Objects of desire... Razorlight have been falling in love with Bavarian barmaids a bit like these ones from the film Beerfest, except Bavarian, not Swedish
Love is in the air. It moves in mysterious ways. And, as Jon Denver could tell you, it's pretty much everywhere. Such is the obsession with those four magic letters that it's no wonder it's managed to sneak its way into the rock blogosphere too.
"I'm in love, no really, I am. so's Andy. we can't help it. we're both in love with the same girl."
Whilst on tour in Germany, Razorlight's Johnny Borrell has discovered there's more to Munich than eating sauerkraut and drinking endless beer (although they've been doing plenty of that as well). It seems the band were rather taken with a barmaid in traditional German dress who could carry 15 two-pint jugs at one time (and really, what more does a man ask for in a life partner?). Considering Johnny and Andy were last heard of punching each other's lights out after the Vodafone Live Music awards, it's probably healthy if they let this one go.
Also head over heels is Fearne Cotton - this week going gooey for Christmas time, chocolate and the new Babyshambles EP (well, there's no accounting for taste). Her blog is as cheap and relentlessly cheery as a bucket full of Prozac and perfect reading for all you fans of exclamation marks out there. But beneath the barrage of completely needless punctuation, this is an online diary unafraid to tackle life's more philosophical questions. Things like...
"Is it wrong I have an chocolate advent calender aged 25??"
or
"Why can't I be in bed when I have to do my radio show?"
or
"God knows where my cat's been for the last month. A little cat vaccation (sic) somewhere?? cat 18-30s perhaps??"
There are some that would say that to be this relentlessly happy is to be certifiably insane. Those "some" include me and, faced with the unsettling presence of someone else's joie de vivre, I swiftly eradicate it with a trip to Radiohead's blog...
"What can be more terrifying than watching the trees not changing colour when they should... Every time I watch the guys in the band sitting down to their whatever it is with scales I quietly wonder how it's arrived. and what was destroyed and killed or thrown away to get it.... OK perhaps I should get out more. it aint very rock 'n' roll. but I long since pissed all that bullshit away."
Thom's plugging his mate George Monbiot's book Heat (an ideal stocking filler, apparently). He's even considering quitting touring altogether because of its disastrous effects on the environment. And what's more, he can't bear the thought of his band mates eating fish suppers after a hard night gigging. "For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe," goes the old adage, but it's a post Thom Yorke will probably end up occupying long past retirement. Which means we should take you to a different universe altogether with this...
"Much of the world pays careful regard to timekeeping. In St. Elsewhere, we observe standardized chronology for convenience only, and we do not observe it rigorously. Like our people, our clocks are each set a little bit differently. We flip the calendar over when we feel we've reached the end of a chapter. The things that we most prize cannot be qualified on an abacus. Thus, we are, by necessity and habit, a patient people. What a country!"
Not content with using a blog for such ordinary antics as promotion, Gnarls Barkley's journal gets a little bit Emerson, Lake and Palmer on our asses, it being - oh yes - a concept blog about the place their debut album's named after, St Elsewhere. The posts themselves come from "The desk of A.B Vidal" who is, apparently, the Chief Executive of St Elsewhere. Confused? Wait until you read it.
St Elsewhere is, according to the posts I've managed to get my head around, a place where you can't pronounce the regional code of the DVD players and a high proportion of residents suffer from pancreatic illnesses. Reading the blog is not unlike an episode of Lost. Maybe if you skip back to when it began it might make a little more sense. But with Thom Yorke telling me that we're all about to burn in hell amidst the Great Fish Finger Famine of 2008, frankly, life's too short. Or, as Fearne Cotton might say:
"Life's too short!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
