: 21 March 2002 :

ch ch ch ch chk chk chk chk chkachkachkachkachkkrrrrrrrrrrr :

el. ef. oh.

I can't write the next bit, even though I can hear it really clearly, because it's this mad good load of bleeps that'd make no sense if I wrote them out. Lyrics work fine, and drum noises, and some other stuff, but you can't type a tune.

you can't type a tune

Good name for a song. Don't any of you dare steal it. Anyway, the reason for all of this is a trip to HMV (often a source of much musing on my part, some of it featuring the muttered phrases “bloody incompetence... no fucking taste... kids today...” and more in the same curmudgeonly vein). Whilst idly playing in the vinyl section I spotted a white label remix of a couple of LFO tunes, “LFO” and another one - didn't say who remixed it - and took it over for a listen. First side started out really good, sounding a lot like LFO (coincidentally, yeah) but then it all went a bit generic, big strings and that, so I stopped listening. Other side was pretty much the same. (Just looked on Hard to Find Records - here for any British readers - and it says there's a 2002 trance remix doing the rounds, so I imagine it's probably that).

Well, I wasn't too disappointed to be honest, because even if it wasn't a great mix it had got those bleeps in my head and that made me happy. I went over to the CDs to see if they had Frequencies in, so I could go home and listen to the original (I've been meaning to get it for ages now). But not only did they not have it, some idiot that should have been a tea boy had put the Lyte Funkie Ones album in the LFO section. This was in the racks marked “Dance” not the racks marked “Irritating MTV Boy-Band Pap”. And everyone knows that LFO stands for Low Frequency Oscillation.

Obviously I'm not still annoyed about it, I'm just trying to recreate how I felt as I left. Every so often I'll go to a record shop and leave thinking that they should have regular and rigorous tests for employees.

Similar disappointment later - went into Borders and bought the Wire. When I reached up to the rack there was a girl standing next to me, and as I took the magazine down she reached out to the same place. I smiled, in the way that you do when you silently observe someone who shares your tastes, until I realised she was just moving it out of the way to get behind it to the NME.

el. ef. oh.

Just thinking about that record cheers me right up again.

(Talking about LFO and the Wire in one entry - anyone would think I was trying to seem like a music snob... Well, I'm not. It comes naturally, and often against my will.)