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