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there are two kinds of palmers.
some like it cold:

some like it hot:

how hot is the guitar work in this track! and also, i think robert palmer may actually have been some kind of genius. if only we could somehow erase the whole “simply irresistible” era from palmer’s legacy. and also, how cool is it to play moogs in stadiums

thanks ‘the stabb’

choose your fate wisely. will you choose the big love or will the big love choose you? you are forever marked by your choice of the big love. let big love wash over you like a series of eight embedded media clips.

play them all at once for maximum love. honestly, try it. you’ll thank me.

i’m currently going track by track through a mix i recently did for a website called research and development – find out more here.

19. wings – letting go

its no secret that i’ve been on something of a mccartney bender for the past month or two. it all started with, heres that name again, robots in heat posting an old wings throwaway that set off memories deep in my skull. standing on milk crates trying to reach up to the pool table, getting my little hands around the cue, dad and steven drinking beers and laughing, “venus and mars” was always the soundtrack.

“letting go” is, of course, by paul mccartney’s 70s post-beatles project wings, and is from their album “venus and mars”. about two months ago, sitting in a little edit suite next to glenn ridge’s garage, i listened to this song on repeat for about 2 hours and it probably has to be one of the most emotionally visceral experiences of my entire life. now this means a number of things. it means i am prone to hyperbole. it also means that i need to get out more, and i probably need take more drugs, in particular, or less. but honestly. the first time paul mccartney eeks out an “oh” in letting go is likely to make you wince with heart ache and longing – the fiftieth time you hear it, you’ll be in tears. what do you hear? i hear regret, longing. dreams slipping away. loneliness, desperation. the loneliness of pragmatism. i seem to inhabit these modes too often, never more so when this track is on. so i guess in that way “letting go” is very very good for me and also very bad.

and as the “oh” is the sound of longing, those giant new orleans horns are the sound of release. i’m not sure there’s been a more important horn blast in the history of recorded sound. ending my r&d mix with this track was easy – what was hard was resisting the temptation to submit a mix for r&d that was simply this track on repeat for 2 hours.

when my wings urge really kicked in i went on an urgent hunt for venus and mars via p2p networks and accidentally found some bootleg versions and demos, things like that, another version of “letting go” which is pretty damn interesting to hear alongside the original. anyway, thats all for this series of posts. enormous thanks to declan and r&d for letting me put this mix together for them. if you enjoyed these mix notes, please let me know. i don’t often ask for your feedback but if you’ve been into anything you’ve heard here and want to chat, feel free to email me at tim@iamfauxpas.com, i’d love to hear from you.

MP3: Wings – Letting Go

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MP3: Wings – Letting Go (demo version)

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MP3: Wings – Lunch Box/Odd Sox

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playing zork on commodore 64 was one of the most exhilarating and frustrating experiences of my childhood. calling zork an “interactive fiction computer game” is really just a lame way of trying to sexy up what is on paper a very bland and simple concept – its a text game. it reminds me of those early computer psychologist programs, where they tricked people into thinking that their computer-facilitated therapy was being conducted by a real person when it was actually just an evil computer program called eliza.

hands down the best thing about this game is that there were very limited instructions that came with it – you weren’t given an exhaustive list of text commands, so most of the fun in the game came from trying out different verbs and seeing what it did and didn’t respond to. i never got very far with zork, i didn’t have the patience for it. but the concept excited me so much. i wanted to design my own text adventures.

you can play it online here, or (if you want to get serious) you can download it to your computer here so you can play it anytime, save your game etc. you know i think i had eliza on my commodore 64 too, actually… she warped me, i guess