Zen Arcade

Went to see Bob Mould last night, at the Rescue Rooms. He was much better than I expected; since it was billed as 'an acoustic evening' I was afraid it might be a bit intense and po faced, but it seems that these days Bob has come to terms with his Husker Du past, and happily straps on an Stratocaster to blast away through 'Celebrated Summer' etc.

There was a great moment when he stopped the show to berate a twit in the crowd who was talking loudly to his mate, with his back to the stage. Fat Bob (who is actually rather trim these days) asked this fool how much he had paid for his ticket, and since he was preferring to have a loud conversation during the previous song, would he rather have his money back? The bloke said no, and apparently shut up for the rest of the gig. Bob's blog is here, and includes a good story about being let through without a work visa at Heathrow by an immigration officer who was a lifelong Husker Du fan.

The Brakes

Now this lot are great - 16 tracks on an album that lasts 29 minutes...and covers of tunes by Johnny Cash and the Jesus and Mary Chain...

Rough Trade

This year's Rough Trade compilation is out on the 24 January...pre order on their website, and receive a free 4 track EP.

Their top 100 albums of 2005 are listed here.

Hex Enduction Hour

There are twelve people in the world
The rest are paste

GROTESQUE (AFTER THE GRAMME)

Wireless enthusiast intercepts government secret radio band and
uncovers secrets and scandals of deceitful type proportions.

Aghast goes next door to his neighbor, secretly excited, as
aforementioned was a hunter whom radio enthusiast wanted
friendship and favor of.

A new face in hell

Nearly a new face in hell!

A muscular, thick-skinned, slit-eyed neighbor is at the table
poisoned just thirty seconds before by parties who knew of
wireless operator's forthcoming revelation.

A new face in hell!

A prickly line of sweat covers enthusiast's forehead as the
realization hits him that the same government him and his now
dead neighbor voted for and backed and talked of on cream porches
have tricked him into their war against the people who enthusiast
and dead hunter would have wished torture on. A servant of
government walks in and arrests wireless fan in
kitchen for murder of his neighbor

A new face in hell!

I stole away and cried

Willie Nelson does a nice version of Dylan's 'He Was A Friend Of Mine' on the closing credits to Brokeback Mountain...

Maximo Park

What have the monthly music mags got against this group? One of the best albums of the year, nominated for the Mercury music award, constantly on MTV2 - and the grown ups mags completely overlooked it in their end of year summaries, often in preference to pish like Hard Fi.

The NME stuck A Certain Trigger somewhere in their top 20, elsewhere it was totally ignored. The risible Observer music monthly (hardly a teenybobber periodical) showed up the oversight when they ran a 'reader's best of' alongside their own top 100 - readers voted Maximo Park 14th best of the year, whilst it was nowhere to be seen in the writers list.

You know what though, if REM had released Reckoning this year it would have beaten everything. A pity they didn't quit ten years ago, the later albums are so leaden compared to this.

I work in hotel, all gilt and flash.

Well, the CDR best of the year compilations are pretty much all in, apart from a few stragglers. Looks like Arcade Fire and Gorillaz were the top albums of the year, there were 5 different tracks picked from each one. Other favourites were The Fall, White Stripes (albeit the same track chosen 4 different times - My Doorbell), Arctic Monkeys, LCD Soundsystem, Chemical Brothers, Elbow, The Tears, amongst others.

In the sales I picked up the Children of Nuggets box set, a compilation of the (very) loosely defined 'second psychedelic era'. What this means is a bunch of songs from 1976 - 1994, featuring jangly guitar bands with paisley shirts and pointy shoes. Apart from that, I've been listening to Reckoning by REM (every single track of which could well belong on the Nuggets box set), Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit, and Quadrophenia by the Who.