Unreliable information since 1972
Jason’s playing in London next week on the 4th and 7th of March.
He’s at http://www.favelachic.com/ at 9pm on Sunday the 4th. (Nearest tube Old Street.)
(I’ll be at this one.)
He’s also at http://www.greennote.co.uk/ in Camden on Wednesday the 7th, if anyone can’t make Sunday.
Insert usual “If you’re free at all, you must come” shouting here – you’ve all heard me go on about how everyone that’s seen him loves his stuff before….
Very short reviews this week.
Book : Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works
A book on typography. Not really easy to review, but if, like me, you want a basic primer on type, you could do a lot worse. Short, clear and to the point.
Music: O2
Mutant blues and beatboxing. It worked for Tom Waits, and it works here for Son of Dave. Really enjoying this one. It’s not Waits – it’s much closer to traditinoal blues, and lacks Wait’s voice and songwriting, but I’d still suggest that if you liked Real Gone, you give this a listen. (Available via Emusic, for those with accounts.)
This week’s book: Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone
One I nicked of Dave when the AOL mothership took him to parts strange and alien. I loved this, bleak and depressing though it was. By the end of the first section of the book, I was ready to quit my job, and go off and do something worthwhile to improve people’s live in some godforsaken part of the world.
By the end of it, I just couldn’t imagine being able to go through the kind of stuff that the book’s three authors did. There’s still the nagging sebnse that I ought to try anyway, but my sense of enthusiasm for it is completely gone. It’s a stinging crtique of US foreign policy in the final years of (and post) Clinton’s presidency – an account of a moment where it looked like the world’s only superpower was going to step up to it’s responsibilities, only to turn tail and run from an armed streetgang that got lucky. It’s an indictment of UN beauacracy and incompetence.
It’s well worth the time it takes to read it.
This week’s music: Some Loud Thunder
I seem to be doing a one-week-hit, one-week-miss with these reviews. I quite liked this one, but I don’t seem myself listening to it a lot. Lots of bits of tracks I liked quite a lot, but as whole it didn’t really make that much impact on me. Dunno. Maybe it’ll grow on me, it kind of has that “maybe I haven’t approached it in the right frame of mind” feeling to it. Doesn’t help that I find the singer’s voice a bit annoying, though.
A personal first – updating from bed, while watching a DVD of CSI. Truly, I am a wifi enabled laptop owner now.
In lieu of anything more useful, then, let my just recommend http://www.imified.com/ – a service that will allow you to do all manner of things via IM. Handy if, like me, you’ve got a chat client running more or less all day.
Just a quick heads up:
Jason’s playing in London on the 4th and 7th of March.
He’s at http://www.favelachic.com/ at 9pm on Sunday the 4th. (Nearest tube Old Street.)
He’s at http://www.greennote.co.uk/ in Camden on Wednesday the 7th.
I say this every time, and I’ll do it again: everyone I’ve ever dragged along to see him has had a bloody good time. Almost everyone winds up getting hold of at least one of his CDs.
There are 4 free MP3s by him available here: http://www.elevenrecords.com/free.html
If you’re free either night, then you really should come along.
This may be taking a risk – historically, Apple machines and I have not been the best of friends. But regardless, I am posting this from my rather lovely new MacBook, and I can already feel that things are going to be different this time.
So, Mac users – what can I not live without installing on this machine?
This week’s book: Wall and Piece
I keep meaning to write something about Banksy for Black Ink, but I haven’t got around to it yet. So, this is his book. Well, you know what to expect. A load of photos of graffiti and other acts of “vandalism”. Some of it is quite witty. Look you know who he is. You either like him, or you don’t. If you like his work, this is a nice book.
This week’s music: Memento Mori by The Bastard Faries
A friend recommended this at the start of the week. It is available in it’s entirety for free at the link above. They sort of feel like what you’d get if you crossed The Paradise Motel with The Dresden Dolls. Yes, I know that almost all of you are saying “who?” to one, if not both of those bands. The deficiency is in you, not me, that’s all I’m saying.
Look, you can get the whole album for free. I think it’s quite good, especially for a free thing. Download it yourself, and make you own mind up.
The branch of Sainsburys local to my work is selling mass produced “wall art” for a fiver a pop. It’s fucking hideous sub-pikea horrorshow stuff.
(Naturally I have bought some. Helpfully, it comes with a large sheet of cardboard. Now all I need is a can of spray paint, and an idea.)
Also inspired by my trip to Sainos: Porn Words
I had a chicken and tomato sandwich for lunch. But this wasn’t just any chicken and tomato sandwich, no. This was “Juicy Pieces of Sunblush ® tomato in a light mayonnaise with succulent slices of chicken, vine ripened tomatoes, spinach and basil on malted bread with seeds”. My sandwich is now being described in the breathy pre-orgasmic tones of an M&S add.
Let’s strip the porn words from that sentence, shall we?
“Juicy pieces of Sunblush ® tomato in a light mayonnaise with succulent slices of chicken, vine ripened tomatoes, spinach and basil on malted bread with seeds”
Or: “Tomato in mayonnaise with chicken, spinach and basil on bread”
One of these accurately describes the sensation what I had. Would you like to guess which? (And frankly, that’s generous.)
Porn Words: Pointless bits of linguistic padding designed to make you feel that an orgasm is in the offing.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
(OK, my first answer is “a lawyer” but let’s pretend that that’s not true, shall we?)
I have just bought Australian Wine from a German website, to be shipped to the UK, and paid in dollars.
On the bright side, I paid in dollars, so it was cheap.