Some kind of regularity

Really can't believe that immediately following my blog post about needing to kickstart my blogging (and let's face it, thinking) habits, it's been almost a month since I've written anything. It's far, far too easy to just shrug off the responsibility of actually doing anything; of actually working towards something with determination and not just doing the minimum. It's nice to think that all of this can amount to more than just staving off boredom a little until death. I realise that this cycle of periodic motivation followed by failure to follow through and self-recrimination serves no-one any good. I am also starting to feel that the modified cycle of motivation, self-recrimination, and a subsequent analysis of the recrimination that results in telling myself to maybe not be so harsh on myself please is also becoming a bad habit.

Regardless, I have been feeling generally more positive in the last couple of weeks; perhaps surprisingly so, given some turbulence in terms of my personal life. Feeling more enthusiastic about things and eager to learn and experience and so on. Little progress on the Pitchfork list, but have been re-organising my iTunes and listening to more music, as well as setting up a weekly top artists last.fm link on my twitter, something I have long meant to do. I realise that sounds like a pathetically small achievement, but it's the little things. Have also rekindled my Grateful Dead enthusiasm, which was entirely unexpected. There's always some inertia, and it takes a while to get the ball rolling completely satisfactorily, but any progress is good. Depression is a terrible thing to escape from, and its arms continually reach out to pull you back. Music-wise, getting into listening more frequently/habitually (but attentively) will be satisfactory, and get some listening done on the backlog before the inevitable end-of-year lists send me off in search off a different set of unheard albums. Also been picking up the guitar more, recently: also good. I know my targets and hopes and it's still difficult to properly write them up here. Fears of disappointment and a general self-doubt. This is something, though. Something is not nothing.

Update/relaunch/whatever

It is now a rather dismal near-six months since I last posted, and since I decided to begin the first of my projects. Hardly the time-frame I had hoped for. My problem in the past has been that I become disappointed and angry at myself for projects I begin but fail to complete, and then do not attempt anything else, or at least not for a while. Any attempt at anything will involve failure though, and rather than beat myself up over it, I just need to get on with things and get over the hump. This is the six month reboot, then. Following the end of my course at University and my recovery from glandular fever, I have been getting my energy back, and feeling interested in doing things again and I really don't want to waste that. My aim is to at least accomplish more in these six months (in terms of self-motivated cultural/educational projects, the focus of this blog) than I have in the last six. I also want to accomplish more elsewhere, but that is another matter. I will not be disappointed if I at least achieve something, as opposed to hating myself for not managing everything I hope for, if that makes sense.

Project 1 Update: I have listened to some of the first batch of 10 and will listen to the rest. I have also cheated slightly and had a look at the next bunch as a stimulation to the project. I think this was a good idea though, as I'm familiar with 7 of the next 10, so this should help get me back into things. Also, in particular, gives me an excuse to check out the most recent remix of Raw Power. I'm only familiar with the Iggy Pop remix from the previous reissue, so perhaps familiarising myself with the original too is in order.

Other projects to follow too, as soon as I'm satisfied with my ideas. Project 2 is likely to be my gamergoal on Trueachievements, if I'm satisfied that videogames can make up one of the projects. I do feel strongly that videogames should be regarded as a valid medium and a burgeoning artform, but I also feel that they are one of the strongest reasons why I've been so disappointed with my productivity elsewhere. I can't deny the deleterious effects they can have, though that is surely to do with the way in which I use them. Perhaps if I can incorporate some other things. Other than that, immediate focus is also on finishing my wee pile of books, and perhaps reading some more history books in tandem with my father. And the language learning. Oh my, the language learning.

Project 1: Notes 1

I'm sure I've seen all the Pitchfork lists before, years ago, but the details have slipped my mind, and so I want to keep the list as much a secret as possible while I work through it. It keeps it exciting as I'm not quite sure what's coming next and I get to try and guess what's ahead. It also helps it feel more like ten albums at a time, as if it was more obvious that there were "these one hundred albums" ahead it would just be an insurmountable task. On the article though, there is a comment as to what didn't make the cut:

Among the casualties this time out were: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, Patti Smith, Sticky Fingers , Ornette Coleman, Pere Ubu, Van Morrison, Black Sabbath, "Heroes" , Chic, Queen, Nina Simone, New York Dolls, The Jam, Frank Zappa, Transformer , Curtis Mayfield, The Police, The Damned, Aretha Franklin, Tonight's the Night , The Kinks, Tom Waits, Elton John, Yes, Janis Joplin, Station to Station , Willie Nelson, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, Grateful Dead, Alice Coltrane, Paris 1919 , The Upsetters, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Cecil Taylor, Amon Düül II, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway , Augustus Pablo, Human League, Chi-Lites, Captain Beefheart, No New York , Magazine, The Slits, The B-52's, Durutti Column, Burning Spear, Tangerine Dream, Gene Clark, Françoise Hardy, Magma, Kimono My House , The Adverts, Manuel Göttsching and/or Ash Ra Tempel, Lee Hazlewood, and all of Brazil, including Caetano Veloso.

Thoughts on this. Very surprised to see that Patti Smith didn't make the cut. Horses would definitely show up on my list were I to make it now. As would Sticky Fingers and Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance and Dub Housing are the only ones I've played, and I played The Modern Dance extensively. Springsteen and Marley I've heard only the usual line-up of singles. Morrison I'm surprised nothing has made the list. I had to check and make sure Astral Weeks was pre-70's as the omission of that would be just unforgivable, but there is surely still good 70's material. Perhaps a sign of how he seems to have slipped (wrongly) from the canon. Sabbath again I know only the singles and can't say whether their albums stand up. Lack of "Heroes" and Station to Station surprising, though I rate other Bowies higher and he is sure to be on the list multiple times. Same goes for Transformer: can't let Bowie dominate, though his presence over the decade is huge. Low and Ziggy must be on it, at least. No Dolls is a surprise. Zappa, I love his 60's work but can't name a truly great album from the 70's. Paris 1919 and whatever Beefheart album (Clear Spot most likely) got the nod probably don't quite merit a list like this, though great in their own right. Others I either don't know enough to comment or have nothing to say on their omission.

Can anything be learned from this list of the overlooked? For a start, it will be interesting to see how well the list accommodates the always-mythical year zero of punk. It always worked differently in the US from in the UK, and it was easier to trace connections from antebellum music to the punks, but still there is a line drawn somewhere around about 1976. Divorced from the rhetoric of the times, this line was in great part an invention, but something happened certainly. There is clearly something different going on with Magazine and The Slits than there is with Genesis. Retrospectively, it is easier to trace connections from art-rock and prog rock, through glam and krautrock giving us electronica that later birthed disco, with a counter-narrative of a return to basics surfacing in the punk movement, and a kind of culmination of these in post-punk and the fragmentation of music thereafter. If the list follows that story, then Bowie will have a huge presence and Low gets to do well, as a sort of Rosetta Stone for the decade. More traditionalist Rock 'n' Roll of the period will be pushed aside though, perhaps explaining the lack of Springsteen. Probably no Tom Petty either. I'm guessing that the general fall-out of the 60's generation (Beatles solo albums, Morrison, the Band) will be written out of the story as well.

It may also be interesting to imagine who would have made the list in, say, 1975 (so as to avoid here the revisionism of the punk movement). Genesis' star has certainly fallen, and Yes haven't made it either. King Crimson will certainly pop up as the acceptable face of prog. It is obviously a rock-centred list, but other genres will be included. Disco albums? Further reggae and electronica? Certainly the latter. The differences between a hypothetical UK-based list and this list are another matter entirely. It will be fascinating to see anyway.

Project 1: Pitchfork Top 100 Albums of the Seventies

The plan is to listen all 100 of Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the Seventies. All albums will be listened to, including albums I have listened to previously. I will listen to them all at least once; the aim being to listen to them multiple times but I will not penalise myself if a. I'm already familiar with them or b. I play them once and just have no interest in playing them again. Albums will be listened to in sets of 10 and I will not look ahead to see what is coming.

Of the first ten (100-90), I have listened to three and am familiar with other material by the artist of another three. Of the other four, one has been high on my to-listen list for quite some time with two of the others on my "vague aspirations to listen to possibly someday" list. I'll be honest and say I had no intention really to listen to one of them at all, but have no problem at all checking it out. I only hope that the rest of the list falls into place quite as nicely as this group does.

The reason for doing this? Immediate inspiration: hearing Coconut by Harry Nilsson used on the soundtrack of Alan Wake, being inspired to check out Nilsson Schmilsson and noticing its inclusion on the aforementioned list.

Music Post

30 Days of Music

day 01 - your favorite song
day 02 - your least favorite song
day 03 - a song that makes you happy
day 04 - a song that makes you sad
day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 - a song that reminds of you of somewhere
day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event
day 08 - a song that you know all the words to
day 09 - a song that you can dance to
day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep
day 11 - a song from your favorite band
day 12 - a song from a band you hate
day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure
day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love
day 15 - a song that describes you
day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate
day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 - a song from your favorite album
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry
day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 - a song that makes you laugh
day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 - a song that you wish you could play
day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 - a song from your childhood
day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

Stolen from somewhere else. Doing this as an experiment to make myself write. Will add in links and credit once, or if, I feel satisfied with it. In the slim chance that the persons from whom I stole the idea find this before I edit it, please tell me and I'll instantly credit you or delete it.

Book of Eli Thoughts

1. Borrowing the look of Fallout 3 wholesale (though stripping out the retro-futurism and twisted humour ie. what makes it interesting and distinctive) and then giving Malcolm McDowell a cameo at the end is...

2. Twist from Time Enough At Last not enough? Add in Fahrenheit 451 as well.

3. What is it about black actors reading Bible verses and making them sound awesome? If Sam Jackson and Denzel and maybe Morgan Freeman ever form their own church, I'd go.

4. Putting a filter on the camera and filming people walking through the California desert is good enough, apparently.

5. The wildly inappropriate aesthetic used for From Hell suits Book of Eli better, but is still rubbish.

6. Seriously, shots of the bridges could be screenshots from Fallout 3. The film could be machinima by the time the rocket launchers turn up.

7. I would pay good money to watch a film in which Mila Kunis walks about a post-apocalyptic wasteland kicking ass.

Things I want to read

Cormac McCarthy novels, Acme Novelty Library, the other volume of Joe Matt, Chester Brown and Seth comics, Henderson the Rain King, some of the new range of Penguin Modern Classics with the lovely white paper, Walt & Skeezix, William T. Vollmann, those Penguin reissues of Freud, Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibuses, the other Kirby Omnibuses, I Shall Destroy the Civilised Planets, Netherland, Moby-Dick, The Rest Is Noise, more Krazy Kat, reissued Arkham Asylum, Geoff Johns's Green Lantern, John Cheever, more short stories in general, more Alice Munro, Neal Stephenson, Wetlands, David Simon's book, stuff off of lists like the Time Greatest novels and that, And the Ass Saw the Angel, Douglas Wolk, Geoff Klock, Harold Bloom, Umbrella Academy, Demo and Local, Los Bros Hernandez, John Darnielle's 33 1/3, Guided By Voices book, Pavement book, David Shrigley, big encyclopaedic novels mainly American, the Canongate Myths books, best of Future Shocks, Gertrude and Alice.

Not so bad when it's all written down.