Pop Metaphors Vol. n: my favoured image for the interaction of underground creative scenes and the pop overground is the cocktail (or any mixer drink really): the booze is what gives the mixture its kick – but drinking spirits neat is an occasi[…]

What’s so sporty about Chocolate?[…]

Ooh that’s a Big One
I went to see Belle and Sebastian at Somerset House earlier this month and at the bar, they sold two pint plastic glasses.

The first glass you see is a normal pint glass in my hand. I was drunk and channelling Father Ted […]

All those people, all those lives: I read once that the average lifespan of a weblog is around two months. Music blogs tend to last a bit longer – we are a tenacious, obsessive lot, and blogs with one or two year lifespans are not uncommon (may[…]

Teetering on the Edge of the Precipice of Spannerism
G’s post about the Routemaster Festival reminds me of the time I went to the London Transport Acton Town Depot.
I’d been to the London Transport Musuem and thought it absolutely superb.[…]

Tuica
Of all the booze I brought back from Romania (including this tasty little goer), the strangest is Romania’s national drink, Tuica.
Brewed from the latest technology tuica stings your throat like grappa’s crazy cousin. Basically, it[…]

Tomato soup, I love you — tomato soup has always been one of my vices, graduating from the basic Campbell’s can plus milk combination of my younger days to something more elaborate and tasty in various combination since. And tonight for […]

Getting it wrong — indirectly inspired by the comments below on the latest from Simon. I now wonder how much somebody getting something wrong intrigues me as a result, by which I can mean creating music and/or (more importantly for this discus[…]

Links
A-Z of Europop: very useful.
Looking Askance From ’63: well-written and diverse MP3 blog.
Lots could be said about Simon R’s latest post – clearly we’re meant to hold our leftist hands up in horror and defeat at the ment[…]

a celebration of the critical strengths of not bothering actually even to listen (or indeed read): obviously i can see why this saves time – it is EXTREMELY handy to have a little codebook which tells you in advance where good music must come f[…]