R&B.

R&B has become one of the biggest misnomers of all time.

See, I personally think that when you have "Rhythm" as part of a genre description, that implies something lively as opposed to say, something that sounds like a slug crawled over a drum machine.

Also, when the other part of a genre description is "Blues", that implies, well, blues music. Having the blues, y'know. Not attractive, sultry people cooing in my ears that they're going to make love to me/girls/boys/whoever.

No, what most of modern R&B actually is, is sickeningly smooth sentimentality. And it's getting weak. Sure, when Boyz II Men crooned "I'll make love to you, like you want me to.", it was insipid, but at least they could actually sing. And it was a Hell of a lot better than Shontelle warbling about how she misses some guy so wears his t-shirt ("T-Shirt"), or Soulja Boy Tell 'Em (I'm still not sure whether that name deserves total ridicule or bizarre respect for it's utter stupidity) singing about how if you can't be with him, you can call him up and kiss him thru yr phone ("Kiss Me Thru The Phone"). I mean, at least there was a point to what Boyz II Men were doing. 

So as the central message and underlying statement of these songs, along with the talent of those singing them gets weaker and weaker, I've started to wonder what the next generation of modern R&B stars will be singing, and I've come up with some ideas. Fancy becoming the next big R&B sensation? Well why not commission me to write you one of these songs:

* Say Hi To Your Parents From Me.

* Hugging My Pillow.

* I Cleaned My Teeth With Your Toothbrush Coz I Miss You. (or just 'Toothbrush.' for short)

* Scrolling Thru Yr Facebook Photos.

* Wow! You Bought That Ham I Really Like!

* Doctor's Note. (A song about how someone feels they should be signed off work because of a broken heart)

* My Last Rolo.

* Have My Coat.

* You'll Always Be My Orange Wednesday 2 For 1 Partner.

* Blog Abou' Choo.

And I'm sure I could think of plenty more.

Come on. We'd make a fucking mint.

Oh, and just in case anyone does do the whole "OK, if it's not R&B, what is it then?" or "What would you call it then?" thing, there is already a genre of music that centres around slow paced, slick, polished, sentimental love songs. It's called 'Easy Listening'. 

17th June 2009. Doner Kebab Pot Noodle.

Yes. You did read that right. Look, there it is and everything. I was in Tesco yesterday and my eyes did glance upon this newly released culinary experience.

Immediately I was struck dumb with disbelief. Then a number of questions flooded into my head. 

"What on Earth is that gonna taste like?"

"Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?!"

"Is this for real?"

"Is this a joke?"
Then that first question popped back into my head again, and before I knew it there was one in my basket.

That evening I managed to pluck up the courage to actually go thru with trying it. Now, I'm normally of the "I'll try anything once." frame of mind, I remember one time me & Paul Heard were going to try Lamb's Brain in a restaurant only to be told they didn't have any in at the moment, but I nearly pussed out when I smelled this. It smelled like I imagine a marathon runner's perineum would smell.

Oscar's cat food smelled better.

Looked better too.

It took me a while of thinking "Am I actually going to do this?"...

...before I did it...

...and instantly wished I hadn't.

Fuck me, that taste was fucking horrible.

Imagine the worst kebab you've ever tasted. Now imagine that someone has taken that kebab and put it in a blender with a dog that has been dead for about two weeks and some car tires. Imagine they blended all of that up, dehydrated it, put it into a plastic cup, then got you to pour boiling water on that and eat it.

Seriously. 

It is without doubt one of the most revolting things I have ever tasted. If someone came up to me with one and said to me "Eat this or I'm going to punch you in the face.", I would let them punch me.

Try this only if you want to know how it feels for your mouth to temporarily die of despair. This isn't food, it's a torture device. Either that or a practical joke that went too far.

Score: Minus eleven billion out of ten.

Lindstrøm at Koko 11/06/09.

Yesterday I went to old Londinium to see Lindstrøm play at Koko.

I don't normally mind going to gigs on my own. I find there isn't really the need to have someone there when bands are playing or when you're watching someone perform. Don't get me wrong, it's nice and can certainly enhance my enjoyment, I just don't find having company at gigs a necessity. At this gig however, Mike Simonetti was dj'ing between bands and he was playing some cracking tunes. It made me wish I had someone to dance with, and actually made me feel quite lonely.

This probably wouldn't have been quite so bad, if it weren't for the fact that I was in Koko which, as nice a venue as it is, does attract what can at best be described as a shower of twats. Aside from all the obvious trendy posing and stupid clothing that was to be expected because y'know, it's a gig in London so that's basically par for the course, these people were just unbelievably rude. Thankfully I've forgotten most of the sheer unnecessary behaviour of these people otherwise I would probably just explode into wild and unedited rage for the rest of this post, but I'll give you the prime example. I was feeling a bit dehydrated and weak during Glass Candy's set, so I went to the bar to get some water and went to have a sit down until I felt a bit more normal. Now, someone thought it was perfectly acceptable behaviour to come up right next to me and lean on me. After the initial "What the fuck?!" reaction, I nudged them off. What did they do? They just leaned on me again!

This is one of the things I hate most about London. Londoners in general are arrogant little fuckwits who think they can get away with doing whatever the Hell they want and can be as rude as they like while doing it. London is basically what would happen if you took a bunch of spoilt brats and put them in the same place to grow up never learning any moral values so they could just carry on being spoilt brats for the rest of their lives. GOD I FUCKING HATE LONDON!!!

A-hem. Anyway...

First band to play were a band called Desire. I caught about half of their set. They were really good. Basically dark 80's style, italo influenced synthpop. If that doesn't help as a description, go here: http://bit.ly/182QL8 :and listen to that, although I will say they were a lot more exciting and full bodied live than they are recorded. Don't let that sentence put you off having a listen tho, it's still good stuff. Just not as good.

Next up were Glass Candy. Now, although I was here to see Lindstrøm, I was really looking forward to seeing Glass Candy as I've been into them for a couple of years now since the Italians Do It Better Records label sampler compilation "After Dark" came out (May have been 3 years ago actually, I'm not sure and not feeling pedantic enough to double check). To describe them I would have to use the same description as I did for Desire (Unsurprising really. Desire are also on IDIB, and also share a core group member.), but the thing that really struck me was when I compared them to Crystal Castles. 

See, I have a bit of a thing about Crystal Castles. When their album came out I was quite excited by it. It was loud abrasive and arrogant and IN YOUR FACE!!! However, after listening to it a few times, I also realised that it was kind of empty. Look beyond the shell of that sound and there doesn't really seem to be anything to it. It's hollow. It's the classic "All surface and no feeling" thing. It's the same problem I have with Health. It's just a bit too showy. A bit too LOOK AT ME!! A bit too lacking in substance, but in a way that's going to suck the indie crowd in. That's it. It's too much like a fashion thing. Like those bands are just filling a gap in the market, without actually giving a crap about what they're doing. That's the feeling I get when I listen to Crystal Castles or Health. It's all for show. It's vacuous. There's nothing to it.

Glass Candy have the same set up as Crystal Castles (man on synth/programming duties, woman on vocal/prancing about duties), but the sound they create is so much more involving. You really get the sense that they believe in what they're doing. It's believable. It's real. You can feel it. It has heart. And it sounds great.

Have a go on this: http://bit.ly/c7Dnh :my favourite song of theirs. Again, they were a bit more full bodied and exciting live, but with Glass Candy the quality of their recorded stuff is just as good. 

LINDSTRØM!!! His "Where You Go I Go Too" album was easily one of my two favourite albums of last year (and the more I listen to it, the more I wonder if I should revise that list and put Linstrøm at No.1 and Fleet Foxes at No.2. Jury's still out on that one at the moment.), so I was VERY excited to see him live. He did not disappoint. His set was an hour of pure joy. It started off with the blissful sounds of the "Where You Go I Go Too" title track, which morphed into track after track for a set that got progressively more dancey and danceable as it went on, leading to a final third of just pure dance your face off awesomeness that even some of the hardest posers couldn't resist getting down to. They were no longer dancing to be seen, they were dancing because they needed to.

And then it was over. A massive roar from at least the front section of the crowd, who could've easily and happily handled another hour. Sadly for us that was it. The posers went back to their posing, and Koko was as it was before. For a moment though, Lindstrøm managed to break thru some of their barriers, and got some of them to actually genuinely feel something. The Vice mag model wannabes. The middle class slackers whos looks are bit too considered for you to believe in them. The muso guys directly in front of me who looked at each other and tutted when the bass became slightly distorted coz the levels were a bit off. They all just let go towards the end, and then shuffled off to the bar or to strike a pose, slightly embarrassed when the music was over and there were people screaming for more and hoping nobody noticed what they had just been doing.

I already knew as much, but fuck, that Lindstrøm guy is seriously good.

I was going to complain more about London here, but I don't want to anymore.

Wow. He's REALLY good.

(Oh Yeah. Listen to this Lindstrøm track. It's not from the "Where You Go I Go Too" album, but it is really fucking good because he just is. http://bit.ly/inojG )

Guacamole.

3:03am - Most people when they can't sleep decide to lie around in bed trying unsuccessfully to sleep and getting frustrated. Tonight I have decided it would be much better to write about it while listening to Moderat. Basically, for some reason my bedroom is unpleasantly warm, like your feet get when you forget that those shoes you put on today are very nice in winter for keeping your feet warm but become little smelly saunas in the summer and you end up walking around with slightly damp socks and feet. Well this is like that but without the wetness or the smell. It's warm and unpleasant.

It's like when you walk in on a parent who is engaged in a passionate kiss. It's not so bad that you're permanently mortified, but it's bad enough for you to wish it wasn't real.

Anyway, enough of the fornicating relatives, I'm going to write about a gig I went to today/technically yesterday. Cellar - Oxford - Vacuous Pop night - Joan Of Arc. Supported by This Town Needs Guns, Love Of Everything & Elephants.

First up were Elephants. Ady gave me a copy of their cd a couple of weeks ago, and I am pretty taken with it. It's really good. Elephants are a band who play the music that comes after post-rock. You know, it's kind of coming back to indie-pop, but it's being played thru post-rock spectacles. Anyway, Elephants play like they've been together for a while, such is their confidence and tightness (aside from a false start with a new song, but we'll forgive them that), and their songs are very strong. all of which makes for a pretty thrilling set. My only criticism is that their name is kind of inappropriate. They don't sound like elephants. If I were to place an animal on them, I would say they sound like giraffes. But 'Giraffes' isn't as good a band name. See, that's what's so great about Manatees. They play the kind of sludgy, scuzzy, downtempo rock you can associate with the animal, and it's a pretty cool name for a band. I guess not all animal named acts can be as blessed. Take Panda Bear. He sounds like a chameleon threesome. Not a single panda bear, but imagine calling yourself 'Chameleon Threesome'. Actually that's a pretty fucking cool name. Why isn't he called 'Chameleon Threesome'? Maybe I'll write to him and suggest it. Anyway, I've gone off on a tangent there. The point is that Elephants are very good on cd and very good live. Elephants are a very good band.

Next up, Love Of Everything. A two piece of nice summery pop with a slight folk and drone edge. It's delicious. It's like listening to an ice lolly. One that's layered, like a Fab, or a Twister. More like a Twister actually. They looped a disposable camera charging it's flash on one song which could've been really gimmicky and lame, but was actually ace and added to the song rather than detract from it. Not everyone liked Love Of Everything, but I did.

Oh my God, why has no-one made a poseable disposable camera? A sort of combination of camera and Transformer? Too late for that idea now Axl, everything's gone digital. Shucks. Do people still buy disposable cameras?

Anyway, after them came This Town Needs Guns. I haven't seen them for quite a while. Mostly because whenever I had seen them previously I didn't like them. I was pretty close to just sort of going somewhere else while they were on, but I decided to stick around and give them another go, and I'm glad I did because they were really good. I was very pleasantly surprised. A band I had previously written off as mathy/emo also-rans (probably somewhere on this blog knowing me), have in the last year, or however long it is since I last saw them, gotten really good. I was surprised how good they were. They played a really strong set of indie/math/post/whatever-rock songs, which they rocked very well. Rock.

So. Headliners. Joan Of Arc. Joan Of Arc are one of those bands that you go "Nah, they'll never play in Oxford." But here they are. At the Cellar. I was pretty excited about seeing these guys, and they did not disappoint. A superbly played set of their take on American indie with something really interesting going on. Joan Of Arc are a band that are pretty hard to describe because every blanket genre-name label you could give them leaves something important about their sound out of the assumption of what that genre is, so conveying their sound on this blog is going to be virtually impossible. Just trust me on this. They were pretty amazing and you should check them out.

4:01am - I was gonna write about something else but I can't remember what it was now. I'm getting quite tired now. I might try and go to sleep. See how that works for me.

Bye now! Hope you're all well. Hope you're taking care of yourselves and eating well. Aw, I love you guys.

OK.

So it's been a month now since I wrote my last blog, so I figured I should write a new one. The problem is I have no inspiration concerning what to write about. This is a problem with my course too. I've done bugger all this term because I am completely uninspired and almost everything I do manage to write is just awful, boring, massively derivative and very obviously uninspired (apart from one thing I wrote about a man who worked in Heaven with extinct animals and ran away with a unicorn, that was quite good but needs editing which I'm just not inspired to do at the moment).

But why is this? Why has the once potent Axl-brain now totally dried up? What has caused the creative drought? I haven't even been able to write on here!

I worked it out the other day. I was talking to Sweet G about how I've stopped reading in my spare time since starting my course because it's pretty much become the last thing I want to do if I don't have to. And therein lies the problem with writing. I used to write because I enjoyed it. I don't actually enjoy writing anymore. It's become a chore. A hassle. Something I have to do. It's no longer enjoyable. Even writing this is tedious.

So there. That's why I haven't written anything for a month. I just haven't wanted to.

Owlhead & Idiotface. #2 - Hypnosis.

"Look into my eyes, Idiothead. I am going to hypnotise you. You are feeling sleepy. Just look into my eyes. The rest of the world just disappears, and you just become lost in my eyes. Your eyes are starting to feel very heavy. Let them close. Just fall into a deep sleeeeeep......"













"What the fuck are you on about now, bumlord? You can't do hypnosis."










"No, I've been learnin' 'aven't I? I been readin' this book that explains it all, and now I'm totally gonnas get you to make me a cake while standing on yr hands and singing the songs from "Phantom Of The Opera" but oinking them, like a pig would."











"Oh for God's sake Owlhead. Hypnosis isn't actually real in that sense, and even if it were, you would need someone who is a) willing to go along with being hypnotised, and b) susceptible to mind tricks of that sort anyway. Hypnosis can be a very useful tool for curing addictions and phobias, but only if the person really wants to overcome them in the first place. Essentially, if people didn't want to do the things they were being told to do in the first place, they wouldn't actually do them. You cannot actually control someone's mind, and to think that you could is totally ridiculous."







"It alarms me how closed off you can be to the possibilities of the mind, Idiotface."

Owlhead & Idiotface. #1 - Dreams.

"Hey, Idiotface, what do you think of this theory? The real world is actually in fact not real at all but a dream world? You know how sometimes you have a dream within a dream, well what if this life is actually a dream in itself?"













"Owlhead, that has got to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard."

"No, think about it tho. Right, you know how when you die in a dream you wake up? Right, well what if when we die in the "Real World", we actually are in a dream and wake up in the proper real world? And imagine how it would feel! You know how in a dream you can't really feel that much, well what if what we feel when we're "Awake" is in fact just a really dulled version of what true feeling is? Imagine the intensity of feeling just from doing something like picking up a cup! It's all very well you just instantly dismissing it, but actually think about it. It could be like that. You cannot prove me wrong."







"Oh for God's sake. Look, it's all very well you saying I can't prove you wrong, but you are the one coming up with a fantastical and ridiculous idea, and you can't prove in any way that you are right! All you have is a theory. A theory with no basis in fact. All you have is a belief that somehow, because you have managed to come up with this bizarre theory, that somehow makes it true. Jeez, stop being such a massive bummo."










"You are so closed-minded sometimes Idiotface. It really boils my piss."

Time To Get Serious For A Bit.

(Now, I know not many people read this blog, but if this can help in any way at all, no matter how small, then it's totally worth it.)
A friend of mine is helping to organise/work on a charity gig for ChildLine.
They sent me this message about it:

"So, as you may or may not know I am working on a ROCK CONCERT for charity - that charity being ChildLine - so we called the concert ... ChildLine Rocks!

Last year Trudie organised it all on her ownsome and got the likes of Roger Daltrey, Lulu, Marillion, Thunder, Fish, Ian Paice (Deep Purple), Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), The Zombies, and Russ Ballard and managed to raise over £100,000. Bob (Harris) compared the evening of course and auction prizes included a flight on the Iron Maiden 757, piloted by Bruce Dickinson for a trip to see Iron Maiden play live in Lisbon, a Led Zeppelin plaque signed by Robert Plant, a double-necked Gibson guitar from Jimmy Page, a Fender Telecaster guitar from Status Quo, a Gibson Epiphone Union Jack guitar from Noel Gallagher and a Gibson Les Paul guitar signed by all the acts and artists featured on the night.

RIGHT - so, the bar is raised and we've been working very hard on it.

ChildLine Rocks @ The Indig02 Monday 1st June 2009

So far this year we have:

Uriah Heep
Jon Lord (Deep Purple)
Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple)
Hot Leg
The Pretty Things
Sons Of Albion
Steve Balsamo
Andy Newmark
Mollie Marriott

All backed by our amazing house band - which is not allowed to be announced yet... and we're going to be adding a couple of 'NAMES' to that line up too!

We're holding a separate auction event at Bonhams Auction house in December.

Now, my friends - can you please spread the word and get the news out about this - either by talking about it with your mates, letting others know of our website - www.childlinerocks.com - or buying a ticket and coming along to The Indig02 on June 1st!!!

You can get them from wegottickets.com or ticketmaster.

And it's all for a VERY GOOD CAUSE.

Thanking you!!!!"

So why should you be excited about this rather than any other charity gigs that you see all over the place? Well straight away I can see two reasons. One is that The Pretty Things are playing. The Pretty Things made the album "S.F. Sorrow" which is one of the best albums that I still don't own. It is one of those unsung British psychedelic classic albums from the late 60's that people always forget about then see on some "Great British albums" or "Greatest Psychedelic albums" lists, then remember how good it is. The second reason I can see is that the Hammond organ player from the legendary Deep Purple Mk II line-up, Jon Lord will be playing. (Come to mention it, the line-up Glenn Hughes was in made a couple of classic Deep Purple albums too, so that's also worth seeing for sure.)
Oh and there is the fact that it's for ChildLine too. ChildLine is one of those charities that people tend to forget about, but really shouldn't because it is a VERY important one. Anything that raises money them is good.

Lucky My Cock.

It's one of life's eternal questions. Who came up with the utterly ludicrous idea that being shat on by a pigeon is somehow lucky? What part of having a bird's fecal matter on your person is in any way fortunate? I can only think of one situation in which that could be considered anything other than awful, that being the situation where you have just left the house wearing something that you really don't want to but have been forced to by a partner or parent/other family member, and a bird poos on this item of clothing. "Oh no, I can't possibly go out like this! I'll have to change." Saved from a day in clothing you don't like. That's it tho. There is no other situation where it would be a good thing. (Not one that actually would happen anyway. I don't want anyone saying "Oh, but Axl, what if some beautiful woman were to say that they would have sex with you if a bird shat on you?" THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. Don't try and be a smart-arse.)

The only reasons I can think of that this bizarre phrase/saying/whatever has come to be is that either:
a) Someone was in the clothing situation I mentioned earlier and told their mates about it, then when one of them was with someone who had a bird poo on them, they said to the poo-ee "Did I ever tell you about my mate...". Said poo-ee passes story on in a similar way, and through the "Chinese Whispers" effect it suddenly becomes something that is said to be lucky by people at large.
or:
b) Someone who is really really cool once got pooed on by a bird, and their friends/followers had to come up with a way to process the fact that something un-cool had happened to someone cool. Because as we all know, cool people never have to tie their shoelaces in the street, they never stumble or trip on an uneven pavement, they never sneeze in public and have that gross thing where snot is hanging from their nose and they don't have a tissue on them so have to use their sleeve which leaves that streaky trail like a slug's been crawling up yr arm, no, nothing uncool ever happens to cool people, so an explanation had to be invented.

Seriously, why else could it be that that is good luck? What about all the other unpleasant things that happen to people? No-one ever says they give you good luck. Maybe it's because a bird shitting on you is quite a rarity.

I have only ever been pooed on once by a bird. An ex-girlfriend of mine once did a poo on my chest while I was tied to the bed. She thought it would be sexy. It was just gross. My bedroom stank for days.

Not really. Had you going there for a moment tho, didn't I?

I have only ever been pooed on once by a bird. A seagull pooed on my foot while I was at a beach. It certainly didn't feel very lucky. It just felt really gross. And it hurt too. I don't know what the fuck seagulls eat, but there were hard lumps in that poo. My foot was sore for the rest of the day. Is that lucky? No. It's just annoying.

I can see no reason for it to be good luck to be shat on by birds. I guess it must just be a way to try and look on the bright side of something really unpleasant happening to you. Maybe we should start saying that other unpleasant things are lucky too. Things like:
* Stubbing your toe.
* Stepping in dog poo.
* Buying one of those cold pasta salads from a supermarket or Boots as a quick and convenient lunch or snack, only to find that there isn't a little plastic fork/spork where there should be.
* Tearing your clothes.
* Losing a badge.
* Accidentally saying something offensive as a joke in the presence of someone who would be genuinely offended or upset by what you are saying.
* Having toothache.
* Having an ingrowing toenail.
* Being bitten by a dog.
* Being bitten by a mosquito.
* Burping up a little bit of bile into your mouth, then reflexively swallowing it back down which burns your throat and leaves an appalling taste in yr mouth.
* Hitting someone while driving a car.
* Being accidentally spat on in the face by someone who is talking to you.
* Getting a paper cut.
* Laughing drink thru yr nose.
* Forgetting you have onion or chili on your finger and rubbing your eye with it.

There are loads of things that could be considered lucky by virtue of being unpleasant. Maybe we should all start saying that they are. Might be amusing.

OK.

So I've been considering taking some creatine supplements or something like that to build up my muscles and make me look real buff like Superman. My main concern about this though is that, like, will it cause women to literally fall from buildings for me? Coz I don't know if I could save them if they did. Like, maybe I could save a couple of them, but I'm pretty sure I'd do my back in pretty quickly if it kept happening. How am I gonna save a plummeting damsel in distress with a bad back? Not gonna happen. I wouldn't be able to leave my flat even to go to Tesco if ladies were falling from great heights at me while I had a bad back. Also, even if I didn't do my back in and handled the whole catching a falling girl thing really well, it would probably get really tedious after a while, having to save women wherever I went.

Yeah, I don't think I'm gonna do that after all then.