Music stuff and my Easter message to the nation.

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 27 March 2005 14:44:08

Luke Slater. Probably not a name many of you are familiar with. The first time I came across his music was on a free Justin Robertson mix-tape (remember cassette tape?) on the cover of 'Select' magazine which I bought from a newsagents in Christchurch (Dorset, not New Zealand, unfortunately) before going to my friends Alex & Kats house to listen to. That would have been the summer of 1995 I guess. Anyway, 10 years on I stumble across a CD of Mr Slater's in a bargain bin. And boy is it a lovely little surprise. Now, I'm not one for '80's nostalgia and all that but electronic synth duo's doing real songs is a pretty '80's thing (Erasure, The Assembly, Pet Shop Boys, Yello - gee, even Tick and Tock!), except when Mr Slater and singer Ricky Barrow (ex-Aloof singer) do it it feels soooo right. Kind of nu-Detroit techno meets Electronic on a Mac G5 hard-drive. So that'll be my spring listening sorted. Here's a link if ya wanna check it out.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005Y1JI/qid=1111927981/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_11_3/202-6335139-5019826

LCD Soundsaytem is playing near my house!!!
April 27th is a day I'm looking forward to. For upon that day James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy (and friends), a.k.a. LCD Soundsystem, will be playing in Bristol. And I've had the good foresight to pay the door tax. Yahooooo!!!! Can't wait

I've decided to rebel against the crass over-commercialisation of Easter (and just about everything else) by not buying anything Easter related. No chocolate, no fluffy bunnies, no Mel Gibson films, no, no, no. Instead I will work on some music and watch 'Life of Brian'.

Had a spring clean yesterday and reordered the work/sleepspace. The place is looking more and more Zen-minimalist. If I go much further down this route then I might actually disappear, which is very Zen-/Buddhist. I think I'm edging more towards Buddhism. Maybe it's because Christianity seems (increasingly) incapable of breaking out of its conservativism and fundamentalism. I mean, when did you ever meet a fundamentalism Buddhist? Does Buddhism have anything to be fundamentalist about? I guess Buddhism simply has an apophatic emphasis which is there in the Christian tradition (Eckhart, John of the Cross - more recently Etty Hillesum, Terese of Lisieux) but has largely been forgotten. I guess if contemporary Christianity practiced it's tradition of unknowing I might feel a bit more comfortable about joining in now and again. Until then I'll stick with finding God in unexpected places - that way I'm not required to sell my soul to an institution which seems to have become the enemy of it's founder.