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.
Thursday 11 September 2008
Tuesday 9 September 2008
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.
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.
Thursday 4 September 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday 3 September 2008
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
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
Monday 1 September 2008
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