Albums to listen to before you die

I'm listening through the list of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, in no particular order. It seems good for getting me to listen to things I'd never bother to listen to otherwise. Genres I never explore. Artists that don't really interest me. Weird stuff that has more artistic merit than musical. It's a good exercise, I think, to experience more things in life.

I'm going to list some albums by artists that aren't on that list, that I would put on such a list, if I was making one:

• Nat King Cole - Love Is The Thing (1957)
• Phil Ochs - All The News That's Fit To Sing (1964)
• Wendy Carlos - Switched On Bach (1968)
• J.A. Seazer - Kokkyō Junreika (1973)
• Roy Orbison - Black And White Night (1988)
• Skunk Anansie - Paranoid And Sunburnt (1995)
• Kirsty MacColl - Tropical Brainstorm (1999)
• Yuki Kajiura - FICTION (2008)
• The Protomen - Act II : The Father Of Death (2009)
• Module - Shatter the Original Videogame Soundtrack (2009)  
• Square Enix Music - NieR Gestalt & NieR Replicant Original Soundtrack (2010)
• Perturbator - I Am The Night (2012)
• Yousei Teikoku - 神パラ楽典 ～神様と運命革命のパラドクス ボーカルアルバム～ (2013)
• Algiers - Algiers (2015)
• Prelude To Ecstasy - The Last Dinner Party (2024)
  

Discussion on each album after the break!

Albums I have enjoyed in 2024

 Here are some albums I have enjoyed, which were released this year.

• Prelude To Ecstacy - The Last Dinner Party
• Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome - GNOME
• Lives Outgrown - Beth Gibbons
  
• Citrus Maximus - Pomelo Chess Society
• Wine On Venus - Grace Bowers & The Hodge Podge
• HIT ME HARD AND SOFT - Billie Eilish 
• Sanguivore - Creeper
  

EDIT now we're in 2025: Songs Of A Lost World - The Cure - is an AMAZING album and you should listen to that too!!!

 

Recommended Twitch Musicians, 2023 edition

I seem to have forgotten to do one of these last year. Oops. But here we go, this year's edition, new people to check out:

• Steve Forward. Really incredible guitarist, from Essex, UK. Professional session musician, has his own albums out. Really great CGI effects to watch, too.
• KseniaGalaxy. Very talented singer, originally from Kazakhstan, has lived in Thailand for many years now. Has a very fun community and uses fun CGI effects with filters as she sings, to transform her into various things.
• JMO piano. Known as Jon Michael Ogletree on YouTube, where he's much more famous. Pianist who plays his own arrangements, all learned and played by ear. He's on just about every night, and is very accommodating.
• SteggyMusic. From Ohio, USA. Vocal and acoustic guitar, has some original songs too. Mainly rock music. He's got a lovely voice.
• syjamusic. Symon James, from London, UK. Not a lot of musicians on Twitch play 100% original songs. Syjamusic does exactly that.
• DeltaCrab. Taiwanese-American fellow based in Amherst, Mass. Crazy stuff with synths! & guitars and vocals too. Sometimes he'll make loops out of people chatting, a lot of fun, always fresh!

As always, I still recommend my long-time favourites: Joshua Woo, Lara6683, Jonathan Ong, PorkRollBob, ihazabeard, VenusWorld.

Space Invaders has lyrics, at least in my head.

 

Oh hey, it's nearly Easter.

Fun fact: ever since I heard the song "Gesthemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar, the soundtrack to Space Invaders has had lyrics in my head, and they are : "why must I die? why must I die? why must I die? whymustIdie? whymustIdie? whymustIdie?whymustIdie?whymustIdie?whymustIdie?"

Is "Cradle Of Love" by Billy Idol actually a really dodgy song?

 

YouTube autoplay brought me to this song tonight, I hadn't even thought about it in years.

This song is dead suspicious. I think it's a celebration of underage sex. Though it's from 1990, it's got an older 1950s kind of feeling to it. It's got "Cradle" in the title, as in, what babies sleep in. "Robbing the cradle" is what people say about age gap romances, so it seems like a pun on that.

"It burned like a ball on fire / When the rebel took a little child bride" - I think this is a reference to Jerry Lee Lewis, whose big hit was Great Balls Of Fire. He married his cousin when she was 13 years old.

It also contains the words "flesh for your Romeo", and one of the main things people always like to bring up about Romeo & Juliet is that Juliet was also 13 years old.

Then the rest of the song is all like wey-hey I had sex.

Conclusion: This song is dodgy as fuck.

Recommended musicians on Twitch, 2021 edition

I made a post like this last year, I think it's about time I did an update for 2021. Now that musicians have been forced to take down their VODs from Twitch because of licensing stuff (Twitch don't like paying royalties), it's harder to see which streams are going to be "your thing", so - have a read, and maybe look through their YouTube and songlists to see if they perform the kind of stuff you like. Pretty much everyone is free to listen to, but whether song requests are free differs from channel to channel, so, be polite and read streamer profile panels for info. Tipping money is a friendly and nice thing to do!

Here we go.

• Joshua Woo
  https://www.twitch.tv/joshuawoomusic
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/joshuawoomusic/songs
  Spotify (solo): https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ctglO7zzrGgYtFavND9BC
  Spotify (band): https://open.spotify.com/artist/6FfAxaRvMrikzkied5Kduv
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3dVLVy3lE4T9UUWtZ1_3OA
  
  Josh was known as PlasticJosh last year. He's come a long way in a year, improving his sound quality, and writing a lot of original songs. He's also started releasing solo material under his own name, as well as continuing to release songs with his band Plastic Sun. He can still sing ALL THE NOTES. Serious range, 4 octaves or something. He's a one-man band. He's performed the entirety of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" album a few times. Including singing "Great Gig In The Sky". He's got an upcoming Queen stream and I am really looking forward to that. You can also spend channel points to get him to do David Bowie or Bob Dylan impressions, because why not? Watch out if you request MASTER EXPLODER by Tenacious D, I am now one of his mod staff and I hate having to clear up all the brains off the floor.
  
  
• lara6683
  https://www.twitch.tv/lara6683
  Songlist: https://goo.gl/6AVr4n
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/lara6683
  
  I'm never going to write one of these lists without Lara on it, unless she stops streaming on Twitch. Legendary video game* piano lady. Lately, she's really gotten to grips with using a looper, which is great, she's been able to play all the little bits she didn't have enough arms for before. She's especially good for playing chill, relaxing music, and also - sometimes people get her to mash two songs together on the fly to create something new, and it's astounding. Always astonishing.
  
  * she plays other genres too haha
  
  
• ihazabeard
  https://www.twitch.tv/ihazabeard
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/s/ihazabeard/songs
  
  A fellow called Myles who lives by a beach, in the south-west of England. He's got the most lovely, melancholic voice, and specialises in "sad boi" songs. He plays a really nice guitar while he's singing, and I can't believe almost forgot to mention that. Last year he was on hiatus and I was wondering if he'd ever return to Twitch. Well, he did, and he got partner status. He'll often stop and call it a shambles, or deliberately hurry an ending and say "something like that". But he's really, really nice to listen to. I recommend you request his original song "Long Way Home". It's such a good song and there's no other song on this planet as perfect for his voice.
  
  
• Jonathan Ong
  https://www.twitch.tv/jonathanong
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwbNxgXSHBjGBUjKHVZS7ZA
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7xeDq8pB9BO7iiivmRFXp1
  
  Dr Ong is still a charming, giggling lunatic who will learn and play literally anything you throw at him. Sometimes just on piano, often as a massive production off the cuff. Also, he's AMAZING at piano. His warm-up is Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, which he'll play at the start of every stream while casually chatting like it's nothing. He's started writing original music and has put some on Spotify. I'm really looking out for the Nier piano collection he's been working on, too.
  
  
• porkrollbob
  https://www.twitch.tv/porkrollbob
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/porkrollbob/songs
  
  American guy with a huge songlist of 1000+ songs, mainly blues and rock. I always picture him with a huge smile on his face, I can hardly imagine him without it. Another one-man band, and he's really good at what he does.
  
  
• Amelia Ray
  https://www.twitch.tv/ameliaraymusic
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/ameliaraymusic/songs
  Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/artist/2gK69QweVlWP3gCB9baUou
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/AmeliaRay
  
  Nice lady from San Francisco, currently living in Finland. She knows just about every song on this planet. Her songlist is merely a guideline, there are secret songs. Every week, she'll do a special stream like "Billboard Top 100 songs of [X year]" and go off and try to learn those 100 songs to play the next day. She has a game every day too, where someone in chat will suggest a word, and she has to play 13+ songs with that word in the title, with the rest of chat calling out whatever songs they can think of that match. She's also a songwriter, check out her songs on spotify and bandcamp!
  
  
• sarcastic_fingers
  https://www.twitch.tv/sarcastic_fingers
  Songlist : https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/sarcastic_fingers/songs
  
  Pleasant transgender dude who plays piano and sings. Specialises in songs from the previous century. Really great at the kind of song where it's the story of a life and the strong vocal blows you away. He can bring out his proper opera singer voice once in a while too. But that kind of song is tiring, so he mixes it up with some other stuff. Kinda looks like 1970s X-Men Cyclops, in red glasses. All in all very cool.
  
  
• Erin Shay Live
  https://www.twitch.tv/erinshaylive
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/erinshaylive/songs
  
  This is actually a married couple duo from Australia, but the husband doesn't get his name on the banner, hahaha. Erin is a wild ball of pure energy, who can sing really well, but you'll often see perching crouched on top of a chair... or dancing about... and there's a thing where sometimes she sings a song while doing a handstand and with a mouthful of Malteasers. Her husband Si accompanies on guitar. He's actually really good too, but I guess I won't talk about him, haha.
  
  
• Bagel Rabbit
  https://www.twitch.tv/bagelrabbit
  Violinist who will improv along to songs requested by chat. Literally any song, they'll try and play along to it. Last year, they were on hiatus... I wasn't sure if they'd come back.... but... good things come to those who wait, and Bagel was reborn into being the gayest streamer you ever did see in your life. But also, streams are very much 18+ now. As it's currently Pride Month, they're raising money for two charities; one for trans sex workers and the other for elderly LGBT+ folks. Since they play along to other people's music, they've had two copyright strikes already, there are no saved VODs, you'll just have to pop along and see with your own eyes.
  
  
• Jenem
  https://www.twitch.tv/jenemmusic
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/jenemmusic/songs
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/39LOdVfciNvDAyTbE5cjSA
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmJ1iFuN1uG-oQh5I6fN2gQ
  
  Singer / songwriter who plays guitar and sings. I listen to her some afternoons, she's good, her songs are earnest, and I like her Manchester bee emotes, the symbol of her home city.
  
  
• Fenwa Teryen
  https://www.twitch.tv/fenwateryen
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/fenwateryen/songs
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FenwaTeryen
  
  Acoustic guitar / vocals from this chap. He seems to live in the Fallout game continuum, has a quasi-1950s aesthetic, has a classic bass announcer speaking voice like... Troy McClure or someone, but his singing voice is way higher. He sings mainly really, really vintage songs and also Fallout-related songs.
  
  
• SangahNoona
  https://www.twitch.tv/sangahnoona
  Songlist: https://www.youtube.com/c/sangahnoona
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0jgQptgJlvGmjonCUAUFqO
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/sangahnoona
  
  Super classy piano bar, huge long songlist. She's great at playing funk, rock, pop, jazz... all sorts. Originally from South Korea, but based in Washington DC, USA. As well as being a great pianist to listen to, I feel like she's a really good host on her stream, very pro delivery, camera shots, sound quality. She streams on YouTube too.
  
  
• The Complements
  https://www.twitch.tv/thecomplements
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/thecomplements/songs
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0tU85IJB7ZSiF8vzN8JbdV
  
  A duo named Greg & Aleesha, mainly piano & vocals. They do Disney songs and music and musical theatre showtunes and pop and rock too. They're also really, really nice and wholesome and friendly.
  
  
• Lizz Vega
  https://www.twitch.tv/lizzvega
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOb-nKUytSwoGYDO5dZQxhg
  
  Chill lady who plays harp, but... like no-one else I have ever heard in my life. She'll play the harp and loop an organic psychedelic dreamscape with it. She'll thump it for percussion. She'll surprise you by singing. Honestly, she's amazing.
  
  
• EBX Erin
  https://www.twitch.tv/ebx_erin & her band: https://www.twitch.tv/elsiebinx
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/s/ebx_erin/songs
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/erinaccomando
  Band YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChE7ppzoydydUTKbO_oS5KQ
  
  Great vocals & piano, and I think she is another artist who is a vocal tutor. She also has a band called Elsie Binx. Currently raising money for LGBT+ charity The Trevor Project.
  
  
• King Korgan
  https://www.twitch.tv/kingkorgan
  Songlist: https://www.streamersonglist.com/t/kingkorgan/songs
  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDK46mrkSUq7ZjB1eAa9pw
  
  Time machine to the psychedelic 60s & 70s. Nice fellow who looks like Roy Wood and sounds like Wakko Warner. Has genuine vintage electric organs and guitars, sounds great.
  
  --
  
  Last year's list is still good! Give those people a follow too!

The song "Jealous Guy" is such a non apology

I'm talking about John Lennon's song Jealous Guy.

People go on about this song "oh it's so beautiful", "oh it's so sincere". But I find it ugly and insincere. Which doesn't mean that I think people are wrong to like it, just that they've missed something.

Context is huge. John Lennon stated in interview that he was a wife beater, through jealousy. Read the bit in the wikipedia page on him about his relationship with Cynthia Lennon. 

The Beatles song "Run For Your Life" on Rubber Soul (1965) is another song Lennon wrote (well, Paul McCartney gets co-writing credits) where a jealous guy threatens to murder his "little girl" if she does anything with another man. The line "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man" originates in an Elvis Presley song, but John Lennon decided to expand that into a full song. I've read claims that George really liked the song and John hated and regretted writing it.

In his last major interview, John Lennon spoke of the opening lyrics in the Beatles song Getting Better:

"It is a diary form of writing. All that 'I used to be cruel to my woman / I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved' was me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically – any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster."

Speaking about Jealous Guy in 1980, John Lennon said:

"My song, melody written in India. The lyrics explain themselves clearly: I was a very jealous, possessive guy. Toward everything. A very insecure male. A guy who wants to put his woman in a little box, lock her up, and just bring her out when he feels like playing with her. She’s not allowed to communicate with the outside world – outside of me – because it makes me feel insecure."

And perhaps that would all be good and well, except that he sang the whole thing as "how he behaves when he's jealous" - it's framed as "something I did in the past" but there's no "and I don't do that any more".

Everything there is to know about Total Eclipse Of The Heart

Total Eclipse Of The Heart might be my favourite song of all time. It was the first record I owned that I truly fell in love with, and all I had was a 7" single that my family got from collecting cereal box tokens (wanna see it?). It's probably rare now. It was the B-side! I was probably 7 years old. Is that weird? Haha. I didn't even hear the full album version for another decade or so!

I Drove All Night

This is one of those songs that I love but also rant about.

It's a great song. There are so many great versions; Cyndi Lauper, Roy Orbison, Celine Dion...  I really like the version by The Protomen too. It's like the Roy Orbison version, but ramped up and more epic.

BUT!

I just want to say to the two guys who wrote this song... "No, it's totally not alright".

Seriously, if I was dating a guy and I thought he was 200 miles away but he got horny and drove up, snuck and crept in to my bed and woke me up by [surprise sexy times] I'd wake up terrified assuming it's an intruder and lamp him. If it didn't end in fatality it would end in "We need to talk".

And you know! You know by listening to the song the guy knows he's doing something terrible, or he wouldn't have to ask "is that alright?" so much. No it's not alright!

And I don't know if this is just what I get out of it, but I feel like he thinks he's earned his sexy times just because he drove so far, and he's going to be mega pissed off and act like a pest if he gets home to "go away, I'm sleeping!". There's definitely a sense of entitlement I get out of these lyrics.

The fact it's sometimes covered by women doesn't make it better. It's still creepy.

And I know this was written before mobile phones so phoning to ask "is that alright" before driving all that way isn't that simple.

This song... I have so many problems with it and I don't think of it as romantic at all, but I still like it, and I really like the various artists who've performed it. I suppose that's a bit weird.

Rare track "Xanadu" by Anthem is now available to buy on Amazon Music

This is really something special if you're a fan of the old Japanese metal band ANTHEM like I am.

It's a promotional song that they made for the Falcom video game Xanadu back in 1986.

I've been looking for this track for years, thinking it was only ever going to be available on rare import 1980s vinyl, and I thought I'd never be able to buy a copy.

But here we are:



I just "bought" this track for myself with the free MP3 store credit Amazon give you when you buy something on Amazon Prime and tell them not to hurry about it. :)

The sound quality is as good as you'd expect from any of their CD releases of their 1980s albums. Absolutely 100% crystal clear!

I tried looking further, and... alas, still no sign of Xanadu Act 2! And if only they had the Falcom Special Box '90 up there for Holy Fighter and Protecters.

But still, wow! Getting a copy of this track, especially for free in a promotion... it's like receiving a surprise gold bar!

999 "Trepidation" theme and Baba Yaga

Today, thanks to thinking about games in the "Elite" series, I find myself listening to some classical music I haven't heard in a long time. Baba Yaga, part of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. It's a wonderfully crazy, chaotic piece, I like it a lot.

Here's someone playing it (well) on piano:


And here's a full orchestra:


I like it best on piano, played like the piano's giving off electric shocks. :)

I found myself wondering for the first time ever... the incredibly atmospheric, freaky "oh no something terrible's happened" music in the Nintendo DS game "9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors" (or 999).. I wonder if it was at all inspired by the hits at the start of Baba Yaga. According to this YouTube video, it's called "Trepidation". There's definitely call for trepidation in the scenes where it's used!




I'm just tying together some unrelated pieces of music I find impactful and evocative (but in completely different ways). :)

Sting's album "The Last Ship"

I've been doing something very uncharacteristic of me recently, and have been listening to Sting's album "The Last Ship", repeatedly. I happened to watch Dune on TV the other week (he's an awesome loony in that film), and heard on the news that the musical version of this wasn't doing too well on Broadway, so I decided to give it a go listening on Spotify 'cos it's free.

It's all in Geordie! And that's fantastic. :) More people should be singing in regional accents and dialects. I also like that it's telling little stories. It's all about people's lives, working on shipyards in Newcastle. Apparently the overall story of the musical is about a prodigal son leaving, then coming back later in his life to seek out a girl he knew, and find love.

I guess it's the curse of the expat - you leave an area for whatever reason, but once you're gone... after time, without realising you miss the place, you begin to cling to little things that link you to the place, and eventually, you end up cherishing the place.

But by the time that's happened, you've been gone so long that the place has completely changed. So even if you try going back, that place you remember doesn't exist anymore, and you spend your time spreading your memories all over the rest of the world. A tiny pocket of a lost culture that lives in your brain, preserved, stored in stasis. Perhaps exaggerated.

I've noticed my mother telling me "this is the way Chinese do this" many times, when I know - they don't do anything like that anymore at all. She retains the ideas that were given to her by her elders - family who fled China a long time ago; before Mao, before cultural reformations, long before the newfound wealth it has nowadays. It's a little pocket of China that no longer exists. This is how it's been preserved.

This album has that quality too - wow, the North-East and its people have gone through some hard times in the past, and there was so much more hard physical labour work. The accents were stronger. The people were stronger. The money was scarcer. The prospects were unthinkable. He's done well to document it, and the spirit of the people in this work, in an entertaining and catchy way.

I bet the folks going to see it on Broadway can't understand a word of it, though. Poor things. Theatre productions don't come with subtitles, haha!

Gamasutra feature: memorial

Nice memorial article for Ryu Umemoto here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178187/memorial_composer_ryu_umemoto.php

He was the composer for the old C's Ware games - Desire, Eve Burst Error, Yu-No, and later worked at Cave on shoot-em-up soundtracks, including composing the music to Akai Katana, which I bought recently but haven't played yet.

He died last year at the age of 37, from a bout of sudden illness.

angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!! Blu-ray

I treated myself to a Japanese Blu-ray in exchange for a huge sum of money. It's a recording of a live concert by the group angela who are known for their songs for anime such as Uchuu no Stellvia, Soukyuu no Fafner, Jinki: Extend, Heroic Age, Shikabane Fighter, and Asura Cryin'.

I have to admit, I didn't take to the lead singer - atsuko - straight away. Her distinct vocals must have overwhelmed me. They are.... somewhat piercing. But, after time.... I realised, she's really good and is especially great at nailing songs for live performances. Such a natural it appears almost effortless.

A few of their earlier albums are available in America, if you want to pick up Sora No Koe, I/O or PRYTHM, I recommend you go to rightstuf because they sell them for only $5 US dollars each.

So, I bought myself a Blu-ray direct from Japan, priced at 6000 yen (but somewhat reduced because I had a stack of loyaly points to spend... but then it was caught in customs and I had to pay another £17-something on top of that). So, uh, yeah. It's, um, cheaper than actually going to Japan....

It's called "angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!!" - Yes yes, that is one looooong title!

Here's the front:

Here's the back

And here's some of what's inside

The packaging isn't very impressive, I suppose. The blue thing with the cartoon of angela and a lion is actually a booklet full of info and interviews (if you can read Japanese), and photos. I don't know if it's clear enough on my photo but the back lists 14 songs... followed by two encores containing another 10 songs! (Full tracklisting is available here on the Starchild website)

It's a Soukyuu no Fafner concert, certainly. But it's also a circus. So there are many, many songs from Fafner and its offshoots, intersperced with clips from this tragic sci-fi anime, and clowns and acrobats run on and bounce around, and so on. They also perform some songs as their alter ego band "Domestic Love Band", doing raucously arranged versions of their songs with gusto that's kind of punk, kind of rock, almost like Tokyo Ska Paradise in places... really different and really good in an unexpected and fun way.

I'm actually only part way through watching this (it's 3 hours long!), but from what I've seen so far it's been really great! If you want a look, I think I spotted a few clips from this concert up on youtube. Otherwise, you can buy yourself a copy from CD Japan here: angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!! - [Limited Release] [Blu-ray]

Tramlines - Sheffield music festival

Well, I just made it back home after the first night of the Tramlines free music festival.

I went out tonight and...

* Visited the Kid Acne exhibition in the Millenium Gallery (mostly I went into there because it was cold outside and warm inside but it turned out to be a cool exhibition). There's a lot of his street art around town. I really like his drawings, especially his warrior women dotted around the place, but hate the slogans he's painted around town. Especially on Paternoster Row. There used to be some cool art on one wall - which was his own - but he painted over it with "You'll thank me one day". And it's rubbish in comparison! :(

* Went to a pub called Henry's because my colleagues had told me that our friend (another ex-colleague) was playing there later. I bought a drink and sat about 9ft from the stage (a very small and slightly wobbly stage), and I heard:

- a lady called Emily who was really excellent, and seemed really sweet and nice and friendly, and somewhat shocked at how much the audience liked her. Which was A LOT. :) But most of her songs were about being angry at someone, and she was certainly expressive about it!

facebook
myspace

She was much better than on her myspace recordings! She said she's playing Soyo tomorrow, then taking a break from gigging for a while to record an EP with a record label. :D

During one of the songs, one of my friends - Ali - was on the phone and there was a quiet moment in a song and all anyone heard was "I'M IN THE BEER GARDEN - IN HENRY'S". Everyone laughed and eventually she did too. At the end of the song everyone in the place was laughing, and she thanked everyone in the room.... EXCEPT HIM.

XD

And the next time started off with lyrics that were along the lines of "you don't care and you never listen" and everyone was in stitches.

XD

Carried on like a pro after that, pretty super awesome. :)

- the Don Barrel Gents. A two-piece guitar group who are cool and always good to listen to.

http://donbarrellgents.co.uk/

I used to work with Lee, the one of the two who doesn't sing and likes tuning his guitar. Even if I didn't know Lee, I'd still like them. :) The one of the two who sings has a really unusual way of playing his guitar - he uses it as a percussion instrument sometimes, and Lee does twiddly bits. :)

* Then I went out to the area in front of City Hall and saw Heaven 17 perform "Temptation"!

Well, they had a set starting at 9pm but we decided to stay and listen to our friend... well, no-one could remember more than one song, so we figured if we arrived at 9:45 we'd get that song. And our plan worked! :D

It was better than the original, but... well, the original is a good song, I like it a lot, but the vocals were a bit out of tune, and they've got better since. :)

So they played that and everyone jumped around and cheered, and then they performed "Being Boiled" (which is a Human League song)... and that was it. The guy who's lead shouted "Up the Owls!" and there was a lot of booing, but maybe it helped make everyone clear off sharpish. :P

And then I came home. A friend mentioned they plan to meet up a The Shakespeare tomorrow to attend Lee's gig, but I have no specific plans I am dedicated to at the moment. There's tons going on, and I can only be at one place at a time!

I can hear live music coming from outside still, I guess it must be at the Riverside Cafe. I am too tired to venture any further though.

The Music Of Frogger

I couldn't find a page on the internet about this, so I thought I would make one.

The music to the 1981 arcade version of Frogger features a medley containing:

* Children's song Inu No Omawarisan (the dog policeman)

* Children's anime Araigumi Rascal OP theme Rock River e

* Children's anime Hana no Ko Lunlun OP theme

* Children's anime Alps no shoujo Heidi OP theme Oshiete

* Children's anime Mahou Shoujo Lalabelu OP theme Hello Lalabelu

* Traditional American song Yankee Doodle

* Traditional American song Camptown Races

These are the ones I recognise. Let me know if you recognise any more!

Japanese wikipedia doesn't list Lalabelu, it lists the Moero Arthur Hakuba no Ouji anime OP theme instead. It's a Mizuki Ichirou theme, and I do own a CD of 1980s anime themes with both that song and Lalabelu in the same compilation! I personally have never heard anything recognisable as that song in Frogger, so I thought I would just mention that that's what wikipedia says but I have heard no proof.

The later ports of Frogger don't use any anime music in the soundtrack (probably copyright / licensing issues), they just don't seem right...

EDIT 2014-07-27 : I heard the Moero Arthur Hakuba no Ouji OP in there! It is a tiny snippet that plays very rarely, here it is.