I'm lazy, I'm hazy / new music review / brushing yr teeth - mish mash stuff post

Early afternoon today, I woke up late and wrote out a list of my favourite albums of all time. HERE. This evening, lying on my bed in a vague haze I am listening to two of my top ten and am beginning to glimpse at the majesty of all - how little I know and have managed to grasp and am beginning to discover. Whilst my family are downstairs watching Doctor Who I am reading through the Sick Mouthy and Devon Record Club archives and bookmarking a lot of things that I don't have time to do without committing to them at the expense of other things (each of these uncommitted to - and so I do nothing).

My two favourite records this evening, brought to mind by my list and pushed into my ears by the discovery of Wild Swim.

It can't be time to break through yet, though; I refuse to move through the haze, sober up and pursue that which gives me a sense of fulfilment as well as the façade of enjoyment. I really am rubbish at seizing the day.

What do we do when we are without the drive to delve into the archives of the canon, or shortlist? Either look forward or just ignore the issue. For once, I seem to have done the former and in earlier perusing the Glastonbury emerging sound competition (not capitalised, read: too lazy to fact check the comp.'s name) longlist I discovered a host of new things to be excited about. Of these, the one with which I really clicked was Wild Swim. Towards the end of your first listen, it dawns upon you that they're amazing.

The last thing you would do would be to accuse them of aping Wild Beasts, and yet it is hard to ignore an approach that blends the most baroque of Hayden Thorpe's vocals with a minimalist sound reminiscent of all the influences you would expect cited for Smother - the kind of music that gives you a hankering for late Radiohead or Atoms For Peace. As Echo develops, it reveals itself as almost onomatopoeic: a collage of influences that near-crescendos, never quite coming to flower. Ending in a cacophony that leaves you almost as puzzled as you are pleasured, the track is the more wild side of Wild Swim, a band whose music seems to be the result of mixing restraint with boundlessness. The record's b side, Bright Eyes, showcases the opposite end of the spectrum, a pool in which you can languish and perhaps pull a length or two out of that locker we probably have a key to somewhere. Currently available to pre-order, their latest is a more mature fusion of the two styles, and is even more brilliant than Echo. I may well purchase both releases, but I'm trying to save money and writing this feels like justification for only streaming them. I won't forget about them. This should be more than enough to tempt you into listening now. Do it. Can you sense my urgency? I must flip the record and refill my drink.






Forget it. I have finished my drink and so am signing off here. Here is a link to my Instagram account, where I've started a new trend of people taking unattractive pictures of themselves brushing their teeth. Byeeeeeeeee


J.

p.s. I only told you about one of the longlist. There were loads of good'uns - find it here. Other favourites were Moats (obviously, I've mentioned before that I like them and they're quite nice too), Isaiah Dreads (a 15 year old mc who has an incredible flow but semi-rubbish beats) and Mt. Wolf. Here's a song.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F59588459&amp;color=ff6600&amp;auto_play=false&amp;show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>

"Will you by any chance...?" / 'Yes I will'

Important Jamie news: on the strength of repeated - and I mean heavily - listens to Smother in the last few days, Wild Beasts have now overtaken Los Campesinos! as my favourite band. I would pay quite a lot of money that I do not have to see them again tomorrow. Please buy Smother (LP if you have the means to play records) and then sink into it. Allow it to surround you like a warm bath, sum you up like an epitaph, be blatant ad a bailiff and allow its lips to blister when you kiss. You shall become electrified and mutually bring a creature alive.

It's alive... it's alive... it's alive!

But yeah, buy it.

*Word games at the end of this blog post courtesy of Bed Of Nails, track two on the best album in the wooorld right now

List: Sunday Evening's Soundcloud Set

How regularly do you go on the internet on Sundays and see a million complaints about boredom? It's a disease, I tell you, but one that I am not currently inflicted with. This might be down to having listened to a lot of music tonight which I can, for once, link you to without too much effort*. So here's a little sequence for any bored ears out there tonight - I can't guarantee it'll flow particularly smoothly or anything, it's just a semi-random sequence of songs I found on my soundcloud, listened to and particularly enjoyed tonight. Hope you do likewise!

Tempunauts - don't be scared off by this one. It's not at all my usual style but someone linked to it on Twitter and listening to it in the background I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

First of My Kind - Like the previous track, this is unusual for me - I don't really like Miles Kane, in that I find his image and popularity irritating given his lack of good tunes. That said, this is much better and I can see myself starting to like him if he releases a few more like this and people stop calling him well-dressed. The start of this song sounds like It's Raining Men!

Simple Math - Always been a favourite, this. An undeniably good song.

Fitzpleasure (BretonLABS remix) - It's not often you find a genuinely good, listenable remix and this, of a stand-out song by a band who blew away my initial expectations with their interwoven rhythms and interesting riffs, is as good as the song itself. This one is downloadable!

Toothache - The first song to really hit the high standards of their first few, this band have so much potential as well as being properly brilliant already. This is the first single with their new member, Asya, singing, and she really adds to their sound. Listen to Two Dozen, too.

Can't See Myself - A tune I always liked, but was never quite sure why. Good stuff from a band I've enjoyed every time I've seen them. RIP Maddox.

Hello Sadness - The title track of the latest album from potentially my favourite band. Benefits from repeated listening and savouring, but still brilliant on the first listen, like all genuinely good music.

La Moustache Formidable - I adore Mimas. This was the first I heard from them, and I've listened this and Mac, Get Your Gear On to death. Honest-to-God fantastic.



If you're still stuck for a listen, before those few I watched this twice, and am rewatching (well, listening this time) this - Arctic Monkeys live at Coachella 13/04/12 (WHY DOES AMERICA PUT THE MONTH FIRST STOP IT NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE LIKE THAT)

I love Arctic Monkeys. I cannot be bothered to write about them so here I shall compile some of my tweets from earlier this evening:
Love watching Monkeys videos at the moment, it's a joy to see new tunes as highlights of the set.
(for the first time in ages, as well)
I can't help but have the feeling that right about now would be the best time to see the arctic monkeys
Confidence levels and you can see them enjoying it, back catalogue meaning no heavy reliance on new or old material...
Anyway yes, they really are growing into being almost my favourite band again. Feels like I'm in year eight again


T'ra! Have a nice evening xxxx

* usually listen to records, which come without a hyperlink etceteraaaa

Record Store Day 2012 & The Black Wax Addiction

If you know me or my writing, you'll probably know how proud I'm becoming of my growing record collection. I've got so much of my favourite stuff on vinyl now which feels like quite an achievement to someone as lazily perfectionist (there's a contradiction for you) as me - albeit a rather expensive one.
I'm not going to go over the entire Record Store Day initiative for you, however superb it may be - and is - but focus on this year's exclusive releases - because I'm sad enough to have spent a good hour earlier painstakingly and comprehensively listing a large amount of what I am most after in priority AND alphabetical order. Yeah. Sad, I warned you. It's a bit long and I am a student and am not really able to afford one, let alone everything in the 'want' section of my list, but will regardless do my best to get everything in 'need' as much as 'want a lot' as I can allow myself. Maybe more.
I'd also love to get this.
It does not even regret me to admit that, nay, proclaim that I will be queueing up for doors to open - I would consider going later, so that a section of my list is already gone and I CANNOT spend as much, but s Arsenal are playing at home (against Chelsea! Big game) later on, which I can't miss, so I'm just going to have to trust my small amount of self-control. My wonderful local record store David's Music will not have, according to staff, ordered too many copies of things that wouldn't have deserved a stand-alone release but are taking advantage of the RSD 'feeding frenzy', which could eliminate a lot of the 'maybe' list. ANYWAY, enough pre-amble, here is my RSD list (I AM SO SAD)



NEED
Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine? Ltd heavyweight purple vinyl 7"
Beach House - Lazuli 7" Blue/opaque vinyl 
Gorillaz - DoYaThing 10" Picture disc 
Oscar Cash - Plays Metronomy 7”

WANT A LOT
Animal Collective - Transverse Temporal Gyrus 4 track E.P. 12" 
Bloc Party - Shes Hearing Voices 7" re-release of the band's debut single 
Bombay Bicycle Club - Lights Out, Words Gone (Rub A Dub)
Caitlin Rose - Piledriver Waltz/Love Is A Laserquest 7" with exclusive jukebox sticker
The Cure - Friday I'm In Love 7”
Graham Coxon - What'll it Take
Metronomy - Black Eye Burnt Thumb (Woodwind version)/You Could easily Have Me (Woodwind version) 7"
Slow Club – Paradise LP 
St Vincent - Krokodil/Grot 7” 
Two door Cinema Club - Acoustic EP 7"
Xiu Xiu/Dirty Beaches - Always/Tu Ne Dis Rien Split 7" 

WANT 
BBC Radiophonic Workshop - Dr Who Sound Effects 
Belle & Sebastian - Crash Exclusive 7”
David Bowie - A Side: David Bowie - Starman (original single version). Stereo
B Side: David Bowie - Starman (Top Of The Pops version) Originally broadcast on the BBC TV Programme 'Top Of The Pops' on 6/7/72. Mono
The Cure - Three Imaginary Boys LP, Seventeen Seconds LP, Faith Numbered (normal or coloured vinyl) LP, Pornography LP, The Top LP
The Futureheads – No 1 Song in Heaven
The Kinks – King Arthur, Face to Face, Something Else LPs
Laura Marling - Flicker and Fail/To Be A Woman 7”
Neutral Milk Hotel - coloured vinyl re-pressed LP
Odd Future - The Of Tape Vol. 2 Triple album 
Of Montreal/Deerhoof - Stygian x Bisection Split 7" 
Sigur Ros - Ekki Mukk 10" 
The Subways - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 7" grey vinyl 
The Specials - The Specials Live 7" 

MAYBE
The Beat - A: Mirror In The Bathroom, AA: Too Nice To Talk To 7" single picture sleeve, coloured vinyl 
The Beatles - 1's Singles Collection 4 x 7" Singles in Tin Box 
The Black Keys - El Camino 2LP 7" plus additional 7" vinyl with 2 live tracks. Gatefold with poster and bonus CD 
James Brown - Live At The Apollo: There It Is, Pass The Peas 
The Clash - London Calling Special digitally re-mastered new version by Mick Jones and Bill Price 
Consort Audite Nova - Plays Metronomy 
Dry The River - New Ceremony 
Elbow - McGreggor 
The Fall - Night Of The Humerons 
Morrissey - Suedehead, We'll Let You Know (live)*, Now My Heart Is Full (live)* - 10" picture disc 
Richard Hawley - Leave your Body Behind You 10" Single (part of Richard Hawley Singles Club)
Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Acid Reflex 12" RMX
Pete Townsend - The Quadrophenia Demos:
EP One: Side 1 - The Real Me (demo), Cut My Hair (demo), Punk (demo) Side 2: Dirty Jobs (demo), Is It In My Head (demo), Any More (demo)
EP Two: Side 1: I've Had Enough (demo), Drowned (demo), Is It Me (demo) Side 2: Dr Jimmy (demo), Love Reign O'er Me (demo) Two exclusive 10" vinyl Eps featuring a selection of demos from the recent, critically acclaimed box set reissue - Quadrophenia: 'The Director's Cut' 
Ramones -Blitzkrieg Bop/Havana Affair 7", sire house bag
The Supremes - Baby Love (Heart shaped 7”)
Frank Turner - I Still Believe/Somebody To Love 
The Wombats - The Wombats Proudly Present LP 

Right now

I am TOTALLY listening to my new LP

It's only bloody Is This It


I've exercised little (but some) restraint since I got to uni. I've been very reasonable with my vinyl purchases - good prices only, y'know? Unfortunately... yeah, I've somehow only just started to find bargains, so I've spent a pretty decent amount on record crack

I've bought Is This It
I've bought Whatever People Say I am, That's What I'm Not
I've bought We Are Each Other
I've bought Warpaint's cover of Life on Mars
I've bought I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose
I've bought The Libertines
I've bought Brianstorm (B-side is Temptation Greets... which is AMAZING)
I've bought Bloodflood/Tessellate

I've NOT bought:
- Antidotes
- Total Life Forever
- Radio Ladio
- Heartbreaker
- Holiday
- My Heart Rate Rapid
- Humbug
- Favourite Worst Nightmare
- We are Beautiful, We are Doomed
- There are Listed Buildings
- The Fool
- Romance is Boring
- The English Riviera

See? The 'not' list definitely outweighs the 'couldn't help myself' list. So that's alright, yeah?

Well fuck you, so far everything has been amazing, can't wait to play with a good turntable and speakers at home.  My loan will never last, so I suppose it's good that £30 I spent on pre-ordering LC!'s almost definitely excellent new album Hello Sadness on vinyl was committed before I left


Maybe I'll do a proper post soon - I've had the final pre-uni walking blog in my drafts for almost a month - or, more likely, you'll get a few more half arsed things like this, written at 1am because I feel guilty to all you lovely followers, before I have to stop going out and start working and make some effort on the blog purely for procrastination.

See you soon

(my mum reads this blog :( )

List #2: Summer Playlist

I'm far too lazy to bother writing a proper list today, because that requires brainwork; so I've got a 5-song summer playlist for you today, which comes from a post I co-wrote for my good friend Bee over at Vivatramp whilst she's on holiday (: This is a bit of an elongated (and is the original) version.


Rightie, my choices are:

Move on Up - Curtis Mayfield

    The perfect summer playlist – you can dance to it, you can relax to it, it makes you feel happy. Right? Then where better to start than Curtis Mayfield’s stone cold classic Move on Up?  WHAT. A. TUNE. It's played at Arsenal after we win, so reminds me of the good times; trumpets blazing, it's impossible not to get into - whether it's head nodding or hand-drumming to that goddamn bongo rhythm you'll proper enjoy it, although you might crash the car (I recommend trying the Single Ladies dance with it (I'm not joking - do it)).  Perhaps it would benefit from losing a bit of the extended instrumental, at least for a mixtape, but it's hard not to forgive him when you see how amazing his outfit is in that video.  This song is good enough to dissuade me from putting Isaac Hayes’ Shaft on the playlist, which is probably the best compliment you can pay a song.

Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

    It’s hard to be a member of my family without liking The Kinks (Dad used to live next door to Dave (the guitarist with the luscious locks)) and Sunny Afternoon is candidate for my favourite song of all time as well as being just generally amazing.  Sit back in your hammock and enjoy whilst you're basking in the sun.  Far too good to not be mentioned.

Sunday Sunday - Blur   

    Blur are my favourite band - and Sunday Sunday is a song from their best album.  This was such a hard choice: I only allowed myself a single Blur and picked it above For Tomorrow - also on Modern Life is Rubbish - and Girls and Boys on the basis that it doesn't need to be 'listened to' to be enjoyed (you can dance) but neither is it limited by in depth listening.  It features on the best 'passage' of the album - Blue Jeans / Chemical World / Intermission / Sunday Sunday / Oily Water - and manages individual excellence without interrupting its flow.  It also has some ace slide guitar at the end.  Amazing but not overshadowing? Playlisted.

Surfin' USA - The Beach Boys  

    Beach Boys are a quintessentially summer band, and one of those which I discovered through the medium of 50p charity shop records.  I've stuck to it: I have 4 Best of The Beach Boys 12"s and only one full album, Pet Sounds, and that on a scratched CD.  I originally had Girls Aloud's Love Machine in this slot, but you can't really leave BBs off a summer playlist and Love Machine was a very definite sixth choice.

Set The Tigers Free - Villagers  

    Does everyone here like Villagers? Set the Tigers free is a lovely song to relax to.  Every precedent for a superb summer song is filled: sounds so clean, consistently fresh and amazing on vinyl.  I think that the line 'I'll be cheering from the sidelines / with a sandwich and a beer' clinched its place here.  Let's not forget we're in Britain, and embrace the line 'and all at once I step outside / into the wind and rain' as an example of it working brilliantly for sitting around inside during a humid storm.  Sounds amazing in the morning.

Things I very nearly put in include The Girl under the Tree, Zorbing and Girls on Film.  Does that sentence count as cheating?  I didn’t even consider The Beautiful South because the choice of song would have been nigh-on-impossible.

What are your favourite summer songs/what would be your playlist/how would you amend mine? I'd love to hear from you on this issue, which is one of my fave questions - love a good mixtape - so comment comment comment

Chaaaars

Put it into Music week #5: SUNSHINE

For those not familiar with Andrea and Erika's Put it into Music project, every Wednesday they - along with interested people like me - both post a word, alongside a song and photograph inspired by that word.  I haven't done any new walking since last Wednesday, so I thought I'd join in today! It'll be going all summer, so it'd be great if you joined in too (:

This week's word is sunshine and I'm going to take the opportunity to post what may be my favourite song of all time.

For the picture, I'm an idiot and so picking almost exclusively through aesthetic.  I'm going to go with 

by Alexis Mire, who's properly properly ace.  I thought it was, of my shortlist, the best photo for the mood of the song.  I was going to go for a sunset at Glastonbury but that seemed a little boring.  It's not as good quality as it is on his page, because you're not allowed to nick it, yeah?

I picked this from a shortlist of photos by people I follow on Flickr, all of whom are superb and highly recommended. 

YOUR TURN

So how about a little peek into my lyric book

A couple of pages from my lyric book

Today doesn't seem like a good time to go through all the Tuesday to-dos that I've missed out on over exams - and I'll be merging that and Friday into a new Sunday feature soon (I think) - so I thought now might be nice to do a small blog about something I'm writing, or, more specifically, how I write.

However, first things first, I think we should all sing a quick happy birthday to Vivatramp which celebrates its first birthday today. Ready?

A happy blah blah

blah you

blah blah

blah you

blah blah blah blah blah,

blah 

Anyway, nice one Bee; I think the speed at which Viva's grown goes some way to showing you really quite how good it is.  It's definitely right up there amongst my favourite blogs and it's pretty easily my favourite personal one.   Anyway, onwaaaaaaaard:

You all know I'm in a band, right?  Well, yeah, I am, and being a little English nut who's keen on poetry and things, I always try and write lyrics when I can (If you have our EP, I did 'E9', 'Enlightenment; Maybe' and 'Black|White' (must improve my titles for songs)).  Jonny sent me a new song out of the blue the other day, so I'm jumping on the opportunity before Ed gets his filthy-but-better mitts on it.

Pretentious, badly written and unhelpful-because-its-a-personal-thing guides are ten-a-penny these days, but this is how I write - not a guide, but an insight into my creative process.
This is what happens when you have a song to write, not when you're inspired; whilst you'd assume I'd hate writing as a task, I often find it works - if I 'have' to write something, it stops me cringing and makes me get on with it.

Going hand in hand with this vague sense of duty, I find I need a song ready for me to write anything well.  You can write as much as you want without music, but that method leaves you rather susceptible to getting just too poetic, or alternatively leaving you with something that bit too hard to fit into a melody.  People aren't listening exclusively for your wordcraft, which might well be great and give depth or feel to a song but won't catch someone's immediate attention - how many songs sound brilliant to belt out but mean nothing at all? Often a few LALAs will suffice.

Second, get yourself some refreshments.  These are totally, absolutely necessary: writing is an excellent excuse to have some chai.

Chai tea and Marmite on toast are musts

 Then get a pen and some paper. Don't use a computer; that sucks the life out of any emotion you are trying to get across, which is kind of the point, right? Get physical, and knuckle down - listen to the song a couple of times on repeat and jot down any thoughts you have / do a mindmap of ideas. Draw a picture, write down some quotes, do a bit of word association or freeform writing. Get stuff down. Next, make a collection of all the words or phrases you might have jotted down in notebooks or on scraps of paper in the past few months (I use my phone's memos) and copy them all down in a page together.  Soon you'll find some recurring themes: that's your head, that is. Don't be afraid of talking about your preoccupations - lyrics or poetry can be a great release.  Although you can run the risk of re-lodging stuff in your mind, I wouldn't worry about anything coming back in my head too much - much due to the fact that I don't sing, but hand lyrics over to Ed.  The fact someone else can be singing something personal, or abstract and open to interpretation, feels like the best release.  If nothing else, hearing anything over and over, whilst writing, rehearsing and recording will make the subject lovely and dull - mundanity, much the subject of the song I'm doing now, can be a great comfort, as well as working wonders for ruining your memory.  All hail the death of good thought!

Some of my books full of notes

Giving vague order to any recurrences you have in your notes is a pretty good next step, after which you should try to fit them vaguely in with any of the stuff you wrote whilst listening to the song earlier.  For melody (I'm really bad at this), you can try and transcribe whatever you have already kicking around in your head, direct from the words you've written, or sit and listen to the song on repeat for ages in an attempt to work one out.  A personal favourite.

I use my glock to write melody (which I'm shit at) 

Fit it all together, go through it a few times, then go and do something else for a few hours. Never get rid of your rough work, whether it's throwing away notes or whatever.  Read/listen again for a quick once-over, before giving what you have the 24 hour rule, and if it's not cringeworthy after that you'll be fineeeee

PING

Got bored of writing towards the end so rushed through, really.  That's all, I'm going to get the song slowed down a bit so it fits a bit more nicely with my lyrics and so it sounds a bit more Wild Beasts-y.  I'll be doing a walking blog catch-up tomorrow, I think.  T'ra!

~

when I've finished these I'll put them here. Shouldn't be too long, though the result'll probably go down like a curry fart in a space suit

My hands are completely covering my eyes

Apologies

...for the lack of walking and friday blogs this week. Again, it's mainly exams, but before I get back into a regular thing I'm going to make this whole thing look lovely and jig around features.  Then I've got holidays until October so I'll spend a while getting my follower count up! I'll do competitions and stuff, I've already thought of an ace one ready for the massive 200 milestone, but that might be a few years yet...

Just here for a few things:

- To say the ace Zoe is nearly at 75 followers and will be doing a comp. soon - follow her so I you get a chance of winning, it's going to be a fab prize

- My brother tried to restart a blog but forgot his password so has a new site HERE where he'll probably do a few half baked rants and tell false anecdotes about me, like he does on Twitter. Follow him anyway, might be a laugh right?

- Fucking hell, Bee has over 700 followers, what a turd, I've only got 12

- I CUT MY BLOODY FRINGE OFF I HAVE LIKE NO HAIR

Before

After


...haha, the before picture looks like Stephen Fry


Also last night I saw The October Game again, and each time I do they get that little bit more amazing (and check out their new project here, which is properly mentally ace).  If I won the lottery tomorrow (which'd be miraculous, I don't enter) I'd put on the following gig:

Biffy Clyro
Manchester Orchestra
The October Game
There Were Bears
Spiked

- which would be fucking amazing.  Righto, I'm going to go and listen to Beach Boys records and make terminology revision cards for English now - go away.

So how about that Nicola Roberts, then?

Old man verdict - I can scarcely hear above that electronic racket
Young indie teen - not bad, not bad
Current indie'n'Gaga Jamie - really really good, almost at 'amazing' level. Mildly rubbish video, tho'

These are my views on Nicola Roberts' new single, Beat of My Drum.  They're hardly secret, and I waxed lyrical about it on twitter when I first heard it, but I just wanted an excuse to put up this video of my brother Andrew and myself doing a bit of an owl-ey cover, inspired by And's friend Taylor giving him her drawing of an owl in a suit.  It's lovely and a little bit jubbly.  Excuse my incest joke at the end.

For something completely different, the majority of you will probably like this a lot more.  The band's called Daughter, and the EP sounds quality.

Also Bee did her vlog, which is amazing.  And I got her to talk about Nazis.  My favourite bit is when my stupid question confuses her and she says she would listen to music if it came in the form of 'a cake made of shit'.

That is all; I am meant to be revising now... I'll come back on, probably, Tuesday, but Friday the 24th's my last exam, so I might do a blog party - Zoe's idea, with a post every hour, and guest bloggers - or a vlog the following Saturday.  Something special to get all my thoughts over the past few weeks in without making a really stupidly long attention-losing post, and then I'll readjust the features schedule to get more blogging in in the absence of school commitments so to try and get my follower count up a bit and have a bit more fun with it here.  Might sort out my background and stuff too - let me know your thoughts, I'll be back soon to chat away, this paragraph's grown a bit long so I'm going to cut myself off here


P.S. so Gabriel Duquette who is ace mentioned me on his walking blog, big win