h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Without wishing to sound trite, your name is great. Oh dear - sounded trite after all...

thank you!
not so bad yourself.
Jane Bane-she's a minor character in a story i'm writing... she's the only one with a cool made-up name so i assumed it as my online persona.

Well, best of luck with the writing. I write myself, although my paltry contributions to H2G2 thus far (a rather gabbled entry on Jack Russell Terriers) are hardly likely to set the ethernet aflame.

i'll have to check that out... i'm currently working on an entry on Nine Inch Nails... going slowly because my associate has a tendency of disappearing...

Never, ever, associate, my dear.

NIN? I don't know what it is about American post grunge rock, I just can't take it seriously at all. I've just realised that all my major fave raves are British bands, and maybe there's something in that, although why waste time analysing the harmless? Oh, hang on, I love Eminem: very, very talented whatever else is said. He is at least saying something.... These days you can hear the Manic Street Preachers as you walk around Woolworths*, and I think it is about time that the people were given what they perhaps might NOT want. tut tut, our useless generation.

All of which unsolicited rambling should not, of course, prevent you from dashing off a blistering article about them.

*lame English chain store which peddles tat.

i think we have woolworths in the states too. i was watching O Brother Where Art Thou last night and there was a fairly important scene that took place in one. the setting for that film was depression-era mississippi. must've come over on the mayflower.
there are those with a natural liking for industrial heavy metal electronic blahblahblah(imagine a continued litany of genres)... i happen to be one of them... those who don't enjoy it, i hold nothing against them. and i'll certainly try my best to make the entry as 'blistering' as possible... though it's not really in my control. i may have to agree with you on the association thing. he's the only one who can edit the page... all i can do is make suggestions.

...in actuality, i believe NIN could be safely categorized as pre-grunge... having released its/his/their first album in '89. and really, you're right... not much good has come out of this country for many years, the new bands are kind of nothing. i don't listen to the radio anymore. it's funny how i'm already starting to feel old at age 18.

'89? I had no idea. Pre grunge it is, then.

Nirvana were good, 'Nevermind' is one of the most remarkable albums ever made. I saw them at Reading Festival just before Kurt Cobain killed himself. They were headlining the last day, and I was with a group of people who were making a rough bootleg of the show with a hand held tape recorder. You can just here me saying 'This sounds like Sonic bloody Youth' to the first bars of 'Teen Spirit' before the song kicked in and the place went mad. I honestly thought a bomb had gone off, there were bodies all over the place. How nobody was badly, badly injured I will never know. Fantastic set. I still get tingles hearing the opening of 'Teen Spirit', even though they use it on soap powder ads now.

god, advertising is a tragedy... since i went to college i hardly ever watch tv so i miss out on a good portion of my expected daily advertising exposure... they really shouldnt' use real music... it saps the dignity
i love Smellls Like Teen Spirit, too... i'm not a big nirvana fan, though... a fact i can't justify... i like the music but it wouldn't make my list. i wasn't really in tune with music in junior high. honestly, i think i only started really developing taste when i signed up with Columbia House. that's sad. the acquisitive spirit took me over... i've got like 5000 bucks worth of cds now. i think the first albums i actually bought prior to that were Bon Jovi, Boyz 2 Men and Real McCoy. at least i can brag that i never went through a boy band phase.

tv is just awful, we have cable over here now. Tony Blair's right: our relationship with the US certainly is special - we become a first strike nuclear target for twenty years, for which you give us McDonalds. Having said that, I was in the States in Febuary, and had a brilliant time. Everybody was really friendly, more so than here I think. I was in Savannah, people would just invite me in to their houses because I was from England, it was very touching, nothing sinister or anything. One bloke wanted to give me his pick up to drive to the airport to save a taxi fare, said he'd get his wife to get it later!

It's funny how musical direction is passed between Britain and America: America invented rock n roll, we turned it into pop, you turned it into psychdelia, we turned it into punk, you turned it into rock and so on. Broad categaries, I know, but maybe a pattern.

that's interesting. i never thought of that. so i guess it's england's turn again... any predictions on the future?
i'd like to visit savannah someday... i don't know how georgia compares with louisiana, which is where i'm living now(i'm from nebraska, schooling in NO). i think georgia's more the Real South. but i don't know what any of that means. buh.
i read your jack russell terrier entry. i thought it was well-written, and had a lot of information. i've got a dog back home, a mere mutt... but i miss her. she's part fox terrier and has a rotweiller/doberman/beagle-ish aspect. she's been subjected to teasing and mind-messing for most of her life so she's a little neurotic. she only barks at old people and children.

I think music is too diverse now to really track it anymore. The last truly original sound was Hip Hop, and that was 1982. For example, I can remember as a very small kid in my school, you either liked Madness, or you liked the Police. That was it. Now there's such a wealth of stuff about, the boundaries blur.

Grunge etc wasn't original in itself; an original reworking of established themes, perhaps. However, that's all the history or guitar based music has ever been. Hmmm, it's a slippery one.

I also had the thought that on the whole the British are innovators, and the Americans are mass producers. Does that apply to music, if at all?

Thanks for reading the article, I think it's a little jerky, needs smoothing out and slowing down. Got all sorts of stuff to put on, including a music biog of my own, about Suede.

Sorry to hear about your dog, it is beyond me how people can be so pointlessly wicked, be it to an animal, the environment or whatever. Not worth getting miserable about - humans destroy, that's all there is to it. We're all to blame.

it is sad and depressing... though i'm pretty much done being depressed about the failed experiment that is humanity. my dad is actually the one who messes with her mind, because it's so damn funny. but we're trying to be nicer to her now. she manipulates us right back anyway. i get to see her in a week!
americans as mass-producers. i don't know much about how things work iin the UK but i know here it's all about money and trends and anything unique gets swept up and commercialized for maximum profits, right away. i was trying to think of some new bands that had somewhat compelling, unique sounds and hadn't become overly popular yet... alien ant farm sort of came to mind even though i don't think i like them, but they seem to have charisma... you have to resort to utterly weird vocals to be different these days. also At The Drive-In... and there's a CD i'm waiting for called New Sacred Cow by a guy called Kenna... he's actually from ethiopia, and i heard his song Hell Bent on mtv back when i was home.
Rock is dead. Marilyn Manson was right. though this weekend on my road trip to Austin, TX, i found myself liking a song by Nickelback which i kept hearing on the radio... though they still sound like just another inconsequential group of kids. i could sense some genuine angst, though...

Malcolm MacLaren (Sex Pistols' manager) said that rock n roll died when Elvis joined the army.

do i show my ignorance by quoting marilyn manson's glam rock album? i dont' even own a sex pistols cd. how shameful.
do you like the deftones?

You must get hold of Never Mind The B******s by the Sex Pistols as soon as you are able, excellent album. Thier only 'true' album, with just about all the classic tunes: Anarchy In The UK, God Save The Queen, Pretty Vacant, Bodies etc.

I certainly wouldn't call you ignorant Ms Bane. I have Smells Like Children (I think) at home, and have never played it.

I knowingly heard the Deftones for the first time last week, I thought they were quite good. I haven't had a massive music buying spree for ages, I may have to invest in some of their stuff at the weekend.

i was on a massive buying spree for several years... joined a music club and that's why i own most of the albums i own. not sure if i reeaaallly saved that much money, but damn it was fun getting those packages... i got fed up with shipping charges though.
the Deftones' White Pony is an absolutely gorgeous album... the only song i don't really like is Elite... i often skip over it when it comes on... not that i don't like screaming and bellowing but that's all there is. my favorite songs from that album are Digital Bath and Knife Prty... of course Back in School is what turned me on to them...
i didn't really mean that i was ignorant in marilyn manson terms, just that your sex pistols-related quote might have been more credible. i really like Mechanical Animals. i don't have any of his other stuff, at least not yet. is it true he was on The Wonder Years?
i don't know why i don't yet have Nevermind the B*****ks... every time i go to a music store i LOOK at it and I don't get it, even though i know i like them. i think i feel like i'm not qualified to align myself with punk rock. i can't explain it. like i'm not cool enough to own that album.

In a funny way I know exactly what you mean about being cool enough to own various things. I wish I didn't, but I do. However, the fact is that is one of the most influential albums of all time, not only in terms of the tunes themselves, but the artwork as well. I think you should just buy it because of that. I love Eminem, but am not from Detroit, have never seen a gun and have no desire to slap a bitch. I buy his stuff because it is excellent.

There is a common thread between the Pistols and Eminem that I really love. To quote Morrissey 'I think it is more interesting to give the people something they might NOT want'. For all the vitriol aimed at Eminem, he has done this.

I bought White Pony this afternoon, have yet to listen to it. (I have 'Revolver' by the Beatles on at the moment). Yes, I'm pretty certain that Marilyn Manson was in the Wonder Years. I'll have a surf later and find out.

Incidentally, on the subject of Eminem, I was very interested in the words that were deleted out of 'The Way I Am' and 'The Real Slim Shady' in America. Obviously, the actual obsceneties were deleted, but also the words 'white' ('you act like you never seen a white person before'), 'valium' ('you wonder how these kids eat up these albums like valium') and 'feminist' ('feminist women love Eminem'). What is so very offensive about these words and contexts? I just find it a little odd.

do you mean they censor the albums or just the singles that get played on the radio? it's stupid either way. i think people should just deal with it... why can't anything just be offensive? I guess i understand, since if you do anger the wrong people they'll pitch a fit... censorship drives me crazy. people should just learn to deal with stuff that makes them uncomfortable... i think there are all kinds of obscure guidelines for what can be played on the air and what can't... and it seems to vary.
is eminem really saying anything different than what rappers have been saying for years? does he just get more attention because he's white? i'm not a huge fan of his but i respect that he is influential and isn't allowing himself to be sanitized... i really do respect that, integrity. but there's a point where everything about any particular artist just becomes another gimmick, another selling point, at least in the eyes of the record companies, etc. that's what horrifies me... it's all there just to make somebody rich.

Yes, I suppose I just found it interesting that such relatively harmless words were edited out, and what that said about the way the listening audience is perceived. Unfortunately, JB, there are legions of people whose self appointed role in life is to be horrified and frightened by everything.

Because the Internet is ultimate democracy (although it is under threat) we can only hope that it will prove to be a breeding ground for new talent. As we've observed before in this conversation, you can hear 'angry' music being piped through the childrenswear department of Woolworth's these days.