Buy those Blogger people a drink!

Whaddaya know, this here blog, which was lost during a recent site overhaul, has been returned to me, safe, unharmed and almost sober! Here you'll find all my posts from the first half of the year - including the one in which the guy in India refers to my 'cool blog'! However, future posts can be found at http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/

Cheers!

John Peel's Maida Vale studio set to close

The BBC are planning to close their famous Maida Vale studios in west London, explaining it's not suitable for the "21st-century digital age". The closure of the studio, which was home to John Peel's classic radio sessions, is part of a six-year "reprioritisation" plan for the BBC. The Smiths, Led Zeppelin, Blur and Nirvana are a few of the rock heavyweights to lay down sessions at the studio.
FULL STORY:
http://www.nme.com/news/the-smiths/29364

SHANGHAI MAGLEV TRAIN

The Shanghai Magnetic Levitation Demonstration Operation Line is the first commercial high-speed maglev line in the world. The train runs from Longyang Road station on the Shanghai subway line 2 to Pudong International Airport ...
The total track length is about 30 kilometres, with an additional, separate track leading to a maintenance facility. The train takes 7 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the journey, and its top operational speed is 431 kilometers per hour. As of November 2006, the one way ticket price is 50 China Yuan Renminbi (RMB) (about $6.33 US dollars) and 40 RMB (US$5.06) for airline passengers with proof of an airline ticket purchase. One-way VIP ticket costs 100 RMB (US $12.66). A round-trip ticket costs 80 RMB (US$10.13).

Working Class Hero - Green Day

Extraordinary rendition of the John Lennon song

SARAJEVO 2007

Photos by author. Click on photos to enlarge.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE SIMIAN

A friend writes: 'I was lucky enough to see [at the Manchester International Festival] the premier of Monkey: Journey to the West, the new Damon Albarn/Jamie Hewitt creation in the form of a Chinese opera based on the myth (you must remember Monkey from the old days). It was truly sensational, it had everything. I don't know if they plan on going global, but judging by the reviews they will, and when it ends up Stateside, you should have a peek. It really is amazing.'

The following from Pitchfork Media

Eff that Cirque du Soleil racket. What your date really wants to see this season is Monkey: Journey to the West, the previously mentioned "circus opera" from director Chen Shi-Zheng, featuring an original score by one Damon Albarn and visual design work by Gorillaz artiste Jamie Hewlett. Yes, Monkey: Journey to the West - with "over 40 Chinese acrobats, Chinese vocalists and performing martial artists" and a story "based on an ancient Chinese legend" (so says the MySpace) - will bring you miles closer to your date's heart and/or pants than the usual Chinese takeout and Big Trouble in Little China viewing (on VHS, of course). Good news for aspiring lovebirds in Manchester, Paris, and Berlin: Monkey is heading to a performance space near you!

FULL ARTICLE AT:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/43661-damon-albarn-scored-imonkeyi-circus-opera-tours

DAMON ALBARN AND JAMIE HEWITT TALK ABOUT 'MONKEY' ON YOUTUBE

That's just sick

Four things inspired me to continue with the blog - five, actually, if you count the two weeks' European vacation that's just ended (and I'm now back in New York City - my carpel tunnel syndrome, or RSI, as we Brits call it, seemingly cured), when I pondered many things, but essentially the pointlessness of this whole blogging exercise to which I'd become enslaved, obsessed, addicted. Is anyone reading it? Do they care? Why should I care about putting stuff up here? On that subject, in my defence, I have a guy in India who said a few weeks ago that he'd found my blog by accident. He was surfing, he explained. "Hey, cool blog!" he had the generosity to email. That was nice. I suppose it's what a blogger who never gets any Comments wants to hear. (I understand some Liverpool University students - social studies, I think - are told to put this blog on their recommended reading list. Flattering, of course. I feel humbled by that, if a little bit pressurised to keep feeding this inexplicably ravenous monster. To maintain the downstealing.)

Number one (remember, the inspiration bit) was that great live footage of Underworld doing Born Slippy from YouTube that I put up here, and which you'll find a few postings below. That's definitely one to share with the world. In my more philosophical moments, I get to thinking it should even make for a better world! I could go on about my favourite song of all time but I'll spare you that right now. Suffice, I suggest you stop reading this and scroll down a little bit. Enjoy the Underworld show.

Number two is 'Sicko', the new Michael Moore documentary, which is probably in a movie theater/cinema near you right now. I went to see it with a couple of friends tonight and feel very obliged to urge you to go see it as soon as possible. And to tell all your friends about it. It's simple enough and Moore doesn't do anything more that point out the bleedin' obviousness of how the American health care system is astoundingly messed up. Correction, the system is functioning superbly, highly, highly profitably. Oh, yes. It's just that suckers like us, the inhabitants of this country, yer average taxpayers, are being impoverished by the health insurance, pharmaceutical and general medical industries. And our politicians. Yet we just sit back, let those people make their trillions, while we get sick, unnecessarily, we die, unnecessarily, without a word of protest, without a call or an email to our local representatives. Hey, most don't know who their local politicians are. That's the biggest scandal. But even if you're just picking up a prescription at Duane Reid, get the manager and yell about the price you're paying - or about the fact that you're paying at all, because, as the movie points out, the Brits, the French and Canada are getting this stuff for free, or close to it. The subject of Moore's film may sound a little on the dry side. A tad boring. But believe me, it's massively entertaining. Heart wrenching. Gut wrenching. If you consider yourself a caring inhabitant of the United States of America, you have to go see it. And, OK, wait for it on DVD, if you must. Just make sure you see it.

Number three is the Guardian article about the origination of "D'oh!". The world has to know that it goes back to the venerable James Finlayson in the Laurel and Hardy movies. Stuff like this is important.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2115180,00.html

Number four? Well, someone sent me a link to The Clash doing Guns of Brixton. For a second, I thought it was a the second version of The Clash (the rubbish one, y'know, the one with the male models replacing Mick Jones. I saw them in Liverpool, and it was pretty embarrassing.), but it's okay. It's authentic. The real Clash, in impressive form, at the Capitol in New Jersey. And more of the world has to see it.