Not exactly what you want to hear whilst queuing up for a concert. Our fears of being all alone in the venue were quickly overcome by the fear of the drunken blad guy wandering down the street, yelling at us about "South Sex" and AIDS and holding a pint glass in a menacing manner. And Oxford is supposed to be a cultured town…
Luckily, there was something of a run on the tickets, or else the Zodiac grabbed passers-by and gave them free entry, because the hall was fairly well-packed by the time Stellastarr* came on. Support came from Audiothief, a local band from Banbury, and The Subways (who won a chance to appear on the New Band Stage at Glastonbury this year); nothing earth-shattering, but a pleasant enough diversion for two hours.
Stellastarr** then came on, playing most of their album plus a few new songs. I still have trouble defining exactly what they sound like; today I'm going with "Aztec Camera as filtered through 90s grunge projected on a cinema screen", which makes no sense to me, so don't worry if that sounds like gibberish. Anyway, they were good; lots of yelping, a topless drummer wearing Elton John-style glasses (and a black tape star across his right nipple), and lots of rock star poses. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to come to Oxford, but I'm glad they did. A big boo to the girl who stole all the set lists, though. Especially since she stole the Stellastarr* one from under the nose from two girls who had positioned themselves in just the right spot to get it at the end of the set, only to be denied when the other girl swooped in at the end, while everybody else was clapping. If you see someone in green fishnet tights, socks, and handbag, ask her to share next time…
* There should be a moratorium placed on American bands using punctuation marks other than apostrophes. It's all fun and games to begin with, but then you end up with a band like !!!, who are just asking to be taken round back and beaten senseless by members of Compulsive Copy Editors Anonymous. With big, stompy hobnail boots, obviously.
Hmm, Apple.
The best US opening for a documentary in the history of cinema.
The Guardian's coverage of Glastonbury 2004. (my short review, gleaned from the BBC: Oasis stood for an hour and ten minutes - nice one, lads. Perhaps next time, Liam could speak? Scissor Sisters - so cool. Goldfrapp - erm, nice tail. Basement Jaxx - lots of costume changes. That was all I saw)
To celebrate today's release of Fahrenheit 9/11, today's music is all about protest.
Because those no-down dirty liberals are debasing America's morals.
A slightly re-mixed version of an advert currently showing here:
The Pogues — Birmingham Six
A spokesman for the IBA said the song, from the album 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God' , contains "lyrics alleging that some convicted terrorists are not guilty and that Irish people in general are at a disadvantage in British courts of law. "We think these allegations might support, solicit or invite support for an organisation provided by the Home Secretary's notice.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, the British Government imposed a broadcast ban preventing the voices of terrorists or people who might represent them from being broadcast on radio or TV. The media got around this ban by hiring voice artists to lip-sync to interviews (if that sounds ridiculous, well it was. I still don't understand why the Government thought that we'd lend the terrorists support if we could hear their voices), but some songs, like this one, fell afoul of the Ban. Incidentally, the convicted terrorists mentioned above were all found not guilty after it was revealed that police fabricated the evidence that led to their convictions.
Bob Dylan — Masters of War
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
And to be fair, it would be a great choice! Pro-gun, in favour of small government, and just who wouldn't want a mescaline-taking Vice-President?
Get yourself a human torso!
FREE GIF! GIF IS FREE! ITS LONG SENTENCE IS FINALLY UP!
After two weeks of listening to Mark Radcliffe's new Radio 2 show, I've come to a rather unsettling conclusion:
I miss the Radio 1 playlist.
Don't get me wrong; I love turning on the radio to hear The Mighty Wah!'s "Sinful", New Order's "True Faith", and many more, but I miss the variety. I want to hear these songs mixed with Richard X/Rachel Steven's "Some Girls" and OutKast. Not Norah Jones (I'm placing my belief in the idea that although Mark doesn't have a playlist as such, there's still a few songs that they suggest he should play each week. I refuse to accept that he plays Jones and Sheryl Crow out of his own free will). I would also like the moon on a stick, if that's possible.
Strangely, I don't miss Lard all that much. There seems to be a guest in the studio every night, so Mark still has somebody with him to banter with and discuss wheeliebin arrangements. Thursday's show with Noddy Holder was very funny, and I look forward to them paring up again next fortnight, but it did highlight one problem with the show: it's too short. As it only runs for an hour and a half, by the time it gets going, it's midnight, and time to hand over to Janice Long. Longer hours, please!
A reserved thumbs-up, then. And here's the song I promised yesterday, which I heard earlier this week on Radcliffe's show. It's a little odd, but rather pleasant. Have a listen:
Stina Nordenstam — Little Star
(he also played a French cover of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" that I will put up when I manage to track down the group's details)
Spam is annoying, but I do get a nostalgic glow when I receive a spam email from the Kenickie Yahoo/eGroups mailing list. As you can imagine, we don't have too much to talk about anymore, so the only time I'm reminded of its existence is when somebody sends a message advertising time machines/Russian mail order brides/the possibility of a closed universe. I suppose I should unsubscribe, but it's very low-traffic, and there's always the possibility that it'll spark back into its toast-talking ways one day…
I do have a song for the weekend, but I'll be putting it up tomorrow along with some comments about the new Mark Radcliffe show. I would do it tonight, but I'm feeling a little run-down tonight. Back tomorrow!
Well, you should be able to get the MP3s again. Fedora Core 2 is a throwback to Linux installations of yore; I haven't had to recorrect Master Boot Records and tell the system how many heads the hard drive has for a long time…
The MP3s will be offline for a few hours or so, while I upgrade my server to Fedora Core 2. Wish me luck!
This is probably of more interest to those in the Oxford area (although all are welcome if you're willing to fly 4,000 miles for a concert. Now who would do something as silly as that, though?): is anybody interested in seeing Stellastarr* at the Oxford Zodiac at the end of June (the 29th?
The iTunes Music Store has made it across the Atlantic! Unfortunately, discussions with the independent labels have broken down, so you can buy Franz Ferdinand tracks if you have a US credit/debit card, but not if you only have a UK billing address.
I suppose that we have to be thankful that Apple didn't do a 99¢ — 99p conversion when setting prices, but the UK store is still the most expensive of the four. A handy comparison, converting the three different price points into US dollars:
| iTMS US: | $0.99 |
| iTMS France/Germany | $1.20 |
| iTMS UK | $1.44 |
Germany and France both have higher rates of VAT than we do, so I'm at a loss to explain why we have to pay more than anybody else. Mind you, it's a lot cheaper than spending £3 for a ringtone…
In other news, I've finally got around to making the photolog site look like this one, fixing a few other things along the way. The photos now have their own dedicated index page, so you can see all the pictures at once, if you desire. It still looks a little plain, but I think it'll do for now. It looks okay at my end, but due to NTL's transparent proxy nonsense, I can't tell how it looks on the site, so if you see anything that seems weird, let me know.
I'll probably put something up on Friday as well, but I wanted to share these songs with you here and now (also, I'm likely to forget about them otherwise)
Young Heart Attack — Starlight
America discovers Slade (okay, that might just be my brain losing it again). And adds a female vocalist. Anybody who knows anything about me is probably shaking their head in sad recognition now. But trust me, this is good, and I promise there's no ethereal section in sight. Not that you'd see an ethereal section, unless you were a bat. Which might confuse them. I wonder if anybody has done a study on the effects of Enya on a bat population. I sense a grant proposal!
MJ Hibbett — Hey Hey 16K
This song will be largely incomprehensible to Americans, for which I apologise. Anybody younger than a certain age may also not understand why "Then five minutes fingers crossed hoping not to witness the terror of R: Tape Loading Error" resonates so well with all the people in the their twenties. For this song is a celebration of the Little Computer That Could, the Sinclair Spectrum (sure, it namechecks inferior machines like the Commodore 64 and the Amstrad CPC, but references to Jetpac, Jet Set Willy, and Manic Miner mean that the writer grew up with a humble Speccy. Plus the intro is sampled from a Spectrum's tape loading signal. And yes, that sound is burnt into my memory). Listen, then, to the geekiest song of the year, and reminisce about typing RANDOMIZE USR 32768 to get a game to load, how 128K seemed enough for anybody, and Impactor's tragic death in Transformers #88. That last one might just be me and Brem X Jones, though…
The Programme Code requires that all factually-based programmes should be characterised by “a respect for truth”; that in Personal View programmes the opinions expressed, however partial, should “not rest upon false evidence” and the “facts should be respected”. To ensure fairness, programmes which contain a damaging critique of any individual or organisation should normally offer those criticised an opportunity to respond.
Even taking into account that this was a ‘personal view’ item, the strength and number of allegations that John Gibson made against the BBC meant that Fox News should have offered the BBC an opportunity to respond.
Fox News was therefore in breach of Sections 2.1 (respect for truth), 2.7 (opportunity to take part), and 3.5(b) (personal view programmes - opinions expressed must not rest upon false evidence) of the Programme Code.
Read the Ofcom decision here. The best bit is where Fox News admits that their evidence for the anti-American bias of the BBC came from putting the phrase "anti-American BBC" into Google…
"Come On England" may in fact be the worst pop travesty of the past thirty years. I have graphs and figures to back me up. How can you possibly get rid of a line like "moved a million hearts in mono"?
Also, if anybody wants to teach Steven Gerrard which direction to kick a football before the next England match, I'm sure people would be most grateful…
Today's song is for all those people who have the rare first album, a bootleg collection that extends to one shelf per artist, and who were present at the first time a band played together, even though it was held in a school cloakroom with fifteen other people present.
(I don't think I count, but you may insist otherwise)
LCD Soundsystem — Losing My Edge
For those of you who have an aching need to developing cross-platform applications in Mono (all three of you), this month's Linux Journal includes a guide on just that, written by my humble self. It's great. Buy it and impress friends at parties by describing how attributes work…
Courtesy of Laura, this is Found Magazine, a wonderful publication that picks up things that others have discarded.
I echo Cory's call for a MacOS X port of Super Mario War! Plus netplay, so we can deathmatch Super Mario across the Internet!
A fun flash game of bubbles and stars
Okay, so there's a few of you out there. Can you help? I'm looking for someone who has a copy of "The Disparate Cogscienti", an LP released by the record label Cog Sinister in 1988 (catalogue number COG2, if that helps). If anybody reading this has such a thing, and would be willing to make an MP3 copy of the Beatrice track "A Girl Like Me", I'd be very grateful indeed.
(I know that there's a copy floating around in the vaults of WXYC, but I doubt that they're willing to send MP3s to any listener that emails them with "ooh, that sounded good")
I've been checking my logs for the past month, and it seems that I'm getting 3,000 hits from around 300 different addresses each week. So, er, hi! Thanks for stopping by…
This is almost a week old, but it's good to remind yourself of the spectre of Government Past:
We not only have an epidemic of obesity ... we have a huge problem of Aids and the Government's attitude is to do everything it can to promote buggery. Maybe those two are somewhat intimately connected.
When Boris Johnson, of all people, is the voice of sanity in a conversation, you know things have gone horribly wrong somewhere…