Soundtrack To Your Life

Ok, so this was doing the rounds a while ago, just a fun little timewaster. Stick your mp3 player on shuffle, and let it create the soundtrack to the movie of your life. Some odd results may be thrown up. If you want to try it out, a blank list is below the click for more, stick it in the comments or on your own blog, but let me know. Here we go,

Opening Credits:
Lemon Tree – Fools Garden. (Forgot I even had this song, good credits though)

Waking Up:
Mr. Brightside – The Killers (Going well so far)

First Day At School:
Heaven’s Wall – The Devlins (Has that Irish school feeling about it alright)

Falling in Love:
I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You – Tom Waits (I am not joking here)

Breaking Up:
We Can Run Away Now They Are All Dead And Gone – Snow Patrol (Good thing Pam is a witness)

Prom:
Yr Manged Heart – Gossip(Guess I ain’t taking that break up too wel)

Life’s Okay:
Hey Mama – Kanye West (Haven’t ever heard this song before, but it fits-ish)

Mental Breakdown:
Lose You – Pete Yorn (Ha)

Driving:
Monster – The Automatic (Great song, apt name…)

Flashback:
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Johnny Cash (Great Song)

Getting Back Together:
Happiness – Jack L (I like this song, but its about breaking up. And I don’t know a Genevieve)

Wedding:
Boxing Champ – Kaiser Cheifs (A rather nice song, but for a wedding?)

Birth of a Child:
One Vision – Queen (Nice)

Final Battle:
Hello, Goodbye – The Beatles (iTunes is screwing me now)

Death Scene:
Fake Plastic Trees – Radiohead (Good save Jobs)

Funeral Song:
One Minute To Midnight – Justice (Tanfastic)

End Credits:
Limited Edition – Snow Patrol

All in all a decent list. But where did the wedding song, and my final battle come from. Still I got a good run with falling in love, breaking up and prom. And I really like my end credits song too. So it balances.

Songs Of The Week

Ok, some tunes which I have been listening to this week include:

Kings of Leon, Sex on Fire. I may have a copy of the album that has been floain on the internet. Its good. Very good. Can’t wait to buy it.

Flobots, Handlebars. Nice buildey rap song, in the vein of Messiah J who I have also been listening to lately. Check them out i Whelans this weekend, on Sunday, for 20 notes, tickets here

Glasvegas, Geraldine. See review a few posts lower.

And an oldie, but one that is stuck in my head:

Men At Work singer Colin Hay does Overkill. Might remember it from Scrubs, or the original Men At Work version. Yes, they did more than just I Come From A Land Down Underrrrr.

Thats it for now, might try to make this a regular feature though…

Getting My Goat

From Eoghan at Casa Casey-Courtney:

This meme is called Getting Your Goat and the rules are simple;

1. List two things that irritate you for a reason, which you should give, and two things that irritate you for no good reason,
2. Give credit to the person who tagged you,
3. Link your answers to the original blog - http://casacaseycourtney.wordpress.com,
4. Tag four new people to participate.

Eoghan’s dslike of Irish Rail is one I share, and have mentioned previouly here, and I aso find the drink legislation worrysome, but I don’t so much notice the grasping world, or Sports Commentators. As for driving and skinny jeans, meh, I have no strong feelings, but Casey makes some good points.

So, lets try this out:

For Reason

Repeats on Dave

Why have a channel which has my favourite programmes on it, only to have it constantly running repeats. I don’t mean the idea of repeats in themselves, but why oh why do they show the same episode of Top Gear in ten different time sots over a day. Dave, sort it out.

Repets in general are fine, but the Sky News/Dave/Living practice of making 40 mins of programming and stretching that out to fill a schedule are a little funking mental to be honest.

Young Baltic Fleeto Gang (Or gangs in general)

Unknown to me until earlier today, this gang have taken a Glasvegas song, Stabbed, about being set upon by the gang on a night, and having to run for your life, and put i on their bebo page as an anthem. Leave them rude messages here: Young Baltic Fleeto

Why do small groups of young people, or older people have to act in such an antisocial way? Surely they have the ability to achieve even the smallest positive thing in their lives, and not have to rely on this kind of action to justfy their pathetic existence. I’m a big guy, over 6 foot tall, and almost as wide, but late in the evening, when confronted by a gang of 4 foot pipsqueaks, I turn down the iPod volume, draw up to full height and get ready to bolt.

For No Reason

Fergus Findlay

Just saw him on Questions and Answers, and he annoys me for no reason. He couldn’t read Lisbon Treaty, didn’t find the consolidated treaty interesting or exciting, has that wired beard/monk-ish head on him. Everytime I see him, I get a little more angry at this man.

Theseseseseseseses

Yeah, I had the long summer to write 12,000 words for my thesis. Yeah, I bit off more than I could chew. Yeah, I am now banging it out. But its getting on my goat a bit at this stage.No more details, my external may find this site.

Right, there we go.

So who wants to take up the mantle? I do not know a huge number of bloggers, so anyone who happens upon this is free to take up the challenge, just follow the rules above, and link me back too.

Glasvegas

Ok, so at the risk of this turning into a music blog, I recently got a copy of the Glasvegas album, released on September 8th. I had heard about them on the Guardian Music Weekly Podcast, and liked some of the snippets of songs like Geraldine that Paul played.

First impressions, I really like it. Its a difficult one to describe, the total sound. Its just huge. Its reverb, circling notes and guitars clanging in the nicest possible way, and sound like they are bing played a million miles away, but with some kind of ghostly clarity. This might be twee, but it almost sounds bagpipey, the melody melts and blends, so that it complements the more defined vocal and rythm sections. Pounding drums and crashing symbols make up the final sound, and to be honest, rather than sounding like a fire in a music shop, it really works, all the layers are more than a sum of their parts.

The opener Flowers and Football Tops, which is written from the point of view of a father reflecting on the murder of his son, is simply magnificent and, I can only imagine, it captures the inability to understand, and the distracted though process. (I dare anyone to listen all the way through without feeling moved). This is followed up by Geraldine, another beautiful song this time about a “social worker” who describes herself as a guardian angel. Other standouts for me at least are Daddy’s Gone, Go Square Go and S.A.D. Light.

Stabbed is one which will stick in the listeners head most though, using Beethoven as the backdrop to retell a story of confrontation with a gang, the Young Baltic Fleeto, and maybe a knife. Allen doesn’t sing, he bitterly recites the lyrics, “No cavalry could ever save me/I’m gonna get stabbed”, before deciding to run rather than fight. Its a raw song, and one that shows the fear of knife crime in a way that other songwriters just can’t seem to grasp.

I suppose that is the best way of describing Glasvegas, they are raw band. Allen sings every lyric in a broad Glasgow accent, which lends greater meaning to the emotion he is conveying. Emotion and fragility comes through what some have described as a wall of sound tracing its roots back to Phil Spector, Elvis, the Jesus and Mary Chain. These guys mean business too, an estimated 100,000 sales in the first three days of release, and already talking about their next record, a Christmas one no less.

Glasvegas are a definate must have for music fans this September. I fear the album might be marmite, some will love it, some will hate it, but for god sake, do yourself a favour and listen to it.

Snow Patrol – A Hundred Million Suns

Tracklisting released for A Hundred Million Suns:

If There’s a Rocket Tie Me To It
Crack The Shutters Open
Take Back The City
Lifeboats
The Golden Floor
Please Just Take These Photos From my Hands
Set Down Your Glass
The Planets Bend Between Us
Engines
Disaster Button
The Lightning Strike
(i)What if This Storm Ends?
(ii)Sunlight Through The Flags
(iii)Daybreak

Also, first single Take Back The City will be released in October, but you can hear it on Zane Lowe’s BBC show pod-thingy from tomorrow morning, and a little snippet is on the Snow Patrol website. Sounds very Hands Open-ey, with a dash of old school stuff I was hoping for. Very excited…..