A game of shovseys aka I am an alpha male.

I went to our office Christmas party the other night. As is the case people were getting pretty drunk. This guy came up to us and said inappropriate things to my girlfriend and then to me. Neither of us knew him although he obviously works somewhere in the building with us.
I gave him a shove. He came at me with a 'I can see I was being a cunt and I deserved that, BUT never lay a hand on me again or else..........' line like he was Jason Bourne or some shit and gave me a shove back for good measure.
I told him to fuck off seeing he had just admitted he was being a cunt and deserved the intial shove and gave him a gentle finger push in the chest just to be a patronising cunt. Eventually he fucked off after I just started ignoring him. I never did find out what the ................ threat meant unless what he was going to say was 'or else I'll stay standing here and shove you back, then you can shove me back, then I'll maybe shove you back a bit more, then we'll abuse each other, then it'll just kind of peter out and we'll both look like dicks.'
Which is pretty much what these situations turn out like seeing as neither of us a from the streets or anything.
At best if I had kept talking to him we would have ended up in a drunken, stumbling about hug and then drunk friends. At worst we would have ended up the same way. A lose, lose situation.
Just walk away.
Males are dicks.

Geddes, Damien Lazarus and Michael Mayer @ T-bar

This was on a monday night. Its all part of T-bars final 12 days before closing down....which is a shame, because I really like it there. Its refreshing to have a place with great line-ups that starts a little earlier and closes at 3am. T was also the venue for many an after party on Sundays.
Anyway, the Monday we went down was the last of the Stink parties, which were run by Mayer and Lazarus for just over a year every Monday for a while. Seeing as I had actually never made it down to any of them despite living quite close by at one stage, I thought I could at least make it down to the last one. Something about Monday night parties had always put me off. As it turned out it wasn't so bad at all.
So me and three of my mates meet up in Soho and downed a few pints before heading down. When we arrived, no massive line outside and Geddes playing the warm up on the inside. We sat down and got doen to the business of drinking and I looked around and felt bad that Tea is closing. Its quite a large space, spread across one floor and one room. The sound is a bit lacking but ok if your on the centre of the dance floor bit, but never really quite bass heavy enough. It is really nice having lots of tables speckled around the place though and if you have five or six of you sitting around a table it can feel a bit like having friends over for a letsgetpissedandlistentomusicroundthetablewhiledrinking evening which is fun. (Except with Mayer and Lazarus playing instead of my drunking fumblings on the decks)
Damien Lazaruz came on, and true to form played a wicked mix of deep house, techno, grindy stuff and plain weird electronica. I have never actually seen him before but have heard him say he is not afraid to clear a dance floor and I can believe that now. He got pretty weird in some bits, but I don't mean bad weird I mean awesome weird. It was a lot of fun, and he got me up dancing and bopping around like an idiot which was refreshing and a bit of a catharsis for me because I don't feel I have had fun dancing for ages due to all the cunts about. Speaking of which, the crowd at tea was really good. Not overtly young, and just into the music. No handsey bastards for the girls, and no idiots wearing glasses.
Michael Mayer then came on. Which was a shame. He just sort of lost the vibe and plodded out this increasingly boring house music. It really didn't have any sort of kick or swing or bop or whatever the fuck it is that makes you wanna dance....although the girls that were there seemed to be loving it so maybe he was just trying to score chicks or something. We went home after that. Still, that was a good thing being a school night.

Villalobos at Fabric.

TOO MANY CUNTS
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I may be in an aggressive mood today.

This makes me laugh.

http://www.deadact.com/
DeadAct.com is an online archive of videos found in the public domain that show electronic performers blatantly faking their "live set".

To qualify as a Dead Act, the performer must have pre set out their performance in such a way that if they were to drop dead, the set would keep playing on as normal. Bonus points for fake knob tweaking, failed attempts to play real instruments , and good orgasm faces.

Not surprisingly trancey/hard housey bollocks features a bit here. Worth a laugh.

This Owl is AWESOME!

Criminals in the 80s were easy to spot.

I have noticed, and I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this, that in a large amount of movies from the 80s the criminal element all wear outlandishly punky/ cyber goth clothes and scream/laugh manically everywhere they go. There is plenty of examples of this type of behaviour lurking around the place in your local dvd store, but one of my personal favs is the Robocop attempted rape scene. But you know you can find these type of crims in any 80s action flick really. Bill Paxton in Terminator for instance. Any Troma film. Jeff Goldblum in Death Wish. I like how if you watch the credits on Death Wish, his character is labelled as 'freak 1'. Not rapist, not murderer and not even criminal. Freak.
In movie land in the 80s, most of the time you were a criminal, you screamed and shouted and generally acted up a lot. You were a freak of society that was easy to spot, and most probably easy to kill in most of the movies I am thinking about.
Anyway this got me thinking about the time frame in which these films were made and something I read about, have heard and studied.
You see in the 70s and 80s, before the Berlin wall came down, America was pretty much scared of Communism. (The early 80s was a bad time because of Russia invading Afghanistan, Americas then Allies and Regan and Thatchers hard line ideals that Communism was complete evil)
The problem with being afraid of Communism, is that you're afraid of an idea or ideal, and not something that you can touch, or taste, or blow away face to face with a machine gun.
I think, maybe not on purpose, Americans made and wanted movies where the bad guys were obvious. Where they knew who to shoot and everything was in black and white.
The most classic example of preying intentionally on this fear is Predator with Arnie. The Alien is an unseen presence for the first 40mins of the movie. An unseen enemy picking the squad off one by one. What are they fighting? Its an evil they can't quite comprehend. I know John McTiernan was essentually dealing with this on purpose, as I have heard him talk about the influence of fear of communism on this film, but I don't think he realized that in the end he turned it into another America triumphs over evil post the Vietnam war loss movie though.
This is of course, one of the main ideals behind the glut of action films about invincible characters dealing punishment to destroy all enemies in their path. The re-masculinisation of America after suffering a loss in Vietnam.
This is a well documented trend. Missing in Action, Rambo, Commando to name a few.
America had taken a knocking. Their egos were bruised and their backs were up. What better way to fix that than fictional action films where your heroes are ex US military hard asses that can't be killed. (strangely Schwarzenegger feature in a few of these and he doesn't really sound American at all)
An interesting series in this period is the American Ninja movies. This is a weird one, because, a culture Americans don't understand, they do in this film, and then make a case and point of saying they are actually better at it than the Japanese originators. A strange take for action film makers of the time, because, well who needs to use the enemies skills when you can just blow them up with guns.
My favourite of all action films in the 80s has to be Robocop.
Robocop is a funny one, because all of the things I have talked about enough are in the film, and on purpose. The trick was, when the script went around they couldn't get anyone to make it. The script fell into little known (then) art house film director Paul Verhoeven.
Verhoeven, having never been to the States before, saw all these things about America and there culture and movies and put them in his. Don't believe me? The proof is in the movie.
The adverts in Robocop? (and later Starship Troopers) The story goes Verhoeven arrived in America for pre-production meetings on the film and the Shuttle Challenger exploded in Flames. Breaking news reports were all over the television, yet instead of staying with the action, occasionally the news would go to commercials and advertise things as inappropriate as childrens toys.
Vietnam references? In shovel loads. The Robot ED-209 face is roughly a mimic of the Bell Huey gunship used for urban pacification Vietnam, which was a completely failed (and in-human) way of dealing with riots in small towns and villages by shooting them from gunships. As a further nod in this direction, Ed-209s creator, who introduces the Robot, is called Robert McNamara. Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968 for the US, when their Urban pacification idea came about. Then as one final nod a bit later, they state clearly that ED-209 was built for urban pacification.
On the flip side of this, the film deals with the unseen threat, but with a much more anti-establishment swing on things. The unseen or unknown threat to our hero is coming from the company that created him. His own soil. Not an outside force at all.
Either way. The lowly crims are still loud mouth, screaming and laughing punks and in the end Robocop still shoots everyone bad all to hell. I think maybe I over thought this. This sounds like a loud of shit.
....
....
80s action films Rulz.

"I can imagine something like this.....

...french kissing my brain." - Leetnad (youtube user comment)

David Lynch car commercial makes Greg Laugh. A lot.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.................................haha.......
ha........ha........snigger.......phew.

If you like music....

Listen to this.
Its a mix of german 70s and 80s music, so all sorts of electronic, pop, krautrock, weirdness and the like. Its by a fella called Riton, who makes anything from electro-house to techno to krautrock.
This mix is from another of his guises Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and was made as a bit of promotion for the album and given away for free on his website. (obviously giving away a lot of the albums influences in the process.)
Anyway. This is awesome-ness to the dizzying max. Highly recommended.

Track list.

Eroc- Zimperlein
Edgar Froese- Pinnacles
Intence- Jump On Velvet Paws
Kraftwerk- Boing Boom Tschak
Kraftwerk- Neonlicht
Tone Band- This Is Germany Calling
Toy Planet- Two Dophins Go Dancing
Faust- It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
Guru Guru- Globetrotter
Conrad Schnitzler- Das Teir
Peter Bauman- The Third State
Cluster- Caramel
Cluster- Grosses Vasses
Holger Czukay- On The Way To The Peak Of Normal
Die Grune Reise- Ich Bin
Baffo Banfi- Indian
Rheingold- Drieklangsdimensionen
Canaxis 5 -Boat Woman Song
Amon Duul II- Burning Sister
Uberfallig- Puls
Neu- Hallogallo
Eloy- Impressions
Holger Czukay- Persian Love
Tangerine Dream- Love On a Real Train

My friend Brett has talent.

This is the only completed scene from his short film. Its fucking good. He needs to finish it. If I win the lottery, I'll put money towards its completion.



I have a lot of talented friends. They all make me feel sub-par.

I hate i phone users.

This guy is all excited because he can control Abelton with his i phone. I don't get it. You pretty much have to be near your laptop for the wireless to work so why not just use the laptop? You can only control a little bit of abelton at a time with it, so why not just use the laptop and get more control?
There seems to be no point to this except that, well, its cool to use your i phone to control abelton. Or so they say. I mean, surely a midi controller would be better. What happens if your performing a gig with your i phone and someone calls you? Its just novelty value really isn't it. I'll probably eat my words when everyone in the world starts performing with i phones. Actually I'd probably just shoot myself in the face. Possibly with my i phone gun application.

Sun Ra Arkestra.

We went to see this on Sunday night after working all day on that animation below and the night after the Stockhausen gig. Gravenhurst were playing too, but due to a complete useless fuckwad of a tape operator we missed it. Dumb. Gravenhurst are cool. Still Sun Ra. That should be sweet. Well it was to start with. Many black jazz performers come out on stage in there many, mythical, 1970s ideal of what the future is, sparkly hats and capes. Sunglasses seemed fairly important too. They started off doing a cool number that had plenty of noise all over the place and that sweet, sweet way in which everybody on stage sounds like they are juuuussssssttttt out of time with each other. Like everyone plays to a different metronome. Sun Ra is good at that.
Two songs to start about space. Sweet as.
Problem is, that then they turned into a covers band. They played Jazz and blues from a whole bunch of famous people who I am sure are wicked, but when you want to see some Sun Ra it doesn't really cut it. They did a couple more Sun Ra tracks at the end, but it wasn't enough to save the boredom in the middle of what was basically a good covers band wearing space outfits. I wanted more songs about space. More organ freak outs. If only the Ra was still alive.
No 'space is the place' or 'spaceways inc' in sight.
I could have saved the night by buying a Space is the place t-shirt, but I didn' cause I was saving money. I regret that now.

stockhausen gig.

Lyndall happily (as in I was happy....she could have been really pissed about it) bought me tickets to see the London Sinfonietta play Stockhausen numbers at the Southbank centre as a present because she is awesome. It was supposed to be a celebration of his birthday (that he was gonna appear at) but having died last year they changed it into a celebration of Stockhausen. Lyn bought me tickets well early on, and as the time approached they unveiled more and more concerts until it became a full blown festival. This was kind of annoying because there were plenty of other things I would have liked to seen and if we'd known earlier we would have waited to see everything that was on.
Anywho. It was all very adult when we arrived. Lots of people wearing 1970s school teacher blazers with arm patches, and silver rimmed glasses, and salt and pepper pony tailed men. Some people had taken their kids. Small kids. I don't think small kids and Stockhausen go, but then I guess I know sweet fuck nothing about raising kids.
The first part was a track for Alto voice and Orchestra. Three songs. The conductor was huge. I don't mean huge, in a 'this guy is huge in the music business' kinda huge.....just huge. He was wearing a suit and the suit jacket was so stretched it looked like a shirt. Huge. Also really, really square. I feel like, in a live action movie of Mr Men, he could play a part. No costume. Mr Conductor.
This part kind of went from making me happy, to sad, to annoyed.....to something. I'm not a fan of ladies wailing at the best of times so it wasn't really for me. There were flurries of high pitched squeaky-ish fun here and there, and and undertone of funeral march seriousness. The thing is I find Stockhausen funny. Like Klaus Kinski funny. Seriousness meets humour. This bit wasn't funny enough for me. It was ok. Nothing to write a blog about though.
I found my mind wandering to the uniformed in black shirt and pant performers and wondering what kind of social life they have. Who are the babes of the orchestra and who were the hunks. Did the guy with the glockenspeil get beaten up in a 'your not even a real musician' fit of rage afterwards by the violinists cause he only only got to play a note once every ten minutes?
Next up was a pre-recorded electronic number. Spotlight comes on. Looks like a moon on the curtains. Stays in one place for twenty minutes while swirling, distorted noises and ladies that sound like japanese kubuki singers, ping ponging round in 3d sound space. This was way fun to start with, but after a bit I felt like I was losing myself, and having had a hard night the night before I thought I may fall off my chair, or vomit into the very serious looking fellows lap next to me. I held it together and a break came. I grabbed a beer to make me feel better....which worked, and went back in for the last part.
I liked this the most. It was more standard musical fair, but with a some funny stops....wait....wait.....wait.....wait.....start again bits, which reminded me of the up channel on my mixer.
It was fairly pleasant music. Then out of no where BAM! A guy with a tuba walks out and does some awesome bass heavy farts for a little bit and then walks off. People laughed and clapped him off. Tuba man. least work, most claps. I worked out who the hunk was.
The night wasn't entirely what I expected, but I really enjoyed it.

Fred West is a nutcase...

I think everybody who knows who he is knows that anyway really, so that is a pointless title for a post. But if you don't know look him up. He raised his children so him and his wife could beat and have sex with them. (and sometimes kill them if the whim struck them) They called this little happy family, 'The house of love'.
Sometimes he murdered women he got pregnant before they even had the baby. He also seemed to like murdering girls he loved. His wife helped too.
For some reason I have been watching documentaries on Serial killers. I'm not sure I enjoy them. They make me feel a little ill. I'm interested though. This one on youtube about Fred is a goodie............or a baddie I guess depending on which way you look at it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iGlGLscUtk
I think its in like 15 parts, so its also a long one.
Quoting Youtube:
'it as extremely controversial as it included exclusive police taped interviews with Fred West. The police tried to ban it but failed as the tapes were part of Fred West's Estate so were no longer their property, it resulted in the law being changed so in future Police Interviews would remain the property of The Home Office and would never again allowed to be sold.'

Karlheinz Stockhausen

'What has happened is - now you all have to turn your brains around - the greatest work of art there has ever been. That minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos. Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared to this, we are nothing as composers... Imagine this, that I could create a work of art now and you all were not only surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane. Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world for us.'
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hamburg, September 2001 after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Leftroom records @ Bar Rhumba

Bar Rhumba is an old club in london (15years) that hasn't had a lot going on that I've wanted to go to. I spotted that they were doing a monthly techno night there on the interweb and decided I should go check it out. Its a small place, and reading their website I discovered they seemed to be in full support of the backlash against all the fucking cunt bags that end up in clubs in london. Trying to make their policy aimed more at people who actually know what music is going on in the club, and not letting in the stripped shirt wearing fucktards and gold shimmery dress wearing sluts who are just cruising down the street looking for anywhere to drink thats open so they can get more pissed than they are and go home and fuck each other and then vomit and then shit in the bed then laugh about it with their hugo boss jeans wearing mates later, seems like a good idea to me. Oh yeah did I mention they are aiming to be the home of techno in london? It sounded all too good to be true.
I was also pleased to see it was a Leftroom records night. I like these guys. They have been less caught up in the whole 'Berlin' sound than everybody else, well because....they aren't from Berlin. Which is good. I am slightly sick of hearing the same minimal techno sound over and over again. I also kind of think the whole scene in general is imploding in a weird way, with everybody just following a trend for a few months, then a new one pops up, and everybody follows that. Its really bad at the moment (Trumpets spring to mind...but then I like Trumpets a lot so I'll let that one fly), and the epi-centre seems to be Berlin. I guess a place gets too popular and everybody knows about it and then rapes it in the arse until it screams 'No more!' So they give it some more just to make sure. This is not the city itselfs fault. Just the knowledge spreading to idiots that its the techno capital of the world. And since techno is no longer a dirty word, this knowledge has spread to Wire reading, art magazine cocks and Djmag reading glow, stick cunts and everything in between. Come one, come all.
Berlin is still fortunate though because it still has plenty of the best Techno in the world coming out of it....I think most of the blame needs to fall on all the cunts who couldn't make music without Berlin. The people who just copy the sounds that come from there. And there are plenty of those.
Techno never used to be this way.
Still there is a real talent pool there of labels and people (including good friends of mine) who are not so caught up in the copying for popularity sake, but sometimes I wonder how long the citys number one on the podium spot can last?
Anyway, Leftroom is a tougher sound than is really popular at the moment and I like it.
Anywho. I got down there and there was a bit of a line outside. I wasn't sure that it was the right place, so I wandered up and said 'Is this the place that Matt Tolfrey is playing?' and they let me right in.
On the agenda for the night to play: Matt Tolfrey, Clive Henry and Neil Parkes.
It is a cool little dark bar/club. The PA wasn't really as good as I expected. It was really clear and sounded nice, but not enough bottom end to it. Still, there was only about 50 people in there and it was SO cool, being able to sit down and listen to cool music not surrounded by arseholes and have drinks. I LOVED IT.
Clive Henry was playing really good music too. Basically the kind of tough tough you'd expect from a leftroom night in that the sounds were sharp and clear, and there was less roll to the bassline. Not so warm and wobbley. Slightly sharp. There were warmer tracks in there but fewer than I am used to hearing out these days, at places like Fabric etc. If I had to define the sound using two labels as examples, it seemed like a perfect halfway point between cadenza and m_nus.
Anyway Matt Tolfrey came on and I had a dance , on a dance floor with PLENTY of space to move. Crazy.
He played well, and I spoke to him for a bit and he was a really nice guy.
My only thing I could say that maybe brought the night down a little was the fact that, because there were less people than in a normal club experience in London, the actual DJ'ing itself was kind of a I'll just do enough to get by kind of experience and not really a work the hell out of it type thing. I guess as the night gets a few more people (not too many though) this will change. Either way, its so nice to have a place where you can go, hang out without too much pressure, and listen to and chat about good music. Did I mention its right by my work? Did I also mention the major nights are on Fridays. It all seems a little bit too good to be true.
I'm gonna head down next month for sure.
November gigs I'm going to in the next month. Stockhaussen, (not actually him of course) Gravenhurst, Sun Ra Arkestra and Ricardo Villalobos.
Living in London is rad.

Shellac, Lightning Bolt etc.

I went to a halloween gig last night consisting of a few bands and some djs and stuff. It was at the forum in London on a thursday and I was looking forward to it quite a lot. Myself and Lyn finished up work at 6 and went to the venue straight away because Lightning Bolt were playing at 6.30. This was somewhat annoying because they were the ones I really wanted to see, but I guess because they refuse to play on the stage and just play in the middle of the audience it was probably easier to have them first before the venue filled up. Anyway, this was a good start. A wall of distortion and drums and happy noises and somehow cute and cheerful but aggressive sound explosions of goodness. I particularly liked the slower noise making better, but the faster songs were surprisingly giggly. Overall I liked the fact that they didn't seem like a band of chin stroking seriousness, which can be the case if you have two fellas making noise type experimentalish rock.
One thing though: As they seemed to play out of their own Pa the sound just wasn't loud enough for such a large venue. It was ok for us because we went on the thursday so it wasn't busy and you could get nice and close, but I can only imagine on the friday it would have been frustrating not being able to get close enough to the speakers. I don't think Lightning Bolt suited the venue at all either. They really needed a dark sweaty basement with a low roof. Still orsum though.
They also reminded me of the droog band a bit which I liked.
Next up is a band called Pissed Jeans. Pissed Jeans were shit. The lead singer looked like he worked in a call centre in insurance or IT or something, which I guess was their wacky modus operandi cause you know its funny seeing a straight laced person sticking their finger up their bum and gyrating their hips. Only problem with this is he looked fucking uncomfortable doing all this stuff, like he was an actual IT/insurance guy (which I later found out he is) I can't explain it any better than it would be like Clark Kent changing into Superman and still having all Clark Kents mannerisms and really dumbed down and shit Superman mannerisms. They also sounded like any other fucking crap punk band. Their lyrics are supposed to be biting and sartirical. I didn't notice. I just thought they sounded shit. The drummer was good though, and young people seemed to like jumping up and down and bashing themselves into each other and walls to it.
Next was Wooden Shjips. These guys had beards like ZZ top and clothes like a American survivalist. I really liked them. They made me smile a lot with their kind minimalish, hypnotic, repetitive, surf music. They looked like they smoked heaps of weed, and I couldn't help feel that they kinda just kept things looping along because they were forgetting chord changes etc or just wanted to do them in their own time. It is strangely accessible music and it made me have a large grin for the duration.
Next on the agenda was Les Savy Fav. The best thing I could muster about them was their music was harmless. I don't think thats a good thing to say about music. The lead singer tried to make up for it by running around the audience and flashing his belly, and in that way I guess he got the crowd worked up a bit.....but the music was just so........harmless. Like a really inoffensive dog, thats neither cute enough to pat or ugly enough to take note of.
I had high hopes for Shellac. They weren't met in anyway. From what people had told me they were awesome live. I thought they sounded amazing in terms of actual sound production ie its seemed obvious that the Pa etc for the night had been tailored for them, but I just found there music pretty boring. Maybe its my fault because I don't know enough about rock, but, to my ears, the songs themselves sounded like 300 other bands I had already heard. I guess maybe they are just not my type of music. I gave up 3/4 of the way through and went and stood outside in the cold and smoked and talked to a guy who was wearing a labrador cross as a scarf. It was awesome. The dog just sat there. (it wasn't dead) He didn't even have to hold it on. I was slightly jealous. One disadvantage was the bouncers wouldn't let him into the gig though.
Om were on after Shellac, and I found them terribly boring. The singer/guitarist looked a lot like this guy Ben Comry I went to school with and seemed to behave exactly the same as my fourteen year old memories of him as well. They were pretty drab (not drab in a "this music is so drab it makes me wanna cut myself" way either just drab......kinda like off brown curtains) and pretty boring. We left then.
That was about the night. Also of note was that Andy Weatherall of two lone swordsman fame was djing in between acts, but considering his considerable talent as a dj it was a disappointment. He really was just a juke box. I would have liked to see him play some more challenging music and maybe play for longer at the end.
I enjoyed the night despite being less than enthused with any of the later acts. It is good having a variation of stuff on(although I thought they could have taken that further) and I never got bored.
Lightning Bolt was ace, and now I can't stop listening to them.

Overdeveloped sense of vengence.

At what point do you start running your emotions like a communist state instead of a democracy? I have been ponderising the hell out of this lately. The inner struggle of doing what is right by everybody else and what is right by you. Sometimes if you try to please everybody all of the time it leads to a SUPERMASSIVE melt down of mega proportions.
The same is true of the other way around.
In other news. I really like the title of this post. It has nothing to do with the above. It was on an episode of fonejacker I watched, and I laughed one hell of a lot and quite loudly as well. I want to write a Charles Bronson style revenge movie back of DVD cover blurb using that turn of phrase. So I will.

Steve Grittycops family is mildly offended by some guy on the street. Steve makes the decision to kill him so hard that the mildly offensive mans parents, friends, friends kids, future kids they might have, people they know and family doctor all die too. Steve Grittycops has an Overdeveloped Sense of Vengence.

I think...

Paul Thomas Anderson is set to become one of the greatest American directors ever. Big claim, but he is still so young, and makes films well beyond his years. In 40 years times I'll say I told you so.

While I'm on the subject of cunts.

Youtube recommended this to me as something I might watch. Ha. Here are some of the best comments from the comments section.

Looks god!

lol looks stupid but...eh maybe still watchable
why Dragonfly? xD

I love it when he breakdances on the side of the building! Can't wait 2 see it on the big screen, or at least in my living room!

break dancing on da wall!

I love the part when he get's hit by da bus three times and when he break dances on da wall.

I love when he keeps getting hit by the bus!!
Yeah cause thats funny you fucking muppets. If you love watching people get hit by stuff and dancing wacky so much watch Americas Funniest Home Movies. In fact I wonder if I made a movie version of that if these idiots would go to it. Probably. Judging by their use of youth urban slang I'd probably have to make it slightly more street though. Americaz Dopest Crib Movies? Sounds like baby porn to me.

is this basically a spoof of spiderman but a comedy?
This person is so sharp they should become a cop or a PI, or maybe the President of the US (Oh look obvious political humor! I should write one of these movies!).........I feel dirty.

This might be funny. It only seems to make fun of spiderman and there are no pop culture jokes maybe they finally listened to my letters.
This one makes me all sorts of puzzled. Someone actually went to the effort to write to the people that make these movies with some creative input. And more than once! What?

wow when i heard of the movie i didnt think it would be that good but after the preview im going to see it right when it comes out
You're an idiot. A preview is supposed to be full of the best bits to make you want to see the movie, and as far as I can see there are no best bits in that preview.

dang this is funny! im gonna watch this!
Dang? I would take their word for it that its funny, but they probably also find shooting wreaked cars with AK47s and gang rape on city folk amusing.


it looks better than meet the spartans
Way to go. It looks funnier than one of the worst movies of all time. Thats a hella recommendation.


Just try to breathe.
I can't, you're nailing on my crotch!
LOL
What this guy is doing here is, saying a line from the movie and then adding LOL after. This shows us that he thinks its funny.

its like spiderman
Another brilliant observation

i wanna see this cause ive
seen all tha scary movies and i ve seen epic movie and ive seen date movie
they all fucking rule i really wanna see meet tha spartans but and dis
I don't know how anyone can think any of these movies 'Rule'
Why do people find these films funny. Taking a succesful movie, and then remaking it shot for shot but worse, isn't funny.
Why is remaking Spiderman funny?
I don't understand.

IMDB. The D should be for Dumarse

Examples of reviews found on this garbage dump of crap opinions.

MAX PAYNE
Max Payne was a very slow moving movie for the first part of the movie. The reason why it was slow though is because it was explaining the story of the movie. The story was very good and kept going with it all the way until the very end. The last half of the movie really kicks it up and has a ton of action. I liked all of the special and visual effects. Their were many slow motion scenes that made the movie cool. The visuals were very good and many of them were shots of tall long buildings. Mark Whalberg was very good and did a stellar job as Max Payne. Mila Kunis was good as t they can use to showcase their style of film making.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI
This movie was a confusing, mixed-up mess that took a while to piece back together in the end, as well as leaving a few plot holes behind. Like what happened to the guys in the beginning that threw Jeff into the toilet, demanding his money? And instead of a clever kidnapping/ransom story, we find out in the end that the girl Bunny never really WAS kidnapped. What?!? Jeff Bridge's character, also named Jeff, or the "Dude" (oh, god) goes through the movie trying to save another man named Lebowski's slutty, porno-star wife (Tara Reid)and gets his ass kicked all the way. This movie sucks.

DUDE WHERES MY CAR
This movie is funny, period. Everyone I know (and like) that saw it thought it was hilarious, including me. I don't understand what people were expecting when they saw this! It was a thousand times funnier than any recent Ben Stiller "comedy". There are at least a dozen scenes that made me laugh out loud. The couple of people that actually wrote a good review for this said that it was so stupid that it was funny. Well, I don't think it was any stupider than most of the unfunny "comedies" that have come out lately...And a lot of people compared the to "Bill and Ted". Why? It was nothing like "Bill and Ted", except for maybe there were 2 male leads, like countless other buddy comedies. You people are just... WRONG!

SEX AND THE CITY
Hearing Samantha saying FABULOUS again after so long...,
I really enjoyed it!! It was like a double episode AND on the big screen!! Everything felt familiar yet a bit different since their lives have moved on and in the end it gave me a sense of closure. For me it absolutely worked. I was really hesitant after visiting IMDb but really for me it had it all - Fabulous Samantha on the west coast, happy Charlotte wife and mom, Miranda on the verge of a nervous breakdown and of course Big.. Carrie moments. And of course Carrie shoes.. In some scenes I laughed my heart out, in others I was (almost) in tears. From a summer night in the theater I am perfectly content. Thanks SaTC I got Carried away..


Ugh.

straight to lunchbox

Is a good term. Its like straight to DVD, except that in this case no one actually sees the film. They just buy the merchandise. My friend is working on 'Fast and Furious 4'
I think that is a straight to lunchbox film.
One day they might just stop making the movies and just do the merchandise.
I can see the marketing pitch in my head. Its really funny. I'm thinking board room. A couple of guys called Steve. Some graphs on how they can save money by skipping the film production part out of the film making process. Haha. Funny.

My stomach hurts

I just hopped into a very small elevator at my work. It just holds four people. I am slightly delirious from working too much and hard and also drinking too much booze last night.
Another three people were in the elevator. One man nervously said to me,
"I'm one hundred kilos" and then pointed at me obviously intending to see how heavy I was so as to calculate the likely hood of us plummeting to our death. I somehow misheard him and simply answered "Greg"
I realized when he looked at me funny he hadn't in fact asked my name. Everyone in the lift looked at me strangely. In my hungover daze I began laughing hysterically. I laughed so much tears came to my eyes and I got a sore stomach. The people in the elevator got out before me. I know they work here, but on a different floor and I have never spoken to them before.
They probably think I'm crazy now. I bet the first guy is writing a blog right now that goes: I asked a guy his weight in an elevator. He answered "Greg" and then started laughing hysterically. What a crack job.
....
....
....
....
....
A JOKE


A man is waiting for his wife to give birth. The doctor comes in and informs the dad that his son was born without torso, arms or legs. The son is just a head! But the dad loves his son and raises him as well as he can, with love and compassion.


After 18 years, the son is now old enough for his first drink. Dad takes him to the bar, tearfully tells the son he is proud of him and orders up the biggest, strongest drink for his boy. With all the bar patrons looking on curiously and the bartender shaking his head in disbelief, the boy takes his first sip of alcohol.


Swoooosh! Plop!! A torso pops out! The bar is dead silent; then bursts into whoops of joy. The father, shocked, begs his son to drink again. The patrons chant 'Take another drink!'


The bartender continues to shake his head in dismay. Swoooosh! Plip! Plop!! Two arms pop out.


The bar goes wild. The father, crying and wailing, begs his son to drink again. The patrons chant, 'Take another drink! Take another drink!!' The bartender ignores the whole affair and goes back to polishing glasses, shaking his head, clearly unimpressed by the amazing scenes.


By now the boy is getting tipsy, but with his new hands he reaches down, grabs his drink and guzzles the last of it. Plop! Plip!! Two legs pop out. The bar is in chaos.


The father falls to his knees and tearfully thanks God. The boy stands up on his new legs and stumbles to the left then staggers to the right through the front door, into the street, where a truck runs over him and kills him instantly The bar falls silent.

The father moans in grief.

The bartender says,
'He should've quit while he was a head'

This is good stuff.

I was bored.

I have been having a mental block with techno lately, which I think is an easy thing to happen if you have gone to many lack lustre gigs in a row. Its not that I didn't enjoy C/Opop. I did. Its just I thought I could really get into things there, and I really didn't. My enjoyment of the music was good but not amazing. I think perhaps had I seen all of Villalobos set I would have rated it more. I just felt everybody else wasn't as good as they could have been. Anyway, because of this I haven't been listening to any mixes at all either. In a strange twist of fate, reading this blog and seeing the link to mnmlssg, my friend Jerry, who originally got me into Techno in the early to mid nineties but hasn't listened in years is having a resurrection. In a cyclical cycle of immense tornado type proportions it seems he is having the same effect again (albeit on a much lesser scale, but I was being dramatic.)
He sent me one of the mixes that mnmlssg have up for download saying he was really enjoying it and what did I think. Well, J my man. I have listened to it and it rules. It rules really hard. Hard like a granite table made out of solid oak and diamonds. The man mixing is Peter Van Hoesen and I think he deserves to be more famous than he is. Anyway here it is with tracklisting and all. The mix to me seems really co-heasive, but at the same time intricate and never stale. I saw that he put its not the type of thing he'd normally play out, and I think thats a real shame because I would love to hear this type of set out. I listened to it before I read Peters description and as I was listening I was reminded of the best sets I had seen. If I could go out and see a set like this, I think my faith would be restored. The last really great set I think I saw was over a year ago and was by Jens Bond at a half empty Fabric. Perhaps I'm just going to the wrong parties.

I think its time to take reality TV to the next level.

Having been unable to avoid the glut of reality television that festers away on screens all around the world, I decided to have (a very brief) think about what the next step is. Some reality Tv isn't so bad I have decided. It can be entertaining and as one friend of mine pointed out, if you move to a new country where English isn't the first language it can be kind of comforting to be able to understand whats going on in a program without actually understanding the language. Apparently the Americas Next Top Model derivative Germanys Next Top Model is good for this. I hope none of Tyras good advice is lost in the translation though. It would be frustrating if girls in Germany didn't know how to 'get it going on' because of a silly little language barrier. Girl Sie bekam es los!
I also have picked up a bad habit of watching everything that Gordon Ramsey is in just cause I love the swearing and him punctuating every sentence with 'uh' and find the whole thing really funny.

To be honest though its not these type of shows that annoy me so much. Its the shows with the people who aren't famous already, who are trying so desperately to be famous. Big Brother is probably the prime example, but there seem to be literally thousands of them. There is something so skin crawlingly bad about watching grown people act like they are having fun, are 'up for it' and generally acting like the biggest cunts possible in the vague hope that someone will notice them and they will become famous. Whats even more annoying is nearly all of these people have zero talent and zero reason that we should be watching them in the first place. But then somehow (mostly in the UK) they actually do become famous for a time, and I end up reading on the tube about where they have been going out to and who with. Why should I care? I have not the foggiest.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder what these people would be like in a war......probably not for any other reason that I want to imagine them blow up. Sometime it seems hard to fathom why these people think they should be famous, especially when you see the ones on those talent show type deals who actually believe they are really talented and quite clearly are not.

Anyway going on this they really want to be famous notion, a friend of mine thought up a brilliant idea for a big brother like show.
You take a whole lot of people, interview them and then carefully select a group that really want to be famous. You put them in a house equipped with fake cameras, tell them to act up, lock the doors for 3 months and then just not film them at all. The brilliant part is when they come out no one will know who the fuck they are, but they'll think they are national celebrities. Not real reality tv more just reality.
My idea actually involves Tv.
Basically, you get all the stupid, fame hungry, think they have talent idiots like this

and again make them live in a large house. Maybe this house can have big grounds too. You can set them tasks or do whatever you want with them really. Now it sounds a lot like big brother up to this point but the point of difference with my show, is none of it goes out immediately and also you set up cameras in places where you specifically have said you haven't. So they will think there are safe zones. You wait for like three months whilst filming them constantly, you know, enough time to get plenty of footage of them falling over and doing stupid shit. Then you just edit together a half an hour long special of them doing nothing but falling over, bumping into shit, going to the toilet, squeezing zits, Farting, basically anything to make them look stupid. I like the idea of cutting it to the 1970s Dawn of the Dead supermarket music by Goblin. It may sound really childish, but I think all that these blights of society deserve is basically what equates to Worlds Funniest Home Movies.
Besides, people find other people falling over funny. Look.

The bad thing about this is that, in the UK at least anyway, they would probably become famous for it anyway. Cunts.
One other option I guess then, is again, the Big Brother
scenario, but you actually do film them. Every night when they go to bed you move the walls in by say, two inches. It'll be funny watching them get confused and in the end, you have the bonus that they get crushed. Maybe as it draws towards the end of the series we could introduce water everyday too, and perhaps some predatory animals.

Get back together you cunts.

This thing is disturbingly scary.

Its a version of an unfinished work by Mark Twain called 'The Mysterious Stranger'.
For some reason someone in the 80s thought it would make a sweet little scene in a kids movie called 'The Adventures of Mark Twain'.
I agree. Kids need to know about the futility of mans existence. Nice small ideas to really fuck them up in the head. Great to get to sleep to when your 5.
The voices and animation really are a cut above the rest in terms of general creepiness. If I ever have kids maybe I'll put a tv in their room and they can watch this every night in the dark right before they go to sleep. Hell (haha) I wouldn't watch it by myself in the dark.

How to get into any club.

Silly Dj humour. Quite funny in parts I thought.

Bo Hansson and Accidental Dark Knight Hatrid

So I was watching Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings the other day, and I have to say I don't think its a bad effort considering the length and breadth of the source material. In my humble opinion it takes a large poop on The Dark knight.......Oh and speaking of which this was one of the 'Featured' reviews of The Dark Knight explaining how good it was on IMDB:


Batman has always been my favourite superhero ever since the first time I heard about him because he his human with no powers, also he is much more questionable than any other superhero. The story of the film is about Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and new district attorney Harvey Dent beginning to succeed in rounding up the criminals that plague Gotham City. They are unexpectedly challenged when a mysterious criminal mastermind known as the Joker appears in Gotham. Batman's struggle against the Joker becomes deeply personal, forcing him to "confront everything he believes" and to improve his technology (which introduces the recreation of the Batcycle, known as the Batpod and the Batsuit was redesigned) to stop the madman's campaign of destruction. During the course of the film, a love triangle develops between Bruce Wayne, Dent and Rachel Dawes.

There are now six Batman films and I must say that The Dark Knight is the best out of all of them. The title is good because that is what Batman actually is. It has been 3 years for the adventure to continue from Batman Begins but that entire wait was worth it. Gotham city is very Gothic looking and is very haunting and visionary. The whole movie is charged with pulse-pounding suspense, ingenious special effects and riveting performances from a first-rate cast especially from Heath Ledger who gave an Oscar nomination performance for best supporting-actor. It is a shame that he can't see his terrific work on-screen. The cinematography is excellent which is made so dark & sinister that really did suit the mood for the film. Usually sequels don't turn out to be better than the original but The Dark Knight is one of those rare sequels that surpasses the original like The Godfather 2. I also really liked the poster where the building is on fire in a Bat symbol & Batman is standing in front of it. Christopher Nolan is a brilliant director and his film Memento is one of my most favourite films. He hasn't made 10 movies yet and 3 of them are already on the IMDb top 250. Overall The Dark Knight is the kind of movie that will make the audience cheer in the end instead of throwing fruit & vegetables on the screen.)

I mean really. Whoever wrote that must have been really very bung in the head.

"The title is good cause that is what Batman is"

"Gotham city is very Gothic looking and is very haunting and visionary"

This person is clearly a waste of oxygen and needs to be farmed.
I have no understanding of why it became the front page review on IMDB either. Maybe its just automated. Either way with people of that intellectual caliber telling me its good I can see I'll be talked around soon.

Even smart people have been suckered in to saying its good even though they are filling it so full of holes in their reviews and basically saying its not a great movie yet its still getting all this award talk. There were so many better movies out this year and this getting put on a pedestal really annoys me.



Anyway.....I got a little side tracked then on the Batman hate. Sorry. I have to stop this.

So we were watching LOTR and it made me think about Bo Hansson
If you read the Wikipedia entry you'll see he made music inspired by Lord of the Rings was his first solo album. I used to listen to this a lot with my friends when I was younger and I realized I hadn't listened to it in ages. It reminds me of so many good times and so many fun times. Emotional time and place attachment is big on these tracks. I looked it up on Youtube and hey presto someone had put the album up. So for convenience I have posted the videos into this post with titles.
I really think Peter Jacksons movies could have done with some of this music......and way less slow motion.....and no Elijah Wood.........or Sean Astin.
Enjoy.


Fog on the Barrow Downs



The Old Forest



The Black Riders



The Horns of Rohan



The Gray Havens



Dreams in the House of Healing



Shadowfax



Lothlorien



Homeward bound and the Shire

I'm becoming cynical about my cynicism....

and I'm not sure where abouts that leaves me.

Haha.....haha.....ha

http://ronaldchevalier.com/

The Dark Knight.

Is a bad movie. I got so bored I wanted to sleep. I was gonna write a foot stomp to the throat review of it, but I'm not sure the damage to the ends of my fingers from aggressive typing would be worth the effort. I didn't hate it as much as Titanic, but I still lost a little faith in humanity over the fact everybody seems to love it so much. Maybe I am missing something. I think the movie just should have been Heath Ledger sitting a room doing his bit for the 25-30mins total he was in it. I didn't even think he was that great though.
I nearly left the cinema and I never do that.
My girlfriend got angry at me because of my grunts of despair.
I've written off a little check list that Christopher Nolan must have adhered to strictly when making this movie.

Character development: Nil
Bad/Lazy editing: 100 percent
Stupid plot that tries to be all realistic crime thriller sometimes, but when it suits it, comic book silly: Oh you better believe it
Too many plot threads causing you to not really get anyones motivation for anything, except for the most minimal idea of what they could possibly be thinking: Sure
Too many plot threads causing the film to be far too long and boring: Oh yeah
Completely wooden and really boring acting from Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhaal: Yep
Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman acting exactly the same way they act in every single movie they have ever been in: uh huh, uh huh.
Character who gets disfigured and becomes evil with little explanation as to why considering he was a pretty rational guy beforehand: Yes oh yes.

I thought Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman were pretty good, but Oldman didn't have enough screen time and Eckhart sucked after his turn into two face which was more of a problem with the terrible script than his acting. Funnily enough I think I liked Eckhart because he is a slightly over the top looking comic book character-esque guy and his part as the morally in-corruptible white knight of Gotham was really over the top............well morally in-corruptible until he gets very easily corrupted later on. This is among some of the ridiculous contradictions in the script.
For instance why does the joker, who in the middle of the film is shown burning his half of a large amount of money because he in no way is motivated by money, go to such lengths to get more of his share of the money in the opening scene? Why kill off all those henchmen who would be much more useful to him alive to help pull off his (frankly) impossible to pull off plans for their money?
Then there is the jokers stupidly easy escape from jail when the police forget to put the most dangerous criminal in Gothams handcuffs back on and leave him with the door unlocked and one unarmed guard.
Now I can hear people saying 'Suspension of disbelief', and usually I would agree with that. Except. Nolan and everybody who has seen this and loved it goes to great lengths to tell you how realistic it is, and that Nolan wanted to make a serious crime thriller like Heat. Well its not realistic. It doesn't even tread a fine line between being serious and silly. Its just an overlong and pretenious comic book film, which takes all the fun out of comic book films.
My advice, hire Heat and Tim Burtons original Batman and watch them at home. They are both much better movies and probably collectively shorter too.
I guess I ended up writing a foot stomp to the throat review then.

C/O Pop

So myself and my good friend Mark did a bit of a trip over to Cologne in Germany for the Cologne on Pop festival. (or ze Germans idea of pop which in a Uk/Nz sense doesn't really translate to Kylie or Brittney)
I'm sort of wanting to call it the Confused on Pop festival, not because the festival did anything to confuse me, but because I got internally confused by the festival. I think I may get to that later.
We decided to take the train to Cologne from London because it seemed more adventurous, and having watched 'The Darjeeling Ltd' five times now and loving it to bits the idea really tickled me.
So we got on the super fast train, and on the five hours down (with a stop in the middle in Brussels, which incidently in our hour there seemed quite boring) and went and stood at the the bar a pretty much drunk continually the whole way. It was quite fun propping yourself up at the bar and watching Europe go by whilst drinking overpriced beer, but it certainly wasn't like the romantic ideal I had in my head. Why oh why do they have to make modern trains so stark and hospital like on the inside. I want 1930s plush plushness with a stale smell of books and a slightly moldy feel. Maybe a few special made mini chandeliers that look like a rich Smurfs extravagance.
We arrived in Cologne, had a quick meal of what tasted like reheated lasanga and then headed out to the Kompakt Total 9 party, figuring what better place to go to a Kompakt party than in its home. Speaking of which I never realised the Kompakt logo is in fact the logo of Cologne. It was funny walking around and seeing it on Ambulances and man hole covers everywhere.
The party itself was in a large hall with arches running the whole length and immense ceiling height. Impressive but the sound left a little bit to be desired. There was also an upstairs which was smaller and had much better sound. The party itself was only ok. No one really took off though. Supermayer did most of the songs of their album live, which was interesting to see, and I am quite happy to report that Superpitchers voice translates quite well live.
Aril Brihka was boring as buggery. I hate that new trance bollocks he makes and plays. It never really went anywhere and just seemed stale. I suppose some people could get into it, and there is no doubt his stuff sounds really good so he is obviously a talented producer, its just not my cuppa.
Tobias Thomas was good, but not as good as I have seen him. It was still a fun place to be and not a total right off, I guess I was expecting more of a Kompakt wind up as the night rolled on and not just to be belted in the face with quite hard music right from the outset. Maybe this is a problem of having all headliners on a line up. Either way, the musical flow felt somehow off. In fact I think I only had a decent bop round to DJ Koze. I did end up speaking to Sasha Funke in an rather embarrassing mix up of identity, but thats another story.
We decided to head off to the after party. So after a lovely stroll around Cologne in the wee hours and an annoying conversation with some rich English university students who were trying to reason out and use their philosophy 101 majors on our obviously tongue in cheek conversation about the possibility of farming dumb humans for meat, we arrived at Odonien which as you can see by the photo is a cool junkyard space equipped with fire breathing junk dinosaurs and all.
The actual mixer and turntables are hanging from the ceiling in a small room at the back of the junkyard and although at first this looks like it surely must be a dodgy as place to put turntables, despite the gentle rocking back and forth they never seemed to skip.......until knocked mid mix by one of the above annoying students.
This was much more like it. Michael Mayer and Superpitcher playing back to back, an absolutely fantastic sound system and a sunny day in an open venue. We sat here for quite a while soaking up the sun, talking rubbish (this farming humans conversation just wouldn't die) and listening to the music. Which was really good by the way. A lot more of that music they are known for that makes even the straightest of white men swing their hips from side to side like they are a funky fresh jive talking black man from the 70s. Although I note with much horror that now I am 30 I seem to have replaced any type of dancing with a casual thigh slap which would look more at home in a hoedown. Needless to say at this party my jeans were getting a worn patch on my right thigh.
After this we went for a quick sight see around Cologne (Cologne Cathedral is one of the most impressive buildings ever) Then we went home to bed.
We awoke at about 10.30 on sat night, faffed around for ages then got going to see Larry Heard at the Subway club. This was a strange choice for us, but with the hang over still grasping at my head like the pincers of a giant crab the idea of the Triebstoff party or the Traum party seemed too heavy and too far away. Subway was right around the corner from our hotel as well.
Subway is really cool. When I first walked in I thought that perhaps it was a little cramped, but the bar staff were really quick at serving so it was never a problem getting a drink and I ended up really liking the place. It has a lovely tight sound system, and they let just the right amount of people in. We basically just sat and had a good listen to the music and chatted whilst sinking copious amounts of beer to fight off the dehydration of the night before thus becoming fully entrenched in the circle of alcoholism this weekend was creating. Larry Heard was pretty good. I'm not a massive fan of house with vocals telling you its house music. We were never quite sure why we needed constant reminding. I'm also not sure about the lyrics which state things like 'Music is love and love will solve problems' and how soulful and how much love house creates. I always just want the music to speak for itself. Luckily the tracks underneath this carry on were really good, and he had a pattern which we deciphered that went a little something like this: Vocal house, vocal house, acid house, acid house, techno/tech house, techno/tech house then round again.
I was surprised to hear a Johannes Heil track and he certainly pulled out AME -Rej at a funny time. His mixing was tight, but sometimes the tracks he put together didn't work so well and it sounded quite messy. I enjoyed the musical variation though and it was a lot of fun. Kraftwerk- numbers sounded amazing over that system as well. Superpitcher showed up with a bunch of flossies in tow and had a bit of a groove next to us as well. He looked like he hadn't slept since the party from the night before. We left this party at about 4.30 in the morning to go and get some more sleep. I really enjoyed this night. It was nice and relaxing and the music proved to be again, thigh slappingly good. The worn patch continued to grow.
We woke at about 11.30 am the next day and sat round and read books for a bit. I read Ballards 'Empire of the Sun' and am writing a bit about that at the moment as well. Theres nothing like reading a war book to make you feel alive and happy after you have removed your brain from the grimness and repositioned it in a sunny Cologne where your about to go and see Ricardo Villalobos and Sven Vath.
We had a big long walk down to the venue which was pretty good, but as it turns out a mistake. You see this open air party started at midday and finished at ten pm. We assumed Villalobos would be playing last, but as it turned out we assumed wrong. Sometimes those assumption things really bite you in the ass. I really should have payed more attention to that stupid saying about it.
Anywho, we arrived at this little grassy area covered in a circle tent with speakers and about 1000 german wasters of vary sizes and description. There really were some funny looking people there. Being an overweight guy with large biceps and no top on seemed to be one of the orders of the day. Old Villalobos was doing his thing when we arrived, and I have to say, no matter how many times I see him I just don't get bored. This is because every time I have seen him, he has played completely differently to the last time. He had his whole tribal minimal Latin click thing going on so we did some more thigh slapping. I really enjoyed it when he played the B side of what I believe was Lucianos 'Amelie on ice' and he finished of his set with an ever lasting mix into a beatless orchestral, rolling thunderish sounding track. It was a shame we only saw him for an hour, but it was a very good hour. Sven Vath came wandering up and wouldn't start mixing until they found a mic, plugged it into the mixer and had someone announce his arrival. Which was twatsville USA if you ask me. I really don't rate him as a dj anymore. I think he has just become a crazed, over drugged, silly man. He did his usual act up to the crowd, which was not cute or funny anymore and played really obvious tracks right till the very end when he would do a one or two bar mix even though he had been standing there queing the track up for the full 6-8 mins of the previous track. See this as an example of what I mean. The extended cueing drives me insane!!!!!!! Just mix the tracks together already. After watching Ricky V Sven Vath looked like Amateur hour. So we left.
After this we went out for dinner, and then went of for a drink with Emma Jean, who is a NZ'r who lives in Cologne and I have had an internet friendship with, but only ever really met twice in noisy clubs beforehand and for a total time of about 5 mins and about 5 years ago on top of that. Its always amusing meeting someone you only know from over the internet, and me being me suffered a case of verbal diarrhoea. I have found in the past from meeting people like this that they often speak how they write, and somehow, and I'm not sure how, it seems that their mannerisms imitate their words in some way too.
So that was my C/o Pop experience. Its a festival I will attend again. Is really enjoyable and seems to have a nice laid back vibe about it.
Now the confusion part. I'm beginning to wonder if I am seeing just as good a dj sets as I used to, but not enjoying it as much because I'm getting bored of the music. I'm sure I would have liked the Kompakt party more a year ago. Or am I?
I guess I'll throw all my balls on the table and see if they bounce by going next year and seeing the lay of the land.

I'd just like to say.....

That I think Christian Bale is the new Sean Penn. I don't think thats a good thing.

Poo covered in a visual rhapsody.

I like Michel Gondry. Or I used to. Maybe I still do. I dunno. Anyway, I have two reasons for which my estimation of him has gone down somewhat. One I can't talk about, but involves work, and a relation of his, so take my word for it. The other is because of 'Be Kind Rewind'.
I don't know what happened here. I'll sum up the plot for you, and probably take a few pot shots on the way.
Theres these two guys, one a black guy played by Mos Def, and a white guy, played by Jack Black.
The black guy listens to jazz. Stereotype. Racial. The white guy acts a lot like Jack Black.....but a not funny Jack Black. Maybe more like an impersonator of Jack Black doing a very bad Jack Black. Seriously. Its like Gondry pointed the camera at him and said 'Act funny'.
I felt uncomfortable for him.
Anyway, these guys live in this kinda slummy part of some American city which could be New York but I can't remember, and work in a video store owned by this other old guy who is black and played by Danny Glover, who is also black. The Video store boss also listens to Jazz and makes up lies about it.
Jack Black for some unknown reason....I think probably cause he is wacky and Jack Black like, and you know him, he is CRAZY, decides to attack some power station with a grappling hook. Anyway he ends up being eletrocuted and becomes magnetized in a wacky Gondry way.........because I don't know if you realise this........but in real life.....you'd die. Fuck I love Gondrys little wacky flights of fancy. He's so wacky and cute. Anyway he goes back to the video store and wipes all the tapes.
The boss guy who listens to Jazz and is a liar, has gone away to look at other video stores to find out what makes them money, because guess what? His business is failing. It needs saving.
(Funnily enough when looking around one of the mega stores, he says, 'More copies of the same film, less selection' in a hysterical satirical social attack on Dvd shops and those films that they make so many copies of that you can by them in supermarkets. Which is double funny cause I bought 'Be Kind Rewind' in a supermarket.)
Not wanting to damage the Boss guys store Jack Black and Mos Def decide to remake all the films in the store on the cheap with a video camera.
Now, Although what I have written so far sounds pretty scathing, I actually really like the idea of guys remaking films on the cheap and coming up with awesome ways to recreate scenes which everybody already loves and knows in an inventive and cheap way. The problem is that, this only seems to make up about 1/5th of the movie. About 1/5th of that 1/5th is inventive and interesting. The rest of it is just crap. 1/5th of 1/5th of this movie equals about 2 mins and in each of those minutes I laughed once. This is exactly how much I laughed during the whole film.
Anyway, the guys end up making enough money to save the store, but then get sued by the corporations for pirating their movies. (Those guys again. To get out of that one they should have made some logo art out of the DVD logo where instead of standing for Digital Versitile Disc, it stood for Defining Vacuous Dicks. Then they could have plastered pictures of George Bush all over it sucking Tony Scotts cock.....political, with a cool and popular opinion about movies and the types of people that watch them and a little nonsensical as well so you can say 'Don't you get it?' That would have shown them.)
The guys come up with an idea of making a movie that is an original idea so they gather the community together to help them make a movie about a Jazz singer who used to live in the video store building. Only it turns out he never did. The Boss made up a whole lot of stories about the guy that never really happened, but as it turns out none of them give a fuck, so they also decide that they should all make up stories about this jazz singer and put them in the film. So its a town of liars.
Anyway the corporations see the film the lying fuckwads of a community made whilst standing outside with their bulldozers waiting to smash the store to shit and find it as heartwarming as the putrid music playing on the soundtrack. The credits roll.
I really like Gondrys other films and music videos. I like all the cool, clever little tricks he does. I like the design and art direction of his stuff. I like how you can tell stuff is a Gondry film. None of that shit matters. You can have all the cool ideas you want to add salt and pepper to a story, but if its a bad story its not gonna make one turd of a difference. For me, this turned Gondry completely into the 'arthouse' version of Michael Bay. All style and no substance. The fact that he even had a cool idea like that and ruined it makes it even worse. Again a Michal Bay comparison: Gondry had two guys remaking films we know and love in a downright funny and interesting way as his idea, Michal Bay had giant Transforming robots. Both great ideas for a movie and both these cunts managed to fuck them up.
I went and did a search for Gondry on Youtube and found all these wacky ideas that he has been making into little films. I particularly didn't like ones where he sprouts hands out of the ends of his fingers/nostrals/feet to do multiple rubix cubes all at once. I can see how maybe you'd make it once (I think the feet one was first), but to be honest why keep making it? Its not hard to do, its not really all that clever and its not really funny.
I think he has some brilliant ideas and I loved 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind'(which he didn't write)
I just hope 'Be Kind Rewind' isn't a sign of things to come.

Fake Fist Dinosaur Punch

Is a movie I saw the other day that was made in the 70s. Its about a hired gun who can time travel. (I dunno who this guy was but he looked like a skinnier Steven Seagal without the ponytail and was obviously an American putting on an English accent really badly) He is originally from England and is a soldier in WW1. He was fighting in the trenches when a freak lightning bolt caused by scientific experiments the Germans were doing with a weather weapon, hit him in the Lee Enfield (thats the standard bolt action rifle of an infantryman during the war) and not only caused him to zap into the future, but also gave him the ability to control where he is in space and time. As a weird side effect it made him the best lover in the universe and he scores heaps of futuristic poontang. (I kid you not, its weirdly 70s softcore!) When he arrives in the future(1996) he realises that the world has been overrun by genetically and robotically enhanced super dinosaurs. In the future he also meets a wise old futuristic kung fu cowboy played by David Carradine. He finds out from him that there was a 'World war 2' after he left. In this second world war, Adolf Hitler did experiments with robotic dinosaurs and used them to win the war. He soon lost control of them though and the robotic dinosaurs began mating with crocodiles and other forms of reptiles, forming a race of super robot dinosaurs which now inhabit the earth. The Cowboy kung fu master teaches our hero how to kill these monsters (and he also modifies his lee enfield into a bolt action super rifle) and in an effort to save the world from its roboty dinosaury fate, sends him back in time to this alternative WW2 to stop the dinosaurs before they can be created. He makes several failed attempts at this as the Germans base is so solidly guarded it is impossible to get to the creators of the robot dinosaurs. He nearly dies in the process several times. In one of the attempts he gets very close and sees someone he recognises amongst the German scientists, but cannot place the face.
As he makes more and more attempts on the German base, and flits around in time scoring chicks he is plagued with nightmares containing the German scientists face.
In a scene of eplosive emotional hard hitting explosiveness he realises that the German scientist is the very young soldier he was about to kill as he got hit by lightning. He realises that he can't affect anything from the point before he got hit by lightning and can't even travel back before said event and after testing out all his time traveling options soon finds out the young German is seemingly protected from him as well in anytime and anyplace. It is apparent that he has been given god like powers, but only his normal self, before the strike, has the ability to kill the young German at that exact point in time. So he has a choice. Travel back in time and move himself out of the way of the lightning, thus erasing his own time traveling future pimp-ness self but saving the future from a world plagued with dinosaurs, or fuck the rest of the world and go score chicks and time travel and shit. He chooses the later.
....
....
....
I didn't actually see this, I just made it up. I wish I could travel in time so I could make this in the 70s.

The twitches on my face.

I find my face contorting in all sorts of weird ways lately. I didn't actually notice this myself, but now that it has been pointed out to me I can't help feeling the furrowing of my brow and the strange scowl that covers my face as the top of my lip pulls back over my teeth. I know this from feeling as the scowl I have seen what seems like one or two million times on the face of Nick. (My father)
Nick scowls a whole lot. I have never known anyone to scowl as much or look as pissed off at the world as him. I'm pretty sure (not 100 percent) that Nick is the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the world.
I have some pretty good stories about growing up with a father like that, but thats for another time.
The thing with Nicks scowl though is that it seems to be generally at everything in the world, and because of this it kind of feels like its more meaningful than me scowling at bad television commercials and movies and music I don't like and fuckheads.
So I was watching tv and being gazed at in the face in a super close inspection and noticing that everytime I was getting told that my face moved in an amusing manor was in correspondence to the amount of shit I was watching on tv. So choosing to watch the commercials was a bad idea. I have been noticing that advertising is shit a lot more lately. I mean I always knew it, but as I used to work in commercials, and I'm the spawn of advertising as well (yep Nick works at Saatchis) I was covered in the rancid diarrhea of some complete fuckwit who thinks he has the right to call himself a 'creative' nearly 24 hours a day. Sometimes when you are doggy paddling round in a swimming pool of poo your nose becomes used to the smell and you just think its slightly dirty water.
Anyway, as I sit under intense facial scrutiny, I am told what my face is doing. It seems that I must get so worked up on the inside about these shitty bits of filler between the programs that I actually react with a series of facial ticks and look somewhat like a person who should be committed.
This annoys me. Because if there is one thing that I hate its those people that feel like they have to fight the power of the corporation by always saying that advertising is shit and making art out of logos but altering it slightly to tell us some ridiculously shit message which everybody with half a fucking brain already knows.
Speaking of which I went to a gallery and saw a picture painted of the word love, but the word love was made out of guns. Really? Whoever did that is a complete and utter waste of my oxygen. I'm gonna become an artist and paint a much bigger picture of a gun made up completely out of pictures of cocks and vaginas screwing each other and hang it up next to his picture. I'm not even really sure what I mean by it, but I'm sure some fucking cunty arty farty cuntface will make up some deep meaning for it, when I'll just find it funny.
I'm gonna call the painting 'Fuckgun' or maybe 'Penis Cunt Gun Riot'

Paedophiles

You can say what you like about them, but they're generous with their sweets.

Beirut inspires a musical rambling.

Beirut is a band I enjoy. I am listening to them now. I enjoy them so much I find it hard to believe it. In the past six months I think I have listened to at least two tracks a day by them. I put them on in the morning. I listen to them at work. Each different song of theirs takes me to a different place.
I can't remember who said it or where I heard it; thinking about it probably on some film making of I think, but the quote was:
"Music is just the emotional fuel to get to where you want to be."
.............or something along those lines.........................
(Can you put something in quotation marks if your not sure of the quote?........I'm not so sure........fuck it I said I couldn't write, so leave me alone cunt.)
Beirut is funny in its emotional destination though. I listen to it and get confused as to what state I am ending up in. Because of this it has a property I don't find in too much music, which is that, for me personally, its the swiss army knife of emotional music. Its the every occasion Greg music.
Sometimes it makes me want to cry...but usually because it makes me so happy I want to. But then other times not.
As I write I have 'Elephant Gun' playing in my ears, which to me is the grand daddy of their music.
Or maybe 'Nantes.'
Or maybe 'After the Curtain'
Or maybe 'Scenic World.' (the version of the Lon Gisland Ep)
I don't know.
Most other music seems to have some sort of desired effect on me. Like that Eluvium album - Copia,
which I have been listening to a bit of lately, which seems to just make me a droopy, miserable, boob.
Uplifting and beautiful my arse. Maybe some of its beautiful I guess. I like it anyway. The cover art is good, but then again its also really bad. Have a look/read of it and you'll see what I mean.
Techno; well I like listening to that because I seem to just look to the future. I feel slightly stripped of more meaningful emotion, and more just the emotion of hype and excitement comes out, along with the insessent ramblings in my brain of production values and over intellectualizing the concepts of techno of a by-gone era. I'm not saying techno still can't be innovative as I truly believe it still can be, but there is so much shit out there now it can become hard to see it. Maybe its just hard because, like hippies, I also hate the fucking idiot munter fuckwits with their glasses on in the clubs, who yell out shit like 'I'm so minimal' (I'm not kidding. I heard that once) whilst tilting there heads back in the air with there mouths wide open and their hands in the air, in a way only a person who is really high on drugs at 6am can do. When I see stuff like this I often wish I had some kind of touch of god like power where I could instantly zap them, in the pose they are in, covered in sweat to a really inappropriate place. Some kind of funeral would be good I imagine or the accountancy office/call centre they no doubt work in on a monday morning in front of their boss. (did I tell you I saw some of those earthy hippie cunts leaving the Glade in a BMW?)
Techno/minimal/house is getting over run with these fucktards the world over. As I have said before, give me a basement with speakers and some kind of Redshape/Galluzi/Villalobos/Dettman/list goes on, and a no teetering* on heels in shiny dress, or being a general fuckwit, door policy.
So I guess Techno makes me angry then.
Bo Hansen makes me squint my eyes and happily look off into a distant past.
Erik Satie makes me sleepy.
Kraftwerk makes me laugh out loud.
But Beirut? I'm really not sure. It should have plenty of time and place based emotional strings attached to it for me, but yet when I listen these aren't necessarily the places that it makes me go. This is handy, because it quite easily could have been ruined for me altogether. But it hasn't.
Happy, Sad, Hyped. It does it all for me. This makes them a great band for Greg.
I am now looking for another set of music which will be this big for me, techno aside because I listen to that everyday too, and don't say A Hawk and Hacksaw cause I didn't mean same style of music, and besides, I tried them and I'm not their biggest fan.
I went thru a pretty big Matthew Dear - Asa Breed faze recently too. Although I think this will have a definative emotional pull for me. (ps went and checked out a gig of his at the ICA in London, and it was great. He really seems to have taken to the whole stage/singing malarkey after all those years of being behind decks and controllers.)
Anyway.
Beirut is good.
They played one of the best gigs I have been to.
I wish they'd get back together.



*sorry Spagnoletti.

What's the biggest cause of paedophilia in the UK?

Sexy kids.

I laughed at that.

An old e-mail conversation I came across

It makes me happy and sad all at once, and I feel in a lot of ways they were better days.

BRETT:

So. You must be there, which must be very different. Subway transport and dog-shit ladies and american flatmates and homesickness and culture shock and pure hype of the pure unknown? The old Wellington is very quiet. I have a cold. I have watched Greenaway's 'The Draughtman's Contract" to see how that sweet 2d track was used, and it was played much slower and used like mainly to mark progress in the story, for transitions between scenes as far as I could tell. The exact same zoom failure that occured with Nick's camera the moment you bought your new camera happened to Nick's gamecube controller = as we played Resident Evil 4 and the zoom on our rifle scope kept going in, then kept going out then stopped. We have not begun any new projects as of yet. Endeavour on white elf pilgrim! --

JEREMY:

day 17.

1000 hundred dark golden

infinity potion sparks from the lost moons of an unforgetable elvish realm.

Seoul.

population density: without question

its got smog and concrete for comfort, whats more plants are very popular.

i am a teacher.

one of my students is a harmonica slinging akido master.

he is ted.

there are many others.

everyday is another list.

i walk and film. first without any image stablisation and later with plenty.

I am surrounded, but without threat.

they dont seem to have police here and hospital patients roam the streets and the side walk cafes like the zombies they are.

I live on the 13th floor of a brownish gray apartment.

number 103.

there are many more simular for me to ponder its like communism.

except with makeup.

when you go into the exterior there are devices for physical toning in every direction. so forget about not fully indorsing a resolute physical rigme its part and parcel.

old women wear visors that make them look like future humans.

I work and hang out with children. they like how hairy i am, im like some enlarged domestic animal, made for group patting.

its a lot hotter. a better climate for sweat excreations

drinking so to get drunk is also a well established doctrine of these shores, especially on mondays and wednesdays.

drunks inhabit a lot of your visual resources. and are a pleasure to watch much like the subway is a great way to invest your 'won'. its in tunnels and on bridges, and breaths a wind so intoxicating you are bound for nothing less than unrivaled meta mayhem.

sun ra helps, by and by whats sweet is how similar both shen mu and warlords are to this place.

in each you start of small and unknowing and before long expand to rule the greater universe... but watch out for dragonflys they surround this dimension heavily, korean horror films also know a few princely limits that and filled suassage cabbage can implode my brain into a million shards of paraniod pain with consumit ease.

Osaka, Japan was like a giant over-sexualised robot planet sphere. the train i caught there was a heavy purple and was so full of its own deep-speed-emotions that it didnt even give a crap about going fast.

your comrade jeremy

Ps. next un-union toyko?

GREG:

Mr O, oh oh oh I didn't even know you had a go go go.

Mads told me you left. Wow excursions excursions!! Did you come through the A to the K to the L. I would have very much liked to have seen you, but instead I will make do with your tall step sister DJ Cyrus-ette. It sounds exciting and scary and like my thailand excursion except for a lot longer. Not much to report on the Auckland front. I have a radio show called the electric company now, like the childrens show but without spiderman and much less American. I plan on making a move at the end of April 2006 for some sort of european shores. Maybe I will swing by Asia way and catch up for some white port and cigars. I like the idea of a harmonica slinging akido master. Its a long way from Taupo me old droogies. Phil. Where abouts are the photos from the droog re-union to end all droog re-unions. Brett jog-hansoth. I am sad that Wellington is lonely for you. We will have to make an effort for some kind of half re-union. What has happened to all the instruments O'sullivan? and what of the footage from the trip?

A tokyo re-union sounds right up my hutt valley.

Japan

Japanese people

cell phones as small as i-shuffles

Neon lights shimmering neon lights

technology.

A haven for four such futristically cultured fellows such as ourselves.

The one like the one called Greg

PS: Send me an address Jeremy James and I will send you a care package for your masterful travels.