Shuffleblog #38

These posts are now dedicated to the pointless education of Jonathan Rose in whiny indie pop. The first five songs on shuffle on my ipod, 28/02/2011:

Broken Bells - The High Road
Sufjan Stevens - Adlai Stevenson
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Small Brown Bike - Safe in Sound
Hightide Hotel - I Know What The Word Gone Means

Shuffleblog #37

The first five songs on my ipod's shuffle, 27/2/2011:

Grizzly Bear - About Face
John Nolan - Existentialism on Prom Night (Live)
Sara Bareilles - Hold My Heart
Luke Leighfield - Too Little, Too Late
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - A Teenager In Love

I hastily sketched a comic about parties. Check it out here.

Shuffleblog #36

The first five songs on shuffle on my computer, 24/2/2011:

Jukebox The Ghost - Under My Skin
Hot Club de Paris - The Anchor
M83 - Guess I'm Floating
The Break and Repair Method - Your Numbered Days
Something Corporate - 21 and Invincible

Shuffleblog #35

From my computer again, not my ipod, the first five songs on shuffle, 23/2/11:

Fleet Foxes - Sun It Rises
Sonic Youth - 'Cross The Breeze
Incubus - Diamonds and Coal
Into It.Over It. - What's Written On Your Wrist
Patti Smith - Because The Night

"Let me tell you why...

...the years go on and we're still fighting it, we're still fighting it..."

As the Ben Folds song goes. It's about growing up, and fatherhood. Check out my scribble about it and how it made me (nearly) blub on my other site and watch the vid here. It's not the official vid because embedding was disabled but it's not a bad slideshow of the man himself.

Shuffleblog #34

The Weepies - Somebody Loved
Something Corporate - Little
Standard Fare - Let's Get Back Together
The Decemberists - When The War Came
Death Cab For Cutie - Soul Meets Body

Valentine's Day

It's cliched to be cynical, but fashionable to hate it. What's a boy to do? It's interesting to note this year that most of the newspaper articles/twitter trends/multimedia guffing have been about how it's boring to hear about how much you hate Valentine's day. I'm a bit of a fence-sitter - I disagree with it on principle because I don't think you should need a day to set aside for love. True love is a never-ending celebration in itself and makes every day worth living. However, if you're in a relationship and don't engage with it you just look mean. That wasn't my reason for getting up at 5.30 this morning to surprise my beloved before work with a mixtape and poem, however; I really can't resist the opportunity to be totally cheesy and hollywood-romantic-ridiculous, like in those films they have these days, and I totally love her, so why miss the opportunity to bring it home? Obviously if you're single it can be a crushing reminder of the fact if you're not happy with it, but can also be a good opportunity to test the water with potential interests - drop them an anonymous card and see if they can tell it's you. You never know what might come of it. But if you don't want to engage with it, then don't. It can be just another day if you want it to. I know it's hard to ignore what with all the shop displays and whatnot but it can be done - I did it for a number of years before falling in love quite easily. Most of all, just don't grumble about it because some people have fun, and make all the other 364 days full of love too. To illustrate my point, here is a comic I drew:

You can also view the comic and my comic archive on my website. Happy Valentine's! Special mention must also go to Dave Gorman and his radio show for reading out my text and advising on the best course of gift action with the recommendation of a mixtape.

Shuffleblog #33

So I've neglected the blog for some time because I've been writing, scribbling and learning how to use a graphics tablet, as well as falling even more madly in love with the work of James Kochalka. So here's a double special, from my computer instead of my ipod this time as I finally found the hard drive where I store all my songs when I was having a crazed tidy-up.

Tegan and Sara - Speak Slow
Rage Against The Machine - Testify
Weezer - In The Garage
Rufus Wainwright - Tulsa
Low - Stars Gone Out
Seasick Steve - Cut My Wings
Taking Back Sunday - Timberwolves at New Jersey
Explosions In The Sky - Day Four
Mates of State - La'hov
Guillemots - Trains To Brazil