My music - #1

Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, writers of last year's astonishing Believer and now on their cover's record a similarly astounding cover of Joy Division's Love will Tear us Apart.

First post in far too long - and the start of a regular series. Many of my friends will remember the previous Downloads emails I used to send round detailing my latest discoveries from the world of p2p music. Well, a few years on, I'm still going crazy for online tunes, using it as a try before I buy service and my use of Soulseek has been added to by many excellent mp3 blogs such as TAPE, 20JazzFunkGreats and the Stypod (courtesy of the excellent Stylus Magazine). There's also the excellent mp3 blog aggregator, The Hype Machine - which provides you with the latest from hundreds of free download sites.

So as before, here's the 24 tracks that currently make up my playlist. As new tracks come along I remove the old based on popularity and put new ones on. When all 24 are changed, I'll post the second thrilling installment. If any of you just can't contain your excitement then of there's always my last.fm page.


1. Spoon - I Could See the Dude
2. Susanna & The Magical Orchestra - Love Will Tear Us Apart
3. Low - The Great Destroyer - Death Of A Salesman
4. The Shins - New Slang
5. Ozo - Anambra
6. The Knife - We share our mother's health
7. The Knife - We share our mothers health (Radioslave remix)
8. Trentemoller - Take Me Into Your Skin
9. Trentemoller - The Very Last Resort
10. Kaito - The Universe
11. Lifelike & Kris Menace - Discopolis
12. Pinch - Qawwali VIP
13. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Lay And Love
14. M. Ward - Post-war
15. Luciano - Amelie (Remix 2)
16. Justus Kohncke - Shelter
17. Excepter - Rock Stepper
18. Talking Heads - Girlfriend is Better
19. The Fall - Leave the Capitol
20. The Fall - Lie Dream of a Casino Soul
21. Wire - 1 2 X U
22. Susanna and the Magical Orchestra - It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll)
23. Trentemoller - Miss You
24. Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet

More tomorrow. Here's a picture of Andalucia where my friend Pete is, currently climbing...



posted by Neil at 8:41:00 PM

The book

I need to start commiting some of the ideas I have about the book to this blog so I have things written down and hence don't forget things. I think the plot should be about someone trying to go clean. This doesn't just have to mean drugs - it could be anything ascetic. What would they gain from it? I think that the main character who is going clean is a thin person but has a fat friend who will get lots of the narrative too. Maybe the fat character could be undernourished in love, affection, charisma etc whereas the this one isn't. I need to set it during the late nineties and 9/11 should be used to put some transition in the plot in place. However given the new French arthouse film Invasion of the Barbarians also using that to twist the plot, I'll have to be careful not to ape that.

the below pic has nothing to do with the book. Strange Brew - a cult film I wouldn't mind seeing


posted by Neil at 6:46:00 PM

Bowling, novels and attachments

January as I think I've already said in this blog is a time a for me of taking stock of life and thinking about things and how they fit into my life - and how I want them to.

Still, I've not exactly been a hermit and as well as the White Stripes and seeing Anna on Thursday, I went on Saturday out for Mary's birthday.

First we went bowling at the Trocadero Centre. This was an awful venue, made fun by the alcohol, but ultimately depressing. The point is, the location with its dodgems, arcardes, cinemas and so on is proper mass market entertainment, a million miles away in feeling from the bars in Soho that are just a short walk away, but the whole experience has been shoddily put together designed with only money involved . Mass market entertainment shouldn't be so cynical and people deserve better.


While there had an interesting chat with an Aussie feller who as well as being an ex-journalist like myself had also written a number of novels, set mainly in the alternative history genre. He gave me a few interesting pointers but also said that I should find getting published easier as I'm planning to write literary fiction. It was interesting that many of the assumptions I've made about the whole business he seemed to back up. He also seemed interested in my idea of approaching Granta, McSweeney's etc before attempting to get a fully fledged publishing deal.


Finally, last night I met Zoe again. Last time I met her I was still a little cut up about the whole thing. Now post-Kirsty, it's all old news, and although I had difficultly thinking of much to say to her I can see more than ever that it was wrong and that it's bad to sublimate your personality to try and get in someones pants! I have to see someone that I can be myself round, as ultimately had she kept up the level of interest in me she displayed at first, I would've ended up being cruel to her.

Still, I must admit, I still want to look out for her. There's definitely something unhappy to her below her fluffy surface, and I hope she finds whatever she's looking for. I'm not sure she knows and her fear of angst is holding her back from doing a bit of self - examination that would ultimately make her happier. Still, the fact that like all of us at, the minute, she's facing the big 3-0 may make the difference. Good luck to the little green eyed, black haired, pear shaped pixie.
posted by Neil at 6:12:00 PM

Music is a product of the time in which it's made

Jacques Attalli had a point. Music can be prophecy - it can reveal the times in which you find yourself and the truth behind them. That's not to say in a Mystic Meg way and it's certainly not true of all music but sometimes it reveals where we're going culturally and sometimes politically too.

I thought of this while listening to an old Mp3 of Moby's Heaven, a deep house track he did before he started raiding Alan Lomax's collection for sample material. Deep house is music that could only be made in the late eighties to now. Even so, the stuff made now isn't the same - it doesn't have that beautific calm that was a million miles away from rock, rap or even folk. Deep house sounds like love, it sounds like your ego dissolving. Is it right for now? Well, Moodymann still sounds good but post 9/11, the idea of chilling to me seems blasphemous. The interesting point I guess, referring back to the prophecy was that music was moving in this direction before that fateful day.


Men of the moment, Franz Ferdinand. They teach us that dancing in rock music is back, and tucking your shirt in is the way forward :)
posted by Neil at 10:56:00 PM

Katie King

There was a program tonight on spiritualism, when I got back from Ben and Stu's. Katie King was supposedly a spirit, controlled by a medium Florence Cook in the 1870's and 80's. The photo above was taken by eminent Victorian scientist, William Crooks - who was taken in by the charade, possibly the programme revealed because he was in love with Katie. Guests at the seances that took place in Dalston complained of how he was 'inappropriate' with the ghost.

This lead me to website and this page. Borley Rectory in Essex was supposed to be Britain's Most Haunted house until it burnt down in 1939.
posted by Neil at 3:20:00 AM

Staying in January

I'm just not that bothered about going out at the minute. Apart from the fact I'm a wee bit skint, after Christmas and the fun had by all during the festive system, it seems like the right thing to do. A time of year to watch a lot of films, chat to friends and get back in the swing of things. I could go to a party tonight but really I think I'd rather sit with Stu and watch a movie. I'm confident enough now to know that there'll be plenty of other opportunities to go out during the rest of the year and many more fun times to be had.

Kirsty'll be there from Monday. Think I'll send her a text, wishing her luck
I don't think my staying in has a lot to do with her though. I don't feel the need to hide away like after Zoe. In fact, there seems to be a few interesting things on the horizon anyway, although it's not worth committing them to a blog.
So what else at this pensive, nascent time of year?

Morvern Callar is an excellent film and a great adaptation of the book. I wasn't sure how they were going to handle it but she rings true and is as sexy as she was on the page. What is about the enigmatic ones I like? Maybe it's just because it's how I like to be.

One final thing. The book. I have another idea. The main character should be fat. Not sure why, maybe because it means I can put stuff in about food and also exercise. The two are certainly worth examining. I think the plot will come last after all of the feelings I've been getting about motifs, areas and so on...
posted by Neil at 6:01:00 PM

First post in just over a year, and what a year it's been (again). Good one on the whole and another one where there was a definite event that changed the course you were taking. Here now in Queen's Park with Frank (the only one up) just before midnight on a wet Thursday in January. Natalie, Sylvia and Dirty Derek are all in bed.

It's a shame it didn't work with Anna. It would've been nice to have her here, particularly as a friend, but we're still cool with each other and I like my life here. It's been an eventful majority of this year - after April that I've met a lot of good people and had plenty of fun. Things seem to be more than OK. I want to start writing again and this seemed like an informal low pressure way of starting.


To end I have to choose an image, like the bookmarks I use selected from flyers and other such ephemera. I choose Peter Saville, which the Design Museum of whose work I saw just a few weeks after I returned to the capital.
posted by Neil at 11:48:00 PM