Bulldog

...for a few days.

And one of the last things I posted about in this journal was Norah Jones? Ewww...

So here's what's happening. I'm on a sabbatical of sorts from my regular, boring paid job until Sunday. In that time, I intend to work on various things of my own, which I think it'd far easier for me to motivate myself towards if I came here for a while and started typing up any old rubbish, putting a few pictures and videos in it, pressing 'submit reply' and calling it a review...of sorts. I'm really beyond caring how underwhelming the response to this is by now, so I'm just gonna press on and finish my time on MB with a few well-toned posts here for old time's sake.

So, starting tomorrow then...stay tuned!

Bulldog

So, I've decided to come back and drone away in this journal again. There are various reasons that I left for as long as I did, which I doubt anyone really cares about, so I won't go into. But, I'm back, I suppose. Might not be for very long, and I'll probably just be a recluse in this thread, but expect to see something new in this thread sometime soon.

So, yeah, stay tuned and stuff...

Trollheart

Hey, welcome back Bulldog! I'll include your return in the update for the journals thread later tonight!

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Janszoon

*looks at watch*

*clears throat*

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Bulldog

Yeah, about that...I'm really, really lazy

Bulldog

According to this my last post here was some 10 months ago. Truthfully the end of me as a regular poster here came long before that, as in when I de-modded myself as I kidded myself that I had better things to do than hang around here. The reason I gave for doing that was that I needed time to study but, let me level with you my lovelies; all the 4 years I spent in higher education were easy. I think it the only hard part of it was having to drag myself to 1-on-1 dissertation tutorials and go through the whole 'this is good, but go do kit properly and come see me again next week' routine over and over for a ****ing year. Incidentally, my final mark was actually way worse than my projected ones at the start of the third year, not that I'm bitter or anything, but I digress...

Whether or not anyone's actually wondering just what the hell's happened to me lately or not is elementary. I'm fully prepared for the fact that no-one may post in this thread again besides me, and I'm cool with that...I always have been, really. I'm just bored and I'm procrastinating (I currently have about 3 different scripts and an article I have to get done that I'm diligently ignoring right now), I've got something to say and in the absence of any mates, pets, parents or whatever I'm gonna tell someone dammit.

Or at least I would if life hadn't been largely pretty boring for about 2 or 3 years for me by now. Been in and out of jobs, in and out of relationships to the degree that it'd be funny how unlucky I've been in romance if it wasn't happening to me...on the plus side though, in telling people I can cook to sound cool I've actually gone and developed quite the repertoire in Italian food, so if anyone wants tips on that roast cauliflower dish of those balsamic chocolate truffles they want done, I guess you now know who to turn to.

Basically, the reason I'm saying all this is not because I'm self-obsessed or anything (Well, alright, that's probably got something to do with it...I mean, christ, why did I come here and start a thread like this in the first place if I wasn't?), but to put you in context of where I was in life when this happened;


January 6th started out just like any other day for me. I got up, didn't eat breakfast (an appetite in the morning is something I still lack, even though I haven't touched a cigarette for 2 years now), went to work, spent the whole day boring my arse off and taking all sorts of crap off my then-girlfriend, and then I got home to be greeted by my brother. He asked me casually if I'd heard about David Bowie. I thought he was joking. I mean, I remember mentioning the guy at least once a day when I posted here regularly, but I played along and said no. John then left me to YouTube him and find out what exactly was happening for myself.

I'm glad he did, as otherwise I'd have been spared one of the most pleasant surprises of my life. I mean, I'd been following David Bowie for 11 or 12 years before this, and endured a whole decade of studio silence from him, punctuated only by unfunny sitcom appearances (Extras), boring 5-second film cameos (August) and the occasional worthwhile stunt (the Prestige). I literally thought this day would never come; the day that I'd hear a completely new David Bowie song, and yet here it was...like, happening and stuff. Not only that but the song was actually pretty damn good too. It made me think, y'know, maybe you really should never say never, no matter how bleak things look. Maybe there really is always hope, no matter how faint, for the most unlikely of events. Life is full of surprises, and it's always those surprises which are the most worthwhile things that'll happen to you.

As for the album the Next Day, yeah, it's alright; it's a good David Bowie album, what more would I want? Far as I see it, the man's innovated and changed enough over 50 years in the music industry, so I'm just thankful there's a new album out there, and possibly a new one after that if producer Tony Visconti is to be believed.

Oh, and as for me and being here and stuff, I really can't see myself getting back to posting like I used to if even posting much at all, as truthfully the kinda stuff I've posted here before simply isn't really on my mind that much anymore. I guess time will tell. Either way, hope that those of you I see still post here that I actually remember have been doing alright yourselves. Laters.

Trollheart

Bulldog is back! Bulldog is back!
A lot of people's day just got a whole lot better!
I don't know you personally, but I've definitely enjoyed your writing and if you check the "Spill your guts" thread you'll find a lot of people mourning your loss from here, so welcome back and we hope to hear a lot more from you in the future.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Bulldog

Ah, screw it, it's time I got this going again. New review up tomorrow guys, sorry for all the umming and erring...watch this space.

Bulldog

Thanks, it's nice to know some people actually enjoy what I ever did here! As for the rest of it, I kinda stay away from that thread...5 minutes spent lookng at the latest posts soon turns into 5 hours of obsessively seeking out any mentions of yourself and, well, I have things to do

One thing that's got me back here is that I now basically do what I did in this journal for my local paper's website now, so old habits are indeed dying very hard

Anyway, time to make up for lost time...


If albums were pets, 'the Captain' by Kasey Chambers would be a seven-month old chihuahua called Buster that I picked up with a girlfriend one summer's weekend in Great Yarmouth – almost illegally adorable and very well-loved, but has a long way to go to replace the grumpy house cat. Because like getting a chihuahua puppy is a conscious effort to swallow your pride as the owner of some XY chromosomes and score brownie points off your girl, me getting hold of 'the Captain' here was part of a conscious effort get into all this country music stuff I'd heard about, and I'm starting to think that this analogy is falling apart, so I'll quit while I'm ahead so to speak.

The point is that to me country music was, to about this point, something I'd only heard about in Ringo Starr songs, misleading Elvis Costello cover albums and a few of my favourite Rolling Stones songs. It was certainly nothing that I'd consciously tried to get into any relatively modern form of as, let's face it, there's a knee-jerk reaction among us English towards country music. Often that knee-jerk reaction finds us thinking of line-dancing to Dolly Parton and 'Achey Breaky Heart', never actually wiping away the dust of a bad reputation to see just how colourful and dynamic the genre can actually be.

It's a sense of colour and depth that actually stretches all the way to the other side of the Pacific Ocean in Australia. Yes, some very authentically American-sounding country rock gets peddled in Australia. Typical of our Australian buddies to get overshadowed musically by the USA and/or the UK in some form or another but different story, different time I suppose.

It would certainly explain why a woman as immensely talented as Kasey Chambers here has passed relatively unnoticed by the American and British music markets. Born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Ms Chambers can be safely counted with other leading lights in modern alternate country rock such as Allison Moorer, Tift Merrit and Shannon McNally et al. As indeed is her husband Shane Nicholson, as the more bat-eared among anyone reading this little note would know from listening to their collaborative 'Rattlin' Bones' album but, again, different story, different time.

It's time for me to stop rambling like my drainpipe jeans are cutting off the circulation to the part of my brain that tells me to follow the actual title of an article I write, and actually tell you what I think of this album. I like it. I like it a lot. I like it as much as Buster the seven-month old chihuahua. It shows that there's certainly a lot more to love about this girl than just 'Not Pretty Enough', her platinum-selling single that would come from her follow-up to her debut album here; the similarly likeable 'Barricades and Brick Walls'.

And that's quite a thing to say about an album as infectiously catchy and generally upbeat as 'the Captain'. I'm not sure who among any of you will agree, but too often is it the case that when you buy an album based on how hard the singles you heard bowled you over, you're often left bitterly disappointed when you discover that those were far and away the best songs on the album.

Not the case with 'the Captain' at all, although it must be said that the infectiously catchy and beautifully upbeat 'Cry Like a Baby', the pensive title track and the majestic 'Don't Talk Back' are tremendous songs in their own right. These three songs alone are an ice-cold beer on your front porch in the sunshine – the perfect atmosphere for a good country song.

Beyond those there's just about the sweetest lovesong ever ('This Flower'), Emmylou Harris-style folk rock ('These Pines'), unmistakeably 70s-throwback country rock ('the Hard Way and so much more to choose from here. Classic isn't the word for an album that's only just over a decade old (or is it...yikes, I'm getting old!), but this album is everything that it should be. It's colourful, it's lyrically spellbinding, it's catchy as any LMFAO tune you could think...it's country music, musical marmite – you'll either listen to it more times than you eat breakfast in the morning, or it'll leave you seeking salvation in a hard-cover bible. Either way, you've got to try it out, just to see what all the publicity is about.

It's a damn shame though that her last internationally-released album 'Little Bird; was a tooth-grinding descent into cookie-cutter mediocrity but, again, different story, different time.

Janszoon

Welcome back man! It's great to see you!

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm