Exciting News! Cradle of Filth Are Touring!

Only weeks after lamenting that I will probably never see Cradle of Filth play live (I bought their live album a few months ago), it has been announced that they will be playing Australia! Not just Australia, but Brisbane, too!
I'm most excited!
I immediately went out and bought their latest offering (which I also didn't know about) in anticipation. JB have the 2x disc edition for $26.99
They play the Arena on the 31st May 2009.
Details here:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com.au/artist/Cradle+Of+Filth
I can't wait! What a great year for music!
In January I'll be seeing Underworld, Nick Cave & The Badseeds, and Pnau (among others), and who knows who else will make an appearance this year! Woohoo!

Listening to: Cradle of Filth - Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder (album - and it's rockin)

Midnight Fuck

The house that we live in is divided into three units, all (fairly) identical in layout. We live in the middle unit, which is a pain because it means that we hear noises on both sides and we annoy people on both sides with our noises.

We are currently in a music war with the couple living in the unit behind us, who seem to think that we are playing music maliciously loud and with a sub-woofer. We are not; the sub has been turned off since they moved in, and we've been very careful not to have the music above a reasonable level. Really. The problem is that the walls here are very thin - fibro crap - and the layout of each unit places their bedroom next to our lounge room. Tough shit, says I.

Currently, there's nobody living in the unit at the front of the house. The owner has been doing renovations on it for aaaages. But last night, somewhere around midnight, Si and I started to hear this little dog whining and howling, getting louder and louder before dying down into a soft whimper. We ignored it, until our room started to shake and shudder - the cup of water on our desk went all Jurassic Park, our computer monitors threatened to tumble, and you could feel the whole floor vibrating.

Was a huge tanker driving past? Was our gas heater about to explode? Was it an earthquake?

No. It was the owner and a 'lady friend' fucking in the empty first apartment. HARD fucking. HARD cumming.

Who knew he had it in him to give someone that much pleasure?

Also... do we make the house shake? If so, no wonder the families with kids have moved out since we arrived. Fuuuck these walls are thin.

My New Toy

My New Toy
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

I bought two Logitech Squeezebox Classics off of Ebay before I left for Sydney last week, and they arrived yesterday.
I'm going to buy a set of powered speakers for one of them, and put it in the bedroom for an alarm/lull machine.
The other one I set up in the loungeroom last night as a replacement for the loud, awkward laptop that I was previously using for my music player.
It's the best thing ever.
My trusty (now 1TB) NAS streams all my music to it, so I don't need to have a PC turned on.
It plays internet radio (including those that are unmetered by my ISP, Internode), shows RSS feeds as a screensaver, has a simple-to-use search function, and the alarm clock supports different alarms for each day of the week, and can play any source the box can (Reggae Mondays, anyone?).
The software is all open-source and is very mature, so there are many add-ons and plug-ins available (although my NAS doesn't support all of them).
It natively supports ogg, flac (the two formats I care about the most), mp3 (obviously), wma, wav, aac, m4a and many others through on-the-fly transcoding (although my NAS can't transcode).
Oh! And it can be controlled by any browser (including full support for my phone browser!), meaning I can be sitting out on my verandah, and can pull out my phone to change the track/album/radio station to whatever I want. Hell yeah.
Oh! And you can play different things on both boxes (as you'd hope), or synch them together! You can also transfer playlists between the two, so I can keep on listening to the music I was listening to in the loungeroom when I go to bed.
I am in geek heaven!
I now need to decide on/purchase a pair speakers for the Squeezebox in the bedroom.
I was going to buy a cheap micro hi-fi, but I went into Allan's yesterday and saw some self-powered studio monitors with digital in (did I mention the Squeezebox has both coax and optical out?) for about the price I was willing to pay for the micro hi-fi. Not only would that be a neater package than a seperate amp, but the sound will doubtless be noticeably better.
I'm leaning toward the Edirol MA-15D's for $309, but have heard some good things about the very sexy Swan M200's, too. I haven't found a price yet, but I'm pretty confident they're more expensive. And then there's the Edirol MA-20D's (which I also don't yet have a price for, but will be more expensive).
Decisions, decisions.
As keen as I am for the speakers (so I can finally once again listen to music when going to sleep/waking up), I'll probably save for the next few weeks, rather than putting them on credit. Let's just hope I can refuse the itch.
I'm somehow meant to be fitting a new (replacement) PC into all of this, too.
*sigh* The life of a tech nerd.
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The Tielman Brothers Are Cool Mofos

Lilly showed me this the other day, and it blew me away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPimmqruov8
One thing that I consistently find with music, is no matter how original you think someone/thing is, someone else did it before them. This is a perfect example.
Watch it all the way through, it gets better.

Fix-it Man

Fix-it Man
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

A few months ago, I accidentally broke the clip on the LCD in-line remote for my music machine.
It's been sitting in my draw at work ever since.
Today I fixed it.
Personally, I think the safety pin and fold back clip add a special something to it.
Now let's just see how well it clips onto clothes/my bag.

Listening to: Tiga - Sexor (I bought it at JB Hi-Fi today for $8 (!) after falling in love with his DJ-Kicks album. It doesn't disappoint.
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I Love Nerds

I really do.
And this is one example why: The CERN Large Hadron Collider Rap.
http://www.vimeo.com/1431471
Best. Video. Ever.

Damn Producers

I'm currently listening to King Missile's Happy Hour and at least two songs have ended with a "fade out."
More often than not I hate ending a song with a fade out - it outwardly seems the un-thought-of way to end a song -but worse than that, it's often only done because the producer wants to cut the song short.
Now the songs that "fade out" on this album - as is the case with most songs that do - were just entering an awesome solo, when the fade out begins. The listener is blessed with a few bars of rockin, and then it moves off to the distance and disappears - before it even came to fruition. Lame.
It made me wonder how many awesome albums have been turned to merely mediocre because of some producer trying to make them more publicly palatable, so that songs fit into the neat <4 minute package, so that the album can clock in under the archaic (and nowadays, arbitrary) <45 minute length still lingering from the days of the LP.
It pisses me off. I wanna hear the fucking solo! Screw you for editing it out!
I suppose this is one of the advantages of the now prevalent home-recorded digital releases - no producers as well as unlimited length albums.
Of course the disadvantages of low-quality (both in sound and music quality) recordings flooding the "market" may just nullify that.

Swayzak (and pot)

I'm currently listening to a new Swayzak album I picked up yesterday titled Some Other Country.
Swayzak are a group I heard about last year when !K7 were having a CD sale, and I went spazzy and bought a whole pile of CDs.
I bought two of their offerings, Dirty Dancing, and the B-Side collection Route de la Slack.
While smoking a whole load of pot last year, I fell in love with Dirty Dancing (unfortunately Route de la Slack never grabbed me), so when I saw the new album at JB yesterday, I couldn't help but pick it up.
It's good. So far my favourite track is Claktronic, but doubtless others will grow on me with subsequent listens.
I like them.
In truth, I already liked the album before smoking pot, but the music perfectly suits the combination of Mickey's dark, red downstairs room, and a spliff. It's a shame that this album will never be able to be given that level of treatment. *sigh*
Actually, this morning (while listening to this album) I realised that my pot smoking habits will forever change from the dim lighting and moody tones of Mickey's red room, to the natural light of either Coogee Beach, misc Brisbane parks, or my back verandah; and that's a bit of a shame.
It was such a strange and wonderful time/room/experience, and it's a little upsetting that that chapter is forever closed.
But thems the breaks.

Swayzak are a recommended group.

Listening to: Swayzak - Some Other Country (Album)

Sony BMG busted for software piracy in France

I thought I'd post this because of just how ironic it is.
SonyBMG France have been caught using pirate software.
Details on Engadget.

We Jammin'

Last Sunday Ben invited Me, Leanne, Mickey and Ross down to his place in Kurnell for a jam.
Ross brought his bass, and his harmonica (and Mickey's MicroKorg), and Mickey brought his Trombone. All I could bring along was a mouth harp. Leanne and I spent some time trying to find the mouthpiece for a trumpet of hers, but alas, we could not. Oh well.
It was great fun!
I like the MicroKorg. I like it a lot. I want one.
Leanne took a few photos of the jam. You can see them here.
Because of Leanne and my limited musical experience, we spent some time outside reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. It's fucking awesome. During said times, there were some pretty cool sounds coming from the band room, and they accompanied the writings very well.
Ben's Mum provided us with plenty of food, and after dinner we finished it off with a bit of a smoke. Oh, and a trombone solo:

Great fun all 'round.

Guitar Hero

Having been playing guitar hero at Tristan's recently has made me want the game SO BADLY! Also, as I am planning on buying a Wii next year, I decided to look the game up. Indeed, it will be on the Wii console.
What has made me excited enough to post to my blog is not only the fact that the guitar is a Les Paul, but the game now has a lot of the original versions of the songs (i.e. not played by a cover band), but the songs that it comes with are AWESOME!
Details here:
http://www.ebgames.com.au/Wii/product.cfm?ID=7650

Note the inclusion of:
The Metal by Tenacious D
Sabotage by The Beastie Boys
Slow Ride by Fog Hat
and, above all
The Fire and The Flames by Dragonforce!!

Oh man. I can't wait to get a Wii...

Listening to: Tosca - JAC (album)

CD Baby Package Arrived

My package from CD Baby arrived yesterday. I've not yet listened to a full album, but I've in part listened to Passafire (ska reggae) and Pfilbryte (something else... kinda pop-rocky). I'm actually a little disappointed with the Pfilbryte album, as it doesn't (immediately) sound as good as his other album, Imperfection. The Passafire album, however sounds hot.
But neither of those sound as good as the one I'm listening to now: Audiopharmacy. Holy shit. This CD is fucking amazing. Fucking awesome and amazing. It's reminiscent of NZ's dub/reggae/hip-hop scene, but they're from the US, so there is a strong American vibe to it. Fuck man, I haven't heard hip-hop this smooth in some time. It's blowing my mind.
Highly recommended.
They're on my MySpace friends list if you wanna check them out.
They're awesome.

Listening to: Audiopharmacy - Spare Change: pre-released prescription (album)
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WEEN!

I just bought my Ween tickets!
Woohoo! I've been waiting YEARS to finally see them, and now I get to! Thanks for comin' out, guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Because I'll be livin in Brisbane when they play, I decided to buy both the Brisbane and Sydney tickets. So I get to see them TWICE!
Brisbane will be Friday the 29th, and Sydney will be Saturday the 1st.
Gonna be the best weekend ever.

Oh, and yesterday I bought Amon Amarth tickets. They play on the 6th Jan. Best warm up to a birthday ever.
So happy!

Listening to: Amon Amarth - With Odin on Our Side (Album - just gettin myself in the mood. Hell yeah.)

La Cucaracha

I made a copy of La Cucaracha for the road trip (I also threw King Billy on at the end...), and we listened to it a few times on the way down and now on the way back home, and I must say it's really growing on me.
Just thought I'd let you know.
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CD Baby

CD Baby actually is the best site on the interweb.
There is no end to the CDs, it's like a CD cyclone. A waterfall of CDs. A golden shiny path of CDs.
A spiral into a magical, musical world.
I love it.
Best. Website. Ever.
I just bought 13 CDs, and it only cost me AU$130 delivered. I rest my case.

...and to make them even better, they have a no DRM policy. You guys are... brilliant.
Go there. Consume. Enjoy. Revel.

Song of the Moment

I don't have one... any recommendations?

Daft Hands

Awesome vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq--Nw

Simon X?

static_x-21
Originally uploaded by Future Breed.

Don't you think Wayne Static from Static-X looks a fair bit like me?
I came across a photo of him on my front Flickr page, and started looking at the other photos, and became a little scared.

Manson

Prick your finger it is done
The Moon has now eclipsed the Sun
The Angel has spread it's wings
The time has come for better things

This used to be a favourite line of mine. Listening to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar, and thought I'd write it down somewhere. It's off of the song Cryptorchid.

Howling Music

Simon and I are listening to a song called "Just Kissed My Baby" off the compilation album DJ-Kicks: Daddy G and there is a dog across the street HOWLING in time to it - and adding a wonderfully creepy component to an otherwise funky song.