G'day all. KEN CHU ...came out of the woodwork, and said some stuff about boobs. All is right in the world again. MARK CASAROTTO ...chided me, saying: "Can Vanilla Flavid Davoured really never have heard T-Rex? Hewitt Minor, go and lock yourself in a cupboard with "I'm A Cuckoo" on repeate until the spirit of Phil Lynott apparates in front of you and sets fire to your bum." Yes, sir! (He's harsh, but fair. And devilishly handsome.) Phil Lynott didn't appear, but then I wouldn't really know if he did, since I've no idea who he is. The only person that appeared was the missus, wanting to know what I was doing in the cupboard. I said that it was something to do with you, Mark, and she just groaned, knowingly. You know, I've heard of many of these bands being mentioned around these parts recently (T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, 10cc, etc), but I'm not sure I'd be able to pick them out of a line-up or anything. I was raised on a strict diet of Beatles and Stones (mm, delish!), and when it was time for me to start buying records, The Smiths and (gulp!) The Cure were the thing, it being the mid-80s and all. There's a big space in between those eras, that's filled only with the likes of ELO, Hall and Oates and Barry Manilow, mostly courtesy of my mother. Most of the other stuff that was immediately before my time is a bit of a mystery to me, I'm afraid. I was under the impression that I hadn't missed much, but maybe I'll have to revise that. I must say, though, that "I'm A Cuckoo" has grown on my considerably over the last few days. I think it's the sheer ambition of the thing that impresses me now. I might have come to it colder than many of you who 'get' the pastiche, but it's actually a pretty swell song in its own right, once you get your head around how it sounds. I'll stand by pretty much everything else I said in my lengthy and incoherent review on the weekend, except perhaps to add that "If She Wants Me" just gets even better, if that's possible. "Roy Walker" still stinks, and "Stay Loose" still puzzles. It doesn't necessarily annoy, but I don't think it quite beguiles the way it's meant to, either. Everything else, I'm pretty pleased with, in the main. Also, Mark: I can't recommend a game show for you to go on, as I don't really know anything about pommy television (except that there doesn't seem to be very much of it). I reckon you should definitely go on SOMETHING, though - I've seen your pub-quiz skillz first hand, and I reckon you'd do just fine. I've been trying to get on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" for ages, but so far with no success. If I get on, you can be one of my 'phone-a-friends'. Even if I can't take them for the full million, we'll sting 'em with some international call charges, eh? SAM WALTON ...praised the new record for its audacity. And I guess I'll go along with that. I shy away from words like 'best', but this record certainly has its place alongside the others. I'd say I like it better than the soundtrack, but to say that it's better than the other ones, that've rubbed up against various important bits of my life, would be madness at this stage. It's a genuinely interesting, challenging, diverse and thoroughly new record, though, and an eminently listenable one at that. I don't think that anything new I've heard this year can touch it, and what else can you compare it to, really? I don't know if I'll figure out its position amongst the other albums until the next one's due to come out. It depends on how deeply it manages to bore into me, I suppose, and that takes time. Oh, and I signed your petition, by the way. I also dusted off an old mp3 of Rhoda, and it really is a marvellous little number, despite the awfulness of the recording. While I was at it, I heard a few other old live bits and pieces. I've recently defended the studio version of TLOAMDR, but the guitar on that live one is really out of this world, isn't it? It makes me go all squishy inside, somehow. The whistling is shit, though. I'm not joining a tape tree, because I don't have the means to record either CDs or tapes anymore. Pathetic, eh? Besides, I'm completely unreliable. Ask anyone. ROBIN STOUT ...made some very good points, and I won't do him the disservice of attempting to summarize them here. I reckon he hit the nail on the head pretty much, though, especially in regard to the heritage of some of DCW's more diverse songs. I too adored I'm Waking Up To Us (although again I'm reluctant to use words like 'best' and even 'favourite'), and I really do feel that the recent album is a further step in the same direction established by that EP. Which is pretty much what I wanted, actually. It hasn't got the consistency of the first two LPs (though he rightly mentions 'Electronic Renaissance', which is surely as jarringly inconsistent and out of place on Tigermilk as anything on DCW), it seems to take place in a larger world than the wonderful, secret, cosy one that the albums used to describe, and its certainly a bit wonky in parts. It's also varied, new and ambitious, though, and entirely eccentric. I guess it risks not being quite so specifically relevant to the people into whose ears the earlier records so seductively whispered, but of the directions the band could have gone in, I think sideways is far from the worst choice they could have made. Also, what's DMAFOM? Or am I just being dense? ME Nah, I've got nothin'. Bulk love, - Vanilla Flavoured David. _________________________________________________________________ Chat via SMS. Simply send 'CHAT' to 1889918. 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