Thurston Moore's Protest Records "exists for musicians, poets and artists
to express LOVE + LIBERTY
in the face of greed, sexism, racism, hate-crime and war"

Blah
I put a coin in the jukebox baby and realised what a lousy selection they had - all Irish music and Now # 50 type CDs. By a long chalk, it was the worst jukebox I have ever encountered and never did I feel like such a filthy indie snob. So, confess, what you settled for-
Daft Punk - Digital Love
New Radicals - You Get What You Give
Death in Vegas - Aisha
Nirvana - On a Plain
The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

There was some Johnny Cash but everyone else had chosen him already. Ha ha, and I hate the Verve but I needed a wee so had to hurry up.

Wee. How quaint.

I got another one of them cheap 3xCD Trojan box sets - this time the DJs one. It's full of very familiar reggae tunes with different people chatting over them.

At work, I snoop about the server and find people's mp3 collections (why'd they put them there if not to share?!) I am nothing if not a petty thief. I'm currently working my way through a stash of Ninja Tune and Warp albums.

Yesterday I had a traumatic journey to work (don't we all darling) and listened to GYBE's Albanian - available here (15Mb direct download) for now - three if not four times in a row, it's not even that good. I disapprove of the repeat play syndrome, unlike certain people who admit to listening to a certain Travis song over and over and over and over all the from Brighton to London. Which is, I dunno, 90 minutes.

I sound weird and I'm scaring myself. Goodnight.

Yes of course I want one
Back to Sunday night...

(No it wouldn't make any difference.)
I want one, like in Nick Cave Dolls when she goes "Wow, they have Nick Cave dolls now? I waaaannt one!!" Sexiest Voice Ever. Ha, I just tried to look it up for verification and would like to announce that lyrics.download.com is the shittiest annoying pop-up site and you shouldn't waste your time going there, thank you.

Yesterday after my five hour marathon (more of which probably never) I flicked and rolled the pocket radio for an hour or more restless try to fix on find on something. Nut. Till finally near home Resonance played Yèkèrmo Sèw by Mulatu Astatqe (yeah I had to looke it up), which was ripe with the rich green and the bleeding dusk. Yeah, looke it up.

And outside the prison (I am surrounded by prisons, some of my own making, oh yeah baby) there was the graffiti "Jail Guitar Doors".

All this much music is make me unhappy
I made a mistake today. I spotted a spindle some say broche of 50 CD-Rs for 13.99, the cost of one normal-priced new audio CD. I've spent the best part of the day planning what's going on these 50 CDs, and I now feel physically shrivelled and mentally limp.

All this iPod worship is getting on my tits too. I've had my (twice as heavy, slow and expensive Digital Audio Player) for over two years and now these johnny-come-lately media types rave about how the iPod's revolutionising their lives. For what it's worth, the Digital Audio Player has made my life even more insular as I select, create, delete and rearrange playlists all the fucking time. It's also led to increased incidences of techno-rage due to the unpredictability of battery recharge times, and how filling it up to its 6Gb limit leads to complete data loss, as does leaving it on sticky pub floor then falling asleep on the tube home and ending up in Cockfosters.

So listen. Just listen. Stop all this talking about it, writing about it. Enough with the categorising and analysing. Don't even attempt to control it. Let it happen around you.

I wish I could listen to my own advice.

Say it st
Just played Number 7 Theme by Mitchell Ayers and his Orchestra and Chorus, some cigarette theme which whistles and goes 'Who cares'. I do. We are defeated. There's always next year. Concentrate on domestic campaign then.
np: Can's Peel Sessions is liquid cave groove of the hip/brain, like the best of them records elsewhere, and not the loose jammed slop I unfairly imagined because of the lengthy tracks and unfamiliar titles, suggestiv of improv. (Up the Bakerloo Line with Anne must be related to Godspeed's Peel session epic with BBC studio-related title Hungover Like the Queen in Maida Vale.)
Simply, last week's Fall Peel session is blinding. Their renewal factor is beyond mathematics, there is an immortality gene of cartoon death-and-rebirth proportions. It sounds of course like a drunk man stumbling into a hedge, regaining balance and then veering ominously between gutter and garage, Or garden. He doesn't really know - he's drunk. Green Eyed Loco Man with its wonked inclusion of Groovin' With Mr Bloe was the highlight. Contraflow despite lack of customary Fall encryption quickly won me over and over as I too, hate the countryside. So much. FC Sparta seems forced and aimless chanting, unconvinced with that, relative. Mere Pseud Mag Ed repels all known viruses some say virii but I can't see the reasons for the revival of, 20 years after it was first recorded. The sonic texture is savage, a testiment to keeping it new every day like in words of gold on the Emperor Tang's bathtub.
What else. I listened to WMV streaming XFM sessions of Libertines and Flaming Lips sessions (ins link, can't be bothered). The Libs as I don't call them because I never slept with them unlike some was limp and sloppy sounding but still with the underlying swagger that lets them off the hook - prob shagged out. Certainly pasty faced and in need of a haircut. But enough about me! Ha ha!
The Libertines get bonus points for local colour - Saw the same two men on the Cally Road. And for making me feel so released and bouncing on numerous occasions. Gawd bless er she wore lovely hats.
The Lips was a winner because of Coyne's wrecked voice and raw production on the two Yoshimi songs. I grew quickly sickly of the overblown album as a whole. The third session song is the Kylie cover and in the late pee em sunlight, it really got me now, it really got me going yeah. I'm on bloody dope I am!
The deadpan rock take on pop songs approach is asking for trouble but this one worked, just like the Macha/Bedhead touchtone reinterpretation of Cher's Believe what came on the random play on the [95] bus this morning [09:10].
I don't often listen to streaming content because I'm only borrowing it and I have the twitch of hoarder tendency. I want to download it, own it, have dominion.
You gotta learn to let it go.
Give it up.
Set yourself free.
Say goodnight.

I am reeling
Earlier I was reeling from the fact that I have painful injuries to my left thumb (kitchen-based slicing accident), left wrist (sports-sustained, impressive swelling) and left elbow (comical bathroom-related incident) and was in a state of advanced moaning and the ejaculation of vile oaths.
Then I was stunned to learn that the fellow who made my life briefly but consummately miserable two years ago by toying with my mind and undermining my confidence and eventually causing me to resign from my job, has been arrested and released on bail in connection with downloading child porn from the internet. Of course he denies it and to be fair it seems possible that his credit card was stolen like he claims. Whatever. To be unfair, a part of me is ripe with the schadenfreude.
But then - the reeling element - reading the reports of his arrest, there's mention that he's written a book about music. Sounds unlikely, I thought, that someone like him had any interest in pop and/or rock music. Although I should have known better than to imagine that just because someone is an authority figure who fucks up your life because you're so weak and dozy that YOU LET THEM (hello Mr ******! and how are you Mr **********!) they don't own the same records as you.
Finally - light goes on in head - I own the book that the ex-boss alleged child pornmonger wrote. I bought it 10 years ago, when it came out. It's downstairs in my kitchen.
I have a large kitchen, it contains not one but two bookcases. How frightfully grand!
In the book, he travels round the USA visiting key places in the history of rock 'n' roll and writes some Sunday supplement guff about it all. Naturally, it's exactly the kind of thing I'd love to do, but which I'm far more comfortable sneering at, being weak and dozy.
Anyway, I just flicked though it and he claims that Patti Smith was married to John Sinclair so he's a dick and I'm going to watch the Sopranos.

Where to download new albums from, today. If you do that sort of thing
Music369. Beware the pop-ups though.

Note to myself
When the archive links disappear or your side bar links don’t update, instead of compulsively saving changes and refreshing, try adjusting the Archive Frequency under ‘Settings’ to No Archive, like it says in the help pages which you never read because you think you know it all. And then change it back. And then get off the internet.

It's a sign, of something, I dunno what
But this mucky trio of songs just came up on my random playlist - Beaver Patrol by the Wild Knights, I Like Your Big Tits by the Pork Dukes and Big Eight by Judge Dread.
A sign that I like mucky old novelty trash, perhaps.

Home again
"I'm never really satisfied until I'm home early every night-a sort of bold social suicide, or a temporary place to hide." Geoff Farina, Not About A Birthday.

The evenings are beginning to open up. More light and the threat of languid hours to be filled. Until you emerge, frozen in the place where you always end up beginning.

"Seeking out a rhythm that can take the pressure on" - the Clash, The Crooked Beat

"It's like Richard Huelsenbeck said in 1920: Noise is a direct call to action." - Julian Cope, Sqwubbsy

Bunyan
-- "It's a story of its time, and it starts on the day art student Vashti Bunyan and her boyfriend Robert heard about this island on the Outer Hebrides owned by Donovan, where a load of artists were gathering together to form a new society. Vashti was already a prolific songwriter, but after two solo singles failed to make any impact, it seemed a good idea to leave everything behind. Donovan had even lent them the money to buy a wagon and a horse. So that's what they did.

It took them two years to get there, by which time everybody had buggered off back to London. Not that it matters. The songs on 'Just Another Diamond Day' chronicle the odyssey north, which explains the unquenchable optimism that propelled them along."

-- "To some the singer sounds impossibly naive or twee but repeated listening shows that this is not the case, it is not a cultivated persona but a genuine reflection of some rejecting the modern world, possibly damaged and certainly needing to rediscover space of their own.   We know that the artist was living a life that had no outside influence, no interaction of significance with society and therefore the songs crafted over time are a true and genuine reflection of their experience."

Snappy title in bold goes here
-- The Clash were playing in V shop - I don't like V Shop. It used to be Virgin and before that Our Price which at least pretended to be record shops. A small child (what, as opposed to a large child?) spilled a packet of something like M&Ms all over the V shop floor, yellow and red they cascaded, as he stood and stared at them fingers poised between packet and mouth. V Shop is full of DVDs and mobile phones. The Clash were playing because there is a new compilation out, I saw a poster for it later. That was why The Clash were playing in the office yesterday, I suppose. It upset me to hear them in that context - the worlds colliding. In my normal life I rarely discuss music. Or anything else for that matter being a mute hermit who lives down a well. Apart from today before going to the V Shop when I stumbled into a dingy second hand place and ended up talking about Iggy Pop and the MC5 with the proprietor, who was nodding away to a tape of the Groundhogs. I came over all clammy and had to go to the V Shop where I thought I'd get reliagned with some shiny chart pop (patronishing tone noted) but no - the Clash were playing.
-- Stuff I learned last night from watching too much telly - Marc Bolan didn't play on Nutbush City Limits, although I could have told you that. Eminem's My Name Is samples Chas and Dave, via Labi Siffre.
-- I am downloading lots of northern soul. I dunno why. Because it's there. I'm not a big fan of it. Maybe I will be when I've got enough!

Another day
Today's song was Oney (crap title) by Johnny Cash, wherein our man is about to retire after 29 years hard work and fantasizes about giving his nemesis bastard of a boss (the 'Owney' of the title) a good firm punch in the face the second it's all over.
Not far behind is 25 Minutes to Go in which JC is a condemned man counting down his last minutes on this earth before he hangs. Both have this good ol' toe-tapping chug-a-chug rhythm and the stoic delivery, even on 25 Minutes when his voice cracks and wavers as the end draws nearer.
In both cases a man's potential, or life force, is defeated by time, as determined by the nature of work or the nature of punishment.
Thirdly by chance, as I am spending most of my time lately listening to 'Old Shit' I happen to be playing Vashti Bunyan (about whom I know nothing but always wanted to hear merely because of the name, and today I have!) On first listen she's just dreamy and springtime lovely and the song playing in my head now goes "counting the hours, counting the hours, counting the hours in the day".
And it's ten o'clock. 120 minutes to go. And then there'll be another one.

What happened to your fascinating views on that NME top 100
I gave up/ I got distracted - what's new. I have a very short battery life and then I have to plug myself in to recharge.
All you need to know is - "NME's 100 best albums of all time is a steaming load of horseshit, obviously. Stone Roses at number 1? The Beatles at only number 5? The Strokes at number 7? The Streets? Oasis on the list at all? TWICE, which is as many times as the Beatles, and no Sgt. Pepper's? Fuck, man. THE VINES? Lick a clump of doo out of my ass. I like the White Stripes as much as the next guy, but they did not write the 20th greatest album of all time. They just fucking didn't. Maybe if they called this list "Top 100 albums according to a bunch of dumbass rock critics trying to be 'significant' while avoiding having to actually do any real journalism" then I'd buy that swill, but of course these are "THE GREATEST ALBUMS OF ALL TIME," until they decide to make another stupid list in two years because heaven fucking forbid they actually write anything intelligent. Man, fuck off NME, and fuck off all music magazines that find it necessary to validate their existence with long, pompous lists." the next next next thing, aka Last Bus Anywhere.

Truism worth its salt
"I guess you have to be here, listening to it on my computer to fully understand. You unfeeling swine."

2. Pixies - Doolittle
This isn't even the second best Pixies album, but I promised not to get bogged down in that debate. I was mildly disappointed with Doolittle at the time because Surfer Rosa had been such a thrilling revelation. I expected Doolittle to move further OUT but it was more traditional rockform. I can't separate it from Bossanova and have little idea of what songs are on which album. I have it on vinyl with the booklet and I enjoyed the weight of it although being able to read their random lyrics, in that lavish package, destroyed any mystique they'd built up by that point. Nevertheless, this is an exciting record despite / because it's about nothing but energy and space. They were wonderful and I loved them lots.

1. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
There is no need to complain about the placings in this chart or we'll never get started, or finished. The Stone Roses happened without my permission and left me feeling out of the loop. At the time I was mainly liking rap and screaming american guitar bands. The Stone Roses had some pretty tunes and my mind is feeble enough to allow that as a basis for permitting myself to like a band, or group if you prefer. They didn't capture my zeitgeist and apart from the first and last egotistical songs on the album (Adored, Resurrection) which I enjoyed hearing on pub jukeboxes at the time, I have little regard or interest in them. I never understood what people were on about when they talked about The Stone Roses as being dance-rock crossover. I didn't care much for their surly northern attitude, their floppy hats or flares, and the type of half-witted spliff-smoking types they attracted, although I realise these are extra-musical attributes and shouldn't affect my opinion of the album. It has some pretty but lightweight tunes that grate through over-familiarity. I'm aware that I am being a bit of a hype reactionary as regards this album but I wouldn't mind if I never heard any of their music ever again. Is Fool's Gold on the album? I would pay money never to hear that fucker ever again.

My name is Rudy Valentino, I am a fictional characters I think the lady out of the Kills is very pretty and she smokes like a Spaniard.

Domino Records have mp3s from the new Four Tet and Smog albums.

A mild air of renewal, the unseasonal weather, three weeks sans The Boss, upheavals in the workplace... I thought I'd clear out all the old faves from the mp3 player, and stuff it up like a kipper full of all those albums I downloaded two or three years ago and never had time to listen to. Welcome at last to the likes of Trans Am, come aboard the Cosmic Jokers and Plagal Grind! It's the least I can do for you.

Cool and Strange Music Magazine Compilation - 31 tracks to download.

I would like to record the fact that Bono's son's name is Elijah Bob Patricius Guggi Q Hewson. This is old news perhaps, but I was only recently made aware of it.

Too late
Due to bandwidth limitations, this CD is no longer available.

HAIR CARE with Robert Forster: The 2001 Remix. Like I care.

Anorexorcist - "You need a path to cross."

Talking about Alvin Stardust...
"The song playing at this epiphanic Homeric moment of superbly intense intensity was Woopsy Doopsy Doopsy Do by Alvin Stardust, the little known B-side to the very - hard - to - lay - your - hands - on - but - I - managed American bootleg version of Stardust’s more famous My Coo-Ca-Choo. "
Nick Hornby - 'Four More Songs', in Private Eye