Friday 18 February 2011

Getting back to normal

Slowly things are getting back to something like normal. But one never really knows what the alsting effects of the recent events could be.

I have been throwing myself in trading work developments - working 12 hours oplus per day till dropping off to sleep exhausted mid-to-late evening. Waking up at 4:30a.m. or so, I am having a constant run of great ideas - or so it seems

Reading has mainly been a 700 page sociological account of sex in Japan, Nicholas Bornoff's Pink Samurai (the author died recently and i was reminded about this book by his obituary in the paper), Patti Smith's excellent Just Kids, and Kristin Hersh's very odd autobiography, Paradoxical Undressing - the last two of which I bought with the Waterstone token I got for Christmas

Music is mainly the wew cds by Mogwai, PJ Harvey and Swans. I am most impressed with PJ Harvey's latest. Not sure I am that keen on the newest incarnation of Swans as it doesn't feature Jarboe, who I always took to be vitally important to the mature Swan's sound.
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For me, the perfect Swans lineup
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Swans in 1997 - the last tour. The Swans are Dead double cd is a superb live album. The versions of "Lavender" and "Blood Promise" are stupendous
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For some years around 2000 I corresponded with Jarboe, as she had available other live recordings of Swans and was slowly developing her own solo material. Anhedoniac remains a really disturbing recording. As a result, I have loads of signed Jarboe stuff, rare recordings, etc.
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A recent photo from her website - http://www.thelivingjarboe.com/ A artist well-worth supporting in my view. And still a very striking looking person!

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