Wednesday 29 April 2009

Music review (take 2)

It seems that April has passed and no decent albums have released...or have any? But I'm wrong it does seem that one album has slipped past my net of hatred and opinions. Yes, Junior by Norweigan electric band Royksopp has really made this month fantastic.

You may have heard the hit song "Happy up Here" from this album, it was parodied by the Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles and destroyed by 'happy-hardcore' remixer Armand Van-Helden. But the original is a simply stunning image of what Royksopp can do. I love this album, much better than Melody AM. Every track on this is stunning, perfect in every way possible. I can't fault anything on here. I love this album...this is my album of the year!! I don't care how good Relapse will be, and what Greendays new stuff is going to be like...this will be the best album this year!

Open iTunes, look up Royksopp and buy this stunner! You will not regret it. In fact, I would say this is the best album in the past ten years! I can only hope you head my words, download this, it will be the best £8 ever spent.

10/10

Have a good week!

-Steve

Monday 27 April 2009

You dirty swine!

If you're normal and watch the news, you might have noticed that something has cropped up in Mexico, and it's not a new taco filling. It would seem that some dodgy pigs (animals, not the women) have been rolling around in too much sh*t and have decided to infect the whole world with a disease to which the symptoms are:
-Zombification
-Death
So why do I have a problem with this? I hear people who know me going; "Why do you care you bigot!" and I didn't at the start. "Why do I care if some pigs have caused a new disease? It isn't involving Britain!" said the ever so nieve me. But now I'm pissed off. Not only do Glasweigans have to live with the (unfair) stereotype of being drunk and socially unnaceptable people, but now they've got a case of the H-D1051. What the hell do these antibodies think they're doing ehhh? Stepping on British turf! These crackas best be from da arteries yo! (Now read that like Stephen Fry).

Well I'm about 20 lines in and I still haven't really got to the point so here we go.

*Drumroll please*

What the hell is Swine Flu? I don't have a freakin' clue what all the fuss is about. Apparently you get the sniffles, go warm and suddenly you're in a box being eaten by the ghost of Oscar Wilde. I don't get the fuss, and all I see is that it's an enflamed type of flu. What sort of pandemic is that? Bring on the zombies I say! I can't wait to be standing in a deserted London with nothing but a carbine and some nades. Until then, hope you survive the outbreak.

-Steve

Sunday 26 April 2009

Russia

The way I see it, pretty much every country in this world is useful for something. England has given the world tea, sandwiches and Northeners. America has given coffee, hot dogs and Ron Paul. Even Iraq has given us oil, silk and Sadda...I'll stop there. But Russia is completely useless in my mind...a country which produces caviar, expensive oil and a chap called Putin. And it doesn't stop there with me. Not only does the sodding country produce raw fish eggs and expensive oil, but it also scares the hell out of me.

I don't get it, but I am scared of Russia. It sounds odd...and to be fair it is. But everything about Russia gives me the willies! The cold and barren siberian ice fields dotted with rotten villages being overcome with snow, the freaky children who seem to have a permanent evil glare and the creepy cities, ruined by the communist regime. It just doesn't make sense to me. A country with such...um...interesting history should be a hotspot for history-loving folk like myself but I just hate the place. And I think I've found out why.

Have you played Call of Duty 4? Well if you haven't then I'll elaborate. Half way through the story, you are plonked in to 1980's Pripyat, set 20 miles out of Chernobyl. The development team from Activison created an exact replica of Pripyat and put it into the game. You are told to run in to a hotel and snipe some arms-dealer, then once you have, you must run back out, evading enemy fire while carrying your friend. Towards the end, you are told to put your friend down, lay out some defences and survive for 10 minutes while a chopper comes to collect you. The remastered theme park in the centre of the town is the site and as you crouch in the ruined Ferris Wheel, sniping at the incoming pixels, you begin to realise something. This was real for some people - not the sniping, and the friend and the pixels - but people died here after a horrible mistake which lead to many deformed children being born and hundreds of people's lives destroyed by cancer.

So what? I hear you ask. But that's the point! We have taken a 'so what?' attitude to this sort of stuff. You can sit at home, with a controller in your hand and guide those pixels around a pixelated town made of pixels while shooting at pixels through a gun made of pixels, but people actually died there. People lost their lives to a mistake made by their own government, albeit a very poorly managed and left-wing government, but the government in which it's people voted for. And that's why I'm scared of Russia, because of their 'so what?' attitude to everything. If I ever step foot in Russia, I will make sure that I don't get taken in by the Putinist government. Because as they say; "In America, you break the law. But in Soviet Russia, law break YOU!"

-Steve

Thursday 23 April 2009

Gaming

Gaming means different things to different people. To some people, gaming means putting a strap around your wrist and waving your arms about. To some people, gaming is about getting home from work and spending an hour on their xbox. To some people though, gaming is a whole part of their lives. Some people will spend up to 6 hours a day sitting in front of a screen; fighting a war, playing football or acting like a guitar hero. So what is gaming for me? Well thanks to the interwebs and my keyboard I can tell you :)

Unfortunately, I sit somewhere in between the second and last category, I spend about 15 to 25 hours on that treacherous machine every week. I don't think I'm the worst though, I don't think I'm one of those people who sit in their parents basement and gets angry when they are killed by a spawn-killer or the sort of person who begins to cry when a rogue grenade blows their legs off. I see myself as a fairly casual gamer to be honest. But I wouldn't have said that about myself a year ago.

In fact, about two years ago, I became addicted to the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that is called World Of Warcraft. This game is based in a virtual world of monsters and dragons, where people fly around shooting lasers at people. It is what I call an excelled reality, in that it takes the mundane lives of people worldwide and makes it into a magical world where even the lowliest person can get to the top. The problem I found with this game is how much it sucks you in. It saddens me to see people who will sit there hours after midnight to raid (a large group of people venture to kill a large monster) with their guild (a group of 'friends' who fight and work together).

So what's the big issue? People are playing with each other (no..not in that way), chatting and making friends. Well are they? The only person whom I still keep in contact with from my two years on that blasted game lives fairly nearby but I've never seen him or spoken to him on anything apart from Skype, Ventrillo (a bit like Skype) or MSN. So are you really developing a social life? Some people do. A chap who went under the name of "Wmil" was a big member of the community and was 'out-of-warcraft' friends with a lot of the people.

So there, my thoughts on modern gaming. If it were me, I'd prefer to go back to the days of the Nintendo or Playstation One, but I guess that as games like World of Warcraft are released, and as we continue to have more and more 'NEXT-GEN' consoles shoved down our throats, we must accept that we will soon all be living virtual lives.

And to be honest...that wouldn't be half bad.

-Steve


Monday 20 April 2009

My first review.

I couldn't come up with any topics so I thought I'd do a review!A year and a bit has passed by since we saw the 'grimey' indie-punk band rise from the desparingly awful EP they released in 2002 to release their fantastic debut album named "We'll Live and Die in these Towns" which went platinum and recieved quite a fair share of awards. With melodic and ballad-esque tunes pumped with enough 'power to the people' lyrics to make an anarchist blush.
So time has come again and here we have their new album named 'Music for the People' and all I can say is that I hope these people are both deaf and blind. The newly released track 'No Time for Tears' is an astonishing song but it doesn't make up for the rest of the album which can only be described as atrocious. The up-their-own-ass king himself Tom Clarke seems to write songs that need no other lyric than "f**k the government". His idea that The Enemy will bring freedom to the minds of the people that buy their stuff is almost comical and the only positive thing about the album is the ending in which we are greeted by an emotional riff from a well played bass.
It seems to me that artsits these days go through a phase. They release a crap EP, create a fantastic album, release a woeful album. MGMT, The Cribs, Death Cab For Cutie; all examples of bands which have followed this pattern. Perhaps we have to face that the generation of fantastic music has gone. The 60's, 70's and 90's are over, welcome to the age of mass produced cat turd people, hope you enjoy the next millenia. I tell ya', The Who, The Doors and The Kinks wouldn't dream of doing this sort of thing. Even bands like Pearl Jam seemed to reel out fantastic album after fantastic album. And while Ten sits on the bakc shelves of your local HMV, the polished turds of Lily Allen and Snow Patrol shine and glimmer.

Chasing Cars a rock ballad? My arse!

4/10

-Steve

Friday 17 April 2009

Are you a twit?

Social networking is a massive thing for the new age. With websites like facebook, twitter, bebo and tagged - people are now able to communicate with each other from anywhere with a stable internet connection. It's crazy that even now, people can use their phones to browse what has been going on. Some people think this new generation is awful - my father for one - and that it is a form of stalking. But I love it, and even the older generation (my mum and some teachers at my school) like tweeting and bookfacing.
I think that there aare problems though. They are mainly based around the idea of twitter. As you may know, Ashton Kutcher and CNN have been in a race to reach 1 million followers on the new and simple networking site. Kutcher even said that if he won, he would donate enough money to buy 10,000 mosquito nets for a charity whose name I can't remember. This is a lovely idea on paper but somehing bothers me. Why is a celebrity who shot to fame in the film; 'Dude Where's My Car?' only giving to charity because of a publicity stunt on a social networking website? Does Kutcher or CNN believe that they are going to gain popularity because they have lots of followers on Twitter?
Now let me add something into the equation. BasementDad. You won't know what this means but that's why I'm going to explain. Josef Fritzel was that chap who held his daughters for 24 years in a basement and fathered - something like - 3 children. He also raped his daughter 3000 times (apparently), he was also Austrian. Basement dad is an idea thought up by the folks from a certain website I visit, and I think it's a fantastic idea! Over three hours, a macro was made and a page was made with the name 'Josef Frieschel', a Australian doctor. This page is genius in my opinion, it is showing that one webiste full of "social scientists" (says one tech-blog) was able to make a page and get 300,000 followers in less than one day. It took Kutcher weeks to het one million but one 'man' got 300,000 in a day. And this morning I awoke to a message from the Daddy himself justifying why 'he' did it - and the sad thing is that it all makes sense. These people are vigilantes, who cleanse our internets in a lot of ways, ways you and I don't even know.

-Steve

Tuesday 14 April 2009

Music

Yes - a double barrel of blogging.





Music is a big thing in my life. I listen to it whenever I can, I sneak it in my ear in History, turn it up when I'm cycling and sing it (however much out of tune) with Greg. Whatever the lesson, whatever the location and whatever the sea creature - I will be listening to whatever I can. Right now, as I tap away on my keyboard I am listening to the new Fleet Foxes album (praying I see them in May). I'm sure most people feel the same as well. I flick on to MSN now and see 50% of people online listening it music (even if I'm seeing a sea of MGMT and Jamiroquais *gag*). But this is fine, people have different views on music - some people like their DuB, some like acoustic, some like metal and some [tasteless] folk like stuff like Lady GaG(a) or Jamiroquai.
I on the other hand have a horribly abstract taste in music - some might even call it sh*t; but that's what they think. I'm happy with my 70's folk to be honest. I love whacking some James Taylor on, or listening to some of Dylan's later stuff. But I also like modern stuff; indie-dance like Calvin Harris or Royksopp - even Friendly Fires. I like a bit of acoustic as well - Fleet Foxes and Dallas Green are both revolutionary artists.

So what does this have to do with anything? Nothing. That's what. I just wanted to comment on modern music tastes and I was hoping that I might influence some people to stop listening to Colin Murray and Zane Lowe and actually get their own tastes rather than looking at one festival line up and saying "oooh I love that band because they're headlining". This does sound like a very pretentious rant about something I shouldn't care about - but oh well.

I advise you not to read this blog, as it's only reason is so that I can let off some music steam. Well Gaslight Anthem just started playing so I say thanks for reading this post and hope you keep reading even after this woeful addition to the blog.

-Steve

Fakes

That is a rolex...or is it? How can you tell if that watch is fake or not...well you can't. Not without spending a good time or spending some money. But what's the point? It's a fake watch and you get what you pay for, a sub standard watch, where things will start to break down after a while. The watch will rust, it will go green and when you try to swim with your new divers watch, it will break from 0.001PSi of pressure.
You'd probably like to know why I'm writing about this - and to be honest I was planning to write about Weimar this week - but it is very simple! I got home yesterday from a long round of golf down this links (where I must say I played reasonably well) and went on to MSN (as us teenagers do) and was greeted with a ghastly display message. I won't repeat it because I know some of my readers will know this person. But it was pretentious and - coupled with his/her display picture - woefully arrogant. The sad thing is I used to be good friends with this person, they changed me alot, they made me a better person in my eyes. They used to listen to their own type of music and be their own selves - not a pretentious and arrogant person at all. But it seems they have succumbed to the masses; listening to music which they've got from listening to one of Zane Lowe's podcasts, repeating phrases from crappy youtube virals (Charlie the Magical Unicorn, Powerthirst) and using phrases coined by some of my fellow anonymous on *chan that became old a year ago.
I'm rambling. Basically this is my message - some people are like fake rolexes, they're nice at first; but then they rust, they change and they stop working. By the way, the watch at the top is a fake - note the lack of the 'R' of Rolex engraved on the second to last link.

(God I feel sneddy)

-Steve

Monday 6 April 2009

The French

So I'm in France, and I'm stealing a poor connection from some peasant in a barn who sells horseshoes for a living. No, I'm being stereotypical; it's more likely the nice chap in the large manor over there who seems to be pointing at me. Well anyway, it' Monday again and I thought it would be apt to talk about that 'surrender -monkeys' that grace this fine country.

Well the weathers good. We departed from the dock at about 6 in the morning GMT+1 and it was pitch black (I looked a bit of a fool trying to read The Book Thief with the flashlight app on my iTouch). But as we travelled through winding Norman B roads to the motorway, the sun rose and all the crusty old French people (like those from 'Allo Allo) appeared from their bright maisons to buy their 'pain' at the 'patisserie'. I stuck a bit of Duran Duran on and slept. When I woke up, I was in the middle of Le Mans, the crusty 'Allo Allo-esque people still wondering back from their morning shop. This made me realise the first thing: French people are happy because life is simple. It goes like this:
-Wake up
-Wash (maybe)
-Buy bread (maybe cheese)
-Eat bread (maybe cheese)
-Sleep
-Make souffle
-Sleep
There is nothing difficult in their lives, they don't have to worry about getting to the next board meeting (or should I say bored meeting) or being up in time to watch Jeremy Kyle shout at a heroin addict. So yeah, the weather makes the French great.

The jobs are also major factors. Lest we forget that most of the French workforce are based around the primary sector of farming and agriculture, who toil hard to make the great French cuisine! The Parisienne is two things:
-A sandwich
-A worker
One tastes great and the other is a sandwich. Back to seriousness; the Parisienne is the sort of person who wakes up, gets on the metro and goes to work - all day every day. Now, when you imagine a Londoner going to work, you see office blocks and water coolers. A Parisienne needs one thing in their life; a laptop with stable internet. This is the schedule for a Parisienne:
-Wake up
-Eat croissant
-Get metro
-Kiss collegues
-Book holiday
-Play online poker
-Go home
-Watch news (probably a strike of some sort will be the headline)
-Sleep
A Parisienne may look stressed in their Chanel blouse and Dior skirt, but they really aren't. The burger flippers in the local Quick restaurant are more stressed than them. And that's what makes French people great. They could be high rolling stockbrokers, but at the end of the day, they may as well be that old crusty man from 'Allo Allo.

So the last sort of person is the southerner. These people are like the northern folk in England. They are all somehow related to each other and are all involved in agriculture. But that's not a bad thing, they don't go around knifing each other or getting in fights. They prefer to have the family or village round so that they can drink some Apéro or eat some cheese. They don't need the work, they only work so they can make wine/cheese/bread [delete where required] for the village. So the southerners day:
-Wake up
-Make a bottle of merlot/pasturise some milk/crush some where [delete where required].
-Invite the family/town around.
-Drink
-Drink
-Eat some cheese
-Drink
-Smoke
-Sleep
So lets look at this in perspective. A british northeners day will be based around [insert stereotype], they will then [stereotype] and probably [stereotype goes here]. A French southener will do toss all and then have a celebratory drink for his/her hard work.

So what would you rather be? The 'busy' Parisienne, the 'Allo Allo extra or the Southerner.


Well here's my answer...none! 'Cos whatever happens, you're still going to be Sarkozy's bitch.