A bit o' music

Time for some more tunes:

The Londonist Monday Music Review is entirely about the exquisite new album 'No CV' from My Computer.

Have been listening to it online at NME.com and it is a cracking piece of work - get over there and open your ears now.

More reviews, here and here.

'The Boy I Used To Be' is one of the stand-out tracks - not least because it has an instrumental chunk in it that sounds like the incidental music for a film featuring someone escaping from a maximum security stockade after having been wrongly convicted as an Islamist terrorist. In the year 2076. Honest.
Well, listen to it if you don't believe me.

Here's some older music as well - the 'Lottery Winners On Acid' EP from The Crimea. Lovely stuff.

Click on link, then on the Lottery Winners On Acid icon (second from the top
on the left hand side of the page) and listen away.

The eponymous track is rapidly turning into my one of favourite love-songs of all time. Awww...
Oi! Who's that making faux-retching noises at the back? Bastards.

Also, check out Scattergun's band to watch - Corporation:Blend. Their ' Chapter of Accidents' EP comes out on Monday 8th August (launch party at the Barfly London).
Track 3, 'Too Rich For Water...' ,is a stone-cold classic, I'm telling you.

Closer to, they're playing on Friday 29th July at the Camden Buzzard (formerly The Purple Turtle).

I'l be at both gigs, so if you see someone who looks like me, it probably is...

And finally, The Freelance Hairdresser. Fancy a bit of Chas 'n' Dave vs Dizzee Rascal? Oh, yes.

London Bomb Attacks

Quote from Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, Thu 7th July:

"In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don't want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another.

Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail."


News Sources + Articles: Londonist, Wikipedia, Guardian Newsblog, Metafilter, very moving Ian McEwan article.

Formula 1 - French Grand Prix

Alas, missed it owing to barbeque activity at the family ranch. Fairly good by all accounts

Race reports, here and here.

(Check both sites for more articles on the self-destructive politicking and ego-flexing that is now the hallmark of a once great sport.)

Martin Brundle / James Allen commentary, here.

Oscar Peterson

Off to the Royal Albert Hall last night to see the great jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson play a one-off UK gig.

Incredible. At nearly eighty years old, he took a full minute to shuffle from the side of the stage to the piano but once he touched the keys he played like a man a quarter his age. His dexterity and accomplishment at the keyboard were amazing.

Info on the man, here.