AccordionGuy tagged me...

1. Total amount of music files on your computer? 14.0 gb, but I haven't finished ripping yet.

2. The CD you last bought is: Duran Duran - Astronaut (special edition with DVD :) )

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God (on the radio: XFM)

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.

Wolfman and Pete Doherty - For Lovers (because it's beautiful and tragic, considering the state Pete's in these days)
Super Furry Animals - Torra fy Ngwallt yn Hir (started my interest in Welsh)
Duran Duran - Do You Believe in Shame? (memories of a lost summer and a lost friend)
Blur - Beetlebum (they played it at the first ever gig I covered as a music journalist for the Melody Maker. I was shitting bricks that night, standing on side of stage, watching them play. Amazing experience.)
Elliott Smith - Tomorrow Tomorrow (in memoriam)

5. Who are you going to pass this stick to? (3 persons) and why?
* crw - the reason here should be fairly obvious
* Gary - because he'll undoubtedly have something interesting in his collection
* Kate - because it's about time I linked to her again (and I want to see which Duran track she picks)

Just collating a few links and stuff to do with the Duran Duran gig at the Hammersmith Palais last week.

Photos from duranduran.com (warning, site plays music on load)
Photos from duranduran.at (warning, site plays music on load)
Two video clips and one audio clip from duranduran.no (warning, streaming only)

Set list:

1. Finest Hour
2. Hungry Like the Wolf
3. Hold Back the Rain
4. Want You More
5. Union of the Snake
6. What Happens Tomorrow
7. Chains
8. Astronaut
9. Ordinary World
10. Save a Prayer
11. Bedroom Toys
12. Notorious
13. Reflex
14. Nice
15. (Reach Up For The) Sunrise
16. Wild Boys
-----
17. Girls on Film
18. Rio

The show is going to be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 January 29 from 9.30 – 10.30pm.

And finally, a plea. If you went, and you have video clips from your phone, please send them to me. I would love to collect and make available these clips in a true Creative Commons, share-and-share-alike manner. Streaming video is so un-CC.

It's a strange thing, being a Duran Duran fan, especially if you're old enough to have been there in the beginning (even if you didn't start to actually like them until they became deeply unpopular and therefore, with new underdog status, allowable targets for the strange and perversely-minded). I keep expecting Simon le Bon or Nick Rhodes or John Taylor or Roger Taylor to start looking old and a bit crap. (Andy Taylor's not on the list because, as a chinless wonder, he always looked a bit crap and these days he just looks like a smaller, weedier version of Robert Smith.) Yet they keep turning up looking damn hawt, if you ask me. Ok, so Duran Duran have had their off-years, but right now, they are definitely on.

Hammersmith Palais. Nice venue - never been there before, but I definitely now think it's one of the better venues in London. Just had a nice vibe. Nice sort of size too. There was only me, Kate and about 2,000 other people there so it felt like a party in my front room, compared to the barns we usually see them in. Standing at the back at the Palais felt pretty much like standing at the front at Wembley or the CIA.

So... a small, intimate gig with a band that will in May be playing on a football pitch (a gig which will undoubtedly sell out) and a crowd of devoted fans the vast majority of whom were 'in the demographic'. I'm not telling you precisely what the demographic is, because I'm a part of it, but it's the sort that says please and thank you, who can remember Itsy and Bitsy, and who are secretly relieved that the gig ends before 10 and that the cloakroom queue isn't too long.

In short, people who should not still be screaming like the giddy teenagers they were in 1984 at a bunch of men who have been round the block so many times they've worn a rut in the pavement. But my ears are still ringing. I can't say that I have ever heard so much noise from so many people in such a small space. The screaming actually pulsated. It was like ultrasound. And I have a suspicion it may have shattered one of my fillings.

The gig was, as were last year's, fucking amazing. Those guys have so much chemistry that it just oozes off them and drowns the crowd in waves of pheromones. You could only get tickets through the fan club or by listening to BBC Radio 2, so the atmosphere was great, full of real love and enthusiasm. I hate gigs where people stand around trying to look cool - a common curse in London - but at Duran gigs like this no one gives a flying fuck. We all just sing along and have a laugh and bop happily along with our friends (we're too old to dance per se). In fact, I was singing so loudly I came out croaking. I haven't done that in years! Great fun!

The gig was recorded for broadcast by Radio 2 on Sat 29 Jan, so I will record it, rip it, and it will be the first Duran gig that I've been to that I also have a boot of. I noticed (again) that a whole load of people had cameraphones, and many people were recording individual songs as little movies. I wish there were a way to gather together and share all these little movies to create a mosaic of the gig from different vantage points. It seems sad to me that that opportunity will be lost just because there is no focal point where people can share them.

Maybe there's an idea in that - a phone camera movie swap site. Or maybe that's already been done and I just don't know about it because I don't have a phone that can do that sort of thing.

Anyway, ace night out. They played a lot of new stuff, a lot of old stuff, and a wee bit from the stuff inbetween. JT continues to blow me away with his bass, which was delightfully loud tonight. He is - I've said it before and I'll say it again - one of the great lost bass geniuses of our time. I say lost because no one ever appreciates how beautifully melodic and complex his lines are, or the skill with which he plays them, because of the fact that he's pretty and in Duran Duran. As a bassist (ex-bassist now, I suppose), I have always adored the way that he writes. I don't know if he has a new rig, but the bass sounded bloody delightful today - could feel it running up from my heels through my spine the whole evening. Just delicious.

And the more I see Duran play live, the more I love Simon's voice. I know he used to have a bit of a bad reputation for having a crappy, out of tune voice, but I don't remember having heard him hit a bum note in years. Instead his voice has matured and strengthened, become richer, more emotive, more haunting. Hearing him sing Ordinary World is always sends tingles over my skin. It's just beautiful.

I just hope that Duran Duran's latest album, Astronaut, goes well. It really is a great album, with some gorgeous tracks on, and if you're a fan of Ordinary World or Come Undone then there is a lot on Astronaut that you'll like.

An understandable reaction to the state of the London Underground. Not even slightly worksafe. (Via GeoffTech, thanks John.)

Half obscured by a swirling mist is Neil Gaiman, standing in a long, black trenchcoat, upon the flat, hard sands of a North Sea beach. The tide has gone out, so far out that no one is quite sure if it is ever coming back again. In the mist looms a Punch and Judy show, its boards untrodden by the cackling wife-beater. Beyond that, a candyfloss stall, blooms of pink fuzz swaying in the mist, decaying in the clinging moisture. The strains of a mad Russian musician drift in through the thickening fog. You can't see your hand in front of your face, although you know that it - and Neil, and the mad Russian - is still there.

Ok, pictured that? Well, that is just how this sounds (mp3 1.1meg). My friend Steve wrote this music today to go with a story written by one of his friends. Personally, I think it's ace.

I have no idea if the story it was written for features Neil Gaiman.

My friend Kate has just won tickets to see Duran Duran at a "special concert for Radio 2 at the Hammersmith Palais, London on Thursday the 13th of January". Kate and I have been pals in Duranniedom for years, going to see them whenever we could, but it has invariably been at huge venues like the Cardiff International Arena or Wembley. To see them up close and personal at the Hammersmith Palais will be swoonworthy perfection. I mean... John Taylor in close quarters... Oh my...

Mae Gruff Rhys wedi mynd yn 'solo' efo sengl newydd o'r enw Ni Yw Y Byd, sy'n allan ar 19 Ionawr, ac albwm newydd o'r enw Yr Atal Genhedlaeth sy'n cael ei rhyddhau ar 24 Ionawr.

Mae Lauren Lavern newydd chwarae Ni Yw Y Byd ar XFM, a gofynodd hi am farnau y gwrandawyr. Mae'n ymddangos fel bod y mwyafrif ddim yn hoffi'r tiwn llawer. Dwedodd hi roedd 'na ormod o regi mewn negeseon y gwrandawyr i'w ddarllen nhw ar y radio.

Fi... wel, a dweud y gwir, dw i ddim yn siwr am y tiwn 'ma. Mae'n tipyn bach rhy... wn i ddim... 80s, efallai. Mae'n swnio 'naïve' imi, efo chord changes sy'n rhy amlwg, fel rhywbeth sy'n cael ei sgwennu gan plentyn. Ond, dw i'n hapus yn fawr iawn fod Gruff yn sgwennu yn y Gymraeg unwaith eto. Dw i'n caru Mwng, felly gobeithio bydd yr albwm yn tyfu arna i.

Mwy o wybodaeth o Hall or Nothing, ICWales a XFM.

Good cause, crap song. Fucking awful song. I mean, really, really bad. They've just played it on XFM and my god, it sounds like it was mixed by someone with their head stuck in a bucket. The voices are so low in the mix as to be essentially absent, the piano part sucks and the big finale overblown guitar rock ending sucks so hard it blows. I have no problem with the idea of Band Aid 20, indeed I think it's an important cause, but please, stop the aural abuse! I'll buy it if radio stations promise not to play it. In fact, if I had the money I'd buy every single copy just to save the world from this abomination.

UPDATE: Please note this very important distinction: Cause good. Song bad.

I really can't quite believe it, but John Peel has died, aged only 65, of a heart attack. (Shit! He was 65? I wouldn't have put him a day over 40.) He was in Peru on a working holiday with his wife.



To call John Peel 'influential' is a bit like calling the sun 'hot'. In particular, I always admired Peel for his happiness to champion Welsh music, even when he had no understanding of the language at all. He always tried to learn how to pronounce Welsh band's names and song titles and, in stark contrast to most of the rest of British radio, he never let a thing like language get in the way of playing a good song.

Both John Peel himself and the Peel Sessions were an institution - he was far more than a DJ, he was a wayfinder for so many people, seeking out new music that wasn't getting a play anywhere else. Countless bands have Peel to thank for their career - the support he gave them when no one else was taking any notice provided so many musicians with the break they needed.

I always loved listening to Peel's voice - the most mellifluous tones you've ever heard. Like Sean Connery, Peel just got sexier and sexier as he got older. He always retained his enthusiasm for music, in particular the sort of stuff that your dad would hate, which was I think a huge part of his charm and appeal.

To say that John Peel was beloved by many would be a huge understatement. To say he will be sorely missed doesn't really grasp the truth.

It seems, upon initial inspection, that the vast majority of my Last.FM music neighbourhood - i.e. people who have the same taste in music as I do - are male and between 19 and 21. I am not quite sure what this says about me, but I prefer to think that it means I can still take 10 yrs off my age and get away with it.

So, I finally wiped my second hard drive which had - until the Great OS Clean Install of 04 - been my primary HD, and copied all my music files over to it. All my data files, every single one of them, had been copied over the network to another machine before the reinstall, then burnt onto DVD to both archive them and make for a more convenient transfer back onto my computer.

Recently I was given an iPod (oooh! aren't they gorgeous!), but it wasn't until I'd opened up iTunes in order to transfer my music to my iPod that I realised how messy all the metadata was. I had been used to dealing with my library using folder and file names as a metadata for sorting, but irritatingly iTunes doesn't allow that.

The first mistake I made was that I unknowingly had 'keep library organised' checked in the preferences of iTunes, so the first time I imported all the files it totally bolloxed my filing system, splitting all my compilation folders out into their component parts, renaming and refiling everything. Well, gee, thanks, but no thanks. I deleted my entire library and started again.

I detest the arrogance of software developers who create a default preference of 'Please Mess With My Stuff'. I know how I want things organised, and I don't appreciate software that comes along and screws up my filing system. It's like having someone rifle through your bookshelf and put everything in alphabetical order, when you have them ordered by preference.

Second time round, I decided to do it all in stages. I emptied off one DVD, tidied up the folders and file names a bit, then imported into iTunes, but iTunes can't deal with out-of-date file paths. I can't see an option to purge out-of-date file information. Ok, so wait... here we have software designed, apparently, to deal with large music libraries and I can't find a purge?! And what's more, when one reopens iTunes, it can't even remember which tracks it can't find. Useful!

I started looking then at creating playlists. Smart playlist is kinda cool, yes. But what I used to do was create CD compilations from my existing collection by ripping a track here and a track there and shoving them all into one folder, which I could then burn to CD really easily. Other music players allow me to create a new playlist, then nominate a folder as the source for that playlist. Not iTunes, oh no. Can't do that. Have to go through my library and pick out each tune, one by one. Blerugh.

Because of this, I can't rely on my folder/filename metadata, which means that tracks with poor metadata get sort of lost in iTunes. Poor metadata is really a fact of life if you've got a bunch of MP3s, but yet iTunes relies on it for all its sorting and it doesn't make fixing it easy.

By this point I was getting really pissed off, a condition not helped by the fact that criticising iTunes is heresy in some parts.

Having come to the unpleasant conclusion that, in order to be able to benefit fully from my iPod and my MP3s, I was gonna have to fix a lot of metadata, the next question was How? Kevin suggested I get hold of MusicBrainz, a little app which checks your MP3, searches for metadata online, then fixes your ID3 tags and file names. (It'll do your folder names too, if you want it too, although that and the file renaming is easily switched off. Bonus points for MusicBrainz for giving me the option. In fact, for some folders this is really useful because for some reason some filenames got b0rked in archiving process.)

I have to say, MusicBrainz is great. It finds most of the metadata for most MP3s, and it's pretty easy to add information for the less common stuff in my collection. It's a laborious process to go through each folder and fix the metadata, but I'm ploughing through it slowly.

One problems is, though, that I am gonna have to go back to iTunes, delete the current library and reimport everything again because it can't purge dead files. Tedious. It's a good job that I hadn't got too far with sorting out my playlists, really.

So in conclusion, MusicBrainz is great, iTunes sucks ass.

On the 22 October 2003, I tearfully wrote with the news that Elliott Smith had died. An extraordinarily talented singer/songwriter, Elliott wrote some of the most delicate, emotive, beautiful music I have ever heard. As part of the Elliott Smith community over on the Sweet Addy message board, I had come not only to love his music but to feel a strong empathy for him, as many of his fans did.

When he died, aged 34, on 21 October, I was totally shocked and deeply upset. We all were. Unfortunately for me, Elliott's death came hot on the heels of one of the hardest, most unpleasant periods of my life, after my business had collapsed, taking me with it. I was red raw from spending eight months trying and failing to save my company.

In the days after Elliott died, people asked me why I was so upset - he was someone I had never met, never would have met, who never knew I existed. Why should I be crying over him? But Elliott didn't feel like a distant pop star to me, more like the brother of a close friend. Someone who was a palpable presence in my life, despite not being actually there.

Partly this was because there were people on the Sweet Addy board who did know Elliott, including Charlie who looks after the Sweet Adeline fan site which eventually became the official site and upon which I helped out in a tiny and insignificant - but significant to me - way. Partly it was because occasionally Elliott would pop up on the board to squash a few rumours. Partly is was because his lyrics were so honest, so vulnerable, so powerful - in the mirror he held up to the world, we all saw ourselves.

When my business went under, I had been forced to return to live with my parents, so I had neither the privacy nor the strength to really face Elliott's death at the time. I found I couldn't listen to his music without crying, so I stopped. Completely. Even thinking about him or his music upset me greatly, so I did all I could to avoid it.

Last night at ULU was held a memorial gig for Elliott, raising money for the charity Kid's Company. Last night, for the first time in nearly a year, I heard Elliott's voice, heard people singing Elliott's songs. For the first time in 18 months I met up with some of the wonderful people from Sweet Addy, people I had had the delight of hanging out with in Manchester in Jan 03. It was both a sad and happy evening. I finally had the chance not just to grieve, but also to bury some hatchets, to move on.

Right now, I am listening to Figure 8. I feel kinda sad, but the sadness has been largely replaced with the familiar warmth that the beauty of his music engenders. It's the first time I've put it on since he died. At least now I know that it won't be the last.

Oh, what a shock, music sales have gone up in the UK over the last year, and that's not even counting legal download sales.

The number of legal downloads sold in the UK this year has now exceeded two million units, the BPI said. This means sales have increased from a rate of 100,000 per month to 500,000 per month over the past quarter.

Excuse my smugness, but what did I say about downloads affecting sales?

I hope this means the beginning of the end of the music industry's usual stupidness over downloads and P2P. Quit whining, embrace new techology and start looking for ways to create more value for money instead of trying to force people to buy the crap you've been churning out for year upon year in the assumption that music lovers don't notice.

It's not often that I buy singles. If I like a song I either download it (scream of horror) or get the album. The only reason for buying a single is if the b-side is worth having and usually they're not, they're just a waste of money - who needs some crappy remix or live version of a song you already have?

Admittedly Radiohead used to be very good at producing high quality b-sides, so I do have a lot of Radiohead singles and EPs, up to the point where Thom lost his head somewhere in his own lower intestines.

Thursday I was, as I habitually am, listening to XFM. Their X-List show is an opportunity for listeners to control the play list, (well, only to some extent I suppose. If I rang up and asked for the new Duran Duran single Sunrise, for example, I doubt that they would have it in the building, let alone play it), and some guy rings in to ask for Soulwax. Good call. Excellent band. But he asks not for Any Minute Now, their current single, but for the b-side. Sadly the station doesn't have a full version of the single, but this guy waxes long, eloquently and passionately about how wonderful this b-side is and how they really, really need to get a hold of it and play it.

Normally, I wouldn't take any notice, but the song in question is actually a cover version of Hey Little Girl, by Icehouse. Back in the 80s I used to love Icehouse - I have a ton of their stuff stashed away upstairs in the loft so I was suddenly overcome by a real need... not just a fleeting desire, but one of those overwhelming longings to hear both versions.

I managed to find the original version - I had forgotten was a lovely voice Iva Davies has. It's just beautiful. And Hey Little Girl has aged very well indeed. Some 80s stuff sounds really a bit crap, but although this sounds of its time it doesn't sound dated.

Anyway, I couldn't electronically purloin Soulwax's version, so I did the unthinkable and actually bought the single from HMV online. It arrived through my letterbox this morning, and I stuck it on the stereo as soon as I had opened it.

What can I say? The guy on the radio was right. Not only is it an astoundingly beautiful version, but Stephen Dewaele's voice is so similar to Iva Davies' as to be really very spooky. It's just quite, quite fabulous. Subtle, understated, emotive, delicious. Four minutes of heart-stopping tingle-making bleepy Soulwaxy goodness.

Go buy it.

Just heard the new Fatboy Slim single on XFM. Taken from his new album Palookaville, the single Slash Dot Dash is a short sharp kick to the teeth of a single with lyrics along the lines of 'slash dot dash dot slash dot dash dot slash dot dash dot slash dot dot com', which may either be an homage to /. or just a bunch of words that sound good together. Hard to tell.

Given one listen, I like it, but I suspect it could be a grower. That 'slash dot dash dot' mantra is the sort to get under your skin, even if you can't get your tongue round it. (It was hard enough to type, let along sing.) Can't find an mp3 to link to, so you're gonna have to find it for yourself.