Analogue Vision

We finally managed to order the window for the Citroen on the Polish Ebay: Allegro – it’ll arrive some time tomorrow and is costing a very reasonable 100PLN. Not exactly thrilling news, but a weight off my mind. It’s typical of the Polish attitude to the internet that they don’t use the same services as the rest (west?) of Europe/US – they have Allegro instead of Ebay, GaduGadu instead of MSN messenger, and even their own version of twitter -Blip.

I’m not sure if this is just because of a reluctance to use things that aren’t Polish, or whether it’s because they have a lot of highly qualified programmers with too much time on their hands.

I watched the film Live Forever – a documentary about Britpop made in 2002. Britpop was a musical and cultural phenomenon that came out of London, Manchester and Sheffield in the years 1994-1997. The main proponents were Oasis, Blur and Pulp, but there were a host of other decent (some might even suggest better) acts such as Sleeper, Supergrass, Menswear and many others. It was a wider idea though, coinciding with the rise to power of New Labour and an aesthetic of flamboyant laddish britness that, in hindsight was really tasteless, and driven by too much cocaine.

The film was interesting as much for the way people were thinking in 2002 as it was for the subject of the documentary which was ostensibly the rise and fall of British culture in the 1990s – effectively it’s about the soundtrack of my youth from The Stone Roses to the end of Oasis. Well put together, if a little bit cliched at times – many of the people involved had a role which they wanted to fulfil and which they were always going to play up to. By far the most interesting speaker was Noel Gallagher whose opinions had a degree of honesty lacking in some of the others, but that said, Jarvis Cocker, given less time on camera, also had a lot to say. Liam, predictably, was a twat, and Damon just came across as totally angsty and annoying.

The interesting thing from a music history perspective is that since the demise of Britpop (around the time of the rise of the internet),  no trend has dominated music in quite the same way. We could talk about the pop, we could mention the rise of karaoke TV – pop idol etc, but in terms of the musical content there isn’t any musical or artistic movement in these, in fact they are notable for the lack of such. There have been smaller movements (and lots of them) but nothing like the earth-shifting phenomena of Grunge and Britpop, Acid House and Hip Hop. Dubstep and Grime? These things have given music a new impetus but they’re never really mainstream enough to be seen in the same light. Who is the Oasis of Dubstep?

I’m working on a house remix of the Hobo Codes song “Down when I want to”, which is an interesting process. I’m taking the vocals and trying to create an interesting house-style line over the top of the usual kick beat and bass. What I’ve ended up with so far is about 10 years old, but sounds ok. There’s still a way to go.