Friday 23 April 2010

"all that she wants is another baby"

and all that i want is, well a lot.

mixed with that is this very sad news story that i have just happened to find . here.
this is not a good sign, and with my weekly sign on in less than 3 hours time-i am less than happy to be trudging over to chatham to prove to the people there that i have been applying for jobs, which i have been-oddly i don't wanna be on the dole... but anyway, going to chatham is shite at the best of times but it is made even worse by having to walk into the job centre, more often than not [don't wanna sound too big headed, but fuck it] moving between people who can't string a sentence together, let alone work.

there is an element of being a work shy freeloader, i'm not gonna deny the fact that i am quite unsure as to i want to and can do. i have seen the dude in action innumerable times, and i'm quite sure that his less than active lifestyle and work ethic has in part rubbed off on me. but i also shall quote 'cigarettes and alcohol' by saying "is it worth the aggravation, to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for". i'm not in 100% agreement, there is so much worth working for, but i'm not going to work in telesales or some shite like that. i was looking at jobs with a bank, not something i'd particularly want to do, but any position there you have to be comfortable with selling people shit-mortgages, loans and stuff that people don't want and/or need! so why the fuck is it like that? why can't it be a case of helping people with their needs.

i'm not one of the nutters who thinks that adverts are wholly evil and disgusting etc etc, as long as there is at least an idea of artistic merit behind them i'm well up for it. but adverts, on the whole, must be for people who don't have any friends who have any idea of what an opinion really is. 'have you tried the such-and-such product mark?' 'no but a company who i've never heard of before tells me that it is' 'well let's have it for dinner', a simplified version there.

but i mean the guinness adverts are an example of absolute artistry really, as there is no way that any set of images can accurately depict how something tastes. unless i'm very much mistaken, this is impossible. i'm a slight sucker for a good advert [an example, go compare. no, go fuck your arsehole senseless with a 50 foot cactus], or at least glamourises a product. the peroni ad at the cinema is such an advert, as i love peroni [styled as the beer of italy. it's not, birra morretti is. also delicious] and in the advert they splash the azzurro blue everywhere, including over a model, scooter and car. but once again, it just looks cool.

i would do adverts for: guinness, apple products, the nhs, fred perry, waitrose, marmite, walkers crisps, converse, sennheiser products, bacon, fender, the bbc, dvds and my friends. i dunno if there is much demand for adverts about my friends, and dvds are also pretty well known in the western world-so probably not a huge need for me to adverts for them. at the end of the day bills need to be paid, and the god damn corporations pay for stuff. capitalist fascists yeah? wankers!

but anyway, i would take the money and run that i did for those things-i mean i like stuff, i am a filthy capitalist with a strong ethical trend which is expensive. probably quite ironically, i'd fund my [hopefully and increasingly] ethical lifestyle with money from the god damn corporations. delicious sweet and meaty irony.

advertising aside, i am still one of the dreamers who wants to get paid for doing stuff that they want on their own terms, or at least trading off/selling off as little of my integrity as possible. the clash [in their classic lineup] ran from 1976-1983, it was not until 1982 that they became profittable as a band, because they made sure it was done their way. this included telling fans not to buy a single or two as the recording company released them without the band's permission. idealists may not make profit and may perceive to have chips on the shoulders and sell outs for some things, but i would still like to be one. not a one-view rage against the machine type twat, who backs a hero who is a murderer [the truth is sometimes hidden away on the merky world of right-wing message boards].

moan over, can't remember my point at the start...

keep it rockin'

Friday 5 March 2010

rant rant rant

the second blog post in two days, some sort of record.

i am in a clash fan mood, entering the clash into my itunes search. after all the band's stuff, also included is lily allen's version of straight to hell. it is light and lacks what the original had, a great rhythm sound and the heart that strummer sings from. allen is all blaaady cockerney. bloody sparrow, wahey apples and pears.

her version is quote surreal in tone, i'd say. the light instrumentation and dark/thoughtful lyrics juxtapose. but her voice is all over the place, mick jones 'da da da da' in the background makes it sound unsettling, which is a good tactic but i'd suggest that m.i.a's brilliant track 'paper planes', which heavily samples the sound is more akin to the original.

it has edge and bite, and is used with tremendous effect in 'slumdog millionaire'.

my personal favourite version of the song is the terminal track on the clash's live album 'from here to eternity', where strummer is out of tune himself and then shouts at a member of the audience [heard singing awfully], "sing in tune you bastard!". something about that just hits me and makes me think.

anywho, rant. let's rant.
how can good [or 'good'] directors get away with some awful remakes. my prime example is the coen brothers, quite possibly my favourite director[s] and their wholly awful remake of 'the ladykillers'. admittedly i only saw it once about 5 years ago, but it was pathetic. the original is great and the coen brothers are great, however mash the two together and it's shite.

tim burton. i'm not a fan, i'll be honest. johnny depp and helena bonham carter can fuck off. let it go burton, just because you can work with them on every film you make, doesn't mean you have too. depp is good, but come on. maybe some of these 'weird and wonderful' projects should be kept in your head.

admittedly i have not seen 'alice in wonderland' and 'charlie and the chocolate factory', but neither do i plan too. the disney cartoon is so good, don't need a 3d mental over-budgeted remake in my life. i won't even see it for the spectacle. when it comes to charlie and the chocolate factory, i'm not going to waste my time. once again, the original is so so good. gene wilder is willy wonka in my eyes, so depp is pointless. simple as that.

don't even get kudos for trying, as trying is pointless. pointless i say.

ta ta.
keep it rockin'

Thursday 4 March 2010

the dole, screenplays and just being plain bored. evolving into a rant.

so work is still elusive, and having heard little back from a few people that i've sent a few things too. pretty bloody happy...

so yes, it is half 4 on a thursday. the delirium of being mentioned on twitter by an attractive actress is pretty much running thin now. still have the stupid waking up early, low but constant buzzing in my stomach and the biggest little fucker of them all. the flame of hope. that one i always the one that pisses me off. in fact, the flame is gently being pissed on and out by this brutish thug known as real life.

real life is in a constant, bitter and uneven fight with dreams. more like the burden of dreams, the hope that comes from the dreams themselves and how you can't/shouldn't give up on dreams. it's idiocy alright but idiocy rooted in something that you can't measure or entirely quash. if only you could.

started writing a new screenplay, based upon the aforementioned 'true' love that is emerging. once again it is heavily one, and will almost certainly be unrequited. the usual, back in the game. failing but back in it :)

screenplay has the working title 'this modern love'. dole male, actress female. love derived from twitter. win.

will most likely be a gigantic waste of time, but a good distraction from work. well looking for it anyway, it would be quite nice to re-install a sense of worth in myself. this 'self-respect' nonsense and to have a mental thing called money, as i am a filthy capitalist with friends in london, nottingham, cambridge and southampton who all deserve the torment of seeing my little face. it would be nice to gain money and lose some of my own time, and that WILL me more focussed to do things in my spare time such as sit and write and not amble and waste time.

i would quite like to have the wealth to employ a boss figure, someone to actually tell me what to do. i know i am such a child, especially when it comes to being an adult. [poo, bum, willy, bum, willy, bum, poo. that was a small poem i wrote as a child]

i have a strong fear of being one of life's also runs, stuck in a small town doing stuff i don't like for people i don't like and winding away my days doing sod all. i am very close to this now, so we'll see.

tell you what lifts me right up, the rolling stones. listening to their heavy [not metallica heavy, more lyrically] and bluesy tracks such as 'back of my hand', 'midnight rambler' and 'mona (i need you baby)' the rhythm and lyrics are often so strong that the guitar doesn't need to sound like clapton or beck or page [odd that the three finest guitars the uk has produced, make ott annoying music, and were all in the yardbirds. there is something about expertise, and taking it too far]. it's all subjective but the blacklist is:

muse,
kiss,
rage against the machine,
led zeppelin [mostly],
pink floyd [mostly].

these are the rock gods i don't like.

also what is it with female vocalists following ridiculous trends, amy winehouse broke the mould for female vocalists and now 400 have jumped up to take her place and imitate her. duffy, adele and paloma faith to name but three [the only three i can name but still...]. two are welsh, one's fat and one is a crap winehouse/gaga wannabe.

then you have marina from marina and the diamonds, she is strikingly fit, but her voice. christ. it is the most annoying i've heard in a long long time . 'she is a polish girl in america...', she is trying to fit every single note on the singing register in just two lines, fuck off! florence welch is ace. ida maria is ace and regina spektor is amazing. all have a great pop sound but i realised that there is a difference [a massive one] between pop music and chart music.

r.e.m., the smiths, the pipettes, ida maria and the len price 3 all have quite a poppy sound. but all are still relatively small [except the first two, point remains...] but of course they [we shall take this to just mean to last 3] won't break the chart when it is currently dominated by: kesha, rihanna, jason derulo [i have 100% no clue who he is], sugababes, chart-dizzee rascal, jls, alicia keyes, timbaland etc etc.

admittedly i don't listen to the radio much, but when i do it is only 6music. i mean the radio 1 playlist is soul destroying, whenever i have heard more than one show, the same songs are repeated until for-fucking-ever.

i shall swing relatively blindly here, so shall just reference the readers of this to all versions of the clash track 'capital radio', riles against bland radio music. it is true and brilliant.

i am tired now and should go back to whatever i was doing, can't quite remember what that was.

listen to the clash.

keep it rockin'

Wednesday 6 January 2010

i have an hour to kill. or welcome to 2010

the word anythink. honestly, for fuck sake. there was a group on facebook, that one of my moron school 'friends' joined called 'i can't think of anythink good to talk about but i wanna talk to you'. whenever my spelling or grammar is incorrect it is down to the fact that i don't proof read and i can't be bothered. much like this, to be able to play piano badly you have to play well, and the same for me with typing. dudley moore was excepted into cambridge on a music scholarship, and les dawson borrowed the bad piano playing from him. playing a well known piece a semitone out or whatever is from dudley moore's exceptional songbook.

anyway, i bring this up in reference to how the people who set up that group think that 'anythink' is a word, how the school system has failed them. but i imagine [sweeping generalisations] that journos [yeah, i know all the phrases] at tabloids are actually quite accomplished writers and not-too-secretly want to kill themselves when writing stories using words like cops and tots. it's police and toddlers, you cunts. also as a way of setting the world to rights, we british wear dinner jackets and not tuxedos. i am pretty sure that i have bemoaned this fact before, but the strong americanisation of the uk really does piss me off. americanisms such as 7/7 are a FUCKING travesty, they maybe happy with calling the september 11th terrorist attacks 9/11 but i do not like 7/7 as a name, it doesn't sound right.

also, i was watching the most annoying people of 2009 on BBC 3 [i know, i am culture incarnate] and richard bacon said that the death of michael jackson was the biggest news story of the decade. no. of the year 2009, quite possibly. biggest entertainment news story of the decade, quite possibly. biggest new story of 2000-2009, no. my immediate thought was 9/11 [i use this as it is an american phrase and shorthand], as the murder of nearly 3000 people in 3 orchestrated attacks by some pissed of muslims [oh wait, what am i on about. it was an inside job, george w bush signed the papers for it. i'm the idiot! also as a side note, michael moore in 'fahrenheit 9/11' accuses bush of doing nothing when he hears the news. i'm not a bush fan, but come on! he just heard that 3000 people have been systematically murdered in the worst terrorist attack ever. what didya want him to do michael moore? honestly i can't think of anything that would have helped the situation. michael moore, you are a twat. he says ends justify the means, so i violently murder you as my objective is to silence you, the ends of silence justify the murder. dick]

anyway, 9/11 led to wars in afghanistan and iraq [resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths], the overthrow of a dictator, the questioning of what is a 'just war', the hatred of the biggest leaders in the world and the planet being on the brink of a religious war. but the death of a black/white oddball entertainer is more important than all that i have stated above. someone i know commented on my facebook saying that we are yet to see the 'bigness' of the death of mj. still, really it's not gonna cause wars. also as another news event, boxing day tsunami which killed 1/4 million people, isn't as important as the death of mj-i don't know that the world is coming too.

a short list of entertainers that i feel are more important than mj that died 2001-2009.
george harrison 43-01
joe strummer 52-02
johnny cash 32-03
joey ramone 51-01
johnny ramone 48-04
dee dee ramone 51-02

these are just a few i can name off hand, i could research it but if i'm honest the death of joe strummer overshadows that of mj by a hundred miles. strummer-good guy and generally nice, jackson-possible paedo and race changing man. questionable.

so 2010. you are welcome into the lives of 6.8 billion people! what is in store: world cup in south africa, which i am actually and genuinely looking forward too. should be epic, i do love world football. it's an excuse to get pissed and watch football, or just the latter. but i do love fighting too.

i successfully wasted the sufficient time yesterday, as i had an important appointment. it was a lunch meeting at tesco, the usual meeting place for myself and miss mpjc. i had a cream coffee [cream tea with a coffee, obviously], scone [pronounced as it is spelt. that is fact, how you would say cone, but with an s in front] with clotted cream and jam. twas ace.

and i had a steak for dinner, with potatoes and peas. there was blood on the plate. medium-rare, purely by luck. genius!

i downloaded three songs by the kills that i didn't have and started watching blackadder goes forth. it is possibly the best single series ever, maybe even better than the day today. maybe.

anywho, best be off to reply to other bits. as a sidenote, the most potentially realistic superpower that i would like is the inability to speak every language in the world. well all the best ones anyway :) ta ta

keep it rockin'

Wednesday 2 December 2009

a green and grey wristband [part 2]

so this the big follow-up, the difficult second album. listening to the kills' second album [in my opinion it is their weakest but still great] and have the context of having emails unreplied too which is a tad annoying, i'll be honest. as well as this i have cracked the thick of it, i am up to date and ready to join in the frivolities of discussing it length in the future-rather than pretending to have seen it. you always look like an arse when people are talking about a film and you for no real reason say that you have seen/heard what is being discussed.

observational comedy, i bloody love it. just like peter kay, rola cola/rain and the big light. genius. anyway...

onwards to get to the point of this post, the isle of wight festival 2009. my first festival, and so far my only one. the reason i got going to the festival in the first place was due to browsing nme.com whilst not doing work/reading for my dissertation and seeing that the pixies would be playing, as would the prodigy.

a small and muso and geeky note here, the prodigy and the pixies. the prodigy are called the prodigy, whereas the pixies are actually called pixies. it really annoys me when people get band names wrong: you wouldn't call the beatles just beatles, and you wouldn't call led zeppelin, the led zeppelin would you? it is partly phonetics and grammar but it's a small the when referring to the pixies. as in the Pixies and not The Pixies. this is nonsense but at least i have removed it from my chest.

so yes, i urgently phone my brother as he was to be the person who told me to listen to them in the first place, and as a kind gesture about this time last year we still hadn't found upon a suitable gift for my 21st birthday-and so we put these two things together and so we would go to the festival together.

i awoke from a short sleep after getting home from the soton gradball only probably about 5 hours previously and so had a resolve and a shower. resolve tastes awful. for the record, and i can't really say that it really cuts through a hangover as promised by popular culture. but anyway feeling quite rough i got up and finished packing my bags that i was too excited to finish packing the night before. i hopped onto a bus and met my big brother at southampton central station. excited, tired and hungover i waited outside the station, even though he had previously stated by text that i wouldn't be able to miss him anyway. this was true.

looking like a nutter, he was kitted up in a fluorescent jacket from his site work. i must explain, he is the one of two [with me being the other, weird that...] sons who had a proper plan as to what he would do with his life. from gcse's took the correct education to become a chemical engineer, which indeed happen. with a degree from gimperial college you would expect him to be employed fresh out of uni, this was true.

he was also clutching our tent, and he said that when on the bus in london the driver asked him whether it was a bomb. personally i love this idea, overt terrorism-let's not hide anything. have a massive bomb being carried by a man in a fluorescent jacket. al-qaede would have reached a new low.

after waiting around at the ferry place we were the first onto the ferry and so just flopped into [each other's arms? no, incorrect. stop being weird] the first seats we saw as we got on. i whipped out the waitrose lunch that i had hurriedly purchased before getting the bus into town. i don't travel well on ferrys, and also i have a crap track record of school coach travel too-however despite feeling like a twat from the night before, when i proudly told my pissing on a bus story to my brother [he was less than impressed] i was not sick at all on either ferry journey to or fro from the island. i remember a previous time we got the ferry to isle of wight for my dad's 40th birthday, choppy seas that time meant that i kept a close eye on the toilet bowl. several times. nasty stuff, as well as school trip's to the continent-where i magically found what i had just indulged in sprayed back into the toilet. in lumps.

dairy milk, that's the main memory from year 9 trip to aachen. feeling fine then eating a lot of it, then seeing it again a matter of two minutes later in the toilet. what a good journey. however once properly there i just remember eating pink panther wafers and tomato ketchup crisps in the youth hostel as the other food was awful, brilliant times :)

but on the bus having arrived on the island, we sat on top behind a group of fucking bellends. honestly, cunts. also the funniest thing was the 'lads' had a typical pedantic whipping boy, who didn't quite fit into the group but still was 'welcome' in the group as he mainly organised everything for the rest of the wankers. my brother and i looked at each other and hoped that these utter nutters, wouldn't be representative of the whole festival. they weren't, thank christ.

after we [i say we, but if i'm honest i was as ever 'gloriously useless' and so just got in the way and got rightfully shouted at] put up the tent, we went for a stroll around the site. it was bloody lovely weather, and as we had set up on the thursday the place was just warming up and people were like us setting up. finding the main food paddock, my brother had now gained sufficient experience of the palce to say that it wasn't as good as glastonbury. he said this only a few times, but it felt like a constant nitpicking. but anyway, i lept to buy a pizza as i was fucking hungry and as we had only brought snack bars and custard creams.

it was good, but it was like £8. i had expected pricey prices, but these prices were indeed that. i also had to buy a toothbrush as i had forgotten to bring one-as i am an official oaf. also as it was a thursday there was no real music on, having checked on the efestivals site aparently the human league were playing on the thursday night but alas we did not attend. i do believe we just played shithead and rested our tired little bodies and minds. to be fair we were 21 and 25 at the time so we are pretty old. i am now a year older [clearly not, that'd be awful maths] and i can imagine that we'd do much the same thing.

so on the friday evening, and by god tiem passes slow when you're with only one person and it is hot and you can't be bothered to get up, and the only beer to buy is fucking carling. honestly, no one likes it-so why the blazes [yeah! i'm old skool like that] is it still available to buy?! i'm not even joking or being sarcastic, i know of no-one on this fair planet who would want a pint of it. it's shite! the only place that it gets regularly chugged is in students unions and also at the tap'n'fuckin'tin, in snakebites.

i have a personal vendetta against this drink. i was watching a programme on beauty in art the other day [yeah, i'm cultured-sue me] and he said that people often pursue vendettas against something that they themselves felt wronged by, and or tricked into believing. i believe this to be true, i despise the idea fervant atheism and also socialism/communism-and i used to be a very hardened [naughty naughty] believer in each-so phrase holds true. but in the first year i remember being bored and wandering down to our jcr bar [it was shit, much like my accommodation and much of my first year in general] and sat and drank 6 pints of snakebite [1/2 lager, 1/2 cider, black currant]. i thought it was cool.

i woke up the next day with the majority of it in a handily and soberly placed bucket by the side of my bed [i do this, i clear a path and make sure 'drunk andy' is safe. this reminds me of a time when we were out in chatham, my friend chris riley got out an extra note and hid it in another section of his wallet, as he knew that when drunk he'd fail to remember where it was and thus not spend too much. i can't remember if he did spend it or not, nutters...] but also a very considerable amount on my duvet and also pillows. that smell is fucking rotten, and so i shall never have a pint of that shite again. and it was made with half carling and half strongbow. massively disgusting, but still at 19 you think you're pretty cool, and that drinking is still well cool. ah, young times.

so back to the isle of wight in june, the biggest act that we were to see on the first real day would be the prodigy in the evening. the weather stayed rather lovely for the entire festival-only a smattering of light showers. so on the friday, more time was spent wandering the place, absorbing the atmosphere and all that sorta jazz. i remember that we got there as the ting tings were ending-not a massive loss. not really a big fan of their simpleton music, shut up and let me go. i am quite probably a music snob, but i simply don't like their uber-simple sound and how they seem to have nothing other than some twat on drums with raybans and a stuck up little bitch singing about nothing.

but we were in the main stage area for a while, as on the other stage were a number of classy female acts-it would have been interesting to see the noisettes as i have heard they are good [they were playing on the big tent, the other stage]. instead we both listened with intense awe to the quite brilliant, wholly original and totally 'not' boring. i do strongly dislike them, and for what i think is a very good reason. in the second year, i had their second album pumped through my floorboards constantly [and i do mean constantly, every single minute] of a weekend. the same annoying d'n'b rhythm with some arsehole wanking onto a keyboard, and also a deformed keytar player on stage. i mean really, they played their top 20 hit-a cover of voodoo people, a cover of THE band of the day. it was ok, but by the end of the day we knew [as if we didn't already] what a fuck-off good band was.

no-one seemed to properly like them, and so all the morons who did like them were up the front dancing like twats but all the normal people were staking our places for later. after the aussie wank bags were basement jaxx, again pretty uneventful. i think they lose some of their prowess [which they may or may not have] on the large stage, and also played a one minute clip of sex on fire, with a bunch of whooping morons going 'yes, this song is amazing'. it isn't, it's overplayed, overproduced and it isn't the kings of leon that many people [oddly, including myself] love. it's shite!

jaxx played the hits, which was nice but still i shall move onto the prodigy.

having discovered their setlist on the nme website, i feel refreshed. it was a great set as they mixed a lot of old with a few new classics [their album invaders must die has got some great songs on it. i didn't even know that warrior's dance is off the album, i thought it was an older classic. brilliant!] i never knew how commercially successful they were as well, at least here in the uk. they have had like 16 top 20 singles and 4 number 1 albums. well done lads, the outsiders are doing it. only the fat of the land album has done anything on the us charts, and it is an exceptional album. they played breath, firestarter, diesel power and smack my bitch up off of it. until the day after the day after, possibly the finest setlist ever. also, neither my brother or i were very drunk but still having a bloody good time-a few people were dancing around quite a bit and purely by accident knocked into me, only a tad. and despite being drunk and drugged-they were hugely apologetic and kept saying sorry, even though we were all fine. it was great, at some gigs i simply want to stab them.

at ian brown on friday there were a few annoying cunts, and also a really weird man. he knew all the words and kept nodding his head [and no i'm not talking about ian brown. god that is HILARIOUS!!!] and nearly hit this poor guy in front, he was only a teenager and looked frightened. to be fair, so would i-the guy looked like an utter nutter. the teenage guy walked away... also at the gig, a really quite attractive female [i would say about 25 years old?] kept smiling at me, it was nice :) chances are that she was smiling at a tall and dashing professional who was standing behind me, but still. probably didn't help that i caught her on the back of the head when i danced like a twat to fool's gold. smooth haha

but yes the prodigy were amazing, the people were quite very friendly and i thought that this really is festival life. it was a great friday night, as we returned to the tent and that was the first day over with really. on the saturday, i believe we didn't do much. time seems to go really slowly when you are in a tent... ipod batteries run out quite quickly and the solar power charger takes ages to work, and as a not to keen reader i remember spending hours sitting and waiting for the time to pass. a bit dull but still.

headlining on the saturday night were the stereophonics, whom we didn't really see as we were both tired and maybe getting a tad irritated with each other's company [i know this sounds odd, but it is possible for siblings to fall out-especially if you spend around 70+ hours in each other's sole company. i know, very odd] and the fact that there weren't really any acts that we wanted to see that day we just found new ways to wind each other up, i can't remember anything specifically but you know how it can be.

fuck the waffle, as i do eventually want to finish this. i mean i have sod all else to do instead, but it has taken for fucking ever.
pixies on sunday were the best. i mean actually the best gig i have ever been too, the crowd singing to where is my mind and dancing to debaser. 10/10.

got up at 5am on the monday to pack away. got home and was very very tired. done. sorry for the rushed ending, but losing ability to function means that i have lost faith in this elongated post.

keep it rockin'

Sunday 29 November 2009

a green and grey wristband [part 1]

i am currently watching a fine young film. odd phrase to use, and the word 'young' is totally unnecessary and pointless. this must be a new record for me to bore myself and more than likely too. so...

i am watching high fidelity, possibly the coolest film in my collection. this may not be the case, but any film where the boss makes a cameo has got to be pretty damn good. the film is quite clearly the finest romcom ever and is smart, geeky, funny and seemingly realistic. the realism aspect doesn't really apply to me, relationships are pretty much still alien territory. fucking hell, i know how to waffle.

after a good conversation with my brother, he brought up the fact that i am still wearing my isle of wight wristband-and having had a pretty full on drinking evening reminded me of wednesday 10th-monday 15th. i believe that i have only in part mentioned these momentous few days :)

wednesday 10th. twas a long day, but also a very fitting tribute to my uni people. there were about 12 or so of us who went to the cowherds on the outskirts of the southampton common. i was wearing my cool look which included a surprisingly good value for money jacket from primark. and a good time was had, it was film people and also the occupants of 30 shakespeare avenue-it sounds similar to the last supper but with a lot more meat, beer and laughs. they had peroni on tap, this made me smile like a tit and seeing everyone dressed up in their suits, boots and roots [reference to a song that i can't remember at the moment-annoying]

but i remember walking from the pub up to the uni, ready and waiting for a time to be had. and it would.

several weeks earlier, we [can't remember exactly who, at least me and and another] were in the avenue and my tall and silly-willy friend chris was checking his emails and he announced to us that the streets would be headlining the gradball. this was met by a whoop of happiness from myself, and so it was set that on 10/06/09, the almost final gathering during termtime would be the culmination of the year. a bloody expensive one but it was set.

so on the coach we hopped after i believe not too long we were in the grounds of a big house just outside of eastleigh, there was a big top and fuck off queues for everything. it was very easy for people to get lost within the venue-i happened upon a number of people a number of times, purely by chance. texting was futile as we were all basically like excited children and it was a funfair with rides and everything. i failed to go any rides, smooth. in all honesty i didn't want to and never actually tried to, it was about finding people, smiling and finding a place to piss was my priority.

some person was warm up for the streets, can't remember who. twasn't the best, but anyway we were down near the front so that we were placed well for the streets. at this point i believe i had stumbled upon miss k sloan and her boyfriend who happens to share my exceptional name. she was drunk and it was the first time that i met andy, she failed to introduce us. the next day a received a text from her apologising for abusing my ears during the gig, i said it was great fun and not to worry. also i mentioned that andy had helped to break up a fight midway during the gig-she hadn't a clue that it had happened, as to quote the brent-meister 'was a little bit drunk!' but it was all good. during the wavering during the gig, managed to find a number of other friends-namely everyone. also i had my largest brush with success with a female at uni. she has previously got a mention as the annoyingly voiced sexy siren from the film and music library, and i squeezed her bottom. naughty naughty as james would say. it is quite tragic that is the best i got, but there we go. makes me smile in a way!

so yes, back to the streets. rather bloody good, turn the page is always a treat and with a bunch of drunk friends having a laugh, twas epically good. also his version of blinded by the lights moved into a dance number at the end. thus dancing like idiots.

after the gig we were all having a chat and getting drinks in and hello, who passed us by. only bloody mike skinner, so myself and phil horrocks [aka horcrux, this is a reference i have only 'got' having researched it. harry potter. exactly what all the cool kids too] gave chase and managed to each shake his hand and get pictures with him, neither of the pictures came out and so it was effectively pointless haha still we can say that we met him, fucking epic win! also he asked us if we had, or knew anybody, who had any vitamin e. what did he mean? he walked off into the rain as we smiled and returned to the group.

after the streets [so technically they weren't headlining, still...] scott mills was dj'ing. can't remember which songs he played, but we were chatting away and drinking, and for some reason i remember popping out of the main tent area to go for a slash-behind the toilets on the waterlogged and pisslogged ground. there was a small area between the barriers and the bogs, and as males can piss standing up there were a number of us doing thus. the area was closed up soon after this piss.

jumping to the journey, there was pretty much all of us at the back of the bus. i was sitting next to mr roland taylor, and i couldn't hold in a piss. i was at that time sitting aisle side and so swapped with roland. and as i couldn't see myself holding it in, i slyly went for a wee against the side of the bus-much to the shock and amusement of a number of my friends. we were only about 5 minutes from the destination, but still upon exiting the bus the piss had ran along the length of the bus and had also ran across the width of the bus. in streaks.

as we got off, phil called me a legend. the party was due to continue at the house of lena/jez/franzi and ben however i had to very sadly refuse due to commitments that shall be explained in part two. now i must play guitar and attention to the brilliant film-walk the line :)

keep it rockin'

Wednesday 18 November 2009

albums and that

as an avid music fan and a lack of real money i rely upon nme.com to supply with info on music, i wish to be able to buy q/uncut/clash/mojo but they are sillyly [this word is now official. in the dictionary and everything. bruv] expensive for what they are [paper with ink on it].

but they are running a poll [this is incorrect, it has already been run] about the 100 greatest albums of this soon to end decade. believe it or not it began in 2000, which seems a long time ago [9 years or so? roughly? sorry this post will be littered with brackets as i am in a mood to destroy true english. by using silly square brackets. and. too many full. stops. sorry!]

but anyway, their idea got me thinking. by this i clearly mean i stole their ideas, and wandered which albums i would place in my top 'no certain number' list [as let's be honest i mostly live in the 60s/70s and look upon anything from since then as gibberish]. i was contemplating whom would make it in. i thought that artists who have only existed in the 2000s are cheating really, the libertines/the streets/kings of leon/regina spektor/the kills etc, as they failed to make albums in other decades. but each of these bands each contribute at least one album-however i could probably make a top 20 list solely based upon these home boi peeps... [and they do make up pretty much all of the list]

so. here goes, in no particular order with my favourite albums of 00-09:
songs for the deaf - queens of the stoneage
streetcore - joe strummer & the mescaleros
the dead 60s - the dead 60s
aha shake heartbreak - kings of leon
original pirate material - the streets
begin to hope - regina spektor
the libertines - the libertines
take off your pants and jacket - blink-182
silent alarm - bloc party
midnight boom - the kills
up the bracket - the libertines
in rainbows - radiohead
a grand don't come for free - the streets
seldom seen kid - elbow
youth and young manhood - kings of leon
kid a - radiohead
a weekend in the city - bloc party
the back room - editors
the man comes around - johnny cash
hail to the thief - radiohead
keep on your mean side - the kills
grace/wastelands - peter doherty
don't believe the truth - oasis
amnesiac - radiohead

thats 24 different albums from 16 different artists, sorta cheating as previously said. only the libertines have ALL [two] of their albums on the prestigious list that at least 1 person will read. that person will be me, very soon forgetting how awful the spelling is and thus checking it out. but there is a list that is pretty much unrivalled and in no real order. i couldn't really name an overall favourite [not that you'll lose sleep over it] as it isn't really a case of a king amongst men from the above list, but there are about hundred songs from that list that are really very good. wow, i am beginning to bore myself.

who am i kidding? the sound of my own voice [i actually 'sing' the same sounds that my macbook (should get some money off apple for that plug) keyboard makes as a i type. crazy] is what keeps me alive. off i pop :)

keep it rockin'