I'm as excited as the next naked-hyperkinetic-rabbity-thing about the upcoming Morrissey concert. I got the tickets in the mail today. The only sucky part is there are too many days between May 6th and now.

His last album Ringleader Of The Tormentors is pretty hot stuff. Even better is the album liner (sorry all you people who get your music off iTunes and stuff. yar boo sucks to be you.) Anyway I can't decide if the liner for Ringleader is 100% cynical, or whether there isn't really a tiniest bit of hope in his wierd little pointed head of somehow…

I saw Namesake, the new film by Mira Nair, tonight. It's decent enough if you like art-house cinema, but what really thrilled me is that the central character is named Gogol by his father who is a big fan of Nikolay Gogol, the Russian author.

I love Gogol too. He's probably my favourite author after P. G. Wodehouse. If I ever procreate, the poor mite is going to regret the day I saw this film.

The 3 minute song… curse of the radio. However, there are some fabulous songs that clock in at less than 3 minutes. If you only had 74 minutes to live, you could still manage to listen to these 30 songs.

Sun In My Mouth - Vespertine - 2:40

Blowin' In The Wind - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - 2:48

Jerusalem - Brain Salad Surgery - 2:45

Long Grey Mare - Fleetwood Mac - 2:14

Black Magic Woman - The Pious Bird of Good Omen - 2:52

White Rabbit - 2400 Fulton Street - 2:34

Crosstown Traffic - Electric Ladyland -…

Here are some of my favourite songs that are over 15 minutes long!
(the things we do when we're idle)

The Tain (Pt.I / Pt. II / Pt. III / Pt. IV / Pt. V) (The Tain EP)

Thick As A Brick (Thick As A Brick)

Dogs (Animals)

Echoes (At The BBC)

Atom Heart Mother (Atom Heart Mother)

Echoes (Meddle)

My Favorite Things (Live At The Village Vanguard Again!)

Mr. P.C. (The Paris Concert)

Isis (The Best Of Shakti)

Eyes Of The World (Without a Net)

Voodoo Chile (Electric Ladyland)

Dazed And Confused (BBC Sessions)

Karn Evil 9 (Brain Salad…

…to tell me who the singer is on the LP that plays during the opening credits of the Hans Petter Moland movie "Secondløitnanten" (English titles: The Last Lieutenant, The Second Lieutenant).

It's a Norwegian movie set during WWII. The movie opens with an old retired Naval officer playing a LP on his record player. A womans voice wafts over the air, singing a plaintive song, presumably in Norwegian, accompanied only by a piano. Her voice is haunting. The song seems nostalgic. The LP is scratchy. I am madly in love…

The song fades away as the opening credits come to…

It's snowing here in Portland and I can't go to work today. Freak weather. Looks like a day for yet more music. I am also officially addicted to Meat Is Murder (The Smiths' album). I'd never paid much attention to Smiths'/Morrisey's lyrics before. The other day I pulled the CD insert from Meat Is Murder and started reading.

It blew me away. Things take on new meanings in the most fascinating ways. I can't ever look at Morrisey in the same way again.

meat is murder

I'm chuffed because I finally got my Lily Allen album last night. I'm not crazy about ska-pop, but there's a cheekiness about her songs that is way too much fun. And her fake accent… ha ha. How can you not like someone who sings "see you messed up my men'al health", eh? "Knock 'em Out" is hilarious and check out the videos for "Smile" and "LDN".

I went to see Children Of Men yesterday and loved it. The plot is amorphous enough. The acting is competent enough. And the music… it absolutely rocked! On top of that, the movie is…

I spent my lunch hour pitting two of my favourite musicians against each other in the Sinister Song Sweepstakes. Here are the contestants:

The Police (Miss Gradenko & Mother)
v/s
Tom Waits (What's He Building? & Poor Edward)

I think Tom Waits has a bit of an unfair advantage because of his deadpan, paranoid delivery on What's He Building? (I'll tell you one thing - he's not building a playhouse for the children).

But then again, I think Miss Gradenko exudes a sense of real menace that is heightened by Sting's understated delivery (You've been letting your feelings show… Are…

iTunes is evil. EVIL. Stupid. Dumb. And Evil.

A bit of background…
My mp3 collection is a well-organised affair. About 450 albums lovingly ripped from CDs over the years. Every artist has a directory, with albums as sub-directories, and within each album directory, each mp3 track is named with the track number and title. Then I create a winamp playlist for each album and all the playlists are carefully arranged in my start menu so that I can play any album with a couple of clicks. I don't listen to singles much… more of an album guy. My cataloguing system…

I'm finding it incredibly difficult to stop listening to Neil Young's Living With War. This album is almost parasitic in nature. You listen to it casually and you notice a catchy tune or two but nothing too exciting. Then on the second and third listening you hear a few phrases here and there that tickle your interest enough to give it "one more listen" and from there on it just keeps gnawing away at any resistance you might have. We are the borg!

I think if I bang my head against the wall for a few hours, I may get…