Modest Mango

Dear Tomdom,

On any given blog I have to suppress every urge to give in to misanthropy. This becomes only too fucking hard when I see stuff like this. Seriously. Los Angeles?!

Can anyone tell me which people actively like Glasvegas?

Loweds of ideas, loweds of balls – Vote Lowe

Sitting once again at my desk in Manchester, Lancashire, I started this evening with a first listen to the new Morrissey album, leaked only recently (thanks for the tip off English Glen). Now if a new Morrissey album, particularly one aptly called Years Of Refusal, gets me reflective, this news gets me excited. Sexually excited.

As reliable as the NME are, not being one to promote rumours, gossip or jump on any fashionable bandwagon they deem profitable (“Remember glowsticks kids? Yeah! They’re wicked! We’re so indie, us.” – actual NME quote) the news that Lily Allen is a possibility as the new assistant in Doctor Who is reason enough to stock up on washing detergent for all those accidents that will now inevitably happen in my pants.

As I said, thanks to Morrissey, I was already in a reflective mood before this news crashed through my beautiful, glossy MacBook screen. I realized why I was so shockingly disinterested in the most recent series of the Doctor was that there is no situation, no matter how desperate, no matter how much Morrissey I have listened to, no matter how many Daleks are ordering me to, that could result in me banging Catherine Tate. Confused? Don’t worry, a bit like Michael Scott, I have been able to draw up a couple of graphs on my Mac.

Conclusion

To be motivated to watch an episode of Doctor Who there has to be an Assistant I want to bang. Bravo, executive producer, Pierce Wenger. Bravo.

MM readers it is to my discredit that I have not blogged for many weeks, despite much of interest happening. As music lovers I should have shared with you before now my experience of the world’s biggest music festival (this is strictly inaccurate but hyperbole is surely acceptable). But rather than give you a blow-by-blow account of my 4 days in a (quite) muddy field in Somerset, I thought I’d share some wisdom.

Glastonbury lesson number one: do not try to pitch a tent in the dark. This was learnt within about 45 minutes of getting onto the site on the Wednesday evening. We (that consisting of my friend Fiona and I) began to pitch our tent at near enough 10pm, as dusk descended and the stars began to emerge. This proved rather difficult, somewhat stressful, and did not leave either of us in the state of mind to go exploring as planned.

Glastonbury lesson number two: when four tents are facing each other and there is an inviting tent-sized space in the middle of them, do not pitch your tent in that space. This problem largely arose because of the mistake in pitching so late, as we couldn’t find anywhere decent to pitch and were beginning to worry that it would be completely dark by the time we started. So we saw the available space and dumped our tent in what turned out to be the communal space carefully prepared by 4 or 5 musicfrom Manchester. We were still awake when they returned at around 4am and discovered their communal camp-fire space desecrated by the presence of a large two-man tent. Which meant we got to enjoy their various expletives and angry phrases, all of which are too impolite for this particular forum.

Glastonbury lesson number three: do not believe the hype. Every summer, music magazines such as NME, Q, and Uncut begin to big up performers ahead of festivals. This year, two of the most hotly-tipped bands were Crystal Castles, and Glasvegas. Wanting to see what the hype was about, we headed over to the fantastically-named though structurally-disappointing ‘John Peel Stage’. Crystal Castles’ set was lively, a fact that hid the incompetent squealing from the lead singer and the band’s dearth of talent, with the set being brought to a suspiciously premature close because the singer had ‘crowd surfed’. Glasvegas were even worse, though only because they were nauseatingly boring, a sub-standard Jesus and the Mary Chain without the tunes. By way of contrast, and to demonstrate the stupidity of homo sapiens generally, the fantastic Stars and the rollicking Young Knives played perfect sets to half-empty audiences.

Glastonbury lesson number four: do not take small children to music festivals (or associate with those who do). This is not meant as an admission of ex-marital offspring but is instead an indictment of those who bring toddlers and new-born babies to festivals. We saw 6-month babies with industrial size ear-protectors on (a bizarre example of parental responsibility) and kids in pushchairs being dragged backwards through the crowds, somehow hanging despite the best efforts of the parents and the contravening of numerous health and safety laws.

Glastonbury lesson number five: do not look down into the bowels of the so-called ‘long-drop’ toilets. And do not keep your head level lest you catch the eye of any other male using the facility. Instead find some element of graffiti and focus on this until the transaction is complete.

I don’t often post short blogs like this, but this is huge news and I felt compelled to share it right away. Starting from today you can stream full length tracks/albums for free on Last.fm. You won’t be able to do this with all the music on the site, but it looks like they are constantly adding more.

Right now you can only play each song three times, and there will be a subscription service in the future that will allow you unlimited plays. And here’s the really revolutionary thing – artists will be paid directly every time one of their songs is streamed. It remains to be seen if the subscription is affordable, but if it is then this is really a huge step forward.

If eventually the Last.fm application on my Ipod Touch includes streaming of full songs then my mind will literally be blown.

I’m chanstheorem on Last.fm, add me! You can find the other guys’ usernames here.