Most of the older blogs here are gone. But not for long. One by one I am moving them from Xanga to their new home on peasprout.com/blog. That seems like a much better place for them.

My Blog’s New Home

It’s a time-consuming process. The first part is easy– copy and paste the blog text to the new site. After that it gets trickier, as I have to tag and categorize and title and add keywords and summaries, and then transfer the old comments. I am resisting the urge to change the posts themselves, though sometimes I cringe at the grammar and phrasing; some of them downright suck and ought to be deleted, but I’m keeping them all up.

If you’d like to take a trip down Peasprout memory lane, now is the time. You can even subscribe to the RSS feed, and be alerted when a new old blog shows up. You can do so here:

feed://peasprout.com/blog/?feed=rss2

Or just pop in now and then and see how far along I am. So far I’ve transferred the first 20 or so.

Jarvis Cocker is putting out a new record! The U.S. release date for Further Complications is May 19th, a day after its U.K. release. Interestingly, it is produced by former Big Black guitarist Steve Albini. Jarvis insists that he hasn’t “gone rock,” rather he liked the results from a smaller recording session with Albini last year, not to mention that, according to Cocker, the recording session “was very cheap.”

The track list has yet to be finalized, but Jarvis did offer up a list of songs that may make the final cut. Here they are, along with Cocker’s commentary:

Slush – “I guess that slush will be the ultimate outcome of global warming”

Caucasian Blues – “an attempt to understand the pain of a man whose Honda Goldwing has run out of petrol”

I Never Said I Was Deep – “the phrase that I would like carved on my tombstone”

Apparently – “about how you can be in love with someone without realising it.”

The Night They Let Me Out of the Home – “portrays the difficulties of using public transport whilst on crutches”

Homewrecker! – “an absolute racket featuring saxophone from Steve Mackey (he played on The Stooges’ ‘Funhouse’, you know)”

That last one is a bit of humor (I think), confusing ex-Pulp bassist Steve Mackey with Stooges sax player Steve Mackay, but with Jarvis Cocker, you never really know. It may very well be a typo, and he actually does have Mackay blaring away on the saxophone. We’ll know in about two months!

Other possible songs include: Pilchard, Hold Still, You’re In My Eyes (Discosong), Further Complications, Girls Like it Too, Angela, Told You Twice, and Just a Fucking Song.

Of the bunch, I heard the following in New York last summer, all of which were quite good: Complications, Caucasian Blues, Girls Like it Too, Angela, Told You Twice, and Just a Fucking Song. I assume Complications and Further Complications are the same song, but with Jarvis, you never know.

I was admittedly skeptical before his previous, and first, solo LP was released, but it quickly became one of my favorite albums of all time. Whichever of the bunch make the final cut, I expect this to be a great album.

Finally, for those surprised by Jarvis’ beard, he explains: “I grew it to keep my face warm in the Arctic and then I kind of got attached to it. The amount of grey in it horrified me at first but now I think it acts as a handy reminder of my own mortality.”