La mediocre vita / The Return of the Fender Jaguars
typed for your pleasure on 9 February 2008, at 4.32 pmSdtrk: ‘I only said’ by My bloody valentine
As I sit here, our long-suffering Organik roomie Tsukihime is under a cluster of blankets, trying to fight off a cold/flu/virus/leprosy, and I’m at my fashionable IKEA-made kitchen table, poppin’ Airborne tabs like they’re going out of fashion, attempting to catch up on my neglected Email responses, and downloading the latest eps of Gundam 00, Cutie Honey the Live, and Kamen rider Kiva from my good friends, INTERNET PIRATES. Shi-chan is relaxing in the bedroom, reading our copy of ‘Factory records: The complete graphic album‘ (ta very much, ZG), and I’ve just now received an Email from Amazon.co.uk stating that my combo copy of the DVD of ‘Control’ and a paperback version of Deborah Curtis’ ‘Touching from a distance’ will be gracing my doorstep this week, which is news that fills me with liquid joy. Or Lemon fresh Joy, one or the other; I honestly can’t tell from here.
There! Now you have a small glimpse of the domesticity that goes on within Deafening silence Plus. Scandalous!
This Sunday past, in between hacking away at my laundry and repairing a small tear in the Missus’ arm — she recently overextended it playing air hockey* — I happened to see some very incredible news mentioned on someone’s blog. I can’t remember which blog it was right now, but the news remains burned into my retinas:
Apparently, the greatest band of the Nineties and the gods of Shoegazer, My bloody valentine, have reformed and are touring this year. The Second Coming will end up happening during my lifetime, after all. If they come to Michigan, I will explode in a mile-wide detonation of Lemon fresh Joy.
My best friend Sean and I saw My bloody valentine back in 1991, when they toured for their epic Loveless album. Actually, they came to St Andrews twice — once towards the start of the tour, and once near the end; we caught their second performance, which was pretty much all we hoped for and more. The sheer wall of sound they generated was almost a religious experience, it was that good. I still have the shirt I bought!
For those unfamiliar with the whole Shoegazer ethos, it consists of blissful pop arrangements where the guitars and vocals are almost completely awash in effects pedals. Distortion, delay, reverb, flanger and the like are the order of the day. The term shoegazer comes from the curious habit that most of the guitarists display of staring at their shoes while performing — in actuality, they’re not simply staring longingly at their trainers, they’re deciding which effects pedal they’re about to turn on or off. The important thing to remember is that during its heyday, there were a passel of Shoegazer groups — good ones, such as Medicine, Slowdive, Cranes and (early) Lush, or rubbish ones like Catherine wheel or Bailter space — but none can hold a candle to the blurry genius of Kevin Shields, Bilinda Butcher, Colm Ó Cíosóig and Deb Googe. And now, they’re back together after a decade and a half, with a new album on the way, according to rumour. Absolutely lovely. Now come back to Michigan! Your fans have spoken.
In the meantime, you lot reading this? Go out and pick up a copy of Loveless. You owe it to yourself to have at least one phenomenal non-Joy division Cd in your life, and that’ll fit the bill nicely
*I kid! We don’t have an air hockey table! We were actually arm-wrestling
Random similar posts, for more timewasting:
Gloom, guitars, synthesisers, samples, and sarcasm on March 20th, 2009
18 May 1980 on May 18th, 2005
February 9th, 2008 at 6.07 pm
Oh, I much prefer guitarists’ shoe-gazing over the grimacing, posturing and (let’s be charitable) “flamboyant” attitudinal show-boating. Ugh. The “love me, worship me, be in awe of my wonderfulness” kind of telegraphy. (Is that even a word?)
Ashamed to say that I haven’t yet heard them, since I’ve boycotted new-ish music for a long time now. It’s all “product” as Frank Zappa once opined. But thanks to recommendations like yours, the worthy stuff will get through my ears 🙂
So you’re pretty caught up on ALL the Gundams, eh? No shortage of material there LOL… I’ve not had the time lately to have been experimenting with any new anime aside from Clannad and Aria the Origination, two series that aren’t everyone’s cup o’ tea, but serve as a nice antidote to the general shittiness of Society. It’s heartwarming to see characters actually treating each other decently, honorably, and unselfishly. Good medicine! But yeah, obviously fantasies nowadays LOL
And then again there’s the Death Note DVD 2 coming in a few days 😀 (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
In an unrelated note, I just noticed that my Blog’s comments are not (and presumably have not been) working. Weird. Click and nothing happens! That will work Nowhere on the Internet (or most computers). So today I’ll have to look around for a new template to replace Fingal’s old one. Bummer, as I loved the way the photos faded in and out with the rollovers…
Ah well, such is life or the reasonable facsimile of. Hope all is well with you and your household (despite the pernicious cold-sharing going on)!
Cheers,
PBS and the Synthetiks
February 11th, 2008 at 3.45 pm
Upon first glance i thought it said bullet for my valentine… My bad. Hyde x
February 11th, 2008 at 4.32 pm
Well, ,well,well , they played the Roundhouse ……… I thought that had closed as a music venue many years ago.
Spent many jolly drug induced 48 hourlong weekends at the Roundhouse in the late sixty’s early seventy’s.
Saw many “famous” bands there ….. happy dazy’s.
Sadly theres little up & coming music that I enjoy, probably because I am just a grumpy old geezer.
Have to leave it all to you young sprogs, now wheres that Simon & Garfunkel album ….. Hmmmmm grumph.
Jeez and you have Ikea in Amerika too>>>>
Take this opportunity to say Hi to PBS, don’t see him on the forums much these days 😉
Good to see the muse still occasionaly knocking at your door DC, sadly mine seems to still be eluding me . HoHum.
Keep punching those keys.
February 11th, 2008 at 4.35 pm
Whoops (must read more carefully) they have YET to play there, are you coming to the big L to see them ?
February 11th, 2008 at 9.53 pm
*waves to Ray*
Greetings, ye ol’ TDFer! It’s true that I’ve had to be keeping a low profile lately on all my forums due to many annoying little problems that sprung up all at once, and using my slow-as-hell laptop to access Forums while my desktop got built was truly a pisser. Didn’t really feel up to posting anything in light of the above. The sig of one of my Kate Forum-mates kept coming to mind: “Why do I fucking bother?” LMAO
And thanks to your Comment on my Blog I discovered that the damn icon wasn’t working for me and (I presume/hope) others as well. I’d click on “Comment” and nothing would happen! Maybe THAT explains why I’ve only gotten you and Wanda to leave one (aside from the occasional spammer). OTOH, perhaps it has more to do with utter disinterest than anything else LOL
Anyway, I managed to get yours to display again, and I replaced the template with something actually (mostly) functional! I renamed it as well to something more fitting (you can go there by clicking on my name, above). Now it’s on to
the crappy website re-do…
As for the Roundhouse, I’m sure I have several recordings made there but can’t recall by whom (Ian Dury perhaps?); I’ve always been a big fan of Brit-rock in its many forms 😀
You and your girls stay well 🙂
PBS, Lily, & Eden
February 13th, 2008 at 4.46 am
PB Shellay and da laydayz –
Oddly enough, Shoegazer (also known as ‘the Thames Valley scene’ and ‘the Scene that Celebrates Itself’) cropped up as a kind of response to grunge, and a finer antidote I cannot conceive. 🙂 Although some posturing can be okay, depending on the band — The Hives springs immediately to mind — but usually, that sort of thing is really unnecessary, and inadequately covers up a lack of actual talent by and large, it seems…
As far as Gundam, pfft, I’ll never be fully caught up. 🙂 Out of the recent entries in the franchise, SEED and SEED Destiny were just revisionist versions of the much-better original Gundam and Zeta Gundam series, Stargazer I’m kinda interested in, and MS igLoo is a must-buy, even though Bandai Visual wants an arm, a leg, and a kidney for a series that clocks in at only 180 minutes. Gundam 00 is shaping up rather nicely, though. I’m finding its pseudo-real-world setting refreshing!
Gundam! It’s everywhere you want to be. 🙂
And I’ve not forgotten that you’d asked me years ago to see if I could assist with ramshackle tech support with your blog, although I might end up doing more harm than good. 😉 Nevertheless, I owe you that much, at least… And would you like me to link you? I mean, why not, right?
Hyde-chan –
I think you might’ve missed the Shoegazer boat the first time round. That’s okay! All you need to do is pick up Loveless and the ‘Tremelo’ EP by My bloody valentine, ‘Gala’ by Lush, ‘Just for a day’ and ‘Souvlaki’ by Slowdive, and ‘The buried life’ by Medicine, and you’ll be sound as a pound! It’s never too late to get into Shoegazer…
48 hour party Rentell –
I’d love to see MBV in the UK, which would be a feat requiring hitchhiking across the Atlantic, and rumbling someone who managed to acquire tickets. Most of their shows are sold out, and not just in the UK. Like I’d said, I’m desperately hoping they come to 1) the States, 2) Michigan, and 3) the tri-county area, so I can grab tickets as soon as they go on sale. *crossing fingers*
And enough of this bollock with your Muse eluding you! You’ve got material right there, regarding your wild pantsless days at the Roundhouse, seeing T-Rex opening for Devo! There’s a post right there! Don’t make me hitchhike to England and chain you to your desk! Although your highly-trained army of Synthetik sexpots would probably stop me. It’d be worth it though, I think. 😉
February 16th, 2008 at 10.46 am
Thanks DC for the kind offer. Yes, I remember but I hated to bother you with questions when you’re so busy y’know, living LOL I figure the best way to learn is to dive right in.
Apparently I can dive reeeally slow o.O
You gave me a bunch of handy sites that I’d saved but I think that was two computers ago 😛
Lately I’ve been linking to the Blog as the front page since the website is a bit wordy to start with. Figured I’d put a nice sturdy front gate to the site but it ended up being a drawbridge.
And a moat.
With alligators.
But the nice new “Elfen Lied” Portal page is accessible from the actual Home Page, so it’s relatively painless for visitors to skip the mass verbiage once they get past the Blog, which I changed from “Fingal’s Cave and Cardboard box” to “Alastor’s Reflection”. Like that much better 🙂
Anyway, it would be an honor to be linked, and I was planning on linking to “Shouting” once I get off my lazy ass and make a Blogroll (and you deem it worthy of course). I’ll get ICQ installed later today after I wake up -it’s 6:30AM now o.O
Cheers,
PBS & companion-types