The Big Red Door was in interesting one .. the entire crowd looked like this. No exaggeration. Some cracking music though. The Banana Sessions were a super start to the night, especially their Prodigy medley. Then just about the most ridiculous band I’ve ever seen playing catchy reggae that didn’t make much sense. A singer wearing zebra-print tights, a Newcastle United t-shirt, a sailor’s hat and a superb beard. A bassist in trousers and cape. A guitarist in boxer shorts and a t-shirt three or four sizes too small. Another guitarist who looked like he’d wandered in after a few cans on the Meadows, playing an unmiced box with strings that surely nobody could hear. It was great fun and I’ve got no idea who they were. The Horndogs finished up, they play exactly what I wish I’d got myself into when I came to Edinburgh.

Was well up for Departure Lounge -- this video of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble had me pretty excited

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ospt8g4i-9k

The Souljazz Orchestra were cracking, some really exciting afrobeat with tenor and alto saxophonists that looked just like the two men in the Jam lizards sketch and a wonderful baritone. Highly recommend them. The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were a bit more PARTY and YEAH! and PARTY than the tunes I hoped they’d play, but I was more frustrated by all the people trying to shove past when there was nowhere to go. Rather ruined it.

Pretty mad that of the nine members of HBE, eight are brothers, they have four mothers between them and another fifteen brothers.

I’m writing this as Gordon Brown apologises for being rude and honest.

‘I’ve just been talking to Gillian, etc. etc. GHASTLY SMILE GHASTLY SMILE.’

I really hope we don’t have to put up with another four years of Brown’s fakery.

It became this anomaly in my collection, Radiohead but not, and I forgot about it until today, when I thought I’d scan it with Last.fm’s command line fingerprinter which told me:

 <track confidence="0.245223">
     <artist>Ennio Morricone</artist>
     <title>Man With A Harmonica</title>
     <url>http://www.last.fm/music/Ennio+Morricone/_/Man+With+A+Harmonica</url>
 </track>

Which wasn’t what I expected at all.

But now a six-year odd mystery has been solved and I’d love to know how the fingerprinter works. Probably some hairy maths .. it’s impressive it can figure these things, especially now they’re automatically redirected.

It’s still an excellent song.

I wanted you to give it a whirl, in his memory.

Esbjörn Svensson Trio – Believe, Beleft, Below

Tape Loop, keeps on turning round, forever.

Hey, I reappeared, with everything intact.

Life went by, I spent a silly amount of time in Appleton Tower’s labs, and my musical life became electronica oriented – Amon Tobin, Venetian Snares, Pitch Black. I discovered the Amen Break and its extraordinary implications for the music we know. Electronica and piano. Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans could have my soul any day.

I was told by a child that ‘I’d like to go to Jamaica because I really want to kill some zombies’, and suddenly I’d rather like to visit this Jamaica that only exists in the world he inhabits.

Mogwai Fear Satan became my example definition of the sheer incredible nature of life. I’m surprised there’s not some kind of prose written along to it; starting from small groundings we get higher and higher and higher and higher until eventually we peak in minutes of glorious noise and from there it’s gentle fade out to the eventuality of death.

Didn’t I stop writing here because I was going to use LastFM’s journals?

Oh, and I discovered that googling ‘flamboyant american penis‘ returns zero results. :-(

Two things have happened in the world in the last few days. One involves Japanese people getting carried away with their video games and breaking their arms, the other one of the worst possible ways to die. (‘A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her.‘) :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/ :/

I cracked and downloaded the FoFR theme (if only someone would say what FoFR stands for) for foobar and it’s amazing and gorgeous and all this, but it’s not my quaint foobar that can handle several playlists of 15,000 songs and rename and tag and move files and still perform wonderfully. Though it is rather nice to have some glamour to my media player.

I put a few photos from travels on Flickr, take a look and tell me they’re hot. I managed to post so little on the way I didn’t get to use a single Mogwai song title.

And then Big Al Carson. It was a free event, listed in the Jazz & Blues festival calendar so we thought we’d take a look – turned out to be a gospel church service, in effect, though it was great fun. The place was packed full and by then end everybody was in the spirit. Hurrah, eh. A rousing rendition of ‘When the Saints.. to finish. Is it compulsory at every gospel-esque concertgig?

We’ll be poking our toes around Warsaw in twelve days now. I’ll totally use Mogwai song titles for posts along the way – We’re No Here, Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home and A Cheery Wave From Stranded Youngsters are a few (though hopefully not the last, I suppose). Smooth connection: These are some great Mogwai sessions. Download My Father, My King and You Don’t Know Jesus if you only want a taster. I have no idea how long they’ll remain available. And go see them live if you get the chance; I can’t think of any band more intense.

This is pretty astonishing.

Oh, don’t call me funny bunny
I’ll blow your money, money
I’ll get you to my bad ass spinning for you.

Gotta tease you nasty guy
So take it don’t be shy
Put your cherry on my cake
And taste my cherry pie.

Sounds hot?

This is the Ukrainian entrant:

Righto.

PS. Seems to have become a BBC themed post – more terrible lyrics.

Chanced upon it on a compilation of Nordic jazz. If you’re subscribed to eMusic the whole album is currently free.