It's no Shimura Curves on BBC Breakfast, but I was still a little taken aback to see a feature on Modest Mouse on Channel 4 news this evening. This was, of course, a somewhat belated reaction to Johnny Marr becoming a Brit at number one in the US album chart despite not being Rod Stewart.
Jon Snow's introduction, explaining how Marr had turned down a lucrative Smiths reunion to 'join obscure American band Modest Mouse and take them to the top' required either a mid-sentence jump across the Atlantic or an unusual reading of obscure to work, but the actual piece didn't go too badly. At least until they got to the name of the number one album being discussed. We Were Already Dead When The Ship Sank. Together with the total fluffiness of everything else, kind of makes you wonder why they bothered.
31.5.07
29.5.07
Quick update
Stylus does Eurovision 2007 - including some of my thoughts, though just on the performances as I didn't really get a chance to comment properly on the voting this year. Suffice to say that I wasn't too happy with how it went. Too many points for Serbia, Ukraine, UK and Ireland.
27.5.07
So then, non-music update
I spent yesterday at the MCM (Movie, Comic & Media) Expo at Edexcel. Much of the interest was nothing to do with anything on show but just looking at the other attendees:
and it was a nice enough day to sit outside and watch some swordfighting too:
This was one of five Links, I think, rivalled only by Sephiroth as the most popular. In common with other costumes some were much better than others, with the best ones showing an impressive level of dedication and attention to detail, but all were fun to see. The expo was not exactly my normal scene and a lot of the manga stuff especially passed completely over my head but it was still a lot of fun. And I got a T-shirt there too:
At home, rewatched the film Densha Otoko, as seemed appropriate. Still as sweet as ever and I can definitely relate a little to much of the story, if not quite to how the main character starts off. Fortunately.
and it was a nice enough day to sit outside and watch some swordfighting too:
This was one of five Links, I think, rivalled only by Sephiroth as the most popular. In common with other costumes some were much better than others, with the best ones showing an impressive level of dedication and attention to detail, but all were fun to see. The expo was not exactly my normal scene and a lot of the manga stuff especially passed completely over my head but it was still a lot of fun. And I got a T-shirt there too:
At home, rewatched the film Densha Otoko, as seemed appropriate. Still as sweet as ever and I can definitely relate a little to much of the story, if not quite to how the main character starts off. Fortunately.
24.5.07
Now with 5 x more "Slight Return"
xfm are dropping DJs entirely from 10am-4pm.
It seems a bit of an odd idea at first but on reading more it might actually make sense. When listenening to the radio outside of Xposure hours I've been listening to Virgin Xtreme (when not Radios 1 or 6) instead for a while and the fact that they have no DJ has never proven a problem. As far as slipping into the background goes, it actually helps, which may will be the reasoning behind the move (and most of music television?) Even though it would help if they sorted out the digital track display, it's already easy enough to look anything up online. The playlist remains by far the larger factor in why I choose as I do though. DJs as a prescence on music shows are sort of an inessential anyway - as many fond memories as I have of the Mark and Lard parts of their show on Radio 1 towards the end of their tenure, it was still the fact that they would play Belle And Sebastian or Elbow instead of Dido for another hour that was more important to making it the best show in the daytime schedule. That was down to them too, of course, but giving one person the duty of personally picking the music without having to do anything else actually sounds sort of good to me.
That isn't what xfm are doing, though, instead 'asking listeners to choose the non-stop tunes' (where non-stop means 'apart from for adverts'). I hope I'm not tempting fate by wondering how long til they call it Radio 2.0. But anyway, just how much freedom they're giving will be crucial. The ok request shows they run at the moment suggest that this will ideally be enough to prevent the drudgery of The Twang and The Fratellis and The View and The Enemy day in, day out, but not so much that they're replaced by "I Am The Resurrection" every half hour instead.
It seems a bit of an odd idea at first but on reading more it might actually make sense. When listenening to the radio outside of Xposure hours I've been listening to Virgin Xtreme (when not Radios 1 or 6) instead for a while and the fact that they have no DJ has never proven a problem. As far as slipping into the background goes, it actually helps, which may will be the reasoning behind the move (and most of music television?) Even though it would help if they sorted out the digital track display, it's already easy enough to look anything up online. The playlist remains by far the larger factor in why I choose as I do though. DJs as a prescence on music shows are sort of an inessential anyway - as many fond memories as I have of the Mark and Lard parts of their show on Radio 1 towards the end of their tenure, it was still the fact that they would play Belle And Sebastian or Elbow instead of Dido for another hour that was more important to making it the best show in the daytime schedule. That was down to them too, of course, but giving one person the duty of personally picking the music without having to do anything else actually sounds sort of good to me.
That isn't what xfm are doing, though, instead 'asking listeners to choose the non-stop tunes' (where non-stop means 'apart from for adverts'). I hope I'm not tempting fate by wondering how long til they call it Radio 2.0. But anyway, just how much freedom they're giving will be crucial. The ok request shows they run at the moment suggest that this will ideally be enough to prevent the drudgery of The Twang and The Fratellis and The View and The Enemy day in, day out, but not so much that they're replaced by "I Am The Resurrection" every half hour instead.
Hi
There are a lot of reasons why Delete As Appropriate has basically been dead this year.
A preceding year of reading so much of the amazing music writing out there and trying to keep up, increasingly feeling that it was a hopeless cause. Needing some time out to sort out some issues with myself, generally quite linked to the same sense of worthlessness. Getting back into video gaming for the first time since 1999, coincedentally (?) just before my music fandom really took over. Simply not getting as much time to listen to music as I'd like, even before that. A final year of my degree which turned out, through my own fault in part, to be the least fulfilling by far and sap my will to do anything constructive. Well, that is now over (I get my results tomorrow so wish me luck if you've happened to stumble across this) and things are definitely looking up for the future.
There is something else though - a creeping lack of excitement about almost any new music that's been nagging at me for a while. I wondered at moments if it was burnout from writing too much last year but, looking back, it was already setting in then. I think it's more to do with listening to the same music for 7 years now, or at least listening for the same things, and reaching for something new without really knowing where to look.
There are exceptions, of course. And they actually include some of the most obvious things that I'd expect to have been excited about - Patrick Wolf, Arctic Monkeys - as well as the not so much.
There's still hope then, but you might be thinking nonetheless that this doesn't sound like a very promising start for a return to music blogging. Well, it doesn't, and for the moment this is not going to be a music blog in the same sense as before as I talk about whatever else I want or need to as well. Don't worry, it's not going to turn into livejournal (there's a reason why I've never been able to keep one of those going long) and this post might stay as personal as it gets, but just a warning to anyone still out there. I really don't want to lose writing about music as an outlet though, and have really begun to miss it. Plus, you know, it would be nice not to waste all of the progress that I made last year in actually getting better at it. So I'm determined to find a way back in, and this, as well as another ideas that you might see more of soon, will be it.
Thanks for reading.
A preceding year of reading so much of the amazing music writing out there and trying to keep up, increasingly feeling that it was a hopeless cause. Needing some time out to sort out some issues with myself, generally quite linked to the same sense of worthlessness. Getting back into video gaming for the first time since 1999, coincedentally (?) just before my music fandom really took over. Simply not getting as much time to listen to music as I'd like, even before that. A final year of my degree which turned out, through my own fault in part, to be the least fulfilling by far and sap my will to do anything constructive. Well, that is now over (I get my results tomorrow so wish me luck if you've happened to stumble across this) and things are definitely looking up for the future.
There is something else though - a creeping lack of excitement about almost any new music that's been nagging at me for a while. I wondered at moments if it was burnout from writing too much last year but, looking back, it was already setting in then. I think it's more to do with listening to the same music for 7 years now, or at least listening for the same things, and reaching for something new without really knowing where to look.
There are exceptions, of course. And they actually include some of the most obvious things that I'd expect to have been excited about - Patrick Wolf, Arctic Monkeys - as well as the not so much.
There's still hope then, but you might be thinking nonetheless that this doesn't sound like a very promising start for a return to music blogging. Well, it doesn't, and for the moment this is not going to be a music blog in the same sense as before as I talk about whatever else I want or need to as well. Don't worry, it's not going to turn into livejournal (there's a reason why I've never been able to keep one of those going long) and this post might stay as personal as it gets, but just a warning to anyone still out there. I really don't want to lose writing about music as an outlet though, and have really begun to miss it. Plus, you know, it would be nice not to waste all of the progress that I made last year in actually getting better at it. So I'm determined to find a way back in, and this, as well as another ideas that you might see more of soon, will be it.
Thanks for reading.
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