Archive for April, 2001

Exceptions

Everything is a bitch.

Except Russ and Nick, and Ninja Tune, with whom Thursday night was happily spent experiencing Xen at Cargo.

Except Ken, with whom Friday night was absorbingly spent exploring the terra incognita that is outer London. And Tom Stoppard, for writing the lovely Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead, which I probably didn’t do justice to as a member of the audience after an entire day of studying and an incredibly tedious debate committee meeting, but enjoyed immensely nonetheless.

Except lovely people in my hall, with whom most other nights are satisfyingly whiled away with bad TV and strange conversations and Aftershock. Which is 80p at our bar. :)~

Okay. Suddenly I feel better. Back to contract law.

  April 30, 01 | Londoner Forever | Closed

Brit TV / Dumb E-Business Moments

Slate thinks the Brits do TV better. I suppose they haven’t seen the Richard Blackwood Show then.

Some favourites from the 101 Dumbest Moments in E-Business History:

4: In November 2000, the Internet Underground Music Archive — a.k.a. IUMA.com — posts the following on its website: “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are overjoyed to present you with the ten winners of our ‘Name Your Baby IUMA’ Contest. Congratulations to these bold, beautiful babies — Iuma Thornhill, Iuma Ross, Iuma Becht, Iuma Carlton, Iuma Farish, Iuma Devi, Iuma Godfrey, Iuma Daigre, Iuma Radnedge and Iuma Hebert!” Each baby is guaranteed $5,000 (and, presumably, a childhood full of schoolyard beatings).

12: In October 1998, an e-commerce software vendor launches with the name Accompany, which, when said aloud, sounds exactly like “a company.” As in “Hi, I’m calling from Accompany.” “Which company?” “Accompany.” And so forth.

31:Boo, Part III: Founders Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander begin spending their venture capital booty. The New York Times later breaks down their expenditures, which include $150,000 annual salaries for the founders, plus $100,000 apiece to rent apartments in London and another $100,000 to redecorate them; $654,100 on promotional giveaways like disposable cameras and snow globes; $600,000 in public relations fees to the firm of Hill & Knowlton (mostly for setting up lunches with fashion editors); a $42 million ad campaign; a staff of 420 people, a.k.a the boocrew, housed in offices spanning from New York to Paris to Munich to Stockholm; and $5,000 per day to a crew of fashion consultants and hairstylists to perfect the look of Miss Boo, the site’s computer-animated mascot …

59: Utek, a business development company that finds, acquires, develops, and finances university technology for its customers, issues the following warning in its prospectus: “Our management has limited experience operating a business, has had no experience in managing and operating a business development company, and has little or no experience in corporate finance and corporate mergers.”

62: An uninhabitable, fire-damaged Silicon Valley house sells for more than $1.5 million.

90: Beenz.

  April 26, 01 | Links | Closed

Happy Birthday Russ

Those of you who’ve been reading this site for a while will have come across references to Russ, my best friend in this country, and a prominent feature on my worldwide list as well. It’s his birthday today.

Most of what I’ve written here about Russ doesn’t really do much to sum him up in any substantial way, but what I think it does reflect is the fact that he’s a constant in my life in this country, a touchstone of sorts. A listener. A confider. An honest but understanding critic. A renderer of invaluable practical assistance. A source of comfortable companionship. A crucial causative factor in my future death from mobile phone overuse-induced brain cancer…

Due to my general uselessness these past few days, I haven’t managed to get him anything yet. But what I can manage for today, which admittedly isn’t much, is this:

Various Aspects Of Russ As Seen In This Blog:

Tech Support Russ

Moral Support Russ

Rower Russ

Christmas at Russ’s.

Russ Invades.

Addiction Warner Russ

Freaky Telepathic Russ

Paris with Russ

Photographer Russ

Reassuring Presence Russ

Very Tired Russ (on my 21st birthday)

Giver Of Wonderful Birthday Presents Russ

Miscellaneous Time Wasting With Russ

Happy birthday, Russ. :)

  April 25, 01 | Personal | Closed
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Never Again

Never again. Never again. I just walked such a fine line between skin-of-my-teeth punctuality and disastrous tardiness for handing in my course essay that the soles of my feet are still bleeding, and I have to go return the lamp post I stole for a balancing pole.

I’m obviously exaggerating, and not in a particularly amusing way, but I’m still reeling from the experience. With this essay, I would have taken procrastination and apathy to new heights, but I never got round to bothering. Five days just got wasted producing an essay I’m not at all satisfied with, and I still ended up making a desperate, panting and flailing entrance into the law faculty at three minutes past five, which meant I then had to grovel before they’d accept it.

This is not how an intelligent person does things.

  April 24, 01 | Londoner Forever | Closed

Email Moments

Recent email moments that made me smile:

I wrote:
“you know, panic is so much more than how they define it in the dictionaries…”

Edlyn replies, and is so right:
“absolutely. The dictionary never mentions the pseudo-nirvana we attain, you know, that stage where you’re past panic, past caring, and with the impenetrable impassive calm of a Buddha, enter the exam hall.”

* * *

Fay sends quotes from Samuel L Jackson movies:
“Yessir Miss Daisy, I be honking.” - Mitch, The Long Kiss Goodnight

Charly: I’m leaving the country, Mitch. I need a fake passport and I need money, lots of it.
Mitch: Well why didn’t you say so? Hold on a minute while I pull that outta my ass.
- The Long Kiss Goodnight

Ordell: Look, I hate to be the kinda nigga does a nigga a favor, then, BAM!, hits a nigga up for a favor in return. But I’m afraid I gotta be that kinda nigga.
Beaumont: What?
Ordell: I need a favor.
- Jackie Brown

* * *

John analyses Flash Gordon:
“Flash Gordon: fantastic campy kitsch post-Star Wars 30s serial update starring two complete planks of wood supported by knowing performances from everyone else. How they get away with the kinky ideas in a childrens film is beyond me. Two examples:

1. The heroine (Dale) is held in some sort of orgasmic trance by Evil Emperor Ming’s power ring. She seems rather (ahem) excited by it.

Klytus (Ming’s loyal No. 2) to Ming: ‘Never have I seen such a response…She even rivals your daughter’.

What ?!

2. Ming’s (incestously) foxy daughter Aura brings hero Flash back from the dead and proceeds to secrete him on the planet of her lover Prince Barin (played by Bond-to-be Timothy Dalton). Barin ain’t too happy about it either. Seeing Flash with Aura he spits:

“I knew you were up to something though I confess I hadn’t thought of necrophilia”

Beats The Phantom Menace everytime.”

  April 23, 01 | Miscellany | Closed

Delusions Of Dignity

It was an essay weekend. ‘Nuff said.

Current favourite song on the Xfm playlist: Raise The Alarm (Big Dog featuring Kermit from Black Grape).

Raise tha alarm
I come to do harm
I just got ____ from a nut farm
And I gotta bomb
Strapped to my arm
You bettah sing the 23rd psalm!

They played it this morning while I was brushing my teeth, and I just couldn’t stand still. So there I was, bouncing around the room and foaming at the mouth, and I looked out of my window and saw the girl in the room perpendicular to mine glued to her window and laughing hysterically at my antics.

Sigh. So much for delusions of dignity.

  April 23, 01 | Londoner Forever | Closed

The Odelay! Phenomenon

It’s when you love an album on first listening, and consequently play it to bits over the next couple of days or weeks. A few months or years later, you inexplicably feel little or no inclination to listen to it any more, even though you still think it’s a great album. (No prizes for guessing which album tops my list of albums relegated to the bottom of the playlist barrel due to this annoying phenomenon.)

And right now, I’m really worried that Hefner’s The Fidelity Wars might meet a similar fate, because it arrived last Thursday, and I think I’ve just been loving it too much since then.

Is this a strange thing to worry about, or does this happen to anyone else?

One of these days I’ll write about the wonderful converse Loveless phenomenon, although I stupidly left that album in Singapore and haven’t listened to it since last summer.

More random and reasonably shallow music ramblimgs:

I was going to write a little more about the Lift To Experience/Calexico/Stephen Malkmus gig I went to last week, but John Peel beat me to it. It’s a good thing he only put the Calexico and Malkmus sets up for full listening, because Lift To Experience weren’t great to listen to live, and would probably sound even worse over Real Audio.

Last week, while trying to restrain myself from either falling asleep or rushing up on stage and strangling the lead singer of Broadcast, I started wondering if it might have been a better idea to go see Sparklehorse, who were at the Borderline the same night, although this was technically an exercise in futility since their show sold out long before I knew about it. After reading this review, I have no regrets, although it would have been nice to have been able to go to both.

I haven’t heard the new Radiohead song enough times to have an opinion worth sharing yet, but NYLPM, as usual, does.

REM’s new song has firmly established itself in my head, although I haven’t actually decided how much I like it yet. The verses are reasonably nondescript, and I can’t remember what they sound like at all, but the chorus is scrumptious.

  April 20, 01 | Music Geekery | Closed

Fallen

And once again, I am fallen. A three-day record of normal sleep patterns was broken yesterday when I woke up at one, having only gone to bed at five a.m. due to a four-hour phone conversation with Russ. The afternoon was chatted away with Tamara over caffeinated beverages and mammoth sandwiches at the happy place that is the Old Compton Street Cafe.

Attempts were made at European Community law during the night but abandoned amid screamed obscenities when, in an impressive display of clumsiness, I managed to spill peppermint tea on my desk. They say its aroma has therapeutic effects, but I must say I didn’t quite feel myself to be particularly calm while floundering around elbow-deep in soggy lecture notes.

At this point I should say that entries here might get a little sparse in the next couple of weeks, while I’m trying not to fail my second year. But do keep popping in. I promise I’ll try not to be boring.

  April 19, 01 | Londoner Forever | Closed

Easter 2001

Guiltlessly missing mass on Maundy Thursday to go see Stephen Malkmus (with the excellent Calexico thrown in for good measure). Getting home and spending an hour in the room set up as the garden of Gethsemane, surprised by a sudden and unfamiliar feeling of prayerfulness.

Spending Good Friday at choir practice, service, and Stations of the Cross, interspersed with periods of genuine study (an equally sudden and unfamiliar phenomenon). Listening choices throughout the day varied from Beethoven’s Ode To Joy to Hefner’s May God Protect Your Home. A song about joy, and a song about a vagina. I suppose a case could be made for connecting the two, but perhaps not in a way that would be quite appropriate for Good Friday.

A feeling of disconnection and malaise on Holy Saturday. I didn’t go for choir practice, or help with preparations for the Easter Vigil. I went down grudgingly for the Vigil and was amazed by two and a half hours in church that flew by, and left me with a strange sense of exuberance and joy which I still can’t really explain. To say it was happiness in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus would be pushing it. I still grope for that sort of faith, for that sort of ability to feel. But something was there, and I hope it comes back some time soon.

Nibbles and wine after the Vigil turned into all-out partying. There was lots of cheesy music. There were lots of us making absolute fools of ourselves. It was all incredibly uncool. It was all incredibly enjoyable.

Mass on Easter Sunday and lunch. Attempts at studying, mostly unsuccessful due to the embarassingly crushing grip of a, er, crush. More cheese and wine at night, Father John outlasting all of us on the dance floor.

Most of Easter Monday taken up by contract law and the Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown. Most of early Tuesday taken up by Coldcut’s Solid Steel on London Live, an Atmos mix set on Radio One, and quality time with my laptop.

  April 17, 01 | Londoner Forever | Closed

Gibber gibber Yo La Tengo gibber gibber

Note to self: Never forget the night of 10 April, because it’s the night you went to indie rock heaven.

Before I get to the part where I start gibbering and spluttering, I should begin by doing what I can manage coherently.

Right, so the Yo La Tengo (gibber, splutter) gig was last night. The supporting acts were Sue Garner & Rick Brown and Broadcast. I’ll start with them.

I’d never heard of Sue Garner & Rick Brown before, but was very pleasantly surprised. Imagine Sarah McLachlan’s voice singing with Ani DiFranco’s attitude accompanied by Sonic Youth remixed by Tortoise. Kinda like that. I’m definitely going to look around for their album.

Broadcast, which I had heard of, were extremely disappointing. In terms of presentation they were far slicker than Sue Garner & Rick Brown, but their music paled in comparison. Maybe I’m just a nitpicky classical musician, but when the melody line is the same as the bass line and all other accompanying lines, the song sounds boring. I only realized last night how right that particular rule of SATB (soprano alto tenor bass) music theory was - about avoiding a situation where the different elements of harmony carry the same tune such that you’re basically hearing the same tune simultaneously over a couple of octaves.

Quite often, they’d be constructing this interesting soundscape, and then their lead singer would start singing, and I’d get pissed off. For one thing, the melody was usually boring, as I’ve said. Another thing was that her voice reminded me of the Corrs, which meant it blended so effortlessly into the background that I forgot I’d ever heard it. And then almost all the songs seemed to involve her singing “Aaaaaaaaaaaah” and swaying from side to side and then going “Lalalalalalala etc.” I can’t really describe it in writing, but it really was immensely irritating. Which is a pity, because other than her singing, and the melody she was singing, the rest of their music was reasonably interesting, especially towards the end of their set where they started going a bit wild with squealing feedback and dissonance and thunderous drums.

And now we come to Yo La Tengo. Oh. My. God. I’ll just abandon all pretence of being cool and cynical and laid back now, and say that it was one of the most amazing gigs I’ve ever been to, probably second only to Sonic Youth, and second only because Sonic Youth are very slightly more charismatic as performers.

Yo La Tengo: Thank you. Thank you for alternately rawking and whispering your way through the show, and being equally compelling for each. Thank you for taking Blue Line Swinger and making it into an expandable universe both screaming and serene even better than you did on the record - it must have been at least 15 minutes long but I was entranced. Thank you for effortlessly switching instruments and kicking ass with whatever you picked up. Thank you especially Georgia (BRILLIANT drumming) for doing that while looking sweet and dumpy and motherly and nothing like the rock star you are - and forgive me if I ever meet you in a small-town supermarket and don’t recognize you while we both stock up on drain cleaner or something equally domestic. Thank you for responding to our clapping, stomping and screaming by coming back out twice to play encores.

Thank you for your beautiful noise.

  April 11, 01 | Music Geekery | Closed
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