http://www.zshare.net/audio/57717296147bcd96/
This one's a bit more 'beating over the head with the stick of bump and thump' and only 1 curveball
1. the streets - in the middle
2. rinse - raven
3. la roux - in for the kill (skream rmx)
4. shinichi osawa - star guitar
5. 2 bit thugs - tearing up the club
6. geeneus & zinc - emotions
7. indo - r u sleeping
8. mims - life of a star
9. the meteors - slow down you grave robbing bastard
I think it's because they follow the trains. They pick up the scent at the coast and smell all those cheese and pickle sandwiches all the way up the line.
My studio is changing hugely. I don't mean to keep going on about it but as you probably know me mainly for my music then it affects our relationship. It's going to keep changing until it sounds right. There are elements I want to keep and elements I want to make bigger. In both sound and in the visual sense.
Reading twitter is like reading the newspaper backwards. Unless people are replying to what you're saying, reading people's feeds runs in reverse. At the top the final conclusion, the answer to the question or the punchline of the joke. Next you have the climactic action, the peak of the mood, the height of conflict or the body of information. Finally you read the reason why all this talking is going on. The question. The incitement.
Is it me or do seagulls always seem to gather around train stations and nowhere else apart from by the sea? You don't really get seagulls in London but round major train stations there is always the eee eee eee reminding me of the sea sea sea.
When a man walks. Angels whisper in his ear
So I walked into town and walked all round town.
My desk sounds great.
But not great enough. I'm going to get another one
So I decided to instead focus on words for a few weeks. That's what I do when I get frustrated with something. I move on. To something that I can control. It's got something to do with that bit of advice you get when you do your GCSEs: "If you get stuck, move onto the next question."
London is full of people. They are bumping into me as I write this. I am not looking where I'm going though.
MySpace has been a bit butters lately so I've decided to move to my own blog page, skinnermike.com. Notice it's not called The Streets because The Streets will finish before I stop blogging. That sounds like a lyric. I'd better write it down before I get run over...
http://www.zshare.net/audio/572921138787db3d/
It's turned out pretty smooth this week. And I forgot to put Ben Folds in. Next week....
1. blinded by the bootleg - nero vs the streets
2. counterpoint - delphic
3. tonight's today - jack penate
4. everybody - gold teeth
5. ruby don't take your love - kenny rogers
6. don't think twice - bob dylan
7. my m.o. - asher d
8. message to odb
9. midnight train to georgia - gladys knight
10. superstar - usher
11. now we are free - hans zimmer
I am making arrangements to write GO LOW in the sky this summer. Originally my plan was for the Red Arrows in full formation to do a fly-by trailing red white and blue smoke just as we go onstage and then at around the midway marker, to write GO LOW in multi-coloured smoke in the sky behind the stage. There were a few objections to this by my manager who likes to ruin everything. Firstly he said that money would be an issue hiring the RAF plus jet fuel to keep 8 of those things in the sky. Secondly we're mostly playing at night which tends to hinder people's ability to see writing in the sky. We are instead having a banner made with the Streets logo and relevant wording written to be dragged oversite during the day of the performance. It's a childhood dream to have my words written in the sky. I only hope Oasis don't get all aggie and start writing things BIGGER.
Check out my DJ mix here. I'm doing them every Thursday now on my twitter because I think you need to know what good music is.
I've been reading through my old notes. I have millions of them. Reading through old notes is a very good way of writing new songs. There's often really good bits that got thrown out years ago that make better sense now. I went right back to my first album notes. It had a song called 'Get Out Of My House' which never made it. I have written so much stuff over the years. The corners of the pages are also very interesting. Reminders about meeting people, random thoughts and phone numbers. The notes to myself always seem a bit weird. Motivations for writing the songs are always completely at odds with what the song has achieved. I've said it before, but once the song is done it just becomes something we all know with no idea how it got there. I don't feel like the same person who wrote the early songs. Even though I'm doing the same thing I always did. And writing the same songs.
I tend to imagine things literally. I woke up imagining 10,000 people following me. Like we were on a hill somewhere, maybe a dusty hill. There is definitely something biblical about this, but I'm not getting all Messianistic. I'm not Jesus, I'm just one of the lowly cats. In fact Jesus was pretty lowly at the time, wasn't he? He was just a Jew who wanted a bit of change and it was only Saint Peter who mucked around and called it Christianity.
Anyway 10,000 followers is about as many people as they will be able to fit in our tents at T and V (T in the Park and V Festival). I'm also planning some big dog manoeuvres with things in the sky which which will make history for The Streets. Somehow I'm now imagining Tim Westwood in there with his explosions and sirens. I'd better go back to sleep. I'm having God-like delusions with Tim Westwood. Maybe these festival announcements are not real either.
