The Bell and the Hammer

'The Bell and the Hammer' is one of those few albums I hear the first time and know it's gonna stay in my iTune library forever and ever ever. With all the differnt species and breeds of music there are these days, Indie is probably the genre 'This Day & Age' will fall most comfortably into.

The album starts off with 'Always straight ahead'. A song about a girl, who is afraid to fall in love, even though that's what she dreams of. In terms of the instrumentation, this song's got creativity written allover it. The shimmering harmonies at the start sets a serene vibe, which goes on for eight bars and then the coolest bass line comes in with the rest of the band. About this point, the beauty of the hi-hat comes out to play. I loooovvee it when bands pay attention to the hi-hat. It just shows how delicate they are with the way they make music. Another interesting thing about this song is each instrument jumps out to the front at times, throughout, just to say 'hey! look what I can do!'. As for the beautiful lyrics, it makes me feel sorry for people, who fear to love for whatever reason. It's quite sad...

The rest of the album offers glowing melodies , with gorgeous lyrics. Songs like 'Of Course We've All Seen the Sun', 'The Bell and the Hammer', and 'Second Star to the Right' are full of radiant piano and guitars , not to mention the soothing voice of the lead singer. 'The Bell and the Hammer' is definitely one of my favourite discoveries. See what you think: www.thisdayandagemusic.com

Anyways, today I bought a new book. Probably the first fiction I've bought in a long long time. The blurb reminded me of this other book, 'The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison' by Warren Fellows. That book was about this Farang guy, who was convicted of trafficking heroin between Thailand and Australia, and checked himself into the 'Bangkok Hilton'. The fact that I couldn't put that book down got me buying 'Bangkok Tattoo' as it instantly gave me the same sort of vibe. Here's what it's about:

'In District 8, the underbelly of Bangkok's crime world, a dramatically mutilated body is found in a hotel bedroom. It looks bad. It gets worse for detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep when the self-confessed murderer is the most successful 'working girl' at The Old Man's Club, a brothel owned jointly by Sonchai's mother and his boss, Police Colonel Vikorn. And it gets deadly when Sonchai, in an effort to get at the bizarre truth, is forced to run the gamut of Bangkok's drug-dealers, prositutes, bad cops, corrupt military generals, and the pitfalls of his own melting heart.'
-John Burdett

You see... Bangkok=sex and hookers?? Yea, may be. But don't other cities have all that too? But then I guess there's nowhere else, where you'll constantly get people coming up to you going 'u go spaycial sho? u want massaad? I take u...wely sheap...'. But that's only if you're a tourist. Anyways, I think Bangkok, or even Thailand holds this sort of reputation because people in the country's industry don't know how to blush. They are way less than embarrassed with what they do. Where else in the world can you find a living pingpong shooting machine? Or whatever else those girls can do with their poons.

I look forward to the upcoming nights, as I'll be taken to the Bangkok underworld, seeing bad cops and hookers (seeing as in seeing them on the streets!!)... may be I should take 'The Bell and the Hammer' with me too....