april jazz challenge

As a general rule i am not a fan of radio; the ratio of 57 minutes of rubbish to maybe 3 minutes of good does nothing to entice me and i'm quite content to let my friends sift through the chaff and bring me the tasty wheat. Even though i don't deserve it. However, since choosing a "going to sleep" album became such a chore, i now opt for either complete silence or 30 minutes of radio 2 (usually accompanied with a quick prayer that Janice Long will stay off the air) to help me off to sleep.

Anyway, last night i was treated to a jazz documentary. Usually, when jazz comes on i think "that's nice, i really should listen to some jazz sometime" and then something catches my attention (a spot of light, etc) and i forget. My problem with jazz is that i know nothing about it, obviously it's a wide area and i don't just want to stroll into Fopp and scoop up a load of CDs that i'll hate.

So, last night, i heard a piece i liked and made a note of it, at least then i'd have somewhere to start, find an album with the piece on, then find similar stuff. Much like i did with Oasis -> Wonderwall -> What's the Story -> Britpop. Except faster, and with goatees.



Therefore, my challenge for the month is to listen to NO contemporary music, try and identify some jazz albums i will definitely like and buy them, and if there's time try and do the same thing with classical music (of which i am slightly less ignorant). I'm not going to name names, cause right now i only know the most mainstream exponents and that would make me sound like someone who doesn't know much about something.

The trickiest part of this challenge is that i have 2 CDs arriving in the next week - 'Panchpuran' by Bill Jones and 'April' by Sun Kil Moon.

cupboard love

Going to have to be a quick one. Today, as you may be aware, is April Fool's day, and after a decade of inaction i decided to actually make an effort this year.

My scheming began in January when i was dossing in Hobbycraft and hit upon an idea. Basically i would buy a bag of stick-on eyes and attach them to inanimate objects, namely my housemate's food in our fridge.



Having left it perilously close to procure the eyes i was left with a very tight schedule this morning - John Lewis opens at 9am, my driving lesson is at 10am, between that i had to locate and purchase the eyes, walk home, do the deed, photograph and get out of my house before my housemate wakes up.

The most fun part was loitering outside John Lewis at 8.55am. Anyway, because many of the things in the fridge are too colourful and cluttered i decided to attack the cupboards as well. I am particularly keen on the shady-looking jar of Lloyd Grossman's Thai Green Curry Sauce, lurking at the back.



So, yes, it's 9.56am now and providing the glue holds i should be home and dry. Better run, but first check out this slightly eerie fridge shot. Never has houmous looked so threatening.

taxi-dumb-me

Sneinton. It's never fun to be in Sneinton, particularly at night, alone, with hundreds of pounds worth of musical equipment, but this was the position i found myself in last week. As i was hurriedly lugging amps out of sight, my first mind was harking back to the last time i was in this position. My second mind was swimming with tales of people getting robbed at gunpoint but i normally manage to suppress these thoughts.

Band 0 had a gig a little while back, and i somehow found myself in the uneviable position of collecting our equipment in a taxi. Sneinton is only a little less scary during the day and i felt rather a lot like The Frustrated Farmer; he had a chicken and a fox, i had amps and gun-wielding toerags. But i was no less frustrated.

With taxi-time approaching, my team banging on the door, yelling "get out!", while Richard O'Brian talked nonsense, i decided to first move everything from room to staircase, then from top to bottom of stairs, and finally to the "porch". Porch makes it sound like the warm, welcoming hallway of a house, rather than the ugly, urine-soaked entrance of a dank building. With one of the double doors closed, i could attempt to veil our equipment from beady thieving eyes.

I was sweaty but pleased when the taxi turned up and in no time i was at the venue; i unloaded everything and paid my guy. Casually casting my eye over the mountain of stuff, i realised something was missing; my guitars. The taxi was just pulling away so i instinctively chased it, stopping after only a few steps when it hit me that i couldn't remember even loading them into the taxi. Quickly assessing the situation, i came to the horrifying conclusion that i had in fact left them behind, in the street, in the dodgiest part of town.

Tethered to a pile of equipment in a venue car park, i felt very helpless. Fortunately one of my bandmates was inside so i tried to convey the magnitude of my foolishness over the phone; as soon as he was outside i explained just a little more and began sprinting back towards Sneinton.

I sprint for two reasons - public transport and retreiving misplaced possessions.

I was about a quarter of the way there, decided that i could not sustain this ridiculous pace and headed to the nearest taxi. I breathlessly barked 'are you free?' and for a second he hesitated. It may have been that he had another job approaching, or that he thought in my frenzied state i might navigate us to a remote point and stab him. Either way, he could see the desperation in my eyes and coolly replied 'is it an emergency, yeah?'

As i jumped in i told him to drive to Sneinton and i would direct him. His eyes lit up when i told him my sorry predicament, 'oh man! i love guitars!' I had actually found a taxi driver who was so excited by the prospect of rescuing guitars he was prepared to mow down anyone in our path; the sight of terrified pedestrians diving for cover, combined with his childlike optimism and enthusiasm, almost managed to quell the sick feeling in my stomach.

I held my breath as we rounded the corner and pulled up to the practice room doors - it was almost too dark to see and i could scarcely believe it but my guitars, clearly visible to anyone passing, were still hiding, partially obscured, behind the door.

All the way back to the venue, my host babbled excitedly about guitars and gave me stark warnings about repeating my error, how people only get one more chance in these matters and adding that he wouldn't think twice about stealing them if he had the chance. In response i proferred advice about good beginner guitars and taking lessons; advice which went in one ear and out the other but i was happy to give it nonetheless.

Despite having paid through through the nose for my first journey (i must add that the first guy, a middle-aged Asian man with a penchant for 70's disco music, was pretty entertaining too) i was more than happy to tip my guy rather generously. After all, without his boundless energy and reckless disregard for the Highway Code, i could've lost £500 worth of stuff, not to mention the sentimental value.



I did not feel it was necessary to turn the guitar the right way up for this memento.

erroneous cd - realtime review

Track 1, Same Old Road begins with some Pink Floyd-esque choir voice keyboards and guitar before careering into a weird country/80's MOR mix. The drums are definitely fake, which doesn't bode well for the rest of the album. The guy doesn't have a very strong voice, it might be endearing in the right context, but not this one. For some reason, the guitar solo just panned right to left. It fades out at a merciful 4 minutes. Unsurprisingly Windows Media Player hasn't picked up on it.
Track 2 continues the onslaught with hammond organ, oh, and wait, the cowbell has just kicked in. The drums are sounding even more fake on this one. He's not going mad with vocal cliches just yet, just had "going for gold" though. The drums are ridiculous. He's rocking a Brian May tone on this one, emphasised by the three-part harmony licks. This guitar solo panning left and right too, more rapidly, but it seems to be a favourite trick of Bill. By the way, it's called "Where is the love?". Searching for it on media player's album search function...
Track 3 is more of a ballad, he's layering sickly piano over keyboard strings - i'm not talking about realistic keyboard strings, i'm talking about the voice setting you had on that keyboard you had when you were 10. The piano is also fake, but not quite as blatant. It seems Adrian Wagner is to blame for the mixing and (possibly) the idea to smother this with every keyboard sound going. Media player has failed to find the cd. This ballad ("Private World of Dreams" btw) has decided to forego the MIDI drums but we are treated to an oboe solo. Not real of course; i'm beginning to wonder if his voice is real. I've got to skip this now before i go insane - onto "Share this Road". Bill seems to have a thing about roads.
This has what i would call 'church piano' at the start - that's slightly chorused and very bright piano. Bill implores us to "spend some time with me" - i will gladly will as long as he doesn't bring any instruments with him.
Oh my word! Track 5 starts with very sexy 80's drums and... SOUNDBITES OF A WOMAN MAKING 'WOMAN NOISES' AND SAYING "MORE!" AND "THAT'S IT!" Oh, okay, it's about a prostitute called Rosie. Still, this is an inexplicable departure from the rest of the album and i'm glad it's over.
This is more like it, track 6, "No Big Deal" goes back to 80's guitars, hammond organs, weird panning and, yes, the cowbell! We're at the mid-pont of the album so i guess i should explain it. A while ago i heard a CD by a female folk singer called Bill Jones, which i liked a lot, occasionally i trawl ebay for the album i heard but after losing out to a sniper i decided to try one of her other albums. At any one time there appear to be 3 or 4 different albums by said folk singer - one was stuck on 50p so i just whacked a bid on it.
Track 7 is the least offensive so far, it's almost Beatles-y, almost. His guitar lines actually work in this one. Anyway, so i won the album "From Life's Diary - Volume 1" by Bill Jones and eagerly awaited its arrival. On opening the envelope i quickly realised something was wrong. Firstly, it had a picture of a 50 year old guy on the front, secondly, it was from 1990, a good 10 years before any albums by the Bill Jones i knew.
Track 8 must be the 'rocky' number. Things are panning round my head like crazy; either that or i'm going mad. This one is called "Angel with Black Wings" and is Bill's bitter break-up song; that's not to say he doesn't attack it with trademark limp-wristedness. The thought of watching him sing this makes me a bit nauseous.
More cowbell and we're into Track 9 - "Sharing your stuff". This is a more laid-back bluesy number. And he's using playing card metaphor; come on Bill, i thought you were better than this. He's also ripped off wholesale the 'Money for Nothing' riff, in fact, i'd go as far as to say he loves Dire Straits. This is another of Bill's breakup songs; it's beginning to sound like this album was a direct result of a messy divorce, and was probably heard by a total of 10 people. Another wildly-panning guitar solo.
Track 10 is 7 minutes long :( I'm wondering how exactly Bill is going to fill this time - so far it's more fake piano and synth swells. Oh, and a keyboard flute solo; he's really working the woodwind section. 2 minutes in and nothing much has happened. Okay, he's rocking the jazz chords now - i can dig that - oh wait, we're back into Pink Floyd-ian whimsy. No drums thus far. I doubt anything in the next 3 minutes will be much of a revelation. Just noticed the last song is over 6 minutes as well! Anyway yes, it didn't take me long after opening this to discover i had made a grave error; this was not my obscure female folk singer, it was in fact an aging rocker. What are the chances? Track 10 is taking far too long to fade out.
Right, 11. Another bluesy number and he's cracked out the harmonica. Actually he has mad skills on the old blues harp. Again, this song might be okay if he actually had any balls - he should be singing introspective emo-folk really.
Okay, last song, bear with me, you're doing really well. This one's called "After the Storm" and starts, rather predictably, with more brooding, but not really brooding, synth noises. If i'd been producing this, it would've been way more stripped down and organic; it would've made a semi-decent country album, instead of the soft-rock/MOR/prog disaster it actually is. The fake drums are back, as long as they remain understated Bill might just get away with it. So yeah, i reckoned i would make the most of a bad situation and review this album in real-time. After this, i will decide the best course of action for it - i've got to say, so far the bin looks like the ONLY option. Another Dave Gilmour solo, just waiting for it to start moving around between my headphones... okay, so it's staying dead centre for the time being, but he's fluffing notes all over the shop. Not that i care about that, but i think with something this sterile sounding, a little ducking of fluffed notes wouldn't go amiss. A bit of vocal gymnastics from Bill, something approaching character! He really has saved the best till last. And we're done.
Well, i don't know about you, but i really feel like Bill has taken me on a journey, through the valleys of heartache and despair, over dewy hills, up and down seedy midnight streets and out the other side - a new morning and a triumphant future.

10/10

POTBOSH #1

Ten years on from 'You get what you give' and the royalty cheques have long since dried up for Gregg Alexander, who finds himself back in Spondon.



Gregg on the Rainbow 4, heading home after a day's work

I asked if he still has something against Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson, to which he replied, "who?"



Gregg in his heyday, A.K.A 1999

rubbish blog idea #8

"If i can get in here, so can a thief!"

Another heavily bus-influenced idea i'm afraid. I was late the other morning and some lady was taking forever to get a ticket; as there are only so many things you can discuss with the driver as you're boarding a bus that is already 20 minutes late, i had to conclude that she was simply a timewasting attention-starved gaylord.

She then walked down the aisle with a triumphant grin on her face and plonked herself in the seat in front of me. At this point my thoughts turned to revenge.

Now, like a lot of people, she had a hood on her jacket (she actually had a hood on the garment underneath too but i won't go into that) and my immediate thought was to leave a note in her hood, hoping she'd find it later, something along the lines of:

"To whom it may concern, today you took longer getting on a bus than any person in the history of the world, thanks for making me another five minutes late, i'm sure Betty and Christine don't mind if you're a little late to meet up and talk about stockings but some of us have jobs to go to.
Big love,
Tom x x"

Or whatever. I opted against it because i thought it would be a tad harsh, but thought the basic idea of leaving cryptic notes in people's outer garments would be worth exploring.

I think the standard note would be "If i can get in here, so can a thief!", with maybe a reference to 1 Samuel 24? But there'd be more obscure ones too.

I guess there are a few problems. First off, i wouldn't feel like doing it to old people cause they are more likely to be seriously freaked out by it; i just wouldn't be able to enjoy it. But then younger people, with their quicker reactions and heightened awareness are more likely to catch me in the act - which doesn't even bear thinking about. And there's still the issue that it might be more scary than baffling; baffling = good, scary = not so good, appearing on Crimewatch after they check the cctv on the bus to identify the stalker = worse still.

Also, on a purely practical note, the payoff of these acts will be the reaction of the victims, which i'll (hopefully) never see. Rubbish, but i might do it anyway, probably just to people who play Basshunter through their phone speakers?

rubbish blog idea #7

Okay, what about "The Textdropping Blog"? According to google, there is no such word so i'm claiming it now - it is the art of peering over commuters' shoulders to read their text messages.

Actually, before i start (because this idea *really* isn't going to have any legs anyway) i discovered a couple of things whilst researching the phenomenom.

1. The origin of the word 'Eavesdropping'

Right, seeing as i can't explain the eavesdrip any better than the wiki description you should go read that first. It's basically a boundary around one's house.

An eavesdropper is then defined as one 'who skulked in the Eavesdrip of another's home' - which is, of course, awesome, and if i ever catch any of you skulking around the eavesdrip of my house i'm going to go Anglo-Saxon on your ass. Fairly warned, be thee, says i.

2. A Philippino version of me

Whilst trawling google so see if anyone else was as nosy as me, i found this journal entry. Not only does he appear to be a serial textdropper, he's also continually questioning his direction in life (although to be fair, that could be anyone).

I like the two texts he dropped. The first is this outstanding joke:

"San Makikita ang pinaka malaking Bra? - edi sa may pinaka malaking Boobs"

ha ha, boobs.

The second text he talks about is some guy telling his mom about his new job and its modest starting salary. Not funny in itself but i love this comment from one of his readers:

"9800 [pesos] is fine.. u start from scratch then get a higher pay in the future...."

Of course! It's so simple! So, after this wake-up call i've decided to shelve my plans to find a better job and more money, instead i'll stay where i am and simply get a higher pay in the future. No flies on me.

...

Anyway, so i recorded my first textdrop on the way home on tuesday - i saw some guy get his phone out and had mine at the ready to copy whatever philosophical pearl of wisdom was coming my way (i only hoped that the person behind me was also textdropping; this is what's known as "The Infinite Textdrop" or "Chinese Textwhispdrops" - a stupid idea is nearly always followed by an equally bad portmanteau).

Alas, my guy let me down big time with this mindblowing piece of literature:

"U have missed the bus mate"

No mystery, no intrigue, no wondering how deep the rabbit hole goes; and the fact it took his chubby fingers 5 minutes to compose this ode to tardy friends just served to add insult to injury.

My heart sank.