Non-Trivia Related Exercises in Killing Time no. 1
My Musical Flavas
I once said: "There should be more Fugazi questions" in British quizzes, something Stainer quoted back to me at Blackpool. Nope, scratch that. Make that at least one every year or so, just to bring us slightly more into line with continental quizzes where alternative and indie rock is deemed acceptable subject matter because they have the catholic taste of the international about them. Unlike, say, the sodding Zutons, the abysmal Automatic or the bloody Subways or whatever rubbish crappy English indie acts that happen to creep into the British musical mainstream consciousness and stay there for as long as their relatively big hit stays on radio playlists.
This would also counteract the blatant number one, ye old UK charts of yore and Radio 2 bias of popular music questions, which are far too singles rather than albums-driven too. Some of us know of many musical worlds of strange harmony and rhythm, discordant and avant-garde stylings, sometimes dancey and murk-ridden, all well covered in the music press and representing the lifeblood of any Glastonbury line-up, in great, sometimes fanatical detail. These are practically ignored in every quiz I do, except at the Europeans (Regina Spektor! Sahara Hotnights! Hurray!) and the Worlds (Husker Du! Even Bonnie Raitt! I own a couple of the latter songstress's albums). The brilliant Flemish individual championship questions we got after the prize presentation on Sunday even had a Hayseed Dixie question (for those who don't know a US bluegrass band - duelling banjos and all - who play rock covers like Black Dog and Ace of Spades; i.e. one of those bands the hipsters and musically bored latch onto for five minutes just for a touch of novelty). God bless whoever set that one.
But guess what? There was a Fugazi question, along with one on Bright Eyes, asked during the final of the Aspirational Cup at this year's EQC. They got us two bonus attempts which made me feel a tad triumphant. Come to think of it I did stick Bright Eyes - Conner Oberst's band - in a trash starter last year, but that was connected with a Shirley Temple and Art Garkfunkel, so at least I am doing my bit. Even if that little bit is almost insignificant, you hope that by putting such names out there you can start the ball rolling.
And I say this: if the ball keeps on rolling, one day we will win.
(When I say "we" what I naturally mean is my tastes and those of people my age, or okay, those lucky folks I call my friends, will emerge victorious over Winnie Atwell, Russ Conway and, urgh, every 60s and 70s band whose name elicits nary a flicker of recognition in my already music-packed brain. Or, perhaps, what I really mean is I will conspire to ensure my "eclectic" - yep, I said that twatty word "eclectic", but you know I mean it; I live in a world ringed by five-feet heaps of CDs - and deeply held musical prejudices conquer those of everyone else's. Ha ha! No longer will they stay neglected. Mogwai-ignorants will suffer*. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.)
Reason
Why am I writing about the above, in a totally trivia-related way? Because, whilst I was waiting during the dead hours before I could catch the Underground tube transport to Liverpool Street from where I will get a Stansted airport train and then travel on the aeroplane over the sea to the fair country known as Norway for my shortest holiday (like ever!), I decided to kill time by doing what I used to regularly do in my early blogger days (all those centuries ago *sheds a nostalgic tear*) and compile a Top 50 of my current favourite songs from a load of bands most of you won't have heard of and realised there was some relevant quiz observation to make in conjunction with my personal chart. So I lied. In a manner of writing it did become trivia-tainted. Apologies. It was an utterly unexpected diversion.
* denotes full-on tongue-in-cheek mode, so no protest e-mails or comments please. They will be deleted. FOREVER. It will be as if they never existed and you had totally wasted your time in putting fingertips to keyboard. Okay? Don't even try it.
Here's that list. I love lists. Lists lists lists. Here the list goes down the page ... Listy listy list. (And, if truth be told, I wouldn't even dare to ask questions on 85 per cent of the following acts even if my musical prejudices had finally handed a premier ass-kicking to all others')
Top 50 November 2007
1 What Must Be Done - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
2 Cigarettes Will Kill You - Ben Lee
3 Kissing the Lipless - Pickin' On Series (Bluegrass Tribute)
4 Catherine (Let a Positive) - Lilys
5 Secret Circus - Emmy the Great
6 Tonto - Battles
7 Refuge of the Roads - Joni Mitchell
8 Eureka - to my boy
9 Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol
10 Name Your Poison - Christopher Lee
11 Some Are White Light - Caspian
12 Hazey Jane II - Nick Drake
13 Who Found Who's Hair in Who's Bed - Owen
14 I'm Not Sayin' - Nico
15 I've Got The Rock And Roll For You - The Lassie Foundation
16 Never Light - Thurston Moore
17 Far From Refuge - God is an Astronaut
18 There is a Light - Great Lake Swimmers
19 Way Down in the Hole - The Blind Boys of Alabama
20 This Shameless Moment - Saxon Shore
21 Just One of Those Things - Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson
22 Woke Up New - Mountain Goats
23 She Doesn't Get It - The Format
24 Lovers Crime - The Hero Cycle
25 The Most Beautiful Dead Girl - The Motion Sick
26 Fewer Broken Pieces - David Bazan
27 Forgiven - Denison Witmer
28 Do You Still Hate Me? - Jawbreaker
29 Kill Our City - Dirty On Purpose
30 Superheroes of BMX - Mogwai
31 Ships - New Ruins
32 A Postcard to Nina - Jens Lekman
33 Creatures of Habit (Theme from the big spill) - Swearing at Motorists
34 Pachuca Sunrise - Minus the Bear
35 Like Trees We Fall - HollAnd
36 While You Were Sleeping - Elvis Perkins
37 Day - Bill Callahan
38 Game of Pricks - Guided by Voices
39 Anna Lee - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
40 Wait for the Summer - Yeasayer
41 When I Say Go - The 1900s
42 Cellphone's Dead - Beck
43 Scenic World - Beirut
44 We're All Going To Die - Malcolm Middleton
45 The Promise - When in Rome
46 Wolves - Phosphorescent
47 How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died - The Black Lips
48 The Ocean Always Wins - She's Spanish, I'm American
49 Andres Segovia Interests Me - The Fucking Champs
50 Mouthwash - Kate Nash
I once said: "There should be more Fugazi questions" in British quizzes, something Stainer quoted back to me at Blackpool. Nope, scratch that. Make that at least one every year or so, just to bring us slightly more into line with continental quizzes where alternative and indie rock is deemed acceptable subject matter because they have the catholic taste of the international about them. Unlike, say, the sodding Zutons, the abysmal Automatic or the bloody Subways or whatever rubbish crappy English indie acts that happen to creep into the British musical mainstream consciousness and stay there for as long as their relatively big hit stays on radio playlists.
This would also counteract the blatant number one, ye old UK charts of yore and Radio 2 bias of popular music questions, which are far too singles rather than albums-driven too. Some of us know of many musical worlds of strange harmony and rhythm, discordant and avant-garde stylings, sometimes dancey and murk-ridden, all well covered in the music press and representing the lifeblood of any Glastonbury line-up, in great, sometimes fanatical detail. These are practically ignored in every quiz I do, except at the Europeans (Regina Spektor! Sahara Hotnights! Hurray!) and the Worlds (Husker Du! Even Bonnie Raitt! I own a couple of the latter songstress's albums). The brilliant Flemish individual championship questions we got after the prize presentation on Sunday even had a Hayseed Dixie question (for those who don't know a US bluegrass band - duelling banjos and all - who play rock covers like Black Dog and Ace of Spades; i.e. one of those bands the hipsters and musically bored latch onto for five minutes just for a touch of novelty). God bless whoever set that one.
But guess what? There was a Fugazi question, along with one on Bright Eyes, asked during the final of the Aspirational Cup at this year's EQC. They got us two bonus attempts which made me feel a tad triumphant. Come to think of it I did stick Bright Eyes - Conner Oberst's band - in a trash starter last year, but that was connected with a Shirley Temple and Art Garkfunkel, so at least I am doing my bit. Even if that little bit is almost insignificant, you hope that by putting such names out there you can start the ball rolling.
And I say this: if the ball keeps on rolling, one day we will win.
(When I say "we" what I naturally mean is my tastes and those of people my age, or okay, those lucky folks I call my friends, will emerge victorious over Winnie Atwell, Russ Conway and, urgh, every 60s and 70s band whose name elicits nary a flicker of recognition in my already music-packed brain. Or, perhaps, what I really mean is I will conspire to ensure my "eclectic" - yep, I said that twatty word "eclectic", but you know I mean it; I live in a world ringed by five-feet heaps of CDs - and deeply held musical prejudices conquer those of everyone else's. Ha ha! No longer will they stay neglected. Mogwai-ignorants will suffer*. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.)
Reason
Why am I writing about the above, in a totally trivia-related way? Because, whilst I was waiting during the dead hours before I could catch the Underground tube transport to Liverpool Street from where I will get a Stansted airport train and then travel on the aeroplane over the sea to the fair country known as Norway for my shortest holiday (like ever!), I decided to kill time by doing what I used to regularly do in my early blogger days (all those centuries ago *sheds a nostalgic tear*) and compile a Top 50 of my current favourite songs from a load of bands most of you won't have heard of and realised there was some relevant quiz observation to make in conjunction with my personal chart. So I lied. In a manner of writing it did become trivia-tainted. Apologies. It was an utterly unexpected diversion.
* denotes full-on tongue-in-cheek mode, so no protest e-mails or comments please. They will be deleted. FOREVER. It will be as if they never existed and you had totally wasted your time in putting fingertips to keyboard. Okay? Don't even try it.
Here's that list. I love lists. Lists lists lists. Here the list goes down the page ... Listy listy list. (And, if truth be told, I wouldn't even dare to ask questions on 85 per cent of the following acts even if my musical prejudices had finally handed a premier ass-kicking to all others')
Top 50 November 2007
1 What Must Be Done - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
2 Cigarettes Will Kill You - Ben Lee
3 Kissing the Lipless - Pickin' On Series (Bluegrass Tribute)
4 Catherine (Let a Positive) - Lilys
5 Secret Circus - Emmy the Great
6 Tonto - Battles
7 Refuge of the Roads - Joni Mitchell
8 Eureka - to my boy
9 Heinrich Maneuver - Interpol
10 Name Your Poison - Christopher Lee
11 Some Are White Light - Caspian
12 Hazey Jane II - Nick Drake
13 Who Found Who's Hair in Who's Bed - Owen
14 I'm Not Sayin' - Nico
15 I've Got The Rock And Roll For You - The Lassie Foundation
16 Never Light - Thurston Moore
17 Far From Refuge - God is an Astronaut
18 There is a Light - Great Lake Swimmers
19 Way Down in the Hole - The Blind Boys of Alabama
20 This Shameless Moment - Saxon Shore
21 Just One of Those Things - Louis Armstrong & Oscar Peterson
22 Woke Up New - Mountain Goats
23 She Doesn't Get It - The Format
24 Lovers Crime - The Hero Cycle
25 The Most Beautiful Dead Girl - The Motion Sick
26 Fewer Broken Pieces - David Bazan
27 Forgiven - Denison Witmer
28 Do You Still Hate Me? - Jawbreaker
29 Kill Our City - Dirty On Purpose
30 Superheroes of BMX - Mogwai
31 Ships - New Ruins
32 A Postcard to Nina - Jens Lekman
33 Creatures of Habit (Theme from the big spill) - Swearing at Motorists
34 Pachuca Sunrise - Minus the Bear
35 Like Trees We Fall - HollAnd
36 While You Were Sleeping - Elvis Perkins
37 Day - Bill Callahan
38 Game of Pricks - Guided by Voices
39 Anna Lee - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
40 Wait for the Summer - Yeasayer
41 When I Say Go - The 1900s
42 Cellphone's Dead - Beck
43 Scenic World - Beirut
44 We're All Going To Die - Malcolm Middleton
45 The Promise - When in Rome
46 Wolves - Phosphorescent
47 How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died - The Black Lips
48 The Ocean Always Wins - She's Spanish, I'm American
49 Andres Segovia Interests Me - The Fucking Champs
50 Mouthwash - Kate Nash
posted by That Quiz Guy at 2:15 PM
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