Things I Have Learned This Week

Picture taken by Chabata_k(Japan).) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0
(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

1 The Queen's visit to Ireland was going really well until she had to sit through a performance by Westlife.
 
2. They're trying to pension off Ronald McDonald. Another shocking example of discrimination against people with red hair.
 
3. It's the end of the world today, for some of us at least. Just in case it's not - see you back here tomorrow to laugh at all those suckers who believed it *crosses fingers*.
 
4. A minor indiscretion was revealed, completely out of character...

5. Premiership footballers + Twitter = DISASTER (various).   

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KILLER COVERS #002: The Shins - (Pink Floyd's) Breathe

Shins frontman James Mercer

The Shins have been on an annoyingly long hiatus since touring to support 2007's glorious Wincing the Night Away album. While there is no official word of any new release, their name has been added to the bill for the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco in August.

On that last tour they would often play this Pink Floyd classic from Dark Side of the Moon as an encore. Recorded live in Sydney, Australia 8.9.2007 - hope you like it.

 Photo by Mike Mantin (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 

(www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

THE SHINS - BREATHE

Visit The Shins Official Site

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Kraftwerking From Home

Want to create your own Synth-Pop classic? Or a Chill-Out masterpiece you can flog to Starbucks?

Step right this way. Otomata is a mightily clever and addictive tool where you can make your own electronic track (or concept album) online, with no musical ability necessary (yes Jedward! You heard right).

To get straight down to it click here 

Or click below for a demo on YouTube:

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The Greatest Songs You've Never Heard #001: Badly Drawn Boy - Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind

Damon Gough AKA Badly Drawn Boy has suffered at the hands of critics in recent times, somewhat unfairly in my eyes. However there is no denying that the enormous success he achieved with his 2000 debut album The Hour of Bewilderbeast  (which scooped the Mercury Music Prize), and his soundtrack to the 2002 film of Nick Hornby's bestseller About a Boy, seems a distant memory now. 

Hopefully for him there is comfort in what surely must be enormous royalty cheques from his work being used as incidental music on all kinds of TV shows. It seems that no travel or DIY programme is complete without Once Around The Block (from his first album) cropping up in a link.

This song from the 2006 album Born in The UK is, to these ears, fit to grace any of his (or anyone else's)   albums of the last decade or so.

Click the player below to listen.

Visit the official site for Badly Drawn Boy

More Greatest Songs You've Never Heard


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