Queens day continued

IMG_1739
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

A particularly Orange Canal boat.

Queens Day

IMG_1731
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

Ah. Queen's Day in Amsterdam. People selling crap on the streets, people buying crap on the streets, everybody partying everybody drunk, canal boats all over the prinsengracht, compulsory wearing of orange, something to do with the queen mother's birthday.

The photo is Vondelpark which was absolutely packed. A friend's kid was selling old toys, so I became the lucky owner of a burst tennis ball.

Soma

Yes. Yes we all know. Its early 90's grunge, so we'll have the quiet bit then the loud bit then the noise guitar solo. It's a cliche, but this wrote the cliche and broke the mould. Compositionally, Orchestrationally I think Billy Corgan is a genius.

Soma - Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins



If I ever want an adrenalin hit of the extreme sport level, I have a button which gives me a direct hit. As with ost of the stuff of this period from smashing pumpkins, we start with a nice slow spacey riff. Now to call this the quiet bit would be an understatement, This isn't where the structure lies. As with most smashing pumpkins riffs, they are an intricate blend of about 5 guitars doing very similar things. Corgan is (I believe) anally retentive about orchestration. And when it works it really works. Here it works. He treats multiple guitars as an orchestra, the good thing is that the guitars aren't perfect(i.e. they are grunge, not some not perfect, sound perfect inhumane treatment.)

After a nice spacey trippy start, we get the trademark wall of sound. But this isn't the same as Mr. Cobain suddenly jumping on a distortion pedal, this really gets us off. We get(at 3:24) the quiet before the storm. Its pure aural masturbation for me, I've been listening to this album for over 10 yrs, I know what's coming, that's why I come back for the hit. At 3:24 you float, at the top of a hill (sometimes literally in the case of iCycli-podding). Then PLUNGE - wall of sound - diving into ice cold water, whatever floats your boat. Then the rock devil comes out, a wicked smile appears on your face and your heart beat feeds on the adrenaline. Then BANG, it get s better and better, BANG, big solo. Not a normal solo, this is the sound of 20 guitars dying all at once with some kind of melody being picked out of them in the studio(Think of a late turner painting, but in a kind of multi-tracked noise guitar grunge kind of way.

Then 5:04 there is one note which just rips through everything. It is pure adrenaline, if i am free to really listen to this note, no distractions, no one talking, i can float away and time doesn't exist. I often say it is my favourite recorded note. If someone bottled adrenalin for you, you would like it too.

Maybe i just like going back to being a teenager when i first discovered this music, and its impossible to turn someone onto it who didn't at least grow up to the same music. Theres other stuff i enjoyed when I was a kid, that doesn't do it for me anymore, but soma and smashing pumpkins does it for me every time. I didn't used to consider smashing Pumpkins one of my favourite bands, i listened to them religiously, but the fan base kind of put me off. It was songs for disgruntled teenagers, a bit like the goth kids in south park.



The whole "Hate myself and want to die" bit of grunge. That wasn't what it was about, but for some reason they people who needed that outlet found it in the Smashing Pumpkins. I always found those people to be spoiled little brats who couldn't moan about not getting all the my little ponies anymore. I wasn't disgruntled at being a teenager. I was disgruntled at other teenagers, cos they didn't like Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins but i loved being me. I had pearl jam and smashing pumpkins.

This said. I think that every thing after Melloncollie wwas lacklustre, and I didn't find the same power in it. I respect Billy Corgan for continuing to tray and innovate, but I don't think he really hit the button as well as he did on the first three albums.

For further iCycli-podding fun. Test your bike by listen in to Siamese dream. At 2:57 during GeekUSA, most "Non-Grunge certified" bikes will break due to adrenalin powered pedal as fast as you can part o the song.

Haggis chop suey

One large step for a haggis, one small step for Scottish cookery. Saturday, I had promised some friends some haggis. One German and a Filipino family. My Filipino friend insisted on cooking something(she's very motherly), so we ended up with Haggis, potatoes and chop suey vegetables. It was quick bizarre, but strangely worked. Haggis, which is quite a dry meal was complemented by the juice vegetables.

Although Scotland have embraced Asian food(Its arguably more popular than British food) I think it could be a while till it catches on:

Google Clicky

Exile on iCylcli-Podding Street

iCycli-Podding, the brand new sport. I do it every morning, its an extreme sport in that its dangerous. What is it? Listening to your iPod as you cycle to work in the morning. I do it most mornings, don't advise it, and its probably illegal.

This morning was a lovely crisp sunny morning. It feels like summer is just starting to break, and I was listening to Exile on Main street. The weather combined with the upbeat music almost made my hangover completely disappear.

I don't know if its just that I discovered this album at a particular age or stage in life, but none of the rest of the Stones stuff comes near it. I know its the "Classic Album", but I didn't discover it like that. I was probably about 17 and my mum asked me for a list of CD's that I wanted for my Birthday. I was pretty up to date with my wishlist, cos I had a saturday job and absolutely nothing to spend my wages on. I was enjoying some of my dad's stones records, and I thought, yeah here's a list of the stones albums I don't have, told her to get me one and she found exile on mainstreet. What astounded me was that it wasn't a stones album at all. At that age I always thought of the Stones as writers of some pretty good pop rock songs, which were generally performed better by your average pub rock band. I could play the drums and thought Charlie Watts was simplistic and boring. Keith Richards was cool, but not as obvious a guitarist as Hendrix. I was never into Van Halen twiddle, but at that point, I never associated a kick ass riff with being talent in a guitarist, I considered that song writing. But probably most importantly, I couldn't see much teenage angst in a 50 yr old Mick Jagger.

Little did I know, that this Gem of an album existed. One of the first "Albums" I ever "heard". Its almost impossible to grow up in the UK and not experience the Beatles or the Stones as a collection of specific songs. As a child of the 80's I knew the riff to satisfaction from the Marathon(Now snickers) advert before I could tie my shoe laces. These songs were such pop classics, that if you were lucky enough to listen to a stones album, and not a greatest hits collection(Could be a future rant), it was very difficult to learn to see the "unknown" hits which hadn't been over played. I expected to find a few new songs on exile between the hits I knew. Unfortunately there are no hits, on exile, there aren't even any songs. Theres only one unit - The Album. The coherency across the whole album is unlike most(especially with modern recording techniques). The studio, the atmosphere, the time is the instrument in itself, that the stoned musicians tag along to. Far less obvious, very few hooks, few stand out tracks. Charlie Watts drumming; Essential!!!. The simplistic riffs of Keef; The life blood and heartbeat. And Mick Jagger's cod-old-bluesman-I'm-not-a-white-middle-class-Londoner; Bizarrely not cringeworthy.

It all comes together wonderfully. If asked now, I don't think anyone would know who played on what takes of what tracks, and I don't think it would have made a difference to the album. The album is a frame around a specific moment in time, and its been done wonderfully. Pre-Concept-Album, I think it is a concept album, the concept is that the album isn't just a collection of songs.

MacExpo Amsterdam

Went to the MacExpo Amsterdam. It was shit. Basically just a few stands of mac toys which you can see in any highstreet apple shop.

Oh well!!

Rant about the music Industry

I was bored at a workshop, and thought it would be a good time to write my blog. I think I took the rant cliche a little too far. With the amount of wireless connections at conferences now and the content of said conferences being of questionable entertainment value, there might be a few more of these this summer. Maybe one day I'll extend that into a coherent argument rather than a rant.


Returning from a recent event where one of the major focuses was that of DRM in the music industry.

One of the buzz words that the industry have taken up is “fair use” and its implementations. They request that internet users give them a break a little bit and use content in a way which will not detrimental to the industry.

Obviously outside my official capacity, the following occurred to me; Why the fuck should we? This is the industry who have repeatedly shafted just about every player in their supply chain.

The Artist
The artist, based on whichever cliché, doesn't’t get a very good break on the supply chain. Fine we know they take drugs and shag groupies for a good while when they’re at the top of their career, but if the actual figures are calculated, you have about as much return from the interest on a savings bank account. The industry have set up a situation where they take none of the risk and reap almost all of the rewards. This is fine, it’s a corporate world. The “fair” agreement is that this is the filter to ensure that the record companies provide fodder for the public to embrace or reject.

The consumer
We will assume that the consumer who has so callously fucked over the nice family business record industry is from about 15 – 30. Now anyone from the age of about 20-30 grew up in the nineties. The record company were pushing wonderful content at us such as 2Unlimited, and other dire pop, they were paying similar dross to be in the charts so that gullible teenagers would feel that they needed to buy the stuff. We had the ticketmaster feud as led by Pearl Jam(Fat lot of good that did), we still have a monopoly charging concert goers an administration charge. If you grew up in these years, is it really any surprise, that there was no moral highground that you felt you should take or guilt which forced you into a nervous breakdown when file sharing came along.

The solution
The record industry, the mobile phone industry, the consumer electronics industry and the film industry have all stood up and proclaimed that there are holes in the iTunes/apple/iPod. Of course there are holes. But until something better comes along it the best solution out there. What's the difference, the difference is that Apples core clients respect them. And this bleeds through. On one hand you have the big corporate bully(they made that stereotype, and now back pedal), who are saying, “please…. Be nice to us, its unfair”, on the other hand you have a company who make demonstrably good hardware, usable software which is a joy to work with providing a damn good service. This is what the DRM solution is This is what the music industry must realize, not moan.

Brussels

Day in Brussels for a meeting.



Nice as Brussels is, 9 times out of 10, I'm here for a meeting in the bit which has only concrete buildings and building sites. Yawn!

Caledonia

Loch Lommond
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

In Scotland for the weekend. Here's a gratuitous Loch and mountain picture

March

March was a slow month. No trips anywhere, very little in the way of exciting developments at work. I moved house, which was hectic, but gives me a change of environment.

Winter in Paris

Paris Pont nuef???
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

........Its 8am its a saturday, it's far too early to be at work, it's cold, I'm hungover, its snowing, the coffee wasn't very good in the hotel, I wish I'd brought a warmer jacket, it's my first time in Paris in the winter(If late February is winter)

I've been to Paris loads of times, a few times for holidays, but mostly for meetings, conferences etc. Its always in the summer, and I always like Paris. I love the joie de vivre(I also can't speak a word of French).

Despite the cold, this was a beautiful crisp morning. A little snow flutters around. Not the brown slush collecting at the side of the road that you get in less classy cities, but romantic wistful snow, that makes you want to write poetry.

Maybe my brain has been affected by lack of sleep, too much work, boring meetings, pointless discussions, cold toes, not enough coffee, too much beer....

Ah!!!!! I've turned into a birdwatcher

Stork
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

This is my second photo of a bird. Is it coincidence that I have seen impressive birds in the first two months of this year? Has my sister converted me to an animal lover? Or is it some Freudian obsession with Sesame Street.

This a Stork in The Hague. It would appear it is there town emblem and mascot type thing. I read somewhere on the internet that its because in the olden days.(Pre Electric guitar), the storks used to clean up all the crap after the fish market had been in town, thus ensuring that people did die from some rotting-fishhead bourne disease. Now there's a fact you didn't know!

Mauritshuis

Mauritshuis
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

Parents are here. Took a day trip to The Hague

The Mauritshuis in the Hague. Vermeers and Rembrandts and a far more manageable size than the RijksMuseum in Amsterdam.

January has been boring

I have very little to report. January is the time of writing papers for summer conferences. I am writing far less than last year. I think the novelty wore off. My work is different than it was last year, I have some software development, some open source distribution sites to do, a new big project, but little in the way of results to report. We have kind of announcement type papers for our new big project, which basically involve copying and pasting bits and pieces from internal departmental documents. It doesn't feel as creative.

Maybe I need to get my finger out and dust off my guitar. Even tho garageband(Apple music making program), is wonderful, its pretty rare that I take the time to sit down and actually do something with it.

I'm bored, at a loose end, have nothing to report. I think it's time to arrange a gratuitous meeting. This seems to be the thinking of everyone else in the world.

Warm-reekin, rich!

Warm-reekin, rich!
Originally uploaded by furbyx4.

Blogging

So much for starting a blog, the only time I think of anything to post is when I'm cycling to work.

Comets on Fire, Paradiso, Amsterdam

Hmmmm

After listening to the album, I described them as kind of mudhoney, with a little bit of mars volta, and some long-winded-ness of early grunge dirges/pink floyd.



Interesting in a kind of Art Noise kind of way. Maybe I need to stop going to any gig played by a Subpop band in Amsterdam. The volume was about 125dB at times, which isn't good(I have bad hearing at the best of times), and the audience were all these older people who kind of stood around nodding smuggly in a kind of "yeah thats what I would have done there" kind of thing. I left early(This is really rare for me), and I probably won't go to see wolf eyes either(They are louder, wierder, and noisier)

I must be getting old!

Big Scarey mean-looking bird

Gyps fulvus - Latin
Buitre Leonado - Spanish
English - Griffon Vulture

All of the above mean "Big Scarey mean-looking bird"

Vulture mountain

I'm in Extremaduras Spain with my family. This mountain has about 150 vultures circling around it. I was really impressed. I tried to instill some excitement in my Spanish friend by telling him that they were dangerous and a little larger than the common Sparrow. He informed that they are only dangerous if you are dead.

First Post

Hello World!!!!

This is my first post to my online journal. I intended to use it to wax lyrical about various things this year. Lets see if I can keep it up.

I'm also going to post some of my iPhotos collection for previous days, so although this is my first post, there's gonna be ones before it soon.

xx

Neil