Music Monday on a Tuesday. Perhaps I should call this Music Weekly? Or Music Sometimes? Or just Music?

Ever since I got back from holiday (lovely, thanks) I have been enjoying Radio 3's Genius of Mozart, in which they are playing only Mozart for 12 days. It's absolutely wonderful, and it strikes me that Mozart is exactly what I think of when I think of classical music. It's a bit like a child's drawing of a house - despite the vast amount of different shapes and sizes that homes can have, if you ask a kid to draw a house they will go for the basic square house, pitched roof with a chimney, door in the middle and windows on either side model. I can and do love anything from Bach to Britten, but Mozart seems for me to be the template from which all other classical music derives. Even the stuff written before him.

Irritatingly, my office internet is too slow right now for me to put on a YouTube clip. I'll come back and do it later.

LATER: Here we go. One of my favourite pieces. Guaranteed to get me welling up:



Meanwhile, while we were on holiday, my sister and I played a game: which three dead musicians / singers would you like to be able to see perform live? We never managed to come up with the definitive list of three but Mozart was one of them. Sis suggested Bob Marley; I had visions of Vegas-era Elvis; we both would love to have seen Ella Fitzgerald; but we agreed that the Beatles would be inaudible because of the screaming. Over to you, commenters.

Out of Touch

In the queue at Tesco, I perused the back of the the popular music compilation CD 'Now That's What I Call Music: 77'. There was a Barbra Streisand song on it. It was called 'Duck Sauce'. Imagine my disappointment when it turns out to be a song called 'Barbra Streisand' by a band called Duck Sauce.

Music Monday

Some Monday mornings it feels like someone organised all of my ex-boyfriends into a choir and got them to sing.

I've Got My Hand In Your Head: Neuroscience / Music Monday Combo

I have just finished a fantastic book called The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge. Perhaps surprisingly for someone with no knowledge of science at all (Physics GCSE and that's it), I am a real neuroscience nerd, and love nothing more than curling up with a good book all about horrific brain injuries. Cosy, eh? On my shelf you will find classic neuroscience tracts by the likes of Oliver Sacks, Steven Johnson and Paul Broks, and I impulsed-purchased The Brain That Changes Itself whilst hanging out in Waterstones before a meeting, and proceeded to inhale the whole thing over the weekend.

Basically, you should stop reading my review now and read the book instead. But seeing as how you are here, TBTCI is a fascinating exploration of the key emerging concept in brain science of neuroplasticity - the idea that far from being a fixed machine which, once damaged, cannot be repaired, the brain is a fluid, living entity where different functions compete for space. The things you do remap your brain; the things you do a lot remap your brain a lot. (I'm simplifying a tad.) And parts of your brain that might usually do one thing are capable of doing others, particularly if trained in the right ways, which gives immense hope to those who are brain damaged, by birth, accident, stroke and so on. Some of the stories here are, no pun intended, mind-blowing: from a woman born retarded who cured herself, to another who was born, and lives and functions, with only half a brain.

This then gives hope to those of us who are not brain damaged but who might have behavioural patterns we are unhappy with. By repeating the patterns, we've worn tracks in our minds which are hard to get out of, which explains why we keep doing the same harmful things over and over. But like any other kind of damage, we can train and practice and get our brains onto a better path. (When I say we, I do mean me, by the way, though perhaps you will recognise yourself also.) Does this sound self-helpy? It isn't meant to. More that the book provides a deep insight into what it actually means, at the level of your personal brain chemistry, when you think of who you are and what you might be trying to change. (There I go with you. I still mean me.)

It's utterly inspiring stuff. Though as a caveat, you will have to have a high tolerance for vivisection, as the researchers in the book are constantly severing monkeys' spinal nerves and sewing kittens' eyes shut. If you like the sound of it - the book, not the vivisection - there's more on the author's website and the book is available in all the usual places. Also, can we pause for a moment to admire this author photo, taken by Denise Grant? This is what a psychoanalyst should look like, no?



All this makes me think about how I'd like to read more non-fiction. I didn't go near the stuff after school and university because I thought it would be all like textbooks, but in recent years I've found I've missed all the learning I took for granted when I was growing up, and now I want to find out more about this world of ours, goddammit. (Not god damn the world. That would be a foolhardy invitation. It's just an expression.) Dearest blog friends, can you recommend some great non-fiction for me to read? Other books on diverse factual topics that I've read and loved have included The Shadow of the Sun (Kapuscinski), Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (Biskind), The Age of Absurdity (Michael Foley) - that may be one for another blog post, in fact, so brilliant is it. But in the meantime, recommendations please.

Have just realised it's Monday. So here's a themed Music Monday - Hand In Your Head by Money Mark. Here's a fact for you: the first time I heard this, I thought the lyrics were "I've got my hand in your hair and I'm pulling out all of your mites."

Music Monday

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself today so all I'm going to do is post a song I really love.

Gigs: Behaving Badly

Let me tell you something. Blogging every day is hard work. Especially when I realise that I'm going to be away at a wedding all day Saturday and my computer is not. You have been warned.

Anyway, yesterday I was at Ally Pally for a Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem gig. Hot Chip were great. It's the third or fourth time I've seen them, I can find their records a bit feeble but they crank it right up live - one of my favourite live bands in fact, which is astonishing for electronica which too often is "two blokes in hoodies with a computer". Hot Chip are "six multi-instrumentalists with a dizzying array of personal styles" or in other words, the Madchester one, the hot one, the one who looks like that bloke out of The Office, the tax inspector, the one off Dragon's Den, and the one at the back. They're practiclly the Spice Girls. Plus their music sounds like New Order and Eurhythmics and Kylie. Thus, I was able to test out my new hairstyle for dancing. It held up well. Much swooshing without giving any of my neighbours whiplash.

Then on came LCD Soundsystem. I'm not a fan of the band, not in the sense that I don't like them - as it turns out, I do - but I only knew a couple of tracks before I went. The band were terrific, no complaints there. Like New Order and Talking Heads and Flaming Lips. (I just wrote 'Flamingo Lips'. Who wants to form a tribute band with me?) (Yes, I know flamingos don't have lips.) But the room (er, giant room-imitating tent thing?) got a lot more crowded and I got a LOT more annoyed. Do we seriously have to have the 'decent behaviour at gigs' conversation again?? I can just about forgive 'dancing like a lunatic and smacking me with his flailing arms because he was on drugs' man, because at least he was enjoying the gig, but 'pushed right into the moshpit* in front of me and then stood stock still with his arms up videoing the band on his crappy phone, subjecting me to wafts of terrible BO' boy can go to hell. Especially when his memory card ran out and he spent the next several minutes flicking through the photos looking for ones he could delete and replace with shaky out-of-focus images of tiny hobbit people on a faraway stage. Mate: you are not, in any significant way, experiencing this gig. Stay home and buy the DVD. And take a shower. Then of course there was 'chatting all the way through' couple and 'smoking indoors' bloke and 'singing along badly' girl - oh hang on, that was me...

*Do people still say moshpit? Do people still mosh? The front-of-stage dancing zone, anyway.

Music Monday: NaNoWriMoSpecial

So here's the thing. I don't like NaNoWriMo. In fact I HATE NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo is 'National Novel Writing Month' in which would-be writers are encouraged to pen their novels in one month, on the basis that a couple of thousand words a day for thirty days will get you a nice first draft. Which is true.

What is also true is that a couple of thousand words a day for thirty days in a row without repetition, hesitation or (the killer, this) deviation is bloody difficult. Very few people can toss off a novel in a month. Fewer still can write a good novel, even a good draft, in a month. Ian Rankin claims to be able to do so, Alexander McCall Smith also. You may have your own opinions on the talents of these writers, but it shouldn't be overlooked that they are both massive best-selling millionaires, which does imply some adeptness at what they do, in contrast with those of us (almost all other writers) who are not massive best-selling millionaires, which may (or may not) imply that we find writing a bit harder. They also both write genre novels (ie, in a non-judgmental sense, formulaic) with worlds and characters that they have already devised. In sum, I don't think that Rankin and McCall Smith are typical of most writers.

At the moment I am almost two years into writing my second novel. I have been working hard on it. I really don't like being told that my two years of my job can be done in a month. I am guessing that whatever your work is, you would also not enjoy a national 'your job here' month, which implied that two years of your work could be done in a month if you just applied yourself a bit harder. It makes me feel inadequate. And jealous. Definitely jealous.

So yes, let's encourage people to write - I [mostly] love writing, I love the idea that other people can get the same joy I [sometimes] get from writing - but let's not spread the idea that writing a novel is easy. Quite aside from anything, the difficult reality is likely to put off the very people that NaNoWriMo is trying to reach.

Oh, and as it's Music Monday...

Strictlywatch 2010: week 2 results

I don't think it's a great sign when someone who is completely obsessed with Strictly Come Dancing to the point of blogging about each episode in exhausting (do I mean exhaustive? No I think I really do mean exhausting) detail watches the results show and thinks 'well I don't think I'm going to bother with that again.' But seeing as I did -

Tess Daly looked stunning. Really lovely, flattering dress. Either a case of stopped clock telling the right time twice a day, or the BBC reading my blog really quickly and totally revolutionising their wardrobe policy. I know which I believe. Claudia Winkelman, on the other hand, was dressed as a Victorian baby. Major kudos, BBC, for having two women hosting a prime time show, even if it is only the little sister of Strictly Proper. I'd have liked to see them interact more. Claudia on her own does just fine, but Tess is a straight woman in dire need of a funny partner. Claudia is funny in spades. Let them present together, BBC, oh please. Presenting-wise, the best part of the entire show was the last few seconds when Tess refused to "keeeep dancing" with Claudia.

Other thoughts: spreading the results over the show decreases, rather than increases, tension. The show dancers are pointless, looking lost on the stage and no real fun to watch because nobody knows the personalities behind the dancing. Big error of judgement from the producers. Robbie Williams performs in exactly the same way as I would if I were a pop star, ie not caring much for the usual order of the words, and dancing like a loon. He also looks increasingly like Paul Robinson in Neighbours. Evidence:





And Goldie going was no surprise for those of us expert in the behaviour of Strictly voting audiences.

That's all. This blog, like the results show itself, is both too long and too short, and rather pointless. I think I'll stick to reviewing the main show from now on.

Musical bookswap on a Monday

And why not? It's my blog.

I am SO BLOODY EXCITED about the Firestation Bookswap on Thursday. Here are some reasons you might want to get excited too:

1. It's the bookswap's first birthday! I might wear that transparent dress I accidentally wore on the first night, to celebrate. Then again, I might not.

2. We have had some amazing guests on the bookswap so far but it'd be hard to beat this month's line-up. I read Matt Rudd's William's Progressin one sitting, despite being filled with horror at its hilarious revelations about the truth about having young babies - yes I will now never have children and it is all Matt Rudd's fault, but I will forgive anybody who makes me laugh. Get a taste of his inimitable sense of humour at his blog. And Andrew Kaufmann's All My Friends are Superheroesis the only book that has ever made me cry from happiness. I read it less than a year ago, have already given away four copies (including Scott's - sorry Scott, if I can remember who I gave it to I might be able to get it back) and I love love LOVE it. In fact if you buy a copy you can find a quote from me on the back confirming this very thing. His latest, The Waterproof Bible, is similarly strange and wonderful. Andrew is interviewed on the Beat website by bookswap alumnus Aliya Whiteley and I defy you to read the interview and not want to meet the man in person.

3. For one month only, the bookswap is FREE. Free I hear you say? Why yes -



Hilarious. Could that video be any more 90s? And when did you last think of the Soup Dragons?

Music Monday on a Tuesday on a Wednesday (wish I had called it something else now)

I have been lax again. In my defence, it's because I've been nose-down making final corrections to my novel before we submit it to publishers. That's exciting. Well, it's exciting for me. I have no idea whether revealing that I am shortly to submit to publishers is a bad thing, like I should suddenly spring it on them with no warning, like a surprise inspection from Ofsted (nicking a joke from Doctor Who there), except in a good way. Like they will be more likely to love it and give me loads of money if they don't know it's coming. Like a surprise pregnancy. Oh, I don't know. This is the long way around of me apologising to my agent for letting the cat out of the bag if that is, indeed, what I am doing.

Anyway, I've been busy with that, which means why no Who review (it was brill), no Jose Gonzalez review (he was brill), and no Flight of the Conchords review (they were brill and *I met them*.) I am fully intending to post all of these things in the fullness of time.

Meanwhile, earlier today, I got an e-mail from my friend, the serious academic, which said simply 'We will always associate this song with you, Marie. Great dancing at the wedding.'

Which song? Why, this song of course.



Yes. It is now MY song. I am not entirely sure how I feel about that, but my lovely lady lumps are delighted.

And seeing as we were talking Flight of the Conchords, let's remind ourselves of their fabulous parody:

Music Monday on a Monday

I haven't watched Doctor Who yet. Lalalalala sticks fingers in ears. I was at a wedding all weekend and am barely awake enough to sit up. At every wedding I go to there's a surprise floor-filler and this was this was the one from this wedding. I was still at school when it came out and I remember being absolutely horrified. "This song says E's ARE GOOD. Isn't that illegal?" Bless.

The Trouser Elections: results, plus Music Monday on a Tuesday on a Friday special

It's a hung wardrobe. Which means either a Lib-Lab pact (jeggings):



Or a Con-Lib pact (harem/legging hybrid - harging? Legem?):



The jeggings look a hell of a lot more appetising to me. But the people have spoken and what they have said is: Nick Clegg, we want to see you dressed like MC Hammer. But you didn't get enough votes, so I'm afraid you can't touch this. Stop! Cameron time.

I feel a song coming on. Not one by MC Hammer either. All together now: if you gotta run, run from hope!



As for me, I'll be in pyjamas. Wake me up in five years.

Music Monday on a Tuesday: Live Special

Last night I was getting ready for my string quartet rehearsal, going over that tricky tenor clef bit in the second variation of the Haydn. One of the violinists arrived. Then the other violinist arrived. And then we waited. And waited. And eventually called our viola player, who'd forgotten the gig and answered the phone from the middle of a meeting in the pub he lives above. So no quartet for us.

We decamped to the pub, at which point violinist number 1 (and useful emergency paramedic) got a text from a friend who was heading to a gig in Dalston, and did we want to join her? As it happens Dalston is a short hop from where we rehearse (aka my front room) so we piled in the car (a brilliantly-named Seat Ibiza Chill) and off we went.

The bar - Pangea Project in not so much Dalston, more orthodox Jewish heartland Stamford Hill - was minute and loud and serving vegetarian fake chicken sandwiches. On stage were ELKS, who describe themselves on their MySpace page as Rock / Melodramatic Popular Song / Blues, and who I'd describe as Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Seasick Steve beards and shouty vocals. I like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, am beard-neutral, and I don't like shouty vocals, so I was most of the way but not quite there. Had a dance, but felt a bit jealous that the drummer was wearing earplugs.

Sidled over to the bar and picked up a flyer that made my night. I quote in full and without comment, because what comment could possibly be needed?

Until the Bird of the Soul Takes Flight from the Cage of the Body to Consort with the Nightingales of the Everlasting Garden... is the name of the acoustic duo opening tonight and setting the tone for storytelling folk songs. Three Beards follow with banjo and accordion textural sounds, and Belarussian rock and roller Sasha Ilyukevich headlines at 10.30pm with his incomparable brew of punk, folk and blues combining the literate worldliness of Boris Grebenshikov and the emotional depth of Blood On The Tracks-era Bob Dylan.

Drank a tonic water. Admired the haircuts. Went home.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion:



Here's that Haydn:

Music Monday on a Tuesday

Slipping under the bar at 11.22pm, it's Music Monday on a Tuesday. Today I drove my sister and my brand new niece to Heathrow airport as they left for home - Mozambique - and another long, long stretch in which I will not see them. Very sad. When my sister was little she had two favourite toys, Sunshine and Orange Donkey (never 'Orange Donkey and Sunshine', what, are you crazy?) Orange Donkey was an orange donkey, and Sunshine was a very floppy bright yellow dog type thing. I tell you this not only to cloy you with nauseating nostalgia-flavoured over-sweetness, but to explain, even more so, my song choice for today. (For those who take an interest, my niece's favourite toy is not chosen yet, she is only two months old, but we can assume it will be a rabbit, because all the toys she has been given so far have been rabbits.) Anyway: the classic Ain't no Sunshine performed live and acoustic by the brilliant (put the duck in the oven until its) Bill Withers in 1971:

Music Monday on a Tuesday: Postscript

I just thought of this lovely gardening-related song, with a beautiful video to match: 'Mango Tree' by Angus and Julia Stone. I had a snoop around Youtube and it turns out that all their songs are great and they've got a nice line in imaginative videos. Another album purchased, another work afternoon wiled away not working...

Music Monday on a Tuesday

Once, when I was nineteen and had had a particularly emotional day (read: had just got dumped), my father told me that life would get much easier as I got older, as I would no longer feel things so deeply but instead become interested in antiques and gardening.

He was half right. I am definitely a lot more interested in antiques and gardening. In fact I spent this morning deadheading my jasmine and marvelling at the fact that it has spent several months doing a perfect impersonation of a large dead twig, but the moment the sun has come out it has leapt to glorious, verdant life. I think the jasmine and me have much in common. I am genuinely excited at the prospect of going to the garden centre on Saturday to replenish my herbs and replace the dead geraniums (geraniums will just die - I refuse to take the blame), and then I am going to get stuck into the weeds, and in fact the only thing I don't love about gardening is filling the watering can. I don't know why. I just hate it. (Oh, and cutting back the ivy, but that's not gardening, it's crowd control.)

There aren't a lot of songs about gardening, as it turns out. Feel free to suggest a few. Here's Crosby, Stills and Nash performing Our House, which does mention flowers and a yard. Just try to resist the singalong at the end. God, they look old. I wonder if they still feel things deeply and how they feel about antiques?

Music Monday on a Tuesday

As previously mentioned, tonight I will be hosting Granta Magazine's first ever pub quiz, at the Crown Tavern on Clerkenwell Green in London, and the theme will be sex. Therefore I have decided to choose a sexy song that is not gross for today's Music Monday on a Tuesday. A sexy song that is not gross. There are fewer than you might think. (Feel free to name some in the comments.) But in honour of the sunny weather I am going with one of my all-time favourites: Hot Fun in the Summertime by Sly and the Family Stone. Sadly I couldn't find the fab live version I saw on Youtube a few years ago, and this doesn't even have a video, but it's just too good. Also it's not actually about sex. But it's sexY. Hot Fun:

Music Monday

Woke up this morning feeling as if I had barely slept, after a particularly egregious "I have to do my A levels again" dream, which I am now having a couple of times a week. Every time it is exhausting as I explain that I've already done my A levels and have been to university twice, so surely I don't actually have to do them again, and this is just like that dream where I have to do my A levels again. A brief stand back from my life reveals that it is in fact an awful lot like having to do my A levels over and over (second novel syndrome anyone?) so I suppose it isn't that surprising. More surprising was the friend who recently revealed that she too has the dream about having to do her A levels again, only she never actually did A levels.

On the theme of revisiting childhood, this week's Music Monday is Shirley Ellis performing The Clapping Song with some fabulous 1960s Breton top-wearing backing dancers. Shirley's dancing is slightly less enthusiastic...

Music Monday

Did you think I had forgotten? I had not forgotten. I did, however, spend this morning looking after my four-year-old nephew, who, while behaving angelically, is nevertheless a four year old nephew, therefore finding time to breathe started to look like a stretch. But I am here now.

I have spent the last few days pruning my iTunes and have noticed a few things. Things like:

- thanks to (the fabulous) Songlines Magazine I have a gigantic World Music collection that I mostly uploaded onto my iTunes without listening to first. I have now listened to it all. I adore most of it. I really, really don't adore some of it. Some of it sounds like people tuning their instruments, doing the washing up, and wailing from toothache all at the same time. But I love most of the African, the South American, the Caribbean, the folk and the klezmer (I seem to have more klezmer music than someone who's only slightly Jewish, and the wrong kind of Jewish at that, could ever require.) I do not like the sitar music and anything with that loud reedy wind thing in it (Turkish?) Much World Music rap makes my ears bleed. The extra free CD of South African music from a year or two ago is brilliant. The extra free CD of Danish music is not. Sorry, Denmark.

- I don't 80s funk any more.

- Ditto Acid Jazz.

- I still feel bad about buying the substandard Kristen Hirsch solo CD I've been trying to like for fifteen years. And the rubbish Beck album which managed to be the only one I own - and all the others are good. And that Jimi Tenor one I got because my boyfriend liked it. I didn't. £10 that I spent in the year 2000 and still it haunts me.

Not all Jimi Tenor is bad though. Here's 'Sugardaddy'. No video. Just listen to it through your headphones. It is as good as an autobiographical song about being a Finnish male prostitute can be.

Music Monday

It's a new feature. Completely different from Big Mouth's Song for Sunday. Because it's Monday, innit.

You know this one already, but it's what I had going round my head walking into work this morning. Unusual choice for a Monday morning maybe, but it's a beautiful day and I love my new office and the book is going well, so here it is. I think Tamara Connolly has done a lovely job making a video for it too.

Nina Simone, Feeling Good: