UR003

I found aidano’s recent post on infinitestatemachine very provocative;

It seems ironic that electro/techno/house music, which can seem so artificial to many because it is produced using electronic machinery (therefore, lacking human input - tosh!), can deliver musical pieces which seem to engender a melancholic edge - music that is simply achingly beautiful, but sad with tones of melancholy permeating through every machine-produced chord.

I was always fascinated by UR; their imagery, their cultural references, their politics, the dystopian vision of the future, the awareness of the past. The music seemed to be both tragic / melancholic, and euphoric; it spoke of injustice, of oppression, of retribution and freedom. UR were true revolutionaries.

While reading the article I thought of UR003. It may seem like an obvious choice, but I won’t apologize because I love this track so much. But as I continued to read I thought of many other tracks I hold in equal regard (some of which aidano listed in his post). Tracks of such aching beauty they would give pause to even the most vile neocon warmonger. So I think over the next while I’m going to track down my favourite tunes from Detroit and Chicago and post them here, just for the heck of it.

Music is love.

J.K.

What’s In A Name

Recently my blog was referred to as being “cryptically and somewhat annoyingly named”. I don’t mind telling you this gave me pause (had the person who described it thus not been arguably the greatest blogger in the known, and doubtless unknown, universe I wouldn’t have thought twice about it), but I had to admit he was right. So I decided to rename it.

A number of options were suggested;

1. The Life and Opinions Of Cannibal Jerry, Gentleman
2. Capital 7
3. Grooming For Fun And Profit
4. I H8 U
5. Donkey Rhubarb
6. Robot Penis
7. Bit-Fiddling
8. “which one is the elephant?”
9. Centuries Of Meditation

But in the end I went for a shortened version of what it was already called (also removing the typos which I’d become so fond of). Ta-Da!

Welcome to a new era of blogging. The universe will never be the same again.

J.K.

Hiatus

For the last 4 weeks or more I’ve been sick with a lung and sinus infection that just doesn’t seem to want to quit. I’ve had barely enough energy to do anything. I still don’t feel 100%. To make matters worse at the same time I discovered, to my horror, that my house is infested with ants (I became aware of this one morning upon entering the bathroom to be greeted by hundreds of large winged queens).

At the same time I took up a permanent position with a company and to be honest I’m not sure I made the right decision. I have contracted quite a bit over the last few years and the change just doesn’t seem to be agreeing with me at all (every day I seem to experience a heady cocktail of impatience, anxiety, and irascibility).

All of the above have weighed quite heavily upon me and as a result I’ve been quite depressed for quite a while (nothing new about that as I am quite a depressive sort anyway). As a consequence I have neglected almost all of my commitments (my blogs, my delicious bookmarks, etc.). But I intend to put this right.

I think I want to change the direction of this blog; thus far I have used it as little more than a repository for the ephemera I have acquired over the course of the day’s web browsing, and as a forum for my crude anti-Americanism (I am a very lazy man). But now I think I want to make it a little more personal.

J.K.

Veni, vidi, vici

Hi,

owing to difficulties, too many and varied to enumerate, I have neglected my blog. But I am back now. Now you will all die.

To begin with, check out the cover of my first album, as rendered lovingly by the skilled hands of the great architect, designer, and all-round master craftsman, Fritz Kruger. “Fritz who?” I hear you say? You may be familiar with Fritz through his nom de guerre; Nemici. He was responsible for the design, and over-seeing the construction, of the famed Ziggurat of Tuam, and, of course, the award-winning Concourse of Tubbercurry.

That a man of such high standing in the world of architecture and design, the creative arts, would deign, nay vouchsafe, to design the cover of the album of one so ignominious as I…

A noble spirit soars through the heavens today… catch a glimpse of it, and momentarily become one with the eternal.

J.K.

The Sea Is My Soil

A few years ago my quite considerable record collection (> 3000 vinyl) suffered at the hands of an imbecile and a freak natural disaster. I have never quite recovered (does anyone ever truly recover from an amputation), and have never been able to replace what was lost. So I decided to track down the CD versions of my favorites and rebuild my collection in a less bulkier form. Alas, many of the lost records are no longer available, or never were issued, as CD’s, so I resigned myself to perpetually checking for re-issues, waiting for the day that a missing piece of the jigsaw could be recovered…

Then recently I learned that Herb Alpert had decided to re-issue his back catalogue in digitally re-mastered form. O frabjous day! Currently 7 of them are available here, with another 3 due in a week or two. Check out Lost Treasures, a collection of rare and unreleased material spanning the whole TJB period (62 - 69). Some incredible tracks, including the magnificent “Whistlestar”. Mindblowing!

I cannot recommend these records highly enough. They are legend, each and every one. And they have never sounded so good. If you don’t know much of the TJB’s output, now is the time to remedy this. Personally I cannot wait for Warm to be released, which is definitely my favourite of his albums.