Youtube Killed the Video Star

I don't blog here any more. Let me get that out of the way from the start. Not that anyone who reads this will care, but just in case someone, somewhere, stumbles on this post. I write now here and here. I don't have any moral reasons why I don't use Blogger any more, I just find that Wordpress is a better blogging platform, and find that Tumblr is well suited to posts based around pictures.

Anyway.

Mez recently wrote about her favourite music videos, and I wanted to reciprocate. The only trouble was, such a post as this wasn't suited to either of those blogs, so it's getting written here instead.

I wrote in comments over on that post that, growing up, my family didn't have satellite TV so I didn't have access to MTV and VH1, and with them a lot of music videos. My taste in music was limited to what I was exposed to, and music videos were hard to come by.

That said, with access to the internet since my late teenage years I have tried to go back and find videos -- when it occurs to me -- for my favourite songs.

In no particular order:

It's an uncomfortable truth for a lot of people, but I always like Hole better than Nirvana. 

Hole were more than just Courtney Love. Eric Erlandson was (and, probably, still is) a brilliant song writer and this album also drew on the talents of people including Billy Corgan and Linda Perry. For some, this album wasn't as good as the raw grunge of Live Through This, but for me it was an album of its time: to make another album exactly the same would have sounded ridiculous. Celebrity Skin was a great song, with some typical Hole-lyrics ("Cinderella they aren't sluts like you") and harmonies from Melissa Auf der Maur. The video makes the song even better.   

The video brings together all the best parts of the song.

Celebrity Skin, Hole

I have issues with both Hole and Smashing Pumpkins these days, since the failed solo careers of Courtney Love and Billy Corgan encouraged them to restart their old bands, but leaving out some critical members. I was OK with the Smashing Pumpkins relaunch (mostly) while it involved Jimmy Chamberlain, since it was his powerhouse drumming that gave them such a distinctive sound.

Band politics aside, there are many great videos for the Pumpkins. Do you choose the videos where the talented Mr Corgan still has hair, or the later almost Addams Family stylings of the (pretty lousy) album "Adore"? The obvious choice is the middle ground. "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", as an album, was flawed for me -- it showed a lack of self awareness to make an overblown double album. But it still had some incredible songs on it: "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" being one of them. The video suits the song perfectly.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Smashing Pumpkins

Perhaps my all-time favourite band The Pixies are largely a mystery to me in terms of videos: a band that I have to go back into their catalogue to see what, if any videos, they made. 

The important thing with all my favourite bands is obviously the music first, and I tell people that The Pixies invented music (before them it was just tuning up). While that's not strictly true, they did more or less invent the alternative rock style we now take for granted with bands like Nirvana and Foo Fighters. It's well known that Nirvana's seminal "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was described by Dave Grohl at the time as a "Pixies rip off" and I've read amusing interviews with Grohl since were clueless journos ask him how he came up with Foo Fighters groundbreaking quiet-LOUD-quiet style, and he explains how the Pixies were doing it first in the '80s.

"Here Comes Your Man" might not have Frank Black's (or Black Francis) trademark screaming, but it is a classic song for them and one often mistakenly played on '90s radio stations (since it was released in the '80s). It also has a video fairly typical of the time: it's hard to tell now if it was meant to be a joke, because it's pretty bad. And that's what makes it good -- The Pixies were never about image for me. Or themselves, it seems.

Here Comes Your Man, Pixies

Yes, yes. Soundgarden. Chris Cornell is a rock god. Other than making misguided albums with Timbaland, he can do very little wrong. And even when he does, you just have to say the magic words "Temple of the Dog" and all is forgiven. 

Mez already featured Black Hole Sun on her blog, so I'm going with something different. Rusty Cage. Another fantastic song from the time period, and another awful video so typical of that period. So bad it's now good.

Rusty Cage, Soundgarden

Pearl Jam. Where would we be without the big PJ? Eddie Vedder is about as close as we come to a messiah. 

Pearl Jam also famously stopped making videos after "Jeremy" -- and that was a very long time ago. Many albums later, some good, some less good, but with some stand out songs, personal tragedies and amazing shows along the way, this video got made for "Do the Evolution". 

I don't know what the story with it is, whether Pearl Jam made it, whether it was independent and then officially accepted, or whether it remains unofficial. Either way, this song is a blazing powerhouse of a song and it is made all the better with such an emotional video.

Do The Evolution, Pearl Jam

A band you rarely hear mentioned alongside these greats is one from the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire. 

Terrorvision always had an uneasy relationship with success -- not that they didn't like it, but as they once put it, it would sort of come and go. Most albums would have a stand-out single and do quite well, but there was also usually several years between albums, and the momentum would fade. 

The band found fame with their song "Oblivion" featuring a distinctive, catchy doo-wap hook, but the album it came from was also responsible for some of their heaviest songs. By far one of their best -- and heaviest -- songs combines one of the best videos. 

Alice, What's the Matter is dark and almost surrealist, but compulsive viewing -- just like the song is compulsive listening.

Alice What's the Matter, Terrorvision

Keeping things surreal are Eels. From the album Electro shock Blues -- full of autobiographical songs about death and bereavement came "Last Stop This Town", it's beautiful and sad, and it sticks in your head. 

It is accompanied by a video featuring anthropomorphic genetically modified vegetables. It makes no sense, has nothing to do with the song, but it is doubtlessly brilliant.

Last Stop This Town, Eels

I love the White Stripes. Love them. I loved how every album was different to the last, without them having to do interviews everywhere saying "we're reinventing ourselves!!" -- mainly because they weren't reinventing anything. They were doing what they always did, which was be consistently surprising. I loved their raw, stripped down sound. I loved the weird dynamic between Jack and Meg. And most of all, I love the song Hotel Yorba. 

You might watch this video, and think "So what?" but it's good because it fits the song so well. It's not showy, it's just raw, and simple, and perfect.

Hotel Yorba, White Stripes

Our Lady Peace are criminally overlooked outside of the North American continent. I saw them play in London last year at the Canada Day celebrations, and then the next night in a very small venue. I sometimes try and request their songs on the radio, without success. I just don't understand they aren't better known here. But that's besides the point. 

"Superman's Dead" was the first song by the band that I heard, and remains one of my favourites. I think the video is typical of the time: it seems to have nothing to do with the song itself, but is interesting to watch. 

And as a fun fact, there's a slightly different version made for the USA: apparently the clown-type people were too scary, so that footage is removed. 

Another fun fact: I almost posted about the song "One Man Army" which I also like, and has another strange, unrelated video. The video is widely regarded by fans and the band themselves as one of the worst ever made. I decided instead to go with a "good" one.

Superman's Dead, Our Lady Peace

Radiohead are a surprise inclusion, because if I had to list my top 10 bands they probably wouldn't make the list. Like a lot of people, I stopped listening after "OK Computer" and while I'm told some of their more recent stuff has got a lot better, I haven't really come back to them. But this is both a fantastic song and a famous video. The video is a short film (by a filmmaker whose name I don't know, or remember) and the usual footage of band playing that you get in almost every video, ever. The short (silent) film is incredibly powerful, and I've seen fans having animated discussions on forums about what the man says at the end -- to the point where they were practically beseeching anyone who could read lips to reveal the secret. I wanted to shout at them and explain it's not real, it's just a story, there's no big secret that "explains" everything. And for the record, it's pretty easy to tell from the man's lips that all he says is "I'll you what's wrong, I'll tell you what's wrong". And I only just noticed today, the short film is filmed in London -- even though the motorcycle cop seems to be American, I recognise Liverpool Street station anywhere.

Just, Radiohead

Velvet Revolver were from that weird Noughties time of supergroups -- Chris Cornell was rocking out with Audioslave, and Scott Weiland had got together with the best musicians from Guns N' Roses to make Velvet Revolver. 

This was a particularly good move, as when they performed live Scott could join  them in covers of GNR songs and improve on the originals.

Slither was their first song, and set a very high bar -- one that, for me, they never quite reached again. What Scott Weiland is playing at now is the same old story, it seems, and it's a shame. But this song -- and the accompanying video, set in the catacombs of Paris -- is still brilliant.

Slither, Velvet Revolver

Stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tired

Remember that phrase -- "stay out of circulation til the dogs get tired"? The theme to my travel writings, and probably what should really be the title of my blog. I've never known that it came from. Googling that exact phrase never brought back any results, now it only brings you to this blog -- and if anyone is already here, reading this, it's probably only by accident.

Tonight I had the gee-nee-us idea of googling the phrase without quote marks. It turns out that the line "is stayin' out of circulation till the dogs get tired" is from a Tom Waits song, "Gun Street Girl". I must have played the song about 5 times in a row since I discovered, it's amazing. I love it. I wish I could sing and play the guitar just so that I could play this song.

So that's it. Enough from me, more from Tom Waits whose voice sounds like a 40-a-day smoker who gave up the cancer sticks so he could spend more time gargling gravel.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten

"The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of a Johnny Rotten" Neil Young, "Hey Hey, My My"

 It's not uncommon for me to wake up on the morning with a snatch of a song stuck in my head.  Sometimes it's a song I've not heard in years, most of the time I have no idea why that particular song or song lyric should be all I remember from a dream.

One day this week, I woke up with a line from Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My" -- a song which apparently debates whether it is better to burn out or to fade away.  One thing has always bothered me about the song, and that's the line's quoted above -- "the king is gone, but he's not forgotten/this is the story of a Johnny Rotten".  I haven't ever read an analysis of the song, so I can't be sure of all the references in it -- but it's always bothered me, because Johnny Rotten isn't dead.  Not literally, anyway.  Sid Vicious is dead, and it's Sid Vicious who is considered by many (many who aren't really that familiar with punk) to represent the movement -- I have always felt a nagging that Neil Young was confusing Johnny Rotten with Sid Vicious.

I said that Johnny Rotten wasn't "literally" dead.  What I mean is that John Lydon is alive and well, and appearing on our television screens advertising Country Life butter -- but at the same time, because of this and the passing of the years, his persona as Johnny Rotten is dead.

In the Sex Pistols, back in the 1970s, he was a crazy eyed kid who couldn't sing in tune and had more in common with Shakespeare's Richard III as played by Laurence Olivier than he did with any king of rock and roll.

Punk was a revolution.  It was the downtrodden and the pissed off giving the ruling classes, the middle classes, two fingers up.  It was about taking back control -- music no longer had to be prog-rock opuses, instead punk told people that anyone could have a go. And they did.  Those who didn't form bands made fanzines with sticky tape and paper, that was as rough-and-ready as the music it presented.

Punk as a movement caused more moral outrage and paranoia than any music before or since -- it was considered a bigger threat to our way of life than Russian Communism.

 The Sex Pistols made only one album.  Is that what Neil Young meant when he said it's better to burn out than to fade away?  Glen Matlock was replaced by Sid Vicious, just for the image, and Sid was in his own way responsible for making the safety pins and torn clothing of the impoverished working classes a punk "uniform".  Sid never "burned out" because he was never burning in the first place.

So what of Johnny Rotten?  He formed "Public Image Limited", who weren't punk at all, and dropped the Rotten moniker.

These days, John Lydon is a property millionaire, milking Sex Pistls and PIL reuinions for all they're worth.  He lives in a mansion in Los Angeles.  And while it seems he still has all the anger and bitterness of his youth, speaking out against the middle classes ands private schools and international politics, it's hard to take "Johnny Rotten" seriously these days -- he's long gone.  His opinions on the Royal Family matter less to me than someone who actually still lives here.

What really burns is that Johnny Rotten didn't even burn out -- he wasn't a candle that burned twice as brightly for half as long.  While it could be said that he should be respected for forming PIL, something completely different to the Sex Pistols and respecting his artistic integrity instead of playing up to the punk rock cliche, he has lost any kind of credibility in the years that followed.

That is the story of a Johnny Rotten, gone but not forgotten.

I'm gonna break my rusty cage... and run

 

My moods are lately cycling between depression/despair, and a kind of almost euphoric optimism.  It's fun for the whole family, I can tell you.  I saw an ad in the morning paper to take part in a clinical trial looking at depression -- "Great," I thought "This is one clinical trial where they won't exclude you for having a history of depression."

As a sidenote, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a bit of a screw-up and didn't exactly ace the first interview, I am reasonably sure that I would have been turned away from joining the RAF because of a history of depression.

Anyway, I was rejected for the study after all -- because I had psychotherapy last year when I was out of work and depressed.  It was early and I was tired and I should have called it by its proper name of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, and it wasn't even what they were asking me about -- which was if I'd ever had Electro-Convulsive Therapy or the like.

But I was talking about moods.  The other morning, as I was walking to the station, I was thinking about the song Given To Fly, which ranks up there as one of my favourite songs ever.  I love the message of an ordinary person discovering unexpectedly an exraordinary ability, and as a child growing up I used to wish every birthday that I could fly.  Sometimes now when I am unable to sleep or just want a distracting daydream, I'll imagine being able to fly and sit up on quiet rooftops in the dark, unnoticed.  I was thinking about that song and how I want to be "given to fly" myself.  Not just literally, but metaphorically -- I want that brilliance, I want to feel that inspired.  I guess I have to be the change I want to see.  Wasn't that something Buddha said?  Either that or it was Henry Ford, and I get the impression those two gents were quite different people.

Where the video comes into all of this is that it's another message that I love and is becoming a mantra of mine -- I'm going to break my rusty cage, and run.  It says I am not going to be confined, I am not going to be caged, I am not going to be limited.  I am bigger than all of this.  I am going to break my rusty cage, and I am going to be free.

Also, for such an inspiring song the video is hilariously 90s.  I love that Absolute Radio have recently lauched their Absolute 90s station (and only wished it played more 90s alt rock), so it's very fitting -- but as I say, the whole thing is hilarious, with the crazy camera work and jumping all over with the guitars.  Thankfully Chris Cornell has got more quietly intense over the years.

Breaking out of my rusty cage at the moment means I have to do something.  Sure, my job sucks and I don't know what else to do -- but in the meantime, what I can do is write more, and if I want to one day do stuff with adventure sports then I need to put down the remote and actually get out there.  We'll see how I get on with it all.

This is a call

It struck me this morning I don't have enough new music.  Or maybe what I mean is variety of music, music that is new to me, not necessarily "new".  If I had unlimited funds I could spend days or weeks filling in the gaps in my listening, seeking out artists I might like, albums I have missed.  And if they didn't do anything for me?  No matter, they could be given away again.  Paid forward.

The trouble is, of course, I don't have those unlimited funds -- and I expect even with an unexpected lottery win, filling out my music collection would end up fairly low on the list.

Instead, I am going to ask for your help -- anyone who might be reading.  I'm not asking for monetary donations to help me buy more music, instead I am asking for your creativity -- and giving you a choice.  Either you can make me a mix cd of your devising, paying as much or as little attention as you like to my own listenings.  Or, alternatively, if making an actual CD is a little too...2000 for you, why not make me a Spotify playlist instead.

Contact me for details on how to share these things.

Musical Monday #32

In 1994, I was 13 years old. What was on my mind at age 16, what was important in my life, what made me happy and what worried me -- all of this is largely forgotten to me now. I guess music was important to me, and girls. So what else is new.

In April of 1994, on the day Kurt Cobain died, I was walking to school with a friend, just like any other day. He told me Cobain was dead, and I didn't know who it was. I'm not cool enough to say that I was a huge fan and had a candle-lit vigil for him. My friend told me Cobain was "the guitarist" for a band called Nirvana. This meant nothing more to me than it had done a few moments before. Had I heard of them? Probably, yes. Had I heard anything by them? Unlikely.

I was 16 when I did.

My friend John and I had formed a band. Just the two of us. We could barely play, but we wanted a drummer. We recruited this obnoxious half-wit called Tim, who had a lot of power and strength but no natural flair or subtlety. What he did bring to the band was Nirvana. He liked them, we didn't know them. Over the summer, he lent John a couple of VHS recordings from MTV, of Nirvana Unplugged and Nirvana, Live and Loud. John also copied a Nirvana album from a cousin he had. A casette copy of a copy of a copy.

I take some music snobbery pride in knowing this album and the first material I ever heard by Nirvana was their debut album, Bleach. It sounded dark and dirty, grunge was the made-up genre used to describe their style, and the word seemed fitting. Detuned guitars and a sound like aural sludge. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Gone were the guitar solos of Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses, the theatrics and the pomposity.

We listened to it all, I'd watch Unplugged over breakfast, with my cornflakes.

Bleach was fucked up, Nevermind the difficult second album that the original fans felt was a sell-out, In Utero was my favourite at the time -- with better production than the debut, and less radio-friendly than the follow-up.

At that age, Cobain's untimely death at 27 seemed a world away. I could objectively acknowledge that he had "died young", but at the same time 27 was adult, grown up. He had a wife, and a child, and I won't give any oxygen to the claims of conspiracy and murder, because I don't much care.

Today I turned 28, having outlived Cobain, along with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones -- not mention various others. He doesn't seem so fully grown to me any more.

I have more or less grown out of listening to Nirvana, in time. The rage and angst of their music got a little old, although I still like to dig out their albums from time to time, and still roll my eyes at commercial stations playing the listener-friendly In Bloom, or Smells Like Teen Spirit, the latter being every bit the Pixies rip off that Nirvana said it was.

Heart Shaped Box

Musical Monday #31

I'm not sure if this really is #31, if it is then this idea has been neglected for far too long -- and it's about time I brought it back.

The Waifs were originally formed in the early 90s by a couple of folk-loving sisters who made simple, straight forward music -- but it was several years later that they formed a band with a third member.

Obviously, it was The Girl who introduced me to the Waifs (both being from Albany), she was just playing music one night and I immediately took a liking to the band's sound and the stories involved in the songs.

I can't offer anything like a biography of the band without simply copying it from their official site or the wiki article, and I'm only familiar with two of their albums. I'm not even a huge fan, sometimes their music can feel a little too "country" for my liking, or just too much like Norah Jones' particular brand of inoffensive, coffee-table music. But I can write a little about my favourite songs, and my appreciation for their folk/blues roots, too.

Many of the songs have more than a twinge of sadness to them, probably their biggest song is London, Still -- which I expect is a kind of theme song to large communities of people in Earl's Court, Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush. A kind of commentary of an Australian in London missing their family and their "sleepy Sunday town", when played live it's been known to bring a tear to the eye.

Perhaps the most obvious autobiographical of their songs is Fisherman's Daughter -- about being a "regular West Australian fisherman’s daughter...a middle class folk singing guitar playin’ girl" -- the song's feeling itself reflects the simplicity of the singers; in a slow, blues style.

A less direct autobiographical theme comes in the song Bridal Train, a song about war brides who in the second world war married sailors in the US Navy and whose passage from Australia to the USA was arranged by the USA so they could be with their husbands. It's more than just history, though, since it directly tells the story of the girls' grandmother who with many others took the "bridal train" from Perth to Sydney.

One of my favourite songs is Lighthouse, but I can only make guesses towards its subject. It's quite an upbeat and um-tempo I like to think that it's a song about depression, that the "cold headland" it refers to is an emotional rather than literal one. I'm not sure who or what the "lighthouse" is (I prefer not to consider the perhaps obvious religious interpretation), instead concentrating on the idea that we have to find our own ways back to shore.

Some of their more recent work on the album my blog now shares a name seems less directly biographical and sometimes more bluesy than folk -- Sun Dirt Water can be watched and appreciated for itself in the previous post without my comments, and maybe it's best if I let the rest of their music speak for itself after this.
Strings of Steel
Lighthouse
Pony

A prelude to Musical Monday

The Waifs' SunDirtWater, the inspirational title track for this new...phase of my blog, and one of my new favourite bands.

He's so deep, like dirty water (updated)

Because Non-Blondie did it first, and because I didn't know any of her answers, I present the geeky music quotes quiz. I think I have a book one knocking around somewhere, consisting of first lines -- I'll save that one for when I'm really bored. I'm not nearly as clever as Non-Blondie, whose own quiz was the soundtrack to her final year at school. I'm just a tremendous music snob loveable geek.

1. She's a real left-winger 'cause she been down south
And held peasants in her arms
She said "I could tell you a story that would make you cry"
-- partially guessed correctly by Raine -- yes, it's the Pixies, no it's not Come On Pilgrim

2.Mary had a little lamb, her face was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went I was sure to go
Now Mary's got a problem, and Mary's not a stupid girl
Mary's got some deep shit, and Mary does not forget
-- Guessed correctly by Non-Blondie. Perhaps a bit obvious choosing the same artist and album as one of yours, but I hoped the line might be a bit obscure.

3. The war is over
So said the speaker with the flight suit on
Maybe to him I'm just a pawn
So he can advance
-- Guessed correctly by Raine, full marks for identifying "Dirty Harry" by Gorillaz

4. The free market is perfectly natural,
Do you think that I'm some kind of dummy?
It's the ideal way to order the world;
'Fuck the morals, does it make any money?'
-- Guessed correctly by Mez, although technically the title is just "Running The World", by Jarvis Cocker

5. Darling your love is no longer enough
I guess prison has changed me, I need other stuff;
I need gin in a flask, a file and a rasp
A small box of kittens, and a Lone Ranger mask

6. She deals in witchcraft; one kiss and I'm zapped.
Oh how can heaven hold a place for me.
When a girl like you has cast a spell on me?
-- Guess partially correctly by Mez, who knew the title, and so shares the prize with Raine who identified the song as "Female of the Species" by Space

7. Tell me what did you like about me?
And don't say my strength and daring
'cuz now I think I'm at your mercy
and it's my first time for this kind of thing

8.It seems that all of us are just fiends
who have different goals and share different dreams
but you wont find joy in a packet of pay
there’s a void in your life ‘cause you ’re created that way

9. They declared me unfit to live
Said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world
Guessed correctly by Amanda -- anyone who didn't know it should be ashamed! I wrote a whole post about the song, which is obviously "Nebraska" by Bruce Springsteen

10. I'm waxin' down so that I'll go real fast.
I'm waxin' down because it's really a blast.
I'm goin' surfin' cuz I don't like your face.
I'm bailin' out because I hate the race
Of rats that run, round and round, in a maze.
-- A very popular song, Non-Blondie was first past the post to identify "Surf Wax America" by Weezer.

There's still more to be identified, so there's everything to play for -- and I have changed number 8 because I felt it was just too obscure. Unlike number 5 perhaps...

Every drop of flame

On Monday night, I drove Dune to her cousin's flat in South London -- where she will be staying for a week or so, she says to give my parents a rest, and to give us all a chance to miss her. It's funny how quickly you get used to having someone around, my parents agree that the house seems quiet now, and my Mum in particular loved having a girl about the place.

I've been driving a lot the last couple of days -- having spent Sunday delivering meals to the sick and needy, which meant navigating the mean streets of East London on my own as they were a person short so I didn't have a navigator. The driving and navigating wasn't so bad -- in fact, I've sometimes thought on occasion a satnav would be more reliable, as there have been so many navigators who struggled with left and right, stuttered when giving directions, or just had to be given a little help map reading. All lovely people, don't get me wrong, just not your first choice of navigator. Unfortunately, what a satnav can't do is entertain you, help you bag up the meals, or drop the meals off at the door while you turn the car round. Instead I had to find somewhere to park (rather than just beaching the car like a whale, as I normally do), hide the valuables, then bag up the meals and deliver them and all the rest. It was hard work. I got an email today asking if I could drive again this Sunday because they were a driver short. It is going to have to be at least a month before I'd want to do it again.

You might think after Sunday's driving I wouldn't have wanted to drive to or around London again -- but there was no way on earth I was prepared to see Dune struggle with trains and tubes with her bags. It wasn't easy for the two of us to transport them from the airport to my car when she arrived, and that was with a baggage trolley -- I would have sooner carried the bags on my back like a donkey than I would have made her take the train. I like to look after my friends, and I can know they have arrived safely if I take them myself.

Driving at night when the rounds are quiet and the air is cold, you can turn the stereo up and it almost feels like you're in a movie. When Dune and I were driving home from the airport when I first picked her up we commented on something like it -- a particular song came on and we remarked it felt like the introspective, soul-searching part of the film where the protagonist struggles with a decision they must make. The people you pass in the streets seem like extras, all playing their parts to the best of their ability -- but when you stop at traffic lights, you still lean over and lock the doors.

To be completely honest, I'm in a bit of a strange emotional state at the moment. It would be too hasty to say I am regressing to where I was when I started therapy, but I have to remind myself that I didn't stop therapy because I didn't need it, I stopped because I couldn't rely on my therapist. I dreamed last night I turned up at his house just like I had always done (since that was his office) and although he seemed surprised to see me, he wasn't that surprised, or mad that I had stopped. Just the same, I am noticing myself being quiet and withdrawn when I don't want to be and am sometimes troubled with recurring thoughts.

In other news, I have my first formal interview with the RAF booked in. I was avoiding their calls for ages -- since I had to fill in yet another application form and was having doubts if I was doing the right thing -- but I reminded myself this is something I have to do, or else always be wondering.

Mondegreens

Mondegreens. We all have them, misheard song lyrics. Sometimes they make a song more interesting, sometimes they make the song so much more interesting I refuse to acknowledge the correct words.

A friend of mine says she used to think the Elvis Costello song "Oliver's Army" said "Oliver zombie's on their way" rather than, naturally, "Oliver's army". I like the idea of a zombie called Oliver, and naturally Oliver being a zombie would only be a "they" since they would be neither male or female.

For a long time, I thought Iggy Pop's Lust For Life featured the lines "Here comes Johnny in again, with his Luther Vandross and his fax machine...". It seemed logical to me, this "Johnny" the song talked about was clearly a 1980s yuppie. Unfortunately, the reality was a little different: "Here comes Johnny Yen again, with his liquor and drugs, he's a flesh machine".
Yes, alright, that would make more sense.

Many of us are already familiar with the Kate Bush song Wuthering Heights that seems to contain the line "You had distemper, like my jealous eel" (really "you had a temper, like my jealousy") -- although I have also read interpretations of the song that include lines like "It's me! I'm a tree!".

Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace has quite a unique sounding voice, but sometimes the accent can become a little inscrutable. In the song One Man Army, I always merrily sang along to the line "unbutton your soul, take off your clothes, show them your vicar" -- the offending word in question, naturally, being vigor. I thought it made sense, until Jon laughed and corrected me.

Today I got a message on Facebook from a friend, who wanted to inform me that contrary to what I was asking in my status, the David Bowie song Ziggy Starrdust does not include the line "making love with his eagle", but instead the important word was "ego". I have found on a brief search several instances of this same mishearing. Anyway, I would argue that Ziggy Stardust was an alien, and how could we possibly assume what is normal for us is the same for him? Maybe he had a pet eagle that he really, really loved....

Laisse Tomber Les Filles

I know I haven't blogged in ages, even if you count the unhappy post I sent down the memory hole last week it's still been at least a week. Annoyingly, I did actually write an update when I was at work today -- I don't have internet access, so I wrote it in notepad and then emailed it to my Gmail account. This evening tho, it's not there, so maybe I got my email address wrong or maybe it's lost in the ether somewhere.

Either way, the post was about how I got in trouble with the police yesterday when I was out delivering meals. I didn't see a "no entry" sign, and drove into a one-way street. If my post ever turns up, I'll put the full story up here. But despite one of my police sergeant friend's reassurances that if I was going to get into any formal trouble, they would have taken my details or given me a form at the time, I won't relax about it for a while yet. Not least because I was driving my magistrate father's car at the time... Where the hell was my good karma? I'm trying to do some work for charity, and I get in trouble with the law? What the hell? Alternatively, if nothing comes of it that will be my good karma.

In other news...there isn't much else to say. I have a date at the end of the week with someone who answered a personal ad of mine late last year, and in a break with tradition wasn't put off when she saw my picture. She doesn't yet know that I still live at home, though. Anyway, we've been emailing for a while until it's got to a point where I think she had to ask if we were just going to be email buddies or actually meet sometime. Those weren't her exact words. Anyway, it should be fun -- I'm going into it with zero expectations.

To muddy the waters somewhat, I had a conversation with Lyndsay last week that I think was best summed up by her question "Are you asking me if I'm in love with you?". For the record, that wasn't what I was asking -- I was asking if she meant it when she said je t'aime aussi, not how she meant it. As ever, nothing further will happen there, because I seriously doubt we will be in a position to meet each other. Maybe I have missed out on chances before in almost similar situations because I let my concept of distance get in the way. Then again, maybe I didn't. But this time, I think it will be better for us both if I continue to write about her about once every six months, and we both date other people and whatever else. I make it into a far bigger thing than it really is.

To keep the fragmented nature of this post going, I am going to mention a great book I am reading called Toujours Tingo -- a great book to dip into when you have spare moments. I have learned many great phrases, it seems the Japanese have a beautiful poetry to their language; for example the phrase kuchi ga samishii means to eat when you don't need to, for the sake of it, or out of boredom -- but literally it means "my mouth is lonely". Other cultures have words that make you wonder -- do these things happen so often a word is needed? Like, with the Cheyenne word Momá’kó’éné, which means "to have red eyes from crying because one's boyfriend is getting married to someone else". To continue on such a theme, I love the Italian word "Gattara" for a woman, often old and lonely, who devotes herself to stray cats.

In closing this evening, it's been forever since I did a Musical Monday post -- and though today won't really count, I have to share this song. Some of you fine readers might already be familiar with the April March song Chick Habit -- but you might not be aware that she records in French as well as in English, and the song is a translation of a much older song Laisse Tomber Les Filles (click the title to play the song).

See? This post had a theme after all! Girls, and other languages! Am I incredibly sad that I like to play this song back-to-back, like four or five times in a row before I get bored?

Eight for '08

Since all the popular kids are doing it, and because I have so little else to write about right now -- the Eight Things About Me:

Eight things I am passionate about

* Music. I think I would go insane without music -- finding new artists, "discovering" for myself old artists, making compilation CDs, live music, recorded music. But only good music ;)

* Reading. It appals me that so many people don't read a book from one year to the next, and many more have never read a book. But not just books -- I love reading blogs, letters, emails, newspapers, news websites....

* Poetry. This is separate to reading because for me it involves hearing it too -- when I'm alone, I like to read poetry out loud to myself, it can alter how you perceive the poem. Poetry is almost like music to me, and I treat certain poets like rock stars. I haven't written poetry in some time now, but I value it as a form of self expression.

* Art. Both my own photography, and the work of others. I don't much distinguish between modern art and classical art -- I rate Banksy and Damien Hirst as artists as highly as Van Gogh. Art that challenges, art that provokes a reaction, art that inspires thought -- as well as art that just makes me happy. I like to wander the quiet halls of art galleries, stopping at pictures and just making a quiet decision if I like it, and what I feel.

*Travel. Something I don't do nearly enough of -- but there's so many places I want to see.

* People. While I often asset that people suck and I'm both shy and somewhat reclusive, I am also conversely passionate about people. I am passionate about friends, people whose lives intersect with mine in whatever contexts -- I am sometimes even passionate about wanting to help people, in small ways.

* I guess following on from "people" is animals. Not passionate like those people who have rooms full of cats and various animals running loose in the house, but I am passionate about my cat in particular and other animals in general.

* Space, in a very odd way. I am ignorant of a lot of the science about it, but I love looking at the moon and the stars, and enjoy reading about it on Astronomy Picture of the Day, even if I don't always understand it all. I was fascinated to read in the news yesterday about the cloud of hydrogen gas that is set to collide with the Milky Way, which would set off a new burst of star formation in our galaxy.


Eight things I want to do before I die

* Travel (more of) the world.
* BASE Jumping.
* Live abroad in a non-English speaking country (no, the USA doesn't count).
* Paint.
* Sell my art.
* Learn to surf properly.
* Trek the Inca Trail
* Celebrate Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere

Eight things I say often

* What's up?
* You suck.
* de nada (and other random phrases in Spanish)
* Aww, man (like Swiper in Dora the Explorer)
* "You like that, do you boy?" (said in a Cockney voice) or "This is an outrage!" (both of which are Mighty Boosh references)
* Shitbag.
* Yoink!
* Do you remember....

Eight books I’ve read recently

* Saturday, by Ian McEwan (reminded me a lot of Enduring Love, but not as good)
* Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman (I wanted to re-familiarise myself with the story before watching The Golden Compass)
* Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer
* What Should I Do with My Life?, by Po Bronson
* Kafka On The Shore, by Haruki Murakami
* What's It All About? Philosophy and the Meaning of Life, by Julian Baggini
* Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh
* You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes and Cultural Myths (various authors)

Eight songs I could listen to over and over (and frequently do)

* Hotel Yorba, by the White Stripes
* You Had Time, by Ani DiFranco
* I'm Not OK, I Promise by My Chemical Romance
* Like A Lion, by Suicide Bid
* Girl Anachronism, by Dresden Dolls
* Isabella County, 1992, by Great Lakes Myth Society
* A New England, by Billy Bragg
* Mono, by Courtney Love

But if I was making a triple cd (8×3) I’d also include

* Tangled Up in Blue, by Bob Dylan
* Superman's Dead, by Our Lady Peace
* I'm Shipping Up To Boston, by Dropkick Murphys
* Gold Lion, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
* Tea Dance, by Terrorvision
* Pull Shapes, by The Pipettes
* Cherub Rock, by Smashing Pumpkins
* Nailed to the Body of Lincoln, by The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love
* Fake Tales of San Francisco, by Arctic Monkeys
* This Is Your Life, by the Dust Brothers
* DUI, by Har Mar Superstar
* She Runs Away, by Duncan Sheik
* Take Her Out, by The Pigeon Detectives
* Portions for Foxes, by Rilo Kiley
* Mailbu, by Hole
* Big Empty, by Stone Temple Pilots


Eight movies I have seen eight times

* Pulp Fiction
* The Big Lebowski
* Jaws
* The Crow
* Lost Highway
* el Mariarchi
* Shaun of the Dead
* Fight Club

I was supposed to tag eight people -- but I don't think quite that many people read or lurk here these days, so instead I'll leave it open for anyone who hasn't already joined in.

2007 roundup

Yes, it's that time of year again where I take my lead from my fellow bloggers and post a looking backwards/looking forwards New Year post. And it looks a bit like this.

Work

I started 2007 working in a call centre. I was handling insurance claims for a mobile phone provider, and while I enjoyed it if I felt like I was helping people, for the most part it was pretty soul-destroying. I hated being yelled at by customers, I hated not being able to just get a cup of water if I wanted one, and I saw nowhere for me to go in the job. It seemed if I stayed there, the best I could do was eventually be a manager -- and they didn't seem much happier.

In April, I quit the job without giving notice. One Friday afternoon I finished early because I had been working early shifts all week, and I got a phone call from a recruitment consultant. Would I be interested in a freelance-to-permanent job with this one major PR agency in London? I jumped at the chance, and they took me on without an interview. The job never went permanent, they said because my role was combined with a more senior role which they recruited for instead -- but I wouldn't have got it anyway, becuase I wasn't "right" for the accounts, which included beauty products.

I spent much of the rest of this year in freelance PR contracts -- being paid well, but never knowing when the next job would come along, and never making the move to a permanent role. I interviewed for more agencies than I could possibly count -- I even met the same agency in Southampton twice. Most notably, I took myself on a road trip to Brighton for one job, and came close to actually succeeding. The interview was the best I've ever had, and the interviewer -- who also owned the company -- told me how much he liked me, how much he thought we had in common and that I was his favourite for the job. But he was troubled that I didn't live in Brighton, as ideally he'd like someone who knew the area. Needless to say, I didn't get it.

By October, I was fed up with being rejected for every job I went for -- including freelance contracts -- and instead applied for a Christmas temp job in a local bookshop. After a very casual and surreal interview, I was offered the job and grabbed it with both hands. I am due to finish this week, and am a little sad about it as I enjoy the work. Although there isn't really anywhere for my "career" to go, and I didn't spend 4 years and however-many thousand on university education to work in retail, I would probably stay if I was offered a job. I could do with staying in one job now for a decent length of time, and I would rather be happy and paid less than miserable and paid more. We shall see what happens.

In November I decided to stop thinking about it and just do it, and filled out a formal application to join the RAF -- in an officer/administrative position. Who knows what will happen with it.

In December I sent Christmas cards deliberately late when the cards were reduced in price after Christmas to a number of old PR contacts, including my business card, as has now become habit. There's been no response yet, but I was bargaining on nobody being back at work until late this week or early next week. I don't expect anything much, but it was worth a try.

Music

Music remains such a big part of my life that it has to get its own heading. This last year, like most years, I struggle to remember all the bands I have seen. Off the top of my head I can count Nine Inch Nails (twice), Smashing Pumpkins (the first time was amazing, the second was so bad I felt almost personally betrayed), Chris Cornell, Pearl Jam, Ben Folds, Foo Fighters, Aerosmith, Suicide Bid, the Sex Pistols, Sonic Boom Six, The Filaments (in what Pete insists will be their last-ever show), Silversun Pickups and so many more at Reading Festival. I am still wearing my Reading Festival wristband, even though the festival was in August. I work with a girl who is still wearing her wristband from 2006.

2008 is already shaping up to be a good year for music, with tickets already bought for the Gutter Twins, Foo Fighters and Reading Festival -- although Jon has suggested we maybe try and see fewer bands this year (exceptions being the likes of Led Zeppelin and Chris Cornell). How long it will last is doubtful.

Girls

I guess maybe it should be "relationships" as I briefly tried to meet guys through online dating as well -- but finally understood, at least partially, what it is like to be a girl. If you want no-strings sex with strangers, then the world is your oyster -- but you'll be lucky if all you do is catch something nasty. If you actually want to try and meet someone worthwhile, or if worthwhile is too strong a word, then at least someone you could imagine being with, then your options suddenly diminish very rapidly. In the end, the farthest I got was a brief correspondence with a guy, before it fizzled out.

And I haven't fared too much better with girls. I've posted ads, and replied to ads, and again had brief correspondences going. I have come to understand that I shouldn't send a picture of myself too soon as they don't do me any favours, but instead try and build an interest with my winning personality. I know that the best way for me to meet people is more likely going to be offline than through any sort of personals ad, and I thought I had found what I was looking for when I met a cute girl at a punk gig. She was on her own, I was on my own, we had a few beers and really enjoyed each other's company. But either I tried my luck too soon or just wasn't what she wanted, things fell apart with Claire. Just the same, it has shown me to at least try and talk to people and make conversation, even if I feel shy.

Blogging

This would perhaps be better titled bloggers, since the writing itself ain't much to write home about. After first meeting in 2006, China Blue has now become a bona fide real life friend this year -- I've cooked for her, she's met my friends and my cat, and we almost set fire to a bar in Shoreditch last month.

I also met the lovely Elizabeth last June, and although we only spent a few hours together, I am hoping to see more of her when she returns this year.

2008 promises to be an even better year for meeting Bloggers, since Dune is coming to England in six weeks and will be staying with me for a time -- and hot on her heels to these shores will be DownHomeGirl at the start of the summer. I hope to meet WDKY at some point this year, since it seems absurd to me to live so close and read one another's blog, but not meet, and various other bloggers visiting or moving to London I also hope to meet.

Travel

Ha, that's almost a joke this year. A trip to Barcelona fell through near the start of the year, but I hoped with my well paid freelance PR contracts to be able to see some of Europe -- with Paris, Prague, Rome and Venice joining Barcelona on my list. I didn't even leave the country. The closest I got was when I drove to Bristol for a job interview -- and briefly considered driving the extra miles to Cardiff, since I've never been there. There was no surfing in Portugal last year, no snowboarding in the French Alps, not even a week's surfing in Cornwall. I already have plans in place to visit Spain this year, but I think there's also going to need to be a week or so doing something adrenaline-fuelled.

Anyway, despite the lack of overseas travel this year, I have spent many weekends by the sea in Portsmouth -- including a very enjoyable birthday there, and still consider it a very plausible place to live when I am looking for work. As mentioned, I also successfully navigated trips to Bristol and Brighton, the latter without even the aid of sat nav. Like Portsmouth, I was very taken with both cities and the more I see of the country the less I understand the desire for everyone to move to London. Sure, I love London, and would like to live there too -- but I also love Manchester, and Portsmouth, and Brighton -- there's so many great places to be.

As well as some overseas travel (not least to Paris, it's so damn close, I can't believe I've never been), I shall also endeavour to see more of England this year. When it's always there, always available, and not going anywhere, you don't necessarily feel any pull to see these things -- I am going to put that right this year.

Home life

I still live at home. This has to change. Although it seems the British are in some ways abnormal among Europeans for their desire to leave home as soon as possible, it doesn't offer me much comfort. More and more people I know are moving into houses with their friends, almost like students, as house prices in Britain become increasingly ludicrous -- but the comforting thing is these people don't have amazing jobs, so with some kind of reasonably paid, full time job and a few like minded friends, 2008 could be the year I finally move out for good. And will probably take the cat with me...

Semi-Musical Monday

I got a letter from the Student Loan Company today. Curious as to what they wanted (as surely I haven't yet earned enough to make any repayments) I opened it. Being the season of goodwill, it seems they thought they would remind me that I still owe them over nine thousand pounds, and what's more they have charged me almost two hundred and fifty pounds in interest.

In other news, I discovered last week that googling the lyrics to one particular Christmas song was bringing up my blog within the top 5 results. Concerned that somebody I knew might end up here by accident, I have taken that particular post out of circulation and added noindex, nofollow tags to my blog. Now even googling for Arm the Homeless doesn't seem to find me -- so it must be working. Although I like to be widely read, I no longer think that being searchable on Google is a good way of achieving this.

However, should you all want to show your support for this fine blog of mine I have found a website that sells Arm the Homeless stickers. All it needs to complete it is my URL...

And in closing, because the Student Loans people have pissed me off and I can't be arsed to think of a proper post for Musical Monday I include this video, and a link to the blog of the legendary Dave Gorman talking about why he thinks the song is so good and why it should be #1 this Christmas.

Times Like These

#It's times like these you learn to learn to live again
It's times like these you give and give again
It's times like these you learn to love again
It's times like these, time and time again#
Foo Fighters, Times Like These

In stark contrast to my recent trip to see the Sex Pistols on my own, Saturday was the eagerly anticipated Foo Fighters show at London's new O2 Arena. The O2 Arena is funny, since it started out life as the disastrous Millennium Dome. To celebrate the Millennium an awful lot of money was wasted on building the dome, which as I recall housed only a rather poor sort of exhibition. It will go down in history was one of the worst ideas ever, and popular opinion has largely been that the London Eye was much more sensible. For several years, the fate of the Dome has been open to speculation -- until it seems that someone had the belatedly-good idea of making it into what it is now: the best selling live music venue in the world.

Housing two live music venues along with numerous bars and restaurants, it's hard to see why nobody thought of doing this with it in the first place. The only thing that disturbs me is how much it looks like the Death Star when you look at the floor plan.

Anyway, on Saturday I headed into London with my friends first for dinner and drinks and then the gig itself. We'd talked ages ago of going up early and getting something to eat first, but sometimes with my friends it can be hard to know if this means pub food, Subway or an actual restaurant. With plenty to choose from, we settled on Las Iguanas for its Latin American food. Naturally, it was slightly on the pricey side -- but it was good food.

I'd never been seated at an arena show before -- so it was slightly disconcerting to see how far up we were once we'd found our seats at the back, when I stood up to take off my coat I had to ask someone to hold on to me so I wouldn't worry about falling over the seats in front.

The Foo Fighters show itself was amazing, and definitely among one of their best ever. Joining them on this tour is the legendary Pat Smear -- a founding member, and briefly the second guitarist in Nirvana. I'm willing to bet his presence contributed to the inclusion of some songs from the band's self titled debut album. Among the crowd favourites from the new album, there was the surprise of hearing the band play songs like For All The Cows, This Is A Call and Weenie Beenie -- the latter I haven't heard them play since the V festival, in 1997.

I was slightly disappointed they didn't play MIA, but you can never expect to hear every single last song you want to. The best song of the night for me -- and possibly my favourite of their songs -- was Times Like These. I like the idea of it -- of learning to live and love again. I couldn't even begin to list all of the songs they played -- but it was one of those impassioned performances that are close to a religious experience, with thousands of people all singing along together. It makes you want to hug someone.

quasi-Musical Monday

Way back in the day, one of my favourite bloggers used to include with posts the occasional "hottie of the day". I was going to make a Musical Monday post about this artist, until I remembered that I don't actually like her music. I like her voice, and I think she's hot -- but I don't listen to her music by choice.

So anyway, call this what you like -- hottie of the day, or a quasi-Musical Monday, but I give you Katie Melua.

"If you were a piece of wood, I'd nail you" -- you said it, Katie

Sex Pistols, Brixton Academy (and everything related)

We left off on our story of this intrepid adventurer and narrator last week with me holding a pair of Sex Pistols tickets and nobody to go with.

My friend Dominic that I know from volunteering was actually very excited and eager to go -- but unfortunately he couldn't get the night off work. At the last minute, my friend Christina (whom I don't think I've ever mentioned here before) contacted me via Facebook to say she really wanted to go, but didn't know anyone to go with. I felt a little bad for not asking her originally, but didn't think we really knew each other well enough to be going to a gig together, just the two of us.

But considering she spent most of the day with only Rhys when we all went to see Aerosmith in Hyde Park, she's not someone who gives that kind of thing any thought. In the end, it was a similar story for her though -- she couldn't get the night off. And I stuck the ticket on Ebay.

I actually put it on Ebay before I heard from Christina for definite, but gave it a reasonably high "buy it now" price. I figured if Christina was unable to go I could then drop the price right down to get a sale. What I hadn't bargained on was being unable to change that later because there were bids on the ticket. Or in this case, one single, solitary bid of a pound.

Naturally, I just logged in with my alternative ebay account and bid on my own auction to raise the stakes a bit.

The bid-snipers came out in the closing minutes, and in the end one user in particular won the auction for a massive £21. Almost half price, it was a whole £19 less than I am paying for the ticket -- but beggars can't be choosers.

Once the auction ended I started emailing the buyer to arrange details for how to pay me and how I would give them their ticket. The buyer turned out to be a young lady named Jools who was very grateful for the ticket and on exchanging numbers to arrange to meet with the ticket on Thursday night, we spent much of Wednesday night having conversations via text.

I wondered if perhaps I wouldn't be seeing the band on my own after all, and although we knew nothing about each other, thought perhaps there could just be the beginnings of something more.

Fast forward to Thursday night: I finish work and walk into the storms ravaging England. Luckily for me the rains had lessened considerably from earlier in the day -- but Jools was apparently not so lucky. I called her when I arrived in Brixton and she told me she'd had to go home to change, as she'd been soaked. But she gave me directions to the bar where we were to meet.

Finding the bar was no problem, but I hesitated before walking in. I was dressed in my old torn jeans, Zero t-shirt and black leather jacket -- through the window of the bar I could see the clientèle in suits. But with the alternative being wait outside in the cold and the rain, I held my head up high, walked in and ordered myself a beer.

Within seconds I was having second thoughts about Jools, when I noticed the bar's rainbow flags. Still, although I don't much go in for the gay scene I know that I can walk into almost any gay bar in London and be certain that unlike a lot of places the staff will be friendly and I won't get any trouble.

I stood at the bar and read my book for an hour before Jools arrived. I was just finishing my second drink when my phone started to ring -- I picked it up and answered, and noticed Jools walking in.

The signs should have been obvious to me sooner -- the fact that she was new to Ebay when she bought the ticket, and confessed to being thrown by setting up a Paypal account, there should have been alarm bells ringing. I wondered if not unlike the bus-stop girl she might be a teenager. What I didn't expect was a 50 year old.

On Wednesday night when we'd been texting she'd made some comment like "I wonder what the crowd will be like?", and I'd replied saying I expected they would be older than the band. She probably smiled to herself about that, at the time (although she's not older than the band).

It turns out Jools had never been to this bar before and didn't know it was a gay bar, but if I had put any thoughts of something more between us out of my head earlier, they now positively dropped and rolled in their hurry to get out.

As it happens, Jools was very good company. She was both very grateful for the ticket and extremely generous (though she could have been more generous and given me the face value), buying me drinks and not even questioning why I was on my own. I'd probably said in the auction's item description I was on my own.

I was introduced to her friends as they arrived -- just as Jay, the nice guy that had sold her the ticket -- who were all of a similar age, but also it seems in their own ways quite successful. Although what she does now, I don't really remember apparently Jools used to be someone very important in the media with a close and long-running professional relationship with a certain radio DJ and television presenter. Maybe this person is in my life not for personal reasons but professional ones?

Looking back, I wish perhaps Jools and her entourage had been a little less generous with the drinks. We didn't bother watching the Cribs who were supporting, and although I lost track how much I drank that night, some rough calculations since then have suggested it was something like 6 or 7 pints, more or less on an empty stomach.

As for the gig itself, we were stood at the absolute very farthest back wall of Brixton Academy. We could see the stage, but I don't think I got a glance of Johnny Rotten all night. The band were good -- very bloody good, consider it's been thirty years since Never mind the Bollocks was released -- and Johnny Rotten remains as funny as ever, in his very strange posh/cockney way. Despite being so good "considering" they weren't amazing. They played their songs well and with passion, but I don't know... It just wasn't spectacular. That said, I never expected the band to be amazing -- they never were, what they were was incredibly influential and a sort of catalyst for the times -- for the whole movement. And I wanted the chance to see the original band playing their own songs -- it's one thing to hear records, to hear live records, to hear bands playing Pistols covers, but it's something else to hear Johnny Rotten singing, right there.

Getting home was naturally a struggle because the Victoria line -- the only Tube line to Brixton -- was closed, and buses were running instead. Jools sent me off after a bus, and the rest of the journey home was a bit of a blur. I got off the bus somewhere around Leicester Square, since I knew the area from when I worked there and sort of stumbled along to Liverpool Street and to the train home. Jon had kindly agreed to pick me up -- even though it was gone 1am by the time I got the station -- and I was barely through the door at home before I was bent over the toilet...

I woke up on Friday with the bedroom light still on. Even when I shifted the worst of the hangover with pain killers, caffeine and sugar the day was not fun.

Still, it's very punk.

Musical Monday #29

I did a Musical Monday post about Terrorvision ages ago -- but the trouble is, on reading it again, it just wasn't good enough. I wanted to post today about their offbeat, fans' favourite b-side of a song Tea Dance. But I haven't done the band justice, previously, so please forgive me -- I'm going to try this one again.

Terrorvision made it big with their debut album Formaldehyde, all the way back in 1993. The early years of a decade are always slightly confusing, because there is so much carried over from the last one -- so although by 1993 alternative rock was making increasingly bigger waves, there was still a lot of the 80s about it. In many ways, Formaldehyde was a classic debut album -- it had some great songs, and this album in particular promised so much of the band with thought-out lyrics and some catchy hooks. But the main thing a debut does is promise -- it hints at greatness, at what a band can achieve together, given time.

The single My House remained until the end a live favourite also set the tone for many later catchy slightly-pop/rock songs, like Oblivion and Perseverance, and it was no doubt this mixture of a sense of humour with the obvious rock edge that scored for the band a major label record deal. I think Tea Dance perhaps appeared on the original indie-label release of the album, and certainly was on their first EP, but was later dropped. I read the lyrics to the song one day without having heard it, when they were published in the band's fanzine at the time Northern Scum.

I quoted the band last time and I will again -- they say now they were always too busy having a good time to take themselves too seriously. Sometimes now I wonder if perhaps they didn't take themselves quite seriously enough. I'd like to ask them.

Formaldehyde was followed by the iconic How To Make Friends and Influence People -- a very appropriate title for a second album, especially one that really did make the band friends. Easily the heaviest of all their albums, combining the hard rock Alice What's the Matter and Pretend Best Friend with the great doo-wop singalong, Oblivion), the band had made it -- their music videos suddenly had budgets, and their gigs were probably as big as they ever got. Until the end, anyway -- their "Take the Money and Run" tour probably rivalled the success.

I couldn't tell you how long it was between the second and third albums -- but the problem with Terrorvision was always that it was too long. The fans of their albums stuck around, but any casual listeners that had like one song or another or seen them at a festival had usually forgotten all about them by the time their next album or next hit single came along.

True to their word for a band that didn't take themselves too seriously, Terrorvision followed How To Make Friends with a James Bond-themed album, Regular Urban Survivors which they said was the soundtrack to the film they wanted to make. The album had a mixed reception among earlier fans, since the harder rock edge had mellowed out a bit -- but the 90s were flying by, and anything else would have sounded out of place. Although I liked the suitably laid-back Easy , singles like Bad Actress and Celebrity Hit List never really did it for me -- although the band had one of their biggest commercial success with the song Perseverance. Everyone was singing that "whales and dolphins" song, Tony Wright presented Top of the Pops, and there was a special edition of Kerrang! magazine dedicated to them one week. "Brit Rock" the magazine called them; "Britpop with balls".

But it went nowhere. The band just sort of went quiet. I saw them live for the first time in the December of 1996, which I think was just after the album came out -- but nothing else on it was as big as Perseverance.

I wonder now if their next album Shaving Peaches would have been enough for the band if it hadn't featured a somewhat random album track called Tequila. The band had again achieve moderate chart success with the song Josephine, and it was one of their best songs, to my mind -- clever, and catchy without being all-out pop. The band apparently had filmed a dark and David Lynch-esque video for the song, but didn't like it -- so Tony Wright came up with a new one, which involved running round a race track in Madrid. In drag. It was a pun on "drag racing", since the song is about a sex change.

I remember hearing the band play Tequila live (and I particularly fondly remember a girl in silver PVC trousers, who was bouncing around next to me during the song) and thinking it would be a popular song for the band -- but among existing fans. Then Mint Royale got hold of the song, remixed it, and before you know it the band were being told by Radio DJ Zoe Ball that if they didn't release it as a single then she would do it herself. They obliged, and it was a big a song as any they ever did -- and remains popular now, although of course most people don't remember who it was by, or that the band ever had any other songs.

Their last proper album (that is, not a greatest hits or unreleased tracks compilation) was Good To Go -- perhaps an appropriate album for a final album. It's odd, the band were dropped by EMI right after their biggest commerical success with Tequila, and the band actually played Reading Festival that year without having a current record deal. They released their final album on a different label, and then subsequently called it a day. Although it seems like it wasn't so much their choice -- the band had limited success with the album's first single, D'Ya Wanna Go Faster and when they came to release Fists of Fury they couldn't get it played. Radio 1 refused to play it and said the band were no longer "relevant" (although they later gave plenty of airplay to the Gerry Halliwell song Scream if you wanna go faster). Perhaps they took exception to the band's video, parodying Madonna.

Officially, it seems that's really the end of the story. There was a farewell tour, Tony formed Laika Dog, and the other members formed their own bands, and occasionally even now there's a handful of one-off Terrorvision gigs -- though I doubt there will ever be a full-fledged reunion or another album.

To end, I return to the start -- Tea Dance is a simple song about a couple who meet years after a break up, and find that they still like each other. It's a quiet, and straight forward song -- but it makes me smile. My favourite line that sums it all up for me: "Well me, yeah, I got hitched -- and, yeah, we're still friends. I don't see her often, still I get the kids at weekends".

Musical Monday #28

Last week, I described Kate Nash as polarising opinion on the scale of Marmite -- in that one tends to fall into a love or hate category, with very little room for a middle ground. And for the record, I hate Marmite.

It seems, though, that the powers that be in this mysterious and expanding universe have been pointing me towards a MM post on Ani DiFranco. It's long overdue, Ani is one of my favourite artists, but I've struggled whenever I have tried to verbalise what I love about her music. Part of the trouble has been that one of my favourite songs is "You Had Time" -- but I only loved this song after I read Nick Hornby's essay on it in 31 Songs. Unfortunately, his writing was so incredibly good about such an amazing song that I could think of nothing original to add. But on the plus side, he only writes about the song, and not Ms DiFranco's music in general. Unlike this post.

Those of you who know me at all will know that there will often come a time when I start making you compilation CDs.

I still sort of miss making compilation tapes, -- of working out what tracks should open side A and side B, but a CD is far more practical and actually allows for a little more creativity as there can be the option of creating album artwork for the CD. The good thing about making a tape was that there was more space (usually 90 minutes, compared to 80 for a CD) and there was two sides -- so there were various techniques to employ when putting together the tracklisting.

The point is, that making these CDs is more or less a certainty in most contexts that you will know me. Following a recent compilation CD, a friend revealed to me that she didn't really like Ani DiFranco very much. Of course, there is never going to be a compilation where someone likes every single track by every single artist, but I was still surprised. I haven't played Ani to a lot of people -- I know some of my friends like Jon have probably heard her when I've played some in the car or something, but have never expressed any liking for it. I think they were probably just being polite. I started to think that maybe more than Kate Nash, Ani could be an aural equivalent of Marmite.

Then when Mez commented on last week's post that Kate Nash reminded her of Ani DiFranco, I knew this post had to be written.

Ani DiFranco was an artist I probably wouldn't have come into contact with, had it not been for Rie. I don't remember what the first song I heard was, or when it was -- often when Matt was at work on a Saturday, Rie and I would hang out and draw and listen to music or whatever. It would have been one of those random Saturday afternoons with Rie playing old personal compilation tapes that I would have heard Ani, and so these two women will always be linked. It's odd, because Rie was a huge fan of Tori Amos, but I have never got into her music.

I think first and foremost for me, Ani is a poet -- she is reminiscent of the poetry slams I used to go to in Utah coffee shops, something I had never experienced in the back rooms of pubs in Derby where we used to read our poems. I enjoy the pictures she paints with her words, the stories she tells with her songs -- the complex and imperfect relationships she describes.

One of my favourite songs is Gravel, where the protagonist of the song wants to be mad at this guy who clearly doesn't treat her very well -- but also stumbles on her feelings for him. She's "thinking 'fight fight fight' at all costs/but instead I sat you down and offered you a beer". Although he's clearly an arsehole, and has "come crawling back" after two-timing her, she still loves him and can count the ways she adores him. Maybe it's meant to be sad, about how some people will keep taking back or going back to a partner who is abusive or just no good because they are charming or charismatic and can convince them they "want to make good, in the end". Just the same, I like it because it's not cut and dry -- it's not a simple reaction to a complicated situation. You don't suddenly stop caring about someone when they hurt you.

She lists all the ways in which he was a disappointment -- he wasn't a good lay, or a good friend, and consistently let her down. But somehow there is still a wry sense of humour when she asks "But what can I say? I adore you."

Ani's voice and guitar playing in the song have a very staccato feel -- jerky, and brash, and yet somehow it works for me. It was pointed out to me that Ani very rarely sings, at least in her verses, and it's this that reinforces for me the impression of her as a poet -- when I listen to male singers, it's often for me about the range and passion and power of their voices, the Eddie Vedders, Chris Cornells and Jeff Buckleys of this world, or the intense, husky drawls of the Mark Lanegans. But Ani changes all that -- she is soft spoken and often half-narrating, before bursting into an impassioned chorus of her own.

You had Time is very different, instead a very quiet and sad song -- again about a relationship that's broken down. Nick Hornby said something to the effect of this is how you fantasise all lesbian relationships are when they break up -- still so gentle and loving and tender. It could be autobiographical, I don't know, but the protagonist has returned from tour to her lover and is expected to know what they are doing with their relationship. Her partner says to her "You said you needed time; you had time". It's the metaphors that really appealed to Nick Hornby -- the beauty of phrases like "You are a china shop, and I am a bull. You are really good food, and I am full" -- it's the same way of saying "it's not you, it's me", but who wouldn't rather hear it this way? Sometimes hearing it like that can give us an insight into previous break ups of our own maybe -- an unfortunate situation, where it just wasn't working.

I could write for days about Ani's songs -- songs like Napoleon, or Little Plastic Castle, mixing the angry with the more tender. Or Ani's angry and bitingly political Self Evident that I find so difficult to listen to because of the sheer emotion in it. Instead I will include As Is -- a kind of love song.

But I can't write for days or explore every song's stories and stanzas. I can't even urge everyone to go and listen to her music, because I can't be sure you won't outright hate it. And it's not because it's all that challenging or different as music goes, but because it's such a specific approach -- one of those combinations where you have to really like the poetry, and like the rough approach to the guitar and voice. But she is one of my favourites -- the quirky, silly, funny, angry, passionate Ani.

As Is