You may know that I do voluntary work for theindependentvoice.org, reviewing albums and stuff, but I’ve never really gone into what I do in much detail. Well as I’ve got this month’s releases out of the way, I can focus on blogging again and put an end to the mystery. (Not put an end the to misery, I like the work). As you may have expected, I submit my critiques online but I also have to add album details and pictures. The record covers have to be 400 by 400 pixels. Well, I’m sure 401 pixels would make no difference whatsoever, but there’s just something about going a tiny bit under or over the recommended size that’s taking the piss. So I’m actually quite careful about my sizing.
What is rather less professional, is my naming of the picture files. As they aren’t shown on the official website, just the page for the journalists, I like to put hidden messages in them. For example kG4kdLLd8ddf Simonizf@b kpI9ddjJd7. Whether anyone has spotted them, I don’t know, but they make me happy. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before my boss (the ultimate target) sees what I have to say. Great stuff. Unfortunately as I’ve written about 150 reviews now, I’m struggling to invent positive things to type about me, so now I’m having to rely on an online thesaurus. But don’t worry, I’ll never run out of ideas, I’m sure.
I also have to proofread the articles written by other volunteers. Doing so usually isn’t a problem, but I did once get asked to use the writing program Grammarly, because I missed some grammar errors. Unfortunately, I consider the product the work of the devil, so I’m never going to use it if I can help it. Sure in the short term, there won’t be any significant effects on my brain through my usage, but in ten years I’d forget how to form basic sentences. Mmmm. Sounds good. Imagine in the future me blogging without my ‘aid’ because it had crashed, and me saying ‘today I done (or is it ‘did?’) something really wonder (or is it ‘wonderful?’)’ I know my writing is often like that now, just imagine it worse, that’s what I’m saying. Hopefully the comments about my mistakes have been completely forgotten about, and I will forever write as normal. For now, I am. :S
I also have to sort through the website’s emails, into ‘album reviews’, ‘gig reviews’, ‘interviews’ and ’news pieces’. That would be boring if I didn’t listen to music in the background, but fortunately, I have a little over 700 CDs to choose from. I know this sounds sad, but the instances where I click on the first kind of messages are strangely satisfying. Why? Because unlike the other kinds, I usually don’t have to skim the whole email to find out what it’s about. So as you can understand, that’s fun. From time to time, it’s my duty to ‘star’ various emails as important, and when you do, you get a cool animation of stars emerging and disappearing. Of course, the cartoon wouldn’t be appropriate if you had to highlight an email about a cancer operation or whatever, but my experiences with the huge balls of fire have all been positive.
That’s kind of it really, so now I’ll change the subject and write about the CDs I bought on my ‘second birthday’ that I talked about. One of them was Eddie Vedder’s (also the singer of Pearl Jam) album ‘Ukulele Songs’. I thought it was just a clever name! Had I genuinely believed it was just the guy singing with his weedy sounding mini guitar (and sometimes some backing strings) I probably wouldn’t have bought it. Fortunately it was pretty cheap though. I listened to it all the way through out of curiosity and I didn’t care for it too much. However, the cover of the previously sweet and sentimental ’Dream A Little Dream’ was interestingly quite menacing. It almost came across as a threat. And I thought things couldn’t get weirder.
Another album I bought, I don’t really understand at all. In HMV it was listed under ‘Tyler the Creator’ (I heard on Youtube his ‘Earfquake’ and as you probably guessed, I liked it). However, when I got the LP home, I noticed it just said ‘Goblin’ on the cover in large writing. I didn’t know if that was the band or the album name. It took a bit of searching to find ‘Odd Future’ also on the CD case in a tiny font, that seemed to have been the group title according to Google. But what has it got to do with Tyler??? I typed the relevant info into Allmusic.com, and it said it WAS by the man, not OF. It’s possibly the first time in my life I’ve been confused by something that basic. (Yes, yes, yes, apart from when I went schizo -_- ). All I want to know is some everyday data about who the artist is, why are people being so cryptic? What have those involved got to hide? I know that sounds paranoid, but not so much if you listen to the very angry lyrics. Anyway whoever it was by, I was kind of disappointed by the release. It wasn’t exactly tuneful for the most part but never mind.
I also purchased some Iron Maiden, Seether and Stone Sour. None of which are funny (which is usually for the best). They are certainly more melodic than Mr. God or whatever he likes to think of himself as. To be fair though, IM’s frontman, Bruce Dickinson does seem to be a bit of a megalomaniac himself, with his beer company, own brand of jumbo jets or whatever and his fencing obsession. At least Tyler is honest about being a complete narcissist. Maybe not as much as Ozzy Osbourne though, as half of his songs seem to be about himself. Which is why I like him. Anywhoooo… Bye!