Friday is Judgment Day
I really should have mentioned this before, but if there are any bands out there who want to play Glastonbury, they have until the 5pm on Monday 17th to apply through the Emerging Talent Competition, which can be entered here.
I’ve had a lot of emails this week since my name went on that list. They’ve all been really nice emails, not an arse amongst them, but the music has been a very long way indeed from the kind of stuff I listen to, so I do find myself wondering a little at my suitability for this kind of thing.
Anyhow, I am guessing that if you are in a band and reading this then we probably have vaguely similar taste in music, so please apply.
There’s also the Scottish Music Awards coming up as well, and they are open for nominations. This is something else I will be on the judging panel for (yes, I know, but they asked me, alright, so fuck off). Again, it would be nice if you would go here and nominate some good stuff, because it would be nice to have as much good stuff in the nominations as possible. I am looking into the possibility of adopting a mysterious alias, or even pretending to be Simon Cowell for a bit, so I can vote for myself in every category. The voting is open until the end of January, so hop to it.
Anyhewwww… I was browsing 17 Seconds this morning and I happened across a post where Ed mentioned a radio discussion in which decade people would most like to have lived, given the choice. Most people chose the Fifties because of most people being fucking idiots and thinking it was like it is on rose-tinted, revisionist TV programs. Read Brighton Rock (okay, not quite the Fifties) if you want to be disabused of such delusions. Ed himself plumped for the Seventies, citing the amazing musical moments he would have been able to experience first hand.
However, as Ed himself implies with his last sentence, we often don’t realise what the moments of great import are, even as they happen around us. I wonder how many of those amazing moments Ed would have actually recognised as being significant, even as he hypothetically experienced them for himself.
I was at T in the Park in 1995 or 1996 when Pulp and Radiohead were the headliners (alright, not Glastonbury, fuck you Ed!) but for all I thought both bands were incredible I certainly didn’t think of it as some sort of special moment which would live well beyond that particular year. I remember being really excited when I first started using Napster, but did I have any idea what a significant movement I was participating in at the time? No, of course not, it just seemed like a cool widget and I got into a shitload of new bands because of it.
So without further ado let’s get busy wasting what remains of the productive hours of the week by answering five stupid questions and then getting on with talking pish on the internet which is, let’s face it, pretty much what the internet was invented for.
1. Which unsigned band (or tiny label band if you like) would you most like to see win the Glasto competition thingy above?
2. Which current band do you think will be remembered for years?
3. Which current band do you think will be forgotten far faster than you would have thought when they were big?
4. Name something of global importance you are kinda impressed at having been around to witness.
5. Name a fictional world you would most like to inhabit.
The five songs this week celebrate the genius of Stephin Merritt.
The Magnetic Fields – Drive on Driver
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Future Bible Heroes – Death Opened a Boutique
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The Gothic Archies – Smile! No-one Cares How You Feel
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The 6ths – Night Falls Like a Grand Piano
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The Divine Comedy – The Dead Only Quickly
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