Well, Afro-Celt Sound System were far more interesting than I remembered. That was the first album I've listened to this week that I bought during the six months I worked at HMV Cardiff. I should think I bought a good 40% of my CD collection during the time I worked there because of the generous staff discount. Listened to ADF again an enjoyed it once more, and VIctory Parts was alse good once more. I'm not growing bored of 'A' yet, thank goodness. Iwas getting fed up of the poorly resized images so I've widened the page to make room for them, and intend to redo the rest of the website at some point.
Well, yesterday was unusual as I only played one album, but by golly did I enjoy it. Asian Dub Foundation's Community Music is by far a better album than I recalled. Very contemporary sound, a real fusion of western and south asian sounds. It really fired me up and I would have turned it up loud had I been at home!
I enjoyed it so much i put it on again this morning, although my album playlist script seems to have lost it somewhere... might be a clock set wrong somewhere!
Today I also thoroughly enjoyed Arcade Fire, an album I only bought 2 weeks ago, and it's continuing to grow on me. I'll be sad to leave it for 25 weeks! Victory Parts sounded good today as well, not sure why... And Adam and the Ants was better than I recalled too, although the latter stuff (Puss in Boots, Strip etc) compares poorly to Stand and Deliver, Ant Music, Prince Charming, Goody-Two Shoes etc. I found an old Afro Celt Sound System Cd last night, so that will be on fairly early tomorrow morning but I don't hold out much hope for it. I remember it being very samey, with too much Celt and not enough Afro. Once that's played, I'll have played every 'A@ album at least once.
Ever since I first had lardy cake, when a neighbour took me to her (v. desirable) beach hut at Hill Head, I've always had a fondness for that most unhealthy of foods, lard. I'm told that as well as it's suitability for baking, it's one of the best things to cook chips in, and now I learn, you can sculpt with it, too!
Ow. That was pretty unrelenting today. I was looking forward to listening to Victory parts again today, but after listening to a.c. acoustic's debut, Able treasury, there was no way I was going to manage it. Avant Hard by Add (N) to X is an album that has only ever had a maximum of 5 plays since I bought it some 9 years ago. I figured it must be worth another go, but it's a little too much like a load of chimps let loose in the Analogue Synth Museum. With Octopi on theremin.
Anyway, thank goodness for the blessed relief that Aqualung brought, I can see that CD clocking up a few more plays before the week is out, and I will probably try Avant Hard again, just in case it's a VERY slow grower...
So here's the basic rules of the Alphabet playlist:
Every week, for 26 weeks, the music that I choose to listen to will be performed by artists whom I would file under the same letter. Week 1 will be artists filed under A, week 2 will be artists filed under B etc. This will take me up to the week ending August 24th.
Unfortunately, radio is on frequently in our house, and I have no intention of forcing my ridiculous plan on other people if they would rather listen to the radio.
In order to minimise the effect this will have on the experiment, I will only listen to the radio if someone else chooses to turn it on, or if I listen to a speech-only program. At all other times I will turn the radio off and either play an album or listen to nothing.
Live gigs do not qualify for the A-Z restriction. (I have a ticket booked for Sebadoh in May, when I'll be listening to 'K'. This does mean I will have no pre-gig listening of their albums though. This is of particular note when you consider they are performing the entirety of their album Bubble and Scrape as part of the Don't Look Back concert series.)
Album artists are filed under my OWN alphabetical system. Most of these are fairly obvious. Solo artists (or artists whose name is the prominent band member are filed under surname). Unusual punctuations or characters are filed where possible under the vocalisation of the name, or failing that under the anglicised name for that character. The definite article is always dropped (with the exception of 'The The' of course). Some examples:
Artist name
Filed under
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
C
!!!
C (for chk chk chk)
The Cure
C
PJ Harvey
H
μ-ziq
M (for mu)
3 Inches of Blood
T
Compilations of various artists will be filed in alphabetical order of record label. This is unfortunate in some ways as it will slightly disturb the truly restrictive nature of the other rules, but I've always been an album man, believing that at least some thought goes into the sequence of tracks on an album. I only have a few compilations of this nature anyway, so I don't think it will disrupt the flow too much.
This post is liable to be edited as I think of more exceptions to the rules or difficult cases!
As I left the house this morning I grabbed every CD I could find whose artist would be filed under 'A'. I was pleased to discover some forgotten favourites and a couple of CD's I'd not heard more than twice. This could be an interesting week.
I'm trying hard not to start with my favourites, but it's proving difficult - maybe once I've gone round each of my favourites once I'll find it easier to listen to Adam Ant or Add N to X.
I've been out of the office today, or tidying it, so there's not been so much music on, and so far I've only put on a.c acoustic's Victory Parts and the debut mini-album by Ash Trailer. Both of them are album's which were fairly regularly on the turntable soon after they were bought, and yet I cannot remember the last time I played either of them. Victory Parts was particularly fun to listen to, reminding me of the two times I saw them as support, once for the Stereophonics and once for Placebo (you may remember Brian Molko wearing a T-Shirt labelled "Stunt Girl" during his TOTP appearance for Nancy Boy - that was an a.c. acoustics t-shirt!)
The thing with Trailer is that it's very raw - lacking the polish of later Ash releases, and all the better for it! It's heavier and less poppy than some of their stuff, but still retaining some great hooks and melodies. It also clearly reveals that the Nirvana gig Tim Wheeler attended was a clear inspiration to the band. Highly recommended.
There'll be more reflections, and stuff on the 'rules' of Alphabet Playlist over the week.
Well, I'm quite happy with the automatic display of my days listening. Was fun playing with a whole variety of stuff to get it working. I'll put down exactly how I've hacked it all together at some point.
I find it hard to think of interesting stuff to post on here daily, (cos let's face it, most of what i write is NOT interesting, and frankly, how interested are you in my listening habits? Not very, I suspect). SO I'm thinking up a theme for the blog, you know, something to do for the next few months that will mean there's something to post about most days.
I figured it would probably be something music based as that's something I spend time doing anyway, and the new auto-posting listening habits will help to support it. So, starting next week, albums that I listen to will solely be performed by artists whose names begin with A. The following week, artists filed under B, and so on... I'll be recording reflections and memories and critiques and basically noting down anything interesting that comes out of imposing this kind of restriction on my listening habits.
I'll come up with a breakdown of my album collection early next week, so I can predict the highs and lows. I already know that 'C' is going to be an ace week (Cure, Cranes, Nick Cave), and I currently own no albums that would qualify for the 'X' week (Xzibit? X-Ray Spex?). I'm going to impose a limit of buying no more than one album per week. Frankly I shan't be able to afford even that, so there's little to worry about there in the way of cheating. Not sure what to do about 3 Inches of Blood or !!! though.
A graphical guide to what Martin has listened to today. Hover over album covers for artist and title. Click the album covers for a last.fm link, which may or may not quite work yet!
When Poppy and I bought our nice little Victorian end-of-terrace in Cardiff, we had grand plans for it: move the back door into the dining; refit the kitchen; replaster the main bedroom; install a powershower; in the landing alcove and turn the bathroom into a wet room; put in some velux windows in the attic, and make it into a 3rd bedroom; When we left the house 3 years later, neither of the bedrooms had any wall or floor coverings, the 2nd bedroom has a cracked window, the stairs had been 1/2 stripped of paint, and none of the other plans had been implemented.
We're now nearly two years in our current house, and there is now an ever-growing list of much more minor DIY jobs to do. The problem is I hate DIY. I end up getting into a stupid vicious circle, because I'm not good at it, so I put it off, then it gets worse so i HAVE to do something about it, but it's too far gone for me to do a good job of it. Then I get frustrated and cross, and don't feel like doing any DIY work for a good long time. If you then add to this equation the fact that Poppy will happily offer to help, but I'll insist that it should be ME that does it, as some stupid residue of male pride resides deep in my psyche.
Anyway this weekend, we agreed that there is no harm in asking for help, and that really I should just get on and do some of these things in the evenings and weekends. So I put my self to work mending the kitchen drawers, whose front fell off about a year ago. And with Poppy's help, I managed the first one. Missing a new bracket for the second, but I should pick that up tomorrow and then it should be done. The next task is to hang a curtain rail in our bedroom, and then I might tackle replacing the conservatory roof. (Or maybe not)
posted by mart 2:47 PM ~
You know, I like Radio 1. Even some elements of daytime stuff are perfectly listenable, but I'm getting annoyed with the constant practical jokes played amongst the DJ's. Jo Whiley/Scott Mills was at one stage mildly amusing, but Greg James/Jo Whiley is tedious, if only because James seems like a Mills wannabe anyway (And Scott Mills is probably my least favourite daytime weekday DJ anway so why would you want to ape him.....?) Add onto that the Moyles/Whiley banter and occasional Edith/Mills confrontation and frankly things get a bit tedious... it's almost like Smiley Miley and Mike Read... At least most of the evening stuff is still good, with Colin Murray going from strength to strength, Huw Stevens and Rob Da Bank remaining awesome too.
posted by mart 11:39 AM ~
Still testing a variety of stuff, trying to get a suitable feed to iimport into Facebook notes... Facebook seems to be reading the feed strangely though and duplicating posts... this might just be when I update the pipe that the feed comes from, or it might be harder to pin down...
posted by mart 3:24 PM ~
Apparently, Nokia are aiming to banish paper maps. Their CEO said "Navigation is one of the foundations of the context-aware mobile phone. We believe it will be as important as voice capability was 20 years ago." Errr hello? The very essence of a phone means it has voice capability.... I don't think it NEEDS to have navigational facilities, and you'll never be able to replicate the way you can browse a paper map.
posted by mart 3:01 PM ~
Well, both Daniel and George have Chicken Pox now. George started off with just a handful of spots, but there's been something of a blistery explosion over his body today. Thankfully he's feeling well in himself and has been generally happy, and ate a bucketload of food at lunchtime. Daniel is finding it harder, with itchy spots in uncomfortable places, and as a consequence has been less than his usual happy self today. Hopefully things will improve over the week.
posted by mart 9:49 PM ~
I'm determined to stick to my resolution of a daily post to here and flickr. So I'm trying out blogger via my DS. All seems fine so far, have to see if it publishes ok.
Today's pic could be seen as boring, but I'm trying to avoid people pics at the moment, so enjoy the patterns and textures of the pics for now.
Just watched "Ashes to Ashes". I'm not convinced by Keeley Hawes' character, but it's earlydays and I lke the way she's linked to Sam Tyler. Anway, any series deserves a few episodes to develop a style. With the exception of Masterchef, and the two idotic pretentious food-monkey presenters.
posted by mart 11:26 PM ~
So, I'm finding plenty of fun webcomics lately. Percy pointed me towards xkcd, which is a bit geeky, but also fun. There's also Questionable Content, which is very soapy, and may take a bit of time to get into. Buttersafe has a tendency to be more immediate, but I still think nothing quite surpasses Dinosaur Comics.
posted by mart 11:36 AM ~
So, managed to complete today's tasks, and had fun playing with Pipes, now trying to embed the output of the pipe I've been mucking with into this webpage... it'll be a bit cyclical as it includes whether I've updated the blog, but you know, I'm working on stuff.
posted by mart 10:53 PM ~
Because I'm having so much fun playing with Yahoo Pipes, but have no real use for it at the moment, I hereby declare I will be doing the following things once a day for the next month:
