I'm in more of a mood for a good bitch and a moan than a rant about music at this point in my life. I haven't really been reading any blogs of late, let alone felt like contributing to my own. That's no slight on the good bloggers of the world out there (or even the mediocre ones), it's just that my life has been so inundated with music lately - and that's for work (and don't ask me what I do; I won't tell you) - that the thought of sitting in front of this computer at night, in my spare time, to write about music, is not something which greatly appeals. I have to do enough of that shit during the day.
And then there's fucking PayPal. Fuck them in the ear and fuck them hard. I finally got ADSL broadband for the computer last week, and within 12 hours of it being set up, with myself being too stupid/ignorant to realise that one MUST get a "firewall" protector for their system if they have it, a couple of dickheaded hackers made their way into my PayPal account and stole all USD$1,400.00 I had sitting in there. Will I ever get it back? Judging by PayPal's nothing-but-automated responses thus far, in which they claim they're "looking into it", I'd say my chances are slim. I should probably be mad at myself - hell, I am - though I can't help but feel that a company as big as PayPal should have the sense, smarts and financial clout to be able to afford themselves a state-of-the-art security system which doesn't allow slimy shit like that to happen. I gotta ask the question: has it happened to anyone else you know?
OK, to make matters worse, my car broke down during the week - again - so I paid a small fortune to get it fixed, promised myself I'd put it on the market this weekend, left it out the front of a friend's place last night whilst attending a friendly BBQ, only to return to it later on and discover it the victim of a hit-and-run. Some motherfuck-on-a-stick smashed into the side, to the point where I can't even open the driver door properly anymore, and drove off.
I FUCKING GIVE UP.
Well, not yet. Before I do, I highly recommend that everyone on earth hear these albums:
FOOD - Last Supper CD
New CD on Rune Grammofon. Food are a kind of avant/jazz/experimental/electronic supergroup featuring trumpet extraordinaire Arve Henrikson. They plunder and steal from the likes of '70s Miles, ambient Eno, Krautrock and perhaps a bit of prime Don Cherry, though the atmosphere they create is their own. Along with Jesu, AluminiumKnotEye and a bunch of other shit I forget, this will be high in the pile for best CDs of 2005.
SHINING - In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster CD
Ignore the stupid title; listen to the CD instead. Another Aryan supergroup c/ Rune Grammofon, Shining are about as far as I can handle "rock" these days. They "rock", but they don't sling guitars or pose in matching suits. Fact is, I have no fucking idea what they look like. But what they sound like is this: the bombastic crunch of early '70s King Crimson (you know, the good stuff, if you were to take away the horrific vocals), the post-punk experimentation of This Heat (ca. Deceit), the cut-ups of primo Krautrock (think Faust Tapes/Tago Mago) and perhaps a dash of the "big band" stylings of Mingus or some of William Parker's ensembles. You could probably throw a bit of early Swans in there, too. Play it loud and annoy everyone around you. Another goodie.
DARKTHRONE - Transilvanian Hunger CD
I bought this a while ago - after my entry into the world of Darkthrone via Under The Funeral Moon - and was pretty disappointed. I mean, ...Funeral Moon, that baby is the shit and the wipe all in one. A friend from Sydney recommended TH as perhaps the archetypal Norwegian Black Metal album. I poo-pooed such nonsense, telling him it was just a friggin' pain in the arse to listen to, sounding like it'd been recorded in a toilet bowl placed in a windtunnel. No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, my friend said. "You're listening to it like it's a rock album; it's not. It's an ambient album. It's all about feeling and textures. The recording and musicianship are way too sub-par to pass for rock'n'roll". I figured he was being a typically antagonistic/contrarist asshole and ignored him... until I gave it a listen with new ears a week or two later. That a-hole - sorry, friend - is right. Amon Duul: Half Japanese: Solger: Harry Pussy: Darkthrone. That's a beautiful lineage of Primitive Shit Music I can get my ears around.
And then there's fucking PayPal. Fuck them in the ear and fuck them hard. I finally got ADSL broadband for the computer last week, and within 12 hours of it being set up, with myself being too stupid/ignorant to realise that one MUST get a "firewall" protector for their system if they have it, a couple of dickheaded hackers made their way into my PayPal account and stole all USD$1,400.00 I had sitting in there. Will I ever get it back? Judging by PayPal's nothing-but-automated responses thus far, in which they claim they're "looking into it", I'd say my chances are slim. I should probably be mad at myself - hell, I am - though I can't help but feel that a company as big as PayPal should have the sense, smarts and financial clout to be able to afford themselves a state-of-the-art security system which doesn't allow slimy shit like that to happen. I gotta ask the question: has it happened to anyone else you know?
OK, to make matters worse, my car broke down during the week - again - so I paid a small fortune to get it fixed, promised myself I'd put it on the market this weekend, left it out the front of a friend's place last night whilst attending a friendly BBQ, only to return to it later on and discover it the victim of a hit-and-run. Some motherfuck-on-a-stick smashed into the side, to the point where I can't even open the driver door properly anymore, and drove off.
I FUCKING GIVE UP.
Well, not yet. Before I do, I highly recommend that everyone on earth hear these albums:
FOOD - Last Supper CD
New CD on Rune Grammofon. Food are a kind of avant/jazz/experimental/electronic supergroup featuring trumpet extraordinaire Arve Henrikson. They plunder and steal from the likes of '70s Miles, ambient Eno, Krautrock and perhaps a bit of prime Don Cherry, though the atmosphere they create is their own. Along with Jesu, AluminiumKnotEye and a bunch of other shit I forget, this will be high in the pile for best CDs of 2005.
SHINING - In The Kingdom Of Kitsch You Will Be A Monster CD
Ignore the stupid title; listen to the CD instead. Another Aryan supergroup c/ Rune Grammofon, Shining are about as far as I can handle "rock" these days. They "rock", but they don't sling guitars or pose in matching suits. Fact is, I have no fucking idea what they look like. But what they sound like is this: the bombastic crunch of early '70s King Crimson (you know, the good stuff, if you were to take away the horrific vocals), the post-punk experimentation of This Heat (ca. Deceit), the cut-ups of primo Krautrock (think Faust Tapes/Tago Mago) and perhaps a dash of the "big band" stylings of Mingus or some of William Parker's ensembles. You could probably throw a bit of early Swans in there, too. Play it loud and annoy everyone around you. Another goodie.
DARKTHRONE - Transilvanian Hunger CD
I bought this a while ago - after my entry into the world of Darkthrone via Under The Funeral Moon - and was pretty disappointed. I mean, ...Funeral Moon, that baby is the shit and the wipe all in one. A friend from Sydney recommended TH as perhaps the archetypal Norwegian Black Metal album. I poo-pooed such nonsense, telling him it was just a friggin' pain in the arse to listen to, sounding like it'd been recorded in a toilet bowl placed in a windtunnel. No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, my friend said. "You're listening to it like it's a rock album; it's not. It's an ambient album. It's all about feeling and textures. The recording and musicianship are way too sub-par to pass for rock'n'roll". I figured he was being a typically antagonistic/contrarist asshole and ignored him... until I gave it a listen with new ears a week or two later. That a-hole - sorry, friend - is right. Amon Duul: Half Japanese: Solger: Harry Pussy: Darkthrone. That's a beautiful lineage of Primitive Shit Music I can get my ears around.
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