The Acidic Turtle

Chilling out to the sound of some great music…

Despite what you may have inferred from the post title, there’s to be no ‘new music’ talked about here; I’m just finding a way to unwind at the end of what has been an extremely stressful week. Yes, I am sure there have been many, many people worse off than myself this week but I am still so relieved for it to finally be Friday evening. As a way of unwinding and shedding all thoughts of coursework, essays, foreign novels and university interviews, I decided to spend the majority of my evening just listening to music.

I enjoy nothing more at the end of a tiresome day than to come home, crank my stereo volume up and listen to some great music. Whilst doing this, I spent a little while downloading new music from various blogs, some of which I’ll probably talk about over the coming week, some of which I’ll quickly be deleting from my computer. It is something I do not do nearly enough of; given the number of great songs I’ve found today, I have begun to realise what I miss when not constantly scouring the Internet for new tunes.

In addition to some new stuff, I’ve been playing my iTunes library on shuffle. This is another thing I don’t do very often as I mostly just listen to my albums from start to finish, then move onto another one. Some benefit did come of this, though, as I flicked across to The Good, The Bad & The Queen, the final track of the album of the same name. It appears that this is one of those select songs that brings back a lot of fond memories. It was last Winter when I first came to hear about Damon Albarn’s new project and I spent many cold evenings listening to this 7 minute epic, embedding it in my mind as a track strongly associated with Winter. The wonderful nostalgic feeling I got from hearing that song has made me want to dig back into my library a little further, dragging out some of those songs that will always have a special place in my heart.

Wow. 386 words to say what, exactly? I don’t know, but it felt good.

The only time I’ll ever mention these two ghastly words…

After the ‘pay what you want’ release of Radiohead’s new album a month ago, I think we all new that before long there would be other major bands jumping on board to make themselves seem ‘cutting edge’. Still, I didn’t actually think it’d be this soon.

Yes, for the purposes of this post I’ll have to mention the words ‘Cliff’ and ‘Richard’ in one sentence. The reason for this is, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the news that Cliff Richard will release his new album on the Internet, allowing fans to ‘control’ the album’s price. I put particular emphasis on the word control because it must be noted that ol’ Cliff doesn’t appear to have the balls that Radiohead had. You see, rather than allowing download customers to choose any price they want, his record is being sold in a very similar fashion to the way things are sold on those crappy shopping channels. Quite appropriate, really, as the CDs sold on those channels are generally 35 CD box-sets of ‘country classics’ of similar quality to Cliff’s albums.

Another fantastic point made on this blog is that Cliff Richard’s main fan base are probably still not capable of using the Internet. Rather than making the godly singer seem all hip and cool, this move just appears to have humiliated him in front of the world’s media.

Whatever people think of the move, I shall be very interested to see if there is “sufficient demand” to bring the album’s price down to £3.99, as is proposed. If there isn’t, it may just add to the old man’s embarrassment!

A post written to the sound of fireworks…

At this very moment, I’m having a short break from some reading that I’m desperately trying to get done. The book has to be finished for Wednesday. Anyway, to fill this little gap, and before I head off to bed to do my final leg of reading for the evening, I’ll talk a little about a film I went to see over the weekend with my friends.

When there’s a large group of you, it’s always going to be a bit of a struggle to get everyone else to see the film you want to see. It appeared that on Saturday, we were split into three camps; those wanting to see the new Ian Curtis film, ‘Control’, those wanting to see ‘Stardust’ and those who just couldn’t care less. Personally, I was all in favour of ‘Control’. After convincing the ‘Stardust’ party that their film was too childish (which I based solely on the fact that it’s a PG), we ended up going to see my choice.

I thought the film was brilliant. True, it was never going to be an uplifting experience but considering the subject matter, I was surprised at the number of times I found myself laughing - and let me assure you that is not due to a sick sense of humour. Also, a lot of the laughs came from the band’s manager, who had an extremely blunt way of dealing with people. That aside, though, it was, for the most part, a fantastic film. Being shot in black and white worked brilliantly, too; although I’m sure one of my friends would say otherwise. So, if you’ve not already seen it, get down to the cinema to see ‘Control’ as soon as possible.

Well, It’s now about time that I got back to doing some reading. I can’t see myself getting to sleep all that easily tonight either, as it’s now just after half past eleven at night and the fireworks are only just starting to stop going off. As for the parties, though, they’re still roaring. Ah well, I do love the smell on bonfire night! Weird, eh?

A few Bloc Party tracks from the Electric Proms…

This is simply a continuation of yesterday’s post and so I’m going to keep it short.

If you actually read what I wrote yesterday, you’ll remember that I said I was having trouble finding some of the BBC Electric Proms performances on Youtube. Well, as it soon turned out, To Die By Your Side had gone one better and already posted five MP3s from the fantastic Bloc Party concert for us to download. I just thought, in case you’ve not already been over there, that it might be wise to get downloading before they disappear.

Of course, I myself wasn’t completely happy with just having 5, mainly because my favourite track from the performance, Song For Clay (Disappear Here), was missing from the set. So, I set myself the task this morning of ripping all 13 tracks, making up my own ‘BBC Electric Proms’ album. The BBC website told me that there were 14 songs played - the 14th being Kreuzberg - but try as I might, I just couldn’t seem to find that last track. Anyway, apart from that, I’ve now got a complete set and can post below two additional picks from Bloc Party’s set for you to listen to.

First of all, there’s the epic performance of Song For Clay (Disappear Here), followed shortly by a live version of Flux, Bloc Party’s new single due out in November. Flux, as I’m sure you’re aware, is a very different style to Bloc Party’s first two albums and it should be interesting to find out whether their entire third album is going to be like this or whether its just an experiment. Whatever it is, if you’ve already got the much-circulated radio rip you will notice that the live version sounds very different to the original. See what you think.

Song for Clay (Live at the BBC Electric Proms) - Bloc Party (Feat. The Exmoor Singers)

Flux (Live at the BBC Electric Proms) - Bloc Party

The BBC Electric Proms serve up a few great performances…

I didn’t pay much attention last year when the BBC launched the Electric Proms but this year I seem to have been a bit more aware of them. Perhaps this is due to increased advertising, a more substantial list of bands, or maybe even the simple fact that I’ve been watching too much television recently. Whatever the reasons, I tuned in to watch the Saturday night highlights of Bloc Party’s performance at the Roundhouse. Having enjoyed this thoroughly, I headed onto the Internet in search of more footage, only to be treated with a whole stack of performances to watch.

‘Other commitments’, as one might say, have prevented me from watching all of the concerts that I’d like to but I’ve still had enough time to sample a good chunk of them. I had hoped to post a few Youtube videos of my favourite performances but after my last search, it seemed the folks that post these kind of things on the Internet haven’t got round to it yet. Oh well, I suppose if any surface over the next week or so, I’ll be able to post them on here for your viewing pleasure.

The main acts of each night - or at least the majority of them - tend to do something ‘different’ with their music. Generally, this means the band performing with someone/something you would not usually associate them with. In the case of Bloc Party, this was a full choir of singers. The songs, it must be said, were hardly unrecognizable. For the most part, the choir just blasted out the backing vocals at ten times their usual power, resulting in the songs sounding a lot more ‘epic’ than on record. My favourite two songs that they played were SRXT, the final song of ‘A Weekend In The City’ that I’ve only recently learned to appreciate, and - strangely - the first track of the same album, Song for Clay (Disappear Here). In my opinion, these were the two that benefited most from the new arrangement.

Bloc Party, though, were certainly not the only band that played and I could write reams on the other performances I watched. You will be pleased to know, though, that this is not what I intend to do. Instead, I will simply direct you to the BBC’s website where you can watch a whole host of these concerts. Be quick, though, as the video footage is only on-line for a short while after the performance, with some of the more minor bands having their gigs taken offline tomorrow.

- Post continued HERE

Why a good single can sometimes beat an album…

I love getting free things, whether its from a magazine, inside a new CD or just from a selection of free samples in a shop; no matter where they’re from, its always good to get something for nothing every once in a while. What’s even better, though, is when this ‘free gift’ is completely unexpected, as was the case earlier this week.

The reason for that sub-heading is that on Friday, when shopping in Manchester, I bought the much-talked-about, triple A side single from the Moths. This single contains the tracks Games, Wild Birds and Valentine, each of which is as fantastic as the last and I could happily listen to it all day. For this reason, I’d rather have that, a kind of 3-track mini-album that’s got nothing but incredible songs on it, than a sub-standard LP that last 45+ minutes and only has four or five decent tracks on it. In addition to the amazing songs, my little treat was that the single comes signed. How cool is that, eh?

My second purchase was the new 12″ single from the Whip, Sister Siam, and I was pleased to see that this also came with something of a free gift; a four track promo CD with two tracks and two remixes on it. It doesn’t matter that I’ve already got 3 out of these 4 tracks, it just means I have a nice little CD as well as my various other singles from this band so that I have quite a neat little collection building up of their material. As for the song itself, I heard Sister Siam a little while ago by watching a video of one of their live shows, the link for which is here. When I first heard it, I wasn’t at all impressed and wondered whether it was all going downhill a bit but I’m pleased to say that giving it a second chance by buying this single, which I bought purely for the purpose of having a complete set, the song has really grown on me and I appreciate it as much as Muzzle No.1, my personal favourite of theirs. Anyway, they say an album is in the works and should be released February/March 2008 if all goes well.

So, all in all, I was very impressed with my purchases this Friday and everything was made just that little bit sweeter by a selection of free goodies. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, though, as when I bough the Leni single by GoodBooks, I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of sheets of stickers in there. I’ve never used the stickers, obviously, but the point is that they were in there. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I’m easily bought.

Finally, in keeping with the theme of this post, here’s some free goodies for you. Just take a listen to two of the songs I mentioned in this post. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

Wild Birds - The Moths! (Games 7″ single)

Sister Siam - The Whip (Sister Siam 12″ Single)

Allowing the sounds of the Gulag Orkestar to lift my mood

Although it’s probably not the most sensible way to look at life, and certainly not the happiest, I tend to take a very pessimistic approach to things. It’s not something I do voluntarily - obviously - but just the way I was born. As well as explaining why I so often launch into these worrisome ramblings, it proves a bit of a problem when I find myself in a situation such as the one I’m in right now.

I’ll not go into too much detail but when I meet up with my usual group of friends this weekend to have a bit of fun playing our instruments there are going to be two extra people; two people I am told are extremely good musicians. Now, my worry comes from the fact that the instrument I’ll be required to play is the one I’ve only very recently taken up playing; the good ol’ bass guitar. I haven’t minded playing that in front of some of the others too much as there were only a few of them and they all knew I’d just begun but, me being me, I’ve really over-exaggerated what could happen and am constantly worrying about being made to look ridiculously crap on Saturday. Oh well, I suppose I’ll just have to go with it.

Anyway, aside from that, which I just felt like writing for no particular reason, I’ll mention one of the newest albums to be added to my collection; Beirut’s marvelous ‘Gulag Orkestar’. I realise that his newest album, ‘The Flying Club Cup’ was released earlier this month but I thought it’d be best to start at the beginning, and so have gone and got myself Beirut’s 2006 debut album. It’ s really quite special and something that works in a different way to most other modern albums but in a way that a truly special album should work. ‘Gulag Orkestar’ stands strong as a single, solid piece of music. Rather than 11 different songs, its just one long piece of music, played by a folky, eastern european, marching band with several different parts to it, making up something that you can really loose yourself in.

Maybe the cure to my worries about the coming weekend could be solved by just a couple more listens to ‘Gulag Orkestar’. I’ve only been through it a few times so far and am already finding that it’s lifted my mood considerably. Or, on the other hand, maybe a good shopping trip tomorrow will clear my head.

and some bloody cold winter mornings

No, no, I haven’t given up already, I’ve just been off on holiday for the last few days. Where I was, you don’t get a mobile phone signal, never mind an Internet connection. So, here I am, back in the warmth to warn you about camping in the English countryside in winter; it’s cold, if you hadn’t guessed. That, anyway, is the reason I’ve not been on here over the last week but I plan to get back to work as soon as possible.

Another point you may have noticed is that back in the old days, I used to write about nothing other than music but now it seems that I’ve only made one music-related post. The reason for that, I reckon, is that I’ve literally spent the last few weeks listening to ‘In Rainbows’, with any breaks from Radiohead being filled by other long-time favourite bands such as Franz Ferdinand. I just haven’t even had the chance to go hunting for some juicy new music. Still, the obvious and popular choices have been creeping through the net in increasing quantities so maybe over the next few days I’ll even have something worth mentioning.

Now, I’m off to go and enjoy my school holidays.

I’m no film buff. Let that be known.

The DVD collection in my room probably exceeds no more than 25 in number and the majority of these are live music DVDs, not ‘proper’ films. Sure, I have my favourite films and go to the cinema on a regular basis but my knowledge of this vast world is pretty restricted. When we go to the cinema (usually on a Friday evening), my friends and I are never in the mood for anything too heavy-going, meaning we usually end up seeing something that’s not all that memorable and only good for a bit of light entertainment.

Now, black and white has always been a no-go zone for me. Why watch them? They’re old, boring and the kind of rubbish that TV channels use to fill up any leftover daytime slots with, knowing that only the retired or unemployed will be watching. Right? Well, it turns out I was wrong.

As explained yesterday, I began to make preparations for any potential university interviews by buying a few French films on DVD from throughout the last 50 or so years. Now, I’ve not got through them all just yet but the two I have watched were made in the early 50s and directed by a Henri-Georges Clouzot. Knowing almost nothing about French cinema, I decided to go for a couple that had won some awards and could provide me with a good starting point. The two films in question, Les Diaboliques and Le Salaire de la peur both turned out to be worth their weight in 1950s cinema awards. The former is a bit of a mystery with a completely unexpected twist at the end and the latter is more of an action-packed thriller that has more than a few moments that remind me of the final scene of ‘The Italian Job’.

Anyway, all that these films have taught me is that I shouldn’t ignore any films simply because they’re older than me or are shot in black and white; I now look forward to getting my hands on a few more films from outside the post-2000 bracket. What that will result in, I have no idea.

…or so I keep telling myself!

It’s that time of year, for most 17 year-olds at least, to be making yourself out as the most perfect student on the planet and explaining just why it is that you enjoy spending all your free time reading French literature. That’s right, it’s university application time!

Hopefully, if all goes well, I’ll have everything sorted by the end of this week but with a tutor who’d struggle to find his own back-side, I’m doubtful I’ll have even a half-decent reference to send off before next Christmas. After months of deliberating, I’ve decided upon the two courses I want to apply to; either French & History or just French, and have now just finished writing the dreaded personal statement. What I hate about that is that to stand any chance of competing against everyone else applying, you have to know so much about your subject and have ‘read around’ so widely. I’ve read statements from friends who list reams of books that they intend to have finished by the time they could be called for interview but personally, I think that’s a bit of a risky move. Instead, I’ve gone for the option of reading a few books, listing a few I’d already read that could be loosely related to French or History, and choosing just one per subject that I plan on finishing before December/January time. Not too much pressure on me, then.

In addition to a few of the books, I decided that watching a few French films would be another way for me to ‘immerse myself in French culture‘. Thankfully, this didn’t take half as much time as ploughing my way through books on the French revolution; instead, I have really enjoyed watching some brilliant films that I would have otherwise never seen. The closest I would have got in English is some poor quality, big-budget Hollywood remake. It is because of this new-found love of some classic 1950s films that I will be talking about them in the coming week. Hopefully, that will make for a slightly more interesting read than my ravings about UCAS forms.

Anyway, that was a bit of a stupid way for me to let off some steam about the whole stressful procedure of university applications and just a way to break the gap between one piece of homework and the next (why, why, why does it all get set for just before the holidays?).

P.S. Being pushed for time, I didn’t even get chance to read through that post so I’ll say sorry for anything that makes no sense at all. That’s just me rambling.