Music survey

Karl sent me this. It's a bit like "Home Entertainment" in the Guardian's Friday supplement but you're only allowed to talk about music. I understand that you're supposed to then forward the survey to five mates (like a friendship cake: does anyone else recall this troubling phenomenon?) but hardly any of my friends have these blog things. Maybe Chris does, I don't know. And Jenny does. But that's only two. Anyway...

Total volume of music on my computer: between 1.5 and 2 GB

The last CD I bought: I'm not absolutely sure. The last CD I actually unwrapped was "Burnt Mind" by Wolf Eyes. They do this noise terror thing but I can only listen to that sort of stuff when I'm in a mischievous frame of mind. In between ordering that from Amazon and it turning up I got the last Black Dice album, the first Le Tigre album and "An Electric Storm" by The White Noise, a British experimental group from the sixties who made records out stuff they found in the BBC sound effects department. People who like Broadcast, Add N to X and Stereolab will be on familiar ground. Actually, I suspect that Broadcast are actually a concept group doing a kind of "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" thing with this record.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: Like Karl, I can't really pin this down so I'm going to do five songs that remind me of the summer I left home.

1: "Suicide" by Spacemen 3. On the live version Sonic Boom shouts "this is for Alan Vega and Martin Rev" and there's a huge echo on his voice so it goes "Rev..rev...rev....rev.....rev......rev" as this Vox organ drone starts to well up around him. I listened to Playing with Fire a lot that summer, and got stoned. Just like seventeen year-olds are meant to do.

2: "Xmas Steps" by Mogwai. Both versions, and me on Ron used to have a heart attack every time that door noise happened in the EP cut. Listened to this all the time building up to seeing them at T in the Park, where they were fucking amazing and ended up with about nine people on stage. I lost the ability to speak for quarter of an hour. Sad bastard.

3: "A Man Called Sun" by (The) Verve. I don't know why but I feel like they're a "guilty pleasure" nowadays. Back then nothing seemed untoward about shoeless hippies fragging out a la Jim Morrison and trying to sell me ludicrous anthropocentric concepts such as this. It always came out at parties.

4: "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground. I couldn't get enough droney rock at the time, and it made me feel well cool. I think this is shortly before I had a period of believing that you didn't need any other records as long as you had Psychocandy by the Jesus & Mary Chain. Fortunately, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club came along to make the whole thing look very tired and I discovered keyboards, drum machines and chord changes.

5=: "Living in the Ice Age" by Joy Division. On which Stephen Morris sounds like a drum machine. Although Curtis was undoubtedly singing about something bleak and impenetrable (Gogol or Gulags, generally) I could never get the image of mammoths moving around in time to this out of my head.

5=: "Only Shallow" by My Bloody Valentine. I reckon this is on lots of lists like this. Like, everyone thinks "man, that'll be the sucker punch. MBV are criminally overlooked". Then you realise that they kind of aren't and have been misappropriated by loads of shite groups who bandy their name around to justify any load of incoherent crap (see Death in Vegas, Scorpio Rising). Anyway, I was only seventeen and had never heard anything like it. Sounded great drunk.

Other records from this period..."Two Step" by Low, "Breadcrumb Trail" by Slint (another obvious choice), "Under the Western Approach Road" by Pilotcan, "When we Reach the Hill" by Black Heart Procession, that whole Super Discount compilation by Etienne de Crecy, "Sweet and Low" by Fugazi, "Outdoor Miner" by Wire, "Stereodee" by Mogwai.

Ah, nothing like a good old reminisce on a Monday morning to fuck up the rest of your day.

Jx

may

Teknikov played a busy Marquee last week, and I forgot how to make beautiful harmonic tunings on the guitar. Some people seemed pleased though, reasonably edifying. I have to admit that I was quite disappointed (to the point of getting into an utterly foul mood) with the result. More work needed.

Back up in Yorkshire for a couple of days but have made the decision not to venture into big bad Richmond due to time restrictions. Apparently, my mother and stepfather are contemplating a move back to this Alpinesque retreat after a few years in the no-man's-land of the Vale of york and Mowbray. If they do, I can use holidays to reacquaint myself with my teenage leisure pursuits, which include:

- visiting the tractor beam bookshop. There's a few second hand bookshops in town- it's no Hay-on-Wye but you can always pick bargains up. My most frequented outlet was the little place near the castle, which I would always visit on an inexplicable impulse. On arriving, the Mackem owner (who appeared to know very little about books, but was a master in salescraft) would position himself between you and the door and not move until you had an armful. Despite having been forced into buying nearly everything I've bought in there, Mackem-guy's sales have formed the nucleus of my bookshelf..."Germinal", "Brighton Rock", TS Eliot, Levi-Strauss all first came my way in Richmond Books.
- The Coffee Bean. Dirty cafe where we could smoke fags as teens. Our (football team-mate) Glen bought it and used it as a gallery for his neo-expressionist interpretations of the fields near Billy Banks Woods. Then he sold it and went back into painting and decorating, allowing for the acquisition of the joint by some mean old harridans who charge me £1.50 for a cuppa.
- The daytime drink. Nine pint afternoon sessions were the scourge of my life (seriously) from 16-19. These experiences lead me to believe that cinemas and well-stocked municipal libraries are essentials for all settlements.
- Lame fugues. Walking out of the house prepared for nothing but a trip to the offy over the road and returning six hours later having traversed ten miles of rough country. Not quite Albert Dadas but still quite unusual.
- Being able to walk home from the pub, leaving enough energy for a late-night lame fugue.
- smoking tabs on Castle Walk and appreciating the scenery/thinking of Norwich.

Back in town tomorrow for supervisor meetings/ finding out if I have a teaching job or not. Yikes.

Jx