It has to be said that one of the best things about seeing The Get Up Kids – back on these shores for the first time in… ooh, some years for the next halt on their whistlestop reunion tour – is the number of people who look under the age of about 25 in attendance. As in… there aren’t very many. If any. It seems that while this is a band who manage to strike an incredible chord with a particular generation (probably people within about five or six years either side of my own age), who were in just the right place at the right time to catch them… they’ve been completely bypassed by the lot below us. Unlike any number of bands of a similar era that you might name, The Yoof Of Today simply have no idea who The Get Up Kids are, or why they might be relevant. It’s a strange feeling, but it’s one that makes for a great atmosphere and sense of cameraderie at their gigs – they’re special, and they’re ours, and we all know it.
The other best thing about seeing The Get Up Kids, of course, is when they play “Mass Pike”.
I think if my longstanding loyalty to Weezer were ever going to be truly challenged, it would have been by Make Believe‘s “We Are All On Drugs”. Or, if not then, then The Red Album‘s “Everybody Get Dangerous”. Sadly, I’m still interested in new output from them, even if the volume of quality material is decreasing by the album (I mean, Red still had “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived”, which was inexplicably, gloriously, one of Rivers’ finest hours) and the volume of sheer unmitigated crap on a steady climb. So when a new single leaks online, my ears naturally prick up :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hf1SPR6W8E[/youtube]
And it’s not dreadful. It’s catchy enough, and a well put-together record. Kind of weird to think of Rivers singing from the point of view of lovestruck teenagers, but what the hell, he’s hardly the first thirtysomething rock singer to do so. But there’s really nothing to it, is there? There’s no heart or soul or wit or anything else that ran through The Blue Album and Pinkerton like lettering through Blackpool rock. And it continues a trend that’s been evident ever since their “comeback” in 2001 : as decent as some of their material has been over the last eight years, I simply can’t imagine anyone hearing anything post-Green and falling as deeply in love with the band as we all did before then. There are lots of people out there who adore what Weezer have become, but… their wrongness kind of makesĀ you question your very position as a fan.
(Then again, I read a few blogs by people I know online who deeply love Old Doctor Who and everything it stands for, and are downright baffled by the popularity and success of the current version, which they may not necessarily hate but certainly can’t see as “brilliant” or devotion-inspiring. Same thing, I suppose. But I love both versions of Who, so what do I know?)
And the new album is called Raditude. Seriously. Raditude. He’s just taking the piss, now, isn’t he? It’s like, “Hmm, giving three albums exactly the same title didn’t work, let’s try something new…”
So, hello. This is my new online setup. Here’s the plan…
– Public blog posts will now be located here, at what used to be my workblog but which is now just a general sort of public blog / portfolio site / homepage. It can be found at the forwarding address www.sebpatrick.co.uk, but is being hosted by the excellent Jonathan Capps on his cpnet.co.uk webspace.
– LiveJournal friends can still read all the posts that go on the public blog, as I’ve now got a crossposter plugin thinger wotsit. Feel free to comment either on the LJ or the blog. Anything that I might previously have posted publicly on LJ, such as the “Every Album” project (which, after a rethink of timings, will be making a comeback soon), and any updates about my writing work, will now go on the public blog. So there’ll be nothing public on LJ that isn’t also here.
– LJ will still also be used for the usual friends-locked funstravaganza. If you’re reading this at the main site and want to friend me on LiveJournal,I’m at azureskies.
– Also, if you’re reading this on LJ, note that the site now has a lovely spangly new design and will also have bits and bobs of extra content dumped on it here and there as appropriate. Come and say hello!
I’m not sure how much of that was really deserving of an update/explanation, but what the hey, it’s my blog. So let’s see how this all works for a bit!