Adolescent dreams and the ghost of Tupac

[venta]

I spent some of yesterday afternoon wandering among the fleshpots of Ber Wick Street, in London. Originally, I intended only a brief pop into Virgin as I passed to buy the new New Model Army album, but baulked at the £15.99 they were asking. It was eventually located in Select-A-Disc for a much more appealing £10.99. A couple of listens today has actually left me somewhat underwhelmed - has anyone else got it and got an opinion on it ?

The Designated Hero of the Week is actually a shop: Music & Video Exchange on Ber Wick Street. Scruffing around on the floor in their Bargain Basement I found a couple of gems, including a copy of the very underrated Gorgeous George for £4. Also for the first time in a while I bought a CD purely because I liked the cover: nice brown cardboard, with the slghtly indented sort of printing you get on old-fashioned pasteboard railway tickets. It's a compliation of artists signed to Southern Records, but best of all is its title. I mean, it's hardly Trouble over Bridgwater, but it's a creditable effort. See Current Music for details.

But the real reason that M&VE get to be my DHW is that they've found an innovative solution to the problem of disposing of unwanted promo albums by unknowns. By the till are stacks of green-and-white polythene wrapped lucky-dip parcels; ten CDs to buy "blind" for a pound. I've yet to investigate my ten - though as predicted, they were all artists I'd never heard of. After all: ten CDs is probably going to be at least one hundred songs - if even only two tracks are any good it's still a better deal than iTunes.

I was also vaguely confused, while walking along the river bank, to find a huge great Battle of Britain memorial which I'd never noticed before. Subsequent investigation revealed that, actually, it's only been there about a fortnight; I am not in fact terminally unobservant. I spent a while walking round it and looking at it, and decided I approve of it. Mostly because as far as I can tell, they've listed the names of "the few" who flew aircraft during the Battle of Britain, not just the ones who died. I've never liked war memorials' habits of focussing exclusively on those who died in battle; those that are left grow old amid the glory of their comrades who made the "ultimate sacrifice".

There are two bronze relief friezes which form part of the monument. One shows all kinds of figures of people who were somehow involved in the Battle, not just the pilots. The other shows parts of London during the Battle and the Blitz. The modelling of St Paul's in particular is great - though I feat for its saftey. Tiny pinnacles rise from the cathedral's roof, and, although I know bronze is sturdy stuff, I rather expect that they'll get broken off quite soon. At the same time I do approve of having sculpture touchable and at eye level, so I hope I'm shown to be wrong.

The memorial's website appears to be here and has lots of pictures, if anyone else is curious. (Though if anyone can explain to me how come the site cites a quote on the memorial's design from Winston Churchill I'd be interested - weighty though the gentleman's opinions are, I'm sure he's rather too dead to be expressing views on a monument erected barely a month ago.)

Comments

[neilh.livejournal.com]

By the till are stacks of green-and-white polythene wrapped lucky-dip parcels; ten CDs to buy "blind" for a pound
The record shop in Norwich (whose name I've forgotten, drat) did a similar thing with a bundle of 7inch singles or twelve inch records, albums and singles. While I didn't get anything particularly remarkable I always found that was quite a neat way of getting new music you'd never otherwise be exposed to....actually, maybe Plastic Bertrand counts as remarkable, for smallish values at least.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll be reporting back on levels of remarkability once I've waggled my ears at some of the new stuff.

But yes - while, in the quest for new stuff, I'm not prepared to choose ten random acts I haven't heard of and pay a quid or two a go, I am very much prepared to be handed a miscellaneous bunch of ten for a quid all told.

[neilh.livejournal.com]

I've had a good hit ratio on picking up things I like the covers of - the most outstanding being 69 Eyes, a Finnish goth band who had a compilation in the top 10 when I was over there, I thought 'These guys have a great taste in album covers but I bet their music is fairly average, in a listenable sort of way'...how wrong I was, they're one of the best goth-rock bands I've ever heard.