Slash sets the rock world on fire (again)

I’ve previously raved about Slash’s albums, Apocalyptic Love and Ain’t Life Grand. Well, he’s done it again.

Weighing in with a bargainiferous 17 tracks, World On Fire is Slash (and friends) at his very best, especially the first few songs. With 17 of them, you would expect there to be some bum tracks on there - but there aren’t. An iTunes screen capture says it all, really:

If you only buy one album this year, I recommend this one.

Well played, Steel Panther!

At the end of February, I attended the first day of the two-day Soundwave Music Festival, primarily to see the headlining Faith No More. I’d perused the rest of the lineup before the day but not to the extent of doing any research on the bands that I did not know.

One such band had just started their set when we arrived to check out the main stage in the early afternoon: Steel Panther.

The picture from the Soundwave App (above) probably tells you 90% of what you need to know. The accompanying blurb:

STEEL PANTHER’s latest release ‘All You Can Eat’ fits this rock ‘n’ roll opus perfectly. There are badass riffs aplenty, arena-size grooves, lyrics about sex, drugs, and senior citizens, and the lingering scent of whisky, a stripper’s perfume, and hairspray.

I’m actually a bit of a fan of hair metal, and Steel Panther have a sound that hits the genre perfectly. Lyrically, though, they were not quite Bon Jovi. They were Spinal Tap!

I commented on this at the time but did not realise that they really were like Spinal Tap, being a parody act complete with wigs. From a small dose it was not entirely clear, except in hindsight: they did it very well.

I have since got All You Can Eat from EMusic and, whilst not for the lyrically faint-hearted, it has some cracking tunes on it. I'm not sure that I would consume the whole feast in one sitting but it's a good one to dip into occasionally for some well riffed silliness.

Last year, I was mostly listening to...

I am not entirely sure that I trust the following, as my MacBook hard drive died in the summer of 2013 and a Time Machine backup was overdue. As a result, I think I lost a month or so of play counts and the resulting list is a bit biased towards recent acquisitions. Nevertheless, for posterity (and anyone curious), here is what I was listening to most in 2013 (compiled using the same script as last year.

Top 20 Tracks (most plays) of 2013

#	Name	Artist	Album	Plays
1	When I Grow Up	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	Matilda the Musical (Original Cast Recording)	30
2	Buck Rogers	Feeder	Echo Park	17
3	Walk	Foo Fighters	Wasting Light	13
=	See The World	Gomez	How We Operate	13
5	The Duel	Anna Phoebe	Embrace EP	12
=	How Far We've Come	Matchbox Twenty	Exile On Mainstream	12
7	The Farewell	Anna Phoebe	Rise of the Warrior	11
=	Seven Days In The Sun	Feeder	Echo Park	11
=	The Smell of Rebellion	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	Matilda the Musical (Original Cast Recording)	11
=	No More Heroes	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	11
11	Gypsy	Anna Phoebe	Gypsy	10
=	Route 149(A)	Anna Phoebe	Gypsy	10
=	Bombay to Beirut	Anna Phoebe	Gypsy	10
=	See Through Blue	Beth Orton	Sugaring Season	10
=	Viva La Vida	Coldplay	Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends	10
=	We Can't Rewind	Feeder	Echo Park	10
=	Naughty	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	Matilda the Musical (Original Cast Recording)	10
=	The Hammer	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	Matilda the Musical (Original Cast Recording)	10
=	His Girl	The Budos Band	The Budos Band II	10

---

Top 10 Albums (plays per track) of 2013

#	Album	Album_Artist	Plays/Track
1	Embrace EP	Anna Phoebe	8.75
2	Matilda the Musical (Original Cast Recording)	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	8.05882352941
3	Gypsy	Anna Phoebe	7.66666666667
4	Rise of the Warrior	Anna Phoebe	7.41666666667
5	Echo Park	Feeder	7.16666666667
6	Fossils	Aoife ODonovan	6.3
7	Uno	Green Day	6.0
8	Dos	Green Day	5.84615384615
9	The Budos Band III (Bonus Version)	The Budos Band	5.25
10	Hail to the King	Avenged Sevenfold	5.1

---

There’s a few old favourites in there, like Green Day and Avenged Sevenfold, plus some new discoveries. Feeder is somewhat a blast from the past although I never really got into them at the time and mainly knew of them from a couple of tracks on the Gran Turismo soundtrack. The stand-out new artist in the lists is Anna Phoebe, which can best be described as violin rock music!

Anna Phoebe is instrumental, as is The Budos Band, which is good for background when writing or coding at work - hence the surge in plays over recent weeks. Matilda the Musical is just awesome - a Tim Minchin triumph! We went to see it live in London before the big move Down Under and it was so good that I bought the album straight away and it was the favourite in the car for a while. Indeed, if wasn’t for the MacBook death, I’m sure it would have racked up a load more plays. More on that later, I think.

It’s interesting to see some of my all time favourites are still hitting the most played list, as they did last year: Walk (Foo Fighters), See The World (Gomez), How Far We’ve Come (Matchbox Twenty) and No More Heroes (Slash) are all listen-to-before-you-die tracks. (I suspect that they might be there again next year!)

---

Top 10 Artists (Most listened to) of 2013

#	Artist	Plays	Tracks
1	Feeder	231	63
2	Green Day	222	103
3	Anna Phoebe	193	25
=	Avenged Sevenfold	193	57
5	Vitamin String Quartet	142	57
6	Matilda the Musical Original Cast	137	17
7	Jack Johnson	95	33
8	Matchbox Twenty	93	26
9	Foo Fighters	76	60
10	Gomez	64	65

Chilling with a Mountain Goat at Papa Gede's bar

Today I moved all the textbooks and folders that had been shipped over from the UK into my office from our apartment. I was therefore thoroughly in the mood for a nice cold beer after work. Happily, there were already plans to meet a friend and she took us to Papa Gede's bar at 346 Kent St in Sydney CBD, which can be found at the end of a very unassuming little laneway.

Although they are new to me, Papa Gede’s is a fairly new addition to the bar scene in Sydney and it’s a good one. The interior is cosy and comfortable and they were playing very funky music too, which the friendly staff identified as the Budo’s band (also new to me). They also made a fine beer recommendation in the form of Mountain Goat hightail ale: malty and tasty but also a thirst quencher.

Both beer and bar (and Budos’ band) are recommended!

Loving Helen Arney's animal love

Today was my last undergrad lecture - possibly my last ever at Southampton. It was on "Reproductive Strategies" and so I thought a post relevant to animal reproduction was in order.

Although I missed them the first time around, I came across the Rationalist Association's podcasts a while back, including snippets from "The Nine Days of Godless Christmas" from 2011. The best, in my opinion, is Day 6, which features singer and comedian Helen Arney with a love song inspired by the habits of animals. It's well worth a listen.

You can find the lyrics and buy a high quality version of the track at Helen Arney's website. My favourite part (spolier alert!):

"Let’s make love like Angler Fish, yeah
It’s kind of complicated but it’s worth it
You use your highly developed olfactory sense to swim towards me for several days
And then you bite me
That releases an enzyme that then dissolved your skin & your flesh & your… fins…
Leaving only a pair of genitals attached to the side of my body
For me to use
When it’s convenient."

Funny and educational!

Da Brasilians

A bit of a departure from my usual rock-centric musical musings Da Brasilians are a mellow blend of vocal harmonies and gentle percussive instrumentals. This is music to calm the soul rather than exorcise any inner demons.

I have their self-titled album and despite a lack of stand-out individual tunes that I would stick a list of all-time favourites, it's a pleasant listen. Like most good music, I think it's also a grower, as I appreciate it more each time I listen to it. That itself might be a reflection on the fact that this is music to be listened to and appreciated, as opposed to instantly catchy pop that makes great background music but lacks depth. If you like clear musical talent and don't mind a lack of instantly catchy tunes, this one's for you.

My Top Tunes of 2012

Every now and then, I like to exercise my geekiness by writing a program to do something trivially unimportant just for the fun of it. One such exercise is a little Python program for processing iTunes playlist exports. It's still in early development (and doesn't handle accented text properly) but it's good for calculating crude summary stats for Albums/Artists and differences between exports at different times. I therefore thought that I'd compare my iTunes library as of 27/12/12 with an export almost exactly a year ago (20/12/11).

The New Year period is always full of "best of" lists, so here are the resulting "Best of 2012" lists for my iTunes library.

Top 20 Tracks (Most plays) of 2012

#	Name	Artist	Album	Plays
1	Walk	Foo Fighters	Wasting Light	28
2	The English Way	Fightstar	Be Human (Deluxe Edition)	27
=	Zihautanejo	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	27
4	No More Heroes	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	26
=	One Day Son	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	26
6	Floods	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	25
7	Cheers	The Wildhearts	Coupled With	24
8	Our Last Common Ancestor	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	22
9	Apocalyptic Love	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	21
=	Standing in the Sun	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	21
=	We Apologise For Nothing	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	21
12	Mvua Nyeusi	Fightstar	Be Human (Deluxe Edition)	20
=	Amaze Us	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	20
14	Youre a Lie	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	19
15	Dark Star (Acoustic Version)	Hypnogaja	Dark Star - EP	18
16	One Last Thrill	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	17
=	Thank You God (Live)	Tim Minchin	Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra (Live)	17
18	Anastasia	Slash	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	16
=	Mazel Tov Cocktail	The Wildhearts	Chutzpah	16
=	Hazy Eyes	Fightstar	Grand Unification	16
=	Wake Up	Fightstar	Grand Unification	16
=	See The World	Gomez	How We Operate	16
=	Floods [Instrumental]	Fightstar	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	16
=	The Fence (Live)	Tim Minchin	Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra (Live)	16
=	Down Down Down	Charlie Simpson	Young Pilgrim	16

The list is dominated by Fightstar tracks, which is perhaps not surprising because I discovered them around the time of the first export in December 2011. A few Avenged Sevenfold tracks almost made it but largely missed out due to only being added in the last couple of months, although (along with many of these) they feature in the Top Albums (below).

I obviously recommend all of these tracks but I think that three deserve a special mention. See The World by Gomez is not just in my Top 20 plays for 2012, it's my most played track of all time. This is partly because my wife also loves it (it was our leaving music at our wedding) but mostly because it's just a damn fine track. Walk by Foo Fighters is quite possible the perfect track in my book. I just cannot think of any way to make it better. I love it! The final track with a special mention is Floods by Fightstar, which not only appeared in the top 10 but the Instrumental version also appeared in the Top 20. (Combined, they would be the Number 1 song of 2012.)

Top 10 Albums (Plays per Track) of 2012

#	Album	Artist	Plays/Track
1	Apocalyptic Love (Special Edition)	Slash	15.7
2	Nightmare	Avenged Sevenfold	12.3
3	Grand Unification	Fightstar	10.9
4	Dark Star - EP	Hypnogaja	10.7
5	One Day Son This Will All Be Yours	Fightstar	9.2
6	Cast Of Thousands	Elbow	8.8
7	Be Human (Deluxe Edition)	Fightstar	8.7
8	Avenged Sevenfold	Avenged Sevenfold	8.1
9	Waken The Fallen	Avenged Sevenfold	7.7
10	Giftes 1 & 2	Antlered Man	7.4

For anyone who's read my previous music posts, the rock-heavy nature of this list will come as no surprise. Somewhat reassuringly, quite a few of them have featured in posts (linked from the Artists, below - the Album names link to Amazon in case you want a listen). Hypnogaja and Antlered Man are lined up for posts in 2013.

I actually discovered Hypnogaja when looking for Apocalyptic Love by Slash as they have a track called Apocalyptic Love Song. That's not on the six-track Dark Star EP but it was my access point to quite an extensive catalogue on emusic. (I'm not sure if an EP counts as an album but six tracks seemed like enough to warrant inclusion.)

Top 10 Artists (Most listened to) of 2012

#	Artist	Plays	Tracks
1	Fightstar	520	55
2	Avenged Sevenfold	329	47
3	Hypnogaja	285	43
4	Slash	275	43
5	Elbow	239	36
6	The Wildhearts	177	77
7	Muse	162	96
8	God Is an Astronaut	142	40
9	Tim Minchin	128	33
10	Foo Fighters	117	61

Again, many of these have featured in previous posts (linked in the table) and the rest are definitely deserving of them. I guess that God is an Astronaut - another emusic discovery - deserves a special mention here as the only Artist not to feature a top song or album. They just have a very solid and appealing catalogue across the board.

Muse also stand out a bit as I have almost 100 tracks by them. Crazy! I knew I was a fan but did not realise I had quite so many. (Most of them are quite old, which is why they are not higher up the charts, I fancy.) They're not top overall in this respect, though: The Red Hot Chili Peppers (159 tracks) and Blur (113) both beat them. Green Day (80) comes in fourth and probably should have featured, except that I have been holding off getting ¡UNO!, ¡DOS! and ¡TRÉ! in case I got them from Christmas. (I didn't.) Lots to look forward to in 2013!

Merry Christmas (Eve)!

Today, I awoke to the smell of cinnamon buns and fresh coffee. A fine way to start the day! The weather outside is frightful but, sadly, not in a white Christmas way, just in a wet Christmas way. It's cozy inside, though, and listening to Christmas tunes is helping maintain the Christmas spirit.

If you need a boost to your own Christmas spirit, my recommendations are White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin for music (proceeds to the National Autistic Society) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947 version) for movies. I watched the latter for the first time over the weekend and really enjoyed it, which surprised me somewhat, I must admit! (It manages to avoid be over-schmaltzy.)

And if that doesn't work, here's one of our cats (Arthur) wearing a Santa hat:

Urban Ears Headphones, one year on and still great

Last Christmas, I received a pair of Urban Ears headphones for a present. Now, almost a year on, I thought they were long overdue a review because they are great!

There are loads of features that I like about these headphones. First, as seen in the picture, they pack down nice and small for easy transport. Unlike my JVC noise-cancelling travel headphones, the folding mechanism is really robust. The headphones stay packed down really well and also feel stable when folded out and on my head. (They do not have a centre hinge like my JVC ones, the ear individually fold inside instead.)

Another thing that I really like is the durable, tangle-free cable, which is wrapped in braided fabric. Genius! Wrapping the cable around the headphones when packed down also stops tangles but the worst entropy-induced knotting I have got with these headphones has been a couple of gentle tugs away from tangle-free audio pleasure. The braided fabric also gives the cable a more robust feel and despite being in my bag most days over the past few months there is no sign as yet of the cable damage that has afflicted my Apple inner-ear earphones.

Which brings me nicely to the next feature... I stuck with the Apple earphones that came with my iPhone for a long time because of the "remote control" on the cable, complete with mic and volume control. The urban ears model I have does not have the volume control (although I believe that others do) but it does feature a handsfree mic and remote control button that will start/stop/skip tracks and answer/end calls. It works so well that these headphones are now my Skype headphones of choice. (I tend to Skype on my iPad.)

There's obviously one key trait of headphones that I am yet to mention: the sound quality. Like the build quality, the sound quality is excellent. I am not an audio snob - I am happy with MP3 versus vinyl, for example - but I do like listening to music and I like to hear the full range of sound that my mortal ears can distinguish. The Urban Ears deliver across the board and certainly match the audio quality of my iTunes recordings. Being headphones rather than earphones, they do a good job of cutting out external noise too. This helps a lot, especially when it's a bit windy outside, although it obviously has a slight downside of reducing peripheral awareness when out and about. (I only use them in safe places.) The snugness of fit also means that they can be a bit uncomfortable after a couple of hours. That's about the only bad thing I can really think to say about them, though, and it's probably not that good to be listening to music for that long without a break anyway. (They are also adjustable, so they're comfortable for regular use.)

It's probably a bit late for Christmas presents but if you are looking for something to spend Christmas money on and you need new headphones, I highly recommend them. (The "Plattan" ones I've linked to are slightly different to mine, whose name I forget, and have an additional "ZoundPlug" for a friend to plug in and share the music. Otherwise, they look essentially identical.)

The 2nd Law of Rocking

The 2nd Law is the 6th album of Muse and my initial reaction after a few listens is that it is one of the best. It's a pretty eclectic miss.

Supremacy is a good a Muse song as you will find anywhere, full of orchestral/classical influences as well as their rock genius. Madness is Lady Gaga meets Queen (plus Muse, of course). In Panic Station, they out-Darkness The Darkness. For me, it's the difference between being great musicians and being great song writers (and musicians). Survival was one that I had already heard from its Olympics release but it actually sounds much better in context, I think. (The previous track, Prelude, sets it up nicely, as the name suggests.)

I've always thought that Muse had a touch of Radiohead about them and this is never more obvious than in Explorers, which has more than a little No Surprises about it in my book. (Not a bad thing.) Another band that I really enjoy is The Qemists and The 2nd Law: Unsustainable reminds me a bit of them, in a good way. It is a bit of a departure for Muse vocally, as they seem to have a Cylon doing guest vocals. I like it, though! (I think their interpretation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics is a bit flawed though - it's the same mistake that the Creationists make: the Earth is not a closed system. All the time that we get energy from the Sun, continued growth is indeed sustainable (in theory)!)

Overall, in The 2nd Law, I think Muse have achieved something quite unusual. Somehow, it contains both a wide range of styles but also an overall coherence that all fits together well. And it rocks! A definite contender for my favourite Muse album to date.

Avenged Sevenfold - my kind of Nightmare for Halloween

Not as cute as black cats but it seemed appropriate to make a Halloween post about an album with death and graves and stuff on the cover. I've already covered Rage (although I notice that Blogpress has eaten my pictures) so now is the turn of a band that are a much more recent discovery for me but remind me somewhat of the Scandinavian riffmonster rockers: Avenged Sevenfold and their most recent offering, Nightmare, which is my album of the moment. (I only got it last week.)

Avenged Sevenfold (or A7x to fans, as I now consider myself,) were recommended to me by a good friend. I was a little put off by the first album I got through emusic, Waken The Fallen as the vocals tend a bit too much towards screaming for my tastes in places (although the music still rocks) but I was reliably informed that it gets more rocky and less metalcore as the albums progress. It's true, and Nightmare is a fantastic collection of tunes for those who like crazy drums and wild fret-wanking guitar riffs - as well as good tunes, of course. (I do!)

Besides, how can you go wrong with a band whose lineup consists of M. Shadows (vocalist), Synyster Gates (lead guitarist), Zacky Vengeance (rhythm guitarist) and Johnny Christ (bassist). Their (replacement) drummer for Nightmare, Mike Portnoy, needs to do something about his name if he's going to join the band on a permanent basis!

Olympic Highlights VII: Elbow

One of the highlights of the Olympic closing ceremony for me was definitely Elbow. They were also responsible for the theme tune of excellent BBC coverage. Off the back of these things, I have got myself a fair bit of Elbow, including (most recently) First Steps, the aforementioned BBC theme tune and just as good as I remember it. (Better, in fact, as I can now listen to the full 6min 21sec!) The reminder of the Olympics is a bonus!

The other Elbow album that I have been listening to a lot of late is Cast of Thousands which is simply a joyous stroll through mellow musical magnificence and gets better each time I listen to it, particularly the first half of the album. It's definitely headphones music: it deserves your full attention.

Like a fair few of my other music discoveries, this was in-part thanks to my emusic membership: Elbow are one of the decent bands that have albums on the site (including Cast of Thousands). If you want a trial, leave me a comment and I'll send an invite. (It used to get some extra freebies. You have to sign up but you can cancel before paying any money unless they have changed things.)

Apocalyptically loving Slash

When I bought my MacBook and received an iTunes voucher with it, I am not ashamed to say that the first thing I bought with it was the most recent offering from that most excellent of British rockers, Slash. I've previously endorsed Ain't Life Grand from when he was part of Slash's Snakepit and, I must admit, I am a general fan of his. Not everything that came out of the Snakepit, or Velvet Revolver (or Guns 'n' Roses for that matter) is fantastic but every album I own has some gems on it.

Apocalyptic Love raises the bar and has now solidly cemented itself as one of my favourite albums - certainly of the year and probably of all time. It's a grower too, which is always a good sign. If you like Slash at his best, go buy it! Now!

The Darkness are back! But I'd prefer a bit more lightness - this is NOT Spinal Tap!

I have a certain fondness for The Darkness. I have Permission to Land and love a couple of the songs, whilst enjoying the remainder. For me, though, they are always at their best with a twinkle in their eye and approaching a parody of a rock band.

Their new album, Hot Cakes, is undeniably The Darkness - it sounds like them from beginning to end - and it certainly has some good rock music on it. I can't help being a little disappointed, though. I can't take them seriously enough to fully engage with serious material - even if the words are serious, the sound is not! At the same time, however, they seem to take themselves too seriously to fully embrace the tight-trousered silliness that they excel at - and that made them famous.

I think the album can be summed up by the fact that my favourite song on it is a cover of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" by Radiohead. It's a really good cover! In fact, it's an excellent cover: it isn't a copy - it sounds like The Darkness through and through - and it rivals the original in quality. But they didn't write it and Radiohead songs have never really been known for their levity.

Hopefully, for their next album, they can harness their enthusiasm and talent to some epic song-writing that is up to the task. (Perhaps a collaboration with someone possessing the song-writing genius of Tim Minchin?) In the meantime, I can recommend "Street Spirit" (and maybe "Living Each Day Blind") but not much else at this point. (Maybe they're "growers"?) If you fancy some tongue-in-cheek glam rock: get a copy of the soundtrack to This is Spinal Tap!

Goodbye Olympics. You were awesome.

I have a confession to make. I enjoyed the closing ceremony. It was far from perfect. There were bits I didn't like. There were bits that made me cringe and want to hide behind the sofa. But, on the whole, I remember thinking it was a pretty good spectacle and filled the brief of a celebration with plenty of songs to "sing along too".

Since then, I've seen quite a lot moans and complaints about it. One article, which I won't link to because I don't want to promote it, went as far as describing the ceremony as dangerous because it so explicitly stuck two fingers up at the multicultural celebration of modern Britain that was the Opening Ceremony. Perhaps I am naive but I find it hard to interpret the event with such cynicism. What's more, I don't want to. The Olympics was up-lifting and buoyant and I'm not ready to come down to Earth with a jolt just yet. I don't want to go back to old moany Britain. I want to put on a Union Flag T-shirt and punch the air... metaphorically, at least.

I'm not going to pretend for a moment that the whole show was fantastic. Indeed, there was one moment - when the camera showed Boris Johnson "dad dancing" to the Spice Girls - that made me feel so embarrassed that I exclaimed "Oh no! The last two minutes have undone the whole Olympics!" But, I was joking. (Mostly!) A bit of "Mr Blue Sky" by E.L.O. and the Spice Girls were quickly forgotten. Besides, the Closing Ceremony wasn't for me, it was for everyone. There were probably just as many people watching who love the Spice Girls and don't like Muse as vice versa.

Some of the other choices were a bit odd, it is true. I thought there was something slightly ironic about John Lennon singing "Imagine there's no countries" to the Olympic Games but then, maybe, I'm being too cynical. The song, at the end of the day, is about unity and a "brotherhood of man" - if that's not pro-multicultural, what is? And the giant face was pretty cool too.

I'd also be interested who decided to book Oasis without the talented one. But this was balanced out by the epic guitar solo of Anita Dobson Brian May. Elbow. Madness on the back of truck. Eric Idle (up to the uncomfortable Indian part). Take That (in their best "sans Robbie" configuration). The percussive brilliance of Stomp. Not to mention the wonderfully surreal Annie Lennox riding through the stadium on some kind of weird Gothic warship from the Apocalypse.

For me, though, the real star of the show (apart from the athletes and volunteers, who I will come to in a later post), was the stadium - and the lighting team. Although a bit gimmicky - and probably extravagantly expensive - the "pixels" were actually really cool.

I liked the way the stadium went Green and Gold for the Brazilians following the handover.

And I liked the way it ended up Red, White and Blue.

The bands (good and bad) - and the dancing (good and bad!) - are just memories by the morning but the stadium lives on to remind us that we held the Olympics in 2012 and it was awesome.

The Olympic legacy is what we make of it, not the Closing Ceremony. (Bring on the Paralympics!)

Happy Paddy's Day!

Or, Happy St Patrick's Day, if you are feeling more formal. Maybe even "St Pat's". But not Happy "St Patty's Day". Never "St Patty's Day"!! (No, I'm not Irish but having lived in Dublin for six years, I am pretty sure about this.) He's not a burger, he was a 5th Century Amazing Maurice (or, more accurately, Keith) of snakes. (You might need to be a Pratchett fan with a cursory knowledge of post-glaciation species distributions to get that one.)

That is almost my last word on the matter, other than to share this rather good and geeky St Patrick's Day YouTube song that is doing the rounds, combining two of my favourite things: beer and science. I like the fact that the singer looks like he's got in the spirit and had a jar or two before the performance. My only real criticism... it's not the black stuff in the glass.

SPOILER ALERT! Here are the lyrics:

In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eleven
On March the seventeenth day
I will raise up a beer and I'll raise up a cheer
For Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Here's to brewers yeast, that humblest of all beast
Producing carbon gas reducing acetaldehyde
But my friends that isn't all -- it makes ethyl alcohol
That is what the yeast excretes and that's what we imbibe

Anaerobic respiration*
Also known as fermentation
NADH oxidation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

My intestinal wall absorbs that ethanol
And soon it passes through my blood-brain barrier
There's a girl in the next seat who I didn't think that sweet
But after a few drinks I want to marry her
I guess it's not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I'd surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgement is impaired and my confidence is not

Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

When ethanol is in me, some shows up in my kidneys
And inhibits vasopressin by degrees
A decrease in aquaporins hinders water re-absorption
And pretty soon I really have to pee
Well my liver breaks it down so my body can rebound
By my store of glycogen is soon depleted
And tomorrow when I'm sober I will also be hungover
Cause I flushed electrolytes that my nerves and muscles needed

Diuretic activation
Urination urination
Urination dehydration
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

I also love the little disclaimer added by the author, cadamole, marked with the asterisk:

*Actually, this isn't true. While both anaerobic respiration and fermentation occur without the use of oxygen, anaerobic respiration utilizes the electron transport chain to generate ATP, while fermentation does not. My bad. I would have remembered that if I wasn't trying so hard to rhyme. A new corrected version is now up on my channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6dzUOYTQtQ

Dedication to accuracy such as this should really be rewarded, so go on... click on the link and give this guy some more views/likes. It's what St Patrick would have wanted.

Beyond Busted: Charlie Simpson and the fantastic Fightstar

My most recent big musical discovery is that of Fightstar Fightstar, a British rock band whose most famous member is probably Charlie Simpson, formerly of Busted.

I must confess that I don't really know a lot about Busted. My one real experience of them is hearing them sound-check, or possibly rehearse, Year 3000 prior to a gig in Dublin. What I heard was not pretty but this may have been more to do with me being outside the stadium (Lansdowne Road, as it was then,) and/or the fact that they hadn't got their sound set up than a reflection on their talent. Either way, the sound-bite combined with my natural distrust of teen "Pop punk", meant that I have avoided them ever since. This makes the discovery of the sublime Fightstar all the more surprising, as the lead member is none other than Charlie Simpson, formerly of Busted.

I can't really compare Fightstar to Busted but I suspect that the sound is very different, as Fightstar kick out proper rock tunes with heavy guitar and the occasional screeching rock scream, in addition to the more melodic singing that dominates. I find it hard to pigeon-hole bands into genres and so I am not really sure to what sub-category of rock Fightstar belong. (Wikipedia editors have opted for "alternative" or "Post-hardcore", whatever that means.) I would probably just say "Rock" or "Modern Rock", for this is no Bon Jovi either.

It was probably a short customer review on EMusic that made me take the step of having a listen. To paraphrase, it said something along the lines of:

if you like Rock music, you will like this.

I would have to agree 100%. I think that wherever you sit on the rock spectrum, Fightstar offer something. If, like me, you sit somewhere in the middle and enjoy music and influences in all directions from Pop/Rock to Metal, you will love them. The two albums that I have are the later One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (2007) and Be Human (2009) and, if recommending just one, I would be hard-pushed to choose. (Probably "One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours", especially as you pick up a two-disc version for a bargain on Play.com!) They're both currently available from Emusic, if you want a bargain.

The other factor that made me try them, quite surprisingly, was listening to Young Pilgrim, the more recent solo album of Charlie Simpson. This is a very different beast, and is proper singer-songwriter acoustic pop rock along the lines of Jack Johnson. It's good stuff, though, and definitely marks Charlie Simpson out as an accomplished musician and singer. For me, this was important, as I find that I cannot look beyond bad singing, however good the music is. (The Wildhearts are the possible exception but their singing is not too bad and their tunes are very good!)

Howling (dumb)bells

The only problem with going away to a fantastic conference and staying up late each night talking science (and nonsense) is that you're knackered when you get home.

Add to that a few vet visits with a sick cat (now better, thankfully), a pile of stuff that has piled up in my absence, and a touch of old-fashioned laziness, and the result is a shameful lack of gym visits since my return.

After a last minute abort the previous night (so tired!), I finally dragged my lazy arse to the gym last night. It turns out that a week of eating lots of food and drinking lots of beer doesn't make you fitter. Who'd have known?

Fortunately, I'm not here today to dwell on my gym skills but rather my gym music. This time, I was listening exclusively to "Howling Bells". I don't know much about them, to be honest, so I won't attempt a biography or anything here. (That's what Wikipedia's for, right?) In fact, I only discovered them yesterday but so far I like what I hear.

The music is good gym music as it's fairly up-beat but is also at that mid-range pitch that copes quite well with background noise. I think it will do well in the car for the same reason. The vocals remind me of a cross between Kate Bush, Natalie Imbruglia and Lilly Allen; quite varied in style but always good. Well worth a listen, in any case.

My "Howling Bells" experience is also a great endorsement for making tracks available for free download. I discovered them through a freebie track on one of my favourite music sites, 7digital. The track was "The Loudest Engine" from the album of the same name. I liked it so much that I looked them up on another favourite music site, emusic, had a quick preview listen and downloaded a couple of albums ("Howling Bells" and "The Loudest Engine".) If it hadn't been for the free track, I probably would have never even listened to them and they'd be two album sales and one fan-in-the-making down!

(I say "album sales", although "album downloads" might be more accurate. With emusic, you pay a set amount each month and get a set amount of downloads. I assume the downloaded artists still get their cut, though. It generally works out cheaper than downloading tracks or albums from iTunes, play.com or 7digital. They don't have a complete catalogue but I have found some of my favourite musical discoveries through emusic, including Rage, The White Stripes, Slash's Snakepit, The Qemists, Black Country Communion, Gomez and others. If you have eclectic tastes and download buy a fair amount of new music each month, I definitely recommend it. You can even sign up for a free trial, which gives you a bunch of downloads and then cancel before having to pay. If anyone does want to check out emusic, though, let me know and I can invite you. I think I/we get some extra free tracks that way, which is nice.)

Location:Southampton, UK

Communing with the Black Country

Today's washing up music of choice: "2" by "Black Country Communion". Another fine rock outfit that I recently discovered. I can't remember how, now. Either emusic or a 7digital freebie, I suspect. Anyway, another great album with good vocals and rocking guitar work, well worth a listen.

Favourite track: "The Battle for Hadrian's Wall".

Location:Southampton, UK

Ain't Life Grand with a 12yo Dalmore

I'm not a big fan of washing up. (Who is?) I am a big fan of (good) whisky and music, however, and sometimes such things can combine in a moment of excellence that even washing up becomes enjoyable. Such a combination happened for me earlier this week, with a very nice 12 year old Dalmore, which is possibly my favourite whisky, and "Ain't Life Grand" by Slash's Snakepit, one of my favourite albums.

With whisky, I generally go for something very peaty, like a Laphroig or Lagavulin. The problem with these, though, is that I really have to be in the right mood to appreciate them. Dalmore, whilst still (to my amateur palate) clearly a Highland whisky, is not as smoky as these guys but is much more approachable as a result.

Like the Dalmore, Slash's Snakepit are also a fairly recent discovery for me - the album "Ain't Life Grand" is only a little younger than the whisky, with a release date of 2000. Personally, I think Guns 'n' Roses peaked with "Appetite for Destruction" but some of my favourite Slash guitar work is post GNR. Snakepit doesn't have the same vocal presence as GNR but "Ain't Life Grand" is packed full of great riffs and solid rock music. It may be a bit Old School but it's good Old School. In terms of individual great tracks, I think "Appetite for Destruction" still has the edge but, as an album, I think I'd have to side with "Ain't Life Grand". A must for Slash fans and lovers of good rock guitar.

Location:Southampton, UK