Fist of Fun Forever

No entries for over a year? Moving house, office and studio will do that, even to the most fervent blogger. And to be honest, 2011 seemed to be simply a continuation of the things that caught my eye in 2010 anyway. Not a great deal of point in posting when you’re simply repeating yourself, especially if you’re repeating yourself. Still, if there’s one thing that people will say about 2012, it will be that it wasn’t as good as 2011. Perhaps.

On the other hand, this year has kicked off nicely for me with the arrival of this DVD. Witty, clever and years ahead of it’s time, Fist of Fun Series 1 is Lee and Herring in full force. The best thing is… and anticipation is everything…this is just the first of four superb series the duo made in the 90s, each of which was better than the last. Will they make it to DVD? If they do, expect to hear nothing from me until 2013. Which people will say was a good thing, but nowhere near as good as 2012.

‘No one asked employers if we needed this many Graduates’

Here is an extraordinary segment from yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 Today Program. It’s a follow up piece to The Independent’s news story that this year there will be on average sixty nine graduates chasing every graduate level job in the UK. This is a terrifying statistic, obviously, but an even more startling comment is from David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce where he says that academic achievement only contributes to about a fifth of the decision making process for a new recruit…

At last the dumps full: it’s all over for landfill indie

Here is an excerpt from the excellent BBC Radio 4′s Frontrow program of 15/6/10. In it you’ll discover that the popularity of rubbish guitar bands is at an all time low. Sadly, the quality of all the other stuff in the charts is at an all time low too.

But it makes for an interesting listen and reminds us all just how far the quality of indie pop has fallen over the last decade…

Mephedrone harm exaggerated for political effect

Would you be surprised if you discovered that the media may have exaggerated the ill-effects of Mephedrone a tad? No? Ok, not a surprise, we know the press love a good i.e. bad drug story, so let’s try again. Would it surprise you to discover that as of this day, April 8th 2010, no one in the UK has died because they took Mephedrone? The link between Mephedrone and death has never been made by a coroner, NEVER. Interested? You should be, because the official line that has taken by police, media and government is that dozens of users have dropped dead, whole schools of children have been sent home ill, that this substance is ‘evil’ and therefore morally bad.

As usual when it comes to drugs, any drugs whether recreational or medical, we are not being told the whole story, or in fact even a small part of the story. It seems that it’s too politically dangerous for the government to inform us that the hysteria is wrong, that Mephedrone appears to be largely innocuous; there’s an election on don’t you know, why confuse the electors with facts when scare stories work so much better?

So, how can I say all of this with confidence? What can I possibly know that the media doesn’t and the government won’t tell us? Not all sections of the media have signed up for this latest bout of moral hysteria; here’s an extract from BBC Radio 4’s Media Show of Tuesday April 6th 2010. In it you will discover that almost everything you’ve been told about the evil effect Methedrone is having on the population is untrue.

And although that’s not a surprise, it should be shocking to discover that new laws are being passed without any real examination of the facts. That’s why advisors resign you know.

Something Good for April: Moderat

The press release simply tells me that Moderat are Modeselektor and Apparat and they’ve been around since 2002.

That doesn’t help very much as a total newcomer to this act but it doesn’t matter because the music speaks for itself, albeit slowly and with a distinctive European accent. This album is a worthy successor to Burial’s debut back in 2006, angular rhythms intertwine with almost comically low synth drones and the odd crazy vocal part. It’s dark and strong, beguiling and packed with memorable tunes such as the fabulous ‘Rusty Nails’ or the bizarre ’Slow Match’ that could take on the stoniest of critics and win them over. So if you’re into darkcore electronica and fancy something to tide you over until the next Spaceape album, Moderat is it.

Spotify Link to Moderat
Moderat on Myspace
Moderat

A change of style

I’ve spent a few months away from my mobileMe blog working hard in order to buy a few new laptops. But now I’m back, and this time on WordPress. I’ve had a bit of time to brew up some new articles and I’ve decided to abandon iWeb, which is very nice but ultimately a bit too Mac, even for me. It’s handy at doing a lot of things, like page layouts, but it’s no good at all at handy widgets like Twitter feeds. And search engine optimisation. Oh, and one thing I should come clean about is that I’m secretly checking out this WordPress thing to see if it’s useful for a larger web roll out for the company. We’ll see, right? Up ’til now it’s all looking rather good.

So here we go, new opinions on stuff will be found here in open source land. And if anyone knows of a quick and easy way to upload images to WordPress I’d be much obliged…

Chris Addison at Komedia, Brighton 6/3/10

A matinee and evening show at the Komedia on a Saturday? Things are going well for Chris Addison, it clearly helps to pull in the crowds when you have a leading role in one of the best comedies so far this century, a leading role in the best British comedy film so far this century and your very own 5live show every Sunday morning. Good times, but with all this exposure it’s still a little known fact that he started his comedy career as a standup in North West England and has been treading the boards for years. And that he’s actually really good at it.

Comics that are mainly known for their media work rarely hit the mark live (I’m thinking of you Gervais, Mincin, Amstell and all your friends), but Chris Addison is different, as if he comes from a more nobel comedy heritage. He bounded on stage full of energy but this wasn’t to be a madcap laugh a minute gag fest. Instead, this show was inspired by the nobel art of storytelling; there were long reminiscences about his school life, being a bit rubbish (or was it completely rubbish?) at sex. He captivated us for two thirty minutes sets, plus a ‘questions from the audience’ encore. The only time when the show fell flat was in the second half when Chris gave us a lecture about the Daily Mail. This topic can be comedy gold in the right hands, and Addison could definitely be the guy to do it, but that would be Addison in 1998, not 2010, the moment’s gone. We all know how we feel about the Mail today because it’s the tabloid that’s been shouting the loudest for years, so railing against it feels like an easy target. At one point a member of the audience called out ‘boring’, which Chris misheard as ‘Tory’ and gave us an apparently improvised ticking off because ‘it’s not just Tories who read the Mail’. But even then there was a possibility that he might lose us; it’s a nerve wracking moment when a member of the crowd openly criticises your topic matter no matter how you recover.

Given this oversight (?), it was ironic that the most deftly executed moment of the show was a simply nuance; Addison made a comment about the BNP being a bunch of bastards, something like that, and the audience cheered. Chris told us to stop, there’s nothing clever in congratulating ourselves when we despise such an easy target, that’s far too cosy. He’s right, but it’s also rather bold to scold your audience when you could simply milk the applause. The fact that he didn’t lap it up made the moment all the funnier.

And that’s Chris Addison the stand up; an intriguing combination of old school comedy story telling and scathing 2010 style crowd bating. Excellent stuff.

Early 90s House Music

It’s been a fair while since I’ve made a blog post which is simply a speculative thought examined for a couple of hundred words; there’s a good reason why I shouldn’t post up random thoughts, maybe they’ll feel simply a little too, I don’t know, random? Still, something occurred to me through the snow and Budvar while I was at Jamie’s party in Jonsdorf, Germany; whatever happened to early 90s garage, house, pop dance?

There was a period around 1990 to 1992 when there were a string of of huge ‘choons’ that featured badly sampled hammond organs, trumpets, pianos and a string of rubbishy digital keyboard presets that sounded immense on the dancefloor. Maybe I’m missing something, but as we hobbled around to a set (ok, iPod playlist) that contained nothing but early 90s anthems I realised that there’s almost an entire genre that seems to have been overlooked here, at least I never hear it when I’m out and about in Europe.

So what’s so good about this period of dance music? Difficult to put a finger on it, but every track seemed to have a real ‘bounce’ to it, something you just don’t hear in contemporary music. I chatted to Rob from South Central about this and we reckoned that one of the reasons could be that the MIDI technology that was cheap and available back-in-the-day was all a bit flaky when it came to timing, especially compared modern technology where everything is sample accurate and therefore pretty rigid timing wise. Check out the classic ‘Finally’ by Ce Ce Peniston and there are moments when it feels like the beat could collapse entirely under the sheer weight of MIDI timing errors. I also noticed that there was a sense of ‘space’ in the music that doesn’t exist in vocal led dance music anymore, another consequence of the loudness wars?

Should we bring this style back? Again, I’m not really sure…maybe the reason why this style evolved, just like every other dance style, was that it evolved out of the technology of the day and the demands of the post 80s dance floor. TR909s abounded, samplers had next to no memory, sequencers required a GCSE in maths and bloody mindedness to operate (not forgetting an unreliable and yet ubiquitous Atari ST to run the cracked copy of Cubase).

Still, it’s a fascinating and largely unsung period of dance music that’s fun to revisit every now and then. Here’s a tiny little playlist to give you a flavour of what you missed in Jonsdorf:

Early 90s House

Something Good for January: Lusine

If there’s one thing that I love about January, and bare in mind that I often struggle to find anything, it’s the darkness. It’s creepy, romantic, cold and completely unwelcoming unlike the exact same darkness that December brings; I suspect Christmas helps. With so many nights-in ahead, my choice of musical companions becomes even more careful. Even so the year has had a terrific start with the latest album by Lusine. Bubbling melodies, chiming pianos, electronica is rarely as cheerful as this. Highlights are the stunning opening track ‘Operation Costs’ and Texan charmer ‘Baffle’, surely a contender for best guitar line in an electronica track this side of William Ørbit. ‘A Certain Distance’ becomes my very first recommendation for this decade. We’re off to a good start

Spotify Link to ‘A Certain Distance’ by Lusine
Lusine on Myspace
Lusine Official Site

My favourite songs of 2009

Every Christmas I make a mixtape for my old school friend Phil Sloan of Bexley Village. I include ten tunes that have not left my iPod since I first heard them in the preceeding year and the full mix totals no more than 40 minutes, the optimum length for an album. It’s always great fun to put together; this year has been no exception. And with the arrival of Spotify I’m able to share this wonderful music with anyone who’s curious about the songs I like. Happy New Year!

PLAY LOUD

Steve’s Favourite Tunes of 2009 (40 minutes)

1. Happy Up Here: Royksopp

2. Diamond Dave: The Bird and The Bee

3. Animal: Miike Snow

4. Hysteric: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

5. Until We Bleed: Kleerup and Lykke Li

6. The Postman: American Analogue Set

7. Half Life: Imogen Heap

8. My Maudlin Career: Camera Obscura

9. Transparance: Asobi Seksu

10. Enter One: Sol Seppy