EATING my hat.

Long time readers would remember when a few months ago I made some sort of peace with my long term WAR against Radiohead.

And even LONGER readers might recall when I made a LIST of bands that even though I SHOULD, I didn't like.

Just to show that an old, grumpy spotty dog can infact change it's spots and ALSO learn new tricks, I'd like to amend that list.

Ella Fitzgerald is OK. In fact I'm not sure WHY I had her on that list in the first place. I've always liked her. I don't LOVE her like many people do, but some of her work I REALLY dig, while others leave me a bit cold.

The thing with all these old jazz-type artists is their HUGE body of work, so it maybe hard to get a good grasp of what they're like by only 1 album. It maybe that 1 album you stumbled across was a weak point in their otherwise good recording career. OR it's that 1 album that you really like compared to the rest of their body of work.
An example of this might be Miles Davis. His "Kind of Blue" album would be in my all time top 5 albums, but I don't really like much of his other work.

So in light of this I'm taking Fletcher Henderson of the list. I'm more and more liking his stuff.
Same with Sidney Bechet.

The Bloc Party have grown on me too. Even though I've had their (first?) album for a few ears now, there random appearance on my shuffle has ground me down into quite enjoying them.

Where as my enjoyment of The Arctic Monkeys was more sudden. They were on the cusp of stardom when I first arrived in London, and I remember the NME and various people "in the know" were billing them as the next GREAT thing but for some reason I dismissed them. But, I think it was a few months ago, I listened to them while I was jogging with headphones on. It's amazing what the difference the context of experience can effect your perception .
So Arctic Monkeys are off the list.
Thats not too say I'm a huge fan of either them or Bloc Party. But they don't deserve to be on the list. If a band came along with the interesting song writing of Bloc Party coupled with the gutsy rock stylings of Arctic Monkeys- then we'd have a fucking good band!

But thats about as far as I'm prepared to go for now.


THEY have to meet me half way.