"Wyatting"I have got to try this...Recently the verb "Wyatting", named obviously after Robert Wyatt, appeared in some blogs and music magazines to describe the practice of playing weird tracks on a pub jukebox to annoy the other pub goers. The name was coined by Carl Neville, a 36-year-old English teacher from London, because one of the favourite LPs for this effect is Dondestan.
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Things I didn't know there were words for #1: Wyatting
As usual, Wikipedia explains:
Friday, 12 December 2008
The Star Wars Holiday Special
From wikipedia:
So did the entire world know about this and just decide not to tell me? Bastards, the lot of you. Many thanks to Chicken Yoghurt for finally breaking the silence. To give anyone else who was being kept in the dark an idea of what you've been missing, here are a few comments I made to people on MSN as I was watching:
*This guy knew about it, but had never watched it. He got sucked in along with me to what must be the greatest example of car-crash TV ever made. Two hours long and terrible from start to finish but at the same time utterly impossible to stop watching. I'm surprised George Lucas has tried to bury it, if anything can make episode 1 look good this is it.
The second musical number is the song "Light the Sky on Fire", performed by Jefferson Starship, which is presented as a 3-D music video watched by one of the Imperial guards
So did the entire world know about this and just decide not to tell me? Bastards, the lot of you. Many thanks to Chicken Yoghurt for finally breaking the silence. To give anyone else who was being kept in the dark an idea of what you've been missing, here are a few comments I made to people on MSN as I was watching:
-THIS THING IS FUCKING WEIRD. THERE ARE ACROBATS
-a child wookie is watching a small holographic acrobat
-who is, incidentally, green.
-this has taken a dark, dark turn
-a geriatric wookie seems to be watching porn
-or possibly having it beamed directly into his head
-and now its turned into a song
(not me*) -What is this a variety performance or something?!
(me) - its a fucking mess is what it is
(not me) - WTF! I was distracted and now it's turned into a cartoon?!"
*This guy knew about it, but had never watched it. He got sucked in along with me to what must be the greatest example of car-crash TV ever made. Two hours long and terrible from start to finish but at the same time utterly impossible to stop watching. I'm surprised George Lucas has tried to bury it, if anything can make episode 1 look good this is it.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
In Brief
Various things I almost posted about over the last few weeks before deciding I couldn't be arsed:
- The Shred Yr Face tour. 300+ miles travelling to make it to and from the two closest gigs to Brum (Manchester and Leeds) but it had to be done, how often does a tour come along with a decent headliner and two even better support bands, both coming from the U.S. and probably not back any time soon?
- Cloned Mammoths. Fuck yes!
- We are Beautiful, We are Doomed. Ok so its a good album/record/extended EP/bunch of songs/whatever else they want to call it this week and they had to fit in a fancy booklet, bonus DVD, mini poster and badges but did the box have to be quite so big? Surely most people like to keep CDs in some sort of order, which becomes a bit tricky when one of them refuses to fit on the shelf (I couldn't even slide it in above the others, did it really need to be the best part of an inch thick?)
- Jeffrey Lewis. Playing Brum in two days, yay. Got paid yesterday so I can afford to go to Island for post-work/pre-gig half price cocktails. Fuck going home and madly rushing to get back to town before the first band is on (Kategoes apparently on at 7.30, I'd never make it anyway)
- 9 Lessons & Carols for Godless People. Less than a month away! Now its on for 3 nights can I legitimately refer to having 'opening night, front row tickets' like a smug cunt?
- Andrew Gilligan. He appears to have fucked with the wrong blogger.
- The Shred Yr Face tour. 300+ miles travelling to make it to and from the two closest gigs to Brum (Manchester and Leeds) but it had to be done, how often does a tour come along with a decent headliner and two even better support bands, both coming from the U.S. and probably not back any time soon?
- Cloned Mammoths. Fuck yes!
- We are Beautiful, We are Doomed. Ok so its a good album/record/extended EP/bunch of songs/whatever else they want to call it this week and they had to fit in a fancy booklet, bonus DVD, mini poster and badges but did the box have to be quite so big? Surely most people like to keep CDs in some sort of order, which becomes a bit tricky when one of them refuses to fit on the shelf (I couldn't even slide it in above the others, did it really need to be the best part of an inch thick?)
- Jeffrey Lewis. Playing Brum in two days, yay. Got paid yesterday so I can afford to go to Island for post-work/pre-gig half price cocktails. Fuck going home and madly rushing to get back to town before the first band is on (Kategoes apparently on at 7.30, I'd never make it anyway)
- 9 Lessons & Carols for Godless People. Less than a month away! Now its on for 3 nights can I legitimately refer to having 'opening night, front row tickets' like a smug cunt?
- Andrew Gilligan. He appears to have fucked with the wrong blogger.
Friday, 21 November 2008
2008: The Year That Shitgaze Stole My Heart
Seriously: Shitgaze
I already had more than half the albums listed so I ordered Magic Flowers Droned (which is a mess, but in a good way)
Not sure I agree with the name, can't really argue with the shit part but just what "common elements" does it have with shoegaze, except that they've decided to lump A Place To Bury Strangers in there despite them not really fitting. Times New Viking certainly don't deserve that, I was just listening to the Shred Yr Face tour 7" and I'm pretty sure that hidden under an ocean of noise TNV's contribution contains the best pop song of the year.
p.s. Yeah, long gap since the last post, been a bit depressed recently and not felt like it but Milk is Politics and Have You Ever Heard The Lovely Eggs? turned up in the post today and I ended up digging out a few other 7"s I'd bought this year* which has cheered me up enough for long enough to get this far.
*I'd forgotten how good The Boat Song/Temptation single is, David Holmes has some competition for single of the year after all...
The sobriquet "shitgaze" is an amalgamation of the name of another indie rock genre, shoegaze, of which shitgaze shares some common elements, and the word "shit", presumably because shitgaze recordings and performances regularly "push the needle in the red", i.e., they stretch the limits of their amplifiers to produce distorted sounds. In, other words, according to San Diego CityBeat, "it sounds shitty"
I already had more than half the albums listed so I ordered Magic Flowers Droned (which is a mess, but in a good way)
Not sure I agree with the name, can't really argue with the shit part but just what "common elements" does it have with shoegaze, except that they've decided to lump A Place To Bury Strangers in there despite them not really fitting. Times New Viking certainly don't deserve that, I was just listening to the Shred Yr Face tour 7" and I'm pretty sure that hidden under an ocean of noise TNV's contribution contains the best pop song of the year.
p.s. Yeah, long gap since the last post, been a bit depressed recently and not felt like it but Milk is Politics and Have You Ever Heard The Lovely Eggs? turned up in the post today and I ended up digging out a few other 7"s I'd bought this year* which has cheered me up enough for long enough to get this far.
*I'd forgotten how good The Boat Song/Temptation single is, David Holmes has some competition for single of the year after all...
Thursday, 9 October 2008
Friday, 3 October 2008
South African government finally sees sense
...and appoints a health minister who understands the importance of anti-retroviral drugs. From the FT:
Wonder if she'd consider appointing Ben Goldacre as special advisor with responsibility for kicking Matthias Rath's arse.
[Via The Daily (Maybe)]
PRETORIA, Oct 2 - South Africa’s new health minister Barbara Hogan vowed on Thursday to make Aids a top priority, after years of controversy over her predecessor’s unconventional support for treatments like beetroot and garlic.
Hogan, whose appointment was welcomed by Aids activists, said she would press for more funds to roll out life-prolonging anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs to as many people as possible.
Wonder if she'd consider appointing Ben Goldacre as special advisor with responsibility for kicking Matthias Rath's arse.
[Via The Daily (Maybe)]
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
In the city but not In The City
If this post was enough to cause the organisers of Gigbeth to throw a hissy fit then I may have to go into hiding for what I'm about to say. Inspired by Russ L's post wondering what Gigbeth actually is I realised I had very little idea myself. Having taken a few minutes to look over their website I've come to the conclusion that its one of two things. The cynic in me (which is, lets face it, most of me) struggles to see it as anything other than a media graduate's vanity project designed more to enhance their CV than actually have any impact, but I suppose it could possibly just be the most incompetent attempt to actually start a worthwhile music festival that I could ever have imagined. There are massive problems with every aspect from the initial concept through to the organisation of the event and I now realise why no-one else I know who works outside of the Custard Factory has even heard of it despite this being the third year of the festival.
The most obvious problem is the lineup, there is a complete lack of focus with a few events each from various unrelated genres with not enough of any one type of music to actually attract people to the idea of treating it as a festival and going to several events. I'm sure some of the individual events could attract reasonable crowds (this is being generous, by 'some' I really mean 'three' since other than The Young Knives, Guillemots and Sugarhill Gang there's precious little to attract anyone but hardcore local music fans) but I don't see many people wanting to go to more than one or two things. Of course, this would be near impossible anyway since virtually all the events seem to happen simultaneously with no sign of there being anything happening before 7pm on the Saturday and only the thrilling prospect of two members of the Wonderstuff any earlier on Sunday. Surely one of the main parts of a festival is that you can spend all day watching bands not just go to a normal gig-length event in the evening?
The festival website is also an embarrassment, with links missing all over the place(note how the 'buy tickets' links are all working fine), a blog which redirects you to the main festival site when you try to leave a comment, no detail past a name for most of the events and not even any myspace links for the majority of the bands on the lineup (if they actually get a mention, which quite a lot don't)
Maybe its slightly harsh to compare the event to In The City since Brum is sadly lacking its own Tony Wilson to promote the event but it can't really be helped given that they appear to be attempting to cover the same ground and all I can say is ITC really doesn't need to worry too much about its tagline of "The world's premier new music event" being challenged any time soon. I realise it is far more established but the history page proves it was far superior even in its first year (of course, I can only compare it to this years Gigbeth since there is no mention of the previous events on the Gigbeth site save for some claims that you can watch movies and see photos from them, which I would be very interested to do if only there was an actual link to such a thing)
The waste of potential here is an utter crime, at its basic level a festival based in various locations in Digbeth is a great idea and I sincerely hope Gigbeth will deliver one day, I just wish it could have been this year.
The most obvious problem is the lineup, there is a complete lack of focus with a few events each from various unrelated genres with not enough of any one type of music to actually attract people to the idea of treating it as a festival and going to several events. I'm sure some of the individual events could attract reasonable crowds (this is being generous, by 'some' I really mean 'three' since other than The Young Knives, Guillemots and Sugarhill Gang there's precious little to attract anyone but hardcore local music fans) but I don't see many people wanting to go to more than one or two things. Of course, this would be near impossible anyway since virtually all the events seem to happen simultaneously with no sign of there being anything happening before 7pm on the Saturday and only the thrilling prospect of two members of the Wonderstuff any earlier on Sunday. Surely one of the main parts of a festival is that you can spend all day watching bands not just go to a normal gig-length event in the evening?
The festival website is also an embarrassment, with links missing all over the place(note how the 'buy tickets' links are all working fine), a blog which redirects you to the main festival site when you try to leave a comment, no detail past a name for most of the events and not even any myspace links for the majority of the bands on the lineup (if they actually get a mention, which quite a lot don't)
Maybe its slightly harsh to compare the event to In The City since Brum is sadly lacking its own Tony Wilson to promote the event but it can't really be helped given that they appear to be attempting to cover the same ground and all I can say is ITC really doesn't need to worry too much about its tagline of "The world's premier new music event" being challenged any time soon. I realise it is far more established but the history page proves it was far superior even in its first year (of course, I can only compare it to this years Gigbeth since there is no mention of the previous events on the Gigbeth site save for some claims that you can watch movies and see photos from them, which I would be very interested to do if only there was an actual link to such a thing)
The waste of potential here is an utter crime, at its basic level a festival based in various locations in Digbeth is a great idea and I sincerely hope Gigbeth will deliver one day, I just wish it could have been this year.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)