No mistake, there is an art to it for sure and the
good ones are not only technically skilled in their
handling of equipment and media but in their handling
of their audiences.
But! For someone coming from the indy end of rock,
it's still all vaguely a bit incomprehensible - I
mean, for a start, all this anxiety to please stuff -
what's that about?! That's a different universe, like
being in something as unspeakable as a wedding band or
being a cocktail bar jazz doofus. The wedding band guys
will tell you that they make a whole lot of money and
you know they have skill but still, it seems awfully
like peddling your ass in a low rent part of town...
and where peddling your ass isn't, you know, your
thing exactly.
I was at a techno party not long ago and what struck
me was how safe and mannered it all was - mid tempo
scratchings with slow developments and not too much in
the way of surprises. After a certain hour it seemed
most anyone would dance to this in a vaguely self
absorbed and contained way. Well, OK, why not? Some
people like playing endless games of scrabble as well.
But don't get me wrong - I don't miss bloody
mosh pits at all, and I don't miss nihilism all that
much either except as a momentary thing where, in a
pinpoint flash of light, the body danced outside
itself, outside pain, happiness, and the reality of a
shitty relationship or whatever - or maybe for an
instant it was a celebration of that shittiness...
which is a small affirmation of life itself in a kind
of a way - a sort of update of the maudlin country
song - a variation on the Blues.
Or to put it another way, in an undrugged and
unalcoholed state it was all kind of, well, boring.
And it was somehow more boring for the fact that this
music was second-hand, was not being produced in the
minute even though aspects of it were being altered
in the minute in sometimes fairly crass ways. How
about an inspired DJ that hits every minute, and the crowd,
with some kind of joyful epiphany? Well, that's an
artist and there aren't many of them.
So, what then? Just check out real bands from time
to time. That's all I suggest. (thunderfinger)
Noise music? This stuff can empty a room quicker
than you can say caveat emptor. One reason is that the
people who do it mostly prefer to be deafeningly loud.
Ambient noise music has yet to be invented. I predict
a rich future for it when it is.
There is more than one strand to it of course. At
the art end of the street there are many meaningless
meanderings that are likely to put you to sleep if you
were clever enough to bring your ear plugs with you.
People go along thinking - nobody likes this stuff -
it must be cool. But it isn't: mostly because it was
never meant to be. It's an intensely personal thing
that positively revels in its musical unfriendliness.
Another strand could just be called Assault and there's
nothing much more to be said about it.
But Noise music also lives on a line extending from
Hardcore and No core (and genre references do get
nonsensical but they serve as some kind of guide).
Yes, it's loud as hell, and it's sure not meant to be
dinner music but it can have some hooks.
Recently in Berlin I saw an eight-piece (yup, 8!)
with a live drummer, a live bassist, two keyboard
players, two knob twiddlers, a bash anything I can find
guy, and a female front person who made vocal noises
and did some strange dancing. They are called The
Rottt.
The combination of all the activity - something to
look at - with pulses of various sorts and varying
ferocity actually held the small crowd and even
inspired some proto punks towards casual violence.
BANG BANG ZWIZZZZZZZEEEZZZZZZ BANG ZWEEEECH BOOM.
It's music for the alienated for sure but it also
has elements of primal excitement - a sort of upside
down love and sandpaper sensuality. It's also an
affirmation - an affirmation of the ability to freak
out within certain bounds, to get beyond the cookie
cutter. And there's discipline as well in that the
shape of the thing is understandable.
(thunderfinger)
You can catch Thunderfinger's commentary this month here.
The art of performance plays tricks on people
- not only the audience who can be taken
somewhere, but also the performers themselves
who can seem to trivialise their own work or at
the other extreme, get lost in a spotlit fog of
bombast or twee artistic pretension.
Rock has some traditions here - polished
moves are for ballet. Precision is for pedants.
The story is one of immediacy of emotion and
action - a juvenile story in some ways. Reach
beyond your grasp! Grasp the darkness beyond
your ken! The story is regularly forgotten of
course, and then remembered again when things
get too smoothly formulaic.
I was thinking about this the other day while
watching a journeyman type rock outfit go through
its paces. In normal mode they were a slight
shambles but the spirit was right and the noise
was fast and rebellious and it was all better
than OK. And we gave them extra marks because
the mix engineer was asleep at the wheel and
didn't seem to hear anything. Maybe she'd been
given a message to never touch the faders. Who
knows?
Then a guest singer came on and, in the
space of a few minutes, went through every
loose-limbed mic move known to man. Had it been
like a surf contest where the judges tot up the
number of tricks you did in your alloted time,
she would have got some kind of medal for sure,
but as it was, she got a big "huh?" from the
people paying any attention... so, one moment,
the glory of a rock cellar, and the next a kind
of reality check - a phony check.
This reminds of a show years ago where first
Blondie came on and slouched her way through a
number with that throw-away sort of style of
hers. She was followed by Olivia Newton John
who did a kind of aerobics workout where she hit
a bewildering series of stage points with
pinpoint accuracy and where these points
exactly corresponded with musical points as well. The applause was deafening! The crowd
went berserk! ONJ then sent a look towards
Blondie that said something like "take that!".
Blondie's look, which was echoed by anyone with
any kind of Rock soul was "huh?".
That other thing was Show Biz of course -
fine its own way, and on its own day.
So what's it all about then? Maybe it's about
audiences and artists giving themselves regular
phony checks. Maybe it's about pure water in a
polluted world. Or maybe it's about learning to
lighten-up. (thunderfinger)
There is growing evidence that noise-related stress is a significant public health hazard. According to a report from the World Health Organisation, unwanted noise is causing hearing impairment including tinnitus, disturbing our sleep and triggering stress hormones which could in turn affect the immune system and metabolism.
It also makes us feel helpless and more aggressive and increases the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, accounting for an estimated 3% of ischeamic heart disease (the most common cause of death in the EU) in Europe. "There is increasing evidence that air and road traffic noise might be related to high blood pressure," says Stephen Stansfeld, professor of psychiatry at Barts and the London School of Medicine. "Exposure in school to aircraft noise is also linked to reading impairment in children."
Another study, by Cornell University in New York, found that workers in an open-plan office with constant exposure to hubbub from machinery, telephones and office chatter had higher levels of adrenaline in their urine than workers in a quiet, self-contained work station. The open-plan group were also less effective at puzzle solving than the quiet group, who slept better, had better digestion, and were less irritable.
"When people get annoyed by noise they get stressed," says Stewart, who went on to set up the National Noise Association pressure group. "Constant exposure to even moderate levels of noise can be harmful. One Austrian study showed that children living on a main road had shorter concentration spans than those who didn't."
More at The Guardian including a list of things to do.
Over ten years ago while on a summer trip around England and
Ireland, I thought I'd go and check out Bristol which at that time was
supposed to be a happening spot - the likes of Massive Attack called
Bristol home and there was reputed to be cool stuff happening. There
wasn't. Not even a tiny bit. The venues were either for pyscho alkies of
the ordinary kind or pyscho alkies of the student kind. In both kinds
of places there wasn't much happening of interest musically.
The lower town had trolling groups of racist piglets who had sport in
telling Japanese tourists to F*ck off. The upper town near the University
was a somewhat nicer place. Leaving aside the mystery of how some towns can
get like this and others escape, the highlight of the visit was bumping
into Kerstin who was from another place and passing through and who I'd
met in Shrewsbury... and who couldn't shed any light on any of Bristol's
mysteries.
All that is by the way of introduction to Tricky's latest album, Knowle
West Boy. Knowle West is a suburb of Bristol and is said to be not very nice,
and not very nice in Bristol is actually fairly horrible ... and that is
actually just the sort of thing you need for edgy, sharp statement if you can
somehow survive the rest of it. Tricky certainly did and he's been putting
out regular albums over the last decade while being mostly based in NYC and L.A. ...
which probably annoyed some people but his tone has remained much the same.
This release has some gas too - some of the tracks almost mini-operatic in
their changes and flow but without the pretension that "mini-operatic" might
suggest. There's lots of life here - problems, serene moments, frantic
moments, although the serene tends to be a heartbeat or two rather than a
settled-in mood. It's flawed as well in maybe a little too much trickiness
(sorry) on tracks such as Council Estate, or the somewhat flat guitar bits but flaws are life too, and music too - wasn't that what we liked about Punk or
some of the Indy stuff? All in all, it's worth checking out.
(thunderfinger)
I really hated MTV's Unplugged series.What was the point,
I thought, of taking someone like The Cure who's normal
oevre was crafted layers of distorted electric guitar, synth,
vocals and drums and sucking all the life out of it? Turning
it into muzak! ... wimpy nonsense for non-music people! And
no, I wouldn't listen to people who said that stripping things
back revealed the beauty behind the thing. What it revealed
was that some people will do anything for a buck and others
just didn't get it. Commercially it was a great success of
course, still might be for all I know.
And so I was mildly horrified to turn up for a night of
the iTunes festival in Berlin ... a night featuring
take-no-prisoners guitar rock from locals Jennifer Rostock and
Essex's own, The Subways ... to discover that The Subways
drummer, Josh, was sick, and that the remaining two, Billy and
Charlotte, were going to do an 'acoustic set'. Yikes!
Jennifer Rostock is a five piece with Jennifer (?) doing
the vocals and a lot of stage coverage. The locals are into to
them straight away but the earlier songs smack too much for me
of the Soviet-style pomp rock, with lots of overblown musical
statements and a fair bit of histrionics from the singer as
well. At the end of the set though we had some nice high-energy
rock that set most feet moving.
Then a gap while the stage people set up for The Subways. I
was hoping to catch a word with them and thought I would if they
appeared in the public area (which Jennifer Rostock did). I
thought, if they were closeted backstage there was a good chance
they'd be working on what they were going to do and wouldn't be
particularly thrilled to see me. They didn't appear outside
and so after a beer on the terrace by the river,I went back in.
Not completely acoustic was the first good news. Charlotte's
bass guitar and amp were onstage plus an acoustic guitar and
chair for Billy. A Swiss girl asked me what they were like and
I said 'who knows?! normally they rock more than somewhat'. They
were onstage as kids and their combination of rocking
seriously and pleasant innocence (no fake world-weary cynicism)
drew a lot of fans to them - kids and adults. A few years later,
they've been around the block a few times but the patina remains
much the same, and the idea too, although the actual music is
beginning to get more complex and a few of these sorts of songs
will appear on the next album due sometime this year.
The actual gig wasn't too bad. It was, as it had to be,
different. Billy sat and played and sang and yelled and
Charlotte danced about doing her bass lines and yowling the odd
line or two into her mic. She looked cute as a button as usual.
And no-one walked out - in fact it was a very supportive
audience - more power to them.
And so, The Subways semi-unplugged wasn't too bad. But this
wasn't a gimmick: It was an effort to provide some sort of show
and where the difficulty of the conditions created both a little
danger onstage and quite a lot of involvement off it.
Kudos to the people at Radial System V for creating a nice
atmosphere for the festival as well.
(thunderfinger)
Rimbaud was a French poet from the mid and late nineteenth
century. He was a child prodigy lumped with the Fauvists for
his vivid and exciting work which didn't resemble the usually
more mannered poetry of the time, and which led to him being
called, much later, the father of modern poetry.
He ran away from home a lot and ended up going to Paris from
his home near the Belgian border after sending Verlaine one of
his poems. He was invited to come and stay and the two
became lovers. Together they roamed the netherworlds of Paris
getting drunk on absinthe and generally being rowdy, abusive
and unpleasant - a certain kind of rock 'n' roll tour. Amazingly
enough, Verlaine's marriage survived this but not his
increasingly violent behaviour later - He even shot Rimbaud in
the wrist at one stage.
Rimbaud spent a little time in London living in Camden and
hanging out at the library of the British Musueum (free pencils!) and then wandered Europe by foot. He gave up writing
poetry at 21 or so - he was totally sick of being broke, for one thing -
but kept up writing letters and ended up as some sort of
agent in Africa and with a relationship with a local woman. He
died in Marsailles, aged 37, from something nasty, with his
sister Isabelle by his side.
It's a short, somewhat sad story. As far as the rockers go,
Jim Morrison of the Doors was a big fan and no doubt based
some of his antics on those of the man who went before - or at
least the theory of the thing - shock and horror with literary
pretensions. He might also have felt a kinship from the fact
that both had military fathers who were at least distant.
Rimbaud's father decided after a posting that he didn't even
want to see his family anymore and went off to live by himself. Who can know if Morrison's last days in Paris
involved some kind of Rimbaldian search and destroy mission?
He was, by all accounts, sick of being a rock star and there's
no doubt he wanted more serious recognition.
Another link comes through Television guitarist Tom
Verlaine just because of the name he chose for himself and
certainly, his angular, semi-minimal guitar work had great
beauty and an obvious yearning to be closer to art then a
yelled-over three minute thrash. At first glance it might not
be apparent why the name Verlaine should be chosen at all but perhaps
it was the louche loser thing that said 'Punk' quite clearly.
What of today? The Babyshambles guy certainly has the excess
thing covered (and excess by itself is merely that) and shows
threatening signs that he'd like to be taken seriously. Time
will tell on that one but right now it looks like the Libertines
might be a close as he'd come, and that isn't that close.
But what about the "art" thing generally? Some people with
binary brains (off-on, black-white) like to think that the only
valid sort of "popular" music is their sort - trash pop, classic
rock, music with deep lyrics, music with no lyrics.. whatever.
Of course, all the strands are valid - they just are - like it
or not! And then what people see as a shambles at one time
might be seen as art at another, like Rimbaud.
(thunderfinger)
Electronic folk? It covers a wide range, doesn't it.
You can have same as it always was, except louder. You
can have a psychedelic trip or you could have something
that resembles the folk tradition with a little
electricity more as an afterthought. For purists, there's
nothing to be said other than 'bogus!'. For other people
there might be something, depending on how it goes.
Joanna Newsom is a pleasant night out in this way
and London's Hush the Many is as well although both are
somewhat more complex musically than the folk tradition
would allow or maybe it's better to say the academic folk
tradition. Still, folk is more (or less) than just what
folk are listening to at any given time. It has historic
roots in both style and substance and the style is
understood to be simple. When you start to hyphenate,
anything goes of course, and the only thing the performer
is really interested in is whether anyone will come
along.
Hadamansky bill themselves as electronic folk from the
Carpathians. What could that mean? The punters waiting for
the gig to start weren't much of a clue as they included
punks, students, your standard model beer monsters, and
quite a few who looked like they'd just arrived from
Eastern parts, as well as people who looked like they were
after a bit of a knees-up and didn't much care where or
what it was as long as it was loud and had a beat.
The five piece (or occasionally six) immediately tell
us what they're about when they start playing fast and
loud dance music from eons past. It's the celebration of
some free moments, maybe even a special event. In the
style of gypsy bands, there's quite a lot of skilled and
fast trumpet playing as well as electric guitar, bass,
drums plus a muscle-bound frontman who looks a little
like a modern imagining of Genghis Kahn in a good mood.
After a little of this hell-for-leather stuff they
break into more psychedelic things and there's a high
standard of play throughout. The change doesn't seem to
result in much in the way of raised eyebrows. Beers are
being quaffed and people are dancing as best they can in
the solid crowd.
So, maybe more for the World bin than the Folk bin and
maybe not the thing for sleek urbans either. Thanks to
Henning Kuepper for taking us along.
I'd better give Bleepfest Berlin 08 a plug as well.
This runs from 8pm or so on Friday 28 March, through
Saturday starting about 5pm going until late, and then
Sunday is a chill/ambient/BBQ day starting at 2pm and going
until 11 or so. There are artists from all over and it's
usually a very groovy event - Three Days of Peace, Love,
and Electronica!
(thunderfinger)
I came across NYC Rock by Mike Evans just recently even though it's
been in print since 2003. It covers NYC music from the 1900's on and
aside from anything else gives some kind of style-guide to the changing
times with the emphasis, unsurprisingly, being on rock and variants.
Aside from his assertion that NYC is the world's melting pot which is
probably a hundred years out of date, there is a lot of interesting stuff
here - the whole punk/new wave/no wave thing, the uncomfortable
relationship between business and art (as it always was and will be), and
the nexus between a lively experimental scene and the availability of
suitably out-there clubs to show them off and introduce them - for which
read "cheap rents" as being a major factor. What of Bloomberg/Guilianni's sanitised
no-smoking NYC of today? Life is still there, it just moved outwards much
as it has in London..
Evans also has words to say about the idea that the UK was the home of
Punk. But actually, the UK was the home: NYC was the birthplace but band
after band found they couldn't sell any records in the USA or even find
places to play beyond the limited boundaries of a few clubs at home. The UK
at the time
provided them with both as well as critical appreciation.
The story gets a far as The Strokes, who never excited me as much as
most everyone else, but still they did actually make a lot of people very
excited. Today or a few days ago, from all accounts (I don't know, I
haven't been there for years) Hip-hop fusion from the Bronx, with people like
CocoRosie, is having a moment in the sun... but they don't get a mention.
There are a whole lot of people that do, however, and the final bit is almost
a trainspotter's guide to bands that were big in the 'urbs ... it's a
little apt to make your eyes glaze over, but you could find someone special
that's right in your line as well.
Speaking of New York, I was sent a single the other day called New York
from a band called Cheap Hotel. I'm not sure that they are from NY but they
well could be. They were billed as Punk which seems to be now talk for
anyone with a little indy energy. Punk, for me, means chaotic energy, not
necessarily Black Flag but certainly elements of that, a certain raggedness.
Cheap Hotel aren't that at all, not on this single anyway. That doesn't
make them bad either - they have a nice riff going and they do have energy
but Punk they are not.
Lastly, if you're into indy electronica, and if you're going to be near Berlin,
Germany over March 28, 29, 30 you should check out Bleepfest Berlin 08 as
there will be talent there from all over.
(thunderfinger)
Not so long ago Britney Spears had a new album out and there were
quite a few nice words written by critics in the everyday media -
angst of artist leads to best effort in years - that sort of thing.
And then there were people who wrote something like - Jeez, gimmie
a break, the Spear had as much to do with the creative content of
the recording as she did with the weather in Moscow.
Well, I can't say I've ever taken her seriously but she did deliver
a part of the performance and this puts me in mind of Marianne
Faithful and Broken English. That was a wonderful raw and ragged
thing that was written up as an MF effort. It wasn't. MF remains
good at the same things as Paris, Britney etc, yawn, etc - that is
to say, self-publicity and kiss-and-tell and that sort of thing. In
fact Britney's latest is straight out of the MF playbook. Who was it
behind Broken English? Barry Reynolds.
And then there's Kylie, who apparently had a fair bit to do with her
own effort and received little credit for it except for being on the
UK's Honours List - which might have been for being a Gay icon but I
think it was for being entertaining. Yes, well, why not? I
remember a few years ago being totally amazed at the amount of hatred
and invective that was being heaped on her by her fellow Aussies
(who make a fine sport of mean-spirited envy). That's like hating a
daisy - not the most interesting flower perhaps, but one with a
little charm and one that wouldn't rouse too much passion with normal
people... either for or against. In a way, she's an update of Olivia
Newton whatsit, who a Rolling Stone reviewer once described as
"the sound of white bread singing". chortle.
Are these two the mainstream? Are we there yet? I don't know really
but they are certainly more mainstream than most anything else I've
talked about lately. They certainly are commercial.
And then there's Amy Winehouse. She's newer than the other two but is
travelling a very old road just the same. She's allowed of course
even if that road seems headed for the Devil's Crossroads ... or is
it away, after? Lots of people are liking her atmosphere anyway, and
the tabloids are happy to have someone else to write about. There is
something there too. When she was first around there were mentions
of Janis Joplin and I wrote a few scathing words at the time as her
voice isn't in the same league as Big Brother era Janis. But that
comparison was odious anyway, and a red herring. 2008 could be
interesting as Mark Ronson has talked about "wall of sound".
Updated Phil Spector, with some roughness and soul could be
interesting.
(thunderfinger)
A while ago I had a few uncomplimentary
words to say about the last Babyshambles
album and having just heard the latest one,
I thought I'd give you an update: it's
better - not love it to bits, can't do
without it better, but better all the same
with some nice dirty guitar and some
original-sounding songs.
The reason I mention them at all is just
to highlight the problem of being original
and having something to say, both musically
and lyrically. There are plenty of bands who
don't aspire to this at all - they tack
themselves onto a genre, and away they go,
hoping to get laid a lot and maybe even get a
buck or two... until they grow up, when they'll
get real jobs. I'm not sneering at them at all
but my interest generally lies elsewhere.
Do the BS (sorry, couldn't resist it)
belong in this grouping? I think they're
groping to get out of the grouping and maybe
when they're Teenshambles, they'll have found
a voice. The fact that they're looking and
groping commends them a little.
In contrast to this are people who hardly
seem able to do the commonplace. They stand
up and sing, or whatever, and many people
don't have a clue what the hell they're
talking about - that's the downside (in
commercial terms anyway). The trick, of course,
is to have a few accessibility handles that
people can catch onto. Mstation interviews
one such this month, Jessie Evans who, amongst other things, finds
interesting places to put her sax playing -
including artpunk bands.
The good news for all of us is that there's
actually quite a lot of this sort of thing
out there. You need to find it, and then you
need to lack the need for hype to say it's
alright to like it. In other words, thinking
for yourself is good, even though it can be
time-consuming.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Peace
and Love, dude/tte.
(thunderfinger)
There's an album out from Nightwish called
Dark Passion Play which has a sticker on it
proclaiming them to be the best Metal band of
all time. This could well be true, I suppose.
Listening to this album, it seems a little
like light opera - Gilbert and Sullivan or
Andrew Lloyd Webber for people who drink a lot
lot of beer. I imagine the conversation
amongst the band was quite similar to a legion
of big guitar bands from the past who had
sudden urges to do art and maybe similar to
the one that pursuaded a band of old East
German rockers (think long grey hair,
gum chewing mean looks, and some almost cool
single coil noises) to appear in front of one
of Berlin's orchestras in the Gendamenmarkt.
Though maybe this last was a simple case of
deciding to take the money while it was there.
In the other cases it had more than a little
to do with wanting to get out of those black
jeans and into a white caftan.
So, anyway, this thing from Nightwish is
not the HM we might love or loathe - the
cartoonish riffing for one thing is well back
in the mix and there are all sorts of other
more effete things scooting around in there.
This is what you might expect from a Concept
Album.
HM itself has a huge following right
through Europe complete with mythology like
the story of the Belgian event where beer
drinkers are lined up drinking and peeing
simultaneously. Basic is the word we want
here - along with smelly. Belgium is also
famous for techno parties where you pay
something like 10 or 15 Euros in places like
Lille in France, and then get bussed to an
unidentified building in Belgium where you
can drink all you want for no extra, and get
pounded by techno of differing quality.
Understandably, this is a popular way for
students to lose a weekend or two.
I can't be too rude about HM though. The
sheer basic exuberence of big guitar with the
volume on 11 can lead to moments of primal
exaltation.
Next it's France. This place has always been interesting as it
never really featured in the days when Rock mostly ruled but has
really become a force since the advent of electronic dance music -
this is forgetting, of course, the Chanson style, and people like
Edith Piaf from long ago. You could make an argument that people
like Charlotte Gainsburg, with her smooth Pop, is actually more of
descendant of Piaf than of Elvis.
France didn't really get Rock (and no, I'm not forgetting Billy
Halliday ... or is it one "l" ... who seems to be keen to be known as
a Belgian these days) for a variety of reasons which I won't go into
here as I'd have to write a book. Not that the French weren't
appreciative of visiting real rockers: they were and are.
These days there's almost a French school of production in
the electronic area, and it's smooth and clever, and has witty
asides and frequent eclectic inclusions. We'll talk more of this later.
Germany, or rather Berlin, is interesting. Back in the days of
Faust, the local label had to be dragged, kicking and screaming,
into releasing them as they really didn't want to be diverted from
what they saw as their only business: shifting Bert Kaempfert and
endless oopmpah bands. Things haven't changed much at all on the
commercial front. And even in the Alternative/Indy world a lot of
the labels seem to be suffering a severe case of head-up-bum.
The artists world is something else again, with a lively
scene where all sorts of genres, and far-out sub-genres get by
with a little help from their friends and the hugely important
facts of relatively cheap living and open attitudes - the scene
not just consisting of locals but of people who have come from all
over. I've mentioned all this before but saying it twice can't do
any harm.
Finding these people in shops somewhere else is just about
impossible unless you live in one of the world's major cities where,
even these days, you might find at least one shop that specialises
in out-there stuff with "out-there" merely being defined as something
that's not from a Big Music label. The best way to find them is to
look around somewhere like Myspace, and then support the acts by
buying from them directly.
Going back to the business of Rocking, there are, of course, lots
of people who don't want to rock at all and lots who couldn't if
they tried. Rocking isn't just a matter of tempo, timbre, and feel. Just like
the Blues, there are subtleties all through the thing that separate
the real from the fake.
(thunderfinger)
Mstation Pop etc Commentary, Reviews
pre Dec 04 reviews are here
Fri, 06 Mar 2009
For a long time we've been running separate instances of Blosxom to handle
our two categories of News, as well as our Reviews and Commentary to do with
books, classical music, pop/dance/etc music, games, and podcasts. Blosxom has
served us very well but always had some problems playing well on a PHP site ...
integration proved difficult.
So now we've installed a Wordpress system which offers quite a few advantages.
First of all, all the categories can be easily browsed within one page plus it's
very easy to add something new or disappear something.
Hopefully, you'll like it! Here is the page ... http://mstation.org/rev-com
The feeds can be subscribed to by mousing over the categories on the right
hand side of the page. The new feeds are as follows:
everything! http://mstation.org/rev-com/?feed=rss2
books http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=6
classical music http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=3
games http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=5
music http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=4
news: general http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=11
news: music, games http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=12
podcasts http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=7
tech http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=10
uncategorized http://mstation.org/rev-com?feed=rss2&cat=1
We will keep the present feeds running until perhaps the end of April,
so no great rush, although news items will be posted to the new feeds
from today... March 6 09.
Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Fri, 30 Jan 2009
Tue, 28 Oct 2008
Wed, 01 Oct 2008
Tue, 23 Sep 2008
Studies show noise is a health risk
Mon, 01 Sep 2008
Sun, 06 Jul 2008
Wed, 30 Apr 2008
Mon, 24 Mar 2008
Fri, 29 Feb 2008
Tue, 05 Feb 2008
Mon, 03 Dec 2007
Thu, 01 Nov 2007
Sat, 29 Sep 2007
