John Walker's Electronic House

Okay, so a centimetre of snow fell, and yes, I’m totally grateful for that. London may be getting another foot before bedtime, but a cm is more snow than I’ve seen in this country in my adult life. Also grateful was Dexter, who’d never seen snow settled on the ground before. He seemed quite taken.

This isn’t spectacular action, but it’s Dex playing in snow, and it’s cute.

There’s a high quality version in the options on the farthest right button.

Being a snow lover, being someone who finds their mood immediately uplifted at the sight of a thick layer of white fluff on every branch, and the landscape transformed, there is nothing more mindless and cruel than telling me that amazing amounts of snow are forecast. “It’s going to snow tonight, a few inches!” “No, it won’t,” I said angrily to all these evil liars. And no, it bloody well didn’t.

Switching on the news this morning is like receiving a phone call from a friend who’s at the party with simply everyone, while you’re at home on your own with nothing to do, and no invite. Schools closed, trains in disarray, killer snowmen destroying cities – I’m SO happy for you all. Bursting with it.

And as I write this, the sky mocks me with a parody of snow. The tiniest specks of white are falling – well, mostly going upward, really – as if to say, “Yes, I am totally capable of snowing on Bath as much as anywhere, but I’m not going to.”

Screw you, sky. You know what? I’m glad about your stupid ozone hole. I hate you.

Twitter annoyed me. I’m not sure why. I think it’s something about the unimportance of the minutiae of people’s lives, and the over-abundance of communication.

And then I realised I like Facebook Status Updates, and then that was that.

My Twitter is here: https://twitter.com/botherer

Right, I realise I’ve barely any readers these days, and I realise last thing on Friday is a stupid time to do this, but I need to know.

Most Brits will remember Farley’s Rusks. The biscuits designed for teething babies, aged 4-6 months and older. I’m sure there are equivalents in other parts of the world. Full of calcium and iron, they’re brilliant for babies with their crunchy start, and quick dissolve into mush in the mouth. They’re clearly designed with babies and toddlers in mind. However, I note on the box that there’s no upper age limit.

I’m really quite shocked by the remarkably negative reaction to my buying some the other day from my housemates. All three of them became demented when I offered them one to eat. “BUT THEY’RE FOR BABIES!”

So is milk. And no, not breast milk. Cow milk. At around six months, when you can start giving a baby Rusks, you can give them regular milk. It contains many nutrients babies need! Does that mean it’s exclusively for babies? NO! You’d have to be a colossal idiot to make such an argument.

Therefore, please, can Rusk accepting people out there please let others know they’re delicious and nutritious. There’s a reason it says “for all ages” on the box, people. I hereby begin the campaign for Rusk-eating adults to loudly and proudly declare these enormously flavourful treats as their own!

As people I know start to have babies, I’ve realised that in amongst the tens of thousands of books that tell you their right way to raise a child, there’s room for one more. It’s called, “Tips For Raising Your Child (That Might Kill Them)”. It’s admittedly a controversial approach, but it’s bold and original.

Parents have the crap scared out of them every other fifteen seconds. One book will proclaim if you give your five month old a piece of banana before their fifth month and second week they will definitely die by catching on fire. Then the next says that failure to provide banana by this point ensures they’ll die of meningitis. Your baby doesn’t sleep through the night by 13 months? You’re the worst parent ever and you’re going to prison for ever. Your baby does sleep through the night by 13 months? Your baby has Sleep Cancer and will be dead by the morning, you murderer.

Never mind the “advice” visited upon you by everyone who’s had a kid, been a kid, or seen a picture of a kid in a book, all sucking through their teeth at your every action. “Tssss. You let your baby cry for ten minutes?” “Tssssssss. You bath your baby three times a week?” “Tssssssssssssss. You carry your baby on your left hip?”

With so much certain doom prophesied upon you by these morbid soothsayers every day, I think there’s certainly room for the baby raising book where there is a risk for the child.

For instance: Your baby cries too much at night, and you’re not sleeping, and nothing will soothe it? Increase the levels of carbon monoxide in the room. It will help the baby sleep, but it might kill it a bit too.

Worried about diseases? Babies need to build up an immune system to prevent them from getting sick when they’re older. So instead of food, feed your child a variety of poisons, allergens and dirt. If they survive, they’ll be near immortal.

Concerned your child may have latent super-powers that aren’t being realised by traditional baby-raising advice? We all know babies can instinctively swim, but later lose the ability if not taught. The same is true for all manner of paranormal powers. To check for most of these before those instincts are lost, throw it out an upstairs window.

Despite this, during the last week I’ve been left alone for the odd hour with an eighteen-month-old girl, which is far less terrifying than I’d thought. I’d assumed it would be the cute little girl screaming in misery at being left with the hairy big man, him sitting there helplessly, surrounded by bleeping toys and puddles of tears. Turns out such brief babysitting is mostly about going through wooden books with colourful pictures of cows and apples, stacking boxes into short-lived towers, and watching Yo Gabba Gabba on Tivo. Oh, Yo Gabba Gabba – it is by far the best thing in pre-school TV since Sesame Street. I will be writing more about Yo Gabba Gabba for sure.

After my successful trip to the fantastic 826NYC, I went into a shoe store to get something new to put on my leg-hands. I decided I wanted some Converse boots, because it’s been a while.

The store was just astonishingly loud. I’ve been in noisy music shops, but never have I been anywhere outside of a club or live music venue at this volume. In fact, I’d likely leave a club or live music venue that felt the need to have the sound quite so obnoxiously loud. This isn’t the exaggerated grumbling of an ageing man – it was, beyond belief, insanely loud. I literally had to shout at the top of my voice to the sales assistant to ask for some boots to try on, repeating myself three times before she heard what size. She went into a back room to look for them.

While I waited I watched the very many staff in the place enjoying the music. It was, extraordinarily, a sort of UK garage-meets-rasta remix of the Scooby-Doo theme, which clumsily stumbled its way into the Sesame Street theme, all decorated with enthusiastic shouting. All at a volume far beyond that which the in-store speakers were equipped to handle. So it wasn’t only loud, but also fizzing and popping in pain. The staff seemed very pleased with it, with one girl doing some excellent dancing to entertain all within.

After a while another staff member asked if I was being served. I boomed my explanation that a while back someone had gone into this back room looking, and I was beginning to worry about her. She followed her in. And also vanished. Were they dead? Or simply letting their ear drums have a moment of respite?

After far too long in this nonsensically noisy place – like some kind of mad nursery for horrendous pre-schoolers – I was give the brown Converse boots I’d asked for, and made my getaway. Having realised that, oh no, doesn’t David Tennant’s Doctor Who wear brown Converse? Am I unconsciously attempting to dress myself as a mutant version of various Time Lords?

The answer to this is clearly, and deeply troublingly, yes. And I think the long-coated, longer-scarfed, grey-stripey-cotton-hatted, brown-shoed, hair-faced figure I now cut in public should strike fear into the hearts of space monsters and naughty robots everywhere. And indeed anyone else who walks past.

In America! Hooray. I thought I’d find out what all the fuss was about, having heard rumours of a country where the locals all drive cars and the root beer comes in glasses. It’s all true!

I’m over in Philadelphia (or near enough) for a while, visiting Kim and Nick. But today I’m in New York, currently in a Starbucks filling half an hour before I get on a subway down to Brooklyn to try and find 826NYC and the Superhero Supply Store.

This is how cold New York is: All the cold. It’s so cold that my beard froze. Emerging from Penn Station, condensation in my hairy face from the temperature change, I wiped it to hear cracking sounds. I am fairly certain this means my impending death as soon as I venture from the warmth of this narrow coffee hole. It’s the sort of cold where you’re whole face hurts and you wonder if you’ll be able to do expressions again. The sort of cold where people exchange looks of pain as they walk past each other. I love it.

To celebrate I went into Macy’s to buy a scarf. Even though the British Pound’s tombstoning jump into half an inch of lava and spikes means the US is no longer half-price, it’s still a far more reasonably priced nation, and it’s always worth getting as much stuff here as you can squeeze into your bag. Macy’s isn’t exactly a place for bargains, but anything in a sale is going to be less than half the cost in the UK still. However, the same rule doesn’t appear to apply to scarves. Average price: $50. All because they’ve got some stupid logo or other printed on them, in some remote corner. I don’t need to spend £30+ on anything, let alone a long thin bit of wool. However, between these stands of massively overpriced piles of knitting were racks of $25 scarves, which would seem just about reasonable until you see how long they are.

The man at the counter asked me if it was two or three I’d picked up. It was one. This scarf is long enough for two people to share, without needing to be in the same town. It’s so long it’s almost impossible to wear. And it’s entirely impossible to wear without looking like a reject from the Doctor Who auditions. Which fortunately is the look I’m consistently striving for. “What do you mean you don’t want a fat, hairy Doctor? TO HELL WITH YOU ALL!” And then with a swish off my scarf over my shoulder, and the resulting deaths of three passers-by, I storm off.

And that’s all the scarf news.

2008 marked the year I became a genre. Which was odd. The phrase “John Walker Music” has become commonplace amongst my hateful collection of so-called friends to describe a song they consider whiny and not possible to dance to. This idea is explored in disturbing depth in Kieron’s annual Top 40 songs list, posted today. And takes the term to an interesting place: it’s previously been used to dismiss songs, but seems to be becoming an occasionally acceptable alternative.

He’s quite accurate in his descriptions of which songs I’ll like. They’re easy to pick out the list. They’re the ones that don’t sound like stroppy teenagers singing 80s karaoke to a Casio keyboard demo. That sounds so trite a description, too cliché and predictable a way to dismiss it all, but hell, it seems to work.

(So as I write this I’ve put on some ancient Red House Painters, since Mark Kozelek is the patron saint of John Walker Music, and it’s about as opposite to the oh-so-ironic faux-80s annoyance as I could imagine.) Kieron’s taste has a few blips, allowing in some of this year’s best singles, including the epically great Dig, Lazarus, Dig by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Matt & Kim’s glorious Daylight. He also includes some Mountain Goats, which has made my day. The best band/singer of them all. It’s a shame there isn’t a decent version of the song online anywhere, as the live version linked to is barely audible. (I might try and fix this in a bit, just in case people who like the shouting stuff click on it – it seems too tragic that he’d not get heard by new ears.) And the Magnetic Fields too, of course. And if they count as John Walker Music, then I think my genre is in damned fine form.

Oh, and the Frightened Rabbit song is fantastic. Kieron’s exactly right about the worry they cause. They’re so damned close to turning into Travis, and no amount of swearing will keep them above this if the banality they occasionally hint at sucks them down. However, while their demise seems sealed in their recent popularity (they’ve had two songs on Chuck’s fantastic soundtrack this season, and are popping up on TV all over the place), their second album survives it, and Keep Yourself Warm defies it. I accidentally saw them live this year, supporting knighted JW Music heroes, Death Cab For Cutie, and they knew to finish with this song in gigantic form. (Nick Cave, Kieron explains to me, only counts as JWM when it’s bad. When it’s good it isn’t. As he says, it’s based on a concept he’s created called “unfairness”. Of course, it’s never bad. It’s just sometimes it isn’t as spoon-fed. Take that.)

Looking at such lists, 2008 seems to have been a disastrous year for music. If the Ting Tings’ vapidity is the best the year can offer, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. (Kieron links me to a great article about the year’s dodgy output here.) However, there was a decent amount of stuff. Well, nine or so albums. Some that appear in a few lists, some that seem oddly absent. All of them great.

I don’t really pay attention to time, and I find it very hard to know what’s from this year and what’s from five years ago, so I find listing music pretty difficult. I’m also fairly certain the Hold Steady and Portishead albums would have made it 11, but I haven’t heard enough of either yet. But here’s my Top 9 albums of the year. Which should, I suppose, all be John Walker Music by default.

9. Jim’s Big Ego – Free*

JBE have always understood the simplest music equation: record labels = bad, live performance = good. Their latest album is literally free, but you can choose to pay as much as you want for it. If you take it for free, they ask that you “pay” by passing it on to three friends. Of course that has no bearing on the music, which is really rather fantastic. There isn’t the big catchy single that will ride an internet meme this time, like Y2K Hooray!, or Stress, but they were all over a decade ago. Free* is a much more mature album, with some fantastically big songs, like the opening International, and the super-cute Everything Must Go. It gets silly, of course. And is as jazzy and enthusiastic as you could want.

8. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight

As above. You can’t help but feel nervous, seeing their destiny, but for now it’s hugely enjoyable.

7. Negativland – Thigmotactic

After 2005’s No Business – an album entirely comprised of stolen samples – the copyright-defying group went in completely the opposite direction in 2008. A much more personal project with fewer members of the collective involved, Thigmotactic is an experiment in song writing, rather than song recycling. It’s pleasingly daft, and surprisingly engaging. From a band who made an album by crashing a car into their recording studio, there’s a surprisingly amount of conformity to many of the tracks. It rarely lasts the full length of a song thank goodness, the familiar discordance unravelling tunes brilliantly, as well as many vocal samples throughout. I’m absolutely astonished this album hasn’t been given accolades on end of year lists. While the avant garde nature of most of their releases might put the Vampire Weekend applauders off, you’d think something that apes a traditional album would catch people’s attention.

6. High Places – 03/07-09/07

High Places released two albums this year. Their debut self-titled proper album, that I’ve not yet heard. And this collection of previous songs, that is utterly stunning. It swims and swarms throughout, an aquatic atmosphere meeting a strange, fussy insectoid flittering. Many tracks almost sound as if they’re underwater, the vocals muffled in a way reminiscent of Azure Ray, with the percussion up front. If it weren’t so catchy it would be haunting.

5. The Mae Shi – HLLLYH

I don’t understand how HLLLYH didn’t see a song on Kieron’s list. If I tried to guess an album he’d like, it would be this one. It’s got screeching girls, shouty boys and post-punky tunes. It’s also bloody brilliant. 7 x x 7 is a remarkable song, with almost nothing but “shush”ing for the first 30 seconds, as the guitar begins to poke its way through. Then it’s a minute of increasingly frantic, shouted storytelling, before going back to shushing. Then a final 20 seconds of shrieked madness, wrapping everything up in two seconds over two minutes. There’s no gap before the next track, The Melody, bursts in with 80s videogaming bleeping, warbled singing, with backing vocals alternating screamed notes, and itself breaks down into static noise and confusion midway through. Then it’s time for the next change of direction. There’s a Cloud Cult vibe when they’re pretending to be singing songs, and something unique and fascinating when the disguise is dropped.

4. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

It’s somehow been four years since the last Bad Seeds album. The double CD Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus showed some hints of Cave’s interest in getting noisy again, after his seven years of balladic Christianity exploring and fairytelling. This led to his side project, Grinderman (containing a contender for Best Song Ever with No Pussy Blues). The insane moustache grown for Grinderman’s hairy garage rock remained when the Bad Seeds got back together again, and some of the roughness came with it. But Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! is far more sedate affair, and it’s hard to not want it to just go that little bit further into the noise it threatens. It doesn’t get better than the opening title track, but anything the Bad Seeds offer is well worth listening to again and again.

3. Girl Talk – Feed The Animals

Mashups felt so 2005, until Gregg Gillis came back with proof it was still worth much attention. Feed The Animals is a much more approachable album than his previous two (and even more so thanks to being available at your own chosen price, including free should you be so wretched). The hiphop is invaded by incredibly familiar mainstream tunes, with 20 to 30 songs mashed in each track (the album is also available as one continuous track as there are no real breaks), often with three or four seamlessly appearing at once. It constantly makes you laugh as cheesy-as-hell pop so perfectly punctuates the rap, teasingly introducing itself before the reveal. Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To You and Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade Of Pale not only don’t feel out of place as they help things along from NWA and The Cool Kids to Kanye West and YoungbloodZ, but somehow feel relevant again as they do. And how else could you listen to The Band’s The Weight without it using Ben Folds Five’s Battle of Who Could Care Less’s drums to reach Ace of Base’s All That She Wants backing Lil’ Scrappy? Exactly. (There’s a near-exhaustive collection of the songs listed here.)

2. The Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride

What a year when I get to choose between The Mountain Goats and Cloud Cult as my favourite album. Why on Earth Heretic Pride is getting ignored in the year-end accolades is a mystery – perhaps February is too early to put out an record and receive the notice you deserve come December/January. But John Darnielle proves he merits wide attention with songs like Autoclave and How To Embrace A Swamp Creature. Maybe it’s the familiarity of the sound that has put people off, often featuring songs that remind you of tracks on previous albums. However, there’s something special this time – it’s the most delicately instrumented record since his signing to 4AD. Songs like Last Man On Earth and So Desperate are almost as spare as his cassette-recorded solo albums of the 90s. There isn’t a song that matches Woke Up New from 2006’s Get Lonely, but there’s a few that come close.

1. Cloud Cult – Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes)

Any band whose members include artists who paint on stage during gigs deserves attention. A band who does this while consistently producing albums to the stunning quality of Feel Good Ghosts deserves trumpeting from the roof. Craig Minowa’s project has become something incredible. 2007’s The Meaning of 8 was completely wonderful, meandering through moving and bemusing songs, changing shape and speed in a breathtaking way. Feel Good Ghosts is a much tighter album, notably shorter at only 13 tracks (Minowa was reported to have said he thought people’s attention spans weren’t coping with previous albums), but just as powerful.

This might also be the last Cloud Cult record, with Minowa announcing the band intends to spend at least the first part of 2009 with families, and in one interview saying he doesn’t know if they’ll reform after. If it is, then they’ve gone out in tremendous style. When Water Comes To Life (below) and Journey of the Featherless sound so uplifting you’re tempted to believe they could teach you to fly. But for me the most glorious moment of this or any of their albums is Story of the Grandson of Jesus (also below, without a video). It’s a gorgeous nonsense parable, with guitars and drums slamming together underneath the magical tale.

I cannot count how many times this album has looped through 2008, scoring the entire awkward year for me. If Love You All is to be the last song on their last album, then what better way to finish.

When Water Comes To Life:

Story of Grandson of Jesus:

Love You All:

Discussions about games writing and the nature of critiquing videogames seems to come in waves, and once again we’re at high tide. I’m sure it’s the same for writers/journalists reviewing other luxury items (“How far should you drive a Mondeo before you review it?”), but it obviously only appears on my radar when it’s about gaming.

One aspect that always comes up, and I think is possible the most/least interesting part of it all, is the debate over objective/subjective reviewing. This is at its least interesting when it’s the discussion over whether reviewing can be objective, and at its most interesting when it’s over whether it should be. I want to make an argument for why reviews should be subjective, and why objective reviewing is deceptive.

(continue reading…)

Utterly brilliant.