A new dawn..

Life is going to be different now. Its very scary and nerve-racking. But I'm attempting to be uncharacteristically positive about it all.

I must say at certain points its a lot easier. Yet there are little reminders all around of what has been lost. And the nights bring the new, challenging and frightening loneliness that I had not anticipated.

I'm hoping to maybe experience new things, reinvest some energy into me and myself; and, thus emerge all the better. New improved! I just reckon it is going to take the possibly shedding of my own body weight in tears to get there.

So I heard this song in the car of a pretty significant journey this afternoon and it was all I could do to force back the tears.

The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations [via YouSendIt for 7 days]

Bare with me. It is going take everything I have to keep myself stable and not having an extensive list of people to rally round me any support would be greatly received by your ever tinged-with-cynicism,-tragedy-and-humour writer.

Adorno will break your legs..

This man! Oooo! This bloody man!

Imagine, if you will, one of those times when you just simply unable to adequately articulate your frustration at something or, more precisely, someone.

I am grappling for a piece of understanding. A little insight. Something just to ease all of this.

The man above is with whom I'm fighting. Theador Adorno. It is a charged and angry relationship we have. He is dead and he seems to be taking my brain and all its capabilities with him. Fucking bastard!

Ahem. He did actually have some very valid points. But he and I seem to disagree on the importance and relevance of popular culture in its own right, without the money-making agenda. But it is incredibly interesting to see a musicologist that was as disappointed at the way in which the sphere music was treat by capitalist profiteers as I have always felt.

The man will make me cry before the essay is done.

A fitting song? Ignore the James Murphy connections.

Hot Chip - Wrestlers [via YouSendIt for 7 days]

Matthew Dear

Not having proper access to a computer is so annoying.



Now after weeks of attempting to deal with the very painful and tragic circumstances that led to my not being able to see Hot Chip and Matthew Dear at Newcastle I've come to realise that carrying this round with me is not healthy. It should be shared and articulated.

Matthew Dear is fantastic. This is very late in the day, I realise, to be passing on such declarations, however, I am not ultra-quick-hyper-uber-hipster-cool. And Matthew Dear will trangress such silliness and epochs of time.

Get a jiggle on to Don & Sherri and hope my powers of eloquence return!

The Voluntary Butler Scheme

Today was always going to require a small miracle.

Who thought I'd find it on MySpace before 10am?

The Voluntary Butler Scheme is a one-man-name kind of affair. But don't think you are going to be jipped out of a full auditory sensation. No, Rob Jones will not only hold your hand through the gorgeous sounds but he'll fill your mind with lyrics of dreaming and pining. Which, lets face it, is usually the basis for the most heartfelt lyrics that will instantly become your favourite song-that-expresses-everything-I-just-can't-quite-express-yet.

Think cute indie-pop, but lonelier.

And being totally astounding and giving there is a free mini EP. Follow the link below. It was written in a lunch break and recorded in an evening! Doesn't that just make you feel like you totally waste your time? Well, it does me. Probably because I do.

The Voluntary Butler Scheme - The Vol-Au-Vent EP [via MySpace]

Depleted energy..

The general consensus is that I'm running myself into the ground. Very characteristic of myself, I feel. Catching this fucking awful cold is a sign of that. I don't get ill. Getting ill is for fannies.

So I thought I'd share (if it works) the song that makes me beam inside with a glorious stream of happiness.

Fucking yes!

M.I.A. - Paper Planes [via YouSendIt for 7 days]

This is dedicated first and foremost to my useless friend. May he find me a chair so I don't give quite as bad a dead arm as usual. Everything will work out. Or it better. Make it happen. I'm beginning to think I truly am cursed.

And secondly it is for my cold. Or is the soundtrack to my battle with my cold. Or something. I've lost it, haven't I? Did I ever have it?

I suppose something has got to give...

Art Brut

This is very strange indeed. A message from the band and management..

"Attention, the Internet!!

It seems Art Brut have accidentally released a single. Yes, the rumours are true. But how could this happen, you may ask? Why were we not informed? Why was it not available in my local record shack, thrust pride of place along side the latest View recording? Well, my friends, pick up any thread of incompetence and it will usually lead you to a record company. That's right, it seems EMI have decided to release Pump Up the Volume without informing either the band or myself, making any kind of wide scale promotion rather difficult. Adding to this curious new marketing stratagem of discouraging sales, EMI have chosen to make the song available via download only. So no luck in the record shacks either.

Please do put the effort into downloading it though. The band are very proud of it and it's a shame to see it and the b-sides go to waste. Let's try and prove the suits wrong in what little time we have left!"

Get it here.

You really should buy it. Our Parents Record Collection is very good.

Here is the viedo for the single Pump Up The Volume. Which we have previously discussed here.

Justice, misogny and paranoia

Not the abstract concept of 'justice'. Not tampering with that! Although these guys have probably monopolised this word now, so all you think of is Justice.

I went to see Justice at my once local Mecca, Empire in Middlesbrough, on Friday 8th.

Those French bastards have been everywhere for what seems like forever. By the time their album Cross was released I had pretty much gotten over them. So by the time they were due to play Middlesbrough came round it was a deliberate task to summon up excitement. I managed it though. I found that I have a massively, deep, dirty love for Phantom and, respectively, Phantom, Pt. 2. I'd go to sleep humming it, wake up singing it, listen to it on all journeys out of the house, play it very loudly when on my own in the house. There really was no escaping the way it had completely consumed me. And with a gorgeous new dress, I was sufficiently prepared for the night.

Yet, the night came and it all went horribly wrong for me, not Justice, or accompanying DJ's (well, actually, it did a bit for them too and anyone with ears). No, no, no, it went wrong for me. Me and my stupid head. Mental health problems can lay dormant. Quietly biding their time. You can feel on edge due to the unavoidable release of adrenaline that accompanies the wonderous rush of going for a highly anticipated night out. But if you have a problem with the over-release of adrenaline then it can ruin it all. Reading too much into conversation and concluding your own marginalisation due to misogny of others. The paranoid belief that everyone is judging you to be disgusting. The overwhelming mood swings that either lead to deluded senses of self or a cowering, shivering state throwing up in the beaten up toilets.

As a 'sociologist', or whatever term equally doesn't fit due to my uselessness, I find problems that are supposed to be the domain of psychology fairly alien, annoying and difficult. Over the years however I've learned to largely manage my difficulties myself. And I've also concluded that it is something that an objective eye should not be afraid to critique... Just ask my numerous doctors. Enjoying French-bastard-electro-sex bands are one such way of coping.

Justice for the whole part were as good, if not better, then expected. To be seen as the perfect pinacle of last years French electro revolution then you really do have to be pretty good. Especially if your pretensious, haphazard mixes aren't really doing it for anyone. They were superb. Absolute top quality that led me to even proclaim that Empire should shut it's doors forever (as they'll find it hard to top, especially given their current state) and had me flinging my arms around excitedly for the entire night when the mood took me to euphoria, not to mention the fact I realised that no matter how I threw myself around my breasts were not going to fall out of my dress.

Heavy, dirty riffs echoed throughout and the sexual tension dripped down the ornate walls.

All in all then, Justice were amazing, bound to wind my twisted mind into a further state of delirium. It's just a shame I was already wound so tightly before they even appeared on stage.