CURRENTLY…

I’m a bad blogger, please forgive me.

LISTENING TO:

CURRENTLY…

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

CURRENTLY…

Sorry I’ve been crap at blogging lately. I’ll try to be better. Here’s a short one to keep things ticking over… recommendations always appreciated.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:

Yuck - ‘Yuck’

Very taken by Yuck’s album… like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, it’s totally derivative but the songs are GREAT. Bits of the Pixies, Pavement, Sonic Youth. Great name, too.

THE CELESTIAL CAFÉ

 

I recently finished this book, and (eventually) thought it was ace. I love Belle & Sebastian, but can see how their tweeness rankles with some people (although not so much these days, it must be said. I prefer B&S version 2.0 to their early stuff).

This is a collection of online diary entries written by Stuart Murdoch in the years before, during and after the release of their albums Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit, and also documents the seeds of his God Help the Girl project. It took about a hundred pages to really get going, and is pretty disjointed by its very nature of journal entries, but I found it totally absorbing after that.

THIS IS REALLY GOOD, TOO…

 

Mark Oliver Everett’s ‘Things the Grandchildren Should Know‘. A tome that’s been sitting on my shelf for two years, I wish I’d read it sooner. It’s both chuckleworthy and cry-into-your-palms sad. I’m spotting a trend with my recent reading material. I’m going to go back to Eels over the next couple of weeks now. The music doesn’t always do it for me, but he’s an extremely good writer, I’ll give him that much.

The BBC documentary about his physicist dad, ‘Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives‘ is also worth watching. It’s on YouTube.

THE RESTORATION OF EDWYN COLLINS

I just finished reading this book. Whether you’re an Edwyn Collins/Orange Juice fan or not, it’s highly recommended. Written by his wife Grace Maxwell, it chronicles the journey that they’ve both undertaken since his stroke in 2005, and it’s one of the most poignant, inspiring books I’ve read in a while. The subject matter is undoubtedly sad, but in-between, there are big fat glimmers of hope and laugh-out-loud funniness. What’s more, it’s really wonderfully penned by Maxwell, who probably didn’t realise that she was writing one big love story when she sat down at her desk to start it.

I admired Edwyn Collins before his stroke anyway, but I think I admire him in a different sort of way after reading this.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Hi folks. Sorry I’ve been a bit rubbish at posting lately. House-hunting, work, and life in general have been getting in the way. I’m working on finishing my ‘Albums of the Noughties’ series and that should be up over the next week or so. In the meantime, I’ve been to some gigs over the last few weeks that I’ve enjoyed.