Serendipity is a lovely word isn't it? To stumble unwitting upon a gem amidst the shitheap really is a feeling that can't be beat. I have now accepted that Leeds United aren't going to come from behind to beat Manchester 'The Scum' United 4 - 3 in a final of the Champions' League noted both for career-threatening injuries and life ban-guaranteeing misdemeanors on the part of the reds.
Perhaps that's why I'm so bitter, so serendipity is a good place to go. There's a lot of serendipity (thank you by the way Horace Walpole, the man who, according to my trusted and trustworthy Oxford English Dictionary coined the word) in Myspace.
You click around, find some sounds you like and lo, and indeed behold, there among their friends are an oddly named band on whom you whimsically click to discover the greatest song written since John stopped talking to Paul. There's a little method to my Myspace picking madness today though.
I'm a big fan of maverick record producer Joe Meek - think an English Phil Spector without the balanced personal life - and I shall seek out his offspring in search of said serendipitous shiny things.
I've already been sidetracked though and find myself listening to some cracking psychedelic rock on Northern Star records, a band called Sunsplit, lovely, but I shall not be diverted from my path, I watched The Searchers last night and I shall be John Wayne-like in my dedication (though not in any other of my attitudes) to making it to the search page.
Crikey! Again the sheer size of the Myspace universe strikes you, an influence search for Meekesque artists gets me 80 pages of hits.
Want to hear the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' guitarist John Frusciante (in collaboration with Josh Klinghoffer) sounding rather Thom Yorke-tronica? Well, there he is in the marvellously named A Sphere In The Heart of Silence.
But Mr. Frusciante is not allowed. Oh no. I'm after the unsigned.
Meek is a good signifier - he was the original bedroom recording artist. But, I must admit defeat. Don't think I didn't try - oh no, Mr. Wayne and Mr. Ford would have been proud of the swamps through which I have waded in search of what I sought.
Serendipity came to my rescue in the end, though it took me to a Meek-free place, but Joe wouldn't mind. He was notoriously devoted to spiritualism and the Ouija board and would surely appreciate that perhaps something guided my clicks.
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