She loves Rock N Roll...
I'm quiet on the blogging front because for some reason or other, I don't have much to say. I'd blame the news for not being particularly interesting, but it might also be that I'm busy with Real World things - oh, and LEGO Batman - and haven't really been sparing much brain energy to blog type things.
The Daily Mail have their manpanties in a twist about the utterly fantastic part of the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill allowing parents of children born through IVF to nominate a second parent (still to be called 'father') to share parental duties and be legally recognised as a father without necessarily having a genetic connection. The important part? This is regardless of gender. In other words: if
Bing gets herself knocked up, she can choose to legally assign fatherhood to me. I could be a Dad. This is amazing news.
So leave it to LibCon trolls to harsh my squee. Seriously, I don't know why I bother engaging with people who are clearly never going to accept my status as a person, if it just makes me angry and upset. Though then I feel more ashamed for bowing out than I necessarily should. Damned if I do...
So here's a questionnaire meme thing, relating to the top ten artists on my Last.fm account. Started yesterday, but it took me ages to write.
- Alice Cooper
- Ani DiFranco
- Garbage
- Aerosmith
- Mitch Benn
- Iron Maiden
- Queen
- Guns N Roses
- AC/DC
- Meat Loaf
What was the first song you ever heard by 2?
Swan Dive.
Bing sent it to me after we'd been writing Mel and Mike for about a year, telling me it was a song very much suited to Mel - specifically Mel as seen in
Milliways. Since devouring Ani's back catalogue, I have decided she has written other songs better suited to Melaka, but I remember this enough to have made a vid of it, at Bing's request.
Click to viewWhat is your favourite album by 3?
This is tough, because I like all of their albums, but I think it's got to be Bleed Like Me. The tone's a little sadder and cynical than their more cynical and annoyed earlier work, but I really like what they have to say with a lot of the songs there. And the music is beautiful.
What is your favourite lyric that 4 has sung?
Pink, it's like red but not quite
How many times have you seen 5 live?
Once, if you count 'actually live doing a gig thing, for which Daniel paid money'. If you mean 'how many times have I been in the same room as him and his guitar while he sings a funny song' - quite a few. And hopefully more, except BBC audiences appear to have blacklisted me, and I've no idea why.
What is your favourite song by 6?
Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter. No particular reason, I just dig the tune.
What is a good memory you have considering the music of 8?
You have to bear with me here, because it starts with a traumatic memory: I was listening to Appetite for Destruction walking home through Camden when I was raped, and the album - specifically Sweet Child of Mine developed into a very harsh trigger.
Rob later completely denied any memory of this, but he helped me take the album and build good memories around them - impromptu karaoke at a house party, dancing like a maniac with him at Crazy Nites. After one round of Sweet Child he told me Now remember that when you hear the song, so I decided I would.
OK, it's not specifically a memory now, more an affirmation of my strength as a person, but still.
Is there a song of 10 that makes you sad?
Two out of Three Ain't Bad - it's a song about settling; about sacrificing your heart and love to be with someone who's just 'fine'. About finding someone and knowing you're never going to love them, because somehow the spark isn't there.
I don't believe there's a One True Love, and I don't believe that love can't be found with someone else after losing it before, so there's an extra tragedy in there for me: the protagonist refusing to look for love after having his heart broken, and hurting someone who loves him in the process.
What is your favourite lyric that 1 has sung?C'mon girl, it's a better day
Get your foot out of that grave
Don't let that one love tear your world apart
C'mon babe, kick that stuff
Show the street it ain't so tough
Quit lyin' around with a crippled, broken heart
What is your favourite song by 7?
Put Out the Fire.
I don't know why I'm such a sucker of political songs, but there you are.
How did you get into 10?
I was a late bloomer musically. Basically, my school friend Natalie wanted someone to go with her to see Meat Loaf at Wembly, and I said 'of course sure', mostly because I had a huge crush on Nat but also because I figured my music taste needed working on and she had proved pretty reliable, so far. So she sat me down in her house, played me his back catalogue and off we went to Wembley. My first concert, my first taste of Meat Loaf, and the beginning of a beautiful friendship with his music :-)
What was the first song you heard by 8?
I do believe it was their cover of the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil, on the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack. And yes, I do think it's a good version. The Stones are like that: their songs make fantastic material for covers.
What is your favourite song by 9?
Back in Black (No embedding. You'll just have to follow the link) Oh shut up, it's a classic.
How many times have you seen 1 live?
(Quick Finger Count) Four times. Hammersmith Apollo in 2000, Wembley Arena in 2001, same venue as part of Monsters of Rock with Thunder and the Quireboys in 2002 ,and the same venue with Joan Jett and Motorhead in 2007.
Why so often? Well, Alice is a showman. It's about the act. The prancing, the cane, the makeup, the character, the being executed on stage, the inappropriate behaviour towards his own daughter. His concerts are works of stage performance art, and going to see him is like going to see a favourite musical. Only one where you're allowed to dance and sing along.
The first one was easily the most enjoyable experience: Nikki and I ended up smooshed right against the stage, and it's full of memories, from Alice pointing specifically at me with Your cruel device, your blood like ice, to how hard I cried during Only Women Bleed, to him giving me his cane during School's Out. And yes, I do still have it. And if you look carefully, you can just about pick me out on the Brutally Live DVD. Not in this clip:
What is a good memory you have concerning 4?
Nine Lives had a computer game on the CD! It was like Guitar Hero, but you hit the space bar instead of playing a guitar. It was cool, and I wasted a lot of time learning to hit the spacebar in time to Hole in My Soul.
Is there a song of 5 that makes you sad?
Imagine.
What is your favourite album of 6?
The Number of the Beast. Again, I couldn't give you much more information about why, other than I dig the songs on it.
What is your favourite lyric that 2 has sung?
'Cause I know the biggest crime
Is just to throw up your hands
And say "This has nothing to do with me
I just want to live as comfortably as I can"
What is your favourite song of 4?
Walk this Way - the collaborative version with Run DMC. Never fails to make me smile.
What is your favourite song of 5?
Ooooh tough one, because there are so many. But I'm going to be predictable and go with The Pirates of Somalia
How many times have you seen 2 live?
Once, and that was in November last year, while I was in Boston. A friend of Bing's had secured tickets to see her at Symphony Hall. It's kind of wierd, if you're used to arena rock, to go see a folk singer at Symphony Hall - for a start you're expected to stay at least by your seat, though that's not as weird as seeing Mitch Benn in the Bloomsbury and realising that no one's going to stand up.
I was also surprised at the songs she didn't play; I'm used to going to see a band and getting a run down of their greatest hits with their new album promotion thrown in, but as Bing pointed out, Ani's songs are personal and heartfelt and she's no longer the same person that wrote her earlier stuff, so there's no reason to expect her to perform them. She is great live: personal and engaging and fun and she really likes her audience. Not surprising, given how wonderful the audience were: lots and lots of cute young women that I want to call 'trainee lesbians' only that's far too patronising. Watching two strangers in the bathroom bond or trying to tie their first neckties was adorable, though.
What is your favourite album of 8?
Oh Appetite for Destruction, without question. I like most of GNR's body of work, and there are definitely some favourite songs on Use Your Illusion, but Appetite is one of those albums that's just complete in its own right: every single song on there is top quality, and they all go together well, to create one complete work of art. And I always think the album is the most important thing in the art of pop-music. Songs are like areas of colour, the album is the finished painting.
What is a great memory you have considering 7?
I learned to headbang to Bohemian Rhapsody! It was a few years after Wayne's World came out - say 1994, 1995? And the song was still insanely popular in the wake of that movie, so much so that it was being played at every kiddie disco in existence.
I was at a big collaborative guide camp; one of my last as a guide, and had developed an innocent crush on one of the Rangers in a different subcamp, based purely on our mutual Red Dwarf fannishness. Anyway, she had her Ranger friends were far too mature and grown up for the camp disco in the bug marquee, and I was torn, because, dudes, it's dancing. But I did manage to persuade them into the tent when the required rock set came on, with Bohemian Rhapsody in a prominent place. Being a kiddie disco, everyone had a set way of dancing to every song they knew, but during the guitar solo, of course, it became free for all air guitar, and I realised that I could get attention by rocking out. Oh, and also that rocking out is unbelievable amounts of fun.
I don't have lots of good memories about Guides, thanks to issues I had with bullying, but the parts of that camp not plagues by my nemeses were fun.
What was the first song you heard by 1?
Man, I've been into these bands for so long I genuinely couldn't tell you for sure about any of them other than Ani, so I'm going to make a guess and say I've known School's Out pretty much all my life.
(Warning: the above video is not suitable for persons with Mupephobia)
Oh that was a lot of rambling.