheer "what the"-ness of that moment, but now we have a taster for the next album, which Mr Chao is very generously offering as a free download on his website. It's not itself going to set the world on fire but it is nice to have something new to chew over. Thanks go to SFJ for the tip.

Song of the day

"King Street" by John Kennedy, because it's kind of nice to be unexpectedly reduced to tears by a "mere" pop song.

Song of the day

Today's song is "Memories Can't Wait" by Talking Heads, from their 1979 album "Fear of Music". We give thanks to the great god of CD remastering for his tremendous work on the Talking Heads back catalogue. I still maintain that "Remain In Light" is their magnum opus, but the new, clear "Fear of Music" highlights just how innovative they were sound-wise. David Byrne has said that they tried to make each album sound distinctive, which is not always noticeable when listening to it by way of well-worn vinyl.

"Memories Can't Wait" works especially well on the new CD, as I no longer have to cringe at the unintended distortion when the stylus cannot cope with the extended frequencies adopted. The song reappears in its original pristine glory, a testament to the works of the great god of studio jiggery-pokery, Brian Eno. Probably very few Talking Heads fans would have had stereos in 1979 that could do justice to what he created. Now we know.

The only downside of the CD is that it doesn't come with the embossed faux-linoleum of the original record cover. But that's why you should keep your vinyl collection irrespective of how much you replace with digital media.

Bob Dylan predicts the future

In "Dylan On Dylan", there is a transcript of the televised 1965 San Francisco press conference, parts of which, if I have my facts straight, were included in Scorsese's "No Direction Home" documentary. Dylan's answers are variously unhelpful, cryptic, scornful, obtuse and contemptuous. In short, reading it is a hoot. One question and answer, however, necessitates a double-take on the part of the 2007 reader:

Question: If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?

Dylan: Ladies garments.

And it came to pass that, in 2004, Bob Dylan appeared, for money, presumably, in an advertisement for Victoria's Secret, purveyor of, yes, "ladies' garments".


[It is probably safe to assume that the missing apostrophe in Dylan's answer is not the fault of Dylan himself, although as what we are reading is someone else's transcription of what he said, we will never know. It is hard to recognise a spoken apostrophe.]

Song of the day

"Impossible Germany" by Wilco. The new Wilco album, "Sky Blue Sky", has generated rather a lot of hate amongst the hipster blogniscenti. Luckily, I was able to decide that I liked it before reading any of that. And I am not about to change my mind. (But then, I am possibly not the person to ask, given that my favourite Jeff Tweedy projects are Wilco's "Summerteeth", the Woody Guthrie project "Mermaid Avenue", and the first Loose Fur record.) What were they expecting? Battles, perhaps? (More about Battles anon.) Anyway, the second half of "Impossible Germany", or maybe the final two-thirds, is the best example of the Television methodology that I have heard since, well, since Television.

You're A Good Man, Jeffrey Brown

In which Jeffrey Brown, "cartoonist", takes a poem, adds images to it, and finished up with something of a depth that mere words, even poetry, cannot convey.

Song of the day

Kathy Diamond, "Between The Lines": it's not exactly disco, but not exactly not disco. It is too dark of hue, too redolent of early-80s post-punk navel-gazing, to inspire many conga lines. Imagine Magazine's take on "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)" but with a (slightly) more cheerful, female singer on board. In fact, if you told me that the bass on this could well pass for Barry Adamson, I wouldn't raise any doubts. (But then, I've always been the gullible kind.)

Song of the day

"New Bully in the Town" by the Laughing Clowns. Four minutes of music so intense, so kinetic, it will leave you needing a cup of tea and a lie down. Did I ever tell you that Jeffrey Wegener is the greatest rock'n'roll drummer in the history of the universe? (Oh, yeah, I think I did.) This song is the proof.

Song of the day

"Danger" by Hilary Duff. There, I've said it.

Song of the day

With an album as sprawling and disparate as "I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass", it is inevitable that songs will fall through the cracks (especially when the album starts with a return to the big-rockin' Yo La Tengo of yore). On a blind tasting, I failed to pick "Black Flowers" as being by Yo La Tengo at all, nothwithstanding that I have listened to the album several times. My only reference point was "Paris, 1919" by John Cale. I know enough to know it wasn't that, but it is remarkably close, even down to the "ghost" of "la, la la, la la, la la": how did they learn to sound so Welsh?

Song of the day

"FM" by the Junior Boys, from their second album "So This Is Goodbye". This comes closest to the coiled-snake, all-tension-no-release aesthetic of their first LP. But, sitting as it does at the end of the record, it works more as a kind of elegy.

Discovery

Listening to John Fahey's "Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Palace Of King Philip XIV Of Spain", from the live disc "The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick", recorded in the late 1960s, I was surprised to discover that John Fahey invented Led Zeppelin.

But then, stranger things have happened. For example, I recently found the template for the entire recorded works of the Laughing Clowns buried in the first few minutes of "Bakai", the opening track on John Coltrane's "Coltrane", on Prestige, from 1957. (Oh, and by the way did I ever mention that Jeffrey Wegener is the greatest rock'n'roll drummer in the history of the universe? Apologies to the late John Bonham, but you know it's true.)

Song of the day

"La La La" by The Bird and the Bee. I'm beginning to see a pattern here ...

And yet the self-titled album by The Bird and the Bee is crammed full of terrific pop songs, any one of which, if it shuffled its way to the top of your iPod, would be an instant Song of the Day.

Centenary

I hereby declare today International Rachel Carson Day, in honour of what would have been the 100th birthday of the woman who, seemingly single-handedly, woke the world out of its slumber in relation to the damage that indiscriminate spraying of chemicals was causing to humans and to the planet. You can read what the master, E B White, wrote after Rachel's death here.

What is becoming increasingly clear, as the news regarding climate change goes from bad to worse on an almost daily basis, is that the world now needs another Rachel Carson to brush the cobwebs from our eyes. But who will it be? Elizabeth Kolbert (who writes here about Carson, and who herself has covered climate change for the New Yorker with horrifying frankness)? Or will it be Al Gore? (Some time ago I formed the view that the only person standing between us and oblivion is the next President of the United States, whomever it may be. Although their first job, not a small one, will be undoing the damage done by the current President. The problem being, of course, that the people who should be voting the the next President are all the people who cannot do so, namely, the rest of the world.) Tim Flannery? Bindi Irwin? Me (Heaven help us)?