Baaaaaaaaaack!

Hello! Fiiiiinally got back, unpacked, unjetlagged and ready to post again. Very busy round here at the moment (had my Uni graduation ceremony today and moving house in a few days), so i've only got the time at the second to do a quick hello and will have to try to actually post some mp3s tomorrow.

Anyway holiday was fantastic, flew out to L.A. with my girlfriend and her parents, stayed in a hotel right by Universal Studios and had a great time. Also whilst in L.A. I went to Amoeba Records, which I hadn't heard of until one of the Drowned In Sound messageboard folks told me about it. Well turns out its probably the greatest record store i've ever seen in my entire life. Words cannot really describe how much of a blackhole it is for both time and money. Anyway I only had an hour, but my haul came to:

Afghan Whigs - Congregation
Afghan Whigs - What Jail Is Like EP
Belle & Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
Daniel Johnston - Artistic Vice
REM - New Adventures In Hi-Fi
Sonic Youth - Confusion Is Sex/Kill Yr. Idols
Sonic Youth - Washing Machine
Sufjan Stevens - Greetings From Michigan
Ultrasound - Everything Picture (limited 2cd version)

All those were on CD, and the following were on vinyl:

Antony & The Johnsons - I Am A Bird Now
Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
Low - The Great Destroyer
Sleater Kinney - The Woods
Patti Smith - Dream Of Life
Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires

So some great stuff there (though a lot of it i've had on mp3 and loved for ages and only now picked up). Anyway after L.A. we drove to San Diego and stayed in a rather posh holiday resort for a few days, though annoyingly when we actually had time to relax the sun decided not to come out. After that we flew to Dallas, which was also really nice. The photo above is one of me suspiciously stood behind the fence at the grassy knoll, which was taken on a trip to the JFK museum at The Texas School-Book Depository Building. Really interesting, but rather bizarre in that I know have a photo of myself stood on the exact spot in the road at which the first bullet hit Kennedy. Morbid, yes. After Dallas we flew to Washington DC, which was far more interesting than I thought it would be (especially the monuments), though nowadays you can't go within about a mile of the white house without about 2 years waiting and permission from your congressman. Not that I'd want to go anywhere near the stinking cesspit at the moment....

Aaaanyway it's nice to be back in England, though slightly bizarre since most of the bombing stuff has happened while we were in America and you don't really get much unbiased, quality news broadcasting over there. As I said I'll be sticking up some new mp3s tomorrow as long as everything goes to plan, but until then i'll leave you with a few links.

(by the way, rather sadly,Teenage Kicks 3000, probably the best of the John Peel show blogs, has had to shut down, so cheers to Dave the blogmiester for doing such a great job while it lasted)

One great blog i've been checking out is Straight No Chaser - A Jazz Show, which has a great mix of classic and not so classic Jazz. Check out the recent post on Jazz covers of Nirvana for some "banging tunes" as I believe "the kids" call them nowadays. Also worth checking out is this rather amazing archive of concert photos. In the words of Flava Flav, "YEAH BOYEEE". And finally, Google Earth is just about the most addictive and interesting thing on the net for ages. TTFN.