jackrivet

Just saw this on the BBC site:

Long story short, researchers hooked Clem Burke aka the drummer from Blondie up to some machines and discovered that his level of fitness was comparable to a premiership footballer. Except that he can do the same thing on successive nights, not once or twice a week.

Which makes you wonder, given that Blondie isn't that fast or intense, how inhumanly fit is Frost from Satyricon, Trym from Emperor or Nick Barker ex Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir etc?

-J

The Stansted Airport website recommends that for European flights you get there to check in two hours before the flight's scheduled take-off.

Would getting there only 45 minutes in advance be cutting it too fine?

Bear in mind I will have a bag to check in, since I doubt a tent will fit in hand luggage. And even if it did I have a feeling they wouldn't let you on with tent pegs or other stab-able items.

Answers on a postcard please.

-J

For those of you here who dig on the Danish Duo, they've put a new tune up at their website.

My two cents: it's a little brittle and harsh in places, but it's got all the icy retro Lynch-ness that we know and love.

It's the lead track on their myspace as well.

Cheggidowt.

-J

Fresh off the wire, the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification has refused classification to post-apocalyptic game Fallout 3.

Did you hear that sound? That's the sound of millions of faces being buried in an equal number of palms, around Australia and at least some of the world.

For those who are unfamiliar with the the history of censorship in Australia, basically it comes down to this: when it comes to film and television, Australia has the following ratings:

G for General Audience

PG for Parental Guidance

M for Recommended for Mature Audiences

MA15+ for Not Recommended for Audiences under 15

R18+ for Restricted to Audiences over 18 years and

X18+ for Restricted to Audiences over 18 years because of pornographic content.

You with me so far?

When it comes to Video Games, nothing is allowed past an MA15 rating. Anything that exceeds that is refused classification and has to be re-edited and re-submitted.

And according to a leaked OFLC report, the apparent drug content in Fallout 3 triggered the refusal of classification.

From the material I've read, Fallout 3 is a grim and gritty exploration of a world still recovering from a nuclear holocaust. This isn't Cosy Catastrophe material, this is pretty damn bleak (a gameplay necessitated cure for radiation sickness notwithstanding). Between the setting and the likely violence of the story, I\it is probably not a game that should be played by those of sensitive dispositions or impressionable natures.

I will save the discussion of the incongruities of censoring a game based on drug content when real drugs are readily available to pretty much any Australian that wants them for another time.

What really needs to happen here is for the OFLC to recognise that video games, once dancing pixels for the entertainment of children, have moved above and beyond their one-dimesional past and deserve at least the same opportunities to be if not respected at least consumed with the parity available to that of the other art forms.

In short, if games are being designed and made with adult players in mind, and adults are actually playing them does it not stand to reason that an 18+ classification should exist?

Okay, I'm done.

*kicks soapbox back under the bed*

In between perusing the DVD section of HMV I spotted a collection of reviews and essays by Lester Bangs, all gathered up under the title 'Mainlines, Blood Feasts and Bad Taste'. I probably would have grabbed it anyway, but the deal was sealed by the £3 price tag.

I've been flipping through here and there; despite being something of a legend among rock journalists, I haven't really read any of his stuff proper before. So far it seems to be both suprisingly brutish and deceptively intelligent; the analysis is sharp and the vocabulary would probably leave most NME scribes reaching for the dictionary (just like I'm about to, natch).

Giving first impressions of the MC5 he does manage to deliver a bunch of valid points (not overly original, superficial revolutionary posturing etc) while still missing the point (though the story goes that it clicked with him soon afterwards... I personally don't think that anyone could really get the MC5 without seeing Wayne Kramer dance, but that's by the by).

But the first Oh My God moment has come via an essay written in 1982 title 'If Oi Were a Carpenter', about Oi Punk, Hardcore and stuff.

Quoting verbatim from the last paragraph:

"I'd have to call the Exploited charming, and within their charm and total-immersion syndrome of the fans' listening habits there lies a larger truth about both oi and hardcore: that for all its pro forma obnoxiousness, at its real core this music is as comforting and predictable, safe and conservative (even reactionary) as the heavy meatl whence it really sprang. The difference is that where heavy metal still bonds its audience together through phallic aggression, and oi is politicized football chants for unemployed louts, hardcore's three chords provide its fans with walls that shut them in and any other world out--even when they're slamming in the pit. Hardcore is the womb."

*gobsmacked silence*

That motherfucker.

There's layers of arguments that can be applied regarding cultural resistance and subcultural diffusion and the like, but the fact remains:

Twenty six years ago he called it and wrote it better than I ever thought to.

-J

Cult of Luna at the Scala tonight.

For those of you unfamiliar, they're like Isis only they are Swedish and mind-breakingly good-looking.

Possibly tickets still at the door, so it might be worth rolling along if any of my London FListers are curious.

The ever-reliably cinematic The Ocean (aus Berlin) are supporting.

I'm just hoping that the dodgy acoustics at The Scala don't turn it into a giant vortex of sonic fail.

And with that he runs out the door.

Thinking of going to see Wanted this afternoon.

Lately there has been a lot of sequels, threequels and remakes in the cinema, so it's good to see an original concept on the big screen.

The original concept being (as far as I can tell) the story of a good-looking Young Waster who is recruited by a Dangerous, Mysterious and Blisteringly Hot Woman into a Secret Organisation led by a Charismatic and Enigmatic Man, because the woman and the leader believe that the waster has some previously hidden Special Abilities.

"But isn't that the Matrix?" I hear you cry.

Nope. In The Matrix a mysterious and blisteringly Hot Woman with an air of danger recruits a Young Waster to join her and an Enigmatic Man who has lots of Charisma, because their Secret Organisation needs the Special Abilities that the young waster has (which up to this point have been hidden).

"Wait a second, I thought that was the Invisibles by Grant Morrison".

Don't be ridiculous. In the Invisibles a secret organisation, led by a charismatic man who is something of an enigma recruits a young waster so that they can use his previously hidden abilities (which are really special). And once The Young Waster joins the group he meets a Mysterious Woman, who is blisteringly hot but also kinda dangerous.

There you have it. Three completely different concepts, and I won't hear a word otherwise.

-J

(PS yes I know it came from a comic.)

I just heard about

My Bloody Valentine tonight.

Sweet.



And with that I'm out the door.

-J

I just found out that cinematic instrumentalists Red Sparowes are playing ULU on the 8th of July.

Between that and Swedish sprawly noiseniksCult of Luna on the 1st, next month looks pretty good for epic atmostpheric post-genre type stuff.

-J

I seem to be reading a lot lately, as if trying to distract myself.

I picked up The Crow Road by Iain 'Not Genre Fiction' Banks on Tuesday night during some serious insomnia, and finished it just then. All 500 pages. That's probably nothing for a lot of people on this list, but it's a fair clip for me.

Now have an incredible urge to go to Scotland.

-J

As I've said before, getting out of London means getting away from the Media drip-feed that I'm hooked up to pretty much 24/7 here.

That means that there is more time to hunker down and think about stuff, and when that makes my head hurt then I can catch up on reading. That there is an excellent second-hand bookshop in Bognor Regis means that I can grab ten books for not much more than the price of one, even though it does often involved hunting through boxes for the titles I want.

As such, while I was away Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Half of Monday I managed to finish House of Leaves (Mark Danielewski), as well as The Land Leviathan by Michael Moorcock (finished reading The Steel Tsar just a few minutes ago).

House of Leaves is probably going to need some rereading, decoding etc.

The Land Leviathan (part of Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable Trilogy) was a much easier read (though let's face, after House Of Leaves, anything else would be). Interestingly, it seems that Moorcock pre-empted the current Steampunk obsession with Airships by about thirty or forty years.

So much to read...

BBC: Skynet Launch Postponed because of Software Malfunction.

File under WTF.

On a whim I'm seeing what BBC radio stuff I can listen to over Teh Intarwebs, something I've avoided 'til now not least because fifteen years of a souring relationship with JJJ in Australia had left me less inclined to spend much time checking out Radio in the UK (that and if I want to hear a song by a band I can usually either find their myspace or pull it up on Youtube).

While I appreciate the service freeing me from the scheduling constraints of the programming department of BBC radio, I would appreciate it if the BBC Player had a Skip Forward button, since I would much rather not use up my bandwidth listening to The Offspring or Peaches.

In any case, the player has just stopped playing so I'm wondering if I've used up my download limit for the time being.

*sigh*

I really should get that bumped up sometime.

-J

I just ganked this link from battlekitty regarding the CPS deciding (quelle surprise) that it really wasn't worth their time or in the public interest to prosecute a schoolkid over public order offences arising out of the Anonymous protest in London last weekend.

For those who missed the beginning of the story a couple of days ago, it's run kinda like this:

Protestcats are protesting.

Schoolboy: I has a sign. Scientology iz Cult.

Met: Citation Needed.

Schoolboy: LoL.

Met. Ur Nicked!

Schoolboy: No! They be taking my sign!

Latorz...

Met: I has a schoolboy! I can has prosecution?

CPS: *facepalm*

Met: ???

CPS: FFS, GTFO!

***

Frankly, when the Metropolitan Police try to pull shit like like this it makes me feel kinda homesick for Brisbane (the city where the local police once exercised crowd control over a bunch of protesting hippies by driving them over a cliff).

Sometimes it seems the best way to find things is to lose something else first.

Just a minute ago I was looking around for my pen and I found half a dark chocolate kitkat in my jacket pocket.

On recommendations from laurelleaf and i13cssin, I've started reading The House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski.

I'm not far into it enough to make any kind of report so far, except to say that it is dark, and dense. And the voice is oddly familiar.

( A page or so of pseudo-Gaiman-esque Sunday Evening musing about the relationship between books and the reader. Cut 'cos I'm liek mysterious lol )
-J

I'm not sure how long they've done it, but Metal Hammer has a regular called the Spanish Inquisition, where bands are subjected to questions sent in by fans/readers, with a occasional cross-examination by a Hammer scribbler.

Reading the new issue of SFX, I've just noticed Jared Palecki getting interrogated in a similar thing called The Fannish Inquisiton.

Hmm.

-J

Crystal Castles are playing tonight.

Wondering if I should go, see what the hype is about.

Then again, the idea of spending a couple of hours getting disdained by hipsters would make much more sense if it was for a band that was less of an unknown quantity.

Hmm.

Trents put up an entire new album on the NIN website for download. As in newer than the four-disc instrumental set.

Remember when Trent Reznor used every interview he did to tell the world that he was a total workaholic, but everyone knew that he spent less time chopping beats than chopping lines in between double-teaming teenagers with Marilyn? Yep, four albums (and an admittedly amazing EP) in sixteen years. Blue-collar protestant work ethic in motion.

</sarcasm>

Jeez, remember everyone being gobsmacked that the time between With Teeth and Year Zero was only two years?

Of course some folk are going to be asking 'Is it any good?'

And everyone else is going to be replying 'Who cares? It's a new album and we didn't have to start and complete a university degree in between!'

I'm just waiting for the servers to clear so that I can download the whole album. I'm guessing everyone has tried to download it at once.

-J

Edit:

Downloaded, unpacked and imported. Will give it a blast at some point.