Posts by Backdrifter

    errorex

    This was its name when I remember first coming across it, in the 1980s I think. I'd forgotten that. Pretty soon after it was universally known as tippex in the UK and I never saw the name 'errorex' again.

    Quote

    Michael Nesmith, most famous for the Monkees, but much more talented than that.

    A talented chap, as were all the Monkees who as a group did some excellent pop music.

    I've always liked it and find it superior to many of the tracks that appear on the album. Slightly odd decision to re-use the 'elephant' effect, surely such a singular distinctive sound really only works once? Also I snigger at the rather clodhopping line "IT MIGHT BE BETTER!... it might be as bad." But those minor quibbles aside it's a good one.

    Alison Goldfrapp, Glasgow Barrowland. The focus was on her dancey electropop solo album Love Invention but with a good handful of Goldfrapp tunes with a slightly different spin. A very enjoyable upbeat gig as part of two days wandering that great city, with some excellent eating and cocktailing.

    Yesterday I went to see Perfect Days. It depicts the life of a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. That doesn't sound very enticing, but I found it a beautiful pencil-sketch of a film and at times very touching.


    A couple of things that stuck in my mind. A few times we see him take a seat in one or other of a couple of noodle bars. Each time, he's presented with a glass of iced water and the server says either "For all your hard work" or "At the end of a long day". I don't know if it's something they decided to have those specific characters say, or a Japanese tradition. Either way I really liked it and found it charming.


    I've never been to Tokyo but now fancy going if only to use their public toilets. One shown in the film has transparent door and walls, but turns opaque as soon as the door is locked. As Columbo would say - well, how about that?

    I sometimes drop into the films on the GREAT! action and GREAT! movies channels as they're often hilariously bad disaster films which all seem to have been made between about 2007 and 2018. They frequently involve the Earth spinning out of orbit or shifting on its axis, with catastrophic results which usually involve badly realised lightning and the occasional crappily cgi'd car flying through the air and crashing to the ground.


    I'm currently watching Polar Opposites, in which "a nuclear test sets off a doomsday scenario".


    Usually these films involve the incineration/vapourisation/other form of total destruction specifically of New Zealand. I'm now awaiting that although no sign of it yet. In fact the maverick English scientist said something bad might happen to Hawaii so maybe NZ is off the hook.

    Four films seen this last week over two double-header cinema trips.


    American Fiction: a black author is frustrated when told his work doesn't sell well because it's "not black enough". He reaches tipping point, adopts a false identity and churns out a novel that's as "black" as he can make it to the point of caricature. You can probably predict what then happens but it's very entertaining and at times hilarious.


    Out Of Darkness: essentially a sort of horror thriller, but with the distinction of being set in the paleolithic era, with all the dialogue spoken in a concocted 'ancient' language. Grim but quite compelling, and a bold idea.


    Mondays - See You 'This' Week: a team of office colleagues gradually realise they're stuck in a time loop that lasts 1 week, and try to work out how they can break free of it. Really enjoyable and amusing.


    Drive Away Dolls: Set in 1999, it features two young women who decide they need to get away from their routine and take a long road trip to Florida. Due to a misunderstanding they accidentally end up in possession of a briefcase and a box and in trouble when the men responsible for the contents set out after them. It was a bit irritating and overdone at first but I felt it settled down and became more engaging, with some very funny moments.


    An additional thought - all these were under 2 hours long, three of them were under 100 minutes. We need more of that, too many films are way too long.

    Speaking of forest I found a nearby one has lots of spruce. I want to try using spruce tips in stuff when they're in season.

    Interesting, I'd never thought of them as a foodstuff but having just looked it up I see they can be used in a range of ways. What would you do with them?

    I heard this song on the radio that I found equal parts catchy and annoying.


    There is a little bridge with the woman singing that I like a lot but I'm not sure that 15 second stretch compensates for the rest of the song.


    "Joyride (I saw the Film)" by Tribe

    It starts kind of promising but for me is torpedoed by those annoying/comical bits with the mens' voices. Her voice quickly becomes a bit tedious. I'm happy to say I won't be sharing the earworm burden with you. But there are hints of 'they/this could potentially be sort of quite good". Is that praise faint enough?!


    I feel like I vaguely recall the name Tribe.

    homemade wild garlic pesto

    What else do you put in?


    We have a footpath near us, following an old railway line. Parts of it are lined with wild garlic plants. I did some cooking using the leaves which were delicious but I realised it was making me feel ill so I stopped using them, sadly. I do love wild garlic bulbs (I have no problem with those).


    Today for lunch I repeated my salt beef sandwich as above but with the addition of sliced gherkin and I tossed the beef slices in the mustard sweetened with a little agave syrup.

    My understanding is that "Submarine" was the song that was missing its original ending on ARCHIVE 2 due to tape damage, although they apparently found a way to resolve this in time to feature the proper version on the 1976-1982 box set.


    As for "It's Yourself," my understanding is that the band simply didn't like the original ending, and thus indeed "consciously took the stupid decision to fade it." Assuming that's true, feel free to be irritated with them!

    Right yes of course, I forgot Submarine originally had a better ending. I've evidently mixed those two songs up.


    Now as you say I have licence to feel irritated at their silly amendment to the IY ending. Daaaaah!

    The TOTW thread on CAS title track led to this exchange on the increasing tendency of Genesis songs to fade out rather than have 'proper' endings. I thought I'd avoid derailing that thread and continue the topic here.


    Schrottrocker is right, up to and including Duke less than half their songs faded out. Early on, when they did fade it was sometimes as an 'outro', eg Harold, Moonlit Knight, Firth, Counting Out Time, Mouse's, or as a bookend eg IKWIL - unusual in fading both in and out on the same drone. On the Lamb there are a few cross-fades as well as the direct segues that all serve the ongoing story aspect.


    It's a shame that such a creative band came to rely almost wholly on a formulaic song ending style. They seemed to lose that sense of using fadeouts sparingly in a way that served the song constructively, as in some of the above examples. It coincides with setting up The Farm and making songs via studio jams. Could that be a reason for it, beyond mere correlation?


    The Beatles rarely used fadeouts, and certainly on their early albums - while still a touring band - they wrote partly with stage performance in mind, wanting to ensure songs had proper endings that could be played live. Presumably Genesis, who as we all know could be ruthlessly unsentimental about their material when it came to live shows, created the songs in the studio and therefore thought of them purely as studio entities to be adapted as needed if played live. It would explain the often peremptory "this'll do" BRRRRM-TSSSHHH approach to song endings on stage - the worst of which for me being the appalling clod-hopping hamfisted ending to Duchess on the final tour.


    Here's Paperlate in its complete original studio version (ie no fade-out), which I like a lot. Do we know if there are any other similar 'complete'/non-fade-out versions of their songs out there?


    And here's the far superior original It's Yourself with its MMM opening-like ending. I think someone on here said the reason it fades on Archive 2 is in the intervening years that bit of master tape had corrupted. I hope that's the reason as it's too irritating to think they consciously took the stupid decision to fade it.

    Farewell to musicians Karl Wallinger originally of The Waterboys then his own band World Party, and Eric Carmen initially of The Raspberries then later a solo artist (he had a big hit with All By Myself).