tom@wateracre.co.uk
Performing enquiries:
Cheryl Hayes
+44 (0)20 8994 4447
cheryl@cherylhayes.co.uk
Writing enquiries:
Lindsey at Berlin Associates
+44 (0)20 7836 1112
lindsey@berlinassociates.com
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Tom's Persistently Unscientific Top Ten of 2011!
(Previous years: 2010, 2009, 2008)
As previously stated, I'm building a masterpiece in my iPod - currently 27,855 items occupying 137.34 GB.
We're reaching a tipping point here, people, where my iPod is struggling to cope. I'm going to have to do some trimming soon. That probably means jettisoning that Cooper Temple Clause album. Sorry, Cooper Temple Clause.
Each year, I make an unsatisfying auto-playlist of the songs that are dated that year in my iTunes, and rank them in order of most listened to. Here's this year's list.
1) Uberlin - REM
2) Downtown - Destroyer
3)= Stuck On The Puzzle - Alex Turner
3)= Blue Eyes - Destroyer
3)= Savage Night At The Opera - Destroyer
3)= Wake Up - Jason Pegg
7)= Poor In Love - Destroyer
7)= Civilian - Wye Oak
9)= Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
9)= Song For America - Destroyer
A simultaneous "Hooray!" and "Boo hoo!" for the departing REM - probably my favourite band ever. I'm glad Uberlin is a splendid last hurrah on a mostly-great album. Probably the best album of the year was PJ Harvey, but it was just so bleak. Therefore the simply wonderful, neon-lit, sax-solo-covered, deeply-uncool Kaputt by Destroyer is my favourite album of the year. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do. It's superb.
Honourable mentions for those not mentioned in the list above go to St Vincent, who made a stunning album a bit too late in the year for consideration; King of Limbs by Radiohead which was alright, wasn't it?; the Lonely Island for making some pretty good songs on a patchy album (less of the homophobia next time, chaps!); and Wilco, whose The Whole Love is their best album since A Ghost Is Born. YES! In your face, everyone else who's already said that! I'm saying it too!
It was a good year, I think. There's lots I have yet to discover. No time. I got married instead of listening to music. Sue me.
Here's my current All-Time Top 10, with last year's chart placement in brackets after it:
1)= Finer Feelings - Spoon (non-mover)
1)= Actor Out Of Work - St Vincent (last year's number 2)
3) The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret - Queens of the Stone Age (non-mover)
4)= Trailer Park - Bracket (new entry)
4)= Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem (new entry)
6)= Romantic Rights - Death From Above 1979 (non-mover)
6)= Tightrope - Janelle Monae (new entry)
6)= You've Done It Again, Virginia - The National (last year's number 3)
6)= Tumbling Dice - The Rolling Stones (new entry - probably a re-entry, actually)
6)= Company In My Back - Wilco (non-mover)
6)= Good - Ghostface Killah (non-mover)
Pretty pointless, all in all.
This year, I don't think I know of any new albums coming out. Maybe there won't be any. That would be interesting, eh? I'm hoping to do something a bit musicky this year. Watch this space. It might actually happen.
(EDIT: Oh, and I'm on this ThisIsMyJam thing - come hang out, music-lovers...)
Thursday, 3 March 2011
The Wateracre Pretrospective - stream and download
The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I have jigged around the website to include a link to my Bandcamp site.
I've also released a live album recorded in 2007, featuring fourteen songs (and a fifteenth if you buy it on download!), from a show called The Wateracre Pretrospective.
I'll be releasing more on Bandcamp in the future.
That's all for now!
Thursday, 24 February 2011
An Open Letter to the people of Kingston and Surbiton
I was brought up in Surbiton, in Surrey, and born in Kingston Hospital. I don't live there any more, but I recently wrote an email to my friends and family who still do. This is what it said:
Dear Surbiton and Kingston folk -
I don't live in Surbiton any more. I live in East Dulwich, in South-East London, under a Labour MP who lives in North-West London. That's not important right now.
What is important is that I would like to do some tactical petitioning. I've signed this thing which sends an email to my MP protesting against the Health and Social Care Bill and cuts to the NHS, and I wondered if you'd do likewise.
My MP will argue against it because she's on the opposite side of the House, and that's how our screwed up, fiercely partisan Parliament rolls, but if you could send dear Mr Davey MP a reminder that he shouldn't be kow-towing to mandateless hooligans intent on turning over our beautiful, free, envy-of-the-world NHS to changes even the British Medical Journal has argued vociferously against (http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d408.full), that would please me no end.
http://saveournhs.com/
In return, I promise I will harangue Tessa Jowell MP about whatever you'd like. Lord knows I email her almost weekly at the moment anyway, but a little guidance on that would be most welcome. Maybe you want her to change the colour of her suit, or live in the constituency she claims to represent... It's all fair game.
For what it's worth, I like Ed Davey a lot, and think he's brilliant at his job of representing the people of Kingston and Surbiton, but if he can't see the irony of saving Kingston Hospital from closure only to lose 20% of its staff (http://www.edwarddavey.co.uk/web/?q=node/336) and thinks that inviting privatisation into any part of this mess would improve it one jot, then I think we ought to let him know that.
If you think I'm being an East Dulwich-living interfering git who ought to keep his nose out of Surbiton business, then I understand your position and respectfully ask you to delete this email. It is lovely, though, Dulwich. You can get really good sandwiches.
Much love,
Tom
---
I don't live in Surbiton any more. I live in East Dulwich, in South-East London, under a Labour MP who lives in North-West London. That's not important right now.
What is important is that I would like to do some tactical petitioning. I've signed this thing which sends an email to my MP protesting against the Health and Social Care Bill and cuts to the NHS, and I wondered if you'd do likewise.
My MP will argue against it because she's on the opposite side of the House, and that's how our screwed up, fiercely partisan Parliament rolls, but if you could send dear Mr Davey MP a reminder that he shouldn't be kow-towing to mandateless hooligans intent on turning over our beautiful, free, envy-of-the-world NHS to changes even the British Medical Journal has argued vociferously against (http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d408.full), that would please me no end.
http://saveournhs.com/
In return, I promise I will harangue Tessa Jowell MP about whatever you'd like. Lord knows I email her almost weekly at the moment anyway, but a little guidance on that would be most welcome. Maybe you want her to change the colour of her suit, or live in the constituency she claims to represent... It's all fair game.
For what it's worth, I like Ed Davey a lot, and think he's brilliant at his job of representing the people of Kingston and Surbiton, but if he can't see the irony of saving Kingston Hospital from closure only to lose 20% of its staff (http://www.edwarddavey.co.uk/web/?q=node/336) and thinks that inviting privatisation into any part of this mess would improve it one jot, then I think we ought to let him know that.
If you think I'm being an East Dulwich-living interfering git who ought to keep his nose out of Surbiton business, then I understand your position and respectfully ask you to delete this email. It is lovely, though, Dulwich. You can get really good sandwiches.
Much love,
Tom
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Tom's Highly Unscientific Top Ten of 2010!
As you may remember from either last year, or the year before that, I'm building a masterpiece in my iPod, currently 26,611 items occupying 131.35 GB.
Each year, I make an unsatisfying auto-playlist of the songs that are dated 2010 in my iTunes, and rank them in order of most listened to. Here's this year's list.
1) Ready To Start - Arcade Fire
2)= Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem
2)= Tightrope - Janelle Monae
2)= Cousins - Vampire Weekend
5) The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
6)= Zebra - Beach House
6)= I'm Not Living In The Real World - Belle & Sebastian
6)= Trouble Come Running - Spoon
9)= Shutterbugg - Big Boi
9)= Anyone's Ghost - The National
I think there have been many many strong albums this year, a million times better than 2009's lacklustre crop. As well as the nine albums represented above, there were strong showings just outside the Top 10 for the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack ("Threshold" by Sex Bob-omb), Sufjan Stevens (his "All Delighted People" ep in particular), and the Hold Steady's "Heaven Is Whenever". Good job, 2010! Keep it up, 2011.
And here's my all-time Top 10 on iTunes, with previous year's placing following it.
1) Finer Feelings - Spoon (non-mover)
2) Actor Out Of Work - St Vincent (new entry)
3)= Friends - Led Zeppelin (last year's number 9)
3)= You've Done It Again, Virginia - The National (last year's number 3)
3)= The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret - Queens of the Stone Age (non-mover)
6)= Romantic Rights - Death From Above 1979 (new entry)
6)= Blood On Our Hands - Death From Above 1979 (last year's number 2)
6)= I Want This Cyclops - Destroyer (last year's number 8)
6)= Florida - Modest Mouse (last year's number 4)
6)= You Got Yr Cherry Bomb - Spoon (new entry)
6)= Don't You Evah - Spoon (new entry)
6)= Company In My Back - Wilco (new entry)
6)= Good - Ghostface Killah (new entry)
See you next year, pop pickers! (Fingers crossed that the R.E.M. album will be any good!)
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Greenbelt - Blue Nun DJ set
Also at Greenbelt this year, I did my first live DJ set in a very, very long time. I enjoyed it a bit too much. Here's the tracklist:
Adam Green - Tropical Island
Annette - Pineapple Princess
Caetano Veloso - Superbacana
Brigitte Bardot - Ca pourrait changer
Dean Martin - Tonda Wonda Hoy
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Vanessa from Queens
Eric Matthews - Fanfare
Number One Cup - Divebomb
The Clash - Wrong Em Boyo
Spoon - Finer Feelings
Otis Redding - I'm A Changed Man
Parliament - Testify
Sandy Gaye - Watch The Dog That Bring The Bone
Jean Jacques Perrey - Gossipo Perpetuo
Mark Mothersbaugh - Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op
Mohammed Rafi - Jaan Pechechaan Ho
Yegelle Tezeta - My Own Memory
Georgia Gibbs - Kiss Of Fire (1966 version)
Bonzo Dog Band - Trouser Press
Luther Vandross - Never Too Much
Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey - Easy Lover
I've put as many of these as I could find in a Spotify playlist. Spotify appears to be really bad on mid-90s American indie (Eric Matthews, Number One Cup) - who knew?
Bunnybelt
As I may have mentioned before, the burdens of real world finance have caused me to get a day-job, albeit a really cool one. I work for Greenbelt, an annual music and arts festival, writing their blog, managing volunteer teams, updating their website and generally being a nuisance.
An upshot of this is that I get to make fun things like the following...
My girlfriend used to work for Greenbelt and so, as a joke, some friends of hers bought her the Sylvanian Families marquee for Christmas. She took a few photos, called it Bunnybelt, and then we started thinking... we should do this properly.
So here are five films about Bunnybelt, all of which parody the extraordinary combination of faith, arts and justice that Greenbelt actually gives the world... We're horribly ungrateful like that...
Bunnybelt Episode 1 - Welcome from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.
Bunnybelt Episode 2 - John Bell Bunny from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.
Bunnybelt Episode 2½ - John Bell Bunny Q&A from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.
Bunnybelt Episode 3 - Talks from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.
Bunnybelt Episode 4 - Farewell from Greenbelt Festival on Vimeo.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Tom Blair
I was simultaneously amused and creeped out by the cover of Tony Blair's forthcoming memoir "The Journey"...
The top half of his face is stern, the bottom half is smiling. Seriously, dude, PICK ONE EMOTION AND STICK WITH IT.
I decided to see what might happen if the top and bottom halves of my face did different things. Results below...
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Website Changes
Due to Blogger/Google closing down support for FTP Publishing (which I used extensively), this blog is now located at http://wateracre.blogspot.com/. It's not annoying at all. Oh no. Please update your feed subscriptions to http://wateracre.blogspot.com/atom.xml.
The upside of this is that I've given my website a facelift. It's likely to change a bit over the next month or so.
The upside of this is that I've given my website a facelift. It's likely to change a bit over the next month or so.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Tom's Highly Unscientific Top Ten of 2009!
As you may remember from last year, I'm building a masterpiece in my iPod, currently 24,664 items occupying 118.12 GB.
Now, I've been worrying about this list. As you may remember, I make an auto-playlist which lists my top ten most listened to tracks that were, according to my iTunes, released in 2009. This has several flaws. One, it means that tracks that were in no way released in 2009 get into the chart ("Lewis, Mistreated" by Radiohead is in the Top 20 despite it being released fourteen years previously). Two, tracks released earlier in the year fare better that ones released later in the year, as they have a chance to be listened to more. Three, iTunes doesn't (I believe) allow you to find out how many plays you've given a specific track in a specific year. This is understandable. It's borderline obsessive at best.
Again, the Top Ten is basically made up of four or five albums. Last year it was The National, Vampire Weekend, TV On The Radio, Black Kids and Fleet Foxes. This year, well... take a look.
1) "Actor Out Of Work" by St Vincent
2) "Black Rainbow" by St Vincent
3) "Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood" by St Vincent
4) "Lion In A Coma" by Animal Collective
5) "I'm On A Boat" by The Lonely Island w/ T-Pain
6) "Don't Upset The Rhythm" by Noisettes
7) "Never Forget You" by Noisettes
8) "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand
9) "Punch You In The Jeans" by The Lonely Island
10) "Uprising" by Muse
Allowing for only one track per artist, the Top Ten looks like this...
1) "Actor Out Of Work" by St Vincent
2) "Lion In A Coma" by Animal Collective
3) "I'm On A Boat" by The Lonely Island
4) "Don't Upset The Rhythm" by Noisettes
5) "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand
6) "Uprising" by Muse
7) "Not Fair" by Lily Allen
8) "Lewis, Mistreated" by Radiohead (seriously!)
9) "Runaway" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10) "Time's Arrow" by Jason Pegg
Which is good as it gets in Jason Pegg's amazing opening track from his bafflingly great solo album, but which is bad as I bought that album on the 22nd of December and it's at number 37 in the proper, non-artist adjusted chart.
Anyway, maybe iTunes will update by next year.
One thing that will be okay, though is my current all-time Top Ten!
1) "Finer Feelings" by Spoon - NON MOVER
2) "Blood On Our Hands" by Death From Above 1979 - NEW ENTRY
3) "You've Done It Again, Virginia" by The National - NEW ENTRY
4) "Florida" by Modest Mouse - NEW ENTRY
5) "The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret" by Queens of the Stone Age - NEW ENTRY
6) "Dancing Choose" by TV On The Radio - NEW ENTRY
7) "Widescreen" by Clearlake - NEW ENTRY
8) "I Want This Cyclops" by Destroyer - LAST YEAR'S NUMBER 6
9) "Friends" by Led Zeppelin - LAST YEAR'S NUMBER 4
10) "Tumbling Dice" by The Rolling Stones - NEW ENTRY
Overall, it's been a terrible year for albums. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were disappointing, the Noisettes were good but upsetting, The Lonely Island's album was the patchiest thing ever, and Muse was kind of okay, but a bit ho-hum (much better than Black Holes & Revelations, though).
Top albums though, were Jason Pegg's album (which is, I think titled "Jason Pegg's Album") and St Vincent's "Actor". Both of which were generally brilliant.
In 2010, I'm looking forward to the long-gestating Clearlake album "Dark Blue" and Vampire Weekend, and hopefully something amazing that will surprise me. Fingers crossed!
Now, I've been worrying about this list. As you may remember, I make an auto-playlist which lists my top ten most listened to tracks that were, according to my iTunes, released in 2009. This has several flaws. One, it means that tracks that were in no way released in 2009 get into the chart ("Lewis, Mistreated" by Radiohead is in the Top 20 despite it being released fourteen years previously). Two, tracks released earlier in the year fare better that ones released later in the year, as they have a chance to be listened to more. Three, iTunes doesn't (I believe) allow you to find out how many plays you've given a specific track in a specific year. This is understandable. It's borderline obsessive at best.
Again, the Top Ten is basically made up of four or five albums. Last year it was The National, Vampire Weekend, TV On The Radio, Black Kids and Fleet Foxes. This year, well... take a look.
1) "Actor Out Of Work" by St Vincent
2) "Black Rainbow" by St Vincent
3) "Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood" by St Vincent
4) "Lion In A Coma" by Animal Collective
5) "I'm On A Boat" by The Lonely Island w/ T-Pain
6) "Don't Upset The Rhythm" by Noisettes
7) "Never Forget You" by Noisettes
8) "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand
9) "Punch You In The Jeans" by The Lonely Island
10) "Uprising" by Muse
Allowing for only one track per artist, the Top Ten looks like this...
1) "Actor Out Of Work" by St Vincent
2) "Lion In A Coma" by Animal Collective
3) "I'm On A Boat" by The Lonely Island
4) "Don't Upset The Rhythm" by Noisettes
5) "No You Girls" by Franz Ferdinand
6) "Uprising" by Muse
7) "Not Fair" by Lily Allen
8) "Lewis, Mistreated" by Radiohead (seriously!)
9) "Runaway" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
10) "Time's Arrow" by Jason Pegg
Which is good as it gets in Jason Pegg's amazing opening track from his bafflingly great solo album, but which is bad as I bought that album on the 22nd of December and it's at number 37 in the proper, non-artist adjusted chart.
Anyway, maybe iTunes will update by next year.
One thing that will be okay, though is my current all-time Top Ten!
1) "Finer Feelings" by Spoon - NON MOVER
2) "Blood On Our Hands" by Death From Above 1979 - NEW ENTRY
3) "You've Done It Again, Virginia" by The National - NEW ENTRY
4) "Florida" by Modest Mouse - NEW ENTRY
5) "The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret" by Queens of the Stone Age - NEW ENTRY
6) "Dancing Choose" by TV On The Radio - NEW ENTRY
7) "Widescreen" by Clearlake - NEW ENTRY
8) "I Want This Cyclops" by Destroyer - LAST YEAR'S NUMBER 6
9) "Friends" by Led Zeppelin - LAST YEAR'S NUMBER 4
10) "Tumbling Dice" by The Rolling Stones - NEW ENTRY
Overall, it's been a terrible year for albums. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were disappointing, the Noisettes were good but upsetting, The Lonely Island's album was the patchiest thing ever, and Muse was kind of okay, but a bit ho-hum (much better than Black Holes & Revelations, though).
Top albums though, were Jason Pegg's album (which is, I think titled "Jason Pegg's Album") and St Vincent's "Actor". Both of which were generally brilliant.
In 2010, I'm looking forward to the long-gestating Clearlake album "Dark Blue" and Vampire Weekend, and hopefully something amazing that will surprise me. Fingers crossed!
Thursday, 26 November 2009
November and December Gigs!
A little pre-Christmas flurry of gigs around the country, mostly as part of Nine Comedians & Carols... Come along!
Fri 27th Nov - Nine Comedians & Carols, St Matthew's Church, Tarring Road, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 4BH, 8pm start
Sat 5th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Milton Baptist Church, Baytree Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS22 8HJ, 7:30pm start
Sun 6th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, St Michael-le-Belfry, Minster Yard, York YO1 7HH, 7pm start
Tues 8th Dec - The Laughing Sole, The British Oak, 1364 Pershore Road, Stirchley, Birmingham, B30 2XS, 8pm start
Wed 9th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Buckhurst Hill Baptist, 28 Palmerston Road, Buckhurst Hill, Essex, IG9 5LW, 8pm start
Sat 12th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Letchworth Garden City Church, Icknield Way East, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 1EF, 8pm start.
Fri 27th Nov - Nine Comedians & Carols, St Matthew's Church, Tarring Road, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 4BH, 8pm start
Sat 5th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Milton Baptist Church, Baytree Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS22 8HJ, 7:30pm start
Sun 6th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, St Michael-le-Belfry, Minster Yard, York YO1 7HH, 7pm start
Tues 8th Dec - The Laughing Sole, The British Oak, 1364 Pershore Road, Stirchley, Birmingham, B30 2XS, 8pm start
Wed 9th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Buckhurst Hill Baptist, 28 Palmerston Road, Buckhurst Hill, Essex, IG9 5LW, 8pm start
Sat 12th Dec - Nine Comedians & Carols, Letchworth Garden City Church, Icknield Way East, Letchworth Garden City, Herts, SG6 1EF, 8pm start.
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