Christmas Leftovers

Hey-ho, howzitgaun ? Hope everyone out there has had a most excellent year and been well rewarded for being such good boys and girls. Thought I'd end the year with a few random observations from the Christmas period. More of the usual odds-and-sods rubbidge that you've all come to know and love, why change a winning formula, et cetera...

1. I've really enjoyed watching Polar Bear Week with Nigel Marven (wow, what a bolt from the blue, eh?) but I couldn't help noticing something familiar about the main man...


Oh, you don't think so ? Well, it's all too easy to crit there siticizing... (sorry)

2. Went to see "I am Legend" at the flicks the other day and it was mostly bloody marvellous. Surprisingly thoughtful and restrained in tone for the first three quarters or so, intelligent and un-Hollywood like, and a good few divisions above the no-brainer shoot-'em-up b-movie fate that I feared it might have been heading for when reading of it's troubled development over the years. In fact, it turned out (mainly) to be less an action movie, more a meditation on the central character's desperate attempts to stay sane in the face of the starkest isolation possible... with the revelation of big Willie nailing his role down as easily as cracking open a can of cold beer. That lad is a proper actor, yet he can still somehow bring through his old Fresh Prince likeability and have it as just another string to his bow, not the credibility millstone it might have been. Yes, in fact, he was even better than Chuck in The Omega Man. High praise indeed from this particular seventies sci-fi nut, believe me...

The subtle CGI for the empty, overgrown New Yoik setting was astonishing, utterly convincing from the get-go, a prime example of the sfx field at its very apex - sadly the work done on the infected "zombies" when they eventually surfaced was the diametric opposite, rubbery, unreal, cut-and-paste baddies (who all shared exactly the same f***ing face, jeez, this is 2007 FFS!!!) which never once threatened to look like they were ever real, individual, human beings in the way the story demanded, putting the kibosh on any of the unsettling undercurrents that the audience is supposed to feel in this sub-genre (say, the "they're coming to get you Barbara" Johnny moment when he comes back near the end of "Night of the Living Dead"). In fact, the whole thing did finally head out of the door in the rush to the usual generic, action packed climax - we couldn't really expect a movie of this epic budget to hold back the barbarians of idiocy from the door for the whole duration. But, thankfully, they didn't fully sell out on the ending. It deserved that at least. I just wish that the old Johnny Depp as Ben Cortman rumour had been true. I'd certainly buy that for a dollar...

3. I didn't succumb and buy a Wii but the potential of the kind of thing shown below makes me hope the big N will continue to hand $ony and M$ their collective a$$e$ in 2008. I implore you to watch this, honestly. Bottled brilliance.



Anyhoo, folks, I'm off to watch "The Third Man" - all the best in 2008... Slàinte Mhath !!!

Love is a Many Splintered Thing...

Alternatively...

"Well, that clip certainly gives me wood"

or...

"Now, that's what I call a good, old fashioned varnishing"

or even...

"Super Noni, going like a bunny, with a lucky little ventiloquist's dummy!"



Thankyouverymuch :-)))))))

Year of the Bear

Fellow Knutians ! The wee man is one year old this very day so I thought that I'd change the furniture around a wee bit to celebrate.

I say "wee" man but that isn't quite accurate anymore, he's absolutely bloomin' enormous. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it's him starring in that new movie that folk are talking about at the minute...


Actually, any reference to compasses, golden or otherwise, has for years made me think of the (hopefully apocryphal) urban legend about the overexcited onanist at the back of the class in a school biology lesson getting too excited at the sight of the naked female form in the film being shown and taking direct action with said drawing implement to prevent his, erm, imminent artexing of the underside of his desk (ewww, dear Lord, why ?????). Straight down the eye, apparently. Yup, a lovely image to leave you with.

Anyhoo, back on topic, happy birthday cutey Knuti !!!

Made with the help of -

The Guillemots "Little Bear" - Well, what else could you expect ???

The Mob (Still) Rules

Grud on a greenie, what a night at the big red shed last night. Heaven and Hell Black F***ing Sabbath with wee Ron singing for them (and how), playing an hour and a half of stone cold classics, all four horsemen of the doom apocalypse clad head to toe in black (natch), standing stock still in front of that wonderful Gothic, cross laden graveyard backdrop, grinding out those huge riffs at a real volume (finally!) appropriate to their monolithic magnificence. At last, (at last!!!) looking and sounding just like I imagined them to back in '82 on Live Evil as I listened to it for the 4,000th time. I'm not going to rattle on about it at any more length here, might just write a review for the web site if the enthusiasm still takes me, suffice to say I liked it. Boy, did I like it.

Oh, and they played "Sign of the Southern Cross" and "Falling Off the Edge of the World". Brilliantly. Jeez, I still cannot quite get my head around just how good they were.

Happy Happy Halloween Halloween Halloween...

Remember, children, be sure to wear your Silver Shamrock Halloween masks and watch the Magic Pumpkin...



(Note: the author takes no responsibility for any heads being melted and turned into a "churning, formless mass of unleashed chaos"¹ during this commercial. Or for that tune being stuck in your head for the next twenty f***ing years)

*¹Yes, I've even read the bloody book as well...

The Birthday Girl

Well, whaddya know, it's birthday time again for my beloved SuperNoni !!! And, despite being another year older, she is still a sure fire certainty to be playing yet another angst-ridden teenager in at least one random indie movie over the next twelve months (supposing her stunt doubles Natalie and Keira haven't nipped in there first).


Anyways, to celebrate, I've decided to let her out of the basement to say hello...

Mex : So, what do you have to say to our readers, sweetie ?
Noni : "MMMMMPPPPHHHH!!!!" (I think that's "Hi, everybody!")

Another of our chaps shot down

Bad enough Ronnie Hazlehurst going the other week, I got a bugger of a shock reading the obituaries in the paper yesterday morning to find that Alan Coren had bought it - no, I don't watch the telly and I hadn't listened to The News Quiz for a wee while (jeez, maybe not since just after Linda Smith slipped this mortal coil, another total solar plexus kick). Hell, I just assumed he'd always be on it, certainly whenever I next decided to tune back in again. Damn and blast. Never Ass-u-me, as Benny Hill used to always say...

Not much YooToob action for the great man as yet, just a great HIGNFY election special here, here and here. Missing you already, old bean :-(

Deaf Sentence

Had another brammer of a time last week, went down south to catch a few concerts and generally doss about. What did I learn on my travels ?

1. There's a street in Lambeth with two (yes, two!!!) Greggs the bakers on it! I was so unnerved that I bought myself two sausage rolls and one chocolate doughnut, a potentially fatal inversion of the sacred order. If you're still able to read this, I'd guess the universe hasn't collapsed in on itself quite yet.
   
   
2. The Imperial War Museum is a truly wonderful thing... but sadly confirmed to me the continuing development of a worrying fascination with, erm, old buses... hmm...
   
   
3. Saw Control at the flicks and was definitively reminded that the lovely Alexandra Maria Lara is very much in the running for being my third favourite (adopted) German...
   
   
4. Neil Peart is the only drummer in the world who punters come back from the bar to watch perform his solo spot... (oh, and Rush are still a magnificent live band).
   
   

Anyways, what I really went down there to see was this :



Don't quite know if it was the loudest thing I've ever heard - the Moggies and Sunn 0))) are damn good competition - but it was pretty intense nonetheless. Still didn't get around to visiting that giant squid, tho'... for shame!

Stay on target... Stay on target !

I can't wait to see that thing flying. Don't fancy it's chances, though...

Porkins: "I've got a problem here."
Biggs: "Eject."
Porkins: "I can hold it."
Biggs: "Pull up!"
Porkins: "NO, I'm all ri--aarrggh!"


Made with the help of -

Rush "Snakes and Arrows" - Yes, I am a software developer, I am a Star Wars fan and I do listen to Rush, so that's 10,000 nerd spotting points to you and a fuck you very much.

UPDATE (08/10) : "Here goes nothing..." oh dear :-(

UPDATE II (17/10) : A-ha, the real story at last...

Another Tour de Wanker handed his arse (nearly)...

Grrr, bloody cyclopaths, bloody cyclopaths, don't ya just hate the dirty, filthy bastids ??? Lycra clad, novelty condom-headed, attention seeking, botty botherers the whole damn lot of 'em, battering along whatever random road/pavement/short pier (I wish) their tiny, malformed minds have stumbled onto, pedalling away intently, perched precariously on their dildo seat with absolutely no friggin' regard for either their fellow road users or any luckless pedestrians unfortunate enough to get in their gormless way, still less any sign of a fundamental grasp on those more difficult abstract concepts such as the highway code or even basic fucking signalling. I detest the implied wearing of their green credentials on their £200 Gore-Tex sleeves - if you're really so fucking ecologically aware, why not bin your waste-of-metal wank chariot and donate its fetid remains for more productive use in building corrugated roofs on mud huts in [insert generic central African country name] ? Funny how as soon as a wee tiny speck of rain is in the air of a weekday morning, the Kelvin walkway is magically cleared completely of the knob gobblers, who have all seemingly fucked off back to the safety of their preposterous four by fours. Jesus wept. If you really want to save the world and stay fit, use shank's pony you posing bastards.

Yes, I did have a run-in with a cyclist this morning, he did stray rather far into the pedestrian lane in the covered bridge across the motorway at the SECC, much too close to the big man for anyone's liking, and he did make a sharp exit just after I told him how much of a cunt I thought he was but, annoyingly, just before I could ram my size 12 right shoe up his overworked fundament and dump his shiny, wheeled, li'l cock substitute over Bell's Bridge into the Clyde. Rest assured, I will be seeing you tomorrow, mate - anyone know where I can rent a 1970 Chevy Nova on the quick ??? It's only death proof for the driver, baby... B-)

Mood wasn't helped by Hamilton getting drawn away to Dundee United in the quarter finals of the CIS Cup... bah, so much for Hampden, the Arabs have a l-o-n-g history of riding Accies, I fear we're on to plums yet again- a shame really as a home draw versus 'Well would have been ace, and practically a bye to boot... ;-)

Quelle Frappe ! Quelle Frappe !

Countryside View (Close)

A sight to gladden one's heart... Piers Morgan riding a Segway, going arse over tit and breaking three ribs. Shame it wasn't his neck but, still, you've got to take your thrills where you can get them...


Stay tuned, folks, the much requested Simon Cowell - Bull Elephant technicolor anal violation clip will be coming along ASAP!!!

That Was The Week That Was

Up The Hoops!

Way-hey! Last week was a bit of a brammer, got up to loads of different things under cover of (at times) some very nice weather. Off work for most of it as well, splendid.

• Started playing footy again last Monday and didn't make a complete arse of myself - many thanks to Breza, Paulo, Fraser et al for their kind attendance. Such care in the community schemes are virtually the only thing these days that can tempt the old fella away from his sofa, the neighbour, and the binoculars...

• Continuing on a football theme, Accies are still unbeaten atop the first division as I type with a mightily impressive 100% record. At last the bookies are now taking them seriously as title contenders but not before old Uncle Mex got his foot in the door at 14-1... Would gladly have toddled along to see them ride Thistle at Firhill last Saturday but was otherwise engaged (q.v.). Also, apparently a couple of clubs from Glesga did quite well during the week and qualified for some European league thing but I'm not quite up to speed on junior football so we'll say nowt more, eh ?
  

• Was in London on Wednesday helping some friends out with research (not on Labrador cloning, Dave) that they were doing but somehow managed to make a total balls up of my main mission... visiting the giant squid on display at the natural history museum. Bugger! I'm going down again to see Rush in October so will have to make a date with it then... what? Stop that laughing at the back!

• Saw a fantastic little movie at the GFT last Thursday, Daft Punk's Electroma. Beautifully shot retro futuristic weirdness with zero dialogue, a DP special wacked-out ambient electro disco soft rawk pastiche soundtrack, and rampant echoes of Westworld abounding. Skimpy little plot, and probably a little too long but I'm so glad I caught it. Modern Sci-fi cinema needs a bolt from left field to kick it up the bracket...

Connect Four

Went to the Connect festival on Saturday up at Inverary Castle by Loch Fyne. Different type of thing from my usual festival attendance habits... but, I have to say, it really was utterly blooming ace. What a fantastically beautiful venue for starters. The weather was a bit single fish but the setting looked arguably all the better for it, the moments of gloom giving off that classic old Scottish melancholic feel with the mist rolling in over the green hills. The crowd was pretty damn cool as well, a healthy mix of gender and ages with a lovely benign and friendly feel about it - T in the Park without the wankers, as one wag on the bus put it. Huge amount of gorgeous indie chicks in attendance, always a good thing for the general ambience. A seriously well laid on event, too, plenty of interesting festival stalls, a great (and wide) selection of food and bevvy, and close proximity to the beautiful little village on the shores.

Anyway, I ostensibly went to see the Moggies near the top of the bill at the end of the night... and they were pretty feckin' sensational as they always are, tho' the outdoor setting didn't really help them out in their mission of quiet-loud-quiet-loud aural destruction as the wind and rain and wide open spaces do tend to get in the way (BTW, much thanks must go to the lovely young folk standing beside me who kindly passed me the bong helped keep the spirits high during the set). Anyway, they were worth the admission price on their own if you ask me so everything else was a bonus...

For the rest of the time, I caught a good old mix of a few other different sounds as well while I was up there. The Divine Comedy were most entertaining and pretty funny to boot, Four Tet with Steve Reid in the dance tent was fairly, erm, interesting (and at least some of the time in a good way), and the Rilo Kiley were way better than I expected any relatively recent NME cover stars to be- I have to say at this point that their lovely singer Jenny has a really great voice and a marvellous set of pins, always a winning combination for me...

Anyway, if it's on next year, I will be back, it's an absolute must. Christ, if they could just huckle King Crimson or Can onto the bill, I'd be in absolute hog heaven. Seriously.

Made with the help of -

Black Sabbath "Asbury Park 1975" (Bootleg) - A glorious racket for playing while on a bus, on the A83, at two o'clock on a Sunday morning. Perfect.

I've Got a Golden Ticket !!!

Yes, it's true! I have! It came through in the post on Saturday...



In keeping with the Willie Wonka allusion, Sabbath Heaven and Hell themselves will be featuring a singer who could quite easily be mistaken for a wee Oompa-Loompa...

The rain in (erm, North Berwick) falls mainly on the plane(s)...

Had a lovely day out last Saturday at the Museum of Flight over at East Fortune to watch their annual air show. Beautiful little place doing sterling work looking after marvellous old planes, it's a wee slice of heaven for anyone with lurking jet-boy propeller-head tendencies (guilty). The weather was half decent (for the most part), the bacon butties were tasty, tho', sadly, the doughnuts were scandalously AWOL... I worship and adore the old kites they have on static display and in bits in the maintenance hanger. In fact, I still get a cheap thrill from walking by the huge Vulcan bomber that they have sitting outside the main building (sighs)... what a commotion that old girl would have made in her heyday...

Anyway, as for the show, the Red Arrows are always good fun and there was plenty of old prop goodness (including a wonderful old Lancaster) but, for me, the undisputed highlights where elsewhere... For starters, a mighty, twin rotored Chinook gave a rare air show performance for us and it truly was an extraordinary sight... like some ungainly Glasgow bus being dangled around the sky on two strings by an unseen, celestial puppet master. How the hell does it stay in the air? Beautiful noise it made, too, like some giant bizarro stealth Flymo. No, really. The other wonder was the Typhoon, which came on right at the end of the day as the heavens opened up and the rain started hissing down. What a glorious racket it made, especially when the hammer was being put down, a sound like the very fabric of the sky itself being ripped apart. In fact, it moved so much air that half a dozen alarms went off in the car park as it made its nearest low level pass. That awesome, bassy roar it eminated when at full tilt scythed its way mercilessly through the chests of the agog spectators, a feeling going so deep that it shook their very ancestors right down to their bones, I tell you... Give me a live album of that every week... Heavy metal bursting through the sky indeed...

BTW, that pic I've posted isn't one of mine, sadly. I did buy myself a camera recently but have been struggling to get to grips with it. Yes, yes, the lens keeps steaming up when I try and snap my favourite subject, har de har. Ach, f*** it, insert your own tripod jokes here...

Made with the help of -

Galaga '88 - Super cutesy graphics, ridiculously silly sound effects, some lovely music, gormless little aliens saying "Ohto ohto!" to you, and the inevitable classic old skool shooter game play, that's galactic dancin' for ya! What's not to love ?

Hmm, I've had that same problem with flaps myself....

No, that isn't a pic of the latest big game I've shot hanging from the wall in the trophy room here in the fortress of bolloxtude - it's a pic of a silly big dog that got its silly big teddy bear head caught in a cat flap. I've been very remiss in posting those stories of canine stupidity that I'd previously promised my readers before so hopefully this will go some way to redressing the balance...



Speaking of tight, little flaps with a black, furry protrusion (pah, why go for the double entendre when a single one can do so much better ?) my lovely Bavarian neighbour was nicking about in the altogether yet again this morning. Marvellous. I was down at the local library a bit later and contemplated picking up a book I spotted,"German in fifteen minutes". Fifteen minutes ??? I'd only need two minutes. At most. To paraphrase Alan B'stard - "Two minutes ? I'm not doing it twice !!!"

Made with the help of -

Robert Fripp "Exposure" - Tee hee, see what I did there ??? Anyway, far too good an album to be relegated to use as a mere pun on a throwaway blog entry...

How we used to live...

Okay, I was a wee bit late to the whole MAME party, mainly through the fact that I'd been keeping a P133 alive for the best part of ten years, a situation due in no small part to being too tight to upgrade my heartfelt concern for the environment - the old bird struggled enough emulating a PC Engine (with the sound turned off and the frame rate w-a-a-ay down) that I rightly felt it would be rather a waste of time getting it to try and crunch its way through the arcade version of Chase HQ...

However, I finally got around to getting myself up to speed the other week at long, long last and have had an absolute whale of a time gouging my way through stacks and stacks of the old classics... Out Run, Salamander, Gryzor, et cetera ... but the current favourite has to be the mighty Green Beret. I'd forgotten how good that old girl was, bringing back all those hours I'd spent down Sweaty Betty's every other weekend trying to get past the end of that second level (bah, making those lovely doggies the end of level baddies is not playing fair with the big chap, boo hiss). Anyhoo, got to be still worth a look to any discerning gamers out there... jeez, a couple of hours knifing and / or flamethrowing some pesky Russians doesn't half make a chap hungry... note to self : must remember to dig out "Raid over Moscow"...


BTW I - if anyone au fait with POW rescue behind Soviet lines is looking at this, please let me know how the hell you kill the paragliding karate bastard who parachutes in with his smart arse machine gun every so often from level 2 onwards ??? He's no danger but I keep missing the fucker with my rocket launcher and he jumps off before I can get down and knife him in the cojones...

BTW II - on a completely unrelated note, it seems the TV Cream blog bloke is an old school Genesis fan as well... nice work, fella

The Bam Flies Down (On) Old Trafford Way

Flew down to Manchester on Saturday, on a nice wee de Havilland Dash 8, no less - thankfully the weather was nice, those ickle prop planes don't half move around when a wind gets up. Anyhoo, I was going down to see G*n*s*s at Old Trafford so wasn't all that worried about the prospect of hitting the ground at 500mph and meeting a fiery death. After all, I had the Drum Duet to "look forward" to. Yes, I was trying not to look forward at all - mucho "what the f*** were you thinking, ya big fud" moments ever since I bought the tix. Oh dear...

However, things got much better once I got down there. The weather was scorching hot, the hotel was a little beauty and the folk I met down there were all pretty damn top notch - those folk from oop north are the salt of the earth, they really are. Plenty of Scots around as per usual, adding to the healthy bonhomie you find amongst groups of balding old fart proggers of all persuasions. What a magnificent stadium, I have to say. Enormous. I was up in the gods back in the east stand facing the stage and had a good, if somewhat distant, view of the proceedings. Heck, as a theatre of dreams it maybe even trumps the mighty Douglas Park but, hey, let's not get too carried away here...

Well, what about the band then ? Er, um, they were pretty damn good, actually. Not enough old stuff for the big man's liking, of course, but it was all rather pleasant, mucho well played light prog goodness abounding. Old Phil really is a talented little fella and should be highly praised for the services he's done for the standing of baldy auld bawbags all across the world. Not a great deal of Peter-era stuff, sadly, or even much old Phil stuff - although they played Ripples and Los Endos from my favourite album (which at least gave me a cheap thrill) most of the set was Duke onwards as wearily expected. Ho hum. I did find my mind wandering during the longueurs to visions of the stadium filled to the brim on a normal business day to watch ManYoo stuffing seven past Roma or going toe to toe with the real Reds. Now that would have been something to savour. But, ultimately, the Genesis lads did all right in the end (there, I can even bring myself to type their name!). I know what I like (in their back catalogue). And at least they didn't play anything off Abacab, right ???

Made with the help of -

Justice "†" - I'm still down with the kids, I tell ya. Anyways, how could I not like a band that plays in front of a giant, illuminated cross ???

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it infamy!

In tribute to my old mate iKon, who very kindly sent me a stack of Heroes episodes the other day (feckin' brilliant work, old boy, cheers!), I thought that I would post a link to something a bit obscure (and, frankly, cool as f**k) that I've stumbled across via the fabulous tv cream site, something which I'm sure will be well appreciated... Kenneth Williams presenting Wogan! No, really. Just take a look at this...

Marvellous stuff. Takes one back to the days when the old goggle box wasn't quite so dominated by gurning, talentless fuckwits of all stripes... hmm, must be showing my age :-(

FF ??? FFS !!!

Bah, the big man finds himself having less and less time for any of these new fangled blockbuster SFX demo's that are polluting our collective head space these days. Went to see Spidey III the other week and it was total, total guff. Now I read that the Fantastic Four sequel with the mighty surfer being introduced in it for the first time has an appearance by Galactus in it (yay!)... in the form of (wait for it...) a "cosmic mist" !!! Ay Caramba! WTF is that all about ??? Galactus is an 80 foot tall, fat bloke with a TV aerial stuck to his head. Everyone on the planet knows that. A fucking cosmic mist ??? What next, the Puppet Master appearing in FF III as a frigging pea souper ??? Jesus wept. Well, I'm not flippin' buying it, mister !!! They can stuff their shitty movie where the sun don't shine, sell out bastards, I'll stick with my Roger Corman version thankyouverymuch... I could rip a tissue, honestly...

BTW I - ah, so that's who Jessica Alba is, Lurkio... hmm, as Roy Walker might say, she's good but she's not right...

BTW II, balls to mainstream Hollywood, I watched that Tarantino approved cult classic Used Cars last night on DVD and it was a belter, the way I always remembered it late on Friday nights on the telly. Wall to wall classic American cars, a soupçon of female nudity, and gratuitous profanity all the way, baby :-)))

(side note : if Galactus is "but a mist", I guess Klaw will have to be "but a claw" - ho ho ho, one for the fellow Frank Skinner fan(s) out there...).

Nothin' but Trouble...

My first pilgrimage of the year last Monday. A trip down to the holy city of Wolverhampton to see the legendary Trouble at the Civic Hall. Well, the Civic Hall bar actually. Curse all you trend pandering, false metal felating bastards that would let such an iconic band be forced to resort to changing down venue from the Wulfrun Hall to the bloody bar of the big venue next door. Grrr. Anyways, said venue wasn't all that small, actually, being sized halfway between, say, the ABC 1 and the ABC 2 in Glasgow. Not exactly packed out, either, but then again Doom metal never was big box office (apart from, well, you know who). You're into it for the love of the damn thing.

None of that matters anyway. The band themselves were simply magnificent. Tighter than a constipated gadfly, heavier than four dozen buffalo stampeding on your cranium, louder than the coming apocalypse, yada yada yada. Have I really been waiting nearly twenty years to see them live? Brrrrrr. They ran the full gamut of their material, all the way back to the oldest, slowest, most funereal stuff right through the Jimi / Zep styled era of the mid nineties and then on to some new material which sounded super heavy in the old fashion - not that anyone will be buying it, sadly. I had heard that they will be on the same bill as Heaven and Hell on at least one festival line-up in Europe this summer. Probably in a land where the mullet is the official national tonsorial style - just a shame I can't afford the requisite hair weave.

Have to say that I really like Wolves the town. The lovely folk from the Midlands are generally pretty damn cool IME and you always get a nice bit of conversation with them, especially when they find they are talking to a Scot. Funnily enough, the town centre, to me, actually looks a lot like, erm, Hamilton... without the omnipresent shell suited, semi-human garbage polluting the shared psychic head space, obviously. Lots of great buildings with some beautiful architecture, especially the art gallery and St Peters church. Just, y'know, old-fashioned nice. I like old-fashioned nice. Defo worth a visit, I'd say.

Paradise Deferred (Redux)

Bah, this game programming lark is a royal pain in the cojones. I've been trying to motivate myself to finish that godawful sideways scrolling shoot 'em up that I've been rattling on about for, oh, months now but I have been seriously struggling... sadly, the "can't be arsed" factor is hideously enormous, exacerbated by the huge number of fiddly little bastard details that always need to be attended to before making real progress. I've actually somehow got a fair old bit of the infrastructure well in place but there always seems to be something else that needs properly designed, and it's always something that hadn't been previously accounted for... and, frankly, after spending most of my 9-5 workday ploughing through acres of ill-considered, back-of-the-fag-packet designed shit intricately planned, well-architectured, high quality code, I'm not always in the best frame of mind to spend the evenings or weekends peeing away my precious drinking time doing similar into the wee small hours. Not when there's a third series of Deadwood to be watched...

Aha, I hear you cry, the big sh**bag is making his excuses and baling out already - what a complete Colin Hunt. Well, naw, that ain't the case... not at all. The sideways scrolling job will get finished at some point, maybe even this summer... but my new years resolution was really based around just getting a game written in Python with a view to subsequently getting it running on Linux as well as Windows... and then going on and seeing about getting it running in an OLPC development environment. Well, that project is still very much on, only I've retrospectively decided to walk before running (er, actually after trying to run in the first place but bollocks to pedantry) and have started converting my old "classic" Columns rip-off to Python / PyGame from the original Delphi / DirectX version. A much less technically onerous endeavour as well as a pretty damn fun way to really get into the guts of the new language without fighting it quite so much at every bleedin' step (e.g. cursing stupid things like the lack of basic, multi-dimensional arrays in the standard Python library the other day - WTF ?!?). In fact, it's going to be a cool wee proggy to hang any graphical and musical doodlings from in the way that I'd originally intended the Delphi version to become. Well, I've started so I'll finish as old Magnus used to say. This thing will definitely get done. I've said so in public. So there :-P

In the meantime, here's a picture of one of the models for a putative end of level baddie from that wannabe R-Type / Gradius clone to keep y'all satisfied. It was going to be a picture of another (partially) furry German but the big man thought better of violating the old Blogger terms of service. Ho-hum.


Made with the help of -

The Byrds "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" - Oh, how old Uncle Mex loves the sound of some steel guitar on a Sunday morning. Glorious. Gram Parsons R.I.P.

A good Rogering...

Nipped down to London at the weekend to see Roger Waters at the Floydian spiritual home of Earls Court. What a fantastic concert venue, much better than any of the faceless, plastic, 10,000+ seat sized arenas that I've visited over the years... I'd forgotten just how splendid it was after seeing the other three amigos there back in '94 when I was a mere slip of a lad. What a super posh, ultra-exclusive area of the city as well, very pleasant indeed. Unlike the drunken crowd of scouse gits that inevitably sat in front of the big man during the show, singing along loudly at the most inappropriate moments, getting up every five minutes to get their beers in or go and take a piss, usual boorish nonsense from ignorant fuckwits - IME, there has always been that thin strata of the Floyd audience coming from the chav demographic... something to do with the drugs methinks. Anyway, they didn't quite manage to ruin the gig for the old fella - jolly(!) Roger saved the day by playing wall to wall (tee hee, see what I did there?) old stuff all the way for a good three hours (with a twenty minute break in the middle), including the whole of Dark Side in the second half, in order, from start to finish with old Nick Mason on the drum stool. Marvellous. Must give props to the twin guitars of Dave Kilminster and Snowy White channelling Gilmour with much aplomb. Good work fellas. Yes, a lovely night all round.

Now that's what I call commitment (vol. 4)

Stumbled across this picture (right) of the sainted wee Ron fronting the Sabs Heaven and Hell a few weeks back. Uncle Mex here could not help but notice that the leather lunged, pocket sized titan has invested himself in the blessed cause of fronting the greatest metal band in the known universe to such a heroically committed extent that his very DNA itself is transforming, as highlighted below in the close-up through the appearance of stigmata in the shape of the sacred Sabbath cross on the back of his hand (apparently that whole cross thing is also a traditional religious symbol of some significance as well - go figure!).


Anyhoo, I know damn well that the cheap "Volume 4" crack in the subject line would have worked better if the Oz was the current front man but the pun would not be denied - bollocks to the lot of you :-P

A nerf-herder in a nest of gundarks...

As I mentioned before, Kling Klang were playing the Sub Club as part of the annual (fantastic) TripTych festival and the big man here had a ticket. Splendid. And so they were. Not loud enough (never loud enough) but they still managed to dig out plenty of high octane, synth powered, sludgy riffage. Which I like, of course. The none-more-cool indie kids posed at the bar and looked generally disinterested as the big man tried hard to resist head banging along (jeez, I do miss the long hair - or, indeed hair full stop - at times like that). The band themselves were an odd looking bunch of scallies. The (excellent) drummer in particular looked like the ginger bastard offspring of Jarvis and Mark E. Smith. Hmmm. Much hirsuteness all round, too. Always did approve of a high beardy weirdy quotient in my favourite bands.

BTW, Paulo if you're lurking, I did get a few kind words about my bright yellow Marvel superheroes t-shirt... tho' sadly not from any of the aforementioned none-more-cool indie ladies present... :-(

Anyway, here are a few other recent observations from the past week...

• Staggered in after the gig, turned on the goggle box and fumbled my way over to Kerrap TV... only to be presented with the ungodly sight of the bleedin' Ordinary Boys gurning through their one and only hit for two insufferable minutes... Yeeeuchh... Just what the fuck is going on with that frigging channel /magazine / emo jizz rag these days ???

• So, tell me, just how long has Will Ferrell been playing HellBoy ??? (Yes, I am continuing to mine the comedy gold of the old Private Eye stylee look-a-like name/picture swap... cheers). Can't accuse this blog of not being environmentally friendly given they way I continually recycle old content...
  

• I have been really enjoying watching Goalissimo of a late evening to catch the ever entertaining South American fitba' among other things... however, it can get a little hairy with the player names after the odd late libation or two. For example, the other day I was 100% sure that Boca Juniors' star striker was actually named Fellatio - yes, naturally, he went down far too easily and his technique really sucked. Ho ho ho. And I was also pretty damn sure that Sao Paulo had a guy named Chewy playing up front for them... Yeah, laugh it up, fuzzball...

Whisky, chess, the good doctor... and even more Kerrap on the telly...

Hey-ho! Uncle Mex here has belatedly realised that he hasn't posted that much in April so here's an update of a few things that have been done, will be done and a few more things the old goat has learned this month... (balls, I'll have to quit this third person stuff, I'm getting a headache... )

• Visited my old mate iKon down in Motherwell who kindly showed me the sh sights of the old place. Naturally, by way of thanks, I handed the silver fox his a$$ on the chessboard (sorry old fella). What can I say ? Nice old man's pubs, some good whisky, a good laugh and a lovely day all round :-)
  

• Out on the lash a few times in Glesga this month with another old mate, Breza, and stumbled over a cracking wee metal club down in a basement at the top of Wellington Street. Still can't remember the name of it but I've always been very drunk every time I got to the place... bloody Glenmorangie. Anyhoo, I knew the place was a winner after seeing their giant Sabs poster on the wall, with Van Halen seemingly always on their jukebox and Anchorman seemingly always being looped on their telly... boy, do I love lamp!
  

• Speaking of which, just how long has Will Ferrell been the drummer for the Chili Peppers ???
  

• Going to see the mighty Kling Klang at the Sub Club this Friday - woo-hoo!
  

• I'm still digging the latest Doctor Who... though I still can't fathom how he could have spent the best part of two series making Bambi eyes at Joker-faced Rose and yet continue giving a rubber ear to wee Martha... frankly, she's fallen out of the gorgeous tree and hit every branch on the way down. Ahem. BTW, yes, she does seem to be molesting an eisbärbaby in that pic... either that or I'm having another one of those dreams again...
  

• Kerrang TV is so remorselessly fucking awful that it makes me want to gouge out both my ear drums with a shit encrusted baseball bat. It's like pouring hydrochloric acid down your third eye. I explicitly sat down one evening and watched it for an hour waiting for one, just one, honest to goodness metal video to put in an appearance... i.e., not their usual relentless diet of generic, whiny, pussy-whipped, kohl-eyed, pseudo-Goth emo My Chemical Valentine bilge. Of course, that lone metal video never came, not once. Occasionally, the channel did change gear every now and then, sometimes excreting a fetid slurry of whiny, pussy-whipped, spiky haired pseudo-punk Bowling for Blink 41 Day effluent instead. Cheers for that guys. Trend pandering bastards. Scuzz is a bit better - I have even spotted Slayer, Sepultura and some Megadeth in the wild on there... and at least the new stuff that they show is generally pretty heavy...

Righty-ho, that's me off for a lie down - I feel some old man back pain coming on :-(

Doctor Knobb's Journal

Howdy kiddywinks! Y'know, despite being a professional (smirk) code monkey for, oh, nearly ten years now (Jesus wept), this blog has been markedly lacking in the area of tech talk. I did (and still do) intend starting another blog for my idle musings on what's going on in the world of my favourite weekday dev tools and suchlike but, in the meantime, I thought that I should take this opportunity to do a wee bit to fill the gap on this blog. Oh, joy untold. Umkay, let's crack on...

Feeling a little demob happy at the prospect of my short Easter hols, I decided to crack open the copy of Delphi for PHP that has been sitting in my in tray for the past few days. One very quick, lightweight install later (no .NET dependency baggage) and I was working up a little database front-end application quicker than I can knock up a chip butty. The work flow is exactly like classic Delphi... design your forms, code your event handlers and press F9 - super quick and super simple. It comes bundled with Apache and an Interbase version so everything is in the box, good to go, for creating your own self contained little web app. And, by crackly, I really do like it! It's just so, well, Delphi...

I'm even warming to the clunky name - Borland confused the whole Delphi naming issue in the first place by renaming their version of the Object Pascal language as the Delphi language and now they've (or rather CodeGear have ) done a complete volte-face and seem to be now branding their whole symbiotic IDE / VCL development model as Delphi... and are consequently now back to referring to the language under its old flamin' moniker. Typical Borprise SNAFU, the big yin thought - people will get mixed up and wonder why this new "Delphi" has nothing to do with Pascal at all and wail about how idiotic the powers that be still are after all these ignominious years... However, now actually having used the PHP tool myself, it makes absolute bleedin' sense - it really feels just like "classic" Delphi... except that this one has PHP sitting underneath it and, of course, it now targets the web. Bloody great I say. Even better, the new PHP VCL that underpins the whole endeavour is essentially a managed open-source project, meaning it can (and should) take on a whole life of its own outwith CodeGear's efforts - definitely the way forward for the Gearheads in the face of the .NET onslaught, IMHO - keep away from the M$ woodchipper, it'll be the death of you guys...

Sadly, AFAICT, the Slashdot crowd haven't (yet) taken to it and have kicked it before even giving it a fair go but frankly they can go hoist themselves - IME, those tossers can be broadly characterized as a plague of relentlessly negative, fundamentally ignorant, dogma driven cock suckers so fuck them. Balls to the naysayers, it is a defo winner for the old school Delphi guy - if Kerrang reviewed development tools, this is a 5K job, no worries.


Anyway, away from the grindstone, I have been working on that Python game project that I mentioned previously. Honestly. It's just that, well, progress has been dog slow... bloody hard work it is, developing games, way above the actual coding process - the design, infrastructure, and support tools all take up as much time as anything else. Coding in a language you've never used before might also just slow things down a tad... :-) I will get something finished within the next month or so, we'll just have to see how it goes from there, stay tuned. BTW, I do love Python, it is so flippin' terse - though getting used to duck typing again is hard after coding mainly with Pascal all these years. Still, one does like a challenge now and again...

BTW, don't worry readers, it's back to prattling on about eisbärbabies next week, okay ???

Made with the help of -

Trouble "Psalm 9" - Bought the re-issues of their first couple of elpees the other day and they are marvellous examples of their eighties doom epoch... I'm going to see 'em at the blessed Wolves Civic at the end of May - yippee! Jeez, Sabbath Heaven & Hell and Trouble in the same year... you're spoiling us, Herr ambassador...

Before I go, my favourite quote of the week on my deities comes from the pages of Metal Hammer : "Part Dio, part Sabbath, all guaranteed to fucking rule" :-)))

Who the hell are you ?

Watched that first episode of the new Doctor Who series last night. I had previously tuned right out of the whole re-birth thing mid-way through the second series after finally getting sick of Billie the vampire slayer, "good old London taaaan", the whole fucking Tyler family, and the sickly notion of a 900 year old Time Lord leching over some practically adolescent girly jailbait (just try and visualize, dear reader, ol' William Hartnell making Bambi eyes at Rose for two series on the trot to get things into proper perspective - yeeuch). It started off well, certainly, with the mildly unhinged Mr Eccles-cake at the helm, but towards the end it all seemed to rapidly degenerate into a hi-tech Hollyoaks with (nicely rendered) Cybermen - pretty vacant, no fun, never mind, it's bollocks (ed. - up the Pistols!).

Nah, I wasn't having it. Especially as I'd been watching wall to wall Pertwee and Baker classics at the same time which, in fair consideration, frankly still smack the bottom of the modern young upstart attempts, regardless of any piss-poor effects and ropey costumes or sets from back in the day. That stuff's all just gloss anyway, the feel is the real thing... that whole alien weirdness of the old skool Who which has been practically posted missing in the brave new Russell T era. At first I thought it was over exposure to sci-fi on telly and at the flix that made the new stuff look too comfortable and too grounded in the familiar... but revisiting the 70's stuff again gave lie to all that. All the post-modern awareness and self referencing in the world can't disguise the lack of otherness in the soul of the new breed. Back when I was a mere padawan, I was never quite sure whether the Doctor was really a good guy or a bad guy such was Tom Baker's barking, goggle-eyed lunacy - to this day I've still got visions of him as a giant flippin' cactus. Maybe it was the regular mix of outside broadcast film and cheapo, studio-based vt which added something intangible and unsettling to the mix. Maybe it was the burbling oddness of Dudley Simpson's incidental music. I can't quite put my finger on it. I'll stick my neck out and suggest setting the vast majority of stories (certainly for Tom) in oddball alien environments instead of, say, down town fucking Cardiff certainly helped out with the pesky science fiction bit that us nerds are rather keen on...

Anyway, the new one... well, it seems to have started off a fair bit better already. I do like Dr Tennant and think he's got the acting chops to really make the grade if the material is up to snuff. The effects are pretty damn excellent yet again, maybe even a step up from the last couple of runs so at least it should continue to look the part. Yes, the new assistant is pretty damn lovely (Uncle Mex sez black is always the new black but that's whole other blog entry) but at least they seem to have started off with a different kind of relationship than the previous gurning luv-in. I just hope we don't have to see the assistant's extended family every other frigging week like last time. I'll keep giving it a chance, I think. At least I've always got "The Robots of Death" to turn to if things go tits up (Christ, Russell Hunter, you don't get special guests like that these days... )

Made with the help of -

Einstürzende Neubauten "Kollaps" and "Halber Mensch" - a bunch of shouty German blokes with power tools making a quite horrendous racket... bloody great :-)

Hmm, seems to be quite a Germanic feel to this blog lately... which sounds like something I'd like to give the lovely neighbour but never mind...

Sweet as a Knut

Stumbled across this little fella the other day. What a sweetheart! He even has his own blog, not in English but still sadly a damn site more intelligible than this one - the fact that the German for polar bear cub seems to be eisbärbaby (literally "ice bear baby") just sends the cuteness meter into overload... yes, probably my second favourite German in the world, I think... :-P

Ahem... anyone catch the boxing on Saturday night ? Er, or the rugby ??? I missed it as I was out on my usual weekend binge drinking spree, downing 37 glasses of raw sewage for a laugh, gouging the eyes out from random passers by whilst rattling on all night about motors and burds... hard as f***ing nails, me... are you calling my pint a girl ??? etc etc yawn

Hell??? It sounds just like Heaven to me...

I've been desperately trying to hold myself back from turning this blog into the inevitable place of worship (that everyone who knows me predicted it would be) but all this latest new Sabbath Heaven and Hell activity has pushed the big man right over the edge. The lads are on tour in Canada at the minute and some wonderfully generous Sab-head has posted footage of them on YouTube...

Yes, of course, your kindly old uncle will lead you straight to them, my young padawans...

The Mob Rules, After All (The Dead), Children of the Sea, The Sign of the Southern Cross (come on!), Neon Knights, and the mighty Lonely is the Word as well as two utterly belting new ones The Devil Cried and Ear in the Wall - I'm not too proud to admit that I had to wipe down my monitor when that mighty riff to the glorious "Southern Cross" kicked in... ahem...

HEALTH WARNING : negative commentators will be defenestrated (post castration)...

Mmmm, that crow tastes just delicious...

Okay, let's just get it out of the way right from the start. Journey were simply fantastic. Phew. That new singer was spot on as it happened, another pitch perfect Perry with maybe a smidgen more power. That has to be a result in anyone's book. The instrumental players ? Bang on the money as you'd expect - the Schon-Cain-Valory axis were all present and indubitably correct. The set list? Wall to wall old school knockouts from "Wheel in the Sky" to "Separate Ways" and all points in between...so far, so tip-top...

However, the real surprise package for old Mexy was the drummer Deen Castronovo taking lead vox for some of the slow burners...and he was a bloomin' revelation. What a voice... "Who's Cryin' Now", "Faithfully", "Still They Ride" and, yes, a beautiful "Open Arms" - the big chap here was blubbin' like a girly nodding along with much appreciation...

So, the night was a belter all round then. Yes, I know, it was syrupy radio-friendly froth all the way, of course it was...but delivered straight with no chaser by the definitive exponents of the genre... As far as Mexatron is concerned, if ya don't like it then frankly get it right up you...

Funnily enough, I gave in to the desperate urge to buy myself an old Glenn Branca CD (Symphony No. 6) when I was in town earlier on - clearly there is some kind of bizarre subconscious battle going on between the left and right hemispheres of my brain of which I am but a helpless bystander...

Guilty pleasures volume 437

Oh gawd, I really shouldn't have spouted off about how good the old Genesis albums were going as I ploughed through their voluminous back catalogue - Mex's law dictated as soon as I let slip that frankly ludicrous opinion, the quality of the rest would immediately drop like a Hercules executing the Khe Sanh approach. And, boy, was I right... "...And then there were three" is blander than a Sportscene presenter's after dinner banter and not really worthy of further comment - jeez, I really didn't see 'em missing old Steve Hackett but there ya go - other than to say "Royaume Uni, nil points". Bummer.

However, "Abacab" is, remarkably, even worse - w-a-y worse, a shit sandwich without the bread as the old Tap-ism goes. Horrendous MOR slop of the kind that even their drummer would dismiss from his future solo work as too insipid for human (and progger) consumption. Doesn't help that the last few MP3s towards the end of my copy of said elpee are jumpier than Ashy's vest (another one for the Hillhousians out there) - so much for bloody BitTorrent digital media purchases from legitimate vendors, eh ? Anyways, I won't be re-visiting that one - and I'm not 100% sure about sampling the rest of 'em either now... balls, I've got terrible visions of having to sit through three hours of that shite in July at Old Trafford - aww, crap... just what the fuck was I thinking ???

On a similar potentially unpleasant note, I'm going to see Journey on Saturday at the Armadillo and I'm feeling a fair old bit of trepidation...no, not at the prospect of another two and a half hours of eighties AOR baby-baby-baby lighters-aloft slush (that's a given) but more that the uncanny Steve Perry-a-like on lead vox has been given the Spanish and replaced with Jeff Scott Soto, late of Thingumy Wankstein's band IIRC. Hmmm. AFAIR (from way back in my teenage years, y'understand), this particular fella has a fair set of pipes on him so it does probably pay to give him a chance...but changing squealer mid-stream is generally not a good sign for any band. If the bugger butchers "Open Arms" then it really will cause tears before bedtime in more than one household I can tell you...

Yuck, after all that MOR / AOR talk I really feel like I should rinse out my psyche with something a bit more, um, substantial. Ah, now that's much better. Like taking a good, long, cold shower after sitting for an hour in a bath of warm piss - a delightful image I'm sure you'll agree.

You need coolin'...??? Oh Lord yeah !!!

Yes, daft as a box of frogs but pretty darn close to genius. This is top drawer canine cojones, the kind of utter gonzoid brilliance that justifies the whole mash-up shooting match in four minutes of colossal riffage...

Those little things that get on my nerves #2

Went to a lovely concert tonight. The ever excellent SCO at home in Glasgow City Hall. A tasty, filling little diet of Philip Glass and John Adams, always right up my street, especially the welcome dissonance of Adams' Chamber Symphony, a glorious racket taking me right back to the days of my old Arnold loading the latest "classic" from ye olde cassette and the big yin here humming along with ten minutes of speed write 0 data transfer before, say, Roland In Time kicks in. Beautiful. Ahem...anyway, that's all well and good. What wasn't/isn't/will never be so clever is the endless flippin' coughing and retching polluting the collective airspace during every single "serious" music concert I've ever been to or, in fact, have ever even heard on the bloody radio...

Frankly, it is truly, truly awful and I can't imagine how bad it must be for the poor performers up there on stage or in the pit. A full jarring, noises on re-enactment of the Somme performed with improvised phlegm solos by the bucket load at every single break between movements. Those tossers don't even have the basic wherewithal to even try and mask their fetid hacking up during the loud fucking bits - they actually wait 'til the silences to launch into their sputum barrage. Now don't get me wrong, there are a fair few oldsters in the audience at these things, plenty of denizens of the undead with the full Savini slap who would make even Uncle Mex look like a healthy, well developed young specimen. I can just about turn the other way when they are giving their lungs the old Highland clearance. It's the rest of the ignorant bar stewards who have no excuses, none at all.

Old Mexy here has been through thirty years of chronic catarrh, the odd bout of bronchitis as well as an ongoing battle with asthma (not helped by living in Ice Station Zebra). Anyone who has known me long enough will verify that I have pretty much had a persistent cold since, oh, around some time in 1975. And yet, somehow, I can manage to go to a concert, arrive on time, sit down AND SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR THE DURATION WITHOUT CHUCKING MY FUCKING GUTS UP. So how do I manage it ??? Hmm, it ain't that hard, really. Maybe not being a complete ignoranus gives me an unfair advantage. Grrr....I tell ya, they want fucking shooting, the lot of 'em.

While I'm here, sod it, I'll put the boot into another of my favourite species. The big man is the archetypal nervous wreck about being on time for things. I always turn up well in advance, especially for the movies. I'm normally first one in the place so I can pick my seat (Woody Allen, back row centre, screen one, GFT), read my paper and dispose of my munchies in good time before the picture starts. I have only ever breached this when in the company of norms but that is obviously only under duress - and frankly I usually don't have that problem when going to see some 1935 black and white Polish B-movie or suchlike.

Anyway, so far so neurotic. However, there is another breed of person who doesn't seem to be able to even use a watch or read a clock, and seems to have absolutely no problem with missing the first ten minutes of the thing he's paid good money to see. Okay, okay, I know it happens - folk miss connections, are busy bumping gums, forget the time, et cetera. I can accept that. What I can't accept is that these sausage jockeys generally seem to be utterly unperturbed by their (re-)tardiness, and generally spend the first five minutes on entering the theatre looking for the optimum seat when they should be simply fucking grateful for being allowed in at all in the first place and make a bee line for the one nearest their sorry ass.

Of course, a further five minutes is inevitably wasted with them standing up, taking off their jackets and coats whilst persistently blocking the view of those poor patient patrons who have got there IN DAMN GOOD TIME only to be treated with such knob-ish contempt by dullards. Even more minutes are then spent dicking around with their preposterously illuminated mobile phones instead of simply pressing the bloody "off" button like good considerate citizens (urgh, mobile phones... must... resist... lengthy... digression.. into... apocalypse... of... fury).

However, the pièce de résistance for me is when said feckless felchers suddenly decide that, actually, yes, they would like something from the sweet stall (BTW, I blame that bastard advert in the bigger chains saying "Ladies and Gentlemen, there is still time to buy snacks and drinks" for this - NO, THERE ISN'T "STILL TIME", YOU'VE HAD PLENTY OF TIME BEFORE THE PROJECTOR KICKED OFF, SIT DOWN ON YOUR FAT ARSE AND SHUT THE FUCK UP). Of course, when they come back from said snack vendor, a whole new circle of hell opens up for everyone as we put up with their fuckwitted paper rustling and their hotdogs odious odours for the duration of the film. If you're really unlucky, a sub-strata of this archetype spend most of the rest of the movie explaining the fine detail of the plot to their bovine spouses... okay, maybe the Seventh Seal has a panoply of lovingly crafted existential nuances which are hard to catch at first pass but Tallageda fucking Nights? Hmm, methinks you fine people oughta have stayed in to watch Celebrity Big Brother, you ignorant fuckwits. Please, somebody push them towards Chuck.

Jeez, I really am feeling pretty damn misanthropic today (just today???) - had better take a wee lie down and stick on Music for Airports...aahhh, deep breaths. Feeling better already.


There you go. Two moans for the price of one. Champion. I was going to go for the hat trick but cyclists will be getting the size twelves in a post of their own at some later date. Too much bile to be shared at this one sitting I'd wager...

Made with the help of -

1. Genesis "A Trick of the Tail" - Christ, I had to finally admit it and confess that I really, genuinely like loads of their seventies stuff. Gentle, eccentric prog with some quirky pop sensibilities creeping in here and there, especially just after Peter G left. Throw stones at me if it makes you feel better. Don't know whether anyone will ever excuse me going to see them this summer... (aww naw, big man, how could you let that slip out in a public place ???)

2. Kling Klang "The Esthetik of Destruction" - This is pretty damn special IMHO. Feels to me like glorious, slow droning doom metal as played by Kraftwerk instead of you know who. Like Saint Vitus playing instrumentals only with Jon Lord on keys replacing Dave Chandler's guitar. Heard them on Peelie's show (R.I.P.) years ago and its taken me this long to get around to getting into them.

A demented refugee from the (late) eighties writes...

I thought I'd cracked it, folks - I thought I'd finally found that old Konami arcade shooter I had played in Electronic Experience all those years ago with the beautiful rip off/homage of Chopin as the level one music - Yes, indeedy, Thunder Cross seriously, genuinely, desperately looked like it fitted the whole goddamn bill...

The look of the thing definitely rings some major bells with the old boy, especially the section with the multi-level parallax red cloud background (still a sucker for that stuff). Other wee touches like the big old metallic bosses (no, not another errant Sabs reference) are very much in the mould of the mystery game I'm thinking of... and I am still 90% sure it was published by Konami...

However, as that famed Zen master Roy Walker might have said when confronting this particular situation, "mmm...it's good...but it's not right". The dread realisation was something that I confirmed for myself first hand when I stumbled across this vid of the game being played from start to finish - it's full of standard issue late eighties synthy j-rock game music, all well done natch but nothing at all like the game music I'm hearing in my head - all upbeat, bass heavy, eminently danceable shit, no moody piano sonatas whatsoever, zero zilch zip nada. I sat through it all and watched the whole f**king thing being played to completion (yes, I am one singularly sad bas - hell, you must know that already) but, grud on a greeny, it just ain't the one... :-(((

So my (deservedly) lonely quest goes on - I move on to another place, assume another fake surname again, hope to God the folk in the next town don't make me angry (sorry, different quest, wrong meeting, erm, carry on)...anyway, I'm begging you, please, someone out there has just got to help me !!! Do I have to plough through every single friggin' japanese horizontal scrolling blaster released between 1985 and 1992 before I get any satisfaction around here ?!??!

Damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Oh Lord Yawn - Uncle Mex's Albums of 2006

Greetings music lovers! Yes, I'm finally getting around to posting that "best of 2006" albums list that I promised a couple of posts back. Er, it seems that the whole notion somehow got lost in the midst of the traditional new years alcoholic stupor - mea culpa. So, please bear with me while I disappear up my own fundament and indulge some of my frustrated wannabe Melody Maker scribe fantasies and get all Lester Bangs on yo ass. Only a top five, once again - and why not?

Black Mountain - Black Mountain

Said on the tin Neil Young meets Sabbath by way of "Animals"-era Floyd. Well, I'd certainly buy that for a dollar. In fact, I did buy that for a dollar (or, erm, ten). And they weren't kidding. Saw them at the ABC and they were pretty damn sweet live. Has to be said, heroic levels of facial hair, even the women (er, well I was very, very drunk).

Mogwai - Mr Beast

Moggies on auto-pilot, frankly, but still good enough for old Mex - in fact, Glasgow Mega-Snake would have got this one 5 Ks in Kerrang on its own if anything to say about it I had, young padawan. Saw them live at the Albert Hall (no less) last autumn and it was just about the best f***ing thing that I have ever seen. Really. Sounded like sticking your head in an aircraft engine as the afterburners kick in - something Uncle Mex himself tried one time in days past but we won't go there.

Boards Of Canada - Trans Canada Highway E.P.

Not a full album but this is my bloody list so bollocks to the lot of you. This is more of the same dreamy, ethereal, yada yada "intelligent techno" (barf!) that they've been peddling for a good few years now. Like most folk who listen to it, I also find it taking me right back to school television circa 1978. A good thing I'm sure you would agree (right???). Don't care about them covering the same old ground every year. Another ten along exactly the same lines would suit me, thanks.

Swan Island - The Centre Will Hold

Stumbled across this one whilst searching Google news one morning for new scriptures from my God(s) - it's amazing the number of tenuous links made to the dark lords by desperate writers covering any band who peels off the odd palm-muted, (slightly) down-tuned riff or two. Hmm, don't see it myself from these ladies but this is a wee gem nonetheless. Sounds to these jaded ears like a new wave band having a bash at classic rock - say Blondie playing, erm, Bachman Turner Overdrive. But so much better than that, honestly.

Sunn O))) - Black One

Moves like a supertanker crossing the Arctic Circle on a particularly stormy midwinter's night. Slow slow, quick quick, slow. Without the quick quick. Seismic detonations at the bass end of the scale running at 16 and a half rpm - at a push. Jeez, I've been waiting on this kind of stuff all my miserable life. Saw them twice at the ABC last year and both times they did a better clear out job on my bowels than a steam powered hydrochloric acid enema - another Uncle Mex speciality that will be discussed at a later date (or maybe not). All told, not for everyone.


Well, how do you like them apples ? Admittedly, this whole nerd list creation thing is probably just another manifestation of my inner Aspergers geek-need to order and categorize every little thing I come across - hmm, that might just be another wee list to ponder...probs keep that one to myself, thankyouverymuch. Anyways, same again same time next year - super.