message on an ill wind

Current listening: have a guess

An interviewer in France asked me "is being ironical a way of life for you?". I guess she expected me to personify my lyrics, but business and pleasure... She was truly disappointed. I don't like to disappoint, so I'll have a bash at documenting, in real time, my uncensored, incoherent thought processes.

Ok Mr. Scientist- explain this: a time machine would totally rule right now. No new mail! There's always Google News if you're looking for something to read. The glass is empty but why not repeatedly turn it upside down anyway? No new mail! The sum total of all your problems will show in your Quick Contacts depending on how often you email them to your friends. It is Magic! >Undo. There's always a Google Feelings and Opinions Generator if you're looking for someone to be. No conversations in the Wastebasket. Who needs to delete when you have over 2000 megabytes of memories?! (memories that need to be temporarily Trashed will be automatically deleted after 180 days but you can UNDELETE). Do you really think those last words will change if you read them again? Buy now or wait for improved credit score? Remember, absolutely disastrous emotional policies can lead to psychological stagflation!! Wait! Don't wait! >Undo. Your heart may be repossesed if you do not keep up repayments. Well stop playing with it, son, and it will probably go away. A time machine would totally rule right now. >If you have no desires, and then you have no desires to be thwarted, but the person underneath where does he go? He knows I'd love to see him. No new mail! How truly disappointing. Young girl, one day you will be old but the thing is, if I stop playing with it, it might go away. Do I really think those last words will change if I read them again? There's always a Google Feelings and Opinions Generator if you're looking for someone to be. Fuck! I've drank too much and I've said too much and there's nowhere to go but the inbox. There's always Google News if you're looking for something to read. But essentially I am an optimist. In the end, all the baddies died and he got the girl.

Not fun. Check out previous or later posts for something more entertaining.


Judge Reinhold, yesterday









Kevin Shields , yesterday



(Sorry Kevin)

I'll have you, I will

BBC 6 Music tent at Summer Sundae Festival

Not clear what is going on here.
Caption suggestions welcome.

Gideon Coe: you fuckin' watch it son or i'll clip you with this umbrella and smash that fuckin' Fosters can down your shittin' two-bit indie loser throat*


*Mr. Coe is a respected broadcaster. He would never utter such inappropriate language on air or in private conversation. He is a scholar and a gentleman and the very suggestion that he would indulge in this kind of behaviour is a disgusting slur against a man whose conduct and reputation are beyond reproach. Actually I think we were discussing our mutual love of Red House Painters.

Thanks to Sophie Harris for the photo.

kill yr idols

Many of my favourite bands (Wire, Joy Division) are considered post-punk, but I don't believe that punk was as important as many rock historians say it was. It’s received wisdom that punk represented a profound musical revolution, but most noisy guitar bands could learn everything they need to know from The Velvet Underground and the Kinks. The Smiths, Red House Painters, The Handsome Family, Broadcast… it’s not immediately obvious that punk has any relevance to these bands at all.

(ducks and runs for cover)

Somebody left the door open and the wrong dogs came home

I just made this Iraqi border town Airfix model

I was in a hobby shop off Denmark Street in London with my friend Pete. I was approached by that bloke from Channel Four News who asked me if I would mind being interviewed on camera about the Airfix company going bust. I agreed. This much was straightforward.





Bloke: So how long have you been making Airfix Models?
Me: About two weeks.
Bloke: .....Okay....and what attracts you to them?
Me: I'm a musician and making music is killing my life so I've started revisiting a childhood I never actually had. I like the idea of having a world that I CAN COMPLETELY CONTROL. (This last sentence was the only bit they broadcast, making me look like a social retard)
Bloke: So why do you think that kids today aren't interested in making models?
Me: They are too into computer games. And drugs.
Bloke: (looks at assistant, looks back at me) . Urr... we can't use that really.
Me: But it's true.
Bloke: Yes, but we'd have to consult our solicitor.
Me: Well okay. Kids can't relate to wars that happened over sixty years ago. Most of the people in this shop are old men. If you go into Forbidden Planet you'll see that they sell loads of pre-made scale models of characters from movies. If Airfix had aggressively pursued contracts with major studios for, say, Batman figurines you can actually build and paint yourself, they may not have gone bust. They haven't moved with the times. They should have employed me as their marketing manager.


That was it. They didn't broadcast the two sensible things I said.

**********************************************************
Things to do on boring journeys
By train: Find a nearly empty carriage. Approach someone who is sitting alone by the window at a four berth table, point at the seat right next to them and ask 'is anyone sitting here?'. Before they can work out how to respond, sit down next to them, spread a broadsheet newspaper across the table then promptly fall asleep.
By coach: At regular intervals, crawl down the gangway, rest your head on the driver's shoulder and ask "are we there yet?".
By taxi: Many taxi drivers make tiresome small talk for the duration of the journey. Disarm them by talking excitedly about your new wallpaper. Phrase your witless meanderings as though they are questions. If the driver attempts to change the subject, run with it for about twenty seconds then elegantly steer it back on course.
By plane: These days, security regulations are used to excuse miserable, sour faced service and deeply humiliating immigration procedures. If you so much as look slightly wrong this can be used as a reason to deny you boarding. As such, there is little scope for stupid behaviour on air travel. Pretty much anything but blind obediance is seen as insubordination. If you really want to push it, you can keep asking the air stewards if there is anything you can do to help, praise the quality of the food and try to strike up a conversation with them when they end the flight with the traditional but clearly anachronistic individual farewells.
By ferry: There is fuck all of interest on ferrys, and little you can do about it. But outside, what can you see? Waves, sky. Oh, but look down, look down. Swirling black nightmare drowning downwards forever and ever those railings could simply give way at any time no-one will even notice you've disappeared for at least an hour oh my God this is actually happening. Meanwhile, indoors: greasy food, fruit machines and the smell of dusty vomit-caked carpets. Disco disco disco disco disco. Find a cabin and drink yourself into a coma. If you venture out of your cabin at night you are likely to be intimidated by gangs of drunken fat neck Brits on the piss. If approached, pretend to be retarded, show them your scale model of the ferry, tell them the Captain gave it to you and play with it on the carpet.


**********

DAXX: Total C****

Today I experienced the most baffling and insulting interaction of my entire life. I wanted a USB lead for my mobile phone which would enable me to download photos to my PC. The thoroughly nice Vodaphone shop chaps suggested I go to a shop in the Galleries in Bristol called 'DAXX'. I went to the shop, walked in and there were two men behind the counter. I spoke first with the younger guy. The conversation went like this:

Me: Hi, do you have a USB lead for one of these phones so I can download stuff onto my PC? Vodaphone suggested I try you guys.
Younger bloke: what is it.
Me: (I show him the phone ) it's a Nokia ( I show him the connection on the phone)
Younger bloke : (grunts and taps stuff into a computer). No we haven't go it
Me: Oh, okay. Any recommendations where i might get one?
Younger bloke: No.
Older bloke: You won't get one. If we ain't got it you won't get it.
(meanwhile younger bloke leaves shop)
Me: Er.. so if you don't have it then i won't get one... in the whole of Britain?
Older bloke: You're being a cunt, get out of my shop
Me: (baffled) ...I was only trying to clarify whether there were any available, anywhere
Older bloke: You are being smart, just get out
Me: I really don't understand.
Older bloke: Oh, yeah well, i've got a university education and i'm smart, fuck off
Me: um..well thanks for calling me a cunt. That's great. have a nice day. (I leave the shop)

Baffling. These people are trying to run a business. It is clearly not a retail chain. They specialise in unlocking phones and supplying phone accesories.

I suggest you repeatedly phone them and ask them for a USB lead for a Nokia phone.


DAXX COMMUNICATIONS

17A ST. NICHOLAS STREET
BRISTOL BS1 1UA

Classified Directory

0117 929 1590

Furious, Tonbridge Wells

Yesterday I packed my rucksack with hair gel, an aerosol can, matches, a stopwatch and a copy of the Koran with demented scriblings in the margins and various pages ripped out, and boarded a London bound 737 at Helsinki airport. Unbelievably, I managed to get through security with these items. This is just another example of one rule for the terrorists and another for the public.

terrorism rescues earth from environmental catastrophe

Heathrow: Terrorists attempt to blow up planes by mixing liquids. Water banned on planes.
Problem: body made up of 75% water.

Result: human beings banned from planes.

Victory for the Environmental Lobby! The end of air travel!!!! Earth saved!

Thanks, Islamists! We owe you one!

left the house, returned

Not much going on here, busy recording a new album, playing some festivals, writing this, reading this, this, this, this, and this, and playing with this on the carpet.

New look Gravenhurst website by Dave

Playlist - copy it and be inside my ears

the butterfly collector – ARkane

dress up in you – Belle & Sebastian

snowstorm – Galaxie 500

red sleeping beauty – McCarthy

wendell gee –- REM

has he got a friend for me? – Richard and Linda Thompson

the light that will cease to fail – Stereolab

le parc (theme from Streethawk) – Tangerine Dream

brother XII – War Against Sleep

papua new guinea – Future Sound of London

little black egg – the Nightcrawlers

perfume garden – The Chameleons

o.d. catastrophe – Spacemen 3

f**** s***** **** ***** *** ****

two things:

HOT CHIP

is the best thing a major label has signed in living fucking memory?


THE VIBRATION

Their album is out now. Allison Veronica the drummer is so cool she even got in industry session drummer slagazine Rhythm.


ULTRASKULL issue two is out now and don't read it at work


Don't Hassle the Hoff

an award ceremony where everyone wins a f***

Special post to draw attention the new Geisha album via their myspace site:

http://www.myspace.com/geishanoiseresearchgroup

"Hello, you have made the wise choice of viewing the profile of the noise group Geisha, who live in Bristol. We began like many groups out of boredom and sheer hatred of what was around us, not to save music, but to destroy it through an ever inreasing number of FX units.

People often ask me what the words are about, I usually make things up, but if you must know, its mainly about people being eaten, the many different and varied ways one might have sex with another person and the mish-mash of a hundred Jess Franco movie plots."

Band Members	Anton Maiof - Voice, Guitar, Electronics / Steve James - Bass / Sean Talbot - Percussion
Influences	Gyorgy Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and Parliment.
Sounds Like	An award ceremony where everybody wins a fuck.

Mondo Dell'orrore LP (Blood Red Sounds / SuperFi Records / Crucial Blast (USA))

CDs are available RIGHT FUCKING NOW for sale via
www.bloodredsounds.co.uk
and in the US of A at
www.crucialblast.net


And, for a sharp contrast, here is Belle & Sebastian performing their superb forthcoming single on Scottish TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouB_FEj8Mg4


ULTRASKULL ISSUE TWO OUT NOW