this, that and this again

i've been having a but of a reminisce recently, due to my music listening becoming more stagnant... pixies, the streets and the prodigy.

i also have a massive yearning for mexican fast food, as this is once again part of the reminiscy-package haha more references will be abundant! but the fast food and the good music, apart from pendulum.

they are an annoying bunch of arses who make drum'n'bass that is just middle of the road and poppy. tarantula and all that bullshit. i simply don't like them, at iow they played their version of voodoo people and it was dull-a matter of hours later the boys came on and did the original and dear god it was good :)

the main reason that i went to iow was due to the pixies but also my brother needed another reason for funding both of our tickets [cos he is nice to me sometimes, so that he can also still wrestle me and breath vinegar breath in my face like a grown up 25 year old should do] and the reason came in the form of the prodigy.

they were 9/10, a dark field with a fucking loud sound system and a loud of people who i suspect may have not been just drunk :P they played mainly the hits [tits] and also stuff off invaders must die, which sounds quite similar to pendulum but they are also a lot lot more betterer than those aussie wankers.

only the pixies could better them, and they pretty much did. but this is only because they were the finest band i've ever seen live, and i've seen waking aida!

but having realised i've not yet blogged on the festival i thought i'd burn your eyes and ears regarding how good it was. saw blur a few weeks ago and i was informed by a friend that it was her favourite gig ever-but she doesn't particularly the pixies but she does like muse. ignore her views then.

i'm fortunate enough to be seeing the pixies again in october, an occasion will make me go a bit week at the knees. they are playing all of their incredible 1989 album doolittle, so much happiness will occur.

cheese on toast time.

we don't have any cheese left. sad banana times. in fact this isn't completely true, we have some edam but thats just not cheese is it! i just had a roule sandwich, best of a bad situation.

this fucking band. i won't say anymore, but simply it is tripe. awful awful business.

integrity and being pop is a very interesting/contentious issue within music. i say because of my feelings on the latest kings of leon album, it simply isn't up to scratch. it is such an annoying sounding album, to my ears it sounds like they have buckled and gone-lets make some money. they sound more like u2 than they've ever tried to before. use somebody is a good song, but the bass sound is shite! it sounds like they've got flea to do it for them, this is not the kings of leon. as my good friend matt noted as well, the track 17 is a xmas song for christ sake and he is getting equally annoyed at them after seeing a pair of teenage girls sit in front of him at the o2 who only went to see them play sex on fire and he said that scores of people in the audience who weren't singing along to anything before only by the night.

i'm not sure about this, they are slipping from being brilliant to being middle of the road. however they've promised fans [like i and not radio 1 listeners] that the fifth album is a return to the bluesy background they come from. yes please.

i feel that i'm becoming more vitriolic in my growing annoyance towards some people and their views on the beatles. let it go, just a band. and get a tad dull.

i realise the hypocrisy here, but the beatles do start to bore me. stones have so much more attack and nastiest. i prefer them, they are not better [the term better is stupid, i like looking at some polls that rank bands as i just disagree every step of the way].

to bed, more in the future.

keep it rockin'

the cunt and the veteran

bono.

end of. but not the end of, obviously!

my friend chris had as his facebook status "[name] wants to know why it wasn't Bono. It's never cocking Bono." on the day that mj died. i wish the man wasn't so much just of a fucking arsehole :)

example of this is when is when u2 covered beat on the brat, the ramones classic off their first album. i mean the original is just a powerful song that reflects the revved up nature of basically new york teenagers high on glue and wanting to dance, and the u2 version is destroyed by bono's vocals-the rest of the music sounds ok, a bit plain but a guitarwankery version of the song would be even worse.

ramones version

u2 version

he just sounds like a poo.

another example of bono and how people dislike him, when i was watching the future is unwritten [ joe strummer, who's dead, documentary] his annoyingly little face made an appearance and the two middle aged guys in front of me said words to the effect of-what a fucking cunt! which was nice... i laughed to myself as i quite agree with them, but also they did interrupt the film for a bit, but then again they were right.

he also popped up in a lil documentary on the pixies, it was like i can't escape the man. also pixies supported u2 on one of their tours-the wrong way around, by far. i like some of their music, but still pixies made nirvana/radiohead/placebo etc etc.

in other news, the world's oldest man henry allingham has died at the age of 113! thats pretty mental, i've been doing a bit of reading up on him and he sounds like he was an incredible man :) i can't fathom living through through 3 centuries, fighting in a war and more stuff... i haven't done much reading up on him and i'm tired so won't go on, but the guy was good!

small piece-on bbc news website frontpage, "Lenny Henry: My big surprise for Dawn", what is the surprise? he's actually fun?

no.

done.

keep it rockin'

language and battery

i am currently listening to some vintage 21st century punk/rap in the form of transplants debut album. i enjoy it muchly, thats why i'm listening to it-obviously.

in the past few days i've allowed myself to slip into a two year old crater, i shall not whinge about this as it is totally my fault and all that blar. i shall begin with an attack on poor grammer...

see what i did there? grammar not grammer, i wented to a grammar school. but anyway yes what annoys me about facebook is that people have some terrible grammar and spelling in their statuses [stati?] and i can say that i'm now paying a lot more attention to my own as it really winds me up... i don't know why, as i have just stated i'm by no means perfect but [tries and fails to cite an example of bad grammar... well done] is just terrible.

point unproven. but also within the media [bbc news website, as its basically all i look at] and the spoken word, there are too many americanisms! the 7th july terrorist attacks are just that, they are not 7/7... i cannot stand this phrase, its an ugly and horrible journalistic term and has taken such a massive cue from september 11th [american date here, please note this] and the subsequent squirming to save column inches by journalists who wish to call it 9/11.

examples that i don't like hearing, and if i do i might go a tad mental, butt [no thanks, its arse/bum], ass [same, arse/bum], oh my gosh [say god-baby talk is boring], you do the math[s] and the final and most annoying one, tuxedo.

fuck off. we british people say dinner jacket, you've watched too many movies [another word i dislike, put that on the list. its lazy and sounds like a childish and retarded form of moving pictures-which is what it is] from across the pond!

'oh that is a nice dinner jacket john'

'thank you jane, you look pretty fucking fit in you're dress too' see this is a prime example :)

i was going to say something else, but i can't remember what. wee wee and then a hopefully triumphant return.

success, i remembered! stop sweating your little butts...

corporal punishment and the police. i'm not 100% behind heavy handed control of rioting crowds, but i'm genuniely happy that they beat the rich and the hippies... this of course relates to the separate occasions where the police beat the living shit of the countryside alliance people and also hippies on annoying mayday things. but which is brought up as a breach of human rights? hippies.

nothing is made of hitting some well off people, as they deserve it as everyone is on the moral highground as they don't like hunting [obviously] despite more than likely not eating all the free range and/or organic meat on the market [quite broad sweeping].

but some smelly annoying people who do nothing but smoke weed [sweep, sweep] get a battering from police and amnesty international weep like they are animals. as you may have guessed, this is once again non-sensical... but basically my rough point is the police should hit no-one, but if they must do it, hit everyone.

i want to moan about suburbia, but i'm now watching south park [a 10/10 show]

keep it rockin'

sellers and more

is it wrong that i'm already thinking about what i could put in my autobiography? the reason for why is that i watched 'the peter sellers story' an epic documentary over three parts and three hours, i downloaded it off the internet and it just reminds me of how amazing the man was and how i'd like to be.

i always see a lot of myself in some documentaries [on influential and major stars], mainly due to wish fulfillment... i also thought things through, and i reckon that i could be a really influential performer-now to do something about it

that was my brief foray into comedy right there, you missed it! but anyway the man was brilliant and so he is a hero of mine... not a recently found hero that i've suddenly fallen in love with but instead from a while ago, i mean if you've seen the first pink panther film you'll know what i mean-the bit where he gets his violin back and he plays it just simply creases me up, i'm in pieces with his little face.

contentious issue, any better comedy film actor? with such a diverse range of work? steve coogan is quite close and a very modern alternative, but from what i know he doesn't seem to be such a nice guy as sellers, who is the most talented actor [after finishing the ladykillers in 55 he gave an audio tape to each of his co-stars of him imitating each of them, and he was spot on with each... just amazing]

but for a little vagabond book, where would the highlights be? i can't just end every anecdote, needless to say i had the last laugh [partridge please] but i find it an interesting idea with what stories from a monotonous life would be entertaining at all, i dunno. but if miley cyrus has one, so could i... i'll make up some wild stories, fact becomes fiction.

utter bollocks this last bit.

but i've also had a bit of time to think about life and death, as you genuinely never know when its gonna end and also what happens after the terminal breath... its really not a nice thought, and this has been brought into perspective with my current employment.

looking after a ms sufferer, you can see how it is a fucking cunt of a disease and is utterly horrible. being 21 you feel blessed with the total use of your body, in all its ugly forms, but then you see that you may well be struck down by a freak injury or disease which means you can't move... i'm soon to buy diving bell and the butterfly, a film that deals with a similar feeling of being stuck in a body that they can't get out of. i'd not wish to be in this position, and wouldn't want to see anyone else like that either.

i can't articulate my complete feeling regarding more stuff atm, so i won't

keep it rockin'

a note

-less, -ish, -centred, -pitying, -depricating, -involved, -deluded etc etc

consider this as some form of a redundancy note, an excuse ridden explanation of my self. an evaluation if you will- no lies, all truths.

i'm getting progressively closer to fully and finally admitting defeating and throwing in the towel, the looming 'tortured artist' status may be applied without the upshots that the title provides to the poor fucker has. i don't want to be one, but i seem to fittingly fit the bill-but once again as previosuly noted without any artistic merit. almost giving in and just become part of the disgusting society that i comment on and despise and promised myself to not join.

but i can now see the appeal. it isn't living, it's waiting.

welcome in the cliches, it's better to have loved and lost. its ok to grip your 15 minutes of fame and nostalgically shine light among the minutes, deluding yourself into thinking that the minutes meant something. 99 times out of 100 they will not be remembered by no one.

honesty comes in many forms. fact based truth is unfortunately the realm in which i live, the brutal world where failures are real, demeaning and fucking hard hitting. the childlike innocence of seeing the world as a magical place where anyone can be a success, the ugly happy.

[james, i hope you read this as unfortunately i'm close to saying that i've been defeated. i've been broken, i failed in trying to deduce meaning and life from medway.]

dealing with the dark.

and so, as i don't know-i really don't. there is still a chance, the future is unwritten.

keep it rockin'

music money and vietnam, or thriller?

so michael jackson is still dead... his memorial service was 'awe-inspiring' and caused me to shed a tear. had you fooled, i just watched the highlights and it looked like boredom over 9 hours or so.

also recently dead; allen klein. who is he you say? you are right to ask this question as he was a very important background player. allen klein was in fact one time manager of the beatles and the rolling stones-so only the biggest pop band  and biggest blues/rock'n'roll band that there have ever been [respectively].

so why was he important? because he fucked over the rolling stones and the beatles, mick jagger suggested to macca that he would be good and was then part of the reason the band broke up. [i think that jagger did this on purpose :P] but yes, klein owned abkco records which did at one point own the stones back catalogue before 1971, and i think that this is still the case.

but he didn't work for the rolling stones, and once released from his contract sued the band and won, resulting in the acquiring of the rights to their music. though it seems minor, he got rich off the back of the band-and sued the verve for their use of 'the last time', thus giving sole credit for the song to jagger/richards. the rolling stones did not sue the band, management did.

but klein was described as the price of an education by keith richards, as they seemed to get screwed over so much. joe strummer also cited richards when discussing contracts, as aparently richards prescribed reading glasses to bands-as contract details are often in the tiniest print.

since the stones, bands such as the clash, radiohead and also factory records have protected their own interest. the clash's manager bernie rhodes set up a company called nineden records who bought the rights to the clash's tracks-which the band have said was so so important as otherwise they'd have been completely fucked.

 [the clash, 1976-1983, were in debt to the record label from conception until 1982 due to their drive to be true artists-and release what they wanted taking massive losses on their sandinista album-for which they received no money at the time. it was only after they were strongly told to play the u.s. festival in 1982, for which they got paid $500,000, that they would finally see them out of debt]

but factory records had a 50/50 split between artist and management/label and this was so important-you can't have one without the other. and now radiohead's manager brian message is/has/will be launching polyphonic records which will allow bands to retain their own copyright-splitting profits the same way factory did. well done to him.

so klein provided a dramatic swing in the change for band management and all that stuff, the almost as important backroom drama. but nothing is made of his death, a shame as he seems like an interesting guy, if a bit of a knob.

death number two. robert s mcnamara. again, who is he? he was a former ceo of ford, introduced the seatbelt across the ford range and later had it made manditory, youngest lecturer at harvard university at the time, leader of the world bank and between 1961 and 1968 was the u.s. secretary of defence [spelt in british english, as we invented the language].

for anyone who has seen the fog of war [or is james cleary] needs to read no more as a way of receiving an education on the man. for those who haven't, you should watch the documentary on him by errol morris. i can't review the film strongly enough-its the finest documentary that i have seen [that isn't on a subject i know about, and so i'd have bias].

basically mcnamara [from here on in just rsm] led the u.s. into the vietnam war, and has since come to realise that he may have been a tad heavy handed and not have been justified. his life lessons learnt from the war are the main subject of the film. but he gives a reason for his decisions to do with the war, and his anti-communist feelings. this man helped put his home country into a war that was poo and very fucked up, pitting ideology versus ideology-something not seen before or since [complete lie].

i'm sort of running out of steam of what to say, because partly there are builders right outside my bedroom window who woke me at 8am, i smell as i've yet to leave bed and other factors such as mild boredom setting in. just watch the fog of war-its a brilliant film, despite the forest of mirrors as the sight and sound review said.

but please, take heed and take an interest in these two men.

allen klein and robert mcnamara ftw! mj, just...

keep it rockin'

how can you defend the undefendable?

my day has reminded me of a day a month or so ago (this is absolute toss, i've in fact been mildly badgered into describing what happened by my friend davesimondavesimon)

but we [me, 5'5'' and dave, 6'4'' or so] were walking down the street, we were discussing what we would be doing with our lives in the near future as we were at this time neither graduands or graduates. we were students. so taking a merry wander we were saying basically that we wished to find jobs and the like and we rounded the corner onto portswood high street.

it was a lovely day, i can't remember what day it was but still, and we moved slightly apart to let a man through. there was ample room as we are both nice guys. the man, being in infinite wisdom passed through the gap slightly bumping into my right arm. he was carrying a bag of seed. as dave and i continued on he turned and began to hurl abuse at us-and this isn't even an over exaggeration, people were turning round to see what was going on and purely by chance my flatmate ben was passing by on a bus at the same time.

the mentalist, henceforth called the seed-bag-mad-man, verbally abused us for being students and apparently walking along a road like, i dunno a student? apparently we each walked with a swagger that blared out that we were students-maybe it was our t-shirts that read: look at the way we walk, we're horrifically in debt and will be entering the worst job market in over twenty years- AND WE LOVE IT!

or maybe not. maybe the seed-bag-mad-man was in fact just, as his name entails, a mad man who was in a rush and annoyed that he couldn't feed his mum the seeds that he had purchased.

so here's to you my friend [not dave, he is a stinky willy poo face], but instead the seed-bag-mad-man. i'm no longer a student, i'm on the dole! how dya like them apples?

job seekers allowance. a small amount for doing little, so in actuality it is a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. the daunting task of signing on in chatham happened on thursday, and was made better by the welcoming sight of around 10 chav twat wankers hanging out the front of the building smoking and drinking stellas outside at 11am-nice!

but entering was intimidating, like sex ;) but after getting help up [by this i mean directions-not being carried up the stairs like a lame wimp] to the 1st floor for new claims you escape the real shitters of society and are greeted by people who simply help you out and are great... i was very impressed.

so next friday i must attend and officially sign on and prove i'm looking for jobs, lying time! who knows i may well get something... not likely!

now to assault pop music, a favourite hobby of mine :D

muse. i've had at them before, but this time i must assault them further. at rainham mark grammar school [especially the sixth form] i was nearly the only person to not like them, and i stand by this claim. i appreciate they are technically good [as in good on there instruments not technically technically etc] but here is their new album title... ready?

the resistance

and the tracklisting is thus:

1. uprising

2. resistance

3. undisclosed desires

4. united states of eurasia (+collateral damage)

5. guiding light

6. unnatural selection

7. mk ultra

8. i belong to you (+mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix)

9. exogenesis: symphony part 1 (overture)

10. exogenesis: symphony part 2 (cross pollination)

11. exogenesis: symphony part 3 (redemption)

delete tracks 4, 7 and 9-11 :) and i'm happy, the rest are bearable

matt bellamy stop trying to be a poo radiohead, thanks!

but having discussed previously with friends, what is pretentiousness? is it the clash doing a hip hop/rap song before any other white artist? is it morrissey with his impassioned yet annoying manc singing voice? is it me with my mild guitar playing and poetry writing abilities? is it mick jagger singing like an america and hailing from dartford? is it david lynch never describing his films? is it the dark knight escaping a harsher certification simply because it was 'fantasy' and had no swearing?

the pretentiousness is generally the antithesis of what you like, if it challenges you and you don't like it you can write it off for being pretentious. its not trying to better yourself or do something different is it? i say this because i don't like muse and find their naming of songs utterly shite and uber pretentious. i also hate being told to listen to them saying they are good. i appreciate them, that is the end.

same with michael jackson. i appreciate him, but when confronted with a statement suggesting that his death was worse since lennon-just no. i won't even get started-i shall simply name three names, johnny cash, joe strummer and george harrison.

in terms of michael jackson-it seems to be that you can't make jokes about him, it's too soon! and also that you shouldn't see his professional career through his personal life. ok, that's fine.

wait no! if this is the case, gary glitter is a great singer and never a paedophile twat, brigitte bardot is the former beauty queen of the world and not a horrific human being [she was married to the leader of french national front, and has been in court for citing racial hatred].

in the case of michael jackson, he was acquitted of his charges-however once you are termed as a paedophile you will never lose this term. especially when you are a race changing man who held his child over a balcony and is clearly not in his right mind. his childhood was fucked up, but the victim doesn't have to turn to be a victor [couldn't think of the correct opposite phrase].

you could instead of having children sleep in your bed, ya know instead set up a charity foundation... use your talents (which i've never doubted he had) to raise money for the cause and not take media attention surrounding your family life.

but he is dead. his talent is gone and will be missed, but his eccentricity and questionable behaviour will not-and in fact he shall be the butt of many a joke because of this. something that i agree with.

i have more to say, but i wish to not bore.

keep it rockin'