Song of the day

"I Can't Hardly Stand It", by The Cramps.

You really should go to see "Only Lovers Left Alive", the new Jim Jarmusch film, while you have the chance. His films never stay on for long, and the last one, "The Limits of Control", was only screened in Canberra as part of the "Blink and You'll Miss It" series at the ARC, over summer, and on dates when we were interstate. (Which was a shame, because it was unusual for a Jarmusch film in being shot largely in broad daylight, and I would much rather have seen it as intended, on the big screen, than as I ended up seeing it, at home on the telly.)

"Only Lovers Left Alive", on the other hand, is of necessity filmed entirely at night, or in darkened interiors. This is because it is a vampire film, a genre of which I have seen precisely one film: this one. This makes me, of course, an expert. Well, it doesn't, but that's okay because this is not really a vampire film at all. It is, rather, a very sweet story -- a very sweet story that just happens to be about vampires. It is also a very funny film. It looks fantastic, as well, particularly the scenes shot outside, at night, in the streets of Tangier and Detroit. (Was that really Jack White's house?)

The male vampire lead, played by Tom Hiddleston, is a collector of vintage stuff, especially stuff relating to music, and the film might be taken at one level to be a lament for things having been better in the "old days". (So, it probably really was Jack White's house, then.) This includes listening to music on seven-inch, forty-five-revolutions-per-minute vinyl discs. It also includes preferring the obscure original to the better-known cover version. (And haven't we all done that?)

In this case, though, my vote is for the cover version. Actually, I didn't even know until watching this movie that "Can't Hardly Stand It" was a Charlie Feathers song (thus revealing that I don't watch Tarantino movies). And, perfectly in keeping with the tone of the movie as the Feathers recording is, I can only hear it through the prism of The Cramps, whose version I know better than I know my own name, and who probably themselves knew a thing or two about vampire movies. Plus, no band was more retro in the early eighties than The Cramps, which makes Jarmusch's choice of this particular song, for me at least, close to perfect: it posits that one person's retro is another person's modern travesty. Either that or he just happened to have a copy of the record lying around.

Song of the day

"Call It Ours", by The Legends.

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this song before, but such would appear to be the sorry state of things. Time to make amends then, by giving you the chance to be thrilled, as I am every time I hear it, by the sound of Swedish power pop laced with the spirit of C86. I also can't believe I first heard this song 10 years ago. I guess that makes it old. (Not old like me, though.)

Dangling participle of the month

The description of one of the entries in the 2014 National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery caught my eye. Its final sentence reads:

"Shot during the last few weeks of the season, the boys went onto win the EFL final."

In its earlier days, the New Yorker would regularly have a field day with this kind of thing, running them in order to fill space at the end of articles (in the days before electronic typesetting, it wasn't so easy to adjust the text of an article, fiddle with the size of cartoons, add or subtract incidental illustrations, etc, in order to get the the text of a story to end at the very bottom of the page).

The editors would almost invariably follow them with an arch and/or witty one-liner. In this case, mine would be something like: "Sometimes motivational speeches just aren't enough."

As for the exhibition, we are agreed that the portrait of Reg Mombassa should have won.

(And furthermore: there is a difference between "onto" (which it says) and "on to" (which it should have said). End of sermon.)

Song of the (birth)day

"50 Year Old Man", by The Fall.

"I'm a fifty year old man,
What are you gonna do about it?"

For the next 12 months, this is going to be my answer to everything.

You have been warned.

Hypothetical mixtape: May 2013

Here we go again. Not really catching up, are we?

"Soul Confusion", by The Keith Mansfield Orchestra. With its groovy bass line and "funky drummer" beats, its Hammond lead-out, some breezy horns and a serious guitar solo, this would not have sounded out of place on a 1990s Karminsky compilation CD. Keith Mansfield, as you know, is one of the masters of British "library music". This one must have escaped from the library: it was released as a single in 1969.

"Side By Each", by Richard Torrance. This has a similar understated waltz-time melody line to the one made famous by Miles Davis on "All Blues", from "Kind of Blue", and subsequently put to good use by Tim Buckley on "Strange Feelin'". (I have a feeling Beck may have lifted it at one stage, too, but I can't put my finger on it (well, this is in 3/4 time and has pedal steel, but other than that it's not really a good reference point. Maybe I made that up).) But whichever way you cut it, to borrow a Richard and Linda Thompson album title, it pours down like silver. (Obviously, if you combine it (if you combine anything) with pedal steel I am like putty in your hands.)

"Roxy Roller", by Nick Gilder. Dude had a hit in Australia with "Hot Child in the City". This was his first solo single. I suspect he had been listening to T. Rex at this point.

"Golden Belt", by Marc Bolan. This recording is Bolan unadorned: just that voice and a flesh-piercing blast of electric guitar. Thing is, the T. Rex / Bolan sound is so singular that your mind is more than capable of filling in the missing pieces. Think of all the money they could have saved!

"The Everlasting First", by Love. Notable for the words "Jimi Hendrix on electric guitar". Which is enough for me.

"No Fun", by The Black Keys. Seven-inch single released for 2013's record store day, with the Stooges' original on one side and this (no) fun yet faithful cover on t'other. The Black Keys are an interesting proposition: they would appear to have managed the impossible task of infiltrating the top end of the charts while not deviating from their chosen path.

"Masters of War", by Mark Arm. "Masters of War" might be my favourite Bob Dylan song. Why? Its unrelenting bleakness would seem to be a neat fit with the early Bad Seeds, which is largely whence my interest in Dylan sprang, so that might explain it. Mark Arm, who probably also listened to a bit of Nick Cave in his day, takes the song and turns it into the kind of dirge that might have slotted very tidily into "The Firstborn is Dead". Love the song, love the version. Taken from a seven-inch single from the days when seven-inch singles set the tone.

"FixUrLifeUp", by Prince and 3rd Eye Girl. I haven't been looking, admittedly, but this might just be The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince's first certifiable earworm since the 1980s. Doesn't say "Jimi Hendrix on electric guitar" (see above) but you wouldn't have been surprised if it had.

"Look At My Window", by Flower Travellin' Band. These chaps appear for the second month in a row. This time, it's with an epic journey that almost asks for more than its allotted 10 minutes, and would have warranted it. You might locate it somewhere between Canterbury-scene prog and early Sabbath. I once worked on a theory that 1974 was the greatest year for rock music, but I am now leaning towards 1972-73 as some kind of high-water mark. Whatever. (Whenever?) It's all good.

"Get Out of My Life Woman", by Grassella Oliphant. Titular sentiment aside, this is a rip snorter. Grant Green on guitar, "Big" John Patton on the B-3: what could possibly go wrong?

"On a Clear Day You Can See Forever", by The Peddlers. More Hammond goodness: oo-wee baby.

"Angel", by Fra Lippo Lippi. Here is a song in what might be titled "high eighties" style (see also "The Captain of Her Heart", by Double, from two months back). How is it possible not to love that guitar sound? From Norway, as if to say that "high eighties" was the universal language.

"All You're Waiting For", by Classixx feat. Nancy Whang. In some ways this might be an update of "high eighties" (albeit more New Order than Sade). Regardless of its ancestry, though, it's got Nancy Whang on vocals, and, while we wait for the next Juan Maclean release, it will do nicely.

"Wonder (Ray Mang Mix)", by Rune Lindbaek feat Kurt Maloo. How many credited artists does it take to make a record? Do you wind up with music by committee? Who is steering this goddamn ship? Does it really matter? Not when the cover of the record depicts a moustachioed chap in a Viking helmet, surely.

"Renata (Daphni Remix)", by Holden. The lines that I thought existed between Dan Snaith's work as Caribou and his work as Daphni seem to have been blurred, or scribbled out, in this remix, which has much in common with the harsh resonances of the "Swim" album, by Caribou, whereas it is tagged as a "Daphni Remix". Well, who really cares? It's still the same guy, and it's still excellent music.

"Changes (James Blake Harmonimix)", by Mala. If Dan Snaith is now putting out similar music under different monikers, James Blake has spent the last few years putting out music of wildly divergent styles under the one name: his own. This remix continues the trend: I'm not sure where it would comfortably sit in relation to his vast body of work, but it is nevertheless a haunting and gorgeous piece of music that is, in its own way, I think, recognisably his. (Did I just contradict myself?) Contains, unless I am imagining it, which I suspect I am, perhaps just the tiniest hint of Laibach.

"Bodo (81)", by Mammane Sani. Fascinating: late-seventies synth music from Africa. Who knew?

"Wild Geese Descend on Level Sand", by Chuck Johnson. I got into solo guitar music by way of James Blackshaw, a few years back, but then, really, it first bit me many years ago when I started buying John Fahey records from second-hand record shops. Heathen that I am, I can't always (or ever) appreciate the technical know-how and, uh, "stuff" that can go into playing a guitar (although I am able to sense, listening to John Fahey in a live context, that it really can be a wrestling match between Man and Guitar, with no guarantee that Man will be the winner), so I tend to follow this type of music (well, most types of music, really) on account of whether it grabs me emotionally (not a connoisseur of "licks" and "chops", me), which this piece certainly does.

Song of the day

"Time of Your Life", by John Foxx and The Belbury Circle.

Belbury Poly sounds like this:



The Advisory Circle sounds like this:



John Foxx sounds like this:



Put them together and it sounds like this:



You could not have even dared to imagine that this could happen. It happened.

Song of the day

"Echoes of Songs (for Trish Keenan)", by Simian Ghost.

Simian Ghost have pulled on my heartstrings once before. Here, they do it again, with a song inspired by / dedicated to Trish Keenan, the much missed singer with Broadcast (whose loss is felt more keenly by the day, as we continue not to discover where that fine band was going to take us next on what seemed, and still does, a limitless journey through musical space). Life sucks sometimes, but if its suckiness occasionally gives rise to such beautiful things as this song, well, it's not entirely bad.

Song of the day

"Headache", by Terranova (feat. Cath Coffey).

It takes until three minutes into this song for the instantly recognisable bass riff to kick in, meaning that, aside from a vague sense of familiarity, it took three minutes until I realised I was listening to a song I already knew.

"Playing With A Different Sex", by Au Pairs, might not feature in many lists of favourite post-punk albums, but it is a record I have always been partial to, for its cool attitude and thundering bass lines.

Kompakt might well be best known as a techno label. Its best days might be behind it. (This, though, is arguable, and, even if true, its less-than-best days are rarely less than excellent days.) Kompakt also wrong-foots the devoted (and the sceptics) from time to time by throwing surprising, and surprisingly successful, cover versions into the mix: T. Rex's "Hot Love", for example, which appears on the "Kompakt 100" collection; they even enlisted Pet Shop Boys for a take on "I'm In Love With A German Film Star", which is perhaps the only cover version of a personal talisman that I have ever been able to listen to more than once. Add this one to the list.

(Note: the video cuts two minutes from the song; this makes no significant difference, except that bass line kicks in 30 seconds earlier than described above. Just sayin'.)

Song of the day

"The River People", by The Walkabouts.

Listening to "Rain", by Jimmy Tait, the subject of yesterday's Song of the Day, put me in mind of The Walkabouts, a band that never really got the credit they deserved (or who, perhaps more accurately, were ten years ahead of the times they were made for). They were a shining light amidst the gloom of the "Sub Pop 200" compilation in 1988, at a time when the bulk of that record's intended audience was only interested in the gloom [sheepishly puts own hand up].

I recently hunted down an album of cover versions they made in 1993, and was surprised to hear a song that sounded remarkably like the second song on Robert Forster's 1990 debut solo album, "Danger In The Past". I'm not good with names, as anybody who knows me will attest, but surprisingly (or not) that extends to song names. What it took me a while to realise, therefore, was that it is actually a cover of that same song (and there I was about to accuse Robert Forster of having ripped somebody else off -- whoops). The song is called "The River People" (as I now know) and, apart from the obvious phrasing/timing at the start of the verses (if we can call them that; it's not exactly a verse-chorus-verse kind of song), The Walkabouts play it very differently from Forster. Yet the particular haunting quality that often comes through in Forster's songs is intact, only deeper. (The other curiosity is that the vocals on the Walkabouts version bear a more than passing resemblance to Grant McLennan.)

"Danger In The Past" was produced by Mick Harvey, who also plays most of the instruments on it, and who hails from Rochester, which, as you know from yesterday, is within spitting distance (depending on wind direction) of the home town of Jimmy Tait. And so here we are, right back where we started.

Song of the day (local content edition)

"Rain", by Jimmy Tait.

Jimmy Tait, it would seem, grew up in northern Victoria, in an area not that far from where I spent quite a bit of time in my youth at my cousin's farm outside of Rochester. (Indeed, the house on the cover of the album this song is from, "Golden", looks not unlike my cousin's parents' house.) The last time I was in that area was on a road trip with the 14-year-old, when we drove across the Murray Valley Highway (so many cows) with a necessary stop-off at the bakery at Strathmerton, which is really just a stone's throw from Jimmy Tait country.

I couldn't profess to pick any connection to the area just from listening to the music, but it does kind of make sense, when you know. "It all comes down to the rain" is so true.

The temptation with a song like this is to go big at the end. And big it does go, but in a gradual, sneaks-up-on-you kind of way, such that the hapless listener doesn't even notice until the storm is all around them. And by then it is too late.

I have been unable to hunt down a linkable version of this song. In the meantime, you can find it here.

Song of the day

"Deep Time", by Steve Moore.

I have been accused of liking a song on account of one particular detail, ignoring everything else. It has even been suggested (14-year-olds: they pull no punches) that what I am actually hearing in the song is something entirely different from what I think I am hearing.

Take this song, for example: what I think I am digging is the chord sequence. What I am really digging is the unusual time signature. Maybe the 14-year-old is right. Or maybe he is listening to the same piece of music through his own ears and imagining they are my ears. He has a point, though: the two things rolled together, I now see, are what make the song.

Do people say "digging" in 2014?

Song of the day

"A Walk In The Dark", by Minisnap.

I wonder how many of you knew that six years ago Kaye Woodward, long-time guitarist with The Bats, put out an album called "Bounce Around", under the name Minisnap. I thought I was a fairly close Bats-watcher, but I only stumbled upon it by happy accident a little while ago. You couldn't, in all honesty, say that it wanders very far from its parent project (not surprisingly, since Minisnap is essentially The Bats minus Robert Scott, doing Kaye's songs), but it is certainly never less than enjoyable and at times it's much more than that. This is the last song on the album, and one of the best. I am very partial to the guitar work on this; it splits the difference between "classic Dunedin" and "first Cannanes album".

Hypothetical mixtape: April 2013

Consumer advisory: this month's playlist has been written under the influence of the cold that has been cutting a swath through large parts of the Canberra public service in recent times. So it is without the wit and sharp observations that I usually bring to the … Wait … What's that? … I don't? … Oh. Well then, you will hardly notice the difference. On with the, uh, show.

"Pinball", by Brian Protheroe. Mostly with these playlists I am leaning towards music that I either have never heard before or haven't heard for an unfeasibly large number of years. This song is a bit different, in that I have long been partial to a "rework" of it by Ashley Beedle. But now, having been acquainted with this, the original, I am inclined to think that any reworking was, really, unnecessary: it isn't a song that requires added echo or squelchy synths, or an extended "mood-setting" opening minute or so (not that any of those things are necessarily bad); it can stand on its own two feet.

"Os Grilos", by Marcos Valle. There are so many Marcos Valle albums called "Marcos Valle" that it's impossible to know which you know and which you don't know. This one is from 1970. There is an English version of this song, translated as "Crickets Sing For Anamaria", which appears on an earlier Marcos Valle album, but which is vastly different in tone. It is a song that has also been done by Emma Bunton. And she even got away with it. Imagine that!

"She's A Lover", by The Pretty Things. It's always about The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Animals, The Small Faces. (I could go on.) But it isn't often that The Pretty Things enter into the discourse. (When do they get their Mojo cover?) Which is a shame, because you couldn't really describe them as of lesser worth than the others. Their trajectory appears to have been similar: from blues rock to psychedelia to more straight-ahead "rock". "SF Sorrow" and the "Defecting Grey" EP may have been their high-water mark, but the following album, "Parachute", contained no signs of tailing off. Take this song, for example: it wouldn't have sounded that out of place on any of the later Beatles albums, for example, would it?

"The Skies Above", by The Equals. Astounding. Performs the seemingly impossible feat of being both heavy and effervescent. As the album title says, "Sensational". What I wrote above about The Pretty Things could probably also be said about The Equals, although they had the added hurdle, in those pre-enlightened times, of being of, uh, "mixed race". 

"Satori (Enlightenment)", by The Flower Travelling Band. Tripped-out guitar-and-wailing goodness from Japan, circa 1971. You could perhaps be inclined to refer to it as the Japanese "Pictures of Matchstick Men". But then again, maybe not.

"Dear Prudence", by Katfish. The Beatles song, done in a curious early seventies Laurel Canyon style, with added psychedelic touches. Charming, actually, and the download link still seems to work. Lucky you.

"Be Thankful (For What You Got)", by Winston Curtis. You can't have too many versions of this gem of a song. William DeVaughn both times? Check. Massive Attack? Check. This one is done in a reggae style(e). It is smooth as silk. The business happens at 4:15, but the journey is the thing.

"Bourgie', Bourgie'", by Gladys Knight and the Pips. "Disco euphoria" personified. Prepare to be uplifted at the 55-second mark.

"Foxy Pup", by Nirosta Steel. There was a time when every week (or so it seemed) a new Arthur Russell track would rise to the surface, adding to the already complex web of discography attaching to this elusive, unpindownable musician. Those days are long gone, now, but bits and pieces do occasionally appear, such as this track, and a few others by Nirosta Steel, which were released a year or two back. It doesn't add much to what we already know, but it's Arthur Russell; it's all good. You might say "This is just 'Let's Go Swimming' with different lyrics". You wouldn't be that far wrong, but you would also be totally missing the point.

"Anne Cherchait L'Amour", by Jacno. This is an icy, haunting piece of French synth-pop, from 1979. Given how hard I fell for "I'm In Love With A German Film Star", I shudder to think what this would have done to me had I heard it back then.

"Her Needs", by Sandra Plays Electronics. This song has razor-sharp edges and harsh surfaces. You wouldn't want to touch it with bare hands. Uncovered and released by Veronica Vasicka's Minimal Wave label. Hasn't she done some sterling detective work over the last couple of years?

"Mali Koori", by Bassekou Kouyate & Ngouni Ba. This is as dry and windswept as the Malian desert. I could use an album of this.

"Requiem Solution (feat. Loreen) (Prins Thomas Remix)", by Kleerup. It's hard to listen to this and not think of the first Air album. It may be just the bass; it may be more than that. It's a minor chord happening.

"Painted Faces", by Jacques Greene + Tinashe. Tinashe: "American singer-songwriter, record producer, actress, dancer, and former model." Yes, but can she make a decent cup of tea? Jacques Greene, well, he is a Canadian, and that's okay.

"Selfish", by The Other Two. The other two being Gillian Gilbert and the other one, um, Stephen Morris (sorry). Did anyone remember that they put together this New Order side project? Presumably it was in pointed response to Bernard Sumner's Electronic. And then Hooky went rogue …

 "Even When The Water's Cold", by !!!. Now how in the heck are you supposed to pronounce that? (Well apparently it's "chk chk chk", but in my own mind Philip Brophy cornered the market on that pronunciation with this Australian late-70s art-punk project.) The first time I heard this song I immediately thought I recognised something in the vocal mannerisms. I realised I was thinking of Spoon. Curiously, I then discovered that that band's Jim Eno (who is not the singer) produced the song. He also added piano, such as you hear on Spoon records. The song also grows on you in that particular way Spoon songs do. (Not that I have any intention of overdoing the comparison.) It's on Warp, although it could just as easily have slipped out under the DFA banner.

 "Horizon Unfolding", by Fantastikoi Hxoi. Six minutes of understated but insistent Krautrock take us out for the month. Nationality and time period are a mystery that is not solved merely by studying the title of the song and the name of the band. (1970s? Albania? Wrong. Greece. 2012. But each possibility would be as strange as the other.)

Song of the day

"Black Eyed Dog", by Nick Drake.

I can never listen to Nick Drake without feeling a nagging, non-specific sense of guilt. This is crazy, of course: there wasn't anything I could have done to change the course of his short life. Heck, I was ten years old when he died, had never heard of him, and anyway at that time his music hadn't even travelled very far beyond the few people who had a hand in it being recorded and released; it certainly wouldn't have reached the ears of a child in South Gippsland. (And even if it had, what would that child have made of its quiet, non-demonstrative, haunting tones?)

(In fact, my first exposure to the name "Nick Drake" came in about 1977 (or so), when I read a review of "Bryter Later" in the Australian fortnightly music paper RAM; it must have been either a reissue or, perhaps, the first Australian release. I don't remember getting any sense from the review of it being anything other than a new record. For whatever reason, lost to time now, the review stayed with me. (Thanks for that and much else besides, Anthony O'Grady.))

Nevertheless, his story permeates his music, even forty years later. Who, after all, was Nick Drake? Aside from the records, other recorded fragments, photographs, and reminiscences (and as much as I worship at the feet of Joe Boyd, I can't help suspecting that his own memories might, intentionally or otherwise, have been  twisted by decades of external hagiography), we only really have mythology.

My best guess is that, to paraphrase Brian Wilson, Nick Drake not only wasn't made for his times, he wasn't really made for any times. Living in the world, at least the world outside of his family home, seems to have been too much for him. So, if he had had during his lifetime the success that his music obviously deserved (and has posthumously attained), what then? The evidence suggests that he wouldn't have handled it. His story was destined not to have a happy ending. Perhaps the best he (we?) could have hoped for would have been three albums released to moderate acclaim and sales, followed by more of the same, to similar or reduced sales, a common enough career arc for a musician (think Ron Sexsmith; or Aimee Mann; or, maybe even, Elvis Costello). Maybe there would have been a latter-day hipster-driven revival, a la Johnny Cash or John Fahey.

But that's not what happened. Those three albums remain, they have always been with us, they have never been diluted by whatever may have happened next because nothing happened next.

Well, nothing except the Four Last Songs. They first surfaced, at least officially, on the vinyl box set "Fruit Tree", which was released in 1979 and then released again, in slightly different form, in 1986. I spent many afternoons gazing wistfully at the latter, perched, as it was, on a high shelf beside the counter at Discurio Records in the city, but, as a poor university student, I had no hope of ever being able to buy it. By then Nick Drake was a name that you saw around, but, in that pre-internet age, it wasn't easy to actually hear the music. That didn't happen for me until some time later, when I picked up a copy of the 1986 "Time of No Reply" CD compilation. So to my ears "Black Eyed Dog" sits (un)naturally as a part of the Nick Drake discography. It wasn't until later again that I learnt the real story of it, and of the other three stark, desolate, desperate pieces of music that were recorded at the same time. They are all the sound of a door closing.

"Black Eyed Dog", I think, hits hardest of all of them, harder than any other piece of music I can think of. I cannot listen to it without involuntarily shuddering. And yet I cannot not listen to it. Look, here I am doing it again. Like a rabbit in the headlights, waiting to be struck down but unable to move; mesmerised.

Song of the day

"December Ice", by The Bats.

Sneaking out under the radar, as music from New Zealand has a tendency to do, this lone song was released by The Bats on iTunes late last year with virtually no fanfare whatsoever. And yet The Bats continue to do what they have always done: make music because they can, while there is still time, and with passion and enthusiasm. Because they mean it, man. It is a song that was "left off" their last album (suggesting, wrongly, that is an inferior cast-off). "Free All The Monsters" found them mining a particularly rich vein (and, in "Simpletons", digging up one of the standout songs of their long history). And "December Ice", being in the nature of "more where that came from", is worthy of your attention. (The suggestion on the souncloud spiel that there are unreleased "space jams" from the same sessions seems too good to be true, and may well be a wind-up aimed at people like me. Thanks, fellas.)

1963 New Yorker cover of the day

Heeere, kitty kitty kitty ...

Cover artist is Andre Francois, who was responsible (it says here) for 54 New Yorker covers (that's over a year's worth!), but this was only his second. (He also did this pretty extraordinary cover for "Lord of the Flies".)

(Click for an enlargeable version. If that works.)

Snowboarder of the day

Ah, yes. Chumpy Pullin. The snowboarder so rad (or is that "gnarly"?) they named a song after him.

(Actually the song came first, but chronology is just a bourgeois construct.)

He carried the flag for Australia at the Winter Olympics. He was our gold medal hope. He crashed out in the quarter finals. He was subjected to media obloquy. Did he ask for any of it? We are so quick to put our sporting heroes up on a pedestal, and even quicker to sink the boot in when they don't live up to our inflated armchair expectations. It would be nice if commentators (amateur as well as professional) sometimes thought before they spoke/wrote, and kept in mind that there is a human being, with all of a human being's usual vulnerabilities and frailties, behind the media image.

And anyway, not that I know anything about snowboarding, but the four-man snowboard cross looks more like a crapshoot than a sporting event: how well you do seems to depend more on what happens to the person in front of you than on your own skill. Roll on 2018.

"Chumpy", by The Clean. 

Sound of the day

"Bremen Nacht", by The Fall.

No drum program ever written, or that will ever be written, can hope to emulate the sheer physicality of the thwack of the snare drum in "Bremen Nacht".

The 2:40 mark is where it really happens. But it is kind of all through it. (YouTube is probably not the best place to hear it, obviously. But what can you do? Hopefully you have your own copy of "The Frenz Experiment".)