ABC (Oh! Those Disco Eighties!)

It's funny to see how so many bands and artists who where once pretty famous and succesful have not only stopped playing, but have also disappeared from the public eye. Even the fans of 'the olden days' never play their records anymore; often the listener's musical taste has changed over the years or the listener has grown up and does not listen to music much at all anymore. It is after all not easy to enjoy music while three kids are screaming in the background. Well, not unless you are listening to noisy old stuff by let's say Magma of Gamma or Einsturzende Neubauten.

Also very often the members of the band have gone on to raise some kids and find 'a real job' and reappear years later as mystery guest on some stupid quiz show, in the cause destroying whatever little credibility they still had. I remember a feeling of shock when I saw Mike Lindup as a mystery guest on 'Never Mind The Bollocks'. This was the main writer and keyboard player of Level 42! How on Earth could he be persuaded to annihilate his artistic stature by becoming one of the many people trying to make a quick buck?
Of course those thoughts only meant that I valued his 'image' more than the man himself. It meant that he was living in the present more than I was. It also meant that I was a complete idiot and that I should readjust before I grew really really old. Yet still, the feeling that such an artist could demean himself and his legacy remained, albeit completely unjustified.

Some band have weathered the times quite well; I heard Depeche Mode the other day and they are still pretty damned good. But most of the band from the 80ies and 90ies have disappeared into the abyss of obscurity.

I came across one of those bands again the other day. They were called ABC and they came from England. These guys specialized in writing and playing songs about love. Actually, most of the time, well... as good as always, this love would be unrequited.
The band played a British disco-kind of music that was very much En Vogue in the 80ies yet they had a twist in the music and the lyrics. One the one hand, the music was produced and directed by a very young Trevor Horn of The Buggles who had just scored an immense hit with 'Video Killed The Radio Stars'. Horne had set up a team of three people(An Dudley, J.J. Jeczalic and Trevor Horn) with whom he would work together through the 80ies and score massive hits. The team was behind acts like Frankie Goes To Hollywood. So the next time you hear 'Relax', 'Two Tribes' or anything from 'Welcome to the Pleasure Dome' listen carefully. The similarities in production technique between ABC's 'Lexicon Of Love' and 'Welcome to the Pleasure Dome' are obvious.

What I personally particularly liked in ABC were their lyrics. Not because they were outstanding, poetic, meaningful or in any other way made for Eternity because they were not. What ABC did on 'The Lexicon Of Love' however, was to write a whole album of lyrics solely about unrequited love, affairs going badly, and people leaving each other in bad ways. I remember the inner sleeve of the record(this was the vinyl-era people!); both sides of the sleeve contained some credits and all the lyrics but these lyrics had a twist. Because the band had basically written a concept-album(without attaching too much significance to it) they were able to throw all the lines from all the song in a hat, rummage around a bit, and by probably pulling pieces of paper(i.e. songlines) out again they created a completely new and very long lyric that covered the whole album. It became somewhat of a puzzle that you could solve while listening to the tracks.

The songs themselves were dominated by the use of loads of keyboards, heavy electronic Simmons drums and a very funky brass section. Oh and Lots and Lots and Lots of samplers... Mr. Horne had recently acquired a Fairlight CMI sampler and anyone who knows that instrument also knows that the possibilities were endless. It was basically a mainframe computer with a piano-keyboard attached. Your mind was the limit to what you could do with it. It also cost over 100.000 euros so there weren't so many around and that made the sound quite uniquely recognizable.

Their first album went by quite unnoticed but their second album 'The Lexicon Of Love' contained the hitsongs '(Shoot That) Poison Arrow' and 'The Look Of Love'. Other songs worth noting were '4Ever 2Gether'(with an extremely sub low bass vocoder) and 'Show Me' :

When I'm shaking a hand
I am clenching a fist
If you gave me a pound
for the moments I missed
And I got dancing lessons
for all the lips I should have kissed
I'd be a millionaire
I'd be Fred Astaire

I saw these guys around the time of this album in 1981 and they were absolutely brilliant at what they did on stage. More so because no one believed(including me) that a 'plastic pop band' like ABC would be able to perform all the complex arrangements live. The band(that basically consisted of only four member and did not even have a fixed bass player!) solved their problems by taking to the road with a 12 persons band, including five ladies on violin, a guy on the cello and two keyboard players! All dressed in Tuxedo they took the phrase 'incorrect' to a new level. While the New Wave bands and the post-punk bands were playing around the corner, here were some people in evening dresses playing sophisticated disco-pop while the stage lights went from baby blue to baby pink halfway through the concert. It was so kitch that it sort of pained the eyes. Which in turn of course made it fun to watch.

New Wave it wasn't...

By the time they recorded their third album 'Beauty Stab' ABC had changed their style somewhat. Much more emphasis was put on the guitar parts which really made the album sound a lot more like rock. Even so, the album was absolutely 'ABC', one could hear the style from a mile away. Perhaps this also had something to do with the fact that the guitarist was also the keyboard player...

Love's just the gimmick
a mime or a mimic
That makes sex seem respectable
Make you feel more than a dream holding me
Holding me, holding me, holding me

Lips that seem so kissable
Unpermissible unzippable Unzip!
Why take pleasure in censorship
Unzip! Unzip! Unzip!

I must admit that I lost track of them(as so many people did) after their fourth and most successful album 'Alphabet City'. It's probably because the albums after that one did not contain any real hits so the airplay went down. Also; this was around about the time that bands like U2 and Nirvana stormed the charts and R&B became really big, so it may have a been musical generations thing. Still, 'Alphabet City' was an extremely succesful album that spun the hits 'When Smokey Sings', 'The Night You Murdered Love' and 'King Without A Crown' :

Welcome to the Great Republic
I guess I should show you 'round
Where once I was a King
but now I am a clown

The love that we once had
made a King of me
But now you're gone
and all I face is poverty

ABC still plays live concerts off and on. I have no need or any urge to go and see them because I know I would be disappointed if I did. Some things should be left alone in the dark. But once upon a time they were a great band.

Found somewhere on The Web...

The problem is something 'bout your clothes, she said to me
The red shirt and the stripeless sleeves yell, "I'm Security!"
And when you get down planet-side with Kirk, you'll get to see
There must be fifty ways to kill an ensign

He takes a landing party down to find what's going on
A couple of the bridge crew, and some extras come along
And then before you know it - the `expendables' are gone
There must be fifty ways to kill an ensign
Fifty ways to kill an ensign

Just step on a rock, Jock
Get thorns from some plants, Lance
A Horta can spray, Ray
Just listen to me
Clouds drink up your blood, Bud
Computers can kill, Bill
You could lose all your salt, Walt
Kirk gets away free...

She said it grieves me so to see you with such nerves
Not ev'ryone who goes with Kirk will suffer from this curse
But then of course, you must recall - they sometimes suffer WORSE
There must be fifty ways...

Just tell him, "I'm not stupid and I'm not expendable
I'm not going!" Tell him that he's a Denebian slime devil
And he's overbearing, swaggering, and dictatorial
He'll find a new way to kill an ensign
Fifty-one ways to kill an ensign

The Railroad Barons of the 19th century

I found this article via via via etcetera. Interesting read re. the 14th Amendment and the way it has been/is being abused. The article is from 2002 but this kind of information does not really expire...

...the railroad barons represented the most powerful corporations in America, and they were incredibly tenacious. They mounted challenge after challenge before the Court, claiming the 14th Amendment should grant them human rights under the Bill of Rights (but not grant such rights to unions, churches, small companies, or governments). Finally, in 1886, the Court's reporter defied his own Chief Justice and improperly wrote a headnote that moved corporations out of the privileges category and gave them rights - an equal status with humans.

Link of the week(so far).

Best Page In The Universe

Alaskan Politics - The Quagmire

People who know me also know that I am very interested in the circus that is American Politics. In this respect, last year was obviously a year in Heaven. Now that the US Elections have come and gone, most people are focusing on the economical crisis, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and of course the new Health Insurance System that Obama wants to set up. It seems to me that - especially outside the US - interest for the major players is limited to Obama, Hillary Clinton and one or two former members of the Bush Administration. And all the while there is the enigma that is called Sarah Palin...

Sarah Palin is dividing the US as few others have done before her. It is not so much 'The Woman Palin' who is the cause of this; it is more a matter of Rightwing Christian America having found a poster-girl for bringing religion into politics. Even America's founding fathers knew that this is a recipe for disaster but apparently those wise insights are now lost on a large part of the american population.

I vividly remember the TV Evangelists of the 80ies with their unspeakably absurd 'church services'(remember Genesis spoofing them in 'Jesus He Knows Me'? "And The Lord Said Get Me Eighteen Millon Dollars By The Weekend!!!"). These people, the Jim Bakers, the Pat Robertsons, the Jimmy Falwells etcetera, used to be limited by laws that forbade the mixing of politics and religion. Any religious entity that was found to be mixing the church with politics would by law be prosecuted and their tax-exempt status would be revoked. Clearly this made the religious far right cautious when engaging in politics nevertheless.

What is happening now is - in my opinion - far worse : after 25 years of influencing politicians behind closed doors, the Religious Right is now working in the open more and more, and hardly anyone is screaming murder; Keith Olberman perhaps is, but he suffers from the stigma of being seen as a far left tv commentator and is therefore put in 'The Liberal Corner' with all the consequences that this has. He basically 'criticized' himself out of a general audience in order to win a pretty much left wing fanbase. The only name on tv that comes to mind is Jon Stewart. At the moment he is seen by the audience as the most trusted news achor on tv in the US. But wait a minute! Jon Stewart is a comedian! So the person most people trust to give them proper information is a tv comedian?


Anyway; just like I followed the idiocy around Michael Jackson for some time some years ago, I am now keeping an eye on the backwaters of American Politics. Not so much the new Obama-plan or an attempted republican filibuster, but more about the people behind the current stage, waiting - no dying - for their moment in the spotlights. And one of those people is most definitely Sarah Palin. I found below article in Vanity Fair, a magazine I am starting to appreciate more and more lately. What were they thinking in the McCain Campaign? Well, they probably weren't...


It Came From Wasilla


May Heaven and Earth help us if she ever gets to the real top of american politics. We'll need all the help we can get.

Creepy Palin and the Christian Suicide Bombers

The more I read about that woman the creepier she gets.

Inside Sarah's Church

Behind the Third Wave’s histrionics lies an aggressive brand of Dominionism focused on purging “demon influence” from entire geographic areas through prayer or more forceful means if necessary. Becky Fischer, a Third Wave youth pastor who gained fame as the anti-hero of the award-winning 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, urged pastors to indoctrinate an army of spiritual suicide bombers to seize control of the country.
“I wanna see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam,” Fischer said in the documentary during an unguarded moment. “I wanna see them as radically laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are over in Pakistan and Israel and Palestine and all those different places.”

and...

The Third Wave arrived in Alaska through a “spiritual warfare network” founded by an Anchorage-based Haida Indian named Mary Glazier, who claimed to have converted 60 members of her family, including her formerly alcohol-abusing parents. Seeking a “battle strategy” against the rising tide of sin that consumed her son, who committed suicide in 1990,
Glazier tried to gain access to the state’s prison system, a pit of desperation. A young female prison chaplain opposed Glazier’s evangelizing intentions. Glazier responded by branding the woman a witch and began to utter imprecatory prayers. “As we continued to pray against the spirit of witchcraft,” Glazier recalled with glee, “her incense altar caught on fire, her car engine blew up, she went blind in her left eye, and she was diagnosed with cancer.”

Really friendly people with lots of compassion and understanding for others. And people ask me why organized religion makes me sick to my stomach...

Good name for a band #2

"Muck Raker"

IPhoney?

The IPhone is losing acolytes...

I Hate My IPhone


"Now, after reading that several iPhones have exploded, action-flick style, I at last feel free to say it: The iPhone sucks. It makes life miserable. I loathe the iPhone."

Also good for a laugh : The I Hate My IPhone website

One of the milder responses :

"Slower than shit!
Crappy ass GPS
Horrible battery life
Awfully slow internet
Volume not loud enough
to fucking expensive plan
FUCK THIS THING"

Recommended reading in Science Fiction Land

Although it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pick my favourite Science Fiction books and stories I'm still going to have a go at it. This is by no means a complete list and I have probably forgotten dozens of brilliant stories. Rest assured though : in my opinion these are all landmark books and novellas.

This list is in random order.

Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - The Mote In God's Eye.

Not to put down Gene 'The Great Bird Of The Galaxy' Roddenberry, but this book is what StarTrek The Original Series would have been if it would have been written by a seasoned science fiction writer. The scope is magnificent, this is absolutely a classic 'Space Opera', written at a time when everybody in SF-land claimed that the time for such books had come and gone. You might think of it in the same way that people tend to think about Albert Einstein and J.S Bach : The Last Of The Great Classics. Of course I'm not a writer but having said that : as an avid SF-reader I would not know how to improve this book.

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game / Speaker For The Dead.

In a nutshell : Aliens called 'The Buggers'(because they look somewhat like insects) have tried to invade Earth 80 years ago, but were defeated by an absolutely ruthless and brilliant Israeli commander called Mazer Rackham. People and especially the leaders on Earth know however, that the aliens will very likely come back when there is the least distance between the planets again(in about 80 years). They are therefore frantically and desperately searching for a new 'Mazer Rackham' to lead them to victory, or at least to a stalemate. As a result they pick the best and the brightest of their children at an extremely young age, and put them through intensive training to see if the Great Leader will stand up. The book is mostly set on a space station orbiting Earth, that has been designed solely as a training facility. It follows a score of these young and brilliant military minds from the age of five onward.

The catch is : they cannot just pick one and give him orders, as this would destroy the personal initiative of this new military genius and render him or her useless for any great battle.

If you haven't read this book please do: I could tell you what it's about in great further detail but my words would be no match for the book itself. It is by far the best book I have ever read with a young male boy as the leading character. Ender Wiggin is one of those protagonists you immediately start to like and love. Orson Scott Card is well known nowadays for his character development and this was an absolute highlight in his career.

Four books were released in the 'Ender'-series but the first two are the most intense and up-front personal.

Ender's Game is one of those very few books that left me quite emotional. Wich is a true exception in Science Fiction as far as I'm concerned.


The(first) sequel 'Speaker For The Dead' is so ingeniously put together that it basically has hardly any relationship with the first book except for Ender and his sister. The story is set 3.000 year onward and deals with the fear of humanity of ever confronting a new alien race. When Humanity finally encounter an underdeveloped but promising intelligent race that they call 'The Piggies', they are overly cautious and turn the whole planet into a quarantined zone where only a few people are allowed to live and study.

And then something goes wrong...

Kurt Vonnegut - Galapagos

I must by now surely have bored people to tears with my praise for Kurt Vonnegut's work.

Originally a writer of SF('The Players of Titan' comes to mind) Vonnegut quite quickly move out of the SF-field because as he said 'he did not want to get stuck in the ghetto that was SF'. Ironically enough, there is a lot of SF in the books he wrote after that period.

Galapagos is one of his last complete novels and describes the wholly unlikely survival of the human race on the Galapagos Islands. The main characters are all flawed. There is a con man trying to trick a widow out of her inheritance, a captain who really doesn't know how the ship works because he has personnell who do, there are a few native girls who get stranded on the ship(which in the end is itself stranded on one of the remote Galapagos Islands), etcetera etcetara.

Kurt Vonnegut is the only writer I have ever read who could write almost in baby talk and still be completely 'gripping'. The older he got the better I like his work.

The man passed away not too long ago. May he rest in peace. I honestly do miss waiting for the new Vonnegut to come out.


To be continued...

Time Travel Fatigue

An interesting article about what can basically be seen as the erosion of the use of Time Travel in Science Fiction. Indeed : Compared to the way time travel was used to come up with new plotlines and infinite possibilities, it is now becomimg somewhat of a Deus Ex Machina to fix the script every time when the director gets stuck.

Somewhere between watching the first half-hour of the new Star Trek film and, five days later, the season finale of Lost, something happened.

You know how it is when you have that second piece of dessert? It tastes great at the time. The sensory delights linger through the after-dinner drinks and through the evening ... right up to the moment when you step on the scale the next morning.

It can happen with stories, too. There are themes and high concepts you love, then you have one more than the standard adult requirement.

For example, I reached this point with the alien-invasion theme on television four seasons back, when NBC's Surface, ABC's Invasion and CBS's Threshold were all airing at the same time.

It's happening this summer with a pair of Big Rock Hits Earth miniseries. ABC already aired Impact, and NBC is promising Meteor: Path to Destruction. This comes a decade after the dueling Big Rock features Armageddon and Deep Impact, which were two decades after dueling Big Rock novels, Lucifer's Hammer and Shiva Descending.

I was happily watching Star Trek, prepared to love every minute of it—which I did, right up until the time when the Romulan ship appeared from the future.

Let me say this again, possibly saving myself half a dozen comments: I liked this movie. It was a wonderful re-invention of the Star Trek franchise. Long may it wave. Can't wait for the sequel.

But I didn't need the time travel. I didn't need future Spock.

Five days later I was watching "The Incident" on Lost. Jack and Kate and Hurley were trying to work some time-travel-related magic on the Lost island of 30-odd years ago when I realized that two characters—Daniel and Miles—were in the story in different phases of their lives.

I've overdosed on time-travel stories.

Which is painful, because I love them. Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Robert F. Young's charming "When Time Was New." Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps." Lewis Padgett's "Mimsy Were the Borogoves."

Just last month I read Joe Haldeman's The Accidental Time Machine. Not long before that, I revisited Harry Harrison's The Technicolor® Time Machine—which if nothing else possesses one of the best titles in sci-fi history.

I grew up watching Peabody and Sherman and the Wayback Machine. I liked Time Tunnel. I enjoyed all of the Back to the Future movies.

I love the forms a time-travel story can take. You can leap forward and experience the near future, as in Gregory Benford's Timescape or Algis Budry's "Silent Eyes of Time," or, of course, in H.G. Wells' Time Machine.

I love it when characters go back in time, as in Connie Willis' Doomsday Book or, even further back, as in Robert Silverberg's Hawksbill Station or Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder."

Further reading : Time Travel Fatigue

Note to self

Never(NEVER!) post a blog-entry when you are pissed off.


And that is why this is not a blog-entry...

The Last Word...

Been checking my older entries. I think this one was obvious but also spot-on.

The Great Groinshaker

Groundbreaking Synthesizer Players

As someone who has been playing synthesizers since 1977 I am of course interested in what other musicians do with that instrument. So recently I started work on a list of my favourite synthesizer-musicians/bands. As I don't want to get into the impossible job of grading keyboard players themselves, this is a list of musicians and bands that actually published records under the same name. So you will not see sole bandmembers in this list, only 'acts'. That is why names such as Rick Wright(Pink Floyd) and Roger Powell(Utopia, Todd Rundgren, etcetera) are not on this list. I think these guys were brilliant, but not so much in their solo efforts.

The musicians/bands are listed in random order, this is not a 'Top-10' list. Also: I have not included any Jazz keyboard players in this list because I plan to write a separate entry about those people, including musicians such as Chick Corea, George Duke, etcetera.


Anyway : here's what I came up with :


Tangerine Dream

A German band of legendary stature. They started out as early as 1967 and are still performing. In it's best days the nucleus of the band consisted of Chris Franke, Chris Froese and Peter Baumann. Tangerine Dream(TD) became famous for it's atmospheric, yes almost ambient music. Most of the albums they released in the 70ies were actually complete live-recordings. The band would jam most of the music(based on a pattern of course) and release the recordings if the jam-results sounded good. I realized years later, that my co-musicians and I used exactly the same method when we had our DrumNBass band a few years ago...

Recommended listening :

Phaedra
Rubycon
Ricochet
Force Majeure
Cyclone


Vangelis

There are millions and millions of people out there who got to know Vangelis after he recorded his best albums. No disrespect to any of his later records such as 'Chariots Of Fire' etcetera, but the 70-ies era was the time that he really shone. Albums like 'Beaubourgh' and especially 'China' are of an unsurpassable beauty. The latter album('China') was one of the first synthesizer albums that incorporated various other instruments, such as the Koto, Violin, Chinese Drums, and so on. This made the album sound distinctly 'chinese', although one can hear the man is Greek if one listens carefully.

Recommended listening :

China
Beaubourg
Heaven and Hell


Brian Eno

Technically speaking Eno only started to use synthesizers later on in his career. He started out as the keyboard player for Roxy Music and used 'traditional' instruments like the Hammond Organ. After his stint with Roxy Music he started to experiment with sound effects, tapes played backwards, etcetera, and came up with the all-time classic 'Music For Films', followed by 'Music For Airports'. To describe these albums is really hard, as the records contain not so much 'music' in the classic way. The records consist of sound-scapes that have been made by producing sound with every object he thought sounded good. These sounds were frequently re-recorded to give them more 'grainy' characteristics.

If this sounds familiar that's understandable. Twenty years later a band called 'Portishead' did exactly the same thing and became world famous for it as well.

Recommended listening :

Music For Films
Music For Airports


Kate Bush

Ri-i-i-ght! you may say. Kate Bush is well known for playing beautiful keyboard arrangements but one might not expect her in this list. So why is Kate in this list? I'll begin with two words : "The Dreaming".

At the start of her career, Kate Bush mainly played traditional keyboards, especially the piano. However: after recording three LPs, she got fed up with the limitations of those instruments. Fortunately for her there was this guy Peter Gabriel who invited her to sing background vocals on one of his records. The rest, one may safely say, is history. Gabriel showed her his new Fairlight CMI synthesizer and the next thing he knew was that Kate had bought on for herself. This may sound like nothing special but that synthesizer cost what would now be over 100.000 euros. She still uses the synth for specific jobs because it has really defined her sound since 1983. Whether you hear 'Suspended in Gaffa'(1984), 'And Dream Of Sheep'(1988), or 'King Of The Mountain(2006), you will always hear some part there that is pure Fairlight CMI.

Recommended listening :

The Dreaming
Hounds Of Love
Aerial

and basically everything else she has released...


Mannfred Mann's Earth Band

No list about synthesizer players/bands would be complete without Mannfred Mann. The man was a pioneer. He almost personally introduced the synthesizer - especially the solo-synthesizer - in rock music. He not only made some great albums with his Earth Band, but also played on the early records by Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, and so on and so on.

Recommended listening :

Nightingales And Bombers
The Roaring Silence
Watch


Tony Banks

Under normal circumstances Tony Banks would not be in this list. He is after all the only keyboard player Genesis ever had, but still: he is a band member. Fortunately for me the man recorded quite a list of solo records. Lately his recordings involve grand orchestral pieces which are recorded with the aid of an actual classical orchestra. That's what you get when you have the money to do whatever you want...

In the 70ies however, after Gabriel had left Genesis and the band wanted to move towards a somewhat lighter musical style, Tony Banks found that he had a lot of material on the shelf that sounded like the old Genesis and therefore would not be recorded by the band. This made him record his first solo-record 'A Curious Feeling'. After this album many more have followed : 'The Wicked Lady', 'Still', etcetara. In my opinion however, none of those albums has had the impact of 'A Curious Feeling'.

Tony achieved fame and fortune with Genesis. Because this band became so huge, Tony's innovative approach to keyboards(albeit with a classical twist) has never been as clear as it could have been. To name an example : he was the first keyboard player to experiment with effect pedals instead of a Lesley cabinet(mainly because he got fed up with carrying around the bloody speakers), and also to be noted : he was one of the very first who combined a drumcomputer(the famous Linn Drum) to a synthesizer in order to get the sequences that we know from 'By You'(from 'The Fugitive') and 'Mama' by Genesis.

Recommended listening :

A Curious Feeling
The Fugutive

Setlists

Setlist for tonight@home...

1. Utopia - Alone
2. Utopia - I Just Want To Touch You
3. Utopia - Crystal Ball
4. Utopia - Where Does The World Go To Hide
5. Utopia - Silly Boy
6. Utopia - That's Not Right
7. Utopia - Take It Home
8. Utopia - Hoi Poloi
9. The Tubes - Don't Want To Wait Anymore
10. Tangerine Dream - Mojave Plain(Part I)
11. Tangerine Dream - No Man's Land
12. Tangerine Dream - Kiew Mission
13. Tangerine Dream - Cloudburst Flight
14. Tangerine Dream - Force Majeure
15. Tangerine Dream - Rubycon(The Decision)
16. Razorlight - America
17. James Blunt - Same Mistake
18. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill
19. Paul McCartney - Silly Love Songs
20. Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights
21. Paul Young - Where ever I Lay My Hat
22. Laurie Anderson - Oh Superman(for Massenet)
23. Prefab Sprout - Desire As
24. The Bangles - Be With You
25. The FixX - Sign Of Fire
26. Radiohead - 15 Steps
27. The Corrs - Old Town

A good name for a band

'Cringeworthy'

Stalkin'

I seem to have an online stalker nowadays. Weird, in some respect it is an honour. If only he wasn't such a grade-A asshole. Oh well, it'll pass eventually. Perhaps someday he'll get a real life instead.

Forgotten Heroes -Klaatu

Listening to 'Routine Day' by Klaatu atm. A proper warning against letting your career get in the way of your life.

Weird; this band never made it really big time. although there is something to say for becoming a cult-band...

I remember being mesmerized by 'Hope', it was like a science fiction story set to music, and I mean a REAL SF-story, not Buck Rogers or whatever.


"It started off a routine day
I got through the morning in the usual way
I caught the bus on time
Good morning, Mr. Driver, drive
As I sat inside my overcoat I clutched my cane
And pressed my nose against the foggy window pane
Ho hum
The life I lead would even make a dead man yawn

Midday comes
I break for lunch
With my sandwich and a beer I go on a hunch
To the park where I hope to find
A little bit of peace of mind
As I sat there on a bench amidst the rodent race
I felt a strange sensation that without a trace appeared
But then as quickly disappeared again

So tell me what's the bloody point of playing the game
With so much to lose yet so little to gain
You sell your life away
Can't you see you're just a cog working like a dog
You trade your future for a dead-end job
That's full of routine days
Routine days

I race the clock to the end of my day
The paycheck in my pocket makes me feel okay
But was it worth the grind
Just to keep from falling behind

I stand here in the queue behind a foul cigar
My face discreetly buried in a book on Mars
Humdrum
And I'm waiting on the pier 'til Charon comes"

The Power of Old Metal - Observation One

Yes, of course, modern metal is usually technically superior, modern metal is made up of exquisite patterns and melodies and blahdieblahdieblah...

But once upon a time there was R.U.S.H. A Canadian band with balls AND feeling. Just listen to Cygnus X-1 part I and part II and be amazed. So long ago yet so brilliant...


"In the constellation of cygnus
There lurks a mysterious, invisible force
The black hole
Of cygnus x-1

Six stars of the northern cross
In mourning for their sisters loss
In a final flash of glory
Nevermore to grace the night...."

This space is rather dusty, time I re-activate it.

Let's see: the world is still going to pot, life consists of work and more work, but fortunately some interesting stuff is happening in the music scene. Catching up on newer artists like Razorlight, Lily Allen, etcetera. I also found some great Jools Holland records with acts like Muse an King Creosote on them.

A damning report

Read this PDF, you can start at page 10. Jeeeezus...

Voting Machines