Does anyone have any of the following tracks and would they be willing to upload them for me?

Sufjan Stevens, "All the Trees of the Fields Will Clap Their Hands"
The Mountain Goats, "Wild Sage"
The Mountain Goats, "How to Embrace a Swamp Creature"
Sondre Lerche, "Stupid Memory"
Calexico, "Si Tu Disais"
PJ Harvey, "You Said Something"
OK Go, "Maybe, This Time"
The Lemonheads, "Ride With Me"
Regina Spektor, "Samson"
The Magnetic Fields, "The Things We Did and Didn't Do"
Kathleen Edwards, "Good Things"
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton, "Our Hell"
Iron & Wine, "Upward Over the Mountain"
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, "I Called You Back"
Songs: Ohia, "Goodnight Lover"
The Decemberists, "Sons & Daughters"
Joan Osborne, "Ladder"
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, "Please Read the Letter"
Mary Lou Lord, "Turn Me Round"
Lucinda Williams, "West"

I don't actually understand how I don't have some of these already *squints at iTunes*

The flatmate and I went to see Howling Bells yesterday and it is the only time that I have ever watched a live band and thought that the listening to the CD would probably be exactly the same. Very odd indeed.

The main reason of this post is an upload. I bought NME for the first time in ages the other week because it had a CD of covers of The Cure. For the record, NME is still shit and if anything, has gotten worse. Happily, the CD is pretty decent.

01. The Cure - Introduction
02. Mystery Jets & Esser - In Between Days
03. Lostprophets - Boys Don't Cry
04. Marmaduke Duke - Friday I'm In Love
05. Dinosaur Jr. - Just Like Heaven
06. The Big Pink - Love Song
07. Editors - Lullaby
08. British Sea Power - A Forest
09. The Dandy Warhols - Primary
10. The Get Up Kids - Close To Me
11. The Futureheads - The Lovecats
12. Art Brut - Catch
13. Metronomy - Fascination Street
14. Alkaline Trio - Cut Here
15. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - In Between Days

Download the zip and the cover art =)

EDIT: Happy belated Birthday, skyekissed!

Having done the maths on my current financial situation (which, happily, should be okay this month and next but will be completely fucked if I don't get another job at some point in March), I'm running through the list of upcoming gigs in Glasgow. My flatmate's in a bit of a bad place at the moment and she's been complaining that we never do anything. So god damnit, we're going to some fucking concerts whether or not we should spend the money on them. Here's my list of possibles:

• Howling Bells
  
• Colin Murphy
  
• Ed Byrne
  
• Mono
  
• Eagles of Death Metal
  
• IAMX
  
• 65daysofstatic
  
• Art Brut
  
• Alec Empire
  
• MSTRKRFT
  
• Yann Tiersen
  
• Holy Fuck
  
• Andrew Bird
  
• George Thorogood & The Destroyers

I'm pretty sure we'll be going to see Howling Bells, and I just booked tickets for Colin Murphy (<3). I think George Thorogood & The Destroyers will sadly be out of our price range. And prioritising, I think I'd definitely want to see IAMX, 65days of static and MSTRKRFT.

What are your thoughts, oh music-loving friends list? Is there someone on there that's amazing live - so amazing I should go buy tickets right fucking now?

So, violentviolette wanted more music from Idlewild who are made of fucking awesome. Thusly, I have uploaded two of their albums (I have more, but I figured two would get you started, Lee).

The Remote Part
Contains my favourite Idlewild Song, 'The Remote Part/Scottish Fiction' *draws pink sparkly hearts around it*

Warnings/Promises
Contains 'Love Steals Us From Loneliness'.

Also, because I know there are various Damien Rice fans on my flist, I've uploaded the Lisa Hannigan album which I got for Christmas.

Sea Sew

Feel free to download, people =)

On a slightly less hysterical, less cap-lock and bracket filled, note, does anyone have any recommendations for an MP3 player that's not an iPod?

I've been adding music to my iTunes for the better part of the day and I am bored witless. Music is great and I love it, but adding stuff to iTunes is tedious in the extreme. On the upside, I've finally listened to Patrick Wolf and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Plus, I listened to lots of Christy Moore which made me nostalgic for home.

So, before I go crazy and start relabelling everything 'Britney Spears' or something let's talk about the books I've read recently, continuing from this post.

44. A Certain Slant of Light - Laura Whitcomb
45. Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman
46. The Devil You Know - Mike Carey
47. Vicious Circle - Mike Carey
48. The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
49. The Day Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko
50. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
51. Imperium - Robert Harris
52. Shade's Children - Garth Nix
53. Looking For Alaska - John Green
54. The Missing Link - Kate Thompson
55. A Study In Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
56. The Sign of Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

( A few random thoughts about some of the books )

The lovely putana and I had a conversation the other day about the music websites we visit. The whole thing reminded me that I've been meaning to ask everyone to recommend their favourite music blogs/sites for a while now. So here's what we're going to do - I'll list my favourite music sites and give a little description of why I like them, and you will do the same. Savvy?

I Am Fuel, You Are Friends
Always good for a few new downloads, Heather is passionate about music and that comes across in her blog. Her descriptions of artists, new and old, give you a good idea of what the music will sound like without resorting to cliches and florid language.

ELBO.WS
A nifty aggregator which makes hundreds of music blogs searchable. Invaluable if you're looking for tracks by a certain artist.

My Old Kentucky Blog
I'm not a huge fan of the blog itself but the site houses an excellent cover versions archive. I do love me some cover versions. Check out the left sidebar for more details.

Music-hole
A staggeringly comprehensive archive of live concert recordings from a huge range of artists. A bit of a bitch to actually find anything in, but perseverance is key and does pay off.

And then there's Ruined Music, which doesn't offer up any downloads but which features the stories of people who have had certain songs ruined for them by various people and events. I hate the new layout, but the site is still worth it.

And now it's your turn. What sites do you use that you'd recommend? Come on, don't be shy, share the music joy!

Having finally sat down in an attempt to organise all the things I'm supposed to do over the next few weeks, I got my hands on the Friday lineup for Leeds which I'm half-excited about and half-worried about because I really shouldn't be taking the day off. Anyway, here's who's playing. People in bold are people I definitely want to see (depending on time clashes, natch), while italics are maybes. If you see someone on there that I've not marked that you think I should see, TELL ME! I may as well make the most of it when I'm there.

Friday 24th August

Main Stage
Smashing Pumpkins
Nine Inch Nails
Lostprophets
Fall Out Boy
Funeral For A Friend
The Used
Billy Talent
Hello Goodbye
Gym Class Heroes

Radio One / NME Stage
Klaxons
LCD Soundsystem
CSS
Jamie T
Devendra Banhart
Special Guest
Cold War Kids
The Maccabees
The Sunshine Underground
New Young Pony Club
Hadouken
Pull Tiger Tail
Late Of The Pier

The Carling Stage
The Hold Steady
Peter, Bjorn and John
Seasick Steve
Charlotte Hatherley
Kate Nash
Little Ones
Kubickek!
Operator Please
I Was A Cub Scout
Stalkers
Maps
Make Model

Radio 1 Lock Up Stage
New Found Glory
Turbonegro
Gallows
Dwarves
From Autumn To Ashes
The Cancer Bats
The Casualties
Ignite
Municipal Waste
Sonic Boom Six
The Ghost Of A Thousand
The Alternative Stage

Okay, there aren't actually many people I want to see at all. But seeing as I bought the ticket solely for Smashing Pumpkins and was then overjoyed to discover that Nine Inch Nails were playing too, it's all good.

"Our Cold Beer Amnesty is back once again at Carling Weekend: Reading & Leeds Festival to make sure you never give your mates a warm beer again! Once again, you'll be able to swap ANY can of unopened warm beer for an ice cold Carling - free of charge!"

*L* That's brilliant. Hurrah for cold beer!

Lifted from kayim

I want to have a complete soundtrack with one song from each of my friends. I'm going to upload them to my MP3 player and make a "Flist Soundtrack" playlist with notes of what songs belongs to who. Pick one song (or more if you want) you want me to associate with you, then comment and send it to me (please, under no circumstances use Sendspace). It can be your favourite song in the whole world or just a song that you think really identifies you. Even if you can't upload the song, leave a comment just telling me it would be.

Nifty!

I start my work experience tomorrow so, in the way of these things, I can't sleep.

I don't know why I do this. Whenever I have something important to do the next day, an essay to finish and hand in, a job interview, the pressing need to be on a train at 7am in order to catch a flight somewhere, I have a complete inability to sleep. Which is not fun. I like sleep. I'm what you'd call a big fan. Yet, sleep mocks me whenever it gets the chance.

Let's see... my course has been going better this term. Better in that my lectures actually seem to be fairly relevant. A novel experience, believe me! We've been contemplating the big ones - 'What is heritage?' - 'Why do we care about it?' - 'Why should we expect other people to care about it?' More interesting than it sounds, I promise. We've had some great guest lecturers, including one from the Council for British Archaeology who managed to be funny whilst also being very informative. Which isn't that easy to pull off.

Sadly, my fairly good run of lectures came to a crashing halt earlier today (well, yesterday now, technically), when I showed up for 'Research Skills' which was essentially a two hour session in which an American man told us repeatedly never to scan at a resolution any higher than 72dpi, and my course and I decided that the most important tools we'd be using for our dissertations would be a pen and paper, and all the Buildings and Conservation people could take a running jump with their GIS and AutoCad. We have no interest in such frivolities!

I have a meeting with my supervisor next week about my dissertation, as the proposal is due fairly soon. This means that I've actually had to start thinking about my dissertation, which has been quite taxing. My brain knows what it means, but it can't really be arsed to couch the ideas in academic words, because academic words are tedious.

Here is some music to tie in with my single-themed post. It's actually quite decent, and how can you justify living without music by a band called Archaeology? I honestly don't think that you can.

Archaeology - Abricka Bradaptah
Archaeology - Water in the Boat

(On a side-note, do we think that Eddie Izzard realises that there was a Woodhenge? Is it a deliberate aspect of the joke, or has he unintentionally hit archaeology paydirt, comedy-wise?)

[5] Trent Reznor Icons
[8] Trent Reznor Bases

Okay, so I made some icons, but there will probably be more. I couldn't decide on colouring and text for a lot of these, hence the odd variation and the pile of bases. I also can't decide which icon to use myself *dithers*

Preview:

( I'm still damned excited about the concert )

Today started out pretty shitty, what with not getting enough sleep and the absolute lack of a presentation. Things didn't really look up when I got to Uni for more boring lectures, undercooked food and a general feeling of rebellion from my coursemates (who are seriously thinking about officially complaining about our course). Sleepily, I trudged home and resigned myself to a bad, awful day.

Things picked up when I checked the packages list and discovered that kayim had been super-efficient (as always!) and sent me Season 3 of Lost. YAY! At last I can stop covering my eyes every time I open my internet browser.

About an hour later the porter rings to tell me that he's just found another package with my name on it. Cue me going - yippee! It's three LJS books from veraxia. My day has suddenly turned itself right around.

Home I come once more, smile attached to my face, and I decide to look for some Nine Inch Nails icons (mostly, unsuccessfully, I must admit) which leads to me to this post containing MP3s of Trent Reznor performing several NIN songs with a fucking piano and violins. Have I ever mentioned how deeply I love the combination of metal and classical music? Because I do. With a passion. What's not to like? I maintain, despite strong opposition that 'S&M' is Metallica's best album. It's Metallica with a full symphony orchestra. How can that not be the best thing ever?

By the way, Trent Reznor is looking pretty hot with his new short hair...

That post led me to this one and this one, both of which contain rare Jeff Buckley songs. So rare that I've never heard most of them before *licks computer screen*

Then there's this post which has some lovely Noel Gallagher downloads. This makes me very happy because I'm an Oasis fan, but I'm a fan who's always maintained that Noel has the better voice. I love the songs he sings on. It's probably why 'Masterplan' is my favourite Oasis album.

The crowning glory of this afternoon/evening of wonderfulness is that Nine Inch Nails are playing in Manchester in February and I GOT TICKETS. Oh, yes I did! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Edit: Fuck me, this version of 'We Could Be So Happy (If We Wanted To Be)' is amazing.

I can't stop listening to Damien Rice's 'heavier' songs. Stuff like Woman Like A Man and Beat My Drum. He does angry, dirty, yet rather soulful music so well. Which is why I can't understand his record company's decision to scrap the last album he made. According to him, it was heavier than O, and a bit more akin to B-Sides but the record company thought people would want more stuff like O. I don't even know what the story is now *prods him to release something* I actually have a ridiculous amount of Damien Rice songs (43, excluding the two albums).

I also have a surprising amount of songs by The Cooper Temple Clause since I've bought every single and EP they've ever released ever (except for The Crayon EP because it's extremely hard to get at a decent price). For anyone who's interested they've put a live version of a track from their upcoming album on their site. The album version has been put up for download here. Honestly, I'm not entirely sold. But it took me quite a few listens to get into both of their previous albums, so I'll bide my time. I want the single, but they're only selling it at their concerts *pout* I'll just have to wait for the album and convince some lovely UK person to buy it for me.

God, I can't wait to move back to the UK so I can see real live bands *swoons*

( Random Meme )

I've finally organised my music folder completely. According to iTunes, I have 1452 songs on my computer. This translates to 3.9 days of music, and 5.94 GB of space O.O I have 515 individual artist folders (although some of these are for soundtracks, so the real number is a bit higher). Broadband, thou art mine enemy!

If you're at all interested, you can see a lovely list of everything here. I suppose you could also request a couple of things if you wanted. Never let it be said that I'm not a generous person ;)

The ljsmixathon is so much harder this time around!! I want to get my mix finished tonight, but at the moment this is the list I have:

Damien Rice - Volcanoes
Oasis - Wonderwall
Vanessa Carlton - Ordinary Day
Nina Simone - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Alanis Morissette - Head Over Feet
Jack L - Can't Get You Out Of My Head
Paddy Casey & The Dublin Gospel Choir - Saints & Sinners
Paddy Casey - Would U B
Paddy Casey - It's Over Now
Feeder - Forget About Tomorrow
The Corrs - Love Gives, Love Takes
Vanessa Mae - Storm

*wails* None of that fits together! And it clearly needs to be whittled down! Damn you ljsmixathon - you're giving me a headache ;p