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Archive for the 'tv and radio' Category

Black Flag

Posted: March 5th, 2005, by JGRAM

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.

Jamie Oliver

Posted: February 21st, 2005, by Chris S

It’s 8am and I am up early to start a new job. I have just been watching Channel 4 and saw the most heinous item. A trailer for that puffy faced little prick Jamie Oliver and his new TV series about school dinners. That alone would be enough to send me into a frothing rage but this trailer was set to the sound of “Who Put The Bomp?” by Le Tigre.
I know nothing’s sacred etc but I’d rather see Le Tigre used to soundtrack the mass cull of babies than this fucking cockstick’s TV show.

Not ATP

Posted: March 30th, 2004, by Ollie

glad to hear people had fun at atp (although not entirely surprised). i won’t dwell on that too much in an attempt to cheer myself up for having missed so much fun recently, but one thing; stu! that was two years ago! time is indeed flying by though, i will turn 40 next year etc.

some considerable time after everyone else, we have finally come to appreciate the joys of curb your enthusiasm. having heard many people rave on about it, we finally caught bits of a couple of episodes on tv, and it seemed ok, but not really anything astounding. then, gradually, we saw more and more of it, and it seemed to get a little funnier each time. then last week we bought season one on dvd, which has finally caused us to share the common opinion that this show is a work of fucking genius. last night we watched the dermatologist one, and by the time larry was doing his “norman! not on the weekend!” speech in the car, we were both verging on delirious. lovely stuff.

i’m still half kidding myself that we could go to atp next weekend, despite the fact that a) it’s 3000 miles away, b) we don’t have any money and c) it’s sold out. a boy can hope though. failing that, there is the prospect of sun city girls in louisville next month, or possibly hair police/prurient/kites/wolf eyes in michigan, although on the way back from there last week i lead us on a somewhat unnecessary 120 mile detour, so i’m not even sure kim will ever let me be in a car with her again, let alone drive us back there. we were there to see the ever horrible khanate, who were spectacular as you would expect. i was very drunk which didn’t help with the whole “GGGRRRUUUUUURRGGGHHHHH-CCZZZZKKKKKIIIIINNNNNNTTTHHHHH-RRRRAAAAAAAAGGAAAWWWWWWAAAAAAA” aspect of the evening, in fact by the time khanate had played i could feel the fear rapidly approaching, but thankfully i managed to keep it together till the end. bought a fucking amazing shirt, so nice that i feel the need to show it off.

Mixing It

Posted: September 1st, 2003, by Chris H

Excellent edition of Mixing It last night which you can stream from Radio 3 for the next week or so. It was about the music scenes in Glasgow and Edinburgh and illustrated quite nicely how much more there is going on at this side. Featured interviews with Mount Vernon Arts Lab, The Pastels, Future Pilot AKA and folk you mightn’t have heard of but should do. Good coverage of some of the music I’ve been most interested in here lately, the improv and electro things happening. Tantalising clips of tracks by Frog Pocket, Colditz and the mighty Scatter.

Some of the interviews took place at Tchai Ovna, officially The Nicest Place in Glasgow, who were telling me at the weekend about their upcoming Tea in the Shop festival on the 27th September. Lots of folk playing: Scatter, The Pendulums, and Future Pilot DJing confirmed so far. Tickets are £10 and the money goes to Spirit Aid for to restore a bombed-out and landmined flour mill in Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan? It was like Iraq but the bad guy had a beard instead of a moustache).

And this, Ollie, is the 3rd blog of the day!

Posted: June 3rd, 2003, by John Coburn

Move out the way Mr Goalkeeper, it’s a weblog hatrick!

Despite believing digital television to be the most doomed venture since the Pyramint bar, I found myself actually enjoying some its mostly terrible output lastnight. Curb Your Enthusiasm is yet another’US comedy sensation’ to hit our TV screens. But rest assured, this is no ‘Dharma and Greg’. If you haven’t already seen it, it’s a pretend glimpse into the life of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David and is a great mix of bizarre Seinfeld-style scenarios and Woody Allen-esque dialogue. Choice moments included his thoughts on acting associate and bowling partner, Ted Danson (‘I can take him or leave him’) and his criticisms of starchy trousers that give off the impression of constant arousal (‘it’s just an innocent bunch-up’). It’s funny because it’s true!

It seems that yesterday was officially ‘National Mirth Day’. Other that the aforementioned televisual gem, I was treated to a good half hour of violent guffawing while working hard in the local library. Some flustered customer was desperate to get hold of some music by “the rock singer, Joy Davison”, after hearing one of her songs on Top of The Pops 2. It was only after 10 minutes of fruitless catalogue searching that I realised the man’s error.

“Can you remember any of the song’s lyrics?”, I asked, half-preparing for belly laughs.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. It went something like ‘Dance, dance, I’m listening to the radio'”.

“Yes. I think you’ve misread ‘Joy Davison’.”

I now actually feel bad about how much I laughed, because I think he was a bit embarrassed, and I suspect, slightly insane.

The last few weeks have also been great for listening to good, inexpensive music. Other than a fantastic compilation tape I received from diskant disciple Ollie Simpson, for absolutely no charge, I snaffled the new Dirty Three album ‘She Has No Strings, Apollo’ – it’s no bad, reader) for only THREE POUNDS. Big hand for The Music Zone. And on top of this, I attended a free gig in which Italian band Zu gave a mind-bending performance. Their particular brand of twang is best described as avant-jazz-free-core-punk-improvisation directly from the source of Chaos. Wacky!

Who remembers Pugwall?

Posted: February 23rd, 2003, by Ollie

Probably no one. Well, I liked it a lot, and the lyrics of Pugwall’s band The Orange Organics gave me some much needed guidance during some very shakey pre-adolescent summer holidays. Quirky pop ditties rife with ideals of rebellion and advice on achieving one’s personal goals were very important to me and I’m sure thousands of other mixed up 80s kids. This is why I am now very dismayed to discover that Jason Torrens who played Pugwall has grown up not to be the star that he always sung about, doing things on his own terms and following his dreams, but the drummer in some shameful corporate cock-sucking nu-metal band. This is him then, in the glory days of The Organics, and here he is today, pictured third from the left. People, I’m crushed.

Further evidence:

Bugdust

Pugmania

The first weblog entry from new-boy!

Posted: May 24th, 2002, by John Coburn

Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

I’d say nice things about stuff except I’ve just watched Big Brother and I’m mad. 12 egomaniac pretty people spouting worthless guff whilst doing nothing. The televisual phenomenon of the decade? It’s just weird. I mean, one of the contestants got on through sending in a videotape of himself simultaneously bodybuilding and pulling down his pants in a muddy field.

(say the producers) “Giles. We’ve got our man”.

The only thing I can think of to out-weird that is this.

Drunk bees

Posted: May 10th, 2002, by Greg Kitten

last night i caught a bit of this hilarious footage of drunk bees on some show on TV. hmmm, there’s no way i can really try to explain how intensely amusing pissed bees are… almost as good as drunk monkeys! ah gee…. it was great. honest.

the Simpsons

Posted: May 2nd, 2002, by Greg Kitten

Matt Groening is apparantly a step closer to finishing the Simpsons. the stuff he’s been saying doesn’t make it out to be doomsday just yet, but it’s on the horizon, deffo. BAH!

dammit. i so love the Simpsons. it’s the only show really worth watching, the probably the best thing on tv, in my opinion.

sucky.

totally.

Pioneers

Posted: December 6th, 2001, by Simon Minter

just sat through the whole of jo whiley’s sycophantic dribble in order to catch channel 4’s ‘pioneers’ programme about the mighty SONIC YOUTH. a disappointment? oh yes! i wondered how they’d manage to cram the whole of a 20+ year career into such a compact time (fifteen minutes – fifteen WHOLE minutes!) and – clever trick – they didn’t bother! effectively cutting the career in half, NOTHING pre-‘Goo’ was played, only hinted at in the vaguest of ways, and the band interview was giving secondary prececedence behind rambling obvious blather from a collection of low-rent 90s indie kids (debbie goodge excepted – a Snowpony member fair enough, but hmm… I seem to remember some other band called My Bloody something or other which seemed to have dropped off her caption…) Any reason why sonic youth have such a massive influence over so many bands from oooh… 1985 onwards (at least) wasn’t even partly explained: the closest we got is ‘because they got Nirvana signed to Geffen’. Yeah! DIY spirit!

fuck!!