Radiohead's Bond theme

https://soundcloud.com/radiohead/spectre

I've been waiting years for Radiohead to get asked to write a theme to a Bond film. This was rejected? For Sam Smith?

A really sad reflection of how safe cosy and predictable this film series has become since the knockout Casino Royal. I wonder which Mum's Favourite will be providing the next Bond theme?

Is it time for Bruce Forsyth?

TrailerParkLife : Blur's THE MAGIC WHIP as a soundtrack to THE PERIPHERAL

I've been enjoying the new William Gibson novel, The Peripheral.

Blur's THE MAGIC WHIP, starts like a Blur Album, but isn't.
The first four track, Street", "New World Towers", "Go Out" and "Ice Cream Man" are playfull and fun - like a good lost Gorillaz album with Graham Coxon adding some  previously missing gravitas.
It has the tragic playfulness of trailerParklife in Clanton 2030.

From the Bowie-esque "Thought I Was a Spaceman"  however the mood changes into
something more resembling the latter Blur of Albarn James and Rowntree, but with quite a bit more pomp, power and effect.

"I Broadcast"  "My Terracotta Heart", "There Are Too Many of Us", "Ghost Ship", "Pyongyang" are all 3D tunes of late 21st C melancholy.
Magic Whip ends like a Blur album but isn't - it is a sequel to Albarn's The Good The Bad and the Queen but with added Blur.
It neatly fits the mournful doom of London 2100.

Pop Should Lay Off the Fast Food and Eat Itself : Manic Street Preachers and Kelis need attention

Unused artwork from Bloodlines album cover

Good music of established artists is forgotten to promote the new.
Or
Manics and Kelis are good to march to work to in the summer

Biggest music disappointment for me this year, other than one of my favourite organisations - ATP - acting like crooked Keystone Cops,  was investing in latest new La Roux album. The aching Soft Cell tragedies of her classic first release are replaced with what I can only describe as bad Wham! Of course the increasingly moribund music industry exploded all over it, despite it being essentially an 80s revival album.

For me the disappointment of that album is highlighted by recent albums by two established artists, both of which were so good they prompted me to explore their back catalog.

While walking across London to work I've been buried in Kelis and the Manic Street Preachers for months. I'm quite surprised to find that both acts can put out great new albums, that sound new and inventive and yet build on their previous work. I'm even more surprised to a find a similar career trajectory for both - Initial breakthrough - mainstream acceptance - loss of media interest - experimentation - current renaissance. I'm even more surprised to find their neglected middle period work is as good as anything they did in their breakthough, prompting the thought that the fallow middle period has less to do with the artists and more to do with the industry and marketing around them just losing interest.

I was working in London at Forbidden planet when the Manic Street Preachers were playing their first shows at the Marquee just down Charing Cross road. I couldn't get anyone interested in seeing them at the time as they weren't related to either Sisters of Mercy of Skate Punk. Anyway I did what many did with the Manics, loved their initial punk period and then lost interest slowly after Everything Must Go. They never stopped being good, they just looked like they were trying to hard.

Intrigued by some talk on 6music I purchased the Manic Street Preachers album of summer 2014, Futurology, and I shouldn't have been surprised at how good it is. First draft of this post actually compared it to Achtung Baby/Zooropa and any further comparison with that band would would be cruel and unfair, but it has a similar euro inventiveness and daring. The "Trying to hard" pontificating is now bitter snarkiness and it suits them. The lyrics thankfully have slowly climbed down off the cross and it the usual great tunes of the Manics, and when I mean the usual I mean it, because this band is fantastically consistent in this area.

The real shock, and the real point of this post is that when I investigated the back catalog this band I'd previously ignored I found it was nearly as good as their new stuff.
Case in point : Bloodlines, the 2003 Manics album. At the time it was taken as such a creative nadir that their next release was called as a comeback album. Produced by frequent Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti, Bloodlines is definitely a change of pace to something much slower and moodier. The standout track, 'To Repel Ghosts', sounds more like something from the last Bowie Album or good early Snow Patrol album.

It is almost as if having a back catalog of good music is a handicap - If you released Bloodlines now under another band's name I'm convinced it would be a success but as it is labelled 'just another Manic Street Preachers album' it is filed away and forgotten.

It is perhaps telling of they way that the Welshmen's career and talent has been developed that Lipstick Traces, their B-sides collection, now sounds better than the band's own official greatest hits album.. more inventive, more daring and catchier. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this is a band for another perhaps harsher, more politically engaged era. Or that someone did a really lousy job of promoting them.

Supporting that is the realisation that that both their B-sides and their A-sides are by some distance more inventive and smarter than more lauded contemporaries.  I think Oasis's later albums are similarly underrated but given what I've been hearing recently it is pretty shocking to compare the relative cultural importance given to Oasis vs Manics. Oasis's soundtrack contributions to Snatch deserved a BAFTA nomination but their general level of success is embarrassing  in retrospect, they were the British Brian Jonestown Massacre at best.

The original draft again wandered off into a long rant about novelty Mancunians.. but I'll drag this back into the positive by including the other back catalog discovery of the summer. It a similar manner to Futurology, Kelis's new Food album opened up a whole artists life of good albums.

Again this shouldn't have been a surprise as I've been waiting to go through a Kelis Period for ages, but I was still knocked out by how good forgotten albums can be. So much so that I'm shocked to hear the first Kelis album now, Kaleidoscpe, because it is so boring compared to her later work.
Kaleidoscope is still seems to a feature of every woman's CD collection in Britain

It is nearly always the only Kelis they have, and this is a crime as she gets a lot more interesting. This is why I never got into Kelis in the first place, Kaleidoscope was dull sub-Aaliyah RnB promoted at the time as a kind of Cosmic Dee-lite.

2014's Food, is an absolutely balsy and brilliant concept album about cooking which is daring mostly because plays it safe - it goes from afrobeat to outer space in usual Kelis style but maximses her great voice by generally orbiting sultry 70s retro by way of Marvin Gaye. Try keeping any part of your body sensible to 'Fish Fry'.

How did Food some right out of left field to surprise us? I immediately bought her previous, Flesh Tones, and initially it is a catastrophic scifi disco inferno. A complete embarrassment at first listen, like the release it seems to be clumsily replicated from, Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor, it is a a slow but unstoppable grower. (Example : the track 'Home' is great to march out onto a road straight in front a London taxi). Taking Flesh Tones too seriously is a huge mistake, once you can exercise to it and smile at the same time it becomes a big brassy robot you can love. It is the Metal Mickey of RnB albums, a big budget remake of "I Lost My Heart To a Starship Trooper", too daft and "cool" to realise how loveably dorky it is

Before Flesh Tones, Kelis Was Here is a Prince inflected boiling stew of invention (try standout tracks Till them Wheel's Fall Off and Like You). She is never too far from including a guest male vocal from some identikit RnB scumbag but is consistently unpredictable and I'll be buying her music or recipe books from now on.

What kind of industry creates and throw's away talent like this? I've never worked in or with the music industry. (About all I do know is they seem to love male identikit RnB scumbags).

I used to think the sudden collapse of the British motorcycle industry was scary. It was the leading British export at the end of the 1960s, and yet was totally extinct a decade later.  It is a real business horror story but bad as they were its not as if Triumph, Norton BSA etc were bringing out a new inferior model every week and teaching a new generation of buyers via talent shows that home builders could do the same if not better,,,

Storm wrecked Exmoor reflekts on Hiatian doom - Arcade Fire's Reflektor

Pics are from New Year in stormy Exmoor.

A literally sky splitting 6am thunderstorm lit the inside of my house briefly like a summers day with its lightening. Literally sky splitting as Sky News coveraing the storms in nearby Ilfracombe felt the full force of it
Neighbours dog ran out of the house and they found him hiding under a caravan. Apparently the dog associates the backup power generators with thunder and if he can't get out of the house he attacks all the wiring.
Exciting weather for British humans, scary for their dogs - it is useful to be reminded how easy it has been for us compared  to others so far in terms of extreme weather events.


My big birthday present to self turned out to be just one CD (well two, its a double). But it was enough.
I patiently waited to get to Solo Records in Barnstaple to get the new Arcade Fire album, Reflektor.

I was intrigued by Funeral but didn't hugely like it. Tried avoiding Neon Bible but it eventually sucked me in.

Took me pretty much the length of my big road trip to get into their last album, The Suburbs, but it is almost the definitive slow burner. By the time I returned to the UK >>> could almost bring me to tears. A beautiful haunting nostalgic record looking back to today from some grim future it I suddenly realise it has something in common with ELOs Time, but is a bit better. Like comparing GATTACA with Moon Zero Two.

Reflektor is obviously a complelley different animal, a canadian-voodoo dance album. A double album, first half to me sounds like Talking Heads infused with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, second is much more Bowie. Canadian voodoo? Indie dance? This album is full of bizzare juxtopositions that go together like jam and peanut butter. Track You Already Know shocks with a very British sounding sample of Jonathan Ross, and is followed by, my favourite track, a sweet almost football chant to French nationalist symbol (and Saint) Joan of Arc.

Partially written in Hiati during the relief efforts for the 2010 earthquake and multiple hurricanes (Issac and Sandy),  Reflektor is a sound created from a world upside down and in complete flux, where inspirations are lying around waiting to be picked up randomly from the wreckage of a lost world.

Funk Custard : The Wolverine, 6music on Saturday mornings and the increasing obsolescence of the idiot box

Comic book movies have no respect for comic plotlines, and decent radio (with it's kid sidekick the internet) is making broadcast tv very disposable

Life really is minuses and pluses. Sometimes you have to be ready to take all the pluses that fall your way and ignore the minuses as soon as possible.

Example, last night finally caught up with The Wolverine (extended cut). Supposedly based on Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's classic berserker rippin Nippon Noir tale of the X-Men's Wolverine in Japan. The new movie was a crushing disappointment, almost as bad as the previous Wolverine effort. It prompted the increasingly familiar comic book fan reaction :

"How did they screw THAT story up?"

What should've been Robert Mitchum in The Yakuza with adamantium claws is another junevile superpowers drama with a take on the character than can only be described as adolescent. So he's indestructible now? FFS. Among the dramatic misssteps right from the off is Japanese prison camp guard as sympathtic character and icy cold Yakuza daughter Mariko, the love of Logan's life, is now a skinny model with all the intensity of frozen saki.

And two seconds watching the lame fight scenes show the ripping fury of the original tale has been largely ignored.

Positives? The principals are all good, with standouts from Rila Fukushima as Yukio and Svetlana Khodchenkova as Viper. I would hope to see both again in better movies. Hugh Jackman is ok again as Logan but we never seem to see him go the full red eye that this role needs. What hurts particularly is this movie was all great potential, James Mangold is a good director and last I heard the Chris (Usual Suspects, Day of the Gun) McQuarrie script was nailing the original property. Who knows what happened but it seems a long way from a Chris McQuarrie screenplay.

For all the great respect shown to these comic characters in this modern golden era of comics films there is next to none for the storytelling in the original material. We've seen real classic tales like the Dark Pheonix (X Men 3), Galactus (in Rise of the Silver Surfer) the Elektra saga (in Daredevil/Elektra) and most recently Garth Ennis's great Extremis (Iron Man 3) all butchered by Hollywood screenwriters so far. Will I be alive to see those classic story-lines adapted properly? I doubt it.

So next morning walking up after that was grim but, look around and the pluses this morning are there. Just happen to be stuck in sorting the Exmoor house and the brand new Hughie Morgan Saturday morning show is on. I can't lie and say I've been a fan of his band, or himself before ('interesting' character obviously) but I'm there now for this show. This is what Saturday mornings have needed for years, just the right amount of attitude and swagger to kick a slow Saturday's arse right into gear. I'm almost tempted to say this is the best thing to happen to my generation at this time of the week since since TISWAS - it just swaps custard for Funk.
And he's got Harry Shearer on next week. I really must catch up with Le Show in the meantime.

I could rattle on about any number of 6 music shows, Stuart and Maconie, Tom Ravenscroft and LL are just my personal favourites, but these days you just take them as a given. They are all great and an indicator that having the radio on is much better company that an attention grabbing tv blaring moronic adverts every ten minutes.  If even the Hughie Long show is a must listen then that goggle box in the corner really is becoming a relic.

This may be a sign of the times. I haven't replaced the tv in this place and I'm not sorry. Were once the tv had our whole attention, now we are most likely to be primarily messing with laptops and Ipads and the idiot box which needs to be muted every time an ad break comes on (increasing the volume of ads I think is banned in the US I think) is just a painful distraction. Radio, 6 music at least,  is much more more likely a nice background mood generator. Even setting aside the actual quality of the stuff presented to us these days by tv broadcasters the future of radio as a support to our online activity must be looking very bright.

CLITROCK 3 - THE PEARL HARTS + DANA JADE + DEUX FURIEUSES (two reviews, updated with pics)

An event to raise awareness of FGM. All funds raised went to Daughters Of Eve.

Updated with pics (b/w) by Mark Hanson
Two reviews of the night, check out Suzan Randal's below. Suzan was careful enough (she works for the government) to write when sober.

Contact DanaJadeMusic@gmail.com for mo' info on this and future events

Myself and a guy from the U.S., Mark got there crazy early and so started drinking some time before even tune-up. It has to be said I was a little new to the subject of the evening. I was just there to see some great female bands and wasn't disappointed. Ironically it was really refreshing, after recent twerking controversy, to have overt female sexuality take a back seat to the music. I honestly think I wouldn't have enjoyed these bands any less if they all looked like Dumpy's Rusty Nuts.

THE PEARL HARTS

At Reading '92 as part of Nirvana's prescribed playlist for the Sunday you could be amused by Shonen Knife dressing up as schoolgirls and playing Black Sabbath songs about cats. It was very funny and great music, huge entertainment, if a bit silly.

The Pearl Harts is where 20 years of gender progress gets you, as there is not much silly about the Pearl Harts, a young looking but deadly serious two piece playing deadly serious rock.

From starting off lyrically with Joan Jett, The Donnas etc as a base, they have obviously branched out musically with Tony Iommi guitar and even a bit of Bill Ward drums (?) even at the end. The planet splitting riffage was all their own material I think, and not a trace of girly irony. Even looks wise - with the long hair and Charles Manson era threads and jewelry - they were channeling early Sabbs.

What would you call it? Girl's Bedroom Baroque? Is that condescension? I was fighting off waves of good natured condescension throughout The Pearl Hart's set. I met them afterwards and just didn't know what to say - it felt like a scene from American Gothic : Coven (which I'm enjoying right now). Tiny tiny girls that looked like giants on stage - kind of like meeting your bad sister's scary daughters - all you can think to do is ask them out for ice cream - and all they want to do is wreck your house and firebomb your car.
They would make a blistering support band for Black Moth
Even more impressed to find Pearl Hart's promo contains heavy clippage from TIMES SQUARE, quite an obscure but brilliant 80s cult movie I discovered at spiritual home the Scala decades ago. It should be noted they manfully struggled with sound cutting out several times in first few songs, which meant we got to hear them twice, which was no bad thing,

DANA JADE

Dana is organiser for the night, everyone seemed to know her but luckily I don't need to be nice. This band could have headlined the event pretty easily. A wildly unpredictable fusion band that could be mistaken for a London Yeah Yeah Yeah's, there was absolutely nothing dull about Dana Jade and her band - and from the linking moments between songs and her general contribution as compare you'd think they have a chance at stand up as well. Parts of this felt like a Variety act, and it was good to have a bit of light relief between the first and last bands.

Musically this was surprisingly heavy but with a great pop angle (this is the sort of act that is crucified in the recording studio into being a novelty pop band). Despite looking a little unpredictable DJ were very tight and played as if they have been on tour for a while, despite being put together at short notice apparently - the drummer was on loan from Goldfrapp (Dana Jade is "more fun" apparently).

Great tunes, very dancy and featuring highlights like punk covers of M.I.A. songs. Again like the PH, there was no winking ironic Dread Zeppelin hilarity about them, they were just straight covers done with a new twist. Dana's great voice constantly reminded me of Karen O and the band have a similar warmth and inclusiveness to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who are similarly bonkers unpredictable in terms of look, feel and genre.

Late on in the tiny but great venue (Roadtrip &The Workshop in Old Street) Grolsch now flowed like it was the Cafe Muchen, 1986. By the time one of several gorgeous Afro-London princesses stood up to give a moving speach about FGM I was too far gone to take anything with the requisite amounts of respect so I'll have to cover that in more detail another time. Suffice to say FGM is a terrible issue that needs a lot more attention, and just getting angry and shouting at the tv is not very constructive.

DEUX FURIEUSES

Deux Furieuses I've already seen a lot, the band must be sick of seeing me in the audience. Tonight they seemed glistening with terrible purpose but apparently it was because singer guitar Ros Cairney had a fever and was ill. They should maybe play with a fever more often, as this was the best I've seen them.

For those not in the know Deux Furieuses are a blood curdlingly efficient two piece that play like they have returned from the grave to avenge some ancient grievance a' la the Abominable Dr Phibes.
And FGM actually would be a pretty suitable ancient grievance if you had to pick one.

Comparison with Angry V era PJ Harvey is often made but if anything they are even more cut back and angry even than that era PJ. With slightly more cynical detachment they could be The Stooges, or more mania they could be The White Stripes.
For me they need an extra dimension somehow, maybe they should spread their wings with some surprising covers maybe (like Dana Jade). I was trying to think of a Paloma Faith song and Public Enemy popped into my head - Sophisticated Bitch and She Watch Channel Zero are both pretty misogynistic but great songs - If I was DF's manager I've try and get them DF to conquer those in some way. Is there some Chris Brown track DF could tear asunder with bitter irony?

Personal note
Been renting in London for a long summer now while my house is reconstructed on Exmoor. Was getting a bit jaded about London, and have been getting reclusive again. I think though that was mainly a problem with the various class systems developing within Islington - this night out completely recharged my batteries, thanks everyone

UPDATE:
I knew I'd asked Suzan for something.. it turns out it was another review

It’s the first time I’ve arrived at a gig and been invited to enter a vagina, but then this was Clit Rock 3. There were three all-female bands on the bill at Roadtrip &The Workshop in Old Street. The event, though,  was so-named as it was held to raise awareness and funds to end female genital mutilation (FGM).
It’s a heavy, heartbreaking subject. So how was this night of rock going to play?
First up on the small stage were the Pearl Harts, a young duo with 60s-style hair swinging over guitar and drums, moody and melodic, the freshness of their vocals wafting around the basement bar. It was a great start.
They were followed by Clit Rock founder Dana Jade with her band. Funny, flirty and fabulous, she brought soca punk to Shoreditch, daring the audience to dance. This was an intimate gig and it was getting hot down there. Thoughts of Trinidad were washed down with cold beer.
Then to the headline act, Deux Furieuses. I’ve seen this band a few times already – I was wearing the slightly tight vest – and am still in awe at thepower produced by this  pumping two piece. Slick and sassy, they had the crowd at the opening guitar riff and kept us with songs like Now You’re Gonna Listen. We were listening. Ros Cairney’s clear, commanding vocals hit their peak with the raw emotion of anti-rape song, Are We Sexy Enough? On drums, La Batteuse Furieuse made amazing drumming look like the most natural thing in the world.
I heard someone say that in addition to being brilliant musicians, Deux Furieuses seem like really nice people. The same could have been said of everyone there that night.
At times throughout the gig, we were reminded of our reason for being there.  Two FGM survivors, from campaign group Daughters of Eve, briefly took to the stage to share their message. Their bravery and dignity were breathtaking, and the whole crowd, men and women, were with them.
Clit Rock 3 got it right.
-Suzan Lindsay Randle
An event to raise awareness of FGM. All funds raised went to Daughters Of Eve.

Black Sabbath's Paranoid with added Hound of the Baskervilles (in German)

To celebrate the release of Black Sabbath 13 I give you the awesome Schlager version of Paranoid - with added lyrics to include the Hound of The Baskervilles...

Courtesy of the 6 music freakzone special earlier this year

Spring 2013 music, Sabbath 13, QOTSA ..Like Clockwork

Latest contract is in City of London is just exhausting.. but the views and some of the new sounds are nice.

The just released Rick Rubin produced Sabbath reunion (13) is surprisingly good. Obviously not as good as the first four but on a level with the Ozzy-less classic Heaven and Hell which I've slowly come to appreciate. Lyrics are a but clunky and the drumming is a bit flat but Ozzy sounds amazing. (His voice isn't better but he seems uses it more effectively). 

And the riffs.. oh the riffs.. never mind Iron Man.. this is the stuff Galactus might knock off in a bored moment

but

the new Queens of the Stone Age (...Like Clockwork) is f

***

ing mind blowing.. and I highly recommend you give it a listen if that way inclined..

you know

when a great band really hits the sweet spot

when it

 produces something that sounds like a compilation album. It's still mean and evil QOTSA but there is a lot more variety in

here than you might think.

Like piano provided by - Elton John

What with the new Bowie, and a pretty good Depeche Mode album 2013 is shaping up to be a top year for old gits

 - note to self I must check out Savages and Bastille 

I'm glad to say I have at least bought the new Joy Formidable album, Wolf's Law, which is currently rocking out the car

and let me plug a fun chatty music podcast which is a good source for new stuff, I obviously should have been listening earlier

http://kickoutthejams.podomatic.com/

who I discovered at I'll Be Your Mirror

Origin story for Sex Pistols, Judge Dredd, Basil Fawlty and.. Margaret Thatcher

I've got a really populist scifi novel I'm reading at the moment and a
big history tome.. and it's the history tome I can't put down

Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974-1979 by Dominic Sandbrook
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/09/seasons-in-sun-sandbrook-review

Mentioned already, this is Britains dramatic late 1970s history brilliantly presented as a really gripping, but very funny tragedy that we all lived through once and weirdly in many ways we seem to be living through again (were we once had out of control Unions, we now have out of control Banks), illustrating the chaos of the Wilson - Callaghan years with contemporary excerpts from tv* and music of the time.

For over seas or younger readers.. this is is the story of how the worlds first industrial nation, undisputed world super power only a century before, crashes and burns in spectacular style without any serious outside pressure (in fact the ony foreign intervention is the IMF bailout), producing extreme characters like Basil Fawlty, The Sex Pistols, Judge Dredd - (because I don't mention him enough on this blog) and Margaret Thatcher : a collection of mostly fictional, mostly reprehensible and probably inevitable characters that probably could not have come from any other place and time.

Sandbrook is a bit of a Tory but generally is pretty fair handed
(though he hates Tony Benn he doesn't seem to idolise Thatcher). He
admits Callaghan - Healey stablised the country after near hyper
inflation and IMF bailout, set the UK up nicely for Thatcher, and were
then destroyed just before the 79 election by a new generation of
militant shop stewards that ignored their union leaders

I have just passed the moment were the (already well paid) tanker drivers union demand a 60% pay rise and kicks of the mass suicide of the unions in the Winter of Discontent.. Think the winter of 2012 but with virtually everyone on strike and the country in virtual shutdown for months.

I'm about to go out and get Sandbrooks previous, on the Heath years,
State of Emergency.. Apparently his White Heat (Wilson late sixities)
and Never Had It So Good (Macmillan, early sixties) go right back to
Suez Crisis but I guess they won't seem so horrifying and hilariously
familiar as this one



*Though the excerpts from classic tv like Rising Damp, Fawlty Towers and Dr Who are generally funnier this is my favourite : 

In the chapter talking about Europe Sandbrook mentions the obsession with WW2 in British 1970s sitcoms..

In Are You Being Served? Mrs Slocombe complains about the German Air Force during The War... 
that a bomb from a German plane blew her off her feet..
Mr Lucas responds ironically that all the other times she ended up on her back it was because of the US Air Force

At last ... The Next Day.... (David Bowie)

What you need to know - David Bowie's The Next Day really is his best since Scary Monsters and, unlike Heathen and the other albums since his classic era you'll know this immediately at first listen. It's certainly the catchiest album I've heard for ages, possibly since Yeah Yeah Yeah's It's Blitz!  Right now after third listen I've three or four tunes buzzing in my head, Stars, Valentine, Boss of Me, How Does The Grass Grow.. I've even finally appreciated the almost Vangelis Blade Runner synths in Where Are We Now

God .. The guitar on The Stars are Out sounds like the best guitar I've heard on anything in years. It helps that it comes with a brilliant Lynchian music promo.Valentine's Day could have come right off Hunky Dory, followed by If You Can See Me, which brings us right back to 2013 with a bang.

(just looking through the track list now I have another tune from The Next Day - Dancing out of Space - in my head despite listening to different stuff all of yesterday)

It's all lyrically very dark. I'd Rather Be High and How Does The Grass Grow feature anti-war  lyrics that could have come off PJ Harvey's Let England Shake

As for the help, I thought the guitar (Earl Slick?) on The Stars Are Out was Pete Townsend guesting.. and Gail Ann Dorsey.. I think I remember falling madly in love with her and her Ken Russellesque outfit at Pheonix Festival in 1996. Great to see she is still on board and I might check out some of her solo stuff (as I'm a big fan of another bassist gone solo - Melissa Auf Der Maur)

Slight suspicion Bowie has given up here trying to be groundbreaking and is rehashing rather but much as I like Heathen and Reality they did sound empty and bereft at first listen, certainly in comparison with the new one.

Full Bowie disclosure

I'm yet another Bowie nut. I was exposed at college, when Bowie was at his creative nadir in the mid-80s, by future novelist Jaine Fenn (new novel Queen of Nowhere just out) 

Jaine was desperate to stop my painful tirades about the hideously over hyped, over trendy  British pop movie Absolute Beginners, which embarrassing mid-80s mainstream pop Bowie found himself a part of. (Bowie is of course known for creating stage persona's like Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke. His persona in the Absolute Beginners/Let's Dance/Tonight/Never Let Me Down era was The Shameless Douchebag)

So mid 80s I was skeptical ....but first fell for the guitars in Man Who Sold The the World and then simultaneously fell for everything in that classic era. It's a great buzz, really getting into a musical artist and realising that that have an entire decade of brilliant work, in different flavoured eras, to enjoy. Like an audio version of five Christmases at once. This culminated in a deep synchronic bond with Scary Monsters and Super Creeps just as I discovered the neo noir of William Gibson and cyberpunk. I only recently discovered that that incredible guitar howl that opens that album is courtesy of Robert Fripp. King Crimson was my old music discovery of 2009.

So in light of his current output at the time - the Bowie narrative then (in the mid-late 80s) was more tragedy, the brilliant super cool musician reduced to cringing awful mainstream music videos with a similarly bereft Mick Jagger. It was depressing but I was primed to be positive to any subsequent releases from Bowie, and, further spiked by the discovery of Iggy Pop (via the opening titles to Repo Man) I found out Bowie was making a come back with Iggy's guitar heavy backing band...

..what I'm avoiding saying is that I've been a passionate defender of the critically reviled Tin Machine for decades..  (I am a habitual defender of lost causes ... coming soon to this blog - Quantum of Solace is better than Skyfall). Tin Machine might well be awful to most ears but it is the screeching sound of an artist jamming on the brakes and trying to turn a corner before a career ending collision. Tin Machine is Bowie's Kid A, (he just left the left turn a lot later than Radiohead), and The Next Day to me completely validates his decision to throw out his day-glo pop era and temporarily start a (very good BTW) metal band.

Of his albums since I'll also defend the Brian Eno produced Outside from a slightly more secure defensive position. Songs from Outside appeared in three classic movies of that era - Se7en, Lost Highway and Starship Troopers (but such was Bowie's lack of credibility at the time the 'edge' in Outside seemed to be credited to Trent Reznor). Interestingly looked at now the scifi themes of Outside is Bowie trying to overtly jump on the cyberpunk bandwagon late, when he seemed to have helped kicked it off in the first place with Scary Monsters.

To digress, it fascinates me that William Gibson is the only author I know to rip themes visuals and moods from movies and music. As the more mature medium this usually happens in reverse, with sci-fi movies reliably 20 years behind their written inspiration. It's an incredible tribute to to the visuals in Blade Runner that they were a direct inspirations to a ground breaking classic novel that appeared AFTER (Neuromancer - the reason I work in IT)

Black Tie White Noise makes a lot more sense when you find it was written as music  for his wedding (and congrats on that BTW, obviously a smart move, Iman must be a lovely gal, though I struggle to imagine her in the kitchen). Prompted by the first single from The Next Day I revisited Heathen which I had hated on first listen but seemed to be one of my few positives in the endless winter of London 2012-13. This blog post was to have said something like "I seem to be perpetually ten years behind Bowie" but it seems the accessibility of The Next Day has broken that theory.

One thing he has very sensibly done is movie back out of the media limelight. In the hideous Absolute Beginners/Let's Dance/Tonight era you could not turn on a tv or a radio without hearing his voice and the brutally funny caricatures of him that appeared from Stella Street and The Adam and Joe Show (all fans I'm sure) are a direct result of this. Mick & Keith take note.

So David, you are back! Hurrah!... but please stay out of the limelight and keep reclusive for at least another ten years. Let the current generation of music journos continue to wank out their careers over Morrissey - they've been dancing on your grave for decades.

Sixto Rodriguez's time machine to 1970s Detroit

"music of the past expanding faster than the music of the future"

This is a great article by comedian Stewart Lee (weirdly sounding like
more like William Gibson every day :-) ) basically saying we are rediscovering great music from the past faster than we are finding new music, a phenomena I thought was related to BBC 6music.

I understand why this is a a current theme now, as I saw this over the
weekend...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searching_for_Sugar_Man

It won the Oscar for best documentary on Sunday night.

Essentially it is the rediscovery of a long forgotten folk/protest
artist from early 70s Detroit, totally ignored in the US before the
tunes are rediscovered in 90s South Africa as the the soundtrack for
white liberal protest against Apartheid. South African hippys track
him down and find he's been working as a labourer for 30 years, then
get him to tour and it finally kicks off his career. Sixto Rodriguez
is basically the Mexican Bob Dylan..and pretty much lives up to the
hype, his tunes are certainly the best thing about the movie..

Weird listening to the first album, Cold Fact, this morning, it is like a slice of fresh protest era Detroit. Most of it a lot less hippy-ish than the the singles I keep hearing everywhere and it is a lot more laconic and fatalistic then this contemporaries..

It is much more Marvin Gaye What's Goin On? than MC5 or The Stooges.

and that I think points to the wierdest thing..  if you've seen the

brilliant BBC4 doc on Detroit music, "Motor Citys Burning" you'll know that
era, as a long lost period of great music and red raw politics feeding
into each other. The real story for me of Sixto Rodriguez and his two
rediscovered albums isn't the South African huggy hippy feel good
story (especially as it appears he had been a favourite in Australia
and New Zealand long before his 'discovery' in South Africa). It is
finding fresh albums from nearly half a century ago, from a place and time that
absolutely fit right in with that era, yet seem relevant now.

How good is Sixto Rodriguez? Motor City is Burning now needs an update.

Music recommendations for Dig!

Recommendations on Dig! ? I like to follow the narrative in the doc which is the Dandies start brilliantly and they disappear up their own pretension, the BJM start off a totally embarrassing shower of tw@s...

.... and remain that way 

(but their music improves)

For BJM

the Ep We Are The Radio is a good start as it is basically Anton collaborating with a good singer.

I also like My Bloody Underground, and Strung Out In Heaven and even the earlier some of the early stuff when I'm in a retro-but-can;t-stand-Oasis mood (but never in company)

the BJM tune used in the opening credits for Boardwalk Empire is actually one of their more boring ones I think

For the Dandies, 

Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia

and

Welcome To the Monkey House

are both total classic pop albums I think. Bowie is a fan

If you want to try them a bit more edgy

Dandies Rule Ok

and

... the Dandy Warhols Come Down..

and

the Black Album (rejected by record company and released later)

don't bother with anything after 2004 .. which was basically the year Dig! was released...

Dig Dig!

Dig! the best music documentary ever ....can now be seen online

http://vimeo.com/56817422

DREDD 3D REVIEW

<Dredd related cinema>

I was going to compare Dredd to Kick-Ass.

Superficially they seem to have a lot in common. In both cases an American setting, but used by British writers in British films . Kick Ass did not come from 2000AD but it's writer, Mark Millar, did. Both Dredd and Kick-Ass are drenched in OTT violence and twisted black humour. They sit giggling maniacaly on the boundaries of taste in a way that even Nolan's Batman series has managed to avoid. For Hit Girl's profanity in Kick Ass we have the art house 3D splatter in Dredd, both coincidentally condemned in The Daily Mail.

Having seen Dredd, I realise I'm wrong , and after what the team have done with the character and the potentially ground breaking use of 3D ( used for adults at last) I'm ditching the comic book comparisons. I'm more inclined to compare it to an unconventional indie film which completely changed the whole industry : Easy Rider.

If you love, hate.. or just 'meh'... Dredd 3D, you will definitely have seen something different. Just like Easy Rider.

Ironic, as Dredd opens with a little tribute to another movie
mentioned by Wagner and Ezquerra as an influence (which I remember watching specifically because it was name checked in 2000AD). Electra Glide in Blue 's opening tool up scene is repeated at the start of Dredd. Electra Glide in Blue is of course the cult companion piece to Easy Rider, the same two wheeled counter culture story told from the other side of the fence.

As you might have guessed, there is plenty in this movie to enjoy outside the 2000AD geekdom.

Despite problems on set between writer Alex Garland and Pete Travis this is a very well directed movie and I will be checking out Travis's other output in very short order. Any movie looking to ape spag westerns in an urban almost Scorsese like environment has absolutely no need to look this good, and when it needs to Dredd looks as beautiful as any art film you'll see this year. There is no chance Dredd is going for Oscar nominations but it wouldn't surprise me if  DOP Antony Dod Mantle gets some attention. Dredd will be playing in colleges for decades, and because of the genuis use of 3D will probably be a big money maker at the cinema for a long time.

Will a notoriety for spectacular art-gore 3D influence the story in
future Dredd sequels? My spine literally shivered at the thought
of what this crew and this technology (and Lars Von Triers' Drector of Photography) could do with Judges Death, Fire, Fear and Mortis.

Paul Leonard-Morgan provides a great soundtrack, and it will be fascinating to hear it next to the unofficial
DROKK soundtrack by Geoff Barrow Ben Salisbury

as they have taken exactly the same inspiration, John Carpenters theme's from Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape From New York. Once again I'm left thinking that there are so many people working on this film, and even NOT working on this film, getting it so spot on, it is amazing how far off the previous film was (part of the crushing disappointment with the 1996 Dredd was knowing that parts of even that doomed screw up really captured the comics. I'm not supposed to be talking of that atrocity though.. that's here)

For dialog and story Garland is bringing his 28 Days Later/Sunshine
voice, tough people pushing on through a believably lousy world as if it was just another day. It is grim funny when it needs to be and
ditches the melodrama when it needs to be serious. My favourite line is when the Chief Judge is asking Dredd to take the rookie out and evaluate her.

"Stick her in the deep end" she says
"It's all deep end" replies Dredd with a grimace

The other big surprise is Olivia Thirlby as Anderson. Garland steps around the problem of basing an entire film around a character with no face by having it told from the perspective of his sidekick. Urban is not Stallone and, obviously no fool, realises that Dredd becomes an even more impressive figure seen from the rookie's perspective.

For those in the know, Anderson isn't rookie for long and has had her own strip in 2000AD for twenty years ("Anderson : PSI Division"). There is plenty of scope for development in Thirlby's version. She has some of the best scenes in the movie, and makes such an impression  that a movie spin-off could be launched for Anderson straight from Dredd, (if the Jinx character from Die Another Day can seriously be considered for a spin-off then Anderson really isn't such a stretch). Considering that Garland is supposedly saving Judge Death for the third Dredd film, and that Dredd's arch bad guy is initially brought to MegaCity 1 by Anderson, it would seem a great excuse for an extra
movie between the official Dredd sequels.

Yes Urban does nail it. One scene where Dredd is vulnerable and
grimacing, Urban has the exact grim Dredd expression we've been
looking at for years. The juve I was watching the movie with the end exclaimed "he doesn't even smile thoughout the entire movie!" Again, like Thirlby, Urban gives just enough away to suggest there is a lot more coming from this character, and Dredd like Anderson is no ordinary human being.

Problems?
Sorry the bikes, the "Lawmasters" still suck. I've seen the
pre-production art and they look better on paper. Somehow they don't translate well on screen and, as the earlier allusion to Electra Glide in Blue suggests, it is a vital part of the character. They need to be as imposing as the Judges, not big mopeds. If there is no screen for the rider they don't need to be encased in plastic. Someone show the design team a picture of a V-Max. And the weaponry? Machine guns? They are referred to as  'bike cannon' in the comics.

The low tech mad max atmosphere is actually a bonus,  in that it further takes us from the previous movie. On a Spanish review it suggests Dredd 3D can be considered a prequel to Judge Dredd (if you wish to stomach that, I'm not discussing that here, you can find my final catharsis on the subject after 15 years of hurt and some other movie recommendations on the subject here) and with Dredd and Anderson looking so young in this movie it gives plenty of scope for  background and setting to grow with the characters.

Something else for those new to world of 2000AD; unlike Marvel and DC who periodically reboot their comics to keep their characters young, 2000AD has (so far) aged their characters in realtime, and beloved characters like Anderson, Hershey and Dredd himself are noticeable older and more worn after 35 years of Mega City 1.

Dredd 3D does eventually turn into shoot outs in identical corridors but that is a restriction of the budget and I'm prepared to except it. A $40million film budget is peanuts compared to some of the other garbage reaching muliplexes.

Don't compare Dredd with the similar Indonesian instant classic The Raid, both are effectively indie films and should be mutually supportive if anything (I would try some cross promotional thing next time guys, you are obviously on the same wavelength).

Compare Dredd instead with Battleship, a movie based on a board game that illustrates the desperate creative bankruptcy in Hollywood. Battleship will cost $209 million, will take decades to recoup its money and had probably nill chance of generating a franchise even if successful. While Universal Pictures was buying up the film rights to board games canny Rebellion Games was poaching the creative rights to 35 years of 2000AD...

<Dredd related cinema>

Harder Than You Think : The Return of Public Enemy

Dear UK media, if Public Enemy's "Harder Than You Think" (Channel 4 Paralympics theme) is such a classic tune why weren't you playing it four years ago when it got released? Was X-Factor that good in 2008?

Just some of the great music you were listening to in 2008 instead of "Harder Than You Think"

Leona Lewis
Scouting For Girls (who could forget their singles "She's So Lovely" and "Elvis Ain't Dead")
Andy Abraham
George Sampson
Chris Brown
ABBA's greatest hits (after Mamma Mia!)
Boyzone
Alexandra Burke

PE's album of 2008, How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People That Have Got No Soul???, was their 20 year anniversary and a real return to form. Why was it so studiously ignored? A few duff albums wasn't enough to completely sideline one of the seminal black acts of all time, it can't have been that they just became unfashionable - could it? When has that ever stopped Coldplay?

PE don't really help themselves, Flavour Flav's adventures in reality tv did the band no favours (though the same thing didn't seem to hurt John Lydon) and some of their earlier output seems to flirt with anti-semtism.  "Swindlers Lust" off There's a Poison Goin On might be about crooked money grabbing money executives, but if so, that is a catastrophic choice of title (too close to Schindlers List) in light of earlier accusations.

'Back in Black', one of the tracks off "How You Sell Soul.." is an indicator of the talent they still have and the resistance they were begining to get. Intended as a cover of the AC/DC classic,  they were denied use of samples from the original (an example of how low they'd fallen from being one of the biggest bands in the world) and had to completely record the track again in short order. They shrugged, got their heads down, and their completely new version of Back in Black is one of the best tracks on the album.

In an industry where Chris "I like to use my girl as a punchbag" Brown is completely forgiven why are PE so forgotten? 

Where Public Enemy used to aim at US Government in their lyrics, the target of How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? is pretend gangsters preaching to a music market interested only in bling and materialism. After years of fighting the system Chuck D and co seemed to have realised that the system has infiltrated their own industry, and bling obsessed goons like Jay Z and P Diddy (and his f**king English butler with his fake name) and thugs like Chris Brown and (famous Bush supporter) 50 cent have far more in common with the scum that exploited their people than they have with their own community.

Lyrics from track 'Frankenstar'

WE THE FANS 
HOPIN THEY WOULD BE OPEN
TINTED GLASS
BEHIND THAT TINTED GLASS
CROWD WAITING IN LIMBO
IS THAT THE LIMO?
BUT HE DONT GIVE A DAMN
SHE DONT GIVE A DAMN
JUST BUY THEIR PRODUCT
CAUSE THEY A BY PRODUCT OF A MARKETING PLAN
CAN I JUST GET AN AUTOGRAPH?
IM FANATIC NUMBER 2 MILLION
SIGN IT TO MY MAMA
SO SHE CAN CUT THE DRAMA
BOUGHT IN A STORE IN NICARAGUA
but you ignore The POOR
CANT EVEN GET TO YOUR DOOR


FRANKENSTAR 
YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU ARE
I DONT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR CAR
FRANKENSTAR
FRANKENSTAR
FRANKENSTAR
YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU ARE
WE DONT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR CRIB
ONLY GIVE A DAMN ABOUT WHAT YOU DID

Try selling Harder Than You Think to radio and media when the album is screaming of the corruption and greed in the same industry (and look back to 2008 - they were spot on)

'Harder Than You Think' is a massively empowering tune and brilliantly compliments Channel's Four's genuis 'Meet The Superhumans' ad campaign, but was only intended as Public Enemy giving themselves credit for two decades of the kind of musical and media agitation that the Sex Pistols could only manage for 2-3 years. They defined a musical genre in the 90s and 90s only to be sidelined and ridiculed in the following decade, a disgusting and corrupt political era that could never face the truth. That was the world of 2008.

Public Enemy are releasing two new studio albums this year.

Blast from the past : Phoenix Festival 1996

Another festival diary.
Glastonbury takes a year off every few years, requiring regulars to go out looking for other festivals. Phoenix ran in the 90s in the Midlands at Long Marston. The difference between Long Marston and Shepton Mallet in Somerset is that Long Marston is an airfield with a vast flat wide open space in the Midlands with no shade.. 

and the difference for me in 1996 was that I'd just moved to a village in the middle of nowhere.. Kye and Cath had just met and where to get married shortly after but moved away (like virtually everyone I got to know in Parracombe). I've just got back into contact with them via Facebook. Pictures were all lost when Castelinks first server died.

"MORE LIKE PHOENIX ... ARIZONA" The first sign of a major mover at Phoenix was in the weather reports the weekend before. Our month long cold spell would end and by the weekend it would be hot. Very Hot. Perhaps 82 degrees in some regions. Principally the Midlands. So - I took a flimsy sleeping bag. (This was so I could freeze my a**se off in the morning before I got a chance to get heat stroke).Amazingly in this tiny village I'd found a neighbour called Kye - who had offered me a lift with his girlfriend Kath to Phoenix on the Thursday morning. .

  

DAY ONE: In the middle of a tortuous journey word reaches us that a mutual aquaintance who shall remain nameless will arrive at some point at the weekend WITHOUT a tent but WITH a portable barbecue. Well anyway, we arrive - put up tents. Jeez its hot already. Adrian and Noelle just happen to camp next door. get on the wine. And champagne. Finally enter arena much later. We catch the end of PRODIGY and then BOWIE arrives. (The Times and ET would say later that those still in the huge queue to get in left their cars were they were at this point and ran in) The first surprising thing about BOWIE was how close to the front we were able to get. 20 yards ? Ten years ago My friend Jane Weddell described how she had been unable to get close enough to DB to see more than a spec at the Milton Keynes Bowl. Its a sad reflection of his output since that the crowd here was so much smaller. Of course - I thought he's been getting slowly better since Tin Machine... and I like the new stuff (some of which sounds amazing on the soundtrack of Se7en). Obviously I thought the old stuff was better. Which was the second surprising thing. Most of the set came from the Alladin Sane/Lodger era but a lot of it - other than the stuff off OUTSIDE - was pre SCARY MONSTERS. Brilliant. Just to show how much of a sop it was to potential new fans three of the songs he did were more notably covered by someone else - MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD (by Nirvana), LUST FOR LIFE (Iggy Pop) and ALL THE YOUNG DUDES (Mott The Hoople) - which was by far the best of the three. So convinced was everybody that he would not be doing old stuff that it felt like we were seeing a very good tribute band. Except it was the real thing. Both session musicians were stunning.. The black bassist was dressed up like an Inquisitor from a Ken Russell film and filled in the other half of the duet on a quite moving version of UNDER PRESSURE. The bald lead guitar was a worthy stand in for Mick Ronson (?) Climax of a brilliantly theatrical performance was MOONAGE DAYDREAM and the rest of the music at Phoenix was frankly a bit a an anti-climax afterwards.

DAY TWO My jeans have been taken out of my tent during the night. Sigh. AND I had to go for ANOTHER shit. This wasn't going to plan. Onto the main site with a bit of festival tutoring for Kye and Cath. Lesson One: Do not drink Snakebite all day. KYE: What does snakebite taste like then ? ....OK, since you don't know I'll get you some. Just one right... IAN MCNABB comes on. Kye is very impressed (he's just had his first snakebite). He is good but has no stage presence. (That's Ian Macnabb not Kye) Then FLAMING LIPS. Psychedelic US rock which gets nowhere with the crowd until the lead singer announces the next song. Its about his brother apparently. On acid. Trying to escape from a grocery store. (You could see the bassist grimace with embarrassment). It was very funny and ended with ".... and he called upon the power of the Insects, and the Waterbugs attacked the Policemen..." Had BECK come on early ? No. Beck came on in a very silly suit that looked like something Dennis Pennis would try and wear at the Garrick Club. Before launching into the first song he lit and dragged on a very conventional looking pipe. Rather too much to look respectable it seemed to me. He opened with DEVIL'S HAIRCUT and played a lot off the new album. Surprisingly - he Rocked. With some aplomb. Only the Truckdriving neighbour song came out quiet. "..Bellyflopping naked in a pool of yellow sweat, Shouting JACKASS with a wet cigarette.." LOSER was a big hit with the crowd. And at the end he pulled out a hanky and tried to stuff it up his nose as he collapsed. People came out and carried him off the stage. Beck is sometimes compared to Bob Dylan but even ol' Bob couldn't do slapstick. It gets hazy. I dragged my attention back into reality for FOO FIGHTERS but they were a big disappointment. They were at the end of a long tour apparently. I'd seen Faith No More and Radiohead under similar circumstances and it had only made them super-sharp. Grohl and co had given up already. They thrashed out their set and went home to bed. Errr.... Comedians. Mark Hurst. Very good.

DAY THREE ... marked principally by a failure to get too interested in the dance tent. Since at night it was so crowded we thought it was a disaster waiting to happen. I thought I go during the day It is Freezing in the mornings.... I need another shit.... Very bad news as the prefab SEARCH loos and portaloos are becoming practically unusable. Suddenly Glastonbury seems like a hospital. IS A HOLE IN THE GROUND TO SHIT IN TOO MUCH TO ASK ? The bands start and in a long hiatus waiting for the appearance of ANDREW WEATHERALL in the dance tent, I see a comedian, MARK STEELE, who is first on the bill and very good. One speech in particular, about the uselessness of language teaching, was not funny but so spot on it got a large round of applause. Destined for bigger things. As LAMB would seem to be - who came on first in the Dance tent and who were so good they came back to play one of their few tunes again. They were the best thing on in the dance tent. Weatherall appeared eventually about an hour an a half late. I never saw the dance floor so empty. Next good thing on was RED SNAPPER in the dance tent but not for ages so I morbidly took a look at JAZZ PASSENGERS FEATURING DEBBIE HARRY in the (eek!) Jazz tent. Initially Debbs looked like she had finally succumbed to the ravages of age . (But even at the start she looked like the Worlds Grooviest Granny) Peering through reading glasses at a music stand with lyics on, tied back greying hair, she still has one of the best voices around. Smart and funny too. When the Jazz Passengers let rip the granny routine was revealed as an act as the reading glasses and tied back hair came loose in a on stage pogueing session which got BIG cheers. After that all the old power was back. Only downer was the crowd forcing the Jazz band to play "The Tide is High" as an enchore. A big shame as their own stuff was good enough to see even without Debbs. RED SNAPPER are good once, maybe twice, but third time they are boring. For no apparent reason I wrote a screenplay on the back of a post card. It seemed very very good at the time. Returning to the main stage I found MASSIVE ATTACK, who were OK. They were supposed to be on last according to the running order but this had been hijacked by Bjork for reasons which became apparent. Shortly after we saw a man in a Rhino suit go through the crowd, someone behind the stage launched (according to NME) 1000lbs of fireworks into the sky. The two seemed unconnected though the strange little Icelandic thing was singing "HUMAN BEHAVIOUR" at the time so you never know. Poor Bjork - took her at least three songs to get over the size of the crowd - after that she had to cope with the sky exploding. Later... and tales reach us of the most outrageously original Rock and Roll stunt of the Festival . Disorientated by a cocktail of totally legal substances two nearby festival goers got so wrecked they got their ears pierced by accident (?) , then ran off without paying to lie prone in the campsite trying to pool their mental resources in an doomed attempt to eat a Mars bar. Only the hasty administration of a chip sandwich prevented them becoming the Peter Green and Syd Barret of Long Marston. ("DRUID" bought in rather large quantities and available from the rather sad "Legal Highs" stall. Laced with that slightly lesser well known mind altering substance "L.S.A" ....."Lucy In The Sky With Armadillos ?" mused Kye) Thank god I had something healthy to be going ton with - like a bottle of tequila. (I was totally unconscious within an hour and still not over the experience week later)

DAY FOUR: As every other day - wake 6am absolutely freezing. Put all my clothes on. Wake up again at 9 boiling hot. Take them all off. have to evacuate tent by 10 - its an oven in there... Lunchtime. Everyone else gone and we begining a desperate search for some shade. Difficult as all the secluded bits in the main stadium have been used as toilets. (Night before I had taken a short cut and had to step over two girls having a shit.) Now praying for home and wondering how bad the queues will be tomorrow ("Lets see.... six hour jam on Thursday and Friday.... how big will that be when we all leave together ?"). Got the first symptoms of Heat stroke just thinking about the inside of my tent. Everyone outside the comedy tent were we are huddled (with every other sensible person), is looking like the remains of Lawrence of Arabia's Akabar expedition as they cross "The Suns Anvil". Kye says he is thinking of leaving early. Tonight. He apologises. I begin to laugh hysterically and lose the ability to blink. He suggests we get a drink. I am grinning so much I can only nod my head. Mere hours later we back in the sticky clutch Nova headed home. I am still suffering. Kye and Cath, who seem to like each others company A BIT TOO MUCH are now determined to go to the Reading Festival this year and want to know why I'm not interested. I suggest, as an answer, that they just put me out of my misery and go on a rampage - kilin' everyone they meet, like Micky and Mallory - they could just become Devon's NATURAL BORN KILLERS. There is a pause. The sign saying "KEEP DEVON SHIPSHAPE" goes past. They make not entirely convincing excuses not to go on the rampage and tell a Devon joke.  Two cows in a field. One says to the other "You know Daisy, Oim a bit worried about cartching this 'ere mad cows disease thing." "Oh ?" says Daisy "Oim Nart" "Why's thart then?" " ' Coz Oim a Tractor !"