*Maintaining 3 weblogs, studying for exams, keeping up with the news, keeping a wayward girlf in check, and staying cool, hip, and right-on is tricky to accomplish. it's fun too, despite momentary lapses into panic-stricken mewing about the inpenetrability of kant, and the downright conceptual evasiveness of derrida. and of course i have to regularly update my vitriolic hatred of the nme with annoying rants that the guardian would likely describe as 'spittle-flecked'.

**eleri and i have been together for 6 months. here's a self-indulgent opportunity to be 'tellin' all the world' that she's wonderful and i'm a happy beret boy. but i thought it was still worth noting that today, against all my most highly-cherished religious beliefs, i bought her cosmopolitan magazine. (i'm a vogue boy meself.) after she'd lusted over the 'naked male centrefolds!' i remarked that the bikini model was cute (i refer cosmo-browsing cutie-spotters to p. 190). and so she sulked. but not for long. and she looked pretty cute herself in doing so.

***when you're studying you also get the chance to learn that...
}vanilla coke really really tasty
}vanilla monster munch is too
}the two go together as well as the words 'coca-cola' and 'monster' should
}the new four tet album, rounds, is the best record i've heard thus far this year
}four tet shoudn't be too excited tho, since i've high hopes for radiohead, r.e.m, mogwai, and yo la tengo.

*Browsing blogs with an aimless hope of finding something unusual? check out MONTAGE, a blog about moth. we're looking for contributers too. email chewie-net@another.com

**here is a short review. this record, which was released last year, comprises the fruits of a collaboration between neil from royal trux and ian from the make-up.

***WEIRD WAR Weird War (Domino) by Chewie

While they are obviously druggies, Neil Hagerty and Ian Svenonius are also druggists; a funky pharmacy serving up rewired riffs for the kids, the tired-eyed, and the dispossessed. They are whacked-out apothecary hicks, white-trash witches, with the tomes of Rock History as their spell book. On this record the bookmarks point out the jaded jams of Exile on Main Street, and the zapped blues of Captain Beefheart. So it's fried, twangy, chicken-shack soul, yet concisely built with sing-along hooks and noodly guitars bouncing around off each other with so much spirit and verve and fun that you wonder why the esoteric and the immediate have never been close buddies. This is a great party record: it makes you wanna throw a party every time you throw it on.

*Here's a review of nina nastasia's lp of 2002

**firstly, here's what i know about it: 'ugly face', the eighth track on the record, was voted in at number four in john peel's festive 50 of 2002 by the listeners of the show; steve albini engineered it; amg describe it as 'remarkably beautiful', and i agree; you can buy it from glaive records.

***NINA NASTASIA –– The Blackened Air (Touch & Go) by Chewie

If you are lucky enough to hear Nina Nastasia’s second LP for the first time at around 3 in the morning — while coping with a hangover, or working toward one perhaps — then you will likely treasure this fragile, glimmering record and save it for special occasions. Fans of sensitive, articulate, understated indie may file it beside Elliott Smith’s Either/Or and Kristen Hersh’s Hips and Makers. Post-rockers, who listen to this type of stuff all the time, will discuss it earnestly while crouched in spilled beer, fag ends sticking to their Papa M t-shirts, at the back of the hall during Bright Eyes gigs.

Nina’s voice seems to slide on guilded tracks around lazily strummed guitars, and while never reaching the perfection of, say, Cat Power’s voice, it is a beautiful and intoxicating sound. Meanwhile, accordions, violins, and assorted other folky boxes circle and dive around in the background like ravens haunting Nastasia’s vision. The plaintive Oh, My Stars transcends both its alt. country genre and its mournful mood to reach the emotional zenith of the record. Seemingly intensely touching due to its subtlety rather than in spite of it, this song indicates that The Blackened Air will unravel quietly and calmly over the next few months to become one of the key indie releases of the year.

*I'm back and determined to keep blogging this time. a concerted effort will be made here and on fireplace.

**firstly, i'm gonna put here a few music reviews i've written for glaive records:

***LOOSE FUR –– Loose Fur (Domino) by Chewie

What collaboration could sound more promising than this alliance of leftfield luminaries Jim O’Rourke and Jeff Tweedy? You might well expect some exciting, challenging stuff; the result is indeed radical, but perhaps surprisingly, this partnership’s innovations on Americana are in a quiet, somewhat inward-looking vein. For although this will be embraced by US indie and alt country fans, it makes little attempt at immediacy, and thus demonstrates a perhaps insular disregard for the uninitiated.

The record’s six songs each develop an individual character, despite sharing tone and approach: all are protracted, progressive and very pretty. Comprising a rumination on the seasons, Laminated Cat features a beautiful lyric. Crafted with a symmetry that is highlighted by the layout of the sleeve, and bravely cast in alliterative, unapologetically poetic language, Tweedy’s words are brought to life by his beyond-cool hipster drawl.

O’Rourke’s most valuable contribution, on the other hand, is probably his guitar playing. Delicate fingerstyle patterns are augmented by flipped-out atonal lead work, and avant-garde fans will find much to celebrate in the combination.

Other highlights include the intelligent use of banjos; the just plain wonderful ensemble playing during Liquidation Totale, an instrumental; and the subtle yet complementary drum work of Glenn Kotche.

****here is a picture of jim o'rourke asleep.

*I've had a mad few days. alcohol-fuelled to say the least. ever noticed how good 'hard times' by curtis meyfield is?

**help! i'm interviewing fugazi tomorrow. in the unlikely situation of any fugazi fans finding this page: i really don't know what to ask them, and i request your help. any ideas? if so leave a message on fireplace. i'll check 2moro. nb; just found some cool fugazi vid clips. by the way, the interview is for an ace site called glaive records. they sell post-rock etc. i have a writers page here.

***sad to hear about the death of run-dmc's jam master jay. stop the violence in hip-hop... right on...

*O yes! that's right folks, push yr eyes back in their sockets, cos i've started blogging again. i took about three months off while everything went mad (as it seems to do about 2-3 times a year these days). but now regular visitors, and i'm sure there are many, can stop crossing big red Xs onto their calendars, felt tip in hand, tear in eye. i really do promise to update you regularly on my muso-dreams and general daytime nonsense too.

**no dreams to report from last nite, as i had exactly 2 hrs sleep. this was because i was up asking eleri why she asks so many questions until 6am.

***exciting: i went to see supergrass on friday... for free! it marked the beginning of the season of blagging (not blogging, but that too), that eleri and i will continue. in fact, we are just going now to blag a column in the student rag in which to rant and brag about our blagging prowess. thankyou...

*Holy fuck! just discovered that my kelis dream (see entry 14/7) had a freaky parallel with reality! kelis really did get dropped from her label last week. strrrange!

**answers on a postcard: why is kelis rerecording wanderland? the neptunes are among the most progressive producers in the world. do they have trouble moving on?

***curious: why have i only just realised the genius of the boo radleys?