I ruin earphones for my iPod regularly. And its always the same: a wire starts to break inside the cable shielding, usually near the plug, causing one of the buds to intermittently cut out. It started happening again last week, with the Panasonic RP-HV152 earphones I’ve been using for the last several months. These are some of the cheapest earphones (about AU$10) you can buy, and they were ok for a temporary stop gap, especially as I already had them just laying around. But they are dead to me now, and I need to quickly find some new earphones before I have to actually talk to any of the microtards I work with.
Previous to the Panasonic’s, I had gone through three different pairs of Sennheiser MX 350 earphones. These were pretty good earphones, not harsh and reasonably detailed, with light but nice round bass, costing around AU$40 a pair. I probably would’ve bought another pair of these if I had been able to find them for sale, but alas it seems Sennheiser has moved on (to some real weird-ass designs: witness the fucked up preying mantis MX 90 VC.)
There’s the MX 51, can’t remember how much they cost, and at least they are black, but they are ruined by a goddamn awful chrome finish on the exposed part of the earbud. I hate that fake chrome look slapped onto every fucking product in an effort to add “design” to the feature list. I could’ve bought the MX 50 earphones, for about AU$50. They are made out of spandex or rubber or something, and they are a weird pearly white colour. And guess what? I don’t want white buds either, for obvious “wherever you are, I’m not” reasons. So its goodbye to the German earphones, and its probably for the best given that they keep fucking breaking on me.
I already have a (cold spare) pair of Sony MDRE818LP earphones, and I had to switch to using these when the Panasonic’s began to lose the fight. These earphones could be 5 or more years old, and they still work! But OMFGKMN, there’s chrome on them…I guess I bought them before the chrometards killed chrome dead for me. Thanks to the chrome, these phones look like crap. At least they are mostly black, and they work reliably. But they sound boring, no bass, not much detail *yawns*. Fine for a backup pair, but thank Christ my brand new earphones were delivered this morning as I was reversing out of the driveway.
I’m jumping ahead, but before I continue I should outline my criteria, in order of importance, for new iPod headphones:
- Must be earphones/buds. I don’t like in-ear (I know in-ear’s sound better to some, but fear of deep penetrating ear canal rape is only tangentially homophobic) or clip-on phones (target market: Star Trek nerds), and bulky cans are totally missing the point of portable music.
- Must be black, and only black. No other colours. No silver. No white. Definitely no chrome. My heart is black, and so shall be my earphones.
- Must be affordable because I know they are going to fucking break. AU$50 is ok. AU$200 is not.
- No decoration. Maybe a stenciled logo and L/R, if its subtle. Keep the ornamentation for silver-smithing.
So then. My lunch hour spent wandering the city looking for a suitable pair of replacement earphones was a dead loss day after day. Nothing, nada, zilch, not a zune. Oh yea, I did find a multitude of sinners, chrome everywhere I turned, white, silver, fake wood veneer, black fucked/decorated with extreme prejudice, in-ear, clip-ons, prices approaching AU$100.
Am I too fussy? Does not my platonic ideal exist within this manboob-riddled reality? Rebate Star Trek nerds, for I will not succumb to your star-sick gaze and off-key siren song. I will continue my search anew! But not in the physical realm. Instead, I turn to Google, its empty form input field and single blinking eye, a world that only exists in the mind, with no physical manifestation barring the electro-magnetic disturbances.
Searching here and there, I catch only whispers off the twisted-pair.
Responses to some tard asking for suggestions for better than stock iPod earphones. The usual suspects. Ugh. My stamina wanes, but then through the Dell heat haze I glimpse it: Yuin. I feel the chill, like a thousand BTU air-conditioner; I have a bright new hope, and a bright new lead to track.
Another nosebleed, and the Yuin buds are information poor, mostly recommendations. Unsatisfaction. Luckily there’s just enough information out there to determine that the Yuin PK3’s meet my criteria: earphones, black, subtle white stenciling, and AU$39.
I may have lost religion at an early age, but I still want to believe. I order a pair of Yuin PK3’s from Headphonic in Perth for AU$39 including postage. No credit cards, no paypal, bank deposit only, suckness, but not enough to disfavour this bright hope.
On the morn of the sixth day, that being today: deliverance. A wooden box wrapped in white cardboard with a pseudo-gothic font reminiscent of a tramp stamp, calligraphic clouds and chinese yew. A web tantalus printed on the box does not answer my HTTP GET.
The PK3’s are housed in a black plastic cylinder. There are optional foam covers for the buds, and I opt out. The 3.5 mm plug is gold-tipped and straight (rather than right-angled). There is a gold-plated 3.5 mm to 1/4 inch adapter included. The cord is thicker than the other earphones I’ve tried, and is J-shaped (asymmetric) rather than Y-shaped (like the stock pack-ins with the iPod). I prefer J-shaped cords, so this is a nice surprise. If anything, at 1.2 m the cord is slightly too short for my liking, and this could impact the PK3’s longevity. We shall see. The styling is very appealing, suitably minimal, all black, the buds are small with the speaker face a gloss black, while the rest is a matt black. The arm of the bud is pinched in slightly. There are two horizontal slits on the back of the bud, and a bass port running up the arm. They seem solidly constructed, and are approaching my platonic ideal event horizon.
First listen is slightly disappointing; plenty of detail, but some harshness and not much bass. An hour of breaking them in and they lose all the harshness, the bass becomes nimble and warm. The PK3’s are simply great value for money. A marked improvement over stock buds or your Sony’s and Sennheiser’s in the same price bracket. Maybe there is a God after all…more importantly though is the question of the PK3’s endurance: just how long can they stand to be in a sado-masochistic relationship with me? If they do suicide I already know I’ll be stretching for the AU$99 PK2’s next.
A selection of reactions upon listening:
- “Moonshiner” by Uncle Tupelo
- Gave me the sadness upon hearing the harmonica. My black heart just broke.
- “Nude” by Radiohead
- I used to think the production on “In Rainbows” was extraordinarily flat, but now this sounds like silk draped over my head. Prettiness.
- “It’s Kinda Funny” by Josef K
- Scottish early 80’s jangly guitars are even janglier.
- “Pig” by Sparklehorse
- A very loud song, and when the bass kicks in, woah boy.
- “The Funeral” by Band of Horses
- The reverb tail on the vocal just hangs in the air like a slowly dying butterfly.
Brewen:
Is it just me, or does bobby flynn, “superfreak”, closely resemble eric stolz’s “lionface” character in “the mask”, cult film starring songstress cher?
Saucemaster:
Actually are you sure that’s Lionface? Cher looks very similar to that also, it’s an easy mistake. I think Cher is possibly the ugliest transvestite I have ever seen.
On a side note, if you are like me and find the virginal karate kid pretty boy on Australian Idol too much to stomach - vote for Bobby - our own creepy looking idol! If you don’t believe in voting, at least support Bobby by denouncing the virgin back flipping freak at work to all the middle aged women who will hopefully rub it off on their ten year old daughters who gyrate and scream “impregnate me!” to the tommy hilfigered middle class try hard.
Former Spastiks guitarist L4CHL4N refused to play the garage band’s biggest hit VARSITY GIRLS at Live 8 last summer (02JUL05), because he thought the song’s misogynistic theme was inappropriate. L4CHL4N, M1RK0 and M4TT reunited with estranged bandmate R0B3RT for the first time in 7 years to perform at the Brisbane leg of the anti-poverty gig. While R0B3RT was keen for the group to perform Varsity Girls, L4CHL4N pointed out the lyrics, “Some of them are even as smart as me” and “shiny, happy people holding hands” were not suitable for the gig, which aimed to raise awareness of poverty in Africa, where many women are oppressed and uneducated. L4CHL4N explains, “(The song) was way off message. Anyway, I don’t like it much. It’s all right, but not part of the great emotional oeuvre. The songs that R0B3RT wanted were not the ones I thought we should do. The arrangements of the songs were not the way R0B3RT wanted to do them. But I kind of insisted.”
I call Briz31 Channel-R, because generally it’s the most racist, the most religious and the most rabid of the channels we have. It generally appeals to a majority of white football adoring FHM reading cricket watching womanising war loving tit/mechanical perverts (which I estimate is 45% of Australia - almost all rubber necked males).
But I have discovered something wonderful amongst all the thorns on this more often than not shit fucked up channel. Who would have thought they of all people would air a Filipino Music show? But they have, and I highly recommend it.
Filipino Rock music or PinoyRock has a long history in the Philippines… but it really had a massive surge in the late 90’s and early 00’s. I’ve liked quite a lot of the music aired on Channel-R so maybe you will too.
Actually, the music show PinoymusicMax is probably more fun to watch then the music clips anyway. The hosts are dressed in what looks to be an old Star Trek uniform and talk about extremely strange and sometimes perverse topics whilst making weird faces at you (between clips). It beats up that Video Hits shit without even trying - God I hate that knob-shite show.
Have a look yourself, it’s on tonight - Briz31 7:30 PM - 8:00 PM and every Wednesday at that time.
When I transfer a specific mp3 track to my phone, it deletes all of the other mp3 and photo content on my memory stick. The track in question is:
Sigur Rós > Ãgætis Byrjun > Starálfur
Not too difficult to guess what causes this bug …
Just got a copy of the new album by Sigur Rós, called “Takk” (Thanks), and realised that they had played the majority of it when I saw them at the Tivoli a few weeks ago.
I loved “()”, more than “Ãgætis Byrjun”, and much more than the critics, but am pleased to say that “Takk” is better than both of them. It mixes the dreamy quality of “()” with the varied instrumentation from “Ãgætis Byrjun”, Jónsi now sings in Icelandic rather than his invented Hopelandic language, and the climax of songs like “Glósóli” rock much harder than you’d expect. Jónsi’s vocals are utterly amazing, his castrato falsetto and inventive melodies are “like God weeping tears of gold in heaven”.
Hearing track 5, known either as “Lest” or “Hufupukar”, brought back memories of the show at the Tivoli, and the most gorgeous sound I’d ever heard in my life: Amina’s fluttering violins at the end of the song. The recorded version on “Takk” is exceedingly pretty but doesn’t approach the beauty of the live rendition, with the violins fluttering high in the mix for a full three or more minutes, taking me straight into goose bump territory.
Some reviews of “Takk”: The Observer, The Guardian, and The Sunday Times.
Sigur Rós Album Review
Worth the Wait: An Early Review of Takk
You started to feel bad for the four members of Sigur Rós, watching the international press hound them for the next album, hearing the grumblings over how their third album, untitled, was slowly losing steam. The Grapevine had visited Sundlaug (swimming pool) in August of 2004, and been impressed by what we’d heard, but when the album didn’t come out that fall, we began to fear the worst.
Here we are, then, sitting in the office with the stolen copy of Takk between us, and we can report that the album seems to be an unrestrained artistic success. The main topic of discussion here, in fact, hasn’t been what took so long, but how did they do this much.
In a sign of truly excessive enthusiasm, we are presenting a track by track on the new album.
Track 1: Takk (Thanks) 2:02
Beginning almost like an orchestra production of the Wayne’s World flashback sound, at 52 seconds we hear Jónsi’s bowed guitar and begin to expect the wail of the last album. But the track stays light and ends at 2:02.
Track 2: Glósóli 6:20
Georg comes on with a strong, whole note bassline and we hear, to our astonishment, Jónsi singing lyrics in Icelandic. The production makes the exact words unclear, but Hopelandic it is not, and the tone is light and clear. The pace is medium tempo, with the signature bowed guitar balancing against a kick drum in 4/4 time. At 4:43, full distorted guitars crash in, and we find ourselves genuinely rocking to Sigur Rós. Quite hard, in fact. A high, staccato lead guitar part drives the rock section briefly, before a dynamic switch to a music box feel, as the song ends like a lullaby.
Track 3. HoppÃpolla (Jumping In Puddles) 4:32
Opening with pianos, the joined by a drum kit and a string section, to our pleasant surprise Jónsi is again singing in Icelandic, though with heavy doubling and effects so that he sounds almost like a choir, not unlike The Polyphonic Spree. During a chorus, the music pulls back to reveal just Jónsi, with limited effects, before he works an outstanding rising vocal melody. As the song breaks into the third minute, Jónsi balances with a chorus of his own voices, each hitting a similar rhythmic high melody line, which is eventually echoed by a trumpet.
Track 4. Með Blóðnasir (With a Nosebleed) 2:21
Feeling like a continuation of the previous track, this track again works the interlaid harmonies but contains no clear vocals and works in keyboards and glockenspiel. (Possibly the locally-produced steinharpa—stone harp, a glockenspiel that uses stone keys, as created by Páll Guðmundsson.) We develop a sneaking suspicion that this may be a reversal of the previous track, as the band did in Ãgætis Byrjun.
Track 5. Lest (Train) 8:44
Building straight off of Með Blóðnasir, the glockenspiel is isolated, playing a repeated melody that moves up in fifths all while bouncing in 16th notes. A slow vocal line comes over and is followed by a bass, percussion and strings all playing more drawn out chords. The light glockenspiel part drives the song and is eventually joined by what again sounds like a night-time music box. Near the five-minute mark, multiple tonal instruments balance against each other, with on odd bowed instrument over the back, and light, layered vocal parts layered in, slowly joined by layered trumpets. At 6:30, incredibly curiously, we are full-fledged into a night-time polka. At this point, all on staff agree that the album is genius, if for no other reason than for the polka.
Track 6. Sæglópur (Sea Nitwit/Goon) 7:43
Opens with a reverb piano part strangely reminiscent of 90s metal ballads. The glockenspiels come in slowly and Jónsi sings a delicate vocal line in Icelandic, with only þú (you) being extremely intelligible on early listens. At two minutes, a wall of Sigur Rós sound comes in. This is the first track on the album with a minor feel. It builds in a more dramatic, sweeping fashion, similar to tracks in previous albums, though slightly more repetitive. At 7:42, the track may drag a little.
Track 7. MÃlanó 10:29
As MÃlanó opens, we hear something like an orchestra warming up, all in the same few chords, and a piano introduces a six-note melody. Violins reach to a minor note, and the bass moves up to play high echoes of the piano part. Jónsi sings a surprisingly straightforward falsetto. At five minutes, the song reaches into a more rock structure and works on similar dynamics as the earlier songs follow.
Track 8. Gong 5:37
Violins play what sounds like a folk melody, eventually a guitar pulls out a triad from the melody, and a shuffling drumbeat comes in. Again a minor tone, with Jónsi presenting his voice somewhat straightforward. Close to a melodic rock song, until it breaks into the big drama after the four-minute mark.
Track 9. Andvari (Waft / Zephir) 6:44
A surprise, this track opens with a simple guitar part finger-picked on an electric and basic drums. Extremely basic, a string arrangement takes over at three minutes, keeping the track delicate and understated. An excellent compliment to the earlier dynamics of the album. A beautiful and confident track.
Track 10. Svo Hljótt (So Quiet) 7:28
As indicated by the title, this opens even more stripped down than earlier, but breaks into a bigger song around the five-minute mark, with busy drums over soaring vocals, then the break down to a soft chord, as we hear in the early tracks on the album.
Track 11. Heysátan (Haycock or hay stack) 4:10
A refrain of key notes of one chord, we hear horns, plucked guitar and keyboards all combining for airy but understated effect. Jónsi is most clear in the vocals here, sounding, dare we say it, like an Icelandic Billy Corgan. A closing track, that sounds honest, though, again, with enough effects on the vocals that we can’t quite make out the words other than “I’ve hayed too much,†in Icelandic.
Altogether, Takk feels not only like the best album by Sigur Rós since Ãgætis Byrjun, but like a fresh, energetic album demonstrating a new range of possibilities for a band that seemed to be locked into a rigid pattern. In fact, Takk seems like the kind of album that may break open new angles for rock in general—more than likely, this will be the most influential and celebrated album of 2005.
[Source]
Well known musicians Saucemaster and Brewen have fallen out over Brewen’s breach of internet cultural protocol this week.
Sources report that Brewen, shadow man behind the infamous group The Spastiks, reportedly posted an inappropriate addition to the Saucemaster’s blog.
“I didn’t know it would be offensive”, claimed Brewen, “I thought he would find it humorous and immediately delete it!”.
The Saucemaster has reportedly posted comments claiming Brewen once enjoyed the teenage serial “Heartbreak High” in the late 1990’s.
“These allegations are simply not true”, he commented.
The tension between the two artists has put into question the possibility of a Spastiks reunion and rumoured world tour of capalaba.
Spastiks porn star, Dirty Dirk, refused to comment.
Amina were magical. Particularly the use of a saw as a musical instrument, which was like Delicatessen come to life on stage. The thing that really struck me was how much they clearly enjoyed playing music live: although their performance was a mixture of digital and live instruments, the way that they interacted showed how much they really got a kick out of playing their instruments together, feeding off each other’s performance.
Sigur Rós were fascinating on stage, with jónsi sawing away at his guitar with a cello bow and goggi whacking his bass with a drumstick on one track. Haunting soundscapes are their specialty, and with the backing of a string quartet and some great use of lighting effects and video, it made for a superb evening.
It is probably fair to say that Sigur Rós are the wankiest band in the world, with their album { } in Hopelandic and their $70 ticket price at the Tivoli … not to mention their collaboration with Radiohead on composing a ballet. However, they are an inspiration to me. They are more than drums, bass, vocals and guitars: they deliberately experiment with unusual and interesting ways of creating music. The use of starálfur on the soundtrack of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (in the scene with the “jaguar shark”) was a great introduction to their music, and has given me a slightly whimsical attitude to the rest of their work.
Phoenix has once again produced an album of worth with “Alphabetical”. It’s sometimes strange to listen too, with synthesised honky tonk sounds and all, but it’s never dull.
