1977

Star Wars.

Fuel crisis.


Fleetwood Mac.

I was eleven when this album came out. I still remember every single word of the lyrics.



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What do you listen to while you work?

"Radioactive," (the only good song this otherwise tepid band produced) combined with the grimly depressing final season of Fringe.

Good for when you feel mad at the world.



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Vamps

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Speaker Wars

When I lived in S. Marinella, the batty old lady who lived upstairs used to have regular screaming matches with her daughter, and was stone deaf to boot. As someone born to a couple who were almost incapable of exchanging morning greetings to each other without launching a shrieking fight, I'm a little sensitive to such things and strongly objected to having it imposed on me by total strangers in my own home.

So, I trained them. I have very good speakers, and taking a lesson from Pavlov, whenever the screaming started, would play Vivaldi's Four Seasons at full volume. It took a while for them to learn but it did finally work. The screaming matches were greatly reduced at the persistent and consistent reminder that there was someone quite close by who had nothing to do with any of it, but was being forced to share the joy.

Well we're making progress in Norcia. It seems that the Gashlycrumb Noisies, (the Polish couple who live upstairs) appear to have got the message that the rave music ("music") is not on. Not today or tomorrow, at any volume or any time of day or night, EVER. But the pseudo-Gregorian New Age versions of old Simon and Garfunkel tunes, though for completely different reasons, are not really a huge improvement. Maybe we could talk about "volume" next.

But I suppose even synthesized versions of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme are an improvement over the shrieking domestic psycho-drama.

Since any one of us suddenly and miraculously turning into a grownup over night is probably too much to ask, I figure it's either call the cops or...




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Canticum Novum

Cantate Domino canticum novum
cantate Domino ominis terra ...


Or, Canticum Vetum, as the case may be.

Something to brighten up your Septuagesima Friday.



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It's Blast-from-the-Past Tuesday here at the Picnic

OK Picnickers, you guys have been so good, I'm gonna play DJ and expand your musical consciousnesses, with an all-80s, all-day festival of your 20s...


Music you thought you'd forgotten all about from the days when your pink jeans were so tight around your ankles you had to have little zippers to get your feet into them; when you wouldn't be caught dead going outside without your pink hair teased and hairsprayed up two feet above your eyebrows...


Bet you still know all the words...


Go ahead, dance. No one's looking...




Did you wear parachute pants?





OK, now we calm down a bit and go out east

Stan.



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Homesick for Nova Scotia's rocky, stormy shores

Charge up your superpowers here

Play it loud enough to scare the neighbours.



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Noisy

I've got noisy neighbours. Actually, the little old lady who lives upstairs is very quiet, (though deaf as a stone, so when she watches TV we all watch TV together) but she has rather horrible relatives who nearly always get into screaming shouting matches with her when they come over (and don't get me started on the horrible grandchildren... a six year old girl clanking around in high heeled shoes...Italy!@%)*#%!!)

Now, when I was a very small child, my parents did the same thing. They screamed at each other, and it terrified me. I remember having a cupboard-cabinet thing I used to climb into whenever they did it.

Also, I'm an Anglo, which means we don't really express our feelings... at all...ever.

So the sound of someone screaming in anger still terrifies and discombobulates me very badly. I've worked out a method of dealing with the shouting neighbours involving Vivaldi and my very, very good Bose computer speakers. They are very loud.


The loud neighbours have learned that when they hear Vivaldi's Concerto Alla Rustica for strings in G, (presto) that, "Hilary wants us to stop shouting." It works a treat.



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For no good reason

this song just suddenly popped into my head.

I looked the band up. It's the only good one they did. All the rest is just cheap synthpop rubbish.



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When you are worried and things seem to be going badly...

when the Apocalypse is getting you down,

...Alison Moyet.



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Bowie - 20th level rock star

Basically, a minor deity.


I've told y'all my Bowie story, right?

Serious Moonlight - peak.

Glass Spider - downward slope



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New Song-Guy

Try Greg Laswell



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It doesn't, actually

It's rejection that does. But it's still a great song.



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You make me want to shout

More Joan Jett, for when you're feeling dangerous.



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Swish this around

it'll help you get the taste out of your mouth.



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La Musica Notturna delle Strade di Madrid - Op. 30 n. 6 (G. 324) / J. Savall

And here's the whole thing with the added bonus of Jordi Savall

Don't say I don't take care of you people.



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Boccherini and Russel Crowe

One of my favourite composers in one of my favourite films played by one of my favourite hunky alpha-male actors.

Time for a short bracing shot of unabashed masculinity, I thought.



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Carl Stalling

One of the greatest unsung musical geniuses of the 20th century.



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Spam n' aliens

I suggest putting it on your speakers, cranking it up, turning everything else off, lying down on the floor and listening to it fully. Do nothing else but listen. It's ten minutes, 25 seconds long. It won't kill you.



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