Of My Moleskine Notebook

We cruised down the highway in the late afternoon sunlight; causing the bonnet and the bodykit to somewhat exude its sultry dark red paint body while the hard top reflected light in its true form; white and blinding.

“Ma, can’t it go faster?” I asked, or must have asked; I can’t quite remember what I said; neither do I think you can actually remember anything you say when you’re in a time warp above all existence of cool. Either way, she hit the gas well enough to have revved the car to purr, no no, not quite right; growl every decibel worth of its reputation as one of the 21st century’s best. The intelligence in engineering and sleekness of design make you feel like you’re sitting on a genetically-mutated animal, a piece of modern art; like a sex god you straddle its tailored leather seats, carress its exorenous dashboard; perfectly enclosed in three by four metres and less of beauty: on the New Pantai Expressway in Control.

We reach home, leave it nicely parked in the driveway with generous amounts of space on either side as to not jeopardize its polish from less than an hour ago. We enter the house, settle down; check our messages…

“Puan, please call urgently. I forgot to put the roadtax sticker on.”

Let’s try something new. I’m only giving myself 15 minutes to write this and hopefully it’ll enrich you (hah?) in all angles in that 15 minutes you might take in reading this.

Minute number one: Listen to /watch Emmy the Great.
Emmy the Great is an up and coming singer-songwriter from London. She’s young, plays guitar, writes absolutely beautiful music and works in some kinda arty shop or somewhat. Search her on youtube and you’ll only get one video of her performing a song called The Woods and hundred of other searches of dogs drinking from taps or whatever. Do yourself a favour, curl up for four minutes and just listen to how great she sounds.
(Youtube video of her performing “The Woods” / Hype Machine – Emmy the Great / Last.FM Profile )

Minute number 5 : Read something heart wrenching and inspiring : Hu Jia

Minute number 10 : Watch a trailer to a future movie you’d won’t want to miss : The Golden Compass
Based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series with an incredible cast, I can hardly wait to watch this adaptation, not only to see how they managed to/attempted to adapt such an amazing book (The Northern Lights, is the UK publication title by the way).

Minute number 13: Spend your last two minutes discovering new things : StumbleUpon
Warning; addictive, interesting and never fails to surprise.

Those who not build must burn. – Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Here’s when I impose onto you some popculture. And why they mean shit.

The Noisettes – What’s The Time Mr. Wolf? is an album I’ve been wanting to get and actually forgot about whilst I was in Japan. Good news is that it has finally arrived at your local Rock Corner.

The cover has a sticker with quotes of praise which would coax you into getting a copy if you weren’t grabbing it immediately. Muse apparently thinks the Noisettes are “fantastic”, and Bloc Party reckons they’re “thrilling” and “a complete package”.  I had no idea about this actually; I just knew that after two tracks that they sounded fantastic. Didn’t really bother googling.

How I got to know of the band was when I heard IWE on the NME Presents Independent Thinking – Transgressive Records CD, finding myself head over heels with the singer’s incredible vocals and the inexplicable energy. The guitars are raw, the vocals are piercing ly beautiful and the drumming. Oh the drumming. If you thought Arctic Monkey’s Brianstorm was a drumming workout, you should listen to this album.

Only having posession of the full album for a day, but my favourite tracks on the album so far have to be IWE, Bridge to Canada, Sister Rosetta (Capture the Spirit), Mind the Gap and Don’t Give Up. So do yourself a favour and message me on msn and I’ll send the tracks over.

Junk Magazine
If you live in the Klang Valley, claim to love indie/alternative music and have heard of the magazine but not gotten yourself a copy then well you should. Available at MyNews.com newsellers around the place and apparently some MPH outlets – though I’ve not found any at Subang Parade – its a breath of fresh air. Do you remember the days when we had Tone magazine in the nineties? Well it’s something like that though they’re concentrating more on local and regional bands this time. Each issue comes witha free CD booklet à la NME; the editorial style is pretty lame shit comme NME and the graphics are like Juice/Klue so its pretty fyyyne.

I think the content is great. Great stuff. They review everything from ulcer-inducing rock to Mika and every month they try to make you listen to something good and fresh you’ve never heard of from the likes of anything like Indonesian hip-hop or a screamo band from China. And despite the I-know-it-all style of writing, they did a spread on how and why you shouldn’t be a music snob; and you can see they’re trying to be as level headed in their outreach as possible; they won’t make you feel bad for listening to Linkin Park and treat them the same, giving them a spread, like they would treat Arcade Fire. I do hope Junk stays in circulation longer than Tone and that they keep their quality and savvy-ness without that elite smirk that Juice magazine has.

The Gossip was on BBC Live lounge on 16th May so that gives you three days from today to listen to Beth Ditto sing Standing In the Way of Control <3 and a cover!

I fear that I am turning a bit too radical, post punk, anti-establishment, and all that junk lately. So much so that I’ve even noted this is my myspace which is oh-soooooooo-teeeeeeenaaage and syncopathic on my part; but what the hell, I am part of the Web 2.0 generation afterall.

I am alive people, yes I am! Two whole scintillatingly fantastic months of moodswings/depressive bouts have passed me by! And now I can proudly say that I’ve risen from the ashes as a completely mediocre and unhesistantly content person!

Scrabble Nationals? Mm, nope not this year. And got a good lashing from Nikita’s mother. Debate? Screwed both competitions! Drama? Pushed me down this hill in the first place! Academics? So beautifully disjointed, an art-fart might call it “Tracey Emin-like in it’s manner of self-depricating acrimony”.  Oh well, looks like I’m not cut out for the high-achieving full and straight academics good girl mould. I’m a rockstar.

Whatever it is though, I’m quite alright now and would like to quickly note about certain things that have been going on while I was AWOL.

1. The French Republic choose Sarko over Royale.
They have chosen and now I wish them the very best.

2. Guardian Unlimited new layout!
Fantastic. And check out Times Online too.

3. Arctic Monkeys – Favourite Worst Nightmare
Raucuos, fast, bionic, a bit risque in its more appealing near mainstream sound but nonetheless sounds the way only they can. The only few tracks from the new album have been playing in my iTunes all morning. Hoping to get a copy of the album soon.

4. Tony Blair to resign on 27th June
Sirius Black in the new HP movie, probably Harry in the last HP book and now Tony Blair; all to leave in the same week of June. Ahoy, Gordon Brown!

5. Even more new channels on Astro.
E! Entertainment is hazardous to your health and productivity. Discovery Home & Health; designed and programmed for future house wives/husbands/cohabilitating partners.

6. Kate Moss for Topshop
Great Designs Unwearable By The General Non-Model-Figured Public.

7. (old) Have you seen the new Penguin Classics paperback design?
Clean, more appealing but so far limited to a few select titles.

Tara-tata!