Language is leaving me..
1:40 pm Monday, 18 August, 2008
Monday evening finds me sat in the James Squire Brewhouse. It’s been a good, quiet day.
I spent most of the afternoon in an internet cafe faffing around online. I was feeling behind on well everything and so I took the chance to sit down and to read the news and to just have a chance to browse through some stuff. It was exactly what I needed though I did none of the planning I really should have been doing.
Last night I met up with Leanne for drinks. We had worked together for about a year going on three years ago and so there was a lot to catchup on. She brought Marni and Grace along. Marni I knew from London (she stole my Guinness the first time we met, also she’s gorgeous and a Dylan fan!) and I’m sure I’d met Grace somewhere before. Anyway it turned into a 2am finish and was a most excellent evening. We started off in a new pub which sold only microbrewery stuff and in this case had an excellent selection of Little Creatures beers so there was a good few of them. It started off tame enough but quickly descended into the same as the olden days. Good times! It was a most excellent night and really helped clear the rainclouds hanging over my head
So a very quiet morning today! I lazed around in bed reading for a couple of hours before heading out to face the world. I did buy a newspaper, the first in a while and well I found the net cafe shortly after that so it was after 9pm before I actually read through the feckin thing. I bought a copy of The Age. I really didn’t know what I wanted other than a newspaper but it was the only one which didn’t lead with news of Australian athletes in Beijing but led with Phelps. Now I have a lot of complaints about the Aussie news coverage of the Olympics, but I can sum it pretty easily. It doesn’t get reported unless there is an Australian involved. It’s really quite shocking. Now of course the Aussie press is going to report on their teams efforts but they simply don’t seem to report on anyone else. Not even the hour long evening news shows will do a round up of Olympic news. It took Phelps winning his third medal before he got mentioned on the live coverage. Now it seems to be pretty clear to me that Phelps is *the* story of the Olympics’ and to just not cover him seems mad. There has been a little more as he swam towards his last three medals but even then it was secondary to any Aussie winning a medal (sometimes any Aussie not winning a medal). So when I was picking a paper to catchup, I simply went for the one covering the story.
Now I remember watching the last two Olympics’ and I remember watching bits of the ones before then and of course the Irish and the British and the American channels cover the national teams but none did it at the expense of other coverage. I’ve only really gotten any other news when I’ve had brief moments online and hit BBC News. So poor going there Australia!
So yes Phelps. I recall watching him in amazement in Athens and I don’t think there was a moment where I thought he wouldn’t get all 8 medals this time around. The man’s something else.
Other stuff, I went to another microbrewy on Saturday evening. They are quite big here in Victoria and this bar (Mama Parma’s) only serves local beers. So a decent selection on tap and in bottles. Handily when I asked for something dark they quickly offered a taste of everything (I love pubs that do that) and I tried a few. It was a quiet evening when I arrived and shortly after I ordered some food (excellent food too), they put on Achtung Baby and let it play the whole way through. So top marks for food, for beer and for music!
I finished off George Pelecanons The Night Gardner just before leaving Tuross and that was decent. I shall make an effort to read more of his and collect ‘em up when I have book shelves again. Four books done since I got onto the bus to Melbourne. First was Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves which was pretty good but really suffered with his constant need to date it to 1996. Then there were two James Lee Burkes Purple Cane Road and Cimarron Rose and both were pretty good. Today was Robert Crais’ The Two Minute Rule which I had read before (boo) but was silly fun. Next up is Richard Price’s Freedom Land which I’m looking forward getting into tonight.
Music wise I’m very excited by a lot of things. Firstly but I’m saving it for a walk over the next couple of days, the new Okkervil River album; The Stand Ins. Their last album; The Stage Names was one of my favourite albums of last year and I’m very much looking forward to taking a listen to this. I’m saving it for now!
I’m also very excited by having had a good net connection today and filling a lot of holes in my collection. That is my collection of cheese. I haven’t quite added a whole chunk of one-hit wonders but it’s close. I was amazed when I heard somewhere playing Babylon Zoo’s Spaceman a few days ago and just now as I went to the bar to order they were playing Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn. So lots of random stuff from across the board. I suspect there’s quite an odd playlist to come out of it sometime soon! Anyone remember Dario G’s Sunchyme? There’s an excellent (and sticking with the theme, odd) cover of The Ting Tings’ That’s Not My Name by Dizzee Rascal from a recent Live Lounge. Next to this is Dolly Parton’s Jolene so like I say it’s fairly across the board…
So what else have I got. Well lets see, I dunno.
Ah yes I found out what that annoying iTunes popup was. I had changed some settings in Quicksilver to try and take advantage of some excellent features that I underuse and it was showing the artwork, not iTunes. Sorted now. A quick google and it was all resolved, what did we ever do before google? (Well actually I mainly infoseek’ed as I recall)
Ah yes, some photos up. I have a few more to post and then I’m going to spend a day or two walking Melbourne and taking some shots. Architecturally it’s way more interesting than Sydney and of course I love trams. It also seems to have a little bit more of what I’ll call (for lack of not knowing better), street culture. There are lots of interesting stickers and graffiti around. So that should cover a day or two somewhere. Other than that, I dunno. I’ll check out Southbank and do a good bit of wandering around St. Kilda’s.
In other impressions of Melbourne, it’s got much more of a pub culture than anywhere else I’ve been in Oz so far. Lots of very different interesting pubs all over the place and a much greater selection of beers than I’ve seen in a long time (and not just from the microbrews). So that’s good, I suspect a chunk of reading during some afternoons or evenings over the next few days (possibly weeks).
Exceptionally oddly to turn right here, you have to turn from the leftmost lane. Odd odd odd.
Tomorrow evening Leanne is having me over for dinner (more homecooked food!) and a tour of her area of the bay.
Aside, I’ve just watched Usain Bolt run in the 200M heat and he plainly just stops running about halfway through and has a nice little jog to the finish line and still wins the thing while setting a great time. Phelps is certainly *the* story, but there are a few more here too!
Oh yes I’m now over 5 months on the road and I’m halfway through my planned trip. It’s been an interesting ride to date!
Finally, here from a couple of weeks in draft are some thoughts on Sigur Ros.
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Alright it’s time for more disjointed ramblings on Sigur Ros. You may not want to read this. I’m about halfway through and as usual realising that I don’t know how to really talk about music and I’m loosing the plot…
It has been in the back of my mind for a while that I have not really blogged anything about the latest Sigur Ros album; Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust and there’s a reason for that. I’m not going to say that I don’t like it because that would be plainly untrue but…
So I had no idea it was coming out. Back a couple of months ago my sister forwarded me a link from Kottke saying the album was out and while that sat in my inbox I saw on a number of my feeds excited postings. After getting Hvarf-Heim and Heima towards the tail end of last year I thought we’d be waiting another while. But no, it was to be released a mere three weeks later. So two things were quickly done, an email was sent to request that said sister or my mother order me the deluxe edition and look after it till I got back and then I went and downloaded the first track made available; Gobbledigook.
And my first impressions I have to admit were not good. I suspect my first thought was “What the fuck is this lalalalala shit?” I mean it was clearly Sigur Ros but it was like Sigur Ros Light. Also the name…you could understand it and that rang warning bells. I now know the story behind it and it’s amusing but then, well like I say warning bells. Anyway I figured it was one track and besides it kinda grew on me after a few more listens.
Then a couple of days after that, still two weeks or so before the release date, the album went online for streaming and of course a torrent was available. So I jumped at it and I listened to the album and not a single track stood out for me. It was Sigur Ros but at the same time it wasn’t. There was something missing. In a very unusual move for me, I left the album alone. I didn’t listen to it very much. I’d dip in every now and again but I didn’t really listen to it.
So towards the end of this week I figured that I should really take another few rounds through it before the show. And it still doesn’t quite work for me. It was after the show last night that I came to a few conclusions.
- There is a definite and now very obvious progression within Sigur Ros over the past 11 years. Von is rough. It’s clearly laying the groundwork for the band that Sigur Ros would be come with the next album; Ágætis byrjun. It’s very much grown out of Von and instead of being the difficult second album it takes all of the potential within Von and moulds it into something new and something perfect.
Third album () (commonly referred to as “The Untitled Album” or “Brackets”) takes the sucess and the confidence that came with the release of Ágætis byrjun and tops it up just a little bit more.
Fourth album Takk is a little bit all over the place. It’s, to my mind, disjointed. It doesn’t really work as an album for me. It works as tracks but I don’t feel that it flows as an album. It’s different too. It’s again more confident. Individually tracks are glorious but as an album it just does not hang as well together.
In hindsight Takk is very clearly a bridge between the prog-rock of () and the pop-rock of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust and while I do quite like the pop-rock, I’d much rather my prog back….please?
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22.48 Melbourne Australia Monday August 18th
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