Blog of Stavros

Murmurations

Stavros — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:57:33 +0000

I went down to the front to watch the sunset. After the other worldly nature of yesterday’s sunset where the sun so vulnerably dim and so blood-red it could be looked at directly with no protest from the eyes, retreated from underneath it’s cloudy covers to sit on the edge of the sea for a few minutes before submitting slowly to the darkening waters. Today demonstrated a beautiful, bright and wholly orthodox picture. The cloudless skies shifting from blue to green to metallic yellows and oranges. Colourful but nothing to blog home about. My eyes averted from the solar theatre to a small group of people stripping on the jetty before diving vocally into the silvery March sea. After their shivering heads bobbed away from view I noticed the gathering crew of starlings above the pier. This undulating wave of busy wings and tiny hearts kept expanding as neighbouring squadrons were drawn to the mass like iron filings to a magnet. More and more gangs arrived from over the rooftops and behind the castle and towards Constitution Hill. As the thousands swooped and flickered like a field of grass in the breeze and the sky darkened the mass seemed to take on different shapes. At once it was a heart then a ribbon then a kite. I ceased to see it as group of tiny birds, it was now a feathered jellyfish and the whole sky was it’s ocean. I was hypnotised by this powerful display, it’s patterns, it’s apparent order, it’s occasional chaos. Another sizeable flock appeared from behind the sea-facing roofs and chimneys, rising and billowing like smoke from an ancient devastating city fire. A hundred at a time they peeled off this biblical swarm and targeted the underside of the pier. I thought briefly of ravens perched gluttonously on the ribs of some poor skeleton.

I was shaking that image from my mind when,”Murmurations”.
Excuse me. I turned to a big faced middle aged man with a mouth like a letterbox. “Murmurations, that’s what a flock of starlings is called”. My hypnotism had been broken. I told him I didn’t know that. He proceeded to barge past the doormen of my solitude and told me some story of dead starlings in a woman’s back garden. I interjected at his designated pauses to offer my one word responses. I attempted to tug myself from this unwanted new friend. I only half succeeded and spent the next few minutes with my feet in a strange position like a disturbed manniquin. The man kept talking to me about birds. He finished, had he exhausted his dialogue. If he left now it would only be a slightly odd exchange of words. Promenade pleasantries only stretched a little too far. I took a step, my shin was starting to smart from the unbalanced weight on my twisted leg. I was going to get away but he reeled me back in by taking out the contents of his little carrier bag. Had he had that bag all along? I wondered what other props he may produce in his attempt at forging a friendship. By this time the sky was showing colours familiar to the screaming figure in front of Edvard Munch’s landscape. I started to understand how that iconic face could distort itself into such anguish. I tried to recall if there had there been another figure in that famous painting? Perhaps a heavy man with wide mouth and jutting teeth carrying a Waterstone’s bag.

I really didn’t want to get into a conversation about steampunk and urban fantasy novels. But I got the feeling that this new friendship wasn’t about what I wanted. After one too many “yes”, “hmmm”, “really?” and “ahhh’s”, I managed to prise myself between the bars of this conversation and wishing him good evening from over my shoulder I strode purposefully away from the sea and found myself in the Spar. I felt I had earned a treat and with the chocolate abstention still in place bought a big packet of fig rolls. Now I’m safely home and interrogating these fig rolls, asking them “why me?”. Why do the oddballs pick me? Hopefully it’s simply because I happened to be standing on my own. Maybe I’m a soft choice and someone else further down the sea front had offered a swift “do one pal”. But part of me can’t help wondering whether they see themselves in me. Am I a kindred spirit? Is it my destiny to one day force conversation on unsuspecting folk, am I to be a boorish verbal rapist? The fig rolls are offering no answer. I knew I should have bought ginger nuts. They’d have told me to chin the fucker.

El Otro

Stavros — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:14:54 +0000

Stavros2000 - Alright, you must be Stavros2010. Hmmm, I expected you to be slimmer. That’s a full head of hair though, at least that’s summat. What a coincidence, I work near here. Next door infact. No it’s an accountants not a dentists. Ah the company moved next door and changed it’s name. And you’re still here then? Christ, and I didn’t think you’d even still be in Telford! You must be a manager or summat now then, big money eh? Oh I know what I was going to ask, did you go back and finish that degree I started? I suppose it was a Third, yeah sorry that was largely my fault. Ah well, it’s not as if you’re using it here is it?! OK, see you around Stavros2010 I’m off to the old Red Lion for Spanish lagers and flaming aftershocks. Then Wolverhampton tomorrow for Blast Off and some tepid cans of Red Stripe and maybe a shuffle to The Strokes and Moby. Laters.

Stavros2010 - What a twat.

ps: Apologies to Jorge Luis Borges.

StavTunes Top 10 Albums of 2009

Stavros — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:37:16 +0000

To paraphrase a Mr J. Lennon late of Liverpool, Lancs., “so, that was Christmas”. The penultimate Christmas of a pedant’s decade in fact. How was yours? Mine was great really. I’ve eaten out. Masti a contemporary Indian in Wellington, which was fantastic, and The Golden Ball in Ironbridge which wasn’t as good as it used to be. I recieved trainers, socks, a scarf, brandy and beer. I’ve had a party which was a success, and I’m told I had a good time of it at the New Year’s Eve party. Now, though I have my annual New Year’s cold, spread no doubt from drunken hugging and Auld-lang-syneing with germ ridden revellers.

Anyway, I apologise for not getting round to doing this sooner.

StavTunes Top 10 Albums of 2009

10. Röyksopp - Junior
Because everyone needs: lively Norwegian electronic paeans to robot love.

spotify

9. jj - jj n° 2
Because everyone needs: a Swedish Foxbase Alpha for this still young century.

spotify

8. The Antlers - Hospice
Because everyone needs: a concept album about a dying girlfriend in a cancer ward. Probably.

spotify

7. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Because everyone needs: harmonies that go “ah ah ah oh” that sound much much better than they read.

spotify

6. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Because everyone needs: a band with a radio-unfriendly name and sound. Go on, Beacon play this, I dares ya!

myspace

5. The xx - xx
Because everyone needs: knowing Londoners younger than you making sexy dub-tinged indiepop with as much Gainsbourg as Portishead.

spotify

4. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Because everyone needs: a reference point where Gallic electronica converges with AM soft-rock in the well-thumbed atlas of choonage.

spotify

3. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Because everyone needs: a scary Nordic woman probably from the future with a voice distorted like an image in the house of mirrors.

spotify

2. Girls - Album
Because everyone needs: a surf-rock record by a Californian who grew up in the Children of God cult.

spotify

1. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Because everyone needs: an idiosyncratic kaleidoscopic hallucination crafted in a top secret lab from the dreams of The Beach Boys, Beck, Philip Glass and Syd Barret. FACT.

spotify

Traditional honourable mentions go to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Doves, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Passion Pit, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Atlas Sound, Super Furry Animals, Thee Oh Sees, Real Estate and Camera Obscura.

For being late, and I’m moving into virgin territory here, I give you an extra special bonus StavTunes Top EPs of 2009:

DeLorean - Aryton Senna EP

Burial & Four Tet - Wolf Cub & Moth

Cassius - Youth, Speed, Trouble, Cigarettes

Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind

So why not treat your ears in these embryonic days of this unknownable decade. And pass on the thank yous to your uncle Stav when they express their gratitude.

Lisztomania

Stavros — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:10:44 +0000

Right, I feel as if I’ve been bullied in to this and it goes against what I wrote a mere two posts down. But we have no principles here, and one man’s fluffer is another’s saviour. Or something. Anyway. I’ve compiled a list of my ten albums of the decade, over a bottle of white wine and a couple of benson and hedges. Think of this as the online beermat, stained with the inky evidence of sudden thought. You’re not having it in order though, no bloody way. I’ve wasted literally an hour on it already. So in chronological order, from the strangely still futuristic sounding to me YEAR TWO THOUSAND to the very fucking moment I post publish at the bottom of my screen.

Modest Mouse - The Moon And Antarctica [2000]

Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun [2000] spotify

The Avalanches - Since I Left You [2000] spotify

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People [2002] spotify

The Arcade Fire - Funeral [2004]

The Decemberists - Picaresque [2005] spotify

LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver [2007] spotify

The Knife - Silent Shout [2007] spotify

TV On The Radio - Dear Science, [2008] spotify

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion [2009] spotify

Closing in were LCD Soundsystem’s debut, Daft Punk’s Discovery, The Shin’s Chutes Too Narrow, either of the last two Hot Chip albums, Fleet Foxes, Explosions In The Sky’s The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place, Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lights, BRMC, Doves, Panda Bear, Mogwai, and to be frank a whole load of other shit I’ll probably think of tomorrow.

The annual run down is still in progress, much like my metaphorical fluffer I promise the main event will come in time.

Stav Films Top 10 Films seen in 2009

Stavros — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:33:13 +0000

I know how you like lists. Like I do. That’s why we’re friends isn’t it? Isn’t it? Whatever. Just humour me then.

10. errmmm…
9. I must have seen some films this year…
8. still thinking… Oh yeah,
7. Superbad (2007). Average US teen comedy from bloke behind Freaks & Geeks. Nowhere near as good.
6. Carry On Doctor (1967). I think I’d seen it before. It’s the one with Frankie Howerd in it. It was on C4 when I was ill.
5. Y Tu Mamá También (2001). Watched again after being lent DVD by Austin after drunken conversation the night before.
4. In Which We Serve (1942). Watched again one Saturday afternoon in the summer waiting for the rain to stop at Edgbaston.
3. The Best of Youth (2003). Four part Italian family epic on BBC4 while waiting for second series of Spiral to air.
2. La Reine Margot (1994). Watched again, see #4.
1. The Ladykillers (1955). Watched again with Merk as he hadn’t seen it. Watched through the xbox 360, you know for that authentic 50s vibe.

There you have it, conclusive proof that I am now a movie luddite, a filmic has-been, a cinematic cynic. I’d still recommend any of the top five if you’ve never seen them. Or maybe you prefer this shamelessly populist list of the decade’s films here.

In theory there’s still time for the perennial Christmas favourites to find there way in my annual affections, I’ve been hearing good things about The Great Escape (1963), Zulu (1964) and It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)! Remember the finger’s always on the pulse here at blogofstavros baby.