Assess your friends / CD collection / favourite monthly reading matter

http://i.imgur.com/PHmF5.jpg

Don't know if you've seen this, but made me smile:

Any more?

Just got one of those recommendation emails from Amazon:

"Greetings from Amazon.co.uk,

As someone who has purchased or rated Let Fury Have the Hour: The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer by Antonino D'Ambrosio, you might like to know that Make Sweet the Minds of Men: Early Opera and Tragic Catharsis is now available. You can order yours for just £37.40 (15% off the RRP) by following the link below...."

what would they have in common?

Made one of the great rock 'n' roll records, Susie Q

I was half listening to the Janice Long show the other night and whichever musician she was interviewing [sorry not to be more accurate but I was dozing off at the time] was talking about a game his band used to play to kill time on the road.

What you do is take a band name and alter it by removing [or, I guess, adding] a single letter to make another word. Much hilarity ensues...

e.g. Chin Crisis or The Grateful Dad

Any more?

A friend has had to drop out of coming to see The Specials at Hammersmith Apollo on Tuesday night (24th) at short notice. Would anyone like the ticket? It's standing in the stalls, face value £35 (no Ticketbastard fee if you want it). She and I would much rather it went to a fan than have to deal with the touts. First come, first served. I may not have the opportunity to check back here during the day, but will do tonight.

Fraser - if I've transgressed the rules, my apologies in advance.

Cheers

This is what the internet's for.

A bunch of illustrators start a blog http://howfuckingromantic.wordpress.com/ posting illustrated versions of the the lyrics to each song on The Magnetic Fields' "does what it says on the tin" triple CD. They've only posted a handful at the minute, but here's a sample:

And the TMF nerds amongst us will be delighted to see that the blue used in the illustration is indeed Pantone 292....

Does anyone know of any other unusual tributes to a favourite album, in whatever medium?

In The Guardian's Diary column today the final item is a direct *borrowing* from ME's column in this month's magazine:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/14/samantha-cameron-legg-pur...

I don't know anything about this area, but does Mark get paid anything for this? It's not even as though he's used it as the jumping off point for an article, which might justify such a lengthy quote, or are journalists free to take long quotes from other writers to fill up their column?

In case you missed them a few weeks ago, tickets are on sale tomorrow for dates in November
http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/The-Specials-tickets/artist/849281

http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/03/30/green-days-am...

Form an orderly queue now.

Just read over at http://funky16corners.wordpress.com/ that Eddie Bo died the other day.

You've probably never heard of him, but he was one of the geniuses of New Orleans R&B and funk over the past forty or fifty years. As well as records released under his own name and a clutch of pseudonyms, he wrote, produced and played on hordes of fine songs on dozens of local labels. If you've heard the Soul Jazz "New Orleans Funk" CDs he's all over them

Here's a taster

More in the comments.

When Mark and David get to record this week's podcast, will they have learnt anything as unusual as this, from Charlie Brooker in the Guardian yesterday:

"according to The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices by Brenda Love [ISBN 0 349 10676 2], "faeces supposedly has a charred or sour flavour but otherwise tastes similar to whatever was consumed"."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/16/walkers-crisps-new-f... for the full article. Wonder how Matt Hall is getting on in the new job....

What have you learned this week that beats this?

What it says on the tin, really.
A Flickr group dedicated to recreating album sleeves in Lego.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lego_album_covers/pool/

I guess we all need a hobby...

The mixtape is the natural domain of the Word massive, it would appear. Hardly a thread goes by without someone recalling the joys of the C90 way back when.

I didn't hear about Muxtape until after it had expired, but I came across 8tracks http://8tracks.com a little while ago - it allows you to make virtual mixtapes. You can either upload your own MP3s [and AACs for those of us who are in thrall to iTunes] or choose from the songs that others have put up. There's a minimum of 8 tracks in a mix and a maximum of 2 songs by the same artist. It's totally free and all seems to be legal.

It's only just getting off the ground, and much of the material at the minute is landfill indie, over-worthy singer songwriters and undanceable dance music, but the more who join and upload stuff the wider the selection will be, so we can all inflict our *fabulous* taste on others. I started a "50 Songs, 50 States" mix after seeing the thread of the same name on the Word site. Have a look at http://8tracks.com/magneticfields/50-states-50-songs .

And no, I'm nothing to do with the site, I just like it and want to spread the word. It is remarkably addictive, though, so may not be up your boss's street.