tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick!
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick!
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick!
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick!

My obsession with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is threatening to get out of control. Today, for example, purely because the band are on the cover, I bought the NME for the first time in.... oooh, probably not as long as I'd like to think, but maybe a whole year now at least.



Rather than try to do one proper 'review' of Fever To Tell, I'm probably just gonna be posting random thoughts about it and them here now and again. This album feels like my soundtrack album for the foreseeable future (sorry, Cut).

Anyway, the photo for the Yeahs feature in the NME - a pretty good Q&A, certainly by this publication's standards, which isn't saying much I know - not the cover photo, which is typically awful - anyway, this photo really confirms my suspicion that the main reference point if you're going to compare Karen O to past front-people should be... Chrissie Hynde. It's 'Maps' that really brings this out, I think (conversely, on 'Modern Romance' I think she sounds like Lou Reed). This first occurred to me when I used the phrase 'brass in pocket' in conjunction with a Karen pic a few posts below... Not that there's a point to this, I just remember Matthew of Fluxblog fame suggesting that Karen O was little more than a composite of previous rock stars, and since I instinctively disagree, I was trying to work out what the obvious reference points might be. The Pretenders = a definite vocal influence, I reckon.

But I ought to counter that by saying how fresh and exciting I find Fever To Tell, and how 'Tick' - particularly the bit where Karen repeats that word over and over, as above, with increasing hysteria and abandon, one of the moments on the album which is noticeably superior to previos recordings of the song in question that I've heard - how that song sums up exactly how I feel right now. Impatient, in a word. For the time off from work I've got starting tomorrow, for the promise of people and dancing and what larks, Pip, the weekend - birthday weekend, no less - is bound to bring.

Other things that occur to me: Nick Zinner is possibly the coolest member of the Yeahs. God though, but the NME is still really bad in general.

sequential

The Man Like Nelson Evergreen has updated his site (weeks ago, but I only just twigged), to include some gorgeous illustration work based on Frankenstein and Gulliver's Travels, as well as an archive of ye olde Evergreen work (if you're a dead, canonical writer like Swift etc, they call this 'juvenilia', which seems kinda insulting). Be sure to check out the teenage Dalek nerd strip, especially if you're a not-very-closetted Dr Who geek like I am...

Of course, because I'm a self-interested bastard, my favourite addition to the site is the teaser on the front page.

Also updated is Becky Cloonan's site. Recommended highlight: the most recently added flyer - "Your style is impressive..." That girl rocks.

<<<---- customised, woo-hoo!

A slight redesign. They may make a blogger out of me yet.

It's quite possible that random people may think that this is a picture of me. I did try to put one of those little titles above this image (like the one that says 'kids!') saying 'anima', but it kept appearing below it. If anyone knows how to fix it, feel free to tell me. Also, anyone who recognises the current subtitle ("stealing Dante...") gets... well, my profound respect. Is that not enough?

connected to the right line

I just know that until I get my thoughts on The Rules of Attraction down in some coherent form, I will have Erasure's 'Stop' stuck in my head. On repeat.

Worth mentioning, maybe: a couple of months ago I entered one of those 'young journalism' competitions despite the fact that I feel increasingly old and not a journalist (I mean, I'm not one - just a very occasional freelance babbler). This was largely an excuse to do an interview with the It Came From The Sea DJ boys, and - skipping over the fact that some younger and more deserving upstart took the prize in the aforementioned comp - they're now serialising it in bits and bobs over on their site. Read my hyperbole, and if you're at all convinced and can possibly make it down to the Hanbury Ballroom in Brighton this Friday, I would love to see you work it, etc.

I *so* need the time off work that I have coming up. And I need to listen to The Rapture, to drive out the Erasure, even though Erasure ain't necessarily a bad thing...

brass in pocket

I'd forgotten quite how exhilarating and maddening That Thing is. The uncertainty, the excitement, the bounciness it imbues you with, and yet also the nail-biting, the examining and re-examining, the puzzling over, the "don't be silly!... or maybe..."

(What are you *talking* about? You know, That Thing.)

It's like stress, but in a good way. Mostly good. There is always the possibility that you will mistranslate, much in the manner of Wesley from Angel, and then the consequences will be... well, not dire, but possibly quite awkward. Then again, the other possibility is that you miss something that's staring you in the face, and it's always better to regret something you did rather than blah blah fishcakes... I bite my hand to shut myself up.

This week, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will play in my head and on my discman: 'Date With The Night' and 'Black Tongue' for the adrenaline and excitement; 'Maps' for the inevitable, self-created melodrama. Why? Because That Thing feels a bit like this:



(Oh, and apologies for being extra cryptic, but I should clarify for the benefit of a tiny number of people reading this that it's not a reference to That Other Thing, from the weekend just gone. That was... self-contained, shall we say. A special guest star, for one episode only. Whereas That Thing is me trying to film a pilot. Shut up, Joe! Ahem.)

Rufus Wainwright *and* Jonathan Richman doing separate versions of 'The Origin Of Love'? Sleater-Kinney? The Breeders? Wantwantwantwantwant... When is this coming out? I need answers...

(Via The Rub, which I found while looking for Yeah Yeah Yeahs lyrics, which is weird in that Flux seems to read The Rub frequently and it was he who just sent me a copy of Fever To Tell - cheers, by the way...)

I'm really tempted to give up posting on this blog on the basis that nothing is ever going to top that Penelope Houston picture. Maybe I'll just have to keep putting it back here. Ah, if only I was a techie, I could redesign this blog so that it was always there - or I could have a front page...

Today I am mildly nauseous but contented.