How to show “now playing” (i.e. scrobble); from Spotify in your WordPress blog.

This is quite easy to set up; the detour through Last.fm might not be needed in the future. There’s no plugin for scrobbling directly from Spotify to WordPress yet, so Last.fm serves as a proxy from Spotify to WordPress (but also as a scrobbler for iPod/iTunes to WordPress, so you might want to keep Last.fm running even if there’s a future Spotify/Wordpress plugin).

Update 20110717: Halvorsen.org is now on WP 3.2.1, with the standard plugin as installed through the dashboard. No need to run the procedure below by the looks of it.

Update 20091116: I’ve done several WP 2.8.x upgrades and each time got hit by the nasty gzinflate bug described by Rick. Disabled the plugin, updated the http.php file as described, download replacement http.php file as provided by sbruner, updated this post and enabled the plugin again. This procedure seems to have fixed it for me.

• Configure Spotify (Edit/Preferences/Last.fm/Enable scrobbling to last.fm and enter your Last.fm details)
• Install the Last.fm media player  and keep both Spotify and Last.fm running
• Install the Last.fm for WordPress plugin
• Configure the plugin in your WordPress blog (Appearance/Widgets)
• Set up your WordPress template to show the widget in ie the sidebar
• The played tracks should show up (I use the “Now playing” header)

Adam Curtis has kindly posted the list of music used in It Felt Like a Kiss, so I have knocked up a Spotify collaborative playlist.

• It Felt Like a Kiss soundtrack playlist (Spotify direct URI)

Some of the tracks are not yet in Spotify and in other cases I  have used alternative versions, the most obvious being the "title track" where the The Motels replace The Crystals (Grizzly Bear’s version does not fit).

Update: The film It Felt Like a Kiss is now available from the Beeb.

I’ve whipped up a collaborative Spotify playlist for tomorrow’s happening in London by using the search in Spotify and simply added the top rated track (in some cases I chose another fresh track, ie where the most popular is years old or a cover version). Feel free to modify the playlist (there’s always the risk of duplicate artist names), but please try to limit it to a couple of songs per artist.

I don’t mind if Leeds or Glasgow S&D acts are included in the playlist.

Spotify is now my first choice for checking acts out, I cannot be bothered with the bingo-lights of MySpace anymore. Quite a few of the acts for Stag&Dagger are not in Spotify though (I found around 50 of the ones playing London for the initial list), but it’s so much better than nothing and no one else seem to have bothered.

• Stag and Dagger 2009 (Spotify direct URI)
• Stag and Dagger 2009 (HTTP)

I’ve spent the last hour of the day creating a readable listing of the gigs for tomorrow’s London Stag and Dagger event; something the designers of the Stag and Dagger website should have done.

Cal and Hal will be there, hopefully with tickets this time. No time has been spent on research for tomorrow, so only Ungdomskulen stands out as a must (“support your local punks”, “stø dei lokale pønkjarana” as we said back in the day).

The Stag&Dagger website is a study in how not to do usability – nothing is printable, schedules are reverse and there is no easy way to listen to all the acts in one go (a Spotify playlist, a torrent of MP3s, a mix with one-minute samples – anything would have been better than the pop-up windows being used). If you want to pick up your wristband, then head to the Stag and Dagger venues listing to find out where, as the address is not in the FAQ (it is St Leonard’s Church, Shoreditch High Street, E1 6JN between 16:00 and 22:00).

Hopefully the schedules below are correct (it’s late, so if there’s an act you are dead set on seeing then please also check with the official listing).

93 FEET EAST

Kicker Conspiracy 19:00 - 19:20 
Everything Everything 19:20 - 19:50 
Kicker Conspiracy 19:50 - 20:15
Teeth!!! (Moshi Moshi) 20:15 - 20:50 
Kicker Conspiracy 20:50 - 21:15 
The Twilight Sad 21:15 - 21:50 
Kicker Conspiracy 21:50 - 22:20 
Dananananaykroyd 22:20 - 23:00

BAR MUSIC HALL

Wolf Gang 19:00 - 19:25
Young & Lost 19:25 - 19:50
Animal Kingdom 19:50 - 20:20
Young & Lost 20:20 - 20:50
ExLovers 20:50 - 21:20 
Young & Lost 21:20 - 21:50
Marina & the Diamonds 21:50 - 22:20 
Young & Lost 22:20 - 22:50
Temper Trap 22:50- 23:30 
Dan Black 00:00 - 00:40

CAFE 1001

Young Turks 19:30 - 20:00
Arch M 20:00 - 20:30 
Young Turks 20:30 - 20:50
Phantom 20:50 - 21:20
Jack Penate DJ set 21:20 - 22:00 
Girls 22:00 - 22:30 
Jack Penate DJ set 22:30 - 23:00
The XX 23:00 - 23:30 
Jack Penate DJ set 23:30 - 00:00

CARGO

Dawn Chorus 19:00 - 19:30
Me My Head 19:30 - 20:00 
Dawn Chorus 20:00 - 20:30 
Ungdomskulen 20:30 - 21:00 
Dawn Chorus 21:00 - 21:30 
Wild Beasts 21:30 - 22:00 
Devil Made Me Do It 22:00 - 22:45
Cold War Kids 22:45 - 23:30 
Devil Made Me Do It 23:30 - 00:15
Evan Dando 00:15 - 01:00

CATCH

Marizia 21:00 - 22:00
Bisoux Bisoux 22:00 - 23:00
Thunderheist 23:00 - 23:30 
Naomi// 23:30 - 00:15
Lovefoxxx 00:15 - 01:15 
Isa GT 01:15 - 02:00

COCOMO

Pix DJs 20:00 - 22:00
Flowers of Sulphur 22:00 - 22:30
DJ Elles 22:30 - 23:30

ELECTRICITY SHOWROOM

Nik Nik Nik 20:00 - 22:00
Robotnik 22:00 - 23:00
Casper 23:00 - 00:00 
Skull Juice 00:00 - 01:00 

FAVELA CHICK

Andrew Weatherall DJ 19:30 - 20:20 
Battant 20:20 - 20:50 
Andrew Weatherall DJ 20:50 - 21:20 
Blue Bambinos 21:20 - 21:50 
Andrew Weatherall DJ 21:50 - 22:20 
Joe Gideon & the Shark 22:30 - 23:10
Andrew Weatherall DJ 23:10 - 23:50 
Micachu & the Shapes 23:50 - 00:30 
Andrew Weatherall DJ 00:30 - 01:00 

HERBAL

Dj Slugz 21:00 - 22:00 
High Rankin 22:00 - 23:00 
Rootsteady 23:00 - 00:00 
Tomb Crew 00:00 - 01:00 
Rusko 01:00 - 02:00 
N-Type 02:00 - 03:00 

HERBAL UPSTAIRS

Moodie 21:00 - 23:00
Maximillion 23:00 - 00:00
ED-DL 00:00 - 02:00

HORSE & GROOM DOWNSTAIRS

Captain Magic 20:00 - 22:00
David E. Sugar 22:00 - 22:30 
Firas 22:30 - 23:30
Work It DJs 23:30 - 01:00
Friend DJ (Moshi Moshi) 01:00 - 02:00

HORSE & GROOM UPSTAIRS

The Voluntary Butler Scheme 20:30 - 21:00 
Tara Busch 21:30 - 22:00 
Crystal Fighters 22:30 - 23:00 

HOXTON BAR AND KITCHEN

Moshi Moshi DJs 20:00 - 20:30
Speech Debelle 20:30 - 21:00 
Moshi Moshi DJs 21:00 - 21:30
Lemonade 21:30 - 22:10 
Moshi Moshi DJs 22:10 - 22:30
White Denim 22:30 - 23:10 
Crispin Dior 23:10 - 23:40
Casio Kids 23:40 - 00:20 
Crispin Dior 00:20 - 01:00

JAGUAR SHOES

Feeling Gloomy DJs 19:30 - 20:00 
Kristian Marr 20:00 - 20:30 
Black Cab DJs 20:30 - 21:00
Dan Smith 21:00 - 21:30
Feeling Gloomy DJs 21:30 - 22:00
Dan Michaelson & the Coastguards 22:00 - 22:30
Black Cab DJs 22:30 - 23:00
Band of Skulls 23:00 - 23:30 
Black Cab/Feeling Gloomy DJs 23:30 - 00:00

QUEEN OF HOXTON

De De Mouse 20:30 - 21:10 
Riddim Saunter 21:40 - 22:20 
Tucker 22:50 - 23:30
80 Kidz 00:00 - 00:40 
My Toys Like Me 01:10 - 02:00 

QUEEN OF HOXTON UPSTAIRS

Samuri FM Djs 20:00 - 22:00
Lukid 22:00 - 23:00
Paul White DJ Set 23:00 - 00:30
2Tall 00:30 - 02:00

TABERNACLE

Colouring In 20:45 - 21:15 
Idle Lovers 21:45 - 22:15 
Ali Love & Luca 22:30 - 23:30
Retrograde 00:00 - 01:30

THE LAST DAYS OF DECADENCE

Plan B DJs 19:00 - 19:50
The Spolkestra 19:50 - 20:20 
Plan B DJs 20:20 - 20:50
Stranded Planet 20:50 - 21:20 
Plan B DJs 21:20 - 21:50
Navvy 21:50 - 22:20 
Plan B DJs 22:20 - 23:00
Wet Dog 23:00 - 23:45 
Plan B DJs 23:45 - 00:15
Factory Floor 00:15 - 01:00 
Plan B DJs 01:00 - 01:30
Die Die Die 01:30 - 02:00

THE LEGION

Silhouette 19:10 - 19:40
Electroacoustic Club DJs 19:40 - 20:00
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson 20:00 - 20:30 
Kruger DJs 20:30 - 21:00
Jesca Hoop 21:00 - 21:30
Kruger DJs 21: 40 - 22:10
Maps 22:10 - 22:40 
Kruger DJs 22:40 - 23:10
Soy Un Caballo 23:10 - 23:40 

THE MACBETH

Ark People 18:30 - 19:00 
Turbowolf 19:30 - 20:00
Dag Før Dag 20:20 - 20:50   
Wintersleep 21:10 - 21:40 
Cursive 22:00 - 22:40 
Singleton 22:40 - 23:00
Duchess Says 23:00 - 23:40 
Singleton 23:40 - 00:10
Connan Mockasin 00:10 - 00:45 
Singleton 00:45 - 02:00

THE OLD BLUE LAST

Skill Wizard DJ 19:00 - 19:20 
Pens 19:20 - 19:50 
Skill Wizard DJ 19:50 - 20:20 
The Virgin Passages 20:20 - 20:50
Skill Wizard DJs 20:50 - 21:20 
Tubelord 21:20 - 21:50 
Sex Beat DJ 21:50 - 22:20
Times New Viking 22:20 - 22:50 
Sex Beat DJ 22:50 - 23:20
Let’s Wrestle 23:20 - 00:00 
Sex Beat DJs 00:00 - 01:00

THE SPREAD EAGLE

Monkeysuit DJs 19:00 - 19:45 
Arthur Delaney 19:45 - 20:15 
Monkeysuit DJs 20:15 - 20:35 
Blue Roses 20:35 - 21:15 
Monkeysuit DJs 21:15 - 21:40 
Beth Jeans Houghton 21:40 - 22:10 
Monkeysuit DJs 22:10 - 22:35 
Planet Earth 22:35 - 23:10 
Monster Bobby 23:10 - 23:35
Barringtone 23:35 - 00:10 
Monster Bobby 00:10 - 00:40 
Slow Club 00:40 - 01:00 

THREE BLIND MICE

Flic DJs 19:45 - 20:15
Paul Marshall 20:15 - 20:45 
Sam McCarthy 21:15 - 21:45 
Magistrates (Dj Set) 21:45 - 23:00
White Denim DJs 23:00 - 00:00  
Trouble Records DJs 00:00 - 1.00 
Flic DJs 1.00 - 2.00

VIBE BAR - KILL EM ALL

ZNTN 19:00 - 19:30
Plugs 19:30 - 20:00 
ZNTN 20:00 - 20:30
Phantom Band 20:30 - 21:00 
Stopmakingme 21:00 - 21:30 
We Have Band 21:30 - 22:00 
Stopmakingme 22:00 - 22:20 
Filthy Dukes Live 22:20 - 23:00 

VIBE BAR -  NO PAIN IN POP

Baby Venom 19:10 - 19:30
No Pain In Pop 19:30 - 19:50 
Trailer Trash Tracys 19:50 - 20:10 
No Pain In Pop 20:10 - 20:30
An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump 20:30 - 21:00
No Pain In Pop 21:00 - 21:20
The Mae Shi 21:20 - 22:00 
No Pain In Pop 22:00 - 22:20
Abe Vigoda 22:20 - 23:00 

VIBE BAR - RED BRICKS ACOUSTIC STAGE

John Stammers 19:00 - 19:30 
John Fairhurst 19:45 - 20:15 
Dennis Jones 20:30 - 21:00
John Power 21:15 - 21:45

“You’ve got tickets? You are standing in the wrong queue”, said the guard to the people in front of us at the Roundhouse on Friday night. So since we had tickets we were also in the wrong queue. Well at least until Carl discovered he’d left the tickets back home in Croydon. So a trip to north London and 70 odd quid wasted before heading back south of the river without having seen a single band.

All the pre-crawl research  on YouTube, MySpace and Spotify just wasted then, but for the record here are acts we might have seen. Next try the Stag&Dagger.

• Alessi’s Ark
• Circlesquare
• Computers (my first choice along with Datarock and Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
• Datarock
• Dinosaur Pile Up
• Django Django
• Echo and the Bunnymen
• Foy Vance
• Joy Formidable
• Kasms
• Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
• Selfish Cunt
• Skibunny
• Skint & Demoralised
• Virgins
• Whip
• XX
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs

• MP3 support. Simple as that, it would allow me to take the music with me on the road (or in my case the train/tube). It would also make void any worries over the future of the company itself. Spotify could simply disappear (have a look at Music Ally’s list of 200 digital music start-ups or does anyone but me remember eBay’s short-lived music business ?) or have their licences revoked (so we could end up with something like a  YouTube versus UK songwriters clash)
• DLNA support. This would allow streaming to devices like a Squeezebox/Soundbridge, PS3s/X-boxes and modern TV-sets
• A cheaper price. £6.99 would be my sweet spot, £9.99 just feels a bit too much. I say this as someone who must have spent £10-15 000 over the years on physical product (roughly an LP or CD a week since 1978). I might have bought my last ever normal CD and it does not even make me feel sad

First LPs, then CDs. This time I took the last CD for each letter A-Z, stacked them up in front of me a checked if the albums are in Spotify (UK). The only disappointment is that there is no Stina Nordenstam at all in their library. It does not matter for me as I’ve got the full set of of her CDs and Spotify makes up for it with having one of my other favourite Swedish acts Monica Zetterlund well covered.

Even if most of this stuff is fairly mainstream (you will look in vain for any Burial or Holger Czukay albums), I would still say this is quite impressive. Now if I could take the library with me on the road and keep the MP3s (to play on the iPod) then I would not hesitate to shell out for a premium account; but as it is there is too many negatives with Spotify (I’ll come back to that) for me to splash out just yet.

• Avalanches, Since I Left You: Yes
• Buzzcocks, In a Different Kitchen: Yes
• Crowded House, Woodface: Yes
• Durutti Column, Sporadic Recordings: No, but this is to be expected as this is a limited release
• Everything But The Girl, Best of (1996 version): Yes
• Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand: Yes
• Nanci Griffith, Lone Star State of Mind: Yes
• Howlin’ Wolf, His Best (1997, Chess version): Yes
• Chris Isaak, San Francisco Days: Yes
• Junipher Greene, Friendship: No, re-release of Norway’s first double-LP
• Josie Kuhn, Parade: Yes
• Low, Trust: Yes
• Bob Mould, Modulate: No (but his superior first two solo albums are there)
• Stina Nordenstam, The World Is Saved: No, the world is doomed
• Omar, There’s Nothing Like It: Yes
• Public Enemy, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back: Yes
• Q – none, first on R is Rain Tree Crow’s Rain Tree Crow: Yes
• Røyksopp, The Understanding: Yes
• David Sylvian, Dead Bees On A Cake: Yes
• Tricky, Maxinquaye: Yes
• Ultravox!, The Island Years: Yes
• Suzanne Vega, Suzanne Vega: Yes
• Mari Wilson, The Rhythm Romance: No (this one is quite rare)
• Dhafer Youssef, Divine Shadows: No (but ie Malak is there)
• Monica Zetterlund, Det Fins Dagar: Yes

I thought I’d spend half an hour to do a quick check of Spotify versus some of my old vinyl. From my crates I simply picked up the first LP for each letter in the alphabet and then checked it against the Spotify library.

Pretty much all of LPs are from the late 70s/early 80s and as expected there’s solid bulk of synth-pop, post-punk , a whiff of prog (Gabriel, Nelson, Mackay) and a few Scandinavian acts. I used to buy a record a week or so for years and turned to CDs in the mid-80s (first CD: The best of Ennio Morricone, 1984). No attempt was made to hide uncool records, so yeah — I do own Sade’s debut (who can forget that Face cover) and blues-rock.

Just browsing through the list and looking at the side links in Spotify I am pleased to see that they host the early Ultravox! records (with extra tracks, I never bothered to rebuy them on CD) and also records I never owned but probably should (Cristina’s debut [really? It sounds like Baccara. Ed]).

Ten out of 27 is not too bad, but I am not ready to throw out the vinyl just yet.

• ABC - The lexicon of love: Yes
• Babij Jar - Stalingrad: No, Norwegian punk/postpunk
• Cabaret Voltaire - The Crackdown: Yes
• Dalek I Love You- compass kum’pass: No, English synth-pop
• Echo and the Bunnymen - Porcupine: Yes
• Fabulous Thunderbirds - Butt Rockin’: No, although there’s plenty other by the band
• Peter Gabriel - II (aka Scratch): No
• Paul Haig - Rhytm of Life: No
• Iggy Pop - Lust for Life: Yes, the insurance salesman is here
• Michael Jackson - Off the Wall: Yes
• Kai Martin&Stick - Simmarna: No, Swedish post-punk/new-romantic
• Langsomt Mot Nord - (self titled debut): No, Norwegian folk/rock/tronica
• Andy Mackay - Resolving Contradictions: No, Roxy sax-man not listed
• Bill Nelson - Northern Dream: No, some Nelson is in there; but not his debut
• Only Ones - (self titled debut): Yes
• Pale Fountains - Pacific Street: Yes
• Q - none, last on P is Jimmy Pursey’s Imagination Camouflage: No
• Raga Rockers - Forbudte Følelser: No
• Sade - Diamond Life: Yes
• Yukihiro Takahashi - What, Me Worry?: No
• Ultravox! - (self titled debut): Yes
• Alan Vega - Collision Drive: No
• Waitresses - Wasn’t tomorrow Wonderful No, (but - there’s load of Ze samplers)
• X - Ain’t Love Grand: No
• Yachts - Without Radar: No
• Z - none, so last in the last crate is Young Marble Giant’s Collossal Youth: Yes

Download Blogariddims 50, 67:58 minutes MP3@192Kbs, 107MB

The Blogariddims project has come to an end with this special 50th terminus-mix. It has seven-minute contributions from many of the 20 or so DJs, mixers and bloggers that have participated over the series (a meta-mix?).

This is the blurb for part nine of the mix. DJ Flack’s contribution to Blogariddims 50 follows my effort and you might have arrived here from Heatwave’s bit.

I’ve gone back to some of the English postpunk of my youth. Not the chopped-guitar postpunk that is so popular today (ie Bloc Party, Young Knives); but music with a softer focus (apologies for the softcore picture). Some might not even call this postpunk, but both John Foxx (Ultravox!) and Vini Reilly (Ed Banger and the Nosebleeds) came from a punk background. Virginia Astley could never be described as punk (her early outfit The Ravishing Beauties sound a lot like her solo-music) —- but she, along with John, Vini and several others (like Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, Eyeless in Gaza, David Sylvian) arrived at a similar place at around the same time.

A place where people are sleeping in their gardens, waking up listening to church and cow bells on a Sunday morning, listening to Mozart with the windows open (well Vini Reilly anyways judging my the cover of his debut). A place where music is slower, sparser and gentler than the flag-waving stuff that came from their one-letter one-digit contemporaries at the other side of the Irish Sea.

My segment in Blogariddims 50 is a tribute to those who made this music. The true new romantics.

Thanks to Droid for setting this all up and for inviting me in the first place.

Tracklisting. A Garden Faded.

Sources are mostly digital since some of my pictured vinyl had faults.

• A summer long since gone (excerpt) - Virginia Astley
• The Garden (digital source) - John Foxx
• Sketch for summer (excerpt)- Durutti Column
• Faded with the Sun - Fieldtripq (soundbed throughout)
• Vondelpark Crossing - Peet Sneekes (field recording, soundtransit.nl)
• Windebells in Koiwa - Frederik Froument (field recording, soundtransit.nl)

My other Blogariddims mixes.

• Blogariddims 31 —- Blogariddims 31 - It’s So Different Here Volume 1
• Blogariddims 14 —- Norwegian postpunk 1979-1985
• Blogariddims 9 —- Absolute Norwegian

From last week, but worth the read (even if John seems to like two other pet hates of mine —- The Stones and old Zimmerframe himself).

If you’re like me, and you hate U2 more than Satan, Hitler and Walt Disney combined, then the imminent arrival in cinemas of U2 3D offers another chance to ponder why millions of people worldwide should be in thrall to the band’s blandly hectoring strain of bombastic stadium-rock, or to muse on why anyone would ever need to hear Sunday Bloody Sunday again.

…

They wag their collective finger at tyrants and evil corporate bastards all the livelong day (though creditable politics don’t improve their music one iota), and trot out all their stale old hits, each about as musically distinguished as the average Level 42 album, and still the punters will pay good money for the experience - and in 3D! What has the rockumentary come to?

The silly season is not over. Paul Morley put U2 3D as recommended viewing in last week’s Observer.

Some of the photographs can be seen at Selfridges in London until late April 2008. Telegraph article on the Exactitudes (exactidudes?) exhibition.

This time around the SXSW music torrent has been created by Greg Hewgill (thanks). I have no idea why SXSW itself did not bother. Not all torrents are evil and I wonder how UK ISPs will deal with legal torrents like these in the future.

Listening to some old 12”s found in the basement.

The excellent NonPop podcasts presented by Scott Unrein are back in tune (and with a new design) after almost almost a year of hiatus. The music is mostly modern classical.

Time to dust of my own microphone and get Acecast running again.

Karlheinz Stockhausen obituary in The Times.

The Battles are namedropped in both a Sunday Times piece on underground dance music and are strangely called “post-punk revivalists” by Emma Warren in The Observer’s 50 top albums for 2007.

Mirrored rightly belongs in a year end list, but let’s call the music for what it is. Prog rock.
Mirrored is late King Crimson (Discipline) , Bill Nelson’s Red Noise (Sound on Sound) with a dash of Gentle Giant vocal effects. Prog rock updated for a new audience.

Download Blogariddims 31, MP3@192Kbs, 60:00 minutes>

This is one hour of straightforward avant-garde electronic goodies, treated and non-treated voices, some phonography, computer code noise and the old pause signal from the Norwegian radio. There’s at least two tracks running at the same time throughout the one hour mix and if you don’t like it at first, try it again later or when in a different mood —- it might grow on you.

I started out with several ideas for my second layered mix for the Blogariddims project (an “English Organic” mix with ie Virginia Astley and John Foxx’s The Garden? an all-female mix?). After compiling tracks for a couple of months and reducing the running list to around 20 tracks I ended up with a pretty much full-on electronic mix to go with my Blogariddims 9 effort.

Blogariddims 9 consisted of 100% Norwegian tracks; but on this one I have restrained myself to a handful of current homegrown artists like Nils Petter Molvær and last year’s big releases from 120 Days and Lindstrøm.

The exception is Arne Nordheim’s pause signal/music for the Norwegian Broadcasting from 1970. Arne and the recording engineer were working on a different project. The engineer had a dental emergency, so Arne decided to have a play with the kit in the studio to make his entry for the 1969 competition for the broadcaster’s pause music. It is one of the earliest electronic pieces I can remember hearing as a kid (Hot Butter’s Popcorn being another one). Even if the quality of my sample is not the best I wanted to include it (I make these mixes mainly for my own enjoyment).

I’ve put in some classic modern music from Stockhausen and Reich plus a voice piece from Bernard Parmegiani (unknown to me a month ago, but an editor’s choice at the newly discovered avantgardeproject.org). There’s also an extract from a longer interview that Stockhausen did in the US in 1964.

Noise, found noise and flat out experiments. I like it. So for added spice there’s JJ Burnel’s Triumph Bonneville revving up, Pete Shelley’s computer code for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (sounding like old-fashioned “modem breath”) and Bernard Szajner’s (Zed) reversed half-speed track from the tapes used for the recording of Visons of Dune (mixed with Fremen from this album. Vangelis is probably best known for his more accessible works (and soundtracks), but I remember buying Beauborg on cassette around 1980 and it made a lasting impression of being enclosed in an electronic space, so here it is. Vangelis is currently involved in space issues of his own with the new Acropolis Museum.

The mix takes its title from Rachel Sweet’s debut Fool Around from 1978. An album I picked up a year later to go with Jona Lewie and Lene Lovich. The album (on white vinyl that does not exactly improve the audio) is varied (courtesy of producer/writer Liam Sternberg) and still quite charming. The standout track is It’s So Different Here. Although I doubt many of today’s kooky Scandinavian female artists (from Stina Nordenstam to Hafdis Huld) have heard of Rachel Sweet the song in some ways preempt their music with a good 30 years.

There’s also a long Harold Budd track (from a release on the short-lived Uniton label), Fripp’s Exposure and a free online tune from the wonderful Lomov.

I finish the mix with Anja Garbarek’s Stay Tuned again. It’s quite simply the best track Kate Bush never wrote and the perfect tune to finish a mix with.

Tracklisting.

• [00:06-03:56] Kakonita (Deathprod Mix) - Nils Petter Molvær (2001)
• [00:33-04:44] Croydon Streetnoise (phonography, soundtransit.nl)
• [00:39-08:19] part 4 of interview with Stockhausen (www.stockhausen.org)
• [02:56-13:38] Abandoned Cities - Harold Budd
• [06:23-09:43] Friday Temptation (Tone scene 1) - KH Stockhausen (www.stockhausen.org)
• [08:59-13:05] Kind of Pale - Lomov
• [09:52-10:22] Pause Signal for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation - Arne Nordheim
• [11:38-20:29] Come Out, Come Down, Fade Out, Be Gone - 120 Days
• [12:58-15:05] ZX Spectrum Code - Pete Shelley
• [15:26-24:16] Superficial Music - Bernard Szajner
• [20:45-24-52] Fremen - Bernard Szajner
• [24:25-28:57] Exposure - Robert Fripp
• [26:01-33:59] Monomoods - Maja Ratkje
• [31:37-34:28] It’s So Different Here - Rachel Sweet
• [33:30-42:38] Beabourg - Vangelis
• [34:35-39:06] Triumph - JJ Burnel
• [40:07-46:26] Ponomatopees II - Bernard Parmegiani (www.avantgardeproject.org)
• [43:18-45:39] John Peel - Delia Derbyshire/Brian Hodgson (www.delia-derbyshire.org)
• [45:49-51:02] Further Into the Future - Lindstrøm
• [46:10-51:53] Pulses - Steve Reich
• [51:17-55:10] Why She Couldn’t Come - EST
• [51:43-54 :48] Sky Island (phonography, www.soundtransit.nl)
• [54 :48-59:04] Stay Tuned - Anja Garbarek
• [59:15-59:45] Pause Signal for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation- Arne Nordheim

The Avant Garde Project is a series of recordings of 20th-century classical-experimental-electroacoustic music digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today.

The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs.

I am downloading the sampler/editor choice selections to get a taste for what this is (now that the NonPop podcasts have taken a break).

After a year’s break from podcasting at Acecast I have decided to revive the site and my half-hour shows of free and legal music. The tracklisting has been ready for months and it shows. One of the bands on the show, Headless, have split (ouch). Hopefully we’ll hear some of the members in new bands in the future (The Ivories broke up shortly after I found out about them as well).

The tracklisting is below, head over to Acecast to download the show or subscribe in iTunes. I’ll freshen it all up with pictures and download links in the days to come.

• Wildspot — Belbury Poly (signature tune)
• Danza 3 — Night-Time Epitome
• 21 to 35 — Boom Bip & Doseone
• Sway (demo) — Headless
• Acid Reprise — French Theory
• Sonic Infusion — Mudhoney
• Everybody Daylight — Brightblack Morning Light
• Dogwood Rust — Comets on Fire
• The Greatest — Cat Power
• London, Leicester Square, Musicians — Dallas Simpson (ambience)

Although I have never read Nobelist Naipul, I am with him on Jane Austen,

I thought halfway through the book, ‘Here am I, a grown man reading about this terrible vapid woman and her so-called love life.’

In a nice piece of symmetric marketing over the weekend Naipul is interviewed in The Sunday Times

“After nearly 170 years, starting with Dickens, everything that a novel could do has been done …” He pauses. “These are private views.”

and found over in The Guardian writing about Derek Walcott,

My copy of 25 Poems is beside me now. The cream soft cover is brown at the edges, though the pages with the poems are in fair condition. The very narrow spine is frayed: more the effect of bookshelf light than of handling. Fifty years on, I see more than I did in 1955.

Siouxsie is newly divorced, fifty and with her first solo-album Mantaray soon out. She does not think much of technology though,

“YouTube,” spits the high priestess of punk, “technology – I hate it.”

…

People doing their own thing – that’s punk.

Quite a long interview with Gibson, whose latest novel Spook Country is set in the present. Cut-out quotes,

I have become convinced that it is silly to try to imagine futures these days.

…

Well, as time has gone along, it has become more apparent to me that people don’t sit down in parliament and say, “What this country needs is the iPod!” This stuff is called into being by people trying to make a buck, or out of curiosity, and it is now completely out of control.

Download Blogariddims 14 - A short history of Norwegian postpunk 1979-1985 (mp3).

A bit of personal journey back in time this time around. While the last mix was heavily layered, this is more of a sequence of tracks from the Norwegian punk/postpunk period. I started out with a list of around 50 tracks, but soon found that to be too much to cram into an hour, so I’ve focused on what is generally accepted as the big four bands of the period: De Press (and Andreij Nebb’s later band Holy Toy), The Aller Værste (“The Absolute Worst”), Kjøtt (“Meat”) (and Helge Gaarder’s experimental side Hiss) and The Cut.

In July 1997 The Pistols played in Trondheim to a crowd (I would love to say I was there, but I wasn’t. I was staying with my dad just a couple of hours away, having just discovered punk through the progressive rock show Pop Spesial on Norwegian Broadcasting. Playing God Save the Queen over and over again on my dad’s reel-to-reel tape recorder. Trondheim had another fact going for it, Stein Groven (aka Casino Steel: see Hollywood Brats, London SS, The Boys) had been filing weekly reports from the London rock scene to the local newspaper for years. So it is natural to start this mix in Trondheim with the underrated Johnny Yen Bang!

It would take a whole two years for the first punk records to come out in Norway and the first track is from the Trondheim sampler 7000 Riff. Johnny complaining about the lack of English bands coming over and that if anything is going to happen “we have to do it ourselves”. Two more tracks from Bang! from their fine 1981 12” EP Folk i gata (People in the streets) follow. I end the mix with a Johnny Yen and Andre Lister track from their 1985 LP Pop Cycles. Some of the old timers back home might see this as Yen overload, but it’s my mix and I think his dense music has aged well.

More to come: Pull Out: Zibell, Nebb. Gaarder: Cirkus Modern. Zibell and Ash Ra Temple. The John Leckie connection. Hard Rock Cafe Trondheim. Vinyl. FLL: Phillipines, Brecker. Design: Zibell. Harald Are Lund/John Peel. TAV/JP. Current crop: Monomen, 120 Days.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes by looking for Blogariddims in the “podcast directory” or cut and paste http://www.weareie.com/audio/blogariddims/Blogariddims.xml into your podcatching application.

Tracklisting Blogariddims 14,

1. [00:20-00:42] EMI (unlimited edition, excerpt) - The Sex Pistols (1977)
2. [00:43-01:36] Gjør det sjøl (excerpt) - Johnny Yen Bang! (1979)
3. [01:37-04:59] Folk i gata - Johnny Yen Bang! (1981)
4. [05:00-08:20] De Gale - Johnny Yen Bang! (1981)
5. [08:21-10:40] Block to Block - De Press (1980)
6. [10:41-12:50] Monuments - De Press (1981)
7. [12:51-15:29] På vei hjem - The Aller Værste (1980)
8. [15:30-18:08] Dans til musikken - The Aller Værste (1980)
9. [18:09-19:15] Do the modern pose - Fra Lippo Lippi (1980)
10. [19:16-20:12] Dolls on parade - Fra Lippo Lippi (1980)
11. [20:13-22:03] Now and forever - Fra Lippo Lippi (1982)
12. [22:04-25:29] A Small Mercy - Fra Lippo Lippi (1983)
13. [25:30-29:14] Schizofren - Lik (1981)
14. [29:15-31:14] Føle mæ rar - Wannskrækk (1982)
15. [31:15-33:50] Modern Age - The Cut (1980)
16. [33:51-36:43] The Crowd - The Cut (1981)
17. [36:44-39:20] Vinyl Lobotomi - Kjøtt (1981)
18. [39:21-44:05] Geometri - Dobbel V/Hiss (1982)
19. [44:06-46:42] Lars Hertervig - De Press (1981)
20. [46:43-49:20] Dada - Holy Toy (1982)
21. [49:21-52:03] Marmur - Holy Toy (1982)
22. [52:04-53:54] Planet of violence - Holy Toy (1982)
23. [53:55-57:47] Wojtek - Holy Toy (1982)
24. [57:48-59:52] Woolgoolga - Johnny Yen/Lister (1985)