Saint Monkey

Spence Peppard goes nuts doing a rendition of Crazy. What was probably supposed to be a joke turned into some pretty good sounding music.

Spence’s Myspace page

I had a listen to Portishead’s third studio album Third today and was somewhat disappointed with what I heard. The first couple of minutes sounded like a 14 year old messing around with some audio software on the computer, rather than 40 year olds messing around with audio software on the computer. However, after the abrupt ending of the first song Silence, there is some improvement, although they seem to have moved away from the trip-hop sounds they are known for into often upbeat, abstract sounds and quick melodic changes, which for myself, was a bit disappointing because it stopped me being absorbed by their darkness and taken on the journey which the previous albums were apt to do.

By the fourth track The Rip, I did start to enjoy it with a relativity smooth Gibbons evoking Leonard Cohen in an electric female ballad and moving back closer to their old sound with the next track, only to be destroyed by a ditty which seems to come directly out of an old Hollywood movie set in Hawaii.

Far more than any previous album, this seemed more a collection of songs than an album as a whole. Although there are some good moments, overall I found it disappointing and am left wondering why they bothered, after 11 years since their last album, to release this.

To be officially released on Monday, April 28, 2008

Portishead website

Been listening to the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ album, Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! and am impressed. Taking what was good about both his old and new material, adding a little splash of something newer and more obvious humour. Mixing shit, murder, fucking and spiritual yearning, Dig is Nick at in true form and I love it.

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! video clip. Looks like it’s been done on the first take

Below is a series of promotional clips with the first coming out around 3 months ago and the latest (and last) a week ago. Very funny if you dig this kind of humour. Click to see them. Continue reading “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Nick Cave’s new album: Genius, Fucking, Genius!!!”

Came across this interesting business project. Subscribe to a monthly t-shirt!

It’s a little pricy at US$200 for 6 t-shirts but the art is exclusive and I would imagine that there wouldn’t be too many subscribers.

T-shirt Monthly