The Voice of London Episode VI

I'm back in London one more time. Hopefully this is the last time I'll have to make the trip in except to come home. I'm staying at Palmer's Lodge again for five days. That should give me enough time to do some apartment searching in earnest. With any luck I'll find a suitable place by the end of the week and my return to Norwich can be to gather my stuff and get into my new place before Danny and I head to Amsterdam. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that the other two places I looked at didn't pan out. The good one because they apparently rented it to someone else, the other one by my choice. I'm confident I'll be able to find a place in a better location that I'll enjoy living in more. And another thing I didn't mention, which I'm told lost its status of secrecy a while ago, is that Danny has wussed out and will be returning to Winnipeg on the 15th or the 16th or the 17th. I'm not really sure. His returning flights take about three days or something, so it could be any of those. I still encourage anyone willing and able to make the journey to come and visit me, but it is less likely that I will be able to put you up during your stay.That said, I am turning once again to the subject of music. Taking inspiration from the AV Club (aka the Onion AV Club, aka www.avclub.com) I have decided to model this Voice of London (or section thereof) after on of their weekly features entitled Random Rules, wherein they "ask some of [their] favorite people to set their MP3 players to shuffle and comment on the first few tracks that come up—no cheating or skipping embarrassing tracks allowed." As such I am now going to set my iPod to shuffle and write down the thoughts that come to me while listening to the songs that come up.

1) Do Make Say Think - The Apartment Song
Chances are that many of the songs that come up are going to be from albums that I downloaded and never got around (or never bothered) to listen to. This would be one of those. It's from the album Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord Is Dead and appears to be an instrumental track. I have listened to Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn but this one kind of escaped my attention.

2) The Beta Band - Troubles
And another one. This is from Heroes to Zeros. I downloaded this album because I'm a bit of a completist and like to have as much of a band's catalogue (or at least the good parts) as I can.

3) Kaizers Orchestra - Auksjon (I Dieter Meyers Hall)
Kaizers Orchestra is cool. They sound like a rock band playing carnival music. But not like Kiss' Psycho Circus type of carnival, like the midway music at a post-apocalyptic Norwegian carnival.

4) The Blacktop Cadence - Sad Passing Shame
Blacktop Cadence are one of several offshoots (along with Rumbleseat and The Draft) of Hot Water Music. I'm pretty sure this (Chemistry for Changing Times) is the only album they produced, and strangely it doesn't have their best song, A Cold Night in Virginia.

5) Edan - Funky Voltron
Graham recommended Edan to me. As I recall he's a producer from Boston and his album Beauty and the Beat is quite awesome.

6) Fantomas - Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Named after a fictional French villain, Tim Friesen had me download this along with Tomahawk because they were both formed by or with Mike Patton. This album is interesting because it's mostly covers of movie themes, but being a Mike Patton project they're made much weirder.

7) Blur - Mellow Song
I bought their self-titled album back when Song 2 was a big hit. I like the rest of it, but haven't gotten around to listening to this album or Parklife much yet.

8) Primus - To Defy the Laws of Tradition (Reprise)
This is a short instrumental track. The best song on the album (Frizzle Fry) is Toys Go Winding Down. On their DVD Hallucinogenetics they play the whole album live and it kicks ass. Would've been a pretty cool show to be at.

9) Le Tigre - It Tour Theme
Feminist Sweepstakes is probably my least favourite Le Tigre album. I like their other two albums though.

10) Kanye West - The New Workout Plan
The first time I did this song at karaoke was one of the best songs I've ever done. The audience got into the handclaps at the end and everything. I never could top that performance. Good times.

Join us next week when the Voice of London will be modeled after Dan Savage's sex advice column Savage Love. I'm lying of course, but if you send me your weird sex stories I'll be sure to edit out most of the identifying details when I republish them.

Syntaxically yours,
Matthew Hawkins