This will be a slightly shorter Miscellany, as most of my time is being taken up by thesis (draft chapter three due Wednesday, 1,500 left and something halfway between writers’ block and a complete and utter inability to focus), guru duties (ah lads, ye disappointed me. No-one nommed one particular track I was hoping for!) and… other stuff (I swear to god Facebook chat crashed on me last night…).
Take this as a sign of my ability to laugh at my own expense…
OK… so… I’m back! I didn’t fulfill my promise to be active on the game every day bar Saturday, but that’s because Saturday really took it out of me! Before that, I was sick and trying to write thesis stuff, so Miscellanies didn’t happen…
So normal service resumes after last week’s illness, and boy do I have a lot to get through! And yes, I’m afraid this does involve Fall Out Boy…
So, last week I started reading a webcomic called Questionable Content. It’s brilliant, like a sitcom for hipsters and music nerds… This has inspired this week’s miscellany, a reflection on my current reading and listening material, because I want to talk about how great some of this stuff is.
…So yeah, that title is inspired by the background-change here on the ‘Spill 
Sorry this is a little late, I’ve spent all day writing a chapter of my thesis (and it’s still only half-done!)
I spent all day working because I didn’t work on Saturday or Sunday (despite my best efforts). There is a reason for this, and it has nothing to do with Paddy’s Day, but it will be the subject of my next Miscellany…
Anyway, a long, long, time ago in the comments on a ‘Spill post far, far away, I promised Chris that I would do a post on the music my parents got me into, so here goes…
…The most appropriate song I could find on short notice…
I’m late! I’m late!
I decided to do a ‘day in the life’ selection for this turn, and the songs I’ve picked are all songs I listened to yesterday. This may go some way towards explaining why the Miscellany is late and I’m only getting around to doing the ‘Spill game now (I’d genuinely managed to forget that today was Tuesday. Fortunately amylee contacted me earlier). So yeah, yesterday was pretty rough (amylee nearly cracked up when I told her that I had to forcibly restrain myself from punching a girl… and in my defence my anger was largely on behalf of someone else. Now judge me, I’m really too tired and emotionally-drained to care). So with the benefit of hindsight I can say that the majority of songs on this playlist are ones I listened to in the past when I was trying to stand up to bullies, and life has gone full circle and I found myself turning to them again for the same reason yesterday. You know what to do by now: pick one, scrap one, tell me what you all think of them!
To accompany the chain story ‘A Rum Do’, DaddyPig had a brilliant idea for your birthday Webby. As many people as possible contributed one or two songs from their collection that they thought you’d like, and I offered to curate the resulting playlist. Here it is…
We had our first sunny days of 2013 over the last week. In fact, the first one was last Monday, as I sat here discussing Wrock (in my defence, it was too cold to spend long outside!) I always love sunny days. I don’t know whether it’s some strange form of Seasonal Affective Disorder or the by-product of spending my early childhood on the south coast of England, but I feel different when the sun shines. Those are days when I’m more likely to find whatever I’m reading or listening to emotionally-affecting. As a result of this, the careful creation of summer playlists is always a must…
Before I begin, I’d like to take a moment to comment on the RR discussion thread I started a few days ago. I think a post-deadline discussion of RR’s future on the blog is an excellent idea, and hopefully it’ll generate some discussion. Now, on with the show…
So, there’s been a lot of discussion in recent weeks about issues with RR: nesting, the treatment of gurus, moderating issues, mess-ups by the editorial staff, etc. Fuel is boycotting the Graun, and this morning on Facebook amylee threatened to follow him. I promised I’d do a ‘Spill post on it this afternoon. Well, ‘this afternoon’ has become this evening and I’m in a rush to go out, so here goes…
So, after last week’s rather heavy topic, here’s the post I had initially intended to do in Week Two…
I recently reread two books I last read in my mid teens, Magician and A Darkness at Sethanon (both by Raymond E. Feist). They are respectively the first and third books in Feist’s bestselling Riftwar Saga, the trilogy that launched his Riftwar Cycle of 20-odd high fantasy novels, which will conclude with the publication of Jimmy and the Crawler and Magician’s End this year.
When I started this series I said that I would write about whatever took my fancy each week. That wasn’t entirely true. By the time I had my first post finished, I had planned out my topics for the following two weeks. By the time week two rolled around, however, the universe (or rather that accretion of atoms collectively known as Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III) interfered in this best-laid of plans. I briefly considered continuing the schedule as if there had been no interruption (i.e., post week two’s topic this week) but a series of coincidences have encouraged me to do the original week three topic in week three and leave the week two topic until next week (assuming nothing else happens along the way!)
I had my piece for this week all planned out, and I’ll write it next week, because current events in the music world have caught my interest, and they’re VERY EXCITING!
Yep, it’s Tom DeLonge…
The off-topic meanderings on ‘Songs About… Works Of Art’ involved Webby telling the story of the rumoured supergroup HELP (the idea being that Jimi Hendrex would join ELP). leaveitallbehind suggested that this should be done as a game on the ‘Spill, so here we go…
After much deliberation late last year, I’ve decided to start a series of posts here on the ‘Spill. Inspired in part by Philip King’s (he of Scullion fame) weekly show on RTÉ Radio 1, South Wind Blows, I’m going to take anyone who decides to follow the series on a rambling journey through whatever the hell is interesting me at the moment. This could be music, books, films, life, interestingly-shaped clouds…
After a discussion last week with Aba, Maki and leaveitallbehind about ways of welcoming new members to the RR community, I put together this EOTWQ as an icebreaker, so to speak. So everyone, from the most regular of regulars to the newest of newcomers, please join in and take the quiz! Usual rules apply, 6 questions, my answers are at the bottom of this post and feel free not to answer one if you don’t want to!
Michelle Nolan (now Michelle DaRosa) of Straylight Run and Destry. The line “Don’t bother trying…” in the title of this post is probably about her…
As per a discussion that took place here and on RR a few weeks ago, I decided to theme my playlist for the ‘Spill game around infidelity, just for the lolz. In terms of the tracks I’ve picked, I have a few general points to make:
This is a picture of Ginevra Molly ‘Ginny’ Weasley as played by Bonnie Wright in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Because I can.
OK, this is my first time so please be patient with me! Some of these questions may have been asked before, I which case feel free to ignore/berate me… There’s no obvious theme this week, except all these questions came up in a conversation I had yesterday.
Hayley Williams and Chad Gilbert as Sally and Jack
As I promised several weeks ago, I’ve put together a playlist for a Halloween house party of the sort that me and my friends might attend. There are lots of dark party tunes ahead, and hopefully you’ll like them! Sadly, I don’t have MP3s of most of these songs, so I’m posting links to videos on Youtube. I hope you don’t mind!
The latest lineup of Guildford punk band Hearts Under Fire
So here it is. After nearly a year of the Guardian running ‘is rock music dead?’ stories and readers’ polls to find Britain’s best band with results that make me weep for humanity, this punk fan is finally hitting back. I could go on a rant about major media outlets refusing to interview The King Blues because they were ‘too political’, I could talk about the Guardian beginning their pattern of dismissing UK rock last year with a story on the death of guitar music a few days before Sheffield metalcore torchbearers Bring Me The Horizon released their critically-acclaimed and commercially-successful third album There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It, There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret… but I won’t. Instead, I’ll introduce you to some of the UK’s leading lights and rising stars, and let you judge them for yourselves. Please note that this list is selective: I don’t listen to much metal, and wouldn’t feel qualified to talk about it, so I’ll mostly be focusing on punk, pop-punk, emo and post-hardcore. Maybe Chinny would do a piece on modern British metal? (hint, hint…)
