28/6/2003
So how has my birthday week been then? Pretty okay actually. I didn't do anything on the actual day itself but I had lots of wishes from lots of people, so that was cool. In fact, I was at home trying to finish up that website that I've been working on since late last year. Yes indeedy, GemJars.com is finally up. So that's my second proper completed freelance design job, after the one I did for Concordance. Unpaid as of yet though, both of them, if at all. Oh well ...

Anyway, I went out for a proper birthday dinner yesterday in Islington yesterday which was very nice. Booked a table for nine initially but Polly and Jo decided to 'fly airlplanes' (if you speak Chinese you'd get it). So there were 7 of us at Le Mercury - David, Nick, Dan, Michelle, Alec, Russ and yours truly. The place was nice and the food was good. After dinner we went to this pub right below David's flat where we engaged in conversation about putting your belt on before your pants and conducted analysis on my Zoo York T-shirt. Oh, and I have to mention this big - Michelle gave me a Spinal Tap DVD! XOXOXOXO! All in all, good night out, great company, I'm happy.

23/6/2003
SOB!! I missed the Prefuse 73 & Four Tet gig at Plastic People! It was sold out by the time me and Russ got there. Sold out man, on a Sunday. If I knew Plastic People was a tiny place I would've thought twice about getting tickets in advance. I was really looking forward to seeing those two but, sigh, I missed it. What a bummer. Bummer bummer bummer.

By the way has anyone ever noticed that I actually have a guestbook on my site? You haven't? Okay, you suck. But not Marie, cos she signed my guestbook. Marie rocks. But I have to use this to translate her blog. Which turns out pretty cool actually. And I quote (somewhat):

"And thus yesterday, June 21, it was not the festival of the design, not but rather that of the friends and the music... thus free concerts everywhere, all styles and all public, it was super. For my part after one hour of Clermont-Paris train, I went to listen to concerts hardcore and punk in Bastille, Place from Italy and Sully Morland, I saw playing full pals and I hopped everywhere, that should be tous.les.jours, the festival of the music ;)"

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. I would've loved to hop everywhere at Plastic People too. :(

At times like this you need some Senor Coconut to cheer you up. If you've ever wondered what Michael Jackson would sound like if he did samba you should listen too.

17/6/2003
Just quickly. I thought I'd share a lil' something with you. I found this CD mixed by Four Tet sometime last year which featured a quirky but super-excellent remix of Jay-Z's 'Hey Papi'. It's credited as the 'Folk Mix' and I reckon it's remixed by Four Tet himself. I was looking for some information on that track today and it turns out that the whole mix was actually available on the Domino website as a Realplayer stream. Lucky me then that I chanced upon the whole mix on CD! Anyway, because I'm nice like that, I thought I'd share the song with you. Any self-respecting music fan shouldn't pass this up. Either that, or you could stream the mix on crappy Realplayer quality.

Get.

8/6/2003
This weekend has been a mini Radiohead Festival for me. In anticipation of their new album coming out tomorrow, I've been listening to nothing but Radiohead, Radiohead and Radiohead. Actually a bit of Tortoise as well, but they were only the supporting acts.

During my teenage years, anyone who listened to Nirvana and Soundgarden was a stupid alternative rock kid. Coming from a hip-hop/R&B/jazz background, the whole Seattle grunge scene which was all the rage just didn't appeal to me. When 'Creep' was first released, I thought of Radiohead as a Brit Nirvana-wannabe. Nevertheless I remember recording 'Just' and 'Fake Plastic Trees' off radio broadcasts and liking the songs a lot. That's all really. Aside from an extremely cool video for 'Just', I didn't pay much attention to Radiohead.

I was doing my A-Levels when OK Computer came out. Despite all the critical acclaim and endless extolment I still wasn't paying attention to the band. There were even posters promoting the album all over the college which made me shun the band even more. I have to admit I was unashamedly elitist about my music back then and frowned on anything commercial. I was at the height of all things, to paraphrase Alec, trippity-hoppity and Mo'Wax. So when I saw 'New Radiohead album out now!' I thought, yeah whatever man. It wasn't until Thom Yorke's collaboration with U.N.K.L.E. that I decided, "Hmm, this band's pretty cool!"

My first year in the UK gave me access to a lot of electronic music that I've only been able to read about while back in Malaysia. Two Lone Swordsmen, Modest Mouse, Autechre, the whole Warp crew. When Tortoise and Radiohead released Standards and Kid A respectively, I thought, what the hell's going on? All these bands were now switching on to a more electronic sound. When I heard 'Idioteque' on radio for the first time I even thought it was a remix by Boards Of Canada or something. Which was when I started getting into Radiohead full time.

I remember listening to Amnesiac on the train when I was in Spain during the summer of 2001. I think we were travelling from Madrid to Malaga and going from one city outskirt to another. The landscape was littered with barren farmlands with little to no vegetation, save the occasional solitary tree or shrub. It was about 38° Celsius outside and you could see the steam rising from the brown soil. Every once in a while the train slowed down just enough for a lethargic 'toro' to stare you directly in the eye, probably thinking to itself 'estúpido Chinos!'. All this, with a soundtrack by Radiohead and having just seen the Guernica at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Pure bliss indeed.

Soon after I became a big fan of Radiohead. And with my fairly recent indie-rock renaissance, The Bends and OK Computer dawned on me as musical works of true genius. I'm sure Hail To The Thief will be no less of a landmark in all of musical history. Can't wait to get my hands on it tomorrow!

3/6/2003
I
  am
       so
           bored.

Blah blah? Blah blah blah! Blah ... blah blah blah, blah blah.

Speaking of boredom, Takeshi Kitano's Dolls is possibly the slowest movie that I've ever seen. Well not exactly boring, but everything in the film is just, slow. Every one walks slow, talks slow, eats slow. There's little to no dialogue, there's not much music and periods of pure silence are interspersed all throughout the film. Nevertheless, what it lacks aurally it makes up for in beautiful cinematography and stunning visuals. The scene where the two lead characters walk through forests filled with falling red leaves is lovely. Basically the film has several different stories running in parallel with each other. I liked the bit about the road worker with the pop idol fixation. I enjoyed the bleak and honest portrayal of the obessive and somewhat dark nature within the whole Japanese culture of idols and pop stars where it's just as common for grown men to have posters, CDs and stacks of photo books of their favourite idol as it is for a sixteen year old girl. Nice film.

I sold almost £70 worth of used CDs and videos yesterday. I also promised myself that I will not buy any new CDs this month EXCEPT the new Radiohead and Madlib's Shades Of Blue. Surely £70 in vouchers at Reckless and Music & Video Exchange can help me survive ... ?