Student Discount Day Yay

I love Student Discount Day at Borders. Today’s haul:
The Sandman Companion (Hy Bender), £8.99
Grandaddy: Under The Western Freeway, £6.99
Roots Manuva: Brand New Second Hand, £6.99
Stereo MCs: DJ Kicks, £6.99
The Beta Band’s self titled, £6.99
20% off everything. :)

Speaking of Sandman, I just found this new and pretty damn excellent gallery! I also found out that Neil Gaiman has a new book coming out in July, American Gods. It’s already on my wishlist.

Discovering little things like these make me happy, and are good for the stress headache I seem to be suffering from right now. Another site for sore heads is this one in honour of artist Dave McKean. which I’ve been devouring over quite a while. Its parent site, erasing.org is also highly worth a visit – it’s one of the very small number of sites I check every day.

Hmm. What else before I return to my room and my property law essay?

I’m a wallpaper junkie. Even more so when it’s eels wallpaper (the band. Not the long slimy sea thing.)

This Peanuts version of the breakup of the Smashing Pumpkins is funny and all, but after reading it, I sort of just sat here and felt…sad. Say what you will about the theatrics, the tantrums and the teen angst lyrics, but at the end of it all, I loved the music, lusted after James Iha, liked Billy in spite of all the bad press he got, and thoroughly enjoyed the two occasions I saw the band in concert (Singapore 1995ish, London 2000). Current favourite SP song, (though it might well be a different one in a few days time): Soothe. I love the guitar work on it.

Damn it, someone already made a Kilgore Trout page. I often find it difficult to commit myself to absolute rankings i.e. My All-Time Favourite ______, but I think I can say, without a doubt, that Kilgore Trout would probably be my all-time favourite writer who doesn’t exist.

My Name Is Michelle And I’m A CDaholic

Russ thinks my CD buying is an addiction. He might be right. Bricolage (Amon Tobin), How It Feels To Be Something On (Sunny Day Real Estate) and Mag Earwhig! (Guided By Voices) arrived this week. I also ordered Whiteout (Boss Hog) and The Sophtware Slump (Grandaddy). All from Django. But see, they’re all really cheap, relatively. I’ve been waiting to get the first three for *ages*, and I’ve only just got them now, because they’ve always been too expensive at special import prices. So it just happens to be that expenditure I’ve always intended on incurring is suddenly being incurred all at once, but I’m buying all of them at used CD prices, so they’re really much cheaper. I can stop any time I want. Really.

Really.

(other random music notes to self)
Current gig-related frustration:
The Magnetic Fields are on tonight at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. I only found out this morning. It’s sold out now. Argh. Argh. Argh. I must keep track of these things.

Upcoming gigs worth thinking about:
– Grandaddy 7 Feb at The Forum
– Goldfrapp 22 Feb at ULU (3 minutes away from home. I love living in central London.)
– My Vitriol 1 March at ULU (even more so if Marten can get us on the guest list again)
– Low 22 March at Shepherd’s Bush Empire
– All Tomorrow’s Parties some time in April somewhere out of London. It looks very promising. I didn’t go last year and had to listen to Sonic Youth’s weird set on the radio instead.
– Asian Dub Foundation, apparently some time in April at the Barbican.
– All Tomorrow’s Parties at UCLA, October 19-21. Curated by Sonic Youth. I need say no more. I am *seriously* contemplating a hop across the ocean, although it may well be wishful thinking for reasons I’ll outline below.

Probable future gig-related frustration:
– Almost none of my friends even know any of these bands exist, let alone like them, Marten, Jeremy and Jason being exceptions. I watched the Smashing Pumpkins, Built To Spill and Flaming Lips alone, but that’s because I’ve resigned myself to my plight.
– I actually have to study, unfortunately.
– I’m a poor student who already spends too much on music as it is.

Restraint, In A Fashion

Yesterday, I finally managed some restraint. Let me begin by explaining that I’d headed to Oxford Street to return an item of clothing at H & M, but got there too late after a number of, er, distractions, on the way. So rather than waste the journey, I went into HMV, since it was still open.

The sale was surprisingly good, with lots of albums that I’d have bought if I didn’t already own them. After walking around a bit, I found Boss Hog’s Whiteout (9.99), Grandaddy’s The Sophtware Slump (9.99), Kruder & Dorfmeister’s The K & D Sessions (10.99), Craig Armstrong’s The Space Between Us (6.99) and an indie rock compilation with various interesting people on it (4.99).

BUT!! I only ended up buying the Craig Armstrong, and I’ve even decided to return that, because it’s not good enough to own. I figured I can either wait till I get Boss Hog and Grandaddy on Django, or wait until I get back to Singapore and get them at affordable prices from Borders. And I’ll borrow the K & D off Nick. Voila! Money saved, to spend frivolously another day. :P

Happy! Productive!

I am not a happy bunny, but this is because I am not a bunny.

I am, however, happy.

This sudden but perhaps cryptically expressed happiness was born out of yesterday’s disgust with myself for exemplifying that modern maxim about the amount of work you can do expanding to fill up the available time you have. I took the entire day to do a reasonably simple essay, just because I kept taking very long breaks to do very irrelevant things. After handing my essay in with one minute to go, I resolved that this could not go on and something had to be done.

That something was…another visit to Impulse, and more CDs bought. :P
Olivia Tremor Control: Dusk At Cubist Castle (£4.99)
Wagon Christ: Tally Ho (£5.99)
Major Force West: 93-97 (£6.99) – this one was for Russ, not me. I’m not particularly into them.
E: Broken Toy Box (£3.99)

Having done that, I then zipped through Budgens, had a frugal and rather uninspired dinner of instant noodles (Bachelor’s, on special offer, bacon flavoured. What the hell was I thinking…) and sweet corn (Green Giant! Green Giant!), and then went to the library, where I printed off cases and did photocopying. I admit that all of this activity was pretty much as mindless as my earlier compulsive Minesweeping, but at least it was relevantly and productively mindless.

The real breakthrough came when I got back. I sat down. Looked through my file. There was a tutorial, to be done for Thursday. I did it.

I think I really need to emphasize just how groundbreaking that is for me. I’m talking tickertape parades, honorary doctorates, and vast numbers of intelligentattractiveemotionallyaccessiblebutstillmanlyandit
wouldreallybegreatiftheylovedSonicYouthtoo men lining up offering their love, lives and sexual favours.

I got to bed at 2, but couldn’t sleep till 4 because of the general confusion of my much beleaguered body clock, and the hacking cough that’s embarassing during the day and downright annoying whenever I lie down. And woke up this morning in time for breakfast! I got to the bank and paid my credit card bill before going for my property law seminar. While I’m in there waiting for it to start (yup, I got there with time to spare), Esther walks in, so it’s okay, hi Esther. And then who walks in behind her but Jeremy, who’s usually in Philadelphia! So, “what the hell are you doing here??!”, and I find out he’s on stopover en route back to Philly, and the next thing he says is that he’s got some CDs for me and he takes out Xen Cuts, Solesides Greatest Bumps, and Modest Mouse’s The Moon And Antarctica. A Kid Koala too, which was just on loan, but I’m not complaining. So Jeremy, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You are a benefactor and then some.

I have to get out of the computer room to go find useful things to do so I can maintain this happy streak.

Buy Two, Return Three = Not Bankrupt Yet!

I just made Django richer yet again.

Guided By Voices: Mag Earwhig (used, $8.99)
Sunny Day Real Estate: How It Feels To Be Something On (used, $8.99)

I’m thinking of returning some of the CDs I bought from Impulse the other day. I wasn’t too fond of Tortoise’s TNT or William Orbit’s Pieces In A Modern Style. I’m aware that not liking TNT is a bit of a sin in some circles, but I found it a little too cold and clinical, and the instrumentation flat. I’ll listen to it again before making a final decision, but more out of respect for the City Slang maestros than anything else. As for the William Orbit, call me a curmudgeon, but I liked the original versions of the pieces better than his versions. I’ll also probably return Best Of Ella & Louie, because I realized that the songs I like best are the ones I already have.

Music read of the day: Pitchfork interviewed Amon Tobin.

11 Albums From Impulse

The finances aren’t looking good. First there were the Christmas ravages. Then there was wining and dining in Glasgow (stop laughing). And then I came back to London, and the Impulse store at Euston Station just had to be having a huge sale.

The results of my weakness:
Pulp: This Is Hardcore 2 disc set with This Is Glastonbury live CD £6.99
My Bloody Valentine: Isn’t Anything £5.99
Money Mark: Push The Button £6.99
The Herbaliser: Very Mercenary £6.99
Pet Shop Boys: Nightlife £6.99
Tortoise: TNT £5.99
William Orbit: Pieces In A Modern Style £5.99
Joyzipper: Joyzipper £5.99
Ella Fitzgerald Sings & Swings £2.99
Best Of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong £5.99
The Gallery 3 disc set featuring Tall Paul, Sister Bliss and Mark Jones £4.99

Total: WAY too much…and I’m still intending to go back for Olivia Tremor Control’s Dusk At Cubist Castle and a Wagon Christ album. Heeeelp.

Christmas Consumerism

YES!! Success with Django! I managed to grab Amon Tobin’s Bricolage at $8.99 before anyone else got to it. Yay. :)

My Christmas consumerism is beginning to alarm me, not just because of the absolute amounts I’ve been spending but also because of the way I justify everything with “Oh well, it’s Christmas and I deserve a little treat.” To take things further, those nasty retailers know the devastating damage a sale sticker does to my self-restraint and fiscal discipline, so lots of things become not just A Little Treat but an Absolute Must-Have At This Low Festive Price!

But more on this at another time – now I have to get to a friend’s house so we can enjoy the chocolate rum cheesecake I bought at £2 off at Iceland…

End Of Term And Everything After

The term is finally over, thank God. I only handed in 2 of the 3 essays I was meant to hand in, and it worries me that I don’t really care. Oh well. Put it on my tab at the New Year’s Resolution pub.

I was feeling a little down last night – walking home alone at 11 pm on a Friday night in London at Christmas somehow has that effect. Everything and everyone seemed either incredibly bleak and unChristmassy, or so overwhelmingly Christmassy that I missed Singapore, where Christmas is no less commercialized but a lot prettier, at least in my opinion. But! When I got home, Ruth and Chris were dancing to Waterloo on the table, Avril was red and giggling, Michael was being high-pitched and Scottish, and there was Cointreau. Lots of Cointreau. It’s amazing how different I was feeling after a while.

I go to Madrid early tomorrow morning, but we’re spending tonight at the airport because our flight is too early in the morning for us to get there on time otherwise. It’s me, Avril and Russ, which should hopefully be a merry band of wanderers and not too dysfunctional. I’m slightly worried about language problems since I learnt everything I know about Spanish from Sesame Street 15 years ago, but things did go all right in Italy, and my very helpful hallmates Samer and Noelia will be available if we do run into serious trouble. I don’t quite have a specific agenda of things to accomplish there – the Spain in my head is the Spain shown to me by Salvador Dali and Picasso, but the realist in me generally prefers not to overly romanticise a place before going to it, because I’m scared of disappointment. We’ll see how it goes.

Funny moment yesterday, in a conversation with a slightly stoned Nick about Madrid:
Me: Pop quiz. Name a Spanish terrorist group.
Nick: EDTA?
Me: I think you’ll remember when you’re coherent that edta is a chemical compound thingy that we learnt in A’level Chemistry. But nice try anyway.

Music randomness:
I really should remember to remind Gareth to return me the CDs he borrowed. Last night I had this craving for that escalating guitar riff in Aneurysm, and couldn’t satisfy it. (This is was probably a result of the Westlife that followed ABBA on the songlist during the Cointreau tabletop dancing sessions…). I had to substitute Cross The Breeze (Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation) instead, which is at all other times anything but a substitute due to its absolute fanf***ingtasticness. I also have to get Maxinquaye back so I can lend it to Nick in exchange for more Thievery Corporation albums. Matt just returned me what he borrowed, which is good because Marten wants to listen to XO. Esther still has Mezzanine and From The Choirgirl Hotel. I should probably do something about the increasingly distributed nature of my CD collection before things get out of hand.

Bargainbeaten

What I would give for Internet access in my room…I just came into the computer room, checked my email, and hey! Arrival alerts for 4 albums I’ve been hoping for from Django. Eagerly, I went to the site. Was I finally going to be able to get my hands on Bricolage, Permutation, One Foot In The Grave and Fake Can Be Just As Good for prices that wouldn’t involve selling bodily parts?

Nope.

Someone else got there first.

Bugger.

Lucky Django Screwup

AMAZING. I originally ordered Altered Beast only because they didn’t have a used CD of 100% Fun available – I was intending to get that on CD first, because I like it more than Altered Beast. But when testing out my new purchase, I put it into the player, pressed play, and hey! The opening strains of Sick Of Myself! At first I thought I’d just been away from the music too long, and had mixed the two songs up. But the next was Not When I Need You, followed by the rest of the 100% fun that is 100% Fun, all the way up to the magnificence of Smog Moon. So I take that back about Django not screwing up, but ironically, I’m more of a satisfied customer now than I was before I discovered their mistake.

It’s something to keep in mind for the future though – it’s pure luck that I still got something that I wanted and didn’t already have, and at least it was an album by the right artist. If they’d sent me Matchbox 20 labelled as Matthew Sweet I’d be:
a)not satisfied
b)no longer a customer, and
c)violently and noisily ill

[Edit: I emailed them telling them about the mistake, but said that I was happy to own that other album anyway. They apologised, thanked me for the feedback and sent me a voucher for $5 – a good response.]