Help! I Have Two Problems:

Problem 1: I can't listen to normal music only drippy choir covers of rock standards. I'm so sorry, but I love this, am I deranged? These guys have two albums, turns out they've been massive for years. Just goes to show how on point I am, as ever. 
                                
                                

Problem 2: I have joined Twitter. Apart from the fact I barely understand what it is, this new must-have communication device is either the end of everything, or a bridge to the future. Only time will tell. If I start writing all my twerpy nonsense on there and neglect this, I shall never forgive myself. Who knows, perhaps it could turn out for the best? Click the bar on the right or trot along here

Doomed...doomed I tell you

J Dilla

I Have A Dream...

I had a dream last night that Kanye and Barack Obama were the same person. 

Terrifying

Gold Digger

OMG!!

So there I was vainly searching for myself on YouTube, and I found this modern classic:             

                                 

  a small prize to whoever spots my key moment in the trailer for my "award winning" TV vehicle 

                        

How The Fallen Have Mightied

                          

To say that I didn't like the musical output of the horrors would be a massive understatement...

 

For me their faux-angst neo-goth theatrics, smacked of style over substance every time I saw them play. I felt like I was the only one seeing right through the facade of big hair, eye makeup and sharp tailoring, right to what lay at the heart of the phenomenon: Art-School, schlock-horror panto.  A horrors gig always felt like an experience more akin to seeing a mainstream manufactured pop act, (with act being the operative word). It was all smoke and mirrors, and ways of keeping as much artifice as possible between the fans and the music. A philosophy of "Keep em' deaf, keep em' dazed, but above all never let them work out we haven't actually got any songs".

They tried so hard to be dark, gothic, and gloomy, that they created a kind of "fake dark" that was no more authentic than the "fake sexy" of Girls Aloud or the "fake pop/punk"of McFly. But all this without any of the wit, and charm of either of those bands. If you're going to not have soaring melody, you need a pretty amazing rhythm section. If you don't want a rhythm  section you're lyrics will have to be particularly witty/catchy/clever. If you don't intend on writing brilliant lyrics you'll definitely need some strings some horns, some vocal hooks, something, anything. Or if you don't fancy any of the above, you could just write the Horrors first album.

I'm glad that I can finally write what I think about their first effort (without being seen as an opportunist mudslinger) as my opinions on their music have turned a tide upon hearing some of their second album. 

It appears the lads in black have woken up and smelt the musical coffee. Faris Rotter sings, real melodies, real tunes. They utilise their musical skill (which was always apparent, just misappropriated) to create genuinely atmospheric, memorable songs. It feels like they finally have their ingredients in the right order. They are no longer trying to bake a cake using three sardines, pineapple juice and a wheel of brie. Sponge, check, icing, check! So far their sound is finely crafted, and ermm moreish. And I never thought I'd say that after listening to an 8 minute Horrors track. 

Well done

Rack the Jipper

Beyond Insanity

I think I have just enough tolerant bones in my body to allow things which clearly suck to live and breathe and go about their mediocre business, on the basis that "hey, it's just not my cup of tea". You know "different strokes, for different folks" err.. "one mans treasure is another mans, shit" all that rubbish.

BUT

Occasionally something offends so relentlessly that I can't help but faint with their sheer relentless quest to be THE WORST THING ON THE PLANET

Ladies and gentlemen I give you SKECHERS

                              

not forgetting

                              

Previous brand ambassadors include Jessica (not even Ashleee?) Simpson, and Britney (at her lowest ebb) Spears. Are there enough clueless morons in world to keep these guys in business, year in year out? I have yet to meet a single person who owns a pair of Skechers. There's an advert on TV at the moment which plumbs new depths but I can't seem to find it online. I remember K-Swiss went through a phase of making their adverts "cool" by basically not showing their shoes that much. This being because K-Swiss are obviously really boring shoes. Not offensive, just dull. Good for tennis, bad everywhere else. 

Whereas the "Skechers Gang" (I imagine that's what the Skechers ad execs call themselves) seem totally shameless when it comes to fragrantly wafting the shitness of their product in front of our faces. Have they ever seen a normal pair shoes? Like the shoes that people enjoy buying and enjoy wearing?

Have they ever made a single pair of shoes that doesn't look like the cheapest shoe you'd find in a rural french hypermarket? Abramovich would wear these shoes that's how bad they are. ABRAMOVICH the man with the most lopsided wealth to style ratio in the history of the planet!!

I could rant all night about these guys. I think I'll leave it there.

Model Tom Ford

Wigan To The World

The cutting edge is always important. You can't ignore it. 

To hide from it, is to embark on the slippery slope to total ignorance.

Knowledgeable music bod Jamie Hodgson (aka Jamie ElPlate) is currently mining at the pitface of the new for Vice TV.

Check this charming series of vignettes on "Donk", a new form of dance music (which is basically hard house with garage mcing over the top of it). Buzz cuts, sportswear and steroids aside it's always awesome to witness the true evangelism of the first flush of a new genre. God bless our mighty nation, and all the gurning hordes who dwell within. We're the best at this. I swear to you, we're the best in the world at THIS

                                

MDMAzing

Abracadaver!

Ali Bongo the legendary magician has died. As well as inventing some of the all time classic tricks he pioneered all that nonsensical "alicazam-hocus pocus" shctick that other magicians have used ever since. All the cliches of an exotic foreign conjuror performing mysterious dark arts were popularized by him. Exactly....what a legend.

Sir I take my (non) magic hat off to your lifelong pursuit of mystery, conjuring, and above all entertainment.

"I won't tell people how it's done. But most of it isn't dangerous. You'd be surprised how easy it is to convince the majority of people of magic"

Copperfield's Eyebrows

Two Things That Reassure Me:

1. That even if I do lose my hair, I can still rock a bohemian vampire-scientist look like this geenius. 

2. That people still manage to make brand new clothes look as good as the best old ones. Thanks Band of Outsiders.

Big up to the The Sartorialist and The Pursuit Aesthetic 

Wank Marvin

I Cannot Wait

For this bastard, writ LARGE

Still don't understand why Langam had to go...surely a suspected peado playing a politician only adds to the character rather than detracts? Capaldi lucked out I guess...

Thanks to The Treasurer for the heads up.

Biden Mytime

The Thing That I Like That Is Crusty (N.B. I Don't Like "Crusties")

Every town has one. No matter how big or small. A weird creaky derelict house. Shuttered up, sooty windows, time-ravaged. Round the corner from where I grew up, near the Seven Stars roundabout (big up Seven Stars Fish and Chips), at the top of the Goldhawk road lived a crazy old lady who I only saw a handful of times. She was tiny, wore a shawl almost like a bonnet, and used to push a small terrier around in an old fashioned pram! Yup..creepy. Her house was my entry into the world of spooky houses. The whole thing was a uniform grey colour with windows covered up with ancient newspapers, ivy covered the front and there was a pet cemetery in the front garden!

I've kept a keen eye out for them ever since. My favourites are the buildings where it's hard to tell if they're inhabited or not. You can spot the occasional light, but the curtains are always drawn, and any glimpse of furniture looks ancient. My least favourite are the ones inhabited by crusties committing horrendous crimes against hairstyling and hygiene, in georgian piles facing Hyde Park. 

The big sprawling giants are also spooky in their own way. I fondly remember a few late night trips round the perimeter of the The Old Middlesex Hospital. It 's now been demolished to make way for a very dodgy looking development .  But the atmosphere of the empty building was almost disturbing. I spoke to one of the security guards hoping for him to let me sneak around. He didn't. But he did tell me the inside was unsettling, with an ornate chapel, padded cells, and weird abandoned children's wards.  For a small dose of those vibes you can still take a walk around the outside of Queen Elizabeth's Childrens Hopsital on the Hackney Road. Or if you're slightly braver than I, break in, and have a peek around.

It's an interesting lark that Urban Exploration, I guess all fun and games until curiosity kills the...erm Urban Explorer. Here's a list of links on the snooping business.

Pictures top and bottom from Kevin Bauman's series 100 Abandoned Houses

Candy and Candy