Flashback Humour

I love Fight Club. Everything about it is so God-damned awesome. Even the little things, like recognising the douchebag resident Dr Steadman from Scrubs as the priest converted to Fight Club, to Brad Pitt's "we all dream of being millionaires, movie gods, and" (glance at Jared Leto) "rock stars..." bit, jump out at you, like Fincher set out to make every single aspect of this movie just reek of brilliance, in-jokes and references. Even the massive cock flash before the credits makes sense. Best one has to be the sly breaking of the fourth wall near the end - and I'll admit this passed me by on first viewing, which made me love it all the more when I realised just what the fuck he was on about. At the start, Pitt's got his gun in Norton's mouth (thankfully not a euphamism):

Pitt: "Do you have anything to say?"
Norton: "Mmph mrph.... I can't think of anything."

Cue the narrator's retelling of events leading up to that moment, and after these two hours of largely misunderstood comic satire, we're back at the start point.

Pitt: "Do you have anything to say?"
Norton: "Mmph mrph.... I still can't think of anything."
Pitt: "Hah, flashback humour."

Awesomesauce. Now I need my bed. I'm rambling again.

Ciao for now.

Blur Binge

"Holy shi'ite", as the once funny Jack Black said in High Fidelity. He was referring, of course, to Belle & Sebastian, and in a derogatory sense, whereas I found myself saying this today when I noticed that over the past two weeks, Blur has shot to become the top artist in my Last.FM list.

Hardly a monumental moment for history, or indeed myself, but it still took me aback that I'd usurped all my listens of Beach Boys, the Manics, Muse et al in the space of a couple of weeks. Then I checked my iTunes, which helpfully keeps a record of listens itself, where it told me I'd listened to No Distance Left to Run, To The End, B.L.U.R.E.M.I, The Universal and Tender (fucking 7 and a half minute long Tender, for fuck sake) at least double figures each. And that's not counting how much I've listened to them on Spotify.

While it's clear that Blur win in the Battle of Britpop (suck on that Jason) I ruffled a few feathers by suggesting they were the best band of the 90s, period. And I stick by it. Over Blur's 6 albums in the 90s, I believe there is more quality music than on the 2 Nirvana albums of the 90s, and the 2 good Radiohead albums.

As for songs, Tender still blows me away. Funny that there is always a song coming right at the end of each decade that can hold its own as a contender for best of that particular decade - Let It Be, London Calling, About a Girl, Tender, and for this year I'd say Cornerstone. And yes, before you ask, fuck the 50s.

Blur also have a good number of really silly songs that I just love - The voice at the beginning of Crazy Beat is nuts, BLUREMI is rockingly fun (yes, cunt, I just said rockingly), and I always sing the low OHs in Top Man.

Also, Blur gave me my signature line...

I'm a professional cynic but my heart's not in it. And on that note...

Ciao for now.

Wikiwonderful, Part II

If I thought the last one was good....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Harkins

The last paragraph in the "Career in Scotland" section, namely. Classic. And now, singing....

Ohhhhh Gary Harkins, you were the love of my life,
Oh Gary Harkins, I let you shag my wife,
Oh Gary Harkins, now you've got syphillis too.......

:-)

Ciao for now.

Wikiwonderful

Sometimes, during the boredom hours, you'll find yourself on Wikipedia, on a completely random page, and wonder "wait, how the fuck did I get to this page?" It was this thought that resided in my brain as I arrived at the page for John Cunliffe.

Don't know who he is? Well, his notable works include (and this is a fucking direct quote):

Postman Pat,
Rosie and Jim,
Being a bearded man.

[ the actual page ]

(EDIT: Didn't see this straight away, but he likes cress, too)

I truly love Wikipedia sometimes. Whether it's putting your mates into the "notable people" section for Paisley as the town's most notorious penguin botherer, or noticing that someone has stuck in "you do NOT talk about fight club" at random intervals on the aforementioned film's page (sadly this seems to have been removed now), it really is the best option for wasting a good minute or two.

And I can waste another minute by writing about it. Yay!

Ciao for now.

EDIT 2: had some awesomely childish fun with the page involving arrest for beastiality, let's see how long it takes them to notice.

EDIT 3: DAMN! Automated Wikibots are annoying, they reverted it. Well, let's see if his sudden distaste for cress-flavoured cress lasts.

EDIT 4: Fuck off. Why does "he likes cress" not consistute a vandalism but "he doesn't like cress" does? WHERE'S THE FUCKING CITATION FOR THAT ONE, YOU CUNTS?

EDIT 5: Wooo! My fight for justice was been successful, the cress has been removed, and so has... shit. They've removed the bearded man bit too. Fuck. Oh man, I feel guilty. I just got the only funny bit on that page removed. I am a douchebag.

Did I say I love Wikipedia? I fucking hate Wikipedia.

EDIT 42: A startling revelation! Wikipedia has restored the page to its cress-loving, notably-beardy version! Good god, they must love beards and cress at Wikipedia too.

*annoyed grunt*

Well, I do believe I have neglected this poor blog again.

So, I'm back at uni. Turns out I am having to do an extra subject because I flunked Computing last year, and so, for whatever God-forsaken reason (ha, ha), I chose Theology and Religious Studies. It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Continuing Film and Music, also doing a Creative Writing course, which is just a lovely, lovely course. One seminar a week (granted, 3 hours and on a Wednesday evening) and no exams, and guess what - it's not false advertising, the focus is very much on the writing, they've not roped you in, just to turn round with handfuls of Kafka for you to analyse. And it's 40 credits. I'm soooo glad they weren't taking the piss.

Film & TV was always good for quotables last year, but this year it's outdone itself. We watched The Magic Box, a film from the early 50s about William Friese-Greene, who apparently invented moving pictures, but that bastard Edison stole his thunder. It was all very funny where it didn't mean to be, from his recently beaten-up son saying "he was much bigger than me, I'd have beaten him if he wasn't" to the worst apology ever to his wife (basically, "I didn't just forget about the show, I forgot about you too, sorry" "oh Willy I love you"). Had us all shouting "ENCYCLOPEDIAAAA!" after it.

Anyway, once I have something more interesting to write about, I will.

But don't hold your breath.

Ciao for now.

Inglourious Basterds

Awesome.

Awesome awesome awesome.

I should probably tell you why it's awesome. But I'm not going to. Just, it's awesome.

Like, totally awesome.

So awesome that you'll be bitterly disappointed it didn't actually happen in real life.

Buon giorno!

Awesome.

I am going to make you very unhappy....

Deary me.

Went to the cinema tonight with the intention of seeing Inglourious Basterds. Several people had bigged it up enough that I was actually really fucking excited, only for both the remaining screenings of it to be full. The cry of "Basterds!" is cliched yet honest.

Ended up going to see GI Joe instead. Honestly, it's one of the worst films I've seen in a long time but at the same time regains its utter ridiculous hilarity that I actually enjoyed it. A bit. Whoever wrote the script deserves an Oscar, with such gems as "Mr President, the French are upset." and Christopher Eccleston, sporting a terrible Scottish accent, trying to sound threatening by addressing Channing Tatum (a John Cena lookalike with all the acting ability of Keanu Reeves, and is apparently a professional dancer) with, "I am going to make you very unhappy!" before getting his face burnt off because he and Channing crossed the streams or something, like a terribly CGI'd Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd.

But wait, more! There was the dead-brother-or-not-so-dead-but-actually-evil-genius-in-the-background-with-the-face-hidden-that-you-just-know-plays-a-bigger-part-than-just-being-a-creepy-fucker, played by the guy from Brick. No, not Brick Tamland, though that would've been fucking hilarious. To be honest I think the guy from Brick may as well be as retarded as Brick Tamland for taking a role in a terrible movie, where his actual face is seen for approximately 2 minutes.

Also, the basterd that played Imotep in the Mummy was in it and ended up as President cause he changed his face due to an injection of nanomites (don't ask). I can't actually remember if he had a proper line of dialogue or he just spent the movie whistling "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow", but the fact of the matter is, I'm fucking whistling it now.

Funnier still was at the end when Eccleston gets his face burnt off he suddenly turns into a cowering wreck, and Brick gives him a metal face and calls him something, before sticking on a mask, calling himself Commander, and totally making Eccleston his bitch. I can only imagine that Commander and whatever-the-fuck-Eccleston-was-called are established characters in the action figure, er, franchise, that they had to stick in the film via any plot contrivance whatsoever. Of course, we then get Brick and Doctor Who facing up against Pretty Boy Floyd* for an epic battle at the end, only for the latter to pull a dick move and reveal the masses of ships that were cunningly hidden behind him, and get this - we don't even get a scene of Brick shitting a brick or Doctor Who going "Fantastic!" with metallic sarcasm, it just straight cuts to the two douchebags in captivity, or what I assume is captivity - it looks like they just stand on platforms as a large cone descends on them.

This movie also seemed to have everyone in living memory starring in it. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but seriously - Brendan Fraser turned up for two minutes as a sergeant who overlooks training, with such memorable dialogue as "good shot!" and "next one!", before disappearing without any explanation who he is, or why the fuck the role required Brendan Fraser. Still, his enthusiastic reaction to a particularly fierce takedown was probably the best acting in the entire film.

One upside was the ginger lass was pretty hot, though she's not actually ginger and was recently seen being green and molested by Captain Kirk.

* I'd seen Channing Tatum recently in Public Enemies, although Michael Mann seems to have taken into account his acting ability and put him in a suitably sized role - he's in it for two minutes then gets shot to fuck by Batman.

On the music front, I tried to start listening to Placebo, but only found two songs that I liked - "Nancy Boy" and "Pure Morning".

Went to see U2 last night, was up in the heavens of Hampden (that means right up in the fucking huge stand.... the cheap seats, for anyone not getting the hint). Was a really good gig, the lovely buggers played Elevation and Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, my two favourite songs of theirs, back to back. Funny moment was when the sound just completely fucking died during Walk On, leaving the band performing to an increasingly hostile audience, before it all kicked back in after two minutes.

Muse's new songs are, er, something; Matt Bellamy's description of the new album as "quite classical" seemed slightly appropriate for the horribly named "United States of Eurasia", starting with piano and strings, before (I assume) they took bets on how much they could make the song sound like Queen without actually singing "Scaramouche, scaramouche, can you do the fandango?" About a week afterwards, another new song went online, but far from being classical, it sounds like they've tried to innovate by combining Womanizer with the Doctor Who theme. Still, it was better than Euray-SHA-SHA-SHA-SHA. Fucking seriously.

Also, Amy Adams is 35? Like, what the fuck? If she was from Paisley she'd be old enough to be my mum. That makes for some incredibly twisted thoughts....

Ciao for now.

"Ferris Bueller, you're my hero."

John Hughes died today. Well, yesterday - I'm glad he didn't die today, because it's my birthday today. But anyway, sad times - the Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller are both incredible movies, and though he only wrote it, so is Home Alone. He's been an influence on me in my script writing, or at least, bits of it - I've started writing a script about a bunch of guys going into school the day after a party and it's basically just recalling the night before. Imagine if Hughes had directed the Hangover. I guess you could say he's influenced another script-in-progress of mine as well, in that the protagonist talks to the camera like Ferris Bueller, but I really credit that more to High Fidelity for the inspiration. In fact, this script could be the adopted lovechild of High Fidelity and John Hughes, if only, y'know, screenplays could conceive.

RIP.

Springsteen

Best gig of my life. Fuck church, if you want a religious experience, go see the Boss.

Basically all I would say is in here:
http://itsjustmyview.blogspot.com/2009/07/bruce-bosses-hampden.html

Springsteen is probably the pinnacle of human achievement, certainly among musicians. Touring for nigh on forty years, still looking like he's having the time of his life, will probably tour for another twenty years, written some of the best music ever (Born to Run being the greatest song ever in my opinion), and has never touched a drug in his life.

I've still got a buzz from the gig. Even the dodgy Hampden acoustics didn't damper the experience at all. And this was a gig without Glory Days or Born In The USA. Waiting on a Sunny Day may be the single greatest gig performance I've ever seen.

I need to lie down. Not because of the gig though (it's been 48 hours since), but it's just after 1am and I need to be up at 7. Urgh.

Ciao for now.

Liner Notes

It's quarter past two in the morning, and I'm watching High Fidelity. I've got the deev paused at the bit (0:25:45) where Rob's just come home from the Marie De Salle show and puts her CD in the player, and you can see the track listing on the disc for a split second or so.

The song selection is funny, because they've stuck the two songs of Marie's that get a mention in the movie as the first two tracks, and the rest of the CD is filled up with covers, a couple of which I can't imagine being performed by an acoustic guitar, some terrible ones and a few that are laughable.

Rob's view on the Frampton song she sings, "Baby I Love Your Way" - that he "always hated this song... I kinda like it now" - must ring true for track 9, which is (sick bucket at the ready) "My Heart Will Go On". Ew. There is also "I Will Survive" and "Beat It", which are pretty good songs but it just seems like they needed a CD and filled the CD out with favourite tracks of the filmmakers. Or something. Of course, Marie De Salle might just write songs with titles similar to time-tested classics, you may argue.... until you get to "Ghostbusters" and "Mmm Bop". I'd rather listen to Marie De Salle's rendition of the Hansen song than imagine a world where another song called "Mmm Bop" exists.

And the producers must be glad you only get a freeze-frame look at the track listing. I have no idea whether this is a real song or just a made-up name once they ran out of time-tested classics (tbh the latter seems unlikely in a film about music). Obviously there is no maliciousness intended as the movie was made in 1999, but track 6 is called "911 is a Joke". Yeah. Nice one.

And yes I know I've just made a rant about a split second worth of film (if I write this much about so little time imagine how much I'd write if I was to review the entire film) but I'm wide awake when I want to be asleep and I wanted to make another post to this blog before the last one became a month old.

Ciao for now.

STOP PRESS! Shocking new development. I had said that the first two tracks were the ones that are mentioned in the film, namely "Baby I Love Your Way" and "Patsy Cline Times Two". But in actual fact, it's not Patsy Cline, it's actually "Eartha Kitt Times Two" that gets mentioned, despite it being Patsy Cline on the CD. I can't remember if it's Patsy Cline in the book or not, but I deemed it not quite boring enough to ignore.

Also, I wish I had Cusack's hair from this movie. God, it's awesome.

Ciao for now, really.

(Unless I discover Dave Grohl is the drummer in Sonic Death Monkey or something...)

It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I'm Actually Shitting Myself)

Today I'm going to talk about death, disease, cyborg enslavement and just the Apocalypse in general. Did I mention I was a pessimist? Of course I did, I'm a pessimist, like Rhod Gilbert is Welsh.

So, you may have heard, swine flu has claimed its first victim outside the Americas. And it's in Britain. Nay, it's not just in Britain, it's in Scotland. Nay, it's not just in Scotland, it's in fucking Paisley. And nay (if there's a horse flu I think I have it), it's not just in Paisley, the woman who died did so in the Royal Alexandra Hospital, which is five minutes walk from where I live. The centre of swine flu fatality in "the rest of the world", as most Americans like to call it, and I can see it from my local pub. That's just fantastic.

Of course, people will overreact to this. Someone was bound to die at some point, no, it's not getting more serious... but my holiday to Northern Ireland at the end of July could not come sooner.... although here's me talking of escaping the impending quarantine of Paisley to be with other healthy people, but I must see this from the point of view of the Northern Irish... for all I know, I could carry it from here over there and then they're all fucked too... It'd be like the bit at the end of the credits after a horror film about disease, like 28 Days Later or something, where everything is resolved and then, right at the end, it goes all tits up, the infection survives because some diseased fandan's gone on fucking holiday, and we've got to come back for a sequel where the flu has manifested into a zombie plague. And if this sequel is anything like as horrible as most horror sequels then I may as well just save the general viewing public, as well as the Irish, by killing myself right now and preventing any crimes against metaphoric film sequels, and stopping the spread of swine flu, of course.

But that's just, worst case scenario, of course.

Some things, however, just scream "let's destroy the world!" in big, bold, Comic Sans lettering. While the world is coping with Potential Zombie Flu, a much more breathtakingly sinister operation is taking place, breaking boundaries and making new ground on just how unbelievably ominous you can possibly be. It's a common fact of information that the government have obviously watched Terminator far too much, and while they were (hopefully) drunk one night, decided to give the UK's automated machine system core the rather unfortunate name Skynet. Now, this is ridiculous enough, but just to crap on the world, a Japanese company has topped this.

This company manufactures robotic suits that can "expand and improve physical capability", called the Hydro Assistive Limb. Or HAL for short. That's right, film geeks, like HAL, the evil computer from Kubrick's 2001. Now, this is a bit funny, it's like an in-joke, right, to anyone that knows this. Nothing too bad. And the suit thing is kinda cool, if they develop it a bit it's kinda like Iron Man, isn't it? It's not like the company is the Evil Consortium to Destroy Humanity Through Machinery or anything.

Actually, it may as well be.

The company is called Cyberdyne. Cyberdyne, for fuck sake. It's almost as if they are egging the fucking machines on to destroy humanity as we know it. "Come ahead, if you think you're hard enough," a top scientist will probably say before being decapitated. I know the chances of the world being brought to its knees in such a spectacular way as Terminator are slim, but Jesus H Cox, it's not like they have to tempt fate. A more thorough swatch of the Cyberdyne website reveals some absolute gems... the homepage announces, "We strongly believe that technologies should be designed for the benefits of humankind." and describes the HAL suits as "cyborg-type robots".

If someone made a mock website for the Cyberdyne of the Terminator universe, it wouldn't be this good. So, when the real Cyberdyne release HAL 2.0, which has dispelled the need for a person inside, and is now just the robot with AI, you shall find me in a cupboard, somewhere between weeping, damning the earth to hell and blowing my brains out. Or, alternatively, I could find the Presidential bunker from T3. Hey, the world would need a John Connor...

As an intriguing aside, I've been listening to the Manics all night. I feel this may be affecting my judgement.

Ciao for now, but not forever.

I hope.

Time Flies When You're a Pretentious Pessimist

Now, hasn't this been a busy blog? First post since the end of May, I'm doing well so far...

The first thing to blog about is the fact that it is the 12th of June. The day before the 13th of June, 2009. Now, that has absolutely no relevance to anyone (unless it's your birthday) but my school prom was the 13th of June, 2008. It's been a fucking year since prom, are you kidding me? This isn't helped by my brain, which reminds me of things that I think are quite recent memories, before the dawning realisation that they all occurred seven, eight, nine months ago, even a year, one example being Hallowe'en Cheesy Pop... guess when that was.

And so uni is done as well. Passed first year, or at least, the minimum amount of credits I needed to pass first year. Didn't get Computing, surprisingly enough. Second year Film and TV Studies looks utterly dire, but I am looking forward to Composition in Music. But I've been wrong before. That's the joy of being a serial pessimist, you take the bad as what to be expected, and you take the good as a mildly pleasant surprise. Of course, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.... somebody stop me, I've become corny.

Wrote another short script, this one a bit less depressing than the last one (I hope). No one kills themself in this one, although a good bit of killing does go on... as films about hitmen usually do. This one has an (extremely) underlying theme of trust, and I've yet to think up a name for it that is not boringly plain or disgustingly pretentious. Add in the fact the hitman is called Gabriel, and the obligatory religious reference is thrown out there, and it almost made me cringe. But not quite. And if I'm not cringing my arse off at it, then I'm confident that it's not awful. I hope.

While we're on hope, I've just finished watching Shawshank Redemption for only the second time, the first not actually being too long ago. Which is completely insane, I'm told, best movie ever, etc. But on further comtemplation I think I prefer the Green Mile. The constant embarressment, abuse and eventual mental breakdown of the world's greatest douchebag mouse killer defeats the tale of hope, friendship, and a great big fucking hole in the wall. Either way, Frank Darabont wins.

On the music front, new albums by Elvis Costello, the Manics, and Kasabian all get thumps up from me, as does the She & Him (read: Zooey Deschanel, yum) album from last year. Also listened to PJ Harvey's first two albums, which were quite good in a particularly kind of way (yay), like somewhere between Patti Smith and Nirvana. Green Day album is a still a resounding 'meh'. Finally got round to properly listening to the second Raconteurs album rather than just skipping to Rich Kid Blues, and it is awesome stuff.

And I've been listening to some Alanis for no other reason than she's awesome.

Oh and I fixed the printer. Just throwing that out there. As the McNabb song goes, "something something something, I'm a genius." I do remember the rest of the song but I felt this emphasised the genius matter a bit more. =)

And my Here's What I've Been Listening To and Think You Should Listen To as Well or I'll Make You Pay list has got a bit bigger too. I obviously listen to too much. Never thought of it as a bad thing before, I don't now.

Radiohead - Electioneering
Bowie - Lady Stardust
PJ Harvey - Me-Jane
The Frames - Falling Slowly
Elvis Costello - Sulphur to Sugarcane
Kasabian - Fire
Raconteurs - Consoler of the Lonely
Manics - Jackie Collins Existential Question Time
She & Him - Why Do Let Me Stay Here?
Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know

Ciao for now.

Early Morning Trolley Racing

Racing around the ASDA car park at half 1 in the morning with someone in a trolley is actually quite fun even when you're sober. Which I was. Don't know about Luke...

I appear to have fallen asleep on the couch, too. Then woken up. And fallen asleep again. So God knows, I'll be a zombie today. Although only a zombie of the moaning and grunting variety... I don't think I'm too fond of the whole 'feasting on the flesh of the innocent' thing.

And as a parting note, surely it's just wrong, morally wrong, for a band to have an hour-long encore? Especially when the band is a rock and roll covers band playing in your local pub, when all you really want to do is socialise. They played some Dr Feelgood, so it wasn't all bad.

For any Spotifyers, here's what I've been listening to recently...

Rory Gallagher - I'm Not Awake Yet (how utterly fucking appropriate)
Green Day - 21 Guns
Blondie - Maria
Foo Fighters - See You
Ok Go - Do What You Want - I recommend YTing the video for this, Gondry-tastic.

Ciao for now.

Life imitates art?

Just saw on the BBC News website that was the voice of Mickey Mouse for 32 years has just died. The article is here. I turn your attention to this part....

"The Walt Disney Co said Allwine died of complications from diabetes, with his wife, an actress who was the voice of Minnie Mouse, by his side."

The voice of Mickey got married to the voice of Minnie?

Fantastic.

Wait, what?

I don't know why I ended that last blog. I had more to say. Fuck, I didn't even name it.

It's a good day. Did my only exam for uni, Film Studies. Did not too shabby, I think. First half was to answer a few questions on one out of three topics.... I picked Realism, not because I had any great desire to be tested on it (not a fucking chance) but because the other two topics were Soviet Montage Theory and Counter Cinema, both of which I'd basically told to go fuck their collective selves at the studying stage. Therefore, I wasted a couple of pages talking about how realist filmmaking relied on how bloody simple you could film something. Then I actually wrote a bloody paragraph about a bit in the last scene of the movie Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days where there is a break in coversation, and the two characters (I couldn't even remember their bloody names) sit in awkward silence and look about a bit. And then the film ends. I wrote that this is a good example of realist filmmaking by not cutting away from this. A bloody paragraph.

Second half of the exam was awesome. Write about a director you regard as an 'auteur'. I wrote about Martin Scorsese, talking about his gangster films. Well, Goodfellas and The Departed. Given that I've not seen Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and only half of Casino, I didn't really have a LOT to talk about. But I squeezed a lot out of it.

As a side note, you will not believe how many times I try to write 'auteurism' and write 'autism' instead. It could lead to serious questions being asked...

Ciao for now.

PS. National Savings and Investments are complete tossers. Or at least, whoever runs their website is a complete tosser.

Between Spotify and the music stored on my laptop, organised into bitchin' playlists in Media Player, I'm now as bad as my dad for leaving some form of background, though often loud, music on pretty much all the time. Yesterday I made an epic playlist consisting of damn near everything in my Music folder, save the odd shit tune here and there (Octopus's Garden, for example). Today, I made a Beatles playlist, starting mainly with the Beatles 1 album, and adding other songs that weren't number ones, but thoroughly awesome songs (again, Octopus's Garden was not present).

Currently I'm listening to 2 Oz of Plastic (With a Hole in the Middle) by Man. I don't know how many times I've listened to it... well, if you take away Prelude/The Storm, then I've listened to the album a lot. I've never listened to Prelude/The Storm for more than 2 minutes. And it's 13 minutes long. Anyway, I realised about 20 minutes ago that it had a good while since I had listened to it, so here I am.... about to go into Parchment and Candles....

Fuck it. I'm going straight to Brother Arnold's.

Ciao for now.

Funny ha ha?

Just stuck on Sky Premiere and it's showing a TV movie called the Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake. I have no idea whether it's meant as a camp comedy, or whether it's just plain terrible, but it's got me in fits of laughter.

Apparently Francis Drake was from the West Country, and his daughter looks about 4 years younger than him. Oh, and now a large, terribly-CGI'd beetle jumped out the water. This may be the greatest, most terrible film ever.

Kingdom of Noise

In the 1970s incarnation of the Manband, a seismic shake-up of the band was a regular occurence. It was not uncommon for the band to look (almost) completely different from how it was the previous year, and with this came constant re-invention of the Man sound, from bluesy shuffles to synth-heavy progressive numbers, via avant-garde paper cup crushing. They split in 1976, but reunited in 1983, and for the rest of the 20th century the line-up stayed fairly constant, except for John 'Pugwash' Weathers, who was replaced by previous Man drummer Terry Williams, and then Bob Richards in the second half of the 1990s.

At the band's heart was guitarist Micky Jones, a true genius of the instrument, who served in every lineup of the band from its early days as the Bystanders until the early 2000s, when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. In the early days of his illness his son George took over his place in the Manband temporarily, and then permanently with the departure of Deke Leonard in 2004, which coincided with Micky's return to the band. This father-and-son line-up didn't last for long, sadly, as Micky's health deteriorated the following year, and he was replaced by bassist Martin Ace's son Josh. To this day, it is unlikely that Micky will return to the Manband, or indeed live performance, ever again.

Some fans, at the time, thought the band wouldn't be the same without Micky, but in George they had an equally impressive Jones. The release of Diamonds and Coal, the first Man album without Micky, gave a new vitality to the band, and along with the return of Phil Ryan to the band and a string of blistering live gigs, many fans were increasingly hopeful for the future of the Ace / Ace / Jones / Richards / Ryan incarnation of the band... possibly a bright new beginning for the Manband... perhaps it could even emulate the classic line-ups of the 1970s...

It did.

At the tail end of 2008, during recording of the new album, tensions within the band led to an apparent split. There was confused speculation over the band's immediate future - had they actually broken up? Had Martin left, or had George and Bob (both had been publicised)? Would Man exist, then, as two bands, and continue on in a Wishbone Ash-like scenario? In the following weeks, everything became a bit clearer: George and Bob had left and were forming their own band; Martin, Josh and Phil remained as Man, with James Beck and Rene Robrahn replacing George and Bob, respectively; and the new album would be released, although with a few changes.

The fans who had despaired of a Micky-less Manband now were faced with a Manband without any Jones at all. Martin Ace was one of the long-time members of the band, but some were unsure of what direction an Ace-led Manband would go; for one, his songwriting produced catchy but often novelty numbers, like Jumpin' Like a Kangaroo, Stuck Behind the Popemobile, and the much-derided Miss Cathy, one of Diamonds and Coal's few real bum notes. The emergence of the new album's title track, Kingdom of Noise, on Man's website, didn't help put the fears to bed, as it was a breezy, jazzy number totally at odds with Man's heavier, progressive side. Some were already proclaiming the end of the Manband as they knew it, others rightfully holding judgement until the full album was heard.

And now, I have heard the full album. And while I would not be so drastic as to proclaim the end of the Manband, it is certainly unrecognisable as a part of the band's previous output. Although not completely for the worst.

Of all the songs on the album, the highlights, for me, were the ones penned by Josh. His contributions to Diamonds and Coal were certainly un-Man-like, but had a fresh sound rather than being overly nostalgic for the old Man stylings. On Kingdom of Noise, his songs are influenced more heavily by traditional tunes - the title track and Dissolve into Despair even emit a jazzy side to the band - yet still sound like a product of this day and age, rather than simple pastiche of '50s and '60s rock and roll.

This cannot be said of Ace Senior's contributions. Shadow of the Hand and Standing in the Rain, for example, are decent tunes but they sound incredibly dated for a band who should be moving forward. Likewise, Phil Ryan's contribution to the sound is surpringly timid, a far cry from the domination of 2000's Endangered Species with his sweeping synths.

On a technical side, the production (also by Phil) is decent, but at times can be slightly odd. The best example is on Russian Roulette, which sports a great guitar riff - if you can hear it, under the drums, keys and, er, synth brass.

And then we come to Chuffin' Like a Muffin. Already laden with a reputation of being a terrible song included simply for its witty title, I must confess I enjoyed it; yes, it's a fairly terrible song, but works as a ridiculous pastiche, and is not eye-gougingly dull in the way that Miss Cathy was. All in all, the album seems more like a collection of spare parts than a proper Man album. Definitely one for completists rather than every fan, and certainly not to be used as an introduction to the band.

Meanwhile, George and Bob are making headway with their album, supposedly much heavier an album than KON, and with the recent announcement that guitar parts that Micky recorded for an earlier album of George's would feature on the record, the anticipation for this project seems to be a lot greater than it was for KON.

Finally, as an aside, the idea of George and Bob forming a band with some of Man's veterans has been toyed with by some fans. Obviously the Man name would still belong to Martin's band, but a second band consisting of former members seems to be quite desirable, to say the least. I then saw a photo of George onstage with Deke Leonard's Iceberg at Christmas, and had a vision of Iceberg as Deke, George, Bob - who plays with Iceberg already - and current Iceberg bassist Will Youatt, also a former member of Man. Officially, it wouldn't be Man (just as Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash isn't, officially, Wishbone Ash), but I don't think I'm wrong in saying that, in essence, it wouldn't be far off it.

Ciao for now.

Existentialism

I am following myself.

How to Heckle Properly and Embarrass Yourself

Heckling a musical act, or some other form of live entertainment, seems to a popular choice of activity for the modern day douchebag, although most have little or no skill in that particular field, offering only a quick dig at the performing individual (or individuals) before making themself scarce, or an intended wit that usually displays as much originally as shouting "play Freebird!". However, tonight, I may have been in the presence of a genius of the art.

Of course, even beastiality and televangelism has its geniuses. But sadly, it is common nature that, unlike music, sex, or backgammon, for example, the better you are at these particular practices, the more embarrassed you stand to become.

I was at the Royal Concert Hall, the event being Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet, performing numbers from his album The Juliet Letters, and classical arrangements of other songs, including a wonderful version of the Dubliners song On Raglan Road. But not everyone thought it was so wonderful.

After a couple of numbers, Elvis began to introduce the next song, when a lone voice piped up from the seats up top, talking adjacently to Elvis before he noticed the heckler, and stopped to listen. Now, it was hard to understand quite everything this woman was saying due a strong, possibly alcohol fueled Glasgow accent - Elvis joked later that "I think she was Norwegian" - but the gist of it was that she had paid for a ticket to see Elvis Costello, the rock musician, not a classic concert. Around this time, the rest of the crowd started heckling the heckler, obviously less patient about the matter than Costello, and an usher came over to tell her to be quiet. Funnier still that even when her companions tried to silence her (I'm pretty sure I even saw one attempt to physically cover her mouth), she persisted, showing less signs of shutting the hell up for the greater good than Morrissey.

The ushers then closed in to ush her out, and sensing (correctly) that she would probably be heard until she was physcally out of the building, Elvis and the band started the next song, which at least dampened her complaining, although it could still be heard over the music until she was ejected. End of song, and Elvis returned to what he had tried to say before the previous song, which turned out to be a joke about advice from his father.

After the interval, he confessed that he couldn't really get his head round what had made the woman believe she was going to see a rock concert. "Seeing 'The Brodsky Quartet' on the poster," he noted, "of course, you're going to think of death metal." He dedicated another song to "our dearly departed", and before the encore announced that it had "been a pleasure to play for all of you".

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable concert, despite whatever our "Norwegian" friend may have thought. As an aside, Elvis finished the final encore, bowed and left the stage to mostly seated applause. The audience then got to their feet to collect their jackets and whatnot, before Elvis and the quartet came back out for a final bow. Well, I guess that's one way of always getting a standing ovation.

Ciao for now.

"Nazi Julie Andrews"

I now have a blog. Like, a proper blog, that isn't hidden away behind Myspace, Bebo or Facebook, and are really overshadowed by uber-kewl site layouts, stupid widgets and every "Which # are you?" game under the sun. Respectively.

And now I realise I don't really have anything on my mind. I just wanted to post something.

Hm.

Well... I'm listening to Belle and Sebastian.

That's pretty interesting, isn't it? No?

Okay. I saw In the Loop last week. Title of blog is one of many gems spouted by My New God of 2009, Malcolm Tucker. Loved it, my dad loved it, my mum HATED it. So it made the experience so much more enjoyable.

Erm, what else have I done?

I've been to a Chinese buffet twice the last week.

Yeah.





Did I mention I'm listening to Belle and Sebastian?

Ciao