Because if not, then I have a brilliant idea for a song!

Brain Thrust Mastery‘s sound is similar to their first album, though a little less rock and a little more pop. I know, what does that even mean, right? All I can say is that if you listen to both then you’ll know what I mean. It’s like they’ve had their edges sanded down and rounded off – I am not sure I like it so much. It’s also more obviously 80s-inspired than With Love And Squalor, with some exceptionally blatant synth warbling towards the end.

The lyrical content of this album is also pretty similar to the last, dealing with themes very close to my heart. That is to say, unavailable women with low self esteem, heavy drinking and its inability to solve anyone’s problems, deep self-loathing, and the kind of relationships that Facebook had to add the “it’s complicated” category for.

Who else feels uncomfortable?

You see, that’s really the prevailing feeling while listening to this album – a kind of knowing, sympathetic discomfort. Some tracks are pretty groovy though, like Lethal Enforcer and Altered Beast (which are both names of ancient arcade games, oddly) so it’s worth a listen.

/me checks

OK, 2 years ago.

I am not going to do that today though. Instead, I am going to expand on something I was thinking earlier, when I was talking to someone who’s just been through a nasty break-up and is left with 90% of her iPod reminding her of this guy.

Anyway, this got me thinking about the songs I have that remind me of the various women to come and go in my life (in a good way, mind).

In no particular order:

• “Chocolate Pope” – The Electric Six
• “Jacqueline” – Franz Ferdinand
• “Eyes” – Rogue Wave
• “D.A.N.C.E.” – Justice
• “Walking On The Moon” – The Pale
• “Sleep Does Nothing For You” – Vex Red
• “I Want You, but I Don’t Need You” – Momus
• “Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side” – The Magnetic Fields

If anyone besides Jack (I was just talking to him about this over IM) can affix them to their subjects then they win a no-prize, courtesy of my man, Stan.

I bet you’ve heard of Deep Throat. You probably know that it’s a famous porn flick from the Seventies and one of the earliest to feature, well, deep throating.

But have you actually seen it? We hadn’t, and I doubt many people in their twenties today have.

All the ridiculous seventies porn clichés are there – big hair (all over), ridiculous music, a paper-thin façade of a plot that is doggedly maintained to the bitter end, obscene moustaches and hammy acting that is nevertheless an order of magnitude above anything from recent movies. Indeed, compared to modern porn the plotting and acting are all amazing (this is compared to modern porn, not an actual movie, I hasten to add).

Of course, what hasn’t stood the test of time is the sex. Hairy arses, flabby guts, tame positions, half-hearted erections (on the screen, none at all in the audience), did I mention the music? This gem is from the main theme:

Deep throat,
Deeper than deep your throat
Deep throat
Don’t row your boat
Don’t get your goat
That’s all she wrote
Deep throat

For a film that was banned in several territories it’s actually remarkably tame, only really crossing into what a modern audience might consider indecent in one scene where… well, you can watch it for yourselves. Seriously, go grab a torrent. If nothing else it’ll help you appreciate modern porn all the more.

Yes, sexier than that video with the bulgarian sisters and the over-sexed traffic warden. Ha ha, double-parked.

But seriously now: I can’t hear anything but the music.

Also, and this may be a bit premature, but I think I can totally pull off the dude-wearing-big-headphones look? I don’t care anyway – I’d wear a fucking gimp suit if it made taking public transport bearable. Now if only they were bluetooth… what’s that, my phone can’t do bluetooth music anyway? ;_;

You have to watch ’till the end, otherwise you suck (I am looking at you Matt).

(snipped out of the new, beautifully titled Electric Six album: I Will Destroy Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Becoming The Master)

- My blog is less green now, do you like it?

- It bothers me that children as young as seven roaming a shopping mall alone, dressed like they’re going out to get pissed. I think I’m getting old (at least they’re not on my lawn!).

- Why the fuck is it so fucking hard to find a comb? And where the hell did my comb go, exactly?

- I haven’t written a stupid play in ages, I totally should.

- As Oscar WIlde once said*, hell is other people. Coursework is also other people, therefore coursework is hell. Though this might just be because this particular coursework involves configuring and maintaining a Linux server…

- The new Hot Chip album makes it hard to walk normally in public. This is a good thing.

- I’m back with Safari, because Firefox 2 for Mac is ugly and generally slow. I have high hopes for version 3, but it doesn’t work with the Google sync-o-tron yet, so fuck that.

*He may or may not have also said that hell is going to prison for buggery, historical records are unclear.

In America a song from iTunes will cost you $0.99 (£0.49), and a video $1.99 (£0.99).

In England the same song will cost you £0.79 ($1.59), which is pretty bad. Anyway, at this stupid exchange rate you’d expect a video to cost £1.59 then, right? Wrong, video’s £1.89 ($3.81).

Wheeeee~

Even with the discounts for buying a whole season it’s rarely cheaper than getting the DVDs off Amazon (money quote: “If I am not going to get the physical box, extras, free artworks etc. then I want to pay a damned sight less than the DVD price.”). The DVDs that you can play in anything, and generally have a higher resolution (typically 720*480, as opposed to a maximum width of 640px for iTunes content).

Of course, the iTunes videos are pristine h.264 from the source, and thus so much better than anything Handbrake will make from the MPEG2 on those DVDs. Not to mention they’ll play without further dicking about on your iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV. What price convenience?

Yay for close-knit software/device/service ecosystems!

They were supported by The Video Nasties and The Strange Death Of Liberal England, neither of whom sucked. This was a nice surprise, since the last time I saw a warm-up act that didn’t suck was the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster warming up for Placebo when I was still in school (Placebo, on the other hand, sucked pretty bad that evening).

But yeah, Montreal blew all that came before out of the goddamn water. It was all psychedelic and disturbing, partly from the background visuals, and partly because over the first few songs Kevin Barnes removed layers of clothing until he was performing in a red cravat and a pair of pink glittered y-fronts. Then someone brings a step-ladder on-stage and he climbs on top and dons this bizarre silk clown-outfit-poncho-thing that went right to the floor. I think that was for I Was Never Young? I really don’t remember.

They played some old stuff, some new stuff, the stuff I knew all the words to by heart, and then they finished up with a cover of All Day And All Of The Night that had the crowd going fucking nuts.

From there Helen and I went to The Alley cafe, where it was open mic dub night or something? We forgot it wasn’t Friday though, so it was panic o’clock when we realised we missed the last Red Arrow. Long story short: we’re wandering around and see a bus that takes around an hour just about to leave and leap on just in time.

I love it when a plan comes together~

Then it was in to Nottingham to Lee Rosy’s tea shop, where I ate no less than three different types of cheesecake. Also, they apparently host a “Nintendo DS night” – How awesome is that?

Thereafter we progressed to the cinema and saw Magicians, starring Mac and PC. It was terrible, but also very very funny… I’ve not worked that bit out yet. Next, we ate japanese, and now we’re at an Of Montreal gig in this tiny bar called The Social, hence this post’s title. I kid you not: the cigarette machine’s LED readout across the room is scrolling “welcome to the social”, I think they should get in touch with Microsoft’s legal team?

\o/

[edited with links and shit, now I'm at a real machine]

Speaking of news, this just in: I have “one of those faces” or something. In two days two people I’ve never met before have sworn they knew me from somewhere. One was a random customer at work, the other was a guy at Derby uni’s comic book society. I totally don’t know them, honestly.

Yes, I joined a comic book society at a university I’m not even going to. In my defence, Nottingham doesn’t have one, and even if it did I totally wouldn’t make an extra commute just to talk about comics. As it is the kids at Derby’s are pretty cool, and I got to read the new issue of Hyperion vs Nighthawk a day early. \o/

Speaking of comics, Captain America died today. The issue has out-sold despite being over-printed, re-prints are apparently imminent. Personally, I see two instances of history repeating itself here. Most obviously the hype that surrounded Superman’s death and re-birth – let’s hope we don’t get Electric Captain America! The second instance is what will surely happen if Steve stays dead and he is replaced as Captain America (which will surely happen, since the title sells). In this case I predict a reader-backlash so severe that Marvel has to bring back Rogers Coke-Classic style.

So, I went to Manchester yesterday. I parked illegally in Derby near the station and availed myself of a train. I have not been punished and I feel this sets a bad example to the children.

In Manchester I got to talk to a judge (no, not a judge, sadly), I bought an overpriced cheesecake, watched someone watch people, read poems laid into the pavement, played amongst children in the science museum, stroked my chin in the art gallery and drunk a beer in the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a day of experiences, for sure.

In the evening, on the way back to the station, I espied a comic shop, still open at 8pm. Inside the shelves had all been pushed back and tables filled the floor: at these, nerds were playing games with some kind of collectible cards. At first I ignored these strange people, indulging in such an alien past-time, and merrily scoured the new comics for those which I follow. It soon became apparent, however, that these were very much my kin. On one table a man argued vehemently with his fellow the necessity of sharpening wolverine’s claws, on another a small conclave pondered the true identity of Supernova, one young man quoted a Penny Arcade strip to the room in general.

Speaking of nerdiness, I did it again. Only, now that your trust has been earned I stuck some less… accessible stuff in this one. Sure, they might not open as strong as the last batch, but if you stick with it then the truth of the word will become clear.

Now that’s what I call Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle – volume two
Patient notes: I’m upping the dosage of AAC in this one. You responded well to the last treatment, you should be proud.

I’m sure they don’t mean to be, but it’s been two months now, and their mantra of “waiting for the parts” is almost as passé as the pale blue loaner car which strives daily to rob me of my masculinity.

Also, my university may or may not be fucks. See, there was some confusion as to whether I was actually doing this one module. Personally I would have thought that signing up for it at the beginning of term, signing up for the tutorials (and even attending some of them), and then finally sitting the exam would have been a dead give-away.

The outcome being that I got my transcript back yesterday (the piece of paper with my marks on) and it bore a “-1″ for this module. It’s all straightened out now, more or less, but I still have to wait a week to actually learn my grade. Fuckers.

Also: I have jumped on board the bandwagon, jumped for joy, jumped the gun and quite possibly jumped the shark by assembling, in a cruel parody of Matt’s efforts, a sort of internet mix-tape (read: a zip file containing songs). The difference being that my music is pretty rad, whereas his is more often than not just plain weird.

Now that’s what I call Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle – volume one
Warning: contains AAC. If you are unsure consult your physician… or get a decent goddamn media player.

Let me know what you think, and bear in mind that I’m being pretty merciful here. The temptation existed to go all-out and make a full-blown podcast, introducing each song and explaining its inclusion in a kind of John-Peel-esque monotone. As it is, you’ve got a track-listing and an aid to pronunciation.

<3

Only if you want to go fuck up the stars, kid.

Man, why has it taken me so long to listen to this Flaming Lips album? It’s really good, though I guess not exactly for all occasions. I last listened to it for a morning at uni last term and it totally thrilled me, but after lunch and ever since I just haven’t been in the mood.

I just ate breakfast. Or possibly dinner. I don’t know. What meal is it where you go to sleep at 5pm, wake up at midnight, then read comics ’till 3am when you get hungry and just have to cook something? I need an appropriate label! Without labels, everything falls apart!

Lee-anne came online briefly, back from some party. Man, talking to her is infuriating, it’s like the cold war or something: neither of us are trying to let anything worthwhile slip about anything. Her friends are like that too, Graeme, and Juliette, probably the others are too, if I ever spoke to them. At least she wasn’t insulting this time, so thank heavens for small mercies. Of course, a large mercy or two wouldn’t go amiss….

Sleep is calling me back now. Hey, at least someone misses me, even if it’s an anthropomorphised personification (which I think is a redundant expression?). I’ll be right up, honey!

There is only one word to properly express the experience, and that is “spectacle”. Front-man Justin made his entrance on a giant platform suspended on wires that flew in from off-stage… shaped like a giant pair of breasts, complete with flashing nipples (aunty Frankie thinks they’re just juvenile, grandma Maxine choses to believe it was a very clever statement, I am… torn). Also along for the ride were giant horns covered in flamethrowers, fireworks by the bucket-load, a pipe-organ and 20-foot high pitchforks covered in multi-colourd spotlights.

The real star of the show, however, was the warm-up act. Now, there were two warm-up acts, which I think kind of fucking excessive, and I am very much not talking about glam-rockers Arc (or Ark?), fronted by a bare-chested Swede wearing matching black wings, gloves and leather trousers. I am talking about Juliette and the Licks, an outfit I can only describe as the unholy union of Queen and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs fronted by Juliette Lewis (she’s a very talented actress? I dunno). IMDB tells me that she divorced her parents at the age of 14, which is pretty wow, you know? There was rocking out, there was stage-presence, there were some pretty lame socio-political messages too, but maybe Metric have just spoiled me like that?

All in all a fun night of fun, marred only slightly by some lame Swedes and uncle Eddie’s insistence we all carried neon inflatable guitars. I am pleased.

Next time I decide that I want to ‘catch up’ with people I’ve not kept in touch with since school. Next time I think that a night out in Derby won’t be composed entirely of not quite being able to hear stupid people say stupid things. Next time I think that my life needs more alcohol in a public context. Next time I completely forget what a goddamn retarded idea all of the above is I can just read this and be saved. Right?

On the plus side, a well-stocked and free bar meant I got to sample the dubious joys of absinthe again. Of course, this also means that I am all sorts of dehydrated right now, and that my car is still parked over at Pride Park. Also: my wrist is sprained, somehow. Do I still win? Only just, I feel.

I totally didn’t see this at all
I think it would have improved things

You know, I do like how absinthe never really gives one a hangover per se, preferring to leave its victim feeling dizzy and still a little drunk in the morning. This is clearly the way forward.

Oh, and some guy was telling me how cool the new Strokes album is, because apparently it got leaked already. I just assumed that didn’t happen any more, since record companies are so hot on that these days and it’s pretty goddamn easy to stop. But whaddya know: he was right, it was, it’s coming down now. I’ll let you know how it works out, mmmkay? Apparently the opener is a real blinder and it’s generally full of very different stuffs, which would be nice.

The Plan for today:
- get hydrated, eat
- kill the pile of washing up with any means necessary
- take out the goddamn bin
- write an essay
- watch some cartoons
- make that address book program

I think you’ll agree: this is a plan we can all get behind one hundred percent, perhaps even a little more.

Long time readers may be aware that I employ either iTunes or my sexy phone to tend to my music needs, depending on where I happen to be. This is pretty cool, although my phone doesn’t have iTunes’ wonderful ‘soundcheck’ technology, which I had totally got used to. So, I googled around, settled on MacMP3Gain, and bravely fed it my whole music library folder. I shit you not.

Now, while this certainly improves listening to musics with my phone, it’s not as good as iTunes’ soundcheck, so I’d totally like to still use that as well. The problem is getting iTunes to notice that these files have all changed now. The closest I’ve got is trashing my iTunes Library file and re-importing from the XML file, which causes iTunes to re-analyse a whole 61 tracks. Sixty-one, out of around three thousand >.<

I gather iTunes slips a chunk of metadata into files about the volume it feels they should be played, rather than keeping it all in its own database, which is pretty lame. Maybe if there were some file editor that could nuke that little string out of the file's header.... I dunno, over to you, oh mighty internets!

~edito maxissimo~
OK, so throwing music files at subethaedit shows me some interesting little strings. Right at the top of a .mp3 file there’s “iTunNORM [some hex that WP really doesn't want to let me put in here]“. And the same is visible a couple of lines down in a .m4a file as well.

Killing the strings makes the AAC file un-playable, the MP3 file plays fine, but iTunes has not forgotten its soundcheck value either. Rargh!

…..if you’re not knowin’, that is.

Wow, all of July without a post. Either I’m so boring that nothing interesting’s happened to me, or I’m so cool and exciting that I’ve just had no time to write all about it. Anyway, I’m posting today mostly to enthuse about Metric and their album “Old World Underground” that was recently recommended to be by my good friend Animal. I think he sent it to me a little over a week ago, possibly on a Thursday. I must have heard it straight through a hundred times since then, it’s that good.

It’s so good, in fact, that I’m in a quandary. I want to have Ani’s babies for introducing me to this very cool album, and I also want to have Emily Haines’ babies because her voice is like liquid sex, but I can only have one baby at a time. You see my dilemma.

In other music news, I’m totally unimpressed with the Foo Fighters’ new Album, “In Your Honour”. There are about four enjoyable songs and one excellent track, which is pretty poor for a 20-song double album. If you like this mellow acoustic stuff that’s been making itself known of late, then this album is probably just your thing, but if you liked “One by One” and expected similar rocking out then you will be sorely disappointed.

Speaking of sorely disappointed, I also got to check out the new White Stripes album the other week. The White Stripes for me have been making the shift from quantity to quality over the last three albums. It’s like they only have a certain amount of awesomeness to fit on an album, and must choose how many songs to spread it over. I found a whole seven rather tasty numbers on “White Blood Cells”, five damn rocking tunes on “Elephant” and one fucking awesome track on “Get Behind me Satan” (Blue Orchid, if you’re curious).