Friday 29 May 2009

Tuesday 26 May 2009

Freshwater West.


Good times in Pembrokeshire.

Eels - Fresh Blood

Eels - Hombre Lobo

Can't wait... 2nd June.

HOMBRE LOBO: 12 Songs of Desire

It's been four years since the double EELS album BLINKING LIGHTS AND OTHER REVELATIONS. If that album was about the human spirit, the new EELS album HOMBRE LOBO is about animal instinct. "I wanted to write a set of songs about desire. That dreadful, intense want that gets you into all sorts of situations that can change your life in big ways," says EELS leader Mark Oliver Everett, aka E.

"I didn't want to write a bunch of blatantly autobiographical songs about a lonely old indie rocker, so I thought it would be more interesting if it came from this character," says Everett, who now sports a beard even mightier than the one grown during the release of the 2001 EELS album SOULJACKER. "Maybe the way people have been looking at me on the street colored who this character would be."

"I was thinking 'what happens when the young 'Dog Faced Boy' (of the SOULJACKER album) grows up?' -- He tries to function in society. But he can't get past the fact that he's still likened to an animal," Everett says. "I was thinking about where he goes from there as he gets older, and it occurred to me that the best a dog faced boy could hope for would be to grow into something that can just squeak by in society with some semblance of dignity. I figured the best he could do was to become a dignified old werewolf."

Alternately tender and terrifying, HOMBRE LOBO features twelve songs from the point of view of a hirsute man enraptured by the beauty of his muse, and frustrated by his desires. Sometimes our anti-hero is melancholic, wishing only for a look his way ("That Look You Give That Guy"). Other times his instincts overtake him with bloodcurdling howls ("Fresh Blood"). And sometimes he can only celebrate the infinite beauty he desires ("In My Dreams," "Tremendous Dynamite").

"It's about the beginning. About what kind of shape you're in when you're alone and you don't want to be alone. What steers you to want to not be alone. The desperate need to connect. And if you're isolated, that can be a real predicament," says Everett. "Sometimes your instincts become unbearable." As he sings in the song "My Timing Is Off":

Believe it or not
We Don't have a choice in matters of the heart
Just gotta be brave enough
To love and let yourself be loved

Monday 11 May 2009

BBC's South Pacific.

Amazing So-Mo footage on the BBC last night... go check it out. The surfings at the end, but the whole programs interesting. iPlayer

Wednesday 6 May 2009

The Gower.



Four surfs in 2 days and a sun-burnt nose, schweeeeeeeet!