I was browsing some Bowie today on my iPod and was struck by the huge stretch of silence after the intro to his 1980 remake of Space Oddity (my favourite version). It clocks in at about 13 seconds of absolute silence before the song returns. Can anyone beat that in a mainstream rock/pop release (i.e. no John Cage or other such wankery).

On a related note, I recall reading somewhere, possibly here, that when Low performed live for the BBC years ago the emergency dead-air tape kept triggering due to their moribund mid-song silences. If true I imagine the Bowie track didn't get much radio action.

Below, Space Oddity (1980), Silence starts just before the minute mark.

It's narrowly pipped Sly's "In Time", my place-holder for the previous 20 years. I could listen to that bass and drums all day.
Prove me wrong.

Roots and John Legend: Compared to What

Merry Christmas all. (only 3 hours to go here in Oz).

Well, after a decade of use, with hundreds of transactions worth thousands of dollars I've finally had my Ebay cherry popped with a dodgy deal. I'm trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, and I'd like to think that he was just mistaken, but I suspect I've been had.
The original item is Ebay Item# 290632523536

Note that it is "as-new" and has "only been used as a display model for training". It was purchased as a gift for my father for Christmas.

When I received the item I sent him a WTF? email and followed it up yesterday with some photos: http://s1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee515/podicle1/Thermapen/

Note that the photo he provided in the listing was taken from the only possible angle that shows no damage. His replies are full of indignation and claims that the photos are not of the item he sent (registered, btw. He is in Glasgow and I am in Australia). Like I'm going to buy a $50 buck thermometer from someone halfway around the world just to carry out a scam.

I'm not sure anyone who had handled the item, let alone photographed it, could make this mistake and believe the item was "as new".
Anyway, I've initiated a PayPal dispute, for what it's worth. He's offered to refund the money after I ship the item back to him (at my cost), which I'm not comfortable doing.

What do you (gender non-specific) guys think? Could this guy genuinely be mistaken, or is he dodgy?

I'm in the unfortunate position of losing a good friend. We were best friends as kids and rekindled the friendship a decade ago over our mutual love of guitars. We are chalk and cheese: I have a couple of tertiary degrees and have worked as a professional all my working life whereas he is a wheeler-dealer, blagging and bluffing his way his way to the next dollar and making a buck as he can. I'm reserved and considerate whereas he is offensively blunt. I've been in a stable relationship for the past 16 years and have two small kids whereas he hasn't been in any relationship since our re-acquaintance. You get the picture.

Anyway, a couple of months ago he asked if we needed any work around the house as things were pretty slow for him. We thought we'd help him out, and decided we'd get him to do some work to our verandah instead of the local tradey we'd lined up. Some specific hardware was involved, and as I'd done some research into what was needed I offered to buy it, but he assured me he could get it cheaper so I let him do the purchasing. Come the day of the job, after dismantling the existing decking he sheepishly informed me that the hardware hadn't arrived from interstate yet. This immediately got me curious, as there were plenty of local suppliers and all of them had come in cheaper than the price he claimed he'd paid. To fill the time we hurriedly found some other jobs for him (and his mate) to do for a couple of days. I meanwhile did some ringing around, found the supplier he was using, and discovered that he was charging us 30% above the price he had paid. I casually mentioned the next day that we'd need the receipt for the hardware for warranty purposes (which was actually true), and he was visibly squirming before he suddenly 'remembered' that the stuff had cost him far less than he'd quoted. Anyway, the job was completed, albeit with a few hassles (he had ordered a component of the wrong strength, and would have proceeded with disastrous results if I hadn't noticed).

By this stage I was pretty disappointed. He'd lied several times to me, but I was willing to let it slide and maintain our friendship, albeit on modified terms (He probably still calls me his best friend). He is supremely arrogant, and having him around the home for a couple of days blessing us with his wisdom (including how to raise our kids) was wearing, to say the least.

Today, however, he sent me the invoice, accompanied by an email where he pretty much said that since I'd caught him out on the hardware mark-up he would now charge me a day rate higher than that agreed, as well as all sorts of costs for travel from his home (ignoring the fact that we put him up and fed him for a couple of nights).
I will pay his invoice and then let him know that I never want anything to do with him again. I couldn't care less about the money, but this entire scenario has made me realise that my life is too busy to make room for someone like him.

Am I being too harsh? What would the Massive do?

The other day my iPod threw up "The Wanting Comes in Waves" by The Decemberists, and I was willing to bet my left nut, eldest-born son and lesser Strat that the vocalist in the middle of the song was the chap out of Turin Brakes. I thought it was an unusual trans-oceanic merging of groups and wondered how it came to be. Maybe they met sharing a festival bill. Maybe they bumped into each other in the corridors of Abbey Road. I checked the net and was stunned to find that not only was it not the chap out of Turin Brakes, it wasn't a chap at all! The vocal timbre, vibrato etc are so similar that I had not a shred of doubt.
So after nervously patting my eldest-born son, lesser Strat and, er, left nut in relief that I hadn't been proffering wanton wagers, I thought I'd create a mate for my vocal metamorphs thread and ask the massive about vocalists who have genuinely fooled you (i.e not just Mouse and the Traps-style pastiche).

The only other one I can remember off hand is Blue by the Jayhawks. The first time I heard it was at a party where the sound wasn't great, and I could have sworn it was a long-lost classic from the early 70s Stones.

YouTube clips for Decemberists and Turin Brakes below. The relevant vocal starts about 2 mins into the Decemberists track:

After hearing Peter Doggett on the recent podcast and after being mightily impressed with his Beatles book, I pre-purchased The Man Who Sold the World on Amazon for it to download to my Kindle on the day of release (today).

Yesterday I collected and digitised all my Bowie CDs ready for a couple of days in the company of the great man, and this morning I managed to distract the kids (sent them out to find snakes in the creek!) while I booted up my kindle and connected it to the network. The book was duly downloaded, but when I tried to open it I received instead a message saying there was a problem with the download and sending me to the mobipocket support centre, where there was absolutely no information.

More oddly, the book seems to have been withdrawn on the Amazon site where it is classified as "Out of Print/Limited Availability", both or the print and Kindle versions.

Anyone else have a similar problem or any idea what's going on? I suspect a problem clearing lyrics or photos.

I'm halfway through Peter Doggett's excellent "You Never Give Me Your Money" about the decay of the Beatles and, my god, what a miserable and unlikable bunch of pricks.

John genuinely seemed to think he was the reincarnation of Christ, and somehow found himself in the arms of the only other person on earth as self-absorbed as himself.

While he deserves kudos for squeezing another couple of albums out of the fabs, Paul seems immensely insecure and arrogant to a level that even his Beatleness can't excuse. Prime example: claiming that his vote in Apple's affairs should be given equal weight to the other three combined. Even Ringo was shocked at that one.

George was just a miserable sod, decrying the material world while moaning about the money and trying to shag everything in sight.

And then we get to Ringo. He seems to be the only one whose personality actually matched his lovable public persona. He seemed genuinely hurt by the behaviour of the others and provides the only patch of warmth in an icy landscape. He repeatedly took it upon himself to be the emissary of peace between Lennon and McCartney and they repeatedly treated him like shit. Even though he had the most to lose from the split of the Beatles, he embraced the future with the most gusto (even if he did end up as an alcoholic wreck a few years later).

So I raise my mug of Horlicks to you, Bongo, for shining like a candle in the dark and giving this Beatle fan something to love.

Listening to the AM radio in the car today I heard the Box Top's great version of The Letter (embedded below), and it struck me that, in the space of the few years between this and Big Star (Blue Moon below), Alex Chilton underwent the most extraordinary vocal metamorphosis. Gone was the strong, gruff soul voice, and in its place a reasonably fragile, wavering voice that remained with him for the rest of his career.

I suppose some of this could be put down to ageing, as he was ridiculously young in the Box Tops, but I wonder whether the progression was natural or a deliberate attempt to reject his past.

Any other vocalists who have done similar?

After listening to the recent Beatles podcast I rummaged about in the shelves and found a copy of Revolution in the Head, by Ian MacDonald, that I'd been given for Christmas a couple of years ago. A few days later the book is read and I'm pretty underwhelmed. This has always been held up as the 'must-read' Beatles text, and seemed to be custom made for me: I always prefer music tomes that use the actual music as the entry point, rather than biography, and I have adored the Beatles for exactly 78% of my life. What could go wrong?

Well, for starters I don't think it's particularly well written. It reads like an undergraduate cultural-studies essay, full of over-confidence in his opinions, over-interpretation of his subject and deliberate contrariness.

So the face that Ms Rigby keeps in a jar by the door is "the single most memorable image in the Beatles output"? Pigs arse. Nowhere Man is a dirge-like tune memorable only by "the luxury of its production"? It's pure pop perfection to me and most others (unlike the "brilliantly fluent" Martha My Dear). I understand that some of this is difference of opinion, but he bludgeons the reader with his views so absolutely and gracelessly that he leaves no room for dissent.

He is also bizarrely dismissive of pretty much all rock music (as opposed to pop), and scolds the Beatles heartily any time they dabble. Post Beatles, music descended into a "barrage of distortion" that eliminated the need for "anything more than a generalised strum technique". Can this have been included for any reason other than to be deliberately superior and provocative?

The other interesting thing, and I may be completely wrong here, is his slightly awkward inclusion of music theory, as if he doesn't really know what he's talking about. He'll often mention a specific note to illustrate a point (or impress), but the information is meaningless without the harmonic context of the song (i.e. the key signature). So he's either being deliberately exclusive to most of his readership, or he's tugging.

I don't enjoy reading toady hagiographies, but the book has a quite sour tone to it that I don't think the music deserves. I maintain that anyone interested in the Beatles should start with The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn and The Beatles Gear by Andy Babiuk, and move to The Unreleased Beatles by Richie Unterberger if they want more. While these books concentrate on the tangible relics of the group, they give the same cultural context as Revolution in the Head, albeit with far more subtlety and grace.

btw, I've just started Peter Doggett's book, and it seems excellent.

Are there any massive members who have obsessively hoarded old episodes of the Kermode/Mayo and Adam/Joe podcasts? I have all the content from the last 18 months, but would love some older stuff, particularly the Kermode/Mayo casts. I have been unable to find any online resources for these.

As I live in Australia, I will pay someone through PayPal to buy a data stick, fill it full of good stuff and post it across to me.

Help me Word massive. You're my only hope.

Sorry if this turns out to be a double post, but my original post seems to have vanished.

Following on from the Brisbane floods a few weeks ago, I thought I'd post about the massive cyclone bearing down on the coast of North Queensland. It will hit sometime tonight (four or five hours from this post) and is one of the largest cyclones in Australia's history. Look at it on the net (cyclone Yasi): it is half the size of Queensland.

Having been through the horrible process of waiting for the inevitable arrival of a natural disaster, I'd like to pass on my best wishes for anyone in the affected area. It almost seems perverse that pretty much the only bit of the state that wasn't under water two weeks ago is about to get flattened by this cyclone.

It seems strange to moan about wet weather to a predominantly British audience, but Christ it's wet here in Brisbane. For the last couple of weeks Queensland has been undergoing the worst (in cost terms) natural disaster in Australia's history. At one stage, and possibly still, an area of Queensland larger than the UK was under water. Up until now it's mainly been the rural areas copping it, but things have now moved south and ominous signs are mounting for Brisbane. A flash flood raced through the nearby city of Toowoomba today killing at least five people and tomorrow night the Brisbane river will be swollen to its highest level since the devastating 1974 floods that scoured a large part of the city.

In January 1974 my parents were mature age students with two very young kids. A couple of months earlier they had put everything they had into a deposit for a small house in one Brisbane's riverside suburbs, and on the 26th of January the floodwaters rose up the street and eventually over the roof of the house. They lost everything, and we were rescued from the house by dinghy before it all went under. I can still reach up above the rafters in their house and pull off flat plates of river-mud from the rafters. The curb up their street remains cracked from the army bulldozers that pushed the slime back into the river when the waters had receded.

Almost 40 years later my elderly parents are sitting in the same house, scared. I now live with my wife and two small children in a house in the mountains west of Brisbane, trapped for two days now by a thundering rain-forest creek that runs through my front yard. As I'm typing this near midnight on Monday, the roar of the rain and boulders grinding in the creek is just deafening.

I can't remember the 1974 flood (I was two) but I can remember remembering them, if that makes sense. At kindergarten I used to get hysterical if it rained heavily, and my parents would have to come and collect me. Since I became a property owner, heavy rain makes me very uneasy.

Anyway, disasters happen all the time, but it's sobering when one stares you in the face. I've just ordered myself a new guitar amp off EBay to make myself feel better. Job done. I'm off to bed.

I'm sure we've done this before, but I've always been struck by how many of my favourite albums were released the year I was born (1971). A quick trawl through Google confirms this.

It's not just that these are classic albums, they are actually my favourite albums from the artist:
The Who: Who's Next
Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
Allman Brothers: At Fillmore East
Sly and the Family Stone: There's a Riot Going On
Led Zeppelin: Led Zeppelin IV
Janis Joplin: Pearl
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On
Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells a Story
Johnny Winter And: Live
Beach Boys: Surfs Up
John Lennon: Imagine
T.Rex: Electric Warrior
Curtis Mayfield: Roots
Elton John: Madman Across the Water
Yes: Fragile
The Faces: A Nod is as Good as a Wink
David Bowie: Hunky Dory

No less than 8 of those albums would be in my top 40, and probably 5 of them would be in my top 10.

There are probably another 20 from that year that I rate very highly, including albums from Funkadelic, The Doors, Carole King, Badfinger, Van Morrison, The Kinks, Flamin' Groovies and more.

Does anyone else have this sort of musical affinity for their birth year?

I'm holding a sticker in my hand that I picked up off the carpet. It's fallen off one of the 1,500 CDs I've sorted and stored in a new set of cabinets in my office, the first time in a decade that my collection has been groomed and curated in any way.
The sticker reads:
Record Collector: "One of rock's most revered albums...and given sumptuous remastering and repackaging..."
NME: 10/10 "...an album of awesome intensity and tenderness..."
Mojo" "...the greatest rock album ever made"

I have no idea which album it fell off; so many albums and reissues in my collection were heralded with these sort of hyperbolic claims that the words are meaningless. But being confronted face-to-face with my music collection, displayed in the open and naked to the sun's rays, has bought home a few cold truths.

The most sobering is that I will never again listen to more than half of these albums. They will still be gleaming in their cases, pretty much as new, when I am dead and my children have grown up. How did I become so estranged from my music? These albums used to be my friends, with each note and word familiar and reassuring. Now, at a glance, I can see at least a dozen albums that I have no recollection of buying, and another dozen that I bought on the basis of some breathless magazine review but either never got around to listening to or only listened to once. Outrageous Cherry? Fort Lauderdale? Superstar? They are like strangers at my wedding: I'm not quite sure why they are there, but I don't want to say anything in case they are important.

Many of these albums are the overburden that must be mined and discarded to hit the rich musical seams below. Many more are the disappointing follow-ups to albums that burned bright. Who would have known back then that Urge Overkill only had one good album in them (Saturation) or that Beck would get so boring?

More alarming is the lack of recent albums. Between work and children my thirst for new music has evaporated, and when I do steal an opportunity to listen to something, I want it to be warm and familiar and not something I have to work at. So my collection, frozen since about 2007, already seems dusty and archaic.

Balancing all of this are the albums that have given me joy and solace throughout my life, their spines beaming out at me as familiar as friends out of a school photo. Not six inches from my head is a small section of 'W' harboring Who's Next, Scott 4, The Mollusk, Essence, Soul Journey, Innervisions and Being There, all albums that I will keep listening to for as long as I've got ears. A few shine extra bright: OK Computer, Another Green World, A Northern Soul, Yoshimi. These are the albums that soothed me during grim times and while I love them dearly, I can now only handle brief dalliances. They stand as sentinels over the riff-raff surrounding them.

Anyway, I've now Googled the contents of my sticker and the NME quote has tagged it as belonging to the remastered Forever Changes. I had no idea I had a remastered version of this album, and don't remember anything much wrong with the old version. But I'll be reattaching the sticker just in case I forget how intense and tender this, "the greatest rock album ever made", really is.

I find this video clip strangely disturbing. Maybe it's the slightly irregular features of the lads. Maybe it's their rent-boy mannerisms. I dunno...

And, of course, apologies if this has been posted before.