Twitter review of ‘The Resistance’ by Muse, originally uploaded by mistersnappy.
I just tweeted a track by track review of ‘The Resistance’ by Muse, that arrived at my desk this morning and, as you would expect from a Muse album, does indeed ROCK!
I completed the geek/twitter/flickr loop by posting the review to twitter, screen grabbing it, posting it to flickr then posting the flickr link back to twitter. Yay me!
For those about to rock…, originally uploaded by mistersnappy.
On the night that the Astoria and Astoria 2 close their doors for ever, I’m taking a little trip down memory lane to 1995. Back in the days when I was a freelance photographer I photographed The Amps featuring Kim Deal at the Astoria 2.
I saw my first gig at The Astoria (Voice of the Beehive), and possibly the best gig I’ve ever seen at the Astoria 2 was the Foo Fighters up close and personal.
It’s a sad day for the London music scene that these venues are to close and even if they live up to their promise of replacing them with a more modern music venue there will be nothing to match the sticky floors and pints in plastic cups of The Astoria.
More here…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7827999.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Astoria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astoria_2
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/-GPxkpjCvWI]
You may be about to shout me down and accuse me of many things, but I just downloaded the new Radiohead album and paid nothing.
‘Why did you do that?’ You may say… well here is my reasoning. There was a lot of hype around Radiohead and their chosen method of distribution for their album ‘In Rainbows’ and I thought ‘that’s fantastic, they’re taking control of their art and becoming the master of their own musical and creative destiny. But what does this ablum sound like?’. I hadn’t heard any previews and to be honest the majority of their output since OK Computer has made me want to curl up into a ball and hide for a very long time.
What to do? I read their blog entries and read the articles in various publications online and off and decided to take the try before you by option. I looked at their website http://www.inrainbows.com to see if this was actually possible. Surely they wouldn’t give me the option to just download the album for free; that is exactly what they have done, those brave souls. So that is exactly what I did at 9.30 this morning and I’m listening to it now.
I’m not here to write a review on the latest Radiohead tunes but I have been pleasantly surprised. I was half expecting an even more experiemental effort than some of their last outings, perhaps an experimental release in more ways than one. I have to say that at this early stage, is shaping up to be a classic Radiohead album.
I love the fact that they have made this album available for everyone to download at the price that they feel it’s worth. I love the fact that this is a quality album and not a test of distribution with some below standard songs and I love the fact that slowly others are going to jump on this bandwagon including The Charlatans, who are releasing their next album via Xfm in a couple of weeks, and Madness, of all people, who are rumoured to be releasing their next studio album via a national sunday paper.
What am I going to do next? I’m going to log back into the Radiohead website and pay a fair price for this album. I’d liked to have been able to legitimately preview this content before buying it so I could pay the fair price before I bought it, but I do hope this is a success for Radiohead, The Charlatans and all the others who will come after.
The music industry is dead, long live the music industry.
Once of this countries truly great independent record shops, Fopp, has shut its doors. You can read more here. It seems that it was rather sudden according to staff who were left working for nothing over the last month. However I wouldn’t be suprised if the writing had been on the wall for a while as all of the high street record shops have been strugling for a long time. Personally there is something special about buying your music in packaging like records before them.
I’d just like to pay my last respects to one of the only record/book/dvd shops I actually enjoyed shopping in. The staff were polite and knew their stock, the shop always contained hidden gems to find whilst you were digging around and the prices were amazing. Added to this was the regular appearance of your favourite artists, DJ nights, comedy nights and loads of other stuff I probably missed!
So here’s to Fopp and lets hope they get themselves back on their feet. I no longer have a place to go to rummage through all the stuff I love, although it might stop me having to sneak the odd CD or book home of an evening!
Well we’ve arrived at worthy farm and we only took 4 trains, 2 and a half hours and a bus journey. Mini me is finally asleep, our tent is ur and our flag is flying! We managed to get one of the last remaining spots it the family field and the dull roar is a little quieter here than 2005′s backstage experience, although we are just behind the massive cinema screen! Enough bloging from my phone, I need to sleep… Glasto 2007 here we come!
I am so excited I can’t contain myself. The only slight downer about my impending visit to Worthy Farm is the strong likelyhood there will be biblical rain. I’ve been checking the Met Office website cos I guess no one knows weather like them.
I’ve also been collecting a lot of things to take with, mostly to keep the littl’un busy and safe. I’ve got pads and pencils, wind up radio, wind up charger, fruit, sweets, drinks, inflatable mattresses and a pump. Now I have to make sure that everything works and it all fits in the bag along with the tent and the wellies!
In the true spirit of Glastonbury there has bit a little bit of chatter from people at work who are all going too. So hopefully we’ll all meet up for some cider at some point over the weekend. Not sure if I’ll be wearing my tennis gear though!
Now where was my poncho!
In light of all of the fuss about the 40th anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s, I decided to dig out my copy of the ill advised NME charity record ‘Sgt Pepper Knew My Father’. As I recall, it was released to coincide with the 20th annversary of the release of Sgt Pepper’s and to raise a couple of quid for Childline. I say ill advised because someone at NME, the bastion of all things indie, thought it would be a good idea to a) do a Beatles covers album and b) ask Wet Wet Wet, Hue and Cry and The Christians along for the ride!
That aside, I managed to find a working turntable and was overjoyed when I was able to plug it directly into my PC to play this ol’ vinyl platter. So I copied it from Vinyl to mp3 and listened to it along the way. There were highlights and low lights. One of the highlights was The Fall doing ‘A day in the life’, which reminded me that I also have a vinyl copy of The Fall’s Frenz Experiment knocking around somewhere too.
Once I’d digitised the Sgt Peppers album I set to work on The Fall one too and, as I hadn’t listened to it for a very long time (it was released in 1988 too), I’d forgotten that one of my favourite cover versions of all time was hidden in there too. Click the links below to hear The Fall doing The Kinks Victoria and The Kinks doing it themselves and you’ll know what I mean.
To be honest it made me feel 17 all over again!!
And to bring this badly written ramble to a nice Eddie Izzard style close, while listening to The Fall I was reading the sleeve notes (aaaaaah!) and it turns out that this particular Fall opus was recorded at Abbey Road.
Happy 40th birthday Sgt Pepper’s, you still have the power to inspire!
This morning I had the ‘priviledge’ to go to the press preview of Damien Hirsts latest show, For the Love of God. Indeed. It featured a large selection of images of cancerous and diseased cells on to which was stuck things like blades, glass, hair, jewellery etc… As if that wasn’t enough there was also the expected selection of sliced and diced creatures, some that had been shot with arrows, some that had been hung up in religous poses and some (the poor little fishies!) that had been encased in their own formaldehide boxes and placed in to a large chrome and glass case. The piece d’resistance was a diamond encrusted skull that sat in a darkened room.
Far be it for me to pass comment on this art but somewhere deep inside I get a feeling that Mr Hirst goes home of an evening and has a little chuckle at all the artsy folk who come from far and wide to see his work. No doubt it will be lauded by the press and Mr Saatchi will spend a few million on some of the pieces for his own collection. It’s no wonder Damien Hirst is the wealthiest living artist today.
More exciting than that was the release of the full line up for Glastonbury which can be seen here. There is more than enough to do over the three days, but I think mini me will be a little upset as her favourites are on after we leave on Sunday 
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At last! Something clear I can undraestnd. Thanks!
oh my goodness, chocolate flavoured beer?? GEES
Oh my gosh,
sweet!