Other things I've listened to in the past few days: the new Spiritualized, the new Mogwai, and the Kompakt label comp Total 3. Both that I am endorsing the purchase and close attention to some of these things, and that I am endorsing the purchase and close attention to some of these things, may be of interest to you. (Reasons: semi-widespread panning of Spz record, semi-widespread personal avoidance of house music. Actually, no reason to be surprised by Mogwai endorsement.) More to come.

(I picked up the Kompakt comp on a whim inspired by Andy and Tim.)

Sometime in the past year I've more and more often been having the experience of whole large parts of songs popping into my head unbidden. Not only did this not often happen in the past, at least as far as I can remember, but I've always had trouble sort of mentally letting a song run along like that. So it's not even just the fact that it's happening at all, but the fact that it happened to me this morning in the shower with a number of songs from Change, which I've only had a few days, that pleases me so much.

I wonder where my Songs About Fucking is. Are?

Aside from what comes from starting at the beginning and not getting to the end, my gaining familiarity with smaller parts of the album more than the whole thing has started - since I want to hear 8-11 before I go to bed.

(Cf. walks home from Carver Hall and Emergency & I, say, somewhere in the archives.

(And I have to only hear these because if I keep playing the whole thing again I won't be able to get up tomorrow.)

Part of the way they get stretched out is, to be precise, not stretching at all but three notes from speaker to speaker in sequence, overlapping, that sort of maintain the same presence of sound despite being different sound events.

"it coulda been off the hook now" - more hip-hop appropriation to enrage Fred (cf. "put your hands in the air and wave 'em like you just don't care"). No sign of "bling-bling" though.

A number of the songs on Change seem to flow into each other, literally, as sounds on the tracks, though they are not all apparently played in this way live-to-tape. Album-structuring device that I think is taken good advantage of.

Oh, by the way, I saw the Beta Band Friday night. They were OK, sometimes excellent, sometimes just OK. I don't really think I'm much of a showgoer. This particular show was in a small club, very crowded, so unfortunately a number of my memories of it involve me standing and wishing I was sitting. The band seemed to turn a significant number of songs, especially from the new album, into more rock-styled songs with more guitar, and faster too. I can see the benefit of this - otherwise, their show would have been considerably more meditative, laidback. But I think this made it harder for them to pull the songs off (I'm not convinced that they do the rock band thing too well). Also, Mason's singing was often a bit strained. On record it's clear his voice isn't the strongest in the world, but the songs and the production make up for it. Some attempt at this was made in concert (for example, adding lots of echo) - but it wasn't quite the same.

Highlights were probably "Squares", "Life" (the big bass at the end was astounding in the club with its big sound system), and "Dry the Rain", which everyone responded to enthusiastically, confirming some of my cynical suspicions about the audience, the composition of which confused me a little, but then I guess I didn't have much reason for thinking that a Beta Band audience would look a certain way.

The DJ set before the show (I think everyone but the bassist played something, but it was mostly the drummer - main drummer, I mean, since as in Sun Ra's Arkestra, all members of the Beta Band are drummers, as they demonstrated at length and repeatedly) was really good. It was almost an object lesson in what makes up a Beta Band: lots of hip-hop, some old funk and R+B, and some early rock. No Brian Wilson though, ha.

God, I hate standing up at shows.

"cuz Ellen had my copy of Nebraska" - how much Springsteen-buying do you suppose this will provoke?