Amerikkka Off Line

So I get back home yesterday to find that my internet connection is down. BT and AOL between them have managed to completely fuck up my phone line, and I can’t even use dial-up at the moment. Hopefully normal service will be resumed in the next couple of days. I have plenty of new stuff to share with y’all.
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I’ve had several requests to provide an RSS or Atom feed of this blog….. now I have found out what this is, but I haven’t managed to work out (exactly) how to provide it.

There is a file on my server called www.headphonesex.co.uk/atom.xml, which seems to update when I publish the blog. I’m not entirely sure how to access it to be honest. It doesn’t seem to work in the browser window - however I suspect it might if you have some sort of Atom / RSS page set up. Please give it a go & let me know! My ‘Site Feed Server Path’ option is currently blank as i’m not sure what to put in there. If there are problems that may be the reason.

Sorry for the technical retardedness. Together we can overcome this terrible affliction.

Cooler than TV

I couldn’t go away without mentioning Willy Mason.

This normally is not my kind of shit in the slightest, however i’ve been unable to get ‘Oxygen’ out of my head this last week. It’s as infectous as SARS and as sweet as a crispy creme donut.

You have no doubt heard the song - it’s in the charts and all over the radio - and he’s being hailed as some kinda new Dylan by all the newspapers. So i’m not going to post the mp3. Go and buy it instead.

You can see the video here though…..

http://www.contactmusic.com/new/home.nsf/webpages/willymasonx20×01x05

I used to know what i wanted to say

I managed to pick up a promo of the new British Sea Power album last week. At first I wasn’t all that impressed, however it’s growing on me with every listen. Don’t expect a huge change in style from their debut, however if you liked that you will certainly enjoy ‘Open Season’.



The album’s opener ‘It Ended on an Oily Stage’ is probably the album’s best track, however that’s being released as the first single so you will no doubt be hearing that in due course. I really like the second track ‘Be Gone’ but it sounds far too much like (the superb) ‘Something Wicked’ from ‘The Decline of British Sea Power’ for my liking. I’m probably enjoying this the most at the moment:

British Sea Power - Like a Honeycomb

I’ll be away for a week now, so may not be able to update the site. The chances are however that i’ll end up buying a stack of records / CDs and ending up near a computer……………

Home Taping is Killing Music

Last week I was driving home from (The) London kinda late. The M4 was deserted. Rain was falling, and I struggled to peer through the streaks on my windscreen left by my decomposing wipers. I was pretty tired. To stop myself nodding off I decided to switch from whatever CD I was listening to & check out the radio.

The moment I turned over, Ras Kwame (who is one of the 3 DJs chosen to take over John Peel’s slot) introduced this track. I was blown away.

Hiram Abiff - The Number of The Beast

I could find no trace of it on the internet, so I decided to record it from the Radio 1 site - hence the DJ Intro / Outro & low quality recording.

I know nothing about Hiram Abiff, and I can find no information about him. If this is his debut single, this will be a man to watch. He has quite an issue with the number ‘6′!

Appropriately given the apocalyptic nature of the track, putting ‘Hiram Abiff’ into Google brings up numerous sites about Freemasons. This is what Wikipedia has to say…

According to Masonic mythology, Hiram Abiff was the master of the construction of King Solomon’s Temple. This temple was built about 988 BC. Hiram Abiff is assumed by some to have been the same person as King Hiram I of Tyre, who is given credit in the Bible itself for having sent building materials and men for the construction of the Temple (see 2
Samuel 5:11).

Others make Hiram Abiff the representative of the king, rather than the king himself. 2 Chronicles 2 relates a formal request from Solomon to King Hiram for workers and for materials; King Hiram replies by sending a “cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father’s”, whose father formerly lived in Tyre, and is deceased (2 Chronicles 2:13-14). By this telling, this man was Hiram Abiff. The phrase “Huram my father’s” in Hebrew is huram abi; this may be the origin of the name. As a result, Hiram Abiff is often referred to by Freemasons as the widow’s son (see also 1 Kings 7:13-14). This is allegedly used in a verbal Masonic distress cry: “Is there no help for the widow’s son?”

According to the legend which figures in the lore of Freemasonry, Abiff was murdered by one of three workers who assaulted him in their attempt to discover the secret Abiff held. The secret was never divulged. Hiram Abiff’s death is commemorated in various Masonic rituals.

That’s not important though… just crank it up, picture yourself racing along a rainy motorway on a cold winter’s night, and enjoy.

Opening the Mouth

An auction for a couple of ludicrously rare Boards of Canada cassettes came up on ebay yesterday. I have to confess I did consider for a few brief moments that I might put a bid on them, despite the starting price of $799! Such is the madness BoC can inspire. The same madness that led me to spend 30 quid on a kaleidoscope last week. Still, it says ‘Boards of Canada’ on it, and I love it!

Thankfully the auction was pulled, so I have been able to cancel my reservation with the backstreet kidney donor ‘clinic’. Apparently the tapes were stolen or something… I dunno, the whole tedious saga has been played out on the We Are The Music Makers forum.

What was interesting, is that Hexagon Sun (AKA something to do with Boards of Canada) posted the following message on the forum:

“OK The reason it was jumped on was this: Warp and BOC have been in talks for a long while about putting out a box set of old tracks from these tapes and others, with new packaging and art, to be released sometime after the forthcoming record. The tapes were private comps given out to close friends a few years ago, long before the band imagined there would be this kind of interest, and long before the likes of Soulseek etc existed.

The tracks are out there now, nothing can be done about that, they’ve been circulating for a while and fans have them, so the decision was taken to at least consider tidying them up and repackaging them with decent exclusive artwork & more rarities. BOC never wanted these tracks presented this way, mislabelled and as poor-quality MP3 files.

There’s no ‘hype’, these comps were never listed on any old discogs as they were never intended for mass release in the first place. Now the intention is still to get round to scheduling a release of these tunes and other rare comps, but unscrupulous people like ‘prince murat’ are obviously stealing the thunder of the proposed releases, whilst trying to make a tidy profit in the process (a starting price of $799 speaks volumes about ‘prince murat’s true intentions. who is trying to profit from hype here? if any money is going to be involved, surely the artist who wrote those tracks should be receiving the royalties, and not this person? there’s no difference between this kind of profiteering and someone trying to sell a bootleg CDR of Beck’s new album months prior to release.)

Anyway, now you know, we hope the intervention hasn’t caused too much negative feeling, after all the concern that Warp and BOC have is that basically it’s going to spoil the impact of a nice release that hopefully will be enjoyed by the fans.”

So not only is there a new BoC album in 2005, but possibly A BOX SET OF ALL THEIR EARLY UNRELEASED ALBUMS!!!

I think i’ve just come.





In the meantime, they have a remixed a Beck track, due for release on March 29th. Let’s hope the album finally appears not long after that……..eagerly anticipated just doesn’t cover it.

All I need now is for them to headline Glastonbury!!! (PLEASE!)

Boards of Canada - 1969

As a bonus, this is from the aforementioned tapes… a cover of the Colonel Abrahams classic! If you’re one of the lucky 100 people to have a copy of the Mask 100 EP (or have ever fired up Slsk) you will know they did a slightly different version on that 12″ under their Hell Interface alias. I prefer this one though…

Boards of Canada - Trapped

BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC BOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOCBOC

This just in

In case you’ve been refreshing this page eagerly for the last 4 days awaiting my ‘Nathan Barley’ review… sorry. I ended up round a mate’s house, and when I finally got home I really didn’t feel like the program had stimulated my emotions enough to warrant switching the PC on and wasting 10 minutes of my life reliving it.

It was shit wasn’t it.

Last night I hit the town for the first time in a few weeks… The Go! Team, Soulwax and LCD Soundsystem were playing The Astoria, along with Juliette Lewis’ band ‘The Licks’.

I’ve had ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike’ on heavy rotation for the last week, and the Go! Team were the band I was most looking forward to seeing - having no idea at all how they would transfer their slightly shambolic sound to the stage. Well I still have no idea. As I supped my cold Guinness at the Keith Moon bar (’It’s what he would have wanted’) I discovered that they’d been on already. AAAAGGHHHH! And where had I been? Sitting in the shitty Sam Smiths pub round the corner.

Still… £1.68 a pint!!

And The Go! Team are still great.

The Go! Team - Huddle Formation

The night was not a write off yet - Soulwax appeared on stage soon after I arrived. All decked out in black and white, with Flying V guitars, squealing synths, open legs and crashing power chords it was clear that they were here to rawk. There were a few cheeky nods to their other life as 2 many DJs - one track (i’m not sure which as I don’t have their album) segued seamlessly into a monsterous cover of Alter Ego’s ‘Rocker’, and ‘NY Excuse’ started off with the synth riff from ‘Funky Town’. Also memorable was their rockist version of Daft Punk’s ‘Teachers’ (which you can download from here)

They finished of course with ‘NY Excuse’…. which could only be described as devastating. That track was the soundtrack to my summer last year, played in every field, tent, club and bar I visited, so seeing it live was pretty special. Particularly since Nancy Whang was there to do her vocals (she’s plays keyboards for LCD Soundsystem). Nancy screamed, the strobes went into overdrive, the crowd went Chicken Jalfrezi, YESYESYESYESYESYESFUCKINAWESOME>

Without doubt the second best Belgian rock band i have ever seen.*

Soulwax - NY Excuse

LCD Soundsystem had a job following that.

I was a bit mashed by the time they started. What I remember: ‘Daft Punk is playing in my house’ was disappointing. If they’d got Soulwax up on stage to do their remix (kind of returning the favour for NY Excuse) it would have made my night… however instead there was a slightly rushed, shouty, limp rock version. ‘Yeah’, ‘Tribulation’, ‘Disco Infiltrator’ and ‘Give it up’ were all great, and encore ‘Losing my Edge’ was of course magnificent… the highlight for me though was ‘Movement’, which isn’t on record their best track, but was transformed live into an explosive slam dancing powderkeg of a riddim. I was (unwillingly) standing close enough to the speakers that I can still hear it ringing around my ears.

I must admit I have a slight problem with LCD Soundsystem / DFA in that they just sound slightly too cold and knowing to really love. I mean you can like their records, and appreciate what they do, and dance to their remixes.. but i’ll never L O V E them. And as it was valentines day I was looking for some of that. Still… top night out.

LCD Soundsystem - Where is Love

*the best was dEUS

Hoot Your Trap Off

Chris Morris returns to our screens tonight with his new sitcom ‘Nathan Barley’. As a complete fanboy I am staying in specially to watch this - however I have a horrible feeling from the trailers, adverts and reviews I have seen that it will be a load of shite.

The trouble Chris Morris has is that he has set such incredibly high standards that producing something just ‘OK’ or ‘Amusing’ can only be seen as a major disappointment. The Day Today, Why Bother?, Brass Eye and Blue Jam were not only hysterically funny, but changed the way you looked at the world… and certainly changed TV comedy for good. In comparison the concept of this series can hardly be described as groundbreaking. ‘Shoreditch Twat’ magazine ridiculed the whole Hoxton scene years ago - and the Nathan Barley character itself is hardly fresh. His ‘Cunt’ listings originally appeared in TV Go Home way back in the dawn of time itself (1999).

Cook’d and Bomb’d - THE place to go for Chris Morris info (and to download his radio shows) has already declared this series a write-off… as have most newspaper reviews I’ve read. I’m witholding judgement until i’ve actually seen it though - having endured jumped up roadkill like Tessa Jowell condemning the Brass Eye Special without even watching it i’m not going to fall into the same trap myself.

After all, most people seemed to consider ‘Jam‘ a major dissappointment. I think it is an astonishing piece of work - taking comedy into (dark and twisted) directions no-one (but CM) could ever have thought possible. So unless Nathan Barley proves otherwise I refuse to believe that Chris Morris is capable of producing a series without a healthy dose of genius infused within. We will find out tonight… i’ll be back later with my verdict.


I will probably try & write up a proper appreciation of Jam at some point in the future. If you’ve not seen it, read those Amazon reviews to get an idea of what you’re missing. And then buy it. Otherwise the ‘Blue Jam’ CD (basically highlights from the Radio Shows) is still available from Amazon (Warp Records seem to be out of stock at the moment.) If that’s not enough for you, all 3 series (18 hours!) of the Blue Jam radio shows are widely available on the net… cook’d and bomb’d will point you in the right direction.

Would you believe it

In tonight’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, Larry, in his usual hapless fashion, ended up participating in an Incest Support Group.





I told you, it’s all the rage. Kate Moss will be at it soon.







Remember where you heard it first.

Incest

To be fair, it’s a bit much to expect something as good as this:

or Jarvis Cocker waggling his arse at Michael Jackson, but is it right for the Brit awards to be so utterly insipid? Still, it was an educational experience, and in hindsight perhaps the incestual undertones of Daniel & Natasha Bedingfield’s performance was more shocking than anything the KLF could rustle up.

Things I learnt from the Brit Awards:

+++ Britney Spears has ‘a new fragrance’. What, does it smell of chips & fag ash? Or is it just ‘Toxic’? (sorry)

+++ Robbie is still plugging this ‘I’m a bit gay… or am I’ line. Give it a rest mate. No-one cares.

+++ Inviting a load of septics to perform isn’t a good idea. Frankly their spectacular shows make anything us plucky Brits can come up with look a bit crap. Scissor Sisters & Gwen Stefani = Pure Showbusiness.

+++ I am still reeling from the unremitting awfullness of Daniel & Natasha Bedingfield duetting a cover of ‘Ain’t Nobody’. Was I the only one to shift awkwardly on my seat as those siblings sang to each other:

I wait for night time to come

And bring you to me

And first you put your arms around me

Then you put your charms around me

I can’t resist this sweet surrender

Oh my nights are warm and tender

We stare into each other’s eyes

And what we see is no surprise

Got a feeling most with treasure

And a love so deep we cannot measure

Jeezus. Don’t they know that’s illegal in most countries? Or is incest the new Rock ‘n’ Roll?

+++ It is possible for the best single of 2004 to be something I have never heard and never will hear. (Unless someone can hum ‘Your Game’ by Will Young to me…..)

thought not

+++ The Scissor Sisters are apparently ‘British by Proxy’ !

+++ The Outkast album (Speakerboxx / The Love Below) apparently came out in 2004.

+++ No photographs exist on the internet of either ‘The Jarvis Cocker incident’, or of Roy Keane murderously chasing Andy D’Urso round the Old Trafford pitch.

Things I didn’t learn from the Brit Awards:

+++ Why they:

are named after him:

+++What the hell ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ is

+++ Why The Telegraph described Scissor Sisters as ‘A Transsexual Band’. Is Ana Matronic hiding something?

+++ How Joss Stone is ‘Urban’. She’s from fucking Devon.

+++ For that matter, Bob Geldolf is IRISH. I mean good luck to the fella, done a lot of good work for charity and all that… but surely the ‘Brit’ awards are for British music. Have we really run out of British artists to give lifetime acheivement awards to? What next? Johnny Hallyday? David Hasslehoff? I’m sure they’ve both visited London a few times. More to the point, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO GIVE IT TO APHEX??

+++ Why children were warned to ‘Cover your eyes’ before Lemar and Jamelia’s attempt at ‘Addicted to Love’. Why not adults too? And why just the eys? ‘Leave the room’ would have been a safer option.

To make matters worse, I missed an episode of ‘Arrested Development’ to watch that tripe.

Thankfully there is an hour of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ on now.




So i’m off….

But not before honouring the greatest performance in Brit Awards history:

The KLF vs Extreme Noise Terror - 3am Eternal

Leaches

Trevor MacDonald:



‘We’ve seen today how the relationship between Charles and Camilla has the power to split the nation’





Too right Trevor. Those who give a shit….