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Thursday 23 December 2004

The Best Songs Ever of this year ever

Everybody's doing it. And who ever said I had original ideas?

	The Bees - Free the Bees Twas' the Horseman that came riding to cheer me up in the Summer. This is another record company's "Kings Of Leon", but ever so fractionally more polished. And I do like my bands to be polished, although less so recently. Anyway, if you do nothing else, check out "Horsemen", which is bloody marvellous. The album is no one-trick pony, either.
	Graham Coxon - Happiness in Magazines I have to admit that I didn't see this one coming. He did the rounds of the festivals, but I didn't make it to Glasto this year (grumble grumble) so didn't pick up on it until it was passé. It's good bouncy stuff with an undeniable London accent, and I have forgone what seems to be everyone's favourite ("Freakin' Out") in favour of "Bittersweet Bundle of Misery" as the best track on the album.
	Ian Broudie - Tales Told I heard Lord Crowley of Plop interviewing the venerable ex-controller of the Lightning Seeds Mr Broudie (who also appears later in this list as a producer of an equally fine album). It's unexpected; Broudie growls through some laid back eulogies to life and love, and it's utterly listenable. Occasionally, you get flashes of the past - but they're brief, yet no less magical.
	The Killers - Hot Fuss Everyone but everyone loved "Mr Brightside", but I would balance that with "Smile Like You Mean It", not just because I'm insanely optimistic, but because it's a bloody good song. Plus it reminds me of the dance teacher in the Simpsons who says "lets turn those frowns upside down" and then snaps at Lisa "That's a smile, not an upside down frown!". I don't know where I was going with this now. Oh yes. The Killers. Very good. Next!
	Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News The good thing about the title of this album is that you can change all the words around and it still means the same thing. Probably. I thought this band were Canadian, which meant that I automatically didn't like them without hearing any of their stuff. Then I heard "Float On" and changed my mind. Then I heard that they weren't actually Canadian, but from Seattle, and thought that I'd better not like them again. But I can't help it. It's a fine jangly album. Apparently they've been around for 20,000 years, but this is the first decent thing they've done. Just so you don't go and waste money on their earlier stuff.
	Ordinary Boys - Over The Counter Culture If someone put a knife to my throat on Green Lanes and forced me to pick my favourite CD of the year it would be this one. Or the Zutons. No, this one. Definitely this one. It's good honest punk-pop-rock with a benignly subversive message. Plus they're from Brighton. What more could you ask for?
	The Zutons - Who Killed The Zutons?" I haven't quite got to the bottom of why they rereleased this album. Anyway. It accompanied me while I was driving a convertible through the cornfields of Wisconsin in early July, and although they're from Liverpool, it all worked for some reason. Ian Broudie takes the production credit, and so he should, because it's polished and perfect and lovely. But not quite as good as the Ordinary Boys. I don't think.

Posted by dustbinman at 10:55 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Thursday 23 December 2004

Juletide Yoy

I forgot - I've left a little present hidden on this site. Those who may have stumbled through here in the past will know of my strange partiality to "mash ups", or in other words, mixing two songs together to make something vaguely pleasing to the ear.

So my Christmas present to you (until my bandwidth is stretched to breaking point), is one I made on a quiet night in the north of England - Faithless v. David Lowe - We Come Twenty Four.

Posted by dustbinman at 10:14 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thursday 23 December 2004

Well - here we go, I suppose

It's been too long. It all came crashing down when I foolishly tried to update Movable Type to version 3. Ah well. If anyone knows a way of importing an SQL backup into a new database which may or may not have the same tables and structure, please let me know!

I'm sitting at home doing this when I really should be doing other things. Like Christmas Shopping. Or work. But I can multi-task and do laundry while I'm attempting to get this up and running, I suppose.

It's nice to have access to this little box again.

I thought I'd better pop in and say Merry Christmas, for those of us that celebrate the birth of an unprovable son of an unprovable god.

Proof is not easy to come by. But there are a few things I can be sure of.

There are about 70 planets that we can be fairly sure exist. And, by best estimates, an infinite number that we're not sure exist. One of them is just the right distance from a sun that's just the right temperature to allow the fusion of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and about 15 other basic elements into approximately 15 million types of life form. To enable this to happen, the planet has a magnetic outer core which repels enough space junk and holds certain chemicals in place to withstand the more harmful elements that the universe throws at it. The fact that a large part of the centre of the planet is liquid ensures that the cooled outer crust moves around and creates mountains and other pleasing ripples that keep the sea out. If they didn't, the whole planet would be covered in 4km of water. There might be life, but it wouldn't have arms, legs, oxygen breathing lungs and CNN. There's a moon which is just the right size and distance away to hold everything in place, and is only there because about 4 billion years ago an object the size of Mars slammed into the planet, jetissoning a perfect-sized chunk into nearby orbit. Only about 33% of the surface of the planet is dry land, and only 12% of that is habitable for these strange 2 legged creatures. And Of the 8 billion years of existence, only about 2% of that has been a time that is habitable by these weirdos.*

I'll ignore the fact that despite incredible odds, we're here, and yet still seem intent on fucking things up.

Is it all just a crazy-arsed coincidence? I don't know, but because nobody has had the guts to take responsibility for it, I'm going to assume that it was.

And I'm going to appreciate it.

So, for whatever reason, 25th of December is as good a day as any to have a bloody good party.

*Any or all of the Scientific "facts" presented here could be utterly wrong due to the author's dodgy memory.

Posted by dustbinman at 9:52 | Permalink | Comments (3)