Christmas ATP (curated by Mars Volta) lineup announced.

Who is in?

Blonde Redhead and Les Savy Fav! It’s already far better than the Slint lineup.

I just saw the Wannadoo advert on TV again with Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown” as the soundtrack to a bunch of “rebellious” young whippersnappers choosing not go to with AOL. Oh man, when I saw that I thought (hoped!) I had imagined it.

On the subject of websites, has everyone seen the backwards version of Google that the Chinese are using because Google is blocked over there or something. Anyways, type “Elgoog” into Google and click on the first link that appears and watch your internet experience go insania.

2004 End Of Year Poll time.

Here’s my Alphabet Of 2004:

A) All Tomorrows Parties (April)

B) Blogging

C) Cahill’s goal in the FA Cup semi final

D) DJing

E) English A-Level class

F) Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas Criterion Collection DVD

G) The Go! Team

H) Hunter S. Thompson

I) Iggy Pop on the South Bank Show

J) Jack Black

K) Kevin Muscat

L) Lost In Translation

M) Mr Show series four on DVD

N) Nirvana boxset (albeit not very good)

O) old habits

P) Phoebe Luk

Q) winning the Quidney Cup (a Playstation/Pro Evolution Soccer 3 tournament for stoners)

R) Run Ronnie Run

S) Sopranos series five

T) Tate Modern

U) UEFA Cup match: Millwall against Ferencvaros of Hungary

V) very first “A” grade at anything (in this case, English essay/coursework)

W) Woody Allen movies

X) The x-ray on my ankles in January

Y) Y2J Chris Jericho

Z) Allen Zuk of the Blitters

What about the rest of the Diskant team?

Why did it take until yesterday for me to discover that Ol’ Dirty Bastard had died?

Russ Meyer has passed away. I know/realise he hasn’t made any films for about thirty years but his movie Mud Honey did give birth to the band of the same name, so there is one tenuous link to our little music land. And generally on a personal note, back around 1995/1996 I had the greatest time discovering his movie stuck on the early hours of Sky Movies Gold where Sky rightfully almost seemed to be embarrassed to be showing them (a move later repeated by Channel Five years later).

Russ Meyer films are utterly tacky, tasteless and exploitation but at the same time pretty funny (in a giggle way) and the sort of films you felt/feel at the same both dirty and hip time watching. My personal favourite is Beneath The Valley Of The Ultravixens, complete with regular appearance of Charles Napier who later turned up as one of the pursuers in the A-Team and cameo by AWOL Nazi Martin Borman. The film is question features a nutty town in smallville America where everyone is at it with eachother to disastrous consequences all narrated excellently by an Uncle Jesse (Dukes Of Hazard) style character delivering a basic “this is the state of the nation” address on small town America, the theme of which, albeit done completely differently, seems to be the main subject of so many of the fantastic US independent films.

The most famous two Russ Meyer movies are probably Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! which is basically everything the band The Cramps ever stood for on screen and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, pretty much the story of Courtney Love and Hole done twenty years early.

Anyways, whatever, I’ve just always enjoyed watching (the good) Russ Meyer movies is all.