The Wooden Finger Year in Music: Part Two

THE ‘MARCONI PLAYS THE MAMBA’ MEMORIAL MOST CRINGE-WORTHY LINE OF 2009

David Guetta/Akon’s ‘Sexy Bitch’ was a track that made me shiver in parts of my spine I didn’t know I had, and the line “I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful” almost caused a complete vertebral meltdown. Firstly, that’s way too many syllables to fit into one line. Secondly, unless you’re sixty years old or a spelling bee contestant the word ‘disrespectful’ is about as anti-climatic as it gets. Thirdly, when you spend the rest of the song using words like ‘bitch’, ‘hoe’ and ‘booty’, then one wonders whether you really know what ‘disrespectful’ means or if someone at your pool party happened to bring along a thesaurus (yeah, I know, it’s meant to be ironic – I think – but it doesn’t work). All of these problems could have been solved with one simple substitution, “I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl but I’m an asshole.” Now that’s a worldwide smash…



FOUR WALLS AND WHAT FOR YOUR GIRLS?

Is that lyric in Animal Collective’s ‘My Girls’ ‘I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls’ or ‘four walls and adobe slats for my girls’? Either way – what the hell?! Who can help us out here?

“adobe slabs refers to building a home from the ground up like way back in the day. basically stating that as father he's going to work hard in providing for his children.” – tonyjames, SongMeanings

“I assume that “adobe slats/slabs” is a part of a home that’s protective but exists in contrast to the four walls. This suggests it’s a roof. But as far as I can make out, roofing in adobe architecture doesn’t involve slats or slabs made of adobe; rather, it involves a wood or metal frame onto which adobe bricks are placed, which are then in turn sealed with adobe mortar.

Conclusion: Animal Collective failed Indigenous American Architecture 101.” – Dickdogfood, Idolator

“adobe slats’, it would appear, are a form of roof tile used fairly commonly in Portugal.” – Tim Miller, God Is In The TV

You know we're in a conundrum when not even Uncle Wiki can help us out ('adobe slabs' is mentioned on a page about Fort Verde State Historical Park, 'adobe slats' gets you nowhere). For what it's worth, it sounds to me like he is saying 'slats' - I'll take that guy's word they're used in Portugal.

My Top 25 Highlights From Our Trip Around the USA

25. Dinosaurs I have heard of at the American Museum of Natural History
24. Smelly sealions at Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf
23. 826 Valencia – a tutorial centre run by McSweeney’s, fronted by a pirate store
22. Charlie the fluffy toy labrador from FAO Schwarz (and Joe the Pistons-supporting teddy from the NBA Store)
21. Football, baseball and Sam Adams at every bar
20. Finding t-shirts of a monkey with a magnum and a Star Wars Fab Four slogan (Luke & Leia & Han & Chewie) within two blocks of each other at the Haight
19. Finding a hat to fit my generously sized head at J.Crew near Rockefeller
18. Comedy at Gotham, two doors from our hotel in Chelsea
17. Reading SuperFreakonomics
16. Cheeseburger pizza (think a Big Mac, sliced-up and spread on a pizza base)
15. Central, Prospect and Golden Gate Parks
14. Getting to the top of the Empire State Building on a clear night without having to queue
13. Attending a Halloween party (and seeing somebody dressed as a Sudoku puzzle)
12. James Gandolfini shouting ‘F--- the hamster!’ in ‘God of Carnage’
11. Staying at the Hotel Chelsea
10. Reading Bill Simmons’ ‘The Book of Basketball’
9. The Day of the Dead parade in the Mission in SF
8. Dinner at Cafeteria on W17 St and Sixth Avenue – oddball menu but mind-blowingly awesome
7. The rollercoasters at Knott’s Berry Farm, particularly the Silver Bullet (high speed, lots of bends and loops, legs dangling), Montezuma’s Revenge (40 seconds, forwards and backwards around a large loop), and the Ghost Rider (terrifying wooden rickety death-trap)
6. Spending my birthday at the Blue Note listening to the Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars
5. Carving the pumpkin from hell
4. The Museum of Modern Art – Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory’, Warhol’s soup cans, Lichenstein’s ‘Drowning Girl’, Pollock’s ‘Full Fathom Five’, Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, and a couple of dozen Picassos.
3. New York Knicks v Boston Celtics at Madison Square Garden (it was a pre-season match, but still…)
2. ‘The Beatles – Love’ by the Cirque du Soleil
1. The Golden Gate Bridge on a clear warm San Francisco afternoon

The War on Tomatoes - Round One

According to Uncle Wiki, a common tomato disease is the ‘tobacco mosaic virus’, and ‘for this reason smoking or use of tobacco products are discouraged around tomatoes’. Thus, for my first strike against The Bright Red Menace, I decided to see how it would stand up to being skewered by a flaming, tobacco-filled cigar. Admittedly, the fact that I’d chosen a small, flimsy $3.50 cigar perhaps did not suggest that I had the level of commitment to the cause that I should have – however, not being a smoker I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get the thing lighted in the first place.

As it turned out, my main difficulty with the whole lighting-the-stoogie process was getting my cheapo Bic lighter to flame on – once I’d mastered that I was puffing away like a Cuban playboy. The tomato trembled, knowing that it was mere moments away from having a fiery stick poked up its rear. Mere moments, did I say? By gum, cigars take a long time to smoke! I suppose I could have just taken a couple of puffs and then let the tomato have what was coming to it, but I wanted to get most of my 350 cents worth here.



My first clue that my plan may not have been the Machiavellian scheme I imagined it to be came when, halfway through my cigar, I pressed it to the tomato’s pudgy exterior, and the end-third of it crumpled into ash. Perhaps if I spread the ash around, my red nemesis’ outer layers would wither away… but this too proved futile. Slightly perturbed, I determined to smoke my weapon of choice for a bit longer and then run it through that bastard like a needle through an eyeball. Alas, the tomato proved its capabilities of doubling as a red, round ashtray and my cigar crumpled faster than my car’s rear bumper bar.



As a last desperate measure I decided to stick the tomato in the crisper for a couple of days and hope that somehow the tobacco would erode it given time. No, it did not. When I took the tomato it was as healthy as ever, only with a sprinkling of well-preserved tobacco on the top to improve its flavour. Disgusted, I dumped the thing in its only rightful home – the garbage. This round was lost, but the result would be different next time…



Tomatoes: 1, Me: 0.

The Wooden Finger Year in Music: Part One

HOWLING BELLS V THE TEMPER TRAP

Hometown

Howling Bells: Sydney, now based in London
The Temper Trap: Melbourne
Winner: The Temper Trap

Hit single

Howling Bells: ‘Into The Chaos’ – played on indie radio stations and nowhere else
The Temper Trap: ‘Sweet Disposition’ – played everywhere, including twice in the movie (500) Days of Summer
Winner: The Temper Trap

Lead singer

Howling Bells: The sexy, elfin-like Juanita Stein
The Temper Trap: The exotic but unpronounceable Dougy Mandagi
Winner: Howling Bells

Album title

Howling Bells: The awesome and enticing ‘Radio Wars’
The Temper Trap: The vague and underwhelming ‘Conditions’
Winner: Howling Bells

CD package

Howling Bells: Hardcover booklet with brightly coloured band shots
The Temper Trap: Flip-cover package with fuzzy shots of… what exactly?
Winner: Howling Bells

Festival presence in their homeland

Howling Bells: V Festival
The Temper Trap: V Festival, Falls Festival and Big Day Out – doesn’t get much bigger than that
Winner: The Temper Trap

Er... the music?

Howling Bells: Lush with a hint of brooding
The Temper Trap: Broody with a hint of lushness
Winner: Much of a muchness

Verdict: 3-all - it's a tie, folks!

THE VAMPIRE WEEKEND AWARD FOR THE ARTIST WHO I REALLY QUITE LIKE BUT WHO STILL SHITS ME IN SOME WAY

With her bright red hair and thin pale limbs, Florence Welch (title character of UK band Florence and the Machine) is hard to scrape your eyes off, particularly when she’s flailing about like some mystic earth nymph (see picture below). And no doubt the girl can sing and her debut album, ‘Lungs’, which won the Critics Choice award at the BRITS, is a pleasure to listen to. But (to riff on Mike Skinner) my god does she know she is one of the beautiful people. I’ve hardly seen a shot of her in which she isn’t striking some form of melodramatic pose, the liner notes to her album being a good example. Similarly, her songs feel a little overproduced – even top tracks such as ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’ can not go two lines without the choral voices chiming in and trying to whisk us off to some enchanting fantasyland (where if Midas is king then I’m betting Florence is a regal personage of some sort). Yes, I would take her over the hordes of unimaginative pop strumpets any day of the week, but she’s young, she’s pretty, the indie media drool over her and she laps it up… damn her to hell…



THE TOP FIVE LINES FROM THE LATEST FUTURE OF THE LEFT ALBUM

5. if I eat what i fuck and i fuck what i eat am i worthy? (I AM CIVIL SERVICE)
4. slight bowel movements preceded the bloodless coup (THROWING BRICKS AT TRAINS)
3. call me anna, velociraptor, excuse my manner, I'm having such a bad day (YIN/POST-YIN).
2. lapsed catholics are the worst, it's part of who they were, and who they'll be again (LAPSED CATHOLICS)
1. yeah sure, satan rules, but that doesn't mean i can't be practical (YOU NEED SATAN MORE THAN HE NEEDS YOU)

British '70s Singer-Songwriters Are Rising From The Dead...

...and selling real estate.

I Want To Be Offended

Ever had a case where your idea of what a band should be like is somewhat different from the reality? I think I'm experiencing that with Reading's electro-pop artists Does It Offend You, Yeah? I blame the album artwork... I saw the dripping letters on the cover and the song titles such as 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Being Bad Feels Pretty Good' on the back (both awesome tracks by the way) and thought that this was something resembling a cult complete with mission statement ('Does it OFFEND YOU, YEAH?!!!') Actually, that impression was probably only fully formed when I heard the first two tracks ('Battle Royale' and 'With A Heavy Heart (I Regret To Inform You'), which brought to mind the image of a cavernous pit of a venue filled with jumping, sweating bodies raising their fists and middle fingers to the conventional world above.



I think my first source of disillusionment was when I found that the seemingly venomous band title was not anything like a mission statement at all, as synth player Dan Coop recalls:

Everybody thinks the name is some kind of statement but it's a quote from David Brent in an episode of The Office. "When me and James Rushent first started writing music together we decided to put it up on MySpace. We needed a name to put as our profile name so just put what was the first thing that was said on TV, we switched it on and Ricky Gervais said "Does it offend you, yeah? My drinking?" so we just went with that. No thought went into it whatsoever.

So much for the revolution... But I held high hopes for when they recently played in Melbourne - perhaps I would still have my cavernous pit of raised fists and middle fingers after all. This illusion quickly began to dissipate when I first turned up at the venue and it appeared that nobody else over the age of 20 liked this band (or wasn't willing to go out and see them on a 'school night'). And then there was the band itself - I don't know... the vocals didn't seem to have the same bite as they do on record (even during the poppy songs)... I mean they were probably really good, actually they were probably better than most bands I'll ever see, but I was after transcendence goddammit! Or at the least to feel somewhat dirty. All I got was "does it offend you, perhaps?" Which was not the band's fault at all - if anything, blame their album designers...

In Appreciation of Ringo

Last week I bought 'The Beatles: Rock Band' for Wii and have subsequently spent about as long as you can singing into a ditzy little microphone and noodling around on a plastic bass without the aid of serious drugs. For someone who thought he'd been singing along fine to the Beatles for years, the game has been a revelation: turns out that the part in 'Back in the USSR' about Moscow girls really knocking Paul out is a lot harder to sing correctly than I thought, and that there are lilting words all over their back catalogue.



But the impression that's died hardest over the past few days is the one I had that basically any clod could sing Ringo's songs. I first noticed it when I tried 'Yellow Submarine' - surely an easy kiddies' ditty - and ran into a few spots of bother. But my ineptitude was really hammered home when I confidently launched into my rendition of 'With a Little Help of My Friends' only to find that Ringo was singing so low that I struggled to hit every third note. After a couple of verses of frustration and bewilderment I was relieved to hear the others chime in with 'Do you neeeeeeed an-y-bo-dy?' only to completely falter with Ringo's response that he just needs somebody to love. And on it went until the end, because this was the easy level and the 'no-fail' mode, which prevents the song from stopping no matter how god-awful you are, was automatically on. I have since tried 'Boys' (from the Beatles' first album) and put in a vaguely passable effort. I'm too afraid to try 'Octopus's Garden' yet.

So I dip my pink hat to you, Mr Starkey. Obviously, despite all my impressions to the contrary, you brought something to the Beatles that was difficult to match.

The Wooden Finger AFL All-Australian Team 2009

Not surprisingly, I predict that the team will be dominated by Saints and Cats this year, with those teams accounting for half the spots. Both of them won a hell of a lot of games, and as I showed in my very first post the selectors reward that.

If I'm right President Eddie should be reasonably happy as well, with three Magpies getting a guernsey, although I still think he will be spewing if Brownlow fancy Dane Swan misses the starting 18. For some reason, Swan is named as a forward in the preliminary squad, and while he may well end up on a half-forward flank I think he will actually end up as a victim of his own versatility and be relegated to the bench. Of the small forwards Chapman has to get in, and despite Johnson's recent injuries he should also have done enough, and I think that the selectors will be keen to reward Stephen Milne for his shift to a more defensive focus (i.e. being bothered to tackle) over the past year.

I've also left Fevola out of my forward line, even though he was the leading goalkicker. Frankly the guy only did anything every second or third game (I know - I had the misfortune of having him in my SuperCoach team). JB of Brisbane has been far more consistent and a more valuable presence for his team, and Goodes was awesome over the latter stretch of the year.

B: Sam Gilbert, Brian Lake, Nick Maxwell
HB: Brendon Goddard, Matthew Scarlett, Simon Goodwin
C: Leigh Montagna, Joel Selwood, Nick Dal Santo
HF: Paul Chapman, Nick Riewoldt (c), Steve Johnson
F: Adam Goodes, Jonathan Brown (vc), Stephen Milne
R: Aaron Sandilands, Chris Judd, Gary Ablett
I: Dane Swan, Matthew Boyd, Leon Davis, Mitch Clark

The Finger Points Outwards No.21/ Ten Great Marvel Covers

What? Another comics-related post? Bear with me.. as part of its 70th anniversary celebrations, Marvel Comics has compiled a list of its Top 70 covers, based on reader votes. You can view all 70 here:

Marvel's Top 70 covers ever!

Naturally I started thinking about which were my favourites. I'll spare you a little by only giving you my top 10, but hopefully you'll agree that these are all pretty damn cool (in a geeky sort of way).