fire and forget

WillsWideWeb tweeted this (via this guy)…

…which led to here. And that is the story of how I spent another day not listening to the radio and another day further out of touch with ‘the kids’.

Parry Grip is the chap from Nerf Herder (yeah, them off Buffy) and he has also put together a succession of insanely catchy spoof jingles and YouTube tunes. Here’s some more:

My favourite’s include We’re Gonna Beat Your Sports Team, Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels, and Theme From Robot Hamster.

I love how Theme From Bunny Rabbit could soundtrack a Michael Mann shoot-out — if wasn’t called Theme From Bunny Rabbit. Right, I’m off to get This Is My Ringtone on my iPhone.

Reading Kevin Sampson’s account of Awaydays’ decade in development hell goes to show what an achievement it was to get the film made at all.

On a personal level, I didn’t know the book was published the day before my 18th birthday. I do remember seeing it when it came out because I worked in a bookshop. I was drawn in by the great cover — Trainspotting-style design combined with cool trainers. When I read the back I went cold — it was about a young Tranmere fan on the Wirral! I was a young Tranmere fan on the Wirral! It was about a young Tranmere fan on the Wirral going to loads of cool gigs! I was a young Tranmere fan on the Wirral going to loads of cool gigs!

Now I learn the film will premiere on my actual birthday, March 5th 2009. I have to be there.

Best flyer ever:

Always up for a bit of ska-punk tomfoolery, even if it does mean going to Lewisham. And so:

The Display Team
Mayors of Miyazaki
Spandex Ballet
The Fox and Firkin, 316 Lewisham High St, London, SE13 6JZ [gmap]
Thursday 27th November 9pm

Florence and the Machine / The Mules
Koko 07.10.08

The Mules‘ angular gypsy-skiffle echoes across the cobblestones of fog-shrouded Old London Town, a deathly pale Ron Mael in undertaker’s garb creeping up behind you with a pale finger outstretched and quivering. Doomy piano stomp and spiraling violin, a troubadour of a drummer — if that’s even possible — and even a swerve into skewed boogie-woogie at one heady juncture: The Mules put the fun into funereal.

Florence and the Machine make a Russian doll of a racket. Florence Welch arrives like a glitter-flecked white witch, her enchanted voice filling the room like smoke curling in the morning sun, then clouding that very sun and punching you in the face. Every song unveils a new layer of bluesy, twinkly noise, Florence singing like Kate Bush on an assertiveness course and dancing like a dryad on her third snakebite and black. She may close with a song called Dog Days Are Over, but none of the spellbound crowd believe it for a second.

The theme to Sealab 2021, by Calamine. Because I can:

Just try to not play that again. I dare you.

First five pages of volume two of the magnificent Phonogram, The Singles Club at the Phonogram blog.

The first volume of Phonogram is one of the few things I had wondered if the creators had yanked all the stuff I wanted to write out of my brain and y’know, made it as good as it sounded in my head. The first thing I saw when I opened the trade paperback at random was a reference to Kenickie, and I just had to have it.

It’s about… well, when I finished it I opened Indiedisco, the story i’ve been writing, about a guy in the present day who looks back at his group of friends in the britpop era, full of smart cultural references to obscure yet glorious indie bands, and wrote this:

INT. THE RED DRAGON - DAY. NOW: JOHNNY, in white v-neck t-shirt and dark jeans, is sat by a small table on the bench around the edge of the pub, reading Phonogram. Mia, in black cap-sleeve t-shirt and black jeans, is slouched next to him reading a tattoo magazine with her plain black trainers on the seat. Her sunglasses, an untouched pint and a half-drunk vodka and tonic sit on the table.

JOHNNY:
FUCK.

Mia looks over.

MIA:
BIT RUBBISH, IS IT?

JOHNNY:
NO, IT’S GREAT. WELL, IT’S ALRIGHT. YOU KNOW THAT STORY I’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT WRITING, ABOUT A GUY IN THE PRESENT DAY WHO LOOKS BACK AT HIS GROUP OF FRIENDS IN THE BRITPOP ERA, FULL OF SMART CULTURAL REFERENCES TO OBSCURE YET GLORIOUS INDIE BANDS?

MIA:
YEAH.

Johnny holds up the comic.

JOHNNY:
WELL, THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A GUY IN THE PRESENT DAY WHO LOOKS BACK AT HIS GROUP OF FRIENDS IN THE BRITPOP ERA, FULL OF SMART CULTURAL REFERENCES TO OBSCURE YET GLORIOUS INDIE BANDS.

WITH MAGIC AND GODDESSES.

Mia makes a face, which Johnny reciprocates while still looking at the comic.

MIA:
FUCK.

JOHNNY:
YEAH.

MIA:
I HATE MAGIC AND GODDESSES AND SHIT LIKE THAT.

Of course, they’re totally different beasts. Phonogram is way sexier than me, for a start. And reading it did push me to push the pop cultural references in Indiedisco a bit more. It also made me let go of Britpop. Not bad for a funny book.

And while we’re on the subject…

The Beginnning Stages of… The Polyphonic Spree
Move Along All American Rejects
How To Operate With A Blown Mind Lo-Fidelity Allstars
Traffic And Weather Fountains of Wayne
Fresh Select compilation
Made In Britain Mojo compilation
The Winter Queen Boris Akunin
Luna Park Brett Easton Ellis
Barbarians At The Gate Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
JPod Douglas Coupland
Generation X Douglas Coupland

Somewhere between Doomsday and Sweeney Todd, Once More With Feeling and Moulin Rouge, skulks and spits…

Bit short of anything to write about, and I’ve just found my abortive attempt to think of something when my friend tried to convince me to pitch to Front (“BRITAIN’S FUNNIEST MAGAZINE”), so, for your amusement:

Dumbledore’s Beard - Other famous fictional characters who were blatantly gayers

I’m inordinately proud of that headline — the Dumbledore pun, not the use of the word ‘gayer’, please bear in mind I was trying to fit in with the style of the magazine

Mr Benn may have spent the daily nine-to-five as a straight-laced businessmen, but after-hours he dolled himself up and went on all sorts of exotic adventures.

…er, that’s it. Suggestions in the comments…

Mancrush: We know it’s wrong…

…but we still would. From Steve McQueen to Johnny Depp and Dave Grohl, we can’t help but see the ladies’ point.

On reflection the list would also include Simon Pegg, Pete Cashmore, Jason Perry and, I don’t know, Jack Bauer or someone.

So I didn’t blog ATP in a big, old media review like I did like last year. Partly because that involved scribbling notes at each show, in the dark, which was no fun for me, or the expert in ancient runes I had to hire to decipher them later. It also meant spending a hungover morning typing as fast as I could in the Butlins Internet Cafe, which should really be called the Butlins Swanky Gourmet Cuisine Maison Chez Internet, the prices they charged for the portions you get. Par for the course though, innit. This year, wireless was available in the chalet, but I wasn’t keen on paying silly money or trekking down to McDonalds for free WiFi, and besides I’d got Twitter working off my phone.

Yes, the very thing that eluded me before Reading last year was now working. Back then I went for Jaiku, which was great, except they’ve just removed everybody’s old posts to save space on the server. They will be restored, apparently, but in the meantime I am none the wiser as to what I was doing over last year’s August Bank Holiday.

Although it turns out I’ve been Twittering anyway, having synced up my Facebook status and forgotten about it. Which is also fine, but I’ve just added Twitter to my Facebook profile, which means whenever I update my status I have to Twitter as well so both boxes don’t say the same thing. Shouldn’t be an issue; of all my problems, not having anything to say for myself is usually way down the list.

So from hereonin, you’ll be treated to the sight of a drunken Rich, one eye squeezed shut, swaying with the effort of poking at my iPhone. And you’ll have the same amount of insight into what I was actual thinking as I do.

…now I have whomix.trilete.net, an entire website devoted to fan remixes of the Doctor Who theme tune!

Currently listening to nowt else, and probably never will. My attempts to find concentratin’ music — which saw a brief flirtation with, gah, classical — seem to be at end. Instead I will listen to endless trance mixes of Ron Grainer’s timeless theme. By far the best is the Zan Lyons-style grindo-industrial stylings of Mutagene with Jesus Built My TARDIS, followed closely by the sandpaper-trousered four-(to-doomsday)to-the-floor of Psypherium’s Fast Digital Electric mix, and the Depeche Mode-shagging Slow’n'Sleazy seduction by Anthony Perry.

Each of which can only be topped by the magnificence of Stephen Willis’ A Capella Who. Seriously, I don’t need anything else.

Islington Arts Factory

No power. No refrigeration. No lights. Candlelight and drums flickering… piano in the dark.

Chris Lyons inhabits a spellbinding space somewhere between Regina Spector and the Exorcist, the church in which we stand dislocated in the ether to stand jagged and proud on a glittering moon. Hairs on the back of the neck coruscate as we spin in the night.

Ahuman bring out the shamanistic qualities of When Doves Cry. We strain for every word. They inhabit the space and time so completely it’s near impossible to imagine them in any other context. Post Postmodern Anxiety Blues is a bit Alabama 3. Bowling Shoes is a bit like Just The One by the Levellers on the while legging it down the Golden Mile.

Portico Quartet sound a bit like they’re soundtracking your day if you’re Michelle Pfeiffer in The Witches Of Eastwick. Or something. The intensity is gone, and so am I, staggering into the sleeting rain.

I am sick of hearing about the death of the audio cassette. Silly season is obviously on the way because the London and national radio stations are jumping all over the news that Currys is to stop selling blank tapes and stereos with tape decks.

First off: so what? Woolies stopped ages ago but their PR officer obviously didn’t have the nous to tell the press - or maybe they did, but there was some of that, wotchercallit, oh yeah, actual news to report that day.

Secondly, there has not been a blanket ban on the use of tape cassettes punishable by death. Just one shop has stopped selling them. It does not mean that you will have to take all your tapes to the car boot sale. Anyone listening to tapes will have their lives impacted by this in, hmmm, preciselyno way at all.

And third: Currys? Hmmm, not sure… I know, I’ll go over the high street to Dixons and see if I can get better value there. Consumer choice in action. Except oh no, sorry, ‘fraid not, they’ve been the same fucking company since 1984 (oh the irony) hence the Dixons rebrand to currys.digital one year ago.

So actually, when I think about it, that is the essence of postmodern consumer choice: it’s all a fucking illusion.

The first ATP at Minehead, the Nightmare Before Christmas, lived up to its name with tales of huge queues haunting the holiday camp survivors. But the only queue I encountered this weekend was for the water slide, and so we begin Sunday with a long wait into a short blast down a plastic tube and a headfirst crash into a shock of blue. Oh shit, how do I swim again? Bracing… One circuit of the whirlpool and the last vestiges of last night are washed away.

A highlight: we encounter Josh Pearson, now recast as a spindle-shanked shaman of the wave machine, exhorting the bobbing faithful from two floors up. ATP!

Papa M holds a sizeable crowd spellbound with his tender balladeering in the Centre Stage. A gentle start to the day. Back to the penny arcade pavilion for the rough edged majesty of the Dirty Three, curators of the weekend. Warren Ellis is a wild-bearded prophet forging lightning from his violin while Jim White flails thunder from the drums, the gathering storm to end one hundred years without rain.

The storm breaks with Silver Mount Zion Orchestra. They’re billed for a whopping two-hour set, which just might be long enough to get through, ooh, about one and a half Godspeed You! Black Emperor songs, for three of those infernal scions are ascending this silver peak. Apocalyptic drama in this prosaic atrium of white polythene and winking neon, a call to prayer in the dying days, yea! Fiddling while the very heavens burn…

And they’re gone, well shy of the two-hour mark, yet the enormity of an eternity warps around me… although the effect is somewhat diffused by the bilious carpet beneath my brothel creepers and the vvvVVVVRRRRMMMmmmmm of the racing arcade game at my back.

Might as well go see Mary Margaret O’Hara then. A wilful, playful, twitchy puppet with her strings tangled and tied, she reduces lyrics and singing to wails and squawks and throaty glissando, even abandoning words completely on one song, the sounds pulled from inside her to her apparent delight and paranoia. A five minute warning spooks her so much she abandons Year In Song half-way through, and mutters and giggles the intro to a shambolic and smokily delicate version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow that collapses in on itself in a whisper, and then she skitters off stage. Christ. That’s ATP, man.

Tactical thinking (and laziness): eschewing Cat Power gets me in for the start of one of the most anticipated shows in the ballroomesque Centre Stage. Say howdy to Ramblin‘ Bill Callaghan’s gravel-on-a-tomb-lid-throated country’n'wistful, the highlight being a lollop thorugh A Man Needs a Woman or a Man to be a Man. An abrupt departure leaves the crowd wrongfooted, but it’s back to the sticky floor and Carlsberg while we wait for the second show by the golden-haired pixie with the silvery voice, and a weird way of singing out of the side of her face…

The adorable Joanna Newsom conjures wisps of silk and sawdust with her coruscating harp and swirling vocals. We’re entranced by her lilting tales of life and death and whisky and lace. We’re waltzing in a half-finished chapel beside a clear mountain stream, beguiled and bewitched. Well, I am.

After that, Mum Smokes sound y’know, alright, but this may just be the negative reinforcement in my brain of the worst, worst band name ever. It’s the red stage, it’s Sunday night, I don’t want to go home so I don’t. We gather for the last ‘act’ and the last act, the final curtain: Secretary.

Moist Paula Henderson is, by day, a secretary, and by night she is blows her horn… like some kind of crazy indie superheroine. She opens with musical typing, bashing out 100 words a minute of crashing beats. Yeahhhh, actually typing, on a MacBook, actually dressed as a secretary, and, like, when she types beats come out. And that telltale !ding! when she hits the end of the line. We hit the end of the line with this Secretary when she abandons the cute typing thing and pulls out - jaysus anything but that - a saxomaphone.

Chalet. Fast. Beers on board.

My last act unexpectedly screams in about now, a second, third and seventh wind arriving - ATP! - in one giddy rush of denial that this can’t be it! Not everyone has the spirit (the flesh is weak) so only a hardy pair abandon the chalet, and resisting the Tren Brothers‘ attempts to lull the world to sleep, we thrash out indiedisco nirvana in the Crazy Horse saloon for one last time. Thank you Minehead, and goodnight.

ATP!
ATP!
ATP!

Again! Again!

Hmm. I’m awake.

How did that happen?

Even feel quite well rested. Blimey I love this festival in a holiday camp lark: a bed! A shower! I made it into the former without really knowing how, but best to ask no questions as long as you made it, I find. And d’you know, I actually feel alright? This morning is one of those mornings after that you creep around, feeling vaguely suspicious, wary of that telltale first throb of hellish hangover.

But I’m still alright. I even eat some porridge. Then I eat a sandwich. Hey, maybe I didn’t have that much to drink last night after a-

ohdeargod!whatjusthappenedtomyhead!whyismybraintryingtochiselitselfoutofmynose!

I realise now that last night I may not have been at my most discerning. I can’t have been to have actually chosen to drink that much. So maybe it’s no surprise that the driving melancholy of Magnolia Electric Company sounds better this morning than they did last night, blessed with arching vocals and a restless heart. And afterwards, I don’t feel so bad at all. Bless you, ATP.

What comes next sorts everything out. Sally Timms is breathtaking, opening with a haunting and evocative scorched faery tale, buzzing with the weight of wonder. Then a hop skip and a jump of a gearchange to a selection of fractured folk hoedowns, driven by plinky-skippy beats and whispering toys in the dark. Aside from the harsh sound that plagues the Centre Stage, the results are sublime.

Back to the daylight and arcade neon for the unsung heroes of the weekend. There’s a full and devoted crowd in the pavilion for the unassuming magnificence of Low, the dwindling silver driftwood on a sea of silence.

Later, I hear only bad things about Jason Pierces’s Spiritualised Acoustic Mainline, which makes me feel OK that I sacked it off and hit the chalet, and spent some time taking down a brew, eating pizza and watching Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. And Doctor Who. Now that is a perfect Saturday afternoon.

At least until someone took Pat Garrett off halfway through. They did that last year an’ all, an infuriatingly scant ten minutes before the end of the hangover-melting Time Bandits.

So back on the broadwalk for the man we’re all here to see. Nick Cave, the prince of darkness, his satanic moustachio, has arrived. But it’s hard to imagine the crack of doom in a carrier bag propped up into a big top and stuffed with arcade machines. Red
Right Hand has a suitably loungy, almost calypsoid feel, but as the classics keep coming, there’s plenty of sturm and drang in this storm.

After a short break, Cave is back for a romp through his Grinderman racket. Depth Charge Ethel rocks, Honey Bee squalls, Grinderman (the dirge) kills the momentum, and Get It On sounds like the Mission Impossible theme played by sex-crazed cannibals.

After that it’s hard to get excited about The Scientists‘ performance. Sure, when they’re going they’re going, a steam piston of bludgeoning blood-red blues. But there’s too much time in between songs, too much standing around.

At some point tonight, I look out of my chalet window and see Deborah sitting in the next chalet over, so I call her up and say “I can see you,” and she freaks out. Heheheh.

On the red stage, and it is red, are Youpi Youpi Yeah, black-clad gallic groovepunks. They’d even be worth a singalong if I’d ever got past GCSE French. Better still are The Drones, the first this weekend to rock the fuck out, hell yeah! Agonised, wrenching, babbling heartbreak, drenched in feedback and fury.

By now the Carlsberg is copping it’s toll on my critical faculties so the rest of this review may be a bit of a bit underdeveloped. We Ragazzi are, kind of, like, quirkpop, or something, and have the fittest drummer. See? Top critical form.

…Sleeeeepppp…

Woke up in Woking. Pile in the car. Soundtrack: Paul’s ’90s tapes. Me: Who’s this again? every song, remembering every word. I sleep through the worst.

Skinny jeans are everywhere in Tesco. How much beer can we carry? Actually quite a bit, as it turns out.

Butlins, Minehead. Lacks the faded seaside glamour of Camber Sands, spiritual home of ATP. The stages are in the Pavilion, a bizarre cross between a big top and a motorway services. Can’t get our heads round it. There’s an Irish pub. We beer up. ATP!

Ian Wadley opens the festival, although it’s hard to tell when he stopped tuning up and actually started playing. “Is this what the music will be like?” asks a bemused Butlins barmaid. Ain’t heard nothing yet love. ATP!

Then Wadley gets going, pull back to reveal it’s the end of the world, Ry Cooder wailing atop a mountain of skulls. Wadley turns his back on the crowd to rock out, then it’s back to stage front, down on one knee, things briefly go a bit Cairo. I get out.

Fuck me, Nick Cave is standing right there! As close as I am to you… Nobody believes me.

It all starts to make sense when we hit the centre stage for The Only Ones. They’re late. We forgive them. It has been 26 years.

The contrast couldn’t be more marked between Peter Perrett’s emaciated frame and the muscular sound the Only Ones belt out. Perrett’s scuttling vocals sound great, and they’re so tight. Bit weird seeing them in what feels like a shopping centre. Hairs on the back of the neck time.

Meticulous timetabling goes out the window as beers get sunk.

Art of Fighting? Art of Pillow Fighting maybe. They only seem to remember they have an audience halfway through eachsong only to then forget again. Magnolia Electric Company are a bit country and that’s it.

Snapshots: Dancing to My Bloody Valentine in a room that feels like a wedding reception. Trying to get into our chalet without a keycard. Buying another pint. Where the fuck am I? Autopilot on. All goes black…

What’s the deal with record producers popping up in music videos? The charts seem awash with fat Yanks in 3xXXL white T-shirts contributing to the energy, rhythm and vitality of the song by, er, barking their own name, or skinny Dutchmen in shellsuits pulling faces.

Timbaland may be a master of jittery, skittery beats, but in the looks and charisma front he’s no Pharrell, lurking apologetically around his own video for Give It To Me, with him and Justin Timberlake like a bizarre race-swap version of the Easy Lover video where Phil Bailey dances all cool and then makes a sweaty, embarrassed Phil Collins dance like a balding little troll.

Jay-Z’s one of the worst for dribbling meaningless nonsense over perfectly serviceable intros. On Thriller, the (terribly-named) opening track of Fall Out Boy’s latest album, he spouts some nonsense about this album being dedicated to “anyone who said it couldn’t be done.”

Um, yeah, because there were loads of haters who were convinced that a hugely successful bunch of gauche emo whiners would never conquer the insurmountable odds to punt out another album of overproduced, vaguely hummable pop-punk supposedly produced by a coasting tycoon as a cynical gimmick.

Whatever happened to the Longpigs, Bennett, and Joyrider? Where are all the indiedisco heroes?

Well, to be brutally honest, they didn’t exactly light up that many indiediscos back in the mid-to-late 90s, but they were just three of the bands on heavy rotation in my halls of residence bedroom.

I’ve forgotten more bands from that time than I could name now, but as I sit here ripping my CD collection, wandering song by song through my halcyon youth at the wrong end of the country at the wrong end of Britpop, I’m listening to the Warm Jets and lamenting that my copy of The Longpigs’ Blue Skies has vanished.

I miss the Liverpool Lomax. The first time I went there was to see Silver Sun, if I recall, and Satellite Beach, or maybe it was Carrie, or both, supported, and became the first in a line of going-nowhere outfits bashing away in dingy half-full venues to me and my going-nowhere friends. Who are now engineers and policemen.

Which is a clue: as my boss, at the Tower Bridge office where I work, is a former member of Tiger. So that’s what happens to the denizens of the indiedisco, and the lords of the pub backroom. We grow up and get jobs.

Looking back, I can honestly say that was the last thing I expected.

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Mike Mikado - Hey Mr monkey it’s Page 9: or something

Ghosts – Stay the Night: swooning, stabbing horns

The Hours (the people that brought us the couplet “Ludwig Van/How I love that man”) - Love You More: love ticks the pop culture checkboxes

Kings Of Leon – On Call: haunting stuff

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Noisettes / Foals
ICA 29.01.07

Foals are uptight-strapped guitarslingers, a doomed spiral of repetitive Bloc Party-isms until they undergo a mid-song seismic gear-shift and suddenly it’s all Cossack! At The Disco and stomping good.

Noisettes are here to teeestiiiiiffffyyyiiiiii! They’re an evil universe Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a Skynard-style barroom band fronted by the wicked fairy that all the fairies in fairy school were scared of (but secretly fancied).

Decked out in goth-Tinkerbell rags and POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS guitar strap, Shingai Shoniwa belts out ‘Don’t give Up’ and ‘Scratch Your Name’ like a whirling dervish with sugarcoated wolf’s lungs. Just when you’ve got your head round the jerky gospel punk racket the Noisettes close with ‘Pub Life’, an oompah-driven atom bomb dropped on Oliver Twist’s fogbound London streets, and they’re gone gone gone. Please Shingai, can we have some more?