Dear Santa Claus

11/21/2007 3:19:00 PM

Here's my humble wishlist:
1. Remove all passenger cars from the centre of Bruges.
2. Reunite the Smiths.
3. Remove Justin Timberlake from the charts.
4. Bring democracy to Russia.
5. Remove all small arms and light weapons from circulation

The string spice

11/12/2007 2:19:00 PM

Adding a string section to a pop song is a difficult task. It's a bit like adding sugar to coffee - a delicate balancing act. Here are some of the best results I know of:

Linger / The Cranberries

Very touching. Great intro.

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out / The Smiths

Melodramatic but wonderful. The anthem of my generation.

Whatever / Oasis

Nicked from The Beatles but so what.

Bird flu

10/31/2007 5:14:00 PM

Airports have a strange effect on me. I become someone else - or someone I was in the past. This is dangerous since I've lived in some pretty weird places.

Last week end I went to a bar at an airport. They were playing Trace Adkins (full-bodied Nashville Country Rock).

When I ordered my beer I heard the following: "So, what's a Southener doin' up here?"

Lady in black

10/24/2007 10:47:00 AM

Sense of style is a rare commodity. Its worst enemy is fashion.

The Museum of Modern Art of Paris offers one example till 13 January: Helene Schjerfbeck whose style was absolutely timeless.

I wish I had known her.

http://www.paris.fr/portail/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=33394

Live history

10/19/2007 3:16:00 PM

Live albums are a dying breed and they will not be missed. Most of them are plain boring and there is so much more to enjoy in a DVD.

I only have three live albums that I can listen to without falling asleep:

Rank / The Smiths

Shows that they were actually pretty raw onstage.

Songs of Faith and Devotion Live / Depeche Mode

A commercial and critical failure but has strange appeal neverthless. Great company on an extended nightly voyage.

Johnny Cash at San Quentin

The one and only. Digital remastering done right: If you put this into your home entertainment centre you feel like one of the inmates.

The public wants what the public gets

10/17/2007 11:28:00 AM

Here's an interesting test: Watch the evening news in parallel from the BBC World and the CNN.

I can already reveal the result: They not only talk about the same subjects, they talk about the same subjects at the same time, i.e. in the same order.

Get that dish and get it soon.

Just what the doctor ordered

10/12/2007 9:29:00 AM

The guitar is like a drug. If you shoot too much of it too quickly you get sick.

It's probably no coincidence that most of the '90s guitar records have too much guitar in them. Can't really listen to them.

Thank you God for the likes of Interpol. Listen to "Pioneer to the Falls" - that's what those strings are for.

The supposed Golden Path

10/9/2007 9:08:00 AM

Collaborations between two bands tend to produce absolute disasters. Think of the U2 and the Green Day, for example.

No rule without an exception.

I just don't get tired of watching the Chemical Brothers featuring The Flaming Lips at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2003. So unexpected, so true, and so rock'n'roll.

Con amore

10/4/2007 5:26:00 PM

Some people just look so amazing on the screen that they don't even have to speak.

Like Monica Bellucci. She hardly said a word in Malèna or in The Passion of the Christ but I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

In Shoot 'Em Up (awful title) she seems to be wearing a red corset. I wonder if that tops her breathtaking appearances in The Matrix Reloaded where she was clad in beige latex. Heaven forbid.

Her melodious lay

9/28/2007 9:13:00 AM

Here's a good reason to spend a day in London: the Millais exhibition at the Tate.

He was so ahead of his time - a pop artist, a businessman, and a star. Very inspirational for songwriters and poets.

Some of his paintings have a hypnotic effect. You just can't walk away.

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/ophelia

Birdhouse in my soul

9/26/2007 9:35:00 AM

There are days when you'd just like to stay in bed and sulk.

That's when people like They Might Be Giants are urgently needed. I usually turn to their Flood album. It's amazing - 19 tracks that are all hilarious.

I can't forget their gig in Manchester in 1990. All those shoegazers dumbfounded by a duo equipped with an accordion, a guitar and a drum machine - and about 50 songs that last for two minutes or less.

It wasn’t me

9/20/2007 8:19:00 AM

Some people are so brave it's almost frightening.

Like Marie-Ange Le Boulaire. Her documentary on rape victims on France2 was almost too tough to watch. A rape victim herself, she knows her subject.

When a wife meets her two boys after finally having her husband face the justice after years of rape and violence and they ask "where is daddy?" it is hard to sit still.

Where did THAT come from?

9/18/2007 11:09:00 AM

I'm probably not the only musician who's spent hours trying to reproduce a sound that's somehow emblematic - like that ghostly guitar in New Order's Blue Monday.

Luckily there are self-care websites for people like us:

http://www.guitargeek.com/

You do need a Shergold Marathon 6-string bass to get that sound. Been there, done that.

Childish things

9/14/2007 10:10:00 AM

I spent years wondering why the writings of Marguerite Duras were so haunting in any language.
Then I saw a film that was based on her life. It began with this:

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Yes, the Bible. Should have known.

Calling Elvis

9/11/2007 9:44:00 AM

September is perfect for listening to everything Elvis Costello ever recorded.

It makes you wonder whether digital sound engineering was actually an improvement at all.

Listen to that Gretsch growl, scream and bark in "I Want You". Listen to that small tube amplifier hum and breathe. Elvis is sitting right there next to you, crying his heart out.

Nessun dorma

9/7/2007 11:35:00 AM

I hope they keep playing it for weeks. What a great man! What a breathtaking moment! And his face after the last note, as if he's saying "I have given you all I have".

I will not sleep.

Dasepo Girl

9/5/2007 10:45:00 AM

God bless online shopping! Without it you would hardly get to see any interesting films these days.

For example, Dasepo Girl, a Korean release from last year, shows the hidden potential of high school comedies. I really like the way it takes all the clichés to hilarious extremes.

Put "Dasepo Girl" into the search engine of YouTube and you'll see what I mean.

http://www.hancinema.net/korean_movie_Dasepo_Girl.php

Excess mess in darkness

8/31/2007 9:06:00 AM

We've all been there: four o'clock in the morning and I CAN'T GET NO SLEEP.

I personally know that all hope is gone when "Insomnia" by Faithless starts to play in my head.

This time of the year it's easy since the early morning light is so beautiful in the park, great for jogging. But come winter and those moonlit mornings. Pure living hell.

All lost in the supermarket

8/29/2007 4:15:00 PM

I wonder who has decided that rock festivals need to have five stages scattered around a huge field. After paying a ridiculous sum of money you spend most of your time wondering what's happening and where, a map in hand.

At Pukkelpop this resulted in most people just giving up and laying on the ground.

Luckily I managed to find the Editors though. What a huge wall of sound!