#4 Third Eye Foundation, Blossom, Scanners and Balki

ok, kinda lost track on the entries that were supposed to be done. I was busy “celebrating” my birthday, kinda like just doing nothing. I was just wondering what would happen on my birthday, i’m sorry, but there’s this strange “french film” kind of belief that something out of the ordinary will happen, that’s the most i can do that’s left from childish deluisions of grandueroise that i kinda grew out of thanks to some fuckers (ya fuck your birthday, its a dumb arse date that doesnt mean anything except the fact that you believe strongly in the gregorian calendar which means SHIT across the equator.)

In an attempt to bring back the magic of birthday parties, i had an outing to Home club on thursday night. It was my favourite night, U2 tribute night. Personally the only good U2 album was Zooropa, anything like Boy, October and Joshua tree were ROCK CLASSICS, if the other album you like was Bon jovi’s live in europe or Coldplay (depending on age, and whatever arena rock REALLY means to you.) Oh ya, and the best song is still baby face, straight forward, sexy and bono sounds like someone i can talk to.

So then, the bands played tribute to U2 and hearing The sweetest thing as one of the cover songs was totally wierd. Its not about boyzone and all appearing in the video for it (come on its the MTV age, the song and video is interchangeable), its just, wierd. Anyway, so i had a few drinks, talked to some old friends (well im still bitter about those friends who mattered leaving and shit, talk about “connectivity” on the internet when these fuckheads go “huh?” about your birthday. says alot about what these rug munching prostitutes are made of). Even so it was good really. honestly i enjoyed the time alone with the guys i was with in a Syd barrett and Neil diamond way (no one really likes me like my mum, and im not going to pretend that i dont know).

So happy birthday shaun!

For music f**kery, i just got a copy of Third Eye Foundation’s You Guys Kill Me (1998). Pretty much released during total trip hop overload; after copy cats and Fatboy slim/ crystal method big beat movie trailer soundtracks. It was a pretty big thing this trip hop thing, with the demand for this organic meets electronic reaching FEVER PITCH with radiohead’s KID A (which was not trip hop). I remember going nuts about this buying Tricky albums (pumpkin is a great song which samples Smashing pumpkins), Lamb (WORH JAZZ), Alex Reece (wow is it triphop!) and alot more hip hop beats meets rock transfusions.

You Guys Kill Me, is a great title to an album which is really dark. Dark not in a Mayhem trying to find a power plug in an Caparthian Forest way, but dark in a Depeche mode Alan wilder (RECOIL!!!!!) way, maybe “violator”. With titles like “A galaxy of stars”, “Lions writing the bible” and “An even harder shade of dark”. Main man Matt elliot (who has played with almight Flying Saucer Attack). While there are still outdated shades of the usual triphop/ jungle beats, just like the saving grace of tracey thorn’s voice in everything but the girl, the samples are really amazing. Creating moods with wierd grace all pitchy and slimy, without class and without concern for that artist-wants-to-take-you-somewhere-deep-in-your-hearts thing. Matt elliot really raises the bar for fucking your primal instincts on the track “For all the brothers and sisters”, where he samples sounds of cats meowing like a choir in some back alley feline church, and this goes on for 4 minutes!

There some ambient overtones for the meat of the songs as well, its not all aural chainsaw busting monochrome. On “no dove no convenant”, a rich sheet of strings totally pitchy like pavement puddle ripples is the main theme, even with the outdated Drill and Bass beats (always reminds me of Mu-Ziq and the like still) sounds really scary, like its not just music. The music though instrumental (except the one with the cats choir, where at times sounds really human and freaky.) sound very vocal, the whole mood the album is kinda of like what Godspeed! You black emperor was doing on the first album (and that’s the best album period, before they accidently came up with “post rock”, and then returning triumphant with Yanqui U.X.O) and also like their offshoot band Set fires to flames (which is the best aural art cd experience in the world full stop.) If you find a copy of You Guys Kill Me buy it, its great funeral music, a sleeker and younger tom waits and also symphonic industrial drinking music.

*sigh i miss The sneaker pimps”

Before i was busy buying and like lusting over really expensive lame shit, like guitar pedals, amps and guitars. (gross really), i was listening to music. I was a total music junkie i would come home after school all sweaty and rush to my dad’s cassette’s collection to discover what sound waves can do to a pre pubescent science society and christian fellowship member. Once, i was so obessed over A-ha’s Living daylights, i would like back on the sofa and just listen to it again and again with the lyric sheets in my hand. Back then, they had these extra special rewind button apart from the normal one, it would rewind the cassette back tracking the point where there would be a period of silence, kinda like a CD player. I kinda wore out that button on many albums especially this album:

and this:

I always stared in the cover wondering what the hell was happening to the dude’s face. I kinda got the idea after watching all the UBER VIOLENCE on the cult film SCANNERS (remember? it used to be readily on rental at old VHS rental shops. Please buy me the dvd thanks, my life was destroyed by this movie)

One of the greatest soundtracks that i listened to from the 80’s that i listened in the 90’s without understanding anything. Basically its like a subconscious kind of album. You just enjoy it. The movie was a tad boring though. I prefer Mister stolz in the Fly 2.

I totally was obsessed with this album. I wanted to be jeremy jordan in the right kind of love video (for those interested, look up youtube). I recently saw this album at this bargain CD shop, i admit i felt like life had meaning again.

here’s the video

i totally loved this album, because he was from Blossom, and i had a total crush on her (blossom not joey lawrence) hint hint.. PLEASE RELEASE BLOSSOM ON DVD! it was way cooler then Pipi Longstockings or PUNKY brewster. wait… is blossom Sarah jessica parker!??!??!?! uh oh…

Here’s BLOSSOM!!! i found this on youtube.. shit im going to cry!

and my total favourite tv series that’s not GAY

My introduction to Rock and roll. To be honest i’ll pick the L.A. Guns over Guns and Roses, maybe its because i heard them first. I think its because i like them being upfront especially song titles, for example “Sex ACTION” versus “sweet child of mine”, nuff’ said.

I remember how always hearing about how convent girls like to have like dances to Electric youth and all. My friends, who were older and i had secret crushes on them, used to show me the moves and i’ll try and remember them. Listening to this song on my beat up walkman gives me a chance to taste the joy of seeing them dancing to this song in front of me. SWEET.

Sigh. YA. ok enuff of this. But im serious about the SCanners dvd thing. Rock ON!! MAN!

oh ya, you should check out these find releases that i mentioned. Im serious, these are albums that i can say i grew up with. Did i? (worh so PKDick the moment)

sigh who’s going to do the dance of happiness with me?

#3 Yatsura and The Runaways

Here’s another entry about some albums that really are great and criminaly overlooked.

A few weeks ago, i managed to get a copy of this treasure. Funeral for a friend was playing at far east square, and i was there to kind of hang around. I didnt have a ticket at all, but it was cool to just stand around and look at the concert goers, and also to catch a free peek at bands playing support. I was feeling totally shitty that whole time, i guess i was feeling incredibly outsider and tend to aggravate that situation further. I mean Funeral for a friend, even Rosalyn from Girls aloud and other celebs were there. I kind of took off alone and walked along these people with their stuff all spread out on the floor. Lo and behold, the whole experience of been looked as a concert free loader and total loser just did not match the joy of finding a few jems.

Yatsura’s We are yatsura (1996), were one of those albums that i used to stare at browsing CDs at Tower records. I would pick it up and totally wonder what kind of music would i hear after i pop it into a cd player. I found a copy for 4 dollars and i was really happy when i went back home, did a search on it online and really just felt great. From scotland, it really proves the fact that the scots really had some great bands, other than my current faves, Idlewild (who never seem to make BAD albums at all) you’ve got all the twee bands and many others. Yatsura is truly one of the bands that wouldnt seem out of place on matador, with other lo-fi baggy shirts and pants (hoodie) rock. Slacker and all, its great, all the way from the first track it really brings back the joy of hearing Sonic youth’s first album, where you’ve got childish as fuck verses ( “take your hand and put it in your mouth, grab your tongue and stick it out/ confusion is sex”) , put that together with really wild, drunk ringo starr wild drums all around. amazing stuff. Really putting your head in this album especially under the circumstances which i bought it (BIG EMO BAND vs. LOSER SLACKER) i really felt like i was on top of this shit world, kind of like a musical version of terry gilliam’s brazil.

seriously i want to take this moment to really wonder why every fucking indie kid “likes” sonic youth. Its wierd. The best part’s that they’ve never heard any fucking thing beyond rather ripping. I just dont understand. I admit to being a facebook whore, but how can someone put the almighty Moore, Ronaldo, Gordon and Shelley (occasionally O’rouke) ALongside fucking PARAMORE and like say SONIC YOUTH! there’s nothing more ELECTRIFYING than these composer spiritualists! I admit that i cant remember entire lyrics ( i admit i have memory problems when it comes to lyrics) but i sure as hell remember the VIBE of fucking Catholic block, 100% and like bubble gum and shit. oh well. with that aside… here’s something really GREAT as well

Ok this is not the actual picture of this great fucking album. The Runaway’s Little girl lost is a great compilation of the Joan jett (*slurp*) and Lita Ford’s (*sweat*!) all girl punk rock band. Ya ya, something like the donnas just came to mind, all blonde and looking like deborah harry cloned herself 4 times and tried to do a ramones. GROSS. remember when i they were called The Electrocutes and were on one of those stupid teeenage john hughes films with alicia silver-stoned. This rare 1997 Rhino records compilation had liner notes from an “authority” with all that blah blah historical band nearing break up shit. Best of all it contains their final recordings, with “black leather”, a totally rocking opener penned by Steve Jones for these fine ladies! and What an incredible drummer they’ve got! Tucked cosily, Lita Ford’s delayed lines are so finnnneeeeee, as fine as the picture of Joan jett, all brunette and leather, with a Sex Pistols’ shirt. Rock and roll, this album has a great waltz reading of the beatles’ “eight days a week”, where joan jett sounds so much like NENA on 99 luftballons and Transvision Vamp (i love them soooo muchhh!). Sigh. What a great album. I just cant believe that years ago, i actually believed that the voice of female ANGER was ALANIS MORRISETTE, not saying that all the Runaways or Alanis hereself was about anger, but its that raw rock and roll musical stench that you cant go wrong with. Sigh this album makes me blush and makes me think about samantha fox.

Ok, im on with the program now, with an entry a day. Im so getting the hang of this shit again. More fuckery tomorrow.

#2 REM, Pluramon and Electro Group

Ah. the lush sounds of REM’s Reveal are just great after a day of doing everything bad and good. Terribly underrated and overshadowed by wilder excursions like the flaming lip’s soft bulletin and commercial angst rock. Just as REM revealed their own tribute to high tech brian wilson technicolor sonic vibrations.

I just had supper at meng’s kitchen near my place, and bumped into a certain uncle R, which i try my best to avoid. Over my mee pok, he was going on about how he’s working in Vietnam, teaching music in orphanages; His hole in his stomach that forced him to quit drinking and smoking, basically he has to take a shit regularly to get spill over out; how he had to get a cut sewn up in a vietnam hospital on a bed for dead bodies or something. I didnt say much, the whole time he was telling me about how to get about my career (which i strangely feel no interest in), about how he has been job hopping the past 2 years. Its amazing how convicted he is about his experiences and thoughts, i imagine myself like that, and its pretty scary, not in a hitler way though.

Its also of honorable mention that pluramon’s dream top rock (2003) is a great album, with julee cruise of twin peaks fame on vocals. I admit im a total fanboy sucker for Julee cruise’s first album which has “falling”, the song off twin peaks, but her voice is really great and different from your elizabeth frasers and bjorks flooding the dream rock/ this mortal coil indie niche.

Next up is the amazing new album on clairecords by Electro group called “good technology”, with some of the members from twee shoegaze merchants Rocketship. Its refreshing, in a strange way (not bereft of nostalgia, regretably) that there are actually bands making music like. Each track has a length of about 2 minutes, and comes with heavy fuzzed basslines akin to My bloody valentine Isn’t anything. Its short but way too sweet, even with the usual boy-girl vocals and effects fuckery, its a nice light and very rocking affair. Most reviews dismiss it as the usual run of the mill 90’s revivalist wet dream, but i cannot help resist the pure magic of near math rock dream melo-echolia.

Wow. it feels great writing about albums and shit again, i dont know why but i’ll keep doing it. I have to admit that im warming up to things, feels wierd and rubbery.

Seriously, its great to know as well that the fleeting joys and daysleepers will be coming up with new albums next year. I still have yet to grab a copy (digital or on disc) or Airiel’s battle of sealand, but im not too excited about it.

#1

hello cruel cruel world!

So it’s been more than a year since ive stopped maintaining the pride and joy of my life: my previous blog, which has been active for like years and choked with entries from my silly “a” level hey-days, my tormented national service self and my last graduate trip to the USA.

“Why a new blog?”, then? For the pass few months i’ve been jerking, slacking, hand-packing cigarettes and lying like a euro gangsta chav rapper. As always still, in the midst of those walks to buy late night yeo’s drinks at the dispenser nearby (always clears my mind), a sure epiphany struck me with a self fulfilling biblical proportion: I should start writing again.

I dont need angels to visit me in dreams, or have a person about visions or psychic permonitions to tell me how much writing or just thinking in grammatics and thesaurus that just gets me so off. It’s kind of like, marking the numbers on the speedometer on your own car, before or after a drive. When you start driving you are judging how fast you’ve flung yourself eating road, apart from that, you have your own fucked up hand drawn speedometer to help along the way.

This blog’s going to be more or less the same shit again, im going to update it on a daily basis and just word vomit. Well, the difference is that there’s this wordpress option to “tag” certain entries, in topic and all. So for potential readers of my shameless verbal exhibitionism, you’ll be able to tell what you’re looking out for when you read this. Another new fantastic option, are photos. Looks like i can now apply images to entries and all.

Am i so speaking like a n00b? No, the fact is that since then when i started my blog, kids and other online info-capitalists have actually taken blogging really seriously. Just look at the advertisments, especially this one with the tagline “how do you want to remembered?” and you got shots of grad pictures, a sash for prom queen ‘95, tattoos and whole load of sentimental junk. One of this shots are of a computer screen with a open browser window like this one im writing in. It’s pretty ambigious unless you’ve ever been charged with the duty to blog even on dry days.

I have to admit that yes. I pretty much remember so much of myself more when i re-read the old blog entry posts on my previous blog. Much more than the photos that i took. The deeper each second is stretched by a paragraph the more each millimetre on these photos seem dulling and as flat as ceramic toilet bowls. Im not by all means, a writerly romantic, the kind that writes all courageous and eyes at the heavens where the modern tech-pen is mightier than the tomahawk missle-sword. Moreover one who reveals more about themselves like photographs of missing people at mrt stations and fiona xie’s constant cover girl stardom (stop it guys. If you want to see her nude, she’s already overexposed!)

What a lenghty introduction. a first entry.
how memorable isn’t it?

ok, now on to customizing other parts of the site. i want to make this great. how great? as good as it was the last time around in my other blog.

here’s to more exhibitionism!