Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘music’ Category

Background for any lucky foreigners in the audience:

The Daily Mail is a tabloid newspaper sold in the UK, aimed at people with low-to-average reading ages and low-to-zero tolerance for a non-white face. The Mail hates gays, foreigners, criminals, gays, lefties and mouthy wimmin (i.e. ladies who have ambitions towards careers*). It is a middle-class paper that demonises the lower classes, teenagers, single mothers and immigrants while idolising the Royal Family and celebrities. It's also notorious for running frequent stories about things that give you OMG CANCER.

"Maddie" is Madeleine McCann, a British toddler who was kidnapped in 2007. A lot of the newspapers publicised the case at the time and since. Maddie hasn't been found, but the story is occasionally dug up for the sake of increasing circulation.

(The post title is a legendary Mail headline.)

*edit: This post previously said the Mail features topless models on Page Three. I misremembered there; Page Three girls are in The Sun and other UK tabloids.

The Cat Piano, an animated noir beat poem.

This was really designed. Like KJ Parker with her special longbow, I don't want to know if it was ever built.

Good stories with rich worldbuilding always make me happy, but it doesn't have to be speculative fiction.

Here's an example of online storytelling that is wonderful (and has a powerful message or three).

Smokescreen is a free-to-play online game, made by some folks called Six to Start along with Channel 4. It has a very clever plot. And, as of the latest episode, it even has a resident music video (which is part of one of the episode's puzzles).

It's lovingly put together with the kind of attention to detail that pours out of the Grand Theft Autos and the Oddworlds of this gaming world.

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Who sleeps in bed next to you?
Other than an occasional visiting cat, just my current book/s.

What kind of magazines do you read?
I don't. I hate magazines; the physicality of them, the periodical-ness, the dumbed-down-ness (especially that)… I've just learned somewhere along the line to file myself as Not a Magazine Person. I barely even read RSS feeds. :P I'd actually read New Scientist if I could get over it being a magazine.

What was the last book you read? What are you currently reading?
Last were a few children's books pertaining to ghost dogs, for my collection. Currently, Winterbirth by some British writer. It's really… Scottish. Includes a map, but also needs an index of clan names…

What's really creepy?
Nightmares involving violence or sex. Humans being naked for non-sensible reasons. Animal abuse of any sort – well, that's more ENRAGING than icky. Infantilism. Hurting people for fun. Especially those last two.

Who is your celebrity crush?
I tend not to crush on real people. In terms of "I know I don't actually know them, but they seem terribly enticing from what I have seen, so I hope I never meet them or I'll probably despise them as I do with all real human beings": Jennifer Saunders and Stephen Fry. (Someone who is worth meeting, in my experience, is Terry Pratchett. He's witty and not a prick in real life, even at an exhausting signing.)

Quote some lyrics that you love:

• Lycanthropy by Patrick Wolf doesn't just speak to me, it sings to me.
• "Rise another day across the distant skies / Where the dawn above the winter moonlight shines upon the fall of our lives" –DragonForce (I find themes of winter/snow/ice and moonlight quite often exhilerating)
• "All the pay I need comes shining through his eyes / I dont need no cold water to make me realise that / I love my dog as much as I love you / But you may fade, my dog will always come through." –Cat Stevens (I think explaining this might be to belabour a point…)
• "Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light; / Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night? / I'm being followed by a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow / Leaping and hopping on a moonshadow, moonshadow, moonshadow" –Cat Stevens (Makes me think of a playful cat, probably because a cat I once owned was called Moonshadow. She had a cameo in Mews.)
• I suppose also Sad Lisa, also by Cat Stevens (lyrics) is another pretty one. (Some people think it's about a dog. I thought it was a ghost. Maybe she's a ghost dog!)
• Oh, and Morning Has Broken can be a great suitheist anthem with minimal tweaking. Anyway, enough Cat Stevens (what is it with me and him today?). Have a Bird Dog!!!

I could go on, but I suppose I'll stop…

What are you listening to right now?
One of Ian F's mixes.

What are you most excited for?
My moderate excitement currently has no focus.

What websites do you always visit when you go online?
profusion.hellhound.net, webmails, often LJ, and at home, a couple of game-type sites.

What was the last thing you bought?
Books, not counting mangetout and houmous for the week's lunch. (I'm getting SO BORED of that. Going to have to find something else easy to munch.)

What was the cutest thing you've seen today?
A West Highland White outside the newsagent. It was shy and I scritched its head briefly. Distinctly saw a passer-by smile at my talking gently to it. Westies aren't very cute; I prefer proper dogs, but y'know, a drowning person doesn't insist on teak.

Does the weather affect your mood?
I can't honestly say I've noticed… I think I'm too self-contained. I could be wrong, though: I am an Earth animal, and we're more natural than we think we are.

What is your zodiac sign?
Water Dog. Gemini.

Do you want to learn another language?
I'd actually like to get back into the ones I know a little of: German, Latin, French. And maybe learn more Finnish songs. Songs are easy. ANKAT, OO-OH, UUTA JUONTA AINA SAHAA

5 things you can't live without:
Internet connection, retreating into my own head, dogs, dogs, creating things

Do you have any siblings?
One blood, one miscellaneous.

Do you have to pee?
This is an evil question. I approve. Hey, everyone reading, whatever you do, don't think of waterfalls! *raps* Dripping tap, drowned rat, Reichenbach, neap! / splashing frog, shaking dog, soggy noggy moggy fog / tut tut, water butt, looks like waiting drops of rain upon my windowpaaane (speed up at this point…) / surface tension, water retention, plippy skippy crashy splashy blidder bladder downpour BURST!

Say something to the person who tagged you:
Safari park sounds good! Let's take your stash and let the baboons steal it.

Mmmmmmm, I'm sleepy. And very very hungry recently.

I'd better not tell the blood donation people that tonight!

(P.S. no, you cheeky bastards, I'm not pregnant. A pretty important matter of anatomy would get in the way of that.)

So at work I'm kinda beta-testing this thing called the Tagging Tool (well, Topic Link Tool now, because technically it's taxonomy rather than tags after all, but old names stick hard), which is pretty fantastic in an interlinking, contexty, information architecturey, web 3.0 sort of way, and now stuck in my head are butchered Offspring lyrics:

I'm seeing this tool and she just might be out of her mind
Well she's got taggage and it's all the contextual kind
We talk granularity, and all that kinda bull
About linking horizontally so our content's findable
And I say yeah, yeah
My topics are linking, it's good for IA
Yeah, yeah
My badges are win and my website is oh so Web Three…

When I'm allowed to talk about it on Yammer I'm so posting that.

For great justice, in accordance with the prophecy, due to the coriolis effect and in order to let METAL be popular. Infopunxx out.

Woke up v dazed (as usual; am I coming down with something non-specific again?) and ad-libbed:

There's beauty in the belly of the beast
There's grandeur in the yowling of the FAIL
It is very srs business
when he's wailing for his biscuits
and the Piper is a-lashing of his tail

Good to know some bits of my brain work in the mornings, but…?!

I'm dreading seeing today's Twitter digest. XD I got far too into the "competitive geek baiting" craze that was going round yesterday evening. Fantastic fun, and I even got a bite when I mentioned SEO and another when I dissed Dominic Armato. (No deed is too wretched for my evil evilness.)

However, I'm the only tweeter I saw who got onto Gilbert and Sullivan. This is sad. I thought G&S were as geek as Monty Python. Are we raising a new generation with no knowledge of their geek heritage?

This will not do. So, young ones, get your ears round this. Maths jokes in opera. With subtitles. I love subtitles.

Also, this. Geek hero ondashore! (Sadly, no subtitles. Frankly, it goes too fast for 'em.)

This is called a "patter song". Gilbert and Sullivan were famous for putting in particularly fast, intricate and witty songs for their comic baritone singers. They are often sung just after the character is introduced, so that the moment the patter baritone steps onstage he's met with raucous applause from fans who know what's coming up.

New-turned and porous
scent of my border
Earthworms in chorus
like the first dawn.
Praise for the chirping,
praise for the churning,
praise for the slurping
of my wet lawn.

I have much <3 for Cat Stevens' setting, but it does lack squelchiness!

</hoping this doesn't count as Cat Stevens fanfic>

Herm: In vain my lap you knead (Piper: prrrrrr) – Don't purr.
Your prayers I do not heed (Piper: prrrrrr) – Don't purr.
'Tis true I smile, but don't suppose
A curling lip forbearance shows.
Oh no.
I'm very cross indeed – yes, very cross. (Piper: prrrrrr)
Don't purr.

Herm: Your disrespectful cheek (Piper: prrrrrr) – Don't purr.
Provokes my dogly pique (Piper: prrrrrr) – Don't purr.
You break my Law. You are my foe.
I smile because I hate you so.
You know.
You very portly freak. You portly freak. (Piper: prrrrrr)
Don't purr.

Piper: My disrespectful cheek (Herm: Don't speak!) – rub rub -
Prrovokes your dogly pique (Herm: Eek!) – rub rub -
If that's your frank critique -

Herm: Don't purr.

Piper: Purr purr.

Herm: Uurgh.

Kat got me this album for my birthday earlier this month. (Thanks, Kat!) My thoughts after 1.67 listens:

I like it loads!

This album is heavy on the fire and explosions. It's not a peaceful album. Not that I'm sure what you were expecting from 30–40-year-old punk rockers, but they're very much not mellowing out.

There's the usual Green Day playfulness to the lyrics ("She smashed her knuckles into winter / as autumn's wind fades into black / She is the saint on all the sinners / the one that's fallen through the cracks", "Join the choir, we will be singing / in the church of wishful thinking", "She puts her makeup on / like graffiti on the walls of the heartland", and "Little girl, little girl you're such a liar / you're just a junkie preaching to the choir"), along with a few duff rhymes (fire/desire, killjoy/Detroit) and a few awesome ones (vendetta/Beretta).

I shouldn't like Peacemaker, but I really really do.

You get a nice fat booklet with all the lyrics in (Green Day are always great for that, even if their proofreading has been a little slack on previous albums), and the album art is a great Banksy/graffiti style.

Overall, as a piece of music, I rate this higher than American Idiot, particularly because there isn't a single crap track on this one. Least favourite, I suppose, is Know Your Enemy, which I found silly and repetitive when I first heard it, but in fact after three listens I don't mind it.

Here's a song from the album, ¡Viva la Gloria!. Listen past 1:05 or you won't get the full experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

Meme ganked from Narcissima and tweaked:

If you had to liken me to one or two characters (of whatever sex, species and so on) from any comic, movie, TV show, book and so on – who would it be, and why?

Finland's Euroviz entry has me wanting to go on another E-Type binge. <3 E-Type.

If Sweden could sing properly in her normal voice, I would've wanted her to win, but she sounded very weak (worse in the final performance, not the one linked; I'd say her operatic voice sounded better in the final, though). <3 Sweden anyway; always guaranteed for a great show.

Full marks to the BBC for their subtitle and red button coverage, as you'd expect from a compulsive viewer of subtitles. Although I did spot a few errors… ;)

And Norton, well, I'm happy to be proved wrong. He was good! Maybe it was knowing that most of his audience are gay or gay-friendly, so he doesn't try so hard with the "lol camp dicks omg p00fz0rs" stuff, or maybe he was trying to emulate Wogan, but he gave a great commentary, funny and biting while maintaining a semblance of dignity. Until the voting, because he actually seemed to care if we won. lol.

Little Shop of Horrors 2009 UK tour verdict: Well worth seeing.

All the singers were fairly good, Audrey One particularly sweet, but throughout most of the first act, the stand-out star was Seymour. Right, that is, up until Audrey II opened her trap to sing, when most else ceased to matter. My favourite part, the duet between Seymour and the plant¹, was particularly nicely done.

Oh yes, that plant. They characterised her as what looks like some kind of Sarracenia pitcher plant, which makes perfect sense (more than a Venus flytrap, to be honest). Cute and simple animatronics. Everyone thought they knew what to expect when Seymour carried the second-stage plant into view, one of his hands myseteriously out of sight, but in fact most of her movement happened during times when he'd put her down in various different places on the stage. Very slick.

The bigger Audrey II, for a big green thing without eyes and limited movement in her stems, emoted pretty well – from leaning a little to the side and talking out of the corner of her mouth to sneakily extending a leaf to barricade the door closed. Convincing enough that I had to wince whenever the cast stepped on her tendrils.

My minions kept up a stream of babble about which actor had also been in what (they think the dentist was some former villain from EastEnders, I already know who Sylvester McCoy is, and so on), the most interesting part of which was that the plant's voice actor was in Jerry Springer – The Opera (in which he played doubled-up roles, first as a perverted talk show guest and later as Jesus. ROFL).

Criticisms? Being the only one who's heard (all right, listened extensively to) the Broadway cast recording, only I knew that a few of the cast (Scrivello and particularly Mushnik) chickened out of some of the difficult parts. There was a sound imbalance for us in the first row of the circle, too, in that the orchestra was too loud compared to the cast. But never fear! I was, ahem, more than able to fill the others in on the words they'd missed afterwards.

The songwriting was of course first-class. Ashman/Menken OTP.

<geek>An interesting thing about the musical is that two of the songs that never made it into the original production (get hold of the Broadway OST to hear them) still survive in the stage show to this day, as little musical references/reprises in the other songs. During the finale, for example, Seymour and Audrey share a line from "We'll Have Tomorrow", and a slip of the tune from "My Hobby" can be heard in "Now (It's Just the Gas)". I find that sort of thing fascinating.</geek>

In other news (or wild speculation), this comment regarding my OTHER favourite film of all time, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.

¹ "I don't know! I don't know! I have so… so many strong… reservations!"

Little Shop of Horrors tomorrow night!

So excited! Must sleep!

One of my two favourite films of all time, and the musical has MORE songs! Woo! I have the Broadway soundtrack and know most of the words…

Some think me mad.

And indeed, I can't coherently justify my claim that this is the greatest song ever¹. It's something about the appalling English, painful chorus, corny arrangement and somehow cheap² sound. It's so awesome.

I could listen to it over and over all day.

YouTube embed follows of 8:40 symphonic power metal song. Lyrics also provided for your enlightenment.

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An autistic lad is rescued by Spider-Man.

And now more idiots trying to make the world fit into their little boxes, to the detriment of all…

Despite the stupid stories you may have heard about windmills slicing birds up, the RSPB is in no doubt: we need more wind farms, and we need them soon.

Actually we need them twenty years ago, but hi, media outlets, welcome to the 08 Is Too Late bandwagon anyway.

Now that was miserable. So here's some happy power metal: Iron Fire – Bridges Will Burn

Bolt was good. It is about a puppy! In fact, it's pretty much a puppy Truman Show, which is pretty much a winner.

I was a bit uneasy about how the animals emoted, though. They didn't use their ears at all; it was rather confusing. For example, when the cat had her back to the dog, telling him to get lost, her ears should have been tightly back and her tail doing some conflicted lashing, and his ears at least somewhat flattened and tail down. No doubt it was the same all the way through the film, but that was the scene that actually broke the WSD for me. Kind of disturbing, like someone smiling and grinning while telling you they're horribly depressed, you know? I need cartoon expressions to be right, because they're a stepping stone to real ones.

I'll not get onto the lazy bit of characterisation that always makes cat = female and dog = male. ;) We dogs may be simpler and dumber, but girls have the right to be simple and dumb too, if they want.

Behind the cut I'm going to paste two YouTube videos of Ed Alleyne-Johnson, an electric violinist. I'm sure many of my friends will appreciate the combination of long hair, biker leathers and mad skillz.

In the first clip, if you're wondering where all the other violins are, it's him recording himself on his effects pedal while he plays.

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…Oh my stars and tri-corner hat. This is possibly the greatest thing I've heard this week.

I found the CD on the stairs today after I got home. I assume Slen dropped it round for me. ♥

Wolves of the Sea with Caribbean Monkey Island stylings. If I could get horny, that would be making me very much so.