I know I shouldn’t, but every time I see the name of Fijian military coup leader Frank Bainimarama, the songs of this eighties girl group come to mind.
Category: choons
stuff I hear
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365 Days – The Project Returns
The 365 Days Project — the year-long net music weirdness that made 2003 bearable — is back!
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what day is it?
Why, it’s Rush Day – 21/12 – of course. So have a good one, straight from the land of the Rand-fanciers themselves.
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take me to your lieder
Now playing: A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, by Josephine Foster. Classical German lieder, with overlaid psych guitar. Good and weird, but weird and good.
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definitely clean
iTunes‘ clean/explicit labelling worries me. Shouldn’t I, at the age of Dennis the Communist Peasant, be able to decide what’s good for me? Not merely that, but it takes up a bunch of the song title entry, and they label songs by artists who don’t produce bowdlerised versions. Gah!
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From Eldoret to Sighthill (to Toronto)
Daniel Aliangana is a medical technologist from Eldoret, Kenya. In 1994–95 he was studying at the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, and living in the apartment blocks in nearby Sighthill. He recorded these tracks in his spare time, and gave me a tape before he left for Kenya.
Daniel recorded these on a double cassette deck, carefully overlaying each track by recording live over the top. He used a classical guitar, an electronic keyboard, and some kitchen objects for percussion.
There are occasional harmonies which might have been provided by Catherine‘s former flatmate Grace Achiya. Grace is also from Kenya, and it was through her that we got to know Daniel.
I don’t know where Daniel is these days, but there’s a Mr D. Aliangana listed as Chief Technician in the Department of Medical Physiology at Moi University in Eldoret. Wherever you are, Daniel, I hope you are well, and thanks for the music!
(originally linked from my music page.)
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best of 2006
In no order you’d care to guess:
- The Information — Beck
- Awoo — Hidden Cameras
- The Optimist’s Club — Casper & the Cookies
- Cue Are Es Tea You — Mayor McCa
- The Sole Inhabitant — Thomas Dolby
- The Jig Is Up — Peter Stampfel
- Black Gold — King Biscuit Time
- Calico — Erynn Marshall
- Ys — Joanna Newsom
- Olé! Tarantula — Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3
- Cannibal Sea — The Essex Green
- Just Like The Fambly Cat — Grandaddy
- Back To The Web — Elf Power
- The Eraser — Thom Yorke
- The Crane Wife — The Decemberists
- either Tales of the Rat Fink Original Soundtrack or In Concert Vol. 1 — The Sadies
- The Way the Wind Blows — A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Discoveries of 2006: Karen Dalton, Nic Jones, Lee Hammons.
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no more rounders
I heard last night that Steve Weber has announced his retirement, and thus the chances of new releases and shows by The Holy Modal Rounders are slim to none. Let’s hope that Steve enjoys his retirement, but I can’t exactly see him on the golf course.
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not so shuffley
Coincidence, I know, but what’s the odds that, out of more than 460 songs, my nano just played “The Continental”, followed by “Cheat” – both by The Sadies, but different versions of the same tune from different albums? Whoah!
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iCaved
Yeah, I caved in and bought a 2GB iPod Nano at the weekend. I had various gift cards and cheques come in, so…
It’s a lot better than the Shuffle was. I still don’t particularly like being tethered to iTunes, but I can live with it.
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the grass is bluer at the Brunswick
The Foggy Hogtown Boys play The Brunswick House every Saturday afternoon. They’re good; Chris Quinn might eventually be able to afford a proper banjo one day…
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Wendy’s music website
My sister has a website for her music: Wendy Arrowsmith.
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dimeadozen.org :: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – The Mod Club, Toronto – 10 November 2006
I uploaded a torrent of Friday’s show: “Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 – The Mod Club, Toronto – 10 November 2006”. There will also be MP3s, if you give it about an hour or so.
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Ys what it be
Joanna Newsom‘s Ys is utterly charming. Warning: may contain harps, swooping caterwauling, and VanDyke Parks-induced orchestral lushness.
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Audacity 1.3.2 broken as designed
When I’ve spent the last 3 hours splitting tracks in Audacity, the last thing I want to see is:
They’ve changed the way that Split works, so you now get a bunch of semi-useless ‘clips’ that you can’t do anything with. You can’t select a clip, or move them to new tracks (at least under Linux and OS X).
How apt that one of the tracks was trying to split was I Wanna Destroy You.
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all the stars came crashing down
Saw the Decemberists at the awful barn that is the Kool Haus last night. The place was fairly busy, but not full. A scalper offered me a derisory price for a spare ticket, so I don’t think they sold out.
They were pretty good; great in parts, kind of tired and meh in others. Naughty Chris Funk lit up on stage; that’ll mean a fine for the venue. That’ll teach him not to play banjo on stage.
Sensitive wee Scottish folkie Alasdair Roberts supported. He was good enough for me to buy the CD. -
house concert!
We went to a house concert last night to hear Chris Coole & Erynn Marshall play some Kentucky duets. Erynn’s back from BC to record with Chris; today’s a long day in the studio.
Great music, nice venue, excellent evening. Maybe we’ll eventually get enough money to buy Chris a new banjo head; his current one looks stricken with some dread skin disease …
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to lie down
This is
might beNic Jones: I’m Going In A Field [mp3].I’m not sure, though.
Whoever it is, it’s rather good, and accompanies part of the Claptrap DVD of Ivor Cutler’s Looking for the Truth with a Pin / Cutler’s Last Stand.