Panadola Diction

Hi there, lovely reader.

1 - Kings of Leon - Whatever that new album is called: ‘Ehhhhhhhhh eh ehhh, sexy on fire. . .’ I find myself humming that every so often. It’s grand. That other single - Need Somebody, oh dear me, stop it. I can forgive a band selling out - these days to be huge you need to sell out, or so it seems. To become huge without selling out, you need to be tactical geniuses, or not care about being huge in the first place (or both? (i.e. Radiohead)). So KoL want to be huge. They want to be U2. That’s fine. I’ve no problem with that. The main reason I haven’t bothered listening to KoL #4 is an interview I read in State magazine, where Caleb Fallowbrain slated (harhar) albums #1 and #2. He said they make him sick, or something to that effect. In doing so he bit my hand - one of the hands that feeds him, or at least fed him when he was a nobody. Sure, the new songs might be musically more proficient, shinier, etc, but if he actually thinks they are better or more interesting than Molly’s Chambers, California Waiting, King of The Rodeo, Four Kicks and so on, then he is wrong. And anyway, when have you ever heard U2 slagging off Boy or War?

2 - Bon Iver - For Emma: Some of my friends told me this was “nice”. So in my head he is tomorrow’s Damien Rice. Damien Rice is my ninth favourite rice, after basmati, pilau, long-grain, Uncle Ben’s boil-in-the-bag, Glen, Condo-Lisa and brown. If you write an album for Emma, just give it to Emma.

3 - Fleet Foxes: I have no idea what this is, again, I was told it was “nice”, with a shrug and a raised eyebrow.

4 - Portishead - Turd: I never listened to them back in the day, so wasn’t excited about new material. Poor album art and title sealed the deal.

5 - TV on the Radio - Dear Science: I listened to their first album, which people raved about, and I thought it was like a poor-man’s Beck. Over-rated, un-memorable blah.

5a - Vampire Weekend: I’ve probably heard most of the album over the course of the year somewhere or other, but I don’t like it. A-Punk is good. But Mansard roof and the rest are intolerable. I saw them on Jools Holland and they sounded like frogs scratching a barrel. Did you know - most McDonald’s Drive-thru’s have mansard roofs? Also, mansard rhymes with Hansard, which is reason enough for me to give it a wide berth.

So maybe I have been missing out, missing the point, whatever. Who cares. I don’t see what the hurry is. If I had already liked them, or someone I know liked them and told me I would like them, or I thought I might like them, or indeed, if I was ever going to like them - I would have listened to them by now. . .

No pictures today. Just text. We’re too old for pictures now.

I’ve been to a few gigs recently, and feel the need to rate them out of a thousand. (*edit - I realise now that I’ve actually rated them out of ten thousand, but written ‘1000′. Ah well. I was never good with numbers.)

Port O’Brien (@ Crawdaddy): 6892 out of 1000
I saw these fellows a while ago in Tripod, supporting somebody… who was that… Tapes ‘n Tapes? Anyway, they put on a nice little show in Crawdaddy on a night as cold as outer space. Affable guitarist Zeb opened the set with a couple of solo efforts, as the other members wrestled with a broken banjo backstage. Then Van (who still looks like Hulk Hogan and Kurt Cobain’s gay lovechild) & co rattled through a mix of stuff their debut album, All We Could Do Was Sing, and a few non-album tracks, and for the most part it sounded good and was well received. Highlights included Fisherman’s Son, Stuck on a Boat, and the great pot-banging sing-along I Woke Up Today.

The Walkmen (@ The Button Factory): 7588 out of 1000
This was my first time to see these blokes, and I was quite impressed. Hamilton whateverhisnameis clearly loves himself dearly, but he has a great voice. The set consisted of most of their latest album, You & Me, with some older tracks sprinkled in to good effect - none moreso than The Rat (from Bows + Arrows), which really is a great song. I was surprised that Four Seasons didn’t make it on to the set list - for me it’s probably the best song on the new album, though others such as Dónde Está la Playa and In the New Year sounded great. I hate when bands don’t play a song I want to hear. How dare they. They lose 128 points for that. Also, they appeared on The OC. They lose 267 points for that.

The Kills (@ Tripod): 7218 out of 1000
Also my first time to see this pair of posers - Hince and Mosshart, but I’ve been a fan for a long while. It’s ok to be a poser if you’re in a band. I missed them at EP, due to an unfortunate clash with The Breeders. For a two-piece, they make a lot of noise, and it’s a pretty close match to their recorded sound, with nothing but guitar(s), pedals and a drum machine. There was something not quite perfect though, and I’m not sure if that was the fault of the sound engineers or just that their voices don’t penetrate the music as well in a live environment. They’ve both got great stage presence though, and U R A Fever, Last Day of Magic, Tape Song and Cat Claw are all songs I like a lot. The crowd was a bit sparse for this one - must not have sold out. Cheers to the Tripod manager who let me in despite me losing my ticket en route. And, to the pilled-out toilet-rimmers who flailed in front of me for the whole show like uncles being electrocuted slowly at a wedding, fuck off and die.

Neon Neon (@ Tripod): 8103 out of 1000
Major gig fatigue was setting in before this, and I almost didn’t go, but I’m glad I did. I learned a lot about the life and loves of John Z. Delorean during this multimedia presentation, which included songs, videos, voiceover and placards. Tripod was rammed, possibly over-sold I thought - you could hardly move. Maybe the above mentioned manager lost the run of himself letting in folks without tickets. Nevertheless, the crowd was in great spirits, the show was constantly entertaining, and often ridiculous. Guest star, and ominous voice-over man, Har Mar Superstar was a great addition, providing some energy to compliment the understatedly charming Gruff Rhys. I’ve never seen a fat, long haired, baldy white guy rap whilst standing on his head before. They got through most of Stainless Style, and Raquel was a highlight for me, with a delightfully synchronised video compilation of Ms Welsh playing in the background. Applause.

I need a few days off.

Spam’s great. Everyone in spam has a funny name.

Recent purveyors of spam:
Deirdre Barlow
Rosalinda Sellars
Alphonso Dillard
Norris Carroll

What they have to say is often funny too, thus negating their pointlessness. Ms Sellars simply said “Nice work, brother.” This paints the image of a posh old lady doing an impression of Hulk Hogan. Which is funny.

Having concussed my Creative Zen this summer, I‘ve recently purchased some technology. Not being a fan of apples, and tired of Creative’s lack of tivity, I opted for a Microsoft Zune (2nd gen) 80gb. It’s really nice. They’re not technically on sale in Europe for some reason, but you can get them on ebay. Good value for the capacity, and it’s slim and minimalist looking with a huge screen. There are only two drawbacks with it - you can’t use it as an external hard drive and you have to use the Zune software (there’s no drag and drop). The Zune software is a pain to set up if you don’t have all the latest windows updates, and won’t work on Macs at all (hahahah), but when you get it up and running, it’s actually a great piece of software, and I usually hate most mp3 organising/playing software. Software. Software. It updates your tags and names things in sensible ways, and there are plenty of options to turn off any of the automated stuff if you want to. Unfortunately it’s very hard to sign up for the ‘Zune Marketplace’ (shop), as it’s ‘not available in your territory’, which is ridiculous, though there are workarounds apparently. Also, you can sync the player to your PC wirelessly (if you’re too lazy to plug it in), and you can play Texas Hold ‘em on it. And, the (excellent) headphones have magnets in them to make them stick together. If I were reviewing it, I’d give it an eight. So I’m finally getting around to catching up on some vaguely new music. More on that some other time.

Recession? I don’t really care. My mother rings me and dolefully tells me that ‘Duiske Glass is gone’, but I’m thinking - if pointless luxury goods like crystal vases are being hit hard by recession, then that’s fine by me. If you were thinking ahead you wouldn’t have got a job in the crystal industry - that’s just asking for trouble. Anyway, their skills are highly transferable. Blowing, cutting, engraving, sweeping, stacking, boxing. All good skills.

Fight Like Apes, lately causing consternation and Mosesesque sea-parting and tablet breaking. Was at the gig on Friday. It was grand. Though I found it a little underwhelming. I like them though, and they were very good in Whelan’s last year. That was a better gig, I think. Pretending to give your bass away to the audience at the end, but actually giving it to a ‘plant’ is lame though. Keep it or throw it away Thomas. The album, I haven’t heard it yet. I did pick up a nice copy of Lend Me Your Face on blue vinyl at the gig though.

Spellchecker never fails to amuse me either. If Bill had his way (for I’m typing this in an outlook email), this post would be about ‘Texas Hold Me’ and ‘Hashanah’, whatever that is. Oh, it’s a Jewy holiday. You learn something every day. Hi Jews, nice religion you got there.

Like the way I used bold to highlight the important parts for all you skimmers? Right, I’m off to play Texas Hold Me.

[Preamble] It’s been a while. Can we pick up from where we left off? No? Ok then. Let’s start afresh. I’ve been busy. And Pinocchio told a lie, you see, and his nose started growing real big. - Why didn’t his ears grow? - I don’t know. I didn’t write the story.

[Amble] Merrick has requested that I name 5 albums I like from the year I left school, and to explain my choices, because he is not an advocate of the list, a device I am fond of myself. But I’m an obliging fellow.

The year was 2000, people had stopped worrying about the Millennium Bug, and begun worrying about the demise of popular future-gazing TV show, Beyond 2000. I had better things to worry about than  music - for me, music was something of a fringe art at the time. A medium at the very fringes of entertainment - only barely entertaining at all in fact. 2000 was a year (one of the many) when White Ladder rode high in the charts, Stereophonics were cool, and Coldplay crept out of Hitler’s womb. I was more worried about breakfast than music in those days. Breakfast of what? Champions! The father bear says “Somebody’s been sleepin’ in my bed. “The little bear said “Somebody’s been sleepin’ in my bed, and there she is.” He pulls back the covers, exposing her to the, you know, public. See? Eat your cereal before it sinks. - What happened to Goldilocks? - I’m not exactly sure. - Busted for trespassing and got days. - That’s real nice.

Album One: The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast - Badly Drawn Boy. Before the pretty film soundtrack and the recent blah album and the other one in the middle, there was this. A hell of a debut album. Since overused in telly-vision ads and such, but this is still great stuff. I’m not going to re-listen to any of these albums today, but from what I can remember, the 2nd track, Everybody’s Stalking, was dark and awesome. And then there were the singles, Once Around The Block and Pissing in the Wind, the former of which everybody knows, even if they don’t know they know. And then all the songs in between - most of those were good too. Perhaps creditable as one of the albums that got me into music. High praise? Yes.

Album Two: Stories From The City Stories From The Sea - PJ Harvey. Now that I was into ‘the music’, and stuff, I had to cast off recommendations and borrowed stuff, and purchase a record using my own steam, to plough a lone furrow and stand alone as a standalone music-liker person. I believe I was in Hobo (now Jack & Jones (both awful shops, don’t buy their clothes)), and I heard This is Love on the wireless. So I bought that in HMV. That was actually in 2001, but it was released in 2000, so it gets in here. It started my love affair with PJ Harvey, which is ongoing, despite her refusal to acknowledge it. It’s a modern thing. That also reminds of the time I saw a hobo sitting outside Hobo. Oh, how I laughed at him. Songs like This Mess We’re In (with Thom Yorke), Kamikaze, and The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore still sound great.

Album Three: Parachutes - Coldplay. Haha, it’s true, I liked this back in the day. But didn’t everyone? Come on, don’t lie. And don’t get all mentally irregular on me. Shiver is a cool song, in a conventional kind of way. Yellow was a bit tiresome even then, (what was yellow, why was it yellow?) but there were other nice tunes. Trouble, Everything’s Not Lost. Cough cough hawwwk. Ehem. I had this on Mini-disk. I’m one of the eight people who actually used mini-disks. I had about 40 of them (all copies of course), and one genuine one, Reef - Glow, which I bought in some second-hand shop because it reminded me of being thirteen (maybe I had better taste then…).  All they do now is weigh me down every time I move house. Fucking miniature bastards.

Album Four: Doves - Lost Souls. I’ve only ever listened to this album once. It’s grand. I might listen to it again sometime.

Album Five: JJ72 - JJ72. Take one whiney nasal singer, one stock drummer, recruit a pretty girl who can’t play bass to play bass, give them a snappy name, and BAM, overnight short-lived success. WHYYYYYYY WON’T IT SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW? Global warming, increased urbanisation of the wider world, natural climatic cycles, the impending natural end to the current ice-age cycle, as we begin to approach a few thousand years of balmy winters and sweaty armpits.

[Postamble] it’s a good job this isn’t an important music blog - this may have been embarrassing if that were the case. What on earth else was released in 2000? Was it really such a arid musical landscape back then? Couldn’t they have turned it sideways and made it a portrait instead?

According to the internet, I should have been listening to Grandaddy, Outkast, Primal Scream, The New Pornographers, Sleater-Kinney, Elliot Smith, Queens of the Stoneage, Sigur Rós, Cat Power, Modest Mouse, Radiohead and U2 in 2000, but who ever heard of those bands? And anyway, back in 2000 it took 10 minutes to open a single 640X480 image from the internet onscreen, then another 5 to save it onto a floppy disk, then another 15 minutes to run home to your flat, only to find the floppy disk had broken in the meantime. That’s why nobody cared about porn and music in 2000.

You know what?
We did everything right. I did everything right?
Listen, you done everything right.
Listen, we got more to do. Mick, whatever you wanna do, we’ll do it, OK?
I love ya, kid. I love ya.
Mick.
It hurts me.
Mick?
Mick!
Mick!
Mick… Christ.
Don’t go away. Please don’t.
We got more to do… We got more to do. We got…
Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.
This concludes our service.

Gail Porter is a bad person. I know, because I saw her being a terrible bint in Hyde Park last Friday. For those of you know who don’t know who Gail Porter is, she used to be famous for showing her arse in FHM, then she got stressed and went bald with alopecia.

So, at Morrissey, there we were, having waited patiently for the opportunity to get a good spot near the front after Beck, enjoying our second-row view. To our left were two middle aged blokes, large, affable men, who were obviously genuine Morrissey fans, with no agenda other than to enjoy the spectacle. Then along came Slaphead Porter, trying to get to the front. To begin with, she was reasonably polite, asking people to let her through etc, but finally she came to the two men to our left, and they refused to surrender their positions at the front railing. She asked them to move up, but they couldn’t - it was jammed. They politely refused and told her there was no room. To cut a long story slightly shorter, the situation then escalated with Cueball Gail getting riled and verbally abusing the blokes, who then, quite rightly, told her to fuck off. She contined to harass them, outraged that they would not let her stand at the front, despite the fact that she only turned up fifteen minutes into the show, while they had been there for at least three hours before it started to get their spots. She was ruining the show for the two guys, who were clearly becoming tired of her ranting, and again told her to “look, just fuck off will you?” etc.  Eventually they even tried to get some of the security guards’ attention to try to have her removed.

Little Gail was then dragged away  by her friends, but not before she made a parting gesture of giving the guys ‘the finger’ and pulling a stupid face, like a six year old boy might. They responded with a similar gesture and she exploded, breaking free from her friend and running back at the guy, swinging punches. The fat man, shocked, swung a punch back, before various people got between them and dragged the spitting demon away.

Anyway, it was all highly amusing. Gail didn’t even seem drunk, just crazy-angry. I don’t think her hair is going to grow back any time soon, given her current stress levels. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo - if I did, it would be in Heat magazine by now, and I’d be a few hundred quid richer.

If the Mirror any other rag would like to use this story in their social pages, do get in touch. I’m sure we can fake-up a good photo.

This is awesome, I’ve raised awareness of alopecia and warned the public about a dangerous celebrity. This is what blogs were invented for, surely.

P.S. - Spot the dog in the picture. (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha)     (haha)          (ha)