Mr Happys online journal

For a long time I resisted the urge to buy Arab Strap records. Maybe its because they come from Falkirk, maybe its because they were always at the same clubs as me, maybe its because Aidan used to give me grief about the bands I liked as a kid. Anyway for whatever reason I may have been wrong about Arab Strap.
I’ve always liked Malcolm Middletons solo stuff, for some reason I could accept buying the solo records. But I recently bought a couple of Arab Strap albums and I’m convereted. I did see them live a couple of times but I was so pissed on each occassion I can’t remember much about it.
So here’s to Arab Strap – I’m still of the opinion that Rabid Lettuce should reform : dont know if they do but I hope they still want to rip someones face off with a fridge!!!

For a while I’ve been listening to the podcasts over at Not Quite Rocket Science – what a fantastic name for a blog.

Today I went over and needed some music to help get to the end of the day – and their tracklistings are pretty fab. I’m proud to say that Podcast 14 keeps up the high quality of previous podcasts.

I have to say that the cover of Beat Happening “Cast No Shadow” by Cub (nope I’ve never heard of them either) and “You Shook me all night long” covered by The Darlings was equally great.

So get over to them and have a listen. Maybe if we all petition them we can convince them to get onto a self hosted system of Wordpress and then we can make their blog so much user friendly – I hate the comment system on all Blogger blogs (pain in the ass).

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I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to find some decent new music that doesn’t suck. And worryingly I found some but it wasn’t what I thought I would be liking.
The latest offering from Britney Spears rocks. Its fantastic! OK she may be banged up in a mental hospital but all the great artists have been in some way loopy: Richie from the manics carved 4Real into his arm, Jimi Hendrix seemed to have a decent insight through the doors of perception and Charles Manson wasn’t exactly sane (but some of his tunes are great “You’re home is where you’re happy” is one of the greatest little pop songs ever)
Alongside this I heard The Acid House Kings – know nothing about them but they make every day feel like Sunday. Sundays are generally good days – relaxing, associate them with sun rises rather than sun sets. All in all a gem of a pop band.
Also I was going through old albums and started listening to “God Fodder” by Neds Atomic Dustbin – they would’ve been great if they hadn’t kinda called it a day. So here’s to all the new music that doesn’t suck – even if there is very very little of it around.