Blog On The Motorway

So, it seems that after my post yesterday that I now have a shiny new phone, identical to Ellen’s, and I have spent much of the last twelve hours loading it with apps, and giggling inanely like a schoolboy.  I would offer you a review of this lovely and rather splendid piece of equipment, but that would mean spending less time playing with it, so that’s not going to happen.

What I will say is that having had it for nearly a full day, I’ve not actually put any of my old numbers onto it because I have been too busy playing with all the non-phone features, so if you are one of my real-life friends, expect a message soon. But only once I’ve finished playing with it.

And so we come to that part of the year when the blogosphere goes bat shit crazy for lists, like a cumulative High Fidelity support group, and I am no exception.  I know that there is still a month left of the year, but since this morning I was ordered by Ellen to do no more downloading of albums until after Christmas, lest I ruin a surprise present (I got caught listening to Them Crooked Vultures, which miffed her a bit) if there are any more great albums I wont hear this year anyway.  So, for what it’s worth, these are the ten albums that has been on constant repeat over the last 11 months.

1. Converge – Axe To Fall

Roughly akin to an appendectomy without anaesthetic, Axe To Fall is the world’s greatest hardcore band on blistering and brutal form, their best since 2001’s genre defining Jane Doe.  From the staggering opener ‘Dark Horse’ which sounds like a cross between Iron maiden and an Aids ravaged monkey, to the closer ‘Wretched World’ (co written and performed with Genghis Tron) this is demented and suffocating music to lose your mind to. Brilliant.

 Converge – Axe to Fall video

2. Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse

If Axe To Fall presents the ultimate in batshit hardcore, then Agorapocalypse takes a run at silliest Grindcore record in history.  Ditching their previous penchant for recording songs no longer than twenty seconds, this etches up the programmed drum machine grindcore frenzy to 11, and introduces the incredibly sexy second vocalist that is Katherine Katz. More traditional than their previous attacks, this is nonetheless the aural equivalent of a knifepoint mugging.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse Now (audio only)

3. Isis – Wavering Radiant

Isis returned to form following the slightly disappointing ‘In The Absence Of Truth’ with another slab of prog infused doom metal, sticking solidly to the tried and tested formula of ‘big riff, slow bit, heavy chorus, now the build, ooooooh fuck I just came a bit there’ that they have stuck with since Oceanic.  But it’s big and beautiful and back to being heavy where it needs to be, and if you’re Isis, that’s all you ever really need to do in my books.

Isis – Threshold of Transformation (audio only)

4. Baroness – Blue Album

Baroness ply a fine line in post-Mastodon bluesy prog metal, and have steadily been making a name for themselves with each record, but here they finally find their groove, with a slightly poppier sound that still contains thick as tar grooves with Foo-Fighters-eqsque songwriting ability.  The wheels come off a little towards the back end, but this is nonetheless a corking bluesy party album.

 Baroness – A Horse Called Golgotha (Video)

5. Kylesa – Static Tensions

Treading a similar southern rock vein to Baroness, but with darker intent and two drummers rather than the more common one, Kylesa return with another cracking album, dark and marauding, sludgy and warm. Hampered (once again) by a slightly shoddy production this is still a cracking mix of Clutch, Mastodon and Neurosis infused doom metal.

Kylesa – Unknown Awareness (audio only)

6. Mastodon – Crack The Skye

I have to admit that as much as I love this album I do feel a little bit disappointed in it, missing as I do the fire and ire of their previous releases. That’s not to say that it’s not mind-blowingly fucking awesome, because it is, but their last two albums have lasted a lot longer that this one did.  Still, the absolutely mental storyline of a man going into space, meeting Rasputin and whatnot, coupled with music that would have Spinal Tap rethinking their own Jazz Odyssey, this is unlike anything else out there, and thoroughly deserving of a top ten place. But if it had had a bit more fire it would have gone to number one without hesitation.

Mastodon – Divinations (Video)

7. Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way to Blue

The return of the icons of my childhood has probably coloured this a little bit for me, but nonetheless this is a cracking album, full of the darkness and pain and misery you would expect. New singer William DuVall slots into the mix effortlessly, and if anything the old vocal harmonies are more prominent than they were with Layne. And A Looking In View is crushing. Since the video is decidedly NSFW however, here is an acoustic performance of the album’s haunting closing track.

Alice In Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue (live acoustic)

8. Pelican – What We All Come To Need

Another year, another great Pelican album, and once again shattering the idea that instrumental music is boring. Great big riffs flowing again and again, relentlessly chasing that perfect moment. Excellent.

Pelican – Glimmer (audio only)

9. Every Time I Die – New Junk Aesthetic

Combining the rage of hardcore with the gutsy swing of Rock and Roll, Every Time I Die are a beast of a band who get better and better each time out, without every radically changing their sound, instead honing their sound until is is a lean and taut killing machine. Awesome stuff, and at a band at full strength.

Every Time I Die – Wanderlust (video)

10. Behemoth – Evangelion

Poland’s demented Behemoth are back for another album of massively heavy death metal that takes itself far too seriously and ends up being utterly hilarious as a result. It is doubtful that you will ever hear such technical prowess outside of this album, and the sheer lunacy of it makes it unparalleled in its brilliance. If you don’t believe me on just how insane these guys are, check out the full-corpse-paint ridiculousness below. Smoke, girls, corpse paint, blood!

Behemoth – Ov Fire and the Void (video) This is also a bit NSFW, but it’s mad, so that’s why I’m putting it up. Consider yourself warned.

So that’s it. Normally there’d be a lot more balance to this sort of thing, but to be honest there’s not been a non-metal album this year that has equalled these ten albums for me.

One of the things I love most about the interweb is the fact that it has rendered the traditional waiting time for American imports to worm their way onto our networks obsolete.  This weekend I *acquired* the first episode of ‘V’, the reimagining of the cult sci fi series.

I was never really a fan of the original. Even when I was first getting into sci-fi, the cheap sets and wobbly acting put me off (although the similarly shoddy Babylon 5 managed to hook me) so I came to this new series with no real expectations, other than being intrigued by the presence of two ex-Firefly alumnus, Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk.

The first thing to note is the similarities between this and the other big new sci-fi event show of the year, Flashforward.  Both sport large ensemble casts dealing with a global event, although V’s grand unveiling of the Alien Visitors was perhaps the more enticing, as are its cast, who seem to be a little more capable in the acting department than Flashforward’s.

V gets stuck into the action pretty quickly, and doesn’t hang around for very long before establishing that all is not exactly what it seems with the Visitors.  But the most interesting thing here is the way the show deals with the reaction to the visitors. We get footage of riots and full churches, a general sense of people projecting their hopes and fears onto the blank slate that the Visitors represent.

All in all, a very capable and interesting start, a timeless premise executed in an interesting way.  And Morena Baccarin remains a paragon of loveliness, even if her character gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies.

(Warning! This post gets a bit schmaltzy towards the end, so don’t read on if you don’t want me to get all emo on you.)

Simon Amstell is a very very funny man.  Crammed into the rafters of York’s Grand Opera House (a slightly misleading name) last night, Ellen and I witnessed a man spending an hour talking about how he couldn’t get laid and making it highly amusing and thought provoking.

Without knowing what sort of stand up Amstell does ahead of time (I have never seen him outside of his high-profile TV presenting gigs) I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was quite surprised by his all too brief act.  Very much in the vein of Woody Allen, it was the traditional Jewish comedy of neurosis, with his unique spin.  Most of the act revolved around his inability to get men, and his predilection for men who look like Jared Leto in ‘My So Called Life.’

The only dissapointment was the brevity of his set, which lasted for just shy of an hour. To be honest for £20+ a ticket I would expect a little more, but if the adage of quality over quantity is applied it was well worth it. And besides, he makes frequent mention of the brevity of life in his act, so it’s all relative.

After the gig Ellen went for a few drinks and a meal, revelling in being out on our own.  Having had a daughter for the entirety of our relationship has always meant that it’s difficult to get out. We have a few friends we can ask to fulfil babysitting duties, but we’re keenly aware of the risk of overusing them, and we tend to use them for nights out where we’re meeting up with other people, so it’s very rare we go out as just the two of us.

But last night was lovely.  As we sat in the pub launching into massive debates over the nature of religion and the decline of female role-models I was reminded again of how much I love this wonderful woman. She is smarter than me, funny and kind, beautiful, and always willing to listen to the other side of an argument. 

Times like last night I really realise what a lucky man I am.  The chances that our own unique situation could have worked out as well as it has must have been a thousand to one.  But I sit here writing about this and thinking about my beautiful daughter and wonderful girlfriend and have to admit that I have it pretty good really.

I promise I will go back to being a misanthrope tomorrow.

Woke up this morning to find that a writing hero of mine, John Hughes, has died aged 59 of a heart attack.  Unlike a lot of recent celebrity deaths, this one has actually shaken me a little.  Two of his movies, Ferris Bueller and Breakfast club, hold separate but equally important places in my development into adulthood.

I was going to do a more in depth post, but then I came across this article, which was far more moving than anything I could say about the man, so I shall leave it there.  I strongly urge you all to go and read it, if you haven’t done so already.

So here’s to you Mr Hughes. A truly gifted comedy writer, creator of some of cinema’s most memorable characters and funniest quotes.  You have been missed since you left our screens, and will be ever more so now.

I’ve been thinking about the recent silliness that has erupted in Ireland since their clearly lunatic government decided that free speech is all well and good as long as nobody who believes in God is ever offended by anything, ever.  Lots of groups are wondering how best to respond to the new blasphemy laws, and while I am not Irish, I did have a thought on the best way to counter the massive flaw in their logic.

Almost every religious book has one of those little clauses in it which points out to the user that their God alone is the proper good one, and that choosing to follow any of the other ones would be a really silly idea that would inevitably lead to exclusion from whatever form of afterlife they use to hook you in the first place.

For example, in the Bible, Exodus 34:14 states (in some versions, one would have thought that the infallible word of God would all be the same in any translation but there you go):

 ’for thou shalt worship no other god: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:’

 The Qu’ran has quite a few similar parts, such as 21:87

 ’And (mention) Dhun Nun (Jonah), when he went off in anger and deemed that We had no power over him, but he cried out in the darkness, saying: There is no God save Thee. Be Thou glorified! I have been a wrong-doer.’

It strikes me that each and every version of this is blasphemy to every other religion going. If the Bible states to worship no other God, isn’t this blasphemy to Muslims? And vice-versa?

The flipside to this is also that the very existence of religions is abhorrent to a large number of people. Does the presence of belief actually make someone more worthy in the eyes of the Irish government? If a Christian offends an atheist (say by telling them they are destined to spending existence in a lake of fire for their wicked heathen ways) nothing happens, vice versa can lead to a 250,000 Euro fine.

Without wanting to start up a religious war (as this historically lead to lots and lots of people being prodded with sharp objects) this is an utterly unenforceable law when looked at logically, and any riposte to the law should be framed as such so as to avoid the appearance of anti-religious rabble rousing. If the crazy people in the Irish government feels that the thoughts of atheists, humanists and free thinkers are so worthless, pointing out that every one of them could also be fined just for having beliefs in the first place might be a good place to start.

As I mentioned before, I’ve decided to start a piece of online fiction, serialised for you dear readers for free. I’ve bought the website, the bloody marvellous Jonic has set up some back end stuff for it.  I will be moving the blog there soon, and I hope to get the first installment up in the next few months.

Only one problem though. The writing itself is in essence, an attempt at a British road novel. My initial aim with it was to examine the death of youth culture in this country, and it was born out of my frustration at seeing so little that kids could call their own.  It was written about five years ago.

Since then, there has been a renaissance of sorts within British youth culture. Landfill indie does seem to have given way to some genuinely exciting new music (of course most of it is still shit but whenever was it not so?) and social networking seems to have given the Skins generation a genuine sense of belonging that I’ve not seen since the halcyon days of (for me) grunge.

And there is the other problem. When I wrote the first few chapters I was in my early to mid twenties, running gigs and in a band, whereas now I am over thirty, with an infant child and a general sense of foreboding over my bald spot. I think this no longer qualifies me to write the book as it was initially intended.

A lot of the writing I still like. But it needs a drastic overhaul. For some reason I now feel more like a horror writer than I was before, and I thought it might be interesting to follow that, but I really can’t decide. And since I really want this to be an interactive experience I thought I’d throw open the forum to ask you what you think I should do here. I’m not saying I will listen to you, but I’d like to know what you think I should do. So for your voting pleasure I present you with a little poll. It should be pretty self explanatory. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to drop them as a comment.

*Edit! I’ve realised that the poll doesn’t, in fact, work. I shall get a new one up tomorrow, but for now I have spanish chicken to eat. Feel free to leave comments though!

*Edited again! Right, I have a new poll up now, as you can see below, so please feel free to vote. I understand that you are essentially voting on something you’ve never read, but humour me.

There are going to be some fairly major changes around here pretty soon. I have bought my own domain finally, so I will be leaving the hallowed terrain of 100yen soon for the sunnier climbs of www.bloodonthemotorway.com which will soon be the hub for all things me. I have pretty big plans for the place eventually, not least of which will be some nice free serialised fiction for you all to enjoy free of charge on a regular basis. It will also be the home to the blog and the online writing portfolio I have dreamed of for so long.

I’ve been here at 100yen since I left livejournal in July 2006. It has been a lovely little home for me, created by Jonic, to whom I owe my entire love of the Internet.  So to everyone who has stuck with reading this, I hope you’ll stick with me while I get the changes underway.

On another note, I mentioned earlier that I had recently run into an old friend through twitter, which got me thinking about looking back into my past to try and reconnect with other old friends. In this spirit I recently entered my old school, Vinehall Preparatory in Sussex, into Facebook, curious to see what would come up.  It was a small posh boarding school that was my home for six years, and a place that held some lovely and other deeply unpleasant memories.

Much of the latter came through a distinct penchant for naughtiness and trouble, that often saw me pitched against the Headmaster and Headmistress, an austere Thatcherite couple called the Chaplins. They hated me, and for good reason for the most part, as I was right little bastard.  From day one, however, they looked down on me because my parents were not of the normal stock.  They were the very definition of working-class done good, at the time self made millionaires who had gotten there by running nightclubs in London. Not the sort of people you’d normally get sending their kids to Vinehall.

This most often presented itself in the way that I was treated compared to the Chaplin’s darling son Tom.  He constantly won favour, boarding school being of course the ideal breeding ground for nepotism. I don’t remember him that well, but I do remember that ever time there was a school play, I would audition for the lead role, only to see Tom automatically bequethed the role and myself relegated to the role of (you guessed it) bartender.  In the last school play the bartender had to eject the lead from a bar in one scene. On the last day of school I kicked him so hard in the bottom I nearly booted him clean off the stage.

This is not to say I hold any animosity toward the family Chaplin. It was a long time ago and the things that seem so vitally important at the time fade into obscurity over the years.  In fact I haven’t thought of him or his parents in years.  Until the other night when I went on Facebook.  Because that little boy is now the lead singer of Keane.

I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him.

Ellen has been having trouble sleeping of late, and so I popped into my local drug emporium (Morrisons) and picked up some Nytol.  Ellen duly popped a few just before we watched Skins and made her way upstairs to sleep the sleep of the dead. 

Strangely, I then seemed to inherit her sleeplessness and found myself unable to sleep by the time BBC 4 changed over to the World Service, usually my clearest sign that I should be sleeping. So I popped a few myself.  I drifted off about an hour later, only to be woken by a very rude alarm clock a scant few hours later.  As a consequence I have been living in a rather surreal dreamworld today, where everything is a little bit cloudy and somehow a bit fantastic.

I have also managed, through the wonders of technology, to get back into contact with some of my fabbest University friends, who seem to have accelerated past me into Middle Age, and thus lessened the shock of my own rapid conversion.  One of them probably has even less hair than me, although if you counted my facial hair Wolverine has less hair than me.

I had many things to write about today, but none of it seems to suit my mood, so I shall abstain.  This week (which in case you didn’t know, is National Food Intolerance Week) has been mega busy this week, leaving me unable to post with any regularity, although I’ve had many ideas buzzing in my little mind.  But today I find myself unable to really care about any of them, all courtesy of one of the mildest sedatives available, which I took over 12 hours ago.

I can see why people get addicted to this stuff.

Ah the perils of modern life.  Imagine you are a pop star so utterly damaged as to be unable to make your own decisions any further, and your money mad parents thrust you back into the limelight while you are clearly still struggling with serious mental problems. 

You stride around, that ever so vacant look in your eyes evident to everyone but the celebrity obsessed magazines, and the adoring fans desperate to have you back.  You don’t have access to your kids, or indeed to anyone other than your minders, there to totally block any access to the real world that you might have.

Not a pleasant life, maybe, but at least you get to pour out banality through your twitter account, all kittens and clouds and cutesy child friendly nothingness.  It makes you smile, your own little idyll of comfortable nothingness.  Then one day you wake up and found that someone has hacked into said twitter account, and left the following message:

“HI Yall! Brit Brit here, just wanted to update you all on the size of my vagina. Its about 4 feet wide with razor sharp teeth.”

Brilliant.  Another day ruined.