Kate inundation commencement

The first of my avalanche of cheap Kate Bush CDs has arrived from Jersey - and it's Lionheart, her second album from 1978. A browse of the lyric booklet didn't look too promising, as the words on this one seem particularly purple - but she has always got away with a lot because of the quality of her singing voice; she could sing complete nonsense (and often does) while still sounding completely alluring and convincing.

The jury's out at the moment - I'm only on track three. More later.

Mule Trainnnnnn! [thwack]

I have waited half my life to see this.

Since I was a lad at school, I thought that the legendary Mr. Pastry had performed this notorious interpretation of Mule Train, but it turns out to be a Tremont Blackman.

To a modern audience in these sensivitve times, such a performance may well seem shocking, and the Health and Safety Executive would almost certainly have something to say about it. But for my own part, I actually quite fancy having a go. Imagine the look of joy and delight on the faces of your assembled colleagues, friends and family at a Christmas party when you produce a tea-tray, dress in a dinner jacket, complete with bow tie, and perform this routine.

If you want a non-real-player version of the file, Ashleigh has put some different formats up on nakedcleaner.com

You must watch it all the way through, for the grand finale of throwing the tea-tray on the ground in spectacular fashion, and marvel especially at the bendy-leg dance. This is officially the best thing ever, and I want it played - or even performed - at my funeral.

Addendum: I've just made the image at the top of this post in celebration of the great man. I'm thinking of bunging this up on Cafepress as a t-shirt design:

Everything Kills You

You know, the new Bunnymen LP, Siberia, is well on its way to being, I think, one of my favourite ever records, even after only having owned it for a week. It has a really beautiful way of catching you off your guard...

In other news, I've done some new artwork for Simon Tocker's "Binary Jam" technical blog, although he doesn't seem to have put it out onto the live servers as yet. It's nothing special really - just five minutes' worth of faffing about with Photoshop, but I'm quite pleased with the result.

I used to have a thing about Link Wray

Yesterday was a Link Wray day, and I spent a pleasant hour or so listening to the "Guitar Preacher" compilation, which is a compilation of his exceptionally badly-recorded 70s LPs. Think a more gospelly acoustic Neil Young in terms of the accompaniments, and a slightly less grizzled Dylan singing and you're about halfway there. Dan thought it was "absolutely dreadful", though to be fair I did just hand him the headphones without really giving any thought to which song would be a good one to play to him.

After that I had a bit of a Jesus & Mary Chain afternoon, and played:

"Finbegin" - Lazycame (William Reid's post JAMC solo project)
"The Sound of Speed" - b-sides and singles album
"Honey's Dead" - 1992 LP

Today has so far been Dylan ("Blonde on Blonde") and Beefheart ("Mirror Man" sessions).

Gowna take yer fer a ride in ma tarotplane...

Repotting frenzy

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and repot my largest and fastest-growing cactus, a 3ft tall specimen of Opuntia Pailana, a type of prickly pear; it's only three years old, and I bought it as three pads, about a foot tall. Now it's grown 2' in height and is spreading outwards too, and the joints near the plant's base are thickening out and becoming woody in that mature cactus "right-now-it's-time-to-become-a-tree" type way.

So I thought it would be a good idea to put it into an unfeasibly large pot while it's still just about manageable. On went the industrial-strength thick leather gardening gloves, and out came a 24" pot which is going to be its permanent home until such time as it either dies or needs to be extricated from the greenhouse, for whatever reason. Needless to say, it's a vicious bugger, and its spines have papery sheaths and barbs on them, meaning that if you get them in your hands, they tear the flesh as you pull them out. Of course, a few managed to get through the gloves. No harm done though. It had managed to fill a 12" pot completely with a solid root ball, so my guess that it really needed a new pot proved right. And it does look rather good in its new home. I've had to take a section of staging out of the greenhouse at the far end to give it room, and have put a few other larger plants on the floor as well. I'm quite happy to let it grow as large as the greenhouse will let it, in the hopes that it might flower, but I suspect it won't be many years before it'll need cutting back...

Land of the Dead

Just been to see the new George A. Romero zombie film, Land of the Dead, with Dan, Ashleigh, and Mark.

It's a tremendous piece of work. Needless to say any fears that you might have had if you'd heard Jonathan Ross's review on Film 2005 are completely unfounded.

Yes, the zombies are communicating with one another, learning, and using basic tools, but there's nothing at all that isn't a development from the original trilogy of films. There are strong parallels between the way in which Bub, in Day of the Dead, handles a gun as a former soldier, and the way Big Daddy (UK viewers take note - he's not a comedy elderly wrestler) automatically handles a petrol pump towards the end of the film. And the theme of Day, which is that the zombies are essentially more humane than humans, is developed very effectively. The zombies begin co-operate with one another, and even begin to display some compassion - though Mark disagrees with my interpretation of this - while human society has become increasingly segregated with the lower classes treated little better than slaves.

This is the single most uncomfortable thing about the film: the zombies en masse are becoming even more sympathetic. We might have felt mildly sorry for the ones that got chained up in the lab in Day, and there's plenty of pathos in Bub - but Romero takes great pains to show Bub as a one-off in Day. This is no longer the case - they're all becoming Bubs.

I don't want this post to act as a spoiler so I won't give too much of the game away plot-wise. It's a very satisfying film, and the ending is open enough for Romero to be able to make a convincing follow-up if he gets the money to do so. There's some very pleasing gore, though it's actually quite understated - I wonder if Romero's expectation is that his audience now takes the zombie flesh-eating behaviour for granted, so it doesn't need to be underlined so heavily. The photography is gorgeous; watch out for the spider's web!

And even the quality of the acting is pretty good. The chap who plays Riley makes a great, detached hero, while Asia Argento is suitably sultry and moody (is that piercing on the back of her neck real?). Dennis Hopper is... well, Dennis Hopper. The "heavy", a Samoan called Pilsbury, is brilliant, and should have been used a little more, as he adds a welcome comic touch - especially with his final line of the film.

My only complaint is that the Big Daddy zombie's make-up is a little too human. He doesn't look quite decayed enough, but I suppose that's deliberate.

An unqualified ten out of ten - go and see it.

Das Boot

Just rebooted my computer with my iPod attached... and my machine entertainingly attempted to use the iPod as the boot disk, resulting in a stream of garbage across the top of the screen. Lovely. Makes me wonder what would happen if the iPod had been hacked to have Linux installed on it - would the two operating systems get into a fight? ;-)

The Fall, Dr. Shipman, and a 2 year old child

I went round to visit my friend, and fellow Fall fan, Mark last night, armed with a recording of a Fall gig from earlier in the year that had on it their song "What About Us". The song is about a rabbit from East Germany who comes to Manchester as an immigrant, only to be dismayed by the fact that Dr. Shipman has been going around murdering old ladies with morphine. Bear with me...

There's a refrain in the backing vocals at a couple of points in the song, where Eleanor, Mark E. Smith's wife and the band's keyboard player, gets to shout "Hop! Hop! Hop!" repeatedly.

Never underestimate how amusing it is to teach this to an impressionable two year old. Mark's son Danann (pronounced Donnann) thought it was great, and was running around the room going "Hop! Hop! Hop!" - and even started picking up on the "What about us, Shipman?" refrain at the end, bounding about hollering "Ship! Ship! Ship!" By the time I left he was demanding that it be played again - "Daddy, again - hop hop hop!" so he'll no doubt be repeating it at nursery today.

New Kate Bush single

The new Kate Bush single, King Of The Mountain, was given its first airing on the Ken Bruce Radio 2 show today. I've been giving it a listen on the BBC "listen again" thingy on the website. Of course Bruce gives it a huge build-up before playing it... but does it deserve it?

Reservedly, I'd say "yes".

The voice is still there and on fine form, and while the production is lovely and atmospheric, my only real gripe is that the song simply isn't particularly strong melodically. But the singing is expressive enough that she just about gets away with it.

Listening to the textures she's used, it doesn't surprise me that the record has been so long in gestation if the rest of the LP is like this: it's a typical Kate Bush sound-world where every detail has been considered. And whatever else, the song ends with such an irresistible lollopy reggae feel that you can't help but be caught up in it.

Roll on the LP (a double!)

Quote of the day

"Let's go back to our desks and you can utilise my man-bag."

(M. Sheppard - with reference to his handy bag of screwdrivers and tools...)

Strings, lovely strings

Just got all excited because I thought my Kate Bush CDs had arrived. Actually it was a box of guitar strings from Strings Direct.

I'm quite impressed with their speed of service, and they seem to be one of the few places in the UK that you can buy the very marvellous Elixir Nanoweb acoustic guitar strings. Not everyone likes these strings, as they've got a polymer coating that makes them feel a bit slippery to start with, and are quite "toppy" - which suits me fine. The best thing about them is that they have an incredible lifespan without ever sounding dead. Of course, they cost more than the average, but they're well worth it, if you ask me.

All in your mind...

Just listening to the Bunnymen's "Grey album" - the eponymous 1987 (?) "Echo & The Bunnymen" and it makes me realise that I'm now completely incapable of being even vaguely objective about anything that involves Ian McCulloch singing. It's supposed to be a weak, listless, and wearisome record.

But it's lovely. So it seems I've long since departed from mere fandom and set sail for obsessive adulation.

I used to say that Mac was God when Elvis was on holiday; it might just be the other way round.

Data Panik

Very excited by the news that indie-electro-pop outfit bis have regrouped (after a fashion) as Data Panik, with the addition of a live drummer and bass player. bis are responsible for one of the most memorable and fun gigs I've ever been to, and left me grinning like an idiot. Some of the later records weren't quite so exciting as they matured - but it'll be interesting to see what they come up with.

Their site is here

Siberia

Unsurprisingly, I've found running an mp3 blog to be far too much effort, to the point where I simply can't be bothered to write in that kind of depth. Not that I don't enjoy it, but I just don't have time.

Anyway... the new Bunnymen LP arrived this morning. I had a bit of a scare as Amazon managed to let the remastered "Heaven Up Here" go out of stock, and as that was in the same order as Siberia, it looked like I wouldn't get the new one till next week. Several heart palpitations and a horrible feeling of physical panic later, I cancelled Heaven Up Here, and Siberia arrived this morning, bless them.

First impressions are that it might actually be even better than Ocean Rain, which, as eny fule kno, is The Greatest Album Ever Made (tm). All of which might cause some worrying fractures in the space-time continuum.

A bucketload of Kate Bush CDs is also due soon, as I decided it was time to catch up before the great woman's new material comes out.