Category Archives: Music

New iPod launched!

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So, this’ll probably be the next model I get. My current iPod is stuttering occasionally, and will probably have to be replaced before too long.

From engadget.com, the latest news:

New iPod announced! The new iPod, as speculated, features video capabilities and the wider display, but it’s still a music-first device.

The device will feature a 2.5-inch display, QVGA resolution (320 x 240), and will MPEG-4 h.264 (natch), and presumably Quicktime.

The new iPod will be 30% thinner than the current 20GB iPod (making it 0.44-inches thick—say wha?), and will feature a 60GB version (which should be thinner than the current 0.63-inch thick 20GB iPod), and editions of both in black.

The 20GB should go for $299, and the 60GB for $399. They’ll be shipping next week.

What’s the device named, you ask? The iPod. That’s it, just The iPod. Well spare you the Prince jokes. The iPod will have TV out.

Stevie has iTunes 6.0 up there—only about a month after introducing iTunes 5.0.

iTunes 6.0 will also feature video and the iTunes Music Store will feature video downloads (big surprise, right?)—at launch over 2,000 music videos will be made available at a cost of $1.99 apiece.

CLEVELAND

Music

I know you thought that you would never change your mind
though things like this never happen with you
you´re not a prisoner
you know what to do
if you could fly or collapse all of the time
then nothing stands in your way
but as you can´t,
it´s not question of fight
that was over when you came up here tonight

Bloc Party Dull Shocker

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As if you couldn’t tell from their boring music, Bloc party reveal in an exclusive interview with the Guardian today just how dull they really are! Moaning about the kids having too much fun sums up the attitude of these ‘technical rockers’ – the bands out to complete the destruction of rock’n’roll music.

Indie music has a lot to answer for – dull meaningless songs about cleaning your shoes, droney wet sods complaining about the rain, nihilistic bank clerks denying themselves – and Bloc Party (along with Franz Ferdinand) represent the lowest ebb of indie music. Pure as the driven snow patrol, a bunch of nice boys with nothing to say and saying it quietly. I will never comprehend how people can get excited about this music. The only polite way to explain it is that other people work much harder than me and therefore cannot afford to invest the same energy as I have. It’s easier reading the NME.

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Edit: I make no apologies for my taste, but I fully respect anyone’s right to enjoy any kind of music they choose. This is my blog after all.

Trux=Shit?

Music,

Katie the journalist I just found this hugely enjoyable review of the Royal Trux album Pound For Pound. It’s from some newspaper in Portland. The reviewer doesn’t much like Royal Trux.
To be fair to her, Pound For Pound isn’t the best Trux album. I love all of their records, but then I’m partial. What really gets me is what it was exactly that Katie doesn’t like about Royal Trux. It’s the repetition of two chords, the Sesame Street moments and their name!

C’mon, Katie! You can do better than that. I think Jennifer’s hair was awful around then too.
That’s a picture of Katie drinking a beer. She knows her rock’n’roll.

Strokes new single: Juicebox

Music

Heard the next single by The Strokes today… and it’s pretty good. I like the shift in style away from the last two albums; they needed to freshen up. So to speak.

At the same time, it’s not quite the Dub sound I was hoping for. Can’t always get what you want.

I hope this confounds plenty of people. People need to be confounded as much as possible.

I just can’t help liking them…

Music,

The sound of my shitty summer was a scuzzy two guitar, girl singer and drum-machine pop group called The Kills. Both their albums are great and I don’t buy into the I Like The Trux fuck The Kills mantra… though to be fair, they do sound quite similar at times, and their Fiberfib performance was pretty similar to Jennifer on stage. Ah shucks, but it’s good, rocking lip curling and eye rolling.

Love Krap

Music,

I’ve had it for a couple of days and I’ve got to say that the Super Furry Animals’ new album, Love Kraft, is a bit disappointing.

I never liked the song Hello Sunshine (off their last album) but clearly loads of other people did. This album seems to pick up the ‘lush’ (bloaty) and ‘dreamlike’ (boring) sound of that song and take it further than I ever thought.

Maybe it’s the fact they recorded most of the album in my neck of the woods – there were probably far too many young women and beach parties around to focus on work. Maybe it’s just that they’re all older and so have mellowed out – it would only be natural. Maybe (and this is what I reckon) it’s that they have been veering towards this sort of dullness since Guerrilla.

Never mind.

Pete Doherty on BBC3

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We watched the Who the F*** Is Pete Doherty? documentary last night on BBC 3, expecting to see Pete come out of it quite well, as he did the notorious Max Carlish doc earlier in the year. And he does… most of the time appearing more or less sober, he can be an interesting man and a witty story teller. But when he was drunk and moody, he became quite aggressive – and this is the bahaviour which must worry fans more than anything else.

While I think that Paul Morely’s ridiculous and callous suggestions about 2006 being the last year Pete will be alive were wrong, it does seem that the self-harm and bouts of violence will be what causes him the most trouble in the coming months. In the meantime, he needs to produce a decent album if he’s going to be taken seriously again.

[edit – I have corrected a qualified but unclosed sentence in the above paragraph. Thanks to ‘anonymous’ for their kind assistance]

FIB

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Well, we survived the festival… but I’m glad I had the extra couple of days’ break at the end of it. I think I’m still recovering now.

Highlights of the concerts were: Nick Cave, Basement Jaxx, The Kills and Peaches. I didn’t see LCD Soundsystem… which I now regret.

I spent an obscene amount of money, drank too much Heineken, and didn’t get enough sleep. (Well you try sleeping at 7am when the mercury’s rising and the soundsystems just don’t stop).

All in all, the festival was a huge success, and we would certainly like to go again. We’ll have to see what the lineup’s like, but why not next year?!

FiberFib 2005

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In just three weeks, we will be pitching our tent at the Festival Internacionál de Benicassim (Fiberfib)… after about four years of talking about it!

The line up for the festival is pretty good, with some ‘smaller’ bands (I just can’t help liking The Kills… I know they’re a Royal Trux rip-off, but I like the sound of their music playing) as well as Oasis, who I’ve never seen and whose first two albums are proper classic, and Nick Cave who’s a bad seed. I’m not that fussed about The Cure, but am willing to see them in the context of ‘important band’. I do like Basement Jaxx, Yo la Tengo, The Raveonettes, !!!, Peaches and someone I know likes Dinosaur Jr. So it should be grand.

Also, there are loads of DJs playing, there’ll be a shirtload of sunshine and grease, and more than a little of the Vino Tinto will flow. It also falls on my 25th birthday. So I’m allowed to get well wasted.