Untravelling

So, I'm back in the motherland. Fittingly, it seems to be overcast, chilly and raining, a kind of pathetic fallacy describing my return from the hot, beautiful scenes of southern Spain. As much as I liked the weather and surroundings, however, it is good to be back. After a week I have to say I was taking a little time to entertain the idea of getting a little villa and moving somewhere freer and of a more pleasing climate - but come the ten day mark, I had come back round to my more constant state of mind; that England is where I should be.

Predictably, i did not come through on my promise to post anything (save a brief gloat) whilst away, although I do have a couple of things I intend to write about - just not yet. I'm very tired, and have what is now medically know as 'EasyJet Ache' in my lower back. In the absence of these writings, I have a few things to say about what went on whilst I was gallivanting.

Firstly, the Ashes. We won them! Yes, yes, and I watched the spectacle in a bar in the small town of Competa. This was an experience entirely in contrast to the one I had in 2005. Firstly, there were approximately 3 people in the bar who gave even the smallest semblance of a fuck about what was going on some one thousand miles away in South-East London. Secondly, I wasn't with a whooping gaggle of friends, jeering at Australians. Thirdly, the winning moments were not swiftly followed by a drunken run to Tesco to purchase cava, and spray it on the patrons of our favourite pub. On the plus side though, I didn't have to go to work the next morning. The elation and excitement was somewhat subdued this time around, although it was still a buzz, and a great day.

Secondly, Chelsea have had a solid start to the new Premier League season (we can forget about conceding first to Hull and Sunderland now, can't we...), and Liverpool, well, haven't. Ben Mahon will be hearing about this. I won't say anything about Manchester United just yet, as the Blues are playing Burnley (or 'Hull2009') this weekend. I'm sure we'll put a stop to their giant killing ambitions though.

I'm sure most people who read this don't really care for sport, so I'll try to finish with something a little more appealing.

In fact, I don't think I will. Only really because I can't think of anything else to write now. So instead, here are some trailers for what is coming up on The Beames Report in the next couple of weeks:

Picasso, fuck off hills and an accordionist playing The Birdy Song in Malaga; the fact I'm 25 in eight days; two great books and one shit book etc etc etc.

db

P.S. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm tired and can't be bothered to put them in. Go on Google images, type in random words from the above text and find your own bloody pictures. Sometimes it feels like I do all the work around here.

Eye Candy

I´m not going to rub it in, but at the moment, this is [save some netting] pretty much the view from my bedroom window. It`s not that bad really. This isn`t really a proper entry, just a bit of a gloat I suppose. It`s quite nice to be hot and active. Still, I`m having to go on a bit of a mission tomorrow in hope of finding somewhere to watch the Chelsea match. And these Spanish keyboards are absolutely fucking retarded. All the Alt and Shift shortcuts are completely different, and seemingly random too - they change from programme to programme, hell, even between websites, and some do utterly different things even if you change nothing and try it twice in a row. Mental. Still, I managed to get the picture to upload [after much head-scratching], so I`m still able to make you click on it for high quality and go:

ner ner ne-ner ner [exclaimation point - I still can`t work out how to do that one]

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Spain In The Arse

Tomorrow, I head to Spain. I'm going on my first proper holiday for God knows how long. I've loaded up my iPod with stuff to listen to - new things that I want to check out, older stuff that's been on the list for ages, waiting to be processed. Whilst I'm there I will have the (wonderful, wonderful) internet, so I'm planning to try and write at least a couple of reviews or articles. Who knows, maybe the beautiful weather and relaxed rural atmosphere will make me slightly less brash, cynical, dramatic and sensationalist.

Or I might just be grumpy because I'm hot. Or I might just lounge all day, dipping in and out of the pool. Or might just get exceptionally drunk on cheap red wine.

Oh, who am I kidding?

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Harry Patch (In Memory Of)

Allow me to describe my day so far. I was woken slightly earlier than usual by a text message (NP, NP) that contained good news. Not fazed by losing an hour’s sleep, I got up and journeyed to the shop to pick up a few supplies. Coffee ensued, before retiring to my room to check the internets. I was greeted by the RSS headline:

“Radiohead release new song as download”

Oh god. Here we go again.

I’ve learnt not to try and guess what Radiohead are going to do next, as whatever I imagine always ends up wrong and worse than what they come out with. This song is in memory of recently deceased last-standing World War One trench veteran, Harry Patch.

There are a few people I know that are as painfully in love with Radiohead as I am (Jesus, what an emo), and today I had the good fortune of listening to the new song with one of them. What came out of the following conversation was essentially this:

a) What lovely string parts and movements there were
b) How fitting a tribute it was
c) It doesn’t alienate anyone

The last one was the main thing really. If you’re saluting a man that was 111 when he passed away, it’s probably not appropriate to record a noisy electronic, track. Whilst the strings and falsetto make for a beautiful tribute, they also make the track much more accessible than most things recorded today. This piece of music could be enjoyed equally by a 15 year old or an 80 year old.

This is a kind of pointless entry, but what the hell. Any way I can profess my love for the ‘Head is fine with me. Radiohead are my ‘Girl Power.’ Plus, I’d made the banner at the top, and thought it was pretty cool. Hit it for the higher quality version.

Check out my Photoshop skillz. Then check out Harry Patch. It’s well worth a quid.

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Set Lasers to 'Stun'

If you’ve heard the furore today about Sony’s Raygun promotional video, and not taken the time to check it out, I really recommend you do. Despite the fact they ripped it from the net when they realised the Twitterverse was tearing it apart and chuckling at its innards, someone was sharp enough to chuck up an alternate version. Although it’s surely only a matter of time until this too is blocked by Sony, I’m sure it’ll be accessible somewhere on the internet. Remember, Google is your friend.

Raygun start with an often-heard comment from first-album musicians, about how their record is a culmination of all their lives and effort over the past X years (in this case, eight). This is by no means original, but it is a very valid point, and one that a great deal of musicians will bring up in early interviews. At this point, I was beginning to wonder if all the piss-takery might have been a bit overblown. Fear not. It wasn’t.

The singer (hereafter referred to as The Daft Eyeliner) haphazardly describes their sound as:

“Iggy Pop, James Brown, David Bowie and Shirley Bassey in a lift.”

Quite what a lift has to do with it, I’ve no idea. Infact, if James Brown was stuck in a lift, I imagine he’d be pretty pissed off. If he wasn’t so dead, anyway. I tried to work my way through the equation, and didn’t really manage to get close to an answer. I did work out what the answer wasn’t, however. Pop + Brown + Bowie + Bassey does not = Raygun. My best guess is that it in fact equals ‘Pobrobowsey’. And that’s not even a real thing. The worst thing about this though, is that it can’t really be heard anywhere in the music. I know it’s nice to talk about all the musicians you love, but there is no point taking four legends in their fields and claiming your music is a mixture of their styles. Especially when what you actually play is dull disco-pop, with a bit of middle-of-the-road indie chucked in for good measure. It would have been more accurate to describe it as:

“Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and The Fratellis in a basement. In Stevenage. Having a sex-fight. In a bad way.”

The Daft Eyeliner (hereafter referred to as TDE) then goes on to explain their complex writing methods. Shock horror – they make “some beats” then get together and (unless I’m misunderstanding here) LISTEN TO THEM AND PLAY STUFF. I know what you’re thinking. How is it possible that I’m single? It’s as much as mystery to me, I assure you. But seriously folks, it’s hardly revolutionary, is it? I’ve talked to tens, if not hundreds of musicians about this kind of thing, and there are some that are constantly guilty of trying to make everything seem more intricate and magical than it really is. If you make a drum beat and jam to it, that’s cool bro; just don’t pretend you’re a wizard, conjuring funk out of thin air. And, wait a minute - did he just use the phrase ‘Psychedelia Smith’? Fuuuuuuuuuuuck. What a ginormous tool.

The bit that really turns you against TDE (hereafter referred to as TW@) is when he talks about being unemployed:

“I was at the job centre, trying to get a job in music, and they couldn’t even give me a job in one of the record stores! So I was doing these admin roles and feeling really shit about life.”

I don’t have to explain that really, do I? Other than to say, he just went from being someone that was fun to laugh at, to an utter, utter prick. A dwad, if you will.

As the video goes on, we get snippets of some of their songs, which I’m presuming are their better ones. They also give us a tantalising glimpse into what they’re about. Actually, maybe tantalising isn’t the word. In fact, no, it definitely isn’t. My personal favourite explanation of a song’s meaning is when one of the guitarists (or The Bearded Flopper, as he shall now be known) more or less tells us that their song ‘Can’t Say No’ is about the ‘Maybe’ button you can respond to facebook events with. Deep.

I feel like I may have been a little unfair on Raygun. I mean, if you’re just getting your first album released, and you’ve made a music video and done countless live shows, and someone points a camera at you and talks to you about your music, then of course you’re going to try to be interesting, different and funny. And if you’re not that experienced at doing this, it’s not beyond comprehension that, after some editing, you’re going to come out of the whole thing looking like a bit of a prick. The culprits here are most probably the people who put the video on the net in the first place, without realising that instead of being a cool, down-with-the-kids way of promoting your hip new band; it was in fact an embarrassing pile of shite.

So, in an amazing end of blog turn-turtle, I’m going to say best of luck to Raygun, and hopefully next time I hear of you, it’ll be in a better light. Maybe I’ll try and catch a live show and see if your real performance floats my boat.

Actually, you used the phrase ‘Psychedelia Smith’.

Yeah, sorry, you’re bell ends.

db

The State of Things

So, Pop music is rubbish isn’t it? Nowhere near as good as it was in the 50s, 60s or 70s. Actually, now the 80s has become cool for the first time since, well, the 80s, we can add it to the list. Not long now, I assume, till Vanilla Ice and PJ & Duncan join the likes of The Human League, Wham! and Rick Astley in the cool box. Time, it seems, is the best P.R. But the noughties? You only have to ask an out of touch, aging rocker to find out that music is dead, man. Worryingly though, a great deal of young people seem to be holding the same views. Whilst I’m sure a lot of this is due to people inexplicably still paying attention to the words spouting pathetically out of Paul Weller’s flappy little mouth, I’m starting to think that some far younger people have come to this conclusion on their own (i.e. without anyone telling them what to think).

In short, there is a load of great music out there, and contrary to what a lot of people claim, you don’t have to look that hard to find it. The rise of the producer has lead to some of the most creative chart music that has ever been, err, produced – listen to anything by Timbaland, Kanye, The Neptunes (and no, Pharrell is not hot – the fact that so many women find him so attractive is conclusive proof that women are obsessed with fame and money), Xenomania or Future Cut and tell me they aren’t geniuses.

Xenomania is the team behind most of Girls Aloud’s catalogue, and if you’ve taken the time to listen to 2005’s Chemistry you’ll probably have realised that it’s better than most rock records of this decade, and almost all of this shite that people keep referring to as ‘Indie’. Actually, while we’re at it, ‘Electro’ too – both of these terms were around in the 90s, and they meant decidedly different things. It’s not dissimilar from the way ‘R&B’ has come to mean ‘wank’, when it formally described beautiful, soulful music. Rhythm and Blues no less. Oh, and don’t bother telling me I’m a hypocrite, I’m all too aware of that already.

ANYWAY, I think a lot of people shun Pop because it seems the stars are just puppets, with the whole thing geared towards money. In reality, I don’t think it really matters where the music comes from, and the fact that there are now teams of people who work on every aspect of an act is great. The performer is only one part of a huge machine. It’s just too easy to criticise. People forget that Elvis (that song always makes me shiver) never wrote a song. Aretha Franklin never wrote a lyric. Almost every Motown record was a product of the mechanical production method, and look at how they’re all looked back upon.

The thing I think a great deal of people forget is that when we browse the back catalogue of music, it has been vetted for us. Do you really think that our children will be browsing records in 20 years time and come across a Chico CD? No. He will, thankfully, have been forgotten. There have been millions of Chicos throughout music’s chequered history, and they don’t make it this far. Pink Floyd made it this far. The Velvet Underground. ABBA. These records keep selling because they are timeless, and so when we look through the catalogue, we are presented with the cream of the crop. We browse with rose-tinted glasses. I mean, come on, if we look at today’s scene in that way, it’s pretty bloody rich. I’m not saying don’t listen to old music, hell that would be ridiculous, I’m just saying look at the whole picture.

So next time someone tells you that music has gone to the dogs, sit them down, tell them to stop worrying about being branded a ‘conformist’ (surely the most offensive ‘C’ word nowadays) and play them some Justin Timberlake. Ram a bit of Love Machine into their ears (anag.). And if they still don’t get it, send them home with a copy of the brand-spanking-new Noah and the Whale album.

Because it’s really, really, fucking good.

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