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.

Even Miles Davis was harmed by the 80s... who's next?!

I recently started purchasing vinyl records with a view to getting a record player some day soon (that day was today in fact). I'm not quite sure why I want to buy records as almost all logic points to the fact I shouldn't, but for whatever reason it is, I do.

One thing that appeals (although I think this is thinking a few years ahead, as I strangely sometimes do with my purchases) is the idea of going into the spare room that has my music, sticking on a relaxing jazz/blues record and chilling out to it. Of course, I could easily stick on a CD or MP3, but it just wouldn't be the same.

With this in mind I thought it would be a good idea to own a Miles Davis record. So, when I spotted one for a tenner whilst browsing a record fair at the Glastonbury Festival, I figured why not. I was already buying a Pixies record so one way or another I was going to have to get a record home. So I picked up an album of his called Decoy. Usually when I purchase an album by someone I'm unsure of, I check out the year it was recorded and try to buy one from a time the artist was at their peak. Now I don't know much about Miles Davis, but if I were thinking straight I'd probably aim for the 50s/60s. What I would have made sure I did was NOT buy something from the 80s, because very few things that come from that decade (be it a Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Johnny Cash album) are any good (with the exception of that Pixies album I mentioned earlier). And that's exactly what I did.. 1984 in fact.

And as if I needed any more convicing that the 80s were shite, this record confirms it. I'm not one to dismiss music out of hand - and I'm open to the idea that this may well become an enjoyable record for me in time - but when all the good things about jazz (such as the sax) are replacing with all things that are evil about the 80s (such as the synthesiser), I'm left with little choice but to dismiss it. It's still playing as I type (in fact I just made the effort to stand up and flip the disc), so I suppose I can take some confort in the fact it's not been stopped yet, and I do aim to hear it again, but it's going to be some tricky listening.

A Solid Selection of Music

Usually the music I'm listening to is all over the place, but these past couple weeks it's been mainly focussed on the same set of artists. This is slightly driven by Glastonbury but also by the fact that they are all really good albums that deserve some attention. They are:

Rufus Wainwright - Release The Stars
I have this on as I type and I'm just starting to appreciate how good it is (in fact I've just sent a text to my brother to say how good it is). I saw him at Pilton (I'm local, so it's almost an unwritten law that I refer to Glasto as 'Pilton') a few years back. The first track he played was superb and was enough to stop going to where ever it was I was going and sit down and listen. Sadly the rest of the set was dull. However, his latest album promises a lot more with some real stand-out tracks on there. I look foward to see him playing this year in-spite of my previous experience.

Standout track: Going To A Town

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Although I could see it was a good album from the start, it was never really a threat to their previous album - until now. It's starting to sound fantastic and I'm glad I've kept at it.

Standout track: My Body Is A Cage

The National - Boxer
If ever there were a band who write slow burners, it's these. On first listen the songs sound pleasant enough, but never truly grab you. Their previous album, Alligator was a fine example of this. Boxer has yet to completely grab me, but it's darn close, I can tell! Gutted these are not playing Glasto as I think they'd be fantastic live. Oddly enough, when I saw Marrillion on Friday, I thought that if you ignore their wailing lead singer you had a good band there, sounding a fair bit like The National.

Standout track: Fake Empire

Pixies - Doolittle
I absolutely love this album. So many great songs on there. If I can just avoid murderning it I think it might well turn out to be one of my top 10 albums. Before I purchased it I was already familiar with Monkey Gone to Heaven and the strangely great Hey. A favourite track that I was not aware of is Mr. Grieves. Kicking off with a dub-like beat, Black Francis stutters his way through the lines "Hope everything is all right..". A line or two later and it's bounces into the chorus. So many ideas going on in one song. Great.

Standout track: Mr. Grieves

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Believe the hype. It's a great album. I don't think it has as many stand-out tracks as their debut, but it's probably a more consistently good album. And - like their debut - the final track is a corker.

Standout track: 12 - 505

Of Montreal - Icons, Abstract Thee (EP)
I love EPs. Long enough to get into, but not to long as to get the fidgets and move on to the next artist. This is a solid EP, although there isn't one track on there that is better than any tracks on their latest album 'Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?'. Don't let that put you off though, it just so happens that their latest album is (alongside Modest Mouse's latest) probably the best album I've heard this year.

Standout track: No Conclusion (note: I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this is partially down to the fact it contains the lyrics "cock-sucking blues". A very 00s take on a roots tradition.)

Albums that haven't grabbed me, probably should have and no doubt will...

The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
Make no mistake about it, it's a great album that I know I'll listen to during the coming months - its just so far, apart from the first couple tracks, there are no stand-out tracks.. yet. Talking about the opening track though, what an opening track! I've never heard rythmn guitar sound so good as it does as it kicks in early on in this track.

Bright Eyes - Cassadanga
As with The Shins, the first two songs on this album are also brilliant. With the opening track 'Clairaudients (Kill Or Be Killed)' reminding me of Atom Heart Mother era Floyd and the second track 'Four Winds' sounding like Desire era Dylan. After that though, much like The Shins again, there are no tracks that stand-out. Much like The Shins though, I expect this to change (especially after seeing him/them live at Pilton soon).

Mr Biffo

Why waste your time reading this blog when you could be reading Mr Biffo's, who actually has something to say and has a funny way of saying it.

Glastonbury 2007

Well, the line-up has been announced.

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/lineups.php?hits_seen=0&Year=2007&FestID=1175

Headliner wise I don't think it's all that special, but in terms of the line-up having bands I'm either in to or interested by, it's a corker. The big one for me is Modest Mouse with Arcade Fire a close second. Anyway, for those who are interested (or at the very least wouldn't mind an idea of the sort of music I'm in to) here's what I plan to see:

Must See

Gogol Bordello
Arcade Fire
Bright Eyes
Modest Mouse
The Little Ones
Liam Frost

Want to See

Arctic Monkeys
The Earlies
Guillemots
Bjork
Rufus Wainwright
Super Furry Animals
The Cribs
The Long Blondes
Chemical Brothers
Cold War Kids
Amp Fiddler
Tokyo Police Club
The Hours
Mr Scruff
Charlotte Hatherley
Cherry Ghost
Duke Special

If there is nothing else on, then I'd very happily go to:

Amy Winehouse
The Who
Damian Marley
Editors
Babyshambles
Mika
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
The Go! Team
Hot Chip
Mumm-Ra
Tiny Dancers
The Noisettes
Infadels
Annie Nightingale
The Cat Empire
The Broken Family Band
3 Daft Monkeys
Beans on Toast (Only because it's a brilliant band name)
The Electric Soft Parade

Why we were always destined to get married...

So there a I am, layed out in the bath listening to a bit of Modest Mouse when I let another one rip. As is often the case in the bath, it sounds great, enchanced by the bath itself.

Seconds later I get a phone call from Becky on my mobile...

"I just heard your fart down here! I'm impressed.."

We really were meant for each other....

Here today, gone tomorrow - hahahahaha

As I type I'm 'on a call' - what this means is something has gone tits up on Debenhams' Data Warehouse and I'm the one that investigates any issues it has this weekend.

Until today it's been a good data warehouse - although in the past few hours it's let itself go a little causing no fewer than 9 errors. I've taken care of 4, and someone else is now investigating the other 5 for me (hence I'm writing this - if there were anything I could do, I'd be doing it. But I'm out of ideas and it looks like it's an issue with the DB2 database itself - not my juris-frickin-diction as they say in Hollywood).

Every time I get a call I try to at least make it a pleasant event, with a very slowly drunk beer (the taste is good enough to please me now I'm getting older, without the side effects to match) and some great music.

Music wise (and this is the point of this post really) I try and get something that doesn't destract - just plays nicely in the background. Today I opted for one of my faves - none other than the mighty Pink Floyd.

Every time I listen to them I forget just how good they are, and how much I enjoy listening to them. A testemant to this is whenever I put on a Floyd track, I really struggle to listen to anything else straight after. So I end up listening to Floyd until I have to go somewhere other than at the PC.

I started this incident with Ummagumma (Live), followed by Atom Heart Mother and now I have time to actually pay proper attention to the music I'm listening to Dark Side of the Moon.

Superb.

Glasto Shaping Up

Glastonbury 2007 is really starting to take shape now. Only a few days ago I was starting to wonder whether the line-up was much cop (mind you, a bad lineup doesn't make a bad Glastonbury), but with the addition of Modest Mouse (!!), I've taken another look at the lineup and I'm now starting to fear that I'm going to have to miss one must-see band to catch another. I must stress, the following list is based on rumours, but when efestivals.co.uk state To Be Confirmed, you can be pretty sure that they will be playing. The following bands look set to be on the bill and are all bands I'd pay good money to see:

• Modest Mouse
• Bright Eyes
• Arcade Fire
• Gogol Bordello
• Mr Scruff
• Arctic Monkeys

If there were just a few more additions (namely those listed below - all pretty realistic requests really, otherwise I'd chuck on Pink Floyd, Radiohead etc), I couldn't ask for a better line-up:

• Of Montreal
• Rilo Kiley
• The Little Ones
• The Shins
• Liam Frost
• Simple Kid

Still, the existing line up is pretty spot on.


Glastonbury Line-up at efestivals

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

So the follow up to what I currently believe to be my personal favourite album ever is finally here - and with that in mind, strangely I didn't really have high hopes for Modest Mouse's 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank'.

I've listened to their previous album, 'Good News For People Who Like Bad News' many many times, to the extent that I know every nook and cranny of the trademark Modest Mouse sound. I've learnt with Mansun that the more I look forward to the album, the more likely it is I'm going to hear it a couple times and put it to one side as I've already conquered them as a band, and I've been expecting it to happen with this album. Not only did this album have to be at least half as good as Good News (a tall order imho), but it had to sound different with it. Baring in mind that in America Modest Mouse hit the big time with Good News, I expected more of the same from them (why change a winning formula?).

So I'm chuffed to say that it's a ruddy addictive listen, with the moments of brilliance that I come to expect from MM. As with Good News, the more I listen to We Were Dead, the more I realise just how good each individual song is. It took a couple listens before I noticed the difference between each song, but I did have it on whilst at work, so I wasn't really focused on it.

It's not a massive leap from Good News, especially when you consider how big a leap Good News was from The Moon & Antarctica, but it's still a leap, with the lead singer of The Shin (James Mercer) on backing vocals adding a variety to Isaac Brock's shouting.

On guitar is well known former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr (I know very little about him or his 'sound' so I won't even try to claim that I can hear the influence he has had).

The album kicks off with a 'The Decemberists ' sounding song, March Into the Sea, complete with accordion and a sea-shanty sound (I love that right now, all thanks to The Decemberists). This song is a slightly new direction for MM, but certainly not a bad one.

On the heels of the opener is probably the most accessible song on the album, Dashboard. As such, if you were to download one track as a sample, make it this one. This is the nearest song this album has to Float On, with the inclusion of (albeit minimal) trumpets and I believe a fiddle.

One of the weaker tracks off the album (not that it's a poor song by a long shot) is next, in the form of Fire It Up. That said, as I listen to it now it's already growing on me.

Florida (song 4) has moments of brilliance, although overall the song is slightly annoying due to it's repetitive nature, but if you can get past that it's actually one of the best tracks on the album with a great stomping ending and fantastic grungy guitar completely turning the song around.

Parting of the Sensory is one of the songs that make this such an addictive listen. It wouldn't sound out of place on either Moon or News, this is Mouse sounding at their very best, bringing together everything that is great about them and placing it into the one song. Crunching guitar, funky beat, the fiddle and Brock yelling with as much passion as ever.

Missed The Boat appears to be the first song on the album featuring The Shins lead singer James Mercer, and it's another new direction for MM with a relaxing, melodic chorus. It would make an ideal single.

We've Got Everything is for me the second weakest track on the album. Whilst on the previous track James Mercer really added to MM's sound, on this occasion he detracts from it. Not that it's all down to him. It's generally a repetitive track, although it does show signs of hope. I'd imagine it will grow on me in time.

Fly Trapped In A Jar kicks off with a hook you could swear you've heard somewhere else before (as it should be with all great hooks) and on that hook alone it's a great song. It could easily be a sister track to Shit Luck off of The Lonesome Crowded West album, although lyrically it's a massive improvement on Shit Luck (that said, the shoddy lyrics in Shit Luck was it's charm). 'Fly' has a couple twists in it, leaving you to think it's moved on to the next track. Apart from a lyrical reference, until you hear that catchy hook which opened the track, end it, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a new track.

Education is a good song - it's only problem is it's placed straight after Fly Trapped In a Jar, with a very similar rhythm and sound. This leaves you thinking "this is all a bit similar...". Some times it works when songs that follow sound similar, I don't believe it does on this occasion though. If the song were played on its own it would sound much better for it.

Little Motel is a mellow number. I get the feeling it's one of those songs that don't grab you straight away, but a time will come when it's played at just the right moment and it will be a stand-out song, such as on a hung-over summer's Sunday afternoon.

The pace picks up and the bouncy rhythm is back with Steam Engenius. A typical MM track, oozing layer upon layer of different sounds - the sort of technique that could give this album that same ability as Good News in that you can listen to it for the 1000th time, and still hear something new.

At eight minutes and twenty seven seconds long, Spitting Venom is the longest track on the album. Typically speaking if you see a track of that length on a MM album you expect what they have come to refer to as a 'lounge' song - a song where they just let themselves go and to an extent, jam. Not this time though. Starting with just Brock and an acoustic guitar, one minute thirty seconds in, a superb bit of electric guitar kicks in (if that is what Marr has brought to them, then he's very welcome to stay with the band). From then on the song still sounds like MM, but is taken a step further with more great guitar, yet more twists and turns, some touching trumpets and an amthemic ending, all coming together to form one of the best songs on the album.

People As Places As People can only be a let down after Spitting Venom (which I think really should have been the album closer). Nothing to note on this right now I'm feeling quite tired.

Invisible, the song that brings the album to the end does it with some energy (a far cry from Good News' Flaming Lips collaberation Good Times Are Killing Us). Trademark MM guitar in the background, if that is Marr playing he's fitted in well. To be honest I'm to tired to write any more on this. With regards to writing reviews, this album goes on about 2 tracks to long. Good song though :)

Anyway, if you've read this far I should appoligise if the above was in anyway pretensios for a blog entry. After reading so many album reviews, I thought I'd give it a shot myself. I was quite curious to see if it helped me to actually listen to and take in the songs - and I believe it has. I think sitting here writing this has achieved the same as hearing the album 10 times on the iPod whilst going to work. Far more tiring though as a result!

Dirty Dancing Wedding

Read about this in The Metro newspaper (the free one you get on the train). Being a closet Dirty Dancing fan myself (and I don't believe that means I should be coming out of a closet despite what some might say), I thought it was good.

Basically, for the first dance of their wedding, a couple spent 6 months learning how to dance in order to do the dance that features at the end of the movie. They did a cracking job to. Fair play for doing 'the lift' as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG6RQyhXaxs

Don't expect me and Becky to put this much effort into our first dance - or even appear for it for that matter.. I think I might try and find a spoken word track for ours so no dancing is required.

Playing Catchup with Peel

I've just visited the following site which is a collection of legal mp3s. The overall theme is they are either Peel Sessions or were played by John Peel on his show.

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/gsteel/radioplus/

I use to visit this site all the time 'back in the day' and as I've just finished his biography (which was a superb read btw) I thought I'd check it out again.

What I find most shocking about this site is there are quite a few bands on there who at the time I'd never heard of, but I'm now getting into. That fact along with many others really makes me miss his show. I feel it could have been of more use and more enjoyable now than it ever was for me. Some bands who passed me by back then but I'm currently playing include:

The Shins
Camera Obscura
Stephen Malkmus
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Pretty Girls Make Graves
Interpol
Death Cab for a Cutie

New Music: Of Montreal, Deerhoof

Whilst browsing the pages of eMusic I noticed a band called Of Montreal. I added them to my 'To Download Later' list without hesitation, simply on the basis they appeared to be from Canada. Generally speaking, Canada appears to be a great source of music (I just did a search of Google to see which bands come from Canana - confirming those that I thought were, and finding those that I didn't even realise were - rest assured I included '-"bryan adams"' in my search terms. That search revealed just how many of the bands I thought came from Canada in fact don't, which just adds to the reasons why I shouldn't have downloaded the Of Montreal album - which is what this blog entry is about). So, as a result of my search for this entry, I found the following bands/artist come from Canada:

Neil Young
Arcade Fire
The Broken Social Scene

I know, not as many as I'd hoped. I personally had Cold War Kids down as Canadian - sadly not though. Anyway, even just taking the above bands, it's a solid list and reason enough to trust all music from Canada I'd say. So based on that I added an Of Montreal album to my eMusic Saved For Later list. It still wasn't enough to convince me to download it, but it got me as far as the shall I? shant I? process.

The decision was sealed when I read a positive review of their new album on Planet Sound. So off I set to download an older album of theirs. It must have been my lucky day though, as eMusic has the new album ("Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?") up for download, in spite of the fact it's not for sale until Feb. This is most unlike eMusic.

It's a cracking album though. Every now and then I hear an album that I instantly take to and hammer (Modest Mouse's "Good News For People Who Like Bad News", Gogol Bordello's "Gypsy Punks", Rilo Kiley's "The Execution Of All Things", Simple Kid's "1" for instance) - this was one of those.

It's the first album I've heard that is not only as bold as Mansun's Six, but actually managed to pull it off - something I think The Fiery Furnaces tried but failed to do, but that's just my opinion.

It's very much electric in nature, but by no means an electronic album. Best way to think of it is by comparing The Flaming Lips' Yoshima against Soft Bulletin.

Biggest shock of all is Pitch Fork actually agree with me on this: Pitchfork Review: Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

The funny thing is, after downloading and loving this album, I looked them up on Wikipedia and it turns out they are in fact American. Still, can't complain.

So that is an album I've downloaded an loved. The next album I'm looking for to downloading/buying is the latest album by Deerhoof ("Friend Opportunity"). I first heard and got into Deerhoof when I found out they were supporting The Flaming Lips - this was the night before the gig. I downloaded their latest album at the time ("The Runners Four") and and relatively quickly took to it. It was patchy in places, but when it was good, it was good. It's the nature of the sort of music they played. Although I largely ignored them at the Lips gig (nothing to do with them, more because I was having a good conversation) what I did catch was a good sound and very enjoyable (she's well wierd!).

The next album promises to be more hit and less miss than the last, with the good being even better.

Pitchfork Review: Deerhoof - The Runners Four

I'm Currently Reading: Margrave of the Marshes (John Peel Autobiography)

For the first time that I can remember, I've left one book I really enjoyed and dived right into another.

Usually when I finish a book, in spite of just how much I enjoyed reading it I never use the momentum and read another, which is daft as I really love reading a good book.

So I've gone from less than trodden ground for me with a story of entrepreneurial success (The Google Story) to safe ground in the form of a music orientated book.

I've only read the introduction and the first 3 chapters, but it looks like it's going to be a really good read. Usually the intro is a chore for me, something that needs to be read but at such an early stage I have no real interest in what it has to say. On this occasion the intro was an enjoyable read. John Peel's children take after their father where they are able to make even the dullest of things enjoyable.

And that sums up the 3 chapters as well (they are written by the man himself). I find the problem with biographies is you have to read through the initial childhood chapters that you don't really care about before you can get into the good stuff where the person you are reading about hits the trials and tribulations of attempting to gain success and then finally gaining success. But this book is different. John Peel has a knack of making even the dullest of subjects interesting. What he writes oozes the dry wit he had on the radio and on TV.

He writes his childhood chapters from a child’s point of view, but with the intelligence of a 60 year old. He tells of the first time he saw a girls 'lady garden', his failures at masturbating at an early age and the fact that a local gardener in his late teens once showed him his penis. He explains how impressed he was by both the size of it and how clever it was that this chap could make it larger at will. John Peel is in the minority in being someone who can write about this stuff and not only get away with it but make it funny in the process.

Being the Peel fan that I am, I can't believe I've held off this long before reading it. That said, I don't think it matters whether you are a fan of John Peel, his taste in music or even music in general. I think you'd really enjoy it.

Some Google Tips

Off the back of the Google book I've read, here are a couple helpful tips for getting more out of Google.

Tip #1: Google News - http://news.google.com

I've had a look at Google News previously and I've not really appreciated it's potential. Basically, Google News gathers news from "4,500 news sources" from around the world. Well, generally speaking the BBC does the trick for me. Sure I read several other things (The Register, Digital Spy, Tech Crunch, Pitchfork Media) but that is as much for their featured content as it is the news. It then occured to me that maybe I should try Google News for something more niche. So I did just that. I typed in the name of a band called "Modest Mouse" and sure enough it came up with some (for me at least) interesting results. All modern entries and from multiple sources. Brilliant!

It can be taken to the next level though. Thanks to joys of the interconnected modern day web, I can take the RSS feed of that search (on the left hand side of the search) and include it on my Netvibes homepage. So whenever I open my browser now, as well as seeing the latest updates that have been made to The Guardian's music section, Tech Crunch, my del.icio.us links, new gMail emails, pop3 emails and the latest programming Digg articles, I now have a dedicated panel dislaying the latest 10 news articles written about Modest Mouse from a massive list of news sites. Naturally this can be used to follow any niche subject that you'd otherwise struggle to keep on top of.

There are many more things you can use the RSS feed for though, but I don't really have the energy to go into that right now.

Tip #2: The Google Cheat Sheet - http://www.google.co.uk/help/cheatsheet.html

Ever since starting my job in devlopment I've come to love cheat sheets. Basically they are web pages/documents that have short, sharp information and tips on how to use a service/application/programming language etc which can be place on your desk for easy reference. I've got a couple in work pinned up on my desk board on how to best use the Unix text editor VI and find extremely useful.

In this instance though, it's a Google Cheat Sheet. I plan on sticking it up in work and hope that it helps me to get a little more out of Google.

Some cheat sheets I've found useful can be found at the link below. Funnily enough though the 2 VI ones I mentioned aren't there - typical :)

http://del.icio.us/greggannicott/Cheatsheet

Bugger it, I've finished!

A couple posts back I said that to help kill some lunch hour time the cheap way, I was going to try and get into a book - well it worked, problem being I enjoyed it so much that I've now finished it!

It happens every time I read a book: I get into it so much that as the end is in sight I rush to finish it - only to find an empty feeling inside when it's finished as I miss not looking forward to reading it.

The book was The Google Story and it told the story of how Sergey Brin and Larry Page went from 20-something students to billionaires in a shockingly short amount time, executing it with some style and doing some good along the way.

I don't completely buy the 'Do No Evil' claimed by Google, but I think as far as a money making business goes, they are probably about as non-evil as you can get.

An example of there slightly evil nature is there refusal to properly sort out the click-fraud issue which is costing their paying advertisers, because to reduce the issue would reduce their profits (that at least is what the book claims - I'm inclined to believe it).

But at the same time, they seem more than happy to blow money on things which don't stand to make them money. Some times it's because it looks like fun, sometimes its simply because they can and sometimes it's just to make the world a better place.

Although they don't have superpowers in the same way Superman or Spiderman does, I think they do have extrodinary amount of power and resources at their disposal, and they seem keen to use it for good by donating Google's resources to good causes (both charitable and public service wise (such as them digitizing as many paper based books as possible, making them searchable and accessible by the masses and not just those lucky enough to be at a particular university in America)).

My first impressions of the book was that it was written by someone who was heavily bias towards Google, but that didn't turn out to be so.

It was a great read though. Now I need to find something for tomorrow lunch time...

Glastonbury 2007 News

Some news on Glasto.

First of all, ticket prices have been announced. They are set to be £145 + £5 booking fee. Certainly sounds a lot (maybe because it is) but it's a bargain.

Secondly, the first band to confirm themselves as playing are Chumawamba - they'll be playing the Avalon stage.

Full details and a bit more news on the trusty eFestivals.

I'm Currently Reading: The Google Story

I've decided that in a bid to stop me from wasting money (well, that's debatable) in Virgin and Music Zone every lunchtime, I'm going to try and have a book on the go at all times so I have something to read during my lunch hour.

As with my music, dvds, pvr and other stuff, I have a backlog of books to read, so this should also help with that.

I bought The Google Story hoping it might inspire me a little to do some development at home. I often find that reading things such as this often do the trick (the monthly magazine Internet.Works (which is all about developing business web sites) took me from start to finish on Easyhosts, and when the magazine finished, my hunger to do Easyhosts went with it). And sure enough this book is doing the trick.

I had a little read on the train going home last night and thought "right, I'm not going to go home and crash out on the sofa - instead I'm gonna do some PHP!". And I did just that.

Problem is, no sooner had I got started, I had to finish in order to make tea. I bet ol Bill didn't have these problems when he was busy developing DOS.

But at the very least I got the thing I was working on into a working state that I can now progress. Previously it was located on a now defunct hosting account so in order to get back to developing it I had to go through the code and find out what tables needed to be created and what columns they should contain. For the record the thing is in the very very early stages (I'm working on the 'login script'). All that has been done is a series of functions to handle error and debug logging.

Anyway, back to the Google book.

It looks like it's going to be a good read. My only concern is the writer seems to be heavely bias towards Google, making it out to be a bigger change for society than perhaps it is.

Sure, it's impressive how quickly the business has grown (that's an understatement) but the product itself wasn't truly anything new. Search engines existed in the form of Excite and Altavista to name just a couple - Google just did a better job of it.

Why the iPhone will fail...

There is an interesting article on The Register on why they (well, at the very least the article writer) thinks the new iPhone will fail.

Bare in mind this was written December 23rd, 2006 - before the phone was officially announced.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/23/iphone_will_fail/

The iPhone

Bugger me it looks a sweet piece of kit. I get the feeling I won't be able to afford it whilst my Becky is still a Bell...

Coverage

• Official iPhone Site (Check out the iPod Widescreen link)
• The Register
• BBC News
• BBC Tech Blog
• Tech Crunch (1)
• Tech Crunch (2)

BBC Four: California Dreamin' Week inc Neil Young Concert

There appears to be a good week in progress at the moment on the TV channel BBC Four called California Dreamin Week. Of most interest to me is the Neil Young concert on Friday night at 20:30, recorded 1971 during a brilliant spell song-writing wise (around this time he wrote among others, classic albums such as Harvest and my personal favourite After The Gold Rush, although he hadn't yet swerved off into the ditch - another great period of song writing).

The whole scene facinates me though with Cosby, Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell and others.

The flagship documentary appears to be Hotel California: LA from The Byrds to The Eagles. It's repeated many times. I've recorded it at home on the PVR. Based on what I have waiting to be watched, I should get to see it in a few months time if I'm lucky.

Details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/whatson/search/advance_search.cgi?tmp=whatson%2Fsdk%2Fbbcfour%2Fsearch.tmpl&err=whatson%2Fsdk%2Fbbcfour%2Ferror.tmpl&keyword=california+&go=go

A Google Bomb

A bit of an old one this, but I haven't seen it before.

If you go to Google and search "Failure" you get the following top result (click it and you'll see):

http://www.google.com/search?q=failure

Quite amusing :)

I like the fact Google paid for an ad (or at least, placed one) to explain itself at the top.

I found out about this at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html

Good news for people who like bad news...

There is a reason I've ripped off a Modest Mouse album title for this post.

I found out last night they (one of my favourite bands who have written one of my favourite albums (see post title)) will be playing Minehead in May. Fantastic, only 15 or so miles away!! Usually they are a bit of a London only band.

The bad news though is it's part of the All Tomorrow Parties festival. If I could afford it it would be superb news, but with a wedding, holiday to Mojorca and Glastonbury, I think the minimum fee of £254 for a couple is a bit steep.

It's a real shame though as it sounds like fun. Ignoring the fact there should be lots of bands there I've never heard before that I could easily get into, rather than staying in tents and not washing for 5 days (which I still love btw), you stay in a Butlins shallay.

Unless I can find a way around the money problem, it isn't going to happen though.

Music Currently Giving Me My Kicks

At the moment I'm very much enjoying the following bands (in no order):

The Early Years
The Maybes?
Yo La Tengo
Cold War Kids
Prodigy
Deerhoof
The Black Angels
Liam Frost
The Go-Betweens
The Little Ones
Guillemots
Hope of the States
Arctic Monkeys
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Cat Power

Out of those bands, the ones where I'm getting the biggest kicks are The Little Ones, Guillemots, Cold War Kids (who I'll be seeing shortly supporting Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (who I'll be seeing shortly supported by Cold War Kids).

Admittedly, there is only one song of Bongwater I currently like right now, but it makes the album worth it. The song is Nick Cave Dolls.

BBC Sound of 2007

My final "Look back on 2006, look forward to 2007" style post, but this list is always worth a look.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6169551.stm

It has a knack of being right. Last year they predicted The Feeling, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Guillemots, The Automatic and Corinne Bailey Rae were going to be big, and they weren't far wrong.

It's fun to look back at the list and think "Bloody hell, didn't realise they were being tipped on this list!", as I did when I read it and noticed Guillemots and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were on the 2006 list.

I also went to see The Feeling in Taunton off the back of this list, they have now moved on to much bigger things.

Planet Sounds Tip for 2007

Planet Sound (my musical bible) has said that the following bands will be great in 2007 - who am I to argue? I've placed this list here so I've got somewhere I can check it out whenever I have a spare tenner or some download credits on eMusic to use up. It'll be interesting to see whether the names are more familiar in 6 months time.

- Connan and the Mockasins
- Mika
- Cherry Ghost
- Sky Larkin
- Cajun Dance Party
- Gas Club
- The Envy Corps
- Jamie Sample
- Ayo
- Bobby Cook
- Oh No Oh My
- Edgar Praise

Bobby Cook - you don't get much less rock 'n' roll than that.

A word of warning regarding this list. Last year Planet Sound had placed Orson on the 2006 list - they very quickly appoligised and they've seemed to have had it in for them (Orson) ever since. Very strange.

Planet Sound's Top 10 Singles of 2006

Similar to my previous post, here is Planet Sound's Top 10 Singles of 2006. Please read the previous post to find out just why I'm placing this here.

I just want to say though, that the number 1 song is indeed a corker. It's hard to believe the guy is only 22. Makes me feel a little old. Another one worth noting is The Little Ones. They've released a mini album over in the States and it's great. I purchased it here from Rough Trade Records. It's a testemant to the album that Lovers Who Uncover is not the best song on there.

1) Liam Frost - The Mourners of St Paul's
2) Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks
3) The Maybes? - Olympia
4) Hot Chip - Over and Over
5) Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
6) Little Man Tate - The Agent
7) The Racontours - Steady As She Goes
8) Air Traffic - Just Abuse Me
9) Scissor Sisters - I Don't Feel Like
10) The Little Ones - Lovers Who Uncover.

Planet Sound's Top 20 Albums of 2006

This is as much for my reference as it is for anyone's reading pleasure. Planet Sound is a music magazine on good ol fashioned Teletext. The editor of it John Earls shares many of my tastes in music (or rather, I share his tastes) and I often find he's spot on with his suggestions. So below is his Top 20 Albums of 2006. Previous winners have included Modest Mouse and Bright Eyes. With the information here I hope to purchase some albums off the back of it. For the most part, I already seem to own them.

1) Muse - Black Holes And Revelations
2) The Sleepy Jackson - Personality; One Was A Spider One Was A Bird
3) Razorlight - Razorlight
4) Acrtic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
5) Cat Power - The Greatest
6) Guillemots - Through The Windowpane
7) Black Angels - Passover
8) The Early Years - The Early Years
9) Lilly Allen - Alright Still
10) Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Ballad of the Broken Seas
11) The Feeling - 12 Stops and Home
12) Mojave 3 - Puzzles Like You
13) The Knife - The Silent Shout
14) Unkle Bob - Sugar and Bite
15) Bell X1 - Flock
16) Jarvis - The Jarvis Cocker Record
17) Keith John Adams - Pip
18) Placebo - Meds
19) Keane - Under The Iron Sea
20) Beirut - Gulas Orkestrar