Russell Davies

No tips from old men

No one needs remote working tips from old white men in large, comfortable homes. But I have enjoyed picking a single album each day and listening to it all the way through a few times. It won't, I suspect, aid my productivity. But it's been nice.

Join me at WFHrecordclub

Billion Sex

I came across this list on twitter; the UK Top 40 as imagined by AI. Apparently. Clearly, clearly, the best song title on there is Billion Sex so I thought I should do a track called that before someone else did. So, yesterday, I did.

(Loosely. It doesn't actually contain the words 'billion sex'. I'm an artist.)

I quite like this one. It's got a good beat. And a good bass line.

Since my release policy remains that there's a new track on Spotify etc on the first of every month you can't hear it there yet. It's programmed for April 1. But it is on Bandcamp and Soundcloud and you can watch the highly engaging video on instagram. (Highly engaging culturally, not statistically)

It means I now have four tracks so I'm wondering about compiling them into an EP. Maybe on vinyl. Does anyone know how to do that?

I'm also gutted to learn that I've missed the inaugural Minidisc Day because that would have been right up my street. Maybe next year.

Audience-wise things seem to have peaked. I'm down to 13 monthly listeners on Spotify. (Is that because it's early in the month? Is it a calendar month or a rolling 30-day period? It's unclear.)

I don't even attract much attention from the spammers on Soundcloud with the word 'sex' in the title of the song. Just three in 24 hours. I'm beginning to think that the RSS massive isn't as dense with promotional opportunity as it once was. Are none of you lot influencers? Maybe I'm going to have to tweet about this stuff. Oh God.

 

I forget what goes where

I have this infrequent newsletter. You can sign up. But why would you? you're a blog-reader, a member of the RSS massive, you don't need no stinkin' newsletters. Though that would mean you'd miss some primo mundane content.

So, just for you, here it is, copied and pasted like an ill-gotten essay.

<begins>

the chickens followed, they are not mine

We've just come back from a holiday in America, using up the last of the air miles from all those years of flying for work. It was fantastic, but it felt like the end of an era. I was reading What We Need To Do Now and ‘fly to Florida and drive around in a convertible’ are squarely not on the list. This is a bit OK Boomer isn’t it? Have a life of flying and then decide to give up right at the end. Sorry about that.

1. A thing I like about holidays is the way you hear different music floating around. Such as, for instance, 10,000 Hours by Dan + Shay and Justin Bieber. Did you all know about this? Should this not have been talked about more? Are there any other pop sociology/science theories/myths that have made it as pop lyrics? There's a band called Skinnerbox. But, apparently no songs. There are loads of songs called Prisoner's Dilemma. You can imagine how those go. There appear to be no songs called You Only Use 10% of Your Brain. There is only one song called Money Ball. I'd have thought there'd be more.

I also note that some of the lyrics of 10,000 hours seem to be based on standard internet security questions. I presume someone was trying to re-activate their online banking while bashing out the second verse:

Do you miss the road that you grew up on?

Did you get your middle name from your grandma?

When you think about your forever now, do you think of me?

2. I was also struck by the way El Cantante by Marc Anthony shares a little brass figure with The Floral Dance by The Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band. (You can hear in at 1:12). Perhaps that's a job for Mike 2600.

3. As I get older I get more used to having events I remember recounted as history. It's strange, but it's sometimes lovely. This is one of the lovelies - Nabihah Iqbal's NTS special about Tears for Fears. I've grown in and out of obsessions with Tears for Fears. I guess, right now, I'm slightly out, but this is a magnificent reminder of how good and important they are.

4. Frank Lantz invents games, he's very good at it. He's invented an Alexa-based game called Hey Robot and in this tiny two-tweet thread you can see him demonstrating his understanding of the way games work on people, gems of insight about motivation and body language. (You do need to read the tweets and watch the video. You should.)

5. Pome is the best thing on the internet of newsletters. (Short modern poems for your inbox, because it's dangerous to go alone.) This poem arrived a while ago:

explain yourself

my life was like this when i found it.

so i walked with it the entire way.

the chickens followed, they are not mine.

It made me seek out more andrew michael roberts (he appears to favour lower case) and eventually a slim paperback arrived in the post. It contained this one:

the moon

all the other moons

get their own names.

I like that. (For instance)

<ends>

 

February 2020

Music: Bosses Time - Elite Panic