Song for the Day!

Is by Band of Horses and the song is The Funeral

Song for the Day!

The Decemberists are one of those bands surrounded by a sea of devoted fans that give off a certain air pretentiousness, however it's important not to let that ruin their music, which is fantastic. It's hard to draw comparisons, with mergers of various different genre's across their albums. Presently i've been listening to The Crane Wife album, which is relatively folky/rocky in origins, Yankee Bayonet is a fine example of that album. In terms of the emotiveness of the songs there's some similarity with groups like The Mountain Goats, Colin Meloy sings with a similiar determination.

Snooze-ing

Nobody stopped his phone from 'snoozing'

My life is beginning to become dominated by the 'snooze' function on my phone. Usually i would never use it at all but know i find it physically impossible to get up before at least two 'snoozes', and often so, so many more than are required. Then during the intervening ten minutes between each snooze i have the freakiest dreams, the sort that only a mind in a semi-conscious coma can produce. I think a big old school alarm clock with big bells and no snooze function may be my only option, ideally one that opens the curtains, douses me with water, tips me out of bed and then sets the bed on fire once i'm out of it.

Pop Images

Some pickchas of some of my favourite's

Song for the Day!

Broken Social Scene have been around for a while, they make accessable, emotive, guitar based, indie pop music. Stars and Sons is one of those songs. I can't think of anything else to say. I feel i summed them up adequately enough there.

Fresh Gig

pictures; not the gig i was at

Thank you Times New Viking, your show at the Dome was aces to the max, with volume to the max. I especially enjoyed the bit were the guitarist started playing a different song and the other two got really angry with him. I feel for the guy, the other two are going out, share the vocals, and are basically persistent centres of attention, while he who provides the basic structure of the songs, gets nothing but abuse and the joy of hearing his band mates intercourse every night they're on tour. If his only form of revenge is fucking with the set list then power to him. But yeah they were great, i still feel they should focus more on Beth Murphy, at least in terms of vocals, she adds this really naive, young girl vibe, that sounds perfectly at odds and also perfect with the trashy noise the band produce. The songs from Rip It Off were my favourite and most of the crowds favourite.

Song for the Day!

What the other Shins don't know is James Mercer's life jacket is the only one not filled with lead and shark bait

To quote the guy from Pineapple Express "you'll go to college, you'll start listening to The Shins and Godspeed You Black Emperor!". Yes, yes we will. Although judging from the unbelievable shit that reverberates from most of the rooms in my building more people could do with fulfilling the cliche. Both those bands are officially rad, and todays S.F.T.D. will be Phantom Limb by the Shins. Their name may be stupid, and James Mercer is clearly an egotistical maniac, but so are all the best people (and dictators), and they make really nice music.

High in the Sky

I went to see Up In The Air a couple of days ago. I went alone, which is possibly the first time i've been to the cinema by myself, which is a slightly suprising realisation, but i'm putting it down to the social stigma and the fact i've never lived close enough to a cinema for a solo sojourn to be worth the effort. But with the Arts Centre cinema being barely a minutes walk from my hall and nobody available for accompaniment i went, plus it was the last day it was being shown. I sat right at the front, if you're anything over 6ft the front row is a godsend, just me and a jovial elderly couple, so it felt slightly like a family viewing experience. The place was pretty busy, more than two thirds full anyway, and the arts centre always draws a better crowd (as in less tracksuits and ringtones) than a commercial cinema. I also find the front row the most absorbing place to watch a film,, there's no silhouetted heads layed out in front of you, and there's nothing to separate or distract you from the film.
Up In The Air was a film I really appreciated, the two other Jason Reitman films I've seen, Juno and Thank You For Smoking, were both excellent, and while i hadn't seen anything in the trailers for Up In The Air that made it look especially inspiring I was confident he'd produce something watchable at least. Of his two previous films it bears most resemblance to TYFS, the main character is a successful and on the surface ruthless business character. That kind of yuppie ideal, perfect hair, suit, all-access airport cards etc. But George Clooney's character is less high profile than Eckharts in TYFS, undoubtedly more grounded. This film is more...realistic might be the word I'm looking for. More beleiveable than TYFS at least, which is an exaggerated satire. This film is primarily about individuals and emotions, as opposed to corporations, governments and society.
The style is noticeably Reitmans as soon as you see the font for the credits and hear the opening song. The soundtrack for the film is actually pretty obscure and small, which isn;t a bad thing. At least two of the artists on it have only just started releasing their music for dl from their own websites, which makes it quite astonishing that they would feature on a major motion picture. Clooneys character is a man with unconvential views on human relations, and is the author of a book about backpacks and want you have in them; ie human relationships, family, a home, car etc etc; and what you want to have in them; ie nothing. He basically fears being weighed down by any form of commitment and his employment sees him spend most of his year jetting between hotels in any city in america, where his task is to fire employees of companies on behalf of their cowardly bosses. Without wanting to describe any more of the plot in detail, it's essentially a look at the different ideas of relationships people have, primarily romantic but also with family, and how these people interact with each other and their conflicting ideals.
All the performances are aces, with Clooney the most approachable and understandable i've found him yet. Jason Bateman puts in an unusual performance as a not especially nice guy, and goes down well with it. The female characters posses depth and personality (something very rare in hollywood), not to mention attractive suaveness. The male characters in this film perhaps come across as the more vulnerable and incapable, which is pretty glorious to see. The plot is neither predictable nor implausible nor boring, and the shooting style and choice of songs are as always with Reitman, bang on. It's 3/3 so far for a director who is fast becoming my favourite.

Foreign Policy

I've been reading tons of articles from this website -> Foreign Policy . It's about the best resource for up to date, informed opinion on basically any thing going on the world, that I've come across. While it's sort of American in initial outlook, there are masses of articles from contributors from all over the world and it offers great insight into nations I really know very little about, and their present politcal situations. Most of which aren't especially good. There are new articles put up every day, and I've been working my way through febuary's archive over the past week and have yet to finish it, such is the number and variety of articles on offer. For anyone who has any interest in the outside world it's a must read.

Song for the Day!

It's been aages since i posted one of these, The Tallest Man On Earth is the best folk musician to come out of Sweden in the last two years (I know, big stuff), here he is live, i don't think he has any actual music videos made yet. I've been listening to gajillions of albums since my last post so there should be many more following this, and i've downloaded so many more ontop of that and I will endeavour to share more.

Latest Epiphany

It's occured to me that I've been going about my life completely wrong yet again. In fact not 'again', there was never a pause in between that would allow it to be again, I've just been doing it wrong continually. Instead of concentrating on myself, as in being myself, living myself and working towards and for myself, I've been focusing on nothings and immediately unattainable things. Things that I've spent literally days thinking about; doing essentially nothing but thinking about them, barely focused on the music i listened to, the pages i've read or the conversations I've held. Tonight is probably the first time I've verbalised to somebody else what I've said to myself a dozen times before, that if i can find something, or multiple things, that can occupy me and advance me, and essentially just work for myself, then everything else will hopefully eventually fall into line.
But instead i convince myself that by thinking about these nothings that they're somehow more of a reality. If anything the opposite is true, as my memories end up distorted from over use, every detail of them so meticulously thought over that the original feelings they gave me have vanished completely. And i end up trying to memorise the last time I remembered them fondly, instead of the memories themselves. I don't believe anybody needs to contribute or create something, but I do think i could do with the distraction.
I'm always slightly concerned that posts like this come across as the writings of a suicidal loon. Rest assured no-one holds my well being closer to their heart than I do. It would be fair to say I have a love/loathing relationship with myself, but the loathing purely because i know i would be much happier if I would apply myself in any kind of direction. Unfortunately I've yet to find a way to decipher this in my inner consciousness.

Questioning Questionable Authority

The older i've gotten the more pessimistic i've become about state apparatus and it's operations. Conversely in my youth i held a relatively positive view of governments and the faculties which surrounded them, if my opinions now have altered it's through a failure of theirs, i'm well beyond teenage re-actionary, I'm not a joiner inner when it comes to causes and i never have been, usually preferring to rail against the opinions of my peers than those of the state. But i've been eventually pushed to conclude that there is a lot wrong with the way things are done, and if that sounds vague it's only because of the sheer quantity of wrongs and the sheer scale of correcting them.
Without elaborating too much further i'd like to profer a couple of examples which should better illustrate what i'm talking about. Take Howard Zinn, who i mention frequently because he so well understood the issues of modern government, as a college professor at the all-black women's Spellman college, joined four of his students for a civil rights protest. Their total of five was watched by a total of ten police officers. They weren't protesting a radical cause, a different political ideal or extolling a new religion, simply the extension of basic human rights to a portion of their nations population. Zinn attributed it to a fear that this small protest could grow into a large one and so the automatic reaction was to attempt to stamp on it immediately.
Henry Thoreau offers his view upon authoritarian organisations by stating that he would leave his isolated home in the woods for weeks on end and never, home or away, lock his door. People would come and go in that time, many of them complete strangers to him, yet he never suffered a single theft except that of one small book. He goes on to point out that one night he went into to town to see about a pair of shoes the local cobbler was mending and upon his arrival the local constabulary arrested him and put him in a cell for the night for apparent vagrancy. How were they mainting law and order, in a place that apparently needed none? He felt that they simply created villains out of those who did not conform, for want of any real villains to apprehend.
I think the resources expended by modern police forces on controlling or even closing down public congregations or rallies are the perfect testament to the continuation of this attitude. Surely the apparatus of state should exist not to control or oppress it's people but simply to, as the motto goes, 'Serve and Protect' them. Instead of baton charging climate change protesters, who's concern is for the well being of mankind, they should instead spend their time pursuing thieves and murderers. Instead of alienating positive members of society and in turn reducing their willingness to help or care when the state needs their support. All conclusions point to the abuse of the power which has supposedly been 'democratically' handed to them. Even speeding fines, when an individual is clocked going 31mph down a completely empty road in the middle of the night, serve only to alienate again, and the clear profit made by the government from them (each local council has to 'rent' cameras from the government) a clear indicator that they are not put there for our wellbeing. Even if they are they hardly work. Who can say themselves they haven't had at least one instance of the government essentially thrusting two fingers in their face for no kind of crime any of us would consider a real one?
Why western governments still feel the insatiable need to operate under these clandestine conditions against a generally well-meaning, good natured, hard working populace mystifies me. I think more than any other factor, it is the 'state' that has created criminals, and it uses them as an excuse to control the rest of us. They have made it so that socialising in any large group is a crime. Add to it Identity cards, endless CCTV, rafts of new and absurd minor offenses, obscene political correctness and an unhealthy fear of a media under corporate control and it's a wonder they haven't pushed us into complete political cynicism and a loathing of all authoratarian bodies.