Braille Porn

Well now there’s a relatively new topic to rival that and its: “If you were on Dragons Den what would your idea be?”
I’ve been asked what my idea would be a coupe f times. On the first occasion I had nothing but on the second I came up with what I thought was a pretty good idea. Braille porn.
Porn is so easily available, boot up your computer, click, click, click and its all there. Soft, medium hardcore or just plain weird porn. The choice is yours.
But if you’re blind its just you and your imagination and that’s just way too much effort. -Even more so if you’ve been blind since birth. How would you know what sex even attracts you if you’ve never seen a man or woman? Maybe it’s the smell and touch? But if so then you can’t go around smelling and touching people when you reach puberty. Its instinct I guess, but still, it must be confusing. Especially if your not sure what sex you like.

But it turns out that someone has already come up with Braille porn. Never mind.

The Saints - (I'm) Stranded

Even though they formed and released an album before most of the other well known punk rock bands, Australia’s The Saints get overlooked as one of the genre’s formative bands. They are still going (albeit through many line up changes) but the only alum that I would recommend is the 1977 debut (I’m) Stranded which features the excellent song on the same name.
I made the mistake of buying a three CD box set of some of their later stuff which has a smoother mid tempo pop-rock sound. I’ve only heard it a couple of times.
What I want to listen to is the early up-tempo raw buzz saw guitar type stuff that’s like the Australian Ramones.



Follow link to download The Saints - (I’m) Stranded

Jim White - Christmas Day

“Amazing grace, how sweet the
smile upon the face I never thought I'd see you again...especially here in this Greyhound station...on Christmas Day...in 1998.”

Its that happy time off year, right? Yeah but what is the worst thing about Christmas? Well the shopping for presents is a bit of a headache. So are the Christmas songs. I don’t mean the Christmas carols I mean the same songs that get churned out every year. You know the ones. There’s no escape from them.
Shopping for presents in a crowded shopping centre that has the heating on fall blast and the same songs played over and over in every shop. That’s the worst part of Christmas.
But a seasonal song that I will be playing is the Jim White’s Christmas Day. Its not the most festive of songs festive songs and I certainly wouldn’t like to be stuck at a bus stop on Christmas day, but one of the great things about it is that there isn’t a sleigh bell to be heard anywhere.

Premier Passions

With Steve Bruce out of the Sunderland job it looks like we have seen the last of the old school generation of football managers that retired from playing in the early nineties, went into management and failed to move with the times.
For example Sunderland gave Bruce an iPad to do tactics and statistics on, but he claimed that he didn’t do much tactics. Also he said like a badge of honour that he has email but doesn’t know how to log on.
I can’t see Bruce getting another job at a Premier League club, no more than say Brian Robson, Terry Butcher or Peter Reid.

If you don’t know who Peter Reid is, well when Diego Maradona scored that great solo goal against England in the 1986 world cup, Reid is the first player who chases after him and finally gives up as Maradona reaches the penalty area.
He was actually a very decent player in his day but his stock as a manager has gone. I’m singling him out because I’ve just watched an episode of Premier Passions on Google video. It’s a five part documentary series that follows Sunderland in the 1996-1997 season when Peter Reid was the manager. With access to the dressing room you get to see pre match and half time team talks which basically consists of “Don’t fucking hesitate out there, get fucking right in their fucking faces and don’t fucking let them fucking settle. Lets fucking get them fucking tackles in.”

I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that even the manager of my school football team gave us a more insightful team talk. And a whole lot less unnecessary swearing.

Great Cover #11 The Be Good Tanyas - Waiting 'Round To Die

“Now I'm out of prison, I got me a friend at last. He don't steal or cheat or drink or lie. His name's codeine, he's the nicest thing I've seen. Together we're gonna wait around and die."

Waiting ‘Round To Die is of course the classic Townes Van Vandt song about a man that goes from place to place to escape his troubles and finds some more on the way. It’s a stand out classic that many artists have covered. And the best cover of the song that I’ve heard has to be from The Be Good Tanyas which appeared on their second album Chinatown.
Okay so it may not come close to the version that Townes Van Vandt performs on the documentary Heartworn Highways [which is even better than the recorded version] but that could never happen.



Follow link to download: The Be Good Tanyas - Waiting 'Round To Die

Cam Butler - I Surrender

Cam Butler is an Australian guitarist and composer who’s music I’ve just began getting into. From what I’ve heard of the guitar work it atmospheric, dark and melodic. Though I’ve not yet heard much of the string stuff yet (the next album that’s soon to be released has been recorded with a23 piece string orchestra) the song that I first heard from him and made me want to hear some more is a song called I Surrender that has a big band jazz feel to it. It sounds like a piece of John Barry music and really wouldn’t sound out of place alongside those big classic James Bond theme tunes.



Follow the link to download Cam Butler - I Surrender

Adam's House Cat - Town Burned Down

Adam’s House Cat was the band that Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley played in before they went on to perform the Drive-By Truckers.
They recorded one album that never saw the light of day. This week I’ve managed to get hold of a download of the album Town Burned Down, its ragged and raw cow punk and the sound is a bit thin but its still a good listen.
They last song it an acoustic version of the song Nine Bullets that’s on the Drive-By Truckers second album Pizza Deliverance and is still a live favourite.

Follow this link to download: Adam’s House Cat - Nine Bullets

Lost Children Net Label

A great place to find some really good post-rock, experimental, ambient, drone, electronic, math-rock type stuff is from the Lost Children Net Label. And it’s a place where you can download the music for free as they care more about good music being heard than making a profit (and anyway do any record labels make much of a profit nowadays?).
There is over seventy albums available so if you don’t know where to start then I would suggest starting at The Silent Ballet compilations from which I’ve found many things to get further into such as French Teen Idol, Amberhaze, Orange Crush and Ben Frost to name a few.

Gary Speed

Gary Speed topping himself was a bit of a random one. One minute on Football Focus, few hours later he’s in the garage looking for a sturdy piece of rope.
Why did he do it? Who knows, maybe some reason will come out after a period of mourning for the family and friends he left behind. Maybe we will never know.

In the meantime tributes have been pouring in from the world of football. Rightly so, he was one of them footballers that fans respected even if you didn’t support the team he was playing for. That certainly can’t be said about Joey Barton who sent a few tweets with his condolences. But then his twitter tourettes manifested itself and he went on so say:
'Suicide is a mix of the most tragic, most selfish, most terrible (and I want to believe preventable) acts out there.'

This comment has caused a bit of a storm and Barton has refused to apologise.
And why should he? Sure I think that Barton is a dick and his reinvention of himself as the thinking mans footballer doesn’t convince me -oh but wait he’s tweeted quotes from Nietzsche don’t you know? Really, well how hard is it to type out something that someone else quoted many years ago? It isn’t his words its Nietzsche- but he’s right in saying that its tragic, terrible and yes also selfish.
Though its just as sad as someone killing themselves who has nobody close to them, when you leave a family behind then you’ve passed problems onto them.
But from what I know about deep depression is that it reaches a moment when loved ones don’t come into consideration. The only person that matters is yourself, and that person doesn’t want to go on anymore. They believe its then only way.

So yes Joey Barton has a valid point. But the timing wasn’t so great. Is my timing better? No, but them I know that my opinion won’t be in the paper the next day.