Love and Rockets

Cover up – Random gum of July 2018 soundtrack

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Cover up – Got just enough to cover you – Random gum – July 2018
www.comraderadmila.com / Follow me on Spotify

01 Alberteen – “We Are the Mods”
Big thanks as usual to Ade – never in the same place. One of my favorites from Alberteen
02 U.S. Girls – “Rage of Plastics” …there’s no telling how long you’ll be paying…
Relatable sadness and all the nods to plastic. “There are scores of us born in the silent spring/Whose wombs won’t take, won’t bear anything”
03 Alice Skye – “Friends with Feelings” …I hope that tomorrow/won’t be like today, anyway…
04 Depeche Mode – “Cover Me” …Way up here with the Northern Lights/beyond you and me/I dreamt of us in another life/one we never reached…
Memories of some entirely other life. “Better take cover…”
05 Flesh for Lulu – “Postcards from Paradise” …And I fell under your spell/And I lay where I fell…
Weird memories of junior high school and that awkward, fragile friendship with Terra; had no idea until right now that the lead singer died about three years ago
06 Ultra Vivid Scene – “The Whore of God”…But a kiss on the lips is far too much for anyone…
This is like a taste of sophomore year in high school, the weekends of Leighanne, Gary and Terra
07 Bruce Springsteen – “Cover Me” …Promise me baby you won’t let them find us/Hold me in your arms, let’s let our love blind us…
I have no real love, but plenty of respect, for Springsteen, but the ‘cover’ theme must be covered, right?
08 Huri Sapan – “Karanfil Ocak Ocak”
A Turkish delight, naturally. I love how unnatural this sounds directly after Springsteen
09 Julia Jacklin – “Cold Caller” …Will I be a mother or will I always be a child?…
Oh, Julia among Julias. One of my favorites lately. “And some cold caller decides I’m not Ready to change Oh what if my body is but my mind remains the same?”
10 Trashcan Sinatras – “Obscurity Knocks” …Owner of this corner and not much more…
For SD rocking the Maryhill Tesco – but happily not shirtless
11 Love and Rockets – “Ball of Confusion” …Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors/Solid gold in demand, population out of hand, suicide/Too many bills, everyone movin’ to the hills/People all over the world are dying in the war…
Perfect for these tragic, confusing, bombastic times
12 TV on the Radio – “Love Stained”
“In the middle of the night, when fear comes calling/Singin’ it all dies, awfully scared, alone/I’m looking into your eyes to feel your call/Pretty thing that catches me so strong when I fall”
13 The Shacks – “Blue & Grey”
“What did you really mean to say?/I’m tired of waiting because/All we have is blue and grey”
14 Brandi Carlile – “The Joke”
“Let ’em laugh while they can/Let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind/I have been to the movies, I’ve seen how it ends/And the joke’s on them”
15 The Fernweh – “The Liar”
Liverpool
16 Coco Morier – “No Pressure” …Let’s mess around…
17 AURORA – “Life on Mars”
Because I don’t know that we’ll ever know how to live without Bowie, though he got out just in time
18 Peter Perrett – “How the West Was Won” …If I ever get really depressed/I’ll download Tor, buy a suicide vest/Leave a dirty bomb at a Wall Street address/Gatecrash a Rothschild party and leave it in a mess…
19 Savoy Motel – “Sorry People”
Groovy Nashville
20 Belle & Sebastian – “Your Cover’s Blown” …Thus starts the lonely walking/There’s always too much talking/I should have stayed home…
Glasgow… don’t blow my thicker-than-ever cover. Love to all my Dear Green Place folk & to Inga
21 Terry Bush, United Forces – “Maybe Tomorrow” (radio edit remix) …So if you want to join me for a while/Just grab your hat, come travel light, that’s hobo style…
For every person of a certain age in the UK who knows this theme song from a dog-led Canadian tv show, The Littlest Hobo, that Americans never had the dubious treat of seeing
22 Grupo Mogambo, Carlos “Chacho” Ramos – “Dime”
Because… MOGAMBO!!
23 Amber Coffman – “Kindness”
24 Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – “Monkeys on Juice” …laughing at such pointlessness…
25 Tom Waits – “Gin Soaked Boy” …Well, I’m on your tail/I sussed your M.O. …
26 Conspiracy of Owls – “A Silver Song” …You open your heart/And I drift right through…
“We’re not above it all/And we’re in love again”
27 Drapht, Indoor Fins – “The Come Down Was Real”
28 The Julie Ruin – “Just My Kind” …Don’t you know I really like how/You know my mind/But even more to the point is the fact/You’re just my kind…
29 The Moonlandingz – “The Strangle of Anna”
30 Rival Consoles – ”Ghosting”
I’m not too good at ghosting
31 Samara Lubelski – ”Soft Focus”
32 Värttinä – ”Kylä vuotti uutta kuuta”
A wee folk taste of Finland
33 Modern Studies – “Disco” …I used to be a totally different kind of person/and the difference it made…
Scotland Scotland Scotland
34 Triathalon – “3” …help me get myself in the groove…
35 Xmal Deutschland – “Feuerwerk (31.Dez)”
The old days in Hamburg
36 Klaus Johann Grobe – “Geschichten aus erster Hand”
The big Z-city in CH
37 Sonic Youth – “Bull in the Heather”
38 Coda Conduct – “Love for Me” …my love for you, boy, comes after my love for me…
Australian lady hip hop
39 Gwenno – “Fratolish Hiang Perpeshki”
Wales
40 Chapterhouse – “Pearl”
Driving through a painfully hot late spring day, suddenly feeling all the aimless pangs of teenage pain and insecurity stabbing me from the inside, again and again. Ugly. Uglier. Ugliest. Time.
41 Hovvdy – “Thru” …Cover for yourself all the time…
42 Au Revoir Simone – “A Violent Yet Flammable World”
Wondering whatever happened to Aurélien, to whom I owe the Au Revoir Simone debt. Twin Peaks reboot but makes me think of those days in 2008-9, the bittersweet of Paris, misery of Oslo, homesickness for Reykjavik
43 Siouxsie and the Banshees – “Spellbound” …We are entranced…
44 Phantastic Ferniture – “Fuckin’ ‘n’ Rollin’”
It’s no wonder I fell in love with this almost immediately – only after I was hooked did I wake up to the fact that this is another Aussie darling, Julia Jacklin, vehicle…
45 Grover Washington, Jr – “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”
46 Goldfrapp, Dave Gahan – “Ocean” …People collector/I’m on the move/For you…
47 Kings of Convenience – “Know-How”
“Just a little bit of danger/When intriguingly/Our little secret/Trust say trust me/Cause no one will ever know/That this was happening”
48 Class Actress – “Journal of Ardency” …You think I’m living it, living it, living it, living it up/In the spotlight/It’s a lie, lie…
“This game of cruelty/Hardly becomes me…/…’Cause everybody knows/Everybody sees/That this is the thing you do to me”
49 Air, Gordon Tracks – “Playground Love” …Yet my hands are shaking/I feel my body remains/Time’s no matter, I’m on fire/On the playground, love…
50 Emmit Fenn, Yuna – “Modern Flame” (acoustic) …Don’t tell me this doesn’t feel right/’Cause I’m thinking ‘bout it every night…

Cleansed of the past – 2005 in soundtrack form

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Baked Goods in B2B: White chocolate macadamia cookies

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The white chocolate macadamia nut cookie is quintessentially North American in nature. It might exist elsewhere, but this slightly more elegant offshoot of the traditional chocolate chip cookie sounds profoundly confusing and unusual to non-North American ears (although to the taste buds, it is not so dubious a proposition). Despite my long history dabbling in baking, and my pursuit of baking every cookie variety from A to Z, last night was my first attempt to make the white chocolate macadamia cookie that enjoys such popularity in America. I could blame the fact that I live abroad and finding the white chocolate chips that work so well in these cookies is somewhat difficult. I could blame the fact that macadamia nuts are slightly more expensive than other nuts. In fact, it just never crossed my mind.

Given that I have no history with this cookie, I have no tale to tell. (“No New Tale to Tell” – Love and Rockets… there’s a song for every occasion. Today while talking to someone about how technology is so pervasive it is almost Big Brother in its reach, we discussed longing for basic, simple things as a counterbalance. I have always been a traditionalist in this sense… always sending personal, postal cards/letters. It’s human, but it is rare. An actual human touch is (almost) becoming obsolete. But I go on mailing cards and baking cookies—as human as it gets, really. And trying to reconnect with simpler times in life, I found music I have not listened to since I was about 14. Depeche Mode, The Primitives… strange.)

A few times in recent months when I mentioned my baking habits to American friends and acquaintances, they in turn would mention how much they’d love a good white chocolate macadamia cookie. Suddenly I thought I might as well try it. Happily the cookies turned out well and were very popular in the office.

WHITE CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA COOKIES
Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (coarsely chopped) macadamia nuts
2 cups white chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) and set aside.

Beat together the melted butter and both sugars. Beat in the egg, then beat in the egg yolk, then beat in the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredient mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture until just moistened (do not overstir). Stir in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips by hand.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and press down to flatten slightly.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges look golden brown. Remove from oven, leave on pans for about ten minutes. Remove to cool on a rack.