Happy Moans

-someone wrote that on our fridge this week. I think its a good phrase, sums up much about this blog. I wonder who wrote it. Was it you?

Sorry about the incredible gap between this blog and the last, but i've been busy collecting honey and fertilising the queen.

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I keep getting friend requests from truly terrible sleaze rock bands like this

http://www.myspace.com/vainsofjenna

I'm not sure what it is about my profile that makes a sleaze rock band accept them. I have had about 6 invites from bands exactly like this.

These guys i didnt accept, naturally. But i accept too many of the mediocre ones because i believe i'm going to listen to them eventually and never do. Like i have a band called 'the sixth chamber' added, and i've no idea at all who or what they are.

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Lyric of the day:

"My neck has always been red."

-Lynyrd Skynrd, 'Red, white and blue'

Thought i'd start off this new regular feature with my favourite lyric EVER. This was written by skynyrd at the height of the iraq war, and its basically all either racist, overly patriotic (-same thing), or bullshit 'spinal tap of country rock' stuff like this. The video features pictures of soldiers kicking the shit out of other countries, and its just plain boss from beginning to end. And God, what a lyric...

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I wrote a little note down on a piece of paper in front of me reminding me to mention 'symmetry' in my next blog. I havent a fucking clue what this means whatsoever.

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I was in scotland last week staying in what used to be a church. I slept in the vestery, and it was pretty cool from beginning to end. Deer would occasionally wander across our garden. Me and clare were positive by the end of the week we would have watched all 40 episodes of the cartoon version of 'around the world in 80 days with willy fog', but we ended up watching a pitiful one episode.

I misheard Matthew one night so i believed for tea he was making us 'mussels with white lightning sauce'.

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Incidentally, this whole 'myspace snooper' thing sounds like the worst idea i've heard in a long, long time. If you have it, please get rid of it now and become a better person. Not only does it remove people of privacy, it just means everyone will avoid going on your myspace site so that they're not the awful, shameful person who visits your profile the most.

The myspace site i visit the most is probably the hot club site, because i dont have any of their mp3s and i love listening to them, but it doesnt mean i want them to know, they're cocky enough gaybods already. lol jst jkin! I dont know who visits mine the most, probably someone completely predictable like tom. Tom's always been a predictable man, bless him.

Who invents this crappy software anyway, and whats their motive? 'Hey guys, last night i thought of another great idea of how to take just a little bit of privacy away from the masses and track their movements just that tiny amount more.' They're probably the same people who list 1984 as their favourite book.

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I'm not going to moan about bad myspaces much, if at all, on this site. I actually find people that moan about emo myspaces and such just as irritating as the people who actually have them. If you hate bad myspaces, just have a good one, instead of talking about how much all others suck.

However, since on my last blog i said that it wasnt a good thing to put 'i'm bored' in subject titles, i have literally not received a single one with this title, so i might mention the odd tiny thing. However, i think this is just an incredibly happy coincidence.

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My new band with all the keyboards and stuff had a series of names which progressed from the working title of 'the apples' to 'darjeeling' to 'the appleworms' and finally to 'the appleworths' in a vicious series of negotiations between me and james. We settled on the last one because we think it sounds like a country family, which is how we view the band.

We had our first practice today, and the majority of it was wasted playing around with an organ that we found at our practice room, as if it was placed there by magic or, just as good, God. Later research told us that it was bought from oxfam by 'the red series' for £18 and they'd just left it there, and i tried my best to ignore that removal of all mythology from this magical instrument.

Anyway, the practice was pretty mediocre, and i was vaguely disapointed. We were presented with the problem that we didnt all know one single song, and this provided huge problems in actually playing together, but a great advantage in the messing around with organs side of things.

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Challenge:

Can any of you find a negative review of the arctic monkeys first album? Amazon reviews dont count cos theres always at least one person on amazon for every album who's just come up with the sole purpose of telling everyone wherever they can to go and start buying metallica albums again.

But really, the level of the hype behind this band is so high that i havent read one review in a magazine that hasnt conformed to it, and so i think this is a real challenge. I certainly havent read one.

I dont quite get the arctic monkeys hype, but i can kind of see what the excitement could possibly be. To me they just seem like a slightly better than normal garage indie band, better than the kaiser chiefs and not as good as the white stripes, or so i think. I dont have the first album, although i do have their new ep, because it was going for £3 and i'll buy literally anything i'm vaguely curious about if its that cheap. Havent actually listened to it yet, so i guess i'll save judgement until after i have.

But where does all the hype come from? The only major difference with them from other guitar bands seems to be that their songs are free of (some) pretention and they're from up north. I was reading an interview with them in the sunday times the other day and the writer had been very careful to make it clear just how often they say 'reet'.

In a way i'm glad to see stuff like this happening. I'm glad to see people getting really excited about bands that show signs of roots from places other than new york, california and london, and the focus moving to places like canada and northern england. In an ideal world, all the focus on music would shift to japan for a while, because its always made such great music no one's known about, but it wont of course.

So yeah, see where the challenge takes you...i imagine to a magazine that knows what its talking about.

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Song of the day:

'Remember (walkin in the sand)' by the shangri-las. I was turned on to the shangri las by the new york dolls, who said they were the best pop band of all time. I find it hard to disagree. Twisted Sisters biggest hit was a cover of their 'leader of the pack', which i always find amazing to think about really.

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I have to go now. This blog wasnt shorter by mistake or intent: it has to be like this because i have to go now. So dont think i'm going easy on you.

James H.