Andrew WK

From the NME. Beard! regards this as good news.

"Andrew WK has holed up in a confidential NEW YORK location to begin work on his second LP.

The rocker says he wants some privacy the follow-up to his critically lauded 2001 debut 'I Get Wet', according to Rolling Stone.

He said: "If we were in a studio there'd be people coming in and out and we don't want that. We want to spend as much time on the detail stuff as possible. There could be as many as a hundred tracks on each song, all kinds of keyboards, but we can just do it in a hotel room."

Talking about how the record will sound, he added: "You know when you get one of those weird things underneath your armpit?" That's what this album is - a growth. It's branching off, it's growing off, but it's not abandoning or turning its head to what it is. "There are a lot of people who have discovered my music and it's changed their lives. We strive to create the best song you ever heard . . . over and over again.""

Off to see Low tonight, hopefully Decal after and Idlewild tomorrow.

More fucking BPB shite

9/10 review in NME (plus good review for Zwan featuring Dave Pajo and Matt Sweeney who was a gent we got to talk to him last year in Tramore). Album of the week in the Independent. Bad review by the Wire but who cares....Great crack on the Drag City site they are collecting votes for a Best Of Palace/Palace Bros/Palace Songs/WIll Oldham compilation. This would be most stuff up until about 1998, about 110 songs, no Bonnie Price Billy stuff.

And now a mad thing. Watching the Late Late Show on Fri with me mother. It is absolutely shit but it's what she watches. And Coldplay were on it playing In My Place. But they were on only in November as well. Why would they be on an Irish chat show twice in a couple of months? I think maybe they had a show in the Point to plug last time but surely on a Friday evening they're are more killer PR spots than the Late Late? Anyway they were fairly ok, I couldn't tell if they were miming or not, it sounded like there were harmonies which were not being sung. But your heart would go out to them, trekking around, sellign this album to death - do they ever get the weekend off? I think it's gone over the million mark in the US (or maybe that is 'Parachutes') which is a huge achievment given how delighted people are when they sell 100000 there. Just to give you an idea of how shit the Late Late is, they had Michael Barrymoore on in his carefully orchestrated campaign to get back into the mainstream media (it kicks off in Ireland like oh so many other tours).

Listening to Badly Drawn Boy, must get the last album.....

Music industry stuff

Two things

If you haven't read the "Bitch Slap" diaries before take the day off and read them. Hilarious, annoymous account of recording an album in LA.

There was an article on Slashdot about recording expenses. Most of it was ridiculous (a lot of Slashdotters think Pink Flyod's a sutiabel refernce point for quality recordings etc.) but there was a reference to an interesting Steve Albini article.

Saw Neko Case and Settler last night, it was pretty good. Didn't realise N. Case was so alt country, her pedal steel player was brilliant.

And now most importantly second song in on Master And Everyone from BPB.

You can group Royksopp, Lemon Jelly and Zero 7 together and shove 'em up your arse.

I want one of those iPods, though I suspect it would be too harsh on some of the stuff I listen to. Aimee Mann springs to mind.

Currently listening to Dog Man Star for the second time ever. Though I've heard bits of it before, particularly New Generation, which was the subject of a question I texted William with a month ago (all I could remember was the lines "like all the boys in all the cities / they take the poison, take the pity"). But more about Suede later.

Had a good weekend

wherein I went to the Ballroom of Romance to see Gregor 57, Rollers/Sparkers and The Chalets. Gregor 57 have a lot of Sonic Youth records and know how to use them. Rollers/Sparkers are more or less pretty good indie with a bit of mucking around (there's a great vocal-only audience participation song). But the stars are still The Chalets. There really is no good reason why this band aren't top of the charts. Great short pop songs, boys vs girls singing, coordinated outfits (and hairdos!). It's a shame that the song on the free CD is one of their shortest, and is mostly "la la la". Not that there's anything wrong with that per se, now. But they have much more in store!

And on Saturday I went out to Helter Shelter with Ian and Irene. It's in it's new place in the Temple Bar Music Center, and we reckon it's probably not as good as in the Shelter (never as packed) but still pretty good. I danced like a lunatic to Carter USM and The Wonder Stuff, and less so to the official indie national anthems: Love Will Tear Us Apart and Blue Monday.

I impressed myself with my indie spot-the-intro skills. The four little clicks at the start of Cannonball, for example, are enough to get me up and onto the dance floor. And for the Carter tune After The Watershed, I was going "hmm... wait a minute ... what is this, I know this? ... I love this! ... Caaaarrtterrr!".

And they played Placebo three times. I love my Placebo, and I remember seeing David Bowie appearing on some TV show (The Brits?) with them to sing Without You I'm Nothing. Which does just go to show that even during his eternal comeback years, he never lost the knack of doing the unexpected. Particularly amusing was the imagined sight of Suede going "Hey! Hey, over here!"

The Spire/Spike is up.

Looks very high and quite nice so far. Mad to think that it is only a third/a half (??) of the Eiffel tower....

I had a dream

That Andrew had an iPod or other mp3 device and that it would give you a sort of personality test based on the music you choose to listen to - you picked 3 albums for 3 different occassions. So I or someone else in the dream chose some electronica album for when walking/exercising (not that I've done much of that recently) - something like Royksopp/Lemon Jelly/Zero 7 (can they all be grouped together?) and the device said that these choices were very middle of the road. Then the choice for music to listen to while doing something in the evening was a Stevie Wonder album - the only thing I remember about the cover was that it had the word 'irony' on it somewhere. Again the iPod like device was very disparaging about this choice. It made you feel bad about what you listen to!

Haven't listened to much music lately. Have a few albums to get thru all right. Tried to buy a Neko Case album last night but couldn't find one in this city (no doubt her evening in Whelans on Thurs will be poorly attended) so I got a second hand This Mortal Coil album 'Filigree & Shadow' which was quite nice over a bowl of Aplen this morning.

What else - Domino Records have revamped their site and have put up videos for their roster of artists including 4 made in the early days of Palace which are well worth looking at. Taking me back to the shock of seeing Ohio River Boat Song on No Disco. The Domino site has gone away for the moment (they're applying the new changes or something) but I'll add the link when it's back.

Fake Jazz is another ok review site. They had some Deerhoof in their end of year poll and the clips on Aquarius Records for their latest album Reveille are really good. Not so good was their favourite album form last year by Yume Bitsu.

Another review making Master and Everyone album of the week

World domination to follow surely

BBC make it album of the week.

Just some links really

Found a good online music review magazine called Dusted. Pitchfork is too annoying for me nowadays. Anyway they have a very insightful review of BPB Master And Everyone, a good interview with Andrew WK, references to tape and CD-R labels, and a whole list of music from last year that I haven't heard much about.....

reading our own dog food

That, incidentally, is a quality beard shot there, Eamonn. Is that a glass eye?

Marc Carroll played here a while back, I asked about him on ie-indie, and everyone called him a tosser, so I didn't go. I also didn't go because there was something else on, I think.

I'm here! I'm here!

Sorry about the delay.

I've almost been listening to cassettes more than CDs. I have a 45 minute walk into work (longer if the shops are open along the way, hem hem), and I've been (meaning to) taping LPs that I've been meaning to listen to, and rolling them around my head a bit. Now PH43R my leet HTML skills:

The Breeders - Title TK

This is a much sadder album than Last Splash, but then 9 years is a long time. The initial impression is that it's slower, but I think that's just due to an absence of surf-froth like SOS or Divine Hammer. It's really worked it's way into my head, and I'm glad I bought it, but I'm not sure that I'll play it that much, and it's never really in danger of replacing Last Splash. I've even found myself humming a few of the riffs, which came as a bit of a surprise.

Mouse On Mars - Iaora Tahiti

I'm not that big a fan of this. I saw them live at a festival, and loved it - it sounded like dance music with guitars should be. But this just sounds like a bunch of stuff that you could make great dance records from. Maybe I should get something more recent (this is from 1995). Niun Niggung is the record, from what I understand.

Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow

I must go back and listen to more of this, as it went on a C60 and runs over. It's great stuff, including a great "rush sample" on the second track, Blazing Arrow. It's got a few tracks produced by Cut Chemist, who they last worked with on that great Alphabet Aerobics. They do sound a bit like that track, is the problem. But basically they're great.

Neko Case for Whelans on Jan 23

Thu Jan 23: Neko Case [ Followed by PHANTASM club ‘til 3am ] €15

So the calender looks like this

Fri Jan 17 The Chalets

Fri Jan 17 JESSE MALIN + JEFF KLEIN (Uncut recommended dude)

Thurs Jan 23 Neko Case

Fri Jan 24 NME Tour (but are Interpol playing

Weds Jan 29 Teenage Fan Club possibly

Fri Jan 31 Low

Sat Feb 1 Idlewild

Jimmy Cake are playing as well sometime. So bascially an expensive month.

Let's get down to brass tacks

Music. From. Today.

First cd of the year - the Uncut magazine cover cd. These are pretty good compilations covering new and old straying not too far from Uncut's idea of serious, worthy music. I keep forgetting which songs I like on them though and have never been compelled to go out and but something because of a song from the Uncut cd. It's good to finally hear James (Jamie?) Yorkston though, pleasant enough all right. The main reason I got it is because there is a Bonnie 'Prince' Billie song "Three Questions" from his new album (end of the month) Master And Everyone. It's quite a good song, stripped back a good bit, nice accordian and female accompaniment. Bodes well for the album (which is on Soulseek due to Domino releasing promo copies in the UK before Xmas. Why do they do that?). They made Master & Everyone album of the month (yeaaaa!......but gulp! my tastes are therefore in line with Uncut - even though I have heard only a couple of songs from the album, I am nearly certain it will be a classic (bias etc I know)) and there is a short email interview with the bearded one.

Master and Everyone cover

Mid West tour plea

What else is good on the cd - Robert Wyatt (Canterbury folk scenster who fell out a window and started making brilliant ambientesque albums), Neko Case (enjoying the New Pornograpers album at the moment), she Sandovals around a little, a nice uplifting Ron Sexsmith song (Gold In Them Hills), I don't think I had actually ever heard something by him before and now I must seek out some more, Chris Difford who sounds a bit like Jeffrey Lewis to me (even though as one of the sognwriters in Squeeze he must be nearly twice Jeffrey Lewis' age), Radio 4 - a new 'The' band without the 'The' , an Andy Partridge song (used be singer with XTC, has tons of stuff to release, IS the musical ancestor of Jim O'Rourke (well for Eureka anyway) ,a Hayden song, and a Bill Hicks piece. Anyway it's a pretty good cover cd with just a few duff songs.

Uncut is the only music publication that I will more or less read completely nowadays, their feature articles are usually quite interesting and well written (e.g. this month's ones about the making of The Clash album and a quick overview of Husker Du (I never knew that Grant Hart was also gay - great to read how bassist Greg Norton gave up music, became a gourmet chef and runs a successful restaurant). The only problems with Uncut are

• Too many album reviews (well they can't do anything else I guess) and a lot of them are too short.
• Too much Ryan Adams. Not too familiar with him, haven't likeld what I've heard but Uncut follow him like a puppy dog
• A bit too much serious, real, middle aged, white male music. More messiness in the music coverage please!

Other news I noticed that Plush (Liam Hayes) released an album on a Japanese label last year and Marc Caroll (formerly of Puppy Love Bomb? Or Bawl? can't remember) put an album out last year. The Plush one would definitely be worth getting. Big fan of 'More That Becomes You'. Found out about those releases at http://www.americana-uk.com/html/reviews.html

The Manifesto - let's put it to the testo

Welcome to Beard! Andrew and Eamonn's mostly musical diary. Here's the deal

• We get to rabbit on about music we're listening to, have listened to, will listen, would like to listen, would like not to listen to, music we like the sound of but don't listen to, people who make music, what music makes us feel like doing etc. This will include albums/singles/gigs/tv/radio/humming/description/ etc.
• We need to make lists so that we know what we listened to in the last year. This means we need some sort of side bar list thing (2 of them in fact) which would link to entries which are required to be listed. THIS IS TECHNICAL TASK NO 1 WHICH I ASSIGN TO ANDREW
• Actually we also need lists for

• Filumms!
• Books!
• Other stuff (games, tv, walks, cycles, people)

• The Beard! manifesto may change during the course of the year.
• We better figure out how to email how entries in too (it can be done)
• Maybe we need categories? I'll stop this nonsense soon

Well you have to have a...

Share with a friend

I am telling Andrew now. God! the excitement.

Do you remember the first time?

"It is estimated that over 500,000 have been created over the past 18 months and are now starting up at the rate of about 5,000 daily."

ah well one more won't hurt. Hello.