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Wednesday 29 June 2005

well me hearties i'll get this out of the way for now,
let's big up their chests, a plug for some Sheffield folk and the Discus crew:

>FRIDAY 8 JUL 2005
>MICK BECK WORKSHOP BAND
>Mick has been rehearsing a large workshop band this year. Final lineup of
>10 - 12 pieces tba, but expect both familiar and some new faces.
>8.00 pm £5 / £3
>SHEFFIELD INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND
>MAPPIN STREET
>
>THURSDAY 7 JUL
>Martin Archer - software instruments
>Martin will be playing a solo laptop set at the ex NatCenPopMusic as part
>of an evening of events
>SUNDAY 3 JUL 2005
>Chris Meloche - electroacoustic guitar
>Martin Archer - software instruments
>Nick Robinson - guitar
>Mick Beck - bassoon
>Charlie Collins - vibraphone
>Chris is a Canada based electroacoustic composer with many releases and
>broadcasts to his name including the recent Outward Sound Ensemble release
>on Discus. Expect minimal soundscapes going toward improv with Krautrock
>overtones.
>8.00 pm - £5 / £3
>OVER THE TOP, 78 KINGFIELD ROAD, NETHER EDGE

&

>I really hope you'll be able to make a date in your diary for this coming
>sunday July 3rd at Over The Top, 78 Kingfield Road, Nether Edge, Sheffield
>for the first UK performances (and indeed the first live date for 10 years)
>by Canadian composer / improvisor Chris Meloche.
>
>8.00 pm, £5/£3
>
>Chris is an intriguing musician with a string of releases / broadcasts /
>installations to his name. His music is essentially drone based, but with
>a deeply evolved sense of texture and densely packed with events. Shades
>of both Lamonte Young, but with a Kraurock edge to my ears, this latter
>helped by the fact that Chris uses guitar + effects rather than synth to
>create much of his work.
>
>There will be 3 contrasting sets on the evening. Chris will play with Nick
>Robinson (guitar), with myself (software instruments), and with Charlie
>Collins (vibes) and Mick Beck (bassoon).
>
>This does promise to be a special gig, it would be good to put on a full
>house for this one!


sorry for the >'s, i'm a bit rubbish

Tuesday 28 June 2005

RIP James Nuttall

Monday 27 June 2005

many congratulations to Qasim

Saturday 25 June 2005

- a large middle-aged chap wearing a black Neu t-shirt with NEU picked out in large orange letters. superb like a Brian Clough shirt {"we sat down..."}.

- the only Glasto coverage i've seen thus far has been Royksopp, the White Stripes, Norman Cook and MIA. no prizes for guessing who i enjoyed most. then again i ain't been to Glasto for years. Norman Cook, though, in a big thing over the stage.
amazing!
quite good, really.
i was next to a Brighton fan at the last Manchester derby i managed to get into (a London blue had brought 'em, London City fans presumably being rarer creatures than London Utd fans) and they told me all about it.
Andrew Motion is an Arsenal fan, apparently.

- Big Brother eh! i mean the tv programme. i saw it last night (i normally live in the back). i ate a panang curry (beef) with it, and my food was good.
a Zimbabwean mate told me one of the girls (in the programme) who'd i'd assumed was from England is in fact Zimbabwean. they actually showed me Zimbabwean newspaper opinion columns online excoriating her risque behaviour.
there's got to be something wrong when an extremely attractive woman gets slagged.. . no i'll not finish that sentence.

- one of the greatest clubs in the world (here: being a fuckwit i'm not there, of course...) is 10, er, tonight. their flyers around town have rip it up and start again as one of the slogans. funny eh... ...well for some bloggers, or a re-issued Orange Juice-type fan. er.
sorry.
genuinely it is, btw, i'm not just saying that, no fashion victim club is the Electric Chair, and not just guitars/bands, no, an actual club (with lots of different sorts of music; it's true!). you may have heard of it.
for some reason i am at home listening to grime (which is hardly torture, granted) and not there.
hmm.
bah.

- i've been shifted someplace else at work. my first day my 19 y/o colleague to my left and i started talking music [jazz, indie, chart pop, soca]. she identified herself as mostly listening to bashment (and Kano, plus some folk i'd never heard of, and that John Legend geezer).
yes indeed. finally not a mean-spirited Razorlight fan {no disrespect, i just mean where i work, in the very narrow and defined field of my immediate surrounds}.
hurei.
to be fair, all the kids in the place listen to Wiley, as far as i can tell, Roll Deep and the B15 Project (which is not B12, mercifully some might say), and all the snarky older geezers to Ryan Adams/Conor Oberst/local indie alterna outfits like Keith or such {there's probably somebody in the rear listening to Whitehouse or Joe Jones or Smetana}.

- borders are worthless to us

~ Bahman Ghobadi

- it is a bit strange, almost, listening to 'Fix Up, Look Sharp' and Kitchener and various cheeba-cheeba style acts, and lots of African tunes and loads of stuff one is laughably unfamiliar with, in a major city art gallery, but there again the exhibition was this one. paired with this one, which made for an interesting distinction.
i don't know what i think of the former but the latter had a great portrait of that Kramer of Leeds.

- isn't clay amazing.

- Ruff Sqwad are astonishing. this is said a lot, but they are {or were, or whatever; it's true}.
there is some old sample and it is some old soul singer and she is toasting in over regal trumpets and she is testifying and in the background go-go types are having it large (as parlance would have it) and it's a cliche but true that some delicate reed work is being done with a squadron of ryuteki players, or something.
and this is the background.
what was that Gummi Bears cartoon?
make that live action but with Brian Blessed and Michelle Yeoh and set it in Dakar and some Irish forests and then put these sorts as the OST with old wooden staffs being used, and it would be good.
it is like you are watching your favourite recent Danish movie or have gone to Sheffield's Korean film festival or are eating a big bag of chips cruising down a Bruges canal, or whatever it is you like to do, really.

- oh the Killers were on too [is it just me? is it just me? oh alright there's one or two tunes yes]. and some other bands, probably.

- that Vince Vaughn film, Old School, with Will Ferrell and Elisha Cuthbert and your man Wilson.
i FUCKING LOVE that party bit they have at the beginning and they drag Snoop Dogg out and Vaughn's character says something along the lines of "my friend and your favourite", i love that bit, i really do, that particular line, for some reason it amuses me.
i actually do.

- this has been an even extra than usual pompous prick post, but still nevermind eh.

- you know that bit in the fourth season episode of Red Dwarf called 'Justice' where they're sentencing Rimmer for basically murdering about 1,800 people (or whatever) which is whatever way the Justice computer sees it and he can't for the life of him remember what they're banging on about and so the computer barks out about "your wilful negligence..."
and he gives it

oh that

how good is that?
how good?

seriously.

it's like that bit in an episode of Blackadder II when Stephen Fry says "he was a very perceptive man Sir Thomas More" and as a good chum of mine ain't unfond of pointing out, nobody laughs.
nobody laughs!
and it's brilliant.

"list of suitable candidates for the post of Lord High Executioner"
the timing in that scene is spot on, as Sean Bean would say for extra cold cooking lager.

"...Lord Blackadder..."

then he ravels back his parchment.

excellent stuff.

- this computer (that i'm typing on) is bloody rubbish ~

- lots of sqeeuing soon{ish} over bloggers that linked to my book tag thing.

- i wish i were in South Bend.

Friday 24 June 2005

unusually sharp (+ concise) Auntie analysis on why to do fuck all

Tuesday 21 June 2005

Thursday 16 June 2005

THAT GUY

Charles Clarke - once again - ably demonstrating how good he is at pissing his life away

Tuesday 14 June 2005

a bit of a naive rant

there is some unwelcome news.

Xfm, the alternative radio station, have won a license to broadcast in Manchester from later this year.

SDC's favourite the NME is {perhaps predictably} pleased with the onset of a quality music channel in the city that gave the world the Smiths (oooh!) and the Stone Roses (ahh!).

Xfm promises listening Mancs a "guitar-led quality modern" platter of tunes [from artists who challenge mainstream pop aesthetics, apparently; point 6 on this link is KLASSIC].

good things about Xfm Manchester:

- a Mark Rae, he the Grand Central hip-hop head, show. apparently.
- also a Blood & Fire show, so i imagine that will basically be a superior version of Mark Lamarr's reggae show on BBC Radio 2. so that, to be fair, is clearly actually good news.
- now, some people aren't fans of Mr Scruff, but his 'Hot Pot' programme on another local station is alright, better than much radio content, so why not.

so why unwelcome?

because one of the stations Xfm was bidding for the license against was this one.
check this RWD feature for backup.

so, bah!

i think i might at least go and post the Unity URL at a livejournal community i'm a member of; a tiny spreading of the word.
yunno?

bah.

oh, on a lighter note, thanks to Si, Jon and Baal for their book shouts (some fascinating answers at WoP & ETW, and nice common ground with SDC).

also managed to see the In at the Deep End DVD last night.
despite the fact fried dumplings and fish made me hungry, it was great.

some key points i took away : -

- Wiley drives an Audi! must tell an Audi-fannish mate of mine. he recently bought a car for 87 pounds. he drives a Skoda but has an interview with an Audi dealership. rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of a company car.
absolute dime bar, really.

- fried dumpling, fish.
mm-hmm.

- Riko almost blissbloggerish in his views on listening to dnb as a young un thinking grime would come along, grow out of it - it being dnb etc. - or away from it [well, i mean, you say what you want in interviews, but you see what i mean]. really quite a hardcore-continuum shout that {i dunno if that's outmoded these days?}.
what, is this projecting on my part?
anyway.

- the documentary is funny, highly entertaining, along with the one on ones fascinating viewing, and a repeat watch.

good, good stuff.

Monday 13 June 2005

actually, i think i could do without Weezer or Razorlight fans so airily dismissing the entire back catalogue of Destiny's Child.

but - you know? - at least there is a little light.
some, you think?
allow them.

and spats.
handbagging is just cheering, innit.

my favourite is Chirac, the jester, the joker.

a beekeeper spreading smoke.

knows his lines off by heart.

love it.

read some on the economics, if you want [and hadn't].

Saturday 11 June 2005

Pearsall tagged me:

1) Total number of books I've owned:

numbering in the low hundreds, probably (100-200 most likely). when a uni student it seemed easy to pick up second-hand books from charity shops, cheap university co-operatives and inexpensive local stores. currently, i own about 20 books or less, over half of which are music reference ones anyway.

2) The last book I bought:

Time Out’s City Guide to Chicago (most recent edition in the UK, 2004), planning for a visit there later this year.

3) The last book I read:

see above! or dipping into currently anyway… …it’s good on history, the blues [unlike some guidebooks to Chicago, house is {rightly, BLOODY OBVIOUSLY} given more prominence than, say, Tortoise or Liz Phair or the Smashing Pumpkins: still astonishes that we have to type this here in 2005], popular culture, and the like. it really, really makes me want to drink a large Scotch 96 storeys above the city’s streets (Signature Lounge at the John Hancock Center). i’m making a long bus journey next week so i might take The Bonfire of the Vanities with me then. started that book about five times, never finished it.
i like Wolfe’s bite, if not some of his views in the introduction in the edition i’ve got.
one day there’ll be a blog post about it… …i do remember quoting a short excerpt on this blog once, from quite early in the book, when he uses the word “fuck” several times in one paragraph to (to me) arresting effect.

4) Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

i guess you do this bit formally with the writer following the title even if the piece of writing concerned was like, Hamlet, or something.

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler. there was an interesting post or two on Dissensus quite recently about how he went all reactionary (or something), but this is a brief masterpiece.
concise brilliance.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. you can tell this is going to be a genuinely great novel as soon as you read about the rule regarding the too cold temperature at which the prisoners don’t have to work, and shinning up to see the thermometer.
Waterland, Graham Swift. Swift’s first, and best. a very good friend of mine bought a copy for his closest friend, when said friend was about to start work as a history teacher. i introduced it to my girlfriend, and i know she recommended it to someone else. for years now i’ve been a really shit reader (or can be) and i’ve genuinely not properly finished this book either, but i do love it.
it’s startling, and luminous, vast, slow, fast, and very, very good.
in terms of evoking place, it’s special to me like For Whom the Bell Tolls {cheating sixth?!}.
it just improves with age.
btw, this has always been a cool Graham Swift site.
Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, Nancy Scheper-Hughes.
immense (and frequently extremely moving) ethnography, which discusses what it says on the tin, o nordeste; matters maternal close to the bone in the northeast of Brazil.
anthropology as excellence, in a nutshell.
really the only more academic type of book that i’ve turned to as often as this in the past would be maybe the likes of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy [Ted Honderich you naughty controversial boy you...] to dip in to, Herbert Read’s art anthologies, or 'Eastern philosophy' companions.
i’m afraid the most i’ve ever got into science books has been some maths collections, or Hawking, or introductions to Feynman, etc.
The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa. simply one of the finest novels of the twentieth century.
(really) long-term readers of this blog might recall a bit of a breathless post here once enthusing about rough lads, tri-cornered hats and the like, their guttural Sicilian accents.
starts in divine style and – amazingly – doesn’t let up.

5) Tag five people and have them fill this out on their blogs

i dunno who’s still reading this blog these days anyway and whether anyone who did this would want to do this on their page anyway, but here goes:
my lovely, lovely Jon (just out of interest, like), the fab Harm, that woman Geeta [think i remember an entry on this topic on The Original Soundtrack not long ago, but my memory is rubbish…], magnificent Baal and last but most definitely not least, that sozzled rogue Craner {probably best on this one, if at all}.
the Welshman even works in a bookshop!
i read that Chrissy Hitch interview in a recent Time Out and it was just like an older Gower boy.
Marvellous stuff.
P.S.
on the subject of books, one of the best things of the year at all has been P Shapiro knocking out a second edition of the rough guide to hip-hop.
NUM NUM

Tuesday 7 June 2005

short version of Dorian Lynskey's typically Guardianesque (that is to say, typically poor) review of In at the Deep End:

i like my blues authentic, damnit!

Sunday 5 June 2005

Dispatch estimate for these items: 6 Jun 2005

Delivery estimate: 7 Jun 2005 - 8 Jun 2005


excellent.
and a DVD too, not that i own a DVD player.
presumably accompanying posters will be a little larger than the insert in the CD case of Wiley's album.

+

am seeing Bobby Conn in manchester tomorrow, not exactly by choice as such but hey. Destiny's Child are in town the same night.
wah.

somedisco has been a bit indie rock of late, reports to follow i fancy.

not that you'd perhaps want to take in Destiny's Child if you took into account the grandiose language of Paul Morley on them, but i'm mostly inured to his claims these days [perhaps not arguing with his 'sold their McSouls' analysis, granted: certainly not on the day British tv airs the McLibel documentary again - a far finer film than Morgan Spurlock, incidentally].

+

been rinsing all five tracks of the CD single of Insomnia for much of today.
the Monster mix, now that's a big big tune {even its radio edit}.
clearly.

the Tuff mix might be a grower though, it kind of sounds a bit Richie Hawtin at times.

to be in a field in 1996 watching Faithless would be no bad thing.

Saturday 4 June 2005

a few days ago or so (it was the 31st of May, 2005, to be precise), The Times ran a pretty big feature - in its main paper - on funk carioca.

catch up team.

i mean, talk about pulling your finger out of yer arse!