SimonWaldman.net

Actually, I tried to pay £5, but for some reason it just flipped straight through to £0.00..and who was I to refuse.

It seems I wasn’t alone.

I justify this by the fact that I’ve bought a lot of Radiohead albums in the past and found them utterly unlistenable (Kid A), so Thom Yorke kind of owes me…

That said - In Rainbows is probably the best thing of theirs since The Bends…so if I’d bought it on a shareware basis, with a, say 30 day trial..I’d then happily have paid up.

Now, I loved James Murphy’s debut as LCD Soundsystem last year [Amazon], but the new album, Sound of Silver is, well, as good a all the reviews say it is .

It’s perfect fun for grown ups who like their dance music with an indie twist. Actually, that was true of his last outing - but with this one it’s just that little bit easier on the ear (because we’re getting older) with a few more disco-y bits and barely a bleep or squelch out of place. All in all utterly fab. Buy it now.

Oh, and If you want to know what it’s like - can I recommend you read the quite fantastic real-time review from GreenPeaness. Quite the best bit of music writing I’ve read all week. From his take on track five, All My Friends

01:07 - Yeah, add some disco hi-hattery to the mix. I guarantee you that at least four of my friends will be telling me that they liked the one that sounded like the Charlie Brown theme song the best off this album. Guarantee.
01:51 - OKAY, WE HAVE A SERIOUS WINNER HERE.
02:26 - Jesus, those disco drums are driving me berzerk in the best possible way. Where the fuck was this song last time out?
03:39 - Have I mentioned how well this is layered? There’s a whole world of stuff going on underneath that rolling piano - bass, synths, all sorts of shit - and it’s just fighting to break through to the surface. As it should be.

And his take on the title track

00:52 - Okay jesus is that ever a bassline. I’d been wondering when this album was going to get sinister; who’d have guessed it’d turn out to happen during the song where he keeps comparing people to teenagers?
01:39 - I’m always totally enthralled intellectually (if not necessarily physically) by the tracks where James Murphy just makes straight-ahead dance music, mostly because of his quote about how he used to be a straight-up Rokk Dewd until he started taking fistfuls of ecstasy. Thanks to my friends, I would estimate that %95 of the ecstasy experiences I ever had came while I was listening to the Cure and Outfield and 311 (no joke), so it’s just interesting to hear what the soundtrack to my life might sound like if my friends back home didn’t, y’know, suck so bad.
02:57 - I have no idea precisely which synth it is that’s percolating away right now but I LUV IT.

Yes, you are a style icon. Yes, you look very smart in a Marks and Spencer suit. Yes, you did a very fine cover of Jealous Guy which is can be argued injected pathos that simply wasn’t there in the original. And yes, your version of ‘A Hard Rain’s Going to Fall’ in 1973 wasn’t totally embarrassing. But, no, no and no - you should not cover a series of Dylan tracks under the name Dylanesque. Quelle Horreur! ‘Bob Dylan in the style of Bryan Ferry’ should go no further than a round of Whose Line Is It Anyway, but it should not - I repeat ‘not’ be made available on mass release. Are we clear on that?

Today’s background music is Damien Jurado’s ‘And Now That I’m In Your Shadow’ [Amazon]. Makes Damien Rice sound like a right little raver.

The early weeks of the year have been a bit of a bumper crop. Putting them in current order of preference…

1. The Shins - Wincing the night away [Amazon]
I’ve never really leaped on the whole Shins bandwagon before, but this is a completely lovely album with just enough of a twist to it to remain interesting.
2. Little Barrie - Stand Your Ground [Amazon]
I quite liked his last one..but this just turns up the volume and adds an extra sprinkle of glitter to the whole late 60s/ early 70s feel. More than a whiff of T-Rex about it…which is always pleasant while commuting.
3. The Good, The Bad and The Queen - The Good The Bad and The Queen [Amazon]
Much more instantly likeable than I was expecting. And will probably become much loved over time.
4. Jamie T - Panic Prevention [Amazon]
OK…Love it in bits, but I think I’m getting too old to listen to a whole album of this.. [and incidentally, nothing on it comes close to Plan B’s Sick 2 Def]
5. The View - Hats off to the buskers [Amazon]
Parts induce a big grin, parts bring out a big yawn. I’m going to keep Jet as my preferred alternative to Oasis for the moment, thanks..
6. Gruff Rhys - Candylion [Amazon]
In any normal month, this might be at the top of my list…but this is obviously not a normal month. Nice, but just a little too winsome for its own good.

Embarrassing like of the week: Eric Prydz’s remix of Another Brick in The Wall. Where was this when I was going out?

Oh…and I haven’t quite got round to the Decembrists yet….

One of the reasons I stopped music blogging was because I started to get loads of e-mails from PRs.
At first, it was a real novelty to be sent a CD by a no-hoper band from Wales or Seattle or wherever. Soon, it became a bit of a pain to check my e-mail and find I was basically on the list of a load of PRs who had suddenly woken up to bloggers..and often didn’t realise I was from the UK so were introducing me to UK bands: ‘Hey..have you heard of Gomez’ etc.
It was all too similar to being a music journalist - and, with all respect, not a career I’d ever chose for myself, let alone a hobby.
However, still the e-mails come - and they are mostly ignored, except every so often (and not often enough) I get something from Hush records in Portland (home of the Decemberists). They have a neat scheme where they let bloggers download an album for a limited amount of time, and last week it was Laura Gibson’s If You Come To Greet Me.
And how utterly lovely it is. I know we’re getting a bit tired of singer songwriters these days, and she might be a little too Norah Jones for some tastes…but sometimes with music how you stumble across it is almost as important as what it actually is…and I feel everything I’ve been liking recently has just been too obvious to share…
Anyway - here she is on MySpace, sure you can work out the rest.

I’m surprised anyone still talks about ‘killer’ technologies these days, but this ‘listen to radio on your phone, click to download (£1.25!!!) and get a copy on your phone and PC sounds interesting…for non-iPod users at least..

But, I’m not entirely convinced about a system that relies (for now at least) on pre-pay. And wonder how it’s going to get onto handsets?

I cannot believe I have just bought an album called Daddy Cool - the album for Cool Dads [Amazon | iTunes]. My logic? It had a load of classic oldie stuff that its good to listen to, but I just happen to have digitally - take a look for yourself.

There is a broader point here over the snobbishness of compilations/ best ofs vs original albums (hey they all sound the same on your iPod!). And, you know what - it’s great. Nonetheless, I admit this was unforgiveable.

So in an attempt to get rid of a couple of bugs on my previous incarnation (comments not working/ para breaks not showing) I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress.

I did this - the par breaks came back, the comments remained broken, and somehow I’ve lost all the admin functionality as well…hence my (latest) bout of silence. Oh, and please dont’ tell me I should have backed everything up - because I sort of did, but obviously not quite well enough.

So, I’ve done a new install of WP here, and then made my archives still linkable here (and obviously through google)

I could spend the next X months flapping - or, more likely, I’m just going to build a new blog at sw.net/blog or something like that, which will probably be quicker…I could just delete everything here, but you know what I feel about permanence.

On a more domestic front, we went to our house-to-be on Saturday. I can’t actually believe I’m going to be living there. It’s one thing looking at places, another going through the stressful hell of a sale/ purchase. And even now, staying at our in-laws in Surrey, it still doesn’t feel like we’ve left London - but standing in what will be our garden, hearing how the Aga and the Oil tank (no gas) work,I suddenly realise this is a long way from life in (much loved) Stoke Newington.

Music? I mentioned Hot Chip’s The Warning [iTunes] in passing - which got pretty good reviews everywhere, but I don’t really know how it’s done in the charts. It’s a great, great album. Everyone should own it for the summer. They’re very smart and talented - but let’s be honest, they don’t look very good - and haven’t managed to dress it up into a geek chic thing. This is why you always seem them photo’d in moody lighting. But the album is a belter - perfect accompaniment to a barbeque.

Nouvelle Vague are back with their bossa-nova versions of new wave/punk classics (this time more the former) [iTunes]. This remains a dinner party classic. Everyone is sitting there chomping away on their linguine thinking you’ve finally given up on music by playing some easy listening pap when someone suddenly goes: ‘is this Too Drunk to Fuck?’ etc etc. Anyway,

The Feeling? [iTunes] Well, you have to really. Primal Scream? Ditto - although you could just get your old Rolling Stones albums out to recreate the same affect. (Incidentally, did I tell you I saw Bobbie Gillespie at the childrens playground in Clissold Park? Very early on a Sunday morning. I can pretty confidently say there will be no gangly Scottish rock gods in Surrey).

Also on music - Martathonpacks has done a mix of his best songs from 2006. Even if he’s no longer offering a download, by them all up and copy it as a playlist- IMHO he does the best compilations on the net.

M Craft, Silver and Fire? [iTunes] It’s a nice album, but there isn’t a song on it as beautiful as, oh god, what was it called? Dragonfly?What took him so long, I ask? Was it label problems? Or is he playing the tortured genius? Have you noticed how singer songwriters these days are banging out album after album: Sufjan Stevens, Ryan Adams, Ed Harcourt , Devandra Banhardt- it’s rather like Michael Owen’s caps. One minute they’re fresh faced new boys, the next they’re veterans. Let’s hear it for musical productivity, I say.

Oh, and finally, on a completely disconnected front - I’ve been having huge fun Lomo-ising photos in photoshop (tutorial here - and elsewhere). I don’t think I’ve quite got it right - as it makes nice clean snaps look like grubby old postcards, but it means I’ve learned to do a little bit more with this program than tweak levels.