Stumping

Listening to Robert Fisk on Democracy Now! from this morning, discussing the press and the Middle East. I don't know if it's just because they scheduled all these people in a row or the more likely reason that they're pushing for year-end donations (I got 2 emails this week and a response to an email I sent 2 months ago), but they've been stacking the guests pretty heavily this week. Monday was Howard Zinn on the history and definition of terrorism, Tuesday was Noam Chomsky delivering a mind-blowing speech on the radicalization of South America, and now Fisk. So yeah, it's nice as I'm enjoying my last couple of days before vacation.
I'm a huge fan of Fisks, always doing whatever I can to read his columns in the Independent and keeping up to speed on his books. He doesn't have the grandfatherly common sense of Zinn, or the daunting intelligence of Chomsky, Fisk has a passion that can't be denied and the experience of actually living in the Middle East for the past 30 years. Sure he has his faults, but so does everyone. Zinn seems to repeat himself often (though it's sort of hard not to with his output) and Chomsky, while I love the guy, tends to hypnotize me into deep sleep after just a few minutes of hearing his voice. It's strange like that. Anyway, I recommend checking those shows out if you got the time.
I was talking with someone over the weekend about what my end of year list was gonna look like for 2006, and considering it pretty heavily all week, and in the end I doubt I'll post it here. It's not because it's a seemingly thin year for the sort of releases I like to hear or the state of usic in general or anything like that. Well maybe it is something to do with the state of music. I find myself going to no less then 40 or 50 blogs a week to check out new music, and downloading/buying about 20 albums a month. Not to mention whatever crap I find on myspace or hype machine. That's a massive amount of music, which I find myself almost begrudgingly sifting through for something I like. I get whole albums that I barely listen the entire way through more than once or twice because I've got so much other stuff to get through. I still haven't listened to the Walkmen or Hold Steady albums more than 3 times each the whole way through, and those were easily my most anticipated albums of the year. It's just that they didn't floor me the first time around. I litened to maybe 4 rap albums all year, and the only one that really snowed me was the Ghostface one. Add this on to the fact that I've tended to listen to mostly old Springsteen bootlegs and soul music all year and I don't really get that excited to compile any sort of list, least of all in order. So I'm not gonna post one, not here at least. I go to largeheartedboy and I almost had a stroke with the amount of year-end lists there. I don't need to align myself with the 9000 people that have similar enough lists to mine that I can't really care about it. So yeah, that's what up. I will say that with enough thought, the TVOTR, Thermals and Man Man albums are the ones I've spent the most time listening to and the Tom Waits one would be the best of the year if it weren't all "old" stuff. But enough of that.
I listened to Spiritualized all morning and a skull-crushing volume. Which is really the only way to listen to them. I sort of forgot about this album for awhile, but i think it might serve as my favorite. They do such an amazing job of getting their songs out right and the production can't be fucked with. It doesn't carry the same narcot-o-drone as most of the studio albums, but sounds like some sort of communal psychic ability. The songs have the feel of a guy who has just been hit very hard with a load of drugs he didn't take, as opposed to the guy who is about to die form the drugs he took of the albums. Not quite sure about that one either, but I'll probably listen to Disc 1 again after I get through this podcast. My only real gripe is that the don't include the title track form Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating in Outer Space, which live is is a song too good for words. But that's hardly their fault. So fuck you, estate of Elvis Presley.

"Shine a Light" (live) - Spiritualized
"No God, Only Religion" (live) - Spiritualized
"Oh Happy Day" (live) Spiritualized

Buy Royal Albert Hall October 10, 1997 here for 3 fucking dollars, people.