The Music Banter Members' Journals Monthly Update Thread

[Mindy]

thanks Trollheart

[Trollheart]

Sad news to begin with. Looks like we lost two journals as this month ended. Rubber Soul decided the banter here was too much for him and pussyed out, I'm sure the guys would say – you might also say he was hounded out (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) - but whichever way you look at it, I have to assume his journal will not now be completed, which is a pity as it was shaping up to be quite interesting. And the manner of his departure, or rather, the circumstances under which it took place seem to have upset our old young friend Pet_Sounds, who has announced that he, too, is leaving. We'll be sad to see them gone. Well, I know I will anyway.

But life goes on. Does it? Yes, it does. Here's what's been happening while all that was happening.

The prophecy has been fulfilled! What? Oh, something about Future Sound of London. What? Look, just check it out here http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nnerspace.html

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ramblings.html has gun porn (again) and an article on software to make you think someone is someone else, which is damn scary.

Not quite so scary, http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ong-picks.html has Sivan Arbell, Karen Beth, Chris Potter, Dir En Grey, A Perfect Circle, Barren Earth, Faun Fables and tons more. Mind you, though that's a lot of work, he's not satisfied with that and so has also opened up http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...not-music.html, in which he'll be reviewing and discussing everything he's interested in that isn't music. This includes his own personally-created computer game, Pan's Labyrinth, Snow White and the Huntsman, Cold Mountain and yes, Beautiful Dreamer, Ori: the needling finally paid off.

Michael Marshall, Brett Easton Ellis, Sarah Waters, David Mitchell ... just some of the authors Mondo is pursuing in his http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...018-bitch.html

and in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...s-spotify.html it's El-P, Hundred Waters, White Stripes, ASAP Ferg and more under the Mindfulness microscope.

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...p-lighter.html continues with such diverse topics as Black History Week, Benoit Pioulard, the chamber works of Kaija Sarriaho, art and science and, um, the genitals of female hyenas.

As mentioned in the intro, sadly, and for various reasons, Pet_Sounds has decided to leave us entirely. Not just close his journal but leave the actual forum. I can't deny that recent unrest surely contributed to that decision (he refers to it himself) but it's a sad day. Therefore there will be no more entries in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...crap-heap.html, but you are of course free and indeed encouraged to check out what will now be an archive of his music and thoughts on same. We wish you fair winds, Spencer, and success in all you do. You will be missed.

Zoetrope is again the subject of http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...listening.html

And so too farewell and all the best to Rubber Soul. He threatened to leave once before, I talked him out of it, but to be frank I'm not here to smooth ruffled feathers. My own have been disturbed in the past; sometimes I've ****ed off for a while (but always came back, sorry about that), sometimes I've gotten into huge pointless rows and sometimes I've just ignored it and let it slide. These days, the latter is what I try to do if at all possible. Life is too short (although in fairness, life is by definition the longest thing you will ever experience!) and people can be ****s. You don't have to let them get to you.

Some people enjoy being superior and arrogant, some like hurting others – it's the eternal struggle of the weak and the strong. Quite honestly, people here are very unlikely ever to change, so if you can't accept the bad with the good (if there is any good for you) then you're probably better off doing what Rubber Soul did, which was to leave. In a huff. Wouldn't quite recommend that last part; leaving with dignity, if possible, beats throwing your toys out of the pram and stalking off, though I recognise RS had just undergone a deep family bereavement. Still, people in general here don't care about that, and the sooner you realise that, the better really.

All of which means that we have to say goodbye to http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...55-2017-a.html long before it even got out of the sixties. Here's hoping we'll hear from him again some time in the future, but for now it's


No
Funny Post

of the Month
this time around. As you may have gathered from, well, the whole article really, the tone of this update is pretty downbeat and sad. It's never easy to lose members, much less longtime ones, and it's sad too when one of them has lost a parent while this is happening. So I'm really not in the mood for picking out funny posts this month and therefore this section is being skipped this time.

Can't ignore all the hard work though put in by MicShazam on his new journal, and that wins this month's


Other than that, not a lot more to say. I'm not personally depressed (not like last time) but for me at least, there's a pall hanging over the whole journal section at the moment, which hopefully will be dispelled, or at least will have retreated by the time I do March's update. Till then,
Toodles.

[OccultHawk]

Maybe Rubber Soul is back on his writing forum writing about writing about his writing forum on a music forum.

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Maybe Rubber Soul is back on his writing forum writing about writing about his writing forum on a music forum.

Or

Maybe he's on another music forum, writing about this music forum where he wrote about his writing forum, before having to leave that music forum, to go back to his writing forum, and end up on another music forum, where he wrote about the music forum that wasn't the music forum he's now on.

Or maybe not.

[OccultHawk]

Do the new one

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Do the new one

No.

[Trollheart]

With the dearth of entries for March it seemed pointless to bother doing an update last month, so instead I've combined this month and last into the one update, which I here present for your perusal.

The return of Blank brings us more of http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...l-pleases.html, and what does he damn well please this month? Um, go quietly (or not so quietly) mad, it would seem, with pictures by OccultHawk. Ohhhhh-kaaayyyy.... Moving on ...

A little more sanity in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ravaganza.html where he's looking at The Black Angels and Skinshape while

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...obably-dl.html include the likes of Charli XCX, The Beach Boys and The Knocks. Goofle's also kicking his http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...63-2017-a.html thread back into life, with a list of his top ten for 2017. No doubt more to come in due course.

Always eclectic, always interesting, almost always something to make me say “wtf? Never heard of that/them/him/her?” http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nnerspace.html has Read the Music by Beth Winegarner and the music of Harold Budd and John Foxx. Hey! I know who he is! Foxx, that is...

Ki appears to be back. Again. And he's updating http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...iii-story.html with some typically existential writing, as well as looking at Divinity Original Sin II, The Witcher 3 and others in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...-whenever.html.

MicShazam is putting (again) so much work into http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ong-picks.html that I'm just going to have to skim lightly over the plethora of music and entries here. Most importantly, of course, there are two reviews by yours truly, my first for some time, on both Helloween's Better Than Raw and The Frail Tide by Be'lakor. I did try Tori Amos but it's not really a review and it just pissed me off. Mix himself dives into the discography of Britney, and there's the usual from Dire Straits, sorry Dir En Grey, as well as Waltari, The Agonist, Infernal Rain, Kylie, Tori, Jinjer, Medina and so very much more, but I simply have not the time or energy to go through everything here. I mean, this guy is writing in terms of double-figure pages! What a workhorse! Definitely check it out: there should be something there for just about anyone. And if that isn't enough Mix for ya, look into http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...not-music.html for comic books, DVDs and games and, you know, stuff that isn't music.

Not reviewing http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...p-lighter.html this time round. See further for why.

Finally, we have an interesting new journal from an interesting, not new member but one who doesn't seem to post perhaps as much as she should. Yeah, it's http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...g-odyssey.html and it is well worth a look. Weezer feature heavily of course, as does, well, nothing else yet, but I'm sure she'll be expanding her repertoire soon.

Funny Post

of the Month
Goes to Occulthawk for this attempt to understand, explore, or at least laugh at the crazy pathways of the brain of the guy we know as Blank.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Originally Posted by Blank.

Ok, I have to ask, why do you keep posting these random pictures in my thread.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

It’s like, in my mind, your insanity is like Chuck D. You’re laying down this crazy flow. My little image bombs are supposed to be like Flavor Flav occasionally dropping a yeah boyeeeee to add a little ambience. I’m the sideman. The color guy. I realize I’m not officially in the band but hey Wu Tang is for the babies.

Originally Posted by Blank.

Carry on my man

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

I can't honestly award

to anyone else this month. I mean, who else but Mix has written almost twenty pages in one month in his journal? Seriously: the man's a machine!

And now, before Hawk starts checking flights to Dublin and makes sure he has a full box of ammo, I've decided to bring this back:

Many of you weren't around when this was a thing, and those of you that were probably don't care, but just to let anyone who does care know, here's what it is. I selected a journal I believed to be a classic one, one into which there was a lot of work put and which, over the course of the updates, didn't get the in-depth review that it deserved. I would then go through it, week on week, month on month (and in some cases even year on year) and give a detailed (or relatively detailed anyway) description of what was in it). I'll be doing this with other journals this year too, and depending on how old they are (or how much work has been put into them) each will run over several entries. For the larger ones, these reviews will run in tandem with, but not necessarily at the same time as, the monthly update. Some of the larger, more detailed journals may end up being posted about weekly or even, who knows, daily.

So the first one up, perhaps unsurprisingly, as I think I've been leading up to this, is
OccultHawk's
From Freak Fighter to Lamp Lighter
which has been running now since July 2017, making it almost a year old.

After presenting what I personally felt was a pretty poor journal which featured just about nothing but links to experimental music, Hawk dug in and set about creating what I would call a proper journal. I have no idea what the title means, what, if any, theme or direction this is meant to follow, but he certainly keeps it updated and knows his stuff, so maybe that doesn't matter.

The journal began without fanfare and inauspicously enough. No explantion of what he was doing, no long convoluted Trollheartesque introduction, no mission statement, no quotes or images and no logo. The first words he wrote in this journal were lines from the song he would post as his first entry, by the English metal band Fen, the song being “Winter II: Penance.” July 2 2017 and the fight had begun!

Keeping it British for now, next up was Scottish field recording ambient musician Peter James, thsn it was off to link the music of The Caretaker with the movies The Shining and The Exorcist, via Memories From a Haunted Ballroom (which is kind of interesting, as one of my favourite vocalists, Tim Bowness, has an album called Abandoned Dancehall Dreams: no, they're not the same but there is some crossover there, though the music is wildly different) and then “mellow indie folk” from Hollow Coves. A quick moment to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Dalek's debut album and it was on to Alexander Scriabi, a Russian composer whom Hawk regards as “one of the most important composers of all time”.

Nearly two weeks into his journal, Hawk gave us this tantalising bit of info as to the future direction, or partial direction anyway, he'd be going in: One thing thing I want to try to do in this journal is explore the careers of certain musicians who managed to play on a surprisingly large number of great recordings. I know that people who start up ideas often bite off more than they can chew. This is one I'll just have to take my time about because naturally there's more writing to do if the musician is prolific.

Recognising that this is/was a pretty big undertaking is an interesting take from the man with an ego even bigger than Batty's and kind of Saturn to Frownland's Jupiter, but there it is. The first artist he focussed on was Philly Joe Jones, who used to drum with Miles Davis. Then it was on to Thelonius Monk (and his mother) and stopping in 1927, cos Hawk thought this was a very significant year. Who am I to argue with him?

Another typical quote from the uncompromising Hawk was this: “If you don't like this you should kill yourself, cos life ain't worth living.” Normally I'd roll my eyes at him, but hey, he was talking about "Old Man River", and who doesn't love that song? So yeah, maybe he's right in this instance. The reference to that song was of course to let us know that Show Boat premiered that year, and there was also some pilot who flew across the channel and had his baby kidnapped and killed: you may have heard of him? Edgar Varese, too, apparently the grandfather of electronic music. Also Albert Ayler and Joe Meek. Page one completed, three weeks in.

As July came to a close Hawk started on 2 Live Crew, who apparently formed something of the soundtrack to his youth, and proceeded to regale us with a story about some party or others, which showed how deeply flawed and warped an individual he is, with references like “she got passed around a lot and I don't like any other dick going into it, but a book ain't no worse just cos you got it at the library”! Yeah, man. This. This is why we love you. Sometimes. Top ten reggae songs, Page and Plant and back to Philly Jones, and July was done.

Done? Bitch, he just gettin' started!

And that's where we leave Hawk and his journal for now, but August will be posted pretty soon. It's also where we leave the update so until next month, toodles!

[OccultHawk]

tl;dr

[Blank.]

I'm going mad? It's not my fault that you don't understand my brilliant avant-garde approach to journals.

[Trollheart]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

tl;dr

Hey, you called him, you can catch him and return him to his pen! I'm not going out in the dark after him again.

Originally Posted by Blank.

I'm going mad? It's not my fault that you don't understand my brilliant avant-garde approach to journals.

Perhaps we're both going mad. Or the world is.