Top 5

Ford Prefect's top 5 Chanteuses list got me thinking, and so in a spirit of friendly disagreement and general "my 5 are better than his 5"-ness (although not nearly as contemporary), I give you my Favourite Five Female Singers...

5 - Audrey Hepburn. Not known for her singing, clearly, her inclusion here is due entirely to her rendition of Moon River in Breakfast at Tiffany's, which warms not just the cockles of my heart, but many other hard to reach parts as well.

4 - Roberta Flack. A relatively recent discovery for me, I found the above album in a thrift store in Brooklyn ($3!!) and bought it as much for the cover as for the fact that she's the "Killing Me Softly" lady. Full of gospel-tinged tunes and subtle arrangements, it totally blew me away.

3 - Joni Mitchell. Where would I be without Joni? Possibly the finest songwriter and certainly the best lyricist of her generation (and who's been better since?), she has the kind of voice to either scare you or excite you. Sometimes low and smokey, other times up in the stratosphere, she's always on target and never boring. Her style is often conversational and she does make you think she's telling you all this down the pub a lot of the time. I can't really believe she's only at 3, but...

2 - Ella Fitzgerald. This lady could sing the phone book and it would sound good. As musically perfect as anyone can be, her scats and improvised lines have to be heard repeatedly to be believed. She recorded pretty much everything in her long life, but you can't go wrong with her interpretations of either Duke Ellington or George Gershwin. The one above probably ain't bad, either.

1 - Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul, the best there is. I saw a clip a few years ago of one of those terrible VH-1 Diva events, with Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys and other wailing eejits giving it large, and on walked Aretha, in her 50s and the size of a small house, and in about 10 seconds had floored them all. Not with power, not with pitch, but with phrasing, craft, and the fact that she doesn't need to have big hair (and the rest) or appear nude on the front of Rolling Stone to sell records. I love her gospel albums even though I hate religion, and her version of Bridge Over Troubled Water is the best yet, but I'd recommend Aretha Sings the Blues - the first track, Drinking Again, will have you reaching for the spirits before she's finished the first verse. Which is a good thing.

And as Ford says, an honourable mention to Liz Fraser. Although she could have tried just a bit harder to make sense, if you ask me. Really. (tuts).

Mod out.

Butterscotch clouds

More youtube goodness, this time Prince on the Muppet Show being Very Silly Indeed. Ah, bless.




Purple Mod out.

It was a little bit frightening

Monks brawl during Peace rally

"A scuffle broke out... between saffron-robed monks and anti-war demonstrators at a peace rally in the Sri Lankan capital. About six or seven monks from a right-wing Buddhist faction had stormed the stage during a peace rally attended by about 1,000 people in the capital, Colombo, shouting pro-war slogans, an AP reporter at the scene said.
A member of Sri Lanka's parliament was addressing the crowd when the monks climbed on stage.
The monks unfurled banners reading "Take your protest to Kilinochchi," referring to the de facto rebel capital in northern Sri Lanka where hundreds have been killed in the last week..."

All together now - "Everybody was kung-fu fighting..."

Get on the Trane

The year is 1963. Over in Liverpool the Beatles are just getting started on learning their fourth and fifth chords. Much of the western world still thinks Elvis is about as far out as you can get, and the rest would probably mumble something about Shostakovich. But the more you look at the 20th century, the more that New York jazz in the 1960s seems about as good as it got. Before the excesses (and electricity) of the 70s when the politics and the fashion entirely obscured the tunes, it was a time when the gods were walking the earth, inventing new forms and movements sometimes weekly. No other music was this intense and creative, all the time, for years and decades. Let's not forget it was almost entirely improvised, and the charts and arrangements that started the ball rolling would've have scared the pants off any symphony orchestra.

Some people like Miles, others swear by Monk. I like them both. Sonny Rollins shook it up and you really can't ignore Charles Mingus (or he'll come and get you). However the John Coltrane Quartet made me a true believer about a decade ago and I've never looked back. His horn sounds like answers to questions I didn't know I'd asked, and I really can't put it clearer than that.

"Afro-Blue" is my favourite tune, the first track on Live at Birdland. I'm still pissed off I wasn't around to be there, frankly. McCoy Tyner playing the darkest chords yet heard, Elvin swinging it along with faint rumours of violence, Jimmy Garrison holding it together, and Trane riding the whirlwind and making it beautiful. This is from the Ralph Gleason show (he's the chap sitting by the piano looking fantastically out of place) and is one of the reasons for living...

Mod out.

Ees seelly, Senor

I went to see the new Jack Black film Nacho Libre yesterday. Ridiculous. Based on the admittedly far-fetched but true story of a Mexican priest who dons the cape and mask of a Mexican luchador to fight for money to feed the kids in his orphanage, there's probably a heart-warming tale with many examples of bravery and the best of the human spirit to be made of it all. But of course Black doesn't give a monkeys for all that and ditches all but the basic plot to make a film full of mugging, piss-poor accents and outrageous set-pieces that would have been rejected by the Chuckle Brothers as too flimsy.

If you liked School of Rock (and if you didn't, then don't come round Mod Towers expecting a warm welcome) or the mighty Tenacious D you'll love this. We all laughed like drains, and the sillier the pratfall or cheesy grin the more we laughed. Other highlights included a Penelope Cruz-a-like as a rather foxy nun and one of the best improvised soft rock ballads I've ever heard. Maybe you had to be there. Go see...

El Paranoico Mod out.

My Heroes

Protestors boarded a US Military plane at Prestwick Airport to perform a "citizen's inspection" for bombs. Story. Wonderful. The shame of how we let the US refuel their death filled cargo planes has been eating me up since the whole thing kicked off. Apparently it's not happening any more, but Bliar should be put in the stocks for a week for allowing it in the first place.

(Brought to my attention at The Scottish Patient).

Mod out.

Random

The best first lines of any novel ever...

"Coventry are fuck all. They've got a shit team and shit support. Hitler had the right idea when he flattened the place. The only good thing to come out of Coventry was the Specials and that was years ago. Now there's sweet FA and we've never had a decent row with Coventry. The best time was two years ago in Hammersmith with a bunch of Midland prototypes looking for a drink down the high street. About fifteen of them. Short cunts with noddy haircuts and tashes. Stumpy little legs and beer guts. Looked like they should be on Emmerdale Farm shafting goats for a living. They clocked us coming the other way and took off. You could smell shit over the petrol fumes, which is saying something in Hammersmith..."

And so it goes. From John King's The Football Factory, about a firm of Chelski hooligans. Don't bother with the film, but the book's got more energy than Irvine Welsh on a week-long speed bender.

Coventry City Football Club is 123.

Mod out.

Salvation and shrimp

I found the above sign at the Mountain Cycle Diaries. Apart from the fact that the quote is about as banal as you can get (or was Fear playing a game of Knock Down Ginger?) the food on offer is enough to make you want to get your salvation elsewhere. I've heard those hindus do a mean chicken dhansak with their karmic teachings. Never mind the Italians and their chianti-fueled masses. Still, when in Montana...

Mr. Mountain Cycle Diary is quite a chap, he's cycled all the way from Chile and is closing in on Alaska all the time. Someone should give him a medal, or at least buy him a pint.

Mod out (on his training wheels).

Sinfest

Since the halcyon days of Calvin and Hobbes, I've only really cared about Doonesbury, and only then because it's in the newspaper I read right next to the crossword. It's good, but. Randomly I've just discovered a new cartoon strip that's got me hooked. Sinfest isn't some dodgy porn site or new consumer campaign, but it does have something to say about both.

The cast features God (often doing puppet shows in the sky), the Devil, various bit part players such as the true believer above but mostly a couple of slacker friends, Slick and Monique, who don't have a lot of faith in anything except porn (Slick) and retail therapy (Monique). They argue, laugh, sit under trees and occasionally perform at open-mic nights, and generally carry on like, well, real people do. Or maybe that should be real people do in their heads.

Anyway. It's been making me laugh as I've worked my way from the very first strip back in 2000 (currently up to the middle of 2001) and the strip's creator Tatsuya Ishida has a nice line in everything I hold dear, from cynicism and manga to amusing stoners and gothic script. And every now and then a Chinese dragon turns up and has a scrap with God. What's not to like?

Mod out.

George Harrison sings "The Pirate Song"

Amazingly how quickly we've forgotten the cultural force that was Rutland Weekend Television. Ahaaarghhh me hearties!

One-eyed mad Captain Mod out.

"Yo, Blair..."

Overheard at the G8 conference. Confirming all our fears that Dubya's grip on facts and details is somewhat lacking, and all Blair cares about is continuing to be able to sit at the big boys' table. Excruciating.

Mod out.

Mastercard blues

Or rather reds and yellows. The Register has an amusing report on how Mastercard's new logo was achieved with reams of top class management bullshit.

"The launch of the new corporate brand identity follows an extensive analysis of the MasterCard brand and the value proposition it represents to constituents" is just one of the astonishingly content-free sentences... Well, it made me laugh.

mod out.


...I mean, brand and identity surely mean the same thing in this context. They use brand twice. "Value proposition"? Constituents? What are they, running for Parliament? Suckers of Satan's cock, every one of them.

ahem.

World Cup Sponsors...

Adidas, Budweiser, Ayaya (?), Coca-Cola, Continental tyres, Deutschetelekom, Emirates Airline, Fujifilm, Gillette, Hyundai, Mastercard, McDonalds, Philips, Toshiba.

Not one of these is a company I pretty much ever use, except by accident, ie my boss rather sarcastically bought me a razor for my birthday, or buying a secondhand tv. Kind of annoying that I can't actively boycott any of them, but I'm getting over it.

I guess it affects some people, but I don't know who. Do you? Does anyone out there actually buy a chocolate bar because of the pretty girl in the advert. I guess they must. Weird.

Anyway, death to the corporate whores who've nicked all the fans' tickets, and mine's a Guinness. I know they sponsor the Rugby, but I've been conveniently ignoring that for years, and anyway, Guinness Is Good For You.

Mixed message mod out.

I think my mother wrote this...

Pictures of Walls dot com

If I hear the word "metatarsal" one more time...

Top five reasons why I don't care about Wayne Rooney's injury:-

1. He looks like a potato
2. He used to play for Everton
3. The less Manchester United players in the England squad the better
4. I want Brazil to win the World Cup anyway
5. He'll need the time off to learn to spell for his £5million book deal

Kopite Mod out.

Unless You're Very Lucky

In a change to the published program I've decided to chance a foray into mp3 blogging. This week I bought on cd one of my favourite albums, Astronauts by the Lilac Time, which I also have on vinyl but for that reason never play. It's a gently melodic collection of wistful songs by Stephen Duffy, who's amazingly still better known for having the dodgy soubriquet of "Tintin" in an earlier incarnation, and also recently supping with the Devil and writing songs for Robbie Williams.

In between his band, named after a line in the Nick Drake song "River Man", made 4 albums of acoustic gems that couldn't have been less inkeeping with the late 80s and early 90s fashions for all things grunge and madchester if he'd started an Arthur Askey tribute band. But then Blur did that, eh.

So here is my favourite tune, and indeed one of my favourite songs by anyone ever. "Grey Skies and Work Things", as in:-

"I know what tomorrow will bring
- Unless you're very lucky -
Grey skies and work things"

Folky mod out.

The Kleptones are back

A mysterious entity from planet Brighton, Eric Kleptone has done it again, posting more bootleg and mashup tracks than you can shake a stick at. Unless you can shake a stick 33 times that is.

Preliminary highlights include Cold Turkey over Unfinished Sympathy, some silliness involving Careless Whisper, and INXS backing up Aerosmith. All melted around some delicious samples from movies and the six o'clock news and served on a bed of Rrrrrock.

Get 'em while they're hot!

Mod out.

Paddy's day humbug

I had a bit of an auld Pogues listen this morning, partly cos it's Paddy's day, and partly cos I listen to the Pogues all the time anyway. The lines below really stuck with me and put me right off going out tonight. Of course I will, but if anyone comes near me in one of those stupid green leprechaun hats they'd better beware.
Take it away Shane...

"Where 'ere we go we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of Priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies"
- Thousands are Sailing.

Mod out (of patience with Ireland being marketed as a brand of jolly drunk people).

Witness the Fitness

By Hutch. Keep up with his stuff here.

"Mixin' up the Guinness with the raw egg yolk..."

Mod out.

Book of the month

I've just started Francis Wheen's "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World", and it's been getting me needlessly annoyed on the train morning and night all week. So far he's set out with laser precision exactly how little common sense our rulers have, and how much they rely on stupidity of every creed.

Obviously, Dubya and his god thing. Reagan and his horoscopes. But it isn't just the nazis, the Democrats are as bad. Hillary Clinton regularly met new-age gurus who spoon-fed her bullshit, Al Gore shrank from condemning "intelligent design" while running for President, and our own Tony Bliar is not only a christian but has swallowed hook, line and sinker all the management consultancy gibberish which now passes for New Labour policy.

And these are supposed to be the clever people. When he deals with the weirder end of things, from Sunday Tabloid astrologers to surreal-titled corporate personal growth books ("God wants you to be Rich"; "The Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun"; "If Aristotle Ran General Motors") all you can do is laugh. It's a very funny book if it wasn't so depressing.

You'll find a much better precis here, so I'll leave you with a quote Wheen gives at the beginning from the German Philosopher Immanuel Kant:-

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! Dare to Know! "Have courage to use your own understanding!" - that is the motto of enlightenment."

Or, as Public Enemy put it, don't believe the hype...

Mod out.