Moz is still refusing

… and being refused, if I read the title of Morrissey‘s latest album correctly.

‘Years of Refusal’ seems to work both ways. Think particularly in terms of lovers and critics. They and Moz have for years (particularly according to Moz’s lyrical diaries) refused each other and been refused in turn.

Check out these lines from YoR track ‘All You Need Is Me’:

you don’t like me but you love me

either way you’re wrong

you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone

The album is a departure from his previous effort, the orchestral and sublime ‘Ringleader of the Tormentors’. It is produced by Jerry Finn, who also produced ‘You Are the Quarry’, and the album picks up where Quarry left off. That is, quite rocked-out. In this respect, it also harks back to the defiant and rowdy ‘Your Arsenal’ from Moz’s early solo days.

While every track on the album is at least ‘pretty good’, there are a few that are particularly dazzling. These are my top 3 picks:

1. ‘When Last I Spoke to Carol’ – there are many gorgeous elements to this number, but only one really needs mentioning: mariachi.
2. ‘It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore’ – The track I’m currently most addicted to. Lyrically, it is sharp (both cutting and clever) and Moz delivers some of his most impassioned vocals. Its sound is one of the more dynamic on the album and involves some perfectly executed progressions.
3. ‘I’m OK by Myself’ -  Check out Moz getting all manic at the end here. His increasingly crazed ‘Noooo’s (as in, no he doesn’t need you, me, us …) blend and distort in and out of the driving music until, presumably, Moz collapses in a heap on the studio floor.

Oh, and check out the awesome cover. Moz is looking staunch with that baby (and in his baby blue).

This is why you’re fat

Self explanatory.

Thanks to Max Mansell for the tip-off.

What happens next?

Good question!

They’re not faking anything

Placebo have a new album coming out:

‘Battle for the Sun.’

For a free download of the title track/first single, visit the band’s website.

The album has been produced by David Bottrill (the man behind some of Tool‘s finest work). Consequently, it seems Placebo are embracing harder-edged and more epic qualities.

New-comer Steve Forrest takes up the sticks from Steve Hewitt. Hewitt’s drums were always very nuanced and wove in beautifully with the rest of the band. Forrest displays some ferocity in the above single, with some nice textural subtleties at the start, but his full range obviously remains to be seen. Perhaps he is also somewhat responsible for this refreshed direction?

I very much look forward to hearing more…

NINJA

You lucky Americans.

In the USA leg of their latest tour, NIN will be joining forces with Jane’s Addiction and a new act comprised of Tom Morello and Boots Riley called Street Sweeper.

The combined acronym of NINJA rather leaves Street Sweeper cut out of the headlines, but the promo material is otherwise making sure to package the three tightly together.

Wonderfully, this includes the official NINJA2009 website, launched just a few days ago. Why so wonderful? Well, besides a few cool if standard features, one can download a free 6 track tour sampler. The track list  is:

1. Chip Away – Jane’s Addiction
2. Not So Pretty Now – Nine Inch Nails
3. Clap for the Killers – Street Sweeper
4. Whores – Jane’s Addiction
5. Non-Entity – Nine Inch Nails
6. The Oath – Street Sweeper

The NIN tracks are previously unreleased studio recordings and the two JA tracks are fresh studio recordings produced by Trent Reznor himself.

The JA material is by far the best on the sampler. Sadly, NIN’s offerings are somewhat lacklustre, with Non-Entity (a song from the With Teeth era) being the better of the two. The Street Sweeper tracks are pretty fine, funky, rockin’ tunes and I’d been keen to get my hands on the album when it comes out.

Returning to Non-Entity… it’s a track that Trent has actually performed live a number of times, including the Auckland show I attended.

As it didn’t exist in any officially released format prior to this new sampler, I have been thus far unable to put together a mix CD recreating the track list of the Auckland concert (using live material where possible).  But now… well, now I can shamelessly relive that lifetime highlight over and over again.

Marvelous!

I took my busted zipper trousers to the clothing doctor today. I pick them up in a week. I have till then to find a nice way to break the news that they’ve been replaced…

You see, I also stumbled into Marvel Menswear, though only half expecting to maybe think about possibly buying something (like some brown trousers).

This, of course, was a dangerous mindset to be in.

So, yes, I got new trousers.

And the quality of their cut and fabric transfers directly to the amazing way they feel. They were expensive, being a designer, New Zealand made brand, which seems counter to my cheapness – but it’s not really. Because these babies will last and last and won’t ever stop feeling terrific to wear.

Quality is worth paying for.

Especially since their excellent cut also means they’re flattering. This is important as I had to buy them a size up from what I’d have bought before…

*sigh*

Luckily, I’m still a small shirt size, so I also purchased a nice, simple short-sleeve on sale. It looks like this, only beige:

Actually, while the shirt I got is beige, the colour in this picture almost exactly matches that of my trousers.

I also almost bought a brown belt, but I realised in time that this would only lead to a criminal act in being paired with my black shoes.

Now, back to the less marvelous world of study…

NZNTM

Models:

Glassons.

Glassons.

Glassons.

BORING!

Judges:

Pedestrian.

Pedestrian.

Pedestrian

BORING!

Relegating

Espressoholic are closing in a month. Maybe less now. Apparently their landlord gave them their notice for one reason or another, and now their premises will become (in all likelihood) just another cheap Courtenay Place drinking joint where students can prostitute themselves to an awful soundtrack.

I wish I cared more.

I have plenty of good memories of the place, including a number of fine Sunday panini after getting drunk and prostituting myself the night before to an awful soundtrack.

A couple of long gone, though more-or-less positively remembered, relationships of mine also have beginnings or other fond connections to the place.

But the last two times I’ve been there, I’ve only been reminded of reasons why maybe it is time for them to move on:

1. In this instance, the chocolate chip cookie was too large, and while it was a good deal in terms of portion size versus dollar, I just felt sick by the end of it. It was also way too floury. I mean, I know I could have stopped eating it for both of these reasons, but I had paid for it after all.  It also took exactly far too fucking long to get served considering there was only one fuss-pot in front of me in the line, but several staff loitering around.

2. In this instance, the savoury muffin was also generously sized. Though, while filled with many gorgeous things,  for some reason it tasted only like butter. Plus, it came in one of those paper wrappers, to which about a third of the muffin got stuck, and which made it very hard to eat while on the run. Just use a damned non-stick muffin dish.

Petty? Maybe.

And yes, I relegate some things too easily to the past.

But, for me, Espressoholic works better there.

Brown trousers

So I busted the zipper in a pair of trousers the other day. And I really like these trousers. So, like a typical male, I’m finding it hard letting them go, to move on and think about a replacement option.

I will, hear me, be getting the zipper replaced so that I can continue to wear these trousers until they’re worn thin with value-for-money usage (as you can tell, I’m sometimes a bit cheap)…

But maybe I ought to splash out and diversify.

These trousers with the busted zip are sort of brown. Do I go more brown, as in chocolate? Do I go beige for some sort of Italian feel?

Do I abandon brown all together? God knows I’d hate to ever end up looking like this fine fellow:

Although I do already have the shirt and belt.

Top 10 questions

… of the immediate past (that’s the last few days):

1. How is your lecture so intimately tied to the film screening that, when technology fails and the film cannot be shown, the lecture must also be entirely binned along with it?

2. Why didn’t I listen to the whole of Automatic for the People a lot sooner?

3. What happens when free will isn’t predicated on the need to preserve rectitude of will for the sake of that rectitude, because that’s the way God (/His substitute) sets us up?

4. Is evolution really so clever?

5. Am I turning into a Christian?

6. What the fuck does ‘haptic’ mean?

7. Do I need to review my, admittedly fairly vague, timeline for having children, a married life, a home?

8. How soon is too soon  to get my ass over to Switzerland, where I can stay in Zurich for free rent (well, for donations toward food and expenses) with my brother as a base for wider European travels?

9. Just how bad a writer am I?

10. Why am I so distrusting and what should I do about that, if anything?

A limited number of answers:

1. Well, I guess the lecture would have only been a basic paraphrasing of the set readings anyway, as the other lectures have so far been.

3. See Anselm of Canterbury’s text on Free Will. I’ve been reading this at night, after long days, on the verge of the abyss, so it’s been a struggle to absorb and I feel I’ve misunderstood plenty of it.

5. Hell no.

6. Turns out it means ‘relating to the sense of touch’. That is, a synonym for ‘tactile’.

9. “You are such a terrible writer, I find myself reading you at work.” – Max Mansell

Note: ongoing edits will be made as any further answers come to light.