Saturday, May 29, 2010

My brain mainly on the music of the Cure

More to report on this week than in recent weeks, including multiple video clips, so will just get into it!

Music

This week I have been on a bit of a Cure binge, having bought the Disintegration special edition on CD (looked like too nice a package to yield to download), although I haven't got to listen to the extras yet. I do love much of the album, particularly 'Lovesong', seen live below:



This tempts me of course to rant a little about the Cure, as I did in my very first post on this blog here. For now, I will just confine myself to commenting that not only does 'Inbetween days' remain my favourite song ever, but it actually has 2 of my other favourite Cure songs, making it quite possibly my single favourite cultural artefact: 3 songs, around 9 minutes of pop perfection in one perfect package. The first b-side is 'The exploding boy', quite the cousin to its A-side in feel and percussion, but with some cool sax at the start and a great tumbling rolling pace:



The second b-side is 'A few hours after this', which features quite possibly my favourite use of strings in the pursuit of lightness in pop ever:



In other musical acquisitions, I just tonight downloaded from eMusic the new albums by Tracy Thorn and Stornaway (curious from reviews of the latter, and having a soft spot for the former since one my my favourite lines ever appeared in 'Come home' - 'every day's like Christmas day without you, it's cold and there's nothing to do'). I was also surprised to find David McAlmont and Michael Nyman's collaboration on eMusic, which had perked my interest when it came out (I liked the McAlmont/Bernard Butler album, particularly 'Yes' and 'You'll lose a good thing', seen below), so I downloaded that too.


Lots to listen to, reviews to follow.

Books
As well as continuing to work my way through the weighty biography of Francis Crick, I have been reading on Kindle a really interesting book called 'Evolution versus creationism' by Eugenie Scott, which is a highly readable and comprehensive overview of a debate which, to me as a scientist, is almost incredibly straightforward in its lopsidedness, but the book helps lay out clearly the sheer absurdity of the creationist arguments and literature.

I had a birthday during the week, and among my presents was a very unusual book called 'My brain on music' (see below) which I immediately added to my parallel book processing activities and from which I have already got more of a feel for concepts like pitch, tone, chords and timbre than I honeestly ever had. I have always been a complete illiterate in the actual science of music, and found it completely impenetrable, but this enjoyable and accessible book gives me new hope that I may actually come to some sort of passing terms with this stuff:
I also bought a compilation of interviews, transcripts of shows and articles about Bill Hicks, of whom more below (for €3.50 in HMV) and downloaded 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' onto Kindle for around the same price.
Movies
Purchased 'Sherlock Holmes' from iTunes, copied the movie file to my laptop, and watched in part-screeen while working on a train to Dublin. It really is a very good and clever movie, and I just love Downey Jrs voice and script, and interplay with Jude Law. On the completely trashy front, I as interested to see the trailer for 'Predators' (below), and was sad to hear last night that Dennis Hopper died, although I would not have been a huge fan, barring his role in 'Speed', for which I always had a huge soft spot:



Other stuff
During a busy cultural week, I managed to listen to three great American alternative comedians, Bill Hicks (on a DVD I bought cheap ages ago), Emo Philips and Steven Wright (both of which albums I downloaded from eMusic); I must admit none of them blew my socks off as I expected they would, but I will talk more about them next week. I also got the second series of 'Terminator chronicles' for my birthday (enjoyed the first) and bought myself 'The road' on DVD.
Also, Uncut had a cover CD which looks kind of interesting....
All in all, lots of acquisitions to work through over the coming weeks!
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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Phsophorescent, Drive-by truckers and pirates

Quiet week this week, so just a few updates:


Music

Listened to a mix of Phosphorescent's album of Willie Nelson covers and their new one ('Heres to taking it easy) and actually finding it really nice, if a bit on the country side of alt. I particularly love their cover of 'Can I sleep in your arms', which can be seen here, and this 'Last thing I needed (first thing in the morning), which can be seen here:



I also went back and listened to 'The big to-do' by Drive-by truckers a bit, of which my favourite is the admirably brief 'It's gonna be (I told you so)', below:


The National's gig from Brooklyn is still not being shown to irish viewers on Vevo, dammit. Am, however, starting to think about going to Electric Picnic to see them (and lots more besides).....

Otherwise, listening to some more Ryan Adams in the sunshine for some reason, and a Tindersticks playlist helped while away a train trip today, along with a playlist I made of the best of 2008, which really was a great year for music (Vampire Weekend, Glasvegas, TV on the Radio, Tindersticks, American Music Club and much more besides).

TV

Switching around the other night I found a great routine by Chris Addison from 'The thick of it' on pirates, which I found on youtube as below:


I also welcomed Michael Madsen to 24, as we just don't get to see enough of him these days. Looking even more like Elvis after many years in biker prison, and just as cool as in Reservoir Dogs. Poor old Jack has gone completely apeshit by now, though, and the fact that this is apparently the last season to be made leads to interesting speculations as to just how phycho he might get before this day is out. I wonder would the 25th and 26th episode of each season show him doing nothing but peeing, eating, sitting down and perhaps even snoozing? What exactly is he on and how does everyone else manage to work 24 hours without a yawn? Finally, does he or anyone else get paid over-time in CTU?

So, that's nearly enough for today and this week. Suffered through 'The proposal' which I don't think I will even comment on except to say that Ryan Reynolds must be the most expressionless actor I know. I am also struggling in denial about the fact that I may be getting hooked on Britain's got Talent for some inexplicable reason.

To end on a more positive note, I bought the DVD of 'The road' (which I reviewed on release here) and interested in the commentary and making of to see how relates to the book. Just joins the pile to catch up on though!

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Saturday, May 15, 2010

'The Dial Waltz' by Boa Morte and more...

Spent quite a bit of last week travelling to and from the UK for work, so not much to report in many categories. I finished 'Cheney' and overall found it a quite balanced and actually rather fascinating portrait of a very strange and quite scary man. Next on Kindle is probably to finish 'Who really runs Ireland' by Matt Cooper, which I abandoned a few weeks ago with too many new downloads to try out. I also enjoyed on TV the sight of Sky News' Adam Boulton losing his cool in rather spectacular fashion to Alistair Campbell in a very 'Thick of it' scene here. Obviously, it is often surmised that the legendary Malcolm Tucker was based on Campbell, and it is very very easy to picture him standing there with that scary half-grin on.....

Anyway, main stories thus about music and movies for this week:

Music

Listening to ‘High violet’ a lot, unsurprisingly, and reading every review I can get my eyes on; these are generally very positive, and Q gave it album of the month. It is pretty firmly established in my head by now, and has matured to a much more coherent album than I may have first feared. As I have wittered on about before, I have never approached an album with such a mix of fastidious research and anxious anticipation before, and I am still not sure I have sufficient perspective for an objective review as yet. My favourite switches from day to day (‘Lemonworld’ usually tops, in fairness), and ‘Anyone’s ghost’ is steadily growing on me (it is close to their first 3-minute pop song, in my view), while ‘Runaway’ is clearly far superior to ‘Racing like a pro’, but I do not yet have my ‘Apartment story’. I also find myself singing lines like ‘I don’t have the drugs to sort it out’ or ‘I was afraid I’d eat your brains’ at inappropriate moments!

They appeared on BBC's Later with Jools Holland on Friday night and played very good and slightly different versions of 'Bloodbuzz ohio', 'Anyone's ghost' and 'Terrible love'. I have only found a clip of the first on-line so far, which is below:







Last Saturday night, they also played a concert in Brooklyn which was streamed on Youtube/Vevo, which I did not stay up for as it would have started at 3 in the morning Irish time! I am counting on it becoming available afterwards but so far the footage is not available to Irish viewers for copyright reasons, which is pretty bloody frustrating. Hopefully this might change (lots of complaints on the site), or at worst maybe a DVD will ultimately appear. The fact that is directed by the legendary DA Pennebaker should hopefully make it enough of a big deal to warrant wider distribution, if no reason other than the band and record company (and Vevo) would surely make money from a European distribution (certainly a healthy profit from me alone).

In a more local (to Cork) development, I know through work a member of a band called Boa Morte, who have just released their second album 'The dial waltz'. Boa Morte are very Americana in spirit, even if from Cork, and their music has a hushed gradneur and stately grace particularly reminiscent of Lambchop in their more mellow phases, or perhaps Smog. I have seen them live quite a few times and so many of the songs are familiar, but they are lovely and tracks like 'Darkened doorway', 'Priceless prize' and the beautifully-titled and sung 'All this we must consider' really grow on you with their slow and sombre atmosphere. The harmonies when used are unusual and quite ghostly at times, and I like the subtle drumming. I found one video, for 'Wooden floor', below:



Their homepage is here, their Myspace page is here, and they are very much worth checking out for anyone who likes the sort of music discussed on this blog.

Otherwise, I have listened some more to AA Bondy, which is really quite lovely, and I really like his voice. Songs like 'On the moon', 'I can see the pines are dancing' and 'Mightiest of guns' are perfect examples of the kind of alt-country which I have previously raved about so extensively, and which I find fewer great examples like this of each year.

Movies

The Guardian on Friday had a very interesting article on fan-made movie parodies and homages on Youtube, which can be read here. I checked out a few of these and really enjoyed 'Award-winning movie trailer' below:



There was also a very funny DVD commentary one here, and some of them showed how much work people are prepared to put in, including the mini-epic 'Hunt for Gollum' below:




Otherwise, I did get to watch 'Zombieland', which I downloaded onto my iPod last week, and watched it on a trip to the UK, between a long train trip and my hotel bed. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it, and found it quite watchable on the small screen (will certainly try soon to hook up to my TV and watch that way too). Classic moments included the whole opening credits, the point at which out two heros meet (the thumb!), the 'puppy love' clip, and of course the celebrity cameo which I am sure everyone knows about by now. Well worth my first experiment in iTunes movies, and the viewing experience made up in convenience what it may have lost in scale (as for books as per recent discussions on this blog). Of course I could not see myself watching 'Avatar' on it, but for some things I think it will do just fine.

That's all for now, as already a day later than usual posting! Click Here to Read More..
 
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