Dear Darkness...;-)

...Please could you see to it that I not catch this cold that the rest of my family have? After two weeks away, Oscar has caught another barking cough cold after only four days back at nursery. The last cold I caught gave me a rubbish night cough that is only just going after a full month including two weeks of mind numbing IVs and another two weeks of male PMT inducing orals (Cipro) to make sure it's fully gone. I'm just starting to get clear. Please.

Yours sincerely
-Mr Rubbish lung man

In other news, I went to see PJ Harvey (you have to see her live, she's brilliant!) last week and met up with my sis and a couple of my old band mates Matt and Pat before the gig. Was good to see them after so long and see they've not changed - even after a year or so we just picked up where we had left off. Good times, shame the gig was on a Thursday, but at least I didn't have a hangover the next day.

We're off to Newcastle this weekend for Rachel's Half Marathon (she's doing the great North Run) she's been doing great with the training, although the running has taken it's tole on her feet (her nails are falling off and there's been loads of blisters). Anyway should be interesting looking after two hyperactive kids in the Toon while she runs. The kids are going through an "arguing" phase at the moment so it may get a little fraught ;-) Hope the weather's good for Rachel's run.

Amy Winehouse

Whatever else you can say about Amy Winehouse; there is no doubting her talent. An incredible voice and a fantastic songwriter. I think we've lost the Billie Holiday of our generation.

Not really going to try to discuss her addictions/probable bulimia, but like Kurt Cobain before she was obviously a gifted but ultimately flawed and vulnerable person with a lot of demons to overcome. I think a lot of her fans (myself included) were mystified as to why Amy could not gain strength from this soaring talent (apparently she wrote Rehab within half an hour; she recorded Valerie in one take) and ditch the drug taking losers and sort herself out.

Russell Brand wrote a lovely tribute to her and addiction in general and I pretty much agree with every word. We also need to get away from this music industry idea that drugs are cool. The Beatles may have dabbled in drugs back in the sixties but it shouldn't be exaggerated; they were never high when they were in the studio. Amy Winehouse wrote and recorded Back to Black with Mark Ronson within a week when she was stone cold sober. Anyway. Back to the voice...

Friday Tune (Best of the last decade part 3)

Sod it, it's Friday, it's just a nice tune :-)



Well I'm into my second week of IVs, lungs seem **mostly** clear, so I decided to celebrate it with a half hour run. I felt good on the run and even had some energy left at the end to do a sprint finish, which is unusual for me.

But, (big but) about halfway through the run I developed a rattling wheeze. I sounded like Darth Vader. It was a wheeze that I could feel more on the inhale breath than the exhale. I've had it for the last few days more so in the afternoon / evening. And no amount of huffing/coughing would shift it. I''m wondering if this is asthma related, (possibly ABPA, I've had it in the past) does asthma effect you more on the inhale or the exhale? Anyway, I rang the hospital and they're gonna do an X-Ray next week when I go back and also do Aspegillus blood test so we'll see what happens...

Utopia

How fucking good is this? What a singer, sends shivers down my spine.

The real Lady G...

One of my favourite bands Goldfrapp is bringing out a new album very soon! I'm very excited! I want to post the video for the song "Rocket" (like everything at the moment it's a bit of an 80s pastiche, but a fanastic tune) but it's not on YouTube yet, so I'm going to have to paste this instead...

The Sundays

I had such a crush on the Sundays' singer when I was a student, I loved her voice. Further reading (and an excellent article) here. A very british band.

2009: Stop me if you've heard this one before...

Bluffin' with her muffin? You'd have to have been deep in the amazon jungle to have escaped this song, it was everywhere in 2009. The greatest pop song of 2009? Up for debate obviously.

The thing with Lady Gaga now is that it is becoming impossible to talk about her songs without talking about her image in the media, and she undoubtedly makes good copy and sells plenty of papers. She probably can talk art/fashion bollocks, she can talk about Bowie, Madonna, Warhol and pop-art till the cows come home. Is she faking? Is it all a mask? Who cares? IMHO None of that really matters. All that matters is writing catchy pop tunes that people like to buy and maybe listen to with the volume turned up before they go out on a Friday night. And you can't really fake that.

p.s. I'm a 38 year old dad, surely I'm too old to like Lady Gaga? I'm going to be such an embarrassing dad ;-)

2009: Best songs last year, part 1...

Well, as usual it's taken me a while to get around to listening to Florence and the Machine; but I like this album; there's some great tracks and there are signs she could go on to greater things. I like the way she fuses parts of dance and indie rock. She's definitely one of the more interesting female artists around at the moment. She's not my favourite female artist though, PJ Harvey is still in the lead in that race, with Goldfrapp coming up fast on the outside...now, if only I could get Abby into her, or Lady Gaga for that matter (I bought Abby Lady Gaga's album for Christmas but she was totally unimpressed, she prefers Disney musicals ;))

The boys from the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay...

It could only be this really, couldn't it? Best Christmas song of all time?

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Christmas Countdown: Maybe this Christmas

Just heard this recenty on Radio 2. A beautiful song. Most famously used (I think) in montages on The OC and Gossip Girl. Joe should have covered this for his X-Factor single; he probably would have got a number one instead of Rage Against The Machine, although I shudder to think what Simon Cowell would have done to the song (Key Change, Choir, etc) ;-)

Christmas Countdown: 2000 miles

I love Chrissie Hynde's voice, it's so warm and soothing, like a glass of mulled wine at Christmas...

Countdown to Christmas: Donner and Blitzen

I'm going to post some of my favourite Christmas songs in the build up to Christmas! Starting with this from Manchester's own Badly Drawn Boy:

my top 10 albums of the decade...

Is it really the end of the decade? It went so fast! Anyway, In no particular order:

(Edit - I've added some explanantions. Sorry for the pretensiousness ;-)

PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
I am a massive PJ Harvey fan, and am completely incapabale of objectivity where she is concerned, but this is the fabulously positive album that all non-PJ fans should own.

Radiohead – In Rainbows
Their best album since the era defining albums of "The Bends" and "OK Computer" fromthe previous decade. For some reason this fact seemed to get lost amid the hype of the way it was sold. I really need to buy this album proper because owning the mp3s isn't really enough for me!

The Strokes – Is this It?
Quite simply redefined indie guitar rock for the rest of the decade. The deceptively simple blend of 2 guitars and bass blew everything else away even if it did sound a bit like Blondie and Television from the late seventies. And "Last Night" was *the* song of the summer of 2001.

The Killers – Hot Fuss
Just a really exciting indie / pop album from 2004-2005.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell
The best of the second wave of NY bands that appeared after the Strokes. And Karen O is hot as well ;-)

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
Mancunian local boys finally come good after years of being second best. "One day like this" is one of the most positive songs ever.

The White Stripes - Elephant
Proof that if you have some decent songs then you don't really need anything other than a guitar, a voice and some drums.

Grandaddy – The Sophtware Slump
A great album with some heartbreakingly beautiful songs about the breakdown when technology meets nature. Could anybody else write a song about an alchoholic android (Ged!) and make it sound so sincere and tragic?

The Streets – A Grand don’t come for free
A rap concept album. Wtf!? But when it sounds this good...

Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
Such a shame that Amy Winehouse is now more famous now for being in the tabloids than for being a great singer songwriter. Check out her debut album "Frank" as well, there's some great songs on that as well.

Honourable mention:

Badly Drawn Boy - Hour of the Bewilderbeat
The hype around the Twisted Nerve record label and BDB reached such a fever pitch amongst the lo-fi cool kids (I wasn't one ;-)) in Manchester around 1998-1999, so much so that when this finally arrived in 2000, it seemed a bit of a dissappointment. In hindsight, I was wrong; it's a wonderful record. Such a shame his career hit the skids so soon afterwards.

Don't be concerned...

If this song were a car it would be a convertible 1957 Thunderbird driving the ocean drive along the West Coast of America from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Ah, the optimism of the sixties. I love it!

Cork and Kerry Mountains

My mum and my sister have travelled the length and breadth of Ireland to build a picture of our family tree (On my mum's side, both grandparents were from Ireland). Apparently they've found quite a few relatives, I can't wait to hear the tales. Anyway, this gives me an excuse to post this song, which I love, I don't know why :-)

Feelin' Mingin'

Robotic sounds mostly coming from my chest at the moment, especially when I'm asleep: Click, Whiirrrr, Click, Whirrr....Cough! Cough! Click, Whiirrrr, Click, Whirrr....

The cold virus from last week has moved onto my chest with a vengeance, and my daft CF lungs have responded in their usual fashion by creating pints and pints of goo. Bleuuurrr. Last night my head felt really woolly and I still feel a bit nauseus and spaced out; I also had a slight temperature. I don't think it's because I'm coming down with anything; it's just the sheer amount that I've been huffing through the day (which also makes me tense my neck and shoulders) that I've given myself a headache. I've put myself back on Uniphyllin to try and stop my chest getting tight, so hopefully things will improve in the next few days...I also can't use the Creon tubs as spit pots anymore because they've gone and changed the shape, so I'm using plastic cups in the car, which are minging because they're transparent. Moan, moan, moan....;-)

Edit: 2 Days Later. I've decided my symptoms are down to some kind of stomach bug, mainly due to the mild nausea and bloated feeling at night, coupled with aching limbs, especially at night. I'm also a lot more tired than usual, which all chimes with previous symptoms I've had a few years ago. ( No D&V this time though, thank god! )

Anyway, I heard this on the radio the other night. I don't know anything about early Fleetwood Mac apart from Rhiannon, but I thought this song was really beautiful. Stevie Nicks has a great voice. She's hot as well ;-)

Everyone should have a copy of this album...

Has it really been 20 years since this (their eponymous debut album) first came out? It can't be! As had been said before, they were a guitar band that you could dance to, who looked cute. What more do you need? Apart from some more albums of course :-)

The Stones Roses peaked too soon, but their fusion of guitar based music and dance inspired many other bands such as Oasis, Blur and the Britpop movement of 1995.

• NME's best British album of all time revealed


• The Stone Roses' self-titled 1989 debut album has been voted the best British album of all time in a Sunday newspaper poll.


• In 1989 the critical response was generally positive and today the album is widely considered to be one of the very best British albums released.


• The Stone Roses' eponymous first album has been voted best album of the last 50 years by listeners of the BBC digital station, 6 Music.


• Reni is considered by many to be the best drummer of his generation, and the "single most important drummer in UK indie circles"
  
  
  
  
  Gonna add a link here to a guitar part I never learnt. Kids have it easy these days, at the time the only way to learn songs was to sit with your guitar forever stopping and starting a tape player to learn a riff by ear, this could take hours and even days. nowadays you've got ready made lessons on youtube!

Out with the old, in with the new!

We've had four good years together; she's been there in my hour of need, she told me all about this great new drug called Dnase. We went travelling together, to Croatia, California, and Shanghai, she's never let me down (apart from America where she decided to run out of batteries halfway through the trip damn it.) But now, our relationship has run it's course and the end is nigh (sniff.) It's time for me to replace my old Ineb. And try the younger and smoother model...

OK, I think I've took the analogy a bit too far ;-) Anyway, first impressions; the new model unfortunately looks exactly the same (no sleek redesign by some young idiot like Ben from the Apprentice), but the original jaw-rattling shake it did when you breath in (sometimes so fierce you would end up droping it if you weren't holding it) is now a lot gentler and quieter, the beep is different too. I love my new Ineb ;-)

Me and R went to see the Doves on Saturday in Delamere Forest. They were great, the sound was really good. The field in which they played was like a natural outdoor audiorium. We left just before the last song to avoid getting stuck in the car park on the way out. Not very rock and roll but when you get all night baby sitters you have to make the most of them ;-) In out defence we did get to hear the final encore "There goes the fear" as we were walking back along the woodland path. Magical. Another obscure fact: I saw these guys play back in New Years Eve 1999 at the Night and Day cafe (Manchester), on that night they were the unsigned backing band for Badly Drawn Boy and were most famous for their early 90s hit under the name Sub Sub.

Video and Moviemaker nightmare!

I'm trying to edit together a video of my old band for the CF YouTube thinggummy and I can't seem to insert other pictures without buggering up the audio stream. Anyway, I've decided I don't really want to use the song after all, although it does pick up towards the end. We did do better songs but they aren't on the video, unfortunately. I'm on the right with the pink guitar by the way :-)

PJ Gig, 24 April 2009

Got round to my sisters at around about 7.30. Then had to wait around as no one was in. Our kid was a bit late, she had to pick up a babysitter for her two boys, and a takeaway...she's always late anyway, even before the kids arrived. For some reason time is an abstract concept to my sister which she doesn't really believe in ;-) "No problem", I said to myself, trying not to panic. All gigs I've been to follow a standard pattern: Doors open at 7.00, support comes on at 8.00 main act comes on between 9.00 to 9.30, that is the law. As long as you get there before 9.00 you are guaranteed to see the main act. I helped get her two gorgeous boys out of the car, but couldn't help glancing at the clock on my phone while J and her mate had a leisurely vegetarian (falefal :-)) kebab. Anyway, we arrived with about 20 minutes to go and had time to meet up with some of J's friends inside the Ritz on the balcony...

I've been into PJ Harvey since my sister took me to a gig in back in 1995, (the "Pink Catsuit" tour) which completely blew me away, and I've been a fan ever since. Since then I've always made an effort to go to every tour and dragged my sister and mates along. I remember at the time (1995) I had been on my back for days with a gastric blockage, not eating (in those days I *wrongly* assumed I had food poisoning, it was only a chance conversation with Charlie, now at Papworth, at the CF Clinic that made me realise my symptoms could be related to CF), nowadays kids have the internet, how lucky they are! Thankfully it cleared before the gig and I remember how struck I was by the comparison in my health; going from two days of sweating, starvation and pain, to just feeling normal again and being able to enjoy simple pleasures like eating, drinking, walking and stuff, I'd never appreciated before how good feeling "normal" was, and how much I took it for granted in the past. Perhaps it opened my mind and made me appreciate music a lot more as well.

It's fair to say that me and my sister were pretty blown away by Polly and John, as were most of the audience. It was an intimate venue, and she has a great stage presence, really captivating the audience with her performance. PJ's strength, I think, is her ability to utterly inhabit the songs and become different characters with different songs. The songs were all off the latest album and the previous collaboration from 1996, Dance Hall at Louse Point. For the two albums, John Parish writes all the music (then sends this to PJ on a tape), and she scratches her head and writes the lyrics. It works well. They opened with the first (and only ?) single of the album, "Black Hearted Love", a jazz/blues inflected rock number, easily the most radio-friendly song on the album, before we were into the spookier songs on the albums like "16,14,13", a spine tingling "look who's missing" song about missing children in a garden with no laughter. Indeed, a lot of the songs are almost like spells that she casts over the audience, utterly captivating them. I was most impressed with how good the live version of some of the more *difficult* songs were; In the terrifying Captain Beefheart influenced "a woman, a man walked By", She screams "Chicken Liver Balls, Chicken Liver Spleen" at her male suitor before graphically depicting sodomizing her hapless victim; not exactly easy listening! And the scary "Pig Will Not" that on the album sounds like a PMT-driven howl of rage. But live, somehow, with the drums, bass, rhythm, and guitars cutting loose, it all made sense. Not that it's all shocking, there were some lovely, quiet, torch song moments like "The Soldier", a compassionate song (I think) about the dehumanising effects of war, "Leaving California" possibly about her brief stint in LA, and the gorgeous, poetic "Cracks in the Canvas" that could be about coping with losing someone. And the fantastic, indescribably uplifting "April" which they closed the set with after the encore. All the songs were completely at odds with the cosy chatter that PJ gave to the audience between the songs. "I've stood on something prickly" she said in her unaffected, strong Dorset accent (think Pam Ayers), as a loose splinter caught in her bare foot. And, heart melting "I just want to say, all I can see in front of me is a sea of lovely faces, lovely, lovely!" Really, I could just put her in my pocket and take her home for tea ;-)

Anyway, enough pretentious fan-boy droning from me! I think she's easily the greatest female artist (singer-songwriter) of the last twenty years, and has paved the way for other artists to follow their own musical path; but some of her albums do take a few listens as my misses will confirm! I would probably direct newcomers to her mercury prize-winning "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea" that is the album that I can get away with playing at parties ;-)