Sunday, September 28, 2008

For the last time, HAL, my name's not Dave!

.


Initially all sorts of individual lyrics sprang to mind – Louis Bertignac’s broken coffee maker in Ces Idées-là, eh fp?! But as the list expanded and expanded, it fast became too big to consider ‘Spilling, even when it includes such favourites as Shack’s Time Machine, HMHB’s Dukla Prague Away Kit, and Natural Life’s Strange World (“Weird piece of machinery, built for making holes in me, oo-ooh … shotgun”). So in a typically contrary U-turn, I then tried self-imposing a Dorian-tight set of parameters, namely if the whole song isn’t actually ABOUT the machine, it ain’t comin’ in! […so I can bin Drive-By Truckers’ The Day John Henry Died, can I DsD? – Ed.]

Obviously I could exclude songs others have beaten me to, but I offer my ‘Spilldonds to the likes of BFB’s Song Against Robots, and – naturally – Tackhead’s Fix The Machine.

But then I started arguing with myself about whether any given tune was a good-enough fit. Ugh.

So eventually, I just thought … “Oh sod it, just pick some songs I like that may not have been thought of over on RR and post ‘em here.

That's Black Sabbath's Iron Man above - I'll be gobsmacked if that HASN'T been mentioned over yonder.

But now here's some much less threatening (and almost certainly WA-A-A-AY off-topic) machinery:

Fun Lovin' Criminals - Minibar Blues
Montrose - Space Station No.5
Morcheeba - Tape Loop
Cocteau Twins - The Spangle Maker
Codeine - Cigarette Machine
iLiKETRAiNS - SWiNGBRiDGE

And this last one is my quizzer for the week: a point each for artist and title, two bonus points for the vocalist:

R...eally? W...ell I never!

I'm unlikely to get much opportunity to post/comment this week, so have a good'un everyone, and let's see if I can get Snadfrod drunk enough on Thursday night to let me photograph his beard - sorry - The Beard in all its glory!

28 comments:

Shoegazer said...

Boxstr seems to out of action for now - but good call on Spangle Maker.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, have you tried the safari browser on rr?, it uses a lot less memory than IE, loads faster & the Ctrl-F works sort-of (it doubles the count of matches, but navigates to the matches no problem). It's also tabbed, so you can right-click on links to open in a new tab, without having to reload all the comments each time. Ctrl End works too, to avoid scrolling down manually to the new posts.

Others are finding Firefox works too.

Last arm-twisting from me, but it does seem very odd over there without your posts to read. I'm still frozen out on my mobile, so posting much less than I used to. But am making a nuisance of myself on the inside Guardian blogs where the responsible techies seem to hang-out

Carole said...

Hi DsD, I was thinking about nomming "Space Station #5" on RR but I thought that it wasn't enough about the machinery.

Ace song though. Brings back memories of being 18 and trying to be a wild child.

.... said...

Meejah trauma for the French when the coffee machine gives up the ghost!! Waaaaaaah! Except that they've all got Senseos and Nespressos now... Tee hee. And whatever a spangle maker is, I want one. Badly.

ToffeeBoy said...

OMG! It's Rick Wakeman's Robot Man - no idea who the guest vocalist is/was - all I can say is she should have known better!

ToffeeBoy said...

... and I just got the R... W... clue...

.... said...

ILikeTrains knocked my sox off- have just made a deezer list. And we all know who that singer is, don't we? Its...it's....damn!!!

Anonymous said...

Is it frying your brain cells trying to guess THAT voice, everyone? Aah, I feel for you ...

.... said...

OK got it!!

DarceysDad said...

@ Carole - Oh yes you've nailed the feeling Sammy Hagar gave me too, though I was only 14 when I discovered it via the Loud & Clear live album, and I was always too well-behaved for the 'wild-child' thing to be anything other than idle fantasy.

As a matter of interest, do you (or anyone else for that matter) rate the live version of Young Girl Blues as highly as I do?

DarceysDad said...

... and if some of you agree about Spangle Maker (or any of the others for that matter), please feel free to take them over to the Mothership.

Blimpy said...

Yay for codeine! Does "slow-core" still exist as a genre?

DarceysDad said...

No idea, Blimpy. I only have this album cos've you lot anyway.

That new 'Spill header's a bit of a kaleidoscopic retina-burner!

Blimpy said...

wow! rr in action!!

the new header.

it's meant to be autumny.

is autumny a word?

DarceysDad said...

Autumnal, perhaps?

Blimpy said...

You're thinking of the faun from narnia there, darce.

saneshane said...

Autumninal it certainly will be... when the eggs digests... and the WIND makes the leaves FALL.


I would say I'll get me coat..
but that WOOD be over egging the season.


back to the pictures... I know my place.

Anonymous said...

DsD said >let's see if I can get Snadfrod drunk enough on Thursday night<

If you want a well kept drop of Bathams or Holdens Golden ... and some proper Black Country scratchings then have a wander over to this gloriously authentic, eccentric place.

Top pub in Wolverhampton, slightly off the centre, over the canal and under the railway to find The Great Western on Sun Street ... only 8 minutes walk back up to The Civic Halls n'all.

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/28/28206/Great_Western/Wolverhampton

I'll start with a pint of Bathams dark mild if you're buying :-)

Anonymous said...

The link above went walkabout, probably wandered off to put some Slade on the jukebox. Here again ...

http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/28/28206/Great_Western/Wolverhampton

Anonymous said...

Jings ... did it again.

Here's a compact version

http://tinyurl.com/2en2eb

Just round the corner from the Novotel, if you ain't going to make it back to Redditch.

Carole said...

@DsD

re As a matter of interest, do you (or anyone else for that matter) rate the live version of Young Girl Blues as highly as I do?

Not sure I've heard it, I'll take a look on YouTube.

Anonymous said...

@ Tatanka - WOW! Thank you very much; I'll only be having one early pint as I will have to drive back to Redditch, but @ Snadfrod, if you're reading, I reckon that's where we're starting!

@ CaroleB - unfortunately I think I only have the vinyl of Young Girl Blues so can't help directly, but it's on Sammy Hagar's 1978 live album All Night Long, which had a re-release a year or so later under the title Loud And Clear. Good hunting!

maddy costa said...

DsD, don't know if you're still looking at comments here, anyway your post above made me smile bec it almost exactly replicates the tortured thought process i go thru each week compiling the top 10, except i end with "Oh sod it, that'll have to be it because my deadline is in three hours and i still have to write the blasted thing". Thank you so much for putting up Cigarette Machine, I haven't had time to dig out Frigid Stars yet. God I love Codeine. A friend of mine once came into my room at university while I was playing, I think, Tom, and told me that if I didn't listen to such miserable music I might be a happier person. I was somewhat misguidedly in love with him at the time, and tried very patiently to explain that it was because of such miserable music that I was a happy person. In case you can't tell, I'm supposed to be compiling the top 10, and am procrastinating. Back to work, missus...

Anonymous said...

Cheers, Maddy.

I'm one of the ten people who get all 'Spill comments emailed to them, so yes I'm still reading.

Was it the Codeine that you were hinting about in your original header? I hope someone nominated it for you then.

Re Uni "happiness" conversations: now you're making ME smile with self-recognition memories ... but that's for another time.

Back to work for both of us [*sigh!*]

snadfrod said...

Ah crud. So here I am, back in the UK, sitting in my parent's house in lovely Kinver having wrecked my whole body over the last 72 hours and what is the first thing I learn from the internet? Hold Steady cancel tour, that's what. Y'all may not be seeing the beard (The Beard) just yet...

@DsD - so so so tired tonight, but I'll call you tomorrow, cos we can at least salvage a trip to Tatanka's brilliant sounding pub, right?

Oh, but at least I'm off for some Batham's tonight, so its not all bad, eh?

Blimpy said...

hye maddy,

i saw codeine play april 94 at the powerhaus in islington, were you at that?

Anonymous said...

Hey, if a pint of Bathams is the main attraction and you were to draw a line between Kinver and Redditch , then the Swan at Chaddesley Corbett might be the place, kinda halfway for both of you.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dayoff171/2477985233/

Haven't been there in ten years but as a Worcestershire Lad that's where I got my taste for Bathams Ales.

Of course if you drop a little further south to Cutnall Green and Rushock you could commune at John Bonham's grave.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=2172

'tho I've got a horrible feeling that The New Inn and its perfect pint of Pedigree has gone ... you might have to go to The Chequers, where JB began his final day with 4 quadruple vodkas and orange and two ham rolls, apparently.

I was in the New Inn one night when JB arrived with Roy Wood and his full Wizzard hairdo in tow ... and they both had pints of Pedigree and bags of scratchings; none of that Jack Daniels rockstar nonsense

Anonymous said...

Well, I think the mystery tune was Rick Wakeman's Robot Man. Don't know who was singing it. Looking toward to the answer, along with full-on beard pictorials.

Anonymous said...

@ shoey - if you missed the clue above, it was Chaka Khan singing on Robot Man. Unfortunately she didn't guest on the accompanying tour, as I've never seen her live and would love to.

Snadfrod & I did manage to meet for a pint - Wychwood's Big Bertha in The Talbot at Belbroughton if anyone's interested - but I didn't get to photograph the beard.

Ah well, next time ...