The Suburbs, Jenny Owen Youngs, Holding My Tongue, Potential Marathons and Other Musings.

My, it's been a long time, hasn't it?  Let's blow off the cobwebs and try and maintain some sense of regular updating before my Oriental excursions!  How's going out there?  Good?  Good.  Here are some photos!

This is Nate P. Barker.  It were his houseparty I went to t'other weekend.  This is him obviously practising his tabloid pose - give it time and he'll be on them!

Look!  It's me!  The author!  

This is Nate P. Barker at his houseparty!  I took my camera, but didn't want to be that dick with the camera at a party.  So it was promptly put away.

On the right is a French man named Pierrrrrre.  

Finally, this is Jonny Hatfull, King of the Spag Bol, Earl of Spooky Stories, Duchy of Cowering behind a Kronenbourg.  

Good God, today has been stressful!  We're (me and my housemates minus Rob plus Laura II) in the process of looking for somewhere to move in September, which is very stressful at the best of times.  On top of that, I'm working a lot, not only studying but also fiddling around with Access at work.  I am a novice at Access.  I hate that program.  Grrr.  Other stressful things that have happened.  So I had cake and red wine for tea instead...because I rock.  So, anyway, point is that I need to de-stress.  Thank goodness that I have a nice bottle of red wine, a DVD of Howl (fresh from LOVEFiLM) and Jenny Owen Youngs' record Transmitter Failure on my speakers.  That is such an incredible record.  I used to be able to write record reviews, now I just fawn over the ones I like.  I definitely really like this record.

A record that I don't like as much is The Suburbs by the Arcade Fire.  I have an odd history with the Arcade Fire (well, not that odd, just up and down).  Like most people, I discovered them around the time Funeral came out.  I heard them on Later......With Jools Holland, they played Neighbourhood #3.  I was completely hooked.  One of my best gigging experiences was going to see them on that tour.  Owen Pallett sold me a t-shirt!  Then Neon Bible came out.  Shitttttttt, that is a dull record.  One of my housemates tells me that the record really comes alive on headphones.  Lots of random noises.  That doesn't stop the songs from being incredibly boring however.  I started listening to the Suburbs at work (via Grooveshark.com - try it, it's incredible!), both halves were better than Neon Bible, but one half was fantastic.  It didn't sound like the Arcade Fire, it sounded like Wolf Parade.  It then got me thinking about writing an article about inspiration and where that ends and ripping off begins, especially given the context of the success that the Arcade Fire have enjoyed.  Then I found out that the half I liked wasn't the Arcade Fire at all, but some band called Wildfire.  They were much better.  Here is a song:

Now to work out how to hear more of them.

As we've already touched upon several times, I like my films.  So, I've drawn up several potential marathons (so far, mostly genre stuff), but I've got a starter introduction type one designed to show her some great (not necessarily classic or favourite) films that encourage discussion and what to lead on to.  In order:
Pulp Fiction
Star Wars: A New Hope
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Prestige
The Exorcist
Casablanca
Thoughts?

---------------------------------
Other Musings

Films watched recently - Wild Strawberries, The Haunting (original).  I think that's about it.  Been slacking some what lately.

Devils have a new coach.  What an intriguing decision!

I finally bought Portal 2 - my excuse was that it was less than half price (pre-owned £24).  Stephen Merchant doesn't annoy me as much as I thought he would.