Important: This site has moved..

Important: The site you are viewing now (the blogger one) is no longer being updated.

Please see my new site at: http://greggannicott.co.uk/blog/

Don't forget to update your bookmarks :-)

Drwnt.... t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. Drwnt

My gift to the world-wide-web: For those of you that were wondering what the tune is in Hollyoaks when Zoe is having fantasies about Mikes Barnes, it's "I Need to Know" by The Hours.

The web owes now me for that nugget of info.

New to the Site: Feeds

I've added a new section to the site (if you are still reading my Blogger blog, my actual site is here). It's called My Feeds and contains a few RSS feeds regarding this site and me. To see what the feeds are (there are a couple unconventional ones there) and to find out just what an RSS feed is, visit the new section here.

Madness Review

Here's a good review of the gig Madness did at the Bridgwater Palace.

For a change the urban blot on the M5 (Bridgwater) hasn't come off to bad, and to think that's in a national paper. I'm sure someone in Taunton will point out that's simply because the reviewer doesn't know the area like the rest of the south west do.

Click here for the review...

Cheers to Lional Flipdue for the link.

Music

It's been a while since I posted about the music I'm listening to at the moment, or anything else for that matter.

There's been a few posts I've wanted to write over the last month.

Notably:

- My top 5 albums of last year (I still aim to write that one)
- Write about the fact we're now looking for a new house. Obviously a wedding this year simply isn't enough excitement or stress for us.
- Point anyone who actually reads this blog to the best story of the year so far: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7174760.stm

Probably the two best albums I've purchased in the last couple months are Justice's Cross and The Stage Names by Okkervil River.

On first listen the Okkervil River sounded a little to much like the Killers for my liking, but after many listens it's really starting to come into it's own. The song that offended me the most at the beginning was "Unless It's Kicks", due to the fact it sounded like a strange mix of The Killers and Craig McLachlan (Yes, Henry in Neighbours). After some listens though that curious mix has resulted in it being my favourite song on a very good album.

Justice's Cross is first dance album I've bought in a while and is a cracker. Mixing Daft Punk with The Go! Team, it's an addictive listen. The best songs are the ones you should hate the most. A great example of that is "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy". The only song I can relate it to is Morgan's Miss Parker, filled with annoyances that when combined turn into something very good indeed. Other great songs on the album include the Go! Team like D.A.N.C.E with its shouting kids (quite possibly the best dance song I've heard since Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger") and early Daft Punk sounds of Phantom (Parts 1 and 2).

My most recent purchase is an album by Kevin Drew (of Broken Social Scene). I've only listened to it the once so far but it looks to be extremely promising. It sounds like a more accessible Broken Social Scene. My only gripe so far is that at 16 songs it goes on a bit.

One album I wasn't going to mention but I've just so happen to put on is Lily Allen's. Ignore what you've heard. Buy it, it's great!

So there you have it. There are other albums I'm really in to at the moment but I've run out of time.

BTW, which one's Pink?

I finally got around to watching the Pink Floyd doc that was on BBC One last week. I have to say it was really enjoyable. Featured plenty of footage I've never seen before and points of view from the band that I've up until then not heard.

Most suprisingly of all was the change in Roger Waters. The 20 minute set they did for Live 8 really seems to have changed his outlook. Up until then, the interviews I've heard and read has him sticking to his guns with regards to his views on why the band split up and the fact he was right. Yet in the documentary on more than one occasion he admitted being wrong. Very surprisingy but fair play to him.

Another thing I've noticed is that despite all their differences, they all have the same regrets with regards to Syd Barrett. They all regret burying their heads in the sand and not helping him.. being in a state of denial.

The guilt and love they have for Barrett (famously) comes through in their music, most of all in Shine On. Its those honest lryics and the music that goes with it that makes it one of the two 5 out of 5 star tunes on my iPod. Pink Floyd's Great Gig in the Sky being the other.

Finally, it still shocks me how every time I see that Live 8 performance (which granted, isn't often), I love it. There is something about seeing that that puts my hairs up on end. They showed a clip from it of them finishing off Comfortably Numb (that track would be another 5 out of 5 song if it wasn't for the parts of the song that isn't a solo). I've never seen them play with so much passion.

One last thing. I've got Piper at the Gates playing whilst I write this. Superb album, buy it if you don't already own it!

The Weekend

I saw this video on Becky's Facebook funwall. Thought it was worth sharing.

It's not so bad really..

It's safe to say I probably had my most stressful week in work to date last week. That counts for any job I've done in any business I've worked for. People who know me will know I don't stress that easily so fair play to Debenhams, they've truly achieved something.

However, it's a new week and in spite of the fact those same stresses are lingering somewhere; I'm far happier right now. Every now and then something triggers off the thought that I really like my job. I'm shocked that it happened earlier today (especially bearing in mind last week) but it happened.

I was sat at my desk doing some DB2 SQL in VI when someone came round to my desk with a new member of staff. He seemed quite a young chap. In fact it might well be true that I'm no longer the youngest person in Debenhams Development (that might never have been the case though). Whilst we were going through the usual introductions and handshakes (both of which I'm rubbish at) I noticed he glanced at my screen. At this point I thought to myself "If that were me and I saw someone working away on some code in an ugly looking command line editor (VI), I'd be really impressed". Sad, I know, but I'd think to myself "That job looks great. Proper geeky.". Once the introductions were over and he moved on to someone who said more than a whimpering "Hi" with a handshake to match, I took it a step further and wondered what else my job looked like.

Behind my VI session was an UltraEdit session with yet more confusing yet intriguing code. On my desk was a Boba Fett Star Wars figure hanging from a basketball hoop with a "Birthday Girl" badge attached (cheers Dean!). Next to that were a few programming reference books. Also on the desk was the iPod and a bag of opened Haribo.

I'm confident no one else feels the same way, but when I think of all that I consider myself to be really lucky to have such a great job. I've got my entire music collection there which I can spend most of the day listening too. That alone is fantastic for me. It helps that I get a kick out of the coding I do. Heck, I even have my own telephone number which rings once or twice a month.

So to sum up, in spite of the stress it brings, I really like my job.

Dave: Totally Viral

I watched a really good show the other night on Dave called Totally Viral. It's something I've been looking for for some time.

Basically they take the best video content from the web (eg. YouTube etc) and put it into a half hour tv show. I'm sure there is some great content out there on the web, but for now at least I don't really want to sift through all the videos of folk miming to Britney Spears and Feeder. Now I don't have to!

They feature some really funny clips. It's like the show that launched with BBC Three - Monkey Dust - but without the repetition.

More at: http://uktv.co.uk/dave/homepage/sid/6351

Technorati

I just gave the web service Technorati a try. One of the things that appealed to me was the feature whereby you give it a subject (eg. "Glastonbury Festival", "iPod" etc) and it provides you with a list of blog posts regarding the subject. I thought if it was good enough, I could take an RSS feed of each 'Watchlist' and include it in my Google Reader feeds.

So I tried this, but sadly almost all of the posts suggested are spam. Shame as its a good idea.

One good thing about Technorati though is the homepage. Using a nifty ajax interface, it provides a stream of new blog posts, sort of in real-time. It's something Delicious would benefit from. A few posts in I found a good YouTube video which was about a help desk setup to support the Death Star, manned by down-to-earth Storm Troopers. It crashed my browser though :-(

The strange thing is, since signing up for the service I can't seem to find that real-time feed! Typical.

White Label

I got my very first white-label 7" through the post today. I can't be sure whether the artist is called I Blame Coco or whether that's the name of the song. Either way, its a very good track. It's a female singer with a sparse yet funky and catchy melody/backing to it.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with a white-label in terms of packing etc. I've heard Peel refer to them many times, and from what I gather its released as a white-label because its the least expensive way of releasing a single.

I've just flicked on to the B-Side now. Very funky and dub like. I'm starting to wonder if its just an instrumental version of the A side. Either way, I like it. Strange as I never could see the point of those either.

Anyway, the packaging hasn't disappointed. The sleeve itself is white. And the actual record label itself is, as you'd guess, white, with "I Blame Coco" scruffily hand written on it in parker pen! Great!

I got six 7" singles in total through the post today (all random purchases (Bar Lorraine)). So far (3 records in) nothing I've listened to can stand up against "look look (dancing boys)" (see my post "The John Peel Experience"), but then I think that was a one off. Three songs I should hate but truly love. That's not to say the singles haven't been good.

At the time of writing this (sentence) I have Chinese Burn on and that is sounding really good. Kind of like early Beatles but with a twist. I've just flicked to the B-Side and strangely enough its the second song of the three records to sound like the Hollies.. is there a bit of a Hollies revival going on in the underground scene?!

As mentioned "I Blame Coco" was also very good. Both of those records I'd happily go out of my way to put on again (as is the case with records.. none of this drag-n-drop onto Winamp convenience).

The first single I played (High Priests) wasn't as good, which is a shame as that's the one I double ordered by mistake!

Still to get a play are Jazz Monkey, Dead Kids and Lorraine.

Lorraine are a band I saw support The Feeling in Taunton. I think I was the only person in the venue that "didn't mind em", rather than hate them. From memory they are like The Pet Shop Boys, so I'm baffled as to why I didn't dislike them.

New(ish) Look Site

For those of you (well, for the person) that reads my Blogger blog (if it's called Greg's Blog at the top, that's the one) you might like to know that the blog is now located at a new home. Its got exactly the same blog posts (as its based on an RSS feed from Blogger (saves me rewriting what the guys at Blogger have written)) but its on a site I designed myself alongside a list of all the music I own and how I rate that music. What's more, its running on my (incredibly geekish thing to do) home Linux server.

The music section is probably the first bit of code on the web that I've created since the days of Easyhosts, and I'm really pleased with it. For those who are interested in HTML, PHP, the Zend Framework, Javascript, XML and JSON, I might write up how I went about creating the site. That sounds incredibly dull to most people, but to tell you the truth is the sort of thing I'd quite enjoy reading if some of my friends wrote such a thing.

Just to get one thing straight, the music section is populated by a script that takes the data from my iTunes. I'm not sad enough to manually enter the details myself, but just sad enough to write a script that does it for me..

The new site: www.greggannicott.co.uk

The John Peel Experience

I made my first random 7" single purchase last week off of the Rough Trade website. I say random, but it was slightly swayed by the fact that the a side track was titled "Arse Road". Imagine my delight when it arrived and one of the B sides was called "Titwank".

It (by look look (dancing boys)) already felt like something John Peel would play. This whole feeling was added to when I played it and couldn't be sure if I was playing it at the right speed (I'm still not sure now).

I'm not sure if I could handle an entire album, but for three songs its a great listen. Sadly I can't find the lyrics online, but I can say with confidence it couldn't be further from progressive rock if it tried.

Losing Pounds

"Good news everyone" - I've lost 6lbs in the past few months. I've not been trying as such, but I have certainly been eating healthier. I'm still some way from the11st back when I worked in Wickes though.

Some shocking news though. Yesterday we had a letter through the post to say that the price of our home and contents insurance has changed. Don't worry it said, you don't need to do a thing! Well thank god for that - my kind of letter! Luckily I glanced at the new price, and a good job I did too.

If it had gone up by a few quid a month, I could have lived with that. If it had gone up a tenner, I'd start to question it. When it goes up from £23/mo to a whopping £63/mo, I'd have no other choice than to believe it must be a typing error! Nope, it was for real. When I spoke to the lady on the phone she didn't really hesitate in telling me that maybe its time for us to leave them. "We obviously won't want to lose your custom, but it might be in your best interest to cancel your account with us.". Damm straight.

I have a horrible feeling its going to backfire in 7 years time (when my only memory if this incident lies in reading this entry), and the house has just flooded, but we've opted to go with Tesco. It's half the price we were previously paying, and lets just hope we don't pay for it in the long run.

More Peel Quotes

Some Peel quotes for your reading pleasure. Thanks to Rossall for these:

- - - - - - - - - - -

After Morrissey's falsetto wailing at the end of 'What Difference DoesIt Make?': "Ah, the sound of distant seagulls"

If Elvis were alive today, I think he'd really understand happyhardcore."

People like Mike Read and DLT would often complain that they couldn't goanywhere without being recognized, but of course would go everywhere ina tartan suit carrying a guitar, so they would have attracted attentionin a lunatic asylum. In the streets of London, people would go, "Who thef**k is that? Isn't that that Mike Read bloke?"

From when he was presenting Top of the Pops. After a video of the dismalAretha Franklin/George Michael duet (i forget it's name), it cuts backto Peel who says:"You know, Aretha Franklin can make any old rubbish sound good, and ithink she just has."

Show starts.A motorcycle revving noise.Some guitars being very loud and heavy.Then some guitars being very loud and heavy with a man shouting. alllast about five seconds."Three tracks from Napalm Death, there, in session tonight..."

In 1993 Peel took over the lunchtime slot for a week afterthen-controller Johnny Beerling was challenged by someone at aconference. He'd obviously been told "Look man, we don't want tocompromise your show, but remember there will be a different audiencelistening, and we do have a daytime playlist to follow... just bear thatin mind, OK?" First record - "Why Are People Grudgeful?" by The Fall,followed with the obscure reggae original version of the same song. Hethen continued in the same vein, playing a lot of hard-trance, the oddBeefheart classic and making snide comments about most of the playlist.For instance, the Chris Issak which included the line '...and you can'tdo a thing to stop me' to which Peel retorted, "Yes I can, mate, I cantake your awful CD out of the machine and throw it as far away from thisstudio as possible." For a brief moment, we thought we'd won. Next week,he was back on the night-shift. Bet off.

Peel's compering debut on TOTP: "In case you're wondering who this funnyold bloke is, I'm the one who comes on Radio 1 late at night and playsrecords made by sulky Belgian art students in basements dying of TB."

They sound like somebody's been given a good kicking - set to music.

Another TOTP classic, after a particularly dismal Duran video:JP (jaunty): Well that was the best song I've heard since...well, teatime. Mind you, I had a late tea.

"Janice has just phoned to ask if I can play some Whitney Houston.Haven't got any Whitney tonight, Janice, but here's Bolt Thrower"

Cbeebies and the smell of fresh shit..

Me and Becky had our nephew round for the night last night. Its the first time we've had him overnight and although it was stressful (you can never really relax), it was great fun with it. He's 18 months old and at the great age where he's not only really good fun (anyone who can kick a ball instantly become fun, and its great when he uncontrollably giggles!) but he doesn't chat back either - not at least with anything I can make sense of.

In much the same way I wonder how people survived without tv remotes and mobile phones, just how did people get by before the TV channel Cbeebies came about? Sure you had kids tv, but never quite on demand like it is now. I'd love to know the science behind how it works, as they've managed to engineer the content on the channel so it instantly grabs the kid's attention (much like that Whiskers advert use to with cats). There was a show on there being narrated and presented by Martin Clunes (of Men Behaving Badly fame). I'm sure my nephew didn't have a clue what Clunes was chatting about, but he was gripped. Yet I can be sure that if I flicked the channel over to ITV1 so Doc Martin was on (also starring Clunes) he wouldn't want to know about it.

I realise there is a lot of talk in the media at the moment about kids watching too much tv, but I can hardly blame the parents. Cbeebies is like the magic bullet for almost any situation. If he's getting restless or agitated, flick it on and he's happy. Whats more, it looks like it's designed to teach as well - bonus!

One final thing.. nothing - not even numerous amount of visits to dodgy Glastonbury Festival toilets - can prepare you for the task of changing a nappy after a kid has really gone to town in it. Heck, I was only watching. That was bad enough! Poor old becks was changing it and I don't think she knew whether to laugh or cry. She chose hysterics.

Spare Time

This week I have a great deal of spare time on my hands. Not only do I have a week off work, but Becky is also away for a week over in Ibiza. So with that in mind (or rather to occupy my mind) I hope to watch as many DVDs and listen to as much music as I can.

I've got a few films lined up that I've bought during the past couple years but have never got around to watching them. Amongst them are:

Trainspotting
JFK
Dr Strangelove

... and some film starring Mel Gibson about Jesus. I can't remember the name of that one.

In terms of music, I thought it is a great chance to listen to the CDs that never really clicked or never really had the chance to. That part of my week has got off to a good start. Already I've listened to the following albums:

The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
James Yorkston - Moving Up Country
Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East

There were a couple tracks that really stood out for me on the Mars Volta album (The Widows and L'Via L'Viaquez), but the most enjoyable album yet (and I thought it would be the least) is The Allman Brothers Band one. Really enjoyable background music complete with blues solos of all sorts.

Office Dares

Some of these appealed to my childish side. Thanks to James for these..

ONE-POINT DARES: (1)

• Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.
• To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears and grimace.
• Leave your fly open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "Sorry, I really prefer it this way".
• Walk sideways to the photocopier.
• While going in an elevator, gasp dramatically each time the doors open.
• When in elevator with one other person, tap them on the shoulder and pretend it wasn't you.
• Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy..."
• Don't use any punctuation.
• Use your highlighter pen on the computer screen.

THREE-POINT DARES: (3)

• Say to your boss, "I like your style", wink, and shoot him with double-barrelled fingers while making a clicking sound with your tongue that resembles the sound of a revolver.
• Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle.
• Shout random numbers while someone is counting.
• Every time you get an email, shout ''e-mail''.
• Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone is over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
• Introduce yourself to a new colleague as "the office bicycle". Then wink and pout.
• Call I.T. help desk and tell them that you can't seem to access any pornography web-sites.

FIVE-POINT DARES : (5)

• At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the national anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).
• Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10times.
• For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob".
• Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two".
• In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!"
• During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.
• As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
• Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
• Hump the photocopier. When someone spots you, stop and cough embarrassingly, then lean in to the machine and whisper loudly, "I'll call you tonight".

Saving Face

In a bid to regain (if thats the appopriate word.. perhaps 'gain' is more apt) some credibitily following the previous Bon Jovi post, here are some songs by other bands I'm currently quite litterally addicted to..

The New Pornographers - Myriad Harbour (I don't think I've played a tune so many times in one day before)
Modest Mouse - One Chance
Deerhoof - Believe ESP
Interpol - Mammoth (Didn't like it at first. Thats certainly changed)
The Fall - Bingo Masters Breakout
Wilco - You Are My Face (Just when you think they've gone completely easy listening they hit you with a twist)
Taken By Trees - Lost and Found
Cherry Ghost - Four Eyes (B-Side)
REM - Begin the Begin
Man Man - Enrish Bwudd (bonkers)
Lily Allen - Everything's Just Wonderful

Owning up to your hidden truths..

Before I go into the detail, I'll just get admission over and done with. Not only did I once think Bon Jovi were an 'ace' band when I was about 11, but to tell you the truth, when I look back at their earlier stuff now, it still sounds really good.

That's a bit of a general statement, so I should focus it a bit more. Their first two albums were flakey at best. Their third, Slippery When Wet certainly had its moments ("Wanted Dead or Alive" for instance). Their next album New Jersey has it's fair share of 80s poodle rock, but there are a couple cracking songs on it, the highlight probably being "I'll Be There For You".

It's their 5th album (Keep The Faith) that's stood the test of time though. One of my brothers popped round earlier to update his iPod, and whilst going through it we spotted Bon Jovi and made some derogatory remark. One of us then said "Yeah, but Dry County is a good song. No denying that!". So we had a look at the album its from (Keep The Faith) and went through each track commenting on whether its any good. To our surprise we were keen on the majority of them. Looking back its a good album thats overlooked when people take the mickey out of the band.

If for some reason you feel like delving back into the late 80s/early 90s, I'd suggest checking out these tracks (those in bold are well worth trying):

Band : Album : Song

Bon Jovi : New Jersey : I'll Be There For You
Bon Jovi : New Jersey : Wild Is The Wind
Bon Jovi : Keep The Faith : Keep The Faith
Bon Jovi : Keep The Faith : In These Arms
Bon Jovi : Keep The Faith : Bed Of Roses
Bon Jovi : Keep The Faith : If I Was Your Mother (Surprisingly heavy for them..)
Bon Jovi : Keep The Faith : Dry County (A 10 minute epic! Thats something you don't associate with the Jovi)
Jon Bon Jovi : Blaze of Glory : Blaze of Glory
Jon Bon Jovi : Blaze of Glory : Sante Fe (Cracking tune this. Seriously, try it)
Jon Bon Jovi : Blaze of Glory : Bang a Drum (Gospel singers n all)

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: My Stag Day Plans

Or 'Bucks Day' for all my Aussie readers...

Along with the rest of the wedding, plans are actually starting to take shape for my stag day - and I have to say, I like them.

The current plan (bare in mind that this is the first plan we've had and its now been in existence for 27 minutes at the time of writing - so it's subject to change) is to hire a coach for the day/night and at some point in the day set off on a mini tour of country pubs. So far, fairly standard stuff for a Bridgwater stag day. That doesn't make that part any less enjoyable though. Then, after that, the coach drops us off at... The Newt Beer Fest!! I have to say, brilliant idea by my Best Man James. He suggested maybe going to a beer fest and it just so happens that Newt is usually a couple weeks before July 19th (my, er, our big day!). I've never been to it before but for a few years running now I've been tempted - its just its always been an issue getting there. The coach takes care of that :-)

From what I gather the bands that play there are mainly local, but that's besides the point. Who cares about the music lineup when you have a beer lineup like this (the 2007 Beer List):

http://www.newtbeerfest.com/beerlist.asp

The Power of Three

It's recently occurred to me that my web usage is all based around just the three sites. Very rarely do I access content without first going through these sites.

They all serve difference purposes but all ultimately help me find the content I find useful and/or interesting.

Google
http://www.google.com/
The most obvious of the three is Google. Rarely does a day go by that something doesn't crop up in my everyday life that I need to quickly look something up. It could be anything ranging from settling a bet, looking up some Korn Shell code through to finding out what the latest in the long line of obscure words used by my colleague Bob Quinton means (usually using the 'define:' feature).

Delicious
http://del.icio.us/greggannicott
I use del.icio.us (soon to be renamed Delicious) for storing my bookmarks. Its hard to describe to someone who doesn't use Delicious (or a similar service) just how handy it is to not only be able to access your bookmarks from any PC with net access, but to also be able to store, manage and view so many of them with ease. I would never dream of having 231 bookmarks stored within Internet Explorer, Opera or Firefox, let alone manage and replicate them both at home and in work. Thankfully another colleague of mine, Mark Williams was able to convince me of how handy it is.

Google Reader
http://www.google.com/reader/
Finally, the latest addition to my list of useful sites. Once again I have Mark to thank for introducing me to this and I've not looked back since. Google Reader enables you take a large number of RSS/Atom feeds and easily manage and read them. Thankfully almost every site I follow contains an RSS feed. Whether that is Tech Crunch, Dan Lawrence's blog or the JMS News Feed. Whenever a new addition is made to any of those, an entry appears in Google Reader. This is handled in date order so every day I can go through my list of items, flag up those that are of interest to me and then read them when I have the time. The glory of it being so easy to glance at the content and flag it for later is the fact it enables you to subscribe to even more feeds, whilst not taking up much of your time as a result yet still getting to read it all in the end!

So it turns out girls don't really smell after all..

There was once a time I'd struggle to name a good female artist besides Alanis Morissette - now-a-days I'm spoilt for choice..

The first one to mention is probably the most shocking on the list. Along with around 7 to 8 other posts/subjects per day, I intended on writing a blog entry about her back in early July. Since then I was glad I didn't as I figured it might just have been a phase I was going through and maybe she wasn't as good as I'd thought at the time. However, I listened to Lily Allen again on the way home from work today and it was every bit as good as I remembered!

I was lucky enough to see her at Pilton this year - I never intended to but my mate (Gee - uh sorry, Simon) wanted to see her and I was intrigued. Even ignoring how much it amused me at just how much offence Simon took from her slagging off of blokes with small dicks (listen to her song Not Big), it was a ruddy good set. It sounded great and there were clearly some good tunes amongst it.

She appears to have a great knack of not only writing tunes that hook you in, but lyrics to match. I'm almost tired of what's become known as 'kebab and texts' lyrics by the likes of The Streets, Arctic Monkeys and Lily Allen, but for the time being I enjoy kind of being able to relate to them.

Next up on the female list is the band/singer Taken By Trees. This is the solo outing by the ex-Concretes lead singer. Until now I've only ever heard two songs involving her. The first is a Concretes track New Friend which I have on a Rough Trade compilation. The other (also on a Rough Trade comp) is the always great to listen to simplistic love song "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John (she was guest vocalist). With both tracks I couldn't help but get suckered in by her sensual voice. Her debut album is a sparse affair. With the wrong kind of singer it would be the sort of album I'd only be able to listen to when I was very much in the right mood, but I think that thanks to her voice I could listen to this in most moods.

The next album is officially the first ever album I downloaded legally (and in fairness only the second whole album I downloaded - the other being Soft Parade by The Doors from KaZaA). It's only now though I'm appreciating just how good an album it is. The album is "Let's Get Out of This Country" by Camera Obscura. It would be far to easy to dismiss this band as Belle & Sebastian but with a female lead. There songs have great melodies with a great deal going on. And it's not often I'm able to truly pick out one of the things it is I like about a band, but I love their rythmn section! Its just something about the instruments used and their pacing.

Finally, its the always solid yet never dull Rilo Kiley. They're back with a new long-player towards the end of the month, but until then I'm quite happily making do with the cd single The Moneymaker. When I first heard it on 6Music I had to double check that it was Rilo Kiley. I recognised the voice of Jenny Lewis, but the sound of the band was very different to what I expected. It has a funky guitar lick which grows on me every time I hear it. At the moment I'd say it's far from being there greatest 5 minutes, but it looks promising stuff for the album.

Peel Quote

Just read a good quote regarding John Peel I thought I'd share. It's by Steve Albini (producer/engineer of albums by bands such as Pixies, Nirvana and Wedding Present) and goes some way to explaining Peel's openness to music:

"John Peel said something that I thought was really profound. He said when he gets a record from somebody and he doesn't like it, he assumes that it's his problem and that the band would not have made that record if there wasn't something valuable about it."

Amen.