'Cause in This World of Troubles My Music Pulls Me Through

Bugger me, my music collection's good.

While I was feeling sorry for myself, I put the 'Pod on Shuffle and listened to the following while watching the rain fall...

Rising Thermal - Jon Hassell/Brian Eno
Fruit Tree - Nick Drake
Spiral - Jethro Tull
They're Red Hot - Robert Johnson
Thank You, Whoever You Are (Promo) - Marillion
Brujo - National Health
Leave It - Yes
Kupuri - System 7
A Clearing - Brian Eno
Nobody's Car (London, 1984) - Jethro Tull
Market Square Heroes (Battle Priest Version) - Marillion
Pirates - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Upside Down - Hawkwind
Future Baby Mama - Prince
Little Sir Hugh - Steeleye Span
T.N.T.F.X - National Health
He Tried To Show Them Magic - Ambassadors Return - Pure Reason Revolution
Colourflow In Mind - Porcupine Tree
Winter Sadness - Kool & The Gang
Last Rendez-vous - Jean-Michel Jarre
Sossity, You`re A Woman - Jethro Tull
Hounds Of Love - Kate Bush
Drone In D - Fyfe Dangerfield
For My Lover - Tracy Chapman
Puirt-A-Beul Set - Julie Fowlis
We Agree - Yes
View From The Hill - Fish
Lotteryland - Richard & Danny Thompson
Resist - Rush
Scrap Yard - Tangerine Dream
Night By Night - Steely Dan
New Feet - Brian Eno And David Byrne
Cinema - Yes
Clowns And Jugglers - Syd Barrett
Soldier Of The Heart - 2 - Judee Sill
Your Signs - Notwist
The Jug Of Punch - The Clancy Brothers
Duchess [Live] - Genesis
Hard As Love (Demo Version) - Marillion
Love Me Do - The Beatles
Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills) - Brian Eno
Golf Girl - Caravan
Stories For Boys - U2
Hallucinations - Tim Buckley
The Fall Of The House Of Usher - I Prelude - Alan Parsons Project
Manoeuvre - AMM
Cruel Sister - Pentangle
Tears - Rush
Ripples - Genesis
I Am Waiting - Yes
Release, Release - Yes
Hello Hello - Caravan
The Sphinx Returns - Van der Graaf Generator
Tunnel Of Love - Dire Straits
Chase The Blues Away - Tim Buckley
So Long Ago, So Clear (With Jon Anderson) - Vangelis
Pilgrims - Van der Graaf Generator
In The Tower - Yes
Taking the Veil - David Sylvian
Streets Of Fear - Hawkwind
Drop In From The Top - Richard Wright
It's A Sight To Behold - Devendra Banhart
Hazey Jane II - Nick Drake
The Damage - Marillion
Unquiet Slumber For The Sleepers... - Genesis
Octopussy - System 7

Now for some BBC London Danny Baker. The word from the Treehouse is that the ADBS will be back, and Wippit will refund everyone so far as an apology.

Do You - You - Feel Like I Do?

Friday. Another job interview lined up for next week, so things are looking up slightly. I'm still giving a lot of thought to the teaching training, though...

Splendid things in today's Independent. Bladerunner: The Final Cut is to be released in December, there's a new Robert Wyatt album out, there's a review of a Joanne Newsom gig (5/5) and a reminder in it to buy more Roy Harper. Great stuff.

Had no real rush to get to work today, so a slow amble through subterranean London's (world class) transport system passed by pleasantly enough.

My weekend seems to start, these days, about 5 minutes after the Baker & Kelly football podcast is released on iTunes. Download, transfer to iPod, turn off computer, bugger off home.

More recent acquisitions over the last month or so:

So Called Friend (B-Side) - Porcupine Tree,
E - Chris Rea,
Would You Feel My Love - Trevor Rabin,
Firefly - Chris Rea,
Second Sight - Kula Shaker,
Dr Kitt - Kula Shaker,
I Love You Still - Pavlov's Dog,
A Hardly Innocent Mind - Pavlov's Dog,
Tell Me There's A Heaven - Chris Rea,
Here Comes The Flood (demo) - Peter Gabriel
The King Of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two And Three - Neutral Milk Hotel
Out On The Highway - Kula Shaker,
No More Mickey (demo) - Peter Gabriel,
The King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. One - Neutral Milk Hotel,
Do You Feel Like We Do? - Peter Frampton, from the splendid '... Comes Alive' album

T - 4 (the best in the world, hurrah!); M - 3.5; D - 3

iPod Developments

Old news, I kow, but while I was away, it seems Apple have released a 160 Gb iPod, the so-called 'Classic'. With my library now at 90 Gb, this is extraordinarily tempting.

Also, I've just found the BBC Radio 4 Podcast from 'Thinking Allowed'. It's not often I get to listen the radio these days (or want to, given the changes at Radio 2 and BBC London mucking about with Danny Baker). I'm not a sociologist, but this is great stuff.

Still confusion about the All Day Breakfast Show. Wow, am I glad I didn't stump up any cash to Wippit. 1 week of 'casts, then nothing. I keep listening to the BBC London show, but Danny just says stuff like 'bear with me' and 'announcement soon'. Still, the Baker/KellyPodcast should be out today...

Dr Diamond - King Crimson, a freebie from DGM Live,
Then (BBC 1970) - Yes
Always Forever Now - Passengers OST,
The Soul Of Carmen Miranda - Brian Eno
About To Happen - Siouxsie. This is a great new album,
Puirt-A-Beul Set - Julie Fowlis
One More Kiss Dear - Vangelis
Plot 180 - Passengers OST
Mo Ghruagach Dhonn - Julie Fowlis
Lief - Seefeel, from the excellent Ambient compilations that Virgin put out ages ago.
Beauty - Linda Thompson
Sweetheart On The Barricade - Richard & Danny Thompson
Wednesday`s Child - Emiliana Torrini
Nice Cars - Linda Thompson

Weekend starts here,

T - 4; M - 4; D - 3

Telepathological

From the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

... Kakrafoon has a sentient species known as the Belcerebons. Sentenced by Galactic Tribunal to be telepathic, the only ways of blocking out these messages is to either talk constantly about anything and everything...

Well, today, I was plagued by several groups of women who did nothing but chatter inanely. I was tempted to ask them to shut up so that I could listen to my iPod... First a gaggle of hags on the Northern Line, then two different groups on the Piccadilly. For God's sake.

Folk today, for no apparent reason than I've just added this Genre from my home library to my iPod:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Neil Young
First Breath - Richard Thompson. This, from 'The Old Kit Bag', is just superb.
Dealer (1st Alternate Version) - John Martyn, from the fabulous 'One World' re-issue.
Crayon Angels (2) - Judee Sill
Emoni Ennen - Värttinä. Just great a capella singing
Songs In Red And Gray - Suzanne Vega
Strange Feelin' - Tim Buckley
New Nothynge - John Renbourn
My Man On Love (2) - Judee Sill
O Death - John Renbourn
Voices - Nick Drake
Rainbow River - Vashti Bunyan
Luka - Suzanne Vega, from the recent Radcliffe and Maconie session,
Ploughman Lads - Nic Jones
Human Remains - Tom McRae
See Saw - Devendra Banhart
Never Any Good - Leonard Cohen

After CD-WOW completely screwed up my order (delay after delay after delay - I'm not going to use them again), they should arrive from Amazon before the end of the week - hurrah!

T - 4.5; M - 4; D - 1

N>50 Part 2

A new profile for my iPod, which now features less than a third of the previous total of tracks.

This is to make way for new albums by Cherry Ghost, Nick Drake, and the Chris Squire and Laurie Anderson re-releases, as well as just clearing the dead wood.

50+ tracks, either new acquisitions, Prog Rock or Reggae:

Porcupine Tree - 183
Jethro Tull - 134
Dream Theater - 95
Hawkwind - 94
Genesis - 89
Rush - 66
Marillion - 63
Gentle Giant - 61
Syd Barrett - 58
Pink Floyd - 53
Van der Graaf Generator - 50

Bands such as Yes and King Crimson are poorly represented because my highly subjective Genre system classifies many of their albums as Rock or Rock/Pop.

GET 'Name' IF N>50; PRINT 'Name', N

Prior to 'spring-clean' of the 10383 tracks currently on my iPod, those artists with 50 or more songs are:

Marillion 315 tracks
Jethro Tull 225
Porcupine Tree 217
Yes 188
Cocteau Twins 181
King Crimson 179
Pink Floyd 172
Gentle Giant 168
Vangelis 160
Frank Zappa (solo) 154
Rush 153
Fleetwood Mac 151
Genesis 135
Kate Bush 131
David Sylvian (solo) 124
Brian Eno (solo) 105
Dream Theater 98
The Fall 98
Joni Mitchell 97
Nick Drake 94
John Martyn 91
Steely Dan 83
Peter Gabriel (solo) 80
The Beatles 79
Hawkwind 73
Kraftwerk 72
Sigur Ros 71
Van der Graaf Generator 65
Robert Wyatt (solo) 65
Tim Buckley 64
REM 64
Mike Oldfield 64
Led Zeppelin 62
Caravan 61
This Mortal Coil 58
The Orb 58
The Art of Noise 58
Lucio Battisti 57
Suzanne Vega 55
Dire Straits 54
Supertramp 54
Epsilon Indi 52
Ozric Tentacles 51
Van Morisson 50

Obviously, many of these will have duplicate tracks, but it's a good reflection of my music preferences.

Big Generator

A near-perfect journey in today, in contrast to yesterday's fiasco...

The 'All Day Breakfast Show' podcast to start with, which, while it still has laugh-out-loud moments, is becoming a little predictable. I remember the halcyon days of Danny's GLR show. Lots of great music to fill in the gaps between stories and phone-ins, including my introduction to Steely Dan. Fabulous. I think the Podcast is missing some music, but there are obvious licensing issues which would make it too expensive.

Shuffle 'Not Classical or Spoken' today:

Morning Glory - Tim Buckley,
A New Day Yesterday - Jethro Tull,
Anna Lee - Dream Theater,
Come On - Vangelis,
Interlude - Bruford/Levin from a DGM sampler CD: 'Sometimes God Smiles'
The Red Shoes - Kate Bush,
20th Century Boy - T Rex,
The Emperor in His War Room - Van der Graaf Generator,
War - Frankie Goes To Hollywood. After the ill-fated trip to France, I remembered a similar trip to Scandinavia in which the only tape on the coach was a compilation I'd made myself. It featured the FGTH 'Two Tribes' 12", Ultravox 'Vienna', Mobiles 'Drowning in Berlin', Stranglers 'Golden Brown', OMD 'Joan of Arc' and lots of mid 80s synth-pop. It must have been played 50 times over the course of the week,
Directions I - Miles Davis,
White Shadow - Peter Gabriel, with that great Fripp solo,
Milestones - Herbie Hancock.

Whilst this is a great selection, I feel like a drastic over-haul of my iPod. Whilst my 60 Gb iPod is full, I've 20 Gb of music which is not being used, much of which have been acquisitions over the last year or so, including a lot of vinyl-replacement downloads. It'll take a while, but I think it's something I need to do...

T - 4; M - 4; D - 4

ADBS - Episode 05 Jun 2007

I had a few problems downloading the latest Danny Baker All Day Breakfast Show from iTunes last night, so got it from Wippit instead. Not so many laugh-out-loud moments as the last Danny/Baylen Episode, but good nonetheless...

Thin End of the Wedge

Mark Kermode's film review this morning, followed by the latest 'Where's The Skill In That?' from Resonance FM, although I only got as far as Track 4:

1 Found: Itchy Feet / Fnd043 (0.32 + 3.58)
2 North Sea Radio Orchestra : The End Of Chimes (4.49)
3 Chris Burn: Pressings & Screenings Part 4 (5.16)
4 Pepe Deluxe : Ms Wilhelmina & Her Hat (6.22)

The last track was a great mix of 60s vocal style and 70s prog, and I'll definitely look out for their stuff in future.

AS the rest of the journey was made in the tunnels, I switched to more familiar 'Not Classical or Spoken' music:

Spanner - Van der Graaf Generator,
Feeling Gravity's Pull - REM,
Picasso - Yes, from demo tapes of Tormato,
Minstrel In The Gallery - Jethro Tull,
Your Song - Elton John,
Every Colour You Are - Rain Tree Crow,
Drone In D - Fyfe Dangerfield, from last week's Radio 2 Session,
At Last I Am Free - Robert Wyatt,
Drive - Rush,
The Invisible Man - Marillion. The Marbles album is just fantastic, much more variety than the recent 'Somewhere Else' CD.

T - 4; M - 3.5; D - 4

Rejoice, Forward Out That Feeling

Radio, radio; live transmission:

Despite BBC decimating my evening listening pleasure (see here, and many other posts over the last 3 months or so), there were two great sessions on last night: Suzanne Vega on Radcliffe/Maconie and by Fyfe Dangerfield on Charles Hazlewood's show. I've never heard this latter show before, but surely will in future. I've never heard Mr Dangerfield or the Guillemots, either, but will certainly check them out on the basis of this.

Plus.

Plus, plus, plus, the daily return of Danny Baker and his 'All Day Breakfast Show'. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to listen to this, but I hope it's very often. I had a few problems Subscribing on iTunes, but sorted it out by directly downloading each of the (currently 2) episodes. Splendid.

End of the World

I just thought this needed archiving for posterity. The best laugh I've heard for ages...

An uninterrupted 10-minute Mark Kermode review rant on the new 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' film from last Friday's Simon Mayo Show:

SM: Mark, what did you think of the new Pirates movie?

MK: Well, I think it's important to say that one has to go into these things with an open mind.

SM: Yeah, right.

MK: No I know, but look, okay, historically the first Pirates movie was absolute bilge.

SM: Wrong.

MK: No it was, it was rubbish, and it ended up taking $1bn worldwide which was really, really terrifying. The second one was kind of worse because it was longer and it was a holding pattern because it went on for, like, 150 minutes and nothing happened. I mean a bunch of stuff happened, but nothing actually happened, just a bunch of stuff happened.

And then when it came out on DVD I said to everybody: you know you should boycott this movie; if this stuff does well it's your own fault. Then it came out on DVD and I was told this terrifying fact that it was the fastest-selling DVD of all time. Somebody, maybe you [SM], said, that on the day that it was released, 1 in 5 DVDs that were sold was Pirates of the Caribbean 2. So now we have the opening weekend, this weekend, of Pirates 3, because obviously it's starting to preview on Wednesday, and we've already been told by the industry [that] the prediction is that this is going to be the biggest box office weekend of all time...

[…]

So you sit down. Okay. We're here for 168 minutes.

The film starts off with a hanging sequence, a sequence in which a whole bunch of people are hanging, including an underage person, but probably the most misjudged opening of any allegedly family-friendly movie I have seen in a long time. You're sitting there thinking: they've totally lost the plot; they've decided to go dark for the third Pirates movie - what on earth are they playing at? This is not something that needs to go dark, this is something that needs to lighten up; this is something that actually needs to be entertainment. No, we have this really long, really sort of drawn out, really completely out of place, hanging sequence at the beginning. BBFC guidelines, I looked it up, says 'contains moderate horror and action adventure violence'. It contains completely inappropriate darkness at the beginning that is absolutely out of kilter with the rest of the film and has no right being there. Fine, so, we get through that…

Then, after the opening sequence, the plot, or, more precisely, the plots start. And, if you remember any of the plot threads that were at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean 2, it's like well, somebody's got to go off and find a heart, somebody's got to find an island, somebody's got to get a treasure map, somebody's got to get a compass, somebody's got to sing a song, somebody's got to stand on their head and turn around 38 times. That Orbloondo Land's got to go and find his dad for some reason that is not clear to anybody other than the fact that that Stellan Skarsgard is clearly picking up the cheque and he's a great actor so I'm happy that he's employed.

So, it starts. And it goes on a little bit, and I'm thinking you know I'm really dreading the moment that Johnny Depp is going to come along and do that Keith Richards impression that we all know wasn't funny the first time, and really wasn't funny the second time. And here we go: he's going to do it a third time.

And then the movie plods along, you know Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bland and all the rest of it all happening, and no Johnny Depp. It's 35 minutes before Johnny Depp actually arrives on screen. And I'm starting to think that this is really clever, 'cos what they've done is they've realised that Johnny Depp is so terrible in the film that they're withholding him, they're withholding him because actually everything else in the film's going to be better without him, but no, 35 minutes in Johnny Depp turns up, but not just one Johnny Depp - 10 Johnny Depps turn up at the beginning. There's a brilliant line in Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy which is referring to Arthur Dent meeting up with [Ford Prefect]: he says he's one of those people that you couldn't see him for months at a time, but then as soon as you saw him he was immediately annoying.

And Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is exactly that; he's immediately annoying squared, he's immediately annoying to the power 10, because there are ten of him, and there's a little bit of business about, oh, Johnny Depp's dead, but he's in the underworld. All this stuff seems to exist purely to show off that fact that they have got a special effect that can turn a stone into a crab. Great, brilliant, marvellous, not enough to hang a feature film on but, hey, well done to the special effects guys.

Then they escape from the underworld that he got in to at the end of the last movie 'cos I think Kiera killed him, but I can't quite remember, there was something to do with a Kraken. But then they all get together and they say ok: off we go on the various plot strands again. And it's business as usual.

There's actually one line in this when somebody says "one person has the ninth piece of eight", which is just about as coherent as any form of plot synopsis gets. On the INDB trivia page, it says the most amazing thing about Pirates 3 is that they started filming without a completed script. No, they finished filming without a completed script, so they just ended up with like a montage of bits; a whole bunch of special effects; a little bit of him doing that, a little bit of everyone else, and they just stuck them together in any order. They didn't cut any of it out, just said there's 168 minutes, shove it out into the cinema and everyone will buy it because everyone has clearly had some kind of terrible joint lobotomy, so nobody any longer has the guts to stand up and say "this is absolutely terrible and what are we doing here? Actually, we should walk out of the cinema and go next door where they're showing 'Zodiac'".

However, Johnny Depp is the least of the problems. Let's start with Kiera Knightley. Clearly, Kiera Knightley's agent has been speaking to the scriptwriters and saying 'look it's fabulous, we're really pleased that Kiera's back in the movie again and obviously it's wonderful. The thing is, up until now she really has really been window-dressing and what we really think is that Kiera needs to sort of expand her role and why don't we make Kiera a pirate, because I think really she could pirates?

So, through the most ridiculous contrived plot device, Kiera Knightley actually ends up being king of all pirates in all the world, ever. So Kiera Knightley, King of the Pirates. This means that Kiera Knightley has to do two things: firstly, she has to do the pirate 'Yar-Harr-Harr', but of course when Kiera Knightley does it it's 'Yah, yahh, hello haar, haar har', then she has to do a rabble-rousing speech which is basically like that speech that Mel Gibson does in Braveheart about 'they can take our lives, but they can never take our freedom', only when Kiera Knightley does that speech, it basically sounds like the head girl addressing a convention of fifth-formers on prize-giving day at the end of term. So Kiera, disastrous: given more to do, messes it up dreadfully.

And then we have the magisterial talent of Orloondo Bland. Now, there has always been a problem with Orloondo, which is that very early on, the script had a relationship between the Kiera Knightley character and the Orloondo Bland character. Nobody at that point realised that the minute you got Orloondo Bland on screen, nobody would care what happened to him. He's so wet, he's so drippy, so completely ineffectual that nobody cares about him. So in the second one, there was this sort of attempt to make the Kiera Knightley character somehow interested in the Johnny Depp character, because everybody else in the audience, other than me, was interested in the Johnny Depp character and kind of didn't care what happened to Orloondo Bland. So this time, we have to take Orloondo Bland and take some kind of interest in him. Now he's acting this love interest against Kiera Knightley. Now Kiera Knightley's acting has always been wooden. This time it is like a petrified forest of woodenness, I mean you really feel like you could build a very nice piece of IKEA furniture out of her performance. It's that bad. And when she and Orloondo Bland are on screen together it's like watching two chairs mating, I mean there's a scene where they have to kiss, and it's like 'what is that? Is it a nest of tables?' No, it's Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knighley having some sort of red-hot passionate embrace that is positively teaky. You feel like you need to get out the varnish and varnish it. Now, I'm going to give away a plot point now. If you're going to sit through Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (and never was a film more accurately named), turn your ears away from the radio now:

'Cos there is a moment towards the end of this film in which it is contrived that Kiera Knightley can get married to Orlando Bloom, but she can only see him for one day in every ten years. I'm sorry, but if somebody made me that offer, I would take it right now. If somebody said to me if I marry Orlando Bloom you won't have to see him again for another 10 years: do you take this man? Yes absolutely; I would take him right now, if I only have to see him one day every 10 years, sign me up, because I don't think I can stand another moment of sitting there in the cinema watching this dribble-some bore waltz around like somebody out of a Milk Tray advert. What the…? How on earth has he become the prominent actor he has? I mean, he killed 'Kingdom of Heaven' stone dead and in this he's actually got worse than before.

And then… we have the mighty Johnny Depp performance. So Johnny Depp started off doing this performance as basically Keith Richards, although actually he wasn't really doing Keith Richards as far as I could tell, he seemed to be doing David Bowie around the period of the 'Laughing Gnome'. Everyone says 'oh, it's a great impression of Keith Richards', but it didn't, it sounded like David Bowie (as Bowie:)'Hello, I am the Pirate King Jack Sparrow''. That's not Keith Richards, that's David Bowie.

But the big gag with Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is – guess what – Keith Richards is actually going to turn up. So you sit there and you fall asleep, and you wake up, and you fall asleep, you stretch your back a little bit, you feel most of your lower body starting to go numb. Then about two hours of the way through, Keith Richards turns up. And here's how it goes: Keith Richards goes 'Hrrrr hrrrr', and Johnny Depp goes 'Hrrrr hrrrr' and then Keith Richards goes 'Hrrrr hrrrr'. If you thought Johnny Depp was bad at being Keith Richards, then you see Keith Richards trying to be Keith Richards. I mean there was a ripple of a sort of appreciation in the audience which, as far as I could tell, was entirely for the fact that Keith Richards was still alive. At all. But he's even worse at doing an on-screen Keith Richards than Johnny Depp is. And between them, there's this sort of this incredible in-joke: 'Oh, it's so funny - Up until now I've been doing Keith Richards, now here he actually is'. No, No. All of you. All of ... The Rolling Stones. Don't care. Go away. I never want to see the Rolling Stones. I don't ever want to see another Pirates of the Caribbean movie, despite the fact that at the end of this there is a door left open for there to be another one.

The whole thing goes on for ever. I added this up, right? First movie: 142 minutes, second movie: 150 minutes, this: 168 minutes. I make that the best part of 8 hours of my life. Stanley Kubrick went from the beginning of civilisation to the dawn of a new breed of human being in just over 2 hours. This has taken them 8 hours to get from Point A to Point A. It's enough. It has to stop now.

And, really, if you pay money to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean, it's your own fault, and you're bringing down the collapse of Western civilisation. And I had a feeling in my waters that actually Gore Verbinski was going to pull it out of the bag and do something that would make me have to say I am wrong, but, you know what? I am so right. I am so right. It is so bad.

==

Genius. Absolute genius.

Danny Baker Ver4.8

Another one of those 'hang on in there' Podcasts, which is becoming a little tiresome.

He seems confident that a daily podcast will become available 'soon'. I think it's likely to be a subscription thing, which might be okay if the quality is maintained. Many of his shows have relied on phone-ins and bouncing off guests and other contributors, so it might prove difficult.

Give it a chance.

Inductive Resonance

Apparently, last night's 'Where's The Skill In That' on Resonance FM was a repeat of one from a month ago, rather than the intended one. I was so tired (again) last night that I chose to miss it and download the programme from here. Good move, as it turns out.

1 Socalled: Let’s Get Wet (3.15)
2 Bob Frank & John Murry : Little Wiley Harpe, 1803 (4.30)
3 Play Station 6: Misty (2.40)
4 Freeze Puppy : EP for ‘Where’s The Skill In That?’ (6.10)
5 Fennesz/Sakamoto : Mono (4.02)
6 Lucy Over Lancashire: Parts 1-4 (8mins ish)
7 A Hawk And A Hacksaw: Zozobra (3.59)
8 Safetyword: Walpurgisnacht / Milk Of Words (3.58 + 2.30)
9 Adjagas: Lihkolas (4.11)

The Lucy Over Lancashire track was particularly interesting, but it all worked well, and put me in a good mood to face another day of doing nothing much.

Somewhere Else Revisited

After the Rush CD, I re-visited the Marillion CD to complete my morning commute.

There is something seriously wrong with the production on this CD. Either that, or I made an error when I ripped it to AAC. It sounds muddy and to closed-in. The cymbals are really splashy, and I cannot listen to this on my iPod.

My initial thoughts seem to be about right. I don't think this is a good album. A couple of tracks are great, but many more are just whining and too laid-back.

5 or 6 out of 10. It pains me to say this, it really does.

Every Home is Weird

A good Bank Holiday, spent with family. It's only one day, but it makes a huge difference.

The Danny Baker Podcast (#4.7) was a short 'hang on in there' message, which was a bit silly. Either do it or don't. My guess is that he hasn't got the time or energy to do this and his BBC London show. My iTunes will remain tied to the updates for now, but this is a bit poor. (OK, he owes me nothing, I know).

The Mark Kermode podcast to start things off this morning, then a re-appraisal of the Porcupine Tree CD 'Fear of a Blank Planet':

I still rate this very highly, although my mild dislike of the '30-odd year-old man singing from the perspective of a tenager' remains. Take the best bits from Deadwing's 'Arriving Somewhere...' and stretch them out over 50 minutes with a concept to pin them on, and you have a pretty good idea of what this album's about.

The first song is a good opener, if unrepresentative of the album as a whole. Crunchy guitars, and distorted vocals. It might be a bit long, but it does keep re-inventing itself with new riffs and changes of soundscape.

'My Ashes' is a co-composition between SW and Richard Barbieri, and it shows. It still reminds me of 'Wake As Gun'. A pleasant vibe, but the orchestra probably detracts from it, for me.

The magnum opus: Anesthetize - Good start with some great drumming, joined by a good bass part. A muted guitar solo, presumable Alex Lifeson, from the liner notes, although I'm not sure. At 5 minutes in, it reminds me very much of a bit in 'Welcome to the PleasureDome' or 'Two Tribes' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and it's used for a very similar reason - a bridge before a change in mood. Very very similar. I am getting to like this track more and more as time passes, and the ending is definitely growing on me.

Sentimental: 'Never want to be old, and I don't want dependants...' Dependants???! Nice chorus, if one doesn't mind the preachy lyrics. Not preachy, more patronising. I don't know. Just a bit annoying. Good music, though, with a nice acoustic guitar bit with piano.

Way Out of Here: A group composition, and some really nice bass/drum parts. Hangs together really well, I think. A great guitar solo, too. This reminds me a lot of earlier PT work, particularly around 'Signify'.

'Sleep Together' rounds the album of in a great way, as is usually the case with PT albums. Beautiful, hypnotic, with a crunching vocal part on the chorus. Very effective. Sounds a bit like 'Kashmir' in parts, perhaps.

8.5/10 all in all. Buy it.

Headphone Dust

My headphones are making my ears sweat. Bizarre. They also cut me off too much from the world around me, so listening this morning was restricted to the new Porcupine Tree album.

Very good. However, two things irritate me:

1) The distorted vocals, particularly that 'as if heard through a radio' thing. Used too frequently on recent albums, and repeated here,

2) A thirty-something man (/men) singing as if from the perspective of tennagers. I think I can see their point, but it doesn't quite work for me. Kind of like putting words in my mouth.

Musically, though, it's very strong and very interesting.

Danny Baker's Podcast "Ver 4.7" is apparently out, but I can't download it. There's apparently some important announcement (charging for future episodes?), but I can't get it...

Toe The Line - Part One

With the advent of Summer, pretty girls wearing less and less... I did notice, though, some pretty gruesome distortion of feet into inappropriate sandals. God only knows what happens when they take them off - perhaps they all fall over.

Many good things today, although not on the job front: Danny Baker's Podcast Number, last night's 'Where's the Skill in That?' was great (and now previous programmes are available to download), and a great playlist of 'Not Classical or Spoken'. I'm not against Classical (in fact I'm going to a classical concert tonight), but just find it difficult to listen to on the Tube.

On the downside, CD-WOW continue to screw up my CD orders. First Marillion 'Somewhere Else', now Porcupine Tree 'Fear of a Blank Planet'. I don't think I'll order anything else here, even though they are cheap. Next purchases lined up are Rush's new one, then Tom McRae and probably Panda Bear.

Just Look at the Size of my Disk

I've just about sorted out my new LaCie external hard disk - 250 Gb, yummy - and am transferring all my music from my (full) 80 Gb drive. The 80 Gb will be used for photos, as I've just bought a Sony K800i with a 3.2 Mp camera. Should keep me going for a year or two...

Surely I can't fork out for a 80 Gb iPod? Mine's 'only' 60 Gb, but I've finding it increasingly difficult to decide what to remove to make way for recent acquisitions. Maybe I'll wait for the 120 Gb, which surely must be in the pipeline.