Albums Of The Year

My favourite albums of the year
1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
2. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
3. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement
4. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
5. Neon Neon - Stainless Style
6. Nick Cave - Dig Lazarus Dig
7. Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
8. GlasVegas - Glasvegas
9. Beck - Modern Guilt
10. Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night

Songs Of The Year

So here it is then…my 20 favourite songs of the year
1. The Age Of The Understatement - The Last Shadow Puppets
2. Sex On Fire - Kings Of Leon
3. On A Day Like This - Elbow
4. Lost Coastlines - Okkervil River
5. He Doesn't Know Why - Fleet Foxes
6. Being Somebody Else - The Coral
7. Violet Hill - Coldplay
8. Love Is Noise - Verve
9. Geraldine - Glasvegas
10. I Keep Faith - Billy Bragg
11. That's How People Grow Up - Morrissey
12. Time To Pretend - MGMT
13. Oxford Comma - Vampire Weekend
14. Not Nineteen Forever - The Courteenas
15. Cross Your Fingers - Laura Marling
16. I Told Her On Alderan - Neon Neon
17. 5 Years Time - Noah And The Whale
18. All I Wanna Do - Paul Weller
19. I'm Outta Time - Oasis
20. Leaders in the Temple - Conor Oberst

Just Finished…

Art&Soul Christmas Card

Just Finished…

Compilation CDs

Watching…

Damages
Damages is an American legal drama television series. The initial season's plotline revolved around a brilliant yet ruthless lawyer (Glenn Close) attempting to win a class-action lawsuit against the former CEO of a corporation (Ted Danson) on behalf of his former workers, by any means necessary.

Just Finished…

Hawaiian Ice - The Original Shave Ice Company.
A2 Point of Sale posters for Hawaiian Ice.


Nhs - iHealth Free NRT Campaign
Flyers, Cards, Posters for iHealth Free Nicotine Replacement Therapy campaign

Watching…

The West Wing
Now that The Wire has ended it was time to throw myself into my West Wing box set. It's as good as I remembered. Could it be better than The Sopranos and The Wire and therefore the greatest tv show of all time?

Listening to…

The Kinks
I bought up a few Kinks albums from Amazon. Nicely priced at £2.99 each. What a bargain!

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
Percy
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
Something Else
Kinks Kontroversy
Face To Face
Lola versus Powerman and The Moneyground

Listening to...

Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes
I cannot stop listening to this album at the moment.

Fleet foxes is a five-piece band from Seattle. Imagine The Beach Boys fronted by Neil Young. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? A great record and definitely one of the best albums of the year.

2 Big Shocks

Shock Number 1 - Elbow win the Mercury Music Prize
A fully deserved award for Elbow. A truly stunning piece of work. Was my previous post some sort of premonition? Bugger! Should've stuck on a tenner on it!

Shock Number 2 - Croatia 1 England 4
England managed to win 2 football matches this week. The first victory was an expected 2-0 victory against Andorra. The second a rather surprising defeat of Croatia. I cannot comment on the game as I didn't have access to it. Which is a bloody disgrace. Not even highlights.

Apparently Theo Walcott got a hat trick and Wayne Rooney got the other. Could this be the end of Becks?

Artist of the Month...September 2008

Elbow
Formed in 1991, and probably the most consistently brilliant band to come out of Manchester since The Smiths. A band who get better and better with every release.Their latest album, The Seldom Seen Kid (released in 2008) is their finest and is my favourite album of the year so far. The band have gained lots of critical acclaim but have not had the commercial success they so richly deserve.

In lead singer Guy Garvey, they have on of the best lyric writers of the last 20 years. I love the lyrics to Starlings from their latest album. See below:

How dare the premier ignore my invitations? He'll have to go.



So to the bunchy luncheons, the second on
 my list of things to do.
 At the top is stopping by your place of work and
 acting like I haven't dreamed of you and I and
 marriage in an orange grove. You are the only thing in any room you're ever in 
I'm stubborn, selfish, and too old.



I sat you down and told you how the truest love that's
 ever found is for oneself. You pulled apart my theory with a weary and disinterested sigh
. So yes I guess I'm asking you to back a horse that's good for glue
 and nothing else.

But find a man that's truer than, find a man that needs you
 more than I. Sit with me a while and let me listen to you talk about your dreams and obsessions 
I'll be quite and confessional
 The violence explodes inside me when I meet your eyes
 Then I'm spinning and diving like a cloud of starlings.

If you only buy one Elbow album in your lifetime then The Seldom Seen Kid, released in 2008 is the one. The others in order of greatness are:

1 - The Seldom Seen Kid - 2008
2 - Leaders Of The Free World - 2005
3 - Cast Of Thousands - 2003
3 - Asleep In The Back - 2001

Guy Garvey also hosts a radio show on 6 music. It's on too late for me, so i listen to it through BBC iPlayer.

Just Finished...

Design & Development for Palandri UK Website.

Hallmark Plants Ltd has been an exclusive UK distributor for the superb range of Vivai Palandri plants, trees, exotics and topiary for two year.

Visit Site

Just Finished...

Midday Contracts Leaflets

Manchester...so much to answer for

I went to Manchester for a stag do this weekend. As I was best man I put together a Manchester Survival Kit. In it I included a CD compilation of Manchester bands. Tracklisting as follows:

Rock 'n' Roll Star - Oasis
Elephant Stone - The Stone Roses
William It Was Really Nothing - The Smiths
Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
Montevideo - Alfie
Reverend Black Grape - Black Grape
Not Nineteen Forever - The Courteeners
Then - The Charlatans
The Cedar Room - Doves
On A Day Like This - Elbow
Get The Message- Electronic
There's A Ghost In My House - The Fall
Wrote For Luck - Happy Mondays
This Is How It Feels - Inspiral Carpets
Hymn From A Village - James
Pacific 202 - 808 State
Atmosphere - Joy Division

Thankfully the weekend was a success. It's was pretty hard organising a stag do in a city I didn't know but everyone seemed to have a good time. We managed to get through 10 different bars. My favourite was called Big Hands. Pavement, Pixies and Sonic Youth on the jukebox. The worst was a heavy metal pub. I never want to go into a pub that has Pantera next to Sepultura on the jukebox ever again!

Just got to write my speech now!

Bargain!!!

The Complete West Wing: Seasons 1-7 (44 Disc Box Set)

The West Wing box set collection arrived over the weekend. A bargain from Amazon at only £73.97 for 44 DVDs.

Just need to find a spare 112 hours to watch it all!

Reading...

That's Me In The Corner by Andrew Collins

Like a Team GB Gold Medal Cyclist I smashed my previous reading record by 3 days. Heaven Knows I'm miserable now by Andrew Collins was completed in just 14 days. The book captures the spirit of '80's college life and follows the author falling in love with The Smiths, meeting The Cocteau Twins and getting his first assignment from the NME.

I'm now on with his final book - That's Me In The Corner

Listening to...

Love Is Noise - The Verve
Great comeback single from The Verve. I Love Nick McCabe's subtle, understated guitar work.

It's the group's first single in 5 years and is the first track to be taken from the group's new album 'Forth' out on August 25th.

I wonder how long they will last this time.

No Star Wars here

Another Year, Another Poll
Empire magazine are doing a 500 greatest films poll here
Here's what I voted for:
1. The Godfather Part 1
2. The Godfather Part 2
3. The Usual Suspects
4. Goodfellas
5. 12 Angry Men
6. Jurassic Park
7. Pulp Fiction
8. The Shawshank Redemption
9. Taxi Driver
10. Jaws

Reading...

I Finished the first installment of Andrew Collins memoirs "Where Did It All Go Right?".

I managed to get through it in only 17 days which is pretty good when you have a nine month old baby boy! In fact I finished in at 3.30am on Tuesday morning as the boy was up most of the night crying!

I really enjoyed the book and have now started the 2nd part "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now". Let's see if I can beat the 17 days record.

Andrew Collins is an English journalist, scriptwriter and broadcaster. You can check out his website and blog here.

Five from the Pod

A slow work day so another 5 from the pod
1. Sunshine and Clouds - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
2. Supersonic - Oasis
3. A Great Drinker - The Wonder Stuff
4. I'll Sing A Hymn - The Charlatans
5. Luxury Pool - Neon Neon