A Complete Explanation Of Everything
Friday, March 30, 2007
A week in Charente...
Man, I've got so much stuff to tell you but I can't for legal reasons.
How's that for a cliffhanger?
Anyway, I'm off to France for a week, to the region of the Charente Maritime and the towns of La Rochelle and Chatelaillon Plage.
I'll be back and am sure in better posting fettle after all that.
Significant lifechanging movements are however afoot like I said.
But the legal ramifications!
Like I said, cliffhanger.
Next time friends, next time...
How's that for a cliffhanger?
Anyway, I'm off to France for a week, to the region of the Charente Maritime and the towns of La Rochelle and Chatelaillon Plage.
I'll be back and am sure in better posting fettle after all that.
Significant lifechanging movements are however afoot like I said.
But the legal ramifications!
Like I said, cliffhanger.
Next time friends, next time...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
We are in a national collective state of denial in relation to alcohol abuse
So screams the papers this morning.
Man, I've a hangover...
Does anyone fancy the hair of the dog at all???
Normal service will resume shortly.
Man, I've a hangover...
Does anyone fancy the hair of the dog at all???
Normal service will resume shortly.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
My fucking depressing shite...
Years ago.
And I mean literally years ago.
Myself and my mate, "lil' Dave", currently living in China, were throwing around demo name ideas for a laugh. And a sort of joint effort was the title of this entry, I don't know why but I'm in the mood to explore, for our general edification, the sort of dark music that makes me up today.
And before we start, please bear in mind that I don't find these songs depressing per se, they tend to cheer me up, they're cathartic at the very least and sometimes just sitting down and listing or plucking them on a guitar will pick up my mood.
That kinda comes round to the whole Jeff Tweedy (lead singer - Wilco) argument, that songs aren't written to change your mood, you're in that mood and you choose songs to reflect what you're feeling until you don't feel that way no more but that's an argument for a whole other day.
What are my top depressing tunes? My Mum came home with a book ages ago, that was penned along those lines, I was suitably unimpressed with the songs chosen of course.
"Hurt", both versions was about the only one that could readily be agreed with. There was a Nirvana entry but I can't think for the life of me what it was, however, if I was going to kick off with a Nirvana and I'm going to... I'd choose...
"Heart Shaped Box"
Kurt had heavier, more intense, more oblique songs perhaps but this one really hits the money for me, in a more believable way I guess.
Choice lines such as:
"Cut myself on Angel Hair and baby's breath"
"I wish I could reach your cancer when you turn black"
& the killer:
"Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back"
Combined with the known pain of the author, whether self inflicted or whatever, well, it just speaks to me on a subconscious level.
Anyway, enough of the obvious, if you're still reading at this point, it's because you're interested in hearing about some songs that could help you out of an emotional rollercoaster which has hit rock bottom. So here are my top picks, you may not have heard!
Uncle Tupelo / Jeff Tweedy: "Black Eye"
This was Jeff's first band, he played bass before moving up to guitar until things eventually turned nasty with his co-collaborator, Jay Farrar. Jay left and formed a new band, Son Volt, and Jeff pretty much took the remaining Tupelo musicians and turned them into Wilco.
One thing you have to credit Farrar with was giving Jeff his head, he allowed him to play his songs in the band when he was very much the junior partner and although Farrar told Jeff to sing his own songs, in a manner that was probably equal parts disparaging / encouraging, it was still quite a liberating thing to do. And it lead to some great music both for Tupelo and it's future incarnations.
"Black Eye" was a Jeff song and it's just fronted up on the records with a single acoustic guitar, with a couple of overdubs. It clocks in at just over two minutes and as it's so short, here are the full lyrics:
"He had a black eye
He was proud of
Like some of his friends
It made him feel somewhere outside
Of everything and everywhere he'd been
Like his brothers
He emptied himself
And played it safe
Like their father
He wanted to remember
But he almost always
Forgot what he was gonna say
Black eye
Black eye
When he realized
That this one was here to stay
He took down
All the mirrors in the hallway
And thought only of his younger face
Black eye
Black eye"
As you can garner, it deals mainly with the themes of growing old... The unspoken, irreparable damage of age to the physical form. It twists youthful exuberance on it's head and juxtaposes it with the old man in the hallway.
We've all had one of those moments and we're going to have a lot more of them in the future. But, what redeems this from being a pointless exercise in the bleak, is that's it a central and shared human experience and those that are fortunate to have the opportunity to live a life where they can grow old, can rejoice in that.
Ryan Adams - "Dear Chicago"
I fulfilled one of my life's ambitions last year. Sit in a bar in Chicago and hum this to myself, en route to New York. If you ever get to Chicago, find the bar. It's called: "Aliveone". It's skit is that it has a jukebox full of live music tracks and it probably is, the best jukebox in the world.
Anyway, coming back to the tune, this is a song that Ryan Adams has apparently being carrying in his live set for many a year, at least in his post Whiskeytown days. Which is unusual because as much as any artist, he's progressed his music to the point where he seems to have difficulty countenancing the old material to any great degree. I can attest to this because when he played the Olympia in Dublin at the start of winter, the older tunes were generally treated to a more straight ahead country take thanks to the backing band, the Cardinals, but "Dear Chicago" was left to fend for itself, like a plaintive sigh, a hot breath condensing on the air in the cold winter.
At least that's how I visualise the song anyway.
Basically, it's your standard boy tells girl you know I met someone but hell, she could never compare to you even though you ditched me but you know I think I'm getting past all that now and I'm in a place where I can finally move on fare.
And christ! Who hasn't had one of those.
And it's a bitter, twisted, ironic take on life in the lines inbetween.
"Nothing breathes here in the cold.
Nothing moves or even smiles.
I've been thinking some of suicide.
But there's bars out here for miles."
The bars will save you, they saved me and they saved Ryan.
But the closing line's the charm...
"New York City, you're almost gone.
I think that I've fallen out of love,
I think I've fallen out of love... with you."
Billy Bragg - "St. Swithin's Day"
Monsieur Bragg, kicking it old skool. Billy, for the uninitiated was an original in many senses. One of the first of the real DIY merchants, he began by taking an amplifier on his back and guitar in hand and playing up and down the UK, as his atonal efforts failed to dent the business end of the charts. He had a relative hit with a "A New England" but managed through sheer tenacity to develop a respectable album oriented following that respected Billy for both his passionate support of the Miner's strike, his political songs and the honest approach of his paeans to lovelorn disaster.
"St. Swithin's Day" is one such tune and was actually covered years later by the female vocal fronted, The Sundays. Who incidentally post two of my favourite covers of all time, "St. Swithin's Day" and a beautiful version of the Stone's classic, "Wild Horses".
Billy didn't play acoustic guitar because well, he only had one guitar when he was touring. So he adopted a unique approach, without back up, he played. This gives his records, a sort of stark nature but also their power. "St. Swithin's Day" plays this straight down the line, the arpeggio like slow intro, setting the mood, the spaces in the music, you fill in with your mind.
Billy's voice wasn't exactly an oil painting but on this tune, he does a decent job, again it's the honesty of the emotional engagement and the familiar theme that brings fragile redemption to what essentially is depressing subject matter.
"The polaroids that hold us together
Will surely fade away
Like the love that we spoke of forever
On St. Swithin's day"
There you have it then.
Three from the bottom of the drawer.
When you're in the bottom of the drawer yourself!
And I mean literally years ago.
Myself and my mate, "lil' Dave", currently living in China, were throwing around demo name ideas for a laugh. And a sort of joint effort was the title of this entry, I don't know why but I'm in the mood to explore, for our general edification, the sort of dark music that makes me up today.
And before we start, please bear in mind that I don't find these songs depressing per se, they tend to cheer me up, they're cathartic at the very least and sometimes just sitting down and listing or plucking them on a guitar will pick up my mood.
That kinda comes round to the whole Jeff Tweedy (lead singer - Wilco) argument, that songs aren't written to change your mood, you're in that mood and you choose songs to reflect what you're feeling until you don't feel that way no more but that's an argument for a whole other day.
What are my top depressing tunes? My Mum came home with a book ages ago, that was penned along those lines, I was suitably unimpressed with the songs chosen of course.
"Hurt", both versions was about the only one that could readily be agreed with. There was a Nirvana entry but I can't think for the life of me what it was, however, if I was going to kick off with a Nirvana and I'm going to... I'd choose...
"Heart Shaped Box"
Kurt had heavier, more intense, more oblique songs perhaps but this one really hits the money for me, in a more believable way I guess.
Choice lines such as:
"Cut myself on Angel Hair and baby's breath"
"I wish I could reach your cancer when you turn black"
& the killer:
"Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back"
Combined with the known pain of the author, whether self inflicted or whatever, well, it just speaks to me on a subconscious level.
Anyway, enough of the obvious, if you're still reading at this point, it's because you're interested in hearing about some songs that could help you out of an emotional rollercoaster which has hit rock bottom. So here are my top picks, you may not have heard!
Uncle Tupelo / Jeff Tweedy: "Black Eye"
This was Jeff's first band, he played bass before moving up to guitar until things eventually turned nasty with his co-collaborator, Jay Farrar. Jay left and formed a new band, Son Volt, and Jeff pretty much took the remaining Tupelo musicians and turned them into Wilco.
One thing you have to credit Farrar with was giving Jeff his head, he allowed him to play his songs in the band when he was very much the junior partner and although Farrar told Jeff to sing his own songs, in a manner that was probably equal parts disparaging / encouraging, it was still quite a liberating thing to do. And it lead to some great music both for Tupelo and it's future incarnations.
"Black Eye" was a Jeff song and it's just fronted up on the records with a single acoustic guitar, with a couple of overdubs. It clocks in at just over two minutes and as it's so short, here are the full lyrics:
"He had a black eye
He was proud of
Like some of his friends
It made him feel somewhere outside
Of everything and everywhere he'd been
Like his brothers
He emptied himself
And played it safe
Like their father
He wanted to remember
But he almost always
Forgot what he was gonna say
Black eye
Black eye
When he realized
That this one was here to stay
He took down
All the mirrors in the hallway
And thought only of his younger face
Black eye
Black eye"
As you can garner, it deals mainly with the themes of growing old... The unspoken, irreparable damage of age to the physical form. It twists youthful exuberance on it's head and juxtaposes it with the old man in the hallway.
We've all had one of those moments and we're going to have a lot more of them in the future. But, what redeems this from being a pointless exercise in the bleak, is that's it a central and shared human experience and those that are fortunate to have the opportunity to live a life where they can grow old, can rejoice in that.
Ryan Adams - "Dear Chicago"
I fulfilled one of my life's ambitions last year. Sit in a bar in Chicago and hum this to myself, en route to New York. If you ever get to Chicago, find the bar. It's called: "Aliveone". It's skit is that it has a jukebox full of live music tracks and it probably is, the best jukebox in the world.
Anyway, coming back to the tune, this is a song that Ryan Adams has apparently being carrying in his live set for many a year, at least in his post Whiskeytown days. Which is unusual because as much as any artist, he's progressed his music to the point where he seems to have difficulty countenancing the old material to any great degree. I can attest to this because when he played the Olympia in Dublin at the start of winter, the older tunes were generally treated to a more straight ahead country take thanks to the backing band, the Cardinals, but "Dear Chicago" was left to fend for itself, like a plaintive sigh, a hot breath condensing on the air in the cold winter.
At least that's how I visualise the song anyway.
Basically, it's your standard boy tells girl you know I met someone but hell, she could never compare to you even though you ditched me but you know I think I'm getting past all that now and I'm in a place where I can finally move on fare.
And christ! Who hasn't had one of those.
And it's a bitter, twisted, ironic take on life in the lines inbetween.
"Nothing breathes here in the cold.
Nothing moves or even smiles.
I've been thinking some of suicide.
But there's bars out here for miles."
The bars will save you, they saved me and they saved Ryan.
But the closing line's the charm...
"New York City, you're almost gone.
I think that I've fallen out of love,
I think I've fallen out of love... with you."
Billy Bragg - "St. Swithin's Day"
Monsieur Bragg, kicking it old skool. Billy, for the uninitiated was an original in many senses. One of the first of the real DIY merchants, he began by taking an amplifier on his back and guitar in hand and playing up and down the UK, as his atonal efforts failed to dent the business end of the charts. He had a relative hit with a "A New England" but managed through sheer tenacity to develop a respectable album oriented following that respected Billy for both his passionate support of the Miner's strike, his political songs and the honest approach of his paeans to lovelorn disaster.
"St. Swithin's Day" is one such tune and was actually covered years later by the female vocal fronted, The Sundays. Who incidentally post two of my favourite covers of all time, "St. Swithin's Day" and a beautiful version of the Stone's classic, "Wild Horses".
Billy didn't play acoustic guitar because well, he only had one guitar when he was touring. So he adopted a unique approach, without back up, he played. This gives his records, a sort of stark nature but also their power. "St. Swithin's Day" plays this straight down the line, the arpeggio like slow intro, setting the mood, the spaces in the music, you fill in with your mind.
Billy's voice wasn't exactly an oil painting but on this tune, he does a decent job, again it's the honesty of the emotional engagement and the familiar theme that brings fragile redemption to what essentially is depressing subject matter.
"The polaroids that hold us together
Will surely fade away
Like the love that we spoke of forever
On St. Swithin's day"
There you have it then.
Three from the bottom of the drawer.
When you're in the bottom of the drawer yourself!
Monday, March 12, 2007
Drive Well, Sleep Carefully
Review: Death Cab for Cutie - Drive Well, Sleep Carefully DVD
I was always deeply suspicious of the band name. I had seen it mentioned here and there but Irish radio being what it is, and my deep hatred of said medium, meant I was never likely to hear that all of my preconceptions were utterly ill-founded.
It took being tossed a copy of The Postal Service's debut, "Give Up", which was so literally jaw dropping (well, on a couple of tracks at least) that I decided to investigate.
I have all of DCFC's records now, barring the first EP and am a firmly committed fan. That said, the following review will be impartial.
Basically, it opens with the boys livin' it up, trailer style. And reminiscing about days of yore, spent travelling the West coast of Yankee-land in vans, etc. Standard enough, you might say and so it is.
Between bemoaning the potential ills of signing with a major label and the curse of life on the road, contrasted admittedly with the associated highs the band readily profess to feeling, there's nothing extraordinary going on here to the naked eye.
But in the ear, the ear's the thing.
Gibbard's songwriting, complemented by the musicianship of the remaining four piece provokes a much more interesting live specimen than I would have thought possible. The songs are given a much more intense edge, probably best illustrated on a song like "Tiny Vessels", the simple direct approach from Cutie live seems to be to play the easy rockers.
Which given the understated nature of the majority of their material is kind of an intriguing choice. Or does it belie even further the deep rooted insecurity from which the majority of Gibbard's subject matter is garnered.
But rock they do. Many props to the rhythm section for this, bass player, Nick Harmer, turns out to be an animal player and could well do with getting someone to lift the bass mix up on the records. I'd always envisioned DCFC as much of a one or two man project and had ascribed the rather limp bass mix to this idea but clearly, there's more at issue here. Jason McGerr, provides the perfect mix of straight ahead and esoteric on the drums and Chris Walla, the lead guitarist, has an easy template to follow. Given the records are masterpieces for indie guitar parts.
Either way, we get great relaxing albums (although they are soaked in bitter regret) and a rockin' live band.
That's two for the price of one.
And that can't be a bad thing...
I was always deeply suspicious of the band name. I had seen it mentioned here and there but Irish radio being what it is, and my deep hatred of said medium, meant I was never likely to hear that all of my preconceptions were utterly ill-founded.
It took being tossed a copy of The Postal Service's debut, "Give Up", which was so literally jaw dropping (well, on a couple of tracks at least) that I decided to investigate.
I have all of DCFC's records now, barring the first EP and am a firmly committed fan. That said, the following review will be impartial.
Basically, it opens with the boys livin' it up, trailer style. And reminiscing about days of yore, spent travelling the West coast of Yankee-land in vans, etc. Standard enough, you might say and so it is.
Between bemoaning the potential ills of signing with a major label and the curse of life on the road, contrasted admittedly with the associated highs the band readily profess to feeling, there's nothing extraordinary going on here to the naked eye.
But in the ear, the ear's the thing.
Gibbard's songwriting, complemented by the musicianship of the remaining four piece provokes a much more interesting live specimen than I would have thought possible. The songs are given a much more intense edge, probably best illustrated on a song like "Tiny Vessels", the simple direct approach from Cutie live seems to be to play the easy rockers.
Which given the understated nature of the majority of their material is kind of an intriguing choice. Or does it belie even further the deep rooted insecurity from which the majority of Gibbard's subject matter is garnered.
But rock they do. Many props to the rhythm section for this, bass player, Nick Harmer, turns out to be an animal player and could well do with getting someone to lift the bass mix up on the records. I'd always envisioned DCFC as much of a one or two man project and had ascribed the rather limp bass mix to this idea but clearly, there's more at issue here. Jason McGerr, provides the perfect mix of straight ahead and esoteric on the drums and Chris Walla, the lead guitarist, has an easy template to follow. Given the records are masterpieces for indie guitar parts.
Either way, we get great relaxing albums (although they are soaked in bitter regret) and a rockin' live band.
That's two for the price of one.
And that can't be a bad thing...
All these things that I haven't done...
I have to post up reviews of:
- Last King of Scotland
- Death Cab for Cutie DVD: Drive Well, Sleep Carefully
And also:
- A story from last week about me and my bro...
- Something about the latest kerfuffle* on the 'pin
Here are some lyrics, I wrote at the weekend:
Grant, New Mexico, ain't no place to go...
When you got your mind on the road...
Pulling out of Nashville, Tennessee...
Keep your wheels straight, on that I-40,
Memphis headed and Lord I was,
Waiting on one of those two kings...
It ain't Johnny Cash.
Hell, it ain't even Willie Nelson.
But then I'm not getting their type of money.
It's in the dictionary, check it -> kerfuffle
- Last King of Scotland
- Death Cab for Cutie DVD: Drive Well, Sleep Carefully
And also:
- A story from last week about me and my bro...
- Something about the latest kerfuffle* on the 'pin
Here are some lyrics, I wrote at the weekend:
Grant, New Mexico, ain't no place to go...
When you got your mind on the road...
Pulling out of Nashville, Tennessee...
Keep your wheels straight, on that I-40,
Memphis headed and Lord I was,
Waiting on one of those two kings...
It ain't Johnny Cash.
Hell, it ain't even Willie Nelson.
But then I'm not getting their type of money.
It's in the dictionary, check it -> kerfuffle
Nina's had a facelift...
No, not really.
But she has a shiny new website! That is all set to accompany her shiny new album, "Really Really Do", which is due out shortly.
In fact, there will be a shiny shiny gig in Dublin's premier live music venue, The Sugar Club on April 13th, that will debut the whole thang.
I shall be there.
Hurling abuse from the front row.
And later from the bar at the back.
Check out -> ninahynes.com
See?
Shiny.
But she has a shiny new website! That is all set to accompany her shiny new album, "Really Really Do", which is due out shortly.
In fact, there will be a shiny shiny gig in Dublin's premier live music venue, The Sugar Club on April 13th, that will debut the whole thang.
I shall be there.
Hurling abuse from the front row.
And later from the bar at the back.
Check out -> ninahynes.com
See?
Shiny.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
We have time but we don't know what it's for...
I'll do a typical Jenna post.
Angst!
;O)
Angst!
;O)
