Arcade Fire sh*te! I haven’t even heard of the headliners! They’re not very interesting – just extremely standard indie.
The Libertines
I instinctively hate this lot on principle because they’re famous solely for their lead singer dating a supermodel *yawn* and having a heroin habit *double-yawn*. That’s like famous for … being a polar bear, except Knut the bear isn’t interestingly insane; it’s just bored. Like I am, a few bars into this song.
Dizzee Rascal
I’ll say this much, it’s pretty catchy in an obvious sort of way. It reminds me of being at the youth disco I used to go to when I was 12 or so. I remember winning a KMFDM single in a dance competition and giving it to a boy I fancied. What the hell was I thinking? Dizzee? I think I’ll have forgotten this the minute it’s over, but I don’t hate it.
The Cribs
Apparently Johnny Marr’s their guitarist, which doesn’t sway my opinion of them one way or the other. Neither does this song. Average.
The Maccabees
The NME reckons this is the best indie has to offer right now. Oh dear. Why am I thinking Kitchens of Distinction?
Modest Mouse
Again, I’ve dimly heard of this lot, but I know why I’ve never gone ape over them. You know it’s bad when you have to root around for anything interesting enough to link to.
Typically perverse, I’m going to talk about Reading on Glastonbury weekend. Someone on our intranet was selling tickets, you see. I told my colleagues earlier that out of 132 bands announced for the 2010 Reading Festival, I had heard of only 19 of them, and liked only one.
I declared myself “officially old”.
Hey! That’s no good! I need to fix this. I mean, I’m realistically only a third-to-half of the way through my projected lifespan: it’s a little too early to send me to the knackers yard, so I guess I need to catch up.
Friday 27 August 2010:
MAIN STAGE
Guns ‘n’ Roses. Need no introduction. Didn’t Robin Finck join them at one point? Yes. Have they been any good since Appetite for Destruction?
No.
Queens of the Stone Age
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Oh yes, of course I know this lot. I know this song. It’s catchy, but underwhelming. Needs more cowbell.
Biffy Clyro
Welsh, apparently. I think of only novelty pop, sheep and the Manics. They’re closest, of course, to the latter. While they’re not exactly blowing me out of my seat (bubbles! Blowing! Geddit?) they strike me as perfect festival material. I think after a few pints of warm lager you’d have a blast watching this lot.
LostProphets
Ah yes, I remember this bunch from way back. I’m not really surprised I can’t remember what they sounded like – they fall into the awful middle ground a lot of bands do with me, where I actually forget they’re playing while they’re playing. They’re sort of Muse-lite, which isn’t a very enviable position.
NOFX
Hunh … musta missed this of my list of 19 bands I knew of from the lineup. Make it 20, then. They remind me of Green Day, who (other than one song) also made absolutely no impression on me whatsoever.
Gogol Bordello
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Sort of a folky mishmash, part wistful accordion, part Pogues. I actually like this more than anything I’ve heard so far. It’s extremely catchy, and while there’s the suspicion it’s more than a little tongue-in-cheek, it’s intensely musical and passionate.
I could try to find something not by Foetus for #musicmonday, but that wouldn’t be honest. I’ve listened to this song four times today, because I just bloody love it and you should too.
No, I have absolutely no idea why there’s a pic of a random stranger on this clip, but it’s the only one I could find. No, the pic’s not of Chopper Read (on whom the song is apparently based) if that’s your thought.
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Steal Your Life Away is from 1995′s GASH album which, if you’re remotely familiar with JG Thirlwell’s work, was the peak of his commercial visibility – billboards in Times Square, the works – just before his catastrophic breakdown (from which he’s thankfully recovered).
The one thing I didn’t understand about Foetus was that I thought it was a rock band that used classical samples, when it’s a classical band that uses rock samples. That’s why a lot of people find the music impenetrably dense in the same way they switch off after four seconds of Wagner – it’s just too big and loud and austere in the unfriendly way that rock isn’t. (The muddy mix doesn’t help.)
On the other hand, GASH is the most rock album Foetus ever made. Thirlwell’s voice on this is Trent Reznor amplified: anguished howls of rage, like a wild animal caught in a trap.
Although there’s the usual sardonic wit, the lyrics throughout are heartbreakingly direct: when he sings “I’m feeling suicidal”, it’s not for show – but it’s hard not to smile at “me and my mental health don’t agree most times”, especially when the stripped down Brooklyn affectations are contrasted with the softly-spoken, erudite man who sings them.
It’s that dichotomy that makes Foetus so thrilling: pure-id music that satisfies the mind. Every guttural shriek and growl is gratifyingly cathartic in a primal, almost subconscious way, but underneath it the music is a masterpiece of composition.
Steal Your Life Away isn’t my favourite track on GASH (that’s Mutapump), but it’s a song I love very much for the same reasons. It’s like watching a really spectacular thunderstorm – but one that’s been designed by a master architect. That awesome sub-bass funk – many years before Korn or Slipknot; the slow, almost lazy drumbeats; the dissonant guitar lines that wander off and do their own thing; and that unforgettable brass. (I’ve only just noticed what I think is a xylophone on this track. I’ve owned the album 15 years.)
This song sums up the reasons I ever loved Foetus – or NIN, or Slipknot – or anyone else who’s pulled off the trick of making you feel everything, all at the same time.
Catching up on a few episodes of Glee last night, I found of course that Neil Patrick Harris completely stole the show in Dream On, as he crushed the souls of those poor kids by telling them that they would never, ever achieve their dreams.
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While I was watching this, I had a little fun catching up on my classmates via Google to see what became of them. A couple have names so common that searching is impossible, but it was good to see how many of us had our dreams come true in little ways – none of us became “famous”, but all of us in our little circle had a go at fulfilling our ambitions. Film director; journalist; photographer; musician. We can all look back on our lives and say, “At least we tried.”
Even though I absolutely loathed my austere headmaster, we have a lot to thank him for. Dragged into his office for yet another detention (once was for co-organising a strike and calling the press), he didn’t yell or even punish me in any way. He just looked levelly at me over steepled fingers and said, “You can be anything you want to be. Anything. So why are you wasting your time like this?”
He was awarded a CBE in 2005 for Services to Education.
The Lady Gaga episode, Theatricality, is super-fun, complete with Gaga’s crazy costumes as worn by the kids. Continue reading →
I’m not an art fan. I mean, I can be dragged into a gallery and spend hours admiring the pretty pictures, but 99.999% of the time I’ll look at a picture or sculpture and think, “Wow, that really sucks.”
A lot of the problem is the cynicism that seems to have crept into the industry over the years – people buy the pictures on their walls from IKEA and the Argos catalogue, and people paint what Argos want to put in their catalogue – but I suppose that’s no different from music or film: most of it’s ultimately rather crap.
That’s probably why I find fan art so utterly charming. There’s an earnestness about it because people are so inspired by what they’re evoking that they just want to express their absolute devotion to it.
Found via Rock, Paper, Shotgun (linked through by Kateri), Dot War is a simple flash game where you enter your Twitter username, plus your chosen opponent, and it automatically “does battle” between your avatars. Each pixel becomes a soldier, and the battle is based upon the distribution of colours in your avatar.
I tried fighting @SvennEthir, @kateri_t and @ratsofatsorat – and I’m delighted to say kicked every one of their asses. My avatar rocks!
The likeness-spotting part of my brain is very well-developed. Like, yesterday, I just stopped in the middle of the corridor and yelled, “This carpet stain looks like a BUNNY!” and the stranger behind me stared where I was pointing and said, “Actually, yeah, it does!”
I’m always the first person to point out when people look like other people, and about half the time nobody agrees, and the other half, everyone agrees. I mean, everyone knows that Trent Reznor looks like Professor Snape, but I also think Reznor looks like Kraven in the movie Underworld.
Thanks to a link from Emmers to a blog on Tumblr, I’m starting to see him everywhere …
FIRST: Soul II Soul / the Sindecut / Swervedriver
Brighton Centre, 1990
I was on Third Year Camp at the time (age 14), and my mother – I’ll always love her for this – drove out to where we were camped with our school-class, and drove me and my friends all the way to Brighton for the concert. I was still wearing my green wellington boots! After the gig, she picked us up and drove us all back to where we’d left our tents, in the forest in the middle of nowhere.
I remember being annoyed by the lack of enthusiasm for Swervedriver – really nice guys; great tunes. It was a pretty odd thing to have one of the heavier “shoegazing” bands supporting Soul II Soul anyway. The jazzy Sindecut had a really great single out that I don’t think actually got anywhere. I remember liking them.
I don’t actually remember if Soul II Soul were good or not, because I had no basis for comparison. They were just exactly as I expected them to be, and extremely slick and professional. I remember thinking Jazzy B was really sexy – and, like, totally profound. I might laugh now, but I’m still tapping my toe to this, even if the kiddie chorus grates.
I queued for four hours before the doors open, and even thirty minutes after we’d arrived, the queue went right around the block. We were right at the front of the queue – me and my mum. We went right to the front. Mum and I got separated, and she’s barely five feet tall. She ended up wedged between these two really big blokes, and every time they jumped up, she got pulled up into the air with them. The bouncers had a hose trained on the crowd just to keep people from passing out.
