This & That

Hello folks,

As mentioned before, as a pre-amble before my second full length album is released, I've decided to put out a wee EP, with a few covers, remixes and other unreleased stuff.

It's called 'This And That', and it's released on Scunnered Records [scun003]:




http://www.archive.org/details/CriticalBest-ThisAndThatscun003

Tracklisting is as follows:

1.Critical Best - Aids Wolf Eyes
[Unused track from the Meconium Sessions]

2.Combat Tone - Br file ext 4 (Critical Best Post-core-core Remix)
[Remix of my good friend, Combat Tone]

3.Critical Best - Dead Techno
[Originally created for Unicorn Zoo's '5 Seconds Compilation', which has since been cancelled]

4.Critical Best - You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will
[Cover of Bright Eyes' 'You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will']

5.Critical Best - Children
[Cover of Robert Miles' 'Children']

6.DJ Shadow - Organ Donor (Critical Best's Proper Fucked Too Fucked To Care Remix)
[Remix of DJ Shadow]

Hope you all enjoy

New album will be out very very soon - I'll keep you updated

Cheers

Marc AKA Critical Best

Woop woop

Yo yo yo, the new Critical Best album is pretty much done and dusted, and should be released, all going well, before the end of 2008.

How do you like them fucking apples, eh?

I may release some other bits and pieces, too, as a kind of 'Rarities, Covers and Remixes' EP, so I can start 2009 with a fresh slate. FRESH.

And look out for one or two Marc'o van Bastard remixes, too. In a chilled out stylee.

FRESSSHHH

Statutory Rave

In honour of going to Bangface for my birthday last week, and getting the laptop working and being able to record from the the decks, I knocked together this mix:

It's Happening Again

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1OARN6VK

01 Parts & Labor - Holiday's Over
02 Herrmutt Lobby - Hazebola Bassline
03 The Bug ft. Warrior Queen - Poison Dart (Skream Remix)
04 Totally Normal - Grind Your Grime
05 Nailbomb Cults - Cthulhu Rising
06 Droon - Cripplefight (Duran Duran Duran Remix)
07 Unitus - The Dry Hour of Geography (Electromeca Remix)
08 Rotator - Come Get Some
09 Bong-Ra - Coke Sniffah
10 CAKEBUILDER - Necron The Hell God
11 FFF - Kickahole in the Speaker
12 Istari Lasterfahrer - Bloodclaat Tune
13 DJ Floorclearer - Strangle the Giant Elephant
14 Duran Duran Duran - Size Queen
15 ACRNYM - Owner

It's pretty straightforward, hope you enjoy it =)

THIS IS THE NEWS

Hello peeps,

Percy Laptop Bastard is back, and fixed. Most of the tracks and bits & pieces were recovered, so everything should be cool, if a little later than planned.

The album will probably be shorter now, though, as all this time to ponder has made me seriously consider scrapping a few of the tracks. And I've only got one intact track of the proposed covers & remixes EP I was hoping to do, so I don't think we'll see that for a good while yet.

There's a new track up on the Myspace player, 'Laplace's Demon', as well as a tiny sneak preview of the Enneract album cover - myspace.com/criticalbest

There's also another dead pigeon over there --->
if you're that way inclined

Enjoy

Steve Buscemi touched my face once

Still in laptop limbo. Probably won't get anything done until the end of the year, as far as new music goes.

And it looks like I've lost the main files for the new album, and am only left with the .WAVs and .MP3s. So, I will probably just release it as is.

If anyone knows of a decent net label that will release it for free, gimme a shout. I know of a good few who I can go to, but it's always nice to have a choice.

Made this out of sheer boredom, enjoy:

We're talking C.A.T.A.S.T.R.O.P.H.E

So, my laptop has died a horrible death

There's a good chance I've irretrievably lost a few new Critical Best tracks, and some other bits and pieces, which is pretty shit.

I'm going to remove the hard drive this week, and try and nab the data off it. If this works, we should be all okay. If it doesn't, I am going to cry like a little bitch.

In addition to the music, there was all my dead pigeon photos, too - so that blog will need to be on hiatus for a wee while.

More news as the story develops

UPDATE

Just updated http://deadinthestreet.blogspot.com/ after a wee break. Was on holiday, and all that jazz

I might chuck some holiday pics up here soon, it was well ace in Sri Lanka

In other news, I'm working on some more tracks, not for my album, but for a wee remixes and covers EP I've just had the notion to put together

Late-arz

ONLY REAL COWBOYS READ THE BIBLE

I have a new MP3 out - Critical Best's second release, 'ONLY REAL COWBOYS READ THE BIBLE'. It's a 13 minute noise soundscape inspired by the harsh violence of the frontier lands of the 1800s. This year I've been really into 'cowboy things' (Blood Meridian, Deadwood, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Proposition, etcetera) and the utter mindless brutality, and complete unglamouressness of life back then really made an impression on me. It all kind of came to head while putting this track together. Brutal, unrelenting, then sparse, windswept, pregnant with the anticipation of the danger to come.

Released on Scunnered Records [scun002], and available for download here:

http://www.archive.org/details/CriticalBest-ONLYREALCOWBOYSREADTHEBIBLEscun002

You can also hear it on the Scunnered Records Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/scunneredrecords

And you can both download it and listen to it at Last.fm - http://www.last.fm/music/Critical+Best/
ONLY+REAL+COWBOYS+READ+THE+BIBLE

Please get in touch if you have anything good or bad to say about it.

Cheers for the support

FOUND DEAD IN THE STREET

Hello there,

Here's my new blog, with some pictures I've taken of dead animals, found in the street:

http://deadinthestreet.blogspot.com/

A new picture will be posted every Monday.

If you have any you've taken yourself, gimme a shout and I'll put them up. With full credit, of course

Cheers

61

Dunno how many of you use http://www.thesixtyone.com/, but I now have a page on there:

http://www.thesixtyone.com/jinginakipunxxx/collection/all/

Where you can go and listen to 3 of my tracks, and bump them if you wish. There's some good music on that site if you can be bothered to go looking

Laters gaters

humour

Been listening to a lot of Belladonnakillz recently - they fucking rock

Download OPTIONSSS aplenty

Hey peeps,

Forgot to mention - you can now download the full Meconium album from the Critical Best Last.fm page:

http://www.last.fm/music/Critical+Best/Meconium

Go there and do your dirty business

Oh, I’ll probably be putting some other bits and pieces on there, too, for your downloading / listening pleasure, as I have a few tracks kicking about which are unreleased / kind of released / won’t make the next album

And I’ve got some new ideas for a couple of tunes which I should be getting round to starting in the very near future

Laters gaters

CRUNK TECHNO

Is 'Crunk Techno' a real genre? I propose that it is. And the main proponents of it are:

Herrmutt Lobby

edIT

Who else is there?

Blades of Nonsense

After watching Blades of Glory the other night, my mind wandered to a spectacle I once seen. That of a man, decked out like Kurt Cobain, ice skating to the sounds of Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'.

Five minutes fucking around on Youtube and here it is:



Jesus

Arundel Tomb

Hello peeps,

I've been working on a new track. You can listen to it over at the the Critical Best Myspace - http://www.myspace.com/criticalbest

It's called 'Arundel Tomb' and is based off the Philip Larkin poem 'An Arundel Tomb'

I reckon it may still need a wee bit of tweaking

Also, if I haven't mentioned before, there's another new track on there, too, called 'Trevor Brown Don't Paint My Child' (shortened to 'TBDPMC' for the Myspace player)

Enjoy

Fun with baby

This is the best thing I ever saw:

http://www.c00lstuff.com/1133/Do_s_and_don_ts_with_babies/

Some highlights:






Head over to that site to see them all

Sickening

Eugh

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=371620

John Travolta tells us how awesome he is, and how he was an idol of Heath Ledger's


http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/40175/daniel-day-lewis-breaks-down-over-ledgers-death

A tearful and distraught Daniel Day Lewis tells us he's incredibly upset, and "I didn't know him. I have a strong impression I would have liked him very much as a person if I had"

Jesus fucking Christ you people are despicable

Burial - True!

Was just speaking to a 'friend-of-a-friend' who works at *REMOVED* and he's let me in on a little secret - supposedly, universally loved dubstep producer Burial is actually Roni Size.

Odd, eh?

JOHN FUCKING RAMBO

This is going to be the film of the year

Hahahahahahahaha

2007 Musical Roundup Type Thing

As we reach the end of another futuristic year, it's nice to look back, and bask in the glory of music. Music released in 2007. Music released in 2007 which was enjoyed by me. To this end, I have compiled a list of sorts, illustrating music I enjoyed from the year two thousand and seven. Here it is:

2007's Best Albums

(in no particular order, except number 1)

1. Rotator - Choose Your Poison, Mine Is Hardcore!!!


2. The Tuss - Rushup Edge


3. Battles - Mirrored


4. Panda Bear - Person Pitch


5. Gescom - A1-D1


6. Wiley - Eskiboy : The Best Of Tunnel Vision


7. Melt Banana - Bambi's Dilemma


8. XXL - ¿Spicchiology?


9. Pluramon - The Monstrous Surplus


10. Mujuice - Cool Cool Death


11. MIA - Kala


12. DJ Scotch Egg - Scotchhausen


13. Dilithium Tourdes - The Dirty Dick Outlaw


14. 65daysofstatic - The Destruction Of Small Ideas

Best 10 Inch

• Venetian Snares - Sabbath Dubs

Great, wobbly, dub cover/remixes of classic Sabbath tracks. A pity there's only 2 tracks on here

Best 12 Inch

• Various - Cross Roads EP

There's a brilliant Cakebuilder tune on this, but the standout track is Venetian Snares' totally unexpected 4 to the floor monster, "Koonut Kaliffee". It's a punishing rave bastard of a track, and shows yet another side to the man Funk. Released on Dross:tik Records, if you're looking for it

Best Compilation

• Proibidao C.V - Forbidden Gang Funk from Rio De Janeiro

Mmmm, illegal Brazilian funk. Well, it's not really funk - it's gang sponsored MCs chatting over Miami bass beats. Peculiar stuff

Best Reissue

• White Noise - An Electric Storm

BBC Radiophonic Workshop maven, Delia Derbyshire, and friends, show literally everyone how it's done in this stunning masterpiece of an album. Listening to it today, it's almost unthinkable that it was released in 1969

Biggest Letdown

• Venetian Snares - My Downfall (Original Soundtrack)

Cheap nasty presets for the violin sounds, lacklustre breakcore, emo imagery - Snares has fucking lost it with this album. Seen by many as a follow up, and companion piece to 2005's "Rossz csillag alatt született", this fails in every single way that "Rossz..." succeeded (and I didn't even rate "Rossz...")

A Few Mentions...

• Burial - Untrue

Better than last year's debut effort, but I still don't see what the fuss is all about. This is on every single fucker's album of the year list. Don't believe the hype until you've gave it a thorough listen yourself

• Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams

Unexpectedly good new album from the Shaolin boys. I've not gave this a decent enough listen to include it on the proper list, though

• Minimal Techno and the Kitsune / Ed Banger shit and the Nu Rave bollocks and most Dubstep...

Can all fuck right off. Well, maybe not Dubstep, but it's proliferation annoys me - you just canny get away from it

• Xiu Xiu - The Air Force

Released in 2006, but only nabbed by me in 2007. More fantastic stuff from Jamie Stewart. The "Remixed and Covered" album released in 2007 was pretty decent, too. Great tracks from Kid606, Why?, Larsen, Gold Chains and many more

That's me for another year. Here's the previous lists...

2006
2005
2004
2003

Let's hope we get some good shit in 2008

MECONIUM on Scunnered Records MP3

The lovely folks at Noise Joy have had a bit of a catastophe - everything they've ever released has disappeared from their servers. Nasty

Until they're back up and running, I've released Meconium on Scunnered Records MP3:

www.archive.org/details/CriticalBest-Meconiumscun001

Enjoy

(There's a new track on Myspace, too - www.myspace.com/criticalbest, it's called 'Trevor Brown Don't Paint My Child')

Christmas Mix

http://www.mediafire.com/?fatjmmxx9zz

1//Kodek - You Must Think First Before You Move
2//Droon / Barndance
3//Adam Harris / Hyperspeed (Sy and Unknown Remix) + Hellfish / Pill Lesson
4//Phuq / Broken (Ruthmix)
5//LFO Demon / Classwar Dynamite
6//Ladyscraper / Turboturd!
7//Gabba Front Berlin / Speedcore Lacrima

A decidedly un-festive half hour. Enjoy

Woop de fuckin' woop

Oh yeah, I have a Discogs page now:

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Critical+Best

Yeah

I went climbing yesterday and now these arms are dead snakes

Hmmm, I haven't updated this in fucking ages.



I have an excuse, though - I've just moved into a lovely new flat with my awesome girlfriend, and we don't have t'internet yet, so I can't really update this page from home. And work is pretty busy, what with Xmas looming on the horizon.



I've been growing a moustache this month, along with loads of other guys around the world, to raise money for Prostate Cancer charity. I'm starting to look like a gay fisherman.



I've got 3 new tracks in the pipeline, and a kind of vague concept of things I want to do. Unlike my first album, which was just a hotch potch of all the tracks I'd done, I have a nebulous theme in mind for my next project. I want to get some cheap analogue equipment first, though, as I'm getting a bit bored of my software (and I'm too lazy to learn a couple of the new bits of software I got recently).



Wa wa waaa

All Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween, peeps.



For your listening pleasure, I present a 'mashup' of Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron and Nurse With Wound. I've taken the DJ Brokenwindow route on this, as I'm shit at mashups, and it didn't really need much tweaking to sound perfect and creepy:

Nurse With Wound - Rat Tapes (Marc'o van Bastard's Halloween Edit)

(This was originally the last track of that Zomcore podcast I done, but I figure it's spooky enough to stand alone today)

Also - what the fuck is up with the lack of pumpkins this year? I am bereft. Most annoying

Laters gaters

Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream

The very lovely Dadaist Audio have just released their gigantic compilation Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream.

It contains 175 tracks, and over 9 hours of music, ranging from hip hop to black metal, from synthpop to harsh noise, it has everything!

And, it has a track by ME!

It's a reworked, and longer version of 'There Is Truth In Flesh And The Solid Ground', and it's only available on this compilation

You can grab it here (it's in Part 5 - Track 9):

[DADA050] Laughing In The Face Of Mainstream -- A Dadaist Audio Compilation

Please let Dadaist Audio know what you think! And let me know, if you have any thoughts on my track.

Many thanks to Chris @ Dadaist Audio for including my track, and supporting original and innovative music

Cheers

MOSHCOREFUNTRENDS

Hello peeps. I have a mix for you, a breakcore mix:

http://www.mediafire.com/?bzmztrgyzv5
or
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IUA3AGDB



1..ANONYMOUS.LY - Untitled
2..Duran Duran Duran - Ralez
3..CDATAKILL - Yesterdays (Ubergang Remix)
4..Throttler - Validation
5..DJ Floorclearer - Over The Legal Limit
6..Cakebuilder - Book of the Dead
7..Enduser - Les Dilution
8..Bong Ra - Eenzaam Sterven Wij Allen
9..ACRNYM - ASBO Selecta
10.LFO Demon - Murderstyle Remix
11.Trentmoller - Miss You
12.DJ Freak - Never Been to Brooklyn

This is the first breakcore mix I've done using my decks, so if you have any kind or nasty words, they'd be very helpful

Ta

MECONIUM on MP3

Critical Best
Noise Joy
Scunnered Records

Cheers for the support, folks

MECONIUM

Limited to thirty (30) copies on CD. Please give me shout if you'd like one - I'm not selling it, but I will swap it for something cool (cool as in quirky - I don't expect anything expensive as it will be available as a free MP3 download soon, if you don't manage to get a hold of one of these CDs).

Critical Best - Meconium : a 40 minute album of disintegrating technoise and lullabies, released on my very own Scunnered Records

You can hear 3 of the tracks (albeit in a slightly unfinshed form) here - www.myspace.com/criticalbest

Info on the MP3 release will be disseminated as and when

Cheers peeps

Chill the fuck out

I done another mix, it's pretty chill. Download it here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ekaqq2

Tracks by The Tuss, Parts & Labor, Kid606, 65daysofstatic and many more

Enjoy

Behind the times with Web 2.0

I finally got a Last.fm thingy. I am hopelessly behind the times. It did give me this, though, which is pretty nifty:


Yeah, Web 2.0 can suck my cock

Gutter Poetry

I got a bit bored on Friday, as it was my day off, so I decided to have a play on my decks. I put together this mix:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/u6ifvv

Now, it's not beatmatched in the slightest (I've not touched the decks in about 3 months), but it is a fun collection of tunes. It's also recorded via an intricate system of tin cans and string, between the mixer and the laptop, so it's a little 'noisy'. But it's only half an hour long, so it won't fucking kill you.

Also, it's not a noisy breakcore freakout - it's quite relaxed. There's some Dextro, Cex, Herrmutt Lobby and Trentmøller on there, and some other stuff I've forgotten about

Enjoy

Beware the Pipistrelle

Right, fuck it - remember my EP, Critical Best - Meconium? It's now officially an album.

Tracklisting is as follows:

1. Bha e brèagha an-de
2. There is Truth in Flesh and the Solid Ground
3. Famous Bison
4. Your Own Clockwork Christ
5. Gossum
6. Point One Four
7. Wet Bass Core
8. They Squeel
9. Fixing Windmills

It's all completely finished, and should be released within the next month, I reckon.

Formats will be:

Free MP3 download, released by Noise Joy Records
30 hand numbered CDRs, released by my very own Scunnered Records

The CDR will not really be on sale, as such. If you want one, let me know and we can come to some sort of arrangement. I'd like to swap them for cool stuff (not cool expensive stuff, as it's only a CDR [with tracks you can get for free] - but cheap, quirky stuff).

Exciting, isn't it.

(Keep checking myspace.com/criticalbest for updates)

Pictures what are good and that

My old friend and confidante, Mister Andrew Hood, photographer of much renown, former Huguenot, black marketeer and swashbuckler, has just launched his portfolio website:

http://www.hoodphotography.co.uk/

Please do visit, and let his work play upon your retinas. You shall no doubt see why his work has been much lauded, and he's received a multitude of plaudits. You may also stumble upon one of the many self portraits of his cock.

Fortune favours the old

Hello chaps and chapettes,

How have you been? In the interim between the last post and this, I've been to South Korea. It was fucking mental! We got to visit the DMZ, and even North Korea for a wee bit. It truly was ace.

I'll hopefully be posting some awesome photos of me and my lovely girlfriend Mo knicking about the Far East, but in the meantime I have news of a musical nature.

My EP is all but done, and has mutated to album length. Here's a sneak peek at the cover:



I'll let you know exactly when where how and why it's being released, and I'll be appearing on some compilations in the near future, too. So expect an information leaden update sometime in the very near future.

In the meantime, go to www.myspace.com/criticalbest for any crucial nuggets of shit that I may have forgotten to mention here.

Sound of Summer

Years and years ago, 'Windowlicker' used to be the ideal summer tune. There's something so perfect about its sleaziness that seems to mesh with long, humid days. We used to nick about sunny Glasgow in my beat-up white Ford Escort with the windows down and RDJ's snare rushes, glitches and wonky French, pulsing out from the stereo. We thought we were the coolest fucks in Fuck Town

But time passes, and classic Aphex Twin tracks lose their lustre and charm

Trentemøller remixed it in 2004, under the name 'Run Jeremy', turning it into a finely tuned 4/4 stormer, but it was still the same basic track - glorious, yet old news

--

I used to be right into the whole 'Mashup' / 'Bootie' scene back when it first came to light. Freelance Hellraiser (when he was still underground), Frenchbloke, all that jazz. Kid606 pretty much kicked fuck out of the whole scene, with 'The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You The Fucking Jams', so I've not really been keeping an eye on, what is now, the massive collection of shit that's out there. So I can't really tell you when this hit the net:

M83 vs Aphex Twin vs Khia - Pussylicker
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V6EQJJZ0

It's a perfect combination of 'Aphex Twin - Windowlicker (Acid Edit)', 'M83 - Run Into Flowers (Midnight Fuck Remix By Jackson)' , and 'Khia - My Neck, My Back' by some guy called Dopplebanger, and manages to somehow, be even more summery than the original, untouched 'Windowlicker'

Download it, whack it on your stereo, and sit in the back garden drinking ice cold beer while staring wistfully at the one lone cloud adorning the sky

ahh

One of my earrings popped out this morning, and my clown fingers are having a cunt of a time getting it back in. Gun piercings through cartilage are a bitch

Life is cruel

myspace survey lol

Canny remember where I picked this pishy Myspace survey hing, but I done it the other day out of boredom. Behold...

My Life Story

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie

Opening Credits: Camu Tau - Plot For A Little - ok, I think this works, in a sort of 'Directed by John Singleton' way

Waking Up: The Gossip - Jealous Girls - this would work if I was a bird and the film of my life was a shitty remake of Heathers

First Day of School: Orbital - Funny Break (One is Enough) - Classic, and came out while I was still at school, so works well

Falling In Love: Shinra - Bazoo - I'm not sure if that is perfect, or so unbelievably wrong. It's an early Squarepusher-esque noisy drill & bass / breakcore tune

Fight Song: Bong Ra - 666 MPH [FFF vs Dionysos RMX] - perfect fight song, all dark mechanical breakcore, amen breaks, sub-bass and rave stabs. The fight would have to be a bloody mess, though

Breaking up: Vert - Daisy Leaps In - kind of ambient and off kilter, so could work, I suppose

Prom: The Gross Consumer - Do You Want To Share My Rash - ahahaha. This is a remix of the Road Rash theme from the old Sega Megadrive game. It's full of squelch, nasty beats and cowbell. Imagine playing that at prom, that would be ace, unless there was a subsequent rash

Life: DJ Scud - In The Charts Again - punishing beats and guitar riffs. There is a bit when it all goes a bit gabber and a Scotsman shouts 'fuck the cunts'. Make of that what you will

Mental Breakdown: The Knife - I Take Time - standard Knife track really. I could see this soundtracking a mental breakdown I suppose. They probably like the idea of that, eh?

Driving: Kimya Dawson - Blue Like Nevermind - I could imagine driving to this song. In some shitty indie pish film directed by that cunt from Scrubs, or the cocks behind Napoleon Dynamite

Flashback: Sun City Girls - Burial In The Sky - only if it's a freaky flashback. Maybe with me getting tormented by a harlequin or some shit

Getting Back together: Merzbow - Shadow Barbarian (Long Mix) - this scene would have to take place in some dingy, grimy, nightmare of a club. The sort of place where a dead horse on the dancefloor wouldn't be totally unexpected (shit - listening to this makes me realise how much Merzbow's 'dancey' stuff sounds like Zeigenbock Kopf - how the fuck?)

Wedding: Miklos "The Accountant" Kemecsi - Mal-funk - if this was the first tune played at my wedding reception, I think I'd be quite happy

Birth of Child: Squarepusher - Theme From Sprite - jazz funk elevator pish from Squarepusher. Does that fit in with child birth? Who the fuck knows? Christ Squarepusher's let himself go in the last few years

Final Battle: Slepcy - With Charles Bukowski on the Ride - this has a sort of punchy, mechanical, twisted, Amon Tobin thing going on, which could work. The final battle would have to be against maurading robots, though. Like that bit in Casshern, but slower

Death Scene: Otto von Schirach - Unknown (Venetian Snares Remix) - this could definitely be music to a 'dying after big fight with robot' scene. Melancholy breakcore with a nice sad operatic vocal at the end

End Credits: Hidden Cameras - Wandering - hahaha, another priceless moment. Gay as a big window, and perfect for end credits. I can see the names roll by now. Specifically the best boys... Maybe not for the story of my life, though

I did this properly, which is why the tune selection is pretty rubbish, and doesn't always go. It's made me realise I have some right shit on this laptop

(While looking over this, iTunes has just gone from a remix of the Axel F tune into the Dave Clarke remix of Coatnoise, so at least it's not all bad)

Laters

Breakcore, you know the score

All this heavy gossamer

Three years.

That's how long I've been down in London now. I wouldn't even have noticed had my mum not phoned me up on Wednesday to shout "Three years" down the line.

Jesus shitting Christ where does the time go? Well, part of me thinks that, and the other part, contradictively, feels like I've been down here forever.

I wrote this last year, but this year I feel a little bereft of wit. Maybe it's because it's a lazy Sunday in work, or maybe it's because I spunked all my good lines on last year's 'recollection'.
.
.
.
Hahahaahahah. What the fuck am I talking about? God, sometimes I need a boot right in the cock, I swear to fuck.

Right, so I've ordered the proper cables and whatnot to get my decks and my laptop speaking to each other (albeit, in not entirely dulcet tones), so expect that hacked together Zomcore mix to be the last one which is done solely on computer. Hopefully I'll have something new and blistering up soon. It won't be pretty, I can tell you that much. It will melt your fucking face off.

Alsooooo - I'm working on some new tracks, so the EP may be available soon, too. I'll probably need to sort out a better form of distribution than Myspace / Sendspace / YouSendit / Rapidshare / carrier pigeon - but I'm working on that. There may be merch, too. CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE?

I suppose you want a tracklisting, too

1. D. Scott - Scarey 1 / Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron -
The Sound Of Bones
2. Deathmachine - User Defined
3. Venetian Snares - Tache
4. Bong-Ra - The Rush (Long Time Coming) / Bong-Ra - The Rush (Long Time Coming) [De Bastardo Remix]
5. Kid606 - Catstep My Kitten [Vatstep DSP by Hrvatski]
6. Ladyscraper - Grr Track One
7. Bong-ra Horns
8. Merzbow - Looping Jane [Beat Mix]
9. V/VM - Untitled [Death March]
10. Drop The Lime - Hot Sauce Grillz
11. Cursor Minor - Hair of the Dog
12. Gershon Kingsley & Peter Waldron - Spirits, Monsters, Witches... / Nurse With Wound - Untitled

All the cool kids have podcasts... fuckin' wanks

Rapidshare link

Just a wee podcast I put together, with tracks by Merzbow, Bong-Ra, Kid606, Nurse With Wound, Ladyscraper, Venetian Snares, Deathmachine, Cursor Minor, Drop The Lime and some other bits and pieces

Enjoy!

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

'Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo' is a grammatically correct sentence. You can either trust me, or look it up yourself, I canny be fucked explaining it here.

When I first found this out, my mind done a wee flip. I said to myself, "That's easily the most fucked up sentence you'll ever read". I've now discovered I was wrong. This fucker crept up on me today:

'John, when playing a game of Scrabble against Dick who, whilst pondering the degree of legitimacy the last word that Harry (who had had 'had') had had had had, had had 'had', had had 'had'. Had 'had' had more letters, he would have played it again'

Seriously, fuck that shit. What in the fuck? I think it's going to take me some time to wrap my head around that.

This one's quite fun, too:

'Who polices the Police? The Police Police police Police. Who polices the Police Police? The Police Police Police police Police Police'

The word 'police' has lost all meaning now

Fuck I'm bored

2006 in sound not pictures

Sat here drinking far-too-creamy coffee and eating a macaroon bar (only us Scots could think a bar of mashed potato and icing sugar, covered in chocolate and coconut flakes could function as a ‘sweety’, and only we could be right), my mind thrums over last years album purchases. I think age has been unkind to my music acquiring habits - every year the number of shiny wrapped discs appearing fresh upon my shelves dwindles slightly. Even the illicit MP3s gumming up my hard drive aren’t increasing drastically.

So it’s with some reservation, I sit here trying to compile my ‘Best of 2006’ list. In previous years, I’ve had a fuckton of stuff to choose from, so the lists have been both lengthy and verbose. This year, it’ll be mercifully brief:

The Lackadaisically Named -

'Top Albums of 2006'

(In no real order)

1. Trentemøller – Last Resort

2. Razor X Productions (The Bug vs. The Rootsman) – Killing Sound

3. Kid 606 – Pretty Girls Make Raves

4. Guilty Connector – Beats, Noise, and Life

5. Venetian Snares – Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms

6. Amen Andrews vs. Spac Hand Luke – Amen Andrews vs. Spac Hand Luke

7. B.Fleischmann – The Humbucking Coil

8. Doddodo – Sample Bitch Story

9. Cex – Actual Fucking

10. My Latest Novel – Wolves

11. The Knife – Silent Shout

12. Knifehandchop – Bling The Noize

13. Battles – EP C/B EP

14. Paavoharju– Yha Hamaraa

15. Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye

Other stuff to mention:

• Burial – Burial : I’m finding all this Hyperdub and dubstep malarkey a bit boring. Nice to put on in the background, while doing a bit of reading, but undeserving of the hype. Give me a nice slice of raggacore or something; something to get my teeth into

• Bong-Ra – Stereohype Heroin Hooker : This right here is an EP, so I'd feel a bit cheeky putting it on the list. Bong-Ra is a fucking breakcore god. Everything he touches turns to nasty, twisted, Amen Break-flecked gold. He’s playing at Bangface this month, with Kid 606, Plaid, The Bug, Enduser and some other lovely folks. A night like that will melt your fucking face off

• Venetian Snares – Hospitality : Another EP. Nice and melodic, chirpy breakcore, more in the vein of Cavalcade of Glee and Chocolate Wheelchair, than the orchestral epicness of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett or the demented depression of Winter in the Belly of a Snake. How in fuck is Aaron Funk is still churning them out? I should start a pool on how much material he'll release this year

• Tim Exile – Tim Exile's Nuisance Gabbaret Lounge : This bad boy is a mix CD, so, again, I exclude it from the list to keep within my own esoteric 'rules'. Two great breakcore mixes, recorded live over two club nights somewhere. It's not just your standard 'faceless prick behind some laptops' affair that a good chunk of electronic musicians seem to adore peddling. Oh no. This is a good natured, high energy, motherfuckin' dance party. In between harsh beats and walls of sound, he samples (and fucks about with) his own voice and the reaction of the crowd, and still finds time to take requests. CDs like this remind me why I love this music so much. It's a world away from the stone-faced, 'cooler-than-thou' attitude of the vast majority of the rest of the electronic and noise scenes. Fuck the posturing - HAVE SOME FUCKING FUN

• Gonzales – Solo Piano : Released in 2004, I think, so not on the list. God – how did it take me so long to pick this up? The lanky electro-funk-hip-hop mongoloid pulls out the unexpected – a beautiful, haunting collection of solo piano pieces. Stunning

• Venetian Snares vs Bong-Ra – 4 Adaptations of Rossz Csillag Allat Szuletett : Hahaha, who would have thought that putting Bong-Ra and VSnares together could make such sweet music. Cinematic, and jazzy in places. This wee gem was totally unexpected

Well – that’s enough from me, I reckon.

I can recommend you some further reading (if you fancy subjecting yourself to more of my witless shite) - here's the lists from the last few years:

2005
2004
2003

That's yer lot for now

Max Headroom will fuck your shit up

On Sunday 22nd 1987, at 23:15 Chicago cable network WTTW had its signal hijacked, during an episode of Doctor Who.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it was probably some wiley environmentalists wanting to protest about some fucking seals or something. You're wrong though.

Someone (who has, in fact, never been caught) went to the supreme effort of criminally hijacking a major cable network's signal to broadcast one of the most fucked up and bizarre things you'll ever see.

Remember 80s TV weirdo Max Headroom? I don't think he was ever on TV here, but through some sort of pop culture osmosis I have vivid memories of his stupid cubist face, so I'm assuming you do, too. Well, this merry media terrorist nabbed a Max Headroom mask, mocked up a background and proceeded to broadcast himself talking utter shite. Creepy shite. Oh, and he gets spanked at the end, too.

There's something so very, very wrong about all of this:


I'd have been 7 when this was broadcast. And if I was sitting watching Doctor Who, and was suddenly faced with it, I'd have freaked the fuck out. Christ, Zelda from Terrahawks used to terrify me, this'd have caused me to shit my chinos.

After getting over the creepiness, I got a little maudlin. I find it sad, that in this age of hi-tech digital transmission, it'd be almost impossible to pull off this sort of broadcast signal intrusion.

Hmm, I wonder if I can surreptitiously Bluetooth fucked up videos to strangers on the tube...

Critical Motherfuckin' Best

I've been making music under the name Critical Best for just over six months now. It's good fun, though I've kind of hit an impasse. I've switched software recently, and it's kind of fucked up my creativity (OH the humanity). Hopefully the frosty winter months will inspire me.

Well, they fuckin' better - I'm working towards a decent and cogent EP, good to go by the start of the new year. It'll be available for free ('cos really, you wouldn't fucking pay for it, would you?) from this here blog, and a few other select places.

Enough of my nonsense, what I really wanna talk about is 'Lovely Girls', a hypnotic, disentegrating piece that I made ages ago, but didn't upload to my Myspace, for some reason. Here it is, for your listening and/or downloading pleasure:



If you like it, or if you don't, let me know. Either here or on the dreaded MYSPACE

Luv + hugz

GRINDHOUSE70O

Meant to post this a while ago..

Tarantino and Rodriguez's homage to grindhouse classics is out next year. It looks fucking awesome.

Trailer is here - http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2007/DEFGH/
Grindhouse/trailer.php

And here's some natty posters (click for huge):

Enjoy

Postal

I think my postman is stealing my fucking mail. Just mine, mind, and not my flatmate's. The bastard.

When I got paid last month, I ordered quite a bit of shit from various sites, which arrived in dribs and drabs. Well, most of it. I'm still waiting for some CDs and t-shirts nearly a month later.

I get all my fucking bills and that, all the bumph, but I'm still missing some pretty expensive items. I haven't really seen what the postman looks like, recently - maybe he's changed and we've got some shifty criminal.

I don't have a webcam or anything to set up, so I may have to wait until I'm off work on Tuesday to peer out the spy hole. I can spot the awkward gait of a lifelong lawbreaker from twenty paces. Fucker

In other news - there's a couple of new shirts over at essenem.co.uk, with a couple more in a few days, hopefully. We're actually selling some, which is lovely, and we might be getting some press coverage. If only I had time and talent to design a better looking site. Boo hoo.

Oh, there's a Myspace, too. There's gotta be in this fucking day and age - http://www.myspace.com/essenemclothing

MARGE YOU'RE BREAKING MY HEART

Words....words fail me...



Oh yeah - hi everyone. Long time no see. I'm off to Morrocco tomorrow, but when I come back, I'm going to be all over this fucking internet like a cheap suite.

Laters

An auditory experience lacking musical quality

Hello again peeps. I've been neglecting this site like a motherfucker, and I have no one to blame but myself.

The T-shirt site should be getting a thorough revamp, soon, as we're getting to grips more and more with the wonderful world of E-COMMERCE, but that's not the main reason I've been slacking. Most of my free time on the laptop has been spent fucking about with music software, recently, and so I've done what any self respecting amateur noise maker would do in this day and age.

MYSPACE FUCKING MUSIC PAGE - http://www.myspace.com/criticalbest

Yes, I know - save me the abuse. Nothing on there is completely finished, and I'm not claiming to be the next Merzbow or anything, but it's good for a laugh.

Who knows, if I get my CSS shit together, there's a good chance I can integrate all this frippery together into one big happy funtime megapage.

Hip Hop Is Not A Spectator Sport

Many moons ago, before getting caught up in the soul sucking machine that is professional television, I was a carefree youth stumbling through college with a series of ramshackle programmes (or shall we call them 'short films'?). The last of these, being a hip-hop documentary entitled Hip Hop Is Not A Spectator Sport.

It's far from a masterpiece, as the drunken organising of a documentary is not a good idea. There's quite a few technical errors, too; some poor white balancing; a load of cheesy moments; and, some frankly laughable graphics, but it was all good fun, and got me my HND at college.

I managed to digitise it some time ago (albeit from a shonky VHS copy), but had never got round to actually doing anything with it. So, without further ado, I present it to you now:

[ Youtube Video removed,

gie's a shout if you want to see it ]

I've got some more of my shit kicking around somewhere which you may or may not be subjected to in the future

Shifty eyed goddamn liar

Two years today I moved to London. How fucking bizarre is that? Imagine me, turning up at the airport, fresh faced and full of wonder. No idea what the fuck I was doing. I remember my first few weeks - I was fuckin' terrified. Glasgow's a reasonable sized city, but it can't prepare you for the enormity of London. 'Thrown in at the deep end' doesn't even begin to describe it.

But that's always the best way to teach a drunken baby to swim. Look at me now. Haggard. Cynical. Sporting a beard and dressing like a homosexual. Talking about house prices and congestion charges and production houses in Soho. I don't bat an eyelid when I pay 4 quid for a pint in some faux trendy wankhole in Hoxton. I don't bat an eyelid when I careen down the wrong stairs in some grubby tube station, fighting against the tide, knocking some pregnant banker down, clattering onto the platform. Just to shave 15 seconds off my commute. I have never earned so much money, nor been so skint in my life.

And I fucking love it.

COVER YOUR SHAME

WWW.ESSENEM.CO.UK GOES LIVE

Hello peeps. After 6 months of drunken fuckery, the t-shirt site is finally up. Go and have a look, and if you see any shirts you like, for fuck's sake BUY THEM.

Conversely, if you see a design you like, but we don't have the particular syle or colour you want, let me know and I'll rectify the situation.

Here's a small selection from the site:

TELL YOUR FRIENDS

www.essenem.co.uk

marc(AT)essenem.co.uk

Don't mess with me, lady, I've been drinking with skeletons

Fuck me, I am useless. What with having a full time job, making music, designing t-shirts for the site, working on a treatment for a short film and being a raging drunkard, I just haven't had time to talk shite on here that nobody wants to hear. Poor you.

I am sitting here eating a Twix, and it's been in the fridge. I think I've broken my fucking teeth chewing through the toffee bit - it was rock solid. Bastards.

My nonce-ear (as Craig so lovingly put it) is pretty much gone. I filled it full of far too much Otex and went to a 65daysofstatic concert. That fucked up the wax good and proper. I swear to God, you have to invest in some Otex. It's expensive (~£8 for a wee bottle), but it is most definately the shit.

T-shirt site should go live at the end of the week - expect me to plug the shit out of it.

Byeeee

Corn Beef

I awoke at around midnight on Monday in screaming fucking agony. I hate ear infections, and have not had the displeasure of one for quite a number of years. After a rather brisk 2 hours at Accident & Emergency I was furnished with ear drops and some nifty codeine tablets for the pain, tablets that ensured the week at work stumbled by like a drunken hobo.

The infection itself is pretty much gone now, but as I sit here bored shitless in work, I am deaf as a fucking post in my left ear. This is a further annoyance, as I've come to realise that my left ear is my good ear, so basically, I can't hear shit.

Everything I am somehow able to hear sounds as if it's underwater, due to gunk and shit floating around in my ear canal, but I don't know if I have the time or patience for another trip to A&E for a syringing. My flatmates have that Audiclean stuff, so I may give that a shot.

And why should you give a fuck about my ears? Well, I was going to write about my brand new, super awesome funtime happy box that has just arrived in the post - My FM3 Buddha Machine:

It's a cool wee box that plays 9 different loops, and from what I've heard, is lovely and soothing. Obviously I'll need working ears before I can give a decent view on the thing.

Fuckin' ears

Motherfuckin' bird flu

I bought my first CD of the year on Friday night. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, I've usually bought a fuckton of albums by now. It's not even like I'm downloading a lot of shit from Soulseek, I'm just being generally shit when it comes to music.

But yeah - I bought my first CD of the year on Friday night. It was an Ove Naxx tour CD, bought from the man himself at esteemed breakcore night Trash Trash Noise Next Door. It was fucking bedlam. Ove was so stoned when he got up on stage he fell over and broke his microphone. And DJ Scotchegg had 4 Gameboys on the go at one point. Good fun.

I will have to buy some music now.

Mogwai - Mr Beast,
Liars - Drums Not Dead,
B.Fleischmann - The Humbucking Coil
Battles - Ep C/B Ep
65daysofstatic - Radio Protector EP

Yeah that'll do for now.

The t-shirt site I've mentioned a few times will be up and running very very soon, I'll keep y'all posted.

Laters

2005 - That was the year that was

I had to go and get a blood test done, what was it... last Thursday. Now, I watched the guy do it, and he seemed to know what the fuck he was doing, and it didn't hurt (it looks cool as fuck when the vacuum in the vial kicks in and it whips the blood right out of your vein), but I've ended up with a massive fucking bloody-yellow bruise on my left arm. It's actually impinging on my fucking tattoo.

It looks like I've had part of a junkie-biker-whore's arm grafted onto mine. I can see people look at it in work, too. Whatever must they think? Fun fun fun. Really though, he made a right fuckin' meal of it. Hopefully, it'll fade in the next, oh... week or some shit.

Anyways, back to the task at hand. Last year I decided to have a little fun with my calendar. Each day, when the day was done, I wrote one, two or three words down to describe each day. Some days were cryptic, others were blatant. I honestly didn't think I'd keep it up for the whole year. But I did. And what do you do with all that data? Well, if you're me, you put it into an Excel spreadsheet, allocate each day a rating between 0 and 13, then you graph the fuck out of that motherfucker.

Here's the raw as fuck data, untouched and graphed:


As you can see, it's pretty much all over the shop. That blue line is the general trend, but it doesn't give the full picture. I had to do some fucking ninja shit on the data to get an awesome graph. And here it is, my overall happiness throughout 2005, month by month:



So that was 2005.

Shit man, I need a new fucking hobby.

And now for something completely different

I don't think this site was primarily designed for this sort of shit, but...well...here:

--Bombay Bullion
--Saucy Nurse
--YAMS
--Lollipop Man
--Project Mayhem

Sorry for the appalling lack of humour (not to mention words) in this update. I'm a tired panda

Liz Hurley has shoulders like a rugby player

I fucking hate January, I swear to fuck. The whole month is just a hangover from Xmas and Hogmany. I feel like I've been underwater for the past 2 weeks - I have no money, my health is shot to fuck from over-indulging and I have this sort of creeping dread that washes over me every now and again. I think last year it wasn't so bad, 'cos I'd just been dumped so I had every reason to feel like shit. But this year... Fuck. This year I am in a good place. Things are going well for me, and I have no reason to be in a shitty mood. Which just makes it worse when I feel like rubbish.

On the plus side (of this laughable emo fag outpouring), I am feeling much better today. Maybe it's the methamphetamine in the coffee; maybe it's the fact it's payday on Sunday; maybe it's the fact I have a lovely girl who lets me do stuff to her; maybe it's the limited edition Japanese Adidas I bought yesterday made from FUCKING NILE CARP! Whatever it is, I'm feeling rather damn spiffy.

It's probably the meth, actually.

Yeah, anyways, you didn't come here to listen to me moan about this shitty month, you came to hear me rant about moths and keyboards and poorly trained killer whales, didn't you?

And on that note:

What the fuck is the deal with that smell? You know the one - when you leave your clothes out to dry and they don't dry properly. What the fuck is that? It doesn't exist anywhere else in nature and I'd like to know where in the everliving fuck it comes from. It's deceptive, too. You grab a fresh tee shirt from the cupboard, you think everything's hunky dory, then BAM - you're sitting at work, furtively sniffing your sleeve to see if that pungent, corpse-like aroma is emanating from your supposedly clean clothes. I'm too poor and lazy to be washing shit twice, but I'm too fucking cool to be out in public smelling like Bernie after he's been left out too long in the sun.

It's very annoying.

Don we now our gay apparel

Happy Fucking Christmas

Diagnosis : Music

Hogmany is fast approaching and 2005 is drawing to close. Now is the time for the music critics, the journalists, the celebrity DJs and presenters and the average everyday music fans to come scurrying out of the woodwork and force their music tastes on a disinterested public. Now is the time for "Best Albums 0f 2005" lists, and their brethren, to run rampant across all forms of media. And this particular shit pool of the media is no different.

I present to you:

"17 Albums Which Were Released
In 2005 And Were Very Good"
(It's probably in order, but who can really say?)

1. Xiu Xiu - La Foret
2. Sigur Ros - Takk
3. 65daysofstatic - One Time For All Time
4. Arab Strap - The Last Romance
5. Buck 65 - Secret House Against the World
6. Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger
7. Minotaur Shock - Maritime
8. HORSE the band - The Mechanical Hand
9. Vitalic - OK Cowboy
10. Kevin Blechdom - Eat My Heart Out
11. Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires
12. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
13. DJ Koze - Kosi Comes Around
14. DJ Scotch Egg - KFC Core
15. Jason Forrest - Shamelessly Exciting
16. Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
17. Hrvatski - Irrevocably Overdriven Break Freakout Megamix

I'm pretty sure that's way it should look, but there's still some time left in the year for a young pretender to stake a claim. Here's the 'Honourable Mentions' and why they missed the cut:

• kid606 - Done With The Scene EP : it's an EP, innit? So, not technically an album, so not on the list. Still fucking awesome though
• Arcade Fire - Funeral : I've not listened to this enough for it be included. It is good, though. Oh, another thing, I'm pretty sure this was released in 2004?!?
• Fantomas / Melt-Banana [Split CD on Unhip Records] : well, this only clocks in at about 3 minutes long, so I could never justify listing it. It is cool as fuck, though
• Animal Collective - Feels : again, I've not listened to this enough, either, but after seeing them live earlier this year, I had to give them a mention
• Test Icicles - For Screening Purposes Only : see above. Fucking shite name, though. Band and album
• Death From Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm A Machine : much like Arcade Fire, I'm pretty sure this was released in 2004

So that's about it. I may come back and edit some comments onto the list, it looks a little sparse at the moment, but other than that, we're done here. I've got a big fuck-off pile of CDs strewn about my room now, and will spend the next hour meticulously putting them back in the right order. I love my life.

I'm sorry, but what's creative about further harshening tequila?

A couple of years back, at Christmas I made this monstrosity:



That's two hot-ass motherfuckin' chillis, tops cut off, then left in a bottle of Smirnoff in a dark cupboard for a 2 months.

On Christmas Day my Mum decided it would be a good idea to harrass my wee brother's pals into doing shots of it. Jesus fucking Christ I thought we were going to have to go to the hospital. After sampling it straight myself, the only word I could use to describe it would be 'AHHHHHH! Dear God why are my lips not made of asbestos? Why God, why the pain? Take my eyes, take my fingers, take my balls, just stop the burning fucking agony'.

My ex did say it made an awesome Bloody Mary, though. Through her burns mask.

This year, rather than use pure, pussy, untainted vodka I'm going to do it slightly differently. I'm doing it with dirty, dirty, slutty tequila. Two chillis rammed up her and papped in the cupboard for a while, that'll get her all hot and heavy. I canny wait to dish it out on Jesus' birthday.

Feeling quite zlaradno

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I've abandoned this blog, and my life, and ran off with Cappy, my gorgeous kangaroo concubine. You'd be dead wrong... though she does look lovely in taupe lipstick and kitten heels, and she is always asking me to come away with her. Anyways - I've had three weeks off work; three weeks of laziness, drunkenness, debauchery and only minimal creative output, so I've not really had much of worth to write about.

That's not to say that even minimal creative output isn't a huge step up for me. I managed to actually get some music done, which was a bit of a shock. I also got some t-shirts designed, and there will soon be a website selling said designs, in the near future. Not entirely my thing, my good buddy is doing shirts too and is in the process of doing the site, but it should be cool. See if you can find a link on this page, you fucking internet detective, you.

Since 2005 is drawing to close I'll be compiling my end of year album list, which may or may not be of interest to any of you fuckers. All the cool kids do it, and I've done one the last few years, so it would be churlish of me to miss it out this year. There's been some awesome shit released, though I haven't bought my usual amount of CDs this year. Still - it'll be hard to whittle it down to 20.....24.

On the first of January last year I started a daft wee project (well, I say wee - it has been a year long thing), which I expected to get bored with, but which looks like it's going to arrive at completion come the first day of 2006. I'm gonna start fucking around with that very soon, and if it looks vaguely interesting I may put some parts of it up here. Oo - cryptic.

Fun Fact:
Irritating as fuck, kids programme Bodger and Badger was originally pitched as a saucy late night farce, entitled Todger and Badger. It would follow the misadventures of a tatty badger puppet and a large foam phallus as they embroiled themselves in all sorts of hilarious japes. When it was picked up by the BBC and switched to a pre-watershed timeslot, it had to drop most of the racier elements; but some traces do remain. The creamy 'mashed potato' facials, for instance.

That's yer lot - cock off

A little late, he staggered through

Since this blog is almost one year old, and this DJ Scotch Egg album I have on isn't really conducive to shitting out new content, I think I'll do the lazy and thing and link to some of my favourite posts of the last year. 'Cos, you know, I'm a literary genius and some of this pish needs a second airing.

The Early Life of Venetian Snares - this is all 100% true, I swear to fuck

Shoelace Tension Discrepancy - The Facts - who says only the children and the spastics have trouble tying their laces?

Science! Part 1 - shit, I forgot about this. I really must try and do it one of these days

schlechte Tätowierung - wherein I rant about Friendster

They all float down here - spending an hour in a floatation tank.....I'm such a fucking hippy sometimes

Scuppered at the last hurdle? - yes yes, I'm worried that god is videotaping all my hilarious fuck-ups to he can show them to me upon my demise

Some advice - last but not least. Come have a look at my most ill advised rant which garnered more feedback than anything else I've written

That's your lot. Everything else I've written has been fucking dire. Indeed, most of the stuff linked to above is shitty too. A good writer is not me. Enjoy

"The air was continuously alive with gay synthetic melodies"

Whenever I come back from Glasgow I always feel (and look) like I've been raped in the face with a bus. I've been back about 3 or 4 days and only now do I have the strength to type out any sort of coherent shite.

So yeah - Animal Collective in Glasgow was a laugh riot, they were really fucking good and odd and good. Pick up their new album if you like, I won't fucking bother. I went to see my current favourite band 65daysofstatic on Wednesday night, and spent a fuckton of the Queen's pounds on merchandise. Christ, I've probably got a 65daysofstatic toothbrush kicking around somewhere. They rocked the fuck out of the place for what felt like an hour and half (it may have been a wee bit longer or shorter, 'twas hard to tell), playing pretty much everything off their first album and some great stuff from the new album.

On Thursday I went to the NFT to a thing called Antenna, where they show new music videos. Who was on the panel? None other than Spike Motherfuckin' Jonze. Jesus Christ. He was a bit nervous and shit, I think he must be terrified of people, but he came across as a likeable, talented guy and he provided the people questioning him with nice wee anecdotes as answers to their questions. Garth Jennings (part of Hammer & Tongs) was there, too, and he was one funny fuck - he looked incredibly comfortable up there on stage, witty bastard. In addition to the star studded Q&A, they showed some awesome new videos, the highlights being Tiga's new one, and one from Venetian Snares' new album. The track itself was a sub-par orchestral Squarepusher rip-off (I'm not that keen on the album...as a whole), but it was saved by a moody, inventive and downright crafty video. Shit, have I just badmouthed my hero on national internet?

As a companion piece to my Amazon list, "CDs I Lost When I Went Back To Glasgow And Got Drunk", I've just knocked this bad boy up:

"DVDs I lost when I went back to Glasgow when I went back to Glasgow and got drunk"

Yes kids, that's right - my idiot tax is increasing. Bye for now

Welcome to the afterfuture

I was standing there, in the toilets of the moving train, handrail in one hand, cock in the other, trying desperately not to get piss all up and down myself, when it came to me - Sprayvy! Aerosol gravy. I swear to fuck it could revolutionise the food service industry. I want to be known as the "Aerosol Gravy Magnate", how cool would that be?

On to more pressing matters. I'm back in Glasgow, and I got tattoo number 3 today. Fuck me gently with a chiansaw, it is badass. I would furnish you all with a photo, but I forgot my digital camera, and it's still a little raw and I canny get a decent photograph of it with my phone. Also, I was away seeing Japanese darlings Afrirampo last night. Christ they know how to rock. I really must get everything they've ever done.

I'll leave you with this poem, about the joys of seducing a ferret:

Oh handsome ferret with your eyes so blue
That watch me dance in front of you
Lying, supine, on your back
You watch me head to the red wine rack
With Beaujolais, I dash back quick
And out, you've got, your ferret dick

I think we'll leave that one right there.

"Okay, I need one each of the following tapes"

• Whispers In The Wind
• To Each His Own
• Put It Where It Doesn't Belong
• My Pipes Need Cleaning
• All Tit-Fucking : Volume 8
• I Need Your Cock
• Ass-Worshipping Rim-Jobbers
• My Cunt Needs Shafts
• Cum Clean
• Cum-Gargling Naked Sluts
• Cum Buns 3
• Cumming In Socks
• Cum On Eileen
• Huge Black Cocks With Pearly White Come
• Girls Who Crave Cock
• Girls Who Crave Cunt
• Men Alone 2 : The KY Connection
• Pink Pussy Lips
• All Holes Filled With Hard Cocks
• Happy Scrappy Hero Pup
  

Mistaken Tourist

Just out of curiosity (and also to satisfy my planet sized ego) I signed up to one of those sites that track visitors to your blog/website/hilarious toast eBay auction. Fuck me, over the past few weeks I've realised - there are actually people that read this shit on a (semi) regular basis. More than I would ever have guessed.

I'd like to give a big shout to the lone guy from Vietnam who checks it every week, and the sick fucking bastard who got here via a referral from some search engine while looking for "gay pictures of Optimus Prime". You, sir, are a class act.

I pretty much just got pissed off my fucking arse for my birthday. Drunk Marc was in full effect. And I didn't get many presents at all. Being 25 sucks almost as much as this lame ass blog entry.

Back to Glasgow on Tuesday. Hopefully I'll have something humourous to say then. Maybe I can punch a nun in the cunt on the train up, or something. I'm sure that'd get a few hits from Google.

Oiseau mort

Hey fuckheads, how's things? God almighty, there is something wrong with me, I swear to fuck. Almost 25, and now, now of all fucking times, a wisdom tooth decides it's going to start putting in an appearance. What the hell?

Anyways - I've managed to pull my shit together to actually get a ticket to see Squarepusher, so that's one out of the list of many that I'll definately be going to. Whoop-de-fucking-do. God, I hope he steers clear of playing anything off Ultravisitor. Also in keeping with the 'got my shit together' theme, I've pretty much finished designing the new tattoo I want for my birthday. Don't worry - you'll see it when it's fucking done. Christ you're impatient.

Right, onto the point of this update ('cos these updates always have some awesome purpose) - I've been seeing an awful lot of dead pigeons kicking around the pavements of London recently, so I did what any self respecting halfwit would do; I started documenting them with my phone camera. This is the first one I took, the day John Peel died:



The quality isn't too hot, but I'll make up for that by showing you my favourite one so far:





If you click on that picture, you can have a higher resolution copy of it. Though, why in the fuck you'd want that I don't know. You sick fucking bastard. Do you think he died of lung cancer? Maybe that's the last pack of fags he ever smoked, sitting right there next to him. Will the tobacco companies stop at nothing?

If I get anymore good pictures of dead pigeons, you'll be the first to know.

Cometh the month, cometh the man

As 2005 rampages towards its inevitable, logical conclusion (an inappropriate drunken pawing at a Hogmany party), we draw ever closer to Rocktober - the month of my birth. I will be a quarter of a century old this year, and I still have the brain, thoughts, sexual desires and hand-eye coordination of a high-voiced acne-ridden 16 year old. We men never fully grow up, do we? It's sad really - women my age are thinking about babies, marriage, buying a house, and here I am wondering what Playstation 2 game I want for my birthday (The Warriors, if you were wondering), and whether or not my chocolate cake should have a He-Man made of icing on it, or an Optimus Prime.

I'm a fucking a child, basically.

But enough of this maudlin nonsense, what I really want to talk about is gigs. Oh yes. Gigs. Due to my inability to get time off to go back to Glasgow for Instal, I've been keeping my eyes peeled for some hot shit down here in sunny London. Here's what I've found:

• 26 October - Rhythm Factory

65daysofstatic & Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies

Not only are 65daysofstatic releasing a new album, but they are fucking touring too. Ahhh. Having only heard about them at the beginning of the year, they have quickly become one of my favourite bands. Get yourself along to one of the other UK shows (or this one) for a heavy dose of post-rock breakcore nonsense.

• 31 October - Scala

Patrick Wolf & Friends Halloween Spooktacular

Patrick is supporting Bloc Party all over the land, but if you want to see him headline this seems to be your only chance for a while. The Bloc Party dates are all sold out anyway, I think. Expect him to be dressed as a gay Robin Hood-esque goth while he belts out his angsty electro-ballads. Probably.

• 04 November - Cargo

Minotaur Shock, Radioactive Man & more

Folktronica is such a dirty word. But hey, if lazy journalists can use it - so the fuck can I (and I can split infinitives with profanity too). Minotaur Shock is fucking awesome, and is supposedly named after a discredited type of therapy that they used to dish out to mental patients during less enlightened times. The head doctor would charge into the lunatic's room, gibbering, with a minotaur mask on. Yeah, that'll cure them. Radioactive Man, too. That's all I gotta say.

• 04 November - Overkill @ Elektrowerks II

Mistress, Trencher, Charlottefield, Modeselektor, Tim Exile, Phil Collins 3, Sharkattack, Ceephax, Shitmat, V/Vm, DJ Scotch Egg, The Gasman, Chevron, Ebola, Mully & Bunglegushcore, Miss Hawaii, Cutting Pink With Knives, Ommm, Romvelope, D/J Rupture

Jesus Cunting Christ. That line up makes me want to weep with joy. Almost every one of my favourite (at the moment) electronic artists (ok, so VSnares and Jason Forrest ain't there, but don't be nitpicky) are playing this gig. I'll really only be going the Minotaur Shock gig if I canny find someone who'll go to this with me. I reckon this could kill the last vestiges of adequate hearing I have left. Jesus...just...Jesus.

• 05 November - Camden Barfly

Robots In Disguise & more

The 2 chicks from the Mighty Boosh (Electro, Nanageddon and probably another couple of episodes too) will be dishing out their brand of punk-funk to the drunken Camden bastards. Lovely.

• 14 November - Trash @ The End

TIGA! Erol Alkan will probably be there too

If ever there was a time to make an effort to go to Trash, it would be this night. It will be oh so very trendy. And gay. Very very gay.

• 17 November - Koko

Squarepusher & Luke Vibert

Having never seen Squarepusher, I really should try and make this. I'm just worried he'll only play stuff from his most recent album (Ultravisitor), which I thought was shit. Luke Vibert is cool though.

Now, going by my track record I reckon I'll make it to one, maybe two of these nights. Why oh why must I be so fucking shite? Because I'm a fucking wean trapped in the body of a slightly bemused adult.

Come on, birthday. Come on

Attention Whoring Worldwide

What the fuck is going on in this world? Seriously? What did people do before God blighted us with the dull fuckery that is Myspace? Have you seen this shit? "My e-penis is so much bigger than yours - I have 144 friends". But how many of them have you actually met, dickbag?

I canny talk. I've just started a Myspace page. Yet another repository for lists of my favourite films and music, pictures of me in 'uproarious' situations, links to pages of people whom I DO NOT KNOW and occasionally links to, wait for it... actual real life friends. Gasp.

Friendster is bad enough, but Myspace lets you fuck about with the layout of your page. There are literally millions of identikit emo-bawbag's pages filled with shitty pictures, bad, bad embedded mallcore MP3s and impossible-to-read black on dark blue text.

But you know all of this, because you have a Myspace page too, don't you. Every fucker and their pet spastic has a page. It's going to hit critical mass at some point in the near future - every Myspace user is going to be friends with every other Myspace user, wasting away years of their lives exchanging poorly written comments with one another while drooling over their keyboards. "OH MY GAWD, U R SOOO HAWT IN DAT PIC"

Maybe I'm getting a bit old and jaded, but these social networking things are really starting to grind my gears. I have no use for them whatsoever - I don't use them to keep in touch with mates (I use phones and email for that), they're basically just more ammo for a future stalker. But I will continue to sign up, I will continue to 'add people' to my friends list and I will continue to write painfully unfunny comments on the pages of people who I wouldn't shit on if they were on fire. I will continue because I am just as big of an attention whore as everyone else. I need more online friends than my other online friends. I need to validate my existence by counting the number of people who have viewed my profile.

So here, here you fucking go -
http://www.myspace.com/bape_monkey

Add me you cunts.

NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME SHORTLY

In the meantime - have a look at this happy fuck. He loves his job.

Art Wank

Jesus, I canny believe I've been down here for over a year and only just paid a visit to Trash. I don't want to say it's London's version of Optimo, but it was quite similar in crowd and music, if not aesthetic and ethos. Hahaha, what the fuck am I talking about.

Anyways, the reason I ended up there is thanks to these boys - A Cult Called Karrianna, who were playing at the Elephant and Castle in Camden, on Monday night. The only way I can think of describing them is - Motley Crue, fronted by Bobbie Gillespie, covering Bon Jovi songs in the stlye of Felix Da Housecat, New Order and Depeche Mode.

They fucking rocked, and afterwards my mate and I found ourselves wandering Tottenham Court Road, following the gay hair and t-shirt and tie crowd to Trash. A good time was had by all, and work the next day was a fucking chore.

Back up to Glasgow tomorrow. Fan-cunting-tastic.

Aw yeah, and you absolute jerk-offs had better be watching The Mighty Boosh.

Science! Part 1

I was sitting a couple of weeks ago in the flat. Bored. On t'internet, as you do. And I said to my flatmate "Did you ever hear of the guy who strapped helium ballons to a chair and floated up through the sky?" Obviously he didn't believe me, so I had to use the power of computers to prove to him it happened.

The Snopes page is here, and it's quite cool, when you actually read what the guy done.

But that got me thinking, thinking about whether or not I could attempt something like that myself. I decided it was far too dangerous, and would probably be really expensive. Then my flatmate's wee dog scampered in, jumped up on the couch, and grinned at me like a spaz.

She's a little daschund, very much like this...



...though without that fetching coat. Now, I thought, how cool would it be to take her out a walk, with her floating at the end of her leash, five feet in the air, suspended by helium balloons?

Very, was the answer. All I had to do was work out how much it was going to cost.

Now, she probably weighs between 5 and 7 kilograms, depending on how much she's eaten recently, so I had to figure out how many helium balloons it would take to get her off the ground.

I found out your standard one foot diameter balloon, when filled with helium, can exert an upwards force capable of lifting about 14 grams.

OK, taking the weight of the dog, for simplicity's sake, to be 6 kilograms we get:

1 balloon = 14 grams
1 dog = 6000grams

6000/14 = 428.6 (rounded up) balloons.

Obviously we have to round that up again, to get one full balloon, so call it 429 balloons, to equalise the upward force exerted by the balloons and the downward force of the dog. She would probably rise quite slowly, so she'd be easy to keep on the end of the leash.

"But how much would that cost?" I hear you ask. Well, Balloons.co.uk price the hire of their HG331 N2O Canister at £135.71 (click that link and scroll down). Problem is, it will on inflate 330 12" balloons and we need 429. So, we'll have to hire an HG330 N2O Canister (which can inflate 165 12" balloons) too. That'll set us back another £95.76.

Total price so far - £231.47. They do deliver though, so that's quite nice.

With those 2 canisters we can inflate 495 balloons, which from Balloons.co.uk will set us back 8p each. Let's call it an even 500:

500 balloons x £0.08 = £40. Nice. I reckon they'd deliver them when they bring the helium, too.

Grand Total, then - £271.47, and for that we get 500 helium balloons, with a flight time of between 8 and 10 hours. Plenty of time to wander about London getting odd looks.

If anyone has a spare £280, I'm totally up for this. The logistics of actually inflating and attaching almost 430 balloons to a dog not much longer than a foot will have to wait until all the equipment is right there in front of me. I'm sure it won't take long.

(Christ, imagine if I accidentally let go of the leash. My flatmates would kill me and burn me in the bath)