I've got the key to the door

I don't think turning 21 has quite the significance it once did, but it is still the minimum age in the UK for adopting a child and for supervising a learner driver. Regardless of such useless trivia, this blog is 21 today and, somehow, still here, albeit with plenty of style and location changes. Incredible really but, long as that seems, I have older band t-shirts. Anyway, sorry for all the crap posts.

Here's an appropriate song by The Cranberries, and a reminder of why the late Dolores' voice stood out so much.

Beautiful pizza time

Do what I say, never do what I do
'Cos I'm the same as you

But why bother?

I'm on a Bleach Lab mailing list. I don't remember signing up, but I must have done at some point. Let's blame Bandcamp.

Anyway, they emailed last week to announce a new release, "a spontaneous decision to record a last minute cover at a live session last year" - specifically, their take on The Cardigans' My Favourite Game. Like must of Bleach Lab's output, it's perfectly serviceable but... well, have a listen.

Which is fine. But it's so close to the Cardigans' original, it really makes you wonder why they bothered. Or is that just me being a miserable sod?

Here's the source. Oh Nina (obligatory Scandi-sigh, etc)...

Randcamp: Valentine's Day

There are untold well-known songs referencing Valentine's Day. But what about the unknown? Searching Bandcamp for "Valentine's Day" throws up page after page after page of tracks; here are three that I could bear to listen to more than once.

Split Pistols were a four-piece from either Austin, Texas, or Pennsylvania, depending which line of their Bandcamp bio you choose to believe. I (predictably) like the jangly guitar intro to this, but am yet to be entirely won over by the vocal. Your mileage may vary.

Maddie Bryant comes from Huntingdon Beach, which is somewhere in California. Her Valentine's Day feels pleasingly DIY, with a sweetness and lo-fi pop charm, I reckon. Your mileage may blah blah...

Ross Adams comes from North Carolina, and is the most established of today's three acts, what with his own dotcom website address, studio albums, working with Jason Isbell, and such like. Probably the pick of the three but your mileage, you know?

Three Randcamp choices from the hundreds that matched today's search phrase. Are any setting your heart aflutter?

The day before

I know tomorrow is all hearts, flowers and Hallmark cards... but here's a reminder that it isn't always like that, from Graham Coxon's project with Rose Elinor Dougall, The WAEVE. Their capitalisation.

My boys
Pretty girls
Come to me
Let your dreams come true
Live among me forever

Young ones 
Stay a while
Fall in love 
Sail the seven dials
Let them bind us together 

How so warm, when so cold?

Ahhh, love is all pain
Thought I’d escaped it
But I need it again
It’s hard, it’s hard
It’s harder than hell
I know you feel it, babe
I know you can tell

Ahhh, love is all pain
Thought I’d escaped it
But I need it again
It’s hard, it’s hard
It’s harder than hell
I know you feel it, babe
I know you can tell

I gave you the moon
You made the sun 
That’s what it’s like when you love someone
Summoning life as souls collide  
See the past burn in the fire 
 
Not gonna live life in the shadows
That’s what’s it’s like when you love someone
Love hard, love strong all through the night
Live hard, live long don’t stop the fight
Not gonna live life in the shadows
That’s what’s it’s like when you love someone
Love hard, love strong all through the night
Live hard, live long don’t stop the fight

Never give up you’re in love this time 
Never give up you’re in love this time 

My boys
Pretty girls 
Come to me
Make my dreams come true
It’s the easiest thing to do

Alignment

Sometimes, not often but sometimes, mood, circumstance and music align perfectly. So it was last night, on the long, dark, lone drive away from everything and nothing.

Pan American are an experimental electronic music ensemble, according to Wikipedia, and have been quietly beavering away at this kind of thing for nearly 30 years.

Question and answer

Q. What do you think French-language Canadian shoegaze made by an impossibly good-looking collection of youths sounds like.

A. This. This is Minimum by Montreal's Bon Enfant.

And with all apologies for my O-level French translation...

C’est une belle journée Sans téléphone Il n’y a que toi Et le soleil qui rayonne Sans effets spéciaux Ta main dans mon dos Les nuages se déforment On dirait du pop corn On fait le minimum On le fait comme personne Juste le minimum On le fait comme personne C’est une belle journée Le vent qui résonne Assise par terre Dans tes bras grands ouverts On fait le minimum On le fait comme personne Juste le minimum On le fait comme personne

It's a beautiful day No phone It's just you And the sun shining No special effects Your hand on my back The clouds are shifting They look like popcorn We're doing the minimum We're doing it like no-one else Just the minimum We're doing it like no-one else It's a beautiful day The wind is rustling Sitting on the ground In your wide-open arms We're doing the minimum We're doing it like no-one else Just the minimum We're doing it like no-one else

Worlds collide

When two worlds collide, the result is often a giant mess. But just occasionally, something wonderful happens.

I've written about Abba's The Day Before You Came before - indeed, I made it a Clandestine Classic all the way back in 2012, when that series was still a thing. It is an amazing song, for me the crowning achievement of the band's storied career. It is their best lyric, by far, and the music, soaked through in quiet melodrama, oh! It's quite the thing, even now, more than 40 years later. The record-buying public were less convinced - it only limped to #32 in the UK chart. But what does the record-buying public know?

There have been lots of cover versions since, of course, notably by Blancmange and The Real Tuesday Weld. Now there's another... and it's a marriage made in heaven.

Pulp's skill with kitchen-sink drama is a perfect fit for this tale of minor-key heartbreak rooted in the mundane, whilst the arrangement and BBC Concert Orchestra backing do justice to the majesty of the music. And all for Radio 2's Piano Room feature! I hope everyone involved knows what they've got here, and I hope - forlornly, no doubt - that this becomes a regular addition to Pulp's live set, so well is it suited to Jarvis et al.

She's so strange

There's a woman who works in the same wing of the same floor of the same building as me. She's in a different department, a different team, and our respective jobs do not overlap in any way. We share a kitchen where we both make tea, and use the same printer, but that's about it. I only know her name because it's on her office door. She doesn't know mine, because my office is at the far end of a dead-end corridor (insert own joke here) and you'd never walk past it unless you were coming to see me. We have never spoken.

Except.

If she passes me in the stairwell, she always says hello.

Weird, no?