Any art lovers in the audience? Sure there are. Go check out 'The Shock of the New', Robert Hughes' classic BBC documentary on modern art. You can watch the entire series starting here , which is what I did last weekend. When finished, if you fancy more old skool mind food (and who doesn't?), you should try out the entire series of Jacob Bronowski's 'The Ascent of Man' starting here . You can use the acquired skills to beat Civilisation IV or something. My twitter acquaintance @leahycoo alerted me to this stuff being on youtube a [...]
See ya January. Off to fuck with you now. February sees me taking on some work in Dublin and facing into a daily commute totalling 5 hours to and from my job. I'm trying to be as zen as possible about this and want to maximise my use of the down time afforded by the bus trip. If I turn off my phone, I can completely tune in and turn on to a good book, a podcast, or an album. I can give my attention fully over to these things without [...]
A couple of weekends ago when I wrote my little photo essay on Kells, I had a childish fight with my twin brother (a regressive and embarrassing spectacle that happens all too often when we spend time in the family home. We are 31). He stalked me around the house, pleading with me to delete the blog post as I banged a couple of doors and muttered at him to fuck off (reminder: we are 31). He believed that the post would go viral and I'd become a pariah in Kells. Not only that, my near-certain status as [...]
A couple of weekends ago when I wrote my little photo essay on Kells, I had a childish fight with my twin brother (a regressive and embarrassing spectacle that happens all too often when we spend time in the family home. We are 31.). He stalked me around the house, pleading with me to delete the blog post as I banged a couple of doors and muttered at him to fuck off (reminder: we are 31). He believed that the post would go viral and I'd become a pariah in Kells. Not only that, my near-certain status as [...]
Woo hoo I finally got on top of the sound issues. My voice is dulcet on this one. Golden. *edit: it overlaps itself for about 4 seconds at the 2 minute mark*. I have pipes like this dude... On this week's podcast, I discuss some music social networking sites such as this is my jam, James [...]
Woo hoo I finally got on top of the sound issues. My voice is dulcet on this one. Golden. I have pipes like this dude... On this week's podcast, I discuss some music social networking sites such as this is my jam, James Ferraro's creepy google muzak masterpiece (or is it?) Far Side Virtual , and the [...]
Music journalism cliché #29545: the phrase "dancing about architecture". Music journalism cliché #29546: the adjectives "hazy", "ethereal", "gauzy", "widescreen". Music journalism cliché #29547: clunky gender specific synonyms for the word songwriter when said songwriter is female, such as "songbird", "chantreause", or *retch* "songstress" Music journalism cliché #29548: synth music only ever occurs in "stabs" Music journalism cliché #29549: "X sounds like Y on acid" For more of these, check out a funny old post by Dave [...]
The asleep on the compost heap podcast is now set up with iTunes. You can subscribe to it right here . In other podcast news, I am going to record some episodes where guests chat about their favourite things. Yes, it will be a 100% rip-off of pitchfork's guest list feature. To complete this lousy act of blatant intellectual theft, I need a good name for the feature; something that is not 'guest list'. If you have any ideas please leave them in the comment box below. Many people pointed [...]
The asleep on the compost heap podcast is now set up with iTunes. You can subscribe to it right here . In other podcast news, I am going to record some episodes where guests chat about their favourite things. Yes, it will be a 100% rip-off of pitchfork's guest list feature. To complete this lousy act of blatant intellectual theft, I need a good name for the feature; something that is not 'guest list'. If you have any ideas please leave them in the comment box below. Many people pointed [...]
Hmm, I'll have to admit, this feels a bit awkward and wayward of me, my starting this list now, six weeks later than I really ought to have done. Even that notorious tortoise Karl appears to be putting his list to bed over on those geese (it's an excellent list by the way; you all should read it, but come back here won't yis). The path ahead looks lonely and punishing as fuck...and to think I started blogging because I thought it would be fun. THIS YEAR...IN A WORLD...ONE BRAVE MUSIC BLOGGER'S JOURNEY AGAINST THE [...]
Visitors to the Kells online website will note the town's quixotic quest to have a volume of a famous manuscript removed from Trinity College and permanently 'returned' to us (because, erm, a treasure of national significance belongs to the town near where it was found). Understanding the magnitude of the endeavour, I've decided to help the town's chamber of commerce with some photojournalism to bolster their PR effort. It's a series of images that give a flavour of the picturesque and historical town on a quiet Sunday afternoon. I call it My Home Town: A Photo Essay [...]
This week's episode finds me considering... - gloomy witchy techno from England - Guided by Voices' heartbreakingly ordinary new album - and Nim, the tragic chimp whose life was ruined by a pompous turtlenecked professor with a hard-on for his female postgrad students and a disregard for the simple simian's heart. the hipster chimp with the heart of gold [...]
Visitors to the kellsonline website will note the town's quixotic quest to have a volume of the book of Kells removed from Trinity College and permanently 'returned' to us (because, erm, a treasure of national significance belongs to the town near which it was found). Understanding the magnitude of the endeavour, I've decided to help the town's chamber of commerce with some photojournalism to bolster their PR effort. It's a series of images that give a flavour of the picturesque and historical town on a quiet Sunday afternoon. I call it Kells: A Photo Essay [...]
This week's episode finds me considering... - gloomy witchy techno from England - Guided by Voices' heartbreakingly ordinary new album - and Nim, the tragic chimp whose life was ruined by a pompous turtlenecked professor with a hard-on for his female postgrad students and a disregard for the simple simian's heart. the hipster chimp with the heart of gold [...]
Some of these are just plain tricky to make interesting. Something that grows? Not my bank balance anyway (boom boom). How about Skrillex's hair? Skrillex's hair gone sentient, growing out of your toilet at a hundred miles an hour, wrapping around your ankles as you run screaming for the door. SKRILLLLLLLLLLLEXXXXXXXXXXXX (click to make big) MP3: Harold Budd- Flowered Knife Shadows [...]
There are few sights as dispiriting as Christmas decorations at this time of year. At any given moment on the fifth of January, a piece of tinsel detaches from a hard piece of blue tack and see-saws slowly towards a floor, somewhere in Ireland, while a drunk man cries. In a thousand playrooms, a thousand interactive toys dimly light up for the final time, playing horribly distorted electronic lullabies as batteries (which will never be replaced) die. Meanwhile, blocks of barely touched stilton squat in fridges, unpopular quality streets make their inevitable greasy descent down the gullets of the self-loathing, [...]
I saw in the end of 2011 watching TV with my mother in our front room. A tin of chocolate sweets sat open in a no man's zone on the floor between us (a slightly out of reach spot that allowed us to maintain a feeble delusion about not being chocolate crazed Christmas pigs). Before midnight, my mother, engaging in one of her weirder habits, went into the kitchen to microwave her cold mug of tea. I gulped a mouthful of Tesco diet cola, farted softly while there was a sly getting away with it, and un-muted The Vaccines who [...]
For better or for worse here it is, my first podcast, thirty minutes of me sitting alone in my room awkwardly talking to a laptop screen. Topics covered include... This guy doing this stuff The same guy doing this stuff [...]
I'm going to lash into these (you'll hopefully excuse the brevity as I am working on the podcast). Without further ado... Ho Ho Howaryis kids #5 Grimes - Vanessa Claire Boucher's voice is weird. Weird like something out of an 80's horror film on VHS - the bit where a possessed little old lady's eyes turn electric white and she sings in a [...]
I'm going to lash into these (you'll hopefully excuse the brevity as I am working on the podcast). Without further ado... Ho Ho Howaryis kids #5 Grimes - Vanessa Claire Boucher's voice is weird. Weird like something out of an 80's horror film on VHS - the bit where a possessed little old lady's eyes turn electric white and she sings in a [...]
Asleep on the compost heap
Bison - Quill
Neutral Milk Hotel- Aeroplane Over the Sea
Shinichi Osawa – Big Beach Mix 2012
