Month: March 2003

The electric interwebnet is just so very awesome. Alongside the Sigur Ros gig (see last post), today the power of torrent has brought me the latest episode of Angel and the complete first 16 issues of Mircleman. I hate reading comics on a computer, but seen as this is legendary work by Alan Moore which is out of print I shall make an expcetion.

I am no where near ready to go to Dublin tomorrow. I have nothing packed. I guess I shall quickly throw some clothes into a bag and that will do for the weekend. Gah, still might go for the half day tomorrow, we shall see how it all goes. But I really have to decide now…fuck it too late really. I should pack a small bag and go. *sigh* Sleep now while some lovely music downloads overnight.

hopelandic

I left work shortly after eight tonight. Not in the best of moods. I had been meant to go and see a friend’s band play and they were due on stage at eight, the other side of town. But there were issues in work which just had to be resolved today full stop. So I stayed and they were, I hope resolved.

A few minutes later I was walking down the street heading towards the bus station pretty much grinning like a loon. Let’s rewind a little and start at the start.

This morning, we had an ‘All Hands’ in work. Quite simply an off-site talking to for everyone in the company. So headed straight to that. It was ok, some of it was quite interesting, some of it was boring and some of it was well fucking impressive. Anyway after that was over we all walked back to the office. It was about 20 minutes away. Got there around 12:30 and unlocked my machine. The transfer I had started of the Sigur Ros gig was still going. About two minutes later it finished. It may have taken close on 20 hours, but I had 1.1 GB of pure uncompressed, close to soundboard quality wavs sitting on my hard drive. Later that afternoon I had a double cd set of the gig ready to go.

I walked out the front door at work and I pressed play. As the first track begins (and we are talking close on a four minute lead in here), it just hit me. Completely. I actually shivered with anticipation. As I typed that, I got ‘shivere’ typed out, then the vocals being on viðrar vel til loftárása and I stopped. It wasn’t that I stopped, I couldn’t type any more. My eyelids came down and there was only the music. Anyways so I’m walking down the street and let me tell you this, there is almost nothing that matches the high music can give you. Drink doesn’t even qualify and drugs don’t even come close.

Listening back I noticed something which I was, I am sure doing myself at the time. Your out at a gig and a song ends. You clap, you cheer etc etc. You just do, sometimes just because it’s polite. It’s so very different listening to this. Normally there will be clapping and cheering even before the song ends, you know it’s coming to and end and you show your appreciation. Not at this gig. The songs don’t end, they either go out in a blaze of glory like you wouldn’t believe or they wind down and fade out. The songs that fade out, you hear every single last note. There is silence, people are barely breathing and then the song stops. The last note is drawn out and let go. The breathing stops. There is a moment, just a moment but a moment of complete silence. It says everything you need to know about the performance just seen. The audience is breathless and then with no build-up at all, no lone person starting everyone off, there is clapping and cheering.

Another thing I note. Jónsi Birgisson vocals are simply stunning. I don’t have the words to do them justice. When you can barely hear them over the music and the drums are going strong and loud, there is not a single more powerful sound. They come through above everything else and cannot help but reach into you.

There was a note with the downloaded files asking that no-one re-encode them to MP3 or anything like that so as to keep the high quality. Initially I scoffed at this and intended to convert them to MP3. Now, there is no chance in hell of that happening. I don’t want to loose a single piece of the quality. I have to send some packages to people (no really I do) and I might just have to include copies of these cds in there.

I’d like to throw about a big thank you and major kudos to eighteen seconds before sunrise.

I’m downloading the Sigur Ros gig I saw in Hammersmith last month. It’s taking along time. I hope to come into work in the morning and find it all here waiting for me.

I am listening some older live stuff of theirs and it is so very awesome. Almost painfully beautiful.

Radiohead And Sigur Ros: A Match Made In Rock Geek Heaven.

Three and a half-year old SETI@home project identifies candidate radio signals from space, heads for Arecibo to take second look.
Wired News | Alien Life Search Inches Forward.

Buy this supercomputer on eBay. I’d buy that for a dollar.

***

PUMA AG Statement regarding unauthorized “bad taste advertisement”:
It has been brought to our attention that several unauthorized, sexually suggestive advertisements portraying the PUMA brand have been released over the Internet. We are appalled that images like these would be created and distributed under the PUMA name. As a brand, we seek to take a unique perspective toward our advertising in an effort to challenge the boundaries of our industry; however we would never consider using these tactics. We are in the process of researching the circumstances and reserve any legal steps available.

Puma’s latest ads? I suspect a spoof but a damn good one. If it’s not then holy fuck.

It’s all a mystery

This song is rocking my world more than anything else right now. It is Fight Test by The Flaming Lips.

***
I thought I was smart, I thought I was right
I thought it better not to fight
I thought there was a virtue in always being cool
So it came time to fight, I thought I’ll just step aside
And that the time would prove you wrong
And that you would be the fool

I don’t know where the sunbeams end and that the starlights begin
It’s all a mystery

Oh, to fight is to defend
If it’s not now then tell me when would be the time
That you would stand up and be a man
For to lose I could accept
But to surrender I just wept
And regretted this moment, oh that I, I was the fool

I don’t know where the sunbeams end and that the starlights begin
It’s all a mystery
And I don’t know how a man decides what’s right for his own life
It’s all a mystery

‘Cause I’m a man, not a boy
And there are things you can’t avoid
You have to face them when you’re not prepared to face them
If I could, I would, but you’re with him
I’d do no good
I should have fought him but instead I let him, I let him take you

I don’t know where the sunbeams end and that the starlights begin
It’s all a mystery
And I don’t know how a man decides what’s right for his own life
It’s all a mystery
***

If you don’t know this song, go get it. I don’t care how. Go buy the album, download the song, hell send me an email or an im and I shall send it on to you. It’s just so very right. Listen to it and listen to the lyrics and then listen to it again. I want to put this on at the highest volume possible and just bask in the glory. This is what music is all about. Fuck, I so want to see this live with massive amounts of energy thrown behind it.

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
– C. Day Lewis