This Is Probably A Bad Idea.

I am about to go and play football with some mates. I haven't played football for about 5 years, coz last time I did I managed about 3 minutes of play before I had to stop due to a fucking hideous asthma attack which left me unable to breathe properly for about an hour.

So why the fuck am I putting myself thru this again?

It's gonna be a disaster. I can see it now. After a couple of minutes I'll be acting like someone who's been shot thru the throat and suddenly the pitch will turn into a battlefield and everything will go in slow motion and Barber's fucking 'Adagio for Strings' will be playing. And I'll die. Thanks, football.

I was thinking about Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' the other day. I used to love that piece of music, but it's one of those ones that gets played to death on anything sad or poignant. I've seen charities use it to soundtrack images of starving people. I've seen sports programmes use it to soundtrack montages of people losing. I know full well it gets played at funerals, because I've sold cds of it to people so they can do just that, and I'd be surprised if it hasn't at some point been used to soundtrack a divorce. Still, it is actually a pretty good piece of music. It portrays a feeling or emotion pretty perfectly, it's just REALLY overplayed to the point where I kind of can't stand it anymore. Kind of like Pachelbel's 'Canon', which is another massively overplayed piece of music. The main difference is that 'Canon' isn't really even that good. It's overplayed, very popular and inoffensive but essentially a bit empty. 'Canon' is the 'Friends' of classical music. Every now and then it serves a purpose, but most of the time I just wish it would go away.

I guess 'Adagio for Strings' is more like the 'Frasier' of classical music. It's very good but still just a bit overplayed. If it wasn't on as much, I wouldn't be bored of it.

So, back to the point, I'm probably going to die playing football tonight and when I do I'm probably going to be annoyed because I'll probably hear Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' which although very annoying, it could be a lot worse. It could be 'Sex & The City'. Now that really doesn't bear thinking about.

Soundcloud.

So yeah, my mate Mark Ryan sent me a message to record some of my poems and he night be able to sneak one on his radio show, so I recorded a couple today. If you fancy a listen, they can be found here: http://soundcloud.com/misteraxl

They're a little quiet so you may need to turn your volume up a tad.

Hope you like them. Proper blog soon. Currently working out my Truck set and woking on a poem about Caesar Salad, a poem about Weeds and 7 apology haikus.

It's Official.

I got an e-mail today. I am officially confirmed to do my first ever festival spoken word performance at Truck 13. I'm pretty excited and very nervous about this. I'm sure you've all already made up your minds about whether you're going or not, but apparently you might be able to get 20% of a ticket price by going here http://www.gigantic.com/imwiththeband because you're like, my fans and shit. There are only a limited number tho, so get on there pronto if you want one.

No idea yet when I'm on, how long I'm on for or what stage I'm on (I'm guessing I'm either on with the Hammer & Tongue or Catweasel lot), but they could stick me on an upturned dustbin doing a 2 minute recital to the relocated cows and I'd still be happy.

Right.

So, I was going to write a proper post today, but then today turned a bit shitty, so yer getting this video instead. Believe it or not, this song is meant to be taken seriously. Yeah, really. I don't think there is one single good thing about this song.

Well, apart from maybe the ability to take the piss out of it. Which I would do, but quite frankly a) I don't even know where to begin, and b) some guys on Saturday Night Live already did a pretty good job of tearing into it:

Yeah.

An Anonymous Diana Vickers Fan Speaks Out!

Check this out! It's a comment that was left on my Diana Vickers post I did the other day:

Anonymous said...

Are you really THAT stupid?? The song is about killing LOVE, .. NOT, I Repeat, NOT about killing as in dead.

Furthermore,.. do your frigging homework, .. It is documented virtually everywhere, that the song was written by Cathy Dennis and Eg White. If you don't know 'this', and not prepared to find out, but are fully prepared to malign someone, you really shouldn't be posting this crap.

26 May 2010 06:19:00 GMT+01:00

I felt I should reply to this person and their comment, so this is that reply:

Wow. SO much to work with here. Let's go.

Firstly, OH MY GOD, IT'S ABOUT LOVE?! WHAT?! REALLY?! O-M-FUCKING-GEEEEEEE!!!

Of course I know it's about love, in the same way that Cheryl Cole's 'Parachute' is about love along with about a ton of other shitty little songs. What I'm doing is removing the metaphorical aspect to highlight the poorly conceived and dreadfully written trash that passes for so many song lyrics. I could write a song that said something like: 'When you're caving in, I'll be your steel girder, I'll support your weight.' Now, that is a poignant statement about how when the one that I love has so much going on emotionally that they feel they can't cope with it all, I will be there to help support them in their time of need. However, you may have noticed that it is a statement told as a really fucking terrible metaphor. Just because something that is written is written about love, doesn't make it good, especially if when taken literally it is a fucking stupid statement to make, like 'I'm only gonna let you kill me once' is. (I would also pick apart the Cheryl Cole's 'Parachute' lyrics now, but presumably you will have done your frigging homework and found that I already wrote a blog post about that.)

Secondly,.. what,.. the Hell, .. is all,.. 'this', .. about?? Do you, .. like,.. understand punctuation, .. and what the point of it is,.. at all??

Thirdly, you say it is documented 'virtually everywhere' that Cathy Dennis and Eg White wrote the song. Really? I think you're wrong about this. I had a look in the glove compartment of my girlfriend's car and there was nothing about it in there. I received a bank statement the other day and there was no mention of songwriters in among the details of the money coming into and going out of my account. I read the play 'Translations' by Brian Friel recently and didn't find one mention of Cathy Dennis or Eg White in this interesting portrayal of 19th Century Ireland during the time that the English were recording and rendering into English all the traditional Gaelic place names. There was no reference to it in the 'Lost' season finale, or in fact in any of the episodes leading up to it for that matter. I haven't seen anything about it on the news. There was nothing stating this fact on the wrapper of the 'Snickers' bar I ate yesterday. Have I sufficiently made my point yet?

Now piss off and never darken my blogspot again, you simpleton.

I'm On A Roll.

Well, more specifically, I can't sleep.

My sleep pattern is erratic at the best of times, but last night I couldn't sleep coz I was so bloody HOT, and now I can't sleep coz I'm used to it or whatever, so instead of endlessly clicking websites in a half awake daze to find that yet again nothing has happened or changed, I'm going to write about notes. The theory is that this might be quite fun, and I'm a bit nervous because I'm probably going to be reading out a poem I wrote about someone being raped to my class tomorrow (and no, it's not a comedy poem).

See, I write these little notes and quotes on little bits of paper, shove them in my back pocket and forget about them, so here are some of the delights of my scraps.

Let's see...

* "You raise me up... in the pants!" Craig said that once and it made me laugh. Can't remember the context, but it still makes me chuckle.

* "Smoking & crying."

* "It smells like me." No. No idea what these are about.

* "Woman after 'Aerobics music', then waits for a lift to go up one flight of stairs." Yep. This happened in the shop. It struck me as remarkable that someone who had just been going on at me for ages about how they were after rhythmic music that they could exercise to, would then be lazy enough to not be bothered to walk up one flight of stairs. Maybe she can only do physical activities with a thumping soundtrack, who knows?

* "Woman thinks Cary Grant lives round the corner from her." Ah, another shop anecdote. On the counter in my department, we had some Cary Grant dvd boxsets on sale. A woman and a man came up to the counter and she pointed at the picture of Cary Grant, turned to her friend and told him that Cary Grant lives round the corner from her. Considering the fact that Cary Grant died in 1986, I'm pretty sure she was talked total bollocks.

* "Debate over. Makeover. Masturbate over." This was me trying to work out something for a poem. It didn't get used as it is, but it did prove pretty useful.

* "YOUTHMOVIES - THE FINAL EVER GIG" Not a note, just found the gig ticket. *sigh* I miss them.

* This one's a phone number I don't recognise.

* "Short baby, but I don't have the paper." Wow. This is a misheard quote from years ago. Back when I used to make music on my Playstation, I used this for the title of one of the tapes I made. I have no idea why I wrote it down again tho.

* Shopping lists, listening lists, wish lists.

* "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." Hmmm... Can't remember what this was about, but I remember writing it years ago. It must be years ago coz just above it is a note to burn some cd's for Rhyannon (how long's she been back in America now?), which I don't think I ever got round to doing. (Sorry Rhyannon.) Not sure why that's in this pile of notes as it's much older than the others.

That's it for this pile. Are there any more around? Not that I can get to easily.

Well, that was vaguely enjoyable for me even if it wasn't for you, so I make no apologies.

I'm going to try to get some sleep now.

Dear Diana Vickers...

...did you write your song 'Once'? I ask ask because I'm pretty sure I read in an interview with you in a magazine that you write your own songs. Now, I seem to remember that in this interview you came across as a pretty intelligent person, yet you so proudly sing in this song that:

'I'm only gonna let you kill me once.'

Now, I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but it pretty much only takes once. Being murdered isn't really a more than one time deal, I'm afraid. It's kind of final like that. The person you are singing to won't need to kill you a second time because, well, kind of because that's sort of impossible, and if there was a chance that this person did kill you and you came back to life, you would at the very least... you know what, I've lost where I'm going with this. It's a stupid fucking lyric. That's all.

Oh Yeah, I Have A Blog.

So, my relationship with this blog has been somewhat... well... a bit rubbish really over the last few months. I don't really know why, but I appear to have got into a cycle where I don't really know what to write on it anymore, and when I do know what to write I either forget to write or can never put it together properly.

This means that I haven't written about things like that week in December when I went to two of the best gigs I have ever been to, the first of which was Sunn O))) at Koko which was phenomenal and unlike anything else I've experienced (and I've seen Sunn O))) before), the second of which was Spiritualized performing the 'Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space BP' album at the Barbican which was quite possibly not just the greatest gig I've ever been to but possibly the best thing ever full stop. That album is pretty much my favourite album of all time, and to see it performed so fucking perfectly was just overwhelming and incredible and more than I can say.

I didn't do my albums of the year list that I always do, although this is also partly because I still can't decide if my favourite album of 2009 was 'Xerrox Vol.2' by Alva Noto or 'Listening Tree' by Tim Exile. It's definitely one of those two, I just can't decide which because I think they are both just so phenomenal.

I was going to do a films of 2009 post aswell, but a) couldn't get my act together to do that either, and b) was worried that at least 2 people who read this blog would scream all the air out of their lungs in disgust at the fact that my favourite film of 2009 was 'Let The Right One In.' I was also going to say semi-controversial things like how I think that Michelle Williams' absolutely heartbreaking performance in 'Synecdoche: New York' proves that she is one of the best and most underrated actresses working in films today. I was probably also going to gush about how good Sam Rockwell is and how much I loved 'Moon.' There were a lot of films I loved in 2009.

I didn't write about my first ever proper spoken word gig I was booked for earlier this month which went surprisingly well actually. There are video clips that Gen took, so we'll get those up on YouTube soon hopefully and then you can see for yourselves.

I was going to do a post about dreadful band names because MTV did some list of the worst band names ever, which quite frankly was a bit rubbish and was mostly made up of bands with just bad names. Few of them were in the truly terrible band name realms of 'Agoraphobic Nosebleed' or 'Boys Like Girls.' However, I lost the post which somehow seemed to just vanish into the electronic ether.

ANYWAY, I could go on like this for ages. Enough of what shoulda woulda coulda (who did that song? Was it Beverly Knight?), let's get this thing going again Axl, yeah? Well, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try.

Although I am moving house next month, so it may not be back to the former glory days just yet. I'll have a go and we'll see what happens, yeah?

Right Said Fred...

...were pretty great really, weren't they?

Tim Exile Is AMAZING.

And he deserves a knighthood for his services to AWESOME.