about working in commercials.
Thanks to Mr Flower for this one!
Saturday 29 August 2009
Friday 21 August 2009
Animal Collective @ Brixton academy
The guys were still good. They played a lot of older stuff this time, which was enjoyable. Their stage show has got more lights and trippy stuff going on now too. However, the sound at Brixton academy is so shit. It was frustrating to the max. A song would come on and you'd get all super pumped and then all you can hear is the bass and the tops. No midrange. Anyway, they still ruled, was just a little sad about the sound.
Fuck Brixton Academy. Fuck it right in the eye with some garden shears.
Fuck Brixton Academy. Fuck it right in the eye with some garden shears.
I'm getting old.
So I was listening to this review of The Watchmen movie (which I thought was pretty good all things considered actually) and the guy reviewing compared it to those old records you used to get where you'd read along with a cliffs notes version of the movie and the records would play sound effects and dialogue from the films, and you could also read along with the story. He basically said that the Watchmen film was like a read-a-long version of the graphic novel.
Anyway.....whatever.............
I had completely forgotten about those things! So I looked them up and found a few photos of the ones I owned. I found some pictures on an antique toy website. Antique! For fucks sake.
I then tried to turn around and see if James (the fella that sits next to me) had heard of them. He is 25 so I changed it to tapes instead of records because I remember they made those as well and I thought he may be more a cassette kid than an LP kid.
He just looked at me blankly like I was crazy. So did Lyndall when I asked her.
They had no idea what I was on about.
Ugh.
Anyway looking at these pictures brings back all sorts of fun time memories of sitting on the lounge room floor and turning the page when Indie cracked his whip or R2 beeped.
Funny thing is my brain is now putting those memories in a kind of sepia tone grade, with 8mm film dust on them and lots of weave as the film goes through the gate.
Fucking arsehole brain. I bet it thinks its really funny doing that. What a cunt.
Anyway.....whatever.............
I had completely forgotten about those things! So I looked them up and found a few photos of the ones I owned. I found some pictures on an antique toy website. Antique! For fucks sake.
I then tried to turn around and see if James (the fella that sits next to me) had heard of them. He is 25 so I changed it to tapes instead of records because I remember they made those as well and I thought he may be more a cassette kid than an LP kid.
He just looked at me blankly like I was crazy. So did Lyndall when I asked her.
They had no idea what I was on about.
Ugh.
Anyway looking at these pictures brings back all sorts of fun time memories of sitting on the lounge room floor and turning the page when Indie cracked his whip or R2 beeped.
Funny thing is my brain is now putting those memories in a kind of sepia tone grade, with 8mm film dust on them and lots of weave as the film goes through the gate.
Fucking arsehole brain. I bet it thinks its really funny doing that. What a cunt.
Monday 17 August 2009
Anvil
So I watched Anvil - The story of Anvil on the weekend. I agree with Mark Keomode. It is an amazing film. I can't believe I hadn't seen it earlier.
It is a documentary about the band Anvil, A heavy metal band who should have been massive and had the respect of many of the biggest metal bands in the world musically, but somehow never made it.
Sacha Gervasi, the director of the film, had been one of their English fans when he was a teenager.
When the band had toured London, he had gone back stage and they asked if he would like to come with them on the rest of the tour. Lips and Rob (the two foundations of the band) took this 15 year old under their wing.
Years later, after Sacha had made it as a Hollywood writer he wondered, what ever happened to Anvil?
So he called, and was amazed to find they were still making music, had released 14 albums, but had had no critical or commercial success. 30 years with no success but they still believed in themselves and the band just as much as the day they formed it when they were 14. They are now 50.
So Sacha decided to make a film about them.
The thing that I found so great about it, is even though we can laugh at some of these aging metal freaks, I feel like it was all done in a loving way. I don't feel it takes the piss out of people for the sake of it which I think would have been an easy path to take. You begin to really care for Lips and Rob, and their families who support them. You are amazed at their commitment and hard work, and in particular, even with crushing set backs, the glimmer of hope that they always hold onto. I couldn't quite believe the way that you can be laughing one minute and in tears the next. And I mean literally in tears. You really, really want these guys to make it. So much so that when things do go right you feel like jumping up on your chair and screaming for them.
Anyway as you can tell I'm pretty fond of this movie. You couldn't have written better characters. What began for me as watching it for a laugh, possibly at Lips and Robs expense ended up with me, really respecting their ideals of friendship, family and hard work.
And I got this from two aging metal heads. Weird.
Anyway. See this movie.
It is a documentary about the band Anvil, A heavy metal band who should have been massive and had the respect of many of the biggest metal bands in the world musically, but somehow never made it.
Sacha Gervasi, the director of the film, had been one of their English fans when he was a teenager.
When the band had toured London, he had gone back stage and they asked if he would like to come with them on the rest of the tour. Lips and Rob (the two foundations of the band) took this 15 year old under their wing.
Years later, after Sacha had made it as a Hollywood writer he wondered, what ever happened to Anvil?
So he called, and was amazed to find they were still making music, had released 14 albums, but had had no critical or commercial success. 30 years with no success but they still believed in themselves and the band just as much as the day they formed it when they were 14. They are now 50.
So Sacha decided to make a film about them.
The thing that I found so great about it, is even though we can laugh at some of these aging metal freaks, I feel like it was all done in a loving way. I don't feel it takes the piss out of people for the sake of it which I think would have been an easy path to take. You begin to really care for Lips and Rob, and their families who support them. You are amazed at their commitment and hard work, and in particular, even with crushing set backs, the glimmer of hope that they always hold onto. I couldn't quite believe the way that you can be laughing one minute and in tears the next. And I mean literally in tears. You really, really want these guys to make it. So much so that when things do go right you feel like jumping up on your chair and screaming for them.
Anyway as you can tell I'm pretty fond of this movie. You couldn't have written better characters. What began for me as watching it for a laugh, possibly at Lips and Robs expense ended up with me, really respecting their ideals of friendship, family and hard work.
And I got this from two aging metal heads. Weird.
Anyway. See this movie.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
And she broke everyones heart a little....
So the Lyndallator(ha) and I went to a nice little gig on friday at Cafe Oto to go and see this young American Indian lass called Mariee Sioux.
For starters Cafe Oto is cool.
Its a small place with tables set up where you can get Japanese food, good coffee and booze. (although we had a boozeless gig as we were riding our bikes)
So it began with Alessi's Ark first, although without the Ark part, which I gather is her band and not a boat full of animals, so just Alessi then.
She was great. Really quite quirky, and the songs were all very short and very pretty. Quick fire bursts of pleasure with nice hooks that kinda made you want them to keep going. She also had a nice way of keeping the gig really light, with a few comical stuff ups where she would just stop playing all together, apologise, then have to remember where she was up to and keep going. It was also very hot in there and seeing this very softly spoken, hippie dress wearing girl wipe her forehead on her dress like a farmer on a hot day....if farmers wore dresses, well ,it looked pretty comical.
Next up was Rick Tomlinson. I liked him the most. He played two tracks, each one about 20-25mins long.
It was just him sitting in the middle of the stage, head bowed, with a guitar. He had the guitar plugged into a multi track sampler. So he began playing what is best described as spanish-old-west-folk-mexican style guitar, sampling a bit, playing some more, sampling some more etc etc etc etc.
He added beat samples in by banging the side of his guitar, and by the end of each track, you ended up with something that sounded more like Aphex Twin than folk music. Anyway I really enjoyed it, but felt like it was a funny choice of middle act for what was essentially a folk gig. I like music that changes slowly over time like that though(of course). When you get to the end you have no idea how you arrived at this sonic place from something so quiet and your brain tries to string together the middle part, usually unsuccessfully.
So then Mariee came on. I must admit I was pretty sure I wouldn't like her as all the stuff I have listened to is pretty cheesey, but she treaded the line damn well and stayed on the good side of it. I noticed that lots of her songs mention snakes though. I think perhaps all of them.
Anyway, she is a softly spoken and pretty girl, and you get the feeling everybody would probably like her even if she didn't play songs and just came up on stage and had a chat. But she did play songs. And they were nice. And I was in the mood for nice. It turned out her friend had just died and she used to play the last song she played with her all the time. She looked like she was going to cry when she sung it. It was heartbreaking.
For starters Cafe Oto is cool.
Its a small place with tables set up where you can get Japanese food, good coffee and booze. (although we had a boozeless gig as we were riding our bikes)
So it began with Alessi's Ark first, although without the Ark part, which I gather is her band and not a boat full of animals, so just Alessi then.
She was great. Really quite quirky, and the songs were all very short and very pretty. Quick fire bursts of pleasure with nice hooks that kinda made you want them to keep going. She also had a nice way of keeping the gig really light, with a few comical stuff ups where she would just stop playing all together, apologise, then have to remember where she was up to and keep going. It was also very hot in there and seeing this very softly spoken, hippie dress wearing girl wipe her forehead on her dress like a farmer on a hot day....if farmers wore dresses, well ,it looked pretty comical.
Next up was Rick Tomlinson. I liked him the most. He played two tracks, each one about 20-25mins long.
It was just him sitting in the middle of the stage, head bowed, with a guitar. He had the guitar plugged into a multi track sampler. So he began playing what is best described as spanish-old-west-folk-mexican style guitar, sampling a bit, playing some more, sampling some more etc etc etc etc.
He added beat samples in by banging the side of his guitar, and by the end of each track, you ended up with something that sounded more like Aphex Twin than folk music. Anyway I really enjoyed it, but felt like it was a funny choice of middle act for what was essentially a folk gig. I like music that changes slowly over time like that though(of course). When you get to the end you have no idea how you arrived at this sonic place from something so quiet and your brain tries to string together the middle part, usually unsuccessfully.
So then Mariee came on. I must admit I was pretty sure I wouldn't like her as all the stuff I have listened to is pretty cheesey, but she treaded the line damn well and stayed on the good side of it. I noticed that lots of her songs mention snakes though. I think perhaps all of them.
Anyway, she is a softly spoken and pretty girl, and you get the feeling everybody would probably like her even if she didn't play songs and just came up on stage and had a chat. But she did play songs. And they were nice. And I was in the mood for nice. It turned out her friend had just died and she used to play the last song she played with her all the time. She looked like she was going to cry when she sung it. It was heartbreaking.
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