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Showing posts with label Fortissimo Fridays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fortissimo Fridays. Show all posts
Hope you’ve all had a brilliant holiday... it’s nearly New Years Eve! I am not blogging properly because I am trapped underneath a giant pile of LEGO, held together by Play-Doh with a candy cane sticking out each nostril and my head resting on a pile of Quality Street sweet papers. While I wait for someone to rescue me, here is a little playlist of my Friday tracks from 2010 and 2009:
Yes all right, all right. It’s Thursday. But I’m buzzing today. I’ve had a good one.
And in no small part I’m sure to the fact that I’ve had an earworm all day courtesy of the delectable Mr Matthews.
What I love the most about him? Well, strangely enough, it’s that over here in the UK he’s a virtual unknown. I mean, the man can sell out stadiums in North America in minutes, and yet... here? When he does play gigs on this side of the pond you’re talking one, two thousand seaters, max. And oh, dear readers, you know how I love me my little tiny venues. :-)
Lemme tell you a little story...
Some years ago... oh this was, 2006? Christmas time. Jase and I were doing a bit of last minute shopping in town and we happened to walk past Newcastle City Hall. There’s a playbill up on the side of the building, and it says “An Acoustic Evening with Dave Matthews.”
I’m not joking – I stopped dead in my tracks. All of a sudden, my legs didn’t seem to belong to me, and I bent double at the waist – all I could do was point at the poster, mouth agape, making the occasional squeaky, breathless gasp! Dave Matthews? MY Dave Matthews? HERE? In my town? In THERE? That... teeny tiny... in THERE?
From our position outside the front of the building we made it to the box office in less than 10 strides and before I knew it we had the tickets in our hands. 23 February. Dave Matthews. Hurrah!
Now, let me clarify a point or two... Dave Matthews Band? Hmmm...not so much my cup of tea. A little too jazzy for my liking. But Dave Matthews on his own? Man and guitar? Right up my alley. The place was packed out and to my extreme surprise and delight the esteemed Mr Tim Reynolds was there accompanying Dave through a powerhouse of a set. A delightful few hours...just what I like –lots of between song banter and a good mix of old stuff with a good mix of new. Our seats were in the front row of the balcony so we had a perfect view; we felt like he was playing in our living room. Jason was blown away. It was a great gig.
That’s rotten of me, I know. “It was a great gig.” But I’ve been staring at the cursor for the last ten minutes and I just can’t summon the words that would possibly justify how amazing it was. Here – listen, you’ll see what I mean.
Here’s a little bit of video I took of “Satellite”:
And here’s a bit of Tim Reynolds having the stage to himself:
And (not from our gig) but one of my favourites:
And finally? This is from a show in Atlanta in 1998 – it was this recording that was my first Dave Matthews experience – and consequently the reason why Mr Matthews is in his rightful place in the Top Ten List of Sweating Totally Hot Sexy Men With Whom I Would Run Away In A Nanosecond:
Just a quickie tonight to share this cool summer tune with you -- this has been in my head ever since it appeared on the brilliant CD I got in the post from a totally rockin' chick in Portland, Oregon as part of the International Mix Tape Swap.
If you're not signed up already, then you should be! The deal is: you make a CD full of your favourite tracks, and make a cool sleeve for it with some liner notes, and you send it to a stranger. Then a different stranger sends you one. How frickin' cool is that?!
Anyway -- now I can't get this out of my head. Me and Ben had it on repeat in the car on Sunday, as we drove around the city looking for hanging basket liners for the garden. I know, I know. WE ARE SO ROCK AND ROLL.
And so! The fates dealt me a minor brush with celebrity this morning! Such excitement in our little house and it’s not even 10 o’clock! This morning I was ALMOST a radio superstar.
You may or may not know that most mornings in our house have a particular musical accompaniment. Amongst the fog of baby porridge and Weetabix dust, between the younger child’s ‘Mammy-you’re-not-making-it-fast-enough’ whimperings and the older one’s ‘request-by-way-of-staccato-command’ instructions for how he wants his toast (“DAIRYLEA! DAIRYLEA! DAIRYLEA!”) can always be heard the dulcet tones of one Mr Shaun Keaveny on the BBC6 Music breakfast show – my FAVOURITE thing. Without fail, the DAB radio gets switched on before the tea bag hits the bottom of the mug and I can always rely on some great tunes to get me on the right track of a morning.
Some of them straight out of my own record collection (cue singing along much to the amusement of my children) and some new tracks... which I have often shared with you here as part of my Fortissimo Friday feature. I credit the 6Music morning show for helping my personal thawing process – you all know how I am musically frozen in high school.
But I digress... you want to know how I missed the bus of radio superstardom today? I was happily bopping around in the kitchen to this classic tune from my childhood sweethearts Depeche Mode when some tit from Sheffield offended the airways by requesting an Incubus song as part of the ‘My Morning Racket’ feature. (This is where they get a listener on air to request a song.) So, fuelled with Tetley’s Extra Strong and the safety of anonymous text messaging, I sent the studio the following:
What, in the name of arse, is this pile of wank? Is this what Radio 1 plays when it wants to be ‘edgy’?
So through a wacky combination of my favourite thing and my SECOND favourite thing (namely, being a total music snob who likes to complain about bad music) I got a call from one of the show’s staff not two minutes after the text was sent to ask me if I would like to be this coming Monday’s on-air guest for ‘My Morning Racket’. I laughed, and blushed, and apologised for being a bit sweary.
Yet another example of why the Universe hates me by making me go back to work after ten months of maternity leave – you guessed it – this coming Monday. Curses!
Probably a blessing in disguise – I would likely have messed up the whole delicate programming schedule by roping Mr Keaveny into a satisfying yet passionate musical debate and lost him a whole pile of listeners. That’s if I could even choose a song. One song? ONE SONG to share with the entire nation to illustrate the depth and breadth of my schizophonic audio-obsession? Nigh on impossible. I’d not have left the house for the duration of the entire weekend, instead staying next to the computer flooding the studio’s email inbox with at least 400,000 “wait-I’ve-changed-my-mind!!” emails.
So, England... you won’t hear this honey-voiced-lovely on your airwaves come Monday morning. I will miss ‘My Morning Racket’ and instead be replacing it with my own from behind the wheel of the car in the morning rush hour by swearing at other drivers, innocent pedestrians and too-close-to-my-wing-mirror motorcyclists on the way to my first day at work in nearly a year. Bloody shitty bollocks and fuck.
But – it is Friday after all... so you’ll be expecting a song, won’t you, my dear readers?
I credit this band (and my Auntie Lisa, who loved Adam & the Ants WAY more than me) for starting me off as a music nerd. When I was 5 (1981, y’all), off I went to Canada with my Realistic (TM) Portable Cassette Recorder, and as a ‘going away’ present, Lis bought me Adam & the Ants platinum selling “Prince Charming” album. Well, she SORT OF did – she gave me the tape and kept the liner notes to pin up on her bedroom wall, convinced as she was that one day she might not only be my Auntie Lisa but Mrs Lisa Ant!)
Anyway, I implore you to have a careful listen and try not to be distracted too much by the videos – they are as mad as a box of frogs, make no mistake – but the innovations he makes especially in the depth and layering of the vocal harmonies is something truly special. Behind that pretty boy facade, Ant has a prodigious grasp of musical structuring, put together in an undeniably unconventional way that yet somehow makes you want to hit ‘repeat’ and listen again. And also? TWO drummers? Wha-hoo!
Lots of people look back on Adam & the Ants with a great deal of scorn. All that lip gloss and hairspray and proclivity for asymmetrical hairstyles and it’s easy to dismiss them as “that early 80’s boy band”. Further still, Adam Ant’s well documented struggles with bi-polar disorder in more recent years lend a tendency to lose track of the most important thing – the music he wrote. Listening to this stuff with my (almost) 34 year old ears? It’s bloody brilliant! What do YOU think? Do you like it, or am I actually as mad as a box of frogs?
Click the tape to visit this Friday's artist's web page.
Hey kids.
I've neglected my blog this week because Mammy P's MAMMY has been visiting from Canada, and there was lots and lots of stuff to do with her... more on that later.
But here is a gift! Again, it's something NEW! (Can't hardly believe it myself!)
But -- I resisted this song at first. When I first heard it on BBC6 Music's Breakfast Show I was all, "Oh, hi there, Karaoke Morrissey!" but I've gotta tell you, it is growing on me!
It beggars belief, especially given my obvious, natural and instinctual aversion to bands who make a living by trying to sound like other bands (ref: every single pop/punk Green Day tribute act like Blink 182 and Sum41 and I don't even know why I'm using this as an example because I hate them all anyway...) but this? THIS I turn up when it comes on the radio! THIS I was humming this morning when I was mixing baby banana porridge.
Everyone knows, if you hum something while you're mixing baby banana porridge... I mean, is there any higher accolade in the land?
I'm seriously interested -- Smiths fans, Gene fans, Joy Division fans, this means you -- in what you think of this track. Is it just me?
Again... can't embed this video because it was posted officially on YouTube by Polydor... but here is the URL. Click here NOW:
Click the tape to visit this Friday's artist's web page.
Okay kids, listen up. It’s time to get serious now about your musical education. Most of this Friday tunes thing I have been doing has largely been for my own amusement, because there isn’t much more that I like than wasting valuable time procrastinating against really important things while I pick through You Tube to try and find old songs so I can wax nostalgic. But now it’s time to introduce you to one of my favourite bands EV-ER... devoted Bloggees: it's time for you to meet SWELL.
I can’t remember for certain, but I think it was my friend Kevin who first introduced me to them. He dealt in music and cruelty in equal doses, for back in the day he used to make me lots of lovely mix tapes but used to take delight in my vexation from purposely never writing a corresponding track listing – I went bananas, he laughed at me. So if I liked something, I had pester the life out of him before ultimately resorting to shameless trickery (usually copious amounts of some fermented beverage or other would do) before the adorable bugger would reveal who was who. And so it was with Swell. I got it out of him eventually and I’m proud to say that I have been comparatively more promiscuous than he in spreading the Swell love to fellow music afficionados; apologies if there are those amongst you who onto whom I have already pushed my Swell-thusiasm.
The track you are about to hear was probably the first Swell song I ever heard and it was nigh-on love at first listen. It’s a good intro piece which should give you a fairly decent idea of what they are all about; unpretentious, straight ahead, no bullshit. Melodies which at first appear unassuming but perfectly complement the guitars in a carefully crafted way. The thing I love the most about this track especially, are the drums. I’ve always had a daft little fantasy that there wasn’t a drum kit in sight when the tapes started rolling on this one but rather an assembly of cardboard boxes and up-ended buckets of varying pitch... have a listen – do you hear what I mean? If you’re into Pavement, Sebadoh, the Pixies... these fellas will be right up your street.
There is always a lot of talk about people’s ‘desert island discs’, right? Sure, I have a vague idea of what mine would be, with the following distinction: my desert island discs would be made up of records that I can listen to from start to finish, unable to choose one favourite track over another. Records that I listen to in their entirety, where tracks in isolation just seem wrong somehow. Swell’s 1997 record ‘Too Many Days Without Thinking’ will definitely feature in the Top Ten of this list; I am particularly proud to share them with you this Friday, dear readers. I couldn’t dig ‘em deeper if I had a spade. So without further ado, behold: ‘Is That Important?’
Oh, apologies for the video -- it's not mine but rather one of You Tube's home-made efforts -- but don't watch, just listen.
Click the tape to visit this Friday's artist's web page.
Have I mentioned how I'm musically frozen in high school? I'm sure I have -- but it's totally true.
Hmm... also? Am fashionably frozen there, too, it seems. OR... maybe am just so dreadfully lazy that I can't buy new CD's OR be arsed to dress in anything but jeans and t-shirts?
Anyway -- that was a roundabout way of telling you that this Friday, you will be ASTONISHED when you realise that the track I'm going to share with you isn't some hark back to my halcyon days of skulking miserably about the halls of Galt Collegiate. Nay -- it is (drum roll please): a Brand. New. Track.
Here's the scene: I'm in the kitchen fumbling through my usual morning juggling act. I make tea, a bowl of Weetabix, a glass of milk, a piece of toast and some baby rice simultaneously each day at 8.11am, with varying degrees of success/spillages. I manage to get all those things over to the kitchen table. I manage to assemble the recipients of these culinary wonders (milk in bowl IS TOO wondrous when your eyes are still crusted half closed with sleep) and I also manage to get the ol' digital radio out and plug it in, to listen to the morning show at BBC6 Music.
And lo! What is this? Dost mine ears decieve me? Is this something... new? Is that my foot tapping? Is that my butt wiggling? Call Ripley's, morning fans! Because 'Believe It or Not'... I LIKE THIS. OOOH, I DO LIKE IT A LOT. I ping open my eyes and squint at the display on the radio, which helpfully informs me...
(actually -- was not even anything like a 'ping'... more like a painful SCRITCH; I told you about the crusties)
... that 'Now Playing' is actually THIS BAND. Now tell me -- what's YOUR butt doing right now? Happy Friday, kids.
Can’t believe I’ve been sharing tunes with all you good, good people over these weeks and haven’t dropped a Beastie Bomb on you yet. Undeniably one of my favourites EVER... in fact – here I am one Hallowe’en dressed as Adam Yauch:
In. Ter. Gal. Ac. Tic. Plan. Et. Ter. Rey.
Okay, so my badonkadonk is, shall we say... a bit more ‘voluptuous’ than I would probably like. But I can shake it. One of the things I miss most about Canada is getting ready on a Friday or Saturday night (okay, lets be honest... Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights, too) and going out dancing, whatever the weather. This song comes on in the club and it’s like a magnetic pull to the dance floor; I hear the flute loop at the beginning of 'Sure Shot' and even from ten years and thousands of miles away, I can see Lindsay’s head boppin’ as if her neck’s got no bones in.
Unfortunately, YouTube won't let me embed these, so navigate away and bop your own fine head, and the rest of your bad ass selfs, and then come back and visit me again very soon.
Only a week before Christmas, and we've already had a little flurry to make us all get in the mood. Well, you know what I say: ho, ho, mofos! Bring it on! As a displaced (replaced?) Canadian living in the North East of England I always like to see a bit of the old white stuff.
At home in Canada, they measure precipitation in centimetres. Here, I like to use the equally accurate but admittedly lesser-known depth guage of 'Adidas Print', as illustrated below:
Put the Army on standby; it's a white out.
That's what we woke up to this morning. Ben was practically apopleptic with excitement, and all the way to school it was snowball this, snowmen that, and jingle all the way. It made the trudge over to the school enjoyable indeed.
"Look, Mammy! I can make snowballs all by myself!"
I told my (British born 20+ yrs Canadian resident) Mum that it was snowing last night. She says to me, "Buy the kid a toboggan."
Isn't language funny? Imagine a scene in which the family walks into the nearest reliable retail outlet and asks the Geordie salesperson to sell us a toboggan. I hope people on both sides of the ocean will find the provded translation helpful:
Salesperson: "Eeee, what’s SHE gannin' on aboot, like? What d'yer mean? Ah divvint knaa aboot nee 'toboggans', are ye askin' for a chinnin'?"
[Gosh! To what, exactly, are you referring? I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with the word ‘toboggan’. Are you being deliberately impertinent? Would you like a slap?]
Me: “Dude, it's TOTALLY snowing, eh? My kid wants to go tobogganing, so I’ll be needing a new toque and a muffler as well! It’s cold!”
[It has snowed overnight. I would like to enable my child to partake of some snow-themed winter recreation. Also, if you have any woolly hats and scarves to protect me from the elements I would be greatly appreciative.]
Ben: How man, mutha man!
[Please, Mother. Don’t embarrass me.]
Jason (to the salesperson): Eeeh man, ye knaa what a mean leik (rolls eyes). Ahm gannin te the booza.
[I have put up with this ridiculousness quite long enough. I am off to partake of liquid refreshment in the nearest licensed establishment.]
Salesperson: Alreet, lass. Ye’ll find a stack o’sledges in Aisle Forr. Mind, gan canny or ye’ll dunsch into summick if ye gans too fast doon the hill!
[Certainly, Madam. The apparatus you require is in Aisle 4. Be careful, lest you crash into something during your recreational exertions!]
Ah... I love living here. Canadians: I love you all. Geordies: I love you as well. My Mum said, "Perhaps I'm a bit more Canadian than I thought..."
Me in my toque and muffler this morning; this one's for you, Mum!
Undoubtedly quite the most ridiculous-looking Mama on the school run, but I don't eff around with snow. Comfort and warmth before fashion, without exception. I chuckled a little when I walked past a gaggle of Mammies talking about the state of the roads, who said what everyone the world over says when they talk about winter driving: "The main roads are okay, " which is fine. When the Canadians say it, it looks like this:
Jason, Christmas in Canada 2007
But when the English say it, it looks like this:
The view of my house from the school run this morning.
I am feeling homesick this week... in the run up to Christmas I flip-flop between mental-institution-excited for the kids, but lump-throatingly bereft at not being at home in Ontario. Sometimes a mile is no distance, especially with Skype and webcams, etc... but on mornings like this, one mile feels like a thousand.
So it is my Friday wish that we get some more of the white stuff for Christmas, and that my Canadian loved ones get a little less of it this winter. And by way of apology for not giving you a Friday track to listen to in a couple of weeks, I'll leave you with this -- Jason's favourite Christmas song:
Another oldie. Sorry I haven't blogged all week, and sorry again for not blogging more right now... but there is a Subway Veggie Delight downstairs with EXTRA PICKLES with my name on it, and the kids are both in bed. Another oldie... but I'm sure you will concede -- what a beautiful way to say, "Let's just have a one night stand."
Who wouldn't fall for that?
"Throw Your Arms Around Me" - Hunters and Collectors
An oldie but a goodie -- just back from Cas Vegas with t'little 'uns and AH Lisa, AH Babs, AH Katie and AH David.
Totally love this tune; particularly the harmonies in the chorus -- simple but eyesrollbackinheadingly effective. Is it just me? Goosebumptactular.
Now then -- a bit of explaining: some of my favourite, favourite, FAVOURITE music can all be related back to the reason why I like the harmonies in the chorus of this Inspiral Carpets track. It's all about tension and resolution. Do you know what I mean? Being a practicing heathen, I'll likely get struck down for getting all church-o-rama, but bear with me while I endeavour to explain: you'd probably need to hark (pun intended) back to hymnbooks for me to verbally illustrate what I mean -- whenever you sing the word 'Amen' in church, the 'ah' is the 'tension' (ie -- you know it's not the end, and the chords are going somewhere, for lack of a better term. The 'resolution' is the 'men', wherein the chords settle themselves into the place where they were destined to finish.
So AMEN to the Inspiral Carpets, for this 4-minute religious experience; as close to heaven as I'm likely to get. ;-)
You can't take me to the symphony. I mean, you can... but you better bring a purse full of Kleenex. The mere sound of the orchestra tuning up makes me sob my big fat heart out.
And I can't drive the car if this song comes on my iPod shuffle, for the same reason. Happy Friday, friends.
Oh -- and I'm sorry about the annoying 'pop ups' on this video; I couldn't find any other version of it. Try and listen to the words and not read the head-smashingly frustrating bits of irrelevant trivia.
The Apple iPod combined with a bright, crisp autumn morning in Newcastle is the best tonic for the soul a girl could ask for, bar none.
Walking back from Wallsend, this morning.
Isn't it fantastic how the accessibility and portability of music has grown over the years? My lifetime obsession with all things sonic began just as I was finishing elementary school to go to high school. I became a music junkie and was never to be seen anywhere without headphones and a portable cassette player – walking to the bus stop, on the bus, between classes – hell, even IN class if we had a particularly inattentive teacher... I had this great method of putting my headphone wire up the front of my t-shirt and then out through the left arm hole, so that if I were leaning my head on my left hand, one ear of the headphones could be sneakily concealed in the palm.
Crafty, eh?
Oh yeah, I was a properly kitted out portable music lover – the bottom of my schoolbag a veritable treasure trove of double A’s and always a ‘BIC’ pen on hand to rewind tapes without wasting valuable battery juice.
A significant bulk of those halcyon days was spent assembling tapes to listen to on my teenage travels. My insatiable appetite for new music would lead me to recording songs off the radio – be still my nostalgic heart – leaping across the bed from the other side of my bedroom to press record as I heard the opening riffs of a favourite track, and not even minding recording a bit of DJ banter at the start and end of the track. Remember when you could fit a whole album on one side of a C90? And the devastation you would feel when your Walkman ATE YOUR BEST MIX TAPE?!** Ah, those were the days.
I happily avoided talking to just about everyone at University while I ambled around campus with my headphones. I learned to especially love those tracks whose beats per minute mirrored the tempo of my own footsteps.
I learned to drive so I could put my own music in the car stereo. True story. It was LOUDER than my Walkman. Even now, at 33 years old my first questions about buying cars aren't about mileage, fuel efficiency or service history, rather: “But what’s the stereo like?”
And so now with my lovely iPod I can walk virtually anywhere my feet will carry me with almost my entire music collection magically housed on a piece of metal and plastic that is not much bigger than my credit card. That sentence would have been tantamount to telling my 13 year-old Walkman-wearing self that in the future she would eventually live in an airlock on the moon... cue exploding head!
The movie of my life has got a GREAT soundtrack. Happy Fortissimo Friday, everyone! Here is one that matches the beat of my footsteps if I’m not in a hurry to get anywhere.
Stockholm - New Fast Automatic Daffodils
**I’m such a dork I could even mend ‘eaten’ tapes by unscrewing the plastic cover of the tape, cutting out the worst of the chewed area with manicure scissors then realigning everything and using sticky-tape to splice the tape back together again. I was a tape SURGEON, man.
Just a quickie while I break from the old Florence Nightingale routine... Jason had The Snip on Thursday so the poor lamb is still off work with some achy ouchies.
In the meantime, have a listen to this... I've already recommended it to a few people already so sorry if this incredibly lovely song is old news, but I just can't get enough of it; it has been circulating around in my grey matter for a number of weeks and I'm still not tired of it. Enjoy!
Okay, so I'm totally and shamelessly stealing this idea from a blogger who I totally adore -- GirlsGoneChild -- who shares with her readers a favourite song every Tuesday. I'm sure she won't mind AND ANYWAY music is a gift to be shared and I hope she will be happy that she has inspired me to do the same.
Those of you who know me will remember that one of my faaaaaaaavourite pastimes used to be making mix tapes and CD's. Now that we're in the age of the iPod, it's something I don't do much anymore. I know, shocking, eh? Yeah, yeah, I had a 'Save the LP' button on my schoolbag and will wax melancholic and forever mourn for the noise of a stylus hitting vinyl... but to mine own iPod be true; I am converted. So in tribute to those good old days, here is Track 1 of a mix tape I'm making -- just for you.
I'm missing a wedding on Saturday that I dearly would have loved to have gone to; alas, new babies and the supplies they require aren't really conducive to having the kind of bank balance which allows for international air travel.
So in my absence, here's a lovely love song which I would like to dedicate to my dear, dear friend Sean and his gorgeous Jenn. Shut the bedroom door, you two... and have a little dance on your Wedding Day Eve. (NB: don't you just totally love that you can hear their Scottish accents while they sing?)
Biffy Clyro - Mountains (acoustic version) "...nothing lasts forever except you and me / you are my mountain you are my sea love will last forever between you and me / you are my mountain, you are my sea..."
