"this is not a love song" - angelou

"we can sit and talk all night, spectate and philosophise but there's no rehearsal this is the real thing. so lets just say that you got it wrong and this is not a love song"



the monkey bar was one of those places that just had to exist. by day a scratty cafe, by night host to an eclectic range of gigs and club nights. i have a strange range of happy memories of it - the gig i played there was enhanced by the singing of drunken dutch sailors, the dub night had an open african drumming circle in the upstairs room and there was psycho's.

every third thursday a weak comedian would compere an acoustic night. i saw a lot of these gigs, but the only one that is specifically memorable was seeing angelou.

now, as you may have noticed, if you give a girl a guitar i am weak around her, and if you give a pretty and talented girl a guitar i am literally putty. they sung a complete set of soul-shatteringly lovely songs, threw in the best cover of buckley's hallelujah i have ever heard and were funny and endearing between songs. holly even seemed really sorry for having to take money from me in return for a copy of their cd afterwards.
it was an evening of beauty and i walked home in a daze that night with autumn thinking about turning into winter around me.

"richard" - billy bragg

"how can he go on when noone answers the adverts in his mind?"



nadine baggott knows all about pentapeptides.
barry scott shouts about making pennies shiny.
carol vorderman knows all about loan sharks.

but none of them can compete with that "editor" from the advert in the late 90s whose conversational opening gambit "i get hundreds of letters about thrush" throws up far more questions than it can ever hope to answer.

"dhc" - the dance hall crashers

"the world's a mess some people always say. well you know they're right, but who am i to say? we keep on living and we take it all in stride 'cause if we worry too much we'll never stay alive. "


there are some bands who call themselves ska-punk because they have a horn player and a fondness for the offbeat. but one of the reasons i like the dance hall crashers is that they actually seem to know about ska. i hear vocal harmonies and techniques that i hear in the selector and the bodysnatchers, and im sure if i was more knowledgeable about the "real" ska of the sixties i could think of examples of those techniques being used then.

i generally hate songs that imply things will be ok if you just dance, hence my predominantly negative attitude towards disco. but this one is just so catchy.

"tide is high" - blondie

"it's not the things you do that tease and wound me bad, but it's the way you do the things you do to me"



whenever i listen to the best of blondie (the proper 1981 one, not any of the crummy later pretenders) i am always disappointed when this song comes on. im not even sure that i dont like it, i just know im impatient for "in the flesh" to kick in.

"j'aime pas l'amour" - olivia ruiz

"si tu crois me séduire ah ce que tu te goures. je suis sourde au désir et le désir rend sourd "



back when i had cable, and if noone else was around, i occasionally used to flick over to french-speaking channel tv5. far too often it was some news , or halfway through a tv movie or that thing about sailing, but if i was lucky the show acoustic would be on. the format was beautifully simple - set in a recording studio and artists would play a song, do a bit of an interview then do another song. then they would repeat the process for another artist, then it would all be over. i saw an eclectic variety of performances on this show, but my favourite one was seeing some cute alternative-folk girl with a heavily distorted guitar and some form of tuba in her band singing cute and funny sung "la tango de qui?" i know almost nothing about olivia ruiz except the songs on this album, but most of them are great.

"jungle music" - rico

"you must be cra-a-a-azy"


there was a time in the mid 90s when the world (at least the world i inhabited) was split between junglists and metallers. people like me who werent "cool" enough to really be into either pounding shouty dance music or pounding shouty rock music were irrelevant, but most everyone at least came down on one side or other of the divide.

it always amused me though how much of their terminology the junglists borrowed from the old ska scene. as they called each other rudeboys and roughnecks thinking they had made these terms up and only the most with-it people would know what they meant.

they must have been crazy

"tony's theme" - the pixies

"this is a song about a superhero named tony. it's called tony's theme"


fat tony runs a mediocre bar, but he runs a kickass quiz night. he knows his audience, and the questions are always easy enough that most people get a good score and feel good about themselves, but hard enough that there is a clear winner. he also plays indie disco classics whilst marking your papers. he never played this song though, despite my constant wishing that he would - the cheeky monkey

"my name is jonas" - weezer

"tell me what to do now this tank is dry, now this wheel is flat"


i literally cant remember the last time i listened to weezer, i dont mean caught their video on tv or heard them on the radio, which i'm sure has happened a few times, but actually sat down and listened to an album. its gotta be 10 years since pinkerton came out, so i reckon in the last 8 or 9 years it can only have happened a few times.


i remember when my school first got the internet. it would have been autumn of 1995. we had a teacher with some contacts and we were testing some kind of line that was pretty new at the time but i suspect is madly out of date by modern standards. everyone got an e-mail address and internet access, and like a typical internet newbie i threw myself into things. i signed up for pointless email lists (i got sent the weather in california 5 times a day, for example, and it took me forever to get off the thing that sent you sermons about star trek) and found many many ways to waste time online. i down loaded enough guitar tab to teach myself to play, i added my 2p to many discussion boards (including the early snon) and got hooked on the centre for the easily amused. im pretty certain it doesnt exist any more but at the time it was full of pointless things and links to more pointless things (oh to be able to find the enormous buttons of mild amusement again. it also had a board where you could sign up for an e-mail penpal.

i feel really guilty that i cant even remember the name of someone i corresponded with regularly for over a year, she deserves better than that for putting up with my angsty adolescent moaning for so long. if anyone reading this blog thinks im on some kind of self-absorbed downer they may find it hard to comprehend that im now a well-rounded individual having cast aside a lot of the stuff that made me such a twat in high school. in fairness, with hindsight at least 95% of everyone i knew in high school was a twat in some way or another, its an integral part of being that age isn't it.
a typical email from me at that time probably read
"hi ... blahblah ... no friends ... blahblah ... life is crap, maybe ill die ... blahblah ... some comment about music and/or pop culture designed to make me look quasi-cool in an isolated subcultural way ... blahblah ... me me memememe ... blahblah ... oh and how are you?"
and yet she still managed to be my friend (/pillar/pillow/therapist) for months. she even downloaded the complete tab to 2 weezer albums for me when they turned up the internet filter on the system to "re-he-he-ally safe" where any site that had a link to a site they had already blocked was blocked, even if that site was only blocked for linking to another site that was blocked for linking to a blocked site. maybe she saw something in me that was of worth, or maybe she was just scared to let me go in case i made a mess when i landed. either way, i owe her so much.
and i cant even remember her name

"the sidewinder sleeps tonight" - r.e.m.

"call me when you try to wake her"


at various times i have been convinced this fairly unintelligible lyric has been many things. ive known people convinced it was much stupider things ("i need a caterer" for example), but strangely for a song so prone to mondegreens it doesnt have an entry on kiss this guy . i'm not really that keen on this song - or anything on automatic for the people really since monster is a far superior album.


i was walking round the park on a chilly winters morning with my baby strapped to my chest, looking at the woodpeckers and squirrels (shouldnt they be hibernating?) humming this song for no real reason. we also saw one of those grey dogs that freak me out because they look like theyre made out of felt. there was one in the video for blue monday. dont pretend you dont know what im talking about.
[later addition - apparently its a weimaraner]

"where the wild roses grow" - chicks on speed

"on the second day i brought her a flower. she was more beautiful than any woman i'd seen"


there was something sensual about the cave and kylie version of this song. but the chicks on speed version is hauntingly terrifying. i'd never heard of chicks on speed until i saw we dont play guitars on mtv2 late one night and thought it was awesome. most of their other material that ive heard is kinda ok but the other standout track is this one. the gently nightmarish whisper of the vocal tone, the unplaceable wrongness of the production - its scary stuff.


it was dydd santes dwynwen yesterday and for various personal reasons that would only seem like excuse if i expounded on them i didnt buy my wife a flower. i must rectify that today.

"waiting" - the rentals

"i'm waiting with nothing to do. i'm waiting, just waiting on you"


a loser named greg sold me return of the rentals on cassette one lunchtime for 50p and a packet of nerds. fond as i am of nerds, with their ability to seem cool despite just being small oddly-shaped lumps of sugar, he clearly got the poor end of that deal because, whilst i would have had a total of maybe 15 minutes of pleasure from that pack of sweets and whatever i would have blown the 50p on, i have whiled away many many happy hours listening to this lo-fi newwave classic. i almost always sing along, usually with petra for some reason.


like most british people, there are some things about the way americans misuse the english language that annoy me more than others. one thats right up there on my list is using the verb-phrase "waiting on" to mean "waiting for". all right-thinking people know that waiting on someone means serving them food in a restaurant whilst waiting for someone means being in a place until they are also in that same place.

sometimes you wait for something in vain - but if it was truly worth waiting for it was worth the risk that in might never happen.
you have to know whether to give up and go home though

"not my idea" - garbage

"this is not my idea of a good time"



im a big fan of the novel the wrong boy by willy russell. sure some of the plot twists are just a little too far fetched - though many things in life just arent coincidences - but the characters are vivid and at times it has a feel of the philosphical novel about it - trying to find subtle artistic ways to expound ideas.
the idea that most stuck with me from the novel is the grandmother's insistance that she didnt want to have fun. fun is little but meaningless distraction from problems and never more than short term. what she wanted in her life was joy. a powerful, deep, meaningful undercurrent of joy in which problems can been seen in context and moved past, rather than trying to extend islands of joy out into a sea of despair - reclaiming them through hard work like holland.

i like to think that my idea of a good time is not rooted in fun but in joy

"pearl's cafe" - the specials

"its all a load of bollocks"


the first couple of times i heard this song i enjoyed it without really getting it, catching the chorus and kind of accepting that as the core of the song. it wasnt until several listens later that i realised what a sad tale jerry dammers had spun. firstly the sadness of compassion for someone whose life has been tough, then secondly the sadness of realising his girlfriend is a heartless bitch. and theres a bouncy keyboard solo. the release date of this song makes it almost exactly as old as me. things really dont change.


in finnic mythology a goddess called (i think) ilmatar is sleeping lonely in the middle of a vast ocean when a giant duck with shining eyes builds its nest upon her knees, laying two eggs. when ilmatar wakes up she knocks this nest over and the eggs spill and break, forming the earth and the rest of the universe from the pieces by doing so.
its all a load of bollocks.

"the jeep song" - the dresden dolls

"i try to see it in reverse. it makes the situation hundreds of times worse when i wonder if it makes you want to cry every time you see a light blue volvo driving by"


it still shocks me that the dresden dolls arent huge. maybe not pop huge, but certainly indie huge. theyre both scarily talented musicians, their songs are intense and beautiful, amanda is a good looking lady with an original look - surely thats the right set of ingredients and then some.

i woke up this morning with this song in my head and its still there 6 hours later. its a catchy beast - particularly the sweary bits.

there are some cars that i instantly associate with people - beat up old red fiat pandas with jack, for example - some with events - small blue fords with trying in vain to get a whole band and all their gear through carmarthenshire in one - and some with times in my life - any of the increasingly few occasions i see a morris marina will always remind me of my childhood when it was our family car.

i'm pretty certain noone associates me with a car - since i've never owned one and since my wife's estate is useful but unremarkable - but i wonder what people do associate me with. might there be things that people see and are always reminded of me or a situation involving me? i'd like to think it was something cool and musical - cheap, heavily-customised guitars and gear for example - or something quirky - like silver body paint or stripy purple tights - or maybe even something meaningful, but i suspect if anyone does associate me with anything its something rubbish. thats the thing about other peoples memories - theyre so hard to alter.

Fedde Le Grande - "Put your hands up for detroit"

"a lovely city"

This song always makes me think of my favourite blog pinkisthenewblog.com
Its writer, Trent, is from Detroit (although he lives in LA) and often talks about it. As much as I like reading about his personal life though, I prefer Trent's rants on Celeb World. He was the first one to know about Britney and Fed-ex!! Well, if he wasn't the first one to know, at least I read about the divorce on PITNB waaaaay before everyone (at least the night before). He likes Britney, Jake Gyllenhaal and Madonna and lets it be known! There are other celebs whom (which?) he slags off in a gentle but hilarious way. I don't agree with him on certain things (I'm in Team Jennifer!!) but I like the way he writes, it makes me smile and sometimes laugh. I also follow quite closely his relationship with his boyfriend David, I think they're really cute together. My dream is to have one day my name and pic on the blog (as a fan, not a celeb!), but I don't have any friends who know of PITNB with whom to take themed pictures!

If you're a fan and you read this, get in touch.

That's it. I'm out.

"in the navy" - the village people

Following some joke from my French family after my boyfriend explained his grand-parents had met in the navy, the chorus stuck in my head for a while. I only know the words from the title - no idea what the rest says.

It made me think of this picture:

"st thomas" - sonny rollins

my baby girl loves st thomas. ive known it turn her from a screaming ball of grumpiness into a giggling tiny dancer. it might not be specific for this tune - it could just be a good example of an upbeat, accessable tune with interesting rhythms - but i like to think shes developing good taste at her very young age. im probably fooling myself - but to those of you who are doubting (not unlike st thomas himself) i would ask you to give her the benefit of your doubt until she is proved to just be responding to my enthusiasm or some other theory

"saltwater towns" - monsters4GODS / sultry lemon

"we fade in and out of our saltwater towns with gardens of dreams and temples of sound"


the earworm is specifically the sultry lemon recording of this song about 70% of the time, but occasionally lapses into a more familiar m4G arrangement.


i think i'd hate to live at the seaside. i cant see what attraction all the retired people see in it. i can see how it would make more sense in a climate where there is a higher proliferation of scantily clad lovelies, but i can see those on the interweb any time i like and i dont think even that would outweigh the negatives. now i realise the cynic would argue that i lived at the coast, but swansea is more a city that happens to be next to a beach, and to me doesnt really count as the seaside. it doesnt exist to pander to holidaymakers and daytrippers. its not a depressing economic wasteland the coldest 8 months of the year. it could never be described as a resort. these are the thingsthat i associate with the seaside. swansea does share some of the other drawbacks though - such as seagulls, constant wind and the sand that gunks up the bearings on your skateboard.

"for the birds" - the juliana hatfield three

"if had wings, i’d try to fly. but they don’t make it harder to die. you can take it up to the sky, but no-one ever stays that high."


i absolutely adore beome what you are. i love juliana's voice on it, i love the guitar sounds and overall feel, and its full of songs i have to battle myself hard not to rip off when im writing. i cant believe it was released half my life ago when it still sounds so fresh to my ears - albeit that it is very much in and of the time. i hold my hands up to being a grunge casualty, so my opinion is far from biased, but so many fantastic albums were made around that time - yet this is song is from one of the standouts.


it was stupidly blustery, with trees shaking to such an extent that all kinds of things were falling out of trees onto the ground. no nests, obviously, because of the time of year, and actually mostly stick and twigs and things but i also saw several trees shaking themselves free of rubbish that had been caught in their branches like a dog emerging from a filthy pond. its been a day for looking up because you never know what flying objects you may have to avoid. i dont think i look up often enough.

"noises for the leg" - the bonzo dog doo dah band

"i found the men sir. God i wish i hadn't"



on a night when the act of getting to sleep proves more difficult a challenge than it has any right to, the last thing you need in your head is a cycling 24 bars of sinister vaguely oom-pah-esque saxophone bottom end honking topped by a theramin rendition of tortured screaming.
its not exactly guaranteed to be relaxing and restful.
it must have soundtracked some fairly warped dreams since each of the many times i woke it was still in my ears.