Michael*

^^^^What a dreamy session it would be. You know that I play football a lot,especially these days[i'm on a little work break],I play it daily,not professionaly but as so beloved hobby[lots of sweat and running are perfect for my body]. I can dream now of having Silva playing with me,I'd like to have Ronaldo and Messy too[too imaginative,right?].Did you read that Beckham said before that his sons can get everything they want without doing anything,but they love to work hard and don't like to depend or rely on him only.

That doesn't surprise me as he's always struck me as a pretty down-to-earth type of guy, but I guess with that kind of money behind them, the kids will never want for anything either way.

So you play too? That's fantastic! Should the need ever arise to assemble a BZ football team, you can be in it! I myself am ridiculously out of practice now, but I wasn't such a bad player back in the day. I started at the age of about five playing in the streets and in the park, and when I got a bit older I played for my school and college, anywhere across the midfield or at a push, right full-back. College sports is of course, a much, much smaller deal in the UK than in the States but it was always enjoyable and a great way to keep fit.

How does this list stand up today? <_<

It's too hard for me to put them in order but this is my ten

The White Stripes - White Blood Cells

The Strokes - Is This It

Jeff Buckley - Grace

The Mars Volta - De-loused in the Comatorium

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch

Nirvana - Bleach

Beck - Odelay

Pixies - Surfer Rosa

Spiritualized - Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space

At The Drive-In - Relationship of Command

Wow, I forgot about that. Have I really been here for more than five years? That's some scary stuff.

That list looks in dire need of some Beach House, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Anna Calvi, and probably at least a couple of others, though quite honestly I’m not sure I could decide which five that I'd get rid of to make room for them. Might have to make it into a top 20 instead.

So what would the donbot top 10 look like?

^It would probably have to include 20 too

I'll have to have a think about it.

It's interesting that almost all of that list was American though, apart from Spiritualized. I'd have thought there'd be a bit more of a British bias.

Incidentally.. how the hell do I not know that band Spiritualized?

I just Googled the title track and recognised it straight away as that amazing song from Vanilla Sky (superb music all round in that movie). Must go Spotify more!

Its funny, I was looking at imdb and they had a 'click here to watch' for Doctor Who, so I figured I had a legit replacement for the downloading sites being taken down. I clicked on the link and it turned out to just be a link to amazon for me to buy it . That's not to say its not worth buying, but whenever I go in with the thought of buying shows or movies, I usually end up buying gadgets and books instead .

So what would the donbot top 10 look like?

Okay, I think it looks something like this..

Beach House - Teen Dream

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Radiohead - OK Computer

The Postal Service - Give Up

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia

Tom Waits - Mule Variations

Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch

---

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Powderfinger - Internationalist

Weezer - Weezer (Blue)

Augie March - Sunset Studies

Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night

You Am I - Hi Fi Way

The Doors - The Doors

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

^It would probably have to include 20 too

I'll have to have a think about it.

It's interesting that almost all of that list was American though, apart from Spiritualized. I'd have thought there'd be a bit more of a British bias.

Incidentally.. how the hell do I not know that band Spiritualized?

I just Googled the title track and recognised it straight away as that amazing song from Vanilla Sky (superb music all round in that movie). Must go Spotify more!

There's probably a lot of truth to that, as a pretty big share of the music I love comes from the other side of the pond, although I hadn't really thought about it that way before.

I'd count the likes of The Stone Roses, The Smiths, The Cure, Suede, My Bloody Valentine, PJ Harvey and Arctic Monkeys amongst my all-time top artists, though. Years ago, I would have included The Verve, Oasis and Manic Street Preachers in that too, but they've all kind of fallen by the wayside for me now - I listened to them so much at the time that they started to feel over-familiar. Consequently, I find myself rolling my eyes a bit now when I'm out and about and say, ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ comes on for the millionth time.

Spiritualized are one of those bands who seem to exist in their own little bubble, without ever becoming a mainstay of any particular scene or really 'breaking out', as it were. Jason has spent many years developing a signature sound that he's very good at and very comfortable doing, and while his career is almost certainly past the point of having any genuine forward momentum, the band keeps cranking out consistently good material every two or three years in a straightforward, no-nonsense kind of way. 'Ladies & Gentlemen...' is the undisputed masterpiece album (if I'm not mistaken, it beat out 'OK Computer' on many an end-of-year list at the time), so if you only check out one, I'd recommend making it that one. That being said, this is actually my favourite song of theirs, from follow-up effort 'Let It Come Down'...

Its funny, I was looking at imdb and they had a 'click here to watch' for Doctor Who, so I figured I had a legit replacement for the downloading sites being taken down. I clicked on the link and it turned out to just be a link to amazon for me to buy it . That's not to say its not worth buying, but whenever I go in with the thought of buying shows or movies, I usually end up buying gadgets and books instead .

YouTube was pretty good for catch-ups until recently, but all I can find these days is preview clips of recent episodes - probably a result of the BBC having a bigger presence on the site as of late. Have you caught any of the latest season? I've enjoyed most of it although I don't know why they're only doing one-off episodes now, I like a good two or three part story every now and then.

So what would the donbot top 10 look like?

Okay, I think it looks something like this..

Beach House - Teen Dream

Massive Attack - Mezzanine

Radiohead - OK Computer

The Postal Service - Give Up

Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

The Dandy Warhols - 13 Tales From Urban Bohemia

Tom Waits - Mule Variations

Sigur Rós - Ágætis Byrjun

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch

---

Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid

Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Powderfinger - Internationalist

Weezer - Weezer (Blue)

Augie March - Sunset Studies

Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night

You Am I - Hi Fi Way

The Doors - The Doors

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

Some excellent stuff there and some I’m not too familiar with. Alas, the Augie March album is still on my 'to do' list.

I'm starting to feel like having a bash at an expanded top twenty now, I'd imagine there'd probably be a bit more of a mixture of old and new if I were to re-do it. I'm quite lucky to have parents who were both heavily into their music as it's never really been necessary to go out and buy anything pre-1990. I've adopted a few older bands as my own (Ramones, The Cure, The Smiths, Television etc.) over the years but for anything else, I can usually just raid my Dad’s collection.

What was the first music to make a permanent imprint on the young Don's mind?

I'm also not sure how I feel about the replacement . Being somewhat behind as I travelled back (no pun intended) to Season 4, so I only saw the new guy by mistake and found him creepy somehow . I imagine he'll grow on me once I get up to that point. They actually do have Merlin on there though although I hope I didn't jinx it by saying so .

I'm also not sure how I feel about the replacement . Being somewhat behind as I travelled back (no pun intended) to Season 4, so I only saw the new guy by mistake and found him creepy somehow . I imagine he'll grow on me once I get up to that point. They actually do have Merlin on there though although I hope I didn't jinx it by saying so .

There'll be yet another new Doctor on the way come Christmas, as Matt Smith recently announced that he's moving on to pastures new, most probably to try his luck the States. It'll be a great shame to see him go, and he's come to define the role for me enough that I'll have that extra bit of difficulty in making the adjustment to someone new. Having said that, I always expect to not like the new guy, because I really like the current guy, but then I start to like the new guy.

Hey Joe, on a slightly different note, did you ever find a solution to that problem you had with the enter key? It seems there are another couple of members having the same kind of trouble at the moment.

Some excellent stuff there and some I’m not too familiar with. Alas, the Augie March album is still on my 'to do' list.

I'm starting to feel like having a bash at an expanded top twenty now, I'd imagine there'd probably be a bit more of a mixture of old and new if I were to re-do it. I'm quite lucky to have parents who were both heavily into their music as it's never really been necessary to go out and buy anything pre-1990. I've adopted a few older bands as my own (Ramones, The Cure, The Smiths, Television etc.) over the years but for anything else, I can usually just raid my Dad’s collection.

What was the first music to make a permanent imprint on the young Don's mind?

My Dad wasn't particularly musically inclined, but I was left with a fair imprint of my Mum being a teen of the 60s and in turn a pretty big Beatles fanatic. Also when I was growing up, my older sister went through a big phase of 60s music and record collecting, so I was exposed to a lot of that then and still love a lot of it today. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, The Doors.. the list goes on.

As far as music of my generation goes, I was always sort of around the shitty pop music from the early 90s and beyond (I shudder to think of much of that, although it has its own charm I suppose ), but I suppose the first bands that really got under my skin were those of the mid-late 90s. Garbage was one of the first bands I really remember being taken over by, thinking this music speaks to me. Everyone always talks about grunge and nineties in the same sentence, but the rise of trip-hop is my favourite product of the decade; particularly Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and Morcheeba

Alongside that, alt rock was my go-to genre, with bands like Catatonia, Blur, Oasis, Eels, Marcy Playground and Björk being amongst my favourite international artists. I also fell profoundly in love with Tori Amos A big chunk of what I was listening to though was home grown - the likes of Custard, Jebediah, The Living End, Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Powderfinger, You Am I, Silverchair, Spiderbait and The Whitlams - I think I recently asked you how many of those you'd heard of It's interesting what you said before about certain music becoming so ubiquitous that it becomes almost retrospectively forgotten. That's certainly true with a bunch of the albums of the artists I've mentioned here, despite still having immense fondness, when I think back of them.

What about you, for the first music to really make an impression?

I still have to put a dash bellow my lines to create a space and then delete it . That's unfortunate that others have the issue now too, but maybe that will help it to get fixed then as I don't have the problem anywhere else. Great choices of Buckley and Apple from the corner of my eye though although all were good.

pretty big Beatles fanatic. Also when I was growing up, my older sister went through a big phase of 60s music and record collecting, so I was exposed to a lot of that then and still love a lot of it today. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, The Doors.. the list goes on.

As far as music of my generation goes, I was always sort of around the shitty pop music from the early 90s and beyond (I shudder to think of much of that, although it has its own charm I suppose ), but I suppose the first bands that really got under my skin were those of the mid-late 90s. Garbage was one of the first bands I really remember being taken over by, thinking this music speaks to me. Everyone always talks about grunge and nineties in the same sentence, but the rise of trip-hop is my favourite product of the decade; particularly Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and Morcheeba

Alongside that, alt rock was my go-to genre, with bands like Catatonia, Blur, Oasis, Eels, Marcy Playground and Björk being amongst my favourite international artists. I also fell profoundly in love with Tori Amos A big chunk of what I was listening to though was home grown - the likes of Custard, Jebediah, The Living End, Grinspoon, Regurgitator, Powderfinger, You Am I, Silverchair, Spiderbait and The Whitlams - I think I recently asked you how many of those you'd heard of It's interesting what you said before about certain music becoming so ubiquitous that it becomes almost retrospectively forgotten. That's certainly true with a bunch of the albums of the artists I've mentioned here, despite still having immense fondness, when I think back of them.

What about you, for the first music to really make an impression?

The mid-90s was very much ground zero for me as well. I was heavily into Nirvana and Beck, as well the more quintessentially British sounds of Pulp, Supergrass and Elastica, although I'd have to say my biggest springboard into music was discovering Oasis. Later on, I came to the realisation that Blur were more adventurous, but was firmly entrenched in the Gallagher camp as a youngster. These days, I find that a lot of the older Blur stuff, and indeed much of the music associated with that whole Britpop movement, has aged rather poorly. Still, I can't complain too much - listening to Oasis was a gateway into the Stone Roses and in turn, Joy Division and The Beatles, while listening to Blur got me interested in Pavement, Sonic Youth, early Pink Floyd and so on.

Are you interested in the Stone Roses reunion at all then, Don? It piqued my interest initially, but thus far, it’s been exactly what I hoped it wouldn’t be. The prospect of them getting back together just for a few big gigs never really appealed to me that much because Ian's voice is pretty awful live, and there’s still no sign of any new material. I only hope the album arrives before the realisation sets in that they can’t stand the sight of each other - the band surely deserves a better send-off than that now-infamous Reading festival set.

I still have to put a dash bellow my lines to create a space and then delete it . That's unfortunate that others have the issue now too, but maybe that will help it to get fixed then as I don't have the problem anywhere else. Great choices of Buckley and Apple from the corner of my eye though although all were good.

Apparently, it starts working again when they click on 'toggle editing mode' and switch to the basic interface. I know most computers have their little quirks here and there, but it's rather odd for the same problem to be happening to several members at once.

Joe, I saw you mention the rather mental and decidedly dangerous sport of cheese rolling in Don's thread recently. Did you hear about the American guy who travelled 4,000 miles to compete this year and won?

Are you interested in the Stone Roses reunion at all then, Don? It piqued my interest initially, but thus far, it’s been exactly what I hoped it wouldn’t be. The prospect of them getting back together just for a few big gigs never really appealed to me that much because Ian's voice is pretty awful live, and there’s still no sign of any new material. I only hope the album arrives before the realisation sets in that they can’t stand the sight of each other - the band surely deserves a better send-off than that now-infamous Reading festival set.

The basic interphase is definitely the way to go depending on how annoyed you are by the problem. I've gotten so used to my bootleg remedy as well as some of the new features that I just tolerate it for the time being though . There was also a point in time where backspace didn't work for me on this new format either, but that's resolved at least. I did hear about that and was really glad for him since he went through so much trouble to get there. Strangely enough, not long before I was psyched about the fact that Jeremy Wade came all the way down here to learn our (Southerner's) art of catfish grabbing and then I hear about this guy traveling the same distance for that. That's not that the two are related in any way other than the same distance and perceived novelty to the general public though . Its definitely one of my favorite sports that I suck at, but it is fun to watch anyway. Favorite sports that I suck at...

Cheese Rolling

Underwater Hockey

Rhythmic Gymnastics

Regular Gyymnastics

Soccer/Football

Not overly so, to be honest.. I'll listen to the new album with slight trepidation if/when it drops. Their debut will forever be one of my favourites, but Second Coming never even resonated with me that strongly for some reason How do you rate it?

I'm not familiar with what happened at Reading.. what did I miss?

The Reading festival set in 1996 was the virtual death knell for the band, with only half the original line-up (Ian and Mani) giving one of the most embarrassing and off-key performances imaginable. And I suppose a lot of people saw the release of 'Second Coming' as the beginning of a long, drawn-out demise. Quite honestly, my memories of that album are a bit hazy these days, with 'Ten Storey Love Song' and 'Love Spreads' being the only tracks I can easily bring to mind. Thinking about it now, I suppose the band were always going to be up against it whatever they released, as anything short of a masterpiece would have been seen as a bit of an anti-climax after such a lengthy absence. Still, I can't help thinking that straying so far from their signature sound was a pretty crappy career move.

Speaking of live performances, I just remembered; what really hooked me on the band was getting the 'Complete Stone Roses' VHS tape one Christmas. It was all on there, the lurid Pollock-inspired artwork, the much-loved gig in Blackpool, not to mention the famous 'amateurs' rant. That tape was virtually all I watched for the longest time.

The basic interphase is definitely the way to go depending on how annoyed you are by the problem. I've gotten so used to my bootleg remedy as well as some of the new features that I just tolerate it for the time being though . There was also a point in time where backspace didn't work for me on this new format either, but that's resolved at least. I did hear about that and was really glad for him since he went through so much trouble to get there. Strangely enough, not long before I was psyched about the fact that Jeremy Wade came all the way down here to learn our (Southerner's) art of catfish grabbing and then I hear about this guy traveling the same distance for that. That's not that the two are related in any way other than the same distance and perceived novelty to the general public though . Its definitely one of my favorite sports that I suck at, but it is fun to watch anyway. Favorite sports that I suck at...

Cheese Rolling

Underwater Hockey

Rhythmic Gymnastics

Regular Gyymnastics

Soccer/Football

I was just reading that his prize was held up by customs when he travelled back to the States, and he hasn't seen it since. Needless to say, it was a massive piece of cheese.

On that list, soccer/football is the only one I've ever tried, and quite honestly, it's probably the only one I'd feel safe trying. The potential to break one's neck in cheese rolling looks higher than in virtually any other sport bar cave diving, bull riding or base jumping.

So you play too? That's fantastic! Should the need ever arise to assemble a BZ football team, you can be in it! I myself am ridiculously out of practice now, but I wasn't such a bad player back in the day. I started at the age of about five playing in the streets and in the park, and when I got a bit older I played for my school and college, anywhere across the midfield or at a push, right full-back. College sports is of course, a much, much smaller deal in the UK than in the States but it was always enjoyable and a great way to keep fit.

Yeah, can't argue with that . As to his prize, at least its on video and they can't take that away . Bull riding is another one I suck at although I can't say that I necessarily love it . I am probably by default (of the average person in the modern world not doing it) above average (no pun intended) at horse riding although not a racer by any means. Seeing as how I inquired in another thread, I might as well inquire here. Do you by any chance have a top 10 babes of your countrywomen? I must admit that I don't see too many overly distinguishing features of American, English, Australian or Canadian women or people, but I am compiling one for the various countries anyway. While I'm at it, I know you are a fellow fan of ladies on base on guitar, do you also like female drummers? (aside from the Pilgrim avatar that time) Of course, I like all female instrumentalists, but obviously drums, base and electric guitar are ones women either aren't expected to do and then sometimes don't get due credit when they do.