I have borrowed a USB turntable and have successfully imported not one but two singles and cleaned up the noise a bit. Tomorrow we try to master albums and splitting them into tracks...


P.S. If you have offered me mp3s and it's not too much trouble I still want them, cos this is going to be slooow...

For the first time have paid money for an album that I could have had for free, rather than, say, the other way round. I wouldn't have done it for Radiohead since, a) they are already relatively well-off and b) musically they've been kinda sucking more recently. In fact I still haven't got round to downloading that album.

But I just paid the very modest requested $5 for Mr Saul William's "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust", coincidentally produced with the rather fine Mr Trent Reznor. It's really jolly good.

Of course it helps that the dollar is worth paper at the moment...

Come to think of it the other reason I didn't like the Radiohead method was that they didn't recommend a price. I found Saul William's approach a lot simpler - plus he's been an anti-DRM campaigner for a while.

You can listen to a few tracks on Saul William's MySpace, and then buy it at Niggytardust.com if you feel so inclined...

Here is the best songs of my life poll Part the Second. If you haven't already, go fill in Part the First from 1966 to 1976 - don't worry you don't need a suggestion for every single year...

[Poll #824693]

Music is the most beautiful thing in the world. Because it can activate the bits of my brain that feel all the other things of beauty and it can do it at any time.

And The Cat Empire's Misere is almost religious. In fact it's anti-religion religious and I now feel the urge to collect some other such songs into a play list. Such as Yello's Domingo. Hmm. And No God, No Religion, and The Gates to the Garden. Are there any other candidates? There's a JAmes song but I can't remember which one so I have to listen to them all again. Which I can bear.

Other good things include new red hair, getting round to cleaning and making soup, and actually getting consulted about some stuff at work. Also doing Beltane stuffs and having ideas about events later in the year.

Also Prefab Sprout's Electric Guitars is happy and sweet and charming and I am not ashamed. (Actually I've already started a playlist called 'Poptastic Shame', which is where I think it belongs...)

I must go to bed now before I make of a idiot of myself :-)

The meme is:

* Take the bands from my list that you have seen play live, and post them in your own LJ.
* Add more bands that you've seen until you have 30.

List from zotz. Inherited bands italicised. New bands not.

1. Billy Bragg
   
2. Screaming Banshee Aircrew
   
3. The Young Gods
   
4. The International Werewolf Conspiracy
   
5. Elvis Costello
   
6. Patti Smith
   
7. PWEI
   
8. The Boomtown Rats
   
9. Biffy Clyro
   
10. Single Bass
    
11. The Dickies
    
12. Laurie Anderson
    
13. Marillion - twice, to my very great shame
    
14. Tanita Tikaram
    
15. Suzanne Vega
    
16. Michelle Shocked
    
17. Squeeze
    
18. UK Subs
    
19. The Sugarcubes
    
20. Uresei Yatsura
    
21. The Dream Disciples
    
22. Gin Goblins
    
23. Tom Robinson
    
24. Je$us Loves Amerika
    
25. Spiritualized
    
26. Carter USM
    
27. Shellac
    
28. Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
    
29. Blocovomit
    
30. The Wonderstuff
    

4. There's nothing to do so pack up your bags and join the back of the queue this time
5. An emotional charge like an electrical spark, but the fuses are two, you can't tell them apart
7. The question is big, the question is wide, I can't see around it I see only one side
8. Days in silence try my temper, nights spent drinking to remember - Surely Graeme should get this?
9. There were fireworks over London. You weren't among them anymore
10. The truth unwinding, scraping away at my mind, please stop asking me to describe
15. hey did any of you freaks here ever remember lenny? i can't remember his last name, he's turned to dust now, one of the chosen few
16. I'd shed blood for you/ The north star in the firmament/ You shine the most bright/ I've seen you draped in an electric veil/ Shrouded in celestial light
18. We needed something to move and fill up the space. We needed something that always is just the case - The Pixies, Space (I believe in)
19. Abandon faith and then belief
21. Some have teeth and some have hair. Some have soft sweet petals, some look like Cher
23. The moon... beautiful The sun... even more beautiful Yello, Oh Yeah
24. I thought she was the girl for me. I was so taken by her personality
25. Am I a slut? Wow this is even better than a movie - yes, it's Bongwater
26. You're just a oil slick on the drag strip. You're just a skid mark on the speedway - Cop Shoot Cop, Eggs for Rib
28. Things cross your mind, you can't help it. What you said, what I said, what you did, what I did. - think of it in Steve Albini's voice...
29. Back in the days when the battles raged and we thought it was nothing
31. He said the record wouldn't have to be hot and no-one ever seemed to care if it's not
33. Well close your breath and hold your eyes, turn the corner of surprise
34. But to send you to Antarctica to face your certain death was a very, very heartless thing to do - David?
37. When he's had enough of that, maybe you'll take him to bed To teach him he's alive before he wishes he was dead - another for Graeme
39. Girl with a curl with a sweet sweet ribbon in her hair she's calling out a window cos her daddy just don't care
45. 'Cos I got the real love, the kind that you need , you'll come running back to me
46. She said, it's hard, it's just hard, it's kinda hard to say - Laurie Anderson
47. My wife's getting lazy going gadget crazy wants a pallette shaped coffee table and a matching settee - Emily?
50. If you're looking for trouble that's what you will find. Mom and pop, they will fuck you, for sure.

For your delectation. Taken from the top 50 from iTunes party shuffle.( Read more... )
Comments will be unscreened and results announced when I get home tonight - Just an hour and a half to go folks!

Bored on Friday? Wanna help me think of some playlists?

Today I'm looking for:-

Songs with the word Candy in the title
Songs that are covers but which people assume are the original because the original is so obscure. Beaver Patrol is a classic example.
Cover versions of Kick Out The Jams, I know loads of people have covered it, but who?

(For extra points MP3s of tracks I haven't got would be very welcome, but strictly optional. I would do quite a lot for an MP3 of the original Beaver Patrol...)

That's enough pirates. Meanwhile I have installed Realplayer just to play this track, since I couldn't find it on MP3. Not sure it was worth the effort. Actually I'm sure it wasn't, but I was bored. Also I hate Realplayer 'cos it talks to you and tries to get you to download the new version as you quit.

Today I have mostly been making plans of escape, but I'm getting depressed because they're not very good plans. I figure any plan that involves winning the lottery has a fairly fatal flaw. Where can I learn Dutch in Edinburgh that's not the University? There's a course at the University but it clashes with my Origins of Writing course that I've already booked and paid for...

I wonder whether I will ever get back into doing my job instead of staring into space. If not I may need to find a new one smartish before anyone notices how useless I've become...

Here is a selection of the perkigoth.com playlist for this afternoon. So, it is Goth, or Not?( Poll below )