There is a welcome new addition to my favourite DJs when it comes to release mixes: Stanton Warriors. Yes, I know they’ve been around for ages and you can hardly ignore their remix chops, but thanks to my (home taping is killing music) habit of illegal downloads as a try-before-you-buy tactic, I’ve discovered the joy of:

The Stanton Sessions Vol III – which incidentally is over an hour long: ideal for my pathetic running speed when training for that 10k run I stupidly signed up for in April. So far I get to about 8.5k in an hour. If I lose 20 kilos, maybe I’ll get under the hour. Trouble is, the only way to do that right now would be to chop off a leg, which kind of defeats the object.

Speaking of which – to the gymnasium!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

After visiting town for the first time in ages at the weekend, I’m sitting perusing the copy of “A user’s guide to The Fall” by Dave Thompson I got from Fopp and enjoying a good dose of down and dirty muso wallowing. For no good reason, and hoping I don’t put you in mind of Nick flippin’ Hornby, here’s a top ten Fall tracks from my point of view:

1. Overture from “I am Kurious, Oranj”
2. Wrong Place, Right Time
3. White Lightning
4. Edinburgh Man
5. There’s a Ghost in My House
6. Bill is Dead
7. Life Just Bounces
8. Dead Beat Descendent
9. Carry Bag Man
10. Guest Informant

Well now. I must say that I reckon that’s got to be in no particular order, and I’ve probably missed a good few corkers. But there’s a couple of threads that link them together: first, they were the first proper band I saw at a proper venue (I remember it was Rock City in 1987 – so that makes it May 25th according to the book) so there’s plenty of work before then that passed me by. Second, there’s nothing since the mid 90s either.

Downloading a Billy Bragg retrospective (nope – still don’t like him on the whole. At least I tried. Like sweet potato) got me on a late-eighties music kick just now. On this album he massacres “Back to the Old House” so naturally I had to go and listen to the Smiths original. Then I thought what the hell and played the whole of “Hatful of Hollow”.

One thing led to another and now it’s The Wedding Present, The Go-Betweens and next it’ll be The Sundays. Every generation has its bands that it takes oh-so seriously and will claim for evermore that nothing was proper music before or since. These are mine. Except that I’m one of the spods who still buys music like nobody’s business long after the spotty, earnest lyric-quoting phase has passed. Still, there’s always a place in my ear for these songs. Good songs.

I mean, I hate his work. Don’t know the bloke. The reason? Look no further than the line from “Check the Meaning”:

“Paranoia – The Destroyer”

Wow. Just, wow. We shuffled our way right to the front, and in an 800-or-so capacity venue that’s no mean feat. The gig was moved there from Whelans next door because it became clear that their 300 capacity just wasn’t going to cut it.

Normally I’m not too fussed about being at the front, but for him you need to be to get the full impact of his incredible playing. That, and the P.A. was a bit on the quiet side. There were shushings coming from the crowd at the back all night because they were struggling to hear, especially his hushed talking in between songs. Running out of money in this internet cafe: more later.

One crappy Ryanair flight and then one very crappy bus ride and here I am in the middle of Dublin. A little pootle around town, no doubt spending money, and then it’s off to the Hotel for a bit of shut-eye before the Jose Gonzalez gig tonight! Woo hoo! I have it on good authority that he’s superb live.

How cosmopolitan is this: flying to Ireland to see a Swedish singer of Argentinian descent. I wonder what time the locals consider decent for the first Guinness of the day?

eMusic give away 50 downloads when you sign up, and then if you don’t cancel then they start charging you for monthly subscriptions. The basic package allows 40 downloads a month for $9.99.

Sounds just fine so far, but the problem is about as fundamental as it gets. They ain’t got much I want to download. They’re known for offering tracks by out of the way artists, indie labels and so on. That’s well and good, but they’ve typically only got one or two albums even by reasonably well-established artists. For instance, if they had more by Iron & Wine, or anything by Bright Eyes, I might not just take the 50 songs and run without paying them a cent.

It’s a pity, because everything else about it is great; the site’s good, the downloads are unencumbered by DRM bollocks and are a pretty good bit-rate. Oh well, never mind.

Madonna really, really winds me up. Really. A lot. “I like to think of my show as an art installation”. Please.

“Like a virgin, touched for the very first time”. Whatever, love.

I thought it was fairly likely I would never utter the phrase “that is a beautiful advert”. I suppose it’s almost like Douglas Adams’ famous quip about there being no language which posesses the phrase “as beautiful as an airport”. Anyway, here I sit having seen what I reckon is a lovely piece of film which happens to be trying to sell me a flash Sony LCD telly. Not that I’m too bothered about that: I’m resolved to wait until SED displays arrive and I can have a shiny flat panel screen hanging on my wall that doesn’t have the shortish life and fearsome heat output of plasma, and neither the lag, poorish viewing angle and murky blacks of LCDs.

Still, the Sony Bravia Advert is indeed lovely. I haven’t seen it on TV yet (and God knows I watch enough telly) but it really blew me away. Of course it helps that the music is provided by none other than Josï¿½ Gonzï¿½lez. I have K to thank for giving me his CD, and her music recommendations are pretty rock solid usually. His album “Veneer” has that rare quality – a real grower that’s already pretty damn good on first listen. “Deadweight on Velveteen” gets close to Stina Nordenstam at her best, and believe me, coming from my mouth that’s a compliment.

I can imagine that the ad execs are going for the same kind of buzz that surrounded the Honda “Cog” commercial, and they may well succeed. I just think it’s pretty. They don’t miss a trick in that they put the whole website up, including behind-the-scenes stuff, from day one. The director, Dane Nicolai Fuglsig, has done himself proud. Now I realise he’s already done great-looking ads like the Audi “Bull” spot, it all starts to make sense…

This is a rare bit of good karma for Sony at the moment, bearing in mind their DRM snafu and so on. I still won’t be buying their telly, though.

Ha! The wonders of modern technology. If you’re one of the lovely people who are in the habit of buying me presents, and you can’t think what to get, how about:

• Pitman – Pit Closure
• Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous
• Jolie Holland – Catalpa

All of these are nice and cheap at play.com :->. Of course, if you’re feeling particularly well-disposed towards me, there’s always seasons 2 to 6 of The West Wing on DVD too…

[Later] Oh dear. I’ve just been told to edit that last part out. Hmmm. Chinny rub. Aparently I’m a b*stard.