Verhoevenfest 2006

The largely spiritless British public seems to need some kind of austere paternal authority to enforce the soul-cleansing cycle of sin, guilt and contrition that the fear of God once provided. This new authority is the institution of Health Terrorism; a continual media barrage of bewildering medical statistics, nutritional guidelines and fitness recommendations that leaves citizens in a twenty-four hour state of Lovecraftian lurking fear. Don't even THINK about enjoying life today unless you have eaten at least five portions of fruit and vegetables. What's that carefree fucker over there hiding? Must be hiding something. No-one can be fulfilled unless they obey a strict discipline of alternately mirthless, smug and anxiety-ridden lifestyle masochism. Health experts have a monopoly on the good life. Fitness is the only virtue. Live longer, or regret it later. Never mind lying awake at night terrified of cancer caused by leaving televisions on standby. Those oranges you bought aren't even the right kind. You think you are getting the nutrients you are told you need BUT YOU ARE NOT, AS IT TURNS OUT, YOU FOOL. Did you not read the latest reports? GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND, MORON. And what are you so stressed about? Do you not know that stress will kill you? WRITE IT TWENTY FIVE TIMES ON YOUR FUCKING FOREHEAD: STRESS WILL KILL ME. Don't even THINK about going to sleep tonight until you have fully comprehended the fact that your are GOING TO DIE FROM STRESS. Oh, and women: you will always be fat and there is FUCK ALL you can do about it. And, as it turns out, your home is absolutely filthy, and your wardrobe is so HOPELESS IT ISN'T EVEN FUNNY. YOU ARE A FUCKING DISGRACE.

Last weekend some friends and I celebrated Verhoevenfest 2006. Robocop: The Directors cut; Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and Showgirls. Afterwards I lay down in the dark and listened to shortwave radio test transmissions. A series of soothing, meaningless tones and callsigns passed through me as I sank slowly into the floor, down through the shop below and deep into the earth, and then, when it all went a bit Lair of the White Worm, I thought: life is good.


religions don't deserve special treatment

slap my hand

Just a bad penny
I always come back to you
Should have known you couldn't trust me
As far as you could throw me



This link may die soon - when someone tried to upload more Big Black it was rejected. Apparently You Tube would not approve it. It has a rude word in it.

I don’t have any skin

Rotterdam

We had been drinking for hours. An impromptu speech by a film maker prevented us from setting up on time, and we were told we had an unrealistic five minutes to prepare ourselves. Before I even had my guitar out of it’s case the stage manager (hereon to be referred to as ‘Mr. Gitboy’) told me that we “really must start now because we are already running seriously behind”. We had been waiting around for seven hours for them to get their shit together. If we are rushed, we fuck things up. After many years and something approaching a hundred gigs, we are not prepared to be rushed. As I casually plugged in and tuned up, Mr. Gitboy barked at Michelle “he could have done that ages ago!!!!”. Dave was seriously pissed off, which always improves his playing. We were completely unhinged. I nearly fell over. I hit The Zone. It was most satisfying, even though there was a continual, piercing feedback from my monitors which made my brain cry even though I wear earplugs. After See My Friends I asked the audience if there was time for one more, aware that the Mr. Gitboy was giving himself an aneurysm. The audience shouted back “YES!!!!”. Righteous. We played a very long version of Black Holes in the Sand. While I was fucking about with my pedals at the end of the song, Mr. Gitboy gave Huw the evils and made that cut-throat gesture they make when they really, really want you to stop and piss off. Huw continued at a particularly casual pace. At the end of the set Dave looked like he had been swimming with his clothes on.

While I was packing away a man came up to me.

Man (adopt Dutch accent): That was very good. But where is the girl?

Me: The girl?

Man: Yes. On the last song, on Black Holes in the Sand, where is the girl who sings on the record?

Me: er… there isn’t a girl singing on the record. It’s me.

Man: It didn’t sound like the record.

Me: It was supposed to…

So that was embarrassing.

Mr. Gitboy aside, the promoters and the volunteers running the show were absolutely wonderful and unnecesarily courteous. After us, Hot Club de Paris played their fast, Scally-bantering math-rock pop nuggets, as tight as a UK promoter’s purse-strings. I was distracted by a monstrously tall Dutch woman. She was taller than Dave (six foot seven). She was wearing superfluous high heels, as though she had looked in the mirror that evening and thought “Hmm. I'm definitely not tall enough. Tonight I will be taller”. Entranced, I didn’t know whether to bolt out of the room in terror or sit down in a comfy chair and light a cigar.

Flight back home: fucking choppy. I’ve never experienced that kind of thing before even though I’ve flown a lot more than an environment-conscious liberal like myself can probably justify*. Rollercoaster stomach; waiting for the captain to tell us we can phone our loved ones. Half the passengers suddenly find God. I think bugger, I haven’t finished the album yet, but at least the world is just as random as I’ve always believed. I’m as insignificant as the grotesquely obese man taking up three seats in the row behind me, but we are both more privileged than the infinite people who will never actually be born. So God: you and I haven’t ever really got along. For a start, you don’t even have the common decency to exist, so what the bloody hell do you expect me to do? Go away and learn some manners and perhaps then we can have a mature discussion about my impending death.

*What exactly is a ‘hand-wringing liberal’? I don’t even know how to wring my hands. How do you do it? Is it fun?

and they catch him, and they say he's mental

I am making an album. I am enjoying making an album. But I ask myself, will it really belong on a record store shelf alongside Loveless? Seventeen Seconds? Strangeways Here We Come? Vauxhall and I? Copper Blue? Playing With Fire? Liege and Lief? If this record gets lost in a record store and wanders into the ranks of the above, won't it get it's coat and quietly shuffle out? When you make a record you have to ignore this worry. You leave it up to the journalists. Then you disagree with them on principle. How strange. There's an essay in there somewhere. If you want to hear more, I'll be in the bar with my head on the bar.

It might be worth spending a tenner on. The artwork will be nice. It won't be as good as this though:

Growling for dog food

Today's listening pleasure has been provided by the Tony Mansell Singers















On saturday we are playing a show in Rotterdam, whose startling modern architecture includes this and this. Rotterdam was bombed to pieces in the second world war by these in these. Until recently it was the world's busiest port; it is now the biggest port in Europe and the seventh biggest in the world. Unlike Amsterdam, there thankfully aren't too many of (brace yourself) these (sorry about that) though there are still a few of these that hopefully don't look as as bad as this or this.

But we won't see any of it because we will only be there for one night.

it's the turnstiles that make us hostile

Tune for the Day: 'Love Theme From Prisoner: Cell Block H' - William Motzing Orchestra

Thought for the Day

This morning, some kids down the road were playing footie with a severed head and it made me think: we must reclaim the George Cross from the England football team. For too long our national flag of St. George, Mighty Dragon Slayer and Palestinian Patron Saint of England has been appropriated by the dark forces of competent sportsmanship compromised by weak management and flagging team spirit.

I will not change and I will not be nice

You're just so busy busy busy busy . Take a break and test your knowledge with the random Smiths lyric generator. It's brash, it's outrageous and it's free. Unfortunately it doesn't include any of Morrissey's solo work. I was hoping it would generate 'new' material based on a pool of idiosyncratic words and structures, like this Guided By Voices song title generator. Generating Guided By Voices-style material presents a far lesser challenge as Robert Pollard's lyrics are meaningless. The closest we can get to a Morrissey lyric generator is the famous Alanis Morrissette lyric generator.



For the truly lost, here is the apathetic online journal entry generator

A random Gravenhurst lyric generator would be most welcome. It would make my life a lot simpler.

What's the secret, Max?

Fred West decided what he was going to do several months before he did it. He took small strips from the bedclothes each day and nobody noticed. The rope got longer and longer and nobody noticed. Fred carried on being his jocular self. He effortlessly charmed the prison officers. Fred was on 24 hour suicide watch. He was supposed to be checked every fifteen minutes. Fred reckoned that New Year's Day celebrations would disrupt the routine. He seized his chance.

The skilled predator knows the importance of patience. It watches carefully and silently for the right time to pounce. The human predator enjoys a sense of intellectual superiority in outwitting its prey. It knows patience will reward it twiceover. It will gorge itself on the prize and gorge itself on winning it.

How do you learn patience when you are not a predator? How do you learn patience when you are trying to minimise harm? How do you know whether you made the right move at the right time? You cannot 'win'. There is nothing to feed on. There's no prize.



"A couple of drunken nights rolling on the floor
Is just the kind of mess I'm looking for.
I'm gonna dream 'till Monday comes in sight
I want to see the bright lights tonight

Meet me at the station don't be late
I need to spend some money and it just won't wait
Take me to the dance and hold me tight
I want to see the bright lights tonight"

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.