Goose pimple voices David Thomson in The New Republic on Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker by James Gavin: My Unfunny Valentine: "In the early hours of a May morning in 1988, a body was found on the street outside the Hotel Prins Hendrik in Amsterdam. Its skull was crushed from having landed on a spiked post; the body seemed to have fallen from a window of the hotel... ...Chet really had only two things in life: playing the trumpet and doing drugs." One of the most touching things in Jazz is Chet Baker singing. When Chet sings he sounds like a ghost, like a spirit. His voice is celestial and unbelievably sad at the same time. There is only one other singer who moves me as much as Chet Baker. That is Billie Holiday. A good place to start with Chet is the excellent documentary Let's Get Lost which came out shortly after his death. But be prepared Chet's life was more about self-destruction than anything else.

I have changed the name of the blog again, the pronunciation is the same

• Longish account of Brian Wilson's concert in Nottingham by Mike from troubled diva. Apparently a great concert after a difficult start. A moving performance in between karaoke and sincerity.
• ILM discussion: Which other music is similar to "Unicorn" by Bel Canto and "Heaven or Las Vegas" & "Ivo" by Cocteau Twins?
• Ein Hamburger, der inzwischen tibetanischer Mönch ist, läuft zu Fuß durch Europa, er ist gerade dabei, die österreichische Grenze zu überschreiten, nachdem er Deutschland hinter sich hat und schreibt darüber im Internetz (via mosaikum). Das Ganze ist ein Friedensmarsch und soll dazu dienen, den Leuten in Europa das schwere Schicksal der Tibeter näherzubringen. Noch ein alter Reisetraum von mir. Zu Fuß um die Welt oder zumindest ums Mittelmeer.

Links

• Think positive. Only good news on the Good News Network. A good example: Palestinians and Jews. Working Together.
• ILM: A seemingly thorough interpretation of Gillian Welch's latest album Time. The Revelator and its refutation.
• Where's a good place to start with Wilco? After having read that thread I still don't know which will be my second album of theirs. The eclectic double album Being There or Summer Teeth full of violins?
• PLAYLOUDER | review - Murray Street by Sonic Youth: "The way they manage to weave the songs into the whirling improvisational playing, like on 'Disconnection Notice', is seamlessly brilliant, and there is just enough balance between the tune, and the unexpected jazz chords, ear-splitting squeals, and lovely harmonic noises to make it forever listenable. This is unique to Sonic Youth and one of the reasons they have remained so relevant for 21 years. 'Murray Street' is mint."

German section

• Philosophiefragen kann man hier stellen und beantworten: WERTSCHRIFT.NET - das online-tool der philosophie
• Habe zwei Mal vergeblich versucht, mit dem Rad nach Indien zu fahren. Einmal war in Griechenland, einmal in Kappadokien Schluss. Zwei Studenten haben es kürzlich gepackt. Mit dem Fahrrad in die Uni: von Berlin nach Bangalore und weiter nach Seoul (Kurzfassung im UniSpiegel).

Sorry I am going to abuse this blog for some personal advantage for a while I'd really like a cigarette now. Wouldn't it be a nice marriage with the Erdinger Weißbier I am drinking right now? Of course it would, but I can't have everything. That's what I tell me anyways. I just post this for the Google spider, ok? God, this must be my most embarrassing post ever. And off it goes.

The nicobeast is a rodent I am in the blog hole but I am not alone. There is an animal gnawing inside my throat with its fine, little black teeths. It is the nicobeast. And it whispers into my ear: "I stop gnawing at you if you just have one puff of a cigarette. Just one microgram of nicotine and I will leave you alone." And I answer: "No thanks. Been there, done that. Enough is enough. The vicious circle has to be broken. By the way I can hardly feel your gnawing anymore nicobeast. It almost feels like tickling now. I will starve you out little nicobeast. Only a heap of black nicotine will be left of you."

• I have to thank Hot Poop - Zappa News & Other Lumpy Gravy for linking to me.
• Recollections based on the album Doolittle, by the Pixies (long Mefi discussion on music memories in general).
• Sonic Youth interview and positive Murray Street review by Andy Gill in the Independent. Alvin from Nancy (in French) likes the album too.
• Concerts in the Rhein-Main region: 16-6 Midnight Choir in the Nachtleben in Frankfurt: Don't really know the band. They are from Norway and they sound quite epic and dark, a little bit like the early Tindersticks, but kitschier. A goth band with a crooner singing. 20-6 American Analog Set in the Dreikönigskeller in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen: Know by Heart was one of my favourite albums last year. They are from Austin, Texas which is home of a very good independent music scene. Somewhere in between early Stereolab, Luna and Yo La Tengo. The music is more on the bright side but definitely has a psychedelic undertone. 27-6 Calexico at the AstA-Sommerfest in Frankfurt-Bockenheim (free & outdoors): Giant Sand minus Howe Gelb are best without mariachi and when they don't sound like the music to a Western film score. Joey Burns and John Convertino can play music as far out as Giant Sand if they want. Just check their Aerocalexico tour CD from last year. Jazzy improvisations and Nick Drake covers are to be expected. 27-6 Suzanne Vega in the Volkspark in Mainz (sorry Suzanne but Calexico is more tempting).

I stopped smoking on Tuesday 4 pm That's one reason for the lack of updates. The other is that I am uninspired and a little tired of my blog. Hopefully that will change soon. The first anniversary is not too far. I have been listening a lot to the first two New Order albums in the last days. Especially Movement is one of those records touching me deep inside. Maybe more on it later.

I think I will give up the titles soon

• Luke known as Captain Fez in the tiny blogworld has been fired from his job as he blogged during working hours. Blog or job that is the question. And the terrible thing is, a blog which would be paid and could replace a job wouldn't be a blog anymore.
• I don't have to write my review of Wilco's phantastic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot anymore. It has been written by James Surowiecki in the New Yorker already: "But 'Yankee Hotel' is more about things holding together than about things falling apart. The sonic chaos heightens the sense of order that's embodied by the melodies and, ultimately, by Tweedy's voice." What is so amazing about this album is that despite its refined production with loads of sounds and instruments it is down to earth (how I love that expression) and simple. It is full of surprising bends. It is pop and experiment at the same time. I have been listening to it in my car stereo going to work (about 2x20 minutes per day) for about four weeks now (except one week of Tom Waits interlude) and I am still not tired of it. There is a lot of sun and a lot of darkness on that album. It is like real life.

More pointers

• Political compass: ca. 50 questions to find out if you are economically left/right (communist/neo-liberal) and libertarian/authoritarian (anarchist/fascist). To my astonishment I turned out to be close to Gandhi. A little less left but more libertarian.
• 1984 comes true in Europe. Big Brother will be watching us soon: Europe votes to end data privacy. I can't believe it.
• I haven't taken this test yet. I probably will turn out buddhist I suppose: belief-o-matic test
• ILM: One of my favourite today almost forgotten indie pop bands musically in between The Velvet Underground's third album and The Smiths: House of Love: unjustly neglected?
• Noch ein Test für meine deutschen Leser: Wie alt sind Sie wirklich? (Focus). Dass ich wieder mit dem Rauchen angefangen habe, hat mich natürlich nicht jünger gemacht. Mehr Sport wäre auch nicht schlecht. Mindestens fünf Kilo sollten runter. Also ich arbeite dran, mein biologisches Alter dem Aktuellen anzupassen. Vegetarier werde ich aber trotzdem nicht werden.

Feeding the swallows The weather is too nice to blog today. Just some links:

• PopMatters Music Interview | The Forgotten NYC Band: An Interview with Interpol. They don't think that they sound like Joy Division.
• index magazine interview: Brian Eno. Focussing on sociology and philosophy with a short discussion of Norbert Elias, Richard Sennett and Richard Rorty whose introduction to his book Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity Eno condenses to: "In the end, what Rorty turns out to be saying is that philosophy is just another kind of writing. It doesn’t have any special grasp on the truth." Concerning the music only My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Eno's collaboration with David Byrne from the early eighties is mentioned.
• Modern classics: Performance Today. Christopher O'Riley interprets Radiohead on piano: Knives out, Thinking about you, Like Spinning Plates. And Nick Drake: Place to Be. MeFi discussion with a link to Brad Mehldau's version of Paranoid Android at KCRW.
• ILM discussion on Murray Street, the soon to be released new album of everybody's darling indie band Sonic Youth.

Countermeasure or Die Geister, die ich rief, werd ich nun nicht los Right now I am no.7 for this infamous query in some versions of Google. The number of visitors yesterday was 553. Today I already had 568 and there is one more hour to go. Many webmasters would be happy with a similar "popularity" of their site. I am not. I can't read my referrer logs anymore as they are full of people looking for this one word. And those people never comment on my posts, actually most of the others neither, but still. To stop this I renamed my blog today. The three letter word starting my blog name has been replaced by three letters with each of them separated by a blank coded in a special way in between the letters. I hope in this way Google will realise that my blog is not about that three letter word. On the other hand I am happy that my Google PageRank (can be seen in the toolbar) has risen from 5 to 6 out of a maximum of 10. That is due to the many links I received from outside (thank you to you all) and that is a measure which I still find useful to rate the importance of internet pages.