making my ears flap

Music my kid likes

2004-04-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

For what it's worth, at age near 2, he likes
- Pulp, We Love Life (mostly the guitar stuff)
- Paul Oakenfold
- Groove Armada
- Bluegrass
- The Dandy Warhols
and, of course, the fucking Wiggles. But he'll grow out of that.

2004-04-18T04:48:00.000-07:00

I like Belle and Sebastian. 5 words I thought, when I first read about this group, would have me boiling up my brushed felt bucket hat for soup. "Fey". "about 20 band members". "Classically trained". "String section". "Lo Fi". "Scottish". "Named after a 60's French cartoon". etc etc. All descriptors guaranteed to have me looking for new jungle sounds or whatever.

Then there's that bit in the beginning of the film of High Fidelity where John Cusack or Jack Black ask the geek 'What the fuck's this crap playing' and he whispers 'It's the new Belle & Sebastian, shall I tape it for you?'.

So anyway, I never bothered to listen to B&S (cultural commentary: in Australia refers to an all night rural debauch where country kids get rat arsed and have sex in the mud wearing ball gowns and elastic sided boots). Then somebody lent me Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant. Man, it's good. It reminds me of lots of my favourite bands.

The cover reminds me of The Smiths album covers. (the title too).

There's a song with a harpsichord on it. One of my favourite Elvis Costello songs, You Little Fool, has a harpsichord on it. Harpsichords are a whole other post.

The careful, precisely beautiful arrangements, particularly the strings, are like the Triffids.

The darkly funny lyrics are like The Smiths and Pulp.

The quirky lo-fi-ness and sixties influences remind me of the Go Betweens.

But it's not just the reminders of other bands that made me like this - it's very original and the tunes are fantastic and get inside your head, and the songs have something to say, it's not a case of style over content like too many bands today. No need to name them, yet.

etc etc. So bucket hat for dinner tonight.

Horrible songs I love, Part I

2004-04-18T04:44:00.000-07:00

ALONE
HEART

"But the secret is still my own/ and my love for you is still unknown".... oh how true; I would never have admitted to liking this in a pink fit when it came out (1987ish?) when it was all the Smiths, JAMC, and all that. Four years on I bought it shamelessly.

This is stupendous, rivetting, completely self assured stuff. It's got practically all the most loathsome sounds in the world of pop in it:
- Electric piano
- Reverbed drums from a million-piece drumkit
- Screeching twiddly twee guitar
- Big haired battleship bellowing
- Stadium synthesizers

It is produced to hell and back. The video has men and women in laser lights throwing guitar heroics all over.

I can't get enough of it. This is the kind of thing metal bands tried a lot in the 80's but they just didn't have the songs.

This one is up there with Abba. The structure is reminiscent of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You'.... minor key; quiet verse; major key bridge; BIG BIG chorus. (Man, I love Nirvana, but they would be the first to admit they didn't invent this concept, and neither did the Pixies).

The only thing that stops it being as great as Abba is that Heart aren't Abba: their voices don't have that chemical connection that makes perfect pop so timeless.

The guitar solo stinks but it fits well enough. If you're going to do stadium, do it properly, like this, not like U Crappy 2. This mob really sound as if they enjoy what they're doing and they believe in their big hair and echoing drums.

What are you on about?

2004-04-18T04:41:00.000-07:00

This is about the music that floats my boat on a daily basis and has floated my boat in the past.

So who the f*&k are you?

A going on middle aged chick from Australia, recently a mother, who looks hopefully at role models like Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde as proof that I need not act respectable and mature just because I'm just over 35... I work as well as being a mother and I have always been into music of all kinds.

And why do this?
To get it out of my head really, and just because talking about music is one of my favourite activities and most people I know aren't into it.
Don't care if anyone reads this or not, but if you do read it and you have an opinion please share it with me... I cannot be insulted, which is just as well given my tastes.