The Newness of Now

This is what I'm talking about. Surprisingly into The Harlem Shakes at the moment. First time I heard them I wasn't too impressed but kept going back for some more, and they grew on me till now, finding them really quite refreshing, with their pop melodies and funky beats, a certain lightness of touch. Nothing too cutting edge, but it still feels like NOW, not retro, not backward looking, not forward looking, just NOW, and what else is there? This is what guitar pop should be about.

Blasting the Past

Another day another blast from the past. This time World of Twist. I looked this up not out of some nostalgia trip but because I thought of the song in an entirely uninteresting context and realised I didn't have it on my hard drive, so looked it up in Youtube:



That said it did make me wonder why I have always seem to post very old videos on here. I listen to new music pretty continuously (he says defensively...). It did strike me that new British rock bands seem to be generally very dull (although yes I can think of exceptions), other genres are where all the interesting stuff is. I obviously have some sort of guitar hang up that only music from the early 90s can satisfy. On which note, Sons of the Stage:

Tweeting Proust

I was idling at my keyboard, attempting to write something on Proust, facing a certain block, so I decided to search Twitter for Proust. What I noticed was the amazing number of times I saw this quotation pop up: "The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."
What struck me was 1) The speed with which Twitter allows ideas to travel. I am assuming that not all the quotations were uttered spontaneously from a reading of Proust. Although not all of them were retweets the coincidence would be too extreme for some/most of them not to have their origin in another tweet (A worse example of this is on my other Twitter account, where I have been told three times in the last 12 hours or so that "he who laughs last probably doesn't get it"). 2) The fact that Twitter, which, to me, is based on a certain randomness of expression - against the authority based search of Google is the random thought search of Twitter, and yet we still have a different sort of authority, the authority of the quotation - the name after a quotation assuring us of its validity in human thought.
I was also tempted to ponder on the place for Proust in world of 140 character messages but stopped myself from this easy simplification. In the same way that people bemoan text messaging for damaging the English language, rather than enriching it with new forms of expression, surely Twitter and Proust can easily manage side by side - a time and a place for everything - and the number of people reading and enjoying (and finishing) Proust, from the evidence of my non-scientific Twitter search, is still very high.

Where were you in '92?

Had the urge to listen to The Wendys today. I used to love this album, "Gobbledygook", at the time, and still go back to it fairly often. Quality stuff. Would have preferred to post "Removal", it was the first song of theirs I heard and I still think it's amazing, but it didn't seem to be on YouTube, so "Pulling My Fingers Off" will have to do, although this is quality as well -

Love Sucks

I've uploaded a mix, which you can get here. This is my first foray into mixes. Not entirely sure how successful it is. It certainly has some quality tunes on it but how well they all go together I'm not so sure. The mix is called "Love Sucks" and was meant to show the highs and lows of a certain kind of love. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Maybe the swings in mood make for an incoherent listening experience, although I think it just about works.
The main problem was the transitions from song to song, not all of which entirely work. I wanted it seamless, but the seams show too often for my liking. For a first time I guess I couldn't expect perfection. (although that is what I do expect...)

The tracklist -
St Elmo's Fire dialogue/Arab Strap - Blackness
The Teenagers - Homecoming (Casanova Remix)
3 6 Mafia - Dis Bitch Dat Hoe
Yazoo - Don't Go (Diplo Master Mix)
Spank Rock - Put That Pussy On Me (Diplo Tonite Remix)
Jay-Z and Linkin Park - 99 Problems/Points of Authority
Big Black - Kerosene
Killwhitneydead - White Trash But Worth Every Cent
Manatees - iiii
The Pains of being Pure At Heart - Stay Alive
NWA - A Bitch is a Bitch
Clipse - So Fly(Now We've Had Her)
Sebastien Tellier - Sexual Sportswear
Kid Cudi - The Prayer
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
The Besnard Lakes - For Agent 13
Clint Mansell feat. Kronos Quartet - [Winter] Full Tense
Lil Wayne - Do's and Don'ts of Young Money
Felix - Don't You Want Me
Zomby - U Are My Fantasy (Street Fighter II Theme Remix)
Burial - U Hurt Me
Smog - River Guard
Kid Cudi - Save My Soul (The CuDi Confession)
Kid Cudi - T.G.I.F. (Feat. Chip The Ripper)

Get it here

Missing hair and vanishing baldness

Recently, I've been seeing this advert for a certain hair loss clinic continuously:



Although I should point out I'm kind of paranoid about my (no)hair so maybe I just imagine it's on every time I see an advert break - it does seem to have been on a lot though. Anyway. The entire advert is composed of men with hair. In most cases a hell of a lot of hair, hairlines I can only dream about - and often do. A baldness clinic advertising itself without bald men? My first thought was obviously a hair loss clinic wouldn't want to be associated with bald men in their adverts, as that might imply failure on their part. But the advert clearly shows them walking into the place - one assumes pre- or during treatment, so at least some of them should be balding right? So I had another idea, that the lack of bald men in the advert is meant to signal to me that being bald is a failure on my part, and that there is no way they would employ such a failure in one of their adverts. So their message is, you must get hair or you will continue to be worthless.
It's a sign of my own issues with hair loss that even after settling on this interpretation of the advert I'm still giving semi-serious thought to the idea of looking into it. The power of advertising...