Favourite albums 2000-2009

An idea stolen from Dunc, whose list has left me with a ton of bands I want to check out (don't expect anything so great from my list, there was a big gap when I wasn't listening to enough music so I'm still playing catch-up)

Asterisks used to mark the 2009 entries which could change as they're a bit recent to be certain of yet.

A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers
All Smiles - Ten Readings of a Warning
Badly Drawn Boy - The Hour of Bewilderbeast
Baxter Dury - Len Parrot's Memorial Lift
Bearsuit - Team Ping Pong
Bearsuit - Oh:Io
Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors
Calexico - Garden Ruin
Caribou - Up in Flames
Carsick Cars - Carsick Cars
The Delgados - The Great Eastern
Desaparecidos - Read Music/Speak Spanish
Eels - Souljacker
Elliott Smith - Figure 8
Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
Field Music - Field Music
Fugazi - The Argument
Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump
Half Man Half Biscuit - Achtung Bono
Half Man Half Biscuit - Cammell Laird Social Club
I Am Kloot - Natural History
Jeffrey Lewis - The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane
Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
King Creosote - KC Rules OK
King Creosote - Flick The Vs*
Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
Lou Barlow - Emoh
The Lovely Eggs - If You Were Fruit*
Low - The Great Destroyer
The Moldy Peaches - The Moldy Peaches
The New Pornographers - Electric Version
No Age - Weirdo Rippers
No Age - Nouns
Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
Seachange - Lay of the Land
Six. By Seven - The Closer You Get
Six. By Seven - 04
Sonic Youth - Murray Street
Sonic Youth - Sonic Nurse
Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus
Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy
Times New Viking - The Paisley Reich
Times New Viking - Rip It Off
The Wave Pictures - Instant Coffee Baby
The Wedding Present - Take Fountain
Wilco - A Ghost Is Born

There. Now all I have to do is remember to update the thing come January.

Full Disclosure

So, 5cc has a poll up and it looks like I'm the first person to go for the "I'm bored of the banging on about the Mail - stop that stuff and post about other things" option and I feel I should explain my choice. I wouldn't have said I was bored of it as I still find it amusing, but recently as 5cc suggested it has seemed like mail bashing has become nothing more than tracking down extra examples of shit we already knew they were doing and I think everyone's time would be better served finding a new target or looking for ways to show the mail's true colours to the majority of people who don't read blogs and still think the mail has some sort of credibility.

There now exists a catalogue of blog posts extensive enough to demonstrate quite clearly that the mail cannot be trusted to deliver accurate reporting on practically any subject, so is it really worthwhile continuing to catalogue their every failure? As someone who can barely get round to updating a blog with no specific agenda whatsover I've begun to see it as incredibly wasteful that so many great bloggers are still dedicating themselves to a cause which already has all the evidence it needs.

(Title stolen from a Fugazi track)

Secrecy fail

Don't ask me why I was on the website, I really don't know.

Shambala 2009 will be at a top secret site in Northamptonshire. Detailed information and directions will be provided with ticket purchase only.

Secret you say? Even people from Coventry can read maps (page 2).

Is the BNP racist?

Find out here*


*SPOILER ALERT: Yes, yes they are.

Via Anton.

Well Done Bristol

First the postmen refuse to deliver BNP leaflets and when they do get delivered (after the posties are apparently threatened with the sack) the recipients complain to the police about the racist bilge they've had forced upon them.

Not seen any sign of the infamous battle of Britain leaflet round here yet* although it is supposedly being distributed nationwide, I hope we can reject it in even stronger terms if it does appear.

*Oh yes, the flyer in question is inevitably that new variant on the Polish spitfire classic, because it didn't show quite enough epic fail when it was first unveiled.

Update: The Royal Mail's legal department supposedly approved the leaflet originally, but this might make them change their minds. Still no sign of them round here.

Second City Skeptics

Scepticism is the new rock’n’roll and as usual Brum seems to have been slightly left behind. I didn't realise we even had a skeptics in the pub group and it doesn't look like they ever got further than discussing possible venues (I realise I'm hardly in the best position to critisise them for letting an online project fizzle out but I doubt they've been stoned for as much of the past few months as I have)

I've contacted the creator of the group to try and poke some life back into it, if there's anyone still out there please join and help get it going.

Stewart Lee - Comedy God

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle #4 - Global Financial Crisis

11.14-16.34: 5 minutes and 20 seconds of the best set up and (extended) punchline you will see in a long, long time.

Oh, and did the estate agents sketch remind anyone else of Big Train?* (and I mean by more than just including the actor Kevin Eldon)

*My all time favourite sketch show.