"thou shalt always kill" - dan le sac v scroobius pip

"thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants. use it to get into their heads."


this song is going to be huge.

i heard it twice on xfm yesterday and various bits of it have been in and out of my head ever since. a glorious slice of intelligent lo-fi.
that said, by the time it's been played to death this summer - and it will be - i will surely be sick of it, but for now i just want to be excited by it.


i don't think i've ever got into a girl's pants (or head for that matter) using any other method - which is the trouble with this song - it is too busy telling you what not to do without offering advice on replacement activities

"monday night pet shop madness" - sid shuttle and the space cadets

"if you want to have fun on a monday night, come down to the petshop with me."


when i was, i think, 9 my friend chris and i started writing poetry together in the playground. the compass grew to include jack, and the other chris and some other people, but it was our project. i remember the battered spiral-bound notebook chris would pull out at break and lunch times - chock full of the scrawlings of our collective art. in fairness, most of it was derivative or just plain ripped off, and a lot of it was ruined by trying, in our own small-child, pun-obsessed way, to be funny.

one day we realised that a lot of the better material we had written wasn't poetry so much as song lyrics and we formed a band. it mattered not a scrap that none of us could play anything (though i think i was already a very poor clarinetist by this point) - hey, many bands have formed and then worried about learning to play things.
heavily inspired by "morris minor's marvellous motors" - a popular children's tv comedy at the time - we settled on the name sid shuttle and the space cadets. i wish i could remember the ridiculous themed pseudonyms of other band members but i can't even remember which out of chris and i lost the battle and ended up being sid shuttle.

why we chose to write a song about a pet shop also escapes me, and with the cynical eyes of hindsight it all seems rather pathetic, but for a few moments we believed in something - and made some (albeit faintly ridiculous) assertions about our collective future.

i'd settle for a childish clarity now

The Bounty Kitchen Paper Song

"Use, rinse, rinse, rinse, use"

Have you ever seen the Bounty Strictly Come Dancing spoof advert? I saw it yesterday evening at a friend's house and the "use, rinse, rinse, rinse, use" refrain stuck in my head for ages...

Even as we went to see Lukas Moodysson's latest film, it was still there, playing in my head and coming out of my mouth, annoying my friends. It only stopped when the film started.

What can I say about "Container"? That there was 6 of us in the cinema, and one person walked out. That none of my three friends liked it. That it was a succession of black and white images, to the soft, monotonous sound of actress Jena Malone's voice. That it was both beautiful and horrible. Shocking and inspiring. Poetic. It reminded me of "the love song of J. Alfred Prufrock".

"band you love to hate" - j church

"backstage passes for the both of you, again, what does it mean to you, you think you're writing wrongs with your old typewriter, but you haven't got a clue"



i was going to write about the best gig i ever went to, but ive done that several times in several places and can wait for this blog until im short of ideas.


the only person i knew with an old typewriter was the guy we only knew as "the cool emo drummer". i cant remember the first time we met, but the second time was at an open mic night where he was drumming for 2 drunken middle-aged characters playing glam and blues covers. i cant really think of a generous way to say they didnt suck, but sitting in his own happy world at the back in an old comfortable jumper, hair flopping from side to side with every head-dance, the cool emo drummer effortlessly held the enthusiastic row into something resembling musical structure. he oozed cool in a gentle, self-effacing way and speaking to him that evening left me with the impression of the best sort of quiet man.
im ashamed to say i dont think i ever spoke to him again, though i did see him around several times. he used to sit on the steps in the sunshine writing poetry on a beat up old typewriter. i was never quite nosy enough to try to read the stanzas over his sholder as i passed, so i cant say whether he wrote anything of any artistic or literary merit. but from the little i knew of him, i wouldnt be at all suprised