I'm not normally swayed by advertising...

But I ended up buying The Times and The Sunday Times this weekend, purely to get the free CD-Roms of Monopoly and Scrabble that were attached to the front. Monopoly, particularly, is utterly fantastic, and the experience of playing versus the computer means you can rattle through the game nice and quick (no more of those interminable games I played as a kid- which always ended up in huge arguments) . I'm starting to formulate a strategy to win the game; it's fairly simple, viz:
1) Buy EVERYTHING
2) Get all the railways
3) Get the Orange set
4) Sod Park Lane and Mayfair
5) Likewise, Old Kent Road

And now.....

The inside of my head sounds like this:
Terry Riley "A Rainbow In Curved Air"

1969.
I'll say that again- 1969!
Blimey.

It's a dull Thursday afternoon......

And i'm sitting here updating the globe. Afternoons like this are always a little bit odd, there's a luminosity to the sky which really gets me: the whole horizon just seems suffused with this creeping wave of frigid air, rolling up from the sea to the houses on Clifton Hill.
Seeing as the weather is making me feel like this, there can be only one course of action: give in.
It's time for some Thursday Afternoon.
(and BTW, it's available on DVD at last!)

Want to know what it's like inside my head at the moment?

It's like this.
"Droid"

This one's for Nick.....

Makes me think of the two of us going into the shopping centre in Leeds, to get matching Paisley shirts- Nick got one in dark blue, I got one in Crimson.
The Long Ryders- "I Had A Dream"

One of the reasons it's been so busy recently..

Is this. It's given me an immense feeling of pride, that this site Andy and I started, can change peoples lives.
In other news, I have a cold. How long has it been since I was properly under the weather? Well, quite some time, but that isn't much comfort to me right now.
*sniffles*

"I didn't get where I am today by selling ice cream tasting of bookends, pumice stone and West Germany."

I've been close to tears, laughing my head off for the last hour or so, digesting all of this.

Meme of the moment seems to be the whole "Fail" thing...

..and looks set to outstrip LOLCATS in the very near future.
Check it out here, and also here.

I've blogged about Panic! At The Disco before....

Specifically, how at a sunny Reading Festival, and as someone who'd previously been wholly suspicious of their theatrics, they suddenly made all the sense in the world. Now, to show that itwasn't just the beer and sunshine addling my brain, they've released one of the singles of the year.
Panic! At The Disco "Nine In The Afternoon"

And, as if all that wasn't enough, they appear to have morphed into the Monkees in "Head". This, as you can imagine, is a good thing.

So, Goodbye then, Xfm.

Well, perhaps that might be slightly premature, but it's fair to say that the decision of Gcap to sell the Xfm licences outside London marks the beginning of some very tough times for Xfm. The decision is one which is taken, ostensibly, to save money. £1.5 million will be saved, and it's pointed out that the stations are losing money. however in the case of Xfm south wales, surely this is down to one-off costs involved with starting the station, which let us not forget, only started in NOVEMBER. Jeez, how desperate can you get? To contemplate handing a licence back to Ofcom a matter of mere WEEKS after it started broadcasting! What pains me, is the fact that i've been in these situations before- when new managment arrives, sweeps that new broom, installs a raft of middle-managment idiots, and throws a number of hard-working, relatively low-paid, totally professional presenters, and employees of the station, on the scrapheap. The middle management goons will move on, effortlessly, to another job, when their experiments fail, and the real casualties will still languish on the scrapheap. It's playing hard and fast with peoples lives, careers, houses, incomes, and professions. It messes with peoples minds and their confidence, and all this so the managers can do all they can to protect their share options from shrinking.
Well, let's look on the bright side..all of this means that Gcap are running scared, trying to shed ballast from their rapidly-sinking balloon, as it drifts down to the welcoming arms of the Global group, who must surely fancy their chances of a successful takeover bid.
I'd say that would end the careers of those, whose malicious and spectacularly inept tinkering has sent Xfm London into a spiral, losing it's voice, it's passion for music, and it's reputation in the process. If a takeover would mean there was an outside chance of the station being run by people who actually understood ONE IOTA of the music it played, and the listeners it represented, then I for one, would welcome our new radio overlords. Global, (or anyone else for that matter) it's over to you.

OK, a bit of a hiatus...

..Should really be rewarded with something special. So, i'm not sure how many of you have seen this, but it's priceless. Aussie clebrity chef Peter Russell Clarke, with some rather NSFW bloopers from ads he filmed in the 80's. Warning: contains swearing. A lot of swearing.

Record fairs! Don'cha just love 'em?

Well, I do :)
Went to the record fair in Brighton yesterday; there's truly no more restful and cathartic way to spend your Sunday morning than flicking through piles of old vinyl....
So what did I buy? Well, a trio of singles for a pound a pop. Firstly, the true punk/pop GENIUS that is "Animal World" by The Last Words. Australia's first real slice of Independent Punk, it came out on a small label in Oz in 1978, and was re-released on Rough Trade here in 1979. Check the video, this is one of those lost Punk classics that EVERYONE should own.....
If you need a copy on CD, it's on this compilation, which has loads more Aussie Punk and Post-Punk gems on it......
But for me, it's the joy of getting old Rough Trade singles that puts the icing on the cake: as a record collector, they're just....amazing. I love the light green labels, the over sized grooves, the "Porky's" scrawl in the run-out...and the actual vinyl always seemed to be somehow more substantial than other indie labels...
With Rough Trade as well, you were buying things from a label which continually confused and amazed you, with it's breadth of styles and statements. Within just a year or so of releasing "Animal World", Rough Trade were releasing the next one of the singles which i bought yesterday: "Are You Glad To Be In America?" by James "Blood" Ulmer. From DIY garage punk to...well, to a slice of No-wave industrial alt-jazz - there's change for you.
I can just imagine Nigel in the Rough Trade Shop, back in 1981, slipping copies of this into customer's bags, with a cheery recommendation of "you'll love this, it's great!" and then when they got home, those self-same customers would have one of those "WTF?" moments, and send the single off to the Record+Tape...
Well, the joke's on them; because, you know what? It turns out Nigel was right all along- it is a great record. Ulmers vocals have this ghost-like, haunting bluesy wail, that suits the dense concrete-jazz stew behind him perfectly...it's a record that could only have emerged at the turn of the 80's when the experimental approach of people like The Red Crayola's Mayo Thompson (who produced the single) was at it's peak. It's a record that is defiantly of its time, and all the better for it.
Last of the three singles was a copy of "Life's A Gamble" by Penetration. I know I've blogged about my love for this record in the past, and it seems my love affair with it continues unabated, as this was a "double"....I've already got it on 5 separate compilation Cd's, the CD of "Moving Targets" , FOUR copies of it on the Luminous vinyl album issue of "Moving Targets", and I've already got a copy on 7". But this one had a Picture sleeve, so it was time for yet another copy. Will I ever learn? I sincerely hope not.
The rest of my haul? A bunch of cheap 12"s, Baby Ford "Oochy Koochy (because it was the Remix), some old Woodentops stuff, a Blancmange single (no, i'm not sure why either) and a picture disc of "So Hot" by the Haines Gang.
I'll say it again, I LOVE record fairs :)

I get the feeling....

That this is the start of a very slippery slope. It seems that a million facebook users have already been using this app, and filling their computers with adware as a result.... how long before this becomes the norm, as opposed to the exception? Social Networking has been such a great success over the past couple of years that it was an obvious target.....

Sounds filling my head....

At the start of this new year seem to have some sort of celebratory quality about them, albeit shot through with my usual dose of melancholia....
First up, "Weighty Ghost" by Wintersleep:
This is something I've learned to love via Shadowglobe , where it totally crept up on me. One moment it was just a song on the playlist, next moment I was lost in it. there's a certain mainstream sound running through it, but that poppy sensibility adds an edge to the confusion at the song's core. Great stuff.
Next up is "Comfy In Nautica" by Panda Bear, an offshoot from The Animal Collective. How can you not love something that sounds like the Beta Band channelling the spirit of Brian Wilson? Plus, there's a skating video to accompany it, Rah!
Enjoy :)

Happy New Year.....

And as usual, it was time for my standard Xmas/New Year blogging no-show. However, this years hiatus owed its existence to the fact that I did NOTHING, as opposed to being stuck in a studio the whole time- well, that and the fact I went to the Dominican Republic for a quick holiday....
So, I'm back, and blogging again. How was your festive break?