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

Tom McRae and Zero 7

One that I found last night when digging around the CD boxes was my copy of the Merz album. Totally top stuff, still sounding great after a couple of years (and I've probably not listened to it in about 18 months).

well got that completely wrong ! that'll teach me for not paying attention in class eh? i can't recommend the pj harvey cd enough. i remember her when she was this scary punk type person, but she's mellowed out alot and has this thing about horses on there there's an absolutely gorgeous duet with thom yorke, worth buying it for that alone. hairs standing on the back of your arm kinda thing... beautiful.

d'you like the avalanches? since i left you is a great album. they're playing the arches here and i really want to go, but remembering my propensity for sunday morning music, i'm a little bit scared... i've never been to a discoteque in the sort of rave/house (see i don't even know what they're called) club sense (northern soul and student type nights are our haunts) went into the slam tent at a festival a couple of times. the second time was great - death in vegas... the first time i just stood there confused and frightened - how can you dance to that ? it was just too fast, couldn't do any of my funky dancing and strange hand movements

pop quizz - first record (single and lp) you bought?

I did mention Zero 7 earlier
PJ Harvey, might see if I can get a listen to that one at the weekend in some record shop or other.
Thom Yorke duets. Every here the track El President by Drugstore? He was on that. The track was about the US (CIA) I think assainating some S. American president or other (Drugstore's singer if from somewhere in S. America).

Of the two Avalanches tracks I've heard Frontier Psychiactry is totally fantastic. The other one (Since I Left You) was to me far too similar to a lot of other dance tracks. What's the rest of the album like.

The only clubbing I've done recently would have been some indie/rock/student type stuff after gigs. Not been out in ages like that.

PQ answer: Album; This Time, England World Cup Squad 1980 (Mexico) - It was a long time ago and I was much much younger then.
Single; I haven't got the foggiest.
Yourself?

PQ question - last record (single & lp) you bought?

yeah, recommend avalanches - frontier psychiatrist is pretty groovy. i'd say the album is more like since i left you than fp, it can get a bit repetative in the middle. but interesting (i like interesting stuff)

this is a major confession time - i've only recently gotten into radiohead, so most of theirs and thom yorke's back catalogue is a mystery to me (there were some wilderness years (91-99)) so i've not heard it, i'll look out of it

PQ answer: first lp - grease the soundtrack
single - adam and the ants - stand and deliver!

PQ answer: last lp - hot shots II/rings around the world
singles - don't buy singles too often but it was badly
boy - pissing in the wind (or was it singing) and you?


last gig?

I too like interesting stuff, which is no doubt why we got this conversation started in the first place
I think I'll stick with my initial assesment of the Avalanches then, need to hear more before buying the album.

I think the best Radiohead has ever done was Street Spirit (Fade Out). I can still remember the video B&W with some good effects.

Last LP, Jason Downs, White Boy With A Feather.
Last Singles; Castles In The Sky, Ian van Dahl; Signs, Badmarsh and Shri; Devil's Nightmare, Oxide and Neutrino; Boss of Me, They Might Be Giants; Bent, Stay.

Last Gig. I think it would have been going to see Alice Cooper at Wembley with Dio supporting.
I might have been and seen some band in the back room of a pub (the Witchwood, Ashton Under Lyne - The Publican music pub of the year ) but I can't remember the names.

You've bought a few singles in the past, i don't really buy singles, perfer to get the album, the BDB one was the first one i'd bought in ages and that's cos it was a different version than on the album. must admit the Oxide and Neutrono one surprised me - bit dancy?. the bent single, was that 'swollen'? - M 'n' L made a huge joke about it being bent and swollen i'm trying to remember, the chick who sings with them, zoe was that her name ... i think she sang 'sunshine on a rainy day' i'm sure it was her?

Is that Jason Downs' good?

my last gig was the beta band a couple of weeks ago, but i'm going to see turin breaks and starsailor, which'll be nice.

there must be other things you're into ? films? books - you said you trawl the second hand book shops, bought anything interesting lately? am i getting ahead of myself or d'we just have a music relationship?

If there is somethign I like, then I'll buy it. Sometimes I use the singles as tasters for the album - if I get a couple then I'll get the album. If it's just a passing fancy like Oxide and Neutrino was then I'll get the single. The O&N was because it's just that bit different to the average garage/dance type stuff (a bit of chanting mixed in with UK Garage rapping - it really made me laugh when I first heard it ).
The bent one is their latest, Stay. I do have a copy of Swollen somewhere in the boxes with CDs in...
If it's the person who sang Sunshine On A Rainy Day (cor Wasn't that a long time ago now!) it is Zoe.

I had heard the single White Boy and thought it was good, different - mixing a country style with hip-hop and saw him at the Fleadh in London. The show was good if slightly strange - NY rapper/Producer Milk was there scratching and rhyming and Jason fronting the show in cowboy boots and stetson. I enjoyed the show and so went out to get the album.

Films, generally I like Sci-Fi (as you'll see when I talk about books!) Last movie seen was Tomb Raider. Entertaining fluff. It did remind me of the computer games in various parts where she did something and a wall would tumble (eg ring a bell and the wall comes down). Others seen recently were Evolution, again fun switch your brain off movie and Shrek which was very very funny (good soundtrack too).

Books, Sci-fi. Last book read Glory Road by Robert Heinlein, I like his stuff a lot. Others, Moorcock I like lots but you do need to be in the right frame of mind for some of the books (perhaps I should use similar pharmacological aids as when he wrote them ). Other than general sci-fi and fantasy, whatever takes my fancy when wandering round s/h bookshops (a very enjoyable passtime I find).

You can ask anything you like, you just might not always get an answer (sensible or silly) ;-P

ohhh mysterious....

you enjoyed tomb raider? i just didn't see the point (apart from angelina jolie of course - very pretty to look at)absolutely no plot to speak of, her accent was good though, but daniel craig... sorry he's got a geordie accent, he is Geordie (best tv moment ever! - our friends in the north - geordie walking over the tyne bridge to the strains of oasis - don't look back in anger - perfect)

read a bit of sci-fi as a kid, haven't read that much lately, i really fancy reading 'planet of the apes' (tim burton - god-like genius) read an article on it - allegorical apparently. i was really into fantasy as a kid too - dragonlance - d'u remember that? now i just judge a book by its cover! don't often go to s/h book shops - i'm not much of a browser, besides you never know where the books have been. I've only read one Moorcock story, i can't really remember much about the story, but it involved jesus or someone who thought they were, or maybe they were and thought they weren't something like that, had some connection to Jung as well, its a bit hazy, might try and find and re-read it - had to read it for a course on literary and biblical studies at uni. i'm reading a book about the bywater trial (a trial in thr '30's young man kills lover's husband) bit of a chick book, all about burgeon feelings.

This jason down's person is he part of this 'alt.county' thing i keep hearing about?

I guess he probably is part of that. The bits of reviews they seem to like putting up about him are the comparisons to the likes of Beck (crossing styles) and Lou Reed (storytelling I guess).

I'm not all that mysterious. Or at least I don't think so.

I took Tomb Raider for what it was, something nice to look at with no deep meaning to be attached to it at all.
I'd like to see planet of the apes when it comes out.

oh i like beck, i'll have to check this guy out.

i like big dumb popcorn movies with the best of them (you should see my video collection) but there has to be something there, there was nothing. angelina is very pretty to look at, but no plot, no soul searching about helping the baddies, no real explinations - maybe not enough for me.

anyway how's your new job going?

I think the Beck comparisons are that he's just mixing it up a little bit.

I though Angeline Jollie was a good enough reason to go and watch the movie

So far it's OK. I'm now starting to get some real work passed my way with taking over a system I'll be maintaining.
It might well mean less time on here though

How's things with you?

Sorry about that, the network crashed and it seemed like a good time to go home!

There's a funnyish story about beck, and tickets get lost in the post - well its funny if you're me.

angelina's not that big a reason ... now if it was Cameron diaz ....

my work's quite quiet just now - getting ready for the kids coming back.

Networks crashing, I know all about that I used to see it far too often in my last job!

What do you do?

This place's not too bad for it, but IT support is non existant.

I work at an art school (the glasgow school of art) i'm still pretty new to it, only came home in march. i'm responsible for the administration of their research programmes - i'm spending the summer re-writing student handbooks (more fun than you can shake a stick at) you do something in the city (i'm assuming that's the city of london?)?

i'm feeling kinda funky today, so i'm listening to groove armada. what's the best gig, one of those life changing gig's, you've been to?

Glasgow, been there a few times. A mate of mine did a PhD at Strathclyde. I used to work in a uni (as a researcher) so have see the untold joy when people are asked to write bits of student handbooks
It is indeed the City of London. I work for a large international financial services company (modern way of saying merchant bank) doing IT support for some of the in house apps.

I want my mp3 collection back. I used to have a couple of gigs worth of MP3s on my machine at my old place of work. Now that machine is just sitting at home in the corner of my room

Best / life changing gig, hmmm, hard one that. One that stands out is the Fleadh in 98. Seeing the headliners, James play Sound at the end of the set. That's a tune that always gets me and that evening it was just perfect. There have been many other gigs that I've been to that have been fantastic - being pulled up on stage at the LA2 to sing bv (the CBX!), seeing a singer and his guitar pour forth such raw emotion (Tom Hingley), a band that you can do nothing but smile and dance to even on a horrible wet summers day (Afro Celt Sound System), watching as a band morphs into something slightly different as they put instruments down and move across the stage to pick up something else while still keeping the tune moving (The Beta Band). Those were all memorable nights but still it was that eveing in N London three years ago. The thought still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Passion !!!!

i tend to enjoy everything, i am not a discernable critic. but seeing groove armada at T in the park last year was an almost religious experience. went into the tent, tired, cold and extremly wet and came out with a whole new outlook on life, just listening to such a bunch of talented musicians mix live on stage; the brass section were sooooo funky, so slick, i defy anyone not to shake their little booties, truely, truely amazing moment - i'm almost wetting my pants at the thought of their new album! (too crude, i must apologise) of course the beta band were pretty special too, down the front of the barras pogoging is always special. the shirehorses obviously great - more to do with who they are and the bunch of friends i went with. i relly enjoyed belle and sebastian a couple of months ago. seats at a concert? what ya reckon to them? they confuse me sometimes, you know when you want to stand up and boogey but no one else does (i pride myself on being the one brave soul that started the dancing at a blues band gig in the city chambers by getting up) but at B & S they were quite welcome, the trouble with liking sunday music is its not very active and you're usually sitting down doing it, can make gigs pretty boring! metallica at the playhouse were mighty loud to!

Passion, I think that's what it is. And when you can see that the band are enjoying themselves. If the band look and act miserable, the crowd will be (I think that was one of the problems seeing spiritualised).
I saw Eels at the Dominion Theatre here in London. That was a sitting down gig, strange but it's what was wanted. They came on for a second encore after most people had got up and were leaving. There was quite a few people who went down the front (me included) and had a bit of a bop after all
Loud, well seeing Kiss at Donnington was loud.

Okay, you're slowly becoming my personal hero - the eels - god i'd love to see them: daisies of the galaxy is a fantastic album. although glasgow's a great place to see little bands, cult, niche bands, the bigger ones never play here. its crap.

saw kiss at the playhouse in edinburgh, that was pretty loud, but not as loud as a thrash metal band called acid rain (the only line we could ever distinquish was #last night i met my mother, so i killed her#) they played the venue in edinburgh, which is pretty close to the train station, but realatively far away from the train, but we could still hear them half way out the station - no joke, i think my ears were bleeding at one point. deaf for weeks!

I saw Aerosmith play Glasgow (SECC). I think they're a fairly big band

It was on the Daisys for the galaxy tour I saw Eels. A mighty fine evening.
One gig that suprised me was seeing Moby. He was like a demon, running round stage playing the guitar, keyboards as well as singing. The finale for that show had him play one of his old dance tunes (well it was all programmed) and all he did was raise his arms in the air and stand up on his keyboard (placed centre stage) and then raise his arms again. All the while the crowd were going wild with the lighting going nuts and stobes going off - all for a man who was at that point doing nothing!