Warner Bros is set to release a DVD box set of Blade Runner that rivals all other special editions and will keep the fans drooling until it's on shelves this December 18th. Presenting the film in HD formats, the DVD collection will come in a briefcase with, a three-hour documentary and (count them) five different versions of the film, including Ridley Scott's dark "work print."
Hmmm I hope that it will not only be available in HD formats, as this consumer electronics late-adopter will not be supporting Blu-ray for quite some considerable time yet.
.... Circle Of Ouroborus offer up their own cracked take on buzzing black metal, murky almost punky, super lo-fi, practice space production, mumble warbly guitars, drums tinny and buried in the mix, and a totally demented vocalist wailing in a growling cracked croon, WAY up in the mix, shouting and howling ....
Friday night it was raining and I was running late. I ran into Noizy in Taranaki St as he was leaving and then had this weird flashback as I rounded the corner to the entrance to Vintage (scroll down). When was the last time I was here? Was it still Monkey Bar then? Was I thrown out? Was I experiencing deja vu of from another place/space/time/parallel existence? Or a movie of the same? Was I really interrogated by the Stazi in East Berlin for several days in a stone building with an arched gate? Were there bright spotlights and guard towers? And dogs? My god, I really need a drink.
Vintage was nice, but for some reason I had to keep telling the barstaff to serve my beer (Monteiths Black) in a glass. Tom and Hadyn enjoyed their absinthe, though, as did I my tequila (Herradura Antiguo; thanks for asking). At least the barstaff didn't give me funny looks when I said I didn't want it in a shot-glass with lemon and salt; points off for offering though.
Five or six rounds later Jo, Martha and I were the last left after many present had departed to either watch Che learn how to cook a lamb leg-roast, or to gawk at the out-of-towners at the Mandatory 10th birthday party. So we're hoofing it down Courtenay Place in the rain and I was struck by how far it actually is to Hawthorn Lounge when it's actually raining and you're actually getting quite wet. Luckily ol' HT wasn't packed to the gunnels like it usually is later on of an evening, and nor was it sweltering, like it usually is later on of an evening; the fire was going, though, and it was nice.
I like Hawthorn Lounge and I don't like Hawthorn Lounge. I like that the bartender remembers you and which gin you prefer; and that he was happy to mix a Dirty Martini (only it's not bloody olive juice, Drinksmixer.com -- it's brine) for me with the sometimes too-strong-and-"big"-to-be-classic Tanqueray 10 (47.3% a.b.v.), though it was against his better instincts. I don't like how hard it is to actually get to the bar, how hot it gets in there, how crowded, that they are apparently -- in the top-shelf spirits analogue to a "brewery-bar", I suppose -- a "42 Below" bar, and how their cocktails are so little.
I mean they're really little.
I mean, they're so little that you'd want to be careful breathing too near your glass, in case you inadvertently inhale the lot.
Nevertheless we had negronis (with mandarin-infused gin, no less), and martinis, and Jo had wine and that violet spirit the name of which I knew I'd never remember and sure enough I don't. Then in dribs and drabs we made our ways to Boulot.
Which is a wonderful place. Could be said to be everything that Hawthorn Lounge is not, including generously-sized cocktails, and (possibly) the best pizza in town. Jo and I finished off our night scoffing a Quattro Formagi which I accompanied with a big glass of random Spanish red wine from the bottle that M.G. abandoned when he left. (Fucken nice, it was, too -- thanks Michael.)
Drinks tally for the evening: Monteiths Black (4) Tequila (double, 2) Negronis (3) Dirty Martinis (2) Classic Martinis (1) 1951 Martinis (1) glasses of random Spanish red wine courtesy M.G. (1)
There's no end in sight to the cheezburga shortages, and this -- coupled with the perennial burbps blight -- has led to feasibility studies being carried out on alternative food resources.
Taking the detached plastic soul of Young Americans to an elegant, robotic extreme, Station to Station is a transitional album that creates its own distinctive style. Abandoning any pretense of being a soulman, yet keeping rhythmic elements of soul, David Bowie positions himself as a cold, clinical crooner and explores a variety of styles. Everything from epic ballads and disco to synthesized avant pop is present on Station to Station, but what ties it together is Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia and detached musical persona. At its heart, Station to Station is an avant-garde art-rock album, most explicitly on TVC 15 and the epic sprawl of the title track, but also on the cool crooning of Wild Is the Wind and Word on a Wing, as well as the disco stylings of Golden Years. It's not an easy album to warm to, but its epic structure and clinical sound were an impressive, individualistic achievement, as well as a style that would prove enormously influential on post-punk.
-- allmusic.com
Listening to it now.. there's a few brief sections of chewed tape, but it sounds GREAT.
This has predictably caused some consternation amongst fans of the Cerne Abbas Giant, who are praying (or dancing, or whatever) for rain to wash ol' Homer away.
It's a little weird to be sitting and wondering how to say that the film you saw last night -- the new one by Werner Herzog, your favourite filmmaker ever -- kinda sucked.
Rescue Dawn -- the real-life story of U.S. fighter pilot Dieter Dengler, a German-American shot down and captured in Laos during the early days of the Vietnam War -- played at the Embassy last night and its 2+ hours really dragged. I was almost glad when it was done.
Putting it into context, though -- (1) I have seen Herzog's documentary on the same story, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a goodly number of times -- so I knew the story almost backwards, thereby rendering the dramatised version free of almost all suspense, or uncertainty as to how things would pan out; (2) for some reason I really can't stand that Jeremy Davies guy; and (c) the jingoistic "U S A! U S A!" ending grated and frankly seemed in poor taste given the current global political climate. (Or am I just over-sensitised to that?)
I have to forgive Herzog because never before have I watched one of his 50-odd feature or documentary films that I didn't -- at the very least -- think was pretty bloody good. Indeed most of the time I'm perfectly happy to bandy about the term "genius" in relation to his work. Everyone is allowed to slip-up from time-to-time. So it goes. And I will concede that visually, the film was a delight to watch.
Lumiere Reader reviewed the film here and here, and didn't really seem to like it that much either. I gotta say, however, in response to Tim Wong's piece, that I remember no scene with no fucking grizzly bears. Curious and curiouser.
YouTube comes up with the goods again; One of Midnight Oil's best songs from arguably their best album (Head Injuries) and a perfect illustration of the weird hybrid sound they had at the time -- a perfect combination of pub-rock and frantic New Wave.
Buried deep in this week's Wellingtonian is a press-release puff-up on Wellington mature girly pop-duo Pearl. You may remember them from having supported uh.. Elton John and uh.. Eric Clapton. Anyway they've just launched a new video clip on Youtube and are justifiably pleased with racking up over 80,000 views inside a month (100,000+ by now).
While the tune is by no means to my taste, I enjoyed the clip with its irreverent take on the modern relationship, and subtle nods (and no doubt winks) to less widespread sub-cultural sexual practices such as fetishism, sex toys, "dogging" and "seagulling" (right).
Dogging (Wikipedia; sex disease risks) is a relatively well known phenomenon, due in part to column inches and tabloid outrage, but its mutant evil bastard spawn seagulling is perhaps less so. I can't find anything definitive to link to but the UrbanDictionary is a help; you'll get the idea through a combination of defn's 2 and 8.
If a burglar stole the first four tracks from this cd in the night, I doubt whether I'd mind, but take that fifth track and I'll be calling the cops....
Was poking through referral links (as you do) and discovered this nice, prim wee article laying out some guidelines around socialising with workmates.
Sure wish I'd paid heed to some of these in the past:
2. Don't tease the man you know has always fancied you. After a few drinks, sitting on his knee and stroking his bald patch may give out the wrong signals. ... 9. If you do get a lift home from a male colleague, don't invite him in unless you are 100 per cent sure of his character and your intentions.
Gor blimey.
...
NP: The LSD March -- Suddenly, Like Flames (Last Visible Dog) and Bailter Space -- Photon (Turnbuckle) on random-play.
"Downer murk and amp-flaming distorto rock from a young Japanese psychedelic rock trio in the wasted, wigged-out tradition of many on those PSF Tokyo Flashback comps, also harking further back of course to underground '70s lo-fi legends Les Rallizes Denudes! LSD-march, named for a track on the first, heaviest album by krautrockers Guru Guru, slowly whisper and wander through a veil of feedback and plodding rhythms. There's both gentle and searing stuff to be found here. These guys are more serious, mysterious and melancholy than Acid Mothers Temple, with a definite Velvets vibe at times. And when the guitars get cranked, this sounds like the Neil Youngiest of Nagisa Ni Te freakouts. With liner notes (and stamp of approval) from translator/psych expert Alan Cummings."
As Jo helpfully pointed out, I AM going for drinks with the Wellingtonista crew tomorrow night. So despite my wailing and my woe about the (good-)heath of my liver, all is not lost. That is, if I can shake this nasty lurg. And, I do have to work all weekend. Arrrggghhh.......
...
NP: Oren Ambarchi & Johan Berthling -- My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights (Eat My Art Out)
..an impenetrable forest of sound that you will take pleasure in losing yourself w/in......
Kiran gave me a copy of Jay McInerny's (possibly-)quintesstial 80s-hedonistic-decadence novel last night to read in my (semi-)sick bed. I knew only the film adaptation with Michael J. Fox in the lead role, and to be honest I don't remember too many good things. I'm also having trouble reading the protagonist's second-person dialogue in anyone's voice other than Marty McFly's.
I'm really enjoying the book though, and giggling unselfconsciously at bits like:
IT'S 6 AM, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE???
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy.
You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder.
Then again, it might not.
A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is the result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian Marching Powder.
All this really just leads me to the realisation that there have been far too few drinks lately, here at Drinks-After-Work. This is not going unnoticed by management, either. On one hand there is a certain sensible rationalisation going on; indeed, how many times can I really write the same story about going to the pub and watching some band, or a game of rugby, without boring everyone including myself. On the other, the simple, painful truth is that there just hasn't been that much going on. Look how neglected my "debauchery" channel is, for godssakes. Why? I've been tired. Sick. Sore. Busy. You name it, I've been it.
So. This has got to end. here. now. Taken under consideration; report-back expected shortly.
...
NP: Boris with Michiuo Kurihara -- Rainbow (aQuarius)
Following their recent successful collaboration with American doom-drone-druids SUNNO))), who could Japanese behemoths Boris turn to for another joint effort in channelling the ultimate in psychedelic heaviness? They'd already teamed up with Keiji Haino some years ago, but there's another underground Japanese psych-scene guitar hero who Boris NEEDED to get freaky with (as proven here), and it wasn't Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple (though that's bound to happen someday...). No, as you already know, it's Michio Kurihara, formerly of Tokyo retro psych legends White Heaven, currently in both Ghost and The Stars. He's also played a bunch with Damon and Naomi, and released his own solo album Sunset, also on Pedal. His West Coast '60s inspired guitar style is virtuosic and distinctive, and certain to spark something special with the Boris crew, as any Kurihara fan would expect .............................
Have finally finished reading Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground. Despite the last little section seeming a little "tacked-on", it's true to its hype -- it's compelling, engagingly accessible, and fascinating. I'd recommend it to any fans of not only the black metal genre, but also to any students of true crime, sociology, and cultism.
"Gripping stuff, a book about scary rock that is really scary."
-- Booklist
Found this rather impressive and prepossessing picture of black metaller, church-burner and murderer Varg Vikernes a.k.a. Count Grishnach a.k.a. Burzum on his official site. He's finally due out of prison in less than 12 months.
...
If you're hooked into my podcast feed on the right there, you'll notice that I've done a new 'cast called Poems for the Aching, Swords for the Infuriated. This is the first in a series of black metal comps I've been requested by a couple of mates, namely Button and A.M., to put together. This is gonna be fun.
NP: VA - Poems for the Aching, Swords for the Infuriated podcast(FoxyDigitalis)
The divine Mz. K's dad fliked off some old LPs onto me the other day. Big Brother and the Holding Company -- Cheap Thrills (better than I imagined psych-rock guitar and a Crumb cover at a scale such that you can actually read the captions), Salif Keita - Soro (Allmusic) (West African rock gone kinda 80s synth-pop, but not as bad as it sounds), and....... The Doors' L.A. Woman.
It's the original edition of the LP, in adequate condition and in a fantastic ltd. edn. jacket -- rounded corners and a die-cut window into which an transparent acetate with B/W band photo has been glued. The inner-sleeve is yellow so sliding it in gets you the original cover design. Hopefully you get the idea from the pic (above).
I'm no longer much of a fan of the Doors by any means, but playing the LP through a couple of times in accompaniment to all my fetishistic obsessing about this great artefact -- I discovered I really, really liked this song.
Isn't it great!? What a cute pop song! What an utterly fantastic organ part in the latter parts of the track -- all quasi-carnivalesque and possibly even quoting from something that I can't quite place. I even like the lyrics, which for me is a rare occurrence:
What are they doing in the Hyacinth House? x 2 To please the lions this day
I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me I need a brand new friend who doesn't trouble me I need someone, yeah, who doesn't need me
I see the bathroom is clear I think that somebody's near I'm sure that someone is following me, oh yeah
etc..
I mean, it's classic Jim Morrison -- unintentionally goofy, hard to take seriously, and ruined in part by throwaway rock-godisms ("Oh yeah") but what the hell. For some reason I like the idea that he's looking over his shoulder because of something he's done, and the someone(s) he's done it to.
Considering the outpouring of pus, bile and sputum that these features have become lately, I was going to skip Friday Farce this week. However, there's things that have to be said -- so let's get back into it from where we left things.
You almost. have. to. like. this. Really. Listen -- it could be a lost track by the Abyssinians -- absolutely stonkin' roots reggae 70s harmony vocal styles. Sugar Minnot is a legend of Jamaican music (Wikipedia). The Easy Star All-Stars are a collective family of some of the finest reggae musicians in the New York area (as individuals, the band's vocalists and instrumentalists have toured and recorded with Gil-Scott-Heron, Burning Spear, Toots and the Maytals, The Toasters, The Meditations, Bernie Worrell, DJ Logic, MC Solaar, King Django, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, The Scofflaws, Diana King, Dennis Brown, Monty Alexander, Sister Carol, and many others) -- and responsible for the hugely successful Dub Side of the Moon "cover album" (Wikipedia) of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. (No comment -- yet). The rhythm is solid, lead vocal is gorgeous and the harmonies are immaculate. But wait.. they're fading out on the repeated lyric "We hope.. that you choke.. that you choke". WRONG. Oh my god, SO wrong its heartbreaking.
It turns out this track is from Radiodread, the "cover album" (Wikipedia) of Radiohead's OK Computer. Goddamn it.
...
Darkwave old-timers Miranda Sex Garden (Wikipedia) do it pretty faithfully and end up with something that is nice but ultimately inconsequential:
Considering their origins as a trio singing madrigals, it's actually pretty impressive that they almost manage to out-huge-fuzz-bass the original.
...
I don't really have much to say to massed girls choirs (at least not that I'm about to admit to here), but on this occasion to Scala (Belgian, even!) I say "please stop":
Although on this occasion it's mystifyingly pleasing to hear them singing "We hope.. that you choke.. that you choke".
...
Now we're getting into the real dregs. Christopher O'Riley is "an American classical pianist and public radio show host, who is also known for his piano arrangements of songs by alternative pop artists" (Wikipedia):
As much as (I think) I'm a humanist, I'd like to line up and shoot people with a proclivity towards creating, recording and releasing piano arrangements of songs by alternative pop artists.
Nina Nastasia an accomplished musician, songwriter and performer who currently makes her home in New York, but she's playing at the Bar Bodega on Friday night with Jim White (out of Aussie week-long-musical-wake post-rockers The Dirty Three).
An uncredited writer once wrote:
Nina Nastasia's rare gift of a voice is an intimate, winged presence that is able to either freeze or melt your heart, that can powerfully soar and twist, or brush ultra-gently against you, suddenly summoning goose bumps. Mojo commented on its ability to "suck the air out of the room". Picking over themes of love, longing and loss, childhood, dreams and human dramas, her beautifully concise, hook-laden songwriting and the spare arrangements of her band have a certain gritty, rustic charm and intensity. Simultaneously tough and fragile, her songs crackle and smoulder with an intimate emotional honesty and a dark undertow.
Just how beautiful? Remarkably beautiful, though it's far from a smooth train ride. Backed by a skilled cast of musicians who take on the standard rock band instrumentation plus. Nina Nastasia spins her lazy, elegantly adorned tales with a voice that effortlessly slips into your ears. Lines like "I want you...I want you...I want to strike you" fall from her mouth as if she doesn't want to wake the slumbering partner lying next to her, conflicted between lust and dread. This record flows so easily that it sounds as if it made itself. Engineer Steve Albini should be commended. Intimate, delicate, and laced with greatness, one of those records that only takes one listen to be justly evaluated as special and timeless. The pain is sweet.
I was going to let the 30th anniversary of the reggae apocalypse pass without remark, but was riding a bus this afternoon and had a vision of 7 July 2007 -- when three sevens clash, even -- as a day of judgement when past injustices would be avenged, and when Laurie Alexander would pay me the $4.50 I lent him for a mince pie, two packets of wine gums, and a raspberry bun from the school tuck shop twenty years ago.
A nice -- and nicely concise -- article about the reggae apocalypse -- and about those heady days of punk and reggae mashup streetstylez 1977 -- is here.
I first began hating you when the playlist used to make me play your fucking Giles Petersen-loving insufferably torpid "jazz" "ensemble" "electronica" whatever|nothingness bullshit on Active when I djed there. I haven't stopped.
My brother once told me that he wanted Radiohead's Exit Music (for a film) played at his funeral. That ruled because (a) I love my brother, (b) that track rules, (c) I never liked Radiohead until I heard it (d) it's kinda a cheesy song for your funeral but that's Andy in a nutshell and (e) I'm glad he felt as though he could share that with me. Hey -- I reached 30 and I achieved at least one thing. Go me.
Exit Music (for a film) is like a closet prog-rock fan-buoy's wet-dream. Fuzz bass playing lickety-split runs, pomp and ceremony, soaring vocals, mellotrons, huge modulations, pathos -- Radiohead, you really nailed it. That's why this tedious, pretentious, just-plain-LAME piece-of-shit cover hurts all the more. Why did you do it, The Cinematic Orchestra? WHY DID YOU DO IT? WHY DID YOU DO IT? WHY DID YOU DO IT?
PS. I love how at some point the PR gimp who writes your press penned the sentence "The aptly named Cinematic Orchestra..."; because.. what.. it's a shit name, your band is shit, and therefore it's apt? Go figure.
Can I go on record here and just say that Public Image Ltd'sPoptones is the best thing that John Lydon a.k.a. Rotten ever has or will record.
The standard objections listed and rebutted here:
1. It's not by the Sex Pistols. No. It's not. The Sex Pistols weren't even a real band -- they were a situationist prank pulled on a naïve public by the inscrutably unscrupulous Malcolm MacLaren, ably assisted by Rotten -- and they were also rubbish.
2. Ok so it's PiL but it's no Death Disco. No. It's not. I think it's better. I will certainly dance to Death Disco, but this is a better song.
3. It's not on (annoying-critics' perennial PiL album pick) Flowers of Romance (gahn on -- pick the difficult one, whyntcha). No. It's not. Flowers of Romance is a fine album, to be sure, but let's be frank -- they'd lost a Wobble, Keith Levene had dropped his guitar and flipped his wig over synthesizers, and they'd gained a Martin Atkins. That's a bum deal in anyone's language.
4. The best thing John Lydon (wikipedia) has ever recorded was the episode of Judge Judy where he appeared as the defendant in a suit regarding some former band-member's claim that he was owed money after being kicked out of PiL. You are right, that is a superlative moment in his recorded and media history, right up there with the time PiL fucked shit up on the Dick Clarke show, and -- of course -- Lydon's own TV show. But Poptones tops that.
So yeah. Best. Ever. You can listen to a live version if you like, taken from a concert recording in France, 1980:
What a simply magnificent track; the insistent bass-line which runs up and down and all around the scale, the live drums slathered all over with colossal sloppy Lee "Scratch" Perry reverb, the plaintive guitar figure which loops-de-loop over and over (in the live version it suffers somewhat from sloppy execution by an -- I imagine -- worse-for-wear Keith Levene), and the intriguing lyric delivered in the characteristic Lydon extendo-quaver-rant:
Drive to the forest in a japanese car The smell of rubber on concrete tar Hindsight done me no good Standing naked in the back of the woods The cassette played poptones
I can't forget the impression you made You left a hole in the back of my head I don't like hiding in this foliage and peat It's wet and I'm losing my body heat The cassette played poptones
This bleeding heart / Looking for bodies / Nearly injured my pride Praise picnicking in the British countryside Poptones
What's that all about, then? Eh?
...
You can download the whole Image Publique S.A. - Paris Au Printemps album at dorfdisco braunsfeld. Since its all like out-of-print and shit.
For quite some time The Stumps have been waiting to announce that their new CD The Black Wood is out. The moment is not here quite yet, but it's pretty bloody close; certainly close enough for me to be able to happily say that the new Stumps CD The Black Wood has been released by Providence, RI label Last Visible Dog. It's not actually due to be officially released until August 2007, but there are already copies floating around distributors and radio stations.
(I'm not really sure why people -- myself included but not limited to -- feel compelled to preface statements with "Providence, RI" when referring to things to do with Providence, RI -- could it be New Zealand's long and heroic association with the noble sport of yacht-racing? I doubt it.)
It's far too early for reviews or anything, but if you want to read the characteristically hyperbolic text of the press release which accompanies the album, click on the artwork (top-right) and knock yerself out.
However, there's a bit of angst surrounding this release, because the printing of the cover art has been -- well, for want of a better term, cocked up. I'm still completely unsure how this came to pass, but the artwork has been printed in all wrong colours; if that wasn't enough, it's also far too dark.
Top-right is a picture of the cover-art, sure, but it's not supposed to look like that. Below left is what it's supposed to look like. Below right is how it actually turned out. Oh dear. And the problem is not limited to the front cover; the panels on the inside and the back of the cd-case are also far to dark, rendering the type almost completely illegible.
I made a little mistake announcing the title of the first track, due to the black-on-black type used on the album art. In black, it says "also by The Stumps", and then proceeds to list other albums in a lightly-colored font. I didn't see the black writing until just now, so I thought the first album listed was the track title. This isn't going to kill anyone, but I thought I'd clarify it for those of you who download the show later today. This album will be available in August, so I still have time to practice, hahaha.
Sorry, Dave. Actually, it's embarrassing. And I wish I could figure out what went wrong, because I've got the artwork for a new seht CD ready to go off to the pressing/printing plant very shortly; now I'm all paranoid that it's destined to suffer a similar fate.
What am I supposed to do? We send digital files to another country, who then send them on to a printer -- which is in some cases in a third country. Who's gonna do the proofs? Who's gonna take it upon themselves to make sure that we don't have 1,000 or more CD covers and booklets printed all fucked up? How to avert disaster? The best idea I can come up with at the moment is to generate PDFs of the artwork so at least someone can look at it on the screen and say "uh, that's not right".
Sleepless nights. Premature greying. All that.
...
About the only thing that's giving me any joy out of the whole situation is doing google searches for stumps "the black wood"; it turns up ALL sorts of delightful little abstracts. Here's some examples:
... (Blera fallax) which breeds in wet pockets of decay in large pine stumps. ... and the Black Wood of Rannoch and Culbin Sands have been designated as ...
It has also been suggested that the black wood- pecker and the ... and increasing food supply (cut stumps) in afforested areas in western Europe, ...
But the black wood that leans and sighs above her; No hour can change, .... Blistered and maimed the wide stumps grinned; From the black mouth of Thèlus ...
retained stumps, high cut stumps, or stubs. Their. suggestion likely underestimates the .... Mikusiński, G. 1997: Winter foraging of the black wood- ...
The tallest of the three is suspended in a broken tree stump with his front hoof ... Gold and black fillet liner raised above the black wood crinkled frame. ...
The falling tree avoids striking other trees or hitting stumps, ...The blackwood stove is positioned on top of a 4" raised platform of green 12" quarry ...
The black wood reddens, the deathwatches inside begin running out of time, ..... on the thumb stump wisps of smoke ask a ride into the emptiness. ...
Some of their strongholds are Glen Affric, the Black Wood of Rannoch, ... that a high proportion of the lichens are found on stumps and standing dead trees. ...
The group includes the black-wood tree (also called the East Indian .... The tail is docked to a stump and the eyes are brown and almond-shaped with a keen, ...
.........and that's just the first couple of pages of results.
I get the impression that listening to Ghost is not quite the hip activity that it once was; 'tis a pity, perhaps, or perhaps I don't give a fuck. The band is great, I've been a fan for at least 10 years now, and this album is sensational.
Christ, this was unexpected. Went on TradeMe, bought this:
(if you can't read the text in the picture, that's the album Only Life by The Feelies, only one of my favourite bands, like, ever. Sez Allmusic: Of the countless bands to emerge from the New York City underground during the post-punk era, few if any were as unique and influential as The Feelies; nerdy, nervous, and noisy, even decades later their droning, skittering avant-garde pop remains a key touchstone of the American indie music scene... and so on and so on).
Yay. Yay me.
Record arrived last night. I promptly remove the shrinkwrap* and discover -- to my horror -- than rather than the advertised LP, within is some awful late-80s major-label record by fucking John Hiatt. The tedious, past his use-by date and vastly-overrated John fucking Hiatt.
I feel violated.
* Yes, it was shrinkwrapped, and had presumably been so since it was pressed at the plant sometime in the 80s. Go figure.
There was a brief remission in the cheezburgaz availability problem, but then the local stockpiles were exhausted and the supply dried up again:
This morning there were official requests for cheezburgaz at 5.30 am, 6.45 am and 7.55 am, in addition to a couple of unofficial entreaties around midnight and 1am.
And then to top it all off, there were rumours of a breach of security at the bucket storage facility:
Fortunately, Harry was able to see off the purloiners quickly and effectively, earning himself a cheezburga and a commendation for bravery.
From Rotten Tomatoes:
This has predictably caused 
Have finally finished reading 
