Month: September 2016
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An Afternoon with xckd
Randall Monroe, author of xkcd, What If? and Thing Explainer, came to Oxford last weekend to talk about his books, and the logistics of devoting a sizeable portion of your living space to creating a ball pit.
I videoed a little bit of it.
And probably shouldn’t have, because the video is shit. But there we go. For some reason I thought I could use some basic audio effects like speech enhancement in YouTube. But if you can, I don’t know how to do it.
Anyway, the talk was brilliant, and Mr Monroe seems like a genuinely lovely guy. And the video was only really for me to show off that I was there. (more…)
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‘Kind of Polska’ by the Gjermund Larsen Trio & Nordic
The first recommendation of the month is the Gjermund Larsen Trio from Norway teaming up with his Swedish neighbours Nordic for this rather wonderful… well, kind of polska, I suppose.
A friend, Charlotte Robinson, recommended it to Hannah, who recommended it to me, and I’ve been listening to it on loop since then.
Current Favourite Aspect:
How comically nordic they all look – particularly the guy on the harmonium (piano-type thing), who I’m sure was in A-Ha. My brother and sister-in-law live in Sweden, and every once in a while I’ll get a YouTube link to a Swedish comedy show, and the first time I was watching this I was sort of expecting to see the camera pan to one of them with a viking helmet and big blonde pigtails.
Also the tune.
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Eulogize This: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
My latest contribution to the Eulogize This wagon:
http://www.eulogizethis.com/texas-chainsaw-massacre/
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‘EP’ by Bug Prentice
Second recommendation of the month: another local favourite, Bug Prentice.
Every time I see a Bug Prentice poster around town or on social media (they’re actually on the cover of next month’s local Nightshift magazine), I get a twinge of embarrassment, on account of having booked songwriter-in-chief Ally Craig to play a gig last year that proved to be a catalogue of disasters. Ally was graceful as ever of course, in the face of a rainy miserable evening playing to a virtually empty room. But as a sometime event promoter, I always worry more about not giving an act a decent-sized audience than I do about the money.
My ears might be deceiving me, but I do get the sense that Ally’s songs are actually getting a little more cheerful as the years roll by. Parts of this EP even sound jaunty. (Apologies, Ally, if this is a heinous slur.)
Current Favourite Track:
A joint-winner this time. ‘Lee Miller’, because she’s always been a hero of mine. And ‘Don’t Be That Dude’, because, seriously, don’t be.
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