Thursday, August 5, 2010

The Unforgettable Fire

I was ever so taken by this song this morning while walking to work. Because first of all so many of these songs in my archive or dare i say arsenal are only to be listened to during certain weather conditions. And of course every time a cloudy and slightly chilly day rolls on in, I get a little bit of a tingle in my ears and heart that begs for a song about wanting and longing. Yes, there's a breeze too.... Alright cue THAT SONG!

This morning was indeed one of those moments and as soon as U2's "Unforgettable Fire" popped into the shuffle, well shit, I was transported into that album cover's photo and the wind was whipping through my hair and I was singing away! Oh yes I was so in this moment I didn't even care that I sounded like the foghorn that was off in the distance somewhere. Where is the cliff and the torrents of bitter waves crashing against the rocks and that person is off in the distance that I was trying to sing these words to was out there, not hearing me but yes I knew you were there and I was still telling you all this and for my heart was full with saying it but then you missed it anyways.... So there stood the moment and yet in all the happiness of honesty I was still left sad knowing that truthfully only I knew and you would always be left wondering... Until perhaps one day. Yes one day you may just come to know the truth.

Where was that gray knoll in the northern hills that was waiting for that moment... Okay it was Bono doing it all and I had nothing to do with it for I was wandering on ** street heading to the train station and there was nothing around me but some scaffolding at a Kickboxing gym.

This was not Ireland. This was not a northern UK town. This wasn't even next to an overflowing puddle. And no, urine on the side of a curb doesn't count either! But for the moment I was in a scarf and a tweed overcoat and I was in this moment and somewhere random flags stood in a field whipping in the wind and some random person I had never met before was out there standing for some reason, or just because the canvas looks better in my head this way and without a random person well it would just be a Pink Floyd cover...

Maybe somewhere you can rent a solarizing kit to apply to the isolated bubble you live in so everything can look the way it does in your head when you step out of this world and into the one in your daydreaming head....or just the one's that have been created in this head because of music videos made in the early 80s and the accompanying cover art that sparked your curiosity in so many of these bands always. If I were such kind of a scientist, for sure I'd be institutionalized by now...

"...don't push me too far tonite...."

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

WE KILL TIME FOR A LIVING from L thru Z

The List continued....(as boredom continues to inspire me abound!)
[will work on this tomorrow....]

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

WE KILL TIME FOR A LIVING from A thru K

A List of Songs from work collection that all have similar titles but different artists...because....

THE WORD ACROSS
Across My Shoulder / The Primitives
Across the Ocean / Resistance
Across the Water / Breathless

THE WORD ALL
All About You
All Day Long
All Glory
All Hands
All My Eye and Betty Martin
All of a Tremble
All That Ever Mattered
All the Faceless People

Angel
Angela
The Angle

THE PREFIX CON-
Confirmation
Consider
Conspiracy
Constant in Opal

WEEPY WEEPY
Cry a Little
Cry in Vain
Crying Dance
Crying Red
The Crypt

DARK!!! DARK!!!!
Dark Angel
Dark Days
Dark Nights
Dark Park Creeping
Darkest Blue

DESIRE
by Perfect and The Sound

BECAUSE IF YOU DID-
Don't Believe Everything You Hear / The Ocean Blue
(DOn't Go Back) to ROckville- R.E.M
DOn't Look Back / THe CHurch
Don't Mess With Bill / Coïtus Int
Don't Talk To Me / The Passions
Don't Stop the Dance / Bryan Ferry

IN YOUR HEAD
THe Dream Police
Dreamabout
Dreaming Again
Dreaming Backwards

IN A LAND OF ABSOLUTES!
Every Dog Has Its Day
Every Road LEads Home
Everyone Everywhere
Everyone THinks He Looks Daft
Everything
Everything is Falling Apart
Everything SHining Bright
Everything that Flies (Is not a Bird)

FOR YOU
Blitz and Electronic

PRESENT!
Here Comes the Floor [Demo Version]
Here Comes The Rain Again
Here It Comes
Here TOday
Here's My House

YOU SELFISH BASTAARD! (ready? its a whoppah!)
I Can't Control Myself
I Can't Escape Myself
i don't know what i want
I Don't Think It Matters
I Don't Want To Be Friends With You
I Got You Babe (nooo, not THAT one)
I Hear You Follow
I Love You
I Love You Mr. Disposable Razors
I Only Think Of You
I Radiate
I Want
I Want to Scream
I Want You
I Will
I Won't Kneel
I'd Rather Be With You
I'll Be Your Saint
I'm Coming Home
I'm Hit
I'm in Love with a German Film Star
I'm Uprooted From It
I've Sung One Too Many Songs For a Crowd That Didnt Want to Hear

OH THE INDECISION OF IT ALL!
If I Can't Have What I Want (I Don't Want Anything)
if you can't find love
If You Cross
If You Need Someone
If You've GOt Love

THE OPPOSITE OF OUT
In a Better World
In Disbelief
In Jutland
In Love, Cancer?
In Purgatory
In Sickness and in Health
In the Afternoon
In the Marshes
In the Meantime
In Transit
In Your Head

FOR THE LOVE OF A PRONOUN
it does nothing for me
It Doesn't Change
It Don't Show
It Won't Be Long (live)
POSSESSIVELY SPEAKING, OF COURSE! ---->
It's A Fine Day
It's A Violent World
It's Alright
It's Alright Now Ma
It's Kinda Funny
It's No Reason
It's Okay
It's Only Obvious
It's Springtime, Baby
It's Up To You

JUST JUST JUST
Just for Tonight
Just for Thought
Just for You
Just the Surface
Just Yet

______________________________________

Friday, June 25, 2010

I Listen to Some Strange Shit...

Rare that it is that I find myself here and compelled to write but, alas, I am here, compelled and at the current moment writing, well typing, as who in their mind and physical capacities actually uses ink (save for a tattoo artist?!) SO yes, I am here writing in the moment because sometimes you find yourself there in the moment and you really have that itch that needs scratching and I am here scratching, rubbing and trying to apply the ointment that resolves the urgent moment....while still enjoying that slightly annoying tingle.

The tingle comes from a week long exploit back into blogs and obscurity conquests...and some good favorites that I have long since owned and found myself, uh, compelled, again, to listen to. Currently, the tingles and their very long fingers have grabbed me from a little country in Europe called Sweden, who, as we know, holds host to many an arty and at time eccentric folk...it's not just France, yes, Sweden too has some crazy messed up in the head art freaks!

I am sitting here and listening to Elegi's self titled release. I am about half way through it and have still no idea what I think of it. It's manic and definitely rock n roll, but hovering with those odd moments of no wave/punk rock. Admittedly, I had no idea why I was downloading it either, oh yes I do, the cover looked cool and right for a genre that I generally find myself lured to. It was black. It had an obscured image. Bad 80s script. Oh, and it was female fronted! Surely it must have some appeal.... Hmmm, Im not sure if it has the appeal for me, but I can see how in a post punk mindset in a no wave sound generated through modern equipment to primitive ears this could constitute as a FUCKING RAD RECORDING! However, I wasn't looking for rad, I was looking for AMAZING!

Currently I am listening to a song about Anorexia Nervosa, aptly called "Anorexia nervosa" which while my Swedish is a bit slow these days (as opposed to the earlier days when I was a world famous Swedish novelist) I'll figure is about the eating habit, or maybe a metaphor...I'll have to wait on that! I have found more anxiousness than nervousness in listening to this entire album thus far and all I can truly say is that I am waiting for that hidden gem of a track that makes this worthwhile for the time it is currently removing from my life. What is up with the rock opera piano? I can't stand this Rocky Horror like stuff....this could go into such a better direction, and yet it just goes shlocky!

I know there are some truly amazing bands out of Sweden...Mittageissen, Modern Art, even a little project called Svart...But this is truly starting to be an earful of fudge with the worst aftertaste. Squealing guitars and that raucus piano and moaning female vocals....Well I have found myself itching and scratching and I think it's time to grab that music bottle of Calydryl and change this up, yes even though I only have but a pale 6 minutes left on the album on the last track, I don't know if I can handle it.

SHould I? In comes the dismal sax, in a dark ambiance, perhaps this is the track that since its named after the band is the MOMENT IM WAITING FOR. But I sit and type and am worried....Im waiting for some silly zeal to wind over the piano...although the mood seems to linger and clutch to this moment that is unfolding. Oh weep for me sad and lonely street merchant in the big city lost under the haze of the acidic and liquored blown lights while stumbling home to the apartment that contains the seventh eviction notice and find the only thing left is your Lou Reed photo taken from a magazine in a black frame next to the take out leftover in an aluminum tin....the water doesn't work and neither does your lightbulb but you stumble onto your mattress to lay down and count the hours of subconscious delerium that was this evening and all the while still trying to figure out how to get rent or who you could lust up the next day so you would have a place to stay for a little while, certainly there could be someone on those streets that was in need of a lay and if you could provide it with some artsy chat, he'd return the favor with some cleaner sheets within paid walls and perhaps a coffee in a paper cup, for you...just for you.

Close your eyes dollface....it gets better eventually.....in 50 more seconds we will have finally closed this album and moved on to the Italian band Edith Nylon which is exactly what I wanted to listen to in the first place. 10 -9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-pulsate and away.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

coming back into age

im coming back, but only a bit different....
(Stay tuned)

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

FUSION (edit to post)

b l o g . g o i n g . b y e - b y e.
{BUT FIRST I AM GOING TO LEAVE WITH ONE LAST ENTRY,
THAT I JUST STUMBLED ACROSS.
SO AFTER I UPLOAD THEM I WILL POST THEM AND THAT WILL
ROUND OUT THIS BLOG TO ITS
100 POSTS! THEN I'M DONE HERE!}



I am going to link in a newer blog, but there will be no more entries from this point on...

Its absurd to have several blogs, so Im just going to condense them into one.

CO-HESION IS THE NAME OF THE GAME!

I just dont have enough to really blog on this site...I have some interesting vinyl here and there but no method to rip it so what i can contribute by mp3 is really not that interesting.

I haven't been moved to really do much of this....


I have been more interested in other things...But will link to those sites that are doing a FINE FINE job....

more info to come!
:)

Tuesday, January 22, 2008




Ultravox. XTC. U2. Simple Minds. These are names of bands that I immediately think of at the reference of this man, Steve Lillywhite. I see it immediately on the flip side of the "Boy" sleeve, and when I think of those catchy early XTC songs and check the production credit. Oh! Of course! Steve Lillywhite is someone I think of when I think of the better new wave and no wave acts of the 80s UK scene.

Basically, when I think Island Records, this is the guy that is almost as synonymous with that label as U2 and Ultravox are. Another thing I start to wonder, does U2 just go from "THE" producer to "THE" producer? What production whores! haa haa. Focusing back to Mr Lillywhite, I think of a certain treble pan sound in the atmospherics of the production qualities. Which is something that I have a lack of preference for, being a bass gal, but he makes treble work for the aesthetic of a rough and live no super over produced sound. There is a raw and refreshing spin to the way those records were produced, that at this point makes them sound dated because of it, but at the time if I was a band of that era I would want a certain level of wide eyed quality to it, which I think he is brilliant at.

Now I dont know too much about the specifics of production, where the drops and gains of + and - in the 60k and such are concerned, but I can be explained these things by those who are production proficient. What I do know and can hear is quality and why things are done the way they are. I think you have to have a good understanding of the music that is being put in front of you and who the band is, in order to be a good producer. One half of what makes a good producer is production qualities that bring the full portrait of an artist to light. I don't think hip hop producers should produce punk, its anti-climactic and just put WRONG!

That said, I look at the list of artists and albums Lillywhite produced, and it all makes sense: Siouxsie and The Banshees-The Scream, Simple Minds-Sparkle in the Rain, Psychedelic Furs-s/t, and Talk Talk Talk, Big Country- The Crossing, Wondertown and Marshall Crenshaw-Field Day just to name the few. There is an overriding similarity that these albums all have and they are some of the ones that are the standouts when people talk albums, The Banshees "Scream" for one!

Thank you Steve!

For more info on Steve Lillywhite GO HERE.
For Steve Lillywhite on producing albums, READ THIS.