Friday, April 29, 2005

New random single post

The record I never intended to buy: Seven Days In The Sun by Feeder.

posted by Chris Brown @ 11:56 pm 0 comments

A monkey mystery

We had a day off work today, so we decided to visit Regent's Park and the zoo again. We saw all the usual suspects (the pottos were having their meal - aaaah) and enjoyed the new squirrel monkey exhibit, but the most remarkable moment came when we were looking at the golden-headed lion tamarin. As we passed the window of their indoor enclosure, they seemed to be watching me and we gradually realised that their attention was fixed on my cheap panama hat. I could see their little eyes move as I moved the hat around (I was holding, rather than wearing, it at this point) and when I hid it behind my back. At first they seemed merely curious about it, but when I brought it back into their line of sight the poor little creatures seemed to be shrinking away from it. Laura even observed at one point that two of them were unable to see it, but the third seemed to be warning them it was still there.
Obviously, I had to do the decent thing and take my hat out of the way rather than torment them. But it was strange to see them so transfixed by what is for us a simple object, and one that surely isn't an uncommon sight in a place frequented by tourists.

posted by Chris Brown @ 9:39 pm 0 comments

Forever amber?

I know I'm about three days late with this story, but a well-known supermarket has abandoned its "traffic-light" labelling scheme because customers don't understand what an amber light means. It must be them I see when I'm trying to cross the road every morning, then.

posted by Chris Brown @ 12:01 am 0 comments

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Listening: The Wedding Present

I tried not to make this a strictly musical blog because I'm not enough of an authority to confine myself to a single subject. In fact, I tried not to write about it at all for a while, but unfortunately it dominates my thought processes so much I don't have a lot else to say that Laura can't say better. So here goes:
Probably the new record I've listened to most of late is Take Fountain by indie legends
The Wedding Present. Of course, they're noted for their deeply loyal and longstanding fanbase, but I can't claim to be among them. Although I bought
Mini in 1996, mainly because I liked all the car-related song titles, I really got into the works of David Gedge through his other band, Cinerama (thanks Laura). And until a few minutes ago I felt like the only person in the world who'd never heard their supposedly most famous single, 'Kennedy'.
After splitting from his partner (in Cinerama as well his personal life), Gedge reverted to using the old band name and recorded a Peel Session, broadcast in September 2004. Sadly this proved to be their last for obvious reasons (you can view their performance at the tribute night on the BBC site ) but I heard the lead single 'Interstate 5' and was so captivated by it that I even went to the effort of ordering it off the net. It was a staggering piece of work, an epic six minutes in length but tense all the way through, Gedge picking through the detritus of a failed relationship with palpable (and possibly not simulated) hurt, the pill of his misery sugared only by the harmonies of (female) bassist Terry de Castro. On paper it's not necessarily the sort of thing I like but it's so powerful I couldn't help loving it; just as well, because the version on the album is even longer, with an extended spaghetti-western outro, and the opening title 'On Ramp' is effectively two minutes of build-up to it [the US version omits this in favour of two CD-ROM tracks].
The remainder of the album probably couldn't retain that level of sonic intensity and wisely doesn't try. What it does, though, is reveal some of Gedge's most personal songwriting - not that girlfriend trouble is new territory for him, of course, but there's a clever narrative arc from this point onwards as our protagonist tries to put his life back together, meets someone on the rebound (on 'I'm From Further North Than You', their 18th hit single to date), moves to America to start a new life, attempts further relationships but has to deal with his own emotions. Look away now if you don't want to know the ending, but the final two songs show him finally finding new love, inspiring some superbly fumbling romanticism (always better than the cliched kind): "It's as if you've just appeared out of one of my dreams - I don't care if that sounds weird" as he puts it on 'Queen Anne'. Perhaps the second-best track of all is 'Mars Sparkles Down On Me', which details our man's meeting with his ex's new partner - the central lyric "How can I just shake his hand when it's been all over you" not only sums up the song but also recalls a line in seminal early TWP single 'My Favourite Dress'.
With all this in mind, it was probably only fair of Gedge to make a point of playing this to Murrell before it came out. The music, meanwhile, is a development of the later Cinerama records, combining the delicate chamber-pop arrangements of their first works with traces of the harsh attack of vintage Wedding Present.

I've since bought the album that's usually cited as the band's masterpiece, Saturnalia and though I agree that it's a fine slice of noise (and very useful when your neighbours start playing Sade too loud) I prefer Take Fountain. I recommend it to any fans of either band who haven't already snapped it up, and if you're a novice like I am, then why not start here?
The disc is available at amazon.co.uk and at hmv.co.uk or at amazon.com , where one customer has helpfully reviewed it in Spanish. I have no personal connection with these retailers except that I've used them myself, possibly a little too often.

You're not going to hear much of this on the radio, alas, but that's another rant altogether. I wouldn't have heard this without the Internet, so I've assembled a couple of links:
Their American record company made them set up a blog, where you can hear excerpts.
You can see streamed videos for the singles and a live film of 'Perfect Blue' (all taken from the DVD single) at the website of the German magazine Spex.
And if you want a real mine of Gedge info, head for www.somethingandnothing.net.

posted by Chris Brown @ 11:27 pm 0 comments

Friday, April 08, 2005

Did I really hear that? Rides Again

Apparently, somebody called Ginger McCain said "Women don't win Grand Nationals". He's right you know - it's usually a horse.

posted by Chris Brown @ 9:10 pm 0 comments

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

PSA (Bad Day)

Apparently our electricity meter needs replacement. So we were told anyway, and the well-known engineering company that does this OBO the electricity company agreed to an appointment on Saturday, between 8am and 1pm. Now, I'm not a huge fan of vague appointments, but I can understand that there are good practical reasons why they can't be precise. And my boss's husband is a window fitter, so I have some idea of how annoying it is for people on the other end to turn up and find no householder. We sat there for the five hours, with me taking a torch into the bathroom just in case they had to turn the power off while I was in there. I even resisted the lure of the Net for most of the morning to minimise the number of things that would need switching off.

1pm came and went, and no engineer appeared. We were, it's fair to say, less than happy about this because it always seemed to be an unspoken part of the bargain that the less specific the appointment, the less right they have to miss it. We did consider calling to complain but, of course, they wouldn't pay anyone to give up their Saturday and answer the phone. Eventually, we decided to take advantage of what good weather remained and take our recycling out, since Harrow Council, in their infinite wisdom, won't collect it from flats. We knew the bottle banks had been moved to a new (and better) location, but what they'd neglected to tell us was that the paper bank hadn't gone with them. Still, it's not all bad news - according to
their website, they plan to try out a scheme using lockers in Autumn 2004, presumably to avoid the spectre of empty-peanut-butter-jar-theft.


There was one upside though. The new home for the bottle banks is in a car park we'd never previously had cause to visit. Happily, it turned out to have a path through an Open Space. There was nothing all that remarkable about the path itself, which led us behind houses in the approximate direction of Pinner, but it was away from the main road, and I always enjoy the experience of taking a road I've never seen before in a place I know well. I'm by no means a hiker - not even an urban one - but it was fun to reach a familiar destination by a route I didn't know existed. For all its faults, I'm proud of this borough's greenery.

posted by Chris Brown @ 9:49 pm 0 comments

Has anyone seen my sunglasses?

Just thought I'd better check before I finally admit I've lost them and buy a new pair.

posted by Chris Brown @ 9:44 pm 0 comments

Sunday, April 03, 2005

New Random single post

Sorry to break the mood a little here, but I've written up another one: 'You Will You Won't...' by The Zutons.

posted by Chris Brown @ 12:45 pm 0 comments