Commit dbc49e1d77f4e79a1eae73e1331a73d9ecc5586f
Incorporate the Friday Fetch-it and Walking Dataloss
Grey Nicholson committed on 10/2/2021, 6:43:19 PMParent: 0ec06f1a1911767feb7effe12b399cff8c28bc3c
Files changed
| content/explodingarticles.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -41,9 +41,9 @@ | ||
| 41 | 41 … | <p>...or things I've <em>started</em>, at least.</p> |
| 42 | 42 … | <ol start="0"> |
| 43 | 43 … | <li><ins datetime="2007-11-08T14:15Z"><a href="http://thetwadsbollocks.blogspot.com/2007/11/it-was-so-nearly-called-kirn-kru.html" title="It was so nearly called a “kirn kru”">The latest El Twad HQ update</a> is set in August because that's when I started writing it (and the Fringe happens in August, so it kind of <em>has</em> to be).</ins></li> |
| 44 | 44 … | <li> |
| 45 | -<a href="http://walkingdataloss.blogspot.com/2007/10/brothers-or-sisters.html">Brothers or Sisters</a> took me <strong>six-and-a-half weeks</strong> to complete; and this was <em>supposed</em> to be for a “stream-of-consciousness-type” blog. When I finally <em>did</em> publish this, <a href="http://www.postoftheweek.com/posts/159">it actually won an award</a>. So that was nice.</li> | |
| 45 … | +<a href="/brothersorsisters">Brothers or Sisters</a> took me <strong>six-and-a-half weeks</strong> to complete; and this was <em>supposed</em> to be for a “stream-of-consciousness-type” blog. When I finally <em>did</em> publish this, <a href="http://www.postoftheweek.com/posts/159">it actually won an award</a>. So that was nice.</li> | |
| 46 | 46 … | <li> |
| 47 | 47 … | <strong>That review of Manager by <a href="http://www.natjm.co.uk">Nat JM</a></strong> that she asked me to do a few months ago: I decided I was rubbish at reviewing individual songs, or that any comments I'd make would be superficial if I didn't consider them in the context of the rest of her work. So, I took it upon myself to review her entire back catalogue, which is only about a dozen songs but, unfortunately for me, is increasing at a rate of two a month. I know roughly what I'm going to say; I just need to produce the prose. (Hey, since her style of music is pretty unpolished I could easily justify similarly unpolished prose. And I reckon I shall.) Never before will so much of value have been said about Nat JM...I hope. <ins datetime="2007-11-08T20:43Z"><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2007/11/8/569538/" title="A great big mess of Nat JM">It exists! ...sort of.</a></ins> |
| 48 | 48 … | </li> |
| 49 | 49 … | <li>The biggie: <strong>The Perfect World</strong>—a compendium of improvements to <em>the world</em> that Gardner and I've been working on for about <strong>three-and-a-half years</strong> now. That's a decent fraction of a <em>decade</em>. We came up with the idea towards the end of <em>sixth form</em>; we have since left university. When this is finished (and it's about 80% of the way there (only another year to wait, then)), <em>this will rock</em>. They'll invent a new category of Bafta just for us.</li> |
| content/lazywebplaynextinpartyshuffle.md | ||
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| @@ -65,9 +65,9 @@ | ||
| 65 | 65 … | <p> |
| 66 | 66 … | See, I've got this noise-making program called iTunes, and you can use it to play musics with. Now, usually, when I play a music with it, I use Party Shuffle, along with a very complex set of smart playlists that I refer to collectively as “Autopilot”. |
| 67 | 67 … | </p> |
| 68 | 68 … | <p> |
| 69 | -I invented Autopilot to play me the music that I most probably want to hear, but unfortunately it's not clever enough to figure out when I have a specific hankering for, say, <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/gregknicholson/journal/2006/10/30/256054/" title="from the Fetch-it">Memorize</a>, or <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/gregknicholson/journal/2006/06/10/153028/" title="also from the Fetch-it">Iwe</a>, or even <a href="http://www.last.fm/user/gregknicholson/journal/2006/05/12/134664/" title="again, also from the Fetch-it">Shoreline</a>. | |
| 69 … | +I invented Autopilot to play me the music that I most probably want to hear, but unfortunately it's not clever enough to figure out when I have a specific hankering for, say, <a href="/youthrewpenniesinandwished" title="from the Fetch-it">Memorize</a>, or <a href="/changebeforeislipaway" title="also from the Fetch-it">Iwe</a>, or even <a href="butyouvegottaknowtheirlies" title="again, also from the Fetch-it">Shoreline</a>. | |
| 70 | 70 … | </p> |
| 71 | 71 … | <p> |
| 72 | 72 … | “Psychic” is not an available criterion in iTunes. So I add songs to the Party Shuffle “manually” every so often. And it'd be nice if I could do that by right-clicking a file and selecting a “Play Next In Party Shuffle” option. To be able to do that, I need to know what command line parameters to pass to iTunes.exe... and I was hoping, LazyWeb, that you might know something about it. |
| 73 | 73 … | </p> |
| content/abouttheblogstitle.md | ||
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| @@ -1,0 +1,26 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: About the blog's title | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-07-16 23:26 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: Björk, meta, robots, the Flaming Lips, Walking Dataloss | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>There was a TV advert recently—I <em>think</em> it was for an optician, though it might've been for a camera—in which a person walks through a forest, with Polaroid-type photos dropping behind them every few paces. The point was that we see so many images even over the course of just one day, but remember just a tiny fraction of this. You can generalise that to the other senses as well.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>For example, a human can see at a rate of about ten frames per second, so over twelve hours one sees more than four hundred thousand images. And we remember <em>none</em> of them. I mean: we filter these images and extract facts from them, but then we forget the actual <em>image</em>. Even if we consciously <em>try</em> to remember the image, memories are imperfect and some subtleties are always changed or lost. (Animals make rubbish eyewitnesses.)</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>After a split-second review of each of these innumerate sensations, to extract the juiciest titbits, the brain simply discards all of them. There's decay intrinsic in every perception an animal makes.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>In the world of software geekery, a “dataloss” bug (problem or error) is one that causes some of the user's information to be lost. It occurred to me that this advert was expressing a continual state of dataloss. It's one of the fundamental aspects of what's often called “the human condition” (although I should make it clear that I think this applies beyond just humans).</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>A lot of science fiction stories involving robots—for example—<em>contrast</em> those robots with their human (and roughly-human) counterparts, by having the robots be “perfect”. Flawless memory; absolute objectivity (the absence of emotions influencing decisions); and limitless accuracy and precision in almost every respect are hallmarks of the science fiction robot. (This isn't particularly contrived, as these are attributes that the fictional robots share with real-life computers.)</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Often this “perfection” extends to an inability to feel emotions, usually love. While the robots are lauded for their impeccable grasp of the factual, they can simultaneously be pitied for their lack of a “deeper” experience of life, beyond the “merely” factual. (My suggestion that there <em>is</em> something “deeper” than the “merely factual” already assumes that there's more to life than pure facts.)</p> | |
| 14 … | +<blockquote> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Is it wrong to say it's love when it tries the way it does?</p> | |
| 16 … | +</blockquote> | |
| 17 … | +<p>—<cite>The Flaming Lips, “One More Robot / Sympathy 3000-21”</cite></p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>It's concluded that in fact the robots' “perfection”, while ostensibly useful, is also a <em>shortcoming</em>. Imperfection is highlighted and <em>celebrated</em> as being intrinsic to humans' nature—constant dataloss is a fundamental part of life.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<blockquote> | |
| 20 … | +<p>There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic to human behaviour.</p> | |
| 21 … | +</blockquote> | |
| 22 … | +<p>—<cite>Björk, “Human Behaviour”</cite></p> | |
| 23 … | +<hr> | |
| 24 … | +<p>I used “Dataloss” in the title rather than “decay” because dataloss is usually seen as being actively induced and thus preventable. Decay is more of a continuous, natural, inevitable process; I wanted to challenge dataloss's preventability. Besides, the latter has connotations of rotting flesh that I didn't want to encourage.</p> | |
| 25 … | +<p>The “Walking” half of the title is the best way I could find to succinctly express the idea that people <em>are</em> dataloss (although, of course, I don't mean that they literally are). I'm also using it to illustrate the idea that what seems to be the most straightforward way to say something often comes loaded with assumptions. Here it's assumed that discussion is naturally restricted to concerning <em>humans</em> and no-one else, and that all humans can (or do) walk.</p> | |
| 26 … | +<p>There should be a conclusion here... ...So! “Walking Dataloss” manages to cover the blog's main thrusts, “decay, perception and dodgy assumptions”, pretty succinctly.</p> | |
| content/acorollarytoarthurcclarkesthirdlaw.md | ||
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| @@ -1,0 +1,8 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: A corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's third law | |
| 3 … | +date: 2008-03-21 02:31 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: divinity, science | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from divinity.</p> | |
| content/ahumansguidetorelatingtootherbeings.md | ||
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| @@ -1,0 +1,32 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: A Human's Guide to Relating to Other Beings | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-11-10 10:16 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: animals, food, humans, self, sex | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>A flow chart:</p> | |
| 9 … | +<ol> | |
| 10 … | +<li> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Can I have sex with it?</p> | |
| 12 … | +<ul> | |
| 13 … | +<li><strong>Yes</strong>: figure out best way to please it (consider the other being's desires)</li> | |
| 14 … | +<li><strong>No</strong>: go to step 2</li> | |
| 15 … | +</ul> | |
| 16 … | +</li> | |
| 17 … | +<li> | |
| 18 … | +<p>Can it hurt me?</p> | |
| 19 … | +<ul> | |
| 20 … | +<li><strong>Yes</strong>: figure out best way to subdue it or escape from it (consider the other being's abilities)</li> | |
| 21 … | +<li><strong>No</strong>: go to step 3</li> | |
| 22 … | +</ul> | |
| 23 … | +</li> | |
| 24 … | +<li> | |
| 25 … | +<p>Can I eat it?</p> | |
| 26 … | +<ul> | |
| 27 … | +<li><strong>Yes</strong>: figure out best way to eat it (consider own tastes)</li> | |
| 28 … | +<li><strong>No</strong>: ignore it</li> | |
| 29 … | +</ul> | |
| 30 … | +</li> | |
| 31 … | +</ol> | |
| 32 … | +<p>Under no circumstances should the other being be considered outside the context of what <em>you</em> can do with it.</p> | |
| content/allyouneedis.md | ||
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| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “All You Need Is” (the 2006-05-26 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-05-27 00:19 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Bloc Party, M83, Silent Alarm, Silent Alarm Remixed, The Pioneers, The Pioneers [M83 remix] | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Not many artists order a track-by-track remix of their début album. But then not many artists are <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bloc+Party">Bloc Party</a>, which is probably for the best – how would we tell them all apart?</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The majority of <a title="Bloc Party - Silent Alarm Remixed" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bloc+Party/Silent+Alarm+Remixed">Silent Alarm Remixed</a> proceeds much like <a title="Bloc Party - Silent Alarm" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bloc+Party/Silent+Alarm">Silent Alarm</a>, with some sounds added and taken away and a few extra wolves here and there. <a title="Bloc Party – The Pioneers [M83 remix]" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bloc+Party/_/The+Pioneers+%5BM83+remix%5D">The Pioneers [M83 remix]</a> bears no resemblance whatsoever to <a title="Bloc Party – The Pioneers" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Bloc+Party/_/The+Pioneers">the original track</a>.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>It's an immersive, epic stringscape, layered with a rhythmically repeating, disjointed burst of a <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Kele+Okereke">Kele Okereke</a> vocal; this punctuated by intermittent fragments of the song, slightly out of sync with the rhythm. Think a passenger of the Titanic running futilely for their life along a collapsing corridor, in slow motion and in black and white.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>It seems brief even at 5:47. Perhaps it's because there are so few words.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>They even used it on Top Gear a couple of weeks ago in a piece about the new Honda Civic. What more could you possibly want from a song? <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060526.mp3">Pioneers Remixed</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/beingnatural.md | ||
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| @@ -1,0 +1,27 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Being “natural” | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-11-28 20:17 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: humans, nature, science, words | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Stem cell research is accosted (to put it mildly) for being unnatural; relationships between certain groups of people are derided as unnatural; arbitrary miscellaneous things are condemned for not being natural; <em>hair colouring products</em> are advertised as looking natural and being made from natural ingredients. <strong>But what the bloody hell is “natural” supposed to <em>mean</em> anyway?</strong></p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>You could argue that anything that isn't caused by a human is “natural”. While this is clear, it's not very useful: it's just assigning blame to a particular species rather than telling you anything fundamental about the questionably-natural thing.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>There's a well-known and prestigious science journal called <i>Nature</i>, whose title goes straight to the crux of what science is about: describing nature. So you could argue that anything that can be described by science is thereby natural. This seems fairly reasonable at first glance.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>However: two hundred years ago, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion">Brownian motion</a> wasn't understood at all; one hundred years ago, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay">radioactivity</a> wasn't understood at all either. Further back, lightning and comets were sources of wonder—no-one knew what they were or how they came to pass. No-one has ever (seriously) suggested that these were anything but natural phenomena.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>And science is constantly progressing—ever more phenomena are being understood each year. But this doesn't mean that those phenomena were previously supernatural or unnatural and have now, by virtue of our understanding of them, suddenly become natural.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>There's <a href="../07/introduction.html">that tricky “our”</a> again: who are “we”? All humans? Humans plus some hypothetical human-like aliens? If these aliens' science understood a phenomenon that humans didn't, would it be natural? If so, such a phenomenon <em>would</em> be natural, but without humans (or even a second species of hypothetical human-like alien) knowing that it was; naturalness would then become a seemingly random property of which one could never be sure—not very useful. If aliens <em>don't</em> count, we're back to defining naturalness on the basis of an arbitrary species (those pesky humans again).</p> | |
| 14 … | +<h2 id="beaversdams">Beavers' Dams</h2> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Are they natural? They're certainly not human-made, but I doubt many would assert that they were a natural phenomenon. That designation is reserved for things more like the weather: complex (or even simple, actually) systems of inanimate matter producing an interesting or noteworthy result (this is how we'll describe a “phenomenon”) by processes governed by The Laws Of Nature™. That's science again.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>But psychology is a science too. (Yes, it is.) Human behaviour is arguably governed, and if so it's by rules that psychology describes.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>(By the way, The Laws Of Nature™ are <em>also</em> just a description, rather than a <em>prescription</em>—things don't happen the way they do because The Laws™ <em>say</em> so; rather, The Laws™ say what they do because that matches how things actually happen. That's a surprisingly common misconception among non-scientists.)</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>So we have “natural sciences”: typically physics, chemistry and biology. Things like astronomy, palæontology, geology and ecology come under that banner as well, though ecology <em>does</em> stray towards being heavily human- and animal-influenced. And then there are “human sciences”: about half of geography, economics, sociology and arguably history, for example.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>But psychology doesn't fit clearly (as far as <em>I</em>'m concerned, anyway). It's definitely about humans and animals, but it's also intricately linked to biology.</p> | |
| 20 … | +<p>Zoology is usually considered a natural science as well, because it's not about humans, though it is about animals. But is it about <em>nature</em>?</p> | |
| 21 … | +<p>I think the usual assumption of “natural” being “anything that <em>we</em> (humans) haven't touched” comes back to human arrogance and self-centredness. (For millennia we humans thought <em>our</em> planet was at the centre of the universe because, why, <em>we're</em> here.)</p> | |
| 22 … | +<h2 id="thinking">Thinking</h2> | |
| 23 … | +<p>I'd suggest that a process is certainly “natural” if it involves nothing that can think. (Of course, there's then the problem of how to determine <em>what</em>'s alive and conscious and can think.)</p> | |
| 24 … | +<p>Clearly, though, the existence of beings that can think <em>is</em> natural. And it seems somewhat masochistic to say that because one is capable of thinking about whether what you're doing is “natural” (which is assumedly virtuous) that it therefore <em>isn't</em> natural.</p> | |
| 25 … | +<p>So, I don't know. I have a clear idea of what sort of things are and aren't natural, but I have no idea what definition of “natural” the apparently-obvious distinction arises from.</p> | |
| 26 … | +<h2 id="columbo">Columbo</h2> | |
| 27 … | +<p>Just one more thing: being <em>un</em>natural is certainly not necessarily a <em>bad</em> thing: buildings are unnatural but very useful. For the environmentally sensitive, solar power cells are unnatural but useful. Also: clean water from a tap; electricity; eyeglasses; most medicine.</p> | |
| content/brothersorsisters.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,75 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Brothers or Sisters | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-10-07 00:34 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: Americans, bisexual erasure, Brothers and Sisters, cliché, dead fairies, false dichotomy, killing bisexuals using the power of thought, sexuality, TV | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>In the first series of Brothers & Sisters, which is just about to finish showing in the UK, Kevin—the gay one—meets a guy at the gym. So far, so cliché. Let's start a cliché tick-list:</p> | |
| 9 … | +<ul> | |
| 10 … | +<li>There's always exactly one gay main character</li> | |
| 11 … | +<li>Gay men meet in gyms</li> | |
| 12 … | +</ul> | |
| 13 … | +<p>(I'm generally including lesbians in “gay”, for brevity.)</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>But Kevin's not sure whether the guy, Chad, is gay or straight.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<ul> | |
| 16 … | +<li>Chad is a really gay name</li> | |
| 17 … | +</ul> | |
| 18 … | +<p>Later, in conversation with his sisters, Kevin summarises the points in the “gay column” and those in the “straight column” of Chad's (presumably hypothetical) chart of telltale sexuality indicators.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<ul> | |
| 20 … | +<li>Characters in drama series and sitcoms exacerbate awkward or uncertain situations by avoiding communicating directly with a particular person (or several people), <em>especially</em> when frank communication with that person (or those people) would undoubtedly resolve all of their anxiety and/or uncertainty. (This is known as <dfn>Frasier's Law</dfn>.)</li> | |
| 21 … | +</ul> | |
| 22 … | +<p>Examples of “gay column” behaviour include complementing Kevin's body...</p> | |
| 23 … | +<ul> | |
| 24 … | +<li>Any mention by a man of the appearance of another man's body is always sexual, <em>even</em> in a gym, where improving one's body is often the primary goal and so the appearance of a person's body, <em>particularly</em> in relation to their fitness, is somewhat relevant to the present activity</li> | |
| 25 … | +</ul> | |
| 26 … | +<p>...having a pug (dog) named Lola...</p> | |
| 27 … | +<ul> | |
| 28 … | +<li>Gay men... have pugs called Lola... I guess</li> | |
| 29 … | +</ul> | |
| 30 … | +<p>...and having a lot of gay friends.</p> | |
| 31 … | +<ul> | |
| 32 … | +<li>One's sexuality can be determined by aggregating the sexualities of one's friends</li> | |
| 33 … | +</ul> | |
| 34 … | +<p>Examples of “straight column” behaviour include using words such as “dude” (incidentally, saying “dude” in <em>any</em> accent other than a North American one <em>always</em> makes you sound silly) and “bro'”...</p> | |
| 35 … | +<ul> | |
| 36 … | +<li>Straight men use slightly-outdated trendy slang, which makes them appear masculine</li> | |
| 37 … | +</ul> | |
| 38 … | +<p>...having a girlfriend...</p> | |
| 39 … | +<ul> | |
| 40 … | +<li><del>Men who have girlfriends are not likely to be gay</del> OK, so this one's a fair assessment and not a cliché</li> | |
| 41 … | +</ul> | |
| 42 … | +<p>...and, inexplicably, acting in a daytime soap opera. (I wasn't aware that acting in soap operas was an especially heterosexual profession; maybe it's an American thing.)</p> | |
| 43 … | +<p>Sarah (Kevin's sister) suggests that Chad may be bi. <strong>Kevin retorts that <q>No-one's bi. Have you ever met a bisexual 70-year-old? Hence the expression ‘bi now, gay later'. Eventually everyone decides.</q></strong></p> | |
| 44 … | +<p>This is <em>the gay one</em> saying this—the non-bigoted one. It's not that the writers are asserting this idea ironically—Kevin is <em>not</em> being portrayed as naïve or bigoted here. He isn't challenged any further by the other characters—after all, they're straight<b><a href="#note-brothersorsisters-1" id="ref-brothersorsisters-1">*</a></b> and he's <em>gay</em>; he <em>knows</em> about sexuality, because only <em>his</em> sexuality is an issue.</p> | |
| 45 … | +<ul> | |
| 46 … | +<li>Gay people know more about sexuality in general than straight people do</li> | |
| 47 … | +<li><strong>Anyone whose sexuality isn't mentioned is assumed to be straight</strong></li> | |
| 48 … | +</ul> | |
| 49 … | +<hr> | |
| 50 … | +<p id="note-brothersorsisters-1"><b>*</b> (If any of the other characters were bi, <em>they</em>'d be the authoritative source on bisexuality. If any of the other characters were gay (or possibly if they were bi or asexual), the writers would have already made a massive point of <em>their</em> sexualities, too.) <b><a href="#ref-brothersorsisters-1">↑</a></b></p> | |
| 51 … | +<hr> | |
| 52 … | +<p>So why <em>does</em> Kevin think he <em>hasn't</em> met any bisexual 70-year-olds? For a start, quite a lot of people don't regularly wear any sort of label identifying their sexuality. So the only ways Kevin could <em>know</em> that he'd met a bisexual 70-year-old would be:</p> | |
| 53 … | +<ol> | |
| 54 … | +<li>Asking them about their sexuality</li> | |
| 55 … | +<li>Using guesswork, applying his shrewd detective skills, and convincing himself of his conclusion beyond any doubt</li> | |
| 56 … | +</ol> | |
| 57 … | +<p>Judging by the sophistication of Kevin's criteria for determining gayness and straightness, he'd have a hard time correctly <em>guessing</em> that any arbitrary 70-year-old was bi. And judging by his <em>resorting</em> to unsophisticated guesswork, rather than <em>just asking</em>, “Bro'! You gay or what, dawg?” of his <em>potential boyfriend</em>, I doubt he asks many 70-year-olds about their sexuality.</p> | |
| 58 … | +<p>But Kevin <em>has</em> probably happened upon a few same-sex couples involving 70-year-olds, and a few opposite-sex couples involving 70-year-olds. Of the former, he's thought “oh, a couple of gays”, and of the latter, “oh, a couple of straights”.</p> | |
| 59 … | +<p>(I'm pretending here that everyone is, to whatever degree, either definably male or definably female, which isn't true. And I'm aware that this entry addressing the assumption of a <em>sexuality</em> dichotomy whilst still assuming that a <em>gender</em> binary exists is both suboptimal and generally a bit crap. But this entry is long enough and has already taken far too long to write.)</p> | |
| 60 … | +<p>All (or at least the vast majority of) “having a relationship with one person” behaviour can be filed away neatly under either “gay” or “straight”. Compared to the fraction of people in couples, the fraction of people in relationships with <em>more</em> than one person is relatively small (and of those, the fraction who are 70-year-olds is positively minuscule). Examples of obviously-bi behaviour amount to:</p> | |
| 61 … | +<ol> | |
| 62 … | +<li>Having a series of relationships with people of different sexes</li> | |
| 63 … | +<li>Having a polyamorous relationship with people of different sexes</li> | |
| 64 … | +<li>Expressing interest in people of different sexes</li> | |
| 65 … | +<li>Displaying the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_pride_flag">bi pride flag</a></li> | |
| 66 … | +<li>Saying “I'm bi”</li> | |
| 67 … | +</ol> | |
| 68 … | +<p>Few people are <em>obviously</em> bisexual, especially at first glance. So Kevin has been categorising everyone neatly away as “gay” and “straight”. Or rather, he's probably started with everyone in the “straight” pile <i>(a category, not a physical <em>pile</em>)</i>, then plucked out anyone who contradicts this, and hurled them over into the “gay” pile. If you're going to assume that everyone is not bi, <em>of course</em> you're not going to notice any bi people.</p> | |
| 69 … | +<p>Later, when Kevin finally <em>does</em> ask Chad about his sexuality, Chad says, “I may not be gay, but that doesn't mean I don't think you're hot.” <i>(Fans of double negatives rejoice.)</i> This, along with the ensuing sexytime, practically confirms that Chad <em>is</em> bi.</p> | |
| 70 … | +<p>Yet after this, and in the following few episodes when Kevin carries out a relationship with Chad (apparently without Chad's girlfriend's knowledge), Chad's bi-ness isn't mentioned at all. Their relationship is merely described as “closeted” and occasionally “gay”. Start singing <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Erasure/_/A+Little+Respect">A Little Respect</a>, everyone—it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure">bi erasure</a>!</p> | |
| 71 … | +<p><a href="http://suegeorgewrites.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-believe.html">It's been said that <q>every time you say you don't believe in bisexuals, one dies</q></a>. I seriously doubt this will prove to be literally true. A couple more to finish the cliché tick-list:</p> | |
| 72 … | +<ul> | |
| 73 … | +<li>Fairies are a bit queer</li> | |
| 74 … | +<li>Bloggers like to explain general principles using individual examples of those principles (...and self-reference)</li> | |
| 75 … | +</ul> | |
| content/burningapathforustoshare.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,14 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Burning a Path for Us to Share” (the 2006-11-25 Saturday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-11-25 19:22 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Forward Russia, Give Me A Wall, Maxïmo Park, Sigur Rós, Twelve | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Seven months before they recorded <a title="¡Forward, Russia! – Twelve" href="http://www.last.fm/music/¡Forward%2C+Russia%21/_/Twelve">Twelve</a> for <a title="¡Forward, Russia! - Give Me a Wall" href="http://www.last.fm/music/¡Forward%2C+Russia%21/Give+Me+a+Wall">Give Me a Wall</a> (I just bought that this Thursday 'cos I rock), “spazz-rock heroes” <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/¡Forward%2C+Russia%21">¡Forward, Russia!</a> recorded another, unreleased, version at a place called Ghost Town in Leeds. <a href="http://old.forwardrussia.com/songs">They said so</a>.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The most distinct difference (if there's anything distinct about a ¡Forward, Russia! track) is the vocal on “your conscience is low” at the end of each chorus. (Well, it's only a chorus to the extent that there even are any in a ¡Forward, Russia! track.) In the Sahara Sound version (the one on the single and album), <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Tom+Woodhead">Tom Woodhead</a> sings it, using a grand total of two notes for the word “low”. By contrast, in the Ghost Town version it's a single, drawn-out, unmelodious, much-less-reassuring gasp/yelp. The album version sounds more like “your conscience is low... but y'know what? I've come to terms with that, and it's OK with me”; but this way is more uncomfortable, suggests urgency and some sort of crisis and leaves the song hanging more at the end. It makes me want to react rather than just sit there satisfied that everything's gonna be fine.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>From the start the Ghost Town version is more chaotic and less tidy; it seems less premeditated. The introductory guitar lick is distorted – perhaps even a little bit jangly – and it doesn't stick with surgical precision to a single note at a time.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>I've repeatedly compared ¡Forward, Russia! to <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Maxïmo+Park">Maxïmo Park</a> (well, I've compared lots of things to both of them at the same time, but that's pretty much the same thing) and the comparison is particularly apt for the Ghost Town version. Like The Russia's, Maxïmo Park's songs tend to have a lot of distinct sections, and the song flits between them in different orders throughout. Often in the transition between sections, the music comes to a halt for a second, there's a single drum tap or beat in the middle, and then the bass resumes and the song sets off again, usually beginning a little more subdued than before and then building up again.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Twelve does this after the choruses (of which there are only about two, depending on how you count), and the halt is more distinct in the Ghost Town version. There are fewer layers of noise going on and so less to stop, plus the word “low” doesn't carry on for quite as long so the guitar is bashed into you a few more times before stopping. It sounds particularly Maxïmo Parky the second time (before “Ninety nine...”), when there's only bass and no lead guitar upon resumption. Also like The Park, Twelve crams craploads of music into the time interval it takes <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Sigur+Rós">Sigur Rós</a> to complete a single note.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>And just when you think the song's finished – short of two minutes in – it goes back to “But he couldn't find another way” and skips through another quick verse before finally relenting.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>The album version's pretty good as well. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061125.mp3">¡12!</a></strong>. Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/butyouvegottaknowtheirlies.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,19 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “But You've Gotta Know Their Lies” (the 2006-05-12 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-05-12 19:41 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: 7/4 (Shoreline), Broken Social Scene, Death Cock, Feist, Kevin Drew, Stars And Spit, the Flaming Lips, the Pipettes, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Since I actually physically own this week's song as a single on a compact disc (I bought it on Wednesday), I'm gonna write a little bit about its B-sides first.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p><a title="Broken Social Scene – Stars And Spit" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Broken+Social+Scene/_/Stars+And+Spit">Stars And Spit</a> sounds like it was recorded in the middle of a busy street, while the microphone was drunk. It has the same sort of wooziness as a lot of <a title="The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Flaming+Lips/Yoshimi+Battles+the+Pink+Robots">Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots</a>, particularly in its vocals.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p><a title="Broken Social Scene – Death Cock" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Broken+Social+Scene/_/Death+Cock">Death Cock</a> is really chilled. Stars and Spit was chilled, but this is catatonic. And it's a waltz. Waltzes are good. Part way through, the music comes to a coda and someone says “That's it”, but the song starts up again and carries on for another few minutes. Maybe they only eventually stopped because their instruments got too dusty.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<hr> | |
| 12 … | +<p>I always like songs in unusual time signatures. I especially like that <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Broken+Social+Scene">Broken Social Scene</a> haven't bothered trying to be cool about it – they even named <a title="Broken Social Scene – 7/4 (Shoreline)" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Broken+Social+Scene/_/7%252F4+%2528Shoreline%2529">7/4 (Shoreline)</a> after its time signature. And parenthesised subtitles are always good.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Like its first B-side, Shoreline is a mid-tempo light-rock-stylee driving song, great for cycling through York in the summer. Each vocal line starts half-way through a bar, so it flows into the next one; the whole thing progresses smoothly. There's even a car's interior in the video – what more could you want from a driving song?</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Since it's driven by the rhythm section, it sounds far worse on speakers with crap bass. The melody, however, is held solely by the vocals, led by <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Feist">Feist</a>, accompanied by one of the other fifteen band-members ...a male one. You can tell from the video. The sort of richness in sound you'd expect from a song performed by sixteen people is there; it'd be inaccurate to call Shoreline's sound “layered” – it's more like spaghetti than lasagne.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Nonetheless, there are several reasonably-well-defined categories of noise present: the rhythm section (comprising the driving bass and drums); the vocals; several lead guitars and other guitarage; and lots of miscellaneous other sounds. Most of the noise lives in those last two layers, with the first two holding the song together.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>Feist's vocals make the song. It'd be a great song with someone else singing her bits, but her performance adds that extra embellishment that makes it a classic.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>And she doesn't even sound like <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Pipettes">The Pipettes</a>. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060512.mp3">Shoreline</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 18 … | +<hr> | |
| 19 … | +<p><ins>(The other (male) band member is probably Kevin Drew.)</ins></p> | |
| content/changebeforeislipaway.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Change Before I Slip Away” (the 2006-06-09 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-06-10 00:09 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Iwe, Noisettes | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>After a couple of agenda-setting chords, <a title="Noisettes – Iwe" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Noisettes/_/Iwe">Iwe</a> opens with a driving drumbeat topped by <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Shingai+Shoniwa">Shingai Shoniwa</a>'s smouldering vocals. As the music's urgency builds, Shingai's vocal delivery stays audibly restrained. At the chorus, the guitar, drums and vocals all erupt into an all-out rock frenzy. As the guitar fades into the second verse, Shingai slides back into tempered mode.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Throughout the second verse she slips effortlessly between menacing temperament and unrestrained screaming, at times dwarfing the instrumentation (which gains a couple of flourishes over the first verse), at times barely discernible above it. All the while the music builds in intensity, so that by the time the second chorus comes around, no change of volume or pace is needed going into it.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>When the chorus reaches its natural conclusion, the music recedes to mellow chords that by now sound positively quiet. Naturally, Shingai's vocals catch up instantly. Melodiously, over a surprising chord progression, she repeats – she chants – “Iwe”. The rhythm guitar returns and, with the vocals, builds tension to a crescendo. After exhausting one last breath, Shingai leaves a classic rock guitar solo to conclude the song.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>You could not want for a stronger vocal performance, nor better-suited accompaniment.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>And no, I've no idea what “Iwe” means. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060609.ogg">Iwe</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/hearmesaynow.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,10 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Hear Me Say Now” (the 2006-05-19 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-05-19 20:09 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: On The Radio, the Concretes, Victoria Bergsman, You Can't Hurry Love | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="The Concretes – On The Radio" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Concretes/_/On+The+Radio">On The Radio</a> was on this week's Roundtable; I found it quite pleasant but almost entirely forgettable. Far more memorable is <a title="The Concretes – You Can't Hurry Love" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Concretes/_/You+Can%27t+Hurry+Love">You Can't Hurry Love</a>, an impeccably-constructed pop song. It's composed in a sugary-sweet poptastic style, but there's no jingly-jangly piano in the execution. The instrumentation, and particularly <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Victoria+Bergsman">Victoria Bergsman</a>'s woozy, ever-so-slightly discordant vocals, seem mismatched with the song's ostensible style.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Yes, there are hand-claps (with a tambourine in the middle), but for some reason I reckon they're ironic. They do nothing to sweeten the song's delivery. Can't Hurry Love fools you into thinking it's a sugar-coated pop song, but when you pay attention to it, it actually doesn't sound sugary-sweet at any point.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Or maybe I'm reading too much into it and it is just a jaunty pop song. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060519.mp3">Can't Hurry Love</a>.</strong></p> | |
| content/ibetyoufindlifehardtolivewith.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,17 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “I Bet You Find Life Hard to Live with” (the 2006-11-04 Saturday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-11-04 14:23 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: A Certain Ratio, Banbarra, Camille, Nouvelle Vague, Shack Up | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="Nouvelle Vague – Shack Up" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Nouvelle+Vague/_/Shack+Up">Shack Up</a> is dead funky. It begins with bass, percussion, some sultry breaths and clip-clop sounds going off left, right and centre, forming a funk bassline. That's how it sounds, but on closer inspection all of the various unidentifiable noises are intentional – they're repeated two bars later. Gradually a guitar joins in, and then the funk escalates, and then it escalates again.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>This is the first twenty seconds.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>They're twenty of the grooviest seconds I can recall hearing, and I've heard <a title="Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Average+White+Band/_/Pick+Up+the+Pieces">Pick Up the Pieces</a>. As <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Camille">Camille</a> starts singing, the funkstruments seem to briefly recoil a little as if accommodating her. As the verse progresses they're joined by what sound like (and what I'm gonna choose to refer to as) panpipes, playing a simple tune over the top.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>During the instrumental break, which essentially serves as a chorus, the guitar and panpipes play off each other in call-and-response style, with the panpipes carrying the lead melody. They sit out the first couple of lines in the second verse and the funkstrumentation again minimises to accommodate Camille. Of course, when it all resumes it's groovier than ever.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>At the end of the second instrumental break, a few disco-style twinkles “conclude” the song and prompt the obligatory applause. Yep, false ending. The funk beat resumes, backed with general breathiness from Camille, and almost seems to peter out before a reprise of the first verse kicks in, funked up to the max.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Throughout, the notes the panpipes hit are often jazzily distorted or discordant, in fact the whole thing has a certain jazziness about it, complementing Camille's voice. Her vocals are half-whispered, half-moaned, increasingly so throughout the song. During the second verse, her “shack up”s (which, in <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Banbarra">Banbarra</a>'s original and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/A+Certain+Ratio">A Certain Ratio</a>'s more famous cover, were a response to the lead vocal's call) descend to a whisper, but by the song's conclusion are emphatic.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Add to this miscellaneous breaths and the occasional whispered “shack up” and the whole thing exudes sultry.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>It's not bossa nova. <strong>If you download one song this week, <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061104.mp3">Shack Up</a>, baby.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<hr> | |
| 17 … | +<p><ins>(<a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/11/4/259668/#comment888944">It later transpired that the singer was someone other than Camille.</a>)</ins></p> | |
| content/ididyourwifeafavour.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,21 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “I Did Your Wife a Favour” (the 2008-01-11 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2008-01-11 22:32 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: 5 Years, Björk, Broken Social Scene, Cibelle, Hotel, Leaving the City, Parliament Square, Rewrite, Róisín Murphy, Sia, Stina Nordenstam, The World Is Saved, Waiting, Winter Killing | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Melancholy is a subtle mood. There are lots of songs <em>I</em> find uplifting and essentially happy, that other people think are morose, sad and a general downer. So, depending on which half of the glass you prefer to focus on, <strong>Winter Killing</strong> could go either way.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>It begins abruptly—not <span title="(the Futureheads)">“Decent Days And Nights”</span> abruptly, but abruptly nonetheless: there's no intro (strictly, there are 1½ beats before <strong>Stina Nordenstam</strong> starts singing—hardly an intro) and the song arrives fully-formed.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>The intimate electric guitar line (which acts as a bassline despite being much further up in the register) and percussive rhythm that form the song's backbone are present right from the start, as are Stina's vocals. Her vocals are distinctive: close-mic'ed, quiet and understated, with a breathiness and an accent that tend to knit the words together in a slur; her vocals are almost <em>drawled</em>.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>When the chorus arrives for the first time, the accompaniment does little to acknowledge that this <em>is</em> actually the chorus; the few extra sparkles are subtle. It doesn't <em>have</em> to do much—the lyrics drop back and let the instruments take over, while still asserting themselves by their repetition.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>The lyrics seem to speak warmly of togetherness: “you're safer with me here”. Then, after three of those affirmations and half a minute in that frame of mind, the punchline comes with a wry smile: “and you there”.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>As understated as the chorus is, it's still a grooveable sing-, hum- and foot-tap-along, largely thanks to that percussive rhythm, which could easily be transplanted into an upbeat dance-pop tune. (In fact it's very reminiscent of the rhythm underpinning “5 Years” by Björk.)</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>The second verse retains most of the embellishments from the chorus, and has a bigger feel to it than the first verse. Conversely, though, it's only half as long before launching into another chorus. This second chorus is the song's fully-rounded “complete” sound that you'll be singing back to yourself next time you hear the <em>first</em> chorus—forgetting how restrained most of Winter Killing is.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>As with much of the rest of the album, <strong><cite>The World Is Saved</cite></strong> (and “Parliament Square” is a particularly good example of this), it's the accompaniment's instrumental flourishes that really make the song—here a jazz-influenced, echo-y piano counter-melody most evident in the second chorus.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>A modified, dampened third verse takes the place of a middle 8. When the chorus returns it too is subdued and adds a note of fragility: “I'm safer with me here”. The music does kick back in, but only fleetingly, and <em>after</em> the bulk of the words have passed.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>Perhaps it's just the title, but Winter Killing <em>does</em> bring winter to my mind. Each piano note is a tiny white light peeking through the leaves of a tree; that percussive rhythm is the sound of snow cracking underfoot; the jangling bells are flurries of snow falling beneath a streetlight or, well, jangling bells. If there were a video for Winter Killing, Stina would be wearing a woolly hat and gloves, with her breath crystallising as she sings.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>Throughout, it feels frosty and <em>minimal</em>—not in a white-cube zen–type way; more in that it sounds completely un-produced, or perhaps un-<em>over</em>produced. There's no wall of sound, no pithy vocal effects and no overdubs. And there's <em>certainly</em> no big, celebratory, radio-friendly, stadium-rocking chorus repeat. In fact, there aren't even any backing vocals: perhaps that's what gives Winter Killing (and the rest of <cite>The World Is Saved</cite>) such an air of intimacy. There's nothing lacking, but equally nothing excessive. It's not laden with grandeur, pretension or ego.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>It's as if she's taken the skeleton of a song and added individual notes, each glistening, until it's <em>just</em> beautiful enough. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20080111.ogg">Winter Killing</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 20 … | +<hr> | |
| 21 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? I'm still not really sure. It's the mood of “Hotel” by Broken Social Scene married to the rhythm of “5 Years” by Björk (plus a smattering of frost), so those two go well. “Leaving the City” by Róisín Murphy has lyrics that actually follow and make sense, and the style of Stina's vocals is even (sort-of) echoed in the breathiness of Róisín's. “Rewrite” by Sia also follows it nicely, as does <a href="http://aurgasm.us/2007/04/cibelle/">“Waiting” by Cibelle</a>.)</p> | |
| content/illwakeupinfiftyyearsandfeelthesame.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “I'll Wake Up in Fifty Years and Feel the Same” (the 2006-04-29 Saturday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-04-29 19:04 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Aristazabal Hawkes, By The Water, Feist, Good Weather For Airstrikes, Guillemots, Of The Night, Régine Chassagne, the Arcade Fire | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>You should know who <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Guillemots">Guillemots</a> are by now, so I'm gonna try to steer clear of the obvious. For the unenlightened, <a href="http://www.goodweatherforairstrikes.com/test/2006/03/12/artist-mega-profile-guillemots/">Good Weather For Airstrikes's Mega-Profile</a> includes this week's track, lots of others, and some carefully arranged letters, numbers and punctuation, a fine example of which is “you can't go wrong with a Guillemots song”.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Aristazabal+Hawkes">Aristazabal Hawkes</a>-sung (and written) <a title="Guillemots – By The Water" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Guillemots/_/By+The+Water">By The Water</a> – from their Of The Night EP, released via the web this Valentine's Day – is simply lovely.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Her voice sounds a lot like Régine Chassagne of <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Arcade+Fire">The Arcade Fire</a>, and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Feist">Feist</a>; incidentally, all three are Canadian.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>By The Water is the kind of song that mesmerises right from the start. The fade-in intro builds to an attention-grabbing and assertive opening line; the confident vocals accentuated with some slightly-jazzy piano draw you in. It remains intoxicating throughout its gradual progression towards the slow, quiet coda.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>It's the sort of song you snap out of afterwards. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060429.mp3">By The Water</a>.</strong></p> | |
| content/introduction.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,21 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Introduction | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-07-09 13:45 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: assumptions, decay, Flickr, imperfection, meta, Mooquackwooftweetmeow, perception, The Twaddle, Walking Dataloss | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>So… This blog's going to be centred around the idea of decay and how it affects our perception. And then how that leads to assumptions, and illogical categorisations (putting things into boxes where they don't belong).</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>I'm already guilty after one sentence—to whom does “our” apply? Just me? Me and a few friends? Me and you? (Hi! by the way.) Every person alive today? Every human <em>including</em> the dead and yet-to-be-born? Every mammal? Every <em>animal</em>? Or absolutely <em>every</em> living being including plants and such?</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Yeah. Tough one.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Of necessity, I'm going to have to reduce generalisations to only those that apply to <em>me</em>. Generally, though, I'm going to try to challenge assumptions by stretching applicability to the widest sense possible.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>I'm <em>not</em> going to criticise directed writing or speech in English for assuming the audience is human—at the time of writing, only humans can understand English beyond a few words—but I <em>will</em> use <i>things being assumed when they shouldn't be</i> as starting points for wider thoughts.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<hr> | |
| 14 … | +<p>I've written about this sort of stuff before—simplistic things like my <a href="https://gkn.me.uk/arantaboutforeigners">“rant about foreigners”</a> in which I complained about an American website using units of measure that were familiar to <em>them</em>, but that a wider, non-American audience found awkward or even incomprehensible. I've also written about <a href="https://gkn.me.uk/planetx4">what's in the solar system</a>, trying to use language that most objectively describes the <em>reality</em> of what's there, as well as removing the historical misemphasis particularly of Pluto, but also of the “major planets”. (I only <em>just</em> realised that that entry was relevant to this.)</p> | |
| 15 … | +<hr> | |
| 16 … | +<p>A lot of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/">my pictures on Flickr</a> have a theme of decay and imperfection. In <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/444944463/">Four</a> (I use <a href="http://forwardrussia.com/">¡Forward, Russia!</a> nomenclature for the pictures I publish) I tried to make a picture of a murky sky over Hartlepool (Great Britain, Earth etc.) look bright and sunny; the result has a clear air of artificiality (quite possibly due to my lack of <a href="http://gimp.org/">GIMP</a> mojo).</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>For <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/698883218/">Ten</a>, I drew around the photo by hand, sloppily, creating an outline that was clearly produced in this way. Both of these were an attempt to highlight how the reality of what I photographed gets <em>filtered</em> en route from the camera to the viewer, by artificially filtering the pictures even more; and in the case of Ten, by intentionally introducing imperfections.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>As another example of me playing with imperfections, I began my Thirteen series by focusing on the most obvious imperfection the camera recorded (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/700208520/">part 1</a>)—the overexposure of the Sun. I then focused on the same area but with the imperfection removed and the sky recoloured to blue, the colour you'd expect of a sky; the resulting picture (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/700208550/">part 3</a>) is—in my opinion—less interesting than part 1. And finally, I couldn't bring myself to “waste” such a good photo (again, my opinion, of course) by not publishing the full thing as it was “supposed” to look (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gregknicholson/700208572/">part 4</a>)—an example of the valiant fight against decay.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<hr> | |
| 20 … | +<p>One more thing: there's an article on <a href="https://gkn.me.uk/thetwaddle/">The Twaddle</a>, a now-mostly-defunct website I run, about the English language (indeed any language) being an intrinsically <em>imperfect</em> representation of what the speaker is trying to express; it argues that this imperfection, the nuances that are applied to any perception that passes through a brain, ought to be appreciated. <a href="https://gkn.me.uk/thetwaddle/english">00101 01110 00111 01100 01001 10011 01000 01001 10011 00011 01111 01111 01100</a> wasn't written by me (the author now prefers to remain anonymous for unstalkability reasons) but it probably comes closest to the type of thing I intend to write about on this blog. | |
| 21 … | +<p>(By the way, earlier, “our” applied to anything that <em>can</em> perceive, which I <em>think</em> means any animal.)</p> | |
| content/inyoureyesthatcertainshine.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “In Your Eyes that Certain Shine” (the 2006-10-20 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-10-20 21:21 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Jane Wiedlin, Rush Hour | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>I can't figure out why I like <a title="Jane Wiedlin – Rush Hour" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Jane+Wiedlin/_/Rush+Hour">Rush Hour</a> quite so much. It uses the same driving 8-beat throughout; the chord progression is bog-standard; the instruments are probably all synthesised; the lyrics aren't particularly inventive or clever; <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Jane+Wiedlin">Jane Wiedlin</a>'s vocals are nice, but not astounding; you can spot the guitar solo a mile off; and at the end it just repeats to fade.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>In fact it's almost stereotypical of a 1980s pop song.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>But it is impeccably produced. At no point does either the singing or the backing sound at all jarring or contrived. The entire song flows seamlessly from one part to the next, largely due to the way the vocals spill over from one bar into the next. So by the time the song finishes, you don't realise you've just spent the last four minutes listening to it.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>And Jane's singing is nice – very nice – without sounding sugar-coated; her personality hasn't been overproduced away.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>And she played Joan of Arc in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure – what more could you want? <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061020.mp3">Rush Hour</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/itsforgettingthatwouldbeatitall.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,20 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “It's Forgetting that would Beat it All” (the 2007-11-23 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-11-23 16:04 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Don't Falter, Lauren Laverne, Matt Pond PA, Mint Royale, So Much Trouble | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>“So Much Trouble” (by Matt Pond PA) has surprisingly little in the way of chorus…-age, for what's otherwise a very straightforwardly upbeat, cheery pop song. I just noticed that recently.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Maybe it's <em>because</em> it's so generally singalong-able throughout that you don't notice the choruslessness. And there's extensive bridge…-iness, which sounds rather like a chorus in most songs would (“I don't think I want to think about it”—that bit); but it definitely approximates the tune of a verse, with a little bit more tension and less resolution in the voice.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>(Hey, let's assume the guy singing is actually called Matt Pond, whether or not this is really the case. You can never properly tell with ostensibly-eponymous bands.)</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>… So it's <em>not</em> a chorus. The <em>chorus</em> starts “You're in so much trouble; you can't hide in your covers”—it even has the title in it. (Yeah, I know, but lyrics almost <em>always</em> sound silly taken out of the music.) And that bit only occurs <em>once</em>, right at the start (well, after the first verse).</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Then there are four—count 'em: four—bridge-like bits: they alternate between the bit I called the bridge earlier (and shall continue to so call); and another bit (with the words “We don't want to make mistakes”) to which I <em>could</em> dryly refer as “the second bridge”, but shall instead dub “the tunnel”. Not only does this make for a pleasing automotive-architecture–based pun, it's also kind of apt: bridges and tunnels are often one and the same thing, appear together and complement each other.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>I digress. In the middle of the two bridge-and-tunnel pairs there's an instrumental break, where the song slows to a dawdle. It's as if Matt Pond and his merry posse of accompaniment-ists (collectively known as “PA”) have been sauntering along in an autumnal park and gradually and pensively come to a halt while they decide which way to go next. (Maybe Matt Pond just has a personal assistant to help him with all the music?)</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Anyhow, they end up deciding to carry on in the same direction, but have somehow returned to where they were a full minute ago. (Maybe they were going in circles?) <em>This</em> time, however, they have a few extra deep, reassuring guitar tones as companions, and the journey's a lot more familiar—despite not being a verse or a chorus.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>It soon transpires that the verse was just the other side of a hedge all along <i>(metaphor becoming tenuous, I know)</i>, and it's back sooner than expected, with a couple of extra drum flourishes for effect. There's even a glimmer of hope for the chorus, as this new verse borrows some of its lyrics.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>Another contemplative pause later (will this song <em>ever</em> gain any momentum?), the bridge returns in full swing; by now it's grown up into a chorus in its own right. Nonetheless, it soon gives way to the chorus-proper, the first half of which—only—repeats satisfyingly.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>Loath to satiate, though, the song ends on a <em>minor</em> note. It's as if they <em>want</em> you to play it again.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p><strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20071123.mp3">So Much Trouble</a></strong>—it's like a wistful stroll through an autumnal park (with a personal assistant).</p> | |
| 19 … | +<hr> | |
| 20 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Try “Don't Falter” by Mint Royale & Lauren Laverne.)</p> | |
| content/itsintheeyesofthebeholder.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,19 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “It's in the Eyes of the Beholder” (the 2007-09-28 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-09-29 00:18 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Bonus Tracks, Chemistry, Give Me Your Eyes, I Need Some Fine Wine And You You Need To Be Nicer, Memorize The City, Semisonic, the Cardigans | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Over the course of the last fifteen years, the Cardigans have covered genres ranging from bubblegum pop (“Carnival”, “Lovefool”) via subdued, smouldering indie (“My Favourite Game”, “Erase/Rewind”) to country (“For What It's Worth”). Most of the 2005 album <cite>Super Extra Gravity</cite> falls into the latter category; but a couple of tracks stand out.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The gloriously-named “I Need Some Fine Wine And You, You Need To Be Nicer”—the album's lead single—is a medium-paced all-out rock tune, a near-perfect example of what I keep referring to as “driving rock”; as such, it shares little in common with anything else on the album-proper.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>But then there're the bonus tracks—songs that half-count as part of the album and half-don't, depending on who you ask or which country your copy comes from. Elusive little buggers.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p><cite>Super Extra Gravity</cite> actually includes a track entitled “Bonus Tracks” (if you buy it in the UK, at least)—a twenty-second ditty consisting substantially of footsteps approaching what turns out to be a harpsichord (or, y'know, something that sounds like what I think a harpsichord sounds like), upon which a short tune is played, culminating in a chorus of voices emphatically intoning the title. I'm not recommending <em>this</em>—I haven't gone that outlandish yet—but the <em>next</em> bit:</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>“Give Me Your Eyes” begins unassumingly with a rising wind noise (which briefly implies a continuation of the weirdness of “Bonus Tracks”) followed by a cautious acoustic guitar verse that ends on a ponderous rising note (I think it's called a seventh). And then all hell breaks loose: a brash, cyclical electric-guitar rhythm dominates what's nominally a restatement of the introductory guitar verse, and leads into sixteen loud, relentless drumbeats.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>So this is unbridled rock—by now there's no doubt about it. Throughout the first verse the bassline builds up an amount of tension, slowly alternating between two nearby notes; into the chorus there's a cathartic screech of feedback, diffusing the tension and allowing the chorus itself to proceed unencumbered.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>The end of the chorus is punctuated by another set of sixteen drumbeats, before continuing full-speed into the second verse; the song's filled out by now and there's less of the first verse's tension. The calmly aggressive tone of Nina Persson's voice, along with the instrumentation's insistence, lends a dash of the sinister at the end of that verse—when she sings “it's in the eyes of the beholder, now give 'em to me” it occurs to you that she might actually mean “give me your eyes” <em>literally</em>—!</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Halfway through the second chorus, the song neatly veers off towards a fairly straightforward middle eight, followed by another set of drumbeats leading into the breakdown. This bit's pretty standard too—a quietly-accompanied verse that introduces a speedy synopsis of the entire song. It borrows the chorus's lyrics for its second half and leads to a half-length reprise of the chorus. The chorus ascends into a solo, culminating in that brash guitar cycle (Nina sings along too); and those damn drumbeats bash the song out of existence.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>On paper, it's actually quite a <em>conventional</em> song, and it's hard to compellingly describe a song that distinguishes itself in its execution, rather than by a spark of compositional cleverness—this is why recordings by bands have superseded sheet music. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20070928.mp3">Give Me Your Eyes</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 17 … | +<hr> | |
| 18 … | +<p>(I'm guessing this was written and recorded too late to make the album-proper, and that's why it's a bonus track; if that's the case and this is an indication of the style of the next album, said album will rock.)</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Let's say “Chemistry” by Semisonic (since <a href="/youthrewpenniesinandwished">I already mentioned “Memorize The City” a while ago</a>)).</p> | |
| content/iviewfromafar.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,21 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “I View from Afar” / “Once I Have Found the Words” (the 2006-07-07 Friday Fetch-its) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-07-08 00:47 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Coldplay, Colours, Confide in Me, Editors, Kylie Minogue, The Blue Room EP | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>I often bang on about songs building tension; here that shall be mostly implicit. <a title="Kylie Minogue – Confide in Me" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Kylie+Minogue/_/Confide+in+Me">Confide in Me</a> begins ponderously, almost coming to a halt twice in the first minute. In the first prelude, the sweeping strings and vocals lend an air of tragedy, and the minor-key piano suggests drama. The sound of distorted voices, as if coming over a radio, suggests some sort of concealment or conspiracy, especially since it's so quiet, hardly noticeable. The whole thing feels nocturnal.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>After the first pause the second prelude uses none of the same instrumental pieces. Here the piano is major-key, there's an electric guitar flourish in the background, and although the muted voices remain, they no longer sound sinister – more like a conversation. (You can see where this is going, can't you?) This bit sounds like a dawn to the first prelude's night. Or perhaps each is the introduction of a character, the first the confider, the second the confidant. (It's all very GCSE English.)</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>The intro-proper begins after the other pause and the main string loop begins, full of anticipation. The drumbeat kicks in and flecks of detuned, slightly Asian-sounding plucked strings appear. The verses' vocals are sung almost in a whisper, growing to a sweeping, strings-like, almost operatic legato for the chorus.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>As the song progresses, chanting of “confide in me”, “and then you'll see” and some other lyric I can't make out is added to the chorus parts, bringing extra urgency with it. Those flecks of plucked strings increase to a full-blown instrumental part, almost taking the lead towards the end.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Throughout the song there are spots of other sounds; in the verses, more noticeable in the second, there are little whirs and clunks of distortion that remind me of <a title="Coldplay - The Blue Room EP" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Coldplay/The+Blue+Room+EP">The Blue Room EP</a>. There's even a bit of funk guitar under the Asianesque string solo after the second chorus. And at times the electric guitar hints at Hendrixianism (I just made that word up now – good, isn't it?). The whole song is very much a layered piece.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>In the last minute-and-a-half, the plucked strings' repetitious, urgent pseudo–ad libbing (while slightly gratuitous); the main string loop's insistent repetition; the legato lead vocal; and the background chanting; all combine to build tension towards the end, when all the instrumentation comes to a head and drops, leaving the lead vocal to close the song.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Yes, I am recommending a <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Kylie+Minogue">Kylie Minogue</a> song. <strong>If you download one track last week...</strong> Wait a sec – I did that joke last time.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<hr> | |
| 16 … | +<p><a title="Editors – Colours" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Editors/_/Colours">Colours</a> is quite typical of <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Editors">Editors</a>. It begins with drums and several guitars forming a driving rhythm and a repeating riff, with a little bit of a screech at the end. Few notes are used and small sections are repeated, hammering them into the listener.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>The vocals are typically minimal – few and repeated. And the lyrics are also quite typical – “You mean a lot to me, you've got a heart of gold” and “You are the colour, my dear” are the sort of nonsense Tom Smith often comes out with, to great effect.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>So the first two minutes proceed pretty much like any other Editors song. Then after the brief pause at the end of the second chorus, the driving rhythm disappears. The repeating riff that replaces it verges on the socks-off-knockingly good. It's particularly long among Editors riffs, and its 3-3-3-3-2-2 rhythm lends it a striking complexity. The drumming that backs it is minimalistic but distinctive.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>Not to dwell on this wonder-riff for too long, after two iterations Tom's vocals re-emerge, overlaying it with “Fill your life with something else, baby”. The two parts carry the song whilst the bass, drums and vocals all gradually intensify. Half a minute before the end, the wonder-riff makes way for a good old-fashioned cymbal-thrashing, still in 3-3-3-3-2-2 rhythm. It and the vocals take the song to its abrupt conclusion.</p> | |
| 20 … | +<p>Even though there's such a schism between its two halves, somehow it all still holds together as one song. Don't ask me how.</p> | |
| 21 … | +<p><strong>If you download two tracks this week, make them <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060707a.mp3">Confide In Me</a> and <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060707b.mp3">Colours</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/knockingtheaeroplanesdownwithstones.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,9 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Knocking the Aeroplanes Down with Stones” (the 2006-11-17 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-11-18 01:56 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Architecture in Helsinki, Do the Whirlwind | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="Architecture in Helsinki – Do the Whirlwind" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Architecture+in+Helsinki/_/Do+the+Whirlwind">Do the Whirlwind</a> is a combination of twinkling chimes; garbled chatter; an improbably catchy bassline; an outro; a wood block counter-rhythm; some bongos; multiple Australian singers; the word "quivers"; a cymbal; twee-æsthetic melodies; some increasingly sluggish trombones; a 16-bit video depicting the band as a motley accumulation of cool kids dance/march/strutting along through a succession of weird and wonderful, side-scrolling locales; some increasingly sluggish saxophones; miscellaneous grooveability; probably a sitar; a chorus of harmonising vocals; tapes rewinding; mostly-nonsensical lyrics; some dings; some pops; some whistles; the word "abandon"; plenty of handclaps; and a single extra beat when the phrase "the beat" crops up.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>...which it therefore does twice, obviously. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061117.mp3">Whirlwind</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/necessityconquersfear.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,17 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Necessity Conquers Fear” (the 2007-10-26 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-10-26 00:16 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Can't Be Sure, Don't Lose Yourself, Homogenic, Laura Veirs, Reading Writing and Arithmetic, Saltbreakers, the Sundays | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>I <em>was</em> going to do my usual shtick of describing what the vocals and instruments do, and when they come in, and how they come out of nowhere and sound wonderful, and all of that—<em>after</em> making a general point about a particular musical technique and using that to introduce the song.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>But it wouldn't really have done the song justice—musically, at least, it's not revolutionary (though there are some beats nestled in amongst the instrumentation that wouldn't sound out of place on Homogenic), but that's not the point. Yes, it's a piano that happens to convey a lot of the warmth; again, not the point. And that synth line coming out of each chorus (or serving as its second half) is just lovely—not really the point. The point:</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>“Don't Lose Yourself” by Laura Veirs is simply beautiful.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Though it's impossible <em>not</em> to enjoy on a visceral level (lest your soul be judged stony and dead), the song's also blessed with intelligence. There are a full four verses (though the second half of the last segués into the final chorus): each and every line would have made a good title for the album, or for this entry, or for some other blog post, or for a personal blog, or for an episode of a TV programme; if “Tiger Ointment and the Cosmic Collision” isn't an actual band in ten years' time, <em>I</em> may have to start one.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>The lyrics aren't particularly <em>complex</em>, however—every fourth line usually completes a simple rhyme, and that's about it. They're just inventive and thoughtful and <em>good</em>. So intriguing are the verses' lyrics, and so good is the accompanying groove, the words in the chorus don't <em>need</em> to extend beyond <q>Don't lose yourself; don't let yourself be lost</q>. <em>Anyone</em> can sing along with <em>that</em>.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Through most of “Don't Lose Yourself”, Laura's voice is actually a bit <em>deadpan</em>—she sings simply and without affectation. Her singing's only punctuated by the backing briefly dropping before launching into the second chorus.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>But at the end, right where you'd expect a fifth verse, the chorus's instrumental groove instead continues, and Laura comes in with a lyric-less vocal—the type that may well have been ad-libbed—as the song fades away. It's clearly a heartfelt expression of emotion (and not a showing-off exercise), quiet and understated enough to be missed by those not paying attention (or with the volume too low).</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Just that little, quiet sound perfectly conveys the elation <em>I</em> feel listening to this song. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20071026.mp3">Don't Lose Yourself</a>.</strong> Then smile.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<hr> | |
| 17 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Try “Can't Be Sure” (from <cite>Reading, Writing and Arithmetic</cite>) by the Sundays.) | |
| content/playingwellwithothers.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,13 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Playing well with others | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-09-04 09:32 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: humanism, humans, indexed, religion, secularism | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>(There's been a distinct lack of consciousness streaming, around here recently. This is me doing something to fix that.) | |
| 9 … | +<hr> | |
| 10 … | +<p>There's <a href="http://indexed.blogspot.com/2007/09/plays-well-with-others.html">a cartoon at <cite>indexed</cite> expressing that the “do unto others” mantra isn't (or shouldn't be) only adhered to by religious people</a>.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>I think Jessica's taking humanism to be roughly equivalent to that mantra, which I don't think is quite correct. As I understand it (and I'm not a humanist, so I may well be wrong) humanism is the idea that it's humans' duty to care for their environment, such as by taking care of the other species.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>My opinion is that the other species can probably take care of themselves on their own, thank you very much. In my opinion, this form of humanism treats other species as the United States' foreign policy treats other countries.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>This isn't my main reason for writing, though: it's that <strong>the “others” referred to in the mantra aren't only humans</strong>. This is why I'm a vegetarian—I don't want to be killed and eaten. | |
| content/poursaltintothatwoundofyours.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,17 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Pour Salt into that Wound of Yours” (the 2007-08-31 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-08-31 17:53 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: 8 Hours of Little D, Broken Social Scene, CC and the Spades, eashfa, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Swimmers | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>I don't really know <em>how</em> to go about recommending Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by CC & the Spades (which partially explains the large gap since the last entry <em>and</em> why the following isn't <span title="Don't laugh.">my usual neatly-structured, eloquent prose</span>)—I don't know <em>why</em> I like the song so much. I know that I <em>do</em> like it. And I <em>think</em> that's because it's <em>damn good</em>, but I can't be sure.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Incidentally, I don't usually recommend songs that I discovered on another music blog, my logic being that if <em>I</em> found it, <em>you</em> could too. But <a href="http://eashfa.wordpress.com/2006/07/02/things-that-go-bang-in-the-middle-of-the-night/">this <em>was</em> a full year ago</a>, and the band still have <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/CC+%2526+The+Spades" title="CC “&” the Spades">well under five hundred</a> <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/CC+and+The+Spades" title="CC “and” the Spades">listens on Last.fm</a>. (They've now accrued <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=%22CC%20%26%20the%20Spades%22%7C%22CC%20and%20the%20Spades%22">59 hits on Google</a>, but <span title="—!?—">17 of them are me</span>).</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>There are two versions (that I'm aware of): the original, rough demo version—which is what I'm mainly writing about—and a vastly tidied-up version, which uses a slightly different lyric and adds some extra guitar bits. (<em>That</em> one's presently on <a href="http://www.myspace.com/ccmusicuk">CC & the Spades' MySpace page</a>.)</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>The song basically comprises vocals, guitar, bass and drums. It's fairly straightforward by my standards—there are no weird time signatures and no clever rhythms; it doesn't suddenly shift sideways; it's not less than a minute long and it's not <em>seventeen</em> minutes long; there are no wacky instruments and no macho guitar acrobatics. (I wouldn't recommend bringing it home to meet your grandma, though—<i>it uses the “fuck” word.</i>)</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Where the tidier version finishes with a long-held strum, the demo version stops on a drumbeat, as abruptly as it started—its departure smacks you in the face as much as its arrival did. There's no particular melody or even <em>rhythm</em> to the vocals in the chorus—it's almost as if CC's <em>improvising</em> the vocals here.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>In fact the whole <em>song</em> is very rough, unpolished and raw: a lot of the time the microphone can't quite contain CC's voice; the bass guitar (which plays up in almost the same register as the lead) is noticeably off-rhythm during the choruses and I think it hits the wrong note at the start of the instrumental towards the end.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>It's this sort of coarse sincerity that defined punk. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20070831.mp3">Gentlemen Prefer Blondes</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 15 … | +<hr> | |
| 16 … | +<p>(That link is to the rough, demo version as an MP3; it was on their MySpace profile for a while, but the tidier version replaced it.)</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Usually with the same song again... or 8 Hours (also by CC & the Spades; see <a href="http://eashfa.wordpress.com/2006/07/02/things-that-go-bang-in-the-middle-of-the-night/">eashfa</a> to download that too). More usefully, perhaps: Swimmers by Broken Social Scene follows the demo version particularly nicely.) | |
| content/previouslyonthefridayfetchit.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,34 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Previously on the Friday Fetch-it... | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-06-22 11:01 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: archive, Last.fm | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Once upon a time, there lived a music recommendation blog called <cite>the Friday Fetch-it</cite>. It lived in the magical land of Last.fm, where it spent its days frolicking with its friends surrounded by pink social-musicky goodness.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>But then, after a few months of <em>pink!</em> <em>pink!</em> <em>other stuff!</em> <em>things that aren't the blog!</em>, the Friday Fetch-it found itself increasingly confined by all the other pink stuff flying about around it, and it decided to move out of its parents' house and get a job.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>No job later, the Friday Fetch-it finds itself uprooted from its familiar, old, pink <i>(did I mention that Last.fm is pink?)</i> pot and planted in a new, bigger, less-pink pot... like a plant being replanted... by a gardener who represents a poor metaphor.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Anyhow: so as not to forget its old life in Pinksville, the Friday Fetch-it made a list on itself <i>(because it's a blog, remember (this anthropomorphised-blog business gets confusing sometimes))</i> of all the old posts. And in time-honoured story-referencing-itself and effect-preceding-cause fashion, this is that very list:</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>(This bit's the montage of quick shots of the characters emoting and/or in action-packed situations, overlaid with snippets of dialogue, that goes some way to explaining what happened last week when you forgot to set the video:)</p> | |
| 13 … | +<ol> | |
| 14 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/04/14/115913/">the 2006-04-14 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which the Friday Fetch-it was introduced and I recommended <strong>Slits Grapevine</strong></li> | |
| 15 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/04/21/120970/">the 2006-04-21 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Area</strong></li> | |
| 16 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/04/29/126129/">the 2006-04-29 Saturday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>By The Water</strong></li> | |
| 17 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/05/5/130104/">the 2006-05-05 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>The Big Sky</strong></li> | |
| 18 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/05/12/134664/">the 2006-05-12 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Shoreline</strong></li> | |
| 19 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/05/19/138847/">the 2006-05-19 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Can't Hurry Love</strong></li> | |
| 20 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/05/27/143364/">the 2006-05-26 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Pioneers Remixed</strong></li> | |
| 21 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/06/6/150451/">the 2006-06-06 Tuesday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Love In The Making</strong></li> | |
| 22 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/06/10/153028/">the 2006-06-09 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Iwe</strong></li> | |
| 23 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/06/23/163469/">the 2006-06-23 Friday Fetch-its</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Set The Fire</strong> & <strong>La Rit</strong></li> | |
| 24 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/07/8/174592/">the 2006-07-07 Friday Fetch-its</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Confide In Me</strong> & <strong>Colours</strong></li> | |
| 25 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/07/15/180137/">the 2006-07-14 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Poison</strong></li> | |
| 26 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/10/15/246389/">the 2006-10-15 Sunday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Give Me Strength</strong></li> | |
| 27 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/10/20/250201/">the 2006-10-20 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Rush Hour</strong></li> | |
| 28 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/10/30/256054/">the 2006-10-29 Sunday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Memorize</strong></li> | |
| 29 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/11/4/259668/">the 2006-11-04 Saturday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Shack Up</strong></li> | |
| 30 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/11/11/264840/">the 2006-11-11 Saturday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Animator</strong></li> | |
| 31 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/11/18/269825/">the 2006-11-17 Friday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>Whirlwind</strong></li> | |
| 32 … | +<li><a href="http://www.last.fm/user/GregKNicholson/journal/2006/11/25/275749/">the 2006-11-25 Saturday Fetch-it</a>, in which I recommended <strong>¡12!</strong></li> | |
| 33 … | +</ol> | |
| 34 … | +<p>(Cue the title sequence.)</p> | |
| content/promisesofpassionandadventure.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,16 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Promises of Passion and Adventure” (the 2006-11-11 Saturday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-11-11 18:46 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Animator, Doves, Editors, Fingers in the Factories, Forward Russia, Guillemots, Maxïmo Park, Morrissey, Pull Tiger Tail, Tom Robinson, Y Control, Yeah Yeah Yeahs | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="Pull Tiger Tail – Animator" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Pull+Tiger+Tail/_/Animator">Animator</a> passes the whistle test. After hearing it once or twice, about a month later I remembered the chorus and the instrumental hook just from the title. Yay me.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p><a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Guillemots">Guillemots</a>ishly, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Pull+Tiger+Tail">Pull Tiger Tail</a> perform under almost-plausible pseudonyms – Marcus Ardere, the mild-mannered janitor, becomes Marcus Firefly; the already-moderately-implausibly-named David McKenzie-McConville is transformed into David "Davo" Huevo upon eating a banana; and by night Jack Navarone is the evil Jack O'Moriarty.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Animator begins with the guitar hook, which uses a grand total of three notes and (once again) is bouncily <a title="Editors – Fingers in the Factories" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Editors/_/Fingers+in+the+Factories">Fingers in the Factories</a>ish. A bassline that sounds vaguely like <a title="Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Y Control" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Yeah+Yeah+Yeahs/_/Y+Control">Y Control</a> joins in, then lots of percussion.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>In the verse the instruments drop to accompaniment and focus shifts to the lead vocal; the verse's structure and accompaniment are reminiscent of a <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Maxïmo+Park">Maxïmo Park</a> or <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/¡Forward%2C+Russia%21">¡Forward, Russia!</a> song.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>The lead vocals hold the chorus – the title repeated lots – together. They're part-<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/¡Forward%2C+Russia%21">¡Forward, Russia!</a> (but less frantically mental), part-<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Tom+Robinson">Tom Robinson</a> (but nestle in amongst the instrumentation better) and at times part-<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Morrissey">Morrissey</a> (but less disdain/depression/apathy–inducing). The backing vocals add a succession of rising "aaah"s to the chorus, which lend the song an epic-like-Dante's-Divine-Comedy-not-like-<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Doves">Doves</a> feel; they're almost dæmonic.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>The guitar hook pops up half-way through the chorus, and reappears between the first chorus and the second verse. After the second chorus the lead-up to the bridge is a lot quieter, led by a legato vocal line (of "oooh"s) with the bass playing a take on the hook.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>In the bridge and final chorus the accompaniment goes at full pelt, and escalates with added hi-hats and increasingly frantic bass half-way through the bridge. The lead singer (presumably the Firefly bloke, since his name's first) comes closest to unrestraint during the last chorus (prompting accusations of Morrissiness).</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>A ten-second guitar solo carries the song to its climax, before returning to the hook to close the song.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>Now try whistling it. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061111.mp3">Animator</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/randomstat.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,8 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Random Stat | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-11-15 19:28 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: fish, humans, murder | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2007/11/random_stat_58.shtml">More than <strong>18 million</strong> fish lose their lives <strong>each week</strong> at the hands of humans.</a> | |
| content/somethingsdrawnmehereagain.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Something's Drawn Me Here Again” (the 2006-10-15 Sunday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-10-14 23:54 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Dido, Give Me Strength, Over the Rhine | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>There's drama in <a title="Over the Rhine – Give Me Strength" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Over+the+Rhine/_/Give+Me+Strength">Give Me Strength</a> right from the outset. In the intro the droning chords, simple drumbeat and ominous electric guitar riff set up an intense atmosphere, which is maintained by the grungy guitar strums that lead into the verse.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Dischordant, eerie electronic warbles appear amongst the brooding guitars and vocals, half-way through the first verse and again at the end. Going into the bridge they give way to rumbling guitar, joined in the chorus by lurking, offbeat percussion, that sounds like steel drums heard through an unnaturally heavy fog.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>All of this accompaniment is offset by <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Over+the+Rhine">Over the Rhine</a>'s usual country-esque singing. The vocals come to the fore going into the second chorus, when the instrumental melody recedes, its echo lingering, as a swirling ambience swells to engulf the resonating vocals. All of this noise is carried into and throughout the second chorus. It all disappears in an instant as the final line is sung, a cappella, and resonates into the silence.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>When I first heard the song, I thought it was <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Dido">Dido</a> singing; it's not, but she does share a writing credit.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>So she's not entirely awful. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061015.mp3">Give Me Strength</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/sssspppppllllllllaaaarrrgghhh.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,7 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: Sssspppppllllllllaaaarrrgghhh!!!! | |
| 3 … | +date: 2008-11-03 02:18 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +--- | |
| 6 … | + | |
| 7 … | +<p>Sssssssssss­sssssssppppppppp­pppppplllllllll­llllllllllaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr­rrrrrrrrrrrrggggggg­ggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh­hhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!</p> | |
| content/thedoorshavemetalplates.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,13 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “The Doors Have Metal Plates” (the 2006-04-21 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-04-21 18:53 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: A Certain Trigger, A to B, Acrobat, Area, Decent Days And Nights, Hounds of Love, Maxïmo Park, News and Tributes, Skip To The End, The City is Here for You to Use, the Futureheads | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="The Futureheads – Skip To The End" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Skip+To+The+End">Skip To The End</a> was on this week's Roundtable; I thought it was an odd choice of lead single from <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads">The Futureheads</a>' forthcoming album, <a title="The Futureheads - News and Tributes" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/News+and+Tributes">News and Tributes</a> – it's slower than the typical Futureheads track, and it doesn't help that the intro sounds like <a title="The Futureheads – Decent Days And Nights" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Decent+Days+And+Nights">Decent Days And Nights</a> at half-pace.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Better than <a title="The Futureheads – Skip To The End" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Skip+To+The+End">Skip To The End</a>, though, is <a title="The Futureheads – Area" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Area">Area</a>, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads">The Futureheads</a>' stand-alone single released late in 2005.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Unlike Skip to the End, it has the pace of <a title="The Futureheads – Decent Days And Nights" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Decent+Days+And+Nights">Decent Days And Nights</a>, <a title="The Futureheads – A to B" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/A+to+B">A to B</a> and indeed much of <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads">The Futureheads</a>' eponymous debut.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Added to this is <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads">The Futureheads</a>' trademark vocal harmony hook, à la <a title="The Futureheads – Hounds of Love" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/Hounds+of+Love">Hounds of Love</a>.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>It's like the best bits of every track on <a title="The Futureheads - The Futureheads" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/The+Futureheads">The Futureheads</a> (apart from the weird time signature of <a title="The Futureheads – The City is Here for You to Use" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Futureheads/_/The+City+is+Here+for+You+to+Use">The City is Here for You to Use</a>) condensed into 2:45.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>And that's another thing; like many great songs (i.e. <a title="Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Maxïmo+Park/A+Certain+Trigger">A Certain Trigger</a> bar <a title="Maxïmo Park – Acrobat" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Maxïmo+Park/_/Acrobat">Acrobat</a>) it's far shorter than it sounds, which belies the song's intricacy – it doesn't seem probable that so much song would fit into so little time. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060421.mp3">Area</a>.</strong></p> | |
| content/thelaissezfaireparadox.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,10 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: The Laissez-faire Paradox | |
| 3 … | +date: 2009-02-19 12:20 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: paradox | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>I believe that one shouldn't impose one's beliefs on others.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>In fact, I practically <em>require</em> others not to impose them on me.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Think about that for a second.</p> | |
| content/thenewilliteracyoftheinternet.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,17 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: The New Illiteracy of the Internet | |
| 3 … | +date: 2008-01-02 00:54 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: communication, English, internet, language, technology, text | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Kottke <a href="http://www.kottke.org/07/12/the-new-literacy-of-television">writes about a 56-year-old prediction of a positive effect from television on literacy</a>, and notes that predictions for “television” closely resemble the modern web.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>A lot of modern communication technology is textual which, a few decades ago, when television and home video were at their height, would have seemed odd. But it turns out that text <em>is</em> more efficient than audio and video. I think this is because <em>basic</em> literacy levels have improved: people are generally <em>expected</em> to be able to read and write text, which has made text-based technology convenient, and has also improved the rate of basic literacy.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>This means that lots of people <em>can</em> use text to communicate; it most certainly <em>doesn't</em> mean that those people are using good-quality written language. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcat"><abbr title="People—using the internet—revel in intentionally weird spelling, grammar and usage, for entertainment independent from communication.">Ppl r in ur intArnet, revelin in intenshunly wierd gramr.</abbr></a> It's reminiscent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okay#Etymology">an intentional misspelling fad in nineteenth-century America, from which the word/phrase “OK” is suggested to have arisen</a>.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<hr> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Where, when I was a lad, kids would only use text when writing for their teachers, who would then correct and frown upon misspellings and poor grammar, now children talk amongst themselves using text—internet instant messaging, mobile phone–style text messages and emo blogs being the primary culprits. (Be nice to LiveJournal—it's felling lonley rite now.)</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>So people get used to using unconventional or incorrect (depending on your viewpoint) spelling and grammar, with the understanding that the receiving party will nonetheless be able to understand the message. (This is compounded by a general reluctance to correct or be corrected.)</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Where this <em>compresses</em> communication, for example by <abbr title="abbreviating">abbrev.</abbr>—making it quicker and generally more efficient—this is not a bad thing. There are a set of essentially universally–recognised <abbr title="abbreviations">abbrev's</abbr>, e.g. “e.g.”, “&”, & “etc.” etc.; numeral figures and mathematical symbols can also be considered examples. A problem only arises when meaning is misinterpreted.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Some help for English-learners and by way of an example: more often than one might expect, “then” actually means “than”. “More often <em>then</em> one might expect” doesn't actually make any sense and “then” sounds similar to “than”, so most experienced English-speakers can understand the message. “There”, “their” & “they're”, and “to”, “too” & “two” are two other classic examples of words being conflated.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<hr> | |
| 17 … | +<p>My point is that whereas before the advent of recent technology a smaller number of people had a greater quality of literacy, now a greater number of people has a lesser quality of literacy. It's as if the ubiquity and the quality of literacy sum to a constant.</p> | |
| content/thereisliberationhere.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,12 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “There is Liberation Here” (the 2006-06-06 Tuesday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-06-06 12:30 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Love In The Making, Prelude to Love In The Making, Róisín Murphy, Ruby Blue, Sequins 2, Sow Into You | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Track eleven of <a title="Róisín Murphy - Ruby Blue" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Róisín+Murphy/Ruby+Blue">Ruby Blue</a> is a fifty-second instrumental called <a title="Róisín Murphy – Prelude to Love In The Making" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Róisín+Murphy/_/Prelude+to+Love+In+The+Making">Prelude to Love In The Making</a>. There is actually a full song, <a title="Róisín Murphy – Love In The Making" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Róisín+Murphy/_/Love+In+The+Making">Love In The Making</a>, whose lyrics appear in Ruby Blue's album insert; Prelude is simply the intro and outro of Love In The Making shoved together. Before Ruby Blue came out, all twelve songs had been released on three limited edition vinyl EPs collectively entitled Sequins; Love In The Making appears on Sequins 2.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The song itself is something of a slow-burner. Róisín's vocals provide the melody, layered over a lo-fi percussive rhythm; every so often her voice swells, accompanied by itself several times over. Like most of Ruby Blue, the verse-chorus structure is somewhat indistinct, but it is there.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Also present, to a certain degree, is Róisín's tendency to split one lyric over several vocal parts and to spread individual vocals out rather thinly (both particularly notable in <a title="Róisín Murphy – Sow Into You" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Róisín+Murphy/_/Sow+Into+You">Sow Into You</a>).</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>The synth effects prominent throughout most of the album are conspicusouly quiet, but the song still has the same woozy, dischordant quality. Love In The Making sounds – to my ear anyway – vaguely south-Asian. I don't know if that's a sitar; I'm fairly certain there are some instruments that aren't <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament" rel="nofollow">well-tempered</a>.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Because of this simplicity, it would be the stand-out track on the album, if only it were actually on the album. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060606.mp3">Love In The Making</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/thereisnopeacethativefoundsofar.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,19 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “There is No Peace that I've Found So Far” / “Drift In Your Eyes” (the 2006-06-23 Friday Fetch-its) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-06-23 20:10 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Breathe Me, La Ritournelle, Lady (Hear Me Tonight), Martha Wainwright, Modjo, Sébastian Tellier, Set the Fire to the Third Bar, Sia, Snow Patrol | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>Fans of <a title="Sia – Breathe Me" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Sia/_/Breathe+Me">Breathe Me</a> will like this. I don't know who wrote <a title="Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright – Set the Fire to the Third Bar" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Snow+Patrol+%2526+Martha+Wainwright/_/Set+the+Fire+to+the+Third+Bar">Set the Fire to the Third Bar</a>, but it sounds to me like more of a Martha song than a <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Snow+Patrol">Snow Patrol</a> song. The lyrics are very personal – almost every line contains “I”, “you”, “we” or some variation thereof.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Its backbone is the combined vocal of <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Gary+Lightbody">Gary Lightbody</a> and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Martha+Wainwright">Martha Wainwright</a>, but calling Set The Fire a duet is somewhat misleading. Here they both sing one vocal part together, rather than the more usual call-and-response format adopted by most duets. Their voices blend together impeccably; somehow both voices seem to stand out at the same time.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Fairly conventionally, the verses smoulder – the instruments and vocals are all quite subdued, as befits the tone of the lyrics – and then at the chorus the instrumentation swells and the lid comes off. The song's structure (two verses, a chorus, another verse, then two choruses) gives an overall sense of escalation.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>For a song with such a sweeping, epic feel to it, it does seem a tiny bit brief at 3:23. Having said that, it's definitely good that they haven't dragged it out to unnecessary length. There's no long, protracted coda and no excessive chorus repeat; they stop as soon as the song's finished.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>And because of its succinctness, you will want to hear it again. <strong>If you download one track last week...</strong> oh, hang on.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<hr> | |
| 14 … | +<p><a title="Sébastien Tellier – La Ritournelle" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Sébastien+Tellier/_/La+Ritournelle">La Ritournelle</a> opens with just a piano, a drumkit and some subtle string backing. To these are soon added lots of sweeping strings, which if I was more knowledgeable I'd be able to identify as particular instruments; suffice it to say they all sound lovely.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>The piano and strings take turns at providing the leading melody, through an incredibly natural chord progression until, before you know it, it nears the end of the fourth minute and the strings once more build to a climax. And then he starts singing.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>The singing bit is backed by some funky electric bass, ever-so-slightly reminiscent of <a title="Modjo – Lady (Hear Me Tonight)" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Modjo/_/Lady+(Hear+Me+Tonight)">Lady (Hear Me Tonight)</a>. After only eight lines and forty-odd seconds, the strings once again take the lead, with the piano in tow. Over the next three minutes, the strings and then the piano quietly fade out, and the music comes to a gentle coda.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>Amazingly, for a seven-and-a-half-minute piece of music – and especially such a simple piece of music, with no sudden twists and turns, and only eight lyrics – La Rit never seems stale. The music never seems to be standing still, nor going around in circles; it always sounds like it's going somewhere.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>So this is a piece of music that repeats itself for seven and a half minutes, and yet doesn't repeat itself at all. Try figuring that one out.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p><strong>If you download two tracks this week, make them <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060623a.mp3">Set The Fire</a> and <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060623b.mp3">La Rit</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/thewheelchairsymbol.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,30 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: The wheelchair symbol | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-08-04 13:34 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +tags: blindness, conflation, deafblindness, deafness, disability, signage, web, wheelchair symbol | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>The wheelchair symbol—a stick-person sitting in a stick-wheelchair (well, on a stick-<em>wheel</em> at least)—is a common, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/map/?map_type=hyb&q=wheelchair%20symbol" title="Flickr photos of it, on an atlas">internationally-recognised</a> symbol.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<h2 id="ramps">Ramps</h2> | |
| 10 … | +<p>I suppose it <em>originally</em> meant something like “mainly for people using wheelchairs”. For example, in cases where a building's main entrance involves steps, but there's a secondary entrance that uses a ramp instead, this symbol is often used with an arrow to point towards that ramp. But it's a bit of a <em>dodgy</em> symbol for this purpose.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Perhaps the <em>main</em> intention behind the ramp <em>is</em> to allow access for people who use wheelchairs; but others are quite likely to use it as well—people with pushchairs, for example; or on bikes (if it's an outdoor ramp). Maybe you're a small dog (or with one) and don't fancy climbing up steps half your height. Maybe you <em>can</em> walk, but can't easily lift your feet to the height of a step. Maybe you're a skater.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>I suspect that many ramps that use the wheelchair symbol were only installed in the <em>first</em> place in order to comply with anti-discrimination legislation, which (in addition to having a poetically rhythmic name) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disability_Discrimination_Act_1995" title="Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 - Wikipedia">has come into force in the United Kingdom recently</a>. In this frame of mind, someone thought, “OK, chaps. We're putting this ramp in for the <em>disabled</em> people, so we're gonna put up a <em>big sign</em> saying ‘This is for disabled people.' That makes sense.”.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>And it sort-of does, but they're thinking about it <em>far</em> too hard. They should use a symbol of a <em>ramp</em> instead—something like <a href="http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/sign104.htm" title="The Highway Code">the UK road sign for an incline</a>, but without any gradient. This would show what's there, factually and simply, without making assumptions about who's going to be using it. Analogously, a simple pictorial of some stairs is often used to represent a <em>staircase</em>, and quite sensibly.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<h2 id="sound">Sound</h2> | |
| 15 … | +<p>That example of the wheelchair symbol's use is relatively innocuous—the ramp <em>is</em> intended mainly for wheelchair users. But there are other cases of its use where it's <em>wholly</em> inappropriate, mainly on the web.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>A lot of websites use simple tests to distinguish real (presumably) human users from automated spamming machines. These tests usually involve reading a picture of a string of letters and numbers, that's been made <em>intentionally difficult</em> for a computer to read. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha#Accessibility" title="Accessibility of “Captchas” - Wikipedia">This also makes them virtually impossible for people with poor sight to read.</a> In order to provide access for these people, most websites that use such tests provide an alternative one that involves recognising <em>sound</em> instead.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>(Both of these are useless for deafblind people. There have been attempts at devising more sensible tests that don't assume that real people can either see or hear, such as <a href="http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2005/01/24/wp-gatekeeper/">Eric Meyer's WP-Gatekeeper</a>.)</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>These audio tests are often indicated by the wheelchair symbol. —which makes <em>no</em> sense whatsoever.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>The rationale behind this is presumably that the wheelchair symbol has become a general symbol for disability. That's a shame, as it lumps everyone with anything that's considered a disability into one category. And using a wheelchair needn't be a disability in every situation, and <em>certainly</em> isn't on the <em>web</em> (which is incongruous, because that's where its image is being used as a symbol for disability).</p> | |
| 20 … | +<p>There <em>is</em> <a href="http://www.disability.uci.edu/disability_handbook/symbols_description.html" title="The Disability Handbook">a symbol for blindness</a>, which would be more appropriate for this purpose than the wheelchair symbol; it's a person walking with a cane to the ground in front of them. Unfortunately, it assumes that all people walking with canes in front of them are blind, which is reasonably fair; and that all blind people can walk, which is not.</p> | |
| 21 … | +<p>A better symbol for blindness would be an eye with a slash through it; the UK's <a href="http://www.rnib.org.uk/">Royal National Institute of Blind People</a> uses such a symbol as their site's icon. Analogously, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:International_Symbol_for_Deafness.svg">symbol for deafness</a> is an ear with a slash through it. (This is a very <em>sensible</em> symbol.) The symbol for deafblindness could then, logically, be an eye and an ear, with a slash through each (so, the deafness and blindness symbols combined).</p> | |
| 22 … | +<p>But even the <em>blindness</em> symbol would only be as appropriate for indicating an <em>audio</em>-based test as the <em>wheelchair</em> symbol is for indicating <em>ramps</em>. It's a sound-based test; it should be represented by a symbol for <em>sound</em>; a speaker with “sound waves” emanating from it would be perfect.</p> | |
| 23 … | +<h2 id="parking">Parking</h2> | |
| 24 … | +<p>There are some uses of the wheelchair symbol that are a bit more awkward. The wheelchair symbol is often used to mark disabled people's parking spaces<a href="#note-parkingspaces" id="ref-parkingspaces">*</a>—those reserved for drivers and passengers who are “registered disabled”, with extra room and in the most convenient positions. “Registered disabled” means that the person in question uses a wheelchair, uses crutches, has poor or no sight, or has another condition that makes a better parking space a practical necessity. (I'm not sure whether having poor or no <em>hearing</em> gets you a disabled-badge<a href="#note-badge" id="ref-badge">**</a>, but I don't see why it would mean you'd need a space nearer to the building.)</p> | |
| 25 … | +<hr> | |
| 26 … | +<p><a href="#ref-parkingspaces" id="note-parkingspaces">*</a> (I say “disabled people's parking spaces” rather than “disabled parking spaces” because the latter seems to imply that the parking spaces themselves are disabled.)</p> | |
| 27 … | +<p><a href="#ref-badge" id="note-badge">**</a>: (Similarly, “disabled badge” seems to imply that the badge itself is disabled.)</p> | |
| 28 … | +<hr> | |
| 29 … | +<p>The wheelchair symbol isn't <em>really</em> appropriate here. Like with the ramp, these parking spaces aren't <em>only</em> for people who use wheelchairs; they're also specifically for people who fall into other groups. Unlike the ramp, this is an <em>artificial</em> distinction: the spaces are explicitly <em>for</em> certain groups of people and—more importantly—specifically <em>not</em> for everyone else. The ramp was just “probably less convenient” for people who can use steps.</p> | |
| 30 … | +<p>In this case, I can't think of a better symbol to use. I think it would be counter-productive to invent a new symbol to generally represent “disability”, because using <em>any</em> symbol like this arbitrarily lumps a lot of disparate groups of people together. However, it <em>might</em> remove the implication that, in <em>any</em> case where a certain biological or medical condition would cause problems, wheelchair users are always “disabled”—or literally, incapable.</p> | |
| content/this.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,7 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: ↓ | |
| 3 … | +date: 2009-01-19 10:28 | |
| 4 … | +series: Walking Dataloss | |
| 5 … | +--- | |
| 6 … | + | |
| 7 … | +<p><a href="http://zenhabits.net/2009/01/on-compassion-towards-animals/">This.</a></p> | |
| content/underasinkingsun.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,28 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Under a Sinking Sun” (the 2007-06-22 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-06-22 11:19 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Broken Social Scene, Charlotte Hatherley, Death Cock, Harriet Wheeler, Hjertebarn, Lost In Time, Roll Over (Let It Go), Siberia, the Cocteau Twins, The Deep Blue, the Sundays, Under Byen | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>One review of The Deep Blue claimed that Charlotte Hatherley does “a spot-on impersonation of the Sundays' Harriet Wheeler” in the first half of Roll Over (Let It Go). This isn't <em>quite</em> true; but she <em>does</em> do a spot-on impersonation of herself singing <em>very</em> nicely. (The way she sings “lover” and “harbour” makes me want to hump her.) Charlotte's usually better at angular <i>(Lazy Use of a Popular Musical Adjective #1)</i> guitar-pop-punk-rock than at lush dream-pop. Even in Roll Over her “sha-la-la”s and “ooh”s don't bed into the instrumentation fully enough to match up to the Sundays or the Cocteau Twins: however soft the vocals' <em>surfaces</em> are, they still have sharp edges.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>Hidden tracks—meanwhile—are generally a bit rubbish: they're the recorded equivalent of leaving the stage for a minute or two, before returning to perform—surprise!—an encore. Supposedly “hidden” tracks are even easier to see coming: enter track length display. Nonetheless, there's the obligatory minute or two of silence after the last song-proper, to fool you into thinking the album's over... as well as to royally screw up shuffled playlists and mix discs. Only if you leave the thing alone, either by the serendipity of sheer laziness, or by taking keen notice of the fact that <em>it's still playing</em>, may you bask in the bounty of the hidden track. ...which is usually about half a minute long and fades out just as it starts to resemble a decent song. Not so on The Deep Blue.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>The last track, Siberia, ends with an improv-y crescendo of guitar and piano that gives way to a final guitar loop; six iterations later, the loop drops abruptly to silence. It's a strong conclusion to an album that never loses momentum throughout, despite many changes of pace and mood.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Two minutes of silence ensue.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p><em>Two minutes</em>—that's a long time.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>It's probably taken you about that long to read this far.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>The silence draws you in. It makes you listen more carefully, in case there's something quiet going on that you're otherwise missing.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Silence is far more potent than leaving a large break in text—you can just read faster, skip over a blank page in the space of a second or two.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>It makes you wonder: when will the silence be broken? And by what? And when it is broken, it makes the sound that breaks it that much more profound.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p><em>Two minutes</em> of silence.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>After two minutes, Siberia and the rest of the album are a fond memory rather than a present experience, and what follows stands separately from the album.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<p>All momentum has now ceased.</p> | |
| 20 … | +<p>Out of the silence springs a quiet guitar, at times reverberating like a sonar pulse; accompanied by a slow, almost <em>occasional</em>, soft drumbeat. By this point it sounds like it could be your heartbeat. After a little while a deep, resonating, <em>warm</em> acoustic guitar joins; and then Charlotte's singing.</p> | |
| 21 … | +<p>Those sharp edges in her voice are entirely engulfed by the rich, expansive acoustic guitar and the other sonance swirling around her. There's the occasional glugging sound, probably produced on a xylophone, but sounding more like air escaping from an underwater cove, or a seahorse scarpering as a pebble falls towards it.</p> | |
| 22 … | +<p>Three minutes in, although it feels like about half that, the rich swirls of sound die down, returning to the more minimal arrangement of the intro. It's at this point—if not before—that lesser hidden tracks would just have faded out, and you half-expect this intro arrangement to be the song's conclusion.</p> | |
| 23 … | +<p>Instead, the same intro riff acquires the accompaniment of the deep acoustic guitar and a violin, which plays a legato, swaying, floating line. The violin stays around while the main, warm riff resumes and Charlotte sings another chorus.</p> | |
| 24 … | +<p>Again, she's accompanied by the same swirling sonance, with the addition of the reverberating whooshes of a couple of passing space-dolphins. (Lost In Time could be described as the musical analogue to Ecco the Dolphin 2: The Tides of Time on the Mega-Drive.)</p> | |
| 25 … | +<p>The guitar riff from the intro concludes the song with the full resonant lushness of the song's body, and the acoustic guitar resonates into silence.</p> | |
| 26 … | +<p><em>This</em> is dream-pop. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20070622.ogg">Lost In Time</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 27 … | +<hr> | |
| 28 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? With <del datetime="2007-06-23 15:42 +01:00"><a href="/butyouvegottaknowtheirlies">Death Cock by Broken Social Scene</a></del> <ins datetime="2007-06-23 15:42 +01:00"><a href="http://last.fm/music/Under byen/_/Hjertebarn">Hjertebarn</a> by <a href="http://last.fm/music/Under byen/">Under byen</a></ins>. Or, preferably, another two minutes of silence.) | |
| content/upherdosage.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,13 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “Up Her Dosage” (the 2006-07-14 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-07-15 00:38 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Colourbox, Gigi Edgley, Just Give 'em Whiskey, Poison | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="Gigi Edgley – Poison" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Gigi+Edgley/_/Poison">Poison</a> conjures up an image of a stark, white room in a futuristic hospital; in which, on a white cuboid table, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Gigi+Edgley">Gigi Edgley</a> reclines and is inspected as alien by the bespectacled, plummy-voiced retro-sci-fi staff, much to her amusement.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The first minute is dominated by this staff's mostly-impenetrable dialogue, textured with Gigi's breaths and the throbbing hums of background machinery. This use of quaint spoken voice samples is quite reminiscent of <a title="Colourbox – Just Give 'em Whiskey" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Colourbox/_/Just+Give+%27em+Whiskey">Just Give 'em Whiskey</a>.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>After a minute this gives way to the actual song; its backbone is an almost ambient, liquid combination of hi-hat, synth, bass, a funk-infused pseudo-guitar line, some eerie whistling, and miscellaneous blips, whirs, breaths and distortion, all of which wouldn't sound out of place in The X-Files.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Gigi's vocals are breathy and sensual; their layering is æthereal and eludes to a fantastical dislocation from reality, with an accompanying inquisitiveness. The instrumentation – especially the mutedness of the grunge-guitar towards the end – reinforces this.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>By the time the voices re-emerge four minutes in, the whole thing is sounding very much like a drug-induced altered state of conciousness, and eventually descends into catatonic incoherence.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Yeah, her out of Farscape. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060714.mp3">Poison</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/weretwoofakind.md | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,16 @@ | |||
| 1 … | +--- | ||
| 2 … | +title: “We're Two of a Kind” (the 2006-04-14 Friday Fetch-it) | ||
| 3 … | +date: 2006-04-14 18:54 | ||
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | ||
| 5 … | +tags: Ari Up, Barrett Strong, I Heard It through the Grapevine, Marvin Gaye, Norman Whitfield, the Slits | ||
| 6 … | +--- | ||
| 7 … | + | ||
| 8 … | +<p>I was planning to start off with my favourite song ever just to get it out of the way, until last night I happened to read (on Teletext on ITV4) that <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Slits">The Slits</a> are going to reform.</p> | ||
| 9 … | +<p>The Web doesn't seem to agree; nonetheless, I'll begin instead with probably the best cover version of a song ever, <a title="The Slits – I Heard It through the Grapevine" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Slits/_/I+Heard+It+through+the+Grapevine">I Heard It through the Grapevine</a>.</p> | ||
| 10 … | +<p>Although <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Marvin+Gaye">Marvin Gaye</a>'s version of the song wasn't technically the original (as I heard through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_It_Through_The_Grapevine">Wikipedia</a>), it's the definitive recording of the song and probably the one the Slits would've been thinking of when they did theirs, so I'm happy comparing their effort to it.</p> | ||
| 11 … | +<p>The Slits managed to take an already-great song, completely change its style, its mood and a fair number of the words, and yet not completely screw it up.</p> | ||
| 12 … | +<p>The fact that the song can be uprooted from one genre and plonked comfortably into another is testament to Whitfield and Strong's songwriting; the fact that the Slits dared to do it is testament to their great confidence (the punks call it “attitude”, right?). The fact that they pulled it off is testament to their skill as musicians.</p> | ||
| 13 … | +<p>Oddly for a supposedly-punk record, the song lasts a full four minutes; odder, that's a good fifty seconds longer than Gaye's version. And crucially, without outstaying its welcome – at no point are they just repeating themselves.</p> | ||
| 14 … | +<p>I'm convinced that <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Ari+Up">Ari Up</a> didn't bother learning the real words and just sang what she thought they were. And “I heard it through the bassline” is just genius.</p> | ||
| 15 … | +<p>After the first verse and chorus of Gaye's version, I'm completely satisfied with the song – it's already delivered, and it would have been near impossible to screw it up after that, short of rambling on for ten minutes. Sure enough, the song carries on satisfactorily until the end, but without really adding anything.</p> | ||
| 16 … | +<p>But the Slits' version delivers constantly throughout the entire song. The whole thing is... just inspired. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060414.mp3">Slits Grapevine</a>.</strong></p> | ||
| content/wewontsaveyou.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,21 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “We Won't Save You” (the 2007-07-13 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2007-07-13 20:18 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Army of Me, Beats Beyond, Bersarinplatz, Björk, Bloc Party, Goldfrapp, Kasabian, Remixes and Covers, Shoot The Runner, Train, Under Byen | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>When I started the Fetch-it, some fifteen months ago (or <em>seven</em>, if you only count months in which I've actually <em>recommended</em> anything), I decided not to recommend any music by Björk, mainly because I couldn't bring myself to pick one of her songs above all others. It should be very clear at this point that <a id="ref-20070713-1" href="#note-20070713-1">I am less than three Björk</a>.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>In 2005, Björk compiled an album of <a href="http://unit.bjork.com/specials/aom/" >Army of Me remixes and covers</a> in aid of UNICEF. (Pay attention to that link—it has free downloads.) Alongside a country and western version; a couple of hard-rock reimaginings; a bossa nova version; a one-minute a cappella; and a Super Mario-flavoured accelerando, <a href="http://www.beatsbeyond.de/" >Beats Beyond</a> (of whom I've never heard either) contributed “Army of Me [Bersarinplatz Mix]”.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>So this <em>isn't</em> a song by Björk. It's a <em>remix</em> of a song by Björk, which uses bits of her voice, and things, but it definitely <em>doesn't</em> count as a Björk song simply because—as we'll see—it's <em>nothing</em> like the original.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>...Although it <em>does</em> begin with the same crescendo as the original song—exactly: you may even be fooled into believing that this <em>is</em> Army of Me, though only for about three seconds. Where the original's beat kicks in with an explosion at the end of the crescendo, here the explosion fades away and is replaced by an electronic throb.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>This throb is joined by a dirty, buzzy bassline—like a twitching, edgier version of the original's bassline—and a few choice Björk vocals. And then “The Riff” takes over, and any lingering suggestion that you're hearing Army of Me evaporates. <em>This</em> riff is a drum-'n'-bass dance bassline, only at a more moderate tempo and swung, using triple time. And with a thudding beat. Like Train by Goldfrapp crossed with Shoot The Runner by Kasabian.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>The bassline, throb and vocals gradually reappear and are soon joined by a high, rippling electronic countermelody to The Riff. By now, two minutes in, the song's driving along nicely—toes are tapping.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>But then with a drone-like, suspended animation Björk vocal (“once more”) along for the ride, in the space of about five seconds, the song swerves to avoid a crossing pedestrian and skids off the side of the road—crashing <em>straight</em> into a black hole, in which all the constituent parts of the song tie themselves up in a knot and collapse in on themselves, like an old-fashioned TV being switched off. More literally, it sounds like a more-warped, grungier version of the end of Phones' Disco Edit of Banquet by Bloc Party. Or a five-second armageddon.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>Instantly, the driving beat of The Riff resumes. After passing through a quick loop-the-loop and crashing into another supernova, the song breaks down to just the throb and the rippling countermelody.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>But soon The Riff reappears once more, alongside a new <em>counter</em>-countermelody. —On top of the first, rippling countermelody. And the melody of The Riff. And Björk's vocals. <em>Four</em> layers of melody now accompany the driving rhythm, so we're <em>quite</em> happy to dwell here for a minute or so, until the song concludes with a repeat of the opening explosion, again fading, this time to nothing.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>Apart from Björk's voice, which sings a <em>very</em> simple line, every melody here is <em>completely</em> original and the rhythm is nothing <em>like</em> Army of Me. It's like calling an ostrich a remix of a velociraptor.</p> | |
| 18 … | +<p>It <em>technically</em> is, but in reality it's a completely different animal. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20070713.mp3">Bersarinplatz</a>.</strong> ...or anything by Björk.</p> | |
| 19 … | +<hr> | |
| 20 … | +<p>(<a id="note-20070713-1" href="#ref-20070713-1">I <3 Björk</a>)</p> | |
| 21 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Probably with either <a href="http://last.fm/music/Goldfrapp/_/Train" >Train</a> or <a href="http://last.fm/music/Kasabian/_/Shoot+The+Runner" >Shoot The Runner</a>. Or possibly <a href="http://last.fm/music/Under+byen/_/Den+her+sang+handler+om+at+få+det+bedste+ud+af+det" >Den her sang handler om at få det bedste ud af det</a> by <a href="http://last.fm/music/Under+byen" >Under byen</a> (who're really rather good, you know).) | |
| content/youneverunderstoodme.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,14 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “You Never Understood Me” (the 2006-05-05 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-05-05 18:41 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Kate Bush, The Big Sky | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>In much of the Northern Hemisphere, and certainly here in York, it's now summer. And summer requires pop songs!</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>“But isn't pop just pap with one less line?!”</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Not necessarily. The problem is that lots of pop songs descend into chorus repeat two-thirds of the way through. This chorus repeat's many functions include showcasing the soon-tiring vocal talents of the popstar in question; padding the song out to the usual 3:30, and getting all the pop-hungry kids singing along. All of which is predictably cynical.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>Oh, and they're generally quite crap as well – that doesn't help.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p><a title="Kate Bush – The Big Sky" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Kate+Bush/_/The+Big+Sky">The Big Sky</a> comprises 15 seconds of verse followed by a good four minutes of chorus repeat; and it's great. Unlike all those pop songs, The Big Sky actually develops during the chorus repeat (henceforth referred to as “the song”).</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>Instruments are added, vocal bits inserted and drums drummed more heartily. It's not marvellous in any profound, significant or even subtle way. But, it's a catchy, æsthetic, upbeat pop song.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>And there's not a single key-change in sight. <strong>If you download one track this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20060505.mp3">The Big Sky</a>.</strong></p> | |
| content/yourethecablesthatconnectme.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,15 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “You're the Cables that Connect Me” (the 2009-02-13 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2009-02-13 22:22 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Chasing Dorotea, Club 8, Labrador records, Labrador Summer Sampler 2007, Spring Came Rain Fell, The Anchor Song | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>A couple of years ago, Swedish record label <a href="http://www.labrador.se/">Labrador</a> released <a href="http://www.labrador.se/news.php3?lab=070719.080323">a summer sampler of gargantuan proportions</a>. A lot of those 68 songs are unremarkable (though none is truly awful).</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>But I keep coming back to <strong>Chasing Dorotea</strong>'s unabashedly romantic <strong>The Anchor Song</strong>.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Part of the song's charm is its simplicity: two voices singing mostly in unison, backed by an acoustic guitar, with a harmonica decorating the space around the verses.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>The singers exude tranquillity and relaxation, right from “You've got a sparkle in your eyes, stronger than the brightest sun”. Even the instruments seem carefree as they ebb and flow amongst the vocals.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>But the real joy is in the lyrics' endless river of metaphors and fond exaggerations.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>This song is guaranteed to leave you with a lower blood pressure, a subdued heartbeat and a wistful smile. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20090213.mp3">The Anchor Song</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 14 … | +<hr /> | |
| 15 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? Something slightly more lively but equally lovely: “Spring Came, Rain Fell” by Club 8, from the same sampler.)</p> | |
| content/youthrewpenniesinandwished.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,14 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “You Threw Pennies In and Wished” (the 2006-10-29 Sunday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2006-10-30 02:01 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Editors, Fingers in the Factories, Memorize The City, the Organ | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p><a title="The Organ – Memorize the City" href="http://www.last.fm/music/The+Organ/_/Memorize+the+City">Memorize the City</a> begins with electric guitar jangle, backed with electric organ chords, which is soon joined by hi-hats and then bass as the song gets up to speed. <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Katie+Sketch">Katie Sketch</a>'s vocals are subdued and effortless – she's clearly not setting out to prove anything. The tune is quite simple; it doesn't hurry from one note to the next. This dwelling on one note really drums the words in.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>During the chorus the vocals remain subdued, and only occasionally stray from a single, insistent note. The guitar carries the main melody, with the singing and the bass each assuming a different <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/counter-melody" rel="nofollow">counter-melody</a>.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>Coming out of the chorus, the second verse uses a different melody to the first and sounds more like an addendum to the chorus. By half-way through the second verse, the tune has rejoined that of the first verse. Again the lyrics are punched in at the end of the second verse, with almost mechanical determination. Sketch tersely sings "...more. More. More. More." leading into the warm guitar melody of the chorus.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>The bridge reassumes the tune of the second verse, as the organ provides an extra melody and the lead guitar hammers out a rhythm very reminiscent of <a title="Editors – Fingers in the Factories" href="http://www.last.fm/music/Editors/_/Fingers+in+the+Factories">Fingers in the Factories</a>. The guitar, organ and drums build to a crescendo and then subside, giving way to the lead guitar and an instrumental chorus.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Unusually, the instrumental feels more agreeable and has less tension than the sung choruses. Reduced to just the primary melody and without Katie's brooding vocals, it evokes less hostility. To cap it off, there are tambourine shakes and handclaps on every other line, but shrewdly not on all of them. I don't know why, but somehow it seems better that they're absent from the second and fourth lines.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>As the lyrics come full-circle, the guitar, organ and vocals combine to lead the song up to its pounding conclusion.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>Handclaps. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20061029.mp3">Memorize</a>.</strong> Stay tuned.</p> | |
| content/youwroteyournumberonmyhandanditcameoffintherain.md | ||
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,0 +1,19 @@ | ||
| 1 … | +--- | |
| 2 … | +title: “You Wrote Your Number on My Hand & It Came Off in the Rain” (the 2008-02-29 Friday Fetch-it) | |
| 3 … | +date: 2008-02-29 23:53 | |
| 4 … | +series: the Friday Fetch-it | |
| 5 … | +tags: Belle and Sebastian, Field Music, Franz Ferdinand, Laura Marling, Mystery Jets, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, the Rakes, Young Love | |
| 6 … | +--- | |
| 7 … | + | |
| 8 … | +<p>For ages, all I knew of the <strong>Mystery Jets</strong> was “You Can't Fool Me, Dennis”; and that one of the band members was one of the other ones's dad. But <strong>Young Love</strong>, their new single (even though I usually steer clear of recommending those), is the epitome of English pop.</p> | |
| 9 … | +<p>The bassline it kicks off with is simple, but with a definite twang to it. From here, the song launches straight into a chorus, through which weaves a guitar line that complements the wry vocals, seemingly skipping along beside them.</p> | |
| 10 … | +<p>The verses are underpinned instrumentally by strong, marching drums; and a bassline that rises and falls, dancing around the vocals. Shimmering guitar crescendos also make an appearance every so often. Half-way through, some backing vocals chip in, contributing staccato, fey “aah”s on the offbeats; they become legato (but remain fey) in the second chorus and start alternating between “ooh” and “ahh”.</p> | |
| 11 … | +<p>At this point, the song's punctuated by a bridge: off-kilter clangs herald successive choruses of “woawoawoaw, woawoawoa-ooo!” and crescendos of those marching drumbeats; until the verse re-emerges—and brings current indie-folk up-and-comer <strong>Laura Marling</strong> with it.</p> | |
| 12 … | +<p>Laura Marling's voice is the poshest this side of Sophie Ellis-Bextor. It's ably escorted by the rising-and-falling, dancing guitar line; marching drums; and finger-clicks, provided in <a href="http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2008/02/mystery_jets_yo.html">the video</a> by the disembodied hands of three off-screen Mystery Jets.</p> | |
| 13 … | +<p>After a final chorus featuring Laura singing an alto counter-melody, the song arrives at another bridge, and this is where it concludes—no chorus repeat (aptly enough, I feel like I'm repeating myself here) and no fade-out: an extended bridge and then stop. This is the mark of a durable pop song: it leaves you only 90% satisfied rather than outstaying its welcome. Moreover, the guest vocalist actually feels like a <em>guest</em> for a change, instead of an ill-advised attempt at a full duet.</p> | |
| 14 … | +<p>The song's lyrics comprise rhyming couplets that, with plenty of hyperbole, depict their protagonist hopelessly in love with a fleeting acquaintance. Despite being pretty straightforward in structure, they simultaneously manage to be poetically vivid and immensely catchy: “Is that you on the bus? is that you on the train? / You wrote your number on my hand and it came off in the rain” is definitely couplet of the week.</p> | |
| 15 … | +<p>But it never seems <em>twee</em>, like a lot of Scando-Scottish indie-popsters <i>(seriously, <em>who</em> can tell Camera Obscura and the Concretes apart?)</i>—the rattling drums and precise guitars prevent the sound from becoming syrupy. Earnest and foppish, yes: but not twee.</p> | |
| 16 … | +<p>So it <em>is</em> quintessentially English pop music—not only due to Laura Marling's accent, but because of the attitude it exhibits: a combination of resigned exasperation but recklessly unremitting determination nonetheless. You'd not hear that from Belle & Seb.</p> | |
| 17 … | +<p>It's the sort of song Hugh Grant would sing if only he wasn't so frightfully shy. <strong>If you download one song this week, make it <a href="http://gkn.me.uk/thefridayfetchit/20080229.mp3">Young Love</a>.</strong></p> | |
| 18 … | +<hr> | |
| 19 … | +<p>(How do you follow <em>that</em>? The “aah”s echo the Rakes' “We Danced Together” (an English band); the guitar and overall rhythm, (English) Field Music's “A House Is Not A Home”; and the bridge—<em>annoyingly</em>—“This Fffire”, by Scandinavian-produced Scots Franz Ferdinand.)</p> | |
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