Category: Music

Eric Idle has just put a little ditty called The FCC Song up on the Monty Python web. The lyrics may be found on Lisa Rein’s website (which is also an essential repository of Daily Show and Bill Moyers video clips).

I’m not sure what happened. I used to buy a new CD every couple of weeks, deliberately mixing it up between the familiar and the new. But for the last few months my only new music has been Marillion’s Marbles, which arrived unexpectedly from the UK, and a mix CD of Japanese pop and anime theme music from Hannah. Marbles was more or less expected – I’d been one of the thousands of fans who pre-ordered a copy to help the band fund the production of the CD, and our reward was a double CD with the names of all the supporters.
But that was weeks ago. Today I wandered round a CD store unable to find anything that fit my mood. And then I realized that the reason I was dawdling was that I was half-listening to the music playing in the store, and that the voice was familiar and insidiously seductive. And so I bought it: the new CD by Morrissey, You Are The Quarry. Wonderful. The best since Viva Hate, in my opinion.

Remember the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian:
BRIAN: Look. You’ve got it all wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we’re all individuals!
BRIAN: You’re all different!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we are all different!
DENNIS: I’m not.
ARTHUR: Shhhh.
FOLLOWERS: Shh. Shhhh. Shhh.
BRIAN: You’ve all got to work it out for yourselves!
FOLLOWERS: Yes! We’ve got to work it out for ourselves!
Most of us like to think that we are independent thinkers, that we won’t follow the herd and latch on to each new craze. On the other hand, if the “new craze” is really good….?
All of this is an elaborate way of saying that I’m hooked on the eponymous first album by the Scottish group Franz Ferdinand. I heard a review on NPR‘s All Things Considered, was intrigued, received a rave recommendation from a friend, and bought it. Now I’m helping to spread the meme…. As for a description, imagine what would have happened if XTC hadn’t lost the recipe. There are definitely overtones of the Dukes of Stratosphear, the alter ego that XTC created to fool around with music from different genres and eras. But lyrically the FF songs are superior to XTC’s, and that’s saying something.

According to the News section of Laurence Juber’s home page, he’s starting production on a new album for Al Stewart. This is consistent with the pattern noted by Fred on the Al Stewart mailing list:

I did predict an ALbum for 2004, based on a long-ago statement by Al that he releases one every US election year.
1972 O
1976 YOTC
1980 24P/C
1984 R&A
1988 LDOTC
1992 RinR
1996 SLAGIATT
2000 DitC
Of course, Al has also released albums in non-election years….
(To decode the abbreviations, please consult the discography.)