On reaching 43

Posted on May 17th, 2007 by Andy

Sonic Youth @ Northsix, Brooklyn NYC
(originally uploaded by Geeeeeeeeeenta)

I reached 43 today. When I hit 40 I rattled off some words that convinced me that I’m not too old really…pointing out the rock stars that are older than me and (surprise, surprise) they’re all still older than me - and if Kim Gordon can behave like this on stage at her age then I guess there’s a bit of life left in me yet.

This year I have probably noticed my age more than before - stupid things that pop into my head remind me that I’m getting on a bit things like…

• my wonderful son will turn 10 in a couple of weeks
• my beautiful partner and I have been together for 16 or 17 years
• I’ve been working for the BBC for more than half my life
• the life expectancy of a man in the UK is 76.9 years - that’s not so far away
• Getting out of bed seems so much harder these days
• Staying at home and browsing the Internet is often a much more attractive proposition than going to a gig!

I am scared of death, but then I think I probably should be because life is so bloody good at the moment I don’t want that to end! OK work’s a pain in the arse but everything else probably couldn’t be better.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense, my family | No Comments »

The end of the fan site?

Posted on May 9th, 2007 by Andy

Being the loving parent of a fan site it saddens me to see the demise of this venerable Internet institution. The corporate sites never really cared about the band - they mostly just cared about the latest release they had to promote. Damon and Naomi for a while had three corporate web sites on the go one for each of their (then) three most recent albums (thankfully their latest web site has a little bit more of the “fan site” feel about it).

The fan site was the baby of the dedicated individual who lovingly hand-crafted huge lists of tour date archives and setlists, photos and audio, reviews and interviews painstakingly transcribed by hand from magazines and newspapers, and a discography that included the most obscure and pointless of releases just for the sake of being complete - only a real fan could possibly care that the album version of Superfreaky Memories was given away on a Mojo coverdisc…

I recently headed over to Chairkickers - the official Low site. The site had started as a fan site but the band made it the official site, that must have been such a buzz - to be recognised by the artists it so lovingly represents. For years after the move from fan to official not a lot changed - it still had the feel of a site that was run by people who loved it and loved what it was about. Sadly that isn’t the case any more, Chairkickers today looks like a corporate site and like so many corporate sites with the change things went astray. The list of past shows, the setlists, the pictures, the band’s past, it’s history…just slipped away with it (the discography doesn’t even seem to have links for the bands first three albums!).

Maybe it’s because the vile MySpace has become the home to the fan page (and, laughably, the corporate page as well) or maybe because Wikipedia is now host to all the facts and release information that anyone could want, or just maybe the potential fan site builders are too busy blogging. Whatever the reason it seems the days of the fan site is over and all that’s left are the few excellent sites run by the few dedicated individuals (saddoes??) that will remind the world what things were like in the days before MySpace and Wikipedia and blogs…or we can always go have a look on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine!

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | 4 Comments »

What’s to become of Everything’s Swirling…

Posted on April 23rd, 2007 by Andy

I’ve decided to move all my music related blogging into last.fm - which sort of leaves this blog with a rather big hole to fill. It never was meant to be a music blog - but that’s pretty much what it turned into.

Last.fm is a fantastic website and while it’s blogging (journals) are still a little bit lacking in features (no decent archives, no import and export etc.) I think that as I spend a lot of my time over there it seems to make sense to write my barely read snobbish rants over there.

So…what to do with Everything’s Swirling…I do have a life beyond music - a family, television and films I watch, photos I take and photos I like - so there’s plenty that I could be doing with it - but over the last couple of months mostly what I’ve done with it is just ignore it - I’m just about ready to change that but we’ll see how things pan out.

In the meantime you can see my last.fm journal or profile or check out the A Head Full of Wishes group over there.

I’ll probably turn the A Head Full of Wishes site into more of a blog than just news so for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta bits keep an eye over there…

Posted in Music, blogs and the internet, idle nonsense | 1 Comment »

A cautious welcome to the brave new world

Posted on January 25th, 2007 by Andy

100_2179
(originally uploaded by Naufragio)
Defective by Design

I made a post four months ago to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List (I thought I posted it here as well but I guess not) about the dilemma of downloading music rather than buying CDs.

I’ve always bought records and CDs - I see it as a physical representation of an arrangement between myself and the music I love. It is something that you can see and touch and smell and that says - I LIKE THIS or I LOVE THIS or THIS MOVES ME.

BUT I also love digital audio files - there’s less (NO) environmental impact that the manufacturing process of a CD entails - no little plastic disc that will fill up a landfill for thousands of years, no transportation, no politics of oil sitting behind it all - it liberates artists from the financial restraints of “making a record”.

BUT I object, with a vengeance, to the DRM that most retailers place on the digital files they sell - I object to “leasing” music rather than “owning” it - I object to the way that retailers think of me as a thief. I worry about the quality, I worry about the longevity…

My head tells me go digital - there is too much that is bad about the manufacturing process - but my heart tells me that I want something I can hold…

Shortly afterwards I signed up to (DRM free) download site eMusic and dipped my toes into the new era with mixed results. eMusic makes it so much easier to embrace this new era although I still had problems. One of the albums I downloaded was Joanna Newsom’s awesome album Ys - and within days I’d bought myself the CD of it - for something that beautiful it didn’t seem right not having a physical object to support my love (or infatuation as Hazel seems to think it is!). Downloading still seems such a non-committal form of music love. I’ve “bought” other albums through eMusic and for most I’m quite happy with the not “owning”, but for music I really LOVE I need to go all the way!

Yesterday I “bought” the new Decemberists album from iTunes (technically it’s on Rough Trade over here so I didn’t break my new years resolution to not buy major label records!) and in this instance I feel fine with not “owning” it (and I own this less than most because of the evils of DRM that iTunes music has), maybe because it’s just a little too polished for me to truly love it.

After nearly four months of a more committed relationship with downloading it seems that I might be able to get on with it - with exceptions for the truly exceptional.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense, politics | No Comments »

Snowy blanket

Posted on January 24th, 2007 by Andy

(originally uploaded by ~Misty~)

We woke up this morning to find the world covered in a beautiful snowy blanket. It’ll all be gone by now but on my cycle in to work I couldn’t help but smile and feel good about things (well at least until we got to the noisy and slushy and cold A4).

Posted in idle nonsense, photography | No Comments »

xmas trips out..

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Locked out
(originally uploaded by grange85)

We went to Tate Modern just after xmas - we’d planned to go to the British Library but it was closed. Tate Modern was an awful experience, it was packed and there’s no way you can even begin to appreciate art when there are people shoving and milling around (and screaming kids running around waiting their turn on the slides). We all came out tired and grumpy and only chocolate could revive us.

A couple of days later we managed to get into the British Library - the London maps exhibition was fascinating even if we couldn’t help but spend time looking for Hanwell (or Hanuell) on the maps that reached as far west as us. The permanent exhibition was really interesting as well (although I can only cope with so many illuminated manuscripts! The whole atmosphere was so much more pleasant than the nightmare of the Tate!

Posted in idle nonsense, my family | No Comments »

Resolutions…2007

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Canal Walk
(originally uploaded by grange85)

• Lose weight (yawn) so I can fit into a Galaxie 500 T shirt.
• Work much harder at my piano practice and music theory.
• Read more - and not just comics…proper books as well!
• Go to bed earlier - over 2006 it went from being just after midnight to close to 2am!
• Write more - NaNoWriMo was an interesting experiment but I need to keep writing because it needs to get MUCH better!
• Improve myself - I need to find myself a “direction”.
• Not to buy a record on a major label - maybe childish petulance but I don’t see why I should throw my money at the big four when there is so much really great indie music around.
• Get better at blogging - 2006 was an improvement but I still could get better!

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Lists of 2006

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Andy

Joanna Newsom 1
(originally uploaded by Coastal)

Albums

• Ys - Joanna Newsom
  No doubt the best album of the year - beautiful, ambtitious, unique and utterly engrossing - it deserves a bit of effort.

• II - Espers
  Sweet, cool and enveloping folkiness
• I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass - Yo La Tengo
  A mish-mash of all the good things about Yo La Tengo, probably shouldn’t work as an album but it does.
• The Cannibal Sea - The Essex Green
  I sort of missed blogging about this but I keep coming back to it.
• The Greatest - Cat Power
  Another darling of the critics - I maybe am more mainstream than I’d like to think!
• Let’s Get Out Of The Country - Camera Obscura
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Scottish pop made in Sweden.
• Visible Forms - Audrey
  Sweet, sweet, sweet Swedish pop made in Sweden.
• On Leaving - Nina Nastasia
  She is turning out such consistently great albums.
• Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain - Sparklehorse
  More of the same from Linkous, but you won’t find me complaining.
• You Are My Home - Rivulets
• Citrus - Asobi Seksu

Gigs
These days it’s hard for me to drag my old and aching body out to gigs but here are a few I enjoyed (and can remember) this year…

• Espers + Edith Frost @ The Bush Hall
• Yo La Tengo @ The Bush Hall
• J. Spaceman @ The Queen Elizabeth Hall
• Audrey + Musika 77 @ The Water Rats
• The Clientele @ The Spitz

Played artists (according to last.fm)

1. Galaxie 500
2. Low
3. Luna
4. Yo La Tengo
5. Stereolab
6. Joanna Newsom
7. Ballboy
8. The Clientele
9. Cat Power
10. Camera Obscura

Films
Some I saw and loved in 2006 (some I’d seen before, some I hadn’t)

• Corpse Bride (2005)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Brazil (1985)
• Adaptation (2002)
• Twelve Monkeys (1995)
• The River (1951)
• Batman Begins (2005)
• A Mighty Wind (2003)
• Fight Club (1999)
• Serenity (2005)

Things that made me feel good

• Hazel
  if it’s possible we seem to be getting on even better than we ever have - even if she doesn’t get Joanna Newsom (yet!)
• Adam
  Occasionally infuriating, but funny and fun and when he tries talented!
• A Head Full of Wishes and the Galaxie 500 Mailing List
  OK - a pretty quiet year for both but I still get a buzz out of them - and it’s because of them that I ocasionally have email from Dean, Damon and Naomi - and nothing can surely make a fan feel better than that!
• Music
• Films
• The Internet

Things that made me feel depressed

• The British government
  I can’t seem to put into words just how pissed off I am with Blair and the spineless folk around him.
• The Music Industry
  Evil, greedy, selfish and rich. They don’t care about music and one day everyone will realise that they don’t need them anymore.
• My job (and the BBC)
  Slowly falling apart and being sold off to the highest bidder with little care and long-term thinking - it too will finally fall apart and become little more than a commissioning house.

Posted in Music, idle nonsense, politics | No Comments »

Why I adore the Internet

Posted on November 24th, 2006 by Andy

In the olden days we used to go out and get fresh air or sit around the fire telling stories - some people might try and tell you that those days were better. But in the days before the Internet the chances of me seeing someone playing a Galaxie 500 song on a steel drum were pretty slim…no matter how many carnivals or school fetes I went to…

lord exister tugboat on Vimeo

I love the Internet…

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | 1 Comment »

The All-TIME 100 Albums

Posted on November 16th, 2006 by Andy

The All-TIME 100 Albums
We researched and listened and agonized until we had a list of the greatest and most influential records ever - and then everyone complained because there was no Pink Floyd on it. And that’s exactly how it should be

No it’s not how it should be at all! It should be sensible and reasoned and not insulting…four of the nine albums from the 2000s are by people who were dead LONG before the 2000s started.

I shan’t waste my breath suggesting what’s missing but what’s included is an embarrassing joke clearly put together by people who clearly know absolutely bloody nothing. Lists like this don’t inspire sensible debate and discussion they merely demonstrate that the world doesn’t deserve beautiful and insightful music because wankers who write this sort of thing would rather hear a compilation of forty-year old Elvis tracks.

Arseholes!

Posted in Music, idle nonsense | 2 Comments »