Illness has hit many an Oxfordian this festive season, which may go some way to explaining why The Cellar is half empty tonight. It's a shame, The Walk Off were always at their best playing to a packed room full of people who were well up for dancing their genitals off. It is a real shame that their last ever gig is to a half size crowd, half of whom themselves are ill and not at their best. When I say half crowd, I mean that the cellar was only about half full, not that The Walk Off played a gig to a crowd of midgets and children. God, how good would it have been to get The Walk Off playing at a children's party?
Clanky Robo Gob Jobs is up first though. I can't really say anything I haven't said before in my last thing I wrote about a gig he played at. I will simply say this time, I didn't like it.
Party Shank are next. Whenever I saw Party Shank before, they were awesome. Happy Hardcore played using a variety of toys, it was good fun and caused good dance times. Now they seem to have decided they want to be taken seriously, so we're treated to a first 10 minutes that sounds like they've nicked as many samples from "Waters Of Nazareth" by Justice as they possibly can and rejigged and rearranged them into something very danceable but strangely empty. This is the feeling I get from the whole rest of their set too. Ultimately, for some reason I can't quite put my finger on, the whole is not as good as the sum of it's parts. Good samples, check. Pounding, very danceable drumbeats, check. Driving electro-basslines, check. All the ingredients for something I would normally be wetting myself with excitement for are here, and I should be over-excitedly telling you about my new favourite band, but there's something so strangely empty about it. Something slightly cynical. Like they've found the perfect formula and know exactly what buttons to push, but have somehow forgotten to add any sort of soul into it. A detached sense of this all just coming a little too easily to them. The fun is gone and you no longer have the great fun feel good party band that Party Shank were. They seem to have tapped right into what's "Cool" right now, and know exactly how to play it. I don't know, maybe it's one of those things I'll see again and totally change my mind, and I'm not even sure I've explained it properly, but there was just something that didn't work for me. It seemed a little too obvious. A little too calculated. A little too formulaic. A little too soulless. I dunno, I'm probably being too harsh here, but that's what I thought.
Then came The Walk Off for their last ever performance. I'll be honest, the start was a little shaky, it took a while to get going. Now whether that's their fault, or the fact that there's only half a crowd of people not necessarily feeling at their best is very much debatable. I would personally say it was due to the crowd, coz once people started to get into it, they played a good set. It's just a shame that night couldn't have been the massive dance party send off they deserved, but at this time and in these circumstances, at moments you can see they've kind of had enough of doing this. The second half of the performance was awesome though, a real reminder of why I loved them, and dance was had, and had hard. But this isn't the one I'll remember them for, and I don't think they'd want it that way either.
The first time I saw The Walk Off was in February, and I genuinely thought they were the best band I had ever seen (Until I saw Shit & Shine, but I won't go into that now). They played at the Zodiac at the Smash Disco night after A Silver Mount Zion had played a pretty special gig, and were superb then too. Then at the Cellar in June or July (I can't remember which) they played just as well as they had at the Zodiac. Those are the gigs I will remember them for. When they made my limbs try to force themselves off my body. When I got drenched in sweat and booze and didn't give a fuck about anything coz I was dancing to the most awesome noise I'd ever heard.
Oh yeah, and that last minute gig where no-one turned up and we all sat ion the stage and it was very surreal.
I will miss you The Walk Off.
Sunday 30 December 2007
Wednesday 26 December 2007
Bloody Fucking Christmas Innit.
Yes, it has been Christmas time. The most wonderful time of the year, some say. Do they know it is at all others say. Some say "Bah Humbug" while others don't stop bloody shouting about it. And how has Axl celebrated the birth of a possibly fictional character in a book written hundreds of years ago? By being ill, that's how.
Hmmm, that's interesting. Imagine if hundreds of years from now people find a copy of a Harry Potter book or something and interpret it as an ancient religious text. Maybe we've simply misunderstood. Maybe the Bible was just a best-seller of the 4th century and we've totally been sucked into some sort of bizarre cult that got way out of hand. Imagine if years from now people base entire civilisations on the teachings of a John Grisham novel. Now is one of the few times I wish I read more proper books, coz if I did I could really go to town with this idea and create an awesome and hilarious blog. Sadly the last actual book I read that wasn't a biography was at least 4 years ago if not longer, so that's that one down the pan. I could go into ideas of how modern civilisations could be based on comic strips, but the bible wasn't a comic book. I wonder if a comic book based on the bible would be any good? Depends who was doing it I suppose. I think it would take someone who wasn't actually a Christian to do a good job of it, someone who wouldn't get bogged down in sentimentality, or be too concerned about projecting the message of the bible. Someone who would just portray an un-biased version of the story itself. That might be interesting. I did come up with an idea for a computer game based on the bible, but I can't remember the details of it now. I'm being a bit useless today, aren't I? Well, fuck you, it's Christmas and I'm ill.
AND I had to work today. Which really sucked major horse testes. It was sooooooo dull. Dull as fuck. There was pretty much no point in us being open at all. But I don't want to talk about that.
Oh balls, I've forgotten what was gonna be next. Eventually I was gonna get on to Band Aid and other Christmas music, so I guess I'll do that now. Maybe I should start planning these blogs a bit better.
Anyway, Christmas working in HMV equals Christmas songs a-plenty. One of the major downsides to this for me is that my least favourite song of all time is a christmas song, and this means I undoubtedly have to listen to it several times every year. (Just in case you're wondering, the song I'm reffering to is "Stop The Cavalry" by Jona Lewie. I fucking hate that song so fucking much, it's probably bad for my health.) One song that you will innevitably hear is "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, a song that gets more and more sickening and patronising every time you hear it. "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" they ask, of an entire continent. AN ENTIRE FUCKING CONTINENT!! Yeah, coz every single person in Africa is a starving child aren't they? Well, ok maybe that's a little harsh to criticise the over simplification. No, hang on, it's not. Secondly, the areas they are actually singing about, why would they know it's Christmas? They're not a fucking Christian society! Amazingly enough, isolated areas that don't believe in a christian God and don't know the story of Jesus, don't know about Christmas! Shocking, I know. Even more bizarrely, people who are literally starving to death, may not exactly give a shit that the western world is celebrating the birth of a man we've only ever read about in a book.
"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time..."
Well there are two things wrong with this. One, there are mountains in Africa which do have snowy peaks, so that is plain wrong. Two, the areas which Band Aid sing about do not have an appropriate eco-system to support a snowy climate. That in itself is not something to be all lovey-sentimental about. There won't be snow in Australia this Christmas time, but you don't see anyone writing a song about it, do you? No. So shut up. Take your sugary sentimentality and fuck off, write a decent song and then come back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a total scrooge, there are some Christmas songs I like. Just not many. For some reason it seems that Christmas, especially recently, is not a subject matter that creates good songwriting. I say recently, but thinking about it, a lot of the old ones are just as bad, and I'm sorry but there is no such thing as a good christmas carol. They're all shit.
Ok, I've totally forgotten what else I was going to write. I'm actually really pissed off about this coz this keeps happening to me these days. I'm actually genuinely really angry. I'm gonna go to bed now all grumpy and shit. Fucks sake, sometimes I wonder why I even bother.
Hmmm, that's interesting. Imagine if hundreds of years from now people find a copy of a Harry Potter book or something and interpret it as an ancient religious text. Maybe we've simply misunderstood. Maybe the Bible was just a best-seller of the 4th century and we've totally been sucked into some sort of bizarre cult that got way out of hand. Imagine if years from now people base entire civilisations on the teachings of a John Grisham novel. Now is one of the few times I wish I read more proper books, coz if I did I could really go to town with this idea and create an awesome and hilarious blog. Sadly the last actual book I read that wasn't a biography was at least 4 years ago if not longer, so that's that one down the pan. I could go into ideas of how modern civilisations could be based on comic strips, but the bible wasn't a comic book. I wonder if a comic book based on the bible would be any good? Depends who was doing it I suppose. I think it would take someone who wasn't actually a Christian to do a good job of it, someone who wouldn't get bogged down in sentimentality, or be too concerned about projecting the message of the bible. Someone who would just portray an un-biased version of the story itself. That might be interesting. I did come up with an idea for a computer game based on the bible, but I can't remember the details of it now. I'm being a bit useless today, aren't I? Well, fuck you, it's Christmas and I'm ill.
AND I had to work today. Which really sucked major horse testes. It was sooooooo dull. Dull as fuck. There was pretty much no point in us being open at all. But I don't want to talk about that.
Oh balls, I've forgotten what was gonna be next. Eventually I was gonna get on to Band Aid and other Christmas music, so I guess I'll do that now. Maybe I should start planning these blogs a bit better.
Anyway, Christmas working in HMV equals Christmas songs a-plenty. One of the major downsides to this for me is that my least favourite song of all time is a christmas song, and this means I undoubtedly have to listen to it several times every year. (Just in case you're wondering, the song I'm reffering to is "Stop The Cavalry" by Jona Lewie. I fucking hate that song so fucking much, it's probably bad for my health.) One song that you will innevitably hear is "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, a song that gets more and more sickening and patronising every time you hear it. "Do they know it's Christmas time at all?" they ask, of an entire continent. AN ENTIRE FUCKING CONTINENT!! Yeah, coz every single person in Africa is a starving child aren't they? Well, ok maybe that's a little harsh to criticise the over simplification. No, hang on, it's not. Secondly, the areas they are actually singing about, why would they know it's Christmas? They're not a fucking Christian society! Amazingly enough, isolated areas that don't believe in a christian God and don't know the story of Jesus, don't know about Christmas! Shocking, I know. Even more bizarrely, people who are literally starving to death, may not exactly give a shit that the western world is celebrating the birth of a man we've only ever read about in a book.
"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time..."
Well there are two things wrong with this. One, there are mountains in Africa which do have snowy peaks, so that is plain wrong. Two, the areas which Band Aid sing about do not have an appropriate eco-system to support a snowy climate. That in itself is not something to be all lovey-sentimental about. There won't be snow in Australia this Christmas time, but you don't see anyone writing a song about it, do you? No. So shut up. Take your sugary sentimentality and fuck off, write a decent song and then come back.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a total scrooge, there are some Christmas songs I like. Just not many. For some reason it seems that Christmas, especially recently, is not a subject matter that creates good songwriting. I say recently, but thinking about it, a lot of the old ones are just as bad, and I'm sorry but there is no such thing as a good christmas carol. They're all shit.
Ok, I've totally forgotten what else I was going to write. I'm actually really pissed off about this coz this keeps happening to me these days. I'm actually genuinely really angry. I'm gonna go to bed now all grumpy and shit. Fucks sake, sometimes I wonder why I even bother.
Tuesday 18 December 2007
"Work Related Tiredness" and "Is There Too Much Noise?".
All the 7am starts are finally starting to warp my brain. I'm falling asleep at odd times, forgetting things all the time - like "Why did I literally just get up and go to the kitchen?", getting things mixed up - the other day I went to the fridge in the staffroom looking for my food and realised that I actually had thought it was my fridge at home, in general the tiredness is effecting every aspect of my brain. I came up with a song today. It doesn't have a title. It goes like this:
Take a leaf out of my book,
Put it in your book,
We'll have a mixed leaf book.
Prince Charles made love to a man,
But the man had a horses head.
I hate the sound of children singing.
I used to be one,
And I hated it then.
Yep, that's my masterpiece ladies and gentlemen! That's my number 1 hit! That's the one I'm gonna pitch to next years Eurovision & X-Factor song deciding people!
Gigs. Sunday & Monday.
Sunday equals the New Zealand band So So Modern at the Cellar who were fucking ace and made me want them in bed if only they were girl ladies. Seriously good stuff. But it did put a dampener on Monday, coz I just wasn't really in the mood for a noise gig. Especially when the opening act was Joey Chainsaw who I'd never seen before and everyone told me he was really good but it just reminded me of a drunk old man at a wedding barging onto the stage and grabbing the guitarist's guitar shouting "Look at me! I'm a fuckin' rock star!" and proceeding to make a total tit of himself strumming on it, coz of course he can't play, and drunkenly groaning out some half-arsed lyrics to a song that he's got wrong anyway. Anyway Joey Chainsaw didn't actually sound like that coz we weren't at a wedding, but if you took that drunk at a wedding guy to a noise gig and he did that, that's what it reminded me of. And why the fuck has everyone started sitting down at noise gigs?! Seriously, the noise scene is perilously close to becoming some sort of 60's beatnik hippy parody if it carries on like this.
Which would be a shame coz there is still a lot to be excited about in it. Egyptian Death play their first gig with a fairly typical but very good take on noise and then just when you're on the verge of thinking you may have heard this all before, tribal drumming saves the day!! A whole new persperctive is brought into play resulting in one of the most interesting noise performances I've seen for a while. Sure it sounds a lot like Black Dice, but I'm not complaining and if you do, you're a fool.
Star of the night though is undoubtedly Sorrel. A fragile female form takes to the stage looking like Wynonna Ryder and like she'd be much happier reading poetry ant home with some Shins album on the stereo or something. But this is Emily from PatelPretal, not some stereotypical self-harmer. Now, I was a little worried this would just sound like PatelPretal (Very good, but what would the point of doing a solo set be?), and yes, some of the method seems the same, but the instrumentation seems to be different and the sounds created are not those of PP. Whereas they use layered and treated vocals to create an incredibly warm sound that engulfs and captivates, Sorrel solo is a different prospect, instead seemingly building up a wall of sound of intricate and differing layers that simply mesmerise. I genuinely lose that feeling of "I'm not really in the mood for this" and am astounded by the sounds that surround me. I imagine this would be the kind of noise act that Phil Spector would produce, if only he hadn't gone so fucking mental.
Then came Telescopes. I was excited as last time I saw Telescopes they were incredible. Sure, I was virtually the only person in the room who thought that, but still, I thought they were amazing. Somewhere along the line though the innovation seems to have been replaced by extreme laziness and here comes that really-not-in-the-mood feeling back again, just for a few minutes before I fell asleep. When I woke up they were still playing and it was still boring and so I left. They may well have been invators, but the problem is they sound like they've only just discovered that you don't actually have to play chords, rather that the perfected lush wonder of that performance 3 or 4 years ago.
Maybe the noise scene is becoming a victim of it's own success and it just doesn't seem new, exciting or fresh anymore. Or it could just be coz these bollocksy work shifts I've been on have drained me somewhat and affected my moods recently.
Oh yeah, I really liked Munch Munch on Sunday aswell. 2 x synths + 2 x percussion = 1 good band. Not as good as So So Modern though. I can't seem to write about that at the moment though. I wrote about them before, and it's still all valid, so just read the previous post I wrote about them to find out how good I think they are.
Wow! I think I just managed all that without one mention of the word "Awesome"! I am very proud of myself.
Take a leaf out of my book,
Put it in your book,
We'll have a mixed leaf book.
Prince Charles made love to a man,
But the man had a horses head.
I hate the sound of children singing.
I used to be one,
And I hated it then.
Yep, that's my masterpiece ladies and gentlemen! That's my number 1 hit! That's the one I'm gonna pitch to next years Eurovision & X-Factor song deciding people!
Gigs. Sunday & Monday.
Sunday equals the New Zealand band So So Modern at the Cellar who were fucking ace and made me want them in bed if only they were girl ladies. Seriously good stuff. But it did put a dampener on Monday, coz I just wasn't really in the mood for a noise gig. Especially when the opening act was Joey Chainsaw who I'd never seen before and everyone told me he was really good but it just reminded me of a drunk old man at a wedding barging onto the stage and grabbing the guitarist's guitar shouting "Look at me! I'm a fuckin' rock star!" and proceeding to make a total tit of himself strumming on it, coz of course he can't play, and drunkenly groaning out some half-arsed lyrics to a song that he's got wrong anyway. Anyway Joey Chainsaw didn't actually sound like that coz we weren't at a wedding, but if you took that drunk at a wedding guy to a noise gig and he did that, that's what it reminded me of. And why the fuck has everyone started sitting down at noise gigs?! Seriously, the noise scene is perilously close to becoming some sort of 60's beatnik hippy parody if it carries on like this.
Which would be a shame coz there is still a lot to be excited about in it. Egyptian Death play their first gig with a fairly typical but very good take on noise and then just when you're on the verge of thinking you may have heard this all before, tribal drumming saves the day!! A whole new persperctive is brought into play resulting in one of the most interesting noise performances I've seen for a while. Sure it sounds a lot like Black Dice, but I'm not complaining and if you do, you're a fool.
Star of the night though is undoubtedly Sorrel. A fragile female form takes to the stage looking like Wynonna Ryder and like she'd be much happier reading poetry ant home with some Shins album on the stereo or something. But this is Emily from PatelPretal, not some stereotypical self-harmer. Now, I was a little worried this would just sound like PatelPretal (Very good, but what would the point of doing a solo set be?), and yes, some of the method seems the same, but the instrumentation seems to be different and the sounds created are not those of PP. Whereas they use layered and treated vocals to create an incredibly warm sound that engulfs and captivates, Sorrel solo is a different prospect, instead seemingly building up a wall of sound of intricate and differing layers that simply mesmerise. I genuinely lose that feeling of "I'm not really in the mood for this" and am astounded by the sounds that surround me. I imagine this would be the kind of noise act that Phil Spector would produce, if only he hadn't gone so fucking mental.
Then came Telescopes. I was excited as last time I saw Telescopes they were incredible. Sure, I was virtually the only person in the room who thought that, but still, I thought they were amazing. Somewhere along the line though the innovation seems to have been replaced by extreme laziness and here comes that really-not-in-the-mood feeling back again, just for a few minutes before I fell asleep. When I woke up they were still playing and it was still boring and so I left. They may well have been invators, but the problem is they sound like they've only just discovered that you don't actually have to play chords, rather that the perfected lush wonder of that performance 3 or 4 years ago.
Maybe the noise scene is becoming a victim of it's own success and it just doesn't seem new, exciting or fresh anymore. Or it could just be coz these bollocksy work shifts I've been on have drained me somewhat and affected my moods recently.
Oh yeah, I really liked Munch Munch on Sunday aswell. 2 x synths + 2 x percussion = 1 good band. Not as good as So So Modern though. I can't seem to write about that at the moment though. I wrote about them before, and it's still all valid, so just read the previous post I wrote about them to find out how good I think they are.
Wow! I think I just managed all that without one mention of the word "Awesome"! I am very proud of myself.
Friday 14 December 2007
Guest Blogger #16: Alice Bevan - "Alice's High Fidelity stylee songs of the year and all the emotional baggage they bring with them. Boohooo, wahhhh."
Righto, since this thing is about the songs of my ENTIRE year, I'm going to get chronological on your faces and start all the way back in January. Can I get a rewind?
The first notable song of 2007 that I can think of is 'we are your friends' by Justice vs Simian. Yes, yes, I know it was out in 2006, but when I returned to Sussex after the Christmas holidays and a few hours of 'argh I kind of really want to stay in Oxford' this was the song that made me think, 'hmmm, actually, ok, maybe it's alright here'. Granted I was drunk to the point that any song that I heard would've probably evoked equally 'YEAH!' emotions, but when this beauty came at my ears in the arc on the first night back I thought, 'WOW, they ARE my friends'. So, yeah.
The January to February period was all about that Killers album (have they already done another one? Surely not, but I heard they had? Maybe we were just really slow in getting the second one...?) and singing 'thisriveriswiiiiiiiiiiild' at any given opportunity with Carl. This was during our 'we're freshers, let's stay up until 6am every day for absolutely no reason and fail our courses' phase. Because of this sort of logic, we also spent FAR too much time at the arcade, so daytona song gets a mention. Yes, the daytona song is that song that the daytona driving game plays out when you put money in it... it kind of sounds like 'daddy owned herrrrrrr'. Good times.
March was when I started spending a lot of time wandering around Brighton on my own in the day being melancholy. Chkchkchk got a lot of plays for angry value, I was not a very happy bunny. Also, was this about the time that Britney Spears done her mental hair cutting trick? Because I remember being on a train in Portsmouth, looking at the paper and thinking 'WTFFFF' and I was listening to TV on the radio, and somehow this combination of events stuck in my brain like a very sticky brainy thing.
April. Some of you know what April means. April means: MOROCCO. AAAAAAAAARGH!!! For those of you who haven't heard my delightful tale before, I went to Morocco with my Sussex friends during our Easter holidays. We thought it would be fun. And it was... until I got dysentery. Mmmm, my fave. My notable album of April is Justin Timberlake's album, because that's what we were listening to as we drove through the desert for 4 hours and I vomited all over myself and everyone else. Yum. I gave the album to our taxi driver as some kind of poor compensation for sicking all over his van. He was pretty chuffed, that album is rude in every sense of the word. Driving into Marrakesh with the windows down and dancing to sexyback was also a highlight of the year; the combination of being out of the desert and back in a town combined with dancing deliriously combined with our taxi man bobbing his head to the music like a massive P.I.M.P was aweeesome.
May is when I decided to move back to Oxford. I was drunk for most of the month. I remember going to see the walkoff on Sara's birthday at smash disco and falling over a lot, and Sara's brilliantly ambiguous text message to the boy she didn't want to get off with: 'feel sick like 2 go home'. Oh Sara, punctuation is the way. Was this when foals did the cellar too? I dunno. If it was, that was an awesome night, I was yet to be involved in the Oxford scene to any proper extent and I spent the night dancing like a spaz with Blakers and Khai and Lewis and Sara and Tamara, and being uncool, and not caring.
June I moved back to Oxford, it was around this time that I remember sitting at the bar in the star and watching Axl and James dance to chromeo and thinking 'yeah, I was totally right to move back'. Chromeo solve all.
July to August was the HMV period. Working full-time for 'the man', or in my case, 'the Melissa'. Grrr. Lots of stacking dvds. July was all about Rihanna, mostly because July was the month that Oxford was absolutely shat on by the weather. Truck was cancelled, sob. So I thought it was funny whenever I was on an early shift to bang on 'umbrella' at 8 in the morning. We also had to listen to a lot of Now 67, which I now grudgingly love.
September: TRUUUUUCK! unfortunately I didn't like very many of the bands this year due to poorer than usual lineup/my own musical ignorance. Spent the entire weekend getting absolutely smashed and pining for Sara love. Without a doubt my set of the weekend was jonquil. We'd spent the duration of Sunday daytime sat up at camp young'uns drinking wine from a box and doing jonquil singsongs. The jonquil set was also my last one of the weekend, so we gathered our gang together and wedged in at the front and heckled our hearts out. Sorry jonquil. This set was also notable for awesome drunken comeback: 'Err,'can you tone down your singing please?' 'Err, can you tone down your outfit please?' (this was aimed at Michael Barry's short shorts).
October was birthday month. I remember very little about my birthday, apart from dancing to the Smiths on the stage at the cellar. It was also when I started working at the cellar (or was that September?) and we coined 'HEY! HEY! ROO! ROO! I like that you're Jewish!' So it stuck in my brain at ARF? that month when they played 'girlfriend' by Avril Lavigne and I yelled it at Roo as we cleaned up.
November I became obsessed with Kate Nash. Her lyrics are genius:
'And my friends were like "Whatever,
you'll find someone better,
his eyes are way too close together
and we never even liked him from the start.
And now he's with that tart'
November was also when I went to the WORST party of all time and had to sit and watch some weird men listening to the cribs while I wondered WHAT I was doing there. Eww. It was ok, Chelsey and I went and hid.
I won't do December, I'm hoping that someone more memorable is yet to happen, like, err, maybe BLOC PARTY AT ALEXANDRA PALACE OOOOOOMMMMMGGGGGGGGGZZZZZZZ.
I may be a tad excited.
And that was my musical year.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Merry kissmass
Written and e-mailed to the potato farm by Alice Bevan. All rights reserved.
The first notable song of 2007 that I can think of is 'we are your friends' by Justice vs Simian. Yes, yes, I know it was out in 2006, but when I returned to Sussex after the Christmas holidays and a few hours of 'argh I kind of really want to stay in Oxford' this was the song that made me think, 'hmmm, actually, ok, maybe it's alright here'. Granted I was drunk to the point that any song that I heard would've probably evoked equally 'YEAH!' emotions, but when this beauty came at my ears in the arc on the first night back I thought, 'WOW, they ARE my friends'. So, yeah.
The January to February period was all about that Killers album (have they already done another one? Surely not, but I heard they had? Maybe we were just really slow in getting the second one...?) and singing 'thisriveriswiiiiiiiiiiild' at any given opportunity with Carl. This was during our 'we're freshers, let's stay up until 6am every day for absolutely no reason and fail our courses' phase. Because of this sort of logic, we also spent FAR too much time at the arcade, so daytona song gets a mention. Yes, the daytona song is that song that the daytona driving game plays out when you put money in it... it kind of sounds like 'daddy owned herrrrrrr'. Good times.
March was when I started spending a lot of time wandering around Brighton on my own in the day being melancholy. Chkchkchk got a lot of plays for angry value, I was not a very happy bunny. Also, was this about the time that Britney Spears done her mental hair cutting trick? Because I remember being on a train in Portsmouth, looking at the paper and thinking 'WTFFFF' and I was listening to TV on the radio, and somehow this combination of events stuck in my brain like a very sticky brainy thing.
April. Some of you know what April means. April means: MOROCCO. AAAAAAAAARGH!!! For those of you who haven't heard my delightful tale before, I went to Morocco with my Sussex friends during our Easter holidays. We thought it would be fun. And it was... until I got dysentery. Mmmm, my fave. My notable album of April is Justin Timberlake's album, because that's what we were listening to as we drove through the desert for 4 hours and I vomited all over myself and everyone else. Yum. I gave the album to our taxi driver as some kind of poor compensation for sicking all over his van. He was pretty chuffed, that album is rude in every sense of the word. Driving into Marrakesh with the windows down and dancing to sexyback was also a highlight of the year; the combination of being out of the desert and back in a town combined with dancing deliriously combined with our taxi man bobbing his head to the music like a massive P.I.M.P was aweeesome.
May is when I decided to move back to Oxford. I was drunk for most of the month. I remember going to see the walkoff on Sara's birthday at smash disco and falling over a lot, and Sara's brilliantly ambiguous text message to the boy she didn't want to get off with: 'feel sick like 2 go home'. Oh Sara, punctuation is the way. Was this when foals did the cellar too? I dunno. If it was, that was an awesome night, I was yet to be involved in the Oxford scene to any proper extent and I spent the night dancing like a spaz with Blakers and Khai and Lewis and Sara and Tamara, and being uncool, and not caring.
June I moved back to Oxford, it was around this time that I remember sitting at the bar in the star and watching Axl and James dance to chromeo and thinking 'yeah, I was totally right to move back'. Chromeo solve all.
July to August was the HMV period. Working full-time for 'the man', or in my case, 'the Melissa'. Grrr. Lots of stacking dvds. July was all about Rihanna, mostly because July was the month that Oxford was absolutely shat on by the weather. Truck was cancelled, sob. So I thought it was funny whenever I was on an early shift to bang on 'umbrella' at 8 in the morning. We also had to listen to a lot of Now 67, which I now grudgingly love.
September: TRUUUUUCK! unfortunately I didn't like very many of the bands this year due to poorer than usual lineup/my own musical ignorance. Spent the entire weekend getting absolutely smashed and pining for Sara love. Without a doubt my set of the weekend was jonquil. We'd spent the duration of Sunday daytime sat up at camp young'uns drinking wine from a box and doing jonquil singsongs. The jonquil set was also my last one of the weekend, so we gathered our gang together and wedged in at the front and heckled our hearts out. Sorry jonquil. This set was also notable for awesome drunken comeback: 'Err,'can you tone down your singing please?' 'Err, can you tone down your outfit please?' (this was aimed at Michael Barry's short shorts).
October was birthday month. I remember very little about my birthday, apart from dancing to the Smiths on the stage at the cellar. It was also when I started working at the cellar (or was that September?) and we coined 'HEY! HEY! ROO! ROO! I like that you're Jewish!' So it stuck in my brain at ARF? that month when they played 'girlfriend' by Avril Lavigne and I yelled it at Roo as we cleaned up.
November I became obsessed with Kate Nash. Her lyrics are genius:
'And my friends were like "Whatever,
you'll find someone better,
his eyes are way too close together
and we never even liked him from the start.
And now he's with that tart'
November was also when I went to the WORST party of all time and had to sit and watch some weird men listening to the cribs while I wondered WHAT I was doing there. Eww. It was ok, Chelsey and I went and hid.
I won't do December, I'm hoping that someone more memorable is yet to happen, like, err, maybe BLOC PARTY AT ALEXANDRA PALACE OOOOOOMMMMMGGGGGGGGGZZZZZZZ.
I may be a tad excited.
And that was my musical year.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Merry kissmass
Written and e-mailed to the potato farm by Alice Bevan. All rights reserved.
Wednesday 12 December 2007
Catch Up.
Okay, so It's been a while since I've been properly in on this blog, but here I am to make things right again. I was gonna do about 5 seperate posts today, but instead decided I'm just gonna write one bloody big one and to hell with structural narative and all that stuff I'm supposed to care about in the efforts of making a good read.
So yeah, sorry I haven't been around properly for a while. You know what it's like when you buy a new girlfriend tho. Take it home, open the box, get all the parts laid out on the floor, get intimidated by the huge book of instructions, then after a few hours work it out and put it all together only to find that when you've finished, you've done something wrong, or glued something the wrong way round. She's in the reapair shop at the moment, hopefully getting fixed tho the repairmen are being a bit vague as to when I'll get her back, as they may have to ship her off to their Paris branch for certain repair procedures.
Then when you do have them put together and working you forget how much time and phone credit of yours they use up, but you don't complain coz actually you don't care coz they're awesome and yer just explaining why you haven't seen people for a bit/haven't been to the pub for a while/haven't been regularly blogging recently.
Anyway, there've been some things that have caught my bloggers eye recently that I'm gonna share with you. Quick question, why do Nurofen taste so good? Do they line them with sugar so children will think they are candy and get hooked on painkillers?
So anyway, the Spice Girls reformed and all that blah blah tour sold out quicker than Jesus' second coming blah blah single only got to number 12 ha ha. No what I wanted to question was this. We've had to endure their old hits belted out at work what with the best of/singles collection being released. (Why do people call them best of's when mostly they are in fact just a collection of singles?) Anyway, whenever the song "Spice Up Your Life" comes on, I'm slightly shocked at how, without a flutter or second thought, they belt out the line:
"Yellow men in Timbuktu."
What?! Sorry, I'm getting on a bit, my memory doesn't always work properly, but was casual racism acceptable in 1997? Surely this is the kind of line that should've died in the mainstream years ago along with "Mind Your Language" and Spike Milligan's really rather racist impersonations and oh-so hilarious songs that say things like "Ying-tang-yiddle-ai-po". Why stop there Spice Girls, or whoever it is who writes your lyrics? Why not go the whole hog and have lines like "Niggers in the bronx", "Yids in Israel" or "Pakis at Mecca"?!? BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE, THAT'S WHY!!! TAKE YOUR FUCKING IGNORANT BULLSHIT AWAY FROM MY EARS AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSES YOU TWATS!!!
Talking of twats, I was wondering something about the female anatomy. You know how if you're a guy and you go for a piss and you think you've finished but there was still a little tiny dribble hanging on in there that only comes out once you've put yer cock back in yer underwear and done up yer flies and it goes in yer pants and sometimes dribbles down yer leg making you go "Oh, for fuck's sake..." and you feel a bit wrong until it dries up and eventually forget about it, or maybe it's been so bad you've had to get some loo roll and mop it up off yer leg and the inside of yer undies just so you don't feel quite so rank? Well, I was wondering if that ever hapens to women, or if it's purely just a man thing? I asked this in the staffroom the other day and no-one would answer me. I would look it up on google but I'm scared of what it may take me to. So yeah, ladies, wee dribbles, do you get them too?
You know in the film "Men In Black" when the alien in that guys head is dying and he tells Will Smith that "The galaxy is on Orion's Belt" and it turns out Orion is the name of him or his mates cat? Did it never actually occur to the scriptwriters and filmmakers that it's attached to his fucking collar, NOT his belt?! Coz, and I don't now if you know this or not Hollywood, but CATS DON'T WEAR FUCKING BELTS!! Morons. "Oh, but that way it wouldn't sound quite so romantic and we wouldn't have had our conveniently misleading plot twist and..." SHUT UP!! DON'T BE SO STUPID AND LAZY AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR A CHANGE!!
Just for the record, I like the film "Men In Black". I think it's funny and well made and good and Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones are a good double and Linda Fiorentino is dead sexy like. Oooooh she is tho, isn't she. Yes.
Anyway, back to lyrics. That absolute ladies man Shane Ward has had his new album out recently. You know, he won that X-Factor televisual mouth-farting contest a couple of years back. I can happily report that his particular brand of vocal gas is as awful as ever, if not worse. Now, I must admit I didn't hear his first album that much, but I've been force-fed his awfulness in all too regular doses at work over the last few weeks, and the lyrics, WOW they are utterly appaling. I was convinced that Katie Melua's album would win Axl's worst lyrics I've heard all year award, but now I'm not so sure. Shane Ward warbles some of the worst lyrics ever written.
First up we have "We've got that you hang up, no you hang up kind of love." Now, what does this say to you, coz to me it says "We have an unbelievably annoying and irritating love that is sterotypically soppy and vomit-inducing and would make you want to slap us if you ever saw us together." Oh, but wait, there's more. On whatever-the-fuck-the-song's-called-I-really-couldn't-give-a-giraffe's-testicles, he not only sings "If we had babies they would look like you." - pass me the industrial strength bucket please - but then later sings "If we had babies they would have your eyes, and..." now brace yourself for this one folks coz it's an absolute gem, "I would fall deeper seeing you give life."
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?????????? Is it just me or is that unbelievably odd? Is Shane Ward admitting to some sort of bizarre fetish here? Coz what he is essentially saying is that if he could watch you giving birth, he would fall more in love with you. Huhn?! Call me totally fucking mental, but seeing a woman screaming in unbearable pain as she tries to force something bigger than a rugby ball and far less aerodynamicaly designed thru her relatively very small vagina, probably tearing her pereneum in the process which is only going to add to the pain, doesn't exactly get my rocks off honey. Watching as a loved ones private parts become something resembling a car crash while people pull a midget victim of said crash out from them would not make me think "Wow, I never knew my feelings for another could run this deep. I now truly know the meaning of the word love, because I feel it like never before." It would make me wince. And squirm. And probably frightened for her safety. And almost certainly it would make me vomit.
That said tho, there is one Shane Ward line that tops all the others hands down. I didn't notice this one until Ham pointed it out to me, but yes, he really does sing it. Behold this line. You have probably never read anything quite like it. Here it is:
"Falling like chocolate stars in the sun."
I literally have absolutly no idea what to say about that.
I was gonna do a little review of the last Permanent Vacation gig, but Tim has already done one on his blog that is better than what I was going to write, so go and read his instead. Although, I will say I disagree with him about PNAK. I thought they were rubbish. Good drumming tho. Also, I had to leave before Elapse-O played coz I was virtually falling asleep on my feet. Read Tim's review on his blog. It's "The Process Of Weeding Out" in the "Axl Approved list there, or you could just click here: http://theprocessofweedingout.blogspot.com/
I was also gonna do some sort of review thing about the Boris & Sunn O))) gig I went to on monday, but I don't really have time now, and I have to get dressed before meeting people for a boozy drink. I still plan on doing it though.
I'm sure that's enough for now anyway. Have a nice day y'all! xx
So yeah, sorry I haven't been around properly for a while. You know what it's like when you buy a new girlfriend tho. Take it home, open the box, get all the parts laid out on the floor, get intimidated by the huge book of instructions, then after a few hours work it out and put it all together only to find that when you've finished, you've done something wrong, or glued something the wrong way round. She's in the reapair shop at the moment, hopefully getting fixed tho the repairmen are being a bit vague as to when I'll get her back, as they may have to ship her off to their Paris branch for certain repair procedures.
Then when you do have them put together and working you forget how much time and phone credit of yours they use up, but you don't complain coz actually you don't care coz they're awesome and yer just explaining why you haven't seen people for a bit/haven't been to the pub for a while/haven't been regularly blogging recently.
Anyway, there've been some things that have caught my bloggers eye recently that I'm gonna share with you. Quick question, why do Nurofen taste so good? Do they line them with sugar so children will think they are candy and get hooked on painkillers?
So anyway, the Spice Girls reformed and all that blah blah tour sold out quicker than Jesus' second coming blah blah single only got to number 12 ha ha. No what I wanted to question was this. We've had to endure their old hits belted out at work what with the best of/singles collection being released. (Why do people call them best of's when mostly they are in fact just a collection of singles?) Anyway, whenever the song "Spice Up Your Life" comes on, I'm slightly shocked at how, without a flutter or second thought, they belt out the line:
"Yellow men in Timbuktu."
What?! Sorry, I'm getting on a bit, my memory doesn't always work properly, but was casual racism acceptable in 1997? Surely this is the kind of line that should've died in the mainstream years ago along with "Mind Your Language" and Spike Milligan's really rather racist impersonations and oh-so hilarious songs that say things like "Ying-tang-yiddle-ai-po". Why stop there Spice Girls, or whoever it is who writes your lyrics? Why not go the whole hog and have lines like "Niggers in the bronx", "Yids in Israel" or "Pakis at Mecca"?!? BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE, THAT'S WHY!!! TAKE YOUR FUCKING IGNORANT BULLSHIT AWAY FROM MY EARS AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSES YOU TWATS!!!
Talking of twats, I was wondering something about the female anatomy. You know how if you're a guy and you go for a piss and you think you've finished but there was still a little tiny dribble hanging on in there that only comes out once you've put yer cock back in yer underwear and done up yer flies and it goes in yer pants and sometimes dribbles down yer leg making you go "Oh, for fuck's sake..." and you feel a bit wrong until it dries up and eventually forget about it, or maybe it's been so bad you've had to get some loo roll and mop it up off yer leg and the inside of yer undies just so you don't feel quite so rank? Well, I was wondering if that ever hapens to women, or if it's purely just a man thing? I asked this in the staffroom the other day and no-one would answer me. I would look it up on google but I'm scared of what it may take me to. So yeah, ladies, wee dribbles, do you get them too?
You know in the film "Men In Black" when the alien in that guys head is dying and he tells Will Smith that "The galaxy is on Orion's Belt" and it turns out Orion is the name of him or his mates cat? Did it never actually occur to the scriptwriters and filmmakers that it's attached to his fucking collar, NOT his belt?! Coz, and I don't now if you know this or not Hollywood, but CATS DON'T WEAR FUCKING BELTS!! Morons. "Oh, but that way it wouldn't sound quite so romantic and we wouldn't have had our conveniently misleading plot twist and..." SHUT UP!! DON'T BE SO STUPID AND LAZY AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING ORIGINAL FOR A CHANGE!!
Just for the record, I like the film "Men In Black". I think it's funny and well made and good and Will Smith & Tommy Lee Jones are a good double and Linda Fiorentino is dead sexy like. Oooooh she is tho, isn't she. Yes.
Anyway, back to lyrics. That absolute ladies man Shane Ward has had his new album out recently. You know, he won that X-Factor televisual mouth-farting contest a couple of years back. I can happily report that his particular brand of vocal gas is as awful as ever, if not worse. Now, I must admit I didn't hear his first album that much, but I've been force-fed his awfulness in all too regular doses at work over the last few weeks, and the lyrics, WOW they are utterly appaling. I was convinced that Katie Melua's album would win Axl's worst lyrics I've heard all year award, but now I'm not so sure. Shane Ward warbles some of the worst lyrics ever written.
First up we have "We've got that you hang up, no you hang up kind of love." Now, what does this say to you, coz to me it says "We have an unbelievably annoying and irritating love that is sterotypically soppy and vomit-inducing and would make you want to slap us if you ever saw us together." Oh, but wait, there's more. On whatever-the-fuck-the-song's-called-I-really-couldn't-give-a-giraffe's-testicles, he not only sings "If we had babies they would look like you." - pass me the industrial strength bucket please - but then later sings "If we had babies they would have your eyes, and..." now brace yourself for this one folks coz it's an absolute gem, "I would fall deeper seeing you give life."
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?????????? Is it just me or is that unbelievably odd? Is Shane Ward admitting to some sort of bizarre fetish here? Coz what he is essentially saying is that if he could watch you giving birth, he would fall more in love with you. Huhn?! Call me totally fucking mental, but seeing a woman screaming in unbearable pain as she tries to force something bigger than a rugby ball and far less aerodynamicaly designed thru her relatively very small vagina, probably tearing her pereneum in the process which is only going to add to the pain, doesn't exactly get my rocks off honey. Watching as a loved ones private parts become something resembling a car crash while people pull a midget victim of said crash out from them would not make me think "Wow, I never knew my feelings for another could run this deep. I now truly know the meaning of the word love, because I feel it like never before." It would make me wince. And squirm. And probably frightened for her safety. And almost certainly it would make me vomit.
That said tho, there is one Shane Ward line that tops all the others hands down. I didn't notice this one until Ham pointed it out to me, but yes, he really does sing it. Behold this line. You have probably never read anything quite like it. Here it is:
"Falling like chocolate stars in the sun."
I literally have absolutly no idea what to say about that.
I was gonna do a little review of the last Permanent Vacation gig, but Tim has already done one on his blog that is better than what I was going to write, so go and read his instead. Although, I will say I disagree with him about PNAK. I thought they were rubbish. Good drumming tho. Also, I had to leave before Elapse-O played coz I was virtually falling asleep on my feet. Read Tim's review on his blog. It's "The Process Of Weeding Out" in the "Axl Approved list there, or you could just click here: http://theprocessofweedingout.blogspot.com/
I was also gonna do some sort of review thing about the Boris & Sunn O))) gig I went to on monday, but I don't really have time now, and I have to get dressed before meeting people for a boozy drink. I still plan on doing it though.
I'm sure that's enough for now anyway. Have a nice day y'all! xx
Tuesday 11 December 2007
Guest Blogger #15: Jamie Ball - "The Randomness Chronicles."
So it's my turn for a guest blog, and hidden within will be my "chat show" that I've held on a few internet forums. More often than not when you read a Q+A you'll get this boring session where people ask lame boring questions no-one wants to know the answer to like "What do you do?" "Who are you" "Where were you the day that *insert major event* happened, and what did you feel" and I've never really been interested in shit like that.
No, that's what the Randomness Chronicles are there for, a mixture of non-standard questions to throw at non-standard people, and in this case my guest will be Mr Axl of the potato farm himself.
Rules are: 15 questions. Answers must be truthful, yet innovative and hopefully comic. That's it.
I'm guesting on the guest blog?!? Cool!
1. What's your favourite cheese?
Oooh, tricky one. I am partial to a nice Cambozola, but I wouldn't call it my favourite. I do love Haloumi, especially fried with leeks, yum yum yum! But then there's Ossau Irati which is a beautiful French cheese, I think it's made from ewe's milk. I do like a good stilton. But cheddar just goes with everything! It's perfect for virtually any occasion! Cheddar is blatantly the best cheese, but would I call it my favourite? I'll tell you what is nice. Take a whole Camembert, push some whole cloves of garlic in and bake it in the oven then eat it with some nice fresh bread. MMMMMM!!!! God, this question's difficult. I'll have to come back to it.
2. If you could open a funpark called "Axlland" then what three rides would you put in it, and why?
Waltzers are the only fairground/funpark ride I actually like, so I'd have one of them, sponsored by Jack Daniels, so I could get free JD. Secondly I'd have a ride based on the film INLAND EMPIRE where you'ld go thru a door and suddenly everything would go fucking mental and you'ld spend ages trying to work out how to get out but it would be really complicated and there would be singing prostitutes. Thirdly, the worlds largest ball pool. Coz they fucking rule!
3. Take any three people from real life...friends, celebrities, or whoever, and get them to work in your funpark. Who would you choose and why?
David Lynch to curate/oversee the INLAND EMPIRE ride. My mate Paul Heard coz I reckon it would be a right laugh running a place like that with him. Also I wouldn't get bored. And Scarlett Johansson. I'm pretty sure you can guess why.
4. If you could be any rockstar in the history of the world...who would it be?
I'd love to say someone like GG Allin, but I couldn't handle the eating my own shit part. Also he was totally fucked up. Justin Timberlake isn't really a rockstar I guess, but he is pretty much the coolest man alive, so I'm gonna say him.
5. The cocktail is the "Axl". What's in it?
HA HA!! I have already invented a cocktail called "The Axl"! It is a shooter made up of equal parts Tequilla and Benilyn Dry Coughs medicine with a squirts worth of lemonade. Slam it and down it. I came up with it when my desire to both get well and get drunk combined into a powerful boozy force. Tim famously threw up after having one. Tee-hee-hee!
6. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
As long as it doesn't chuck my wood, I don't really care.
7. Phil Collins or Osama Bin Laden?
Phil Collins could teach me drums. But then he'd probably teach me by making me play along to his songs. And although Osama Bin Laden can't play any instruments, his mid 70's albums are pretty awesome. Hmmm, tricky one that. Can I choose to have them both as siamese twins joined at the penis?
8. Congratulations! You've got the chance to rename the Moon. What would you call it?
High School Musical 3. Then I'd send all those little sods from those bloody films up there to perish. Apart from Vanessa Hudgens. She can be my naughty slave.
9. What's the musical duet you'll never hear but really really want to?
Nelly Furtado & Sunn O)))
10. Your funpark got closed. Bastard council. What would you build on the old site?
What?! Fuckers! Right! I'm gonna build a giant fountain in the shape of an arse and connect it to the sewers so it sprays faeces all over your district! Fucking council wankers.
11. You've got a short meet and greet with Thom Yorke. So short you can only tell him three things. What would you tell him?
I'd tell him that he should buy the Holy Fuck album "LP" coz it's possibly even better than "In Rainbows", I'd tell him the next Radiohead album should be a metal album, and I'd tell him that it was very nice to meet him, coz I wouldn't wnat to be rude to the guy now would I.
12. Invent a new swearword for me!
Juss. A versatile word that can be used as wank or fuck, so you can tell someone to juss off, but also have a quick juss yerself before going out.
13. It's Oxford United's charity match for...er...someone, and you get to choose the team of 11 men to face them! What team would you put them against? (could be any club, collective, or imaginative thing that pops out of your head)
The Mighty Ducks. And Emilio Estevez. And the Ghostbusters.
14. Where and when do you wish you were born?
I'm quite happy where I am thanks.
15. If you could do one thing to Steven Seagal, what would it be?
Give him a big kiss coz I bet he's a homophobe.
Well, no arguments there. That wraps it up for another edition of the Randomness Chronicles. Till next time...
Intro, outro & questions written & e-mailed to the potato farm by Jamie Ball. Answers written by Mr Axl.
No, that's what the Randomness Chronicles are there for, a mixture of non-standard questions to throw at non-standard people, and in this case my guest will be Mr Axl of the potato farm himself.
Rules are: 15 questions. Answers must be truthful, yet innovative and hopefully comic. That's it.
I'm guesting on the guest blog?!? Cool!
1. What's your favourite cheese?
Oooh, tricky one. I am partial to a nice Cambozola, but I wouldn't call it my favourite. I do love Haloumi, especially fried with leeks, yum yum yum! But then there's Ossau Irati which is a beautiful French cheese, I think it's made from ewe's milk. I do like a good stilton. But cheddar just goes with everything! It's perfect for virtually any occasion! Cheddar is blatantly the best cheese, but would I call it my favourite? I'll tell you what is nice. Take a whole Camembert, push some whole cloves of garlic in and bake it in the oven then eat it with some nice fresh bread. MMMMMM!!!! God, this question's difficult. I'll have to come back to it.
2. If you could open a funpark called "Axlland" then what three rides would you put in it, and why?
Waltzers are the only fairground/funpark ride I actually like, so I'd have one of them, sponsored by Jack Daniels, so I could get free JD. Secondly I'd have a ride based on the film INLAND EMPIRE where you'ld go thru a door and suddenly everything would go fucking mental and you'ld spend ages trying to work out how to get out but it would be really complicated and there would be singing prostitutes. Thirdly, the worlds largest ball pool. Coz they fucking rule!
3. Take any three people from real life...friends, celebrities, or whoever, and get them to work in your funpark. Who would you choose and why?
David Lynch to curate/oversee the INLAND EMPIRE ride. My mate Paul Heard coz I reckon it would be a right laugh running a place like that with him. Also I wouldn't get bored. And Scarlett Johansson. I'm pretty sure you can guess why.
4. If you could be any rockstar in the history of the world...who would it be?
I'd love to say someone like GG Allin, but I couldn't handle the eating my own shit part. Also he was totally fucked up. Justin Timberlake isn't really a rockstar I guess, but he is pretty much the coolest man alive, so I'm gonna say him.
5. The cocktail is the "Axl". What's in it?
HA HA!! I have already invented a cocktail called "The Axl"! It is a shooter made up of equal parts Tequilla and Benilyn Dry Coughs medicine with a squirts worth of lemonade. Slam it and down it. I came up with it when my desire to both get well and get drunk combined into a powerful boozy force. Tim famously threw up after having one. Tee-hee-hee!
6. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
As long as it doesn't chuck my wood, I don't really care.
7. Phil Collins or Osama Bin Laden?
Phil Collins could teach me drums. But then he'd probably teach me by making me play along to his songs. And although Osama Bin Laden can't play any instruments, his mid 70's albums are pretty awesome. Hmmm, tricky one that. Can I choose to have them both as siamese twins joined at the penis?
8. Congratulations! You've got the chance to rename the Moon. What would you call it?
High School Musical 3. Then I'd send all those little sods from those bloody films up there to perish. Apart from Vanessa Hudgens. She can be my naughty slave.
9. What's the musical duet you'll never hear but really really want to?
Nelly Furtado & Sunn O)))
10. Your funpark got closed. Bastard council. What would you build on the old site?
What?! Fuckers! Right! I'm gonna build a giant fountain in the shape of an arse and connect it to the sewers so it sprays faeces all over your district! Fucking council wankers.
11. You've got a short meet and greet with Thom Yorke. So short you can only tell him three things. What would you tell him?
I'd tell him that he should buy the Holy Fuck album "LP" coz it's possibly even better than "In Rainbows", I'd tell him the next Radiohead album should be a metal album, and I'd tell him that it was very nice to meet him, coz I wouldn't wnat to be rude to the guy now would I.
12. Invent a new swearword for me!
Juss. A versatile word that can be used as wank or fuck, so you can tell someone to juss off, but also have a quick juss yerself before going out.
13. It's Oxford United's charity match for...er...someone, and you get to choose the team of 11 men to face them! What team would you put them against? (could be any club, collective, or imaginative thing that pops out of your head)
The Mighty Ducks. And Emilio Estevez. And the Ghostbusters.
14. Where and when do you wish you were born?
I'm quite happy where I am thanks.
15. If you could do one thing to Steven Seagal, what would it be?
Give him a big kiss coz I bet he's a homophobe.
Well, no arguments there. That wraps it up for another edition of the Randomness Chronicles. Till next time...
Intro, outro & questions written & e-mailed to the potato farm by Jamie Ball. Answers written by Mr Axl.
Friday 7 December 2007
Guest Blogger #14: Hannah Connelly - "I Want To Feel Included."
(i wrote this on the first day) why wasn't i invited to write a goddamn guest blog, you knob hole? what you don't think im literate or something? i'm gonna write one anyway. cos im bored and i want sympathy cos my kidneys fell out and no one reads myblog cos I DONT HAVE ONE cos im not a saddo. instead i have 3 myspace accounts facebook and laura ashley dresses in myebay (27 items currently).
im gonna mention laura ashley, in case a mr darcy reads it and thinks 'oh she's quirky, and slightly unhinged, and emotionally unstable, i will leave- but look she wears laura ashley- i will invite her to shoot things on horseback on my giant plot of private land where we will have romances (but i will bring a blanket as she is allergic to grass) and a pig farm and butlers to look for laura ashley on ebay for her and she will be very satisfied with my large knowledge (wink wink)'
(i wrote this a few days later) so my kidneys fell out this week. and i went to hospital and they didn't fob me off with the flu so i didn't have to call them cocksuckers and scream and drool in pain on the hospital floor again. my kidneys fell out and i watched an entire series of house in one day, ate a bunch of bananas and two pieces of toast in 5 days, my kidneys fell out and i considered buying this dress:
now, what does that say to you?
last nite was my first out since being on antibiotics. i saw stornoway, who i really like. i am hoping brian from stornoway will ask me to do a duet with him. if i promise not to wear the above mentioned dress. i wonder if he reads axls blog. i also need him to tell me how to get a gig at the big chill house.
(the following week)
so do you know whats annoying about being a girl? one day when you have a 1950's body and you have to put on dresses over your head. cos they don't fit over your hips. or the ones that do don't go in at the waist. when did i get a weird old school shape, i was practically boyshaped in high school. like waify boy. it's really annoying especially when i am wearing glasses and have my hair done, cos it gets all ruined. i really hate that.
(the next day) do you know whats awesome about being a girl? looking like a 1950's thing in dresses instead of looking like a boy in dresses. c'est la vie.
my computer has a teddy bears head glued to it. and a foot. it used to have 2 hands and two feet and now it has a foot and a head. where is it's tail?
i have a fantasy where i give richard branson the Heimlich manoeuvre and then he gives me a trust fund and decides he would also like to adopt me and be my real dad. i even get new teeth. but i dont tell anyone im rich. so they aren't weird with me, you know? except they can prolly tell cos i have a HUGE bathroom and a whole room for a closet, and someone else does my dishes (who isn't my boyfriend).
this boy my sister used to date is drunk and sending ME messages cos he is in a fight with her or something. i think he's using predictive text without looking at it:
boy:Your rises isn't a vern nice sermon
me: what?
boy: ruined. she has
me: that doesn't make any sense
him: i would have done anything for .heir, but she gates me and i've lost her
me: ::stops texting adds to blog::
as a drug and alcohol counsellor i will leave you with some advice.
a- if you are drinking or drunk at y our computer, by yourself tonite reading this blog AGAIN cos you have NOTHING better to do and you forgot you already read it yesterday, you may possibly have an alcohol problem
b- do not use cocaine in your anus, it will destroy the mucous membranes and that damage can be irreversible leading you more susceptible to all kinds of infections, especially blood borne viruses.
c- please do NOT inject gel caps, they will congeal and you will abscess and possibly lose fingers or an arm.
(today) i have reread this and now i know why axl didn't ask me for it.
grrrrr.
Written & e-mailed to the potato farm by Hannah Connelly. All rights reserved. Hannah Connelly is a member of the band The Vatican Cellars, who can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/thevaticancellars
im gonna mention laura ashley, in case a mr darcy reads it and thinks 'oh she's quirky, and slightly unhinged, and emotionally unstable, i will leave- but look she wears laura ashley- i will invite her to shoot things on horseback on my giant plot of private land where we will have romances (but i will bring a blanket as she is allergic to grass) and a pig farm and butlers to look for laura ashley on ebay for her and she will be very satisfied with my large knowledge (wink wink)'
(i wrote this a few days later) so my kidneys fell out this week. and i went to hospital and they didn't fob me off with the flu so i didn't have to call them cocksuckers and scream and drool in pain on the hospital floor again. my kidneys fell out and i watched an entire series of house in one day, ate a bunch of bananas and two pieces of toast in 5 days, my kidneys fell out and i considered buying this dress:
now, what does that say to you?
last nite was my first out since being on antibiotics. i saw stornoway, who i really like. i am hoping brian from stornoway will ask me to do a duet with him. if i promise not to wear the above mentioned dress. i wonder if he reads axls blog. i also need him to tell me how to get a gig at the big chill house.
(the following week)
so do you know whats annoying about being a girl? one day when you have a 1950's body and you have to put on dresses over your head. cos they don't fit over your hips. or the ones that do don't go in at the waist. when did i get a weird old school shape, i was practically boyshaped in high school. like waify boy. it's really annoying especially when i am wearing glasses and have my hair done, cos it gets all ruined. i really hate that.
(the next day) do you know whats awesome about being a girl? looking like a 1950's thing in dresses instead of looking like a boy in dresses. c'est la vie.
my computer has a teddy bears head glued to it. and a foot. it used to have 2 hands and two feet and now it has a foot and a head. where is it's tail?
i have a fantasy where i give richard branson the Heimlich manoeuvre and then he gives me a trust fund and decides he would also like to adopt me and be my real dad. i even get new teeth. but i dont tell anyone im rich. so they aren't weird with me, you know? except they can prolly tell cos i have a HUGE bathroom and a whole room for a closet, and someone else does my dishes (who isn't my boyfriend).
this boy my sister used to date is drunk and sending ME messages cos he is in a fight with her or something. i think he's using predictive text without looking at it:
boy:Your rises isn't a vern nice sermon
me: what?
boy: ruined. she has
me: that doesn't make any sense
him: i would have done anything for .heir, but she gates me and i've lost her
me: ::stops texting adds to blog::
as a drug and alcohol counsellor i will leave you with some advice.
a- if you are drinking or drunk at y our computer, by yourself tonite reading this blog AGAIN cos you have NOTHING better to do and you forgot you already read it yesterday, you may possibly have an alcohol problem
b- do not use cocaine in your anus, it will destroy the mucous membranes and that damage can be irreversible leading you more susceptible to all kinds of infections, especially blood borne viruses.
c- please do NOT inject gel caps, they will congeal and you will abscess and possibly lose fingers or an arm.
(today) i have reread this and now i know why axl didn't ask me for it.
grrrrr.
Written & e-mailed to the potato farm by Hannah Connelly. All rights reserved. Hannah Connelly is a member of the band The Vatican Cellars, who can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/thevaticancellars
Sunday 2 December 2007
Kiss My Species.
Yeah, so recently I went to a tree planting memorial service, where this particular burial site plant trees next to the buried as kind of a living headstone. It's a really cool idea. Anyway, I'm not gonna talk about that, I'm gonna talk about one of the oddest listening experiences I've ever had which happened in the car on the way there It was so odd, I had to make notes, which is why I can remember it so well. Writing in a moving car is a lot trickier than it should be.
I was getting a lift up there with our mates Jon & Dulcie, and Dulcie's car only has a tape player in it, which is a bit knackered. Anyway, she put a tape in of Air's "Moon Safari" album, but the knackered tape player was playing it too slowly, and the volume was too quiet for me to properly hear it, so what happened was Air ended up sounding in the back of this car like an experimental dub album! It was awesome! "La Femme D'Argent" sounded like an extended dub workout, "Sexy Boy" meanwhile sounded like doom-metal influenced psychedelia! It was mental! "All I Need" became a minimal dub soundscape with Beth Hirsch sounding more like Liz Fraser crooning. Jon opened the window to have a fag, which added to the lack of hearing, and made "Kelly Watch The Stars" sound just like a collage of early digital dub sound effects. "Talisman" sounded like a Nightmares On Wax outtake from the "Smoker's Delight" album, while "Remember" just sounded like someone walking through a windy graveyard while a deep dub bassline could occasionaly be heard. It was awesome! "You Make It Easy" sounded like another Nightmares outtake, but by now the quality was so bad that Dulcie gave up and turned it off. NOOOOO!!! I want to know what the rest would've sounded like!
I want to listen to it again! Instead I just listened to the new Sunburned Hand Of The Man album which is a real disappointment. It's a Sunburned Hand... album that says "Envisioned, produced, mixed andedited by Kieran Hebden", how can it be anything but amazing?! Unfortunately the sound of half-arsed dicking around plagues this album, making it the exact opposite of what it should be.
I'm gonna have to listen to Holy Fuck again. That album ("LP") is fucking incredible.
Anyway, we drove into a small town/large village called Olney. Olney is wierd. Very wierd. People only wear blue and brown in Olney. Some of the young people in the pub later are wearing black, and one man in the street has a red coat. Other than that, blue and brwn and nothign else. I feel like people are staring at me in my green hoodie, the look in their eyes tells me I am a suspicious outsider. How dare I be wearing crazy colours! Off with my hand!
Anyway, Olney's public toilet looks like something out of a 1970's Tomorrow's World episode. Metal toilets with no seats, the seat shape instead being sort of etched into the metal itself. It was a cold day, I'm really glad I didn't need a poo, sitting on that would've been unbearable. The sink one of those box-on-a-wall jobbies where you put your hands in and there's the buttons for soap, water and drying. You know, the kind that everywhere seemed to have until everyone realised in about the mid-90's that they were SHIT!
Olney has places called things like "Sandwich Land". Really?! What, is that like Disney Land?! "Come one, come all! Ride the 'Bombastic BLT Death-Coaster'!! Dare you face the 'Cheese & Pickle Waltzers'?!"
Are there schools across the country with lunchtime coversations that go:
"Where you going on holiday to Carl?"
"We're going to France."
"GUTTEEEEEEEEEEEED!! Mum and Dad are taking me to fucking Sandwich Land, innit!!"
"Aw man, you lucky shit-wank! I wish my parents were rich like yours."
"Yeah, it's pretty fucking sweet being me."
"Boo-hoo-hoooooooooo! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I wish I was dead!"
Or are we to believe that your shop is more than just a shop, that out back you have acres upon acres of free range sandwiches, frolicing as they please? A literal land of sandwiches where bread rules all? Don't call your shop "Sandwich Land", that's just stupid.
Olney also has things like a pub with a wood-chip ceiling, a building where you go in the front door and on your left is an antique dealers, while on your right is a dentist (?!?), and signs that say things like "This Flower Bed Is Sponsored By CAPTAIN CARPET." No joke, that was an actual sign. We never did find Captain Carpet. Me and Jon speculated that he might be a really rubbish superhero created by Marvel when they ran out of ideas one day and started coming up with rubbish superheroes. I can't remember what other ones we came up with now. I should've written them down.
Right. I have to get ready to go and get hideously twatted with the people I work with now. It's our Christmas party tonight, and things are gonna get real messy. Hopefully anyway.
I was getting a lift up there with our mates Jon & Dulcie, and Dulcie's car only has a tape player in it, which is a bit knackered. Anyway, she put a tape in of Air's "Moon Safari" album, but the knackered tape player was playing it too slowly, and the volume was too quiet for me to properly hear it, so what happened was Air ended up sounding in the back of this car like an experimental dub album! It was awesome! "La Femme D'Argent" sounded like an extended dub workout, "Sexy Boy" meanwhile sounded like doom-metal influenced psychedelia! It was mental! "All I Need" became a minimal dub soundscape with Beth Hirsch sounding more like Liz Fraser crooning. Jon opened the window to have a fag, which added to the lack of hearing, and made "Kelly Watch The Stars" sound just like a collage of early digital dub sound effects. "Talisman" sounded like a Nightmares On Wax outtake from the "Smoker's Delight" album, while "Remember" just sounded like someone walking through a windy graveyard while a deep dub bassline could occasionaly be heard. It was awesome! "You Make It Easy" sounded like another Nightmares outtake, but by now the quality was so bad that Dulcie gave up and turned it off. NOOOOO!!! I want to know what the rest would've sounded like!
I want to listen to it again! Instead I just listened to the new Sunburned Hand Of The Man album which is a real disappointment. It's a Sunburned Hand... album that says "Envisioned, produced, mixed andedited by Kieran Hebden", how can it be anything but amazing?! Unfortunately the sound of half-arsed dicking around plagues this album, making it the exact opposite of what it should be.
I'm gonna have to listen to Holy Fuck again. That album ("LP") is fucking incredible.
Anyway, we drove into a small town/large village called Olney. Olney is wierd. Very wierd. People only wear blue and brown in Olney. Some of the young people in the pub later are wearing black, and one man in the street has a red coat. Other than that, blue and brwn and nothign else. I feel like people are staring at me in my green hoodie, the look in their eyes tells me I am a suspicious outsider. How dare I be wearing crazy colours! Off with my hand!
Anyway, Olney's public toilet looks like something out of a 1970's Tomorrow's World episode. Metal toilets with no seats, the seat shape instead being sort of etched into the metal itself. It was a cold day, I'm really glad I didn't need a poo, sitting on that would've been unbearable. The sink one of those box-on-a-wall jobbies where you put your hands in and there's the buttons for soap, water and drying. You know, the kind that everywhere seemed to have until everyone realised in about the mid-90's that they were SHIT!
Olney has places called things like "Sandwich Land". Really?! What, is that like Disney Land?! "Come one, come all! Ride the 'Bombastic BLT Death-Coaster'!! Dare you face the 'Cheese & Pickle Waltzers'?!"
Are there schools across the country with lunchtime coversations that go:
"Where you going on holiday to Carl?"
"We're going to France."
"GUTTEEEEEEEEEEEED!! Mum and Dad are taking me to fucking Sandwich Land, innit!!"
"Aw man, you lucky shit-wank! I wish my parents were rich like yours."
"Yeah, it's pretty fucking sweet being me."
"Boo-hoo-hoooooooooo! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I wish I was dead!"
Or are we to believe that your shop is more than just a shop, that out back you have acres upon acres of free range sandwiches, frolicing as they please? A literal land of sandwiches where bread rules all? Don't call your shop "Sandwich Land", that's just stupid.
Olney also has things like a pub with a wood-chip ceiling, a building where you go in the front door and on your left is an antique dealers, while on your right is a dentist (?!?), and signs that say things like "This Flower Bed Is Sponsored By CAPTAIN CARPET." No joke, that was an actual sign. We never did find Captain Carpet. Me and Jon speculated that he might be a really rubbish superhero created by Marvel when they ran out of ideas one day and started coming up with rubbish superheroes. I can't remember what other ones we came up with now. I should've written them down.
Right. I have to get ready to go and get hideously twatted with the people I work with now. It's our Christmas party tonight, and things are gonna get real messy. Hopefully anyway.
What's With All The New "Axl Approved's", Axl?
Yo. Those of you who pay any attention to the peripherals of my bloody blog will have noticed some new additions. With the Guest Blogging, I've kind of not been doing any myself recently, so haven't done the whole bigging up business, but I will do that now.
"Twist Turn Upsidedown" is the blog of my chums Jeff & Jon & their mate who I don't know, and is therefore less interesting. They have moved to Australia and the blog is about that. I can't wait for the Koala sex orgy post.
"The Process Of Weeding Out" is my mate Tim's blog. Tim has a lovely face and very good taste in music. So far his blog isn't about either of those things, but he's good with computers and that. I've forgotten what relevance that has now.
"Anya Moss' City" is the blog of a nameless friend who after doing a guest blog as Anya Moss, decided that anonymous blogging was the thing for them, and set up their own city. I think they were just trying to outdo my farm personally.
Garret retuens with his "The Blog Of Ineffable Exasperation" under the proviso that this time he is not a wussy no-writer and actually does it properly this time. If I have to take his blog off again there will be serious words exchanged between my face and his.
Last but not least, in fact probably most excitingly, is "My Cowardly Lion". A blog by my mate Blake. Blake is like Woody Harrelson in the film "Natural Born Killers", but if "Natural Born Killers" had been written by David Lynch instead. Still directed by Oliver Stone though. I was gonna say he'd probably chainsaw up Staz's mum, but I reckon Blake is a massive pussy around his girlfriend's parents and has more manners than a manner-tee. But then let's face it, that's what we're all like around our lovers mothers and fathers, right? It's like the golden rule or something. Never let your partner's parents see the real you. Always, always be the safe you. The nice you. The you that likes children and helps injured kittens. Not the you who's seen their daughter naked and does unspeakable things to her on a regular basis. The you that uses a napkin and asks to be excused from the table. Not the you who's going to give their laundry basket the smell of excitment sodden knickers.
Yes, I mean excitment, not excrement. I'm not into fecal games thankyou, and if I was, I certainly wouldn't do that at someone's parents house. Unless it was someone I didn't like or wanted to break up with, in which case that shit would be all over the fucking walls. Yeah, see how you like the dirty finger-painting of hatred!
Right, I'll be back to proper blogging soon.
"Twist Turn Upsidedown" is the blog of my chums Jeff & Jon & their mate who I don't know, and is therefore less interesting. They have moved to Australia and the blog is about that. I can't wait for the Koala sex orgy post.
"The Process Of Weeding Out" is my mate Tim's blog. Tim has a lovely face and very good taste in music. So far his blog isn't about either of those things, but he's good with computers and that. I've forgotten what relevance that has now.
"Anya Moss' City" is the blog of a nameless friend who after doing a guest blog as Anya Moss, decided that anonymous blogging was the thing for them, and set up their own city. I think they were just trying to outdo my farm personally.
Garret retuens with his "The Blog Of Ineffable Exasperation" under the proviso that this time he is not a wussy no-writer and actually does it properly this time. If I have to take his blog off again there will be serious words exchanged between my face and his.
Last but not least, in fact probably most excitingly, is "My Cowardly Lion". A blog by my mate Blake. Blake is like Woody Harrelson in the film "Natural Born Killers", but if "Natural Born Killers" had been written by David Lynch instead. Still directed by Oliver Stone though. I was gonna say he'd probably chainsaw up Staz's mum, but I reckon Blake is a massive pussy around his girlfriend's parents and has more manners than a manner-tee. But then let's face it, that's what we're all like around our lovers mothers and fathers, right? It's like the golden rule or something. Never let your partner's parents see the real you. Always, always be the safe you. The nice you. The you that likes children and helps injured kittens. Not the you who's seen their daughter naked and does unspeakable things to her on a regular basis. The you that uses a napkin and asks to be excused from the table. Not the you who's going to give their laundry basket the smell of excitment sodden knickers.
Yes, I mean excitment, not excrement. I'm not into fecal games thankyou, and if I was, I certainly wouldn't do that at someone's parents house. Unless it was someone I didn't like or wanted to break up with, in which case that shit would be all over the fucking walls. Yeah, see how you like the dirty finger-painting of hatred!
Right, I'll be back to proper blogging soon.
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