Catching up with the backblogs

• Toddlike's Worthless Music Review Blog on Brian Jonestown Massacre, Merzbow and more interesting music off the beaten track.
• gstring: for the discerning music nut. Music news from Melbourne. Don't look for Britney Spears and Boyzone here.
• Hipster Detritus: A Blog. ILM contributor Nate Patrin's music blog. Nate likes punk, new wave, indie and lots of other good music.
• Nanoblogg, Stefan's German music weblog on electronica and other indie music.
• ::indie tunes. i can't live without music. Jana, 20, studying Philosophy and German language and literature studies (Germanistik in German) in Erlangen near Nuremburg. German posts on Tocotronic, The Strokes etc.
• onfocus.com : Weblog BookWatch with the most linked to books in the weblog world on Amazon. A similar service is offered by Daypop: Amazon Wishlist Top 40.

Reviewing a review I received the new Wilco CD from Amazon this morning together with Houellebecq's first novel to exceed the 20 € shipping costs limit. Quite a good performance by Amazon. I had placed the order on Thursday 14h29, they sent it out yesterday 17h53 and it arrived this morning around 10. Even though I was not always happy with them in the past there is no doubt that Amazon is one of the best online shops. So right now I am listening to Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot for the third time. I had very high expectations concerning that album after what I had read in Badger's blog, at Pitchfork and in the German Rolling Stone. And I have to say that I am not disappointed. A rock album with a song mentioning Jesus (cf. the 3rd VU, the first two House of Loves, Cohen's 1st, Big Star's last, Tom Waits' "Bone Machine", Giant Sand's "Chore", Nirvana's "Unplugged" etc.) very often is a milestone. I was afraid that Tweedy's voice which I found a little feeble after 2-3 mp3s and some clips of Wilco songs I had listened to before would put me off but it doesn't at all. YHF is a real album which should be listened to from beginning to end. The last album in a similar vein I know was Blur's excellent somber "13" from 1999. Though YHF is a little softer and I don't know if Tweedy is coming to terms with the end of a relation like Albarn was. YHF is not about sunshine neither and seems very controlled in places. I haven't found a really weak track, the outstanding one after the first listens is obviously the pop gem "Heavy Metal Drummer" followed closely by the sentimental closer "Reservations" which hits a similar chord in me as "All Across the Universe" by The Beatles. The record has nothing to do with alt-country anymore which is a good thing in my eyes. It is slightly experimental guitar-driven pop with Jim O'Rourke (from Tortoise who is a full band member of Sonic Youth now) responsible for the mix and electronics.

Actually I am getting carried away here. I didn't want to write a review. How could I after only three listens. I wanted to comment on a review by one of the foremost rock critics, Greil Marcus who subtitled his latest "Real Life Rock Top 10" column in Salon: Wilco signify something... I am curious what uncle Greil will tell us about Wilco's long-awaited new album on CD, its message and the meaning of the music. The cover features photos of Chicago skyscrapers, Thanks a bunch I thought those were huts in the African bush. and the first four words, "I am an American," That sounds very promising. Like the beginning of an in-depth analysis of the lyrics. Go on Greil. are the same as those of Saul Bellow's 1953 "The Adventures of Augie March": Isn't he smart this man? He is not only an expert of rock but also of literature. Chapeau! "Chicago born," Bellow The connection to the cover. That's brilliant. said after a comma: "aquarium drinker," Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy says without one. That's what I call deep insight into rock. As a rock critic you have to be meticulous. How could anyone take you seriously if you'd skip a punctuation mark? The difference between literature and rock is a comma. It's easy. That must have taken a lot of scientific research. One small annotation: didn't Bellow write that? And didn't a character in the book say it? Didn't know Bellow said it as well. But I trust you Greil. Last question: did Bellow say the comma as well? But Augie March knew how to walk against the wind on the streets, to go right past you with such force you turned around and watched his back, wondering who he was -- The literature pope speaks. He knows a lot about me. Didn't know I would try to watch the back of Augie March. Usually backs don't turn me on. Never heard of that character neither. Have you? Do you watch backs? while Tweedy's singing, never strong, Objection, your honour! That is a subjective statement which is not founded on any evidence. I bet Tweedy sings better than you Mr Marcus. At least you have almost arrived to the object of your review, the music, now. here recedes into a dithering miasma apparently meant to signify thinking it all over, What a careful choice of exquisite words in the first half of the quote. I'll try to remember "miasma" for my next review. It sounds very cool and clever. Even after looking it up it doesn't make sense to me here. Plus the key to the interpretation of the record. Marcus can read minds. But isn't too sure. Why "apparently"? If I understand well, according to Marcus with his way of singing Tweedy wants to show that he isn't too sure neither. Of what? Of anything! That's a strong philosophical statement, but a genius like Marcus can't be wrong, can he? plus sound effects apparently meant to signify the modern world. That's one "apparently" too much, isn't it? Marcus is losing the ground under his feet. But we are in the modern world. So maybe that's understandable. How old are you Greil? In other words, it isn't against the law to redo "Revolver", 100% agreement here. That could have been the beginning of a nice adequate praise of this album, but I am a dreamer, I guess. YHF as the "Revolver" of the zero years would have been a little over the top nevertheless, I suppose. but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Especially if you're an American. And you record in Chicago. That's missing, Mr Marcus. It would have been so nice to close the circle.

Thank you very much for this amazing piece of critic Mr Marcus. I think you have almost arrived to the perfect rock review here. You could just try to write a little less about the music next time, couldn't you?

Could you tell me something? On Tuesday I had 291 visitors. Unbelievable. I'd like to know more about you. Could you do me the favour of answering this small little poll? Thanks a lot in advance.

The Big Lie Interessante nonkonformistische Gedanken von Adam Curry (US-stämmiger Fernseh- und Radiomoderator, der in Amsterdam lebt und dort mehrere Medienprojekte gestartet hat) zu Pim Fortuyn und zu der fragwürdigen Medienberichterstattung über seine Ermordung. War er nun ein extremer Rechter oder nicht? Glaubwürdiger als Le Pen, Haider, Berlusconi und Konsorten war er in jedem Fall. Und toleranter als der von ihm angeprangerte Islam wohl auch. Ein Satz wie: "Wie können Sie eine Kultur respektieren, wo die Frau einige Schritte hinter ihrem Mann gehen muss, in der Küche zu bleiben und ihren Mund zu halten hat?" ist zumindest nachvollziehbar, insbesondere von einem Schwulen. Denn Homosexuelle wurden von Muslimen als "niedriger als Tiere" bezeichnet. Fortuyn war sicherlich eine interessante schillernde Figur mit Charisma, die sich getraut hat Dinge zu sagen, die die meisten sowieso denken, die aber nicht immer politically correct waren. Davon gibt es wenige in der Politik und in Zukunft wohl noch weniger. Wäre ich eine, dann würde ich es mir jedenfalls zweimal überlegen in die Politik zu gehen. Politik ist lebensgefährlich für solche Leute. Stromlinienförmige umfragebesessene Typen wie Schröder und GW Bush, die ohne ihre Berater Schaufensterpuppen wären, sind da wohl einfach besser aufgehoben.

Edited translation to English from Babelfish: Interesting nonconformistic thoughts by Adam Curry (television and radio moderator, stemming from the US and living in Amsterdam, where he has started several media ventures) on Pim Fortuyn and the dubious media coverage of his murder. Was he extreme right-wing or not? He was in any case more credible than Le Pen, Haider, Berlusconi and the likes. And he was almost certailnly more tolerant than the islam he denounced. A sentence like: "How can you respect a culture if the woman has to walk several steps behind her man, has to stay in the kitchen and keep her mouth shut?" is at least comprehensible especially when said by a gay. Gays have been proclaimed as "lower than pigs" by muslims. Fortuyn was surely an interesting multi-faceted figure with charisma. He dared to say things, most thought anyways, which were however not always politically correct. There are few politicians like that and probably even less in the future. If I would be one, then I would think twice before going into politics. Politics can be lethal for such people. Streamlined poll-obsessed guys such as Schroeder and GW Bush who would be dummies without their advisor stuff are probably much better suited for politics.

Those were the times days How many Eurostat "experts" does it take to change a light bulb? Twenty-one. One to stand holding it, and twenty to drink until the room spins around.

Various stuff

• Making Insomnia Fun Again is another good indie music blog. It features a lot of mp3 links.
• I have to read the following discussion at kuro5hin to brush up my knowledge of music theory: introduction to basic music composition (via null device)
• The whole text of a book by Peter McWilliams on how to cure a malady which afflicts me from time to time: Heal Depression. My current treatment of this nuisance is to sleep less. 6 hours are enough I think. It makes me a little psyched and hyperactive but I prefer that to being paralysed in a depression.

All you want to know about Google

• Today I asked a strange question on the very active and useful Webmasterworld forum about Google: "My blog is currently #17 on the search query "s&nbspe&nbspx" (without the blanks) at Google. Unsurprisingly about 95% of my Google referrers and maybe close to 90% of all referrers come to my site looking for the word in question. Therefore my referrer stats are almost unreadable as they are flooded by "s&nbspe&nbspx"-referrers. Is there a way to tell Google that my site should not show up in the results for the single word query "s&nbspe&nbspx"? " I didn't get the answer I wanted but I have to say that those people are very nice. If you have questions concerning Google here is where to go. Via the PageRank Site Value Chart on their site I also found out that my little blog which has a Google PageRank of 5 is worth $1,000-$50,000. The upper limit is quite a lot of dough though I think the value of a blog is closer to the lower limit as it stems mainly from other blogs linking to it and the commercial relevance is rather negligible. And someone proposed a statistical distribution of the PageRanks: constexp(-kPR) with k chosen by the Google guys. Interesting stuff I have to delve into deeper when I am less tired.

Blogger Insider I am a little late on the latest round of Blogger Insider questions. The questions from Laughing Muse (the answers to my questions to him her will be on his her site) date from April 17th. But I had a reason. I did not have access to my pop3 e-mail account in Greece. Let's go.

Q1: You're thinking of switching to a new blogging tool - which one, and why? (I ask because I'm one of those odd folks who runs a nonstandard blog script off of her own server.) A: From the start I have been using Blogger, the most widespread blogging tool available. I used it as it was piss-easy to get started but realized after a while that in the end using it involves a lot of work as there are many features missing in Blogger and I had to get them from other free available sources. Examples are a search, a referral tracker, a comment system, an e-mail notification service, polls, a ping bookmarklet etc. Additionally Blogger is not always reliable (esp. the free version I guess) and pages load quite slowly (maybe because I am in Germany?). Other areas where Blogger has problems: archive links are lost often when publishing, publishing is not always available etc. I want to move to Antville, a weblogging tool from Austria mainly used by German speakers. To create a weblog there is even easier than with Blogger. You just choose a URL which is still available, a user id and a password and that's about it. Weblogs are hosted on Antville. I really like about Antville that it is much more communicative than Blogger in its design. There is an integrated commentary system and there is a section called "recently modified" in the sidebar which gives you the latest changes/additons to the weblog be them posts (in Antville called stories) or comments. You can also have a completely open collective weblog where everyone registered can write stories (like in Blogger). Additionally you can create topics to order your stories by subject. A search which also searches the comments is integrated as well. The referrers of the last 24 hours are accessible. You can post your own images or media files which reside on Antville. A new feature is the automatic pinging of weblogs.com which is very useful for readers if they use a weblog monitor like blo.gs where they have created their own blogroll with the last updated weblogs on top of the list. Polls are integrated as well. These are just the easily usable features. The layout of the weblog can be changed with the so-called skins. Macros can be programmed (don't know really what they do but anyways). In one sentence Antville integrates the most important features of a weblog seamlessly whereas Blogger is very crude in comparison and blogs at Blogger become patchworks if you want to have all these options. Antville weblogs load much faster because of that as well. And they are free of course like standard Blogger. The only two things I would be missing right now are an e-mail notification service for the readers if a new story has been posted and a bookmarklet which lets you post links easily like in Blogger. In the standard Antville weblog you still have to type your tags yourself. The only reasons I haven't moved yet are my laziness and my vanity as "sex and sunshine" is known in the music weblog circles.

Q2: What's your first conscious memory that focussed on, or included, music? Why the "music blog" focus? A: Don't remember my first conscious memory of music. Probably a Christmas carol or something stupid like that. My relation to music is almost purely passive. I am a listener but not a composer or interpret of music. I never played an instrument though in my family (including uncles, aunts and cousins) most people play instruments and classical music is quite important. I think with my blog I want to compensate for my unmusicality. As I am unable to make music I want to describe it and put it into words. To grasp it by transforming it into language. Though this is really hard as well and I hardly ever succeed. Maybe the focus is on music as I am an auditive person. Sounds and voices have always touched me much more than images. They have a depth to them which has an immediate impact on my inner self whereas images mostly leave me cold and I usually find them superficial. I really hate TV by the way but I like movies in the cinema.

Q3: "sex and sunshine" - sounds like a new kind of bar drink ;-> How did you come up with the name for your site? A: Nice question. My favourite cocktail is "Blue Lagoon" by the way. I think I have answered it in one of the first posts of my weblog: "But actually THE reason for calling this "sex and sunshine" is that this can be abbreviated to SAS and this stands for at least two totally different things. One of the two can give you a clue about my studies and work. All the above is of course bollocks. I chose sex and sunshine as name for the blog as I hope to attract much more traffic with such a fancy and slightly frivolous title."

Q4: What's the best personality test you've taken? The worst? (Use your own criteria for this one - just define them a little bit for us.) A: Another short question which hits the nail. I like that. My favourite was the first one I took on the internet where I happened to be a painting of Monet. Different shadings of blue and a little blurred. Flowers floating on a pond. The worst was probably "Which rock chick are you?". My criterium is the result of the test. If I don't like it the test is bad. I don't care for the questions. They can be stupid as hell. I usually forget them immediately afterwards anyways.

Q5: Reality TV - innovative marketing ploy or sign of the apocalypse? Which show(s) (if any) did you watch? None. Big Brother was a big thing in Germany a couple of years ago but I already had abolished my tv. I think reality shows are just the logical further development of tv. The tv audience is curious and the actors in the shows are vain. What a perfect combination. It didn't last long though.

Q6:The RIAA - careful corporate citizen, just another business, or rabid bunch of troglodytes out of touch with technology? That's the music business isn't it? Never cared really but good music can be published anywhere. On a major or at home.

Q7:Do you own any albums in more than two formats? (Not counting self-made CDs or tapes). Not so many actually as I am a miser. On vinyl and CD I have Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" and "Pink Moon", Joni Mitchell's "Blue", "Hejira" and "The Hissing of Summer Lawns". Brian Eno's "Before and After Science", Keith Jarrett's "Sun Bear Concerts" and Giant Sand's "Chore of Enchantment". Maybe some more but those are the most important.

Q8: Was your first language English, or German? Just out of curiosity, why do some of your blog entries appear in one language, some in another (with no translations?) Thanks for the compliment. I write this weblog in English to practice the language. I always loved English as I found it much more succinct and to the point than German. I also write this weblog in English to conceal how bad my German is ;-). At least in comparison to Goethe's. But I am 100% German. I also hesitate to move to Antville as in Antville I will definitely have to write in German and will lose my small but dear audience I have gained here. But I really want to write in German. But I am afraid that the emptiness of most of my posts will become much more evident in German. The personal sometimes almost philosophical posts here have mostly been in German. I wrote them in German as I couldn't have written them in my poor English. There is Babelfish for that ;-). German is my mother tongue and I can obviously express nuances much better in it. My English will always be superficial I guess.

Q9: How are you enjoying Chiros? We want a post card!!! Chios is a good place to forget the world around you. Like Hydra was for Leonard Cohen in the 60s/70s. In terms of square miles it is about as big as Berlin, but outside the capital there are maybe 10,000 inhabitants. The Northwest is almost unpopulated. Most villages there are deserted. Chios has suffered a lot of a Turkish massacre in 1822 when 10,000s were murdered. If you are looking for loneliness you can find it there. And sea and sun (the light is very bright) and wind and quite barren mountains of course. Not to forget the cats.

I really enjoyed the questions Laughing Muse. Sorry it's late and I can't hold my promise. I will send you my questions tomorrow. For sure.

Back from life to reality Today was my first day at work after three wonderful weeks on Chios and Samos in the East Aegean. The bright light of the sun has been replaced by the glowing monitor. The clear blue sea by the pouring rain (at least on Saturday). The chaotic hooting traffic with zillions of motorbikes and mopeds coming from nowhere by a traffic like a silent movie with actors as disciplined as robots. I was in between Germans speaking my language again after having not met one single German on the whole trip. This has never happened to me before on a holiday. I was taken for a Norwegian by the Norwegians on Chios and the Dutch on Samos talked in Dutch to me which I don't understand. When I entered the gate of my employer with my huge (in comparison to the Suzukis and Daewoos I had driven in Greece) Passat station wagon for a moment I thought what would happen if they had sacked me. A very worrying and liberating thought at the same time. Like the last revolt before accepting the fact that the holidays were over. I am writing this sitting on my new orthopedic "Balance" swivel chair at home. Its seat topples sideways and back and forth which is supposed to be good for my bad back. A strange a little unstable feeling in the beginnng but I am getting used to it and I think the 500+ € were a good investment.

The origins of chess I read in Der Spiegel that Renate Syed, an indologist from Munich has found evidence for the theory that chess actually comes from India and originated as a war practice game called caturanga around 450 AD. The pawns were the infantry, the rooks were bronze chariots with archers, the bishops were war elephants, the knights were obviously horses and the queen used to be the minister who only moved one field diagonally like a handicapped king. The Indian king of Kanauj gave the game of chess without the rules as a present in the sixth century to the king of Persia to test his intelligence. The Arabs conquered Persia later on and spread the game of chess around the world. They gave the queen the long radius it has now as their armies were dominated by many fast moving horses and mounted camels.