Grinding down the same pathways day after day sets the mind, defines it and grinds it into a submission. It's hard to believe anything exists outside that. As the fibres our thoughts weave across deaden, their properties are stabilised and no branching off is possible. I've reached a point where it's impossible to conceive of any branching off taking place, ever.

( A few of my thoughts about The One AM Radio - This Too Will Pass )

And, back to "You Can Still Run," when he refers to the situation as a "tightening knot", this too is exact. With a week to go 'til exams, that is where I am, at the centre of a tightening knot. I quite fancy being one of his characters; happy in a blissful, broken, sleepy, sad way. I only fear that I lack their resolve, or their creator's wisdom.

Oh no!
Why? gig in Nottingham + my birthday = Yowzers!

May as well get my ticket now because I know where I'll be.

Long ago in the bronze age, unnamed and forgotten ancestors sat by the stone in their sacred place and devised among themselves the first end of year round-up, a ceremony which, it is thought, sounded not unlike a foot-and-mouth cull, and may have resulted in the loss of hundreds of potential lineages of early man. This sent our species through a population bottleneck: colour blindness and male baldness may never have existed but for end of year lists.

So, I have proven, such things are EVIL and I won't be dabbling with them. I only end up overloading mine with stuff from the end of the year. For anything before May I rely on other people's end-of-years to jog my memory, and so on. It's all crap. And Radiohead always win. Enough! I say.

So instead, I'll write a few shorter updates over the next few weeks, talking about music I've cared deeply for over the last year. Like so many children, I nourish them with my praise and send them off into the world. And like young people everywhere, these fledgling talents get savagely mauled by bears (music critics), swallow jamjars (crack cocaine) and die in destitution (second album slump followed by split) before their glorious resurrection (side project hits it big or band-member dies causing renewed interest and incomplete, mediocre reformation, charring cherished memories beyond repair).

Over the last couple of months, Pony Up! have really annoyed me with their ridiculously catchy pop music. I originally intended to see them at the Social in October; a friend's friend's band was intended to support and I'd agreed a bit reluctantly to go along. But checking out the main act's myspace got me interested. Arriving at the Social that evening, I found the gig had been cancelled. And the european tour with it, apparently. I'd still really like to know what was going on!

In 2006, the four ladies from Montreal crafted a bright and chirpy album of guitars and girly choruses, and this is the album I downloaded, in lieu of being able to see them! They're reminiscent of Rilo Kiley, which is great, and Belle and Sebastian. Usually there is no faster way to turn me off a band than comparing them to Belle and Sebastian.

Haha! It has changed. My job here is done. The headlines make sense, the British people's right to sensible headlines has been upheld.

I'm all alone in the house. Alex departed yesterday, his mum can arrive like a bit of a hurricane but she's nice. I will be getting on a train later. Ali's birthday tomorrow. I am giving her a CD and a poster (signed!) from the Cowtown/Chops gig. She wouldn't particularly like Cowtown or Chops, I don't think, but it's signed, by a band! She may like that.

In other music, gig news, these guys are quite good and arriving in Nottingham in 2008!

Here's some nottingham slang I've learned of lately, for your education and general amusement:

Peng: Fit, buff, lush, good looking

Nesh: Cold, chilly, nippy

Chatty: Ugly, messy, ratty (antonym to peng)

Duck's Neck: A bottle of lemonade

How about that then? I'm not infinitely in touch with local Nottingham culture but I hope I take more interest than most of my fellow students who generally use, abuse and move on.

Pony Up gig was cancelled, I was disappointed but not too much. Their album sounds nice.

In the post recently; Beirut - The Flying Club Cup, Animal Collective - Feels, Comets On Fire - Blue Cathedral and Band of Horses - Everything All The Time. Of which, Animal Collective is excellent, Band of Horses is unopened, Beirut is on a second playthrough,  good-ish, opinion coming soon, and Comets On Fire is on now and freaking rocks! Why am I only hearing it now?

Seems I'm posting double time tonight. Taken from the blurb of the Bodega Social's website, on the subject of tomorrow night's band, Pony Up:

Laura Wills (vocals/keyboard) is the neighbour-girl you watched metamorphose from a heartbroken teen into a cynical sensualist of fully fledged femininity. Sarah K. Ruckus (vocals/guitar) is the hard candy that broke your teeth when you chewed instead of sucked. Lindsay Wills (drums/vocals) is your every secret misery and ecstasy at midnight with the lights out. And Lisa J. Smith (bass/vocals) is the perfidious lover who mends your heart by moonlight only to break it again over breakfast.

Freaking awesome. I especially love how in every review I read this band seems to be summed up in terms of some semen-stained sexual farce. Sure, all four members of the band may be female, but it's 2007! Surely that's not still a worthwhile gimmick. It's embarassing. Maybe if every one of their songs was about sex, maybe then it'd be fair, but they're not. I checked!

It's pathetic. Maybe every one of those blogs I've read quotes from is written by men, predominantly for men. But this is sloppy, lazy branding and it upsets me. Funnily, I was watching Father Ted tonight: "They ALL have lovely bottoms"

I posted a while back speculating that there might be a minor disaster on the horizon. Namely, a gig clash, between our Highsoc Halloween special featuring Tetsuo and the Ice Arena extravaganza starring the Arcade Fire. I'm not panicking, we'll get a turn-out and I've sold my ticket, I won't miss much at that arena show, it's not my scene. Tetsuo might be really special.

But what does rankle is the reaction I get from people I talk to about Tetsuo. Firstly, I sent out a facebook invitation, and one person said they didn't know what it was that I'd invited them to so they just clicked "maybe" and ignored it. Well thanks! I prefaced the thing with an explanation that if they could make it to the gig I think it might be kinda special. I included a brief description and a link to more info. It wasn't an old, fleeting, acquaintance, but a friend I see every few days. I hoped this person might have at least read my blurb!

And then later, talking to people I know are going to Arcade Fire, I get hit with an absurd sneer of the mainstream "But I've never heard of this band! And why is 'unpredictable' such a good thing?" (Followed by the oh-so-obnoxious) "You're not really selling it here". Indie music is notorious for being snobbish and I'm not guarded about that. But...

Surely an INDIE band like the Arcade Fire only exist because people like me went to see them in the first place, when we hadn't heard of them already? Surely they only exist because people like (Nottingham promoters) Dave, Andy, George and Johnny Scarr were there to give them chances and take risks, often losing money in the process? And finally, surely when my friends leave the ice arena on Wednesday night, the bits they'll talk about and tell people later will be the unscripted, UNEXPECTED parts!

So excuse me, if I rant and rave when people say they wish they'd seen the Arcade Fire before they got huge, back when they were doing the unexpected, playing amazing shows to 30 people, going outside into the street and making beautiful sounds. Because they wouldn't have gone to see them then! Because they hadn't heard of them then! In the last year I must have seen 10 gigs by obscure bands that blew my mind, and I didn't have to act fast to get tickets, I didn't have to strain to see from half a mile away.

So to end my senseless rant on a positive note, this is why I want to help with the promoting side of Highsoc. Not only to give Andy a hand, but also to get a feel for it, because I have nothing but respect for the DIY promoters in Nottingham, we wouldn't have a music scene without them, and someday, maybe not in Nottingham, but certainly sometime in the future I'd like to have a go at it myself, because what a music scene requires is for people to take risks.

Wednesday will be good, possibly special, and I wouldn't swap for 10 arena gigs!

Oh gee, this has been a costly exercise in buying CDs. I spent a little more of the cash I've earned than I planned, but I haven't been on indie-label store sites for such a long time!

Arrived from Make Mine Music:
Epic45 - May Your Heart Be The Map (Playing Nottingham for Highsoc on 5th October; beautiful gentle electronic/ambient album with strong countryside influence)
Library Tapes - Hostluft (Eery experimental recording, great use of piano, creaky noises and hissing static)
All Sides - All Sides EP (Interesting and surprising electronic album I've not listened to nearly enough yet)
Plus a couple of cheap splits/promos at a quid each I'm listening to now. They sound pretty good actually.


Then, following earlier disappointment, I tracked down a slightly expensive copy of Holy Fuck's debut LP. Hope this one exists/arrives. In the (also slightly expensive) process I stumbled across the new albums by Battles and LCD Soundsystems. By this point I feel out of control, not in a good way, like some kind of crazed organised crime hit-man.
Holy Fuck are amazing, by the way, they're making dance music, without laptops and fancy modern equipment, that really makes you want to jump around.

There's a sale on at Boomkat, so Helios' Eingya, which has been on my hitlist for some while. Plus albums by Porn Sword Tobacco and Pere Ubu. And I took a punt on an album by Takeshi Nishimoto, which proclaims itself to be pure acoustic guitar, nothing but, and sounds distinctly appetising.

Then I started listening to a couple of Okkervil River tracks I've had for a while. I had thought Okkervil River were a metal band (look at the cover of Black Sheep Boy for heaven's sake!) but when I checked them out I found them irresistible. Wonderfully phrased indie rock/pop. Without going too over the top, I don't feel too different from how I did when I discovered Neutral Milk Hotel. So Black Sheep Boy and The Stage Names are winging their way here from Jagjaguwar.


Finally, to Tomlab records based in Koln, who handle European distribution for Final Fantasy. I've been resisting downloading He Poos Clouds for a while. And on the back of his stunning glastonbury set, I also ordered Patrick Wolf's second album, The Wind in the Wires. He's growing on me, and my friend Chan tells me this one's better than his latest (The Magic Position).

I really don't look forward to once again being a student who really shouldn't visit record label sites. Altogether this cash should really be going towards housing next year. But the streets won't seem so bad with all my new tunes!