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Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Leeds Festival 2002 - The Bands
Well here’s a bit about some of the bands I remember seeing in the brief spaces of time I wasn’t drinking back at the tent or stuck in a zombie-like queue along some muddy path trying to get from one place to another..... Pretty much the first band I actually saw the whole set of, rather than just a few songs in the distance from the bar were the nine-headed pantomime of Slipknot. Highly entertaining stuff, moshing with “the kids” in their hoodies as some guy in a clown mask rose into the air on a drum riser. Not everyones cup of tea and certainly a band based on cartoon gimmicks but in their double-kick drummer and guitarists they probably had some of the best “musicians” of the festival on show. Slipknot were followed by the Offspring, but whilst they used to be a favourite of mine, and probably still put on a good show, the threat of “pretty fly for a white guy” loomed large and so I made my excuses and left for some more beer. I managed to get back in time for the return of the Prodigy, which wasn’t hard as they were god knows how many hours late. The questions that were burning were of course, are these fire-starters relevant anymore? They’d broke new ground with each succesive album, dissapeared for five years and then came back with a song (babys got a temper) that sounded like they’d stood still whilst the world moved on around them. Although maybe with the much of the dance world moving in the direction of “UK garage” that’s not a bad thing. So anyway, were any of these questions answered? No, not really, but the Prodigy, now more than ever, rather than being the future, past or present of dance music are just a rock band who use slightly more keyboards than anyone else. Luckily they are a damn fine rock band, and even a cover of Madness “Slow boat to Cairo” rocked like a rocking thing and got the whole place dancing. All this lateness of the Prodigy and probably the fitting of a now portly Axl Rose into his leather rock-god trousers delayed the start of the even-more-absent-in-recent-times-and-now-trying-to-make-a-comeback Guns ‘n’ Roses. With a guy in a KFC bucket on his head replacing stoke’s finest Slash, and a collection of rock anthems from way back when the Slipknot fans were barely maggots in their father’s eye, at least there was no possible claim that these guys could be relevant to this day and age. So instead, all you had to do was relax by the fire of burning beer cups, look out over a vast sea of people illuminated by the stage show and watch a rock cabaret show of the highest order as they played all their hits you sang along to way back when beer wasn’t three pound a fucking pint. Also some time during the set when Carly was trying to pull some guy, the 15 minute rule kicked in and me and Spychimp rolled about for a while laughing like idiots. There’s a turn up for the books. Saturday, the Von Bondies were a diversion from the rain, but with that and beer not being three pound a fucking pint at the tent, I didn’t make it back to the arena till about 3, where first on the main stage were those advert-whores the Dandy Warhols. In the afternoon sunshine they were pleasant enough entertainment, although everyone who I spoke to who was actually a fan was well disapointed in their performance. They were followed by those bizzarre siblings the White Stripes. Sure Meg White can’t play the drums for toffee but for just a two piece they make a hell of a racket. Very entertaining stuff, as were next act Weezer who were fucking ace. After cancelling pretty much every show they’ve threatened to do over here, it was nice to see them actually turn up. Singer Rivers was either totally ignorant or a comedy genius or both, but their set contained all the crowd pleasing hits as well as plenty of their early stuff, they even started with the Sweater Song. After Weezer, who even made a rainbow appear over the sun filled arena with their pop genius, there was no way I was going to listen to the dirge of Janes Addiction (seems Leeds was a bit of a “comeback special” this year) and buggered off to get booze. In the fading summer evening light at a festival, there’s no more welcome sight than the lanky frame of the Rolf Harris impressionist Jarvis Cocker. And true to past form, Pulp were as excellent as ever, mixing their new more grown up stuff with the crowd pleasing anthems, of which Common People as ever was the highlight. Now I could have stayed and watched the wheelchair bound Strokes, but they’ve only got one album out so what the hell were they doing headlining a festival – and the evil lure of the Aphex Twin became too strong. Whether or not the ‘twin actually turned up who knows, all I know is that some fucker was playing some mind twisting noises in the dance tent which were near impossible to dance too. The guy’s a genius you know. Last day and the Whoreton turns up with one of his “special mixes” and ends up running around with a leopard skin skirt on shouting the word “Muse” continually at everyone. Upon Bella’s recommedation I went to see Icarus Line at the Evening Session tent. Musically they were nothing special, but performance wise one of the most energetic and hilarious of the festival. One guitarist didn’t seem to be able to play a note but his guitar was possesed by the devil, often twatting him round the head as he tried vainly to control it as it flew about the stage. Next up was the Wizard endorsed Alec Empire, a throbbing industrial noise fest in leather trousers. Great fun but not in the middle of the afternoon probably, so I went off to see the Hives. Now if the Hives were a tenth as good as they thought they were, they’d be absolutely the best band in the world, and as it was they were damn good. Front man Howlin Pelle had to instruct the crowd to clap each individual band member (and himself twice) after each song, and thanked everyone for paying their £90 to see the Hives and maybe even some of the support bands whether they were on before or after the Hives. Somehow in his swedish accent he gets away with it, coming across as a cheeky lovable foreigner rather than just arrogant. Comedy is definitly the new rock and roll or something like that. I managed to ignore Sum 41 and missed most of the Ash set through trying to get drunk enough to cope with the hyperactive Whoreton and by chatting away to some old hippy guy with a festival story for every occasion. “Muse!” “Its Muuuuuuse people!” yelled the Whoreton, and indeed it was. I trekked down the front attempting to follow the Whoreton but soon lost him when it all went fairly mental. Overblown and over indulgent yes, but Muse do rock and their atmospherics were perfect in the growing darkness. It was over to the Foo Fighters to finish in a reliable but fun way, with Dave Grohl now so confident in his front man role its difficult to imagine him doing anything else. It ended with Everlong, and fire-works and that was it, no more music, but plenty more fireworks to come that evening…… And so endeth my review of the Leeds festival, music-wise. Stuff about the riotsand pictures up later. Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Hey kids. My good friend Loki has been annoying dumb red-necks i'm afraid. Our attempts at trying to draw this cousin-loving hick into a reasoned debate have been met with petty name calling (ooh hark at her) and this particular neo-nazi erasing all of mine, Loki's and Spazcat's comments from his blog. Its any blog owners perrogative to remove any comments from their blog that they don't like, there's no problem with that, but if your a "political" blogger who claims to be controversial yet intelligent and welcome debate, deleting anything that doesn't agree with your right wing millitia viewpoints does seem a tad hypocritical. "Land of the free" "freedom of speech" and all that. Ah well, what do I know, thats about as political as i get here. So anyway, anyone reading this, your homework is to go annoy a red-neck, or, if you are a redneck then maybe take a look around you, see the bigger picture - other countries, other cultures, the next town down the road from you, potential mates outside your own immediate family - there's a whole world out there just waiting to give you pieces of angry white trash a big hug. You can read more about Loki vs the State of Texas here on this message board thread.
But what the fuck do i care? I'm off to the Leeds music festival tomorrow - and i'm looking forward to catching such internationally renowned acts as Alec Empire, the Reindeer Section, Aphex Twin and the (International) Noise Conspiracy. I think them darn Strokes is on too, along with Axel Rose's cabaret band. Doesn't really matter, as i'll be face down in a field somewhere, full of loud-mouth soup, trying to stand up long enough to burn down the portaloos in some violent protest against capitalism or something. Anyone got any comments? All are welcome! Tuesday, August 20, 2002
In a couple of days i'm off to the Leeds Festival, or the Le 'Eds Festival as it should be known. Sponsered, as Spychimp is, by Carling - interestingly enough some scientist spods investigating the bleeding obvious have proven scientificaly, with statistics and everything, that beer goggles do exist. A trip to dirty robs will tell you that.
Monday, August 19, 2002
Ok, the Elvis Party, was entertaining if a tad strange, and once the photos are developed and handed back to me from the police, whoever hit this site looking for depraved drunk pics may well have hit paydirt. If the idea of 15 or more people most of whom were dressed as the same male singer who'd been dead for 25 years indulging in hot tongue action tickles your pickle that is. I blame the prayers at the Elvis shrine, most of which appeared to come true, its just that they were prayers no christian god would consider granting, even on an off day, if he was a bit worse for wear on courvoissier. Also why was Scott Hayward and Mrs Wizard dressed as David Deviant and his Spirit Wife ?
And well the premiership season has kicked off, in a superbly succesful way, for all three midlands no-hopers. Paired against arguably the three strongest teams, the weekend yeilded not a single point for the regions served by Central TV. Villa tried hard, and could have got a point from their 1 - 0 defeat to the scouse scum, despite being totally outclassed in the midfield area. Ah well, at least the Blueslost by more. Welcome to the premiership boys. A while ago Lokiposted a link to Shatner's rendition of "rocket man", in a similar vein of genius, here is Leonard Nimoy singing a song devoted to the hobbit legend that is bilbo baggins. And oh fuckedy fuckedy fuck fuck - Spazcat has a blog. Read it and weep like a horse molestor suddenly being confronted with polaroids of his own sordid crimes in front of his young family who were previously enjoying a picnic in the warm summer sunshine before the offending articles slipped out from between the egg sandwiches. Personally i think its just a vain attemp by the 'cat to prove he has more of a life than this japanese guy. Friday, August 16, 2002
Well its ELVIS day today, long live the king etc. Off to meet Emma in a bit to help prepare (ie. drink wine while she cooks chilli) for her Elvis themed gathering tonight. Maybe she should get some tips on cocktails & entertaining from these guys.
Hope you all have a cracking weekend and enjoy Elvis day. In the meantime, those of you with an artistic "bent" can look at some very very wrong art, and maybe wander round some abandoned places.  Thursday, August 15, 2002
As spychimp mentioned, almost insightfully the other day, all Guy Pierce in memento had to do was set up a blog, tattoo the web address on his arm and he'd have no trouble. Might not have been as exciting to watch, but a blog about hunting down your wife's killer whilst battling against chronic amnesia would be better than most of the crazy rambling blogshites that take up valuable webspace.
As for links, well its your choice to save karyn or don't , personally i say let them all rot and then go off and make your own mr.men character whilst mourning the inventor of the frisbee. And check out the website for local manga popsters and possible future paranoid android film collaborators team rocket. Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Monday nights giggery was all good fun. Well you can't complain for 3 quid (apart from the overpriced watered-down Academy beer.) Baxxter were back to a 3 piece, with Kieran off on a sabbatical or something, but they seemed to go down well with "the kids". Next up were some guys called parva, which is a silly name, and quite a silly band, but still pretty entertaining. Headliners were "kids" favourites halo, who despite me being way too old i'm sure to listen to, were pretty good, and they bought one of Baxxter's home made t-shirts with the word cunt scrawled in tippex on.Ah well, all good clean fun.....and if all these tales of rock and roll hedonism are making you feel all dirty and sinful then find redemption by looking at jesus being crucified.
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Well, Scott Hayward, probably in after an orgy of clambaking decided fit to submit this blog to the public shaming and ritual humiliation that is is my blog hot or not?. He then remembered he'd done it at a later date and has only just told me, and sent me a huge jumble of garbled HTML which he somehow Elvis-a-fied. Hopefully i've rectified the situation........although if you are reading this on blog hot or not, all description and key-words are the work of Scotty. Anyway, go rate this weblog and try and get it laid if you can, maybe with a saucy goth camgirl weblog. (And if you are a saucy goth camgirl weblogger, then e-mail me and i'll add your link in there, i had a look earlier for one and they all just looked a bit too scary.)
And with blog fever spreading wide-rife like legionairres disease in a hospital, thanks to loki, you can now check out the spychimps blog or the wizards blog. Both are message board regulars with usually plenty of brain ache to impart electronically, though neither has had anything interesting to say as yet on their little slices of web self-delusion. In the meantime you can go play with some really bizarre animated creatures. Monday, August 12, 2002
I'm sure you all have your lives perfectly sorted but if any of you is at a lose end this evening, and you're living in Birmingham, England ,Uk. (just outside London for our American cousins reading this), then why not pop along to the Academy 2, (thats the little room in there) and watch those brummie beatniks baxxter provide ample yet firm support to some band called halo. Not that any of you are interested, as you're all just after pokemon anal porn.
Wednesday, August 07, 2002
Well that was a waste of time wasn't it? I'm talking about Aston Villa 0 some french team 2. We were terrible, although Lille only had two shots and scored with them so they weren't much better. Am I looking forward to the new season after that performance? If we carry on like that we'll be keeping the Blues and the Albion company at the bottom of the league. Rubbish!
Talking of rubbish, go and rate this piece of crap weblog at BlogHop, using the red & green blob things over there on the left. I've only had one vote so far, and that was from me, and I voted it to be crap. So maybe i don't update every day, like this guy, and i don't work in a porno vid shop like this girl, but I try my best. Here's a website about cover versions of songs and why not take a look at the extreme elvis. Tuesday, August 06, 2002
Well I hope you all enjoyed Christmas? You mean you didn't celebrate it on August 1st by cooking christmas dinner and wearing silly party hats and getting wasted on booze? Well either you've got it wrong or I have. Also I have been mostly up-vamping the message board, its still exactly the same beast beneath, but the emperor now has brand spanking new clothes. It also has a new Russ Meyer theme, and a few battle of the planets avatars to chose from so there's no excuse whatsoever not to go and join up and post away if you haven't already.....Maybe all this re-designing of the board instead of getting a real life is simply a manifestation of my quarterlife crisis?
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