I love Led Zeppelin
I don’t think I’ve said that enough recently.
I love Led Zeppelin.
I am doing some prep (yes, for the second last day of school… sad, eh?), so I’ve put my DVD of “Unledded” on – Robert Plant and Jimmy Page doing a concert about ten years ago for MTV. Page is so, so incredible – I love the triple-handled guitar, it’s so unnecessary! – and Plant is a glorious front man. He has a voice I just love listening to – in his newer incarnation, too, with the Strange Sensations. And their songs! – so listenable. Unlike, for example, early Beatles, which is just crap; and modern pop, or even rock, which so often sounds just the same, one song after the other. Kashmir is on a completely different planet, for example, from Rain Song.
Who, me? Biased? Pft.
Spice, and Spice Girls
I’ve been hearing the Spice Girls song, “Stop”, a lot recently, at school. This has a weird effect on me. A group of girls at college used to do the moves to this song all the time, and consequently when I hear it I have a vision of them doing so – and an urge to join in. Mainly to upset the kiddies.
What made me think of this is the book I am reading: Spice: The History of a Temptation, by Jack Turner. It’s very enjoyable – although I am dubious of his repeated use of the term ‘Dark Ages’ in referring to the time after the (now) official end of the Western Roman Empire. Nonetheless. He has a whole chapter, of course on spice and sex: looking at all the different ways it was recommended to use spice to improve sex in a variety of ways, as well as the problems the more prudish (and supposedly celibate) members of the community had with it. Throughout, he makes comments on some of the things that have lasted to the modern day, and towards the end he comments on the Spice Girls, saying they “shot like a gaudy, squawking comet through the outer orbits of pop stardom before, in obedience to the Newtonian physics of celebrity, the acrimonious plummet back to earth and bust-up.” Beautiful. No wonder he writes about spice; he certainly has the language for it.
New music for me!
I don’t know why, but Guardian’s Buzz came to mind this afternoon. A friend at college had it, oh – 9 years ago. Hello, iTunes: they have it! I would have got it from Word, but they were out of stock. And then, thinking about Guardian, I started thinking about the News Boys and Take Me to your Leader: again, a friend (not at college this time, but at Christian Union) had a copy, and I borrowed it, and listened to the title track about a zillion times. iTunes again: this time because it was about half the price of Word. Bit sad, but ultimately – eh. I’m not that attached to the hard copy version.
Cassettes…
are no more.
I chucked out all of my cassettes a couple of weeks ago, in a mood of downsize or die. It was a bit sad… but I do own a large chunk of the stuff on CD now anyway, so I guess it’s not a complete loss. And the only place I could possibly still listen to them is the car, and I do actually have a secret stash of them there already. My tape with Boom Crash Opera on one side and Ice House on the other, and a tape of American Christian music my friend Denise, from way back at college, made for me. Listening glory!
Ipods and earphones
So it seems the thing to do these days as a teen is to share your ipod – walk around with someone, each of you having one earphone attached to the one ipod. Seems like a slightly looser version of the 3-legged race to me.
Thing is, though, lots of friends are in trios or more. So what I want to know is, has someone invented earphones with more than just 2 listening bits? Or a double-jack or similar so that more than 1 pair of earphones can go into the one plug? This would seem to be the next innovation that ipods bring about.
Is it wrong to spend a book voucher on music?
Well, it wasn’t specifically a book voucher, but it was for organising a Literature Enhancement programme at school last year, and it was for a mostly-book-store… but it just so happens to be the ABC store as well, and the latest JJJ Hottest 100 (volume 14) just came out. So I got that. I also got a book – it was on special, Jeanette Winterson’s Tanglewreck, which looks fairly interesting.
Guilty pleasures
I am happy adn secure enough in my indy/metal/rock skin to be able to admit to the odd guilty pleasure.
I don’t mind the odd bit of Christina Aguilera.
I am curently watching Kylie’s Showgirl tour.
I love that it is on ABC! If it was Channel 10, I would so be ditching it because the ads would frustrate thehell out of me.
She really is a showgirl too – I do not get the feather headdress. And I am a bit uncomfortable with the boys running around and dancing in their Speedos, although I guess it does demonstrate a certain amount of equality of the sexes – we can exploit each other in the same ways. Seems to me, though, that chicks who have male dancers tend to do so in a more almost camp way, or tongue in cheek; perhaps this reflects the perception of male dancers being homosexual? At any rate, it is often – although now always – less overtly sexual than female dancers with male performers.
That’s my 2c.
Johnny Cash
ABC 2 is showing Johnny Cash at the Tenessee State Prison at the moment – I was expecting a concert like at the start of Walk the Line, but no, it’s a proper-looking stadium, just with all the audience seated and wearing identical clothes.
I’ve liked Cash for as long as I can remember. Blame my dad. The Highwaymen will always have a special place in my heart. Plus “The Wanderer” – that Cash did with U2 – is up there as one of the coolest songs yet.
Besides, the other option on TV is the Oscars, and having heard the spoilers this afternoon I don’t care. Actually I don’t care at all, since I don’t think I’ve seen any of the movies except The Queen anyway.
The U2 lads
ABC2 is showing the making of Joshua Tree at the moment, which I’ve got in the background as I read a Ben Peek story to review for ASif! It’s quite interesting, musically, and I have to say – the lads have all distinctly improved in looks over the years! The long hair was really not a happy time for Bono. And Adam Clayton looks heaps better with the spiky short blonde. Interesting.
Randomly Yours, Alex 