There's no such thing as rock stars there's just people who play music

...and some of them are just like us and some of them are dicks.

Since I said I'd put some sleeve notes up for this year's comp I suppose I should. This is my third attempt. Which is useless by the way.

It's late enough now for those who may have looked to have given up. Probably late enough for me to not bother at all without anyone noticing. But after having gone to the trouble of getting the covers printed, cutting them all out by hand, folding them, putting them in the slip cases and burning the CDs, not to mention putting them in the cases too, then I should probably make some kind of an effort. For you.

So here we go, in order of appearance.

1) Desolation Row - My Chemical Romance (Watchmen soundtrack): Cover versions are a real guilty pleasure of mine and this is a classic. MCR cover a Sex Pistols covers band covering Dylan. It goes dagga dagga dagga dagga gnnnnrrrr and is therefore genius. Like the next one. It's also probably the most original thing about the Watchmen movie (which I really quite enjoyed for what it was).

2) Got Some - Pearl Jam (Backspacer): Some what? Do I need to go back and read the lyrics? I think this is what Pearl Jam sound like when they're having fun jamming in the basement with no one about. It also feels like it's an identical bpm to the preceding track so there's obviously something about that time signature that pushes the right buttons. Or perhaps it's because it goes dagga dagga dagga gnnnnrrrr. I picked Backspacer up in the HMV above Birmingham New Street on my way to a conference.

3) Pieces - Dinosaur Jr (Farm): This is just VERY LOUD pop music.

4) Ticket Taker - The Low Anthem (Oh My God, Charlie Darwin): I could have picked any track off this album. I almost did. What sealed it was when I realised this was a kind of post apocalyptic love song, which in my mind became a narrative that blended I Am Legend, Apocalypse Now and John Hughes. My imagination worries other people sometimes, I think it's quite sweet.

5) The Ghost of the Girl in the Well - Willard Grant Conspiracy (Paper Covers Stone): I love this song, I love their original version, I love the wooah ohhhh ohhhh bits that send shivers down my spine. This should really be used to soundtrack The Lovely Bones but probably won't. It's a stupid world sometimes.

6) Overland Hill - Walkenhorst and Porter (No Abandon): For those who don't know this next bit listen up, it's important. The Rainmakers are one of my all time favourite bands. We're talking top three here. At least. It's good to hear anything new by Bob and this is about as close to the Rainmakers sound he's got since the band split. Apart from the fiddles, they're new.

7) The Times - Lightning Dust (Infinite Light): Sometimes all I really want to say is that I just really like this song, and the only reason for adding any notes is so you can see what album it's on in case you like it too and want to track it down. And this is one of those times. Tell you what though, this is going to pop up in my top ten albums of the year I reckon. If and when I get around to writing them.

8) For While You Slept - Hush Arbors (Yankee Reality): You've not heard of them, I'd never heard of them, and once I had I couldn't stop playing them. There's always a bit: a hook, a line, a harmony, a whatever, like the woah ohh ohhhs from the Willard Grant tune. This has the widdly diddly bit that's repeated throughout until it gets a bit mental. That's the bit. Outstanding!

9) Try This At Home - Frank Turner (Poetry of the Deed): Bless you Frank for being cool on the train home from Reading, for having a very attractive girlfriend, for writing a very funny song, for providing the title to this piece and for sounding like The Levellers and yet still being seen as cool by the indie fraternity on the basis that you actually do wear skinny jeans but you don't have dreadlocks or smell bad.

10) When Lightning Strikes - Kiss (Sonic Boom): Appreciating Kiss is like appreciating good wine or good cheese. But even if you don't / can't then more importantly this has some grade a MOTHERFUCKING COWBELL... And if that's not enough for you then quite frankly I'm not sure why you've even bothered reading this far. Sonic Boom is an excellent album title.

Look, I'm going to post this now as the family has just arrived and we're about to have Christmas dinner. So I'll get back and fill in the rest later.

OK, later...

11) With a Girl Like You - Condo Fucks (Fuckbook): I like the original by The Troggs more.

12) Film Noir - The Gaslight Anthem (The 59 Sound): Technically this album came out last year making it invalid for this year's cd. But I only bought it this year. And I love this song. I like the line about less right than wrong, that's the bit again. I like the grng grng grng grng bit too. That's another bit. And then they re-released the album this year so it was all good for me to put it on the disc. Also they didn't play this one at Reading. Bastards.

13) Burnt Reynolds - Crippled Black Phoenix (200 Tons of Bad Luck): This is all Dan's fault so ask him.

14) Go - Marillion (Less is More): There's a previous post in which lies the roots of an explanation as to why this song retains a certain resonance for me. Anyway, I think it reminds me of Talk Talk, especially Steve Hogarth's voice. I wonder if he still has that cool glove that plays keyboards in the air?

15) Barter Blues - J. Tillman (Vacilliano Territory Blues): I don't like Fleet Foxes, live or on disc, or in photographs or text. I'm not that keen on their drummer's solo effort although it's way better than the band thing. But I like this one a lot. Especially the bit when it fades back in all grungy. That' the bit. Although you do have to wait a while to get to it. Sometimes a little wait is worthwhile. This wait is nothing compared to sitting through the Fleet Foxes album. Or any of the Twilight movies.

16) Everything's Coming Undone - Michael Stipe (Ciao My Shining Star): This is an album of covers of Mark Mulcahy and Miracle Legion songs. I have the original on the only solo Mulcahy album I own (and I know nothing of Miracle Legion) and it sounds nothing like this version. I'm not even sure any of the words are the same. Anyway, the album's also a tribute to Mulcahy's wife who died earlier this year. Listen to it again with that fact in mind.

17) Mazel Tov Cocktail - The Wildhearts (Chutzpah): Of all the bands that go dagga dagga dagga dagga gnnnnrrrr and grng grng grng grng and occasionally kersprrroing, The Wildhearts are the second best. Soul Asylum are the best. This also has the second best song title of the year after Burnt Reynolds. It would be silver all round for Ginger and the lads but this isn't the second best album of the year. That's someone else.

18) The Wrestler - Bruce Springsteen (Working On A Dream): The Wrestler is one of the best films I've seen this year. This is a beautiful song. It's the only one on this thing that makes me feel in any way melancholy. It reminds me of earlier.

19 Castaway - Shearwater (The Golden Archipelago): The Golden Archipelago doesn't come out till next year but this is a pre-release download with a proper cover and everything so it counts and YOU WILL listen to a new Shearwater song when there is one. Happy happy joy joy for me. Expect more next year.

Oh wow, that's me done.

In that case.

Merry Christmas xxxx

Watching Season 2 of The Wire

Rule number one: no drinking during the gospel songs. Rule number two: no gospel songs

I want to look this cool when I'm 60.

Got some if you need it

Here are a few of my favourite web-comics (click on the images to see them big):

Alien Loves Predator:


Abstruse Goose:


Bunny:


Questionable Content:



XKCD:


Dilbert:


Schlock Mercenary:



Listening to Pearl Jam's Backspacer

Wide awake on the edge of the world

This is my grandparent's gravestone in Waithaga, a small village in Kenya. It's close to the site of the church where they were married. After granny passed Mum and my aunt and uncle took their ashes out and left them in the place that meant so much to them.

My youngest sister laid the flowers on Saturday.

Listening to Marillion's Less is More

Oh how the times do change

One of those days that has ripples.

Listening to Infinite Light by Lightning Dust

It's always funny until someone gets hurt... and then it's just hilarious...

Finally, my A to Z of the Reading Festival 2009 (abridged)

A is for alcohol: The best way for any self-respecting tweenie to celebrate their spectacular exam results (see P) is to consume enough shite booze to kill a trailer-trash redneck alcoholic. No listening to the young folks grinding away at each other at night; no, far more fun to listen to them discuss loudly how they'd managed to puke in the tent every morning. This year's special guest appearance - Tuborg Pear Cider. Yummy.

B is for butscratcher: This year's funny funny funny phrase to be shouted at any available passers by at any available opportunity. And trust me, there's shit loads of both. If Seth MacFarlane had walked past (and had I known what he looks like) I would have popped his eyeballs out and skull-fucked him with the sweating pepparami we found under the flysheet on Sunday morning.

C is for comedy: Yup, Reading isn't just about shit bands and drunk kids, it also has a comedy stage. Tim Minchin was funny. Had I not found the Faith No More line I would have titled this piece using his line "we're all just monkeys in shoes." Even if that is unfair to both monkeys and shoes.

D is for ...DaveDaveDaveDaveDave... : That's Mr David Grohl to you sunshine. The patron godfather of Reading and cheered uproariously every time his grinning face appeared on the screens as he watched stage-side. Figuring out where the 'secret' appearance of Them Crooked Vultures was, was tough. "Why's there a big gap on the NME stage line up on Saturday? Dunno. OK, perhaps there's someone shit on the main stage instead."

E is for emergency evac: This is what you have to do on Sunday night after the incredible transformation of the Reading crowd from High School Musical into Lord of the Flies and the fires grow bigger and the crowd dancing around them turns feral and aerosol cannisters start getting thrown on, then any nearby tents, then anything that's going to cause a cloud of toxic fumes to hang low over the Reading camp site like some fucked up version of the egg scene in Alien and you realise that your lovely new tent is next in line for the Wicker Kids, or at the very least to be crushed to death by the drunken hordes of tweenies singing the National Anthem. Thank you to the super speedy removal team.

F is for flesh: Acres of it. If it could be legally displayed, it was out there. Most of it aged between 16 and 18 and that can get a little disturbing after a while (especially if you're a teacher - see N). The smurfs challenged me to get a picture of an exposed arse hanging out the back of a micro skirt or somesuch. Took a 2.1 days to get the shot. Took about 2.1 seconds before the first one passed by. Damn they move fast.

G is for ghosts: OK, so I know I hadn't slept, was 'somewhat' under the influence and wired to the max post emergency evac (see E), but... Look, just but, it was fucking weird ok!

H is for Holy Fuck!: The expression that must have been on my face when the giant catapault launched water bomb came heading straight towards me. I moved with the speed of a spitting cobra and the grace of Oliver Reed on After Dark (you can look that one up yourself if you don't know what I'm talking about).

I is for I never want to camp at Reading again: Something I last said in '95. I'll listen to me better next time.

K is for Kumbya: When Bob set off to start a cult. Dont ask (see R)

L is for lineup: Not one of Reading's best.

N is for neighbours: Everybody needs good ones. We had some diamonds. So to Ross, Ross, Ross's buddy Mike/Carl/?, the Cornwall couple, Ed the homophobe and his gay tent mate, thank you for the laughs both intentional and otherwise.

O is for the other bands I saw (see T): Gaslight Anthem, Gossip, Glasvegas, Maximo Park, Deftones, Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures, The Prodigy, Rival Schools. Have I missed anyone?

P is for passes: Everyone passed, be it GCSE or A-Level. Well everyone bar the one guy who didn't. I reckon 80% of the audience had just taken an exam of some kind. The other 20% were wandering about thinking: "Great, shame there's no fucking jobs a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..."

R is for requests: As is "Does anyone have any requests?" A question asked at 7.30 on Friday morning by our over eager guitar playing companion leading to the best come back of the weekend: "Yeah, shut the fuck up!" I laughed and went back to sleep.

S is for smurfs: I would festival with the smurfs again. Just not at Reading.

T is for the top ten bands of the weekend: So in order it's:

1. Faith No More: brutal and brilliant, ferocious and funny, far and away the best and heaviest band of the weekend by a few miles. A bonus extra three places for dropping in the Eastenders theme. We sang, we danced, we jumped up and down, we shouted, we wondered why the tent was a third empty and laughed at all the idiots complaining about how Kings of Leon threw a strop. Was it worth the 20 year wait? Fuck yeah!
   
2. 
   
3. 
   
4. 
   
5. Radiohead: mellowed out hits heavy set even if you couldn't hear it for the noise of the grass growing - see V.
6. Gallows: Climb tent pole. Dive into crowd. Throw yourselves around the place. Be thoroughly entertaining. Arctic Monkeys take note - having clever words doesn't make you worth watching when you're fucking boring.
   
7. Snuff: Arsehole, Soul Limbo, Sunny Places, Nick Motown, see W. "Oi Oi". 15 years I've waited to see 'em again, bless their lovely socks of undefined fabric and trombone.
8. Jamie T and Friendly Fires equal: never heard anything by either of you before but damn you were entertaining.
9. Leftover Crack: not jut a great name.
   
10. Crystal Castles: you scared me and I didn't know what was happening and couldn't talk or dance or anything but I think you might have been excellent even though I'm not sure.

U is for, actually you know what, I'm not going there. But for the record smokey smurf I have the pictures.

V is for volume: There have been many complaints about the volume on the Reading main stage. Put it this way. If you were standing between more than two feet from the crowd barier and the mid-field speakers, the sound disappeared if someone farted on stage. This is why it's better to see bands in one of the tents. That and you don't have to suffer Placebo or Kaiser Chiefs.

W is for Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads: The theme from. Just might have been the moment of the weekend.

Come back unchanged your demons all tamed

I'm not sure if the doctor would have specified south west Cornwall, but it did the trick.

I hadn't realised how bad I'd been until I realised how relaxed I'd become.

So a week's camping was to be had, Friday to Saturday at a very pleasant site in St. Hilary, north east of Penzance. Larger urban environments were avoided as were over-crowded beaches. Instead cliff paths and rugged coastline was followed, staircases cut into rocks climbed, dilapidated farmhouses clambered over and an afternoon was spent getting sunburned watching The Crucible at the most excellent Minack theatre. Rowena Cade, we salute you.


Local fish was eaten, battered, with chips, and breakfasts were cooked on the camping stove. And I was roundly thrashed 4 sets to 1 at backgammon. But it was a hard fought victory. No dishonour there...

And at least on one night I was able to lie looking up at the stars and listen to what's fast becoming my favourite album of the year: The Low Anthem's Oh My God Charlie Darwin. I think I recognised scorpio. Unfortunately the regular cloud cover kept the meteor show hidden from view.

It was a little sad to finally retire the old silver space tent after 20 years, 2 continents, 5 countries and 10 festivals but the new one was a veritable mansion in whatever they make tents out of these days.

Anyway, photographs are here.

It's fun being back on the bike again.

Whisky, weed and Warren Zevon, it's the little things in life

I have no fucking idea where July's gone. Or most of June for that matter.

Nothing to do with the above recipe, that's a line from Californication, a gentle and touching tale of a guy who loves girl and their daughter, graphic sex, nudity, drug taking, drinking, S&M, blasphemy, great music and squirting. Life's a bit gooey from time to time but any show that beats in time to the tunes of Warren Zevon has to have a good heart.

So I've definitely been way busier than usual and somewhat internet phobic. I'd blame work for the latter but I suspect it's proably more to do with American TV.

I am aware that no matter how much shit I have missed (argh, sorry), I have managed to catch up with a lot of friends I haven't seen in far too long. And despite a worryingly and annoying distinct lack of festival camping this summer, some of it was outdoors with too much sun and pear cider and the gentle tones of Neil Young and Blur drowning out the foreground and the central London Heathrow flightpath in the background.

One side effect of such a state was the purchase of Florence and the Machine's album which was a good thing. On the other hand I also think that the best film I've seen of late has been Crank 2. That means either I've watched a lot of shit, or I can't remember what I've seen, or the logic I use to determine that Crank 2's utter genius is based around the fact that it's all done in such gleefully knowing bad taste, is deeply fucking disturbed. History will judge me fairly I'm sure.

Actually, that's a lie. The best film I've seen in ages has been The Story of Anvil in which two hairy Canadians deliver more of a message on the beauty of friendship and humanity than any politician or religious leader in the past 190 billion years. Of course, I still haven't seen the Iron Maiden movie so that may change. But seriously you tiny select group of reader(s) out there. Go see it. NOW. It'll make you a better human being.

Crank 2 was the second best until my memory returns.

Unfortunately our current lack of promised heatwave has kept Chuffy unpainted. On the other hand I have learned a little more about electricity. There's an intentional lack of context in the last statement for no particular reason. I've also learned that riding a bike is just like what they say about riding a bike. And I love my new bike. Very much. I'm a muddy little two wheel speed freak. The image that just brought to mind made me cringe.

And just to gloat, even though I know you don't care and if you do then you shouldn't - don't put up with my petulant glee at proving my head is full of absurd knowledge - I've been on two winning pub quiz teams, grand total of winnings in hand at the end of the night: £40 and all drinks paid for.


I will endeavour to blog more in my 39th year.

Me my thoughts are flower strewn

It's been seven weeks since I woke up with my foot inflated like some giant baby, all stubby toes and puffy. Amazing what a hairline crack, invisible to x-ray can do.

The first three weeks were spent as immobile as possible, watching perspective disappear over the horizon as cabin fever took hold. Since then it's been a slow crawl to the six week bone healed mark.

It'll be another three weeks at least before I consider running again.

Note to self, need to buy new running shoes.

Listening to R.E.M.'s Find The River

I said ah welcome to the show!

I may not have been at Glastonbury this year, but I was very happy everywhere I was.

This afternoon I watched fledgling swifts loop through the air above me. It'll be another three to four years before they touch land again. Below them a pachyderm parade of Canada Geese followed their Colonel Hathi down the river whilst a grebe gargled at them and the coots shifted themselves out of the way. They look to be down to three squeakies now.



Listening to Def Leppard's remastered Pyromania

When you meet a stranger

The best advice I've ever been given came from a white Zimbabwean. After letting us out at our destination, having bought us lunch, drinks and keeping us in stitches for the entire journey, he left us with these sound words:

"Don't get too drunk, don't fall out of your tree and NEVER take your clothes off in public."

I've failed in all 3 at some point or another.

Today delivered some new wisdom:

"Go to the pub. And buy something pretty."

And why not.

Listening to Bat for Lashes

bitter hands broken glass

It's good to be in April. March has not been one of my finest months of late. For most of it I've been a bear with a bad head. Which I tend to keep down when I'm feeling like that. I'm not great company. Not very talkative.

52 Mondays ago I sat at my desk at The Archives for the first time. Doesn't feel like a year. The work-life-balance-ometer might be swinging a little too far in the wrong direction right now but I still love what I do. And if you're going to wander in to work on a Saturday, then it's much more pleasant to trickle down to Kew than trek up to Tottenham Court Road.

Spring: the chance to wash the coal dust out of my life for another 7 months, finches stopping ever so briefly, sky filled with birdsong, mallards gang-raping each other, and the gradual increase in the numbers of lumpen-headed-pointless-fuckwits (determined to get from one end of the river to another as fast as possible without pause to realise that they're oxygen wasting morons) going by my window. The kind of folks who should be spending time in an environment more suited. Like Jupiter.

I'm listening to a lot of Pearl Jam. The remastered Ten is wonderful, the additional disk of remixes almost better. Beautiful, hopeful and angry. Suited the mood.

And the men who hold high places must be the ones to start...

I must do something about the lack of Rush in my music collection.

So to recap.

It's been a busy old year so far.

I've added to the list of things I'd never expected to do at work: drawing all over meeting room walls. Which has been fun. I spent six weeks immersed in some risk analysis work which somehow managed to span 11 000 words, more post-it notes than I care to remember and two meeting room walls. It kinda took over for a while, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I hope I managed to sit back and let the rest of the team slice it all up with good grace. I'm looking at a couple more tough weeks and then.

More busy I suspect.

Which'll be fun too.

I've had the requisite bouts of flu and sickness, the consequences of which were mainly missing an old friend's birthday party, apparently with naked dancing. Now I've never been at a party with naked dancing in before (and I'm hoping it was naked female dancing, but that's probably just me), and I suspect opportunities for such are rapidly diminishing. I must get up to Cabbage again soon.

I did manage to make it up to Nottingham to see the best show I've ever seen Metallica play. Funny to think it's been 22 years and 6 shows since Dan and I first saw them together. An auspicious start to the gig year, with The Broken Family Band, Blur and Neil Young to follow. So far.

I haven't looked at my Facebook page in almost three months now, but have managed to catch up with a few of my fellow 6+ billion inhabitants on our spinning rock.

And I finished a Monopoly game that's taken over a year to complete. Damn it, Darth won.

I watched Watchmen. Which was about as good I suppose as any of us had reason to expect. Beautiful looking, focused, brutal, occasionally a teensy bit boring. And utterly pointless since it brings nothing new to what lies on the pages of the book, other than successfully illustrating why Alan Moore doesn't believe his work should be filmed. Still, I can't wait for someone to have a bash at Lost Girls. The Wrestler, Gran Torino and Man on Wire have all been movie highlights. Twilight, on the other hand, might possibly the worst film I've ever seen. I'm all ranted out on how bad it was but since we're here. For the record I'd rather smear chipotle sauce under my eyelids and slice my ears off with toenail clippings than have to watch that tedious stench of teen angst tedium again.

I've had a Kingfisher fly past my face, all streaky electric blue and orange and I've felt elated watching the morning sun bounce of the gold leaf as I've run past Hampton Court with Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to The Thin Red Line poddied into my ears.

But best of all.

I've seen light in what have been dark places.



Up to speed again. Don't leave it so long next time huh!

This terrible drone is the sound of a thousand machines

I'm watching the Brits.

Thoughts:

I now dislike the new U2 single eve more than before. Which is saying something.

I want to see more of The Hoff stalking the polka dot wearing hyena attempting to be amusing whilst barking at the award winners between segments. It's the funniest thing so far.

There are unsurprisingly few surprises.

Robbie didn't join Take That on stage, even though they were in a Dave Lee Roth cast-off spaceship.

Paul Weller didn't turn up.

Duffy keeps winning stuff.

No one's actually very funny.

I do like the way they put a little sign up to tell you when they've blanked the sound. Just in case I thought my reception was going again.

Are Kings Of Leon just a teensy weensy bit FUCKING BORING?

The set looks like a cheap Dairylea commercial.

Iron Maiden win best British Live Act. Fucking justice at last, c'mon the Irons!

Elbow win best British group, Coldplay look disappointed. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... etc

Girls Aloud look even more pissed off when they don't win something. Keep the camera on grumpy Ashley Cole please, I want to watch him squirm.

They're very gracious when they do win something though.

Only kidding, they're not.

And their fan dance was rubbish.

Coldplay win nothing. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha etc. They do put on a good show earlier though. Still a rubbish song off their most average album yet.

Brandon Flowers is wearing roadkill. I think he's actually 12 years old.

Neil Tennent's hat is too big for him. That's probably on purpose though.

I think Lady GaGa is actually one of those 2D cut out paper dolls my sisters used to clip cut out paper clothes on to when they were young come to life.

Thank fuck it's over.

No it's not. Duffy's on the ads. Not any more, I've committed an act of personal censorship and turned the telly off.

**UPDATE**

What the hell was Kanye West talking about in his acceptance speech?

Why did BBC breakfast not mention the Maiden win?