Philistines. Did it not reach the other side of the Atlantic?
UK new wave reached the US in the early 80s after The Clash supported The Who at the Shea, and was roundly ignored in favour of hair metal and AM friendly rock like The Eagles.
Consistency thy name is seities.
It’s still mathematically possible for anybody to win!!
Except me 
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I’m not confident about my choice for this round, but keenly anticipating the reveal
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The great thing is I usually don’t remember my choices until I see them come up. All I remember about this round is I hat to work hard to get Cat’s in the Cradle out of my head so i could think of something else.
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Looking forward to some anecdotes.
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Just doing the formal category 4 announcement. We will explore:
“Yo, imma let you finish, other people, but that reminds me of that time when…” track.
A song that features in an anecdote you sometimes tell. Don’t care what type of anecdote or how tangentially the song is involved. Send the anecdote, obviously, but I won’t judge them. Don’t send anything you don’t want posting, so change whatever you like or even make them up! No one will even know!
Kick off in 45 mins or so.
@cassette
@Jalfrezi
@microbet
@mjiggy
@Pauwl
@Rivaldo
@seities
@suzzer99
@SwankyWilder
@TheDuker
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Two more minutes!
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So this is the now traditional category where the Walrus runner (owner?, master?, khan?) thinks it was perhaps a terrible mistake. Judging it was easily the most difficult, possibly because the songs were very different to one another. I ended up with a bunch where I needed to dig a little deeper to start splitting them.
Never mind, live and learn, and I certainly enjoyed reading all the stories just now. Lovers of fair play will be pleased to note that, so as to preserve anonymity, I didn’t read a word of any of them until the judging was through.
What would I have submitted? Well, I’m going to cheat here and just tell a favourite music-related anecdote. It’s connected to music I would probably never submit to a walrus, but whatevs.
It was the last year of my degree and I was writing an essay one afternoon in what I thought was an empty house. As was my style at the time I was playing music very loud and also concentrating quite hard as I usually left these things to the very last minute.
I was blasting the first release by Norwegian noise jazz masters Supersilent. They have gone on to become one of the best improvising ensembles in the world, even touring with John Paul Jones a few years back, and obviously I knew they would even then, but, if I’m honest, I haven’t listened to that first release in a long time as it’s an absolute racket.
So that was the scene as I became aware, as you do, that in fact I wasn’t alone. As I turned I heard my then girlfriend say, “what the fuck are you listening to?” I prepared some witty response, but as I saw her I saw a look of pure, genuine contempt in her face. Somewhat shocked I just mumbled something and turned the volume down. She left. It was instantly clear our relationship wasn’t long for this world and she dumped me about a week later.
Despite having feelings and that I remember seeing the funny side quite soon afterwards—that my admiration for noisy music had scuppered a relationship.1 It even has an amusing coda. We ended up being involved again a few years later when we both lived in London. It wasn’t a relationship as such that time and I won’t bore you with any more details, but at one point I took her to a performance of Violin & Orchestra by Morton Feldman, as she played the violin. As evidenced above Feldman’s music is about as quiet as Supersilent were loud, but I hadn’t learned a thing—she walked out leaving me sat alone after ten minutes.
Warning, don’t listen to this:
1 You might say there must have been deeper problems as well. I guess anything is possible.
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She sounds nice.
Music that elicits a What the fuck is that racket response is close to my heart.
Peering back through the mists it seems possible she was and I was an idiot, but who’s got time for that sort of introspection.
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Well I was joking. Walking out on someone like that is pretty bad imo.
No avoiding it, I’m afraid.
In tenth place with one point
Mat Kearney - In the Middle
People generally seem to love telling stories about seeing famous people before they “make it” so here’s one of mine. Back when I lived in DC, I took the Metro to see a band I had found on MySpace called Mute Math. They were playing in Arlington or Falls Church or something in a small local church, not even a real music venue. I considered submitting one of their songs because they’re not well known but when I listen to them now, their music does nothing for me. Well, opening for them was a guy I had never heard of who went by the name of…Mat Kearney.
OK so maybe he isn’t that famous and I wouldn’t be surprised if no one has heard of him but his song Nothing Left to Lose made the Billboard 100 (topped out at 41 and was on the chart for 20 weeks in 2007) and I still hear it on the radio occasionally. He’s had some other songs get airplay on TV shows and the like, so not super successful but probably a top 1% outcome for most aspiring musicians. Anyway, he was fantastic in this little concert: funny, charming, and obviously incredibly talented. He reacted like a seasoned pro when one of his guitar strings broke during the performance and then did a freestyle at the end of the show about it.
What was interesting about him was the way he could play guitar and sing but also rap and transition between them. After the show, I ran to buy his CD and if memory servers me correctly, I handed my money directly to him and told him how much I enjoyed the show. I decided to pick one of his songs that embodies what I felt was so great about his performance that day.
I feel like not reading the stories until I’d done the judging was the right call, but it does make putting something last a bit more difficult. That’s a good story and obviously the submitter has a meaningful experience tied to this song, so when I come along and say something like “it sounds a bit like Coldplay so that’s why it’s last,” it feels glib.
That’s pretty much the size of it, though. This just isn’t my sort of thing and the audible reminder of a band I dislike was never going to break down barriers long erected. I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with it, and I liked the second half of the song best. Sorry.
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Knew it. I don’t really love his music or anything but I did want to go with the story and tired to pick the most palatable song from the album. Maybe I should have submitted this instead? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6APHqvWObPI
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Ooh and now we can guess submissions based on prose style.
I gave stories with all my submissions so pyat probably knows which are mine. No regrets!
Er…nevermind. Maybe I would have guessed jiggy anyway; he does know how to use punctuation!
Well at least you listened to it all the way through, unlike your ex.
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Actually I’m now listening to that Supersilent track for the first time in over a decade and it’s still a total monster. Ignore the above warning and crank it loud.
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