Comments on Overheard in the Office

cool.

Please make note of my accompanying interpretive dance.

I'd give anything to hear him do "Wuthering Heights" in falsetto.

I'll even volunteer to make him the gold jumpsuit.

Charles is sooo weeeeeird, *giggle*

I first thought 'cloudbusting' was a different song by some British indie band, so I searched and got this neat tidbit. If anyone knows of that band, give a shout out. Thanks.

You're probably thinking of Radiohead, who had a song called "Spinning Plates" with the lyric "I'm living in cloud cuckoo land", but muchmuchmuch better than that was The Lightning Seeds, whose 1989 album "Cloudcuckooland" was a stone cold shimmery pop masterpiece. Ian Broudie, adorable little Scallie thug that he is, is one of the great pop geniuses of our time. Remember "Pure and simple every time"?

Ah, Fnarf--thank you for the stroll down late-80s shimmery-pop-masterpiece lane. I must track down "Pure" again immediately. (Also, I trust you are a fan of one of my most beloved late-80s shimmery pop masterpieces, the Chills' Submarine Bells....)

Oh, my heart be still. Submarine Bells is maybe the most perfect record ever made; every note, from the opening plaint of "Heavenly Pop Hit" to the surging, emotional choral interlude "I Soar" to the last notes, it's...perfect.

Must be something in the water; not only did The Chills never make a bad record, neither did The Clean (until the last one, a couple of years ago, after they turned into a rawk band) or The Bats (who put out a great new record just last year on Portland's Magic Marker Records) or most of the other Dunedin bands, though by the time you get down to Bailterspace or Jean Paul Sartre Experience, it's probably an acquired taste. I like the strum and jangle ones best. "Daddy's Highway" by the Bats is perfect too.

I got to see Martin Phillips in Portland touring with a "new" version of The Chills touring after "Soft Bomb" a decade ago. Magical. What a sweet voice that man has.