i wholeheartedly agree with everything mar-c said. as far as i’m concerned, nintendo IS video games, and i really don’t think i would bother with any of it if they weren’t around. for some time i’ve been getting increasingly annoyed at how the vast majority of new games are centered around killing people in the most brutal and realistic way possible, and now what’s even worse is that apparently people are falling for this crap to such a degree that it is hurting nintendo, who started it all if you ask me (obviously they didn’t, it was atari or someone, but i’m only old enough to remember the nes, and not a lot before it). it has crossed my mind more than once that all these soldier of fortune / medal of honor / socom / splinter cell games, and even the whole grand theft auto / getaway / manhunt / hitman 2 things, are all part of a vast government program to raise a generation of bloodthirsty and highly efficient killers, just in time for the impending onset of world war 3. maybe i’m just reading a bit too much into it, but give me mario or zelda anyday.

ok, so it’s not that exciting, but i felt the need to say a few words about soulseek since it’s been so kind to me this year. i got out of the habit of file sharing about 2 years ago, but this year scarce funds and months of unemployment have thrown me right back into it. since the demise of napster and audiogalaxy, i never really found anything that had much i wanted to hear. i never got all the fuss over kazaa, seemed crap to me. soulseek on the other hand is wonderful and i’m sad i didn’t discover it earlier. as well as getting random stuff i wanted to hear but couldn’t afford to buy, i also managed to find a bunch of stuff that i would have had no other way of hearing ever. i’m talking old random demo tapes, stupid ‘limited edition of four’ 7″s and lots of other obscure live bits and pieces that have somehow surfaced on slsk, and thus made me very happy. here are some highlights:black dice and wolf eyes – chimes in black water vol. 1

caroliner – wine won’t do it, wife won’t do

the champs – triumph of the air elementals

earth – phase 3: thrones and dominions

the heads – relaxing with…

hella – 3 track demo cd-r

khanate – live on wfmu

neutral milk hotel – beauty

neutral milk hotel – hype city

neutral milk hotel – invent yourself a shortcake

sleep – demo

sleep – volume one

sleep – volume two

wolf eyes – strangled in filth

wolf eyes / emil beaulieau – split

i would have had no other way of hearing all stuff had some kind person not decided to share them. i heard yesterday that some record companies had lost a court case where they wanted to be given the names of file sharers, which made me quite happy. i’m sure slsk will go the way of all the others at some point, either shutting down or offering a subscription service, but i’m still thankful in the meantime for all the gems i’ve picked up. i’d be totally happy if the riaa made it so their cds couldn’t be shared, leaving the rest of us to hear the stuff we want. the stuff i would like to hear that’s covered by the riaa is all stuff i could just go out and buy if i ever get that desperate, so it wouldn’t make a huge difference to me and i’m sure countless others if their stuff wasn’t available to download anymore. i wish they could sort themselves out and leave things like slsk alone for those who are just interested in independent stuff.

some handy links:

soulseek

riaa radar

Like:

Irresponsible impulse-buying of things we can’t even begin to afford and really don’t need

Castlevania on the PS2 (see above)

Pilsbury Toaster Strudels (you can ice them yourself!)

Wolf Eyes (still)

No like:

Irresponsible impulse-buying of things we can’t even begin to afford and really don’t need

Insane weather (it was in the high 70s at the start of this week and now it’s a couple of degrees above freezing or something)

The idiots who apparently haven’t found the time to give me a work permit yet

The price of beer

Elsewhere this week: We saw Birdland who are two people who used to be in Love Life and Jaks. Katrina sang and shimmied around while Sean played organ and guitar at the same time which was very impressive. They also had an odd looking centrafuge type thing behind them which had lights and made a funny noise and seemed like it might be something to do with the organ. If anyone knows exactly what the purpose of this was, other than to look nice, we’d like to know. They were very good though.

We also saw The Matrix Revolutions which was a marvel to look at but was disappointing as a climax to the trilogy. I never liked anything to do with The Matrix before this summer, but after seeing the last one I was hoping for big things, which it didn’t deliver, at least not in terms of storyline. Some of the action is truly incredible though, and it’s probably worth seeing just for that.

Nice to see Chrisummerlin posting, now it won’t just be me who swears far too much. It’ll be quite something to finally see that Wolves record too, about time!

on friday we dressed up as zombies and went to see a band. a fairly standard friday night you may be thinking, but thankfully we saw japanese band mono and they were first fucking class. a few years ago i got completely sick of watching bands of skinny kids who sound like mogwai; there was too damn many of them and they were never very good. this is largely what i was expecting of mono, but after only a few minutes of their set they showed me that they’d done their homework and they meant business. there’s really no escaping the fact that they just sound like mogwai did 5 or 6 years ago: gentle gliding guitar textures that sway and build until it’s very loud, or occasionally switching from very quiet to very loud on a sixpence. the thing that sets them apart from the legions of second rate post-rock copycats is that they do it very very well indeed, the best i’ve heard anyone do it since young team, the holy grail itself came out and lodged itself firmly in my skull. when they were quiet it was all very nice and pretty and 1998 and when it was loud it was “fucking hell, that’s really very loud indeed and i wasn’t expecting that and SHIT it just got louder, well surely they can’t get… JESUS! there they go”. they reminded me why i ever liked this stuff in the first place, at a time when anything that sounds remotely like mogwai sends me to sleep within 30 seconds. the couple of times they went from quiet twiddley bits to SHREDDING THE PLACE TO SHIT i seriously began to wonder if they weren’t better than mogwai ever were, but that was probably the beer talking.

for those who haven’t heard of this band (most of you i’m sure) they’re a tokyo quartet who have albums out on tzadik and arena rock, and will probably be very huge if the nme ever decides to start writing about music again.

lastly, in an effort to get a photo into every blog, here is the amazing pumpkin kim carved.

ok then, taking a cue from chris h, here is my ‘weird american things’ list.

– middle aged women like my accent.

– people drive like insane crazy loons. i have seen more accidents in the last three and a half months than i had in the previous 22 years. i’m not looking forward to learning to drive.

– a lot of people seem to think i’m from london, possibly because it’s the only english place they know.

– a lot of people regard me as simply being ‘from europe’ like there is america and then the rest of the world.

– meat is very popular on sticks.

– american curry isn’t as bad as you’d think.

– americans take charity shopping to bold new levels.

– the omnipresence of advertising is incredible. some days i feel i can’t open my eyes without being told to buy something.

– americans say “i could care less” instead of “i couldn’t care less” which makes absolutely no sense at all.

– the boss was correct when he sung ’57 channels and nothing on’.

– there are big scary killer insects and animals everywhere. locusts, raccoons, possums, groundhogs, and every other big silly weird thing you could imagine. including the guy pictured below who was without a doubt a big scary evil bastard killer.

[picture lost forever, oh no! – ed]

that’s it for now, there is probably more that i may post at a later date. chris h’s new article made me a little homesick. i kind of miss cycling everywhere, something i never thought i’d say. chris s’s beefheart stuff was pretty great too wasn’t it. to keep someone like me who knows nothing interested all through that stuff is no mean feat.

lastly, i am a jobless pauper who can’t afford to buy any records. if anyone would like to send me tapes or cd-rs or anything at all really, please get in touch.

before i start, that was some good stuff from chris there. i really need to try and write about some of the weird things that i see every time i leave the house (of which there are many). until then…

LIGHTNING BOLT

after literally years of anticipation i finally got to see this band live on sunday, and i’m happy to report that i wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. despite a number of factors which could have made the evening a thoroughly horrific experience, the lb pulled it all together in one big skull shattering half hour. but first, the some of the downers. i was convinced as soon as we walked into the texas ballroom that i had stumbled into a bumper issue of the face, the month when it and i-d hatched a plot for try-hard hipster fucks to take over the world. i hate to be too judgemental, it’s nice that people want to go to some effort in an attempt to be different, but on this scale it was just too much. i felt overweight, underdressed and highly scrutinized.

next was the support bands. there was four, and despite the fact that none of them played for very long, it made the first part of the evening a lot more tedious that it should have been. here is a run down:

#1. some dude (don’t know his name) running around in his pants shouting over disco beats. people danced.

#2. some arty types who looked very moody and serious and sounded like harry pussy or something at first and then sounded like deerhoof but more shouty and noisy. that’s a bad description but they sucked. one of their songs was called “everyone wants to be my friend” or some crap.

#3. shouty punk band from baltimore. the singer complained a lot about hipsters (the fool) and was generally preachy and annoying. kim pointed out that he sounded a little like the singer from bob tilton/wolves of greece, which was true, but to mention the two in the same sentence seems somewhat sacrilegious so i’ll move on.

#4. the first band whose name i caught (necronomitron) and the first band who were any good at all. very “now” in that they sounded like a mix of lightning bolt, sightings, noxagt and orthrelm, but they were still very enjoyable. i wasn’t totally convinced that there were people actually playing the music though, because i couldn’t see a single band member. they must have been lying on the floor or something.

and finally, by the time necronomitron had finished, lightning bolt had set up their stuff on a piece of carpet right in front of me, which was nice. they began with brian c. standing up playing air guitar and making some crazy super distorted noise with the mic on his mouth. i was on the verge of insanity by this point, and if i wasn’t hit in the face by a thunderous barrage of noise within the next minute, bad things may have happened. thankfully, i was. they whipped through a mix of new songs i didn’t know (which incidentally sounded amazing) and stuff from wonderful rainbow, and everyone freaked out and it was very very loud indeed and at times i started to feel like my mind was separate from my body. dracula mountain was a huge sprawling beast, whipping around on the floor at my feet, daring me and everyone else present to dance and jump and fall around even harder. unfortunately the building wasn’t up to the task, and people started freaking out because they thought the floor was about to collapse (it probably was to be honest). people spread out a bit and they played another song, but we were all still dicing with death apparently, so lightning bolt were told they had to stop. being the true gents that they are though, and on the condition that everyone stood against the walls, leaving a big space in the middle of the room, they did play one more. by this point i was spent, and happy to watch from a distance as the audience swarmed around brian c. as he pulled his drums out to the far side of the room as they finished. they might not have played for very long, and they might not have played any songs from ride the skies, but it was still more than i ever hoped it could be. it was hot, chaotic and very fucking loud, and by far the best thing i have seen in years.

before the show, we also had some fun in chicago. we went to reckless records were i bought lps by vincebus eruptum and neil young, and kim got the new dirty three. i also saw the cat on form album in there which was exciting. i didn’t get it though, i’ll wait for the vinyl i think. we also ate some very good thai food and wore coats for the first time in months. hooray for autumn.

we drove down to kentucky to see some bands the other night, and it was good. the first 2 bands, death beam and hair police were pretty dumb but fun to watch. both bands played about 10-15 minute sets, and there was lots of awkward jerky guitar yelps from death beam, followed by screaming and fighting and noise by hair police.

next up was wolf eyes. prior to this gig, all i had heard by them was their dead hills picture disc on troubleman, which didn’t do anything for me at all, and more recently their dread lp on hanson, which was much better. however, neither record could have prepared me for the live experience. they lulled me into a false sense of security with their first song, which was a kind of laid back affair with horns and tape loops. after about 5 minutes though, they decided enough with the ambient shit, and launched a sonic attack vicious enough to make even the most hardened of noise fans piss their pants. we all agreed that, while it wasn’t really any louder decibel wise than other bands we had seen before, it was a different kind of noise. wolf eyes manage to do something with the sound they create that has some very interesting physical effects on the listener. my nostrils were vibrating throughout, something i can’t remember ever happening before. breathing became a less than simple task on more than one occasion. i found myself suffering from frequent pains in various parts of my head and neck. for a while it felt like i was being repeatedly punched in the chest. the few times when the wolfeyesdeathbeats? reached a point that could be defined as a “hook”, and fists began punch into the air, i started to feel like i was witnessing some kind of revolution, like life wouldn’t be quite the same when i left the venue. it’s very hard to write about such an obtuse band at my pathetic gcse-level, but needless to say i recommend that anyone who is curious to get some wolf eyes stuff. marvellous.

the common opinion after they finished was “how are black dice going to top that?!” and sure enough, they didn’t. their show in london earlier this year was bland as shit, and to be honest i was only enthusiastic about this gig because of the other bands playing. i have listened to beaches and canyons recently and quite enjoyed it, so i thought if nothing else i might recognize some of the set this time. well, i did, but it still wasn’t very good. they basically did the same thing they did in london, wobbly birdy sounds with a little bit of guitar and tribal drumming, apart from the fact that a) they only played for half as long, and b) they injected the odd burst of roaring cacophonous white noise every now and then, which certainly broke things up. i just don’t think black dice are a good band to see live, it’s just fucking boring. to be honest, it takes a lot to bore me at a gig, i’m a simple boy and don’t need much to entertain me, but black dice can’t even supply that. still, i didn’t care at all because wolf eyes had made the evening more than worthwhile.

further reading:

hanson

freedom-from

load

tomorrow we are spending the day in chicago, and then seeing lightning bolt. fucking lightning bolt.

his popularity baffles me. somehow he is mister credibility, despite making films so corny it hurts to watch them. obviously they’re not corny in the traditional sense, but in every one of his films there’s one big fucked up scene where someone steals a dead baby or gets aids or some such crap, and it’s always filmed like it’s trying to say “ooooooh, can you bear to watch this? this is the most fucked up film you’ve ever seen and isn’t it horrible and aren’t i clever?”. no you’re not clever, you’re an idiot.

i really don’t like kevin smith either. another director who seems to be very popular amongst people my age. i swear i could write better scripts than he could, they’re fucking atrocious. the actors bearly have enough time to fit all the words of a sentence in before jay pops up and says “nooch” and all the guys in the audience fall around laughing and high fiving each other. sometimes i think maybe clerks isn’t so bad, it certainly seems like the exception, but it’s still nothing special. mallrats and chasing amy are both so bad however, i can barely bring myself to think about them in a detailed way, nevermind watch them.

there you are, two directors who don’t deserve a fraction of the attention they get. been meaning to say that for some time. in other news, we saw smog last week who was really very very good indeed. after having only ever seen him across a horribly noisy and crowded room at atp last year, it was great to see him in a virtually empty bar. support came from azita of bride of no no/scissor girls fame. she was a little odd, and her voice got on my nerves a little, but she went down quite well. jazzy piano and singing and weird faces. we also went to see cat power but left after 3 songs cos it was so packed and we couldn’t see or hear anything. apparently after we left she was so drunk she was rolling around on the floor wailing, before awkwardly finishing off the proceedings with some sloppy drumming. that’s entertainment. sadly we missed soilent green last night cos it was expensive and probably not very clean. however! coming up we have 25 suaves and spiritualized. yes!

woo, first blog in ages, and everything is different and new and somewhat intimidating. diskant is looking good though! for those who don’t know/give a shit, i moved a long way away recently, and my life has been filled with many new and wonderful things. i am very slowly coming to terms with being in a country where people really are proud of where they’re from. of course this didn’t come as a total surprise, but having lived in the vast swamp of apathy that is england for so long, it’s taken some getting used to. people still look at me weird when i speak, which i doubt will ever change. i’m going to start lying to people when they ask where i’m from, and tell them i’m norwegian or something, keep things a bit more interesting. still, these small gripes aren’t a big deal really, and i’m having a lot of fun. the fact that there are always places to go and things to do makes me very happy indeed. at home, going out and doing anything required hours of planning and a bunch of money, but now i find myself unable to pick from the array of options that greet me when i wake. i also now understand how kim must have felt when she moved from the us to the uk last year. i wouldn’t call it homesickness, cos theres not a lot i miss, but i do get this eerie feeling like i’m an imposter or something now and again, and i shouldn’t really be here. i guess it may take a long time to really feel settled and totally relaxed, but i think i’m doing ok so far.

anyway, enough of that crap. dave mentioning sleep spurred me to blog, because i too have been indulging of late. a couple of weeks back i got sleep’s holy mountain, which is steeped in ancient mystical worldplay and huge sabbath riffery. like most things, i missed the boat on these guys, cos they were around a while back, but i guess some of them are still around in other bands (mental note: get some high on fire). i also ordered dopesmoker, which i’m hoping is as good as dave says.

i was very pleased with the first two parts of the gringo records singles club. lavishly packaged 7″ singles featuring hirameka/electro group and erase errata/red monkey. after originally subscribing to this roughly 6 years ago, i was very happy when it finally got sorted out.

and dave, good luck with robbie. i saw oasis at knebworth in 1996. i fucking rock. i’m off to finish making tapes for a very nice tape ring i joined, which reminds me; geeks wanted.

since the zine’s on holiday somewhere in eastern europe right now, i thought i’d take a second to talk about some films. we saw the matrix reloaded which had a rediculously complicated plotline, so complicated in fact that i gave up trying to understand what was happening within the first half hour. like everyone else keeps saying, you need to watch the first one again before going to see this. there was a lot of crap, some horrible cheese from everyone involved, and some shameful ibiza uncovered-esque ‘club’ scene with nipples and things. still, it was worth it for the fight scene with all the agent smiths, that were right good.

we also overestimated the charms of eugene levy and saw bringing down the house which was fucking terrible, one of the most unpleasant hour-and-a-halfs i have ever spent in a cinema. old school was marginally better, with low brow crap galore. what a week!

haven’t been listening to much music, but when i have been it’s been the same old crap. i’m looking forward to the new sightings lp which is out on riot season in a couple of weeks. there’s also a bride of no no song from a mixtape i’ve been listening to which has been going round in my head for days, it’s good stuff.

i’m also currently shitting myself hourly in anticipation of my BIG SCARY VISA INTERVIEW in london next week. if anyone has any tips on how to appear to be a decent upstanding member of society, please let me know.