Team Classical Vs Elephant Force!

I came up with this idea when I was really bored at work today and I think it rules. Basically, Team Classical are a group of people who seem perfectly ordinary, but when trouble strikes they have the ability to harness the hidden super powers of classical music. They are the good guys, do-gooders, the heroes of the piece. Their nemeses are Elephant Force, a pack of elephants hell bent on wreaking pain and destruction on the world. The only way to defeat them is to first weaken then by making their ears fall off and then cutting off their trunks. It is normally very difficult to weaken an elephants ears to the point of them falling off, but this is no problem for Team Classical. They whip out their magical conductors wands, and summon up powerful phrases of classical music to deafen the elephants with. As a series (which is what it would have to be - obviously!), the staying power would be in the elephants learning tricks to avoid this, and Team Classical having to overcome these new obstacles. Obstacles such as Elephant Force all donning giant ear muffs, or simply running away as soon as they hear a note of classical music. As the series went on, stronger and more powerful elephants would emerge who would be impervious to weaker, less intricate passages of music, and Team Classical would have to improve their conducting and magic abilities to combat the stronger elephants. Certain elephants would emerge that are impervious to certain styles of classical, and Team Classical would have to find the right style or instrument that weakens these particular elephants. One particular idea I had involved a partcularly strong elephant attacking and Team Classical summoning Glenn Gould whos expert piano playing finally made one of the elephants ears fall off, but just as the second was about to fall, the elephants grabbed Gould's right arm, leaving him unable to fully play merely bashing at the lower notes with his left hand to no avail. As a series finale, Team Classical would face a fucking massive elephant with 6 ears who had the power to regenerate lost ears!

I don't know about you, but I think that sounds fucking awesome.

It would be a series more for the adult "Buffy"/"New Adventures Of Superman"/"Firefly" fanbase, rather than my other classical based tv series idea for kids, Peter & The Wolf. For those of you who never heard about Peter & The Wolf, it's a learning programme for pre-school kids. The premise is that Peter & The Wolf are a couple. Peter owns a Greengrocer's, Wolf is the stay at home housewife. Peter would deal with teaching the practical lessons, especially maths, while Wolf would have the local children poppin ground to her house for her to tell them a story, and for music, their good friend Serjey Prokofiev would pop round and play a song on their piano summarising what has happened in each episode.

So there we go. My plans to take over TV start here.

The Blog Has Landed.

They said I wouldn't keep it up. They said I'd get bored of it. Little did they realise the size of my ego and my desire to force myself upon the world. And now, after 6 months, Hannah has had to begrudgingly add me as a link on her blog! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! Victory is mine!

In other ramblings, why did no-one tell me about this Last FM thing? Is it because you all don't want me to ruin all your fun by being better than you at yet another thing? Yeah, of course it is. Pussies. I wasn't going to set one up, but I'm considering doing it now just to punish you all.

Who's sorry now, eh? Not me, that's for sure.

Something I Found Interesting.

The newspaper of choice in our staffroom at work appears to be The Sun, coz thats the only one anyone ever buys (apart from the occasional Oxford Mail). Now, I hate The Sun, but when it's the only fresh thing to read I usually end up reading it coz it's there, and when I'm eating and on a break from work it's kind of nice to do something that doesn't require any thought. Big lettered knee-jerk reactions, some silly stories and usually a pair of boobs to look at.
Now, The Sun (rather laughably, considering it's continued use of the Page 3 Girl) likes to think of itself as a family paper, standing up for the rights of the average joe and his family unit. One of it's most continually vehement protests is against Paedophilia, and quite right too. The Sun have often run stories and started campaigns, they've even (if my memory serves correctly) on occasion offered rewards for information on high profile cases where the victims are children. They've been highly critical of flimsy charges brought against child sex-offenders. Recently they have been re-campaigning for the introduction of Sarah's Law. It is quite admirable how, when the news will often only run stories of a certain nature for so long for fear of loss of sales/figures due to consumer apathy, The Sun has never weakened or gone off the boil and continues to to rally against all things Paedophilic.

SO WHY did I open up The Sun the other day to find a Page 3 Girl dressed up as a schoolgirl?!?! Is it just me, or is that unbelievably hipocritical?! You cannot be so against something, but then be quite happy to casually glorify that very same thing for the titilation of your readers! The argument of course will be that it's one of those male fantasies and that it's just a bit of fun. This from a newspaper that so venomously villified Chris Morris for his satire on the whole issue, that actually had a very relevant point to make! What point are The Sun trying to make? That we all want to fuck a schoolgirl apparently. Yeah, 10 out of 10 for towing the party line there chaps.

So there you go. The Sun newspaper. Still as sensationalist and hipocritical as it always has been.

FOALS.

Last night was the Foals gig at the Cellar. Oh what a night.

First up were Party Shank with their brand of dance/hardcore/drum n bass with added toy fun. It was awesome. Enthusiasm + Energy + Beats + Toys = A bit bloody good really. My only critisism is that they weren't on for long enough. I could've easily seen them for twice as long. And later in the night too so I could be all drunk and dance which is what I really wanted to do. Basically Party Shank are far too good to be first on any bill.

Then was The Cocknbullkid. She sang pretty well for four songs over some cool sounding backing. One to keep an eye out for.

Then the reason we're all here, Foals. I've spunked myself on various blogs and myspace stuff before so you probably all know exactly what I thought of them. Which is that they were pretty fucking amazing. The only annoying thing is the fact that by this point, the Cellar had got so ridiculously hot and sweaty that I really felt like dancing was not an option for me, which is difficult because it was much harder to not dance to Foals no matter how exaggeratedly I banged my head and tapped my foot.
Foals continue to get better and better, which considering how good they were in the first place is pretty astonishing.

Tired. Bed. Yes. Please.

Youthmovies.

Monday was the day the seemingly long wait was gonna finally be over. That night was the 65 Days Of Static gig, and I was wetting myself at the prospect of hearing their new stuff. Not long now. As a bonus Sam had popped in to work and said there was gonna be some new Youthmovies songs tonight aswell. Double wet!

First up on the bill were Cats & Cats & Cats who I found a bit Boring & Boring & Boring.

Youthmovies next. And they were quality. I remember ages ago first seeing them do some of what would become some of these songs and I remember thinking it was a little disappointing. Whether it was just coz it wasn't what I was used to them doing or whether it's that these songs have improved over time I'm not sure, but I am sure that tonight they sound awesome. The album should be a real gem.

Then 65 Days! Yay! First song starts and it sounds good. Real good. Yes, this is ging to be awesome I can feel it and I'm already well into it when theres a sudden pointless key change which kinda ruins it a bit. Oh, now theres another. And another. And another. Now it just sounds real shit. This does not bode well. Have faith Axl, the next song might be really good.

It's not.

Neither is almost all of the new stuff. There they are hammering it out like they always have, but it just come across to me as a bit boring. I didn't like it. I never thought of 65 Days as a one trick pony, but as the guy who suddenly looks like he's trying to be Yamataka Eye from Boredoms spent ages having some kind of a rant/monologue and they then played a song that sounded structuraly exactly the same as Radio Protector, just after they had played Radio Protector, that's kind of how I felt. That was the problem with it really, it all just sounded a bit uninspired, a bit dull, a bit "We're 65 Days... This is what we do." as opposed to "We're 65 Days... Let's fucking have it then!!!". More of the same, but nowhere near as good.
This wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that every other time I've seen them, they've been pretty much one of the best bands ever. Which just makes the new stuff being a bit rubbish all the more disappointing. I'll still get the album coz it's 65 Days, but I'm not really holding out much hope at the moment. Which is a bit poo really.

So this blog is called Youthmovies basically because they were without doubt the best band of the night, and a band who are progressing. And it sounds wonderful.

Fucking Cunts.

I've been trying to get hold of the Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip 7" for a week now and it's impossible.
Oh what's this? I just looked it up on ebay and there's loads of it! Yay! Oh, hang on, PEOPLE ARE SELLING IT FOR 15 FUCKING QUID!!

You total total utter absolute............

Another Week In Axl.

Wow, I'm getting pretty slack at this. Slack by my standards anyway. So heres another weeks worth of Axl, compresed into bloggable form. Most if not all of you know all this anyway I'm sure. So feel free to "Skip to the end" (said in a Simon Pegg in Spaced way, not the crap Futurheads song way) if you like.

Oh, and before I forget, Oi Hannah, on the 24th I'll have been blogging for exactly six months. If I don't see a link on your blog then, I'll be sending the boys round. And they'll have dogs. Big mean dogs. Got it?

So, my week:

Friday.
Friday was Pippas party, and the first time I've done fancy dress since I was about 8 (I'm not including that Hallowe'en a few years back coz that was a night out as opposed to a party). I thought my costume was a little rubbish, but everyone else seemed to think it pretty awesome.
Things I especially remember from the party:
*Paul vomiting after downing half a bottle of wine.
*Paul and Hootie almost detroying a bathroom.
*Hootie doing a shot of Treseme shampoo.
*Hootie and I dancing on a sofa, and me worrying we were going to break it.

On the whole, it was a good party and fun was had. Yay.

Saturday.
Saturday was Alex's party. Hreda played and were very good. Another band played who were good, but I would like to see in a proper venue where they can crank the volume up and let the noise out properly. I can't remember what they were called now. I'll remember if I see it.
After that, we went round the Cellar. There was something happening I'm sure, but all I really remember is that at some point I went to the toilet and woke up in the cubicle an hour later. By which point some people had left and been replaced by other people. I remember talking to Pippa a lot. I remember dancing too. Then I remember walking down the high street and getting up to mischief. I'm sure there's a photo of me covered in some metal road work thing. I know theres one of me and Hootie on the Plain roundabout. I remember jumping into things. I remember going back to Seb etc's with Hootie after Kebab Kid. I remember Hootie jumping on two people getting off with each other on Seb etc's floor (which was fucking hilarious). I remember talking but not what I said. I rmember felling very tired and falling asleep on the floor, then waking up with a blanket on me and someones phone ringing for ages which we eventually found and Tricia turned off. I then remember waking up and realising I had been sleeping where those two had been copping off and hoping to dear God that I hadn't been sleeping in some bodily fluids of the penis and vagina kind.

Sunday.
Sunday was Easter. I was woken up for a third time by Becky shouting "SCRUBBERRRRRRRRRRS!!" very loudly. I declared it to be the best alarm ever. I certainly wasn't gonna fall asleep again after that. At some point we started watching Dune. At some point I couldn't handle any more and had to go home. Via KFC for a big chicken heart attack meal.
Quiet evening was had. At some point on this day I lost my phone. I still haven't found it. I'm sure it's in here somewhere, but this room is such a disgracful mess at the mo' that it could be ages before I find it.

Monday.
I can't remember Monday.

Tuesday.
On Tuesday night I was out drinking with my chum Alice and the guys from The Walk Off. It was an awesome night. Just booze and chat and more booze.

Wednesday.
I went to the free jazz night at the Port Mahon. Which was good, except that when the trombonist wasn't playing, she had a tendency to do some free vocaling, which was awful. The highlight for me was when the oboist played two oboes at once. And it was real funny when the Cor Anglais guy
broke a glass by accident. You had to be there.

Thursday.
Last night was Hreda at the Cellar who were awesome. Their stuff is really good and I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with it. They were first on the bill. The next band were called something like A.P.A.T.T or something, and my insticts told me they would be a bit rubbish. Turns out they are possibly the worst band I have ever seen/heard in my entire fucking life. Utter utter shit. They started off like Fonda 500 but shit, and then went on to sound like a load of other bands but really really fucking dreadful. "Have we got time for 3 more songs or two more?" NO MORE!! FUCK OFF!! STOP PLAGUING MY EARS WITH YOUR PUTRID SHITE!! OH, AND YOU'RE NOT "WACKY" AS YOU ARE SO DESPERATLY TRYING TO PROVE, YOU'RE JUST PATHETIC!! NOW FUCK OFF!!! That's what I wanted to shout, but I just stopped after the initial "No more!!", which sadly they paid no attention to. I can't really remember the band who were on after them. I do remember thinking they were incredibly dull and wishing I hadn't just been bought another drink so I could just leave and go to Smash Disco instead. Which did happen eventually. Not before the dullards had finished though.
Can't remember a lot about Smash Disco. I remember dancing with Jamie. I remember that Pippa wasn't there. I remember that at some point these two annoying girls kept grabbing my arse. I tried to move and they carried on. I tried to manouver my arse away from them, this seemed only to encourage them. In the end, the only way I could make them leave me alone, was to pick up a poster that had fallen off the toilet door and write in big letters "I AM GAY!" and hold it up for about 5 minutes. It worked tho', they left me alone after that.
I ate a kebab. I watched Extras. My farts stank.

Which brings us to today. I may go to the Star later. I may not. There's new Derren Brown and Peep Show starting tonight, and I have spent far too much money on booze the last couple of weeks. Hmmmm.........

The Week In Axl.

Well, hasn't it been a busy old week then, eh? Let's see:

Sunday.
Damo Suzuki & Youthmovies gig.

First up were Traktors, who were awesome.
Second up were Swordwind who were awesome.
Third up were Fuck Buttons who were awesome.
Last up was Damo Suzuki with Youthmovies which was awesome.

If I'd written about this closer to the time I would have been able to go into more detail. All I can really say right now is that every band totally blew my mind and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to.

Monday.
Simon Munnery.

The woman who works at the bar in The Cellar gave me a look as if to say "Haven't you been in here a bit much recently?". Maybe she has a point, but I didn't care, as I was there to see Simon Munnery do his whole being hilarious thing. Very funny. I've been a fan of his for a while, and to see him at the Cellar was rather special. Well, for me anyway.

Tuesday.
Vestibule at the first Love Burns night.

This was the first gig I've seen at the Jericho Tavern. It's a bit of an odd venue, but Vestibule were good. The other bands were pretty shit, but Vestibule were good. Although the highlight of the nioght for me was seeing my chum Alice after her sojurn in Morocco, and hearing about her dysentry.

Wednesday.
Axl's night off the social scene. Stayed in and watched some Drop The Dead Donkey. And spoke to The Good Lady Friend on the telephone.

Thursday.
Smash Disco.

Met up with Lex, Paul, Hootie and Tim at Kasbar coz Seb's lot were there. After a nice booze I'd not heard of before we went back to the Star, before me, Paul, Hootie, Sam & Becky went to the Zodiac for Smash Disco. I did that thing where you go "Everyone here is more drunk than me. I'd better drink twice as much to make up for it!", which didn't really work, until I started dancing. Suddenly the movement of my body got the booze flowing thru my body and drunk dancing ensued. This included my usual trick of getting far too excited when "House Of Jealous Lovers" gets played and dancing in a way that is hazardous to my health.
Some twat who had been eyeballing me, Paul and Hootie earlier on tried to wind me up when I went for a drink, so I decided to call his bluff and give him a suggestive wink. He won't be doing that again.
Then after what seemed like a tiny amount of time, we were kicked out coz it was over. Not before whoever was djing went "I know. As I'm in Oxford, why don't I play Creep as my last song?", therefore commiting himself to dj hell for all eternity. Knob.
Kebab Kid, food, back to Sam's. Try to watch Dune, tv stops working. Becky sorts out tv, we end up watching Armando Ianucci. At some point I fall asleep.

Friday.
Woke up at about 8ish on a sofa with a pain in my neck. Stumble home and get more sleep. Then I ventured into town to cobble together a costume for Pippa's party tonight. 15-16 quid later, job almost done. Just waiting for bits to dry. It has suddenly dawned on me that for the second week in a row, I will be working a Saturday on about 2 hours sleep.

And that brings us to now. All I have neglected to mention is that Tuesday was officially "Day Of The Retard" at work, and that on thursday a kid looked at a Beethoven boxset and said that he looked "Grumpy" and that "His name sounds bloodthirsty!", which made me piss myself laughing. Oh, and one of my colleages asked me "Is it Zed Leppelin or Led Zeppelin?". Priceless.

There. Happy now Pippa?