Ricoh R8

Taken with my Sony Ericsson bag of shit camera phone

Taken with my new Ricoh R8

Very very happy with this, my leaving present from Discovery.

Au Revoir Simone - Lark

Lark

Well not au revoir but the reverse. Hello Simone. 4 days and I'm there.
Still. More goodbyes to be said today. Tough day

Celine Dion - All Coming Back To Me Now

All Coming Back To Me Now

Come on Canada, it's time to forgive and remember the awesomeness of Celine. I am beginning a personal campaign to see her maligned reputation restored to full glory.

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - A Song for Bob

A Song for Bob

The saddest song I know.

LCD Soundsystem - Great Release

I am saying a lot of goodbyes in advance of the move next week. I hate saying goodbyes. I am a big jessie when it comes to this sort of thing.

It's gonna be maudlin on the blog. So let us begin...

Great Release

I'd giver her one...

Come on Phil, it's amazing!

Fun Dine with Me

Man UTwated

We Arsenal fans aren't bigger people for not having WON a trophy for 4 years. No, we're much bigger cunts and even more cunty for the fact that Man U GOT A FUCKING CAINING OFF BARCA TONIGHT!

The Style Council - Some other songs

Blue Cafe

The Paris Match

Dropping Bombs on the Whitehouse

These are my Style Council years; I was once a terrifically angry and callow youth. Angry with everything for no discernible reason and unable to process the why's of these years into anything truly meaningful.

And now I am glad I have reached my Style Council years. Mellowed and more serene. Able to look on things with less panic and angst. Open to many more things and with a parallax viewpoint to that which was before.

I also love espadrilles, macs, loafers and jumpers on shoulders. I just wish I was as thin as Weller.

No Age - Teen Creeps

Teen Creeps

I feel like a Pitchfork blogger but one from about 2 years back by posting this.

I saw No Age and went off and bought Weirdo Rippers because it has 'Everybody's Down' on it and it is a good album but I got into this one at the weekend and it's annoyed me that I saw in the racks of vinyl loads and loads of times but didn't pick it up for some reason. Oh well, time is on my side now.

Alan

Alan Pardew - "Absolutely rapes him!"
by 8arney

A friend told me yesterday of some very unsavory rumours concerning Alan Pardew.

Brick

Nathan Johnson - Emily's Theme

Brick was a tricky film for me. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking 'this is going to kick ass'. I duly tracked it down on DVD after missing the cinema release and found myself turning the film off and feeling hugely disappointed by it. I felt like I had just watched 'Buggsy Malone Does Film Noir'.

I am a noir fan, film noir I should say, I haven't read too many Hammett or Chandler novels, rather I have read revisionist noir novels, especially those by James Ellroy. I enjoy the constructed elements of a classic noir: the femme fatale, the virginal good girl, the errant psychopath, the mystery Mr. Big (The 'Pin in Brick), the man in power (a DA, a detective, a politician but cleverly in Brick's case, the assistant high school principle played by Louis Gossett Jnr.) and the labyrinth case that unfurls into a deeper mystery once the surface is scratched.

After my initial viewing I came away massively disappointed by the film. I felt the elements of the film noir I most enjoyed had been too easily taken and almost literally transposed to the screen; almost as if this was the neon, American Apparel version of noir, bright & obvious.

Two years later I was feeling taunted by this film. Like there was something there that some of my friends had seen and I had been blinded to by looking for a 'straight' film noir. So I did watch it again and my initial feelings towards the film didn't disappear but they weren't as extreme as the first time I watched it. I feel a third viewing is in need because when chatting to a friend I began to espouse certain virtues from the film and since it is still gnawing at me I think that certainly warrants further investigation.

Soundtrack by Rian's brother, Nathan and the Cinematic Underground is excellent though.

For a better dissection of Brick, check out this artilce at the Onion AV Club

The Bee Gees - You Win Again

You Win Again

It's only a week or so before I shuffle off from my Albion heartland and sample the maple syrup enriched lifestyle of a Canadian.

Friday saw a group of friends enjoy using a Spotify playlist to make one another laugh our arses off with the ironic/hilarious choices of music. I guess whomever added this didn't realise that I love You Win Again. Well, for the most part, the wobbly bits of singing should be remixed out at some point when they're all gone.

The Sundays - Can't Be Sure

Can't Be Sure

"Live for the perfect behind..."

Ladies and Gentlemen... The Fabulous Stains

Repost from Picnic Land:

http://picnic-land.com/2009/04/ladies-and-gentlemen-fabulous-stains.html
Me own two pennies worth: great midnight movie.

Dan Deacon - Build Voice

Build Voice

Along with Les Savy Fav, I have seen Dan Deacon loads of times whilst never having never really meant to. One of those very happy accidents.

Simply Red - Fairground

Amazing or shit? Just can't decide.

Also, in the Youtube still Mick looks even more like a terrifying woman botherer.

Nik Kersahw - The Riddle

The Riddle

Nothing to whinge or whine about today. Just enjoy.

Flying Nun

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

I guess being a music nerd, well a fucking white belt music nerd, I love teeny tiny record labels. I don't want to hang out with them but I of course love the early ethos of these little record labels. "We love this music, let's get it out there... And in the meantime if we get to do some drugs, drink ourselves retarded and sleep with some birds/boys. Hey. It's all gravy".

Friday's Guardian had an article about the "Dunedin sound" of Flying Nun records. I didn't know anything about the label, although I know of The Clean via Love Is All's ripoff of Tall Ho on their last album.

I liked discovering the label and will check out the bands. But fuck right off for postulating that it wasn't popular in the UK because of some kind of colonial oppression. In the 80's? Are you fucking sure? Good records turn up wherever. Budgets count big and it loads easier for some Post Card artists to hoof it down London way to do a gig, then a band with £70 scrapped together in NEW-FUCKING-ZEALAND! Twats.

The Clean - Tally Ho
The Chills - Pink Frost

Mental As Anything - Live It Up

Live It Up

Nostalgia shall again form a part of my sermon.

I am prone to bouts of nostalgia and I do not like it.

Without trying to sound like an Alan Bennett story I clearly remember our head of Sixth Form, Mr Heath, railing against nostalgia but more pointedly I think he was attacking the practitioners of this sin. The Nostalgic. Wondering around in the back shop of ones mind, pulling down memories from the shelf to pour over and actively disengaging from the day to day. Sometime I dwell in the past but sometimes am as guilty of living in the future as well, thinking about the present as a moment to practice for what may come.

Jesus, I am banging on. Go and Google some pics of Christina Hendricks and have a sly tug instead of indulging in bathos, leaden prose.

Need a lift?

If you're a man, stick this on, nice and loud...



(reposted from the Video Thunder dudes)

Help the POlice

Hot 8 Brass Band - Sexual Healing

Sexual Healing

Brass band version of the Gaye-lord classic from a band featured in the momentous Spike Lee documentary When the Levees Broke.

Fragma - Toca's Miracle

Toca's Miracle

Not the 2008 version, but the earlier version with some gappey toothed bird wailing in a girls 5-a-side match shot at Middlesex University.

Ready for the World - Straight Down to Business

Straight Down to Business

For those who know me, all 4 of you out there in the salty realms of the blogosphere, you can propbably appreciate that this song is indicitive of my current state of mind and trouser.

More Euro fun...

Basshunter - All I Ever Wanted

Princess - Pretty Rave Girl

They sound exactly the same!

Eddie Bo - Getting to the Middle

Getting to the Middle

PROPER BO!

Notorious B.I.G - Party And Bullshit

Party And Bullshit

Watch the film. It's laughably shit.

Wilson Phillips - Hold On

Wilson Phillips - Hold On

No fucking about, LOVE THIS SONG!

Ozone - Numa Numa

Ozone - Numa Numa

Europe, the EU. the EC. EEC. Label it how you will, we live (as Europeans) under a broad umbrella of peoples. Scandi's and Scotch to the north, Anglo-Klaxons(OJLOL) in the Albion, Frenchtypes in Franceland, Teutonic types around the middle, others in and around and then moving south east the Turks and the Greeks.

And we are all as fucking mad as eachother.

For every Numa Numa someone from Eurofunland knocks out, there are 20 novelty bollocks song at Christmas time in the UK and this all adds to our collective Eurotrash heritagio. Something in which should all be justly proud.

This of course being THE greatest

Fredi & Friends - Pump Pump

Thomas Allen's Book Art Photography

http://paintalicious.org/2008/11/20/thomas-allens-book-art-photography

Reposted from: http://menandwomenofindustry.blogspot.com/

Fail? You fail, you cunt!

http://www.shipmentoffail.com/fails/2009/05/rush-job/attachment/185/

It's in Canterbury and I think is a case of subsidance... By an 17th century builder, you fuck stick.

Compare the Meerkat

I know it's stupid but I really like this advert. Damn, why why why!

Hot Breath Foreign Tongues WINNER - Neapolitan from Italy

"Hot Breath's winning entry from Foreign Tongues 2008, Neapolitan from Italy! Luigi and Aldo have been delighting the world with their sweet ice cream pop ever since! Delicioso!"

Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen

Billy Ocean - Caribbean Queen

In my work boozer last night, someone was walloping this out on the old Phil-'Oke.

Gives me ideas. Sunday - Hot Breath Karaoke