Music. Music. Music.
Three good happenings in my world of music:
1. I am going to see The Presidents Of The USA tomorrow night! I loved that band so much when they first came out 10 years ago, but never caught them live – so I can’t wait! Been listening to all the albums for the last couple of days.
2. Today I download a leak of ‘Plans’ by Death Cab For Cutie. I have already pre-ordered the CD, but in this age of digital-we-want-it-yesterday, I too am impatient. Unfortunately the version I got is ripped from a webstream and isn’t great quality, so I suppose that serves me right for downloading it. Although Chris Walla of the band has written in his journal on their site that he doesn’t care if people hear it before it’s official release. Anyway, on first listen I was REALLY impressed! I may listen to it once more, and then delete it and wait for my, top quality audio CD to arrive at the end of the month!
3. Aptly at no.3 – it’s been three years since I last saw the Foo Fighters, but on Friday tickets go on sale for their UK tour! I hate arena gigs and didn’t see them the last time they played the NEC in Birmingham because of this…and I have to admit that I’ve regretted it ever since. They are definitely one of those bands who CAN put on an arena show, so I’m very excited about going to see them! I <3 The Foo Fighters!
The Moon
So – Discovery made it back okay! I was watching the landing with bated breath this morning. I felt quite nervous watching it, which was weird, but I kept thinking back to the last time I tried to watch the shuttle land on TV and those glowing white rocks shooting through the sky like shooting starts, that were actually chunks of the shuttle that had broken up on re-entry into the atmosphere. I think the most memorable and haunting memory I have of the disaster (which I’m sure is the same for most people) was the photo on the front of the Times Newspaper a couple of days later of an Astronauts helmet lying in a field in Texas where it had landed from the sky. I can still see that picture so vividly now if I think about it.
But today was a much happier occasion and everything went ‘A Okay’! Again the ridiculous speed that thing travels at amused me, with the Mission Control dude saying “225 miles from landing strip, travelling at 6,576 miles per hour” – SLOW DOWN! You’ll miss the run way if you don’t slow down! But they obviously knew what they were doing! Someone did make a sexist comment about it being a woman driver, then someone else (Female) commented that there would be no problem, as you don’t have to reverse Shuttles!
To tie in with my the Space theme of this post, click HERE to visit Google Moon! Yes, that’s right – good ol’ Google have got satellite maps of the Moon on their Google Satellite Maps site now. Make sure you zoom right in as far as you can (using the zoomer thing on the top left) to see the moon’s surface in AMAZING detail!
Busy. Busy.
Had quite a busy last few days. Went to meet Kelly for lunch in Nottingham on Thursday. I was delivering her new iPod which she had posted to me so I could fill it with music, seeing as she had deleted all her music of her tiny hard drive after loading it onto her iPod, not expecting the iPod to die after 5 months! So I jumped on the train to Nottingham for my second visit in a week. It always happens this way, I don’t go there for ages, then I go there several times in a short space of time. I quite like Nottingham and was extra pleased when Kelly agreed to go to TGI Friday’s for lunch! I had the ‘Fajita Tower’ which was DELICIOUS! I’d highly recommend it and will be posting evidence on my moblog very soon!
After lunch we looked round a couple of shops and I bough about 7 birthday cards from a card shop Kelly wanted to go in, despite not really *needing* any card….but still, I’ve just been paid, so I guess it’s ok! After a very nice Chocolate Milkshake at the train station, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Which still feels weird.
On the way home I read some more of my Anthony Keidis book while listening to my favourite Chilli Peppers’ album ‘One Hot Minute’ – it’s a really great album, and very under-rated….it came out between ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ and ‘Californication’, which are obviously two of their biggest/bets know albums and was at a time when they had Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction) on guitar. I just really love this album, because for me it has more balls then any other RHCP album. It’s still funky, but it rocks too, in a way they never have with another guitarist. I’m at a point in the book where The Chilli Peppers have just become HUGE and Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik is selling millions. They started out touring the album with Pearl Jam as the opening band, Smashing Pumpkins second on and The Chilli’s headlining – what a line up! I so wish I’d lived in America when that tour was going on! Anthony talks about both the members of Pearl Jam and The Pumpkins, which is quite interesting. He also talks about the second leg of this tour where they ended up playing arenas and it was decided they needed an opening band that were bigger than Pearl Jam (who at the time had only just released their debut album ‘Ten’). So Pearl Jam left the tour and Nirvana were asked to be the second support, playing after the Pumpkins and before the Chilli’s. Unfortunately Nirvana had just come off a long tour and Kurt was run-down, so Anthony called Dave Grohl and asked him if they’d do the tour….Dave talked Kurt around and it was set to be the Pumpkins, followed by Nirvana (Nevermind had just exploded in America), followed by the Chilli’s. Unfortunately Billy Corgan (the Smashing Pumpkins frontman, who was known for being…temperamental), used to date Courtney Love, who was of course now dating Kurt Cobain, so the Pumpkins pulled out of the tour and Pearl Jam came back, making the bill; Pearl Jam, followed my Nirvana, followed by the Chilli’s! What a line up! I just thought that story was really cool – how some of my favourite bands of that specific era and in fact ever all ended up touring together as they all suddenly shot to megastardom!
I’m going to stop reciting chapters of books now and go and get something to eat. In a few minutes I’m off guitar shopping with my brother, as he’s decided to by a new axe for use in our band Scrat! Oh and check out the badges we just got made up in the photo above! They’re going to be very desirable soon!
Discovery Mission Photos
There’s some seriously AMAZING photos of the Discovery Shuttle mission here, really, really breathtaking!
It amused me today when they were talking about the Astronaut removing the filler panels (or whatever they were!) and they commented on how he removed the first at 7:45am U.S. time while orbiting 225 mile above Massachusetts, then how he removed the second at 7:55am, ten minutes later while orbiting 225 miles above FRANCE! How long does it take to travel from Massachusetts to France on Earth??? More than 10 minutes!
P.S. If I spelt ‘Massachusetts’ wrong, blame Google, as it corrcted me when I entered a mess of ‘m’s and ‘a’s and ’s’s and so on…
It’s a Scream!
Some dumbasses managed to steal copies of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ paintings from the same place where the originals were stolen about a year ago! Read all about it here!
