the calvary

Read Portnoy soon, it really is as great as they say. I've read it several times over the years. I think you'd get a lot out of American Pastoral, a very different Roth, and I think that's one of his strengths, he was so flexible.

I always seem to be reading a Philip Roth book, I look at my book shelves, see his name and pull something down, just to dip back in for a while.

I found this all by myself this morning on my ride to work. I didn't realise it was an actual real release, I thought someone had just snuck a not entirely legal playlist in there. Awesome.

Shipping cost is very reasonable.

The greatest album cover that never was.

As Ann says, I recommended it, and will do to anyone. It remains one of my favourites, I bought it when it came out. So many of the other interviews are great too. Bruce's thoughts on religion are interesting, and not something he'd really talked much about before. (First edition hardback doesn't have Bruce's interview as he was too busy to do it. He read the first edition and contacted Flanagan to say he'd like to be involved in the paperback). The interview is post BITUSA but it seems either after the writing of TOL or during it.

That was my first thought. That would devastate, surely.

Bad days - The Hitter/The Wrestler Good Days - fella from This Hard Land It's a Hitter/Wrestler day today

Want this the fake fan version that was quite good?

Wasn't a fan to be honest. On another thread, Billy B mentione Vegas, to me thus was far more Vegas than anything that's taking place on Broadway. Mrntion of obvious miming from Beyoncé, above just makes me wonder, is all we're after really well hidden miming? The band were prerecord, they turned and pretended they were playing the show, but the fakery was so good, we kind of forget. The best bit was the knee slide, simply because it tore off the veneer.

Other than the knee slide, which was top drawer.

The comparisons I got. There are obvious places he's drawing fromeith Let's Be Friends. While I enjoy the song, it doesn't get close to its influences in terms of quality of recording. It's a nice run through of a pastiche that had they spent more time on, could have been something pretty special.

Ooh god that's the worst place for anyone to be hehe! My head's a mess all the time.

The problem is, the recording it's self is so indisciplined. Initially I was just messing about with no real thought to making that recording into anything more than a quick run through to get an idea of the arrangement. So it's very sloppy. But I kind of liked the fact that it was sloppy. It's sort of a reaction to what I've always felt was the slightly too clean and precise original. I listened back to it a couple of times on the night and liked it enough to start building things around the original vocal and acoustic run through. But there are definite errors. There's a lyric fluff, for instance. And I'm a bit irritated wth the tempo. It's slower than I remembered it being. It should be a bit quicker. Part of me thinks I should redo, but that's kind of adding another week to things. Basically im not disciplined, I'm an indecisive twat!

I'm hooping to get the mixing and mastering done tomorrow. I sat for an hour or so today listening to it through speakers instead of headphones. That's when all the glaring errors come out. Its a fairly complicated mix, so I'm having a bit of a mess about to see if certain things could either be taken out or maybe rerecorded.