The Cramps' Lux Interior died earlier this month.  There's a story at the Mojo website (Lux Interior: October 21, 1946 - February 4, 2009)

I've inserted a video of my favourite Cramps track below the fold

So, it seems the old farts at the Met don't want kids to have much fun these days.  Apparently, every live music event needs to be "risk assessed", which involves completing a form 696, while afterwards you need to complete a form 696A. It's claimed that

Sunny Hundal writes in the Guardian's "Comment is free" about his experiences.  Before he and other fun-lovers could get into the venue, a variety information were gathered, with no indication of why the data were collected, nor how long it would be held for.

Back in 1982, 23 Skidoo released Seven Songs, a mini-LP on the Fetish label (there was something of a fad in those days for budget-priced mini-LPs).  I hadn't played this in some years, when I noticed that it had been reissued with some bonus tracks that I hadn't got.  Aha! I thought, let's try out this Amazon.co.uk mp3 download shop.  Off I went, credit card in hand, to make my first online digital download purchase (well, except for Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I-IV). 

What a refreshing listen.  Particular standout tracks are Kundalini (see video below), and The Gospel Comes to New Guinea, but the whole thing is great.

I'm just playing with this last.fm thing.  Having just activated audioscrobbler on my Squeezebox, here's a little Recently Played widget from last.fm.

Here's a neat widget that should show the ten most played albums in my last.fm profile.

Yesterday I succumbed to temptation and bought a 32Gb iPod Touch to replace my venerable 2Gb iPod Nano. I realised before this purchase that my limited Windows resource would be a challenge: my library of music files is held on a fileserver running Ubuntu 8.10, and my sole XP machine is a small partition on an IBM laptop (I had decided I'd rather not fanny around jailbreaking the iPod, unless absoutely necessary).  Still, there was enough disk space to get iTunes installed and to sync some music to the iPod.

The iPod is everything I'd expected, a terrific UI, effective touch screen, easy to set up wireless comms.  But oh dear, it does show the fingerprints!

I just received the Glasvegas album (cover to left).  I came across this (believe it or not) from listening to the BBC World Service very early one morning.  I was taken by the strange Glaswegian wall of sound.  To be honest they do remind me at times of Win, particularly in the vocals, but that's no bad thing, particularly combined with an appealing sort of indie version of a wall of sound!

I can recall "O Superman" being something of a novelty hit in the UK charts.  I had heard it via John Peel's show, and always reckoned it was far more than merely a summer novelty hit.  One of my greatest regrets is that I did not go and see Laurie Anderson in Edinburgh on the eve of my final examinations for my degree.

Subsequently I bought a 5xLP recording of United States I-IV, from which her then stage show was abstracted, but that's no compenation!

Einsturzende Neubauten have released a significant catalogue of music, which has metamorphosed from loud metal bashing to more sophisticated sounds such as Silence is Sexy, from the album of the same title.  I found this video at YouTube.

Grinderman's "No Pussy Blues" is for me one of the standout tracks from the band's eponymous first album.  This video clip was posted to youtube by Mute.

Suicide - Dream Baby Dream

Back in 1978 I happened upon a HiFi magazine's review of the first Suicide album.  Being a HiFi magazine, it was pretty scathing about the record.  However, this being 1978, and in the white heat of the post-punk period, I was of course intrigued by this review, and bought the UK release of the LP (it has a slightly different track listing than the US version).  It's now availableon the Grey Area label (I think a sub-label of Mute).  The CD version I have has some early live recordings, including the infamous Brussels gig where they get driven off stage by an excessivley hostile crowd.