Joe Moran, listed on Wikipedia as a social historian, wrote a lovely book called Queueing For Beginners which I came to after reading a piece on commuting he wrote for The Guardian. I see he has a blog now which is full of witty, interesting, pondersome observations on the minutae of everyday life. Check it out here and here is a small sample on the death of Ceefax.
'Ceefax’s go-to pages were well known to initiates: 102 for news, 302 for football, 400 for weather, 430 for train timetables, 888 for subtitles – good for watching Top of the Pops if you wanted to decipher the lyrics. Some people would watch the football on Ceefax, staring at the 0-0 score and willing a goal for their team. I suspect this is more gripping than it sounds.
Anyway, RIP pages from Ceefax, little Zen moments of stillness and contemplation in the otherwise endless flow of television. We have no need of you now that television is on all the time and it will never, ever end.'
Been loving Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy - commendably envelope-pushing weirdness. Also it looks spectacular. Here is a photo of his artwork shown in Soho last year which relate to ideas in the show and which I found at Programmed From Childhood.
A mix by a man called Jean-Baptiste at Boing Poum Tchak!, which is surely the best name ever for a dance music blog.
Scott Ferguson - Any day now – ElectroVox remix (deep vibes)
Norma Jean Bell - Late night show – Theo Parrish remix (funky chocolate)
Ron Trent - Pressure release (future vision)
Delano Smith – Behind closed doors (mix mode)
Tang - Devout (emphasis)
Tommy Bones – Focused energy (real tone)
Antonelli Electr. - Shrinking (level)
Roosevell & Charles - Monastery (mojuba)
The Other People Place – Sorrow & a cup of joe (clone)
6th Borough Project – Hang on (instruments of rapture)
Mike Huckaby - Disco time (deep transportation)
I remember when I was dismayed at the lack of Mothersole mixes on the Web. Now you can get tonnes from Proton Radio, which I'm linking to via the unfathomably plentiful Liveset.NL
01. Estroe - Duisteritis [Eevo Next]
02. Ever Vivid - Lost Love [Open Mind]
03. Rick Grant and Jack Dixon - Muted [Man Make Music]
04. Motorcitysoul - Hatohay - Moved D Mix [Simple]
05. Kevin Yost - Photo Shoot [I]
06. Maceo Plex - Stay High Baby [Ellum]
07. Freaky Disco - No Debt [Wiggle]
08. Soy Mustafa - Return Of Anunnaki - John Tejada Mix [Cinematic]
09. Pig and Dan - Stronger [Yoshitoshi]
10. My Favorite Robot - Forest Fires [Visionquest]
11. Smallpeople - Black Ice [Smallville]
12. Christian Loeffler - Undefined Season [Ki]
13. Freaky Disco - Ferell [Wiggle]
14. Swayzak - State Of Grace - Van Bellen Mix [Columbia]
15. Flybaby - You Must Admit [World Wide]
Sadly American Athlete is no more but there are plenty of good tracks still available for download there. A lot of quality disco here and some nice world music nuggets too.
Here's a site of cool imagery (from a teenage girl in Sweden, I think) which I found whilst searching my family name (Flaxa) on Google images which seems to mean something like 'armpit' in Swedish. The blog address says Chan3l so that's what I'll call the post.
The polaroid of palm trees that is my new header is also from this site.
Picked up this lovely compilation about a year ago in Notting Hill for a mere 6 quid. It's now my most played vinyl. Pure quality French pop.
Tracklist...
01 Joe Le Taxi-Vanessa Paradis 02 Helene-Julien Clerc 03 Kole Sere-P.Lavil & Jocelyne Beroard 04 Pile ou Face-Corynne Charby 05 Je te promets-J. Hallyday 06 Le coeur en exil-Images 07 Les petits boudins-Rober Farel 08 Quand la ville dort-Niagara 09 Les divas du dancing-Philippe Cataldo 10 Le pull-over blanc-Graziella De Michele 11 Les Tzars-Indochine 12 Ces idees-là -Bertignac 13 A bailar calypso-Elli Medeiros 14 Une autre histoire- G.Blanc
The film boldly works with a considered palette of colours, deliberately artful framing of shots and a soundtrack which is, by turns, emotive and ambient, letting Beatrice Dalle's performance carry the dramatic weight. Well worth a look.
A couple of 96 / 97 era British indie tunes for you today plus lyrics, both showing a similar vocal and lyrical style...
The first above is from Arab Strap, called The First Big Weekend. The second from Khaya, who aren't even on Youtube right now and their track Summer/Winter Song, which you can check out here.
THE FIRST BIG WEEKEND
So that was the first big weekend of the summer... Starts Thursday as usual with the canteen quiz and again no-one wins the big cash prize. Later I do my sound Bloke routine by approaching Gina's new boyfriend to say that he shouldn't feel that there's any animosity between us and then I even go and make peace with her Shouldn't have bothered.
Then on Friday night we went through to the Arches...
There was only one car going so some of us had to get the train. We got through quite late. Then we went to a pub to take the gear. There was no problems getting in - we saw some others waiting down the front of the queue so we skipped in. It was a good night - everyone was nutted and I ended up dancing with some blonde girl. I thought she had been quite pretty until last night when Matthew informed me that she had, in fact, been a pig.
When the club finished we wandered the streets for a while until we got to this 24-hour cafe. I didn't like the look of it so we left and got a taxi back to Morag's flat. I couldn't sleep so I sat about drinking someone else's strawberry tonic wine and tried to keep everyone else up.
Then at ten o'clock in the morning we went downstairs to buy some drink. We had intended to watch the football in the afternoon but we'd passed out by then and slept right through it, awaking to find that England had won two-nil. Then we went to get the train home and had a few in the Station bar. We had some stuff left from the previous night's supplies so when we got home we decided to go down to John's indie disco. Same story as Friday - lots of hugging, lots of dancing etc. etc. I couldn't sleep again so went to the park to look at the toon, taking a detour through the playpark. To get in we had to climb over a ten foot steel fence, which resulted in severe bruising of our hands, legs and groins, but we had a good laugh on the stuff, especially the tube-slide, which probably doubles up as a urinal for drunk teens. Then we walked through the woods to have a look at the toon. Big disappointment, but the mist on the lake was cool.
Sunday afternoon we go up to John's with a lot of beer in time to watch the Simpsons - it was a really good episode about love always ending in tragedy except, of course, for Marge and Homer. It was quite moving at the end and to tell you the truth my eyes were a bit damp.
Then we watched these young girls in swimsuits have a water fight in the street. We went up to the pub about ten. It was busy for a Sunday night, lots of people we know, including my first ever girlfriend who I still find very attractive, quite frankly, but I didn't really speak to her She's probably still a bitch, anyway. Her friend Gillian was there, I had a chat with her, she was still quite pleasant. At the same time I watched Malcolm make some terrible attempt to try and chat up a girl we know called Jo. He made some remark about her skirt that was barely there the previous night or something. I couldn't sleep again that night, thanks to some seriously disturbing nightmares...Matthew says I should cut down on the cheese.
"Went out for the weekend, it lasted for ever, high with our friends it's officially summer."
I got some sleep eventually on Monday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and later that evening Malcolm introduced me to the power of Merrydown - ■.79 a litre, 8.2% - mmmm..... Judith and Laura came round later and we sat in my back garden and drank. Then Matthew came round and we went up the town. It's officially summer.
SUMMER/WINTER SONG
We went round 2 Dan's to get some beer John came round and we got drunk. Dan was singing U could make me die music So we did some 4-track stuff. At about 10 Beth appeared. She wasn't happy about working in a bar Dealing with drunk people And coming home to find her friends drunk too, But that's the way it's been lately.
We went out and if it was a good night It wasn't the first but it meant more And I don't think I was acting too clever But I don't care And I suppose you could let me off Because what difference would a few more miles make. What difference does a few more miles make When homes so far away.
Dan seamed happy that night He said he always felt like this It's only the people that change. One group. Two group.
Do you remember that Leonard Cohen song 'Suzanne'? Do you remember that Leonard Cohen song ? Do you remember that Leonard Cohen song 'Suzanne'? Do you remember that Leonard Cohen song ? Do you remember summers?
It happens in the summer. It happens in the winter. It happens in the summer. It happens in the winter.
You'll go blind... your body will turn to wax... they'll have to put you in a wheelbarrow... and when you scream for help, you'll sound like a raccoon.
