Not much here for us I'm afraid

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Right, I'm off to Chicago. I'll be on the interwebs anyway of course. Go to Poptimism on Friday, that's what I'd do if I were you.

Hoist by one's own canard
People who have been to the FAT DUCK (and lived to tell the TALE):

- How far ahead should one think of going, reservation wise?
- How much did it cost?

Tonight I Wanna Dance With Someone Else
Three things by me!

First off, I have got halfway through Popular - by which I mean, the # of songs I have written about exceeds the number I have left to write about (remember the Pistols counted). The totals may level up again on Sunday but so what :) The halfway entry is, by really awesome coincidence, the first appearance of Madonna: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2009/10/madonna-into-the-groove/

Second, I wrote about Pitchfork's 3rd best album of the 00s here: http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7710-the-top-200-albums-of-the-2000s-20-1/ - it was #1 on my ballot, and is of course "Discovery" by Daft Punk.

Third, I've borrowed Laura Barton's Guardian column for a week, to talk about the Pet Shop Boys. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/01/hail-hail-rock-n-roll - a more personal piece than I usually write: see what you think.

And I hope to see as many of you as possible at CLUB POPULAR tonight too!

Keep that phrase in mind
Best post-Times appearance Popular comment.

"TO: Wichita Lineman…too bad that there is a sense of envy in your critique of David Whitfield’s, ‘Cara Mia’ classic.

After all, David has performed before KINGS & the world knows & has heard David Whitfield…but, who in the hell is ‘Wichita Lineman’?

David Whitfield’s classic ‘Cara Mia’ still brings the listener to a standstill! Keep that phrase in mind…”to a standstill”!"

Seen on Twitter
"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was the combination best of times and worst of times."

Blog II Watch
If you're on Tumblr you might like to add this to your follows: http://iconography.tumblr.com/ - he's going through every Madonna single and video in the lead-up to the release of her G Hits package.

I downloaded a torrent of 73 chronological Madge singles the other week - good god the woman had a long winning run: until VERY recently even the failures were interesting failures, and there weren't many of em.

The 00s
Maybe it's the Pitchfork list, maybe it's withdrawal cos

katstevens is away and can't post new polls, but I got DECADE FEVER.

I also got a dilemma. When I did my top singles of the 90s list, one of the things I thought was "I will really enjoy doing a 00s one in 10 years." But I didn't anticipate being in the middle of a huge other project which can ill afford any derailments, not to mention having lots of stuff on at work. And, you know, a family and stuff. I still want to do one, but - why?

Does anyone care? Would anyone read it? These are faintly dangerous questions for any blogger to ask I guess. It's not like I'd be picking anything terribly obscure...

I'd feel bad if I DIDN'T do one, but how much of that is just nostalgia or a mentalist desire for symmetry?

The Little Sandy Review
http://newvulgate.blogspot.com/2009/07/issue-4-july-29-2009.html

For people interested in the 'birth of rockcrit' stuff we had going on, here's a piece about the folk-focused Little Sandy Review (founded 1959)

Tummy Tub

Tummy Tub
Originally uploaded by mymble2007

Here's Drake again! Speaks for itself really.

How come rock'n'roll didn't trigger the birth of rock criticism? (i.e. why wasn't Crawdaddy or an equiv started in 1957 or 1958?)

And indeed how come swing and jazz didn't start a fanzine culture?

Bob The Builder's Machines In Order Of Quality
1. Muck
2. Roley
3. Dizzy
4. Scoop
5. Lofty

I know Lofty is in there to represent the unconfident kid massive but really he's pretty annoying. Scoop is the suck-up milk monitor type but is otherwise bland. Dizzy is problematic in that she represents ALL GIRLS in the Bob universe - the clue is in the name as to why this is MOAR problematic than just representativeness. But she's likeable. Roley is the Snufkin of the Bobverse - a bit more independent and down with nature and animals (however this leads to the HIGHLY DODGY "Roads And Bridges" video in which all the squirrels and rabbits tell Roley how much they love having fuck-off big roads built through their habitat). Muck is enthusiastic and mischievous and is also Lytton's favourite so I can't argue with that.

All the bogus machines introduced later to flog more toys, you only get half a bar.

Halfway through 2009, you say?
Here are the songs I've liked most.

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Hysteric" (For its balance between caution and attraction)
2. Lily Allen - "The Fear" (Best song 'about' the 09 recession.)
3. VV Brown - "Shark In The Water" (Puts some much-needed funny into quirky)
4. TI ft Justin Timberlake - "Dead And Gone" (For its balance between elegy and urgency)
5. Florence And The Machine - "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" (Joseph Campbell meets undergrad amdram)
6. Boy Better Know - "Too Many Men" (Posse cut trapped in a lift)
7. Jordin Sparks - "Battlefield" (Boom, boom, pow.)
8. Fever Ray - "When I Grow Up (Lissvik Remix)" (Pan pipes FTW)
9. Taylor Swift - "You Belong With Me" (C86 Indie emotion meets pop-country sheen)
10. Elektrik Red - "P Is For Power" (Out of the strong came forth sweetness)
11. Morrissey - "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" ("YOU SWORE YOU WOULD NOT!")
12. Kid Cudi ft Crookers - "Day And Nite" (Something is squeezing his skull)
13. Blackout Crew - "Dialled" (Best song about viral marketing!)
14. Timberlee ft Tosh - "Heels" (For its balance between roughneck and Right Said Fred)
15. Kid Bass ft Sincere - "Good Girls Love Rudeboys" (Smash robots do Wiley)
16. Royksopp - "The Girl And The Robot" (Kid Cudi's girlfriend kills time waiting for his shift to finish)
17. K.I.G. - "Heads Shoulders Knees And Toes" (UK Funky expands its fanbase to include my toddler)
18. Cassie ft Diddy - "Must Be Love" (For its balance between smoke and mirrors)
19. Pink Dollaz - "Never Hungry" (So why sound so skeletal?)
20. Cobra Starship ft Leighton Meester - "Good Girls Go Bad" (Rudeboys get the good girls all the time)

There are lots of things I haven't heard, of course.

Social Media Stocktake
Every 6 months or so I try and do a bit of self-analysis to work out which tools I'm using more, which less, what for, etc. This is partly so I can be a bit more self-aware about my personal biases and tastes in social media when I come to think about it for work.

TWITTER: I completely [heart] Twitter though maybe slightly less than I did before Drake was born - but that's just because I'm settling into a usage pattern, less self-conscious about what I put up there. One thing I really like about it - aside from building a large (by my standards) audience quickly, is how it works as a unified clearinghouse for stuff on work, music, family, culture, politics, whatever: bcz of the 140chr limit there'll be something else along in a minute so hopefully nobody following me gets too bored.

TUMBLR: After stalling on tumblr for a few months I'm right back into it - it turned out to be incredibly easy and convenient when I was frazzled and on paternity leave. I think, as with Twitter, I'm a little more comfortable with the Tumblr culture than I was.

BLOGS (WRITING): Blackbeard Blog is going very well - actually for that I regret moving it to Tumblr a little as I would like better archiving and blogroll functions (and am too crap to code them myself). The success of Blackbeard is almost wholly down to building an interested audience via Twitter. Freaky Trigger, meanwhile, is going well from the perspective of Popular but I feel underinspired for everything else - my other stuff is drawing energy away from that, which ought to be a higher priority since it's my main web presence.

BLOGS (READING): Twitter and Tumblr have mostly replaced my RSS browsing - I'm making an attempt to catch up. Don't get much sense of a "blogosphere" anywhere but maybe that's cause I'm not reading more than 3 or 4 sites on most themes.

COMMUNITIES: Loving the revival of Poptimists masterminded by Kat and Hazel. Zero interest in running any comms now, or indeed reading any bar Poptimists (and Diggerdydum when that sparks up again). They're just too high maintenance.

FACEBOOK: Completely dead to me, to the extent I tend to enormously underestimate how big and important it is for lots of other people. I probably check in once a month. The same goes for LinkedIn on a professional level. They both seem so... bitty. All these different groups and notes and walls and whatnot. I want to have another go with FB, for work reasons if nothing else.

LIVEJOURNAL: I use it for the occasional snippet of personal information (like this!), and for bitching behind a friendslock. Not doing much of either right now, so it's lying mostly fallow. Also, it's in general decline, everyone's leaving, blah blah. (Not actually sure how true this is.)

OTHER STUFF: I'm on Friendfeed and intend to play with it properly sometime: right now it seems a little soulless. Flickr I just use for family things. YouTube I browse but don't join in.

8 Games!!
I hope one of them is Girls Aloud Dizzy.

http://girlsaloud.sandbag.uk.com/Store/DII-46-3-boxset.html

(thanks to

maura for the tip)

Poor Uses Of Wikipedia contd.
- Reading summaries of Brian Herbert Dune novels.

Lyrical Meme
Via everyone.

MP3 player. Shuffle. First lines. Guess 'em. Titles and group names replaced where they would give things away with AD&D 2nd Edition Manuals. Untranscribable lyrics ignored.

I only have 125 songs on my MP3 player so perhaps this will be easy!

~~1. The winter's gone, the invisible come, your memories are being run.~~ - Broadcast - "Echo's Answer" (ht

stevem78)
~~2. Water was running, people were running, you were running out of time~~ - Siouxsie - "Cities In Dust" (ht

piratemoggy)

3. Remember the day you up and left? I nearly cried myself to death. <-- Think disco.

~~4. Off with your head! Dance till youre dead!~~ - YYYs - "Heads Will Roll" (ht

awesomewells)

5. Comin' from the east side, goin' to the west side, flowin' to the north and the south, you know what we're about - golden age hip-hop, no reason anyone wd know it

6. I'm only MONSTER MANUAL away from love, I'm only MONSTER MANUAL away from your arms. - rave hit

7. UNEARTHED ARCANA! UNEARTHED ARCANA! One day I could punch up this one youth for tryin to make a fool of me... - recent chart hit

~~8. The leaves are fallin' all around - time I was on my way. Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay.~~ - Led Zep, "Ramble On" (ht

piratemoggy)

9. A race of angels bound with one another, a dish of dollars made out for all to see. - Carsmile shd get this

~~10. Hast Du etwas Zeit fur Mich, dann singe Ich ein Lied fur Dich~~ - Nena, "99 Luftballons" (ht

the_roofdog)

~~11. Music, maestro, please!~~ T99, "Anasthasia" (ht lj user="stevem78">)
~~12. PLAYER'S HANDBOOK, I couldn't even get an answer. I tried to call - but my pride wouldn't let me dial.~~ Keyshia Cole, "Last Night" (ht

katstevens and lots of others)
~~13. Just talk about rhythm....it's been a long time, I shouldn't of left you without a strong rhyme to step to.~~ Eric B And Rakim, "I Know You Got Soul" (ht

awesomewells)
~~14. One of the problems of our society is that we can't live together unless we're married.~~ Banbarra, "Shack Up" (ht

mostlyconnect)
~~15. Got to get up, got to feel good! Got to get up! Got to get up!~~ Bizarre Inc, "Playing With Knives" (ht

katstevens)

16. You always find the way to hurt my pride, if I'm not crying you're not satisfied. - country

17. I shed my skin as the party was about to begin. - new wave

18. FIEND FOLIO, things are gonna get easier. FIEND FOLIO, they're gonna be brighter. - classic soul

19. Took a tube to Camden Town, walked down Parkway and settled down. - British pop

20. Now DEITIES AND DEMIGODS it out in a roughneck style whethere you come from east west north or sout', we run tings without a doubt. - pop reggae

Today's Interweb Fun
Tim Westwood live tweeting his cleaner coming round:

http://tweetree.com/TimWestwood