Thursday, January 27, 2005

Hello There [insert name here]!

Some of the ways that I've been addressed recently at work:

  • Ah, so you're Jim.
  • Oh, I expected you to be older.
  • Mr Jim-sir.
  • Is that Mr Jim?
  • You're not [awed whisper]Jim, are you?
Well, I assumed it was an awed whisper. Could have been a disgusted whisper, I suppose.

My new left-alone-in-the-office tic is drumming on the table. Added to the other eccentricities I've developed, I wouldn't be surprised to be carted away somewhere comfortable by the end of the week.

Music news: LCD Soundsystem are pretty good - quirky sense of humour, the guy sounds like The Fall's Mark E Smith but is actually from New York (so I presume he took lessons, as I doubt sounding like Mark E Smith comes naturally to-a many people-a), and it's all over the sparse mildly funky disco beats with particular emphasis being given to cow-bells, as is the style today.

The Bloc Party are also pretty good - I'm always surprised when I enjoy new music these days - although I suspect the album I've acquired also includes demos/b-sides interspersed, because there's a lot that is in the punk-funk mould (see Radio 4, LCD soundsystem, Franz Ferdinand, and all those other bands whose songs sound like 'Nananana-squeak-bang') and there's a lot that sounds it's not been produced, like the Libertines (except better).

That's just saved you 70p or whatever it is these days to buy the NME. You can pay me when you next see me.

6 comments:

  1. Oh I was about to buy NME at the union...then I saw it had Richie Manic on the front (is there really anything new to discuss on his disappearance?. The Manic Street Preachers fall in the same bracket as the Beautiful South. Grr!

    ReplyDelete
  2. He's missing? Why wasn't I told, preferably by blanket coverage in every culture section headlined 'The Pretty One (With All the Problems) From the Manics Goes Missing'?

    Poor Richie. No-one writes a polemically impenetrable single about the Holocaust quite like him, hence the complete lack of them in the ringtone charts, I suspect.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thinking about it, 'The Pretty One (With All the Problems)' sounds like the title of a great single. If only I could sing, play a music instrument and read and write music. I'll have to pass this one onto Jarvis Cocker - (Jarv? this one any good to you? Usual fee ok?)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, that sounds likely. You've actually developed a very unfortunate BO problem.

    Or you're about to kill someone.

    Damn, I didn't want to anger you. If I don't put up any posts for the next few days, could someone check up on me, just to make sure I'm not showing signs of Decompositional Odo(u)r? Please?

    ReplyDelete
  5. good guess. the first 13 songs were bloc party and the rest were pete doherty.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Woo. My ability to distinguish between to wildly divergent styles of music remains un-quest-ion-ed. Doherty should continue with the lack of production, perhaps even extending it to encompass lack of recording.

    Only joking Pete. In the blind taste test, you came out ok (although it did sometimes sound as though I could hear, in the background of the songs, the tiny rustle of a thesaurus being thumbed and the plaintive cough of someone who's swallowed a dictionary). Keep it up, lad.

    ReplyDelete