Music things #5485974

OK i think its quite ok to declare what are my favourite albums this year. Its not too early and i dont think its too late. ok im not going to write much at all. but .. ya just check it out.

Atlas Sounds- Let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel (kranky/4AD)

Deerhunter- Microcaste/ Wierd Era cont. (kranky/4AD)

Notable Classic listens this year! aka Great Old Albums that i only got to listening this year.

Revolver’s cold water flat.

Adorable’s Fake.

Albums i found at cash converters. and am damn happy i found these!

Kula Shaker’s Pigs, Peasants and Astronauts

PM dawn’s Jesus wept

Peter Murphy’s Holy Smoke

Future Sound Of London’s Dead Cities

Bone Thugs and Harmony E 1999 eternal

Urge Overkill’s Saturation

Sugar’s Copper Blue

honestly im totally aware that these are all albums from the 90’s or something. Also, that its quite loser of me to listen to old shit and up to date. I mean new bands like Fleet foxes and ting tings and i dont know a whole bunch of new indie bands and all. Come on, even the indie “old guard” who have been coming to Singapore still falls under that New music thing. The reason why i like these 90’s albums is that they’re cheaper, like u can find them second hand, and the best part is that nobody really listens to them. Its hard to find any intensive coverage on the bands and albums online, look at Oasis’ new album, its every fucking where online, u dont even have to meet the band to smell them. 

 

I admit there’s a fair amount of charm, like reading commando and dan dare at second hand book stores at bras brasah, to this. I don’t think its nostalgia really, its really something fresh, and that’s quite challenging for me to hear coming from a rock world where its all about the newest coolest with bland sexual appeal and hip friends. Fresh.

Angry headache

ok. i haven’t written in this blog for some time. I think its time that i should update stuff and entries, because im going for a holiday next week to japan and thought that i could post some pics and like write these witty anecdotes about wonderful cultural things and like what i ate all in true Singaporean blogger vomit style.

I’ll be going to Tokyo, Yokohama and some other japanese places thanks to a wonderful package tour off Dynasty tours. Which really is great because we paid for a tour holiday which has a tour guide that speaks chinese, which defeats the purpose of going on a tour group. The tour group will be about 26 people strong mainly consisting of couples. Honestly, no one i know now, around my age would fucking go on a tour group thingie unless they’re really wierd.

Ok, why am i bitching u might be asking. Isn’t is good enough that my mother’s paying for this holiday? I mean im still unemployed and jacking off like a true blue bum. Well, the fact is that. Im going with my mum and sis. ta-dah. nuff said. After surviving one month going in USA with girls is enuff to make me go gay.

So please, im just going to go there, shut the fuck up and relax. really.

Anyway, music writing stuff, ya ya. hhmm…. i just read this blog that’s maintained by some friend of mine. In one entry, i saw the most fucking stupid thing in the world since wearing buttons on your jeans, Post rock mixes. I know everybody wants to rule the world, some people just love music so much they write about it (that’s ok really in the end individual opinions will end up in the same teenage culture wasteland) but mixes, that’s so dumb really. Taping together songs, shuffle mode, or something. I’ve pretty much given up going to discos and all, oh ya, and talk about my friend’s new favourite watering hole where you can be yourself and party like its 1999, Butter Factory. From brazil to the south africa, iceland and how ever and whatever you comprehend the term “global phenonoma”, This fucking indie shit culture is making me so sick. Snotty intellectuals bred on haruka murakami (oh you read that too?) and their strange circular arguments on what’s cool and what’s not (its not exclusive to retro) Oh ya, emo’s out.

sigh. ok about music. i shouldnt write about cutural angst like that really, because after all, i do think that i belong more or less loosely to that really. Cept that i dont really do anything at all.

Well, i think that just basically trying to think of the words to feed off anger, made me less angry, then i would have found the exact way to express way. I guess it is in finding that we actually get off more, so perverts stop getting your rocks off to Porn and start cruising girls more.

About that blog i mentioned, well, the reason why ive stopped doing entries about albums is because i cant believe how convicted that person about his “reviews”. Its not that he believes its authoratative, or that its very well informed, or that he has used the right stuff to tell the reader what the music is about. Well, i mean his reviews are reviews, in a facial cream and toothpaste review sense. Totally fucked up and sanitized. Is this how rock music is supposed to be like. Oh ya and its supposed to tell u something new as well, about this band and why its place in rock and rolling. i must also mention his fucking fetish for post rock which is vomit inducing as he tries to curl his tongue over how the music makes him feel good, might as well write about which porn star turns him on and how, at least he’s honest.

Ok, im now listening to My bloody valentine’s loveless, i got it on nice limited edition 180gm vinyl, 836/1000 numbered. It sounds great. I also read about some of the complaints that some people have about MBV’s new tour. Firstly, that the vocals were too soft. Next, that it was too loud. And also that the last “you made me realise” noise jam was not noisy enough. Ok, i love MBV like mad, i wish that if i killed camera obscura when they come over that i would be given a chance to see MBV live. Still i do not believe in the infalliable nature of MBV’s music, some loose bolts here and there definately. Come on, indie kids and post rock kids, the vocals are already soft on the albums, and they are loud didnt u read about it in your rock literary pursuits or were too busy finding morrissey’s lyrics and studying them.

you know what im so fucking pissed really.

here are some great albums you should check out.

big black’s songs about fucking. classic cover. classic classic. sad thing is that my copy’s on vinyl and lacks the cheap trick cover he’s a whore. also classic. this album is up there with led zeppelin and nine inch nails. Any one who makes his guitar sound like that is king. find it download this.

moonshake’s eva luna is a wonderful record, which takes a few spins really to grasp and dig thru. slightly cluttered by dub-centric riddims, it all starts coming together as a fucking pissed off Public image limited meets pissed off sonic youth thing. Good for your ears and good for your soul.

Sweet sweet driving guitar rock. Found this in the used bin at somewhere (heh). Straight ahead american style take on MBV’s pop noise. Nice vocals too.

u know i feel like a total idiot. i put these albums up and shit. i tell you what im going to upload them soon on the next post so that everyone can hear them. hahah..

fruck

Everything is possible!

For those of you who are wondering where to get the Teenage Textbook soundtrack, it can be found very easily at any Cash converters outlet. I know for sure that the ones at Ang Mo kio and Toa payoh. It should set u back 5 bucks, (but strangely, i just made a vist there and i got charged 1.50 per CD at the AMK branch!). In case u dont remember how it looks like, its yellow in colour on the spine (this helps facilitates looking for it in the CD piles there!).

In case you’re looking for the MOVIE. yes. THAT movie u watched with your classmates and had several forgettable re-runs on Channel 5, and also those silly trailers with Mister X(avier)’s voice over going something like “remember when you were 16….”, yes very cheesy.

Anyway, u can find the Movie on VCD at Video Ezy, well my branch at Thomson plaza does carry it. U might be thinking “No no i want the DVD!”, well there arent any that ive seen so far. The plus point is that the VCD comes with a behind the scenes documentary that must’ve been aired back in ‘98 or something on tv. Trust me, the documentary is just as good if not better than the ACTUAL movie. Hosted by Chee Hin Hong aka the lovable Kok Sean, the making of is really full of exciting interviews, revealing puns and whatever tasteless humour that singaporeans then and now are full of. There are also interviews with the cast including Melody Chen, Randall and more dressed in glorious cheesy late 90’s fashion regalia! (oversized hockey shirts with gold rimmed sunglasses. Tongue in cheek shirts. Alot of blusher. Long straight ah beng-ish hair. Too much fringe. Too much Fringe).

Other than the story and blah blah… u should really scare yourself to death with footage of long lost Singaporean Wonders like Planet Hollywood, Celebrities Asia and that stupid bus stop at Marina south. Just watch it and see what other scary things u can see! ) oh ya the border’s counter it just looked different then.

has it been that fucking long?

Electric light orchestra tends to make me feel really happy and spacy kind of like any Yellow magic orchestra record. Strange really.

I must say that the new raveonettes album is really great. I just wish i can see them live. Lust lust lust! is a real wet dream for noisy shoegazers who love to watch Twin peaks, mulholland drive or Inland empire because its dreamy as well. The raveonettes have the right ideas lyrically and musically to make lust lust lust! a modern (non-JAMC copy) masterpiece. sigh

oh ya i just realised. this year is tenth anniversary of the Teenage Textbook movie. No wonder this Randall and Melody were featured in that what’s it called Eunice olsen’s Ellen talk show “Rouge” (remember that stupid silly charlie’s angels production of the same name that was aired on MTV asia, i loved it. the girls. man. i love asian girls. esp when they have Amerikan accent.) I didnt watch that interview with them, but my sis was telling me that they played a clip of the kissing scene from the movie.

So guys, if your reading this, its been fucking 10 years since u dreamt of JC. Alevels over liao.

There is a scene from the movie where, a reporter is on location at a school when the o level’s results are out. He then asks this student, a boy, how he did for his results. “I didnt do well, but never mind lah, can go poly can go to ite or go and work its ok one!” he replies, the reporter then scratches his head then asks,” Then what about your friends, will you feel left behind?”. The boy suddenly looks down and up, scratches his head then put his index finger on his chin and says, “Oh yarh horh….”.

truly dumb really.

but that is how it really is.

#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!