over the last few years I've developed a real love for Charles Mingus. I started trying to get into Jazz by listening to Miles Davis but it was only when I picked up Mingus Ah Um that I started to really get it. Anyone else of the same opinion might be interested to know that he's BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week this week. There's 5 episodes, each an hour long, all available to listen to for 7 days afterwards via the website. Can't wait to learn a bit more about him.

With the new functionality of last.fm, I am now finally able to clear out my loved tracks. A quick glance showed that I'd built up 25 pages of them over the last 4 years and I knew that in practice I was skipping the vast majority of them whenever i tried to play my loved tracks radio. You know how it is, times moves on, your tastes change, and suddenlyApparat starts to sound quite dated but you can't get enough of Justus Kohncke. There's also the creeping realisation that even though you thought you knew your own mind,…

so it's almost my birthday and the following saturday (annoyingly the last night in which the english public can smoke in clubs, but you can't have everything) I have to choose between the following for my birthday escapades:

Nathan Gregory Wilkins, Thomas Bullock of rub n tug, Richard Norris of beyond the wizard's sleeve and a mountain of one, all djing, at cable street studios. This is free and we've e-mailed for guestlist while we make up our minds.

Most tempting though is justus kohncke djing at the scala, in the allez-allez room. were he playing live,…

Great podcast from Alexander Robotnick over at Pig magazine (the italian equivalent of Dazed and Confused - I've been reading it to try to improve my italian was is rather ironic given most of the interviews were probably conducted in English anyway). You can find it here - just scroll down the page. It's from 2006 but since most italo is 20 years old that doesn't exactly matter now does it? see you all down the front at Plastic People. I'm going to buy some spangly new earrings especially….

This blog has posted songs that Daft Punk have sampled or re-recorded tunes from to use in their own works. It makes for a peculiar listen. Part of me feels disappointed that they didn't actually write such great tunes. Part of me feels the same wonder that you do if you're shown how a magic trick works - because it doesn't actually matter so much that Daft Punk (who are the ultimate faceless musicians) didn't actually write them as they're still great tunes, and Daft Punk have definitely improved on the originals. But I still feel peculiar about it.

I…

Not a great surprise, because I give my mum a list and links to the relevant pages on amazon and Presto Classical, but I'm still very happy with my christmas presents as I received everything I asked for. These were Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa with 'Fratres' played by Keith Jarrett (among others), Tabula rasa (it didn't occur to me that I had asked for two CDs called Tabula Rasa but it certainly confused my mum), Bartok's string quartets, yet more Brahms and some Saint Saens, Klick and Gesamtkunstwerk. I also received the Kraftwerk Minimum-Maximum DVD so…

Built To Spill are finally playing the UK again. I've been waiting 8 years to see them and you can see from my charts how much I love them.

I'm in the office on my own so I think I'll just spend the whole day listening to the tracks on their myspace page.

George Demure fans (all 85 of them on Last.fm) will delight in his Demure's Diaries - Chapter 1 mix from the Allez Allez club website. I've never actually been to the club night per se, but have seen the boys djing at other events, and they're more often than not the highlight (yes I mean you, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem).

The mix contains tracks by suicide, the Beach Boys, jimi hendrix, twisted charm, billy ocean and the andrews sisters among others, so can safely be labelled 'eclectic'.

I'd play it at a party if…

As a christmas present to myself, I've become an einsturzende neubauten supporter. I check their website quite regularly and they said they desperately need more supporters to be able to finish recording the new album, and they've even made a silly recruitment video to help their cause, so how could I not? I doubt I'll ever get around to watching the hours and hours of webcast studio sessions, especially as I only have broadband at work, but I'm rather looking forward to the exclusive CD, and the thought that my favourite germans won't starve this christmas.

If you're interested in queer culture, or just curious records from the past, check out this information, and mp3s from, the short-lived Camp Records. 'I'm So Wet' has to be heard to be believed.

There was a compilation of gay music titled 'From The Closet to the Charts' released earlier this year but that, I believe, focussed more on songs that somehow slipped through the net (see this review) - explicitly homosexual B-sides to more sedate A-sides, and dubious lyrics in more mainstream songs that somehow escaped attention.

However, the songs on Camp Records are as subtle as Julian Clary.…