The Continuing Adventures of Courteney Rox

[courteneyrox]

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“It’s cold outside, ain’t it baby”.

[latenz]

Vincent Van Gogh used to eat yellow paint because he thought it would get the happiness inside him. Many people thought he was mad and stupid for doing so because the paint was toxic, never mind that it was obvious that eating paint couldn’t possible have any direct correlation to one’s happiness, but I never saw that. If you were so unhappy that even the maddest ideas could possible work, like painting the walls of your internal organs yellow, than you are going to do it. It’s really no different than falling in love or taking drugs. There is a greater risk of getting your heart broken or overdosing, but people still do it everyday because there was always that chance it could make things better. Everyone has their yellow paint.

(via acidicmoons)

[tastefullyoffensive]

[courteneyrox]

A heartbreaking story. (photos via adonistark)

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"Now just be nice and hold your space, I won't entertain no more disgrace. Out in the streets they call it merther, when rhythm spacing out your head."

[courteneyrox]

Brit Art Fuck Off - Original Hand Scratched Scraperboard by Joe Machine (available from Paradise Salvage ftw)

[the-cult-of-richey-edwards]

[courteneyrox]

"I am idiot, drug hive, the virgin, the tattered and the torn.  Life is for the cold made warm and they are just lizards." 

It didn't start with Faster, my Manics devotion.  Not by a long a shot.  But as I've already explained elsewhere, Faster was the watershed.  It was the point of beautiful serendipity, a sublime coincidence, 'all broken up at seventeen', 'confusion or masterplan', 'so damn easy to cave in.'

[courteneyrox]

Fry: Wait, Mount Rushmore and the Leaning Tower of Pisa? I didn't know they were both in New York! Leela: They are now. In the 2600's, New Yorkers elected a super-villain governor, and he stole most of the world's monuments. Bender: Truly a great man.

Listen to Ruckus In B Minor by Wu-Tang Clan from A Better Tomorrow here.

[courteneyrox]

Vice.com's mostly excellent Thump youtube channel has had the exclusive of Tiga's new video for Bugatti for a few days now, and it just hasn't stopped being jaw-droppingly amazing.  

[courteneyrox]

A drum & bass remix of California Love.  In 2014.  Really..? 

There's probably been countless bootlegs of 2Pac and Dr. Dre's seminal track over the last 19 years, but has anyone done one as good as High Contrast? 

Answers on a postcard please to: Courteney Rox, PO Box #justshutupanddance

[courteneyrox]

If it was like 1998 and everyone still cared what was being played in Ibiza clubs this summer (maybe it still is and they still do!), this would surely be one of those tracks. Amazing feel good disco house from a living legend. 

And as streaming is now taken into account for the UK singles chart, I've surely done my part for getting this to Number 1 by my number of plays tonight alone!

[courteneyrox]

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It's been said before but still...

"I was raised on Public Enemy and Cornflakes, Fruit Loops and beat-breaks. Our music is our alchemy, we stand as the manifested equivalent of three buckets of water and a hand full of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down supply the percussive factor of forever. If you must count to keep the beat, in the name of Robeson, God's Son, Hurston, Ahkenaton, Hathsheput, Blackfoot, Helen, Lennon, Khalo Kali, The Three Maria's, Tara, Lilithe, Lourde, Whitman, Baldwin, Ginsberg, Kaufman, Lumumba, Ghandi, Gibran, Shabazz, Shabazz, Siddhartha Medusa, Guevara, Gurdsieff, Rand, Wright, Banneker, Tubman, Hamer, Holiday, Davis, Coltrane, Morrison, Joplin, Dubois, Clarke, Shakespeare, Rachmninov, Ellington, Carter, Gaye, Hathoway, Hendrix, Kutl, Dickerson, Ripperton, Mary, Isis, Theresa, Hensbury, Justlove, Plath, Rumi, Fellini Michaux, Nostradamus, Nefertiti, La Rock, Shiva, Ganesha, Yemaja, Oshun, Obatala, Ogun, Kennedy, King, Four Little Girls, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Keller, Biko, Perone, Marley, Magalin, Cosby, Shakur, those who burnt, those still aflamed and the countless unnamed."

[courteneyrox]

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The original of 808 State's Cubik was always one of the harsher, more disturbing examples of early acid house.  If a lot of electronic music is evocative of science fiction films (which it certainly was to my teenage self), Cubik is the soundtrack to running from something terrifying through the claustrophobic corridors of a spaceship or moon base. 

For 808 State's 10th anniversary compilation, simply titled 808: 88 - 98, Cubik was given a late 90s, dancehall-infused, big beat remix by the master Jon Carter.  He doesn't take the edge off it one bit.  And what makes it even more brilliant is when the music drops for some spoken word samples of Charlie Ace & Fay's Mr Whittaker (as featured in the Trojan X-Rated Box Set).

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"I wanna get away from the problems of the world today Me and my man on a plane, fly away to a better place"

photo by Conrad Norton (London, April 2013)

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So I read that Todd Terje first started releasing music in 2004, and, whilst I can wholeheartedly claim to only be a recent convert, that did get me thinking about what I was actually listening to 10 years ago. 

It was a magical time: I started to play music in bars and tiny clubs, hanging out with a lot of like-minded people who are now close friends, and expanded my appreciation of different styles of music to a degree that I'd not done before. 

One record which really stands out from that year is Mylo's Destroy Rock & Roll album. Admittedly, it's not that dissimilar from Todd Terje's It's Album Time in the overall scheme of things- that may be why I suddenly thought of it - but it evokes so many wonderful memories that I just had to share it.

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My favourite album of the year so far, and a soundtrack to one fantastic Easter weekend, is Todd Terje's brilliantly titled It's Album Time. 

So many bonkers styles but the highlight has to be the epic closer Inspecter Norse.

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Every so often, necessary reminders come along of just how fantastic Search and Destroy by Iggy & The Stooges is, be they the recent and sad death of Scott 'Rock Action' Asheton, or just the track's inclusion on someone else's mixtape (in this case, both of those). 

I don't know that much about music theory, but there is something profound that happens around the two and a half minute mark of Search and Destroy (I've uploaded a non-remastered version of track so it's slightly less apparent than the version I heard on Slowdive's Fact Magazine mix earlier today) that invokes a sense of melancholy and futility, which I think provides a beautiful counterpoint to the initial nihilism and rage of Iggy's lyrics.  It is, very simply, one of the best rock songs ever written and performed. 

It also reminds me to finally share some of my non-essential rules on record filing that I have.  This might be a bit High Fidelity, you will probably hate me for it, but here we go:

1. The Stooges (1969), Fun House (1970) & The Weirdness (2007) all go under 's' for 'The Stooges'. 

2. Raw Power (1973) & Ready To Die (2013) both go under 'i' for Iggy & The Stooges. 

3. The Idiot (1977), Lust For Life (1977), American Caesar (1993), Skull Ring (2003) et al should be filed under 'p' for 'Iggy Pop'.

[courteneyrox]

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It may only be the end of February, but I think I can quite confidently say that my favourite film of the year is Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive.  And its excellent soundtrack may well be one of my favourite albums of the year too. 

I was fortunate to catch a screening of the film introduced by Jim himself, and followed by a gig at Heaven featuring various musicians that feature in the film or on the soundtrack.  Now that several friends have also seen the film, I can go into some further details about that gig without spoiling the surprise for anyone... 

So as you may know, the film is about vampires.  On entering the venue, everyone was offered a tiny shot of what appeared to be fresh blood, "the good stuff" (it was, in fact, mulled wine).  There had also been the request of the audience to "Please wear sunglasses & leather (or fake leather) gloves to the event".  A lot of people heeded this request.  Watching a gig in a dark venue, wearing sunglasses, especially after a beer or two, is a tad disorientating. 

First on stage was Jozef Van Wissem, one of the main contributors to Only Lovers Left Alive's soundtrack, playing a lot of the incidental music (solo, as opposed to with SQÜRL, as it is on the recorded soundtrack).  Occasionally meandering out into the crowd, his virtuoso acoustic guitar playing brought a sense of intimacy and extra warmth to the proceedings.  

Jozef was followed by Yasmine Hamdan, a bewitching Lebanese singer who has in important cameo towards the end of the film.  She was backed by a wealth of other talented musicians that helped showcase her fantastic voice and unique mix of contemporary Arabic styles.  Once again, the artists on stage come out into the crowd, as if leading a procession through the streets of a bustling market town, and the party was well and truly started. 

The main reason a lot of peope came tonight though was to catch SQÜRL, Jim Jarmusch's band, play their first ever UK gig.  They stuck with a mix of they own fuzzed-up, droning blues with a few covers thrown in (having let Jozef showcase the film's soundtrack earlier on). Jim very much played the high priest part, like some mutated cross between Nick Cave and Kevin Shields.  Letting his bandmates scrabble for the spotlights when they can, he's a charismatic, charming presence, and one who knows he's earned the right to act like a rock star half his age for the night.  Unfortunately, I had to leave before White Hills, but if buzz around them is anything to go by (and their fearsome cameo in Only Lovers left Alive certainly won't hinder that!) they'll hopefully be back to build on the success of this gig very soon.  Or maybe not.  Like the Adam character in the film, they might simply be content to just have their music out there.  One doubts it.