Trouble With Dreams » insolence

Tiny Little Fractures

sam — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:12:29 +0000

Boris Johnson, the man whom nobody is sure really exists or not, came to our campus bar this evening, for reasons nobody can quite fathom. The place was packed and there were even some petty socialists with silly little placards about top-up fees about the place. Bah to them. But anyway yeah, why come to a bar full of eighteen year olds? Some idiot (probably one of those lefties ¬ ¬) poured a pint over his head, I’m not sure what happened after that. Bit of an anti-climax really.

China gets its way and Tianamen Square becomes Tianamen Square and Falun Gong becomes Falun Gong. Meh.

One hundred and six percent in my Logic exam yay me. Please don’t make comments about how that’s completely illogical, just think it to yourself .. heard them several times over. Friend managed 118%, the highest was apparently 176%, though I’m not really sure how that would have been physically possible given the length of the exam..

Salt Water Sound

sam — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:00:01 +0000

Activity here has rapidly declined but I like posting, even if it is only the occasional little comment that nobody really cares about. Christmas was fun and New Years also, if a little coupley for the single kid. There was a lovely man on the bus home telling us all that women these days just didn’t know how to fight for themselves and aren’t what they used to be, though had his journey been any longer I’m sure a few would have gone for him. New music, as always. Disappointed to discover my Dad classes Lee Morgan’s The Sidewinder as ‘music for the background’ and just doesn’t like Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Abbatoir Blues *frown* He’s fifty in a few days, that’s really quite old. LastFM is playing me a weird version of Pound for the Sound without the sax, it’s not as good. Anybody got new metal I can search out? Spent so long exploring Iron & Wine and Wolf Parade and the like that everything heavy has been neglected. I stand by my view that With Teeth is NIN’s worst record to date. Every time I listen to Welcome to Sky Valley I love it more and more.

Back to Edinburgh tomorrow yayay

PS. Favourite album released last year is probably Iron & Wine’s Woman King unless I think of another, my most played purchase of last year was either PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea or Rival Schools’ United By Fate. Just so you know.

For Rosie and Others

sam — Tue, 13 Dec 2005 11:58:36 +0000

http://theindieconnection.wordpress.com/

Take a listen to the Wolf Parade album, it’s this good:

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PS. This is really rather strange.

Songs You Should All Listen To

sam — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 01:24:38 +0000

Erykah Badu – On & On
Iron & Wine – Evening on the Ground (Lilith’s Song)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Sleep
Hope of the States – The Red the White the Black the Blue
Regina Spektor – Chemo Limo
Mia Doi Todd – What If We Do?
Victory at Sea – Break of Day
BT – Flaming June
Lemon Jelly – Return to Patagonia
Mr Bungle – None of Them Knew They Were Robots
Multiplies – Everything Is Everyone’s Fault
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Nature Boy
Elbow – The Stops
Mew – Snow Brigade
DJ Danger Mouse – December 4th
Kyuss – Gardenia
Estradasphere – The Bounty Hunter

That’ll do for now. On an entirely separate note, why do r&b records have so many tracks? They’d all be so much more effective if they had six or seven fewer songs.

PS. The image above is the three artists I played most last week.

Tape Loop

sam — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 15:02:15 +0000

I’ve only been awake for two hours and the sun has already gone down. Elbow and Mew were both awesome. Knew a smaller venue would suit Elbow .. played a fantastic version of Red. Fireworks night was amazing too .. had a view of pretty much every show in the city from the top of Arthur’s Seat. Damn cold up there though. Trying to slowly spread my music about the place .. have one friend hooked on Nick Drake, trying GY!BE on another. Civilization 4 is an awesome game, better than AoE3 by miles and miles. Spilt a full cup of tea over my desk so now my wonderful Radiohead mousemat has gone an odd shade of brown. Only a couple of weeks and it’s Christmas. I’d rather stay here. I hope David Cameron gets the leadership of the Tory party.

PS. My favourite street names are Pleasance, Buccleuch Pend, Hamilton’s Folly Mews and Advocate’s Close. The best pub name is The Illicit Still.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Karazzee

sam — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 22:25:43 +0000

Saw Athlete play the Glasgow Carling Academy last Friday, for such a mediocre band (they’re good at what they do but what they do isn’t very good) they had an astonishing reception. Seemed like two thousand of their biggest fans and Nina B and I. Best bit was when all went silent, the lights dropped and the bassist suddenly started playing a kazoo. Don’t bother going to see them. Glasgow’s ‘tube’ is hilariously small.

Definitely going to see Elbow, but only because Mew are supporting. That’ll make it awesome. If you like Nick Drake then go explore Iron & Wine.

myTunes is my relief as bitTorrent etc. aren’t working through the university proxy. They probably would if I played about enough but that’s effort and myTunes is oh so simple to use. There’s some people with good taste floating around this place. Even found some Godspeed.

Halloween party last night, was bullied into spending the worst six pounds I’ve ever spent on some crappy costume thing and went as a fairy instead. Far more satisfying. Eyeliner is a bitch and I’ve felt rotten all today.

In My Head … Or Something

sam — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 02:22:21 +0000

The first thing we saw in Glasgow was a drunk man asking us for money, the second was another drunk man congratulating the staff of Burger King for giving him such a wonderfully tasty meal. Odd place. Good gig though, tiny venue. Missed half of Capdown’s set because we got lost. The singer has played sax for ten years. A were surprisingly catchy considering all I know of theirs is Nothing. People have eaten all my flapjack and the carrot cake has gone mouldy, the only food I have left is half a jar of peanut butter and some marmalade. Haskell’s list comprehension is an amazing idea. This place has the best street names ever, maybe more on that later.

A Dark Design

sam — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:57:52 +0000

Plans for gigs are beginning to shape finally. Went to a cinema last night and saw a documentary on Nick Drake’s life and a duo performing some of his songs, odd place for a gig but the chairs were so comfortable I contemplated stealing them all. A great way to spend a Sunday evening. Tomorrow is A & Capdown in Glasgow then later this month Elbow are playing the Queen’s Hall then Karine Polwart is there the next night, think I may give Elbow a second chance, their new album is supposed to be superb. Later in the month still is Athlete, Glasgow again. Chanced upon a covers band in a pub last week who finished with the bizarre combination of (Everytime I Hear) That Mellow Saxophone and then an up-tempo version of Sabbath’s Fairies Wear Boots. Not convinced. But there’s no metal! Missed Nile by two days meh. Apparently if you install iTunes you can listen to everybody else’s music and if you’re especially sneaky you can pinch it too. That would be wickedcool.

Venom Cable

sam — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:51:28 +0000

Visited a couple of friends in Dundee this weekend, went to an awesome ceilidh and have the bruises to show for it. If Edinburgh is English then Dundee seems to be where the Northern Irish head. Scary number of medics there too. Visited a friend’s church and had the pleasure of listening to some American convince all gathered that global warming isn’t the effect of massive industrialisation but is really the earth having birthing pains before the second coming of Christ. The entire point of his talk was that we are forced to be children of the world but we must remove ourselves from this perspective and become people of God, or something like that. The way to achieving this was through removing all other distractions available; phones, work, life, etc, so I thought it wonderfully ironic when a message was displayed on the screens asking somebody to move their car outside because it was blocking the road or something. It’s so easy to agree but then walk out and forget. The rest of the audience seemed to enjoy it though.

My new favourite lyrics for the moment are from Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Nature Boy.

I was walking around the flower show like a leper coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria when I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair up against the pink and purple wisteria.

You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me with some unrighteous intention?

My knees went weak, I couldn’t speak, I was having thoughts that were not in my best interests to mention.

Amazing.

Pursuance

sam — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 22:23:41 +0000

More of the same, I have a cold, lectures have started, nothing is particularly eventful just yet but I have some wonderful new headphones .. Grado SR80s .. gorgeousness in my ears. Plan of joining frisbee has gone slightly askew, for a term at least. Jazz band at the freshers ball fused Use Me and Chameleon and it sounded amazing. Bumped into all sorts of old Eltham folks, the only person I’ve seen even remotely nearing a pikey in this city has been Brendan Early, walked past Nat & Calvyn, they completely ignored me, made me chuckle at least, even seen Tim Smith .. puzzled me for a moment. Forget some people exist. Have found my own linux geek to sort all my problems, though he does speak unintelligibly thick Scottish. Mew are playing on Friday, might just have to go. Am suffering from the lack of funds to spend on music. Please be generous and donate accordingly.