You think you know me?...

[koganbot]

...What others tell you won't be true.

Since it came up yesterday on the big board, I feel justified in letting you guys know where you can read my Las Vegas Weekly columns for yourself. (Despite what the numbering system implies ["twelve"], there have been fourteen so far, starting at the beginning of June.)

Links to all my columns

Page two of the links to all my columns

We discuss these things every week on my livejournal (most recent discussion here).

( I say several things about what I think I'm trying to do )

The Rules Of The Game #5: What's Wrong With Pretty Girls?

The Backstreet Boys piece.

The issue - "they don't write their own songs" - is a stand-in for something else. But this doesn't mean that there is a clear but unspoken Real Reason behind it that we can easily ferret out, or a set of Underlying Beliefs of which the reason is an expression. What stand-in issues do isn't so much to conceal some Real Issue as to leave issues and ideas inchoate.

So what this piece is fundamentally doing is taking a stick and poking around to see what some of those inchoate issues and ideas might be. (So it's not not not primarily concerned with refuting someone's idea about how authorship makes a piece of music valid or invalid. Rather, it's interested in understanding how the idea came about, what the idea thinks it's trying to accomplish, and what the idea evades. And - to reiterate - it doesn't assume that the ideas and issues are someone else's but not mine.)

GIG ALERT

[bengraham.livejournal.com]

"Swedish electro diva Robyn has announced a short UK tour in November, stopping off at Scala on Thursday 1st November. Tickets are on sale now at £11 each."

Anyone want me to get them a ticket? poptimists team outing!

Lifestages

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Another poll on a familiar theme. Obviously most here people will not be able to answer all the questions. Use the comments box to i. gasp at what other people say ii. explain yr choices if you like iii. muse generally on the changing place of music in your life iv. suggest more sensible staging points than the tyrrannous 5 year gap I have imposed here...

[Poll #1044379]

Introspective? Moi?

(oh and also I am using "song" to mean "piece of music", because I am lazy. "means a lot" can mean whatever you want it to - different things for different questions I'm guessing)

Let's talk about Darren Hayes and his concept album "This Delicate Thing We've Made"

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Hayes

I only know who he is from his recent badness. Sure I remember Cabbage Garden, and loved Moon and Back, but somewhat randomly I just got handed his DOUBLE ALBUM "This Delicate Thing We've Made" and I've been WTFing all the way through. There's some bland boy-band singing stuff in there that's made less impact, but I was immediately caught sideways by the first four tracks. Moody/bombastic electro-tinged pop, but then there's some mad titles and lyrics going on here.

Track 3, Waking The Monster starts "The Professor is building something extraordinary"
Track 4, How To Build A Time Machine starts "If I have understood correctly, velocity equals the distance travelled divided by time. I've read every word printed on Quantum Physics...

"Bombs Up In My Face" is a great title and the only really dancey type track. Other track titles: "The Future Holds A Lion's Heart" "Me, Myself And (I)"

Seriously, who ordered a 25 track epic from him? i'm going to listen to this some more

(OK, so it may not be a CONCEPT album, but srsly, WTF)