just because i can...

David Byrne.

Then (1980) * ...



A few years ago (2001) ...



And now...



* There's a great version of this on YouTube, which I can't embed. Curses...

why we love modern stuff (continued)

Part 3: Cut down that Amazon shopping list by streaming a load of music. Save £££'s!!!

I'm not normally one to get worked up about the so-called wonders of the digital age but you can get so much music for free these days on internet streaming services that it sort of seems impolite not to explore some of the possibilities.

Spotify seems to be generally flavour of the month at the moment. If you can bear the thought of listening to one advert every fifteen or twenty minutes, you can stream full albums or create your own playlists free of charge. My current favourites include some old but very excellent jazz/blues by Etta James, and some top-notch songs from Congolese outfit Staff Benda Bilili.

Grooveshark even allows me to embed one of those widget thingummies for the convenience of my readers, thus allowing them to check out this top tune, "Counterpoint" by 2009 New-Order-a-likes Delphic:



Remember those "various artists" cassettes you used to foist on your unsuspecting friends and family in the eighties? Just me then. Well you can do a modern-day fancy-dan digital equivalent courtesy of the fantastic 8tracks site. Here's a playlist I put together a couple of weeks ago to mark the welcome appearance of a big round yellow object in the April sky...

why we love modern stuff: 2

This week: the iPod shuffle

I doubt that there's anything more likely to lift you above the workaday mediocrity of a knackered Monday-morning Northern Line than a top, yet--amazingly--random, selection from the old iPod shuffle play. This lot did the trick for me the other day:


1. Laura Veirs - Don't Lose Yourself
2. Teenage Fanclub - About You *
3. Louis Philippe - Destination Moon
4. Sebastien Tellier - La Ballade Du Georges
5. Annie - Anniemal
6. Teenage Fanclub - Start Again *
7. St Etienne - Teenage Winter
8. Soul II Soul - Keep On Movin'
9. Athlete - Wires
10. Ben Folds - Jerusalem

* I defy anyone not to feel better first thing in the morning after listening to just about anything by the Fannies.

why we love modern stuff: 1

Episode 1: youtube



This video of "I Don't Know What It Is" by Rufus Wainwright is just brilliant.

I'll tell you why:

• It really captures the atmosphere at Glastonbury. Look at that clear blue sky at the beginning (well it can happen) and there are some choice cutaway crowd shots later on.
• You can hear lots of backing parts which don't come through on the proper recording like the wah-wah guitar when the drums kick in at 0:38 (Is that a hot-air balloon fading off into the distance?)
• 1:03. The backing vocals are sublime (is that too strong a word?) all through. Again, you can't hear them on the CD. (I think that's Sister Martha hiding behind the sunglassed guitarist.)
• 1:31. Hear that new guitar part?
• 1:39. The bloke in the straw hat is having such a good time.
• 1:44. "Is there anyone else?" Those backing vocals really take off now. Sing it (mainly) girls, but also boys...
• 2:36. You can hardly hear the trumpets (and they're normally really loud right?) but it doesn't matter cos Martha and her mate are still going for it.
• 3:10. Caught up in the emotion of the moment, paralysis sets in in Rufus's left hand but it's OK cos you can hear the trumpets now.
• 3:40. No! What's that member of the stage crew doing with those tangled leads? He's totally spoiling the mood.
• 3:47. OK this is the big moment. Three backing vocal phrases over "I don't know what it is to get me over" x2, "I don't know what it is..."
• 3:58. ...puts the tin lid on it for me.
• 4:02. The music just takes off... (bit like that balloon just now)
• 4:27. Not the most musical of endings maybe, but it's about a train, see, and it's pulling into the station.

..and Old Rufus can really belt it out.

Did I mention that this is a great song too?

Well I think so.

computer love

For me, the advent of the music download has finally made buying singles much more worthwhile. On vinyl you always got a B-side which was usually as weak as the A-side was brilliant, and on CD you got even more unwanted tracks and sometimes three or four different mixes of the same song. I don't think anything can make you fed up with a song as quickly as listening to it in four successively more bizarre versions.

Hooray then for the download: a single song, no remixes, no feeble B-side filler. And you can play a stack of your fave songs one after the other without getting out of your seat...

No surprise that I feel the need to share my top 5 download singles of 2007 so far:
1. Klaxons: Golden Skans
2. Laura Veirs: Don't Lose Yourself
3. Soulsavers (feat. Mark Lanegan): Revival
4. Charlotte Hatherley: Behave
5. Cherry Ghost: Mathematics.
(NB: must be played in this order. I say NO to the random play i-Pod.)

Yes, they're all available on myspace or youtube, but at only 79p a shot at 7digital.com, why not shell out and hang the expense...

african dance

Splashed out on a new pc the other day so last night I thought I'd put my new CD burner to the test. Rooting through the African music in my CD collection, I put together a compilation of some of my favourite tracks:

1. Tony Allen: Isenla (from "Lagos No Shaking")
2. Letta Mbulu: Mahlalela (from "Hugh Masekela presents the Chisa Years")
3. Manu Dibango: Sun Explosion (from the "Very Best Of")
4. Femi Kuti: Truth Don Die
5. Femi Kuti feat. Jaguar Wright (both from the "Best Of")
6. Emmanuel Jal & Abdel Gadir Salim: Baai (from "Ceasefire")
7. Four Brothers: Vimabyi
8. Four Brothers: Rudo Imoto (both from the "Best Of")
9. Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens: Nyamphemphe (from the "Best Of")
10. Letta Mbulu: Macongo (from "Hugh Masekela presents the Chisa Years")
11. Tony Allen: Kilode
12. Tony Allen: Moyeye (both from "Lagos No Shaking")
13. Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra: Single (from "Boulevard de l'Independence")

Next week: I buy an iPod...