Beast at bay

Ugh I had the most frustrating Monday today... mainly because I was over-sensitive following practically zero sleep the night before. The tiniest things on the tube pissed me off today. An aneamic looking blonde sneezing, an old man paging his newspaper in such a way that the pages rumpled, city bankers failing to be chivalrous and offer me their seat. But the pinnacle of tube-frustration was reached when a hockey player in front of me on the evening train swung his kit bag behind him, smashing the salad I had bought specially for supper from the organic market into my face. I wanted to cry.

This post makes me sound like a delicate flower...but the truth is sometimes going about one's journey each day among hundreds of strangers can get you down. I tried to counter this initially by putting punk and screamo on my ipod but that contributed to my aggression. So I now have a secret playlist that includes the most poppy ridiculous songs possible that have many a time made me want to swing around the poles inside the tubes like a strip pole. There used to be a lot of Sean Paul on this playlist but even I have a smidgen of dignity...so 'Get Busy' is unfortunately dead and buried :)

My more socially acceptable option is Gnarles Barkley. The new album. Not only are their live shows brilliant but they have successfully and amazingly covered Radiohead. Danger Mouse has also lent his production skills to great effect on Beck's new, incredibly grand, offering.

So therefore my new tube beats include most especially 'Run' and 'Going on.' Ideally. Although today I happened to be listening to Frightened Rabbit as my salad and face merged, which obviously made the event all the more tragic.

You won't find love in a hole

Following a race against time across London incorporating 4 x transport changes, 1 x moment of getting horribly lost, and 1 x moment arguing with the bouncer over being let into the over-crowded sauna-like room, I finally made it to Frightened Rabbit just in time to catch them singing The Modern Leper.

It was an odd gig in the sense that myself and my friend were the only two going crazy to the music. Everybody else was standing still. They were awe-inspiring live and were able to silence the room with an acoustic version of 'Poke.' But my best song of the whole set was definately the cutting anti-ode to casual sex, 'Keep yourself warm' in which Scott Hutchinson venomously spat into the mike: 'Can you see the look on your face?/ The flashing white light's been turned off/ You don't know know who's in your bed / You find love in a /won't find love in a hole/ It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm.'

We also saw Camera Obscura...who were grand. I officially love Scotland!

Fun fun fun

How strange. I have been reluctantly listening to two folky singles from the UK that I really did not want to like. 5 years time by noah and the whale...and ghosts by laura marling. No matter how hard I try I can't stop listening to them no matter how much I hate the whistling in noah and the whale or the title of marling's new album (alas i cannot swim).

Then, whilst watching the indie-ed out video for 5 years time I spotted a white-haired laura quite similar to a white-haired laura in laura marling's videos. Fancy that. They are the same person! I am possibly the only person in the UK that does not know this.

But that reminds me how much I love it when musicians are friends.
My top 5 musical friendships are as follows
1. The Used and My Chemical Romance
In fact, the name My Chemical Romance is taken from a Used song
2. Fall Out Boy and Gym Class Heroes
Gym Class Heroes are on Patrick Stump's record label
3. Florence and the Machine and Mystery Jets
4. Tori Amos and Nine Inch Nails
Well this actually counts as a musical relationship, as Tori was famously with Trent Reznor. When Courtney Love allegedly wrecked their relationship, Tori wrote the song Professional Widow in her honour.
5. The Strokes and Regina Spektor
What an unlikely friendship but coincidentally two of my most favourite acts of all time. Strange.

Crimewave-crystal castles

I do not have much to say about this song save for the fact that I love it. Also, I saw it perfectly placed the other day in a television series to great effect (the name of which I won't reveal as it would expose my shocking taste in television). This definately inspires a top-five list of well-placed songs in television series' but this will require more thought than I am able to muster right now.

Besides for its indistinguishable lyrics and hook that reminds me of the skype-ringtone on speed, my all time favourite fascination with this song is how it fucks out at the end.

You must be a masochist

'Is that you in front of me, coming back for even more of exactly of the same....'
Frightened Rabbit, The Modern Leper.
http://www.myspace.com/frightenedrabbit

Glasgow band Frightened Rabbit have exploded into my life and my heart at a crucial point in my 20-something existence. Firstly, they arrived at a point when my South African accent has subtly switched from saying Glaaaaasgow to the classier and infinitely more British Glahs-gow (and I now have occasion to show this off). Secondly, their self-loathing and desperate lyrics accurately relfect the barren landscape, the emotional ice-age of my era as a single woman living in London.

Where acts like Alphabeat and the Ting Tings have dizzied the British live music scene with their bright colours and ironic peppiness, bands like Frightened Rabbit bring back that which is essential to these here Isles...rain-soaked cracked, northern accented vocals that are as bitter as haggis and as disarmingly attractive as ginger hair.

The Modern Leper is the opener of their new album midnight Organ Fight. The song's quiet intro of lulling strumming and a secure drum(off)beat coaxes the most delicate of indies into what is ultimately a brazen bleeding heart rock anthem.

'You must be a masochist, to love a modern leper on his last leg.'

In honour of the modern leper I will list my top-five books (in no particular order) that rip my heart open:

1. A million little Pieces -by James Frey
2. Shantaram-Gregory David Roberts
3. A thousand splendid suns-Khalid Husseini
4. Life of Pi-Yann Martel
5. The curious incident of the dog at night time

This is a pretty standard top five list. Ugh, I promise there will be more and they will definately improve!

Galaxy of the lost

I was walking to the station this morning, listening to the new song love-of-my-life when I had a depressing thought...what if one day I lost this song? What if I deleted it off my iTunes during an over-enthusiastic clean-out or simply forgot about it....or worst of all played it so often that the opening chords made me skip to the track? I hear the term 'throwaway society' being bandied around a lot lately...towards clothing, food and relationships. We have too much choice, we're always looking for a better version...some product band or person that is more reflective of the multi-facted beings we think we are.
But enough sermon. I am a throwaway person. I go through clothes like I do underwear. I go through underwear as I do men. Let me encourage a thriftier nature by at least saving my songs. So this a chronicle, a dedication of songs that make me happy...hopefully whoever reads this will listen to and even like a few.