Iron Man 2 Trailer

At the risk of turning into a drooling fanboy, THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!

Sound Salvation

It's not often my radio surprises me.

Today I had the radio on in my office, which I don't often do because you need to stand on one leg, face East and balance it on your nose to get a decent signal. ( Who needs DAB? )

Anyway, throughout the course of the day the teen-demographic-chasing Radio One played the following surprising choices:

Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine ( twice! )

Orpheus by Ash ( a lost classic )

Stairway To Heaven ( really! ) by Led Zeppelin

- which all helped to brighten up the day.

They're obviously playing the RATM song because the Facebook campaign to get it to Number 1 at Christmas is well under way. It's probably doomed to failure but wouldn't it be amazing if this sweary, shouty, punk-rap derailed the dreaded X-Factor juggernaut? I bought my copy from iTunes and crossed my fingers. You never know.....

Paranormal Activity

It was my birthday yesterday ( yeah I had a good day, thanks for asking ) and what better birthday treat could I have than to see a scary movie? Sarah and I went along to our local purveyor of blockbusters and over-priced popcorn to see "found-footage" fright-fest Paranormal Activity.

I took Sophie to see this a couple of weeks ago with a bunch of her school friends. It seriously freaked her out - no more scary movies for you, young lady! So, obviously, what scares a 14-year old will seem pretty tame to a cynical old veteran of horror movies such as myself, right? Well.....

As everybody knows by now, the set-up of the movie is very simple: a 20-something couple move into a new house, experience a few odd goings-on, start documenting the events on a digital movie camera, things escalate, terror follows. The build-up is slow as we see Katie and Micah try to figure out what's going on, set up a camera in their bedroom to record anything unusual, bicker and fight, reach out for help from a psychic, deal with poltergeist-like activity, and finally confront the horror head-on. The Blair Witch-style format works well here: the couple are convincing as ordinary people at their wits' end, not just Hollywood teen cyphers. Very little is seen or understood of the apparition tormenting them - it has been following Katie since she was a young girl, they identify it as a "demon", and that's about it. The genius move the director makes is to lock off the camera in their bedroom each night in one static position. The audience finds itself studying every corner of that room as the couple sleep and the slightest movement of a shadow across a door heralds another attack. It reminded me of the scenes in The Exorcist when the characters would run upstairs to Reagan's bedroom as the demon kicked off again, and the audience would brace themselves for what would be found on the other side of the door.

The gradual escalation of the story pays off at the end with some genuinely creepy final scenes as the demon finally takes control of the situation and things don't end well for Katie and Micah. Sarah and I were both gripped by this payoff but it was slightly spoiled by a group of teenagers who seemed to find it hilarious and laughed uproariously, probably in an effort to cover up the fact that they were scared. Stick with Scary Movie, kids!

Soundtrack: The '59 Sound album by The Gaslight Anthem

Birthday list

Tomorrow is my birthday and here are a few things from my wish-list, starting with a copy of Fantastic Four no. 1 - mint condition, of course.

The Empire State Building. I'm sure we've got room for it in our back garden.

A rocket pack. I mean, come on!, it's the 21st Century. We should all have them by now.

A quick game of Monkey Tennis.

Zooey Deschanel.....

I wonder how many I'll get?

Steranko Saturdays: Fury and Val

Favourite Gig Fridays: Chemical Brothers

Just for a change of pace: no loud guitars, no stage-diving, no hyperactive frontmen. Instead we have two nondescript physics students, lurking behind rows of samplers and decks, dropping some block-rockin' beats.

It's July 1996 and I'm at the ( short-lived ) Phoenix festival with my mate Glenn. It's a baking hot day, temperature around 30 degrees, we've seen a few good bands ( Echobelly, Specials ) , a few dodgy ones ( Senser, Ian Astbury ), drunk orange juice with Hare Krishnas, enjoyed the sunshine, and now we're counting down the last couple of hours until the Sex Pistols hit the main stage. ( A future post beckons, methinks. ) Glenn goes off to watch Terrorvision while I head to the Megadog Tent to see the Chemicals.

I'd first heard Tom 'n' Ed on some NME compilation, along with other exponents of the Big Beat like Leftfield and Fatboy Slim. The Chemicals had made an instant impression so I went out and bought their first album Exit Planet Dust. It might sound a bit primitive now, when compared to more recent tracks like Galvanize and Do It Again, but the grooves are awesome.

So anyway, I force my way into the tent, past all the people hanging around outside, and push into the heaving mass at the front. The dry-ice is working overtime, lasers and strobes fire out all around, hideous papier-mache sculptures rotate above our heads, the basslines slam into our spines, whistles are blowing, there's no air but nobody's bothered, condensation rains down from the tent roof. Many people are to be seen performing the ancient art of "big fish, little fish, put it in the box" - ah, for simpler times! Without the distractions of a typical rock band preening and prancing on the stage ( the Bros bounce around a bit and wave their arms occasionally ) we can concentrate on the music: bleeps, pulses, washes of synths, slamming drum samples, melodies weaving in and out, sirens blaring, fantastic! Superstar DJs, Here we go!

The Pistols are gonna have to work hard to beat this. Will they do it? Stay tuned...

Above, the Brothers, workin' it out.

Let Forever Be, Leave Home, Galvanize, Block Rockin' Beats by The Chemicals.

John Lennon

John Lennon 9/10/1940 - 8/12/1980

The gang's all here...

Good to see some new posts by That Baldy Fellow, Edward and the long-lost Pete Doree. Quite a few bloggers I Follow have been quiet of late ( damn that interfering Real World! ) so it's a relief to see that some of the best are still keepin' on keepin' on. Perhaps it'll inspire me to post something a bit more interesting than this lame effort :-)

Just another casualty of the Time War

What does James do to his toys?

Pete

Peter Henry Barton

2nd Feb. 1931 - 6th Dec. 1995

Steranko Saturdays: Bring On The Barbarians!

This week Steranko bludgeons us with 3 archetypal sword-and-sorcery images, filled with biceps, babes, bodies and broadswords:

To quote Rose Tyler: "Blimey, you can smell the testosterone!"

Creatures On The Loose 21 and 22 ( Jan. / March 1973 )

Epic Illustrated 19 ( Aug. 1983 )

Soundtrack: All Along The Watchtower, Purple Haze, Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix

Tardis and Tinsel

Courtesy of Blogtor Who, this is the first of the special, Who-flavoured, channel idents the BBC are going to run over Christmas.

Allons-y Rudolph!!

Soundtrack: California Stars by Billy Bragg & Wilco

The Damned: Grave In-TENT-tions

A damned great gig.....

In fact, a great Damned gig.....

Yeah, we're back in the Spiegeltent Majestic in freezing cold King's Square, Gloucester, last Monday night. ( When I say "we" that's me, Glenn and about 300 or so other Damned fans, in the unusually plush venue that is the S/Tent, a welcome change from The Damned's usual haunts such as the dreaded Rock Cafe, Stourbridge, and other such dives. )

After a seemingly-pointless website competition to find a support band ( what about Chinese Burn?! ), The Damned are now playing 2 sets, the first one featuring new material and their more psychedelic side, the second slanting to crowd-pleasing punk rock. This is an extra gig, tagged on to the end of their tour with Motorhead and Girlschool ( is it 1981 again? ) so there's a definite end-of-term vibe to the gig. Much banter between the band members and the band/audience members. At one point Sensible's guitar goes wildly out of tune, he spends ages tuning up ( wot no spare? ), Dave Vanian takes the mickey mercilessly, someone in the crowd shouts "It won't make any difference!"..... Poor Captain! Later on he starts to sing his party-piece, Happy Talk, but the rest of the band bundle him up in a roll of carpet (!) and drag him offstage.

In amongst all this lunacy the band play brilliantly, digging up a lot of rarely-heard gems from back in the day: Generals, Fanclub and Curtain Call all get an airing, along with the expected New Rose, Neat Neat Neat, Love Song etc. etc. And the sound is amazingly clear for what is basically a big tent - even 'though the band manage to blow up the PA at one point, leaving the drummer bashing away by himself.

Before we know it, it's all over. As this is a council-run venue there's a strict curfew of 11:00pm on the dot ( fun-suckers! ) so no encores ( Boo! ). We do get the traditional last-song anarchy of Smash It Up, preceded by the Captain's plea that we don't take the lyrics too literally and rip the lovely Spiegeltent apart. Vanian, Sensible and co. say their goodbyes to a happy but knackered moshpit, the drummer throws some drumsticks into the crowd ( I got one! ) and that's yer lot. On the way out we stop for a chat with Mark, ex-demon guitarist from the almost-mythical Death Planet Commandos - good to see him! - and end up talking dodgy punk bands and dodgier comics. Just like old times in Massacre House, the charitable institution caring for threatening, ugly men with guns and unstable personalities :-)

The Damned, Gloucester Spiegeltent 30/11/09

Here's a great slideshow of images from last night's Damned gig, courtesy of Bri from the Official Damned Forum. Cheers, Bri! ( How the Hell did you manage to take such excellent pictures in that mad mob of an audience? Respect! )

Proper gig review to follow when I'm more awake.....

Spiegeltent

This is the centrepiece of this year's Christmas festivities in Gloucester, the Belgian Spiegeltent. After the rather pathetic ice-rink we had last year, this is a definite improvement. It's part of a "Winter Wonderland" set up in the city's King's Square, featuring Santa's Grotto and a fake snow landscape.

The city council's website describes the Spiegeltent as "an ornate, early 20th Century travelling ballroom, complete with velvet-lined seating booths , mirrors and stained glass panels." The tent is set to host "Dickensian" feasts and cabaret dinners in the evenings. Bands are also lined up to play there, including up-and-coming indie rockers Stornoway, the bloody Wurzels ( God help us! ) and, tomorrow night, living-dead goth-punks The Damned - I'll be there!

We went in yesterday afternoon for coffee and Belgian waffles: very nice!


Soundtrack:
Soul Shakedown Party by Bob Marley & The Wailers
I'll Sing A Love Song To You by Candi Staton