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2003: What's your current musical obsession?

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Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!

10:38 / 15.04.03

Riz: Alien Lanes! Good!

Fly: What's full yyy's album like? Guessing (well I say guessing, it's pretty obvious from your evil list) you like it but I've heard nothing of it...

Anyway, here's mine.

SM + Jicks - Pig Lib (and bonus disc! Better record than everyone says, too.)
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted reissue
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Pavement - Wowee Zowee (Oh, rattled by the rush, grave architecture, at+t, kennel d, you are the songs that complete me)
Pavement - Stereo (on my computer, I never heard it before! Why?! Whhhhy?!)
Oh, and pavement covering "Killing Moon", because I just saw Donnie Darko (and that's the only version of the song I have).

So, you might think I'm a little obsessive at present. I felt guilty about it the other day and tried to listen to something else, but I thought it was boring. No-one can save me.

(update: I listened to a Cat Power song for a bit. Not for long though.)

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:51 / 15.04.03

Reasons, not lists!

Disco is My Class War

08:10 / 23.04.03

I've been revisiting glam lately. Specifically, Brian Eno's 'Here Come the Wamr Jets' (the last track, no idea what its name is, sounds so much like Sonic Youth it's not funny.) And Bowie and Byrne and Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, in both Velvet Underground and solo rocker manifestations.

Otherwise what? taTu rock.

My Mom Thinks I'm Cool

03:27 / 24.04.03

Recently on a quest for The Perfect Song and am considering all genres on the advice of my friends (also thanks to all the stuff offered here). Here's the stuff I instantly fell in love with this week: Dead Can Dance, early Pretenders, and a girl metal band from Canada called Kittie.

Also still in love with the soundtracks to Conan the Barbarian and Flash Gordon.

"reasons"? I go for stuff that makes me feel, not necessarily stuff that sounds musically talented or whatever.

I have tried very hard to hate Tatu but can't. I think they'd be good if someone else wrote them decent lyrics and some producer wasn't making them as mathematically poppy as possible.

The Natural Way

09:43 / 24.04.03

Rizla is unspeakably fighting good. Anyone that listens to this

Bal-Sagoth - Battle Magic

is unspeakably fighting good, regardless of whether or not the music's up to scratch.

My obsession?

I can't turn off the 'Scion: Tresor 2002' mix at the mo'. There's nothing like a nice bit of Basic Channel techno. All the ingredients are there. It's why I got into techno in the first place: atmosphere, uncompromising repetitiveness, a sense of space to the sound.... Reminds me of staying up late to listen to Colin Dales 'Outer Limits' show waaaaaay back when Kiss was cool and I was at skool.

Now, if only Riz understood the power of the fucking endless looping groove. Fuck that experimental shit.

Or maybe not - Asa Chang is doing cool things to me, but he's only playing in my head. Atonal, but weirdly beautiful oriental weirdness of the highest order. How many people here would love it!

I'm also really into 'The Boys of Summer'. There is no rock beaut better.

23:07 / 24.04.03

yeah yeah yeahs they're my favorite band, they beat nirvana and put them in second-it is very important to put your favorite bands in numerical order. KAREN IS THE COOLEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD. she manages to be fun, punked and sexy all at once. and its outrageous what nick does with a guitar. and brian does the drums.

20:11 / 25.04.03

I've been hearing a lot of Ladytron and older Stereolab being played at the Bryant-Lake Bowl whenever I go out. So, that's been in my head, lately, though I don't actually own anything by either.

My obsession, as always, is with Radiohead, and with their new album.

Shut up, I know I'm not trendy.

A.

Professor Silly

17:19 / 09.05.03

Just got the new Tomahawk album, Mit Gas. Very, very, very good. I removed all other CDs from my car because I don't need them anymore....

21:44 / 09.05.03

If it's 2003 then it has to be Puffy (or Puffy AmiYumi as they're known stateside).

Infectious Japanese bubblegum pop that just insists on being played again and again. You can't help but like a band with a song called Cake Is Love

The compilation album An Illustrated History has some of their finest moments and is rapidly becoming my favourite album this year.

12:27 / 10.05.03

Gone all countryfolkified this year what with Bonny Prince Billy and James Yorkston and Smog and Gillian Welch.

Regrettable Juvenilia

18:31 / 11.05.03

'Hold Your Head Up' by Arthur Agent - the Soulwax remix is the one that really hits the spot - it's some kind of anthem for sure. The bored, arch female vocal thing would be played out WERE IT NOT for the fact that in this case it's so clearly a strategy for hiding the heartache and shrugging off the bullies and the bigots. Don't ever let them know. Don't ever let them know.

04:11 / 15.05.03

Just got the new Tomahawk album, Mit Gas. Very, very, very good. I removed all other CDs from my car because I don't need them anymore....

This paragraph is so fucking true that it caused me to wet myself.

Shampoo did 'Trouble'. Free pass. Anyone remember Donna Air's brief-lived band, something to do with oranges or crushes(?) Their one single is like the motherlode to Shampoo fans.

Disco Punk is good too.

And I just picked up Kelis 'Kaleidoscope' second-hand, and it's shit hot.

Um, I like Ease Down The Road best of the Bonnie 'Prince' albums. The bonus CD was excellent - fucking Chavez as a backing band. Sort of. Also featured 'The Grand Dark Feeling of Emptiness' which is possibly my #1 fave Oldham choon.

Junior Senior got old pretty fucking soon, didn't it? Died in a manner akin to that little girl in The Filth #4.

04:52 / 15.05.03

Being a fascist, I'm taking notes to see who gets to be my friend, by the way.

Whoever mentioned Shudder to Think's 'Pony Express Record' gets a barbecrush and a link to former vocalist Craig Wedren's website, with the recommendation to download the 'Soft Feminine Boys' demo by his new band, BABY, baby. Craig Wedren = best vocalist ever. The Rapture should pay attention. How good a name is BABY anyway? Fucking shit hot. I'm off to order their album.

[n.b. link courtesy of Flux who provided it to me in the Electroclash thread]

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:44 / 15.05.03

Speaking of The Rapture...

The Rapture - 'Out Of The Races & Onto The Tracks'

I became obsessed with this tune after watching the scene in The Rules of Attraction in which Ian Somerhalder's Paul is walking along at the outdoor party, Wicker Man burning away in the background, and gradually starts to shakeshakeshakeit until eventually he's dancing in a manner that borders on the absurd. (The pay-off being that it is absurd - he's winding up the 'straight' guy, Mitchell, who he clearly had a fling with at some point.) I guess I'd also heard the song here and there as well, and that opening call of "get y'self together!" had worked its way into some central part of my brain... Great to finally own a copy. I can scarcely believe the guy's singing "punishment - in higher places!" there at the end, but he really is. Don't know what it means, but in the way that makes the best lyrics so good, I know What It Means.

(And get your mind out of the gutter - this time...)

Also:

The Detroit Cobras - 'Hey Sailor'

This song gives me the horn, despite having a tune slightly reminiscent of a certain football-related novelty record from last summer. I'm not going to ruin your day by mentioning which one. Best forget I mentioned the resemblance at all, actually. Just gaze at the cover of the latest issue of Careless Talk Costs Lives and think "yeeeeaaaahhh"...

The Kills - 'Wait'

Probably The Kills track which sounds least like they want to be either Royal Trux or PJ Harvey. Instead, I think the key influence may be The Velvet Underground. That's what I hear in the "la la la, la la la la" refrain towards the end anyway, and that's what seals this as the band's most essential song in my opinion, and one I always picture people slowdancing to, heads resting on each other's shoulders, at the end of a night. That and the fantastic lyric "write it on the rocks and then go tell me where it is", which has a certain mythic quality. Ah, the pain and the chequered past, the yearning and the impatience - it makes the good stuff all the sweeter.

15:20 / 15.05.03

2003:

Lots of the Velvet Underground, Especially the self titled and Andy Warhol EP. Dylan is always a favorite. I've recently got off a big Beatles kick. Also The Piper at the Gates of Dawn has returned.

With summer on its way I like to play some Miles and Mingus. Holst's The planets is often to be found playing.

I just picked up a copy of Buckethead's Electric tears which was pretty moving for about a week or so.

17:45 / 15.05.03

I have no current musical obsession. Does anyone want to lend me one of theirs?

22:23 / 15.05.03

I'm currently rediscovering my love for acid house. I've also discovered this strange little bastard child of house called 'bootyhouse' that is amuzing me greatly.

Still love Derrick Carter, DJ Sneak and others who love their boomty boom...

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:55 / 17.05.03

Medeski, Martin & Wood. I just picked up a copy of Uninvisible, and am VERY impressed. Like a spikier version of Barry Adamson's smoothness. Warm key goodness. What else of theirs is worth getting?

10:26 / 18.05.03

I reckon it's about time I chucked in a brief playlist;

Slayer - reign in blood
The Feelies - the good earth
The Au-Pairs - playing with a different sex
Anaal Nathrakh - totally fucking necro
Buck 65 - squares
The Magic Band - live @ ATP
Venetian Snares - ditto
Theoretical Girls - s/t
The Byrds - greatest hits
various - Guerrilla Jukebox vol.1
The Mooney Suzuki - electric sweat
Velvet Underground - bootlegs boxset
Company Flow - little johnny from the hospital
Black Sabbath - self titled
Sonic Youth - walls have ears / debut ep

hmm.. very few of those are new releases.. worrying..

12:04 / 19.05.03

Happy Hardcore...

14:57 / 19.05.03

"Pendulum" by Broadcast. Sounds like Sandie Shaw doin' a Bond theme, backed by Sy Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Kraftwerk.

Bloody.

Marvellous.

Could do with a little less arsing around on the b-sides, though.

01:37 / 20.05.03

Derrick Carter's remix of Blair's 'Life'... funky, funky, funky YAY!!!

13:08 / 23.05.03

At the moment I cannot get the idea out of my head that the chorus to Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" is remarkably similar to Sixpence none the richer's "Sad but True".

Amy Lee and Leigh Nash ahve similar voices and styles I think -besides their obviously different taste in music!

10:49 / 27.05.03

Fell the need to throw in a few things which are beating me around the ears right now;

McLusky's new EP : not produced by Albini this time, but they're still so great that superlatives do no justice. And still writing the best lyrics in the known world - I can't think of any other group who have quite the lunatic sanity to juxtapose a chorus about Western armies killing families with "I think we've got a scrabble score!" and "your son looks like Michael Jackson!"..

Malkmus & the Jicks - Dark Wave EP : 20 minutes of new Malkmus for £1.99! And it's real good too - "Dynamic Calories" and "Fractions and Feelings" just melt me. If those are B-sides I really am going to have to hurry up and get 'Pig Lib'.

Converge - Jane Doe : had previously written these guys off as grumpy, furrowed brow, boring hardcore. But five minutes of this has practically flung me across the room with it's righteous, dynamic wall of noise. I've been ranting for a while about how dull & unimaginative all this "post-hardcore" stuff is, but this band undoubtedly have whatever that rare indefinable thing that suddenly makes it sound vital is..

uncle retrospective

11:00 / 27.05.03

Mogwai!
The new album Happy music for happy people is brilliant. I saw them 2 weeks ago and it was one of the best shows I've seen in years.
Hummmm...
Noisy.

14:10 / 28.05.03

speaking of the best shows seen in years, DEAD MEADOW rocked me so much last night I nearly passed out - forty minutes of constant headbanging and ensuing dizziness was the only possible responce to their music.

Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing to impress Bardo Pond or something - absolute no holds barred "flying to the centre of the universe in a starship made of feedback and playing wah-wah guitar in the face of god" style action. Recommended.

The Knights Templar Boogie Machine

22:47 / 28.05.03

hmmmm, 80's matchbox b-line disaster kick ass,

Detroit Techno mixes off winmx(mills,young etc.)
k. alexi, green velvet mmmmmm

Old brown-eye is back

16:37 / 29.05.03

Been listening to the new Future Bible Heroes record all week in preparation to see them (ever so gently) rock the Ocean in Hackney last night. Stephen Merritt is still the funniest, most versatile man in pop, and Claudia...Claudia's just geek sex personified. Also, Everything Must Go by Steely Dan. Horribly cynical, infinitely complex FM rock from the grumpiest old men on the block. My sub and dep ed keep whispering 'Dad music' every time I pass by, but fuck 'em.

17:20 / 29.05.03

i've been really obsessed with a local Southern California music/performance collective called Mutaytor lately. they're part of the Burning Man community. sort of primal percussion with electronics and funky graphics and performers (hula hoopers, fire spinners, etc.). very neat. you should see the DVD if you aren't somewhere where you can see them...

14:09 / 30.05.03

Somewhere around the end of last year, or the beginning of this one, I discovered Stuart Davis. Ye gods does this man rock - the original Punk Monk, champion of Buddhist rock. Definitely check his stuff out - http://www.stuartdavis.com.

Lots of good stuff about sex, death, and strange lights in the nighttime sky.

The Natural Way

15:16 / 30.05.03

I want all the 'lithers who don't love Lisa Mafia's tune to present themselves in a big line so we can confirm exactly who on this board hates fun and knows no rhythm.

Go on! Get in line!

Now: FIYARGH!

Cue booty shaking dancehall bassline...

04:18 / 07.06.03

Musical obesessions, the clash (sandanista)....happy mondays (the entire catalogue)....stereolab.....blur........howling wolf.....john lee hooker.....beatles........soul coughing.......new pornographers......neko case (all solid state's fault for neko case)....

autopilot disengaged

10:34 / 07.06.03

'belly dancer', kardinall offishall
'titties bounce', gravy train!!!
'guitar anthem', chicks on speed feat. peaches
'no good advice', girls aloud
'big'n'bashy', fallacy
'fuck the world', turbonegro

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:01 / 08.06.03

You're just teasing me now, 'pilot.

I am obsessed with Scissor Sisters, on the basis of precisely four songs, all of which are super unbeatable good.

Are you a scissor sister? Don't you want to be one?

Yeeeeeaaaah.

Regrettable Juvenilia

23:32 / 08.06.03

Oh, and I'd run down old ladies with a golf kart for a copy of the new Beyonce Knowles single. Including my own granmothers, if it came complete with the video.

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