UK Watercooler 32: Fall Into The Meaning Gap

You can sometimes buy them at London Bridge, too. I think when Lent is over, I shall go and indulge in a big bunch until my teeth turn lime green and fall out.

Oh, what have I just done? After saying I'm not going to do music journalism any more, Tzr just wrote and asked if I wanted to review Silver Apples... and I said yes without even thinking about it.

It's always like this, isn't it? "OK, one more time..."

you're so metal

>:-(

Silver Apples, though!

You will be listeninhg to Colonel Poo's grindcore compilations soon enough!
x-post

Yes, it may be Silver Apples but I'm suspicious of reunion shows. I have a funny feeling that one of them has actually died. Hard to compensate for when there were only ever two of them!

You will enjoy it regardless.

Maybe you will get sent to review Portishead.

Diamanda Galas is on the cover of the new terrorizer btw. Pash are you a fan? I always meant to check some of her stuff out but wouldn't know where to start.

And there's a review of Hawkwind in it too..

Kate is correct:

In 1999, their tour van was forced off the road by an unknown driver, breaking Simeon's neck. As of 2004, Simeon was much recovered, but he was unable to play his instrument in the way he used to. He never fully recovered his hand movements, so his keyboard work is much more simple and direct now.

Since the accident, Silver Apples' activity has diminished. Simeon spends his time making new music, recuperating, and boating on the Gulf of Mexico. Xian Hawkins has released three albums of solo material under the name Sybarite. Danny Taylor died on March 10, 2005 in Kingston, New York. In September 2007 Simeon went on tour for the first time in years, performing as a solo version of the Silver Apples to much acclaim.

From Wik:

I don't know if I'm even in the mood to review a gig. And I've not brought a notepad or anything.

I've been kind of down on music lately. It's hard to be objective about a gig - or even subjectively critical - when you're not really enjoying music fullstop.

x-post that's interesting and good to know in advance.

I remember Simeon's crash in a way: I was looking for a website for them, found it and was surprised that this had happened to no coverage in the NME etc. This was six months after the event. So I emailed the NME newsdesk with the link and a "isn't this the sort of news you should be covering" type message. 30 mins later, it was on the NME news page. So, yay me.

You will enjoy it regardless.

-- Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 12 March 2008 14:12 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Little_Miss_Bossy.jpg

w/r/t Diamanda, I had a few of her albums, she's good, but heavy going. Plenty of stuff on youtube. hugely powerful deep, rich singing voice, she can be very emotive, but you've REALLY got to be in the mood for it. I like her straight songs way better than the shrieky stuff. The straight songs, maybe you could compare her to Dagmar Krause or Pola Negri, but both are a stretch, the more freeform stuff, like nothing else on earth.

i dont think that hat would suit Kate.

We're missing an FP on this thread. Anyone seen him?

I know I haven't

http://www.mrbenn.co.uk/images/mrbenn.gif

Saw teo class 37s on either end of a track measurement train at wimbledon at lunch today.

Ooh, nice. I saw the track measurement HST between York and Thirsk the other weekend.

They have beeter kitchen facilities on the TMT than in my office.

It's really doing my head in, not having two monitors any more. I keep trying to move things over to the other monitor and realising it's not there any more.

Stupid IT department not giving me one. They said I could have a wheelie mouse, too, but do I have one? I should have taken my laser wheelie mouse from my last job. No one would have noticed.

Probably in mine too. We've just been stung with a 50% rise in tea-fund costs! I'm going to get a new job, I think.

(or maybe just opt out of the tea fund)

(xpost)

I use MS Virtual Desktop Manager at work to cope with Windows not having virtual desktops by default; I'm too used to having them at home on Linux. But it fucks up Excel (2003) and MSN.

Is it still stormy down south?

Don't know. All of my views out the window are of brick walls.

What should I do for supper tonight? I'm going to end up wasting all the money/food I bought this week, as I'll end up not having one single meal at home.

I don't even really want to go out tonight. I'm feeling distinctly otherwise and want to go home and do my laundry and get to bed early. Why am I doing this? Does anyone want to pretend to be me and review the show?

Think about the effect pedal you can buy with the money they pay you.

Pay me?

Has tissp abandoned us for good?

Don't know. I was listening to Elektrikometheorie (infinity) the other day.

I guess I'm eating dodgy tai cult food. I had Indian food yesterday and can't really deal with that again. Or maybe pizza. Actually, pizza sounds alright. I am talking to myself, about what I am going to have for supper, by myself. I am becoming one of those crazy old ladies who talks to cats, but instead of cats, I have the internets.

They're not paying you? Fuck that then.

(reminisces about the happy days when a 2 1/2 page review in "The Mix" (rip) would net 350 quid)

send tom d

in drag

2 1/2 pages? Dude, it's 200 words.

Would I feel happier about music journalism if I were getting paid? Dunno. Probably not. Well, if it were proper money, like £350, then maybe. But as it is, it's just something I keep doing because people keep asking me to do it, but not something I ever *wanted* to do, and not something I particularly *enjoy* doing.

The only point to carry on is to get free tickets to gigs. But I don't even enjoy going to gigs that much any more. I'm old and my back hurts if I stand up for too long.

And I didn't even bring my sketchbook. I suppose I could buy another at Paperchase because I'm about to run out of room in my current one soon.

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dri000/i012/i01282zo58z.jpg The lost funkadelic album.

I suddenly realised the other night, I owe tissp a fiver from I think years back, for an EP I bought off him.

200 words I would expect to get at least 30 quid for, probably I'm out of date. I think a box-in I wrote for "sound on sound", hang on, the couple of paras I wrote at the end of this:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/sep95/rolandvp330.html

404 words sez M$ word, that netted me a oner. I really, really miss writing for these magazines, as you can imagine. I didn't realise how long ago it was either :-/

For free, it would have to be a band that I really liked, that I wanted to get more publicity.

Your own?

No, that would be unethical.

I don't think I've ever been paid...? I could be wrong on that, though. I have never done it for money, I guess is the point. I've written about bands because I care about the music, passionately... or because I was asked to. Mainly because, well, this is a horrible, stupid reason. Because I wanted to be part of something. It's not quite as simple as "all my friends were doing it." But I wanted to be a part of that group. And now I'm realising that was a totally false goal. First, because it's just peer pressure in sheep's clothing. And secondly because, well, trying and failing to be a part of a group (and I'm pathologically incapable of belonging) is actually more isolating and depressing.

When I wrote my first SoS article, I'd have probably done it for free, I was so thrilled at appearing in it. When the magazine hit the shelves though, I discovered that theyd hacked 1,000 words out of it, someone on the magazine I knew told me to make room for an advert. I was well pissed off, especially as the article was pretty incoherent as a result. The money made me feel a bit better, when I got the cheque. After that, I must admit it was always "for the money", though reviewing synthesisers and effect processors is obv. different to reviewing bands.

The absolute worst thing was "The Mix" - they dropped all contributors who were not "professionals within the audio industry" or something (so, naturally, I got the hoof) - unfortunately, most of these"professionals", the might have been goot at recording and mixing and all that, but they couldn't write for shit, the quality of the magazine dropped noticeably, and it folded in about a year. They (future) paid VERY well, so I was pissed off loads.

probably they were better at handing in copy without any typoes, though, eh?

Don't get a techie to do a writer's job. In that case, you need another writer to turn technie know-how into cogent English. It's amazing how many people don't seem to realise this.

I cannot find the bloody questions that go with the data for this db.

:-(

lol
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/160/4758680.jpg

Cogent? Do I mean coherent? I don't even know what I mean.

Sod it, I want pizza. Where is the nearest La Porcetta? In the EEZOHAD, I bet. :-(

the where?

Yup, it's in the EEZOHAD but if it makes you feel better I've been living deep in EEZOHAD territory for three months and NO SIGHTINGS. It might just be safe...

It's like a foreign language